The Parrot

A guy decides that maybe he'd like to have a pet and goes to a pet shop. After looking around he spots a parrot sitting on a little perch; it doesn't have any feet or legs. The guy says out loud, "Geez, I wonder what happened to this parrot?"

"I was born this way," says the parrot. "I'm a defective parrot."

"Ha, ha," the guy laughs. "It sounded like this parrot actually understood what I said and answered me."

"I understand every word," says the parrot. "I am a highly intelligent and thoroughly educated bird."

"Yeah?" the guy asks. "Then answer this: how do you hang onto your perch without any feet?"

"Well," the parrot says, "this is a little embarrassing, but since you asked, I will tell you. I wrap my little parrot penis around this wooden bar, kind of like a little hook. You can't see it because of my feathers."

"Wow," says the guy, "you really can understand and answer; can't you?"

"Of course. I speak both Spanish and English. I can converse with reasonable competence on almost any subject: politics, religion, sports, physics, philosophy. And I am especially good at ornithology. You should buy me; I am a great companion."

The guy looks at the $200.00 price tag. He says. "I can't afford that."

"Pssst," the parrot hisses, motioning the guy over with one wing. "Nobody wants me because I don't have any feet. You can get me for $20.00; just make an offer."

The guy offers twenty dollars and walks out with the parrot. Weeks go by and the parrot is sensational. He's funny; he's interesting; he's a great pal, he understands everything, sympathizes, and gives good advice. The guy is delighted.

One day the guy comes home from work and the parrot says, "Pssst," and motions him over with one wing. The guy goes up close to the cage. "I don't know if I should tell you this or not," says the parrot, "but it's about your wife and the mailman."

"What?" asks the guy.

"Well," the parrot says, "when the mailman came to the door today, your wife greeted him in a pair of panties that showed everything and kissed him on the mouth."

"What happened then?" asks the guy.

"Then the mailman came into the house and put his hand on your wife's crotch and began petting her all over," reports the parrot.

"My God!" the guy says. "Then what?"

"Then he pulled down the panties, got down on his knees and began to lick her, starting with her chest, slowly going down and down." The parrot pauses for a long time...

"What happened? What happened?" says the frantic guy.

"That's what pisses me off. I don't know." said the parrott. "I got a hard-on, and fell off my f*cking perch."

Canadians

Now that Vancouver has won the chance to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, these are some questions people the world over are asking! Believe it or not these questions about Canada were posted on an International Tourism Website. Obviously the answers are a joke but the questions were really asked.

Q: I have never seen it warm on Canadian TV, so how do the plants grow? (England )
A. We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around and watch them die.

Q: Will I be able to see Polar Bears in the street? ( USA )
A: Depends on how much you've been drinking.

Q: I want to walk from Vancouver to Toronto can I follow the Railroad tracks? (Sweden )
A: Sure, it's only Four thousand miles, take lots of water.

Q: Is it safe to run around in the bushes in Canada? ( Sweden )
A: So it's true what they say about Swedes.

Q: It is imperative that I find the names and addresses of places to contact for a stuffed Beaver. ( Italy )
A: Let's not touch this one.

Q: Are there any ATM's (cash machines) in Canada? Can you send me a list of them in Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton and Halifax? ( England )
A: What did your last slave die of?

Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racing in Canada? (USA )
A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe. Ca-na-da is that big country to your North. oh forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is every Tuesday night in Calgary. Come naked.

Q: Which direction is North in Canada? ( USA )
A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees. Contact us when you get here and we'll send the rest of the directions.

Q: Can I bring cutlery into Canada? ( England )
A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do.

Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? ( USA )
A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is...oh forget it. Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir plays every Tuesday night in Vancouver and in Calgary, straight after the hippo races. Come naked.

Q: Do you have perfume in Canada? ( Germany )
A: No, we don't stink.

Q: I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Can you sell it in Canada? ( USA )
A: Anywhere significant numbers of Americans gather.

Q: Can you tell me the regions in British Columbia where the female population is smaller than the male population? ( Italy )
A: Yes, gay nightclubs

Q: Do you celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada? ( USA )
A: Only at Thanksgiving.

