Blogdaddy is back and posting as he recovers from a recent spill off a motorcycle. The painkillers can only improve his blog I suppose. (Hey just kidding!)

Two regular reads off my blogroll have made the switch to MT and off blogspot: Silflay Hraka and Say Uncle. I would have posted this sooner, but Blogger was, you know, down.

The Last Page is still on hiatus. Dammit. When she gets back, I hope she has a report entitled "What I did on my summer vacation ... and the jackasses I encountered."

Seems some of those teens just can't wait until Friday night: Potter Books Stolen Despite Security

I just wonder how long until they turn up here in South Florida somewhere. After all, a stolen Oscar just turned up the other day in a drug sting down here. And let's not forget about where that moon rock given to Honduras by President Nixon in 1973 turned up. Not to be confused with these moon rocks that were being offered for sale in Orlando.

Yep, it's like eBay down here folks.

If you think chihuahuas are skittish most of the time, this one has to be on the verge of a coronary.

I want a pair of these Hulk Hands.

They would so go with the Popeye arms I got last Christmas.

Well, this sucks major ass... Pursuit of al-Qaeda keeps coming back to Fla.

Crap. Like we didn't have enough psychos already.

Well, how's about this? Iraq war costs less than was expected

Cool, let's have another one!

Hmmm. Today's Friday the 13th. Anyone feel like joining me in smashing some mirrors and kicking some black cats?

Men want to be him and women want to be with him.

This is one of the funniest things I've seen lately. Go ahead, take a look.

This is kind of interesting. Kind of gay too, but interesting.

[The Biltmore Hotel] will sport the designs of Rodriguez through lighted illuminations titled Spectacular Lights beginning Wednesday. Light producer Madame Lucette de Rugy and her design team will project images of Rodriguez's gowns onto the façade of the historic hotel, dressing the building in a different ensemble each night, with three designs in rotation throughout the week.

Pretty cool what they can do using only lights. Anyway, the Biltmore has a bit of a history down here. Built way back in 1926, the Army converted it into a hospital during WWII. Like most hospitals, more than a few people died within its walls until it closed in 1968. So eventually that led to ghost stories.

Before its remodeling in the 80s, there were stories about unexplained lights and noises coming from the closed building. Back in junior high, I remember stories about older guys with cars who'd go through the driveway and honk their horns. The cats or birds or whatever inside would respond with some creepy noises, scaring their dates. Others would reportedly go exploring inside, just to be chased out or arrested by the Gables police. And an urban legend of a kid who went up to the 13th floor -- supposedly the most haunted of all floors -- and encountered a ghost who chased him through the dark hotel until he either jumped or fell out of a window. Never any proof of course, just stories. But they were cool stories.

Now, it's wearing a dress. Not very intimidating. Heck, a few more beers and I might ask it out.

I'm back, miss me?

I would apologize for the lack of posts around here lately, but a wise man -- or maybe it was Treacher -- once said "Never apologize for not blogging." So there. Just haven't been feeling too inspired lately. And on the rare occasions I might have had something to say, Blogger's been a bit tempermental.

Oh well. Blogger's kinda like the AOL of blogging (minus the $24/month). Not that Blogger and AOL aren't fine tools, they're just kinda starter tools. That's why I'm using it.

I guess if I was serious enough about blogging, I'd get off my ass and take up Dean Esmay on his generous offer to move people to MT. Maybe register bertism.com or bertigo.com or whatever.com and do it myself.

I don't know. Sometimes I think I'm falling into a common Instapundit formula of posting. For example...

Blah, blah, blah, intro here....

Here's a few grafs from an article.....Here's a few grafs from an article.....Here's a few grafs from an article.....Here's a few grafs from an article.....

Insert witty comment here.... or "Heh" or "Indeed" seem to be his favorites.

Hmmm. Maybe I should register Instabert.com. Or maybe not.

I suppose it says something about me that the ZIP disk I threw some MP3s on to listen to at work today, contains not only Frank Sinatra singing "The way you look tonight," but also the timeless classic "Baby got back" by Sir Mix-a-Lot.

What exactly it says about me, I'm not sure. Of course, on that same disk is "Creep" (Radiohead) and "She (f*cking) hates me" (Puddle of Mud). Analyze that.

OK, so he had a corked bat. But for all the news coverage they're giving the whole mess, you'd think he clubbed some baby seals with it.

Oh, and if I had a nickel for everyone who still thinks they're being oh-so-clever and original and the first to use "Say it ain't Sosa," well, I'd probably have enough nickels to put in a sock and beat each of them severely.

A friend of mine is a meter-reader for the water company. Just got the job a few weeks back after being canned by Fed-Ex. He's still getting used to dealing with dogs upset that someone has invaded their turf. But just the other day, he was chased out of a yard by another fierce defender of their master's domain. The ornery pet in question?

A rooster.

Yep, the rules are very different down here.

Yeah, I know the back of your taxi said "This vehicle stops frequently." I just didn't think it meant in the middle of I-95. For no fricking reason. Moron.

Reminds me, I need to renew my insurance soon. Just in case, ya know.

I know the NY Times is having its problems (Reg. reqd.). But I'm glad it hasn't affected the writing in the features section.

