That thing can be so damn annoying!

BEEP!!!
BEEP!!!
BEEP!!!
BEEP!!!

I slowly rolled the hell over and glared at it with resentment.

DAMMIT!

It seemed so real.
So vivid.
Like it was actually happening.

I was at the gym.
Lying on an exercise mat. Probably about to stretch.
When all of a sudden a blond Caucasian lady walks up and proceeds to straddle me.
She wore a tight, tied up baby-tee with booty shorts. She looked like a redneck Daisy Duke.

Oddly enough, I didn’t try to push her off.
Even though I was skeptical of the whole thing.
Instead, my hands found their way to her mammoth breasts, caressing them gently.
I looked up at her. She was gazing into my eyes while gyrating on my crotch.
I just laid back and enjoyed my impromptu lap dance—
—in the middle of the gym with everyone watching.
I was in a state of ecstasy. Euphoria.

That’s when it happened.

I was slowly awakened from my dream by a fierce rumbling in my boxer briefs. In dreamland I was lying on my back, but when I regained consciousness I was on my stomach—grinding away at my mattress. By the time I realized what was going down, it was too late. It was the point of no return.

The levy broke. The damn burst. The volcano erupted.

Ten seconds later it was over.
Half-conscious and in a post-euphoric trance, I gently drifted right off to sleep again.

I can’t remember what the next dream was about.

I don’t understand.

This isn’t the first time it’s happened to me.
I’ve had wet dreams while sleeping alone. Even while alongside a woman.

Really?

Guess it’s a good thing I didn’t make it to the gym.

Well, Kiran, you do have those lovely legs!

The L.A. Times is reporting that Jessica Simpson is the new face (and 15% owner) of Dallas Stampede Light Beer, a "vitamin enhanced" brew out of Texas. Hopefully, it's enhanced with enough alcohol to put me out of my misery. As the modern day Daisy Duke makes her transition from Pop Tart to Country Cutie, it's a perfect time for her knew fans to become a part of her financial empire and I see some other endorsement deals in the future.

How about Jessica Simpson/Tony Romo "NFL Lingerie" for him and her? They could market the naughty-nities as "Jomo's" with little NFL logo's strategically placed for enhanced enjoyment under the sheets. Oh, but be careful because to much "roughing the passer" could result in a penalty "in the backfield."

Excuse me, while I go vomit.

K~

Two Faced Disclaimer: As much distain as I have for her financial empire, my wife owns the Boars Head t-shirt that Jessica is wearing in the picture above and I own a green jeep, similar to the one she is standing in front of...this is crap.

From the Thursday night when we gleefully arrived, until Tuesday afternoon when we sadly departed, we had nothing but an absolute blast with the most wonderful group of people you could ever wish to spend time with. Hockey was a central theme to the trip, with the Penguins winning both games while we were there, and it was the most fun I've had watching hockey with a group of friends; beers, food, fight songs, super-heroes, free shots and champagne from one of the best. bars. ever. and much photographic evidence of the great times. Outside of the hockey, lots of dining, drinking, brunching, movie-watching, apartment hunting, and dog walking. Oh, and a fair amount of sleeping on the part of HASWOE and A'Hottie.

Something else we seemed to do a ridiculous amount of, other than drink, was laugh - what a hilarious group of people, and none of whom are afraid to laugh at themselves:

Enabler not only has hilarious stories at every turn of the conversation, but is also a huge hockey fan, and a knowledgeable one at that. Obviously we will hate each other for a couple of weeks soon, when (all going well) the Red Wings will take on the Penguins in the Stanley Cup Final, but there is also such a level of maturity and intelligence with him, that when the Penguins win, he will appreciate the performance and offer congratulations. Or something like that . . .

Namby takes more shit from me than anyone, well maybe A'Hottie is up there too, but he is just the epitome of a good sport. Another example of making you belly-laugh at everything he says (or wears), we just adore everything about him. Not afraid to drop his pants in the middle of a bar for no reason at all, and always prepared to jinx your hockey team with such skill, you almost have to admire him for it.

