Thursday, 4 July 2002: 1 year... 12 months... 365 days... No more... With potential to be far less...

I just found out this morning that Julia Roberts married her cameraboy Danny Moder or whatever his name is, and this is my prediction for how long it's gonna last. I hate to be so pessimistic, but you've really gotta take Roberts' track record with dating and marriage. Suffice it to say, she's worse than George Clooney. Why would Moder even want to risk it? Some could argue that this would help his career. But, if they get divorced, she'll have him blackballed all over Tinseltown. Moder, you shoulda run, my friend.

And, by the way, Happy Birthday U.S.A. You lookin' good for a 226 year old.

Wednesday, 3 July 2002: "Gay Mafia"...

The Gay Mafia... I gotta admit, that's a pretty good one.

Apparently, the Gay Mafia is the "group" of homosexual entertainment and news types that former Disney head and founder of the now defunct Artists Management Group (AMG) Michael Ovitz claims conspired to and actually executed the destruction of his career and reputation. Supposedly, the Don Cornholeone (I mean no offense, I swear... and, yes, I'm planning to trademark that name) of this Gay Mafia is Dreamworks SKG co-chief David Geffen and also includes N.Y. Times reporter Bernard Weintraub, several Creative Artists Agency reps (CAA - a competing talent management agency to AMG), and Disney Chief Michael Eisner among others. It would seem that the combined powers of these gays and gay sympathizers was more than enough to bring down the house on AMG and leave Ovitz's life in complete shambles to the point where he no longer feels safe or wants anything to do with Hollywood anymore.

Gee, you don't think his downfall would have anything to do with Ovitz's inability to secure financial backing, do you? The fact that AT&T and Diller (whoever they are) both backed out of potential multimillion dollar deals with AMG had absolutely nothing to do with it, did it?

So, should we reserve a special place in the "Darwinism Missed Me" file for Mr. Ovitz? Yeah, I think so.

I just kinda wonder what the Gay Mafia's secret handshake would be.

Tuesday, 2 July 2002: There is going to be no way for me to possibly say what I am about to say without coming across as an insensitive asshole... ignorant American... or any other combination of seemingly derogatory terms (I, personally, don't consider the word "American" to be derogatory, but there are many other people the world over who certainly seem to). So be it.

In regards to yesterday's accidental bombing of a wedding party in Afghanistan by an American warplane, I say, "tough luck." Face it people, this is war and, everyone knows that in times of war, shit happens. I will admit that it's unfortunate that 30 someodd people were killed and many more injured. I feel bad for them. Do I agree with the Afghan claims that all the people at the wedding were innocent civilians? Hell no. I'm sure there had to be at least a couple of Taliban sympathizers in the crowd keeping their mouths shut due to their current level of unpopularity. However, these same people were firing guns in the air in celebration of the nuptials at hand. Who the hell in their right mind in the middle of the war is going to be stupid enough to fire a gun in the air!? Especially when there is a warplane passing nearby. Jeezus. It's an everyday occurance for civilians who oppose the presence of an "enemy" force in their country to retaliate in any way possible. I feel that the pilot and crew of that plane were quite justified in interpreting that the ground fire may have been directed at them. To that crew I say, "well done." Yes, that may be insensitive, but I don't give a damn. Did the Afghan government (oops, sorry, I should say "Taliban Government" seeing as how Afghanistan really had no legitimate government of its own at the time) send over a "Fact Finding Team" to investigate when the Trade Center came down or the Pentagon was hit? Nope, didn't think so. Were the innocent civilians taken into consideration when both these facilities were hit (not to mention the fourth plane going down in PA)? Actually, yes. They were considered targets. They were considered an added bonus by Al Q'aida. I know that the government in Afghanistan has changed since that time, but, like I said earlier, this is war and civilians will be killed whether you like it or not. It was a horrible and unfortunate case of mistaken identity, but not something that the rest of the world should get their panties in a twist about. It's over, move on.

Not that anybody actually will but... care to share?

Monday, 1 July 2002: Oh, if only it were truly this easy. This is an actual e-mail I found in my inbox this morning. This e-mail is reproduced below in its entirety including typos and all other errors. Enjoy...

FROM THE DESK OF MR.BAMBA MALICK
BILL AND EXCHANGE MANAGER,
FOREIGN REMMITTANCE DEPT.
BANQUE INTERNATIONALE DE COTE D'IVOIRE
ABIDJAN - COTE D'IVOIRE

Dear friend,

With due respect and huminity, I write to you this proposal.I am the manager of bill and exchange at the foreign remittance department of Banque Internationale du Abidjan . I am writing following the impressive information about you through one of my friends who run a consultancy firm in your country. He assured me of your capability and reliability to champion this businees opportunity. In my department, we discovered an abandoned sum of U.S$17m US dollars (seventeen millionUS dollars) . In an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in november 1997 in a plane crash. Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next of kin to come forward and claim his money because we cannot release it unless somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines and policies but unfortunately we learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with him at the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claims. It is therefore upon this discovery that I and other officials in my department now decided to make this businness proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming forth and we don’t want this money to go into the Bank treasury as unclaimed Bill. According to our Banking policies and guideline here which stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after five years, the money will automatically be transfered into the Bank treasury as unclaimed fund. The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner an Ivorian,that someone from ivory coast here cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner. We agree that 25 % of this money will be for you as foreign partner, in respect to the provision of a foreign account, 10 %will be for reimbursement of any expenses incured during the curse of the transaction and 65 % would be for me and my colleagues. There after I and my colleagues will visit your country for disbursement according to the percentages indicated. Therefore to enable the immediate trnansfer of this fund to you as arranged, you must apply first to the bank as relation or next of kin of the deceased indicating your bank name, your bank account number, your private telephone and fax number for easier and effective communication and location where the money will be remitted . Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by fax or email the text of the application. I will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is hitch free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer . You should contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter.

Trusting to hear from you immediately.

Your’s faithfully,

FROM THE DESK OF MR.BAMBA MALICK
BILL AND EXCHANGE MANAGER

If you'd like the real story behind this obvious hoax of an e-mail, check out the Urban Legends Reference Pages. The sad thing is that some people have actually fallen for this scam. Anybody falling into this category deserves to be listed in the "Darwinism Missed Me" file. Unfortunately, I currently have no names of such suckers.