Anyone out there feel like buying me the Ken Burns Jazz series on DVD? I’ve been listening to the CD box set of the show (a very kind holiday present from some family friends) a whole lot, and now I’m jonesing to see the entire series.

CBS pulled this Smirnoff ad from the Super Bowl, which is a damn shame seeing as it’s funnier than any other ad that was shown during the game.

A Chicago-area man suffered third-degree burns when a stripper at a club leaned into him to embrace him, causing him to lean backwards into a candle. Of course, he’s now suing her and the strip club for damages. This whole incident could have been avoided, though, if Harvey, IL had Tampa’s now-famous Six-Foot Law (which prevents nude dancing within six feet of patrons).

Note to Dubya: those who follow someone in a job are called “successors.”

I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well.

One example that helped put into focus my exact hatred of the Bush administration and the ideas that it represents: it’s now illegal to use United States money to fund abortions or abortion counseling, but it should be OK to use United States money to fund religion and religious activism. This is the President who spent the last few weeks telling us how centrist he would be?

(By the way, luckily, the ACLU is stepping into the breach on the faith-based charity proposal. Their concern is a huge one — that public money would be going to organizations which do not have to abide by U.S. civil rights laws — and, along with the basic violation of church and State issues, will spell the proposal’s demise if it ever makes its way off of the drafting table.)

My most recent pseudo-brush with fame: on my way out of my Tampa hotel room Monday morning, I heard someone passionately talking into the payphone about “how that show last night totally misrepresented” her, and how she really is a nice person, not manipulative or controlling like “they” made her out to be. I looked to see who it was, and it turned out to be Debb Eaton, the first person kicked off of the Survivor 2 island on Super Bowl night. Later, in the lobby, she was talking to her stepson-cum-fiancee about how it was only him that seemed weirded out by their stepmom-stepson relationship, and to everyone else, they appeared to be a normal couple who was in love. Yuck.