Today's Drudge Report has a wonderful, wacky variety of news.

First up, Dan Ra^ther talks to ghosts.

Next, life imitates art, or at least a Van Halen song. (I don't remember any of my teachers looking like that!)

Interesting: Pat Sajak speaks truth to Hollywood about the Van Gogh murder.

And finally, it appears that ABC's housewives might pull the network into second place for this "sweeps" period, likely bumping NBC into third.

(I have to share a guilty confession, like J.T. at Wizbang: I enjoy watching that trashy show with the missus). Why? Two good reasons under the fold:
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Timothy Sandefur has kindly extended an invitation for me to be his guest-blogger at Freespace this week. I am looking forward to working on a few "think pieces," since the tone of dialogue on his blog is a bit more serious than what I usually offer up here. Who knows, maybe the change of setting will help me elevate the tone of my blog a bit, too.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Good news from Alan at Strengthen the Good: the organization is now a 503(c) non-profit organization so that donors who go through STG may obtain a tax deduction.

Alan has identified a new cause this time: an English-language library in Slovakia needs some books and has identified a wish list with many worthy titles. You can send books directly to the school identified in Alan's article, or you can send money to STG and they will purchase books for the school. As always, follow the link, read Alan's summary of the cause, and determine whether you can do anything to help.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:19 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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From the Llama Butchers (who pinched it from Mixolydian Don) a list of the "top" cult films with the ones I've seen in bold, the ones I plan to see for the first time or would see again in italics:

1. This Is Spinal Tap
2. The Rocky Horror Picture Show - Really. I've never seen this. Not sure I will ever see it.
3. Freaks
4. Harold And Maude
5. Pink Flamingos - The. Grossest. Movie. Ever. I was never much of a John Waters fan, but I let a friend talk me into seeing this in college after I had pulled an all-nighter writing a history seminar paper. After being awake for about 40 hours straight and having imbibed about 4 liters of Mountain Dew and a beer, I was in a pretty strange state of mind, but quite well-suited for this film.
6. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
7. Repo Man
8. Scarface
9. Blade Runner
10. The Shawshank Redemption

(remainder in extended entry)
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Posted by: JohnL at 09:40 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Last night I beat Halo 2 on the Normal setting, but I won't consider it truly "beaten" until I've completed Heroic and Legendary each in solo mode, a process that took me several months with the first Halo.

Once I've done that, I plan to venture online and try some of the XBox Live matches. One thing I've read that makes me really look forward to playing online is Bungie's matching of players with similar skills, and tracking their experience, so that they move up as they become better players.

My first experiences with online play (with the Halo for PC demo) were less-than-satisfactory due to the mismatch in skills that often left me lying in a pool of blood for the entire game as snot-nosed teenagers typed insults at me on the chat channel.

Posted by: JohnL at 08:14 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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First the macroeconomic story. Halo 2 cleared $125 million in its first 24 hours of sales. For comparison's sake, the all-time record for a movie's opening weekend was set by Spider Man in 2002, with a gross of $115 million.

Now for the microeconomics. I remember when we first bought the Xbox that I thought the $50-a-game price for the newest titles was outrageous. (And it usually is -- we typically wait for sales or special bundles, and almost always rent a game before purchasing it, to make sure it's worth owning).

While standing in line Monday night, pondering the opportunity costs of the $60 I was about to drop on a new game, I got to thinking about other forms of family entertainment. One that immediatlely leapt to mind was the few Texas Rangers baseball games I've taken my sons to see. In each case we easily dropped close to $100 on tickets, food, and parking per game in exchange for 3 hours of -- frankly -- lousy entertainment.

On the other hand, we have spent innumerable (10s, 100s?) of hours in the past 14 months playing Xbox cooperatively, and having a great time doing it. (Please note that we are not a couch-potato family, as each of my three kids is involved in sports and Scouts, we camp and bike together, and I coach two of the three soccer teams).

I've already had some fun playing the first few levels with my sons as spectators and have let them replay some of the ground I've already covered in Halo 2. I know we'll definitely be getting our money's worth out of this.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:22 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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