barkingmoose

Some fun pretzel facts (from up the road at Snyders of Hanover):

• Pretzels date back to around 610 A.D.
• Early settlers may have brought the pretzel to America on the Mayflower
• A baker’s apprentice accidentally created the hard pretzel when he fell asleep on the job, overcooking a batch of soft pretzels

And one more: the President of the United States nearly died when he choked on a pretzel. He’s recovered now, apparently, and is trying to make light of it: “My mother always said when you’re eating pretzels, chew before you swallow.” But this is no joke.

He avoided military service by serving in the Texas Air National Guard, but George W. Bush has now been to the brink and lived to tell the tale. What’s more, like his father before him, he is not afraid to vomit as well as faint should the situation warrant it. Enemies and would-be enemies of freedom be warned: the leader of the free world no longer fears death.

While poking around looking for info on the Enron collapse, I followed a link on Andersen’s site to a page on the 2001 European Film Awards. In addition to being a patron sponsor of the European Film Academy, Andersen serves as the official notary for the awards. Amélie cleaned up—it was named best film, Jean-Pierre Jeunet won best director and Bruno Delbonnel was named best cinematographer.

But in light of revelations that Andersen employees were instructed to destroy documents related to their audit of Enron, will the legitimacy of those awards be thrown into doubt? Actually, if more undeserved praise is heaped on Russell Crowe during the Oscars, that’ll be when things will start looking really suspicious.

“There’s no sofa, just three chairs and a poof.”I don’t have a TiVo, but if I did I feel sure the thing would have recorded episodes of “So Graham Norton” on BBC America once it figured out something about my viewing habits. As it is, I had to go to the UK to find his chat show—and at Madame Tussaud’s I got my picture taken with him. Well, not really him, but someone working there told us he was only five minutes ahead of us so I only barely missed my chance.

Turns out the experience could’ve been even more lifelike—not only did Graham win the title of most popular entertainer in a poll conducted by the waxworks, his brand-new figure was supposedly the first one made that actually spoke. We never heard him say a word, though, but maybe that was because there were children in the room. (He’s cheeky.)

B3 d++ t+ k s u+ f i+ o- x e- l- c-

Joey Fatone made it official in an interview on a Tampa radio station—*NSYNC has been dropped from Star Wars II. Says Joey, “I’m going to make it officially known that they dropped it because people made a big deal about it.” Next up is a petition to remove Britney Spears and Beyonce Knowles from Austin Powers 3.

If this site was on Movable Type, I’d have set up some sort of media sideblog where I could note the barrage of promotional appearances scheduled for Jack Black, frontman of folk metal duo Tenacious D and major box office draw. The push is for Orange County which should be a thoroughly asinine film—basically an excuse for JB to run around in his underwear (see this video clip from the Weezer show in Portland, Maine, for a sneak preview). Anyhow, Movable Type 1.4 was just released, and I’ll probably upgrade soon so at least the other users on this account can take advantage of the improved features. If it didn’t involve ripping apart my templates and building them back up, I’d move everything over right now.

After almost a year in office, George W. Bush still hasn’t improved as a speaker, especially when his comments aren’t scripted. In the latest example of his ineloquence, Dubya took it upon himself to abbreviate “Pakistanis” to the shorter (and easier to pronounce) “Pakis.” Unfortunately, his laziness-slash-ignorance resulted in a minor international incident: Paki is an ethnic slur. (See CNN coverage of last summer’s British race riots, set off by use of the term.) For their part, the Pakistani government is willing to give Bush the benefit of the doubt—he is, after all, only the President of the United States. The India-Pakistan situation is extremely delicate, and once again the runner-up proves that we’d be better off if just about anyone else were sitting in the Oval Office.

Cover story: the flat-panel iMac.It’s not an Internet appliance, a tablet PC or a PDA. Apple gave the scoop to Time magazine, and copies of the issue started appearing on newsstands on Sunday night. The article hasn’t appeared on the U.S. website yet (it will surely be up before the keynote), but the Canadian site couldn’t wait. CNET News.com puts it this way: “The new iMac looks like a desk lamp.”

At 9am PT (noon ET), Steve Jobs will give the Macworld San Francisco 2002 keynote address which Apple has hyped beyond any event in recent memory. He’ll officially introduce this new machine, but all the details are listed in that Time article. I’ll probably tune in just because there’s nothing like a Jobs keynote, and there might yet be some surprises up his sleeve. You gotta almost feel bad for the guy—despite all their efforts at protecting their secret in advance of their much-hyped keynote, the cat was out of the bag a full 12 hours before the scheduled announcement.

The Allen Iverson rubber duckie.The Daily News ran a story on Friday about the latest Sixers promotional giveaway: the Allen Iverson duckie, made by the California company Celebriducks. Definitely more unique than bobbleheads or stuffed beanie toys, but also a little bizarre. It comes complete with cornrows, tattoos and a black elbow band—a company spokesman says it’s their most elaborately detailed duck, and the first ever modelled after a modern athlete.

Front-page stories like that are what tabloid dailies are made for. The PDN is no Sun, but it has its moments.

These are, uh, Jedi knights.According to The Sun, the members of *NSYNC will appear as Jedi knights in Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones. When outlandish stories like that appear in tabloids, you can usually blow them off. But Lucasfilm confirms the casting decision. There is good news, though: in the scene, all the boy banders get blown away by battle droids.

George Lucas must be trying to see how many bad decisions he can get away with—first there was Jar Jar Binks, then there was that ridiculous “Attack of the Clones” title. It makes you appreciate the promise of a new movie series like Lord of the Rings (despite the mistakes which have supposedly been found in the first film).