Link 182

• Ah, my sweet alma mater. Not only has Penn dropped to #7, but now it's cultivating a staff full of dirty old man professors hell bent on sexual assault and enhancing their already prodigious child pornography collections. Go Quakers!



• The CBS Publicity Photoshoppers have mad skillz! I'd like them to rework all of my pictures since the age of five or so.



• Paula Abdul, wasted yet again on national tv. Of course, I'm actually more concerned that she's building up her shoulder muscles like a mid-80s action star. Her neck is becoming a tree trunk!

Eureka!

I've been very terrible at keeping this blog fresh, and that's been mostly due to the insanity of my work situation. I'm keeping my head down and making progress, so that's a least clearing up. Now is the time on Abbondanza! when we make a confession. It's kind of a big deal, and I hope my noble readers won't think any less of me.

So, you know that Sudoku craze? The one that I decried because I proclaimed it to be a crossword puzzle for illiterates? The thing that I said was a witless number quiz for people who can only count to 9? See, I still sort of believe that. But the truth goes a little deeper. Despite my advanced calculus and statistics training, I have always stunk at logic, the underlying principles governing the successful completion of Sudoku puzzles. Part of my bluster was actually an attempt to conceal my inability to solve them.

Today, however, I have had a breakthrough. I just solved one with no help whatsoever. I don't know what it is, but the layout of the Inquirer's online Sudoku cleared up the concepts for me, and now I am cruising through them.

I have to apologize partially to anyone whose Sudoku enthusiasm I may have quelched with my acidic rage. It was only the shame talking. Now, if only I could see the hidden images in those posters at the mall...

Alas, Poor Pluto! I Knew Him, Horatio (Caine)

This just in - Pluto has been demoted! It's no longer a planet! And for some reason, it makes me sad. I watched a special on one of those science channels on digicable not two weeks ago which discussed this possibility. At the time I laughed so heartily at the Pluto supporters and thought they were wasting their time. After all, shouldn't they get militant about something more pressing like global warming?

But now, a sense of loss has poured over me, as I think of how this destroys my favorite mneumonic device. Sing it with me if you know the words: "My Very Educated Mother, Just Served Us Nine Pizza-Pies." I finally get why those wacky scientists were upset. Now the tune is much sadder. My Very Educated Mother, Just Served Us NOTHING! How depressing is that?

Title Note: Of course I would report this to David Caruso's magnificent CSI: Miami crime scene investigator. Only a sensitive fake cop like Horatio Caine could understand my anguish at a time like this, and appropriately rip off his shades and put his hands on his hips in his signature "sympathetically outraged" response.

Every Great Action Movie Franchise Should Have a Song

UPDATE: Damn you 20th Century Fox! Damn you! The video was like free advertising! Ack.

A friend who knows how much I love both Bruce Willis and the Die Hard trilogy (soon to be a quadrilogy!) sent me this clip.



And here I thought the theme song from Ghostbusters 2, "On Our Own" by Bobby Brown, was the only song to so tidily sum up a movie's premise. This "Die Hard" anthem covers a whole trilogy, all while kicking some major ass!