brusque

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Picture Credits: Dow Jones & Company and Jonathan Becker

The Theme From Maude: A Duet – Bea Arthur and Rosie O’Donnell

ej — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:44:56 +0000

Okay, admittedly we are getting carried away here with the Bea Arthur/Theme from Maude posts! But we loved Beatrice Arthur and we love the “Theme Song from Maude” so bear with us!

In addition, we haven’t had any caffeine yet so our editorial judgment is a little impaired >:) . . . and with that said, we now present another version of the “Theme from Maude” sung by Rosie O’Donnell with Bea Arthur providing backup!!!!

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Click on the picture to see Rosie O'Donnell Interview Bea Arthur and to hear them sing the "Theme from Maude"

Click on the picture to hear the duet and to see Rosie interview Bea Arthur.

In addition, Rosie also replays the moment on “All in The Family” that the world was introduced to Maude.

During the interview, Bea Arthur also explains how the role came about . . .

it was supposed to be just one episode and all she wanted was for it to be good!!

Bea – It was great!!

=Beatrice Arthur: A Towering Comedic Talent From Another Era (Los Angeles Times)

=Bea Arthur: That Voice, That Wit (New York Times [Slideshow])

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A Tribute to Bea Arthur AND The Theme from Maude!!!

ej — Mon, 04 May 2009 12:54:12 +0000

We wanted to start off the week with a tribute to one of our favorites – Beatrice Arthur who recently passed away. We loved her on “The Golden Girls” and we also loved her on”Maude”.

Bea Arthur – Thanks for all the great memories and the great laughs!! You will be missed!!!

See below for a tribute to her talent and we’ve even included the Theme from Maude!!! Enjoy!!

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Bea Arthur: Grand Dame of Comedy; Click to read Courier-Journal.com Article

From The Courier-Journal.com

Beautiful Bea Arthur

Editorial

Some people have a time with talented women who aren’t stereotypically “easy on the eyes.” Witness the recent global meltdown over the realization that a woman with prominent eyebrows, an unstylish ‘do and a sturdy body could actually — yes! — sing like an angel.

Maybe that explains why, when the great comedic actress Beatrice Arthur passed away earlier this week, The New York Times — another “grey lady,” incidentally — ran this inelegant headline: “Bea Arthur, TV Battle-Ax, Dies at 86.” We would note that when Carroll O’Connor died several years earlier, the same pub did not use a headline to call him a “TV Bellowing Bigot,” but that would take us away from our point, which is to praise the body of work Ms. Arthur left behind for those of us in TV Land.

Click to hear "The Theme From Maude"

In “Maude,” she was a liberated woman trapped in the older traditions of a changing world. She was a housewife-plus a brash political junkie and pontificator but ultimately a pussycat.

Her softer side made loud and proud “Maude” palatable. She wore her white liberal guilt like one of her extravagant tunics, the flip side of Cousin Archie’s buttoned-up conservatism. When John Wayne came to visit, everyone expected a showdown; instead, she melted and said, “What the hell, let’s dance.”

Ms. Arthur rang the TV legend bell a second time with her portrayal of Dorothy Zbornak in “The Golden Girls.” Smart, sassy and again vulnerable, Ms. Arthur scored in a role that showed post-menopausal women in fine fashion and even finer fettle — no matter that she had . . . More . . .

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Click below to read a great article from the Los Angeles Times and to see a slideshow from The New York Times:

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Palm Pre Rumor of the Day: June 7 Release Date

ej — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:25:04 +0000

From Bonnie Cha at CNET News and SprintGurus

It looks like we have a launch date for the Palm Pre!!! We love gadgets around here and this is one we’ve had our eyes on for awhile!!! Yes, yes, yes!!! (Accompanied by an enthusiastic Tiger- Woods-esque fist pump) and a loud Woo-hoo!!!

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Palm Pre Rumor of The Day: June 7 Release Date

Bonnie Cha, CNET News

What’s a day without a Palm Pre story, right? Uhh, right. The latest rumor making its way across the Internet tubes comes via SprintGurus, which says the Pre will launch on June 7 and not May 17 as originally thought.

This is based on an internal document posted by the owner of SprintGurus, who goes by “Coal,” that shows all the devices that are in alpha/beta testing with Sprint. In the forum, Coal states, “For those asking about the Pre, there are 2 release windows, one is around 6/7/09 – the other I cannot say much on.” We’re not entirely sure where the June 7 date came from as it’s not listed on the document. More . . .

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=New Gear from Apple and Verizon Wireless?

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Picture Credit: Bonnie Cha/CNET

Apple Prepping Two Wireless Devices With Verizon?

ej — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:20:16 +0000

From David Carnoy at CNET News

What a lovely day!!! First, we hear about a launch date for the Palm Pre and then we find out that Verizon and IPhone may be teaming up!!! Be still my heart!!

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Apple Prepping Two Wireless Devices With Verizon?

Concept Art for an Apple Touch-Screen Netbook (Credit: Gizmodo). Click on pic to Read CNET News Article.

