Ontario Empoblog

When I was growing up, I didn't know a lot about Orson Bean . I knew that he was a panelist on "To Tell the Truth" (along with Bill Cullen, Peggy Cass, and Kitty Carlisle, plus host Garry Moore), and that he went to Australia . I was a bit surprised when he popped up in an audiobook by Bob Edwards about Edward R. Murrow . And therein lies a story : CrankyCritic: We can joke about not being seen on the coasts, but you did get whacked by the infamous Hollywood Black List , too. Orson Bean : I was never bitter. I was horny for a Communist girl and she dragged me to some meetings and that's why I got blacklisted. Everybody in those days wanted to end the black list. I ran on a slate of AFTRA and was elected first VP of the New York Local. For my pains, they dug up this stuff about me and, I went from being the hot comic on the Ed Sullivan Show to not working for a year. However, I got a Broadway show. At the end of that year Ed Sullivan called me up, as he promised ...

Amerivision Mortgage Corporation (see here and here ) has published some "Buyer Don'ts" for people who are close to closing on a home. Excerpts: It may be tempting to order that new sofa for your soon-to-be living room, but its best to avoid making major purchases like furniture, cars, appliances, electronic equipment, jewelry, or vacations until after the closing. Financing that furniture with a store credit card or even one of your own credit cards could jeopardize your credit worthiness during the time it means the most.... Generally, changing jobs will not affect your ability to qualify for a mortgage loan - especially if you are going to be making more money. But for some people, getting a new job during the loan approval process could raise some concern and affect your application.... [from] Amerivision Mortgage Corp 2990 Inland Empire Blvd Ste 120 Ontario, CA 91764 Phone: 909-481-2833 Fax: 909-481-0442 Favorite U.S. president - Third favorite Finnish figure skat...

Now that my Google account provides me access to my blogs, rather than someone else's blog (Go Bears!), I can continue the discussion that I started here . And, for the record, there are notification requirements for a Notice of Default , which you can find right in the good ol' U.S. Code . TITLE 12 > CHAPTER 38 > § 3708 § 3708. Service of notice of default and foreclosure sale ... (1) The notice of default and foreclosure sale, together with the designation required by section 3704 of this title, shall be sent by certified or registered mail, postage prepaid and return receipt requested... So I'm forced to conclude that Joyce Powell got a certified or registered Notice of Default, then got a certified or registered Notice of Sale , and still didn't realize the significance of the documents. In my Yahoo post , I done said: [T]he wonderful wonderful mortgage company that held the mortgage (presumably the same Amerivision Mortgage Corporation) sent a Notice of De...

And it's understandable - she placed third in the 2007 European Figure Skating Championships . But you already knew that. YouTube video here . Favorite U.S. president - Third favorite Finnish figure skater

Followup . A bit more on the political theory of the Caliphate: Hizb ut-Tahrir says that Muslims should abolish national boundaries within the Islamic world and return to a single Islamic state, known as "the Caliphate," that would stretch from Indonesia to Morocco and contain more than 1.5 billion people. It's a simple and seductive idea that analysts believe may someday allow the group to rival existing Islamic movements, topple the rulers of Middle Eastern nations, and undermine those seeking to reconcile democracy and Islam and build bridges between East and West.... "The Caliphate is a rallying point between the radicals and the more moderate Islamists," says Stephen Ulph, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation. "The idea of a government based on the Caliphate has a historical pedigree and Islamic legitimacy that Western systems of government by their very nature do not have." But unlike Al Qaeda, Hizb ut-Tahrir believes it can recreate the ...

One of my co-workers is on MySpace, and while checking out the pages of my co-worker's friends, I ran across this post and tagged it. Then, someone in my del.icio.us network tagged it also. Both Ragnell and I quoted from Alicat's quote on this article: This article helps me be thankful for what I have and reminds me to have faith :) Faith enough to survive in the ocean for nine months and nine days? Increase my faith! (Luke 17:5) Here are excerpts from Alicat's post, which she quoted from an article in Variety: Three Mexican fishermen saw their first land in nearly 10 months today (Tuesday) after drifting across the Pacific Ocean since last October 28. After 13 days aboard a Marshall Islands fishing vessel since their rescue, the Mexican fishermen looked healthy, smiled often and talked about their ordeal in an on-board interview with AFP shortly before they arrived in Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands.... Salvador Ordonez, 37, the oldest of the three Mexican...

