Bruner Blog

As I’ve ranted before, I haven’t owned a car in nearly 20 years. Lately I’ve been admiring the new Mini. But now I’ve got a new favorite: the Tango. Here’s a recent Seattle Times article with details.

I love my wife! And I’m so proud of her! (And No, neither the woman in the red hat nor the frog are pictures of her. The woman is the red hat is title character Sara, aka actress Sally Nacker.)

Tonight it was my great honor to attend the premier screening of “Sara Goes to Lunch,” a new 25 minute film by Dean Kapsalis (writer/director) and Tommy Minnix (producer), Lucky Frog Films. My beautiful wife, Adrienne Haspel, was the (co-)editor, her first official credit as such, after two years of inspirationally diligent work at making that her career ambition.

It’s really a lovely film. Just right, said Nick, just alternative enough to be interesting, but not so much as to be pretentious (I’m paraphrasing). Speaking of how well everything came together — the acting, the beautiful photography, the music, and not least, the editing — Veronica put it best, speaking as one wwho knows of such things: “It was like jazz.”

Kudos all around. Dean and Tommy, please get famous. You’re certainly talented enough though far too nice for the business. Most of all, I hope you do because Adrienne adores working with you and wants to edit your feature!

As I noted earlier this month, I love the idea of Name Phreaks, people whose names oddly describe them. Here’s the latest, a rather macarbe one: the guy who went ballistic (literally) in NY City Hall yesterday, was named Othniel Askew. No question the guy was more than a little off.

And how sick of an irony is this? The guy he murdered, City Councilman James E. Davis, had made his reputation as a politician leading efforts to curb gun violence, and on the very day he was shot, he was planning to introduce to the City Council a resolution aimed to prevent violence in the workplace.

MP3s of 1940s instruction on how to explain sex to children.

That’s right, you can invade Iraq and never give justification. But you say, “George, how can I invade Iraq and never give justification?” Two simple steps. Step one: invade Iraq. Step two: make up bogus justifications. Then when they say, “But those justifications are bogus! Didn’t you read the memo?” You say, “I forgot.” And then when they say, “You forgot?! What kind of bullshit answer is that?!” You say, “Well, excuuuuuuuuuuuse me!!”

Speaking of the informant whose tip lead to the U.S. military killing Saddam Hussein’s two sons Qusay and Uday, Paul Bremer, Iraq’s top civilian administrator, said: “I’m looking forward to giving that guy a check for $30 million.”

I’m wondering, where the hell do you deposit a check in Iraq for $30 million these days.

Also, wouldn’t $2 million have been plenty? Do you think it makes a material difference to an Iraqi to get $2 million versus $30 million? Couldn’t you have spent the other $28 million building schools or fixing the eletricity or something? How about $2 million plus a U.S. passport? If it were me, I wouldn’t want to be hanging around Iraq with $30 million burning a hole in my pocket as the guy who gave up the former dictator’s sons. It’s not like you’d be inconspicuous there as an instant multi-millionaire while everyone around you is eating sand for lunch.

This is fairly scary, too: a political cartoon in the LA Times of a guy labeled “Politics” shooting President Bush in the head (a nod to the famous Vietnam War photo of a Vietnamese General executing a Viet Cong officer at point-blank range) resulted in the cartoonist being paid a visit by Secret Service agents investigating whether the comic was meant as a threat on the president’s life.

Okay, I see Gawker posted this days ago and I just found it on Daypop today, which just goes to prove I’m not hip, but that’s just fine. I’m well over 30 anyway, so it would be patently unhip to even try to be hip. It’s still funny: hipster bingo.

This is among the scarier articles I’ve read in a while. The writer alledges that he was paid a visit from the F.B.I. after a patron at a coffee shop reported him to the Feds for reading a printout left-wing commentary.

This is by far my proudest moment as an Internet professional.

And the guy whom I called fat and runs like a girl thought he had it bad.

Solidarity

My nephew, my namesake, sure is a super cutie. If you are inspired to see photos of someone else’s kid (my sister Sue said she’d be please for him to be featured on the Bruner Blog) click here and here.

Shout to one strange Lisa, a recent Jewish convert, who blogs all about it at LisaStrange.Blogspot.com, where it’s All Lisa, All the Time (not unlike the mood here at Bruner Blog, minus the religious stuff and the wole Lisaness). Best of all, she’s a Bruner Blog fan! See how easy it is to get some linky love from the Brunster*?

* A never-before and never-again used nickname.

The “Miss Balaton” beauty pagent may as well have been called the “Miss Bootythong” beauty pagent. Ah, Hungary. Really, what is it in the water over there? For a glorious photo gallery, click here, then scroll down the page and click any of the photos you see.

What is up with this?