Q: Are there supermarkets in Toronto and is milk available all year round?
( Germany )
A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of Vegan hunter/gathers. Milk is illegal.

Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Canada , but I forget its name. It's a kind of big horse with horns. ( USA )
A: It's called a Moose. They are tall and very violent. They roam the city streets eating the brains of anyone walking closeto them. Spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking will scare them off.

Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go? ( USA )
A: Yes, but you will have to learn it first.

Please send this post on to any Canadian (or other) who can use a good laugh, eh?.

*Thanks, Daryn!

Surfin Dogs!

The Cookie Thief *

A woman was waiting at an airport one night,
With several long hours before her flight.
She hunted for a book in the airport shops.
Bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.

She was engrossed in her book but happened to see,
That the man sitting beside her, as bold as could be.
Grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between,
Which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene.

So she munched the cookies and watched the clock,
As the gutsy cookie thief diminished her stock.
She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by,
Thinking, "If I wasn't so nice, I would blacken his eye."

With each cookie she took, he took one too,
When only one was left, she wondered what he would do.
With a smile on his face, and a nervous laugh,
He took the last cookie and broke it in half.

He offered her half, as he ate the other,
She snatched it from him and thought... oooh, brother.
This guy has some nerve and he's also rude,
Why he didn't even show any gratitude!

She had never known when she had been so galled,
And sighed with relief when her flight was called.
She gathered her belongings and headed to the gate,
Refusing to look back at the thieving ingrate.

She boarded the plane, and sank in her seat,
Then she sought her book, which was almost complete.
As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise,
There was her bag of cookies, in front of her eyes.

If mine are here, she moaned in despair,
The others were his, and he tried to share.
Too late to apologize, she realized with grief,
That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief.

How many times in our lives,
have we absolutely known
that something was a certain way,
only to discover later that
what we believed to be true ... was not?

**The moral message is contained in the poem`s closing stanza:

"If mine are here," she moaned with despair,
"Then the others were his, and he tried to share."
Too late to apologize, she realized with grief,
That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief.

Being sure is not the same as being right. Certainty without humility can lead to self-righteousness that distorts our view and understanding of the world and of people.

Humility does not require us to be equivocal or doubtful about our deepest convictions about religion and right and wrong. What it asks is that we hold and advocate our beliefs without dismissing the possibility that others may be right, too. Or, as in the cookie case, instead.

*Poem by Valerie Cox
**Commentary by Michael Josephson, Character Counts

The Wiz On The Street

Captain America, the comic book character created during World War II as a patriotic opponent of the Nazis, was killed by sniper bullets in a recent comic. So the Wizard hit the streets again, asking, "What do you think?"

Monica Chan,
Systems Analyst
"But who will avenge him? If only there were a group of 'avengers,' if you will, organized for that purpose."

Herbert Mandelbaum,
Archivist
"Yet another intelligence failure by S.H.I.E.L.D.. How many more screwups must we endure before Bush fires Executive Director Nicholas Fury?"

Diego Lopez,
Florist
"Oh, man! Why are all the really cool assassinations wasted on make-believe people?"

*American Voices, The Onion

The Love Doctor

Dear Love Doctor,

For the past couple of months I've been seeing a very nice young man but it seems he is always mooching money off me.

Every time he comes over he asks if he could "borrow" 20bucks. Last night he asked for 50. Over the past few weeks he has "borrowed" about $300.

My best friend says I'm being conned.

I'm concerned about the amount of money I have given him, but he is very nice, and I like spending time with him. Not to mention the sex.

He is a student and I remember from my student days money is always tight.

What do you think.


Signed,

In like

Dear In,

It sounds to me as though your friend may be right.

You imply that there is a considerable age difference between the two of you. Frankly, I think this young man is a hustler. What makes him different from the guys you meet on a street corner is he is more subtle, or perhaps sly would be a better word.

Now, I have absolutely nothing against hustlers, or their profession. In my estimation they are providing a service. But at least with the guys on the corner you know you are being hustled.