I never really cared for Norman Lear . I thought that the characters on his shows were, for the most part, one-dimensional stereotypes representing various positions, rather than living breathing human beings. But as we get further and further into the twenty-first century, I'm appreciating him more and more. I've already talked talked (sorry, listening to a new CD ) about modern-day attempts to ban the use of the word "nigger." Well, as Evelyn Erives and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Bill Handel reported this morning, there is a concerted effort to ban the use of another word. Let's have Harvey Levin get out of the water and tell us what's going on : The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is demanding an apology from "Grey's Anatomy" star Isaiah Washington for continually making homophobic remarks. In the past four months, Washington has used the offensive term "faggot" twice in reference to co-star T.R. Knight.....

From a post dated October 14, 2005, but timely as ever as David Beckham and Victoria Beckham prepare to arrive in El-Lay: I asserted that pop- Kabbalah is the new Scientology : a pseudo-religion scam designed to suck money out of people, especially famous ones. Gwen argued that pop-Kabbalah wasn’t as bad because it was at least rooted in a legitimate religious tradition. “Oh yeah?” I countered, “then what about Jews for Jesus ? That’s rooted in two legitimate religious traditions!” In other news, one of the evidences that the LDS church is the true church (see 3 Nephi 27:8 , [3 Nephi tags] noting that the Mormons aren't the only ones who buttress claims with their own authority) has been added as a comment to my MySpace blog . But if you REALLY want to see a religious war, look at what happened when Mitch Wagner claimed that the iPhone was NOT the most wonderful device in the universe. Keep your Treo you wouldn't understand... an I phone is just too easy for you You...

Followup . Here are some other posts about the Teledex iPhone products. This one is from November 2005: iPhone IP is an SIP-based phone released by Teledex. The company has also released iPhone Hybrid, which is an analog phone that can be converted to IP by means of an upgrade. The phones are meant for the hospitality industry and are similar in looks. Both models have an interactive color touch screen. The phones are expected to hit the market in the second quarter of 2006. And here's where The Trademark Blog quotes another article and annotates it (annotations in ALL CAPS): Apple could also claim that Cisco has failed to defend its iPhone trademark....Cisco acquired the iPhone trademark when it bought Infogear in 2000. Since then, other companies, such as Teledex and Orate Telecommunications Services, have shipped products--products that directly compete with the Cisco/Infogear line of phones--bearing the iPhone moniker. THIS MAY WELL BE ITS 'ACE IN THE HOLE." IT CAN L...

I searched for this story on the Net before, but couldn't find it, so I guess I'll have to post it myself. These are excerpts from Glennis Yeager , appearing in Chuck Yeager's autobiography . Glennis died a few years after this was written. The following occurred around 1971 in Pakistan. At a party one night...I was talking to Bob Grant, the head of the population section of our Agency for International Development....I started working four hours a day and ended up working eight to ten hours a day and enjoying every minute of it. Our job was to help the Pakistanis cut back on their enormous population growth. Birth control was not popular and seldom practiced....As for the condoms Chuck was always laughing about, most of the Pakistani men wanted nothing to do with them....[O]ne of the male secretaries said to me, "The color makes it too embarrasing." I asked what he meant. "To a Moslem," he said, "white is the color of purity." I asked him, ...

Followup to my post on the Ontario Technoblog . I figured that Cisco had a clear case, but I just read a post that caused me to think different (heh): In order to keep a trademark alive, you have to file a “Declaration of Use” with the US Patent and Trademark office every six years or forfeit the trademark. On 11/16/2005 Cisco missed that deadline, but was granted a six month grace period, which it just barely squeezed through. Unfortunately for Cisco, a “Declaration of Use” requires demonstration of active use, under penalty of perjury. Cisco merely slapped an iPhone sticker onto an existing VoIP handset it was producing , but at the time hadn’t put an actual iPhone product on shelves for a good long while. This jeopardizes the legitimacy of the trademark, and with Ocean Telecom Services LLC — which is thought by most to be a front company for Apple — next in line for the name, it’s looking like anyone’s game at this point. Also see something in over 1,000 news reports here . From th...

