Phone Sex, Vibrators and Threesomes, Oh My!

The Smoking Gun comes through again with the complete transcript of Andrea Mackris's complaint against Bill O'Reilly for sexual harassment.

As everyone who has read the file believes, it's obvious that Mackris taped some of O'Reilly's calls, including Caribbean sex fantasies. The full 22-page document is worth the read, but The Smoking Gun also offers direct links to the steamier sections... kind of like fast-forwarding through an X-rated video.

"What the heck happened to Billy?"

And an update: Gibson notes in today's posting that the real punchline of the joke I linked to is that it's originally from the Soviet Union.

William Gibson is blogging again, deciding that the defeat of George Bush is worth the time/distraction it takes away from his writing. His October 14th post is pretty funny.

Ghost Stories - "The WereWolf Wasp!"

I've come across an all-but-forgotten posting I had made to the UseNet group, rec.arts.comics, back in my salad days at DEC. Interesting synchroncity. BoingBoing had mentioned yet another new search engine, Snap, that I went to check out, and did my usual vanity search to see if Snap provided anything different than Google or A9.

The first listing was for an online art gallery, "Ukranian-Art.Com", which I'm not linking to, as the sleazoid entrepreneurs there are probably already getting more than enough undeserved traffic. The site uses a script to generate a pseudo-page based on search results from Google Groups, which is added to the Ukranian-Art site. If you click on the search engine link, you'll be mystified as I was as to what association I had with Ukranian art, until I scrolled to the bottom of the page.

Interestingly, it produced Usenet group results from nearly 20 years ago, which a search of Google Groups itself omits, including this one, about a comic book I had been obsessing about since childhood....

Back in my sprouting youth (say when I was around 9 years old which would put the year at 1961), I read a comic book that simply *terrified* me. I mean, sweats, nightmares, lights on all night, you name it, I had it. I loved it. Unfortunately, my much-suffering parents didn't. I had a *no more comic books* ban imposed upon my fevered brow, my mother trashed the book, and life went on.

I've thought about that damnable book for nigh-on 24 years now. I'd love to have it back -- though I'm not sure why. Maybe to put that scared kid inside of me to rest once and for all.

Description follows, and you'll see *how* well I remember it. If anyone can give me the title, number, and publisher of the book, you'll have my undying thanks and gratitude.

Ok, description. The comic was an anthology of horror tales. There was a continuing narrator that introduced and closed all stories. The stories (probably not in order):

Guy inherits mansion/car from mad scientist. Guy is driving car, seatbelt locks, hypodermic needles appear, start draining blood from the dude, he goes over cliff.

Kid captures strange wasp, brings to pleasant old who knows *lots* about insects. Flashback where reader finds that old man is severely allergic to insect bites, and always is "seen" completely engarbed in hood and clothing. Kid gets to old man's house, no one around, kid goes to basement, finds other kids strung up in giant spider webs, old man appears, unmasks, is actually giant humanoid spider (!!), attacks kid, kid drops bottle with wasp. Old man/spider gasps, "The werewolf wasp!" Wasp grows, stings old man/spider to death.

Kid(s?) gets caught outside on dark, stormy night. Finds refuge in barn. Awful horse with blood-red eyes appears, attacks, starts kicking down barn. Man with Colt .45 appears at last moment, yells at kid to run and takes a shot at the horse. Next day kid, father, cop come back, find that barn has collapsed, old farmer appears and relates that 20 years ago, a horse had gone crazy and had killed a child before someone was able to put a bullet through its head. Last panel is of graves (including
horse).

Little orphan girl gets adopted, is shown new room by parents. During the night a terrible-looking door emblazoned with skulls appears on the wall of the girl's room. She goes out and sleeps on the porch. Terrible gnashing and thrashing noises come from inside house. Next morning she goes in, place is wrecked, new parents gone (lots of blood), door gone. Last panel is her hiking back to orphanage sighing something like, "This always happens!"