You have two choices, keep slipping him money and consider you will never get it back. If you do, its a bonus. Or, you could tell him the next time he tries to hit you up, that you are a little short on cash yourself and can't help him out this time. After a couple of rejections you will know if his intentions are honorable.

If he maintains his friendship, without getting money, consider him a real friend and not a business deal. But, if he disappears look at it as good sex with an interesting guy and leave it at that.

Now, just one one word about about hustlers. While I consider them in the service industry, as with everything else it is buyer beware. Not every hustler has a heart of gold. But the valuables out of sight before you head out to the corner, and do not let them sleep over.

The Love Doctor

--Send your questions about love to "The Love Doctor" directly from 'OZ' - The 'Other' Side of the Rainbow! I have added an email link that goes direct to The Love Doctor - this will enable quicker responses from him. You can do this by clicking on his picture in the sidebar and put your question in the email. This will ensure that The Love Doctor gets your question. The Love Doctor forwards his replies to me for posting consideration. Note: Due to the high volume of letters that The Love Doctor receives, not all letters will be posted on 'OZ' - but the Love Doctor will reply to every email. (so he says)

British comedy actor John Inman dies

British actor John Inman, famous for his role as a camp shop assistant in the BBC comedy Are You Being Served? died Thursday at the age of 71, his manager said.

Inman died in the early hours at Saint Mary's Hospital in west London after a long battle against Hepatitis A. The BBC reported that his long-term partner Ron Lynch is "devastated."

The actor starred as Mr. Humphries in the popular comedy which was broadcast from 1972 to 1985, and at its height attracted an audience of 22 million viewers in Britain and was then sold around the world.

His catchphrase "I'm free!" helped him win an award for Funniest Man on Television by the British weekly TV Times in 1976. In recent years, Inman regularly appeared in pantomime productions.

"John was known and loved throughout the world. He was one of the best and finest pantomime dames working to capacity audiences throughout Britain," his manager Phil Dale told the BBC.

Riddle Me This!

What is this?

Click above for the answer.

HOW TO CALL THE POLICE WHEN YOURE OLD AND DONT MOVE FAST

George Phillips of Meridian, Mississippi was going up to bed when his wife told him that he'd left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window.

George opened the back door to go turn off the light but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things.

He phoned the police, who asked "Is someone in your house?" and he said "no". Then they said that all patrols were busy, and that he should simply lock his door and an officer would be along when available.

George said, "Okay," hung up, counted to 30, and phoned the police again.

"Hello, I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people in my shed. Well, you don't have to worry about them now cause I've just shot them all." Then he hung up.

Within five minutes three police cars, an Armed Response unit, and an ambulance showed up at the Phillips residence and caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the Policemen said to George: "I thought you said that you'd shot them!"

George said, "I thought you said there was nobody available!"

(True Story??) I LOVE IT

*Thanks, Carl

Obese Mexican outside for first time in five years

SAN NICOLAS DE LOS GARZA, Mexico (Associated Press) -- A man who once weighed well over a half ton left his house for the first time in five years Wednesday -- wheeled outside on his bed to greet neighbors and see a mariachi band.

"The sky is beautiful and blue and what I want is to enjoy the sun," said Manuel Uribe, who had once been certified by doctors as weighing 1,235 pounds. Though still unable to leave his bed, Uribe has lost 395 pounds since he began a high-protein diet a year ago. He now weights about 840 pounds.


To celebrate the milestone, six people pushed Uribe's wheel-equipped iron bed out to the street as a mariachi band played and a crowd gathered. Then, a forklift lifted him onto a truck and the 41-year-old rode through the streets of San Nicolas de los Garza, a Monterrey suburb.


With dozens of reporters and photographers in tow, Uribe traveled along, passing the town's plaza and church and waving at clusters of people eager to get a glimpse of him.


"It fills me with joy to see he's getting better and getting a little sun," Uribe's neighbor Guadalupe Guerra said. "I would go crazy if I had to be inside my house for so many years."