I finally got to meet Grace for the first time, and what a first time it was. I will admit that I wasn't really sure what Grace thought of this Eddie person who posts a few comments on her blog and on the blogs she reads, and I actually thought that she wasn't a big Eddie fan. From the first second that I met her, the hug and the kiss, and then taking me by the hand to go and hunt for a bigger table, I was put at ease; now that might have been the alcohol acting, but I'd like to think otherwise. My only sadness about meeting Grace was that it was limited to the one evening, and it was an evening without HASWOE - I'm certainly looking forward to spending more time with her once we get out there on a more permanent basis. Oh, and best stalker story ever!

I didn't get to spend much time with Artful, but he did manage to punish me with an IMAX screening of "Speed Racer" - I knew it would be a tough movie for me, not really having any knowledge of the original animated series, and it certainly didn't help that we managed to get tickets in the middle of a row of 60 of the most annoying school children on the planet, but at the end of the day, it was a poorly executed movie, and just a little painful. Despite that though, it's always great to hang out with Artful, so the sacrifice was worth it.

And onto two of my favourite people in the world:

Despite Daisy having a weekend of bad news, it didn't stop her coming out and just having fun every night we were there, and always with a smile on her face - there are so many amazing things that I could say about her, and many of them I have already said in previous posts, but none of them even come close to describing who Daisy really is. For those of you lucky enough to know her, or are even luckier that you get to hang out with her on a regular basis, you know what I'm talking about. All I can say is that I'm looking forward to being one of those very lucky people. You are one of the most adorable and genuine people I know, Daisy, and I utterly love you for that, and you are a huge reason that made leaving on Tuesday an incredibly difficult thing for me.

And of course, A'Hottie, our wonderful host who allowed us to take over her apartment, taxi us around the city, and generally just be the awesome person that she is. It's no secret that I hold AH as one of my most admired friends; her honesty, her passion for everything she believes in, and the fact that she has always just 'been there' for me. But more than this - she's hilarious, she's prepared to be the target of anyone poking fun at her, and is just one of the greatest people to hang out with, day or night. And what an adorable puppy her Murphy is too - so sweet, so well behaved, just a perfect example of everything a puppy should be, and testament to what a great puppy-mom AH is. You know how much I miss you, AH, and you know what a great friend you are to me, so I needn't say any more than that. Other than to thank you again for allowing us to destroy your apartment for 5 days!

There were other great people we met too, some of who read this blog but don't post comments, so they don't have a blog-name, so I'm not going to say how cool they are. So there.

But you can see that we adore this wonderful group of people, a group who has been nothing but amazingly sweet to us since the first day we met them. And they all live in the wonderful city that is Chicago. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that they all play a huge part in why HASWOE and I are looking to move to Chicago in the near future. While we were there this weekend, HASWOE had two interviews, both of which went incredibly well, due to her awesomeness, so right now it's just a case of "watch this space". But things could start moving very quickly.

Well, that's enough blowing sunshine up asses for one post, time for a glass of wine before I start the waterworks again over how much I miss this bunch of goobers.

Mi ero ripromessa di starmene a casa a poltrire a letto guardando vecchi telefilm da celebrolesa tardo-adolescente, visto che mi son svegliata maluccio stamattina.

Dopo meno di mezzora mi son infilata nella doccia e ho deciso di andare a bere il caffè a Vellai dalla Barbara, così giusto per fare quattro chiacchiere in relax sapendo che l'orario stavolta sarebbe stato dalla nostra parte.
Mi ha raggiunta Lela quasi a sorpresa e siamo andate poi a fare un po' di tech-shopping che tra l'altro non vedo l'ora di installarle ;)

Finiamo al Casot a bere uno spritz. E mentre Lela va a docciarsi e sistemarsi, io rimango con i ragazzi ad aperitivare.

C'è una festa al Bar Smile e ci catapultiamo tutti in centro riempiendo il locale. Lianca si impossessa subito del microfono e la festa comincia. Canti e balli sfrenati infervorati da birra, spritz e cocktails.

Si prosegue per un toast al Casot più tardi per asciugare il lungo, forse troppo,  pomeriggio di aperitivi.