Last one. Young man comes back to abandoned street where he used to live. Street is abandoned because people kept on being found dead, all juices drained from their bodies -- including this guy's little brother. He comes in, finds that what's been doing it is giant green hand that emerges from manhole -- and it's hungry. Hand almost gets him, but Army, happily stationed nearby, bazookas hand. Near to last panel shows pores on green hand to demonstrate how it sucked juices.

Although no one responded to the UseNet posting, I had also mentioned it in a DEC VaxNotes forum (one of the first tools for computer forums), and a reader not only recognized it as the 1962 Ghost Stories #1 from Dell Comics, but actually had the comic and ended up giving
it to me.

And it was as good as I remembered. Thus do we reclaim our childhood, piece by piece.

IE Out - Firefox In

I've just about completed my migration to Mozilla Firefox, speedier and safer than Internet Explorer.

Biggest problem I've encountered so far is trying to remember all the passwords I've accumulated from years on the Web... Almost all autofilled by IE and long forgotten. Google, for reasons known only to itself, wants a separate password entry for gMail as opposed to everything else Google (Google Answers, the forums, et al), but displays exactly the same "change password" screen for both.

While I can't use currently use the A9 toolbar, that's a minor thing to me, as I found I was still using the Google toolbar more anyway. I'm now using the Firefox extension, GoogleBar to emulate the Google toolbar. I miss the autofill feature for forms, but I suspect there's a Firefox extension for that (indeed there is, Autofill).

On the Kancamagus

I'm using another Lazlo applet, Photoblox, to display some shots that Peg took on our Saturday tour of the Kancamagus Highway. These are from Rocky Gorge. The link will open a new window. If you're using a pop-blocker, you'll need to turn it off, and you may need to be patient while the images load.

The Kiss

The Kiss

Via boingboing, a picture that deserves its own fictional story, if any ever did. And, here's the facts.

Farewell, Christopher Reeve

A nice eulogy, better than I can produce, from Mark Evanier on the passing of Christopher Reeve.

A phrase I've always believed in, unfortunately associated with the Nazis thanks to Leni Riefenstahl, is "triumph of the will." Most superhuman efforts have little to do with physical strength, but everything to do with desire. If you saw any interviews with Reeve after his accident, you saw a man determined to walk again. Only death itself forestalled him.

I'll Never Grow Up

A quote from Walt Disney I like a lot...

"Too many people grow up. That's the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up. They forget. They don't remember what it's like to be 12 years old. They patronize, they treat children as inferiors. Well I won't do that."

Me neither, please God. More quotes from Walt can be found here at the Walt Disney blog.

And if you're unhappy with the "profit before magic" direction that Disney has taken under Michael Eisner, why not do something about it? Sign up at savedisney.com. It's free, there's strength in numbers, and you'll even get a free bumper sticker.

Google Ads Out - Lazlo WeatherBlox in

I've decided to dump Google AdSense, as fhb isn't the right vehicle for displaying internet ads. I'm not sure what the right vehicle is, except search result pages or very focused blogs, but that ain't me, babe.

Via boingboing, I found a new Open Source "application development environment" called Lazlo that looks pretty cool, and might (with the stress on that word) be the key to the long-sought-for application delivery via the Web that Java was supposed to be and never became. Remember Sun "thin clients" and "Web appliances"? Am I totally boring you?

Anyway, I don't know if/when I'm going to try developing with Lazlo, my programming skills -never that strong - have completed deteriorated after several years of disuse, and I've never worked in XML. But what the heck. It may become a winter project if things get slow.

I've replaced the Google ad block with a Lazlo app called "WeatherBlox", currently displaying weather at fhb central. This is more for you, Gentle Reader, than me, since I'm writing this at my kitchen table and can pretty well figure out the weather by looking up and glancing out the bay window. So, feel free to put your own zip -- or family/friends' -- in the top right entry field.

Sodomy and 20 Questions

I do like coming up with these heads. I think I was a New York Post lead writer in a previous life... "Headless Body Found in Topless Bar!"

Anyway, two links via Iggy at Guinness and Poker. The first from the snopes.com Urban Legend site, a good productivity-buster to explore when you don't feel like working.

