I’ve moved.

I’ve moved because the spammers are trying to take over this site. Because I wanted something a little bit new. Because I wanted to break from these hundreds of posts and thousands of comments and do exactly the same thing somewhere else.

Or something like that.

Anyway, I hope that you’ll visit the new site and take part in all the new conversations.

Welcome to PolicyZ.

(Oh, and you can comment over there. Which is nice for everyone.

According to Fox, some people weren’t impressed with the first show in Charlie Sheen’s “Torpedo of Dumb” tour. I just can’t figure out why.

What did they expect? Did they expect a better class of failure? A more fun kind of public self-destruction? Or perhaps they hoped for some life-changing wisdom from the colossal ego and his porn star/actress “goddesses.” I know that when I want guidance, the first place I look is a hack actor who probably should have been jailed a number of times over for assaulting and threatening the women in his life. Maybe we can all learn something from a man who has managed to skate through all of his most disastrously dumb decisions and increasingly crazy behavior without having to pay anything resembling a real cost. Except, apparently, in his dental hygiene.

If they are really lucky, maybe he will share his way through the mound of cocaine that just has to be part of his rider.

Fans who gathered outside the theater before the doors opened Saturday—some who had to fly in for the show—said they were hoping to see the increasingly eccentric actor deliver some of the colorful rants that have made him an Internet star since his ugly falling out with CBS and the producers of “Two and a Half Men.”

They got the ranting. It just wasn’t funny.

“I expected him to at least entertainment a little bit. It was just a bunch of ranting,” said Rodney Gagnon, 34, of Windsor, Ontario.

I’m sure that what they really want is just the big drama and unhinged rants that made him even more famous than the exquisitely bad excuse for a comedy whose only redeeming value is that I kind of have a soft spot in my heart for Ducky. They want the car crash and he just didn’t manage to deliver enough blood.

Suckers.

There’s something sad about a man who can’t even fail with enough panache to keep the mob happy.

Read the rest.

If you haven’t seen Acura’s holiday advertising--the “season of reason sales event"--you should watch this video. The ads dare to suggest that all of the overly ostentatious commercialism of the holiday season can be combatted by buying or leasing a new Acura. The logic, apparently, is that springing for a rental reindeer is a symbol of excess and buying a new car is a symbol of “over saving.”

I have nothing against Acura, but these ads make me cranky every time I see them.

(Edited for clarity.)

Comments will now be moderated.

I hate spammers.

I’d like to take a moment to wish a happy Veterans Day to all of you who serve or who have served. A special note of thanks for the families who have supported all of those service men and women.

My wife is entirely unimpressed by my ability to sing “Every Which Way but Loose” while dealing out serious head-shot carnage in Fallout New Vegas.

Which is really surprising to me.

If you are jobless in the Denver area, this won’t count as great news, but it might count as good news. According to the Denver Business Journal, TeleTech will be hiring more than 2,000 people in the Denver area. Unfortunately, many of those jobs are temporary, part-time, work-at-home positions--which won’t solve your job problems, but might well help in the short term.

TeleTech said 1,850 of the open positions are for part-time, temporary staffing. Those hired will work about 25 hours per week beginning in October for five months.

Applicants are asked to apply online at http://www.HirePoint.com/AtHome, and then attend a hiring event on Monday, Sept. 13; Tuesday, Sept. 14; or Wednesday, Sept. 15 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at The Wildlife Experience on Lincoln Avenue at South Peoria Street, east of Interstate 25 near Parker.

Good luck.

Read the details here.

Do you work for any such company? Producers, manufacturers, consultant, whatever. If so, then this link might interest you.

This wouldn’t surprise me in the least:

Despite Steve Jobs’ recent claim that the iBookstore has taken 22 percent of the US e-book market, some authors still report significantly higher sales volume on the Kindle. Author J. A. Konrath has published more than three dozen books on both platforms, with Kindle sales averaging 200 e-books every day. On the iBookstore, however, sales have only reached approximately 100 each month.