Al Bar Rondò suonavano gli Icaro Dopo Zero e non potevamo certo mancare! Un bel momento di musica preceduto da una follia della nuova Daisy Duke. Qualcuna ha conquistato l'adesivo 01 dell'auto di Hazzard ma meglio non divulgare i dettagli, i passeggeri sono ancora traumatizzati :D

Qualche messaggio mentre guido verso la Birreria mi diverte e mi stuzzica un po'. I Freeway Live sul palco a farci fare un tuffo nel passato.

Un giretto in macchina e allo scoccare delle 2.00 abbandoniamo il campo in via definitiva dopo una sigaretta e quattro chiacchiere.

Si conclude così la maratona di dodici ore di aperitivi. Così e con dei messaggi piuttosto confusi. Meglio che mi metta a dormire e spenga questo maledetto telefono.

Daisy is an incredibly caring, thoughtful, funny and wonderful friend to have - no, really, I'm not just sucking up here, she is all of those things - she loves her own life, and she loves the lives of her friends, and you really can't ask more than that from someone. OK, so enough of the niceties, let's start looking at the juicy, nitty-gritty stuff.

Most of you have read about BISMOW (Boy I Sometimes Make Out With - no, not the boy "I" sometimes make out with, more like BSSMOW if we're talking semantics). Well, of course, there is a little more than 'Sometimes' as detailed in the name, but the name is quite cool so it sticks. But, and I know I'm sticking with the niceties that I said I was going to get rid of, they do make an adorable couple. And you have to wonder exactly how . . . (you see, the niceties have ended!)

I'm not revealing too much by saying that Daisy has a propensity for being, how should I say, 'a clumsy klutz' - I can honestly say that I've not heard about someone injuring themselves so much, with so little 'injury-equipment' to work with. This girl could injure herself on a marshmallow. Whether it's cuts, bumps, bruises, falls, or sunburns, Daisy is an injury pro. But BSSMOW still hangs in there.

While we were in Chicago, Daisy told us a story of her life back home, when she used to go out and run errands to CVS every day. Yes, not content with the fact that she went the previous day, there would be more errands to run the next day. Was there no advance planning going on? Did she really have to wait until the toothpaste tube was completely empty before buying more? Shampoo and conditioner on separate days? Crazy stuff - but does this phase BSSMOW? Nope, he's still there.

Now I thought I was being a little mean when I was laughing at the story above as she was telling it, maybe taking it to an extreme that wasn't really there. My sympathy ended when she gave me a little 'gift' at dinner on the Sunday night. The 'gift' was her shopping list - oh how funny she thought she was giving me some trash from her purse. But, oh what a shopping list it was. What was on it? Well, I could tell you. Or, of course, I could show you. Let's take a look:

OK, first things first - the paper it's on - cute, of course. But let's take a look at the list. For starters, it's short - like the sort of list that might be written . . . say . . . every day? For daily errands? Mmmhmm, all starting to make sense now. But let's delve a little deeper:

Salad - OK, nothing wrong with a bit of salad. Well, other than it's bad for you - evil salad and its lack of meat. But I digress.

Blue Cheese - Really, Daisy? You give me this gift, like a perfect pitch for me to hit out of the ball park? OK, for those of you who don't know Daisy, she has actually managed to injure herself on a blue cheese container. Twice. But that's one of the great things about her, it doesn't stop her from getting more (um, but why such a big space between 'blue' and 'cheese'?). And BSSMOW stands by her and supports the blue cheese fixation.

Granola bars - Again, I can see this - Daisy needs to have such snacks as she puts in her many hours at Big Prestigious Law Firm as well as putting in the hours of class and studying. So granola bars are good.

Triscuits - Yep. Triscuits are good too. But what to put on the triscuits? Well, we already have the blue cheese, so how about . . .

Cheese - Yeah. Um. Huh? Okkk - so, we have blue cheese already, and now we also need 'cheese'. Just cheese. Well, I know that she loves her Velveeta, so maybe that's what it was. Triscuits and Velveeta - dinner of champions. NASCAR champions, maybe, but still champions. But still, what's really for dinner tonight? Oh . . .

