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January 30, 2007

Hard words for Bush, Cheney; Brilliant new U2 video; MST3K to do DVDs; eBay dirty tricks;

The Loneliest President: What’s going on in George Bush’s mind? A psychopolitical survey. at New York Magazine is the introductory essay, by John Heilemann, to 16 shorter essays (Bush on the Couch) by psychologists, politicians and editors -- including JFK speechwriter Ted Sorensen, Deepak Chopra, Listening to Prozac author Peter D. Kramer and Scott Dikkers, editor of The Onion satire magazine -- pop-psychoanalyzing the president.

Oddly, perhaps, it's not quite as devastating as some of the recent takes on the vice president:

-- The Unraveling of Dick Cheney wrapup by Dan Froomkin at the Washington Post.

-- Cheney's Ba-Da Boom Crew, also at WaPo.

-- Jon Stewart on Cheney's Appearance on CNN, referencing Wolf Blitzer's interview (Cheney: Talk of blunders in Iraq is 'hogwash')

And today former N.Y. Times reporter Judy Miller is testifying at the Libby trial.

Home again: Dean Baquet, fired as editor of The Los Angeles Times in November for refusing to cut jobs from his newsroom, is back at the N.Y. Times: Baquet Rejoins Times as Washington Bureau Chief

Brilliant: New U2 video for "Window in the Skies" appears to have Sinatra, Elvis, Dylan, and everybody before or since lip-synching it.

MST3K returns: Remember Mystery Science Theater 3000? Bad old sci-fi movies were overlayed with a silhouette of wags -- one human, the rest robots -- in theater seats who made funny comments on the action.

Often abbreviated MST3K, the show ran from 1988 to 1999, first on KTMA in Minneapolis, then on Comedy Central, finally on the Sci-Fi Channel.

It's back, about to take on DVDs.

At Film Crew Online

Three of MST3K's writer/characters — Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy — have started a new venture: The Film Crew.

The Film Crew has been entrusted with a very important
mission: providing commentary tracks for every movie that doesn't have one. Typically, they've chosen to start at the bottom of the barrel,
and now you get to vote on which B-movie will get the Film
Crew treatment on DVD first.

Will it be Giant of Marathon (1959, starring Steve Reeves)?

Hollywood After Dark (1968, starring The Golden Girls' Rue McClannahan)?
Killers from Space (1954, starring Peter Graves)?
The Wild Women of Wongo (1958)?
Pick your "favorite," to be released in July 2007 by Shout! Factory

You're invited to watch two-minute clips of each movie before you vote.

Oddly related: Cat Head Theatre at YouTube. Cats do a selection from Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2.

eBay's bad apples: I bought some Christmas ornaments on eBay from a seller who only accepted money orders -- she said she had been plagued by false PayPal accounts and non-paying bidders. I thought this an excess of caution until I read this blogger's experience:

The way these scammers work is they send you an email asking to purchase your item outside of eBay, then when you won’t bite they hose your auction using a hacked account effectively preventing you from making a legitimate sale and at the same time sticking you with huge sellers fees from eBay. Don’t believe me? Here is the proof.

The overbidding "winning buyer's" alleged account profile showed six negatives and no positive feedback reports, but you can't read the details because he has chosen not to display them.

The seller has yet to receive a refund of his seller's fee from eBay. Go read it all. Here's the link again.

The auction site has to tighten up against this. The big yard sale is a huge boon to small sellers and buyers alike, but if trust vanishes, eBay is toast.

How to make a "floating"Invisible Book Shelf. (Hint: The bottom book is the actual shelf.) It's at Instructables, which is full of how-tos.

Tech note: Google is the new http://

I’ve noticed lately that many users have all but stopped typing domain names directly in the web browser, and started using Google instead. Instead of writing “myspace.com” as the address, they write “myspace” into Google....

You do this, too? It's easy with the little search form...

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 11:18 AM | Permalink