Some Things I Just Don't Get

After ten years of fooling people with his outrageous alter egos, Sacha Baron Cohen, the British comedy actor, is to switch from stunts to conventional roles.

Baron Cohen, who created Ali G, the deluded rapper, and Borat, the Kazakh television reporter, is to start by playing Sherlock Holmes, with Will Ferrell as Watson.

The actor realized his jokes were wearing thin while he was in America making his latest movie in which he plays Brüno, a gay Austrian fashion presenter.

Recently, he fooled the Alabama national guard into posing with him while he wore a camouflaged thong. But then he tried to dupe a club of septuagenarian ballroom dancers–who had already seen Borat. As Baron Cohen, in black waistcoat over a sleeveless white shirt, ended a tango by kissing his male partner on the lips, the dancers turned off the lights and ejected him from the hall.

Murray Echols, 75, said: “We gave them more than they planned for. We called the police who told his crew never to show their face in town again.”

You know, good comedy I normally get. Bad comedy, well, most of the time I understand it as well—I just don’t like bad comedy. But then, there’s Cohen. I have to admit. I don’t get his comedy at all. Not funny. Not even remotely funny. How many times can you pull the same joke on people and expect the rest of us to laugh.

We’ll see how well he does in doing “regular” comedy now.

Say It Didn't Happen!

This week, I’ve been on a roll, sharing things that were put into print that really shouldn’t have been put into print!

Here’s another such story.

The parents of a British teen, who died suddenly two months ago, received a disturbing letter from the girl’s high school saying she needs to improve her attendance or can’t go to the prom, the Manchester Evening News reported.

The letter said Megan Gillan’s attendance was 60.4 percent and the school requires its students to keep a 92 percent attendance record.

“I screamed when I first saw it,” her mother Margaret Gillan told the newspaper. “If they want her to attend that much I’ll take Megan’s remains. It’s disgusting.”

Gillan was found dead January 19 in her bedroom at her parent’s home. The letter was dated March 16.

A school spokesman apologized and told the Manchester Evening News, “that letter should not have gone out,” and blamed it on a “software error.”

Again, do you think? The letter shouldn’t have gone out? Is that the best she could come up with? Well, no. She also blamed software error for the real problem!

Years ago, when I first learned how to use a computer, someone taught me the word: GIGO. Familiar with it? Garbage in. Garbage out.

The computer and software can only output the information that a HUMAN has entered!

A Different View of Things

I love summertime vegetables. You know, a fresh ear of corn. A nice green pepper from the garden. Crisp green beans. Juicy watermelon or peach. Cucumbers! As a popular Food Network is known to say: Yum-O!

Oh, and be sure to add a nice, round, juicy, and fresh red tomato to that list. There is nothing like a good tomato sandwich! With mayo and black pepper! Now you are talking some good eating!

Well, times are changing, as Bob Dylan once opined. Before long, we may have to change our way of thinking as we add genetically engineered purple tomatoes to our bread. British researches have engineered purple tomatoes that may well be added to the list of foods known to help fight cancer.

These researchers engineered the fruit to contain nutrients more commonly seen in dark berries, which have been shown to lower the risk of cancer, heart disease, and some neurological diseases.

For the study, cancer-prone mice fed the fruit lived an average of 40 days longer than animals on a standard diet. “The effect was much bigger than we had expected,” Cathie Martin, a plant biologist, said in a news release. “It is enormously encouraging to believe that by changing diet, or specific components in the diet, you can improve health in animals and possibly humans.”

Researchers focused on anthocyanins, a type of antioxidant found in berries such as blackberries and blackcurrants.

The researchers said trials in humans are still a long way off.

While I know it may take some time for my eyes to adjust to seeing purple tomatoes, so be it, if these little creations help with cancer, neurological diseases, and heart disease. After my little bout with my health recently, I might just offer to sign up to be a “test subject” for them! After all, I do love blueberries and blackberries, and I really do love tomatoes. So, what could be so bad about giving them a try!

What do you think? Game to try purple tomatoes?

If You Could, Would You?

It will be faster than a speeding bullet: a pencil-shaped car powered by a jet engine and a rocket, roaring across a desert at 1,000 mph. If all goes to plan, the Bloodhound SSC will break the land speed record by the largest-ever margin, and, in 40 seconds of breathtaking thrust, inspire thousands of British schoolchildren to take their science college-entrance exams.

The car’s plans were to be unveiled this week with work to begin on it soon. 1,000 MPH! That’s a long ways from the current record.

The current record for a wheel-powered car is 458 mph, set in 2001 by brothers Don and Rick Vesco at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the western Utah desert. Rick Vesco hopes to break the 500-mph barrier in the same car in 2009.

So, here’s the question for you. If you could sign up to “drive” this “car” would you do it? Why? Why not?

And, then, if you really want to be bold in replying, here’s another question for you: What’s the fastest you have ever driven?