"In response to a question from host Bob Eubanks about the 'most unusual place you've ever made whoopee,' a female Newlywed Game contestant responded, 'That would be up the butt, Bob.'"

Interestingly, the legend turns out to be partially true, even though Bob Eubanks repeatedly denied the story and even offered a $10,000 bounty if anyone could prove it true. Read all about it here.

Unfortunately, Groucho's remark to the mother of 22 children still remains unproven.

GROUCHO: "Why do you have so many children? That's a big responsibility and a big burden."

MRS. STORY: "Well, because I love my children and I think that's our purpose here on Earth, and I love my husband."

GROUCHO: "I love my cigar, too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while."

Okay, let's get our minds out of the gutter, shall we? Here's an interesting experiment in AI, based on the game "Twenty Questions." The link will take you to a demographic survey, which you can fill out or ignore as you wish before hitting the "Play" button. The AI engine is surprisingly realistic, guessing both my objects (a tennis ball and a cat) with twenty questions each.

Thanks again to Iggy for both links, and btw, the Igster is hosting a $20 no-limits tourney at PokerStars on Thursday October 21st. More info, as well as the usual cross of shilling and uber-posting at Iggy's very funny blog. See you at the tourney on Thursday, given that I can find a way to get some money into PokerStars quickly.

Cheney lies! Sez time was 9:00; was actually 9:03:47

I've been trying to keep fhb politics-free, being mostly of the ol' hippie mind-set, "voting only encourages them." And no, you don't have to comment on how important voting is. Yes, I'm voting, and no I won't tell you for who, thank you very much.

Anyway, there's many things to love about the blogosphere, but one unloveable thing is the heated, over-the-top rhetoric that this election is engendering, including the latest tub-thumping about Cheney meeting Edwards. Boingboing, which should know better, publishes a link about Cheney's "lie" in last night's debate when he said to Edwards, "The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight." and points to several sites, including the Kerry campaign blog, where a photo of them together at a National Prayer Breakfast is posted.

Now, let's ignore the fact that that photo seems less evidence that they actually "met" (given the usual definition of "meet") but more "were in the same room at one time." The list of Cheney's and the administration playing loose with the truth is near-endless, with WMDs, the reasons behind the invasion of Iraq, Abu Ghraib (which everyone seems to have forgotten about), and Halliburton just a few of the things off the top of my head that the veep could be brought to task about.

And there's a mini-furor over whether he told the "truth" about meeting Kerry? Yes, Cheney lied. He and Edwards are actual participants in a sex slave ring disguised as a prayer breakfast, where he regularly dresses in a polka-dot cocktail dress. Obviously, he had to lie.

Sigh. I know talking about issues is déclassé. But the blogosphere can't do better than ET-style reportage?

"Come Find Out"

An interesting article by Steve Badger here, which started out as a point on poker strategy, but turned into a meditation on the death by his own hand of poker player Andy Glazer. (via Guinness and Poker). Badger is right that poker, especially tournament poker, is a game of emotional high and lows -- and the lows can be very low. It's not a game for emotionally fragile people.

I keep on meaning to write a "What I've learned from Poker" essay, which is something that every poker blogger eventually writes. I guess I haven't found all that much profound to say. But I'm sitting here watching/listening to the webcast of SpaceShip One's attempt to take the X Prize, and I'm not willing to go to work until the flight is completed. So here we go, to fill the time...

In no particular order:

1) Texas Hold `Em Poker is a game of luck as well as skill
2) Control your destiny
3) Recognize when you're in trouble and cut losses early

Opposed to most of the tournament play you see on television people who play on-line tend to bet their hand without giving much thought to their opponents' cards. That can be very frustrating when you have the statistically best hand... until the turn or the river, that is.

The best starting hand doesn't always win, in fact often doesn't win if the hand is played out till the river. One thing I have learned from Hold `Em is that you're always better off being in control of your own future, whether in life or at the tables. In poker that means betting hard pre-flop and flop with a good hand, trying to make it as painful as possible for anyone else to continue. The more you let random chance (in the form of another card on the table) play a role, the better your chance of losing.

