Size Matters

For Airport Security, Size Matters

Cops: New high-tech screener triggered fight over manhood insult

MAY 6--A Transportation Security Administration screener is facing an assault rap after he allegedly beat a co-worker who joked about the size of the man's genitalia after he walked through a security scanner. The May 4 confrontation involved Rolando Negrin, 44, and other TSA employees who had previously taken part in a training session at Miami International Airport, according to the below Miami-Dade Police Department reports. Negrin, pictured in the mug shot at right, and his co-workers had been training with new "whole body image" machines--the controversial kind that provide very revealing images of a traveler--when Negrin walked through the scanner. "The X-ray revealed that [Negrin] has a small penis and co-workers made fun of him on a daily basis," reported cops. Following his arrest, Negrin told police that he "could not take the jokes anymore and lost his mind." After work Tuesday evening, Negrin confronted fellow TSA screener Hugo Osorno in an airport parking lot. Negrin wanted to "resolve a problem," and get Osorno, 34, to "finally respect him." Instead, Negrin allegedly pulled out a police baton and began striking Osorno, while demanding an apology. A witness told cops that Negrin told Osorno, in Spanish, "Get on your knees or I will kill you and you better apologize." When Negrin, wearing his TSA uniform, arrived for work yesterday, he was arrested on an aggravated battery count and booked into the Miami-Dade lockup. Osorno, police reported, suffered "bruises and abrasions on his back and arms" during the attack.

Least Influential People of 2010

I found this rather amusing:

Least Influential People of 2010
By Joel Stein Thursday, Apr. 29, 2010

LOSERS

"We Are the World 25 for Haiti"
Fundraising song
Wow, that sucked.

Rue McClanahan
Actress
Betty White has usurped all the power from remaining Golden Girls.

Professional Wrestling Referees
Dream job for weird kids
So few rules to enforce, and yet they always fail.

People in Windows 7 Ads
Actors
Windows 7 was not your idea at all.

Michael Steele
RNC chairman
After his lavish spending and criticizing of Rush Limbaugh — Rush Limbaugh! — many in the party are trying to get rid of him. Even though that would mean losing his blog on GOP.com, which, though now untitled, used to be called "What Up?"

Mark Rosenthal
CEO of Current TV
If someone from MSNBC's The Ed Show caused an international incident in which two reporters were captured by North Korea and had to be freed by a trip from Bill Clinton, at least a few of us would tune in to an episode of the Ed Schultz Show. But still no one has seen that blur-of-short-YouTube-looking-segments that calls itself Current TV. Al Gore is even worse at starting networks than he is at running for President.

MORONS

Heidi Montag
Star of MTV's The Hills
You used to be famous for being famous. Then you were famous for getting lots of plastic surgery and selling only 658 copies of your album in its first week. Now your'e not famous. That was fast.

Spencer Pratt
Boyfriend of Star of MTV's The Hills
Montag fired him as her manager. It's like we need a whole other list of the uninfluential to the uninfluential.

Paula Abdul
Ex-American Idol Judge
Now you have only yourself to judge. That can't be fun.

Desiree Rogers
Former White House Social Secretary
If you had purposely invited one of the Real Housewives of D.C., that would have been influential.

Floyd Landis
Cyclist
Every other cyclist in the last 20 years has gotten away with doping except for you.

Mayumi Heene
Balloon Boy's mom
Any wife who can't talk her husband out of that plan really has no influence.

Conrad Murray
Michael Jackson's doctor
Not a lot of people in Murray's waiting room right now.

Brian Dunkleman
Former Co-Host of American Idol
After quitting Idol after the first season, Dunkleman is now doing voice work playing Ruiga in Naruto.

Joaquin Phoenix
Actor
That weird Andy Kauffman-esque thing where you filmed yourself pretending to rap badly? Even if you made a great documentary about it, I'm not seeing it. In fact, deep down, I'm pretty sure you were really just trying to rap.

Selma
Ex-Lead Technician at the Clinic in Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew on VH1
When you're fired for getting in a fight with Kari Ann Peniche (the woman who was naked in that video with Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart), the woman who was herself thrown out of both VH1's Sober House and VH1's Sex Rehab, you are not highly valued.

Carrie Prejean
Former Miss California
Two things you can't do: 1) Make a sex tape after talking about how immoral gay people are; 2) Make a sex tape without any sex in it.

Nadya Suleman
Octomom
No one really cares anymore.

David Shuster
Ex-MSNBC reporter
Shooting a pilot for a rival network (CNN) without asking your bosses is a pretty easy way to get suspended. Also, you should have shot a better pilot.

FLAMEOUTS

Bo Obama
First Dog
No book telling us to exercise or eat leafy greens? No hilarious video of chasing a squirrel to distract us from the fact that our unemployment benefits are almost up? After all that talk about what breed of dog to buy, the family decided to go with Total Loser?