David Carnoy, CNET News

Over the last few months rumors have continued to swirl around a possible Verizon-Apple deal to bring the iPhone to Verizon once Apple’s exclusive pact with AT&T expires in 2010. But Tuesday BusinessWeek added a new twist to the rumor, reporting that Verizon and Apple are in talks to develop two new wireless devices that may hit the market this year.

Allegedly, one device would be a thinner, lighter, and lower-priced version of the iPhone–an iPhone Lite, if you will. While the other device would be something akin to the jumbo iPod Touch that we wrote about previously. BusinessWeek’s anonymous source describes it as a “media pad that would let users listen to music, view photos, and watch high-definition videos.”

The source, who claims to have seen the new media pad, says it’s “smaller than an Amazon Kindle electronic reader, but its touch-screen is bigger than the Kindle’s.” It would be able to place calls over Wi-Fi and a high-speed wireless data connection from Verizon. More . . .

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Click below to read the Business Week article mentioned in the above post:

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Picture Credit: Gizmodo (Concept Art for an Apple touch-screen Netbook)

Business Grads Looking Beyond Wall Street

ej — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:14:03 +0000

“For the past decade, a job at an investment bank has been coveted. Now the implosion of Wall Street has not only shaken a generation’s ambitions, it has also unleashed them.”

See Steven Greenhouse’s New York Times article below for additional detail and to find out where today’s Business School Grads are looking for jobs.

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Business Grads Looking Beyond Wall Street

Daniel Miller, Nanxi Ling, center, and Jessica Levy are graduating from Wharton this spring. Many in the class of '09 are discouraged about job prospects.

Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times

PHILADELPHIA — Riana Paige, an undergraduate senior at the Wharton School of Business, had a high-paying internship at JPMorgan Chase last summer and was disappointed when she did not receive an offer for a full-time job after graduation. Now she is pursuing a job teaching in Dubai, or working for a wine importer.

Click to see New York Times (Video): Life After Wharton

Daniel Miller, a Wharton senior who interned last summer at a boutique private equity firm in Manhattan, became so discouraged by his search for jobs in finance that he began thinking about becoming a rabbi.

Jessica Levy, also a senior at Wharton, the nation’s most prestigious undergraduate business program, was stunned when her supervisor at UBS told her that although she had done a terrific job as an intern, the bank could not offer her a job after graduation. Her dreams of investment banking quashed, she recently took the Foreign Service exam and is vying for a job at the State Department.

“A lot of my peers, we’re exploring things that we used to not even think of as an option,” Ms. Levy said. “A finance major who was minoring in music was suddenly looking into opening a jazz club. All of a sudden, I saw that a lot of Wharton people were interesting.”

For the last decade, a job at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley or another investment bank has been considered the most coveted prize for many of the nation’s best and brightest college students. But the implosion of Wall Street — the vaporization of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, the general humbling of investment banks — has not only shaken a generation’s ambitions, but also unleashed them. More . . .

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Picture Credit: Laura Pedrick for The New York Times

Introducing the World’s Best Player in Women’s Soccer – Marta Vieira da Silva

ej — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:35:35 +0000

Today we introduce you to the best player in women’s soccer and one of its most electrifying performers – Marta Vieira da Silva!

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Kicking Off

Michael Sokolove, The New York Times

LATE IN THE SECOND HALF of a World Cup semifinal match against the United States in 2007, Marta Vieira da Silva, a Brazilian who is the best player in women’s soccer — and perhaps the most electrifying performer in the game, male or female — caught up to a pass and controlled it about 20 yards from the American goal. The crowd inside the stadium in the Chinese city Hangzhou roared, as soccer fans do any time Marta is near the ball, even when she has no obvious path forward. With her back to the goal and a defender pressing her, Marta lifted the ball into the air with her right foot, then poked it with her left heel past the U.S. player, who responded by haplessly trying to grab her uniform. Marta pirouetted on by — almost literally running a circle around her opponent — dribbled around another defender (who stumbled and nearly fell) and shot the ball past the goalkeeper.

“It’s what she does — she confuses you,” Brandi Chastain, a former star on the U.S. national team, told me. “You don’t know whether to chase her or the ball.” Earlier in the same game, Marta scored another goal after weaving through no fewer than six defenders. “Most players, when they’re under pressure from more than one defender, look to get rid of the ball as fast as they can,” Chastain said, adding that Marta “sees it as an opportunity to make something fabulous happen.”

In each of the last three years, Marta, who is just 23, was named the female player of the year by FIFA, the world governing body of soccer. (Like many other Brazilian athletes, she goes by her first name.) She is the only woman to have placed a footprint alongside those of Pelé and other greats outside the famed Estádio do Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro. For the last five seasons she has played for a top team in Sweden, but early this year, she moved to Southern California to join the new Women’s Professional Soccer league, which began play last week. (Marta’s team, the Los Angeles Sol, plays the New York-area franchise, Sky Blue F.C., at the TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater, N.J., today.) In the game programs, Marta will be listed as a forward, a prosaic term that hardly seems to do justice to her speed, determination and creativity. Better to think of her as an escape artist — both on the field and in the arc of her life.