First, understand that this encompasses not only the

While I really enjoy the iBook in-app purchase process, I like the interface better, and I like the store. That said, Amazon’s Kindle--the application--has a lot of advantages. First and foremost: the Kindle app runs on multiple platforms--its reach is far greater than iBooks. It also had a good head start in the war for peoples’ ebook dollars along with some nifty features. The Kindle also has a far better selection.

Apple’s iBooks might or might not catch up in the sales department and, honestly, I don’t really care. As long as competition gives me better prices and wider selection along, I’ll be a happy boy.

Unfortunately, neither of them has many of the books that I look for and I continue to spend most of my book dollars at Barnes and Noble and Borders. Similarly, I would happily push nearly all of my magazine purchases to the iPad if the magazines I want were available, but the grand majority of the publications I read simply aren’t available.

I am becoming convinced that the biggest thing standing in the way of wider adoption electronic publications is this: availability. I am a heavy reader with a monthly habit of between $150 and $250 spent on magazines and books and I would prefer to move that to electronic delivery if I could. I wonder when the publishers will catch up with me?

Read the rest.

Apple’s strict no-nipple policy in relation to apps sold through the iTunes store is probably a smart decision. If not for that, my guess is that wandering through the app store would feel something like wandering the Vegas Strip. Everywhere you turn, some guy is pushing a little sheet urging you to partake in Becky’s Big Boobieporium.

I have nothing against porn in a general sense, but I really hate it when porn gets all pushy.

Which is why I’m not particularly uptight about the G-rated version of Playboy for the iPad, but, then, I also don’t get the point. Do people really read it for the articles? Are those articles really that good? Or do they need a giant pair of fake, airbrushed bosoms to keep them afloat? I honestly wouldn’t know since I never read it for the articles. I was always in it for the photography.

For cranky folk who will decry Apple’s censorship, I say: if you need porn on your iDevice, then use the browser. Even better, you could buy an Android-based device--Google really does have the porn advantage.

Read the story.

It is a hot freaking day in Denver and I’m cleaning house. This, of course, necessitates booze. Which, when you’ve just spent too much money on a new TV, an iPad, and tickets for your much-later-in-the-year vacation, doesn’t mean going out and getting something new. It means using what you have on hand and hoping it comes out tasty.

Which is how I got this.

Fill a tall glass with ice (crushed if you can because crushed ice is kind of like bendy straws: it makes almost every beverage taste better) and throw in a shot or two of Absolut Apeach vodka. I err on the side of drunkenness, but you might be strangely attached to sobriety.  Put in a few heart dashes of Fee Brothers Rhubarb Bitters, fill the rest of the way with lemonade, and stir.

Then drink it and marvel that is the theirs-quenching wonder of fruit, fruity booze, and a touch of concentrated rhubarb.

Surprisingly tasty. 

This seemed like a good idea to someone. And to someone’s boss. And to a focus group that inevitably had to try the thing.

We all know that the bun is easily the most boring part of a burger. So why not swap a stale old bun for something rich and flavorful like, say, a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches?

I’m tempted to make a comment about contemporary America that references wars, recessions, and either the wealth or the willful blindness of our society.

But, hell, it’s just a sandwich.

Read all about it.

...You happen to be attending the Hillhead 2010 show, let me know. If you have any pictures, I’d love to see them.

If you’re a gun nut, this story will have you screaming. If you aren’t, then you might still find the five year jail sentence handed down to be ridiculous.

Me, I guess I’m more on the gun nut side of that scale.

A grandmother has been jailed for five years for possessing a “family heirloom” World War II pistol.

Gail Cochrane, 53, had kept the gun for 29 years following the death of her father, who had been in the Royal Navy.

Police found the weapon, a Browning self-loading pistol, during a search of her home in Dundee while looking for her son.

She admitted illegal possession of the firearm, an offence with a minimum five-year jail term under Scots law.

Cochrane told the High Court in Edinburgh that she had never contemplated she might be committing a crime by keeping the gun or that she might need to get a licence for the weapon.

She said: “I thought it was just a war trophy.”

