Pet Pals 2009, e-mail submissions

Pets 2009, e-mailed outfit submissions

Pets 2009, best expression e-mail submissions

Best Looking Pets 2009, e-mail submissions, Part 2

What's a "dummy," dummy?

As poorly described in "A window into a windowless newsroom," here is an image of an old dummy (no offense to senior idiots intended):



And this is what it does:


Only one earth-carrying human was harmed in the making of the April 20, 2008, page.

The press

Here's a very short clip of the Freeman's presses doing their thing shortly after midnight, running Tuesday's paper. It's loud, but it's really a sight to behold.

Best Looking Pets 2009, e-mail submissions, Part 1

Freeman Pets 2009 -- Winners

Are they real?

For those doubting the awful reality of the Valentine's Day gifts catalogued in "'Be mine' and other parole violations," here's a quick rundown.



* The Burger King wants you to smell like his Flame Body Spray, which you can get for only $3.99. The official site offers disturbing videos (the image above will give you an idea).

* Go venereal with a herpes plush doll for only $4.95. There are more at http://www.giantmicrobes.com

* You can buy four absinthe lollipops for $10. You can also get maple bacon.



* If you feel like just getting the heart-shaped blade of the heart hoe, you'll need $20.



* The 2-Carat Cup is only $14.99.



* The custom hand-made toilet paper that reads "I love you from top to bottom" is, unfortunately, not the only one.

There's also "Will You Marry Me?" and "I Do."

There is no "I don't."

Tommy Tutone is angry

According to the Wall Street Journal, Tommy Tutone, the creator of "867-5309/Jenny" is not to happy with 1998 Kingston High School grad Spencer Potter.

“If it wasn’t for me, the number wouldn’t be worth anything,” Tutone told the Journal's Carl Bialik. “I think he needs to talk to me. He’s dealing in something that I made famous, and trademarked. It’s not a real number. My number is the real number.”

Tutone put his own auction for the number on eBay, starting at $20,000.

The eBay post says, "Tommy will create a voice message for the new owner and 'sing' the name of your choice along with 'Hi This is Tommy Tutone you have reached 867-5309 and then your company’s message.'"

Tutone will not create anything. The auction expired today. There were no bids.

Another auction that expired today was for the domain name www.spencerpotter.com, which was not put on eBay by Potter. The auction closed Tuesday at $2,475.

More Grammy stuff

Belated congratulations to Catskill-based Planet Arts Recordings, the record company that won a Grammy for The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra's "Monday Night Live at the Village Vanguard" in the Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album category.

Visit the nonprofit's site at www.planetarts.org or at its MySpace page.

To date, Planet Arts recording projects have received seven Grammy nominations.

Ouch!

President Barack Obama's biggest mistake so far, if we are to believe the blogosphere today, is that he doesn't know how tall he is, as proven by his Ford-esque bump.



I can see the headline already: PRESIDENT CAUGHT IN TERRORIST HEAD BUMP!

Local musicians win Grammys

All area musicians that were up for Grammy Awards tonight won in their respective categories.

Folk legend and Beacon resident Pete Seeger won a Grammy Award in the Folk category for latest album, "At 89." The Freeman's Blaise Schweitzer interviewed him recently.

Woodstock's Jack DeJohnette won in the New Age category for "Peace Time."

And, as always (it seems), Orange County's Jimmy Sturr And His Orchestra won in the much-coveted polka category for his latest, "Let The Whole World Sing."
...
None of these awards are part of tonight's telecast. There are 110 categories, after all, including comedy (the late George Carlin won) and spoken word ("An Inconvenient Truth" (Al Gore)" Beau Bridges, Cynthia Nixon & Blair Underwood).

So the presidential loser has now won a Nobel Peace Prize, an Oscar and a Grammy.

Philippe Petit

French tight-rope artist and Shokan resident Philippe Petit is scheduled to be on Fox Business' Scoreboard with David Asman tonight at 7 p.m. , because, you know, when you want good financial advice about the worrisome state of the economy, you want to know from the guy who did a high-wire walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City in 1974.

I'm not posting the link because you're not going to listen to it anyway (and because I don't have it).

On Saturday, Petit will be more appropriate featured on the NPR weekly news quiz, "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" which can be heard locally on WAMC-FM, if the station actually finishes its never-ending fundraiser.

Fortunately, "Wait Wait" also is online.

That dude with that number

Kingston native Spencer Potter was on Fox Business News on Thursday.