I'm always amused by the whining you hear -- both live and on-line -- about bad beats. It's a fact of poker -- and life -- that it's not deterministic or mechanistic. The best hand always does win. But the "best hand" is not the best hand until the hand is over, whether that's because your opponents folded, or because the river card is played.

You have to acknowledge when you've lost, which is a difficult thing when you've just bet a significant part of your stack -- what the commentators call "pot committed" and the cards -- or your opponent's bet -- is giving every sign that you have the second-best hand. You start with a pair of Aces in your hand, a deuce shows up in the flop, another on the turn, and your opponent goes all in. You've probably lost. There's a million variations of that scenario. Some days I feel like I've played every one. I've probably been knocked out more often through refusing to let go of losing hands early than other way. It's very hard to let go.

At some point it does make more sense to stay in and let luck take charge -- when you're short-stacked and will be going down in a few hands anyway. In fact, in one of the tournaments where I placed second that's exactly what happened. I was in one of the final tables with less than $12,000 of chips where the next-smallest stack was over $50k. Several all-ins later I was at the final table, still short-stacked in comparison to the other players, but now with over $60k in chips. I ended up in second-place, still my best finish in an on-line tournament.

All done. SpaceShip One has flown. The X prize is won. Time to go to work.

Mark Chapman up for parole

In more Lennon news, Lennon's murderer, Mark Chapman, is up before the parole board this week. It's unlikely he'll be released, according to reports I've heard/read. However, it might be worth your time to sign the online petition (currently over 3,000 signatures), asking the Parole Court of New York to deny his parole.

Lennon would be 64 this year.

High Concepts

Stumbled across this site by accident, but I'll be returning regularly. "Done Deal", actual movie script deals, with story synopses. An example...

Hip Hop Nanny: A Scottish woman comes to the United States to work as a nanny for a hip hop/rap family.

Sold to Disney for "low six figures."

Run, Fat Boy, Run: A charming but oblivious overweight guy leaves his fiancée on their wedding day only to discover years later the he really loves her. To win her back, he must finish the New York marathon while making her realize the her new handsome, wealthy fiancé is the wrong guy for her.

Sales price unknown.

Curly Oxide and Vic Thrill: A Hasidic Jew and a grizzled rock musician form a band.

Based on a true story from a segment about the duo on National Public Radio. Lorne Michaels and John Goldwyn will produce. Sold for mid-six against seven-figure.

Who could make this stuff up?

Doing Lennon

a couple of John Lennon-related links, both via boingboing, that I think will be of interest to my buddy, Jill. Buildings of Disaster sells sculptures of buildings associated with some tragedy.

"Souvenirs are important cultural objects which can store and communicate memories, emotions and desires. Buildings of Disaster are miniature replicas of famous structures where some tragic or terrible events happened to take place. The images of burning or exploded buildings make a different, populist history of architecture, one based on emotional involvement rather than scholarly appreciation. In a media-saturated time, world disasters stand as people's measure of history, and the sites of tragic events often become involuntary tourists destinations."

The usual suspects are displayed, The Twin Towers, the Oklahoma City Federal Building. One building I wasn't expecting was the Dakota. But when you think of John Lennon's death, don't you immediately think of that building, too?

During our anniversary trip to New York City, Peg and I made a pilgrimage to the outdoor foyer where he had been shot. The entrance to the Dakota is guarded now, and you can't go into the foyer anymore, as Mark Chapman had, but you can see inside. We stood there for a few moments, silently, and then walked across the avenue to Central Park, and Strawberry Fields.

yoko ono created an installation, apparently over a year ago, called "Odyssey of a Coackroach."

"I have decided to be a cockroach for a day, and see what is happening in this city through his eyes..."

I think it's best experienced through the Quicktime movie tour, but the individual photos also make striking - and moving - statements, especially a trash can filled with "Imagine Peace" buttons.

Okay, Mommy then I want this instead...

...more affordable than a zeppelin, but just as weird, a Chris "Jesus" Ferguson bobblehead. I'm thinking about getting one for Peg, as Jesus is her second favorite after Annie Duke on the poker circuit. And speaking of Annie, how come there are no women represented at Pokerheads?