Onion - Like. An onion? One solitary, non-descript onion? OK, I'm sure that dinner will become more obvious, when we add . . .

Potato - Again, we're going for a lonely potato? Hmmm, it's going to be slim pickings for din-dins, unless of course we're also buying . . .

. . . - Oh, that's it? Um. What is it we're making with the potato, onion, and Velveeta, 'cause it really does not sound like fun. I mean, it's not like you ran out of room on your list - you had half a page left, and that was with double-spacing. Can you tell she's at law school? Yeah. But despite this crappy meal, BSSMOW is still there.

(oh, and there is also something about the very neat writing for a shopping 'list' - very calming . . . )

I really could keep going on about all things Daisy-revealing, but I guess I should save stuff for the future. Suffice to say though, and leaving the trend of picking on her again, getting to finally meet Daisy and BSSMOW, not only met my expectations, but far exceeded them. I can see why she is such a great friend of A'Hottie and others in Chicago, and I'm looking forward to becoming a much closer friend when we finally make our way out there. Yes, as hinted at before - Chicago, A'Hottie, Daisy, et al, really managed to tug at the right heart strings of Eddie and HASWOE, and we are investigating a possible move before the year's end. And yes, that does mean after going through all things 'Bar' related last summer with HASWOE, I get to go through it again not only with Daisy and A'Hottie this summer, but I'll get to do it yet again with HASWOE later in the year.

So, that is Daisy for now, but I have to add one more thing. With everything detailed above, Daisy, BYSMOW is way more than 'Sometimes' . . . and let's face it, way more than "MOW". But BYSMOW does just sound incredibly cool.

Oh, and as an update to our visit: Before the trip, Daisy was a good friend. Immediately after the trip, it reached the heights of 'adoration' (especially after the drunken phonecall to HASWOE and me - should I blog about that? Maaaaybee!). But after recommending Houston's 'not-on-the-menu' Flying Chicken last night, it has reached the stage of 'love'. I'm not exaggerating here, folks, that meal deserved such a lofty status promotion.

For now, here ends all things Chicago-trip, but there may be more soon, as we have already booked our next trip, and if Daisy offers more enticing gifts such as her shopping list, then the world is my blog-oyster. Or 'bloyster'.

So, I had never met Daisy before our trip to Chicago, and that was quite odd as I already considered her to be a good friend. We chat every day about everything and nothing, eagerly await each other's blog posts, and I pretty much felt part of her daily life. I chatted to BSSMOW quite a bit, and even feel as though I know Mama and Papa Duke pretty well.  But all this without having met.  Now, we knew what each other looked like due the fantastic stalking abilities offered to us by Facebook, but still there was a little trepidation - what if we just don't get on 'in real life'?  Well, one way to deal with trepidation is to run into it at high speed. And so, in true Eddie-style, I decided that we should surprise her with our visit.

And so the weeks of planning began - A'Hottie was the mastermind of the plan in Chicago, and started her scheming. It seemed like a fairly simple plan; organize drinks for Friday night - just a small group, then in wander Eddie and HASWOE - surrrprissse!!!  Yeah, right.  Well it seemed that Daisy wanted to make sure this planning was going to be a little more taxing for AH and myself.  Almost as soon as AH started getting word to others about the evening and plans, I was chatting with Daisy, and it went something like this:

Daisy: When are you coming out to see usss?
Eddie: Soooon - I need to sort things out with work, and HASWOE's schedule, and then we'll get something booked.
Daisy: You're going to surprise me aren't you?
Eddie: (shocked, panic) No. Although that would be cool. If I tried to surprise you though, you might be out of town and we'd miss each other
Daisy: I would kill you if you came into town and I wasn't here.
Eddie: Precisely. No surprises = No dead Eddie

So this had passed, but I was still a little concerned that she'd figured something out.  The week before the trip, I decided to create a diversion. I asked Daisy for her advice about a surprise I was planning for HASWOE that coming weekend. I was going to take her to Pittsburgh, have a wonderful meal on the Saturday night, stay in a fancy hotel, and take her to a Penguins game on the Sunday afternoon.  Daisy's response was that I should also throw in some sort of spa/massage too. She's so sweet.

