Yo, Rocky, Or Rambo, Gonna Fly Now at 60
Allison Hope Weiner

rob: i’ll skip to the important bit, wherein peter sealey, a former film executive who is now a professor of marketing at uc berkeley, weighs in on the latest rocky movie:

Mr. Stallone has also tried to widen Rocky’s audience by going virtual. Rocky is drawn back to the ring after a national sports show features a digital boxing match between Rocky Balboa and the current champ, Mason (the Line) Dixon. ”It’s a high-technology, Google-blogging, iMac-type of premise going on there mixed with the classic underdog versus the establishment,” offered Mr. Sealey.

rob: it’s amazing that i didn’t manage to see this film, as i’m a total sucker for both google-blogging and imac-types of premises.

dan: i love google-blog flicks too, but sarah always wants to rent the iVillage-pod ones. we work it out, because that’s what being a high-tech couple is all about.

Brendan Montague
Times Online
A pensioner aged 102 has been granted a 25-year mortgage despite the fact he would have to live until 127 to pay the loan back.

The property investor from East Sussex has taken out an interest-only £200,000 mortgage and hopes to meet the £958 monthly repayments with income from rent as he joins a growing army of retired people hoping to cash in on buy-to-let schemes.

Most lenders set a limit at 75 years for mortgage applicants but a handful, including Woolwich, and Bristol & West, have no such restrictions. This has led to a rush of applications from older investors.

rob: and they hassled emma and me for months about being freelancers when we applied for our mortgage. months!

dan: rob, it says right there in the story that this guy is part of an army. a growing army, of people with nothing better to do than practice kicking ass. are you gonna tell him he can’t buy a house?

Jim Wilkes
Toronto Star Staff Reporter
When the new chocolate-coloured sofa set was delivered to her Brampton home, Doris Moore was stunned to see packing labels describing the shade as “Nigger-brown.”

She and husband Douglas purchased a sofa, loveseat and chair in dark brown leather last week from Vanaik Furniture and Mattress store on Dundas St. E.

Moore, 30, who describes herself as an African-American born and raised in New York, said it was her 7-year-old daughter who pointed out the label just after delivery men from the Mississauga furniture store left.

“She’s very curious and she started reading the labels,” Moore explained. “She said, `Mommy, what is nig … ger brown?’ I went over and just couldn’t believe my eyes.”

dan: she said, dabbing her eyes with an extra-large tissue from the special, “kike-sized” box on her end table. apparently the sofa was made in china though, so you can blame the heathen chinee for this.

When interviewed yesterday by the Star, Romesh Kumar, Vanaik’s assistant manager, passed the buck to his supplier, Cosmos Furniture in Scarborough.

“Why should I take the blame?” he said. “I’m a trader, I don’t manufacture. I sell from 20 companies, maybe 50 companies. How can I take care of all of them?”

He said that he would check similar stock and make sure other labels were removed.

“That’s terrible, that’s a racial … something?” Kumar said. “This is entirely wrong, but it’s not my fault. It’s my job to sell good product to people.”

dan: i love that. “that’s a racial … something?” oh, you smooth talker, romesh kumar!

AP — ANTA ANA, Calif. — Staffing was so inadequate at a California senior center that a rat crawled into an Alzheimer’s patient’s mouth and died there before staff noticed, a lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday on behalf of 90-year-old Sigmund Bock, alleges that administrators at the Paragon Gardens Assisted Living and Memory Care Community in Mission Viejo overbooked their facility to receive corporate bonuses, but cut back on staff to increase profits.

“The facility so literally ignored the needs of their residents … as to allow vermin in the form of a rat to become lodged in the mouth of Sigmund Bock and die therein,” the lawsuit alleges.

jay: o!m!g! what a disaster. this story made my jaw drop open but then i quickly closed it because, you know, rats. i’m only half kidding.

dan: dear god. see, this is exactly why i’m going to have my jaw wired shut when i go into assisted living.

By MICHAEL VIRTANEN, Associated Press Writer

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The Albany Patroons declined to renew the coaching contract of former NBA player Micheal Ray Richardson on Wednesday following his suspension for using a gay slur at heckling fans and controversy over allegedly anti-Semitic remarks.

Richardson was suspended for the team’s last two Continental Basketball Association playoff games on March 28, a day after he told the Times Union of Albany that he had “big-time Jew lawyers” working for him. The coach yelled at hecklers during the first playoff game, using a profanity and gay slur.

dan: have we talked about this yet? i don’t think we’ve talked about it. i actually feel sorry for him. here’s what he said.

jay: we haven’t. i like that he used the word ‘jew’ to strike fear in the hearts of his enemies. this is not common usage, is it? unless you’re talking about the israeli army, of course.