Buy this for me, mommy, please

Neiman-Marcus' Christmas catalog is out, with the usual over-the-top gifts, including your very own personal zeppelin. You too can be admired by pipe-puffing Germans as you glide across the countryside.

Not to re-fight old wars, (especially when we have so many current ones) but does anyone find it a little scary that the Zeppelin-NT company's first sale was to Japan?

The Big Bubba of Rebellion

I had told myself I wouldn't blog today, having way too much on my plate, and also wanting to get an email off to my buddy, Jill, but I am just so delighted with the Dylan excerpt in the October 4th issue of "Newsweek", plus the reaction to it on rec.music.dylan that I had to note it.

Dylan's off-hand comment, "Eventually I would even record an entire album based on Chekhov short stories—critics thought it was autobiographical—that was fine." has sparked my favorite line from rmd, as the speculation about which album he's referring to ("Desire", "Planet Waves", "New Morning", "Blood on the Tracks" are all candidates),

"How do we know it's not Chekhov from Star Trek?"

I am so looking forward to Chronicles.

A transgendered Shana Hiatt renames herself "Bobbi Dylan"

There's an old formula for how to write a best-seller, based on the theory that books on Abraham Lincoln, doctors, and pets all sell well and, therefore, a book titled, "Abe Lincoln's Doctor's Dog" would be a natural winner.

Based on search hits of fhb since I started to seriously maintain it in June, I'd suggest to bloggers that you couldn't go wrong focusing on Shana Hiatt photos, transgendering, and Bob Dylan's forthcoming "Chronicles" as subject matter if you want traffic. Ms. Hiatt, not surprisingly, is well in the lead, but interest in Dylan is growing. For those of you who have arrived here looking for Ms. Hiatt, even in the virtual sense, I've provided the link above.

Jenny Boylan's book, "She's Not There" seems to have engendered (no pun there) the transgender hits, although there was one person specifically looking for transgender photos (no indication of which from to what to).

Donald Hamilton's unreleased "The Dominators" book and the "Eccentric Soul" compilation from Numero Uno also brought a few searchers into fhb, as did my two mentions of photographer Timothy Archibald and his "Sex Machines" project, although at least one of those hits was through a vanity search by Mr. Archibald himself.

Strangest links to date are a tie between someone looking for "animatronic babes", which I'm hoping was someone in search of information about the use of an animatronic pig in the movie "Babe, Pig in the City", but I suspect not, and a search for "levien tilt download", which connected I'm sure what was a very confused searcher to my mention of a new poker series entitled. 'Tilt" co-written by a David Levien.

Google ads subject matter continues to annoy and amuse me, given what mood I'm in at the moment. As I write this, all three Google ads are for lice remedies, generated by two words in a 2,000-word+ posting about Sinead O'Connor. Similarly, and not all that surprisingly, all three ads for two weeks after September 11th and my mention of the anniversary of the Twin Towers destruction were September 11th-related.

Amusée Bouche

10:30 yesterday morning, and we're in the downstairs club bar room of Upstairs on the Square, formerly Upstairs at the Pudding. We're under the love note chandelier, watching the papers flutter, and have been in the room for at least five minutes. But no one has put any food in front of me yet, a notable difference from Saturday night, when we started eating at 8 p.m., and didn't stop until we staggered out the door sometime after midnight.

We like to eat, as do my sister-in-law, Roberta and her husband Ted, but no one would call any of us gourmands. However, on Saturday night we all did a fair imitation of say, Robert Morley, in one of his bulkier roles. Roberta and Ted's long-time friend, Sheila, is the hostess at "Upstairs", and owners Mary-Catherine Deibel and Deborah Hughes put on the full dog for us as soon as we walked in the door. We started with cocktails downstairs, and - evidently since we looked wan from our three-minute walk from the Harvard Square hotel - were provided with a complimentary "amusement for the mouth", this offering being a Leaf Spinach, Broccoli Rabe, Hot Peppers and Whole Milk Ricotta pizza.