Friday morning, day of travel, and I send Daisy a link to the hotel I had booked in Pittsburgh. She approved.  Then the problems began. I get a text from A'Hottie explaining that Daisy is saying she can't come out. A few stern IMs and texts from A'Hottie later, and it seems as though we're back on track.  Now, earlier I mentioned that Daisy and I chat a lot - I'm usually always online, as is she, and there is frequent chatting.  I am also 'online' on my Blackberry . . .  So, we've just boarded the plane, and suddenly a buzz from my phone. It's Daisy on IM, and she really needs to talk to me - we are literally seconds away from the doors closing and all phones being switched off.  I rapidly came up with an excuse, apologized profusely that I needed to sign off as I was hosting a webex, but I'd shoot her a message as soon as it was over.  Crisis averted?  Not quite.

After landing at Midway, my phone would not connect to the Edge network, so I couldn't get back onto I'm.  Finally, while in the taxi, I managed to get I'm, but no Daisy.  I sent a text to apologize that I was busy for so long, bur for her to get hold of me anytime. A few minutes later the phone rang. I decided to answer and take the gamble that the taxi driver wouldn't say anything Chicago-related.  We chatted for a while, then:

Daisy: sounds like you're driving somewhere
Eddie: Yeah, just heading to the pet-shop to get some treats for the puppies, since we'll be away all weekend.
Daisy: Awww, how sweet.  Well, I should go and get ready for dinner and drinks with A'Hottie, BISMOW and Namby.
Eddie: Sounds like fun, I'm jealous
Daisy: Well, we'll send you lots of drunken texts throughout the night.
Eddie: Awww, you're the best.

Smug look appears across the face of Eddie - I relay the conversation to HASWOE. She laughs.

Cut to us in a cab with A'Hottie heading to the bar. We are running late (shocker) and when we arrive, Daisy, BSSMOW and Namby are already there.  We all walk into the bar, and Daisy has a look of "Who the heck has A'Hottie brought along with her?". I just stand in front of her and smile, and after a "Look who I found wandering the streets" from A'Hottie, the penny finally drops, and the squeals of excitement begin.

This then made way for a fun night of drinking and eating, with more people showing up through the night, a little drama here and there, but any fears of us not getting on 'in real life' vanished immediately.

Oh, and an hour into the evening:

Daisy: So you're NOT going to Pittsburgh!
Eddie: No, Daisy, we're not.

Next up: "Daisy Duke, Part 2: Daisy Revealed"

I guess your wondering what this has to do with security? Well me and you both!

If you work in information security and you have been living under a rock somewhere for the last month or so then you probably will not be aware of the 'hottest' attack against disk encryption - cold boot attack against encryption keys. Basically in a nutshell researchers have figured out how to preserve and dump computer memory that contains encryption keys then use these recovered keys to unlock your encrypted system/ files/ folders.

Is I understand it a Daisy Duke is a 'short' script (get it) that is run against the cold boot file dump and targets 'other' useful information, items such as logon passwords, signatures, documents - anything you wish to recover really and then dumps this information out into a usable format.

I really can see the power of this type of attack and the real benefits - but I have to ask how practical and useful is it?

Well the answer depends on whether you are a pen tester or not; if you are then this is a great way of tormenting customers and breaking everything that they own and then charging the earth - if you are not then you will in all likelihood be in a very small minority that will have physical access, means and motive to actually target some one/ some company to perform this type of attack.

For me the reality of this is simple, if you take care of business with physical security, implement simple things like BIOS protections & power on memory testing then life is good, go home, kiss the wife, play with the kids and sleep easy dreaming of daisy duke.

If you don’t then, well you get everything you deserve...

Check out the register article HERE

And of course a picture of Daisy herself HERE

4,994 - random person from Hvelhof, Germany

4,995 - San Francisco, CA

4,996 - South Korean, searching for "snails in a jar" and getting Wallace And Gromit In The Jam Jar - the story of Crossers throwing up in our car - odd.