H1N1
Virus
I got a shot for this loser! I made my baby get a shot! This was the biggest loser epidemic since bird flu. Or SARS. I bet H1N1 never even killed a pig. I've eaten about 3 pigs this week and I'm not technically a virus.

Sleestaks
Fictional Creatures from Land of the Lost
You guys bought Escalades with pimped out rims and Beverly Hills homes thinking you'd finally made it. Then Land of the Lost with Will Ferrell bombed and your big-eyed, giant scaly heads realized your one chance was gone.

Sarah Larson
George Clooney's Ex-Girlfriend
While dating George Clooney, People named you as one of their most beautiful people. Now try getting People to call you back. They're not really your friend, Sarah.

Carson Daly
Talk show host
Really. He is. He has a show on NBC. It comes on right after Jimmy Fallon. He was given the show eight years ago so he could practice in obscurity before he took over for Conan. The show has offices and everything.

The Doors
Classic Rock band
We've all decided that they actually sucked and just had a handsome lead singer.

Grover
Muppet
Elmo is taking all your airtime, yo.

Dan Rather
Anchor
...on HDNet. I don't know what that is or why it's still so proud of being in HD, but this is not retiring gracefully. This is like if Michael Jordan came back now and played for HDNet.

Katie Couric
Network Anchor
She keeps showing up. You have to admire that.

Tom DeLay
Former Congressman
Not sure what kind of career he was trying to jumpstart by appearing on Dancing With The Stars, but camp-loving gay men don't like a quitter.

Carrot Top
Comedian
All that success, and yet he hasn't spawned a generation of prop comedians.

Witches
Practioners of Magic
Charmed was, like, 10 years ago. It's all vampires, werewolves and zombies now.

General Larry Platt
Singer/songwriter
"Pants on the Ground" has not stopped one kid from wearing his pants on the ground.

Stedman Graham
Oprah's Boyfriend
Everyone else who knows Oprah has their own show by now.

SLIMY BASTARDS

John Edwards
Former Presidential Candidate
He already was irrelevant, then he allowed news of an affair and love child to come out so slowly, we forgot he was already irrelevant.

Eric Massa
Ex- Congressman
It's hard to be influential when you have no clue how the world works. You don't explain how ungay you are by saying that you just were having tickle fights with the guys you live with, like you did when you were in the Navy. Liberace was more subtle.

Tom Anderson
Founder of, and everyone's friend on, MySpace
Have you clicked on MySpace lately? It's like you wandered into some section of Las Vegas so seedy it should be in Tampa. You can get venereal diseases just from logging on.

Jon Gosselin
Ex-Reality Dad
We once thought he was the henpecked husband of a crazy chick. Now we love the henpecker. Killing the Ed Hardy trend was the last influence you'll ever have.

Lindsay Lohan
Actress
Things are not good when you're suing babies.

Michael Lohan
Lindsay Lohan's dad
He's engaged to Jon Gosselin's ex-girlfriend.

Angelina Pivarnick
Reality Washout
To get kicked off of MTV's Jersey Shore is an accomplishment, but not one that gets you on the next season of Jersey Shore.

Levi Johnston
Actor, model, baby daddy
Who knew American politics needed its own Kato Kaelin.

Tila Tequila
I Have No Idea
I could tell you that Tila Nguyen changed her name to Miss Tila, that she released sonogram pictures of her baby to radar online or that her new single is called "I Fucked the DJ." All of which you'd never know if I didn't just write it. But the only data point I need, I believe, is this, from Wikipedia: "In December 2009, Nguyen partnered with Joe Francis to launch a dating site called 'TilasHotSpotDating.com'.

Nicollette Sheridan
Actress
The other, non-fired Desperate Housewives don't have her back in her lawsuits against the show's creator.

Hacking Horror

Totally disgusting story about a girl I used to work with.  I have no idea what was wrong with her, but she had some sort of excess phlegm issue.  So she kept a styrofoam cup on her desk and would hack phlegm balls into it all day long, making that gross noise and everything.  And she'd use the same cup for like a week (sometimes longer) before throwing it out and getting a new one.

Just reading this made me kinda nauseous.  *gag*  Can I assume people didn't stop by her desk to chat too often?

I hope you never mistook her spittoon for an empty cup for your coffee, AnneBFree!

I Will Kill You With My Bare Hands

I have a great affinity for crazy people in general, but crazy famous people?!?! LOVE 'EM! So I'm loving this:


Russell Crowe is set to capture America's heart all over again when Robin Hood hits theaters in two weeks. But let us not forget: Russell Crowe is crazy. Some exclusive excerpts from a new book remind us just how crazy.

The following excerpts are taken from

The Men Who Would Be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company Called DreamWorks
 by Nicole Laporte, which will be released May 4. Her chapter on the making of Gladiator contains these tidbits about what it's like to work with Russell Crowe. First, his negotiation style:

"You motherfucker. I will kill you with my bare hands."



"Hello?" Branko Lustig said, confused and barely awake; it was, after all, 3 a.m. in England.


"You motherfucker," the speaker repeated.