Uribe was a chubby kid and weighed more than 250 pounds as an adolescent. In 1992, he said his weight began ballooning further.


Since the summer of 2002, Uribe has been bedridden, relying on his mother and friends to feed and clean him.


He drew worldwide attention when he pleaded for help on national television in January 2006. Afterward, an Italian and a Spanish doctor both visited and offered gastric bypass surgery.


But Uribe chose to accept help from Mexican nutritionists working with the Zone diet. He says he will stick to that diet until he reaches his goal of 265 pounds.


"My goal is to leave the house on my own but I know that will be a long process," he said. Doctors say it may take between three and four years for Uribe to reach his goal.


Uribe said he plans to start a foundation to help overweight people get medical assistance and teach them about healthy eating habits.

*CTV.ca

Report: Captain America Dies on the Page

NEW YORK (AP) - Captain America has undertaken his last mission - at least for now.

The venerable superhero is killed in the issue of his namesake comic that hit stands Wednesday, the New York Daily News reported. On the new edition's pages, a sniper shoots down the shield-wielding hero as he leaves a courthouse.

It ends a long run for the stars-and-stripes-wearing character, created in 1941. Over the years, some 210 million copies of Captain America comic books, published by New York-based Marvel Entertainment Inc. (MVL), have been sold in 75 countries.

But resurrections are not unknown in the world of comics, and Marvel Entertainment Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada said a Captain America comeback wasn't impossible.

Still, the character's death came as a blow to co-creator Joe Simon.

"We really need him now," said Simon, 93, who worked with artist Jack Kirby to devise Captain America as a foe for Adolf Hitler.

The superhero was spawned when a scrawny arts student named Steve Rogers, ineligible for the army because of his poor health but eager to serve his country, agreed to a "Super Soldier Serum" injection. The substance made him a paragon of physical perfection, armed only with his shield, his strength, his smarts and a command of martial arts.

In the comic-book universe, death is not always final. But even if Captain America turns out to have met his end in print, he may not disappear entirely: Marvel is developing a Captain America movie.

Daylight Savings Time Patch for Windows XP

Update for Windows XP (KB931836)

Brief Description

Installing this update enables your computer to automatically adjust the computer clock on the correct date in 2007 due to revised Daylight Saving Time laws in many countries.

Click below for the page:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=66F1420C-DF2D-400B-A8A9-EF9061A9A3CA&displaylang=en

Vista customers do not have to worry as this is already built in. It is also delivered via automatic updates.

Review: BlackBerry 8800

(New York City) The maker of BlackBerry e-mail phones has managed to reinvent its wheel repeatedly, churning out surprising new models and innovative redesigns that have repeatedly left rivals in the dust.

But it's not so easy to wow the masses with every product launch, and the latest BlackBerry reveals a little design fatigue at Research in Motion Ltd., based in Waterloo, Ont.

That's a quibble, though, as the new 8800 looks sharper than RIM's current top-of-the-line 8700: It's more than 25 per cent thinner, and it packs some key multimedia enhancements.

One puzzling shortcoming is that the 8800 runs on the slower data network in the United States operated by AT&T Inc.'s Cingular Wireless, which will sell the US$500 device for as little as US$300 with calling plan and BlackBerry e-mail service commitments.

The most striking change, an improvement that nonetheless will displease some BlackBerry traditionalists, is that the company has decided it's time to ditch the side clickwheel. That wheel has been used to navigate every RIM device since the first came out a decade ago _ until, that is, last August. That's when RIM introduced a front trackball on the "Pearl," a cellphone-sized BlackBerry geared toward consumers.

The Pearl's instant popularity has helped drive BlackBerry's subscriber growth to record levels by a wide margin. And so, quicker than you can say "profit shmofit" or "tradition shmadition," RIM is adapting the front trackball to its flagship e-mail device for business users.

This is a good thing. The front trackball, clickable like a computer mouse, addresses the reality that there's a lot more to do these days on a mobile device than merely scroll up and down through e-mail. And the trackball is still perfectly suited to simpler tasks of old even if you don't want to access web pages, watch video clips or listen to music.