4,997 - random person from Aliso Viejo, CA, searching for "Wallace y Gromit" and also getting the story of Crossers throwing up in our car.

4.998 - Miyoshi, Japan, randomly finding Eddie-Watch

4,999 - A fellow Brit from Harrogate, England searching for the "best toothpaste" and finding Best. Toothpaste. Ever.* (I hope it was of some use, Harrogate. Do you have Crest Pro-Health Night there?)

And so, the big one, the 5,000??? . . .

5,000 - Our very own Daisy Duke, letting me know that she's never owned a DVR.

So I guess I need to think of a prize for her now . . . Suggestions from anyone???

I really ended up only spending 2 days and two nights here, so my "things to do" list provided by Daisy didn't really come to fruition. Let's see - Tuesday night, dinner at Houston's; tonight, dinner at Red Lobster and an early night as I have to be up at 4am to get to the airport. It was kind of more like a Daisy/A'Hottie restaurant tour, than a cultural exploration of Memphis. Well, I think I'll be back early April, so I'll look into staying downtown and forcing myself to do more of the touristy things.

And no, I didn't even get to see Elvis. What a rip-off.

Ever feel the burning desire to be snuggled by a paunchy and hobo-bearded 40-year-old dressed in a too-tight yellow polo and Daisy Dukes? Well here's the chance you've been waiting for.

OK, so what the crap is meme? Well, according to A'Hottie and Grace, the rules are as follows:

Post about the meme and link back to the person who tagged you and go back to your archives and link to your five favorite posts. Link One: must be about family . . . Link Two: must be about friends . . . Link Three: must be about yourself . . . Link Four: must be about something you love . . . Link Five: can be anything you choose. So here goes:

1. I don't post much about family, and the only family that I have mentioned are HASOWE and IGSOH. My favorite post would be one which had very little attention in the 'comments' world, but it was such an adorable moment, and one that I will never forget. I would also have to throw in my 'proud' posts about HASWOE and IGSOH because they are both so awesome.

2. Friends are incredibly important to me, and something that I've struggled with immensely due to the fact that we seem to have moved cities on a yearly basis. I've made great friends in cities, then we've left, and the friendship seems to become difficult. I met Anonymous Hottie in DC last summer, and I knew very quickly I'd met a very special friend. She left DC, as did I, but for different cities; thankfully this did not mean the end of a friendship, in fact, it was just the start. AH has become an incredibly important friend to me, maybe more than even she realizes. Despite living in a different city, she's there every day for me, she doesn't put up with my crap, she doesn't expect me to put up with hers, she makes me laugh, and she adores HASWOE . . . what more can I ask for in a friend? But enough of the sunshine-blowing - to point to a post that shows one side of our friendship, I kind of have to steal from her blog, and also from her meme, but I did post a brief link to it at the time.

3. Me? I guess I've posted a few times about things that I've done, but are they about me? Hmmm, well it's quite obvious that I have an odd imagination, so that's one side of me, I'm a big movie buff, and apparently this is what I look like, so I guess that will do for now.

4. Something I love - well, I've already covered my family and friends, so I should definitely point to the other member of the family, a 'hobby' of mine, and we can't forget the genius.

5. Anything I choose? OK, then I think I'll link to this - it's a great reminder that people should be watching the show, gives a shout out to Daisy who is awesome, and also demonstrates how my posts are very often hijacked in the comments section.

So there we go. Now I will repeat Grace's tag on Daisy and throw a new shout-out tags to The Enabler and Blonde Counsel.

Now, I'm not saying with any authority that they are making a new show or movie or commercial or something, but, it's pretty obvious that's what they're doing.  My friends and I drove into one of the spots where they were doing some filming, and after being told it was a closed set, we asked if they needed extras.  After a few hopeful moments where we were led to believe they were going to use us, they came back with a "No, we have all the extras we need, we needed them an hour ago".  Oh well!But, remember, you heard it here first, at FlickRabbit.com!  We have some video footage that we'll upload later, for now, we'll be persistent and try again tomorrow to get on the set.  Keep an eye out, boys and girls.

