I know I've posted this before, but I just watched season two of "Extras" on DVD, and this is definately worth seeing again: A rousing sing-along...

Winners Only Nick reports from Tinseltown that he's embarked on a new side project developing a children's cartoon. He's calling it "Pixel Pals" for the moment, and the premise is educational for the 1-4 year old set. He's already developed some marketing sides; stuffed animals and general artwork and the like.

Here's Winners Only with his new progeny!

And before anyone laughs, Nick reminds us that the teletubbies were grossing $70 million annually at their peak. "Winners Only", indeed!

The Women's World Cup has reached the semi-finals, but you wouldn't really know it from the scarcity of news on the subject. Doesn't help that China is host nation so the games are on at 5 in the morning. Also doesn't help that interest in the Women's national team has dropped considerably with Mia Hamm's retirement, but still.

The US look pretty strong, as usual, but the best game I saw was the Brazil - Australia match, a riveting affair that had it all.

Germany v Norway the 26th at 8 AM, and USA v Brazil the 27th at 8 AM. Might be worth checking out, showing up at work, you know, whenever.

And yes, that does appear to be a picture of the lovely Matildas hopping like kangaroos...

Here's an interesting prediction from 1978 that gets it 100% dead-on right. (It's also a Dan Rather update, in a quite oblique way...)

And speaking of the future of news and Dan Rather (you have to go a long, long way to find the words "Rather", "news", and "future" in the same sentence), don't miss this quick comment on the mythology of investigative journalism.

Rather's continued descent into absurdity is here further chronicled. Or something.

Happened to hear from Winners Only Nick, still living out in Hollywood all these years, who encouraged me to put up a new Dan Rather post. Well.

Winners Only is one of the very few people who know the background to this little blog getting started, and it was the original Rathergate kerfuffle. By then I'd long since stopped believing that major news media were anything but a special interest group advancing their own policy agendas by other means. But what gave me pause was one thought: how many more forgeries, falsehoods, and outright lies had trusted news sources shoved down our guileless throats?

Anyway, that was tipping point, and I started blogging.

So now Rather is back from near-obscurity with a $70 million suit against CBS, his former employer. The piling on of ridicule and scorn has begun, as Marx's famous line about history repeating first as tragedy and second as farce will ring true for a good many people. "Schadenfreude alert" ? That won't be the half of it...Rather's saga has already devolved to the point where he's being lumped with OJ as an example of a "kind of sociopathic behavior created in part by our culture of celebrity". Yikes.

Of course, these types of law suits very rarely go to trial, almost always being settled beforehand. A shame really. Subjecting Dan and CBS to the cold light of legal review would be a sobering experience for all Americans.

And just in case I thought I was taking this too seriously, I checked Treacher, who doesn't disappoint.

The stupidist person you'll meet today.

Okay: offal, frogs legs, snails, and rocky mountain oysters.

Which doesn't belong and why?

A Southwest Air ticket agent makes a really fat guy buy an extra seat. Then she makes him cry...

A well known animal expert is travelling with a flamingo, a leopard, and a mongoose. They attempt to pass through airport turnstile where things, as you might imagine, begin to go horribly awry...

How to cook a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. And why.

I can do 18 of the things on this list. Is that good? Who knows -- there are an awful lot of things not listed that I'd consider pretty essential.

And no, I'm not going to reveal which things I can't do...

...Passing from memory.

Summer winding down, the Not My Fault niece arriving this afternoon from Holland, so a perfect time to check out the end-of-summer Carnival of the Recipes...

And speaking of summer's end, here's Buffalo Tom with the best end-of-summer song ever.

(Better video here, but poorer sound quality...lyrics here..."summer's gone....you wasted every day")

Up at the Cape again last weekend with family and some friends. Friend's 10 year old son ended up with bruises on his thighs because he's got percussion fever; banging out rhythms on his thighs.

He needs a pair of these pants.

Ever needed to say something awkward at breakfast? Like "Why isn't there any coffee in the house?" or "No, I don't know why my car is in the neighbors driveway"...?

Solved!