In late February, Marta joined players selected from each of the seven teams to model their new uniforms in New York. She walked down a runway at an events space in Chelsea, wearing the blue home jersey of the Los Angeles Sol, smiling shyly and looking as if she would have been a lot more comfortable with a ball at her feet. The next morning, she told me how, in a span of just a half-dozen years, she made the journey out of her remote town in the northeast of Brazil, where few girls even played soccer, to the pinnacle of her sport. “I had to do all of it by myself,” she said through a Portuguese interpreter. (She speaks Swedish fluently and, according to her new teammates, is rapidly picking up English.) “There wasn’t anybody for me to follow, or anyone to say to me, These are the steps you must take. First of all, I was almost always the only girl playing with boys in a small town. Some boys accepted me, some didn’t. And my family had comments made to them. Brazil is still a very macho society, and sports are mainly for boys, so people would say to them: What is this girl doing? Why is she always out there in the soccer games with the boys?” More . . .

= Bayonne Girl’s Perfect Game Gains National Recognition (NJ.com)

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Picture Credit: Dewey Nicks for The New York Times

12 Year-old Mackenzie Brown Pitches a No-Hitter and Then Gets to Throw Out the First Pitch at a Mets Game!

ej — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 23:46:33 +0000

Congratulations to Mackenzie Brown who became the first girl in Bayonne, New Jersey Little League History to pitch a perfect game! In recognition of her achievement, she got to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a New York Mets game! Cool. Very cool.

Way to go Mackenzie!!

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Bayonne’s Mackenzie Brown Pitches a Perfect Game, Will Throw Out First Ball For Mets on Saturday

Bayonne Now, NJ.com

Bayonne Little Leaguer Mackenzie Brown pitched a perfect game on Tuesday — the first time in the city’s league’s history that a girl has hit that milestone.

She’s getting national recognition for the feat and has been invited to throw out the ceremonial first pitch on Saturday for the Mets — the real ones!

The feat comes on the heels of another first for Bayonne youngsters. Last week, Brandon Pilovsky became the first pitcher in the city’s Cal Ripken League to throw a perfect game. He, too, got national attention.

For Mackenzie, congratulatory calls turned to balloons and appearances on local television stations.

As the Star-Ledger reports, this morning brought a trip to New York City to do a national Fox TV morning program where she threw pitches in their studio.

Last night, the 12-year-old got to sit at home and watch ESPN show highlights of her pitching.

“It’s been pretty crazy,” she said. “In school I have all these teachers asking for my autograph. I wasn’t used to that.”

Mackenzie, who told the Ledger she plays baseball because she always has been successful against the boys and just wanted to continue with it, knew she had something special going midway through Tuesday’s game.

“In like the fourth inning I kind of knew,” she said. “Then I just tried to keep doing what I was doing and not try to mess it up.” More . . .

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Also click on the link below to see video highlights (LINK UPDATED!!!) from Mackenzie’s perfect game!!!!:

Watch more on caffeine withdrawal syndrome »

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Picture Credit: Tim Farrell/The Star-Ledger

Beware the Perils of Caffeine Withdrawal

ej — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:56:12 +0000

Given that our two favorite drinks around here are Diet Coke and Diet Mountain Dew, we thought that the article below on the perils of caffeine withdrawal might be of interest to some of you.

And yes we do have plans to wean ourselves from caffeine >: ) . . . but just not right now >:) . . .

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From our friends at CNN.com

Click on the Picture to See Video from CNN.com "Beware the Perils of Caffeine Withdrawal"

Beware the Perils of Caffeine Withdrawal

By Judy Fortin
CNN Medical Correspondent

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) — Susan Todd loves her daily coffee fix. “I can drink four or five cups, easily, comfortably,” said Todd, 59, of Clinton Township, Michigan.

But if she skips her regular dose of caffeine, Todd warned, watch out.

“I feel lousy all over. It’s not that anything hurts,” she explained. “I just feel sluggish, and a cup of caffeine will cure that.”

Todd is among the estimated 80 to 90 percent of North American adults and children who consume caffeine products every day. Experts estimate about half that number will experience headaches and other symptoms from caffeine withdrawal syndrome.

There are a number of reasons why someone might need to reduce or stop their daily caffeine intake. Experts tell pregnant women not to consume more than 200 milligrams of caffeine a day (about one 12-ounce cup of coffee). Caffeinated products are not recommended for people who are prone to panic attacks or those who suffer from anxiety. Some surgical patients may also experience the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal syndrome on the day of surgery, because they are told not to eat or drink anything.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, recognized the condition as a disorder five years ago after reviewing decades of studies. They concluded the higher the caffeine intake, the more likely a patient was to suffer from severe withdrawal symptoms when denied the ingredient.

Researchers also reported that some caffeine users considered themselves addicted to caffeine because they were unable to quit or cut down on their usage. More . . .

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Click here to read another interesting article mentioned in the CNN article:

MayoClinic: Caffeine – How much is too much?

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