And I have to be up tomorow morning at 6am to go to the tradeshow.  And tomorrow is a Sunday - I don't do 6am on Sundays.  I guess it could be argued that it's actually 7am as we put the clocks back tonight.  It's still early though, so I'll be even grumpier tomorrow.  And the Penguins blew another 2-0 lead to lose 3-2 tonight. That does not help with my gumpy mood.  And A'Hottie and Daisy are going to Beer Olympics tonight, which sounds awesome, and I'm stuck in my hotel room, which is not awesome.  It just doesn't seem fair. 

Bah . . .

In the build-up to the new Fall season, there was a fair amount of hype that Pushing Daisies would be 'the' show of the season, but sadly, whoever makes the trailers for the show is an idiot. If not for my obsessive disorder of TiVo'ing almost every new show "to check it out", there's a good chance that I'd be one of the millions of people sitting around in complete ignorance of the daisies being pushed.

We're 4 episodes into the season now, and it hasn't lost its edge; every episode plays like a movie, a mix of Tim Burton's "Edward Scissorhands" and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "Amelie". The vibrant colours, the perfectly precise narration, the humour, the romance, and the 'quirkiness' of the entire premise, all add up to a perfect example of "Must See TV".

For me, and anyone else from the UK, seeing Anna Friel in something so outstanding comes as a shock, and the joy of discovering that Jim Dale is the narrator stays with me in every episode. For those who don't know Jim Dale, he used to be in the "Carry On..." movies in the UK, but more importantly starred in "Digby, The Biggest Dog In The World", which was self-proclaimed as being "The Biggest Howl Ever Unleashed!". If you haven't seen that movie, don't. It does, however, bring back wonderful memories of more innocent years. Oh, and he also narrates the audiobook version of a book series called "Harry Potter", whatever that is.

Anyway, if you've not experienced Pushing Daisies yet, you can still catch up online at abc.com, and then settle down every Wednesday night for another joyous treat of an episode (and if you have HD - wow!).

Just as Daisy's "Legally Blonde Ambition" is essential reading, Bryan Fuller's "Pushing Daisies" is essential viewing. Go watch.

La General Lee e' una Dodge Charger R/T del 1969, cosi' soprannominata dai cugini Bo e Luke in onore del generale confederato Robert E. Lee. Questa coupe' a due porte, prodotta dalla Dodge di Detroit, e' ancora oggi una delle autovetture piu' famose e riconoscibili al mondo, grazie al "ruolo" ricoperto nel telefilm "The Dukes of Hazzard". La serie ebbe un notevole successo di pubblico, andando ininterrottamente in onda dal 1979 al 1985. Nonostante siano passati piu' di vent'anni dall'ultima puntata, il mito sembra resistere e ancora oggi molte nazioni continuano a trasmetterne le repliche, Italia compresa.

Piccole curiosita':

- Durante la lavorazione ne furono impiegate ben 309! Oggi ne sopravvivono solo 23.
- Il nome scelto in origine era Traveller, ovvero il cavallo del Generale Lee.

La vettura in oggetto si contraddistingue per le seguenti caratteristiche:

- Colore arancione acceso
- Tetto decorato con bandiera confederata e scritte GENERAL LEE
- Una coppia di stickers "01" oversize applicati alle portiere
- Clacson che riproduce le prime 12 note dell'inno confederato "Dixie"

Personalmente la giudico una delle piu' belle auto mai costruite, piena di grinta e personalita'. La Charger e' possibile reperirla anche in Italia sul mercato dell'usato, purtroppo le quotazioni sono spesso proibitive, anche per un esemplare appena in discrete condizioni.

La Charger e' apparsa anche in un celebre film: "Bullit", interpretato da Steve McQueen (uno che di motori se ne intendeva) nei panni del Tenente Frank Bullit del SFPD. Nel lungometraggio, Mr. McQueen, al volante di una splendida Ford Mustang Fastback del '67, viene braccato da un sicario a bordo, indovinate un po', di una cattivissima Dodge Charger R/T del '68, nera come la pece e... yes, soo sexy! Memorabile il lungo e serrato inseguimento per le tortuose vie di San Francisco, entrato di diritto nella storia del cinema. Il vecchio Steve naturalmente era senza controfigura :-) ... altri tempi.

