A new term for the Holidays...
..."holidays", you know, the ones with 'Christmas' in there somewhere...

EMBEDDED GIFTING...Have you ever heard of this term? You have? I haven't. It's where you buy something, and a portion of what you've paid for that item goes to some charity...you might pay $19.95 for a Deluxe Rotating Widget, for example, and the ad you saw, which induced (seduced?) you to pay for that item said something to the effect of, "for every purchase, the McGillicutty Widget Company will make a 50-cent donation to the United Nations' Fund to Assist the Widgetally-Deprived People of the World" or some such entity. Anyway, I read about 'Embedded Gifting" in the paper today, and it got me wondering, are these manufacturers/suppliers being benevolent, or are they upping the cost so that donations can be sent without costing anyone (except YOU, the buyer) any more moolah? As far as the almighty dollar is concerned, nothing surprises me anymore. I remember, as a kid, when either my folks or other relatives would give me a birthday card with MONEY inside. Now, I can fully endorse THAT type of "embedded gifting".

LATE-NIGHT TV VIEWING is a little bit better these days...the Don Imus replacement show on MSNBC, is now officially "Morning Joe". All of the MSNBC promos invite you to stop by for a "cup of Morning Joe", which, in this case, refers to Joe Scarborough and his cronies. At first, the show just seemed kinda awkward and staged, but, it seems a bit easier to watch these days. Joe and his crew are analytical and observant, they work well together, they inject humor into the proceedings, and it "feels" like the show is establishing a comfortable groove. Scarborough, himself a former Congressman, and his crew cover the political scene quite well. All that aside, I do miss the uproariousness of the Imus show...but "Morning Joe" is definitely filling a niche. The thought just struck me that, with a title like that, "Morning Joe" oughta be especially popular in SEATTLE. Java, anyone?

SO AM I MORE POLITICALLY INFORMED NOW? Actually, I'm more confused than ever, what with Democrats and Republicans each having multiple candidates at each dog-and-pony-show Prezzidential debate. I'm already tired of Election Season, and it won't be here for a long time yet. In a nutshell, there's some kind of money-scandal now brewing for ol' Giulani, John Edwards is Mormon And Proud Of It, one of Hillary's staffers launched unauthorized attacking info about Obama, so Hillary evidently got together with Obama and smoothed things over before today's Demo-debate; on the White House front, Dick Cheney is still a weasel and George Dubya still says "NU-CU-LAR", and although "waterboarding" has been used during during interrogations of Middle-east detainees recently, our Government had classified the technique as ILLEGAL some FORTY YEARS AGO. Reality "bites" sometimes, doesn't it?

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: Today, on ye olde car radio, I heard a young chick singer singing, of all things, Pink Floyd's 1975 song, "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"...(the station I was listening to NEVER announces its artists)...she did a pretty good job on the song, but...she's female, therefore her voice can go HIGHER than a male's, but when it came time to hit the high notes in the song, she didn't. She just kinda tossed off the lyric phrase in an "I'm-so-detached-I'm-cool" manner. A couple of songs later, I heard an oh-so-serious young man singing in a hushed voice (they all seem to sing that way these days), and he was doing Neil Diamond's 1966 song, "Solitary Man". He didn't change the song's arrangements at all, so I was kinda wondering, "what's the point?" To put this in perspective, think of the 1960's singer Lou Christie recording the old 1920's song, "Yes, We Have No Bananas". That didn't happen, thankfully. Who's to blame for all of this? MICHAEL BOLTON and his ear-splitting, screeching version of the old song, "When A Man Loves A Woman", which killed everyone's ears a decade or so ago. Since then, old music is fair game, I guess...

SOFT PORN IN A COMMERCIAL: It's just gotta be. What else could it be? It's an ad for "Disaronno", some type of liquor beverage. The scene: Several yuppie-folk are whooping and hollering in some nice living-room-type-bar, and among them is a beautiful, tall, thin, red-headed Really Classy lady, who informs the bartender she'll have a "Disaronno on the rocks". Later in the commercial, her empty glass is resting on the bar; the bartender reaches for it. She grabs the bartender's hand and shakes her head, "no, no", very sensuously. Of course, this woman could probably wash clothes sensuously. Feeling her grasp, he looks up at her. She then takes an ice cube out of the empty glass, opens her mouth (again, sensuously), and proceeds to s-l-o-w-l-y bring the ice cube to her lips, looking (sensuously) at the bartender all the while. The camera cuts back to the bartender, who is grinning sorta wickedly, end of commercial. Sometimes, when I see this commercial, I think "huh? what?", and other times it makes me wish I was a bartender.

Honest, Coach, I thought it was Vitamin B: Evidently, a quite damning report on steroid usage was released yesterday, and many, many baseball players, with pitcher Roger Clemens, the guy who will throw at you if he doesn't like you, at the top of the list (he was evidently injected 80-odd times in the BUTT). The only positive thing to come out of all of this is that most of these players were revealed NOW, before they had to appear in front of a Congressional Steroid committee and tell lies, which could result in jail time, like what might happen to Barry Bonds. Remember the good ol' pre-steroid days? When all you had to do was eat your Wheaties? Meanwhile, Northwest Cable News has reported that "no current Mariners are involved" in what might turn out to be a huge scandal. Can't you just imagine Ichiro on steroids? He runs fast enough now; on 'roids, he'd probably break the sound barrier.
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Finally, it is winter. Winter with a capital "Dubya". It's 2:20am; the current temperature on the Southern Oregon Coas is 38 degrees. There might, I repeat, MIGHT be frost tonite. 'Twas sunny today, no ice, no snow. And, to quote an old song, "That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it, uh-huh-uh-huh..." (That's a tune I don't think I'll hear any new artists doing anytime soon.)