Defence solicitor advocate Jack Brown argued that the circumstances surrounding the case were exceptional and that it would be “draconian, unjust and disproportionate” to jail the grandmother-of-six.

Unjust and disproportionate, indeed. An 80 year old Czech pistol with no ammunition isn’t worth a five year sentence.

Of course, I’m one of those weirdos who doesn’t believe that I need the government’s permission to be allowed to defend myself and to own the right tools for that defense.

Read the story.

Of course, you already knew that because there is no way in hell that Justin Bieber fans frequent RSong. That’s just not possible.

But, in case you needed proof, here is Bieber displaying his idiocy.

I like beer. I want to try Batch 19 Pre-Prohibition Style Lager.

Yet, living in Denver, and not in one of a very few target cities, I won’t be sampling the old recipe brew.

MillerCoors is bringing back a taste of the old days--a beer as it was brewed before Prohibition.

But though Chicago-based MillerCoors is a joint venture between Denver and Montreal based Coors Brewing Company and SABMiller London based, drinkers in those three cities won’t get a taste of the stuff. The suds will only be served up...in Chicago, Milwaukee, San Francisco, San Jose, California, and Washington, D.C., according to the Denver Business Journal.

Now, people in Colorado drink a lot of beer. Significantly more than folks in San Francisco, for instance. So the idea of not selling this beer in Coors’ own back yard is a surprise to me.

The only reason for such a crazy decision, in my estimation, is that they are trying to foist crappy beer off on those latte-sippin’, Volvo-drivin’ lefties in San Franciso, the so-schnockered-they-can’t-tell-the-difference drinkers in Milwaukee and Chicago, and a political class in DC that just doesn’t know any better. Because it’s obvious that they are trying to hide the brew from the real beer fans in Colorado.

It’s a conspiracy.

Read the rest. And rub it in if you happen to be in one of those six target markets.

How was I not be the guy to think of the Princess Leia Charity Car Wash?

That is so wrong that it must be right.

I wonder if Richard Simmons (the man) ever gets tired of being Richard Simmons (The Brand)?

I’m pretty sure I would.

“Deepak Chopra Admits to Be Earth-Shakingly Irritating.”

Had a powerful meditation just now—caused an earthquake in Southern California,” Chopra wrote to his nearly 179,000 Twitter followers shortly after the quake.

And then, to clarify: “Was meditating on Shiva mantra & earth began to shake,” he tweeted. “Sorry about that.”

According to a ridiculously cursory Google search, Mr. Chopra once said, “If you and I are having a single thought of violence or hatred against anyone in the world at this moment, we are contributing to the wounding of the world...”

I’ll be meditating on that later this evening. Be on the lookout for world wounding.

Read the rest.

I find it funny--if funny can be an appropriate word in the context of what will surely be a painful and ugly split--that Jesse James is giving up on his sex addiction therapy.

Serial cheater Jesse James reportedly bolted from a sex-addition clinic after his Oscar-winning wife refused to take his phone call, the New York Post reported Monday.

An angry James checked out of the Sierra Tucson treatment center in Arizona because Sandra Bullock, on whom he cheated with several women, apparently wants nothing more to do with him.

If he were truly sorry, if he truly felt that he was an addict, and if he truly wanted to improve his life in a material way, he would finish his stay at the clinic. Instead he realized that the typical template of public apologies, scripted press releases, carefully managed stays in rehab followed up by doing the rounds on the talk show circuit where accepting responsibility means blaming the most convenient addiction wasn’t going to end with reconciliation. I can’t imagine that James has ever cared much about public opinions, so if it wasn’t going to save his marriage, why bother with the play?

After all, I’m sure he’ll find a wealth of tattooed white trash to fill his time. James wasn’t a sex addict; he was just cheating.

I do feel bad for Bullock, though. The shame and embarrassment of publicly dealing with divorce and infidelity isn’t easy under normal circumstances; in a year that should have been the best of her career, she’s instead facing front page stories, lurid pictures, and accusations about her husband that have surely turned that triumph into bitter ash.

Which is why calling the story funny doesn’t feel quite right.

Read the rest.