I'll Be Holmes For Christmas

Welcome, friends, to the post-Christmas-letdown edition of Thinking Hard. That feeling of indifference and "blah" going through your system right now? It's your body reminding you that Christmas is done and over with for another 364 days...or you just miss Brittany Murphy's acting THAT MUCH. I'll never tell.

Yes, sad news from the entertainment world: actress Brittany Murphy died this week of a heroi...er, *ahem*, a HEART problem. Murphy was perhaps best known for her work as a young, impressionable girl with crazy eyes in "Clueless"...or as a mental case with crazy eyes in "Don't Say A Word"...or as a woman with crazy eyes in REAL LIFE. No exact cause of death has been released yet, leaving many to speculate if and how many drugs were involved. But one thing's for sure...THIS is the celebrity actress death that should've been overshadowed by Michael Jackson.

While we're on the subject of crazy women, I hear the Pope hates them:



Yes, a mentally ill woman jumped a barricade at Christmas Eve mass at the Vatican and ATTACKED THE POPE (thereby ensuring her name will be on next year's "Naughty" list)! The Pope's okay...I mean, she didn't BITE him and turn him into a Zombie Pope (a new series that should come out from Marvel Comics) or anything...but, apparently, she tried the same thing LAST year and was stopped by security in time. Look, two things: 1. Security stopped her LAST year but not THIS year? What, are they upset about cutbacks in the Vatican? Have they been told to stop taking the corporate jet??? 2. If you are this woman's family, if she keeps saying "I'm just going for a short walk" around MIDNIGHT on CHRISTMAS EVE, maybe you want to consider...I don't know...STOPPING HER??? How about tying her to a chair or something...I'm sure you have a crapload of GARLAND you can use!

While we're on the subject of people who are nuts and the security people who ignore them, how about the asshole who's keeping me from getting my Ipod out of my carry-on bag while on an airplane? I'm talking about the sonuvabitch who tried to light a bomb on a plane over Detroit Christmas day. He ended up botching it and instead of an explosion, he started a fire. Passengers held him until the plane landed. Seriously? DETROIT??? Did al-Qaeda not hear how FUCKED Detroit is? He'd have been better off blowing up a plane over OMAHA! Also, because of this fuck-up, the FAA will no longer let any passengers access their carry-on bags mid-flight. So if I take a book on the plane to read and I change my mind and decide to play my Nintendo DS, I can't. Worst part? This guy's dad apparently expressed concern that his son was getting into trouble with al-Qaeda a MONTH before the attack! Sure, the IRS can spend the time and manpower trying to figure out if I pay my taxes, but government agents can't look into this dumb shit??? They're apparently too busy enforcing that new health care bill...oh, wait, IT'S NOT PASSED YET!

You think I'M upset??? Check out what MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan did to democratic congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida during a live interview a week ago:



Y'know, a show where a newsman interviews himself for two hours...I think I could produce that. I have some experience...

Hey, I went Christmas Day to see the new "Sherlock Holmes" film with Robert Downey, Junior, and Jude Law. A charming film, but I would've enjoyed it better if I wasn't in a packed theater. Seeing it in a packed theater on Christmas Day gave me a little santa-claustrophobia.

Adding a couple new "Friends of the Show"...Fail Blog and Cake Wrecks Blog. Both are fun, and they occasionally offer great spelling errors seen in the wild. Enjoy!

While we're on the subject, Central Connecticut State University (School mascot: the Wherethefuckisthat) recently released its survey of most literate cities in the U.S. Seattle ranked at the top of the list of 75 cities. Charlotte, North Carolina, ranked 27th, just three spots ahead of Chicago...and 12 spots behind Lexington, Kentucky (really??). Let's see the last city...I'm sure it's somewhere in South Carolina...ah, better...El Paso, Texas. It's unfortunate that those texans can't learn what "cerveza" means...maybe they should go back to school.

And speaking of EPIC FAILS, Hewlett-Packard apparently has NO black people testing their products. HP recently came out with a new webcam that will track the user's face. Pretty cool...until customers started realizing the camera DOES NOT RECOGNIZE BLACK FACES!



In other news, HP will change its name to Hitler-Packard. "Hitler-Packard: working to erase everyone who's different than us." (I like how the guy in the video uses the term "blackness" like "computer virus.")

Actually, HP isn't NEARLY as bad as Kentucky Fried Chicken, which released THIS commercial in the UK, showing white fans how to deal with an awkward situation at cricket games (cricket's a sport, unlike NASCAR...I'm looking at YOU, Associated Press members who chose Jimmie Johnson as Athlete of the Year). Check out this ad and see if YOU can tell what's wrong with it:



The correct answer is: "Pepsi MAX??? Who drinks Pepsi MAX???"
-B-