Sweet chinchilla wishes you Happy New Year

Matt Dillon busted going 106 mph in VT

A suggested New Year’s resolution for Matt Dillon: Slow down. 

On Tuesday night, the actor, 44, was pulled over in Newbury, Vt., after state troopers clocked him driving 106 mph in a 65 mph zone. 

Dillon, who was driving a rented 2009 Chevy Impala, was taken to a station in nearby Bradford, where he was photographed, fingerprinted and given a citation. 

The process typically takes 15 to 20 minutes, according to Vermont State Police Public Information Officer Sgt. Tara Thomas. “I have every reason to believe he was cooperative,” she says. 

Dillon is due to appear at Orange County Court on Jan. 21. 

His rep could not immediately be reached for comment.

HA.

[courtesy of People]

Time added to NYE 2008

Just before midnight, official timekeepers will add one second to the atomic clocks around the world. So instead of 60 seconds for your New Year’s Eve smooch, you’ll get 61. According to Peter Whibberley, a senior research scientist at Britain’s National Physical Laboratory, due to the erratic rotation of the Earth:

“The difference between atomic time and Earth time has now built up to the point where it needs to be corrected, so this New Year’s Eve we will experience a rare 61 second minute at the very end of 2008 and revelers… will have an extra second to celebrate.”

So make the most of your extra second in 2008. Kiss longer, or take a slightly longer sip of champagne. You never know – maybe that one second will change your life.

Okay… probably not.

Love Monkey: RIP to another great show

Dave got me watching the entire series (all 8 episodes) of Love Monkey last night. Granted, I’ve only seen the pilot, but I really like it. The characters are quirky, and it’s people that I like with a subject matter that is obviously right up my alley (seeing as I’ve always wanted to be “the golden ear”). Tom Cavanagh is great as the lead character, a single record executive Tom; Jason Priestley plays… a husband (weird); and Kitty is in it as a lead character! And if you don’t know who Kitty is, I’m making an Arrested Development reference. Kitty is the nitwit secretary character in AD played by Judy Greer, and in Love Monkey she plays a well-dressed, well-spoken best friend to Tom who gives it to him straight. Teddy Geiger is also in it as “the talent” by the name of Wayne, playing all the songs right off his debut CD. Cute enough kid, plenty of talent, but not a ton of personality (as discovered in The Rocker as well).

Anyway, point is: I recommend checking it out. And if someone wants to help me find a way to take control over what stays on the air away from television execs, that’d be swell.

Inventors who died in 2008

This is an interesting piece. Ever wonder who invented Pringles so you could shake his hand? Well, unfortunately you won’t get that chance because Mr. Frederic J. Baur died this year. And fittingly, he asked to have his ashes buried in a Pringles can (original flavor, of course). Read on about more modern inventors who have passed on in 2008.

Now I want an Egg McMuffin…

If Rick Astley came to your party…

[Thank you, XKCD, for always making me laugh]

Meh.

[Thank you, Doug Savage, for your depth and insight]

Jazz wonder Freddie Hubbard dies

This news saddens me, as I’ve been a fan for many years now and thoroughly enjoyed his work, especially with Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter (who I’ve had the pleasure of learning from) on Maiden Voyage and First Light.

Grammy-winning trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, a leading figure in jazz during a five-decade career, has died at age 70, about a month after suffering a heart attack, his publicist said Tuesday.

In the 1970s, Freddie Hubbard made a series of funk- and fusion-oriented albums, such as the 1970 hit “Red Clay.”

Hubbard died Monday morning in Sherman Oaks, California, outside Los Angeles, after a long battle with heart disease, spokesman Don Lucoff told CNN. He had been hospitalized since suffering a heart attack the day before Thanksgiving and took a turn for the worse last week, Lucoff said.

“Freddie Hubbard, in terms of the advent of modern jazz, the birth of bebop, was probably among the five greatest trumpet players that has ever lived … He’s really right up there with Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Lee Morgan, Roy Eldridge, an innovator and great composer,” Lucoff said.

A native of Indianapolis, Indiana, Hubbard moved to New York in the late 1950s. By the mid-1960s, he was playing alongside such major jazz figures as Art Blakey, Oliver Nelson, Ornette Coleman, Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter.

In the early 1970s, he made a series of funk- and fusion-oriented albums, such as the 1970 hit “Red Clay” and 1972’s Grammy-winning “First Light.”

“The thing that set Freddie Hubbard apart was he played rapidly, he played soulfully and he really set the pace for a lot of the trumpet players who have come after him in the last 20 or 30 years,” Lucoff said.

Hubbard was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2006. He is survived by wife, Briggie, and son Duane.

Rest in peace, Freddie. Us jazz cats will miss you terribly.

[Thanks to CNN for reporting this sad news]

Smooth criminal FAIL

This guy should definitely win the Darwin award for 2008. 

Authorities say a Cary man escaped a Chicago bank heist Friday with nearly $400 cash.

But he also left something behind: a pay stub listing his name and address.

Now Thomas Infante, 40, is facing a federal bank robbery charge alleging he held up the Fifth Third Bank at 4071 W. Lawrence Avenue by handing over a note implying he had a weapon and threatening harm if his demands were not met.

Infante, of the first block of Willow Circle, appeared Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys in Chicago and ordered held without bond pending his next court appearance.

FBI agents arrested Infante in Cary after tracking him down with information he left at the scene.

According to an FBI affidavit filed Monday, Infante walked into the bank about 5:50 p.m. Friday and handed a teller a note reading “Be Quick Be Quit (sic) Give your cash fast or I’ll shoot.”

After receiving $397 cash, the robber fled, leaving behind the note which had been written on the back of a pay stub that had been torn in half.

Investigators later discovered the other half of the pay stub, listing Infante’s name and Cary address, just outside the bank’s front doors “apparently discarded by Infante as he was fleeing,” the FBI said.

The stub indicated Infante was paid $165.99 by Jewel Food Stores on Oct. 23, according to the affidavit.

FBI agents tracked down Infante in Cary, and he subsequently confessed to the robbery, the affidavit states.

FBI spokesman Ross Rice said it is not the first time a bank robber has left behind an obvious clue to his identity.

“We had a robber who wrote a demand on a deposit slip with his name on it and another who wrote on the back of an envelope that had his address on the other side,” he said. “He’s not the first to do this and probably won’t be the last.”

Infante is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago. He could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of the bank robbery charge.

MORON.

 

[courtesy of the Daily Herald]

Gone are the days of Joey Potter

Oh, Katie. What happened to you?