But in borrowing one innovation from the Pearl, it would appear that RIM decided to take an easy route on styling.

Where the launch of the 8700 in late 2005 brought a brand new look to the BlackBerry, the 8800 is basically a puffed-up version of the black Pearl (RIM recently introduced a white Pearl). It's got the same shiny black front and back, the same silver sides and nearly identical detailing in the look and placement of buttons and orifices.

Granted, I myself found the Pearl to be a gleaming specimen, an eye-catcher that could prompt device envy from those around me. Part of the allure was that it was entirely different from the other two BlackBerry product lines.

This time around, it was a letdown to see so many obvious similarities in the redesign of the 8700 - even if the 8800 is undoubtedly prettier than the 8700, as well as the unchanging, ever-boxy Treo from Palm Inc.

On a less superficial level, it's simply odd that this device is only equipped for Cingular's EDGE data network, which isn't much better than a dial-up connection, rather than the advanced UMTS technology the company is rolling out for speedier web browsing and downloading music and video.

This omission is glaring, as this is the first high-end BlackBerry for business users with a media player and a memory slot for extra storage of audio and visual content. But there's a theme developing here of late, as even the hugely hyped IPhone from Apple Inc. will also be confined to Cingular's slow lane.

While device makers always grapple with trade-offs in component costs and cramming features into a tiny case, it's worth noting that some of RIM's existing 8700 and 7100 handsets already feature UMTS or another speedy technology called EV-DO.

Regarding the new memory slot, the 8800 does hold a design advantage over the Pearl. The slot is still located inconveniently in the battery compartment on the back. But with the 8800, while you still need to remove the back cover, there's no need to remove the battery, cutting the power, when you want to insert or eject a storage card.

Another concern is shape and feel. Like the Pearl, the 8800 is flat on the sides where you grip it. The flat edges felt fine in your palm with a narrower device like the Pearl, which measured five centimetres from left to right. To accommodate a full keyboard with one button per letter, the 8800 is about 1.3 centimetres wider, so the grip might feel more sure and comfortable with contours like those on the sides of the 8700.

Now, about those keys, which are central to any device of this ilk. RIM has dared to tweak its keyboard again.

The keys look to be a hair closer together. To compensate, the company has added a tiny curving ridge to the top edge of each key to serve as physical guides for the thumbs.

My initial reaction is that it feels a bit cramped and slippery. But after only a few days of testing, I'm hesitant to underestimate the adaptive powers of my thumbs, let alone RIM's proven ability to design a handheld for typing.

*by The Associated Press

Geico Cavemen May Get Own TV Series

(New York City) (AP) Those Geico "cavemen" shouldn't be so upset after all — they may get their own television series. ABC has ordered a pilot for a comedy, tentatively titled "Cavemen," that features the characters used in a series of ads by the insurance company.

In the ads, cavemen appear insulted by a Geico pitchman's claim that the company's Web site is so easy to use that "even a caveman can do it."

The potential series, one of 14 pilots that will be produced by Touchstone Television this spring, features the cavemen as they "struggle with prejudice on a daily basis as they strive to live the lives of normal thirty-somethings in 2007 Atlanta."

It's unusual for characters from an advertising campaign to move into shows of their own, but not unprecedented. The CBS comedy "Baby Bob" featured a talking baby that had been used in several advertisements, according to Daily Variety.

The advertising copywriter who helped create the "cavemen" ads is writing the pilot, the studio said.

A pilot order is no guarantee a show will make it on the air; in fact, the majority of pilots don't make it that far.

Are the TV Networks that desperate?