So I'm taking our family's In N Out order this evening, and my Swiss daughter asks for animal fries. Turns out that animal fries are on In N Out's so-called "secret menu." But I bet that my Swiss daughter doesn't know about In N Out's secret secret menu . Excerpts: Vegan Style - 4 leafs of lettuce between 2 leafs of lettuce. John 3:16 style fries - Fries, no salt. Mt. Rushmore - 4 fresh whole potatoes, peeled and hand carved to the likenesses of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln, deep-fried to golden brown perfection. More here . From the Ontario Empoblog (Information on the greatest 20th century U.S. president here )

Tried to write a comment in MySpace, and got an internal server error. Tried to post something in Blogger, and got an internal server error. Let's see if third time's a non-charm. From the Ontario Empoblog (Information on the greatest 20th century U.S. president here )

A quick overview (thanks to Randy Morin ): Some Dallas-area cheerleaders caused big trouble at their school when risque pictures of them turned up on MySpace.com. The group of cheerleaders at McKinney North High School was known as the "Fab Five." The girls were "uber cool," according to attorney Harry Jones, who was hired by the school district to launch an investigation. They were "telling teachers to shut up, using a cell phone in class even after being told not to, cheating on tests, skipping school," Jones said. The pictures turned up on MySpace.com in September. The girls were drinking in some of them, NBC News' Michelle Kosinski reported. In another picture, girls posed in the cheerleading uniforms in a condom shop.... Jones said they felt they could intimidate and threaten anyone at the school in part because the principal, Linda Theret, was the mother of the squad's co-captain. In the wake of the investigation, Theret agreed to resign and...

Reporting on the whole Club Paris thingie , BlogoWogo said the following: We wish the Club Paris team the best in its obviously doomed hunt for The Replacement, but we're sure they'll quickly discover that no matter how many luxury apartments or exotic sportscars they lavish upon their faux-Hilton, they'll never be able to adequately simulate the lazy-eyed, vacant stare of carefree privilege that only a lifetime as a genuine hotel heiress can provide. But does this "genuine hotel heiress" actually enjoy "carefree privilege"? Not exactly, as this 2005 article attests: One reason Kathy Hilton is just thrilled about her daughter Paris’s engagement to Greek billionaire shipping heir Paris Latsis is that she’s hoping the union will solve her husband’s financial woes, sources say. While the tabs typically gush about the elder Hiltons’ “$1 billion fortune,” Kathy and her husband Rick have long scraped by on freebies and a modest trust fund. “The truth is, the...

Once upon a time there was a businessman named Fred Khalilian . Unfortunately, his business got into a little bit of trouble. From the Federal Trade Commission : UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA ORLANDO DIVISION Case No. 6:00 -Civ-1057-ORL-19B FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION , ) Plaintiff, v. LEISURE TIME MARKETING, INC., a Florida Corporation; DISCOVERY RENTAL, INC., d/b/a Discovery Rentals, Inc., a Florida Corporation; MARLIN SWANSON; BRITT SHENKMAN; EDWARD M. SEBASTIAN; and FEREIDOUN "FRED" KHALILIAN; Defendants. STIPULATED FINAL ORDER OF PERMANENT INJUNCTION AGAINST FEREIDOUN "FRED" KHALILIAN... IT IS...ORDERED that Defendant Fereidoun "Fred" Khalilian, and his officers, agents, directors, employees, salespersons, independent contractors, attorneys, corporations, subsidiaries, affiliates, successors, assigns, and all other persons in active concert or participation with him who receive actual notice of this Final Order by personal servi...

It was a little after 6:00 in the morning in the Pacific time zone, and the sun had not yet risen as the ceremony commenced. Sure, Brit Hume and his buddies were covering Gerald Ford's flag-draped casket over 2,000 miles away, but Ford is best understood via a ceremony that was not covered by the networks - a ceremony in which I was proud to have participated. First, I had to clothe myself in the appropriate attire. This particular ceremony did not call for a tuxedo, which would not have been appropriate at all. I specifically donned a San Francisco sweater, symbolizing the western half of our great country, and then I covered that with a leather jacket that was purchased from Target , representing the eastern half of our great country. (Yes, I realize that Minneapolis is on the west bank of the Mississippi. I hope you'll pardon me.) Then, through a processional that involved many door openings, door closings, and use of a garage door key (not to be confused with the Office...