the irish lass

Venti Non-Fat Latte

Tom Galvin's been hanging out at Starbuck's

Hillarious!

Also, Here's an update on Roger Ebert

While on vakay, I blogged about his obnoxiousness

Last night I shared a dinner table with Roger Ebert and his wife. I had skipped his lecture on the best movies of the year, because if he mentioned Farenhooey 911 I would have to give him a poke in the eye, and this is supposed to be a tranquil, reflective retreat vacation and no poking in the eye is allowed. But when I went as a single into dinner last night, they put me at his table. I tried to be good, and when the other person at the table rambled on about how she wasn't for Kerry but it seems like a lot of young people voting for Kerry, I said nothing. Then Roger said, Oh you don't have to vote for Kerry, as long as you don't vote for Bush. I couldn't keep quiet and said "Sorry" He looked aghast and said Bush is dangerous. I gave him the Irish eyeball and he backed off. The rest of the dinner went fine and in the end Roger, his wife and I sang Side By Side.

I was surfin' yesterday and ran across his film review this weekend of The Corporation

I was at a health ranch last week, where the idea is to clear your mind for serene thoughts. At dinner one night, a woman at the table referred to Arizona as a "right to work state." Unwisely, I replied: "Yeah -- the right to work cheap." She said, "I think you'll find the non-union workers are quite well paid." Exercising a supreme effort of will to avoid pronouncing the syllables "Wal-Mart," I replied: "If so, that's because unions have helped raise salaries for everybody." She replied: "The unions steal their members' dues." I replied, "How much money would you guess the unions have stolen, compared to corporations like Enron?" At this point our exchange was punctuated by a kick under the table from my wife, and we went back to positive thinking.

Do you think he was rude to someone every night?

It did get better at the end of the week. I was at a table with other people and the topic of reality TV came up. Yes we all loved The Apprentice. And I said that the other show I watched was The Batchelor, when my friend Brooks Firestone's son was on it. A man at the table said "You know Brooks Firestone?" I said yes. He said Oh yes, you're from Sacramento. It turns out that he was Gerald Warren, Nixon's Deputy Press Secretary and one of the seven potential suspects that historians and the press thought might be Watergate's "Deep Throat".

I wish I had known when I was talking to him. I just discovered the Deep Throat thing this minute while googling to make sure I spelled his name right!