"2 Fast 2 Furious," a new seatbelt-awareness film that opens nationwide today, features two very fine and touching performances, both of them by cars. Indeed, the movie, directed by John Singleton from a script by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, can be seen as something of a love story, in which a pair of tricked-out Mitsubishis — a cute purple Spider convertible and a sinewy yellow Evolution — carry out a high-speed courtship as they dart and frolic along the highways of South Florida. Then, at what should be their moment of consummation, these two frisky vehicles are replaced by a pair of domestic hotrods (an orange Dodge and a blue Chevy), one of which crashes onto the deck of a yacht.

Unfortunately, all of these supremely expressive vehicles come equipped with drivers, principally a pair of crash-test dummies played by Paul Walker and Tyrese, whose low-gear dialogue makes the whine of engines sound like the highest poetry.

I guess Vin Diesel's looking real smart for sitting this one out.

Speaking of popular ads, I see someone dropped the chalupa on this one.

A federal jury awarded two marketers more than $30 million Wednesday in their lawsuit claiming that Taco Bell took their idea for a talking Chihuahua to use in award-winning ads for the Mexican fast-food chain.

I wonder how much the dog gets.

You know what? I CAN believe it's not butter. Get over yourselves already.

You ever fall asleep too early, then wake up at a weird hour? Yeah, me neither.

I wonder if it's too early for a beer.

Tons of Booze Dumped on Farm.

Then again, it's probably for the best. If I had that much booze, I might find this somehat attractive.

I'm glad that the first thing I saw when I turned on the TV tonight was Kazaam on one of the HBOs I had left the cable box on. As a result, I switched over to regular TV where I was reminded the Stanley Cup was on and managed to catch another terrific overtime game.

I'm still leaning towards the Devils but still, I prefer close games like this instead of blowouts, regardless of who wins. Reminds me of that last game back in 96 where the Panthers and Avs played 3 overtimes. Even though the Avalanche won it, and the Cup, I still think that's one of the best games I've watched, basically because despite being down 3 games, Florida refused to give up.

On a somewhat related note, I wonder if I could get away with growing a beard by saying I've been on a decent streak at work too and don't want to lose the magic.

Early warning signs of trouble at the Washington Post?

The last name of National Spelling Bee winner Sai R. Gunturi was misspelled in a May 30 KidsPost article and on the front-page promo and caption.

Well, at least they were consistently wrong. Hey kid, you want a job?

(Link via Romensko)

Yesterday I sat in a meeting where someone declared that from just a zip code and year of birth, they can extrapolate all the information a marketing person would need. Huh?

I've never been one to believe statistics. Frankly, Mark Twain probably said it best when he said the bit about three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics. I figure marketers are usually full of crap when they think they know who you are, especially if they're depending on user-provided information, such as registration for online news sites. As far as the NY Times is concerned, I'm a 80-year-old Asian woman making $100K a year. Hey, they lie, so can I. I prefer to remain somewhat of an enigma, thankyouverymuch.

But it turns out I've been giving away more than I thought on my blog.

A new computer program can determine the sex of an author by detecting subtle differences in the words men and women prefer to use.

For instance, female writers tend to choose grammatical terms that apply to personal relationships, such as "for" and "with," more frequently than men do.
[...]
Men, on the other hand, use more numbers, adjectives and determiners - words such as "the," "this" and "that" - because they apparently care more than women do about conveying specific information.

I haven't applied this theory to blogs, because honestly, I just don't feel like counting a bunch of words and putting them in the male/female columns. But I figure if I can find a font that lets me dot the "i"s with little hearts, and finish up that Hello Kitty template, I might be able to wreck the curve a bit. Wish me luck.

A friend of mine used to name his cars. The one that comes to mind quickly is Rhonda Honda. Not named after any specific Rhonda though. On the other hand, we have this:

In Iraq, no set of wheels is held in higher regard than the large, mostly white Toyota Land Cruiser sport utility vehicles long favored by government officials, intelligence agents and VIPs from Basra to Kirkuk.

Locals call the vehicles ''Monicas,'' as in Lewinsky, after the former White House intern whose appearance meets Iraqi standards for both feminine and automotive beauty.

''She's a beautiful girl, and it's a beautiful car,'' said Ghazi Abdullah Dormari, whose auto-trading lot in the Kurdish city of Irbil features several late-model Monicas.

Dear God, forgive us...we must have bombed them just a little too much.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're proud to introduce the new "healthy" SARS-proof cigarettes.

I want to be one of the cool kids and download free music instead of having to invent new names for the Columbia House people (hey, you guys GOT your penny, what else do you want from me?). But kazaalite.com keeps giving me some DNS errors and the only other place I can find it is some weird foreign site, where I'd probably be downloading goat porn viruses rather than what the label says.

Bleah. I'm still not going to use regular Kazaa. With all its built-in spyware, I'm kinda paranoid Madonna will come to my house and ask me "WTF do you think you're doing?" and I dont have Mad Hacker skillz with which to defend myself.

Another day, another scientific study: Handsome Men Produce Best Sperm.

As opposed to sperm produced by unattractive women I suppose.

... and this is the reason why.

(Link via Catch)

OK, so Jim Treacher's old blogspot blog has some out-of-control looking flames on it. Now he switches to MT and gets his own domain, on the same day a fire at Hosting Matters causes all kinds of pandemonium, including forcing a certain professor to rely on his blogspot Instabackup.

Hmmmm.... Coincidence? Or coup d'ètat?

I report, you decide... but it's not like I didn't warn you all.

You know what? Those were the droids you were looking for.

Dumbass.