Our bouches being properly amused, we made our way up the stairs to the hot pink Soiree room, where we were enthroned at the best table, which included a purple couch. "Upstairs" is in the former "Grendel's" restaurant, a Harvard fixture now departed, although the small "Grendel's Den" is still in the basement. Grendel's, which I used to go to regularly on cold winter days for the lentil soup, looked as if it were housed in a run-down library, with old dark furniture, bookshelves, and smoky fireplaces on either side of the room. "Upstairs", on the other hand, appears to have been decorated by a somewhat mad 80-year-old flea market bargain hunter, and would fit nicely in New Orleans with its pink and gold motif, bizarro chandeliers, and zebra carpets. Exceedingly funky, "Upstairs" housing is a vast improvement over their old location above Harvard's Hasty Pudding Club, in a room so deteriorated that screens were used to shield diners from the moldering walls.

But we haven't eaten and we've been seated for all of three seconds, so another amusée bouche appears to help us struggle through the wait for our appetizers, this time some sort of tuna tartar, I think, compliments we’re told of the chef who is still experimenting with it before its menu launch and would appreciate comments. We do so, although I’m not sure how “ooo” and “aaah” will work on the menu.

We charge into the appetizers. Roberta and I work on a heritage tomato soup while Peg tackles an enormous Buffalo Mozzarella salad. Confronted with a daunting wine list, already logy with food, and not willing to make the effort of matching wines to an eclectic dinner choice that includes tuna (me), duck (Roberta) veal (Ted), and scallops (Peg), I instruct the waiter to find a couple of “nice bottles” of red and white.

The “nice” sparks Peg to tell Roberta and Ted the infamous story of our first trip to the Black Point Inn, where they’ll be staying this week. Peg and I love to dance, which I don’t do very well, but I’m by God, enthusiastic, and the Black Point at the time had weekly dances in their ballroom. So, after dinner, we went to the dance and, in the course of the evening, found we were thirsty, and decided on cognac. At the Black Point, no filthy lucre ever changes hands. Meals are included, and you settle the bill for extras, such as alcohol, at check-out. So, I went to the bar, asked for cognac, and was offered the dangerous question, “What would you like, sir?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said off-handedly. “Something nice.”

And he gave me two glasses, and I brought them back to Peg, and they were very nice. In fact, so nice, I almost ordered another round, but we got distracted by dancing, and then decided to go to bed.

A few days later, at check-out, I’m going through the bill, and everything seems right, except a bill for $80. And yes, you’re right, it was for two very nice, small glasses of cognac at $40 a pop.

“Very nice” has since become a code phrase in our marriage, usually about my tendency to live a champagne life on a beer budget.

Dinner is almost served, but there is guess what? Another amusée appears first, this time some type of hand-rolled tortellini, which we’re told is “Sheila’s favorite”, and thus must be tried. Of course. It includes braised rabbit, which would please my friend Jill mightily, as she had been inciting me by email to try the “Rabbit Two Ways” main course since I told her we were going.

The rabbit was very good, Jill.

And our main courses were very good. And, the wine, picked by our enthusiastic waiter, a French white and a California Pinot Noir, were very good. And somewhere in there we had another amusée, which all I remember about is that it included a roasted corn salsa, and that was very good, too. Then, for the first time in my life, I ate three desserts, a palate-cleansing amusée, which was a dab of mint pudding, and then the dessert I selected, Coconut Profiteroles with Warm Chocolate Sauce and Caramelized Macadamia Nuts, which I shared with my sister-in-law, and then some after-dinner mints that appeared on our table with our coffee just because they had run out of anything else to feed us I think.

10:30 yesterday morning, we're back to say goodbye to Sheila, who is getting the place prepped for a shower party and the Sunday Brunch crowd. I’m watching the restaurant ticking over on slow revs as the waiters in the downstairs club bar trickle in, as Sheila finds a replacement for the bartender who is MIA, as the shower organizers arrive an hour earlier than anticipated. It’s 10:30 on a slow Sunday morning, and I’m sitting in a restaurant that hasn’t opened, feeling like I belong, having a cup of coffee set in front of me without my asking.

Thinking it’s a pretty good life.