Altre pellicole in cui e' comparsa la Charger sono : "Blade" (primo e secondo capitolo - modello del '68), "The Fast and Furious" (modello del '70 - nota: questi filmetti sui motori sono non solo tamarri, ma pure irritanti!), "Payback", EdTV (modello del '66) e "The Dukes of Hazzard" (Modello del '69)

The General Lee
Johnny Cash

I'm a charger that charges through the night,
Like an orange bolt of lightning passing everything in sight.
I'm the best pal that you boys ever had,
I'm thunder on the highway lookin' bad, bad, bad.

I'm a knight, like the kind in shining armor,
With my polished body gleaming, I'm a fighter and a charmer.
If trouble comes your way just ask for me,
My Friends all know me as the General Lee.

I'm the Gerneral Lee,
A pistol pumpin', steel belted cavalry.
I'll never let you down when you're riding with me;
Buckle up and I'll show you what I mean.
Take a look back there:
Sirens blownin', red lights flashin' everywhere;
We'll cross the fields and we'll be running free,
They'll eat dust compliments of me:

The General Lee

I'm a hero, and that's how I'll make you feel
When you're riding shotgun with me and the law is at your heels.
I'm glory bound, but when the chase is done,
I'll take off through the mountains and have fun, fun, fun.

I've got style, tearing through the curves;
Let my flag wave proudly to the people that I serve.
I'm number one, and I will always be
The pride of the South they call the General Lee.

I'm the Gerneral Lee,
A pistol pumpin', steel belted cavalry.
I'll never let you down when you're riding with me;
Buckle up and I'll show you what I mean.
Take a look back there:
Sirens blownin', red lights flashin' everywhere;
I'll jump that pond and we'll be running free,
And they'll go swimmin', compliments of me:

The General Lee
The General Lee

General Lee

clicca per ingrandire (1280x1284)

I am not going to list the group's name here but I immediately suspected something might be up. "Christian groups" gave up trying to reform MTV a long time ago, and "demanding" that a singer re-shoot a video seems like begging for abuse. I tracked it down, you could too but I don't recommend using your time that way. It certainly is "intolerant" and somebody might believe its claims to be "christian", but it was one of the most accusatory websites I have ever stumbled across.

The site is basically the home of all sorts of conspiracy theories and sets up its web presence with a picture of President Bush standing in front of a swastika flag. It is possible that John Connor, the author of the site and its published "manifesto" (19.95 + tax) believes in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and maybe has prayed a prayer of repentance and allowed Jesus to be the boss. But impression that I received from his site is certainly not one of love, joy or peace.

I clicked on his audio feed an heard something akin to a super-villain, laughing about how successful his ploy was, to stir up controversy about the trivial Jessica Simpson thing so people could hear about really important stuff: his 9-11 theories. Apparently he concocted this whole protest singlehandedly to attract traffic to his site. Meanwhile media people are scooping this up, talking about "intolerant christians".

THE PROBLEM

The only reason the media can report so sloppily is that believers have a huge propensity to focus on God's judgment and the expense of His mercy. Many people associate the church with hellfire & damnation rather than unconditional acceptance and grace. People don't bat an eye at sloppy reporting since we are often argumentative and antagonistic. The next thing that has happened is that under the buzzword of "tolerance", there is huge pressure to be politically correct and to twist the Bible around so that it endorses just about anything. Those of us who don't want to either be antagonistic or of this anemic brand of "tolerance" are stuck in the middle trying to figure out what to do. The "tolerants" and the antagonistics seem exempt from this quagmire. It's easier to be a black/white thinker.

WHAT TO DO

What is the appropriate response when people who call themselves "christians" act in this manner?

Pray for them. Pray for John Connor, the webmaster and voice behind this trumped-up false controversy. Don't pray out of anger or fear of other people's reaction, just sincerely pray that God will cause truth to be apparent. Pray that John becomes overcome with God's love. Ask God to use this person's boldness and his writing and technical abilities for redemptive purposes. Also pray for Jessica Simpson and her dad.