Goddamn double dips and other Friday stuff

Grr. They're releasing an unrated version of Dodgeball. Nine months after the initial release of the movie. Have I mentioned how much I loathe double dips?

Stayed home yesterday, as I was at the "use it or lose it" level of vacation, and was going to lose those eight hours as of July 1 no matter what. Spent the day cleaning up in the kitchen and bedroom, working on job app stuff, and dozing with a cat on my chest. We also went shopping, discovering that Publix no longer stocks my lovely "Deli-style Rye" flavor of Triscuits. Bastards.

Creepiest thing I noted while reading through the stacks of magazines: Stuff Magazine (shut up! I get it for free!) has a pictorial/interview with Danica McCellar. Like the interviewer, I've got a hard time looking at the pics and not saying, "but it's Winnie Cooper!" Other than watching Static Shock, I don't think I've seen a project of hers in years.

Really sad offshoot of that last point -- checking out the IMDB for other TWY castmembers, it looks like the only thing that Jason Hervey has done in recent memory (other than his stint on JLU as Dove) is exec produce I Want to Be a Hilton. *shudder* I believe that puts him below Todd Bridges on the "former TV child star" Walk of Shame.

Plans for the holiday weekend: Get crap done around the house. Woohoo! Maybe, if I get bored, I'll kill Diablo.

DVDness

Good news -- I won a copy of Life Aquatic.

Bad news -- I need to get down to the WSB station to claim it. Grr. So they asked for my address when I entered just for the hell of it?

Also, watched half of Versus last night, and will watch the other half tonight. So far, it's thoroughly fucked up, and wonderful. Definitely something that the Miike fans would like.

Nice "discount"

Decided to hit the Plan 9 site for the first time in years, since I was wondering if there were any new Sluggy Books since I fell behind (looks like only one in the last five years). Saw a link to their "sale" page:

http://www.plan9publishing.com/sunshop/index.php?action=item&id=129&prevaction=category&previd=new&prevstart=

Um, nice "reduced" price.

(it's even less of a "sale" when you realize that the actual list price is $12).

On O'Connor and the SC

I had a long post talking about the various possibilities (and I still naively hope we won't see a Mel Martinez nomination), but just didn't have the time or effort for real debate today.

So I'll simply leave you with a quotation from Orrin Hatch's autobiography, showing how the situation was handled last time. I strongly suspect that we won't see as classy a handling of the situation this time around. I'd also love to be wrong.

[It] was not a surprise when the President called to talk about the appointment and what he was thinking of doing.

President Clinton indicated he was leaning toward nominating Bruce Babbitt, his Secretary of the Interior, a name that had been bouncing around in the press. Bruce, a well-known western Democrat, had been the governor of Arizona and a candidate for president in 1988. Although he had been a state attorney general back during the 1970s, he was known far more for his activities as a politician than as a jurist. Clinton asked for my reaction.

I told him that confirmation would not be easy. At least one Democrat would probably vote against Bruce, and there would be a great deal of resistance from the Republican side. I explained to the President that although he might prevail in the end, he should consider whether he wanted a tough, political battle over his first appointment to the Court.

Our conversation moved to other potential candidates. I asked whether he had considered Judge Stephen Breyer of the First Circuit Court of Appeals or Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. President Clinton indicated he had heard Breyer’s name but had not thought about Judge Ginsberg.

I indicated I thought they would be confirmed easily. I knew them both and believed that, while liberal, they were highly honest and capable jurists and their confirmation would not embarrass the President. From my perspective, they were far better than the other likely candidates from a liberal Democrat administration.

In the end, the President did not select Secretary Babbitt. Instead, he nominated Judge Ginsburg and Judge Breyer a year later, when Harry Blackmun retired from the Court. Both were confirmed with relative ease.