This and That for Monday ...

Before we get started today my friend Ne’s father passed away on Sunday morning. If you take a few minutes out of your day to send some prayers and well wishes to her I’m sure she would greatly appreaciate them. You can vaster her blog
HERE. (Link opens in a new window or tab.)

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So, as many of you know Schmoopalicious has taken over for Matt-Man on his blog a couple of days a week. Matt-Man tried to claim this was because he is “busy” doing some other stuff. Needless to say, I was a bit skeptical about this claim. Then, I saw this headline right here …


Yeah, just as a thought. “Busy” dealing with legal problems tied to his stalking of Tyra Banks.

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A lot of cities and towns across the country canceled or postponed their Cinco de Mayo Celebrations because of the Bacon Flu Swine Flu (and NO, I will NOT use H1N1 Virus in place of “Swine Flu” just because the pork producers threw a hissy fit over the use of the word “swine”). I guess this does make sense. I mean, since the Swine Flu might have originated in Mexico, we probably shouldn’t celebrate a Mexican holiday or anything.

You know, with the exception of Joe Biden going “Joe Biden” on the Today Show the other day, most local, state and fed gov’t actions have been pretty good in this Swine Flu thingy. The media? Not so much. If there is any huge panic going on over the Swine Flu then it’s mostly due to the media literally screaming about the thing non-stop.

And, I think I’m most surprised and impressed with response of the Mexican government. For what is primarily a third world country, they were very open about the outbreak, notified the CDC and sent samples to a lab in Canada pretty quickly. If you remember a few years ago during the big SARS outbreak, while the world was trying to figure out what was going on, China was standing there with their hands in their pockets, staring at the sky and whistling.

I don’t think that there’s any real doubt that someday when the “Big One” really does hit, it’s going to come out of that part of the world. And while it spreads like wildfire, those governments are going to be more concerned with covering it up and pretending it isn’t happening than actually trying to stop it.

Not to be an alarmist about it or anything. ;-)

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I know I’ve mentioned before that I don’t follow many celebrities on Twitter, but I do follow some of the bigger media celebrities. Like Jake Tapper, Joe Scarborough and a few others. I’m really amazed at what thin-skinned crybabies they are too. Seriously people, quit being such whiny-butts. If you can dish it out, you need to be able to take it.

Except for CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller! Mark rocks! You know why? Cause Mark responded to me on Twitter ….

Here was my Tweet..


And his reply..


How cool is that? He was Tweeting that the Barack and Michelle Obama were had gone out to dinner at a restaurant in Georgetown and that the press pool was across the street. So I was asking him why they followed them to dinner and basically do the people have a right to know that they went to dinner and what they ate and shit.

So he explained that they have to go in case something happens. Which I guess is true, but still. Anyway a couple of them were kinda whining about having to be out there on Friday night and I thought that was silly. You work all your career to reach this point, one of the coolest, most prestigious, best paying and cushiest gigs in journalism and then bitch about the hours? A tad unseemly, if you ask me.

But Mark wasn’t one of the crybabies though.

And then he let us know that the Obama’s were perusing the dessert menu, so I tweeted this …


And he responded again …


So clearly Mark Knoller is officially the coolest media/journalist type on Twitter not named Ana Marie Cox …


Yeah, she kinda rocks. But, she’s never replied to me on Twitter. And if she ever happens upon this blog and reads it for like three minutes she probably never will. I’m just sayin’. But that’s okay. I mean, not really, but you know.


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And then my Saturday ended with me getting this hand written message from someone over Ustream ….


Can you believe that?? I mean, seriously guys, do you think I would EVER do something to deserve that?

Yeah. You’re right. I probably did deserve it. ;-)

(Actually she was only joking around.)