Zodiac

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Edwards, Brian Cox

Synopsis: A serial killer in the San Francisco Bay Area taunts police with his letters and cryptic messages. We follow the investigators and reporters in this lightly fictionalized account of the true 1970's case as they search for the murderer, becoming obsessed with the case. Based on Robert Graysmith's book, the movie's focus is the lives and careers of the detectives and newspaper people. Written by Tom Day

Review: For decades San Francisco and its surrounding counties were haunted by a faceless, seemingly unstoppable killer -- one who crowed about his murders to the press and struck without warning. From the late 1960's until the 1980's, a killer known as Zodiac took credit for 37 murders. That number may be a fabrication of a psychopath's bravado -- but it's incontrovertible that Zodiac committed 5 grisly shootings and stabbings that took place on lover's lanes and darkened streets. Director David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club) grew up in the Bay Area during those years, and revisits that time of terror and tension with his new film Zodiac. There's one easy criticism that can be lodged at Zodiac from the start: How can you possibly make a suspense film out of a story that's still a mystery? The Zodiac killer was never caught, after all -- so where's the climax, the closure?

The easy answer to that is simple: Life often doesn't provide closure -- and Fincher expertly crafts tension and suspense from the things we don't know about the Zodiac case. Zodiac follows the parallel investigations by police and press, the possible suspects, the tantalizing leads, the frustrating dead ends, the exciting possibilities. By showing us the details in carefully-wrought, exacting fashion, Fincher and screenwriter James Vanderbilt turn the hunt for the Zodiac killer into thrilling, exciting cinema -- and the best true-life tale of detection we've had on the big screen since All the President's Men.
Fincher's film is based on the book by Robert Graysmith -- who first became entangled in the case while working for the San Francisco Chronicle. Graysmith was an editorial cartoonist who happened to be in the right (or wrong) place at the right time. The Chronicle newsroom buzzed with the sick, slick tension of receiving letters from a killer along with demands to print letters and ciphers that were meant to mock and manipulate the police. Graysmith (played with wide-eyed charm by Jake Gyllenhaal) was a puzzle buff who started working Zodiac's ciphers on his own. At the same time, Chronicle crime reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey, Jr. doing a partial riff on Hunter S. Thompson and every other young rebel of news in the '70s) worked his angles and tried to make an investigation that ranged through different counties and across jurisdictions into a coherent whole.

Meanwhile the cops work the case -- from small-town lawmen Narlow (Donal Logue) and Sgt. Mulnax (Elias Koteas) to SFPD detectives Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and Armstrong (Anthony Edwards). One of the pleasures of Zodiac comes in watching cops -- real cops, not hunch-guided clichés or paranormal precognitives -- work logic and fact so that each question can lead to a smarter question that might find the killer. When Toschi sees the crime scene of a murdered cabdriver, he starts talking through the tableaux from the killer's point of view: "I get this cab, I give him the address -- Did I give him the address? Who's got the fare book?" Deduction, investigation, tactical thinking -- they're rare things to see in life, let alone on the screen. But Fincher consistently makes a mosaic for us over a span of years -- each jagged piece adds up to a big picture, broken edges transforming into smoother shapes with just a little perspective. (The only exception comes late in the film when a Zodiac cipher comes out of -- and then goes -- nowhere in Graysmith's investigation. It's the only head-scratching moment in the film's 160 minutes.)

Fincher also shows us mis-steps -- leads lost, files misplaced, information not shared. Zodiac moves in herky-jerky fashion -- titles tell us of weeks and months passing between scenes -- and we feel the film lurch and move, like the investigation, in the erratic rhythms of a killer. The film doesn't just demonstrate how the media was full of the killings (a call-in radio host asks "Is the Zodiac a Satanist?" -- a perfectly reasonable question in '70s San Francisco). It also shows how the killings were full of the media -- from Zodiac's obsession with the B-movie The Most Dangerous Game to the killer's curiosity about who will play him in the inevitable movie.

Zodiac is so wide-ranging that it's hard to single out performance moments -- Ruffalo plays Toschi as a dogged cop, Gyllenhaal captures Graysmith as an all-American obsessive. But there are a few other bright moments as well, including Brian Cox as notorious San Francisco lawyer Melvin Belli, dispensing platitudes and booze with aplomb: "The public has a right to know, officer -- toddy?" And there are a host of character actors playing possible Zodiac candidates -- including a creepy turn from an unexpected player who can't be named for fear of spoiling the pleasure of his part. Fincher, though, is the star - the look of Zodiac is impressively calculated, from the retro touches (The Chronicle newsroom is a '70s panorama of rotary-dial phones, electric typewriters and people smoking indoors) to the impressive digital recreations of a San Francisco skyline long gone by.