"Who's on the phone? Who is this?" Lustig demanded.


When Russell Crowe identified himself, the genuinely terrified Lustig, one of the producers of the about-to-be-filmed Gladiator, hung up and called Steven Spielberg in Los Angeles.


"Steven," he said. "I'm leaving. Russell wants to kill me. I'm leaving."


Having survived a concentration camp, Lustig was not taking any chances.


Crowe, not yet Russell Crowe, but still just another verkakte Australian coming off a sleeper (L.A. Confidential), was sour because he believed DreamWorks was low-balling his assistants on their per diems. Rather than raise this grievance at a mundane daylight hour, Crowe opted for a more dramatic statement, a tactic not unknown in these parts. The actor's recent behavior had been erratic, just like everything else on the project.

Next, a surly and apparently hung over Russell comes to a script meeting at Ridley Scott's production facility one morning. He insults the recent script changes and walks out. Ridley Scott finally tracks Crowe down and gently ushers him back to the meeting:

Finally, Crowe materialized—unrepentant and sans affability. If Scott's pep talk had any effect, it seemed to have lodged deep in the actor's subconscious. Crowe played along, but refused to summon a scintilla of good humor. He didn't so much recite his lines as growl them in a deranged accent that flitted between indeterminate continents of origin. More absurd was Oliver Reed's delivery. Even though his lines were as long as haiku, he filled them with dramatic flourishes. Having recently renounced drinking, he said that the only thing he was chugging was lemonade, but the question was just what he was mixing in the stuff.


"My oold frrriend," he read, puckering his lips and rolling his r's with all the pomp of a 17th century thespian.


Crowe, in turn, chewed up monologues, spitting out each and every poisonous syllable.


Screenwriter John Logan, who has lovingly crafted many of these lines, watched in horror. He scrawled four words on a piece of paper: "Kill me! Kill me!"


A month later, after filming in England, the shoot moved to Ouarzazate, Morocco – a town near the Sahara Desert, where Hollywood has traditionally gone for its sword and sandal needs (Lawrence of Arabia was filmed in the area). Crowe's mood did not improve. Twice, he had walked off the set. Even when he was supposedly having "fun," Crowe was a puffy pain. After challenging members of the crew to a foot race, and losing, he would mutter for days, "I would have won, but I can't run in the sand in sandals."



Heh! And finally, an inside look at the ferocious working style of the world's greatest actor (Russell Crowe):




Never were Crowe's spirits more in flux than when he was to read the climactic, "And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next" scene, in which his character, Maximus, removes his helmet and reveals his identity. It was only the most seminal line in the entire movie, and yet Crowe was convinced that it was ridiculous – overwrought, puffery that no man would ever be caught dead saying, least of all a brawny, sword-carrying killer standing under the unrelenting African sun. Scott was one of the few people who seemed to understand Crowe, that underneath all that volatility was a very scared actor who needed to feel safe. Rather than blow up at him, Scott waited until the tantrum subsided. Then he agreed to shoot the scene the way Crowe preferred.


After doing the take, Crowe still looked dissatisfied. "Let me see the other script again," he said to Scott, referring to the loathed revision. After studying the page stonily, he shrugged. "Well, we might as well try it."


And so, the scene was reshot. Everyone agreed it was brilliant. Everyone, that is, but Crowe. "Russell, what's the problem?" Scott asked, finally showing a hint of exasperation. "It worked."


"It was shit," Crowe repeated, "but I'm the greatest actor in the world and I can make even shit sound good." And with that he marched off.

Bloody Bizarre

Today's is brief...but bizarre:

This woman I used to work with would purposely give herself paper cuts.  Her hands were covered in them.  She tried to hide it while she was actually doing it, but we'd catch her all the time.  Plus there were always drops of blood on any paper you would get from her.

Paper cuts are freakin' AWFUL!  I can't believe anyone would self-inflict them - YOW!

But then again... could you get some sort of on-the-job injury time off?!?!

*heading off to look for extremely sharp paper*

I'm sending you some Latex gloves so you can handle your bio-medical hazard paperwork, GrantedRee.

Finally...Graphs That Make Sense

How many times have you gotten a friend request, and just said "Ugh, really?!?!?"  C'mon, you know you have!

 I rarely use it yet Adobe is always updating itself and demanding that you restart your computer...or else.  

Is it  too early to start drinking?

Actually, for me, its my dog.  Will follow a laser light for hours.  Damn funny.

Heh.

Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Yoda

Heading out to catch me some crickets for dinner.

Sunday Silliness

Some people probably should not be parents.  Cases in point:

"Nah, kids, they just put that wall there to be annoying, not for any safety reasons or anything.  But I got an idea...."

I always say you're never to young to learn how to use a deadly weapon.

Who's taking pictures of my kid? 

On a side note, my cart is filled the same way.  But it's a full sized adult cart, of course.

I like the special little chair she's got for him.  How innovative!  And I'm sure it has a seat belt attachment. So, no safety issues here, nosirree!!