If you missed it, it is because nobody watches Fox Business News.

Here's the link.


You might have noticed that the bid on is lower than the figure reported by the Freeman's Bonnie Langston. That's because Potter is contacting bidders and taking out those who are not serious.

Yes, serious about buying a number from an annoying early '80s song.

867-5309

Sorry. This thing has been in my head thanks to Kingston native Spencer Potter.

So I figure I should put it in your head.

Real (fake) online poll

If for some strange reason you feel like you would like to answer the questions posed in "Survey makes you 'all of the above,'" here is your chance.

I created a fake survey that you can actually answer. It was modeled after the one posted by the town of Saugerties on its Web site.

And here's a Freeman article about the survey that should provide some context.

I'll post results soon. So far, 100 percent of respondents (one dude) claim to have a gigantic robot.

It's that kind of survey.

And the Explosion?

As mentioned before, I decided to get early admittance to the fiery pits of hell when I prepared the Bacon Explosion.

Mine looked like this:



It was a huge hit (with the four people who dared to try it).

P.S. I'm eating celery as penance.

Awards season

The Grammy Awards are on Sunday and Beacon resident and folk legend Pete Seeger is up for one for his latest (and what he says will be his last) album, "At 89." And he's up against his half-sister, Peggy. Good luck to both of them.
Full disclosure: I'm rooting for Pete. And yes, I'm biased.
Also up for an award is Woodstock resident and master drummer Jack DeJohnette in the New Age category, for "Peace Time."

I'm giving you this reminder so I can shamelessly plug some awards the Freeman received on Friday by Suburban Newspapers of America, a not-for-profit, professional trade association which is made up of nearly 2,400 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. Judging for the annual contest was done by the journalism department faculty of Loyola University Chicago.

Here are our winners:

* Best Arts and Entertainment Writing -- Feature ("At the Helm") Feb. 17, 2008, Bonnie Langston, first place;

* Best Feature Photo, "Uplifting Experience" by Tania Barricklo, first place;

* Best Headline -- ("The crimes, they are a-changin'") Aug. 3, 2008 by Ivan Lajara from a story by Blaise Schweitzer, second place;

* Best News Photo, "It's Great to be Home" by Tania Barricklo, third place;

* Best Environmental Coverage, Blaise Schweitzer for "Hot air?" (April 4, 2008); "From the ashes" (May 6, 2008); and "Troubled waters" (Aug. 17,2008); third place;

* Best Arts and Entertainment Writing -- Feature ("Film Leaves its Mark"), April 6, 2008, Bonnie Langston, third place;

* Best Arts and Entertainment Criticism/Commentary, March 17, 2008 ("For Carlin, age doesn't give him anything but an excuse") by Ivan Lajara, third place;

* Best Continuing Coverage, "Cold Case Cracked," from stories reported on May 10, 11, 14 and Aug. 10 and 13, by Paul Kirby, Kyle Wind, Ariel Zangla and Patricia Doxsey; honorable mention.

Some personal notes:

* Most news awards are bittersweet, as stories tend to be tragic in nature. The Martin case resonated with me personally, because I used to hang out with Joe's brother, Bill.

* My newsroom peeps are pretty humble. So you won't see them making a big deal out of their awards. Unfortunately for them, I'm not.

* The SNA misspelled "are" in the headline award, which will make a great memento if it's not caught when the organization makes the plate.

* As Freeman managing editor Tony Adamis pointed out in a staff meeting today, appreciation has to be given to the entire newsroom and, especially, to the faceless copy editors at the paper, who work tirelessly and never get any recognition because they work behind the scenes.

* Other newspapers that have published stories touting their awards get the usual snarky comments from loyal readers - and I'm pretty sure you're itching to write one down. So I'll spare you the writing. Here are some samples from comments taken from other newspapers when they reported their accomplishments.

1. "It's too bad they don't put more effort into their actual reporting and editing, because they're both crap."

2. "Ugh. OK. Here's the obligatory headline once again:
“Local Paper Touts Local Paper”
Now can I get back to my nap?"

3. "I'll type this so the staff will understand:
Congradulashuns. This is a overdo award. We our vary prowd to half ewe as are papar."

Feel free to add your own (we take nice comments, too).

Ad nauseum

There were many unremarkable Super Bowl ads on Sunday. But one was particularly good.

And it was a house ad.

The rest of them, of course, are in Hulu.