Zodiac doesn't have the sun-blasted gothic kinetic rush of Seven -- and it shouldn't. Seven isn't a mystery; it's a horror film that pits an unstoppable monster-God against puppet protagonists. Zodiac is something deeper, richer, more real and more human. Fiction conditions us to expect tidy resolutions, neat packages, big finishes; fiction delivers those because real life's messy mistakes, unfinished business and small victories make us hunger for them. We want those things -- and so do Zodiac's characters -- and we watch as they try to come to grips with the ugly fact that what they long for might never come. The irony is that a director who gave us the perfect execution of a serial killer fantasy in Seven now gives us the perfect execution of a serial killer's reality -- the bragging, the lies, the dead ends, the cold trails. Zodiac shows how obsession can become the kind of hunger that devours itself over weeks, months and years; it's the sort of real-world time frame -- and real-world truth -- that few filmmakers have the skill, or the courage, to tackle. Fincher's earlier films demonstrated he was an entertainer of the first order; with Zodiac, he proves he's an artist.

*Official Site

**Review by: James Rocchi

The Wiz On The Street

Actor Daniel Radcliffe, best known for his role as Harry Potter in the same-titled film series is appearing in a London production of the play Equus, complete with a nude scene. So the Wizard hit the streets again, asking, "What do you think?"

Stan Ostroff,
Social Worker
"Ah, teenagers. He's just going through that phase where you want the world to see your flaccid wiener."

Shawna Deutsch,
Demolitionist
"What makes these people think there's a market for ex-child stars doing nude scenes?"

Benjamin Mather,
Student
"A play? Well that sucks. How am I supposed to download that?"

*American Voices, The Onion

Death Of An Icon

Please join me in remembering a great icon of the entertainment community.

The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of a yeast infection and trauma complications from repeated pokes in the belly. He was 71.

Doughboy was buried in a lightly greased coffin.

Dozens of celebrities turned out to pay their respects, including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the California Raisins, Betty Crocker, the Hostess Twinkies, and Captain Crunch.

The grave site was piled high with flours.

Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy and lovingly described Doughboy as a man who never knew how much he was kneaded. Doughboy rose quickly in show business but, his later life was filled with turnovers. He was not considered a very smart cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes. Despite being a little flaky at times, he still was a crusty old man and was considered a positive roll model for millions.

Doughboy is survived by his wife Play Dough, two children, John Dough and Jane Dough, plus they had one in the oven. He is also survived by his elderly father, Pop Tart.

The funeral was held at 3:50 for about 20 minutes.

If this made you smile for even a brief second, please rise to the occasion and take time to pass it on and share that smile with someone else who may be having a crumby day and kneads it.

*Thanks, Vil

I.Q Test

Now don't cheat. After you do the test... THEN click for the answers.

Click here for the answers.

100 Bonus points if you did not use a pen to write the answers on your monitor screen!

Can You See The Difference?

Why U.S. Navy Seals are better than the Iraqi Navy Seals... (click on each link...)

U.S.

IRAQI

and then there's Canada's...What aboot Canada, eh?

CANADA

Management Lessons

Lesson One An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing. A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, "Can I also sit like you & do nothing?" The eagle answered: "Sure, why not." So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle, and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it. Management Lesson? To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.  

Lesson Two A turkey was chatting with a bull. "I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree," sighed the turkey, "but I haven't got the energy." Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?" replied the bull. They're packed with nutrients." The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fourth night, he was proudly perched at the top of the tree. Soon he was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot the turkey out of the tree. Management Lesson? Bullshit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.  

Lesson Three A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground in a large field. While it was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on it. As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, it began to realize how warm it was. The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate.Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him. Management Lesson? 1) Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy. 2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend. 3) And when you're in deep shit, it's best to keep your mouth shut! This ends your management course for today.