“They got a lot of power in this world, you know what I mean? Which I think is great,” Richardson told the Times Union. “I don’t think there’s nothing wrong with it. If you look in most professional sports, they’re run by Jewish people. If you look at a lot of most successful corporations and stuff, more businesses, they’re run by Jewish. It’s not a knock, but they are some crafty people.”

dan: i mean, i get why he’s out of a job and all. but he clearly thought he was being complimentary. and let’s face it, we “jewish” are crafty. like ice is cold.

jay: word ‘em up. i’ve seen your needlepoint. midwestern lutheran ladies ain’t got nothin’ on you.

AP — LONDON — Keith Richards was joking when he claimed to have snorted his father’s ashes along with cocaine, a spokesman said Wednesday.

“It was an off-the-cuff remark, a joke, and it is not true. File under April Fool’s joke,” said Bernard Doherty of LD Communications, which represents the Rolling Stones.

jay: please note that bernard doherty is not denying the coke, just the ashes. that said, i think that bernard doherty is a liar.

dan: nah, i believe him. keith’s not exactly worried about his reputation at this point, is he? what i love is that it was believeable, true or not. i mean, of course keith would do it.

jay: he’s denying it on the fan club site, too. though they could also be lying about it. excerpt from his letter to the fan club. i’m not buying it.

“The complete story is lost in the usual slanting! The truth of the matter is that I planted a sturdy English Oak . I took the lid off the box of ashes and he is now growing oak trees and would love me for it!!! I was trying to say how tight Bert and I were. That tight!!! I wouldn’t take cocaine at this point in my life unless I wished to commit suicide.”

dan: paul anka. it wasn’t obama, it was paul anka. this guy was totally repurposing old content to capitalize on obamamania. the only thing i haven’t figured out is: when was ankamania?

jay: last week in las cruces, nm. it was all over the news here. apparently it wasn’t good enough for your fancy swiss news.

dan: i think my anka widget is broken.

By [Telegraph] staff and agencies

Rolling Stones wildman Keith Richards claims he snorted his own father’s ashes during a drugs binge.

Richards made the extraordinary admission in an interview with NME magazine.

“The strangest thing I’ve tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father,” he said.

“He was cremated and I couldn’t resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn’t have cared, he didn’t give a s***.

“It went down pretty well, and I’m still alive.”

Richards’ father, Bert, died in 2002 aged 84.

dan: wait, is this real or are they remaking freaky friday again?

A police officer investigates the scene of a accident where a Muni bus killed a pedestrian Tuesday morning on Leavenworth Street at Ellis Street. Chronicle photo by Kurt Rogers

jay: i am going to that special place in hell reserved for overstaters of the obvious but this one is just too good to pass up… This Bus Stops For Cheese! ONLY!

Chicago (AP) — He wears Jesus’ robes and a neon blue halo, looks like Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and is causing a stir at a Chicago art school.

David Cordero, 24, made the sculpture for his senior show after noticing all the attention Obama has received since he first hinted he may run for the presidency.

“All of this is a response to what I’ve been witnessing and hearing, this idea that Barack is sort of a potential savior that might come and absolve the country of all its sins,” Cordero said. “In a lot of ways it’s about caution in assigning all these inflated expectations on one individual, and expecting them to change something that many hands have shaped.”

jay: word up! obama is going to save us all! even dan! someone has to!

dan: except it doesn’t look like obama. it looks kind of like…who? sinatra? also: “In a lot of ways it’s about caution in assigning all these inflated expectations on blah blah blah-bity blah blah blah.” seriously dude. we get it. the symbolism’s not all that complicated.

jay: you sure you didn’t go to art school, dan? that’s a cooper union level dis. nicely played.

York, Pa. (AP) — A man who arrived at court drunk for a drunken-driving hearing was again charged with driving under the influence, police said.

Paul H. Zeigler, 45, of Glen Rock, appeared at a preliminary hearing at the Shrewsbury district court on March 26 for a DUI charge from December.

Police said Zeigler appeared to be intoxicated at the hearing, according to police records.

After his court appearance, Zeigler failed a portable breath test for alcohol and was taken into custody for a blood test, police said.

The second test revealed that Zeigler’s blood-alcohol level was twice the legal driving limit and he was charged with DUI, police said.

jay: apparently it’s illegal to ‘keep it real’ in york, pa. that shit’s messed up.

April 02, 2007 NEW YORK: Pressure from angry Catholics has forced the cancellation of an exhibition featuring a life-size, “anatomically correct” milk chocolate statue of Jesus Christ.

The 300,000-strong Catholic League mobilised last week when it was announced that the sculpture, the work of installation artist Cosimo Cavallaro, would go on show at Manhattan’s Lab Gallery.

The league said the decision to show the chocolate Christ in Easter week was a calculated insult. (from The Australian)

dan: here’s the question i still don’t know the answer to: what exactly is the objection? is it just that it’s a jesus you can eat? because isn’t that what the eucharist is? i’m being serious here. would there be an objection if someone made a jesus statue using wafers?

jay: i think the catholic league’s objection was the idea that jesus could be anything other than white chocolate.