Monthly Archives: March 2012

“I Heard They Give You Gift Bags At Awards Shows:” ATDQ Q&A With Actress Susan Graham, Part 2

Posted on by
1

Susan Graham

Susan Graham

TDQ: Who are your influences?

Graham: Other women writers, my family and their unique perspectives on life, and the lovely people I surround myself with.

TDQ: Tell us about working on your web series, “Natural Hazards.”

Graham: It has a special place in my heart. I think it was ahead of its time. I’m thrilled with the current success of female-driven comedy and I wish “Natural Hazards” would have found a home on television. So many women related to the material and it was a blast to make. A little factoid: the name comes from a geology class I took in college about natural disasters.
Continue reading →

Retired High School English Teacher Looking To Tweet Entire Text Of “Don Quixote;” Hopes “Maybe Now They’ll Finish The Damn Thing”

Posted on by
Reply
Don Quixote

The saga begins.

Jensen Beach, FL—In 2009, Neil Lyons retired from teaching high school English after 38 years. He said that when he left, his biggest regret was not finding a way to get more students over the years to feel as passionately about what he considers the greatest book of all time, “Don Quixote,” by Miguel de Cervantes, published in two parts in 1605 and 1615. And now that he has the time, he’s hoping Twitter and the internet can reach the younger generation and get across the message of how great the book is.

Lyons said he has spent nearly the last three months spacing the text of the classic into 140 character Tweets, and hopes to begin Tweeting the entire book by the fall, with roughly ten tweets per day.

“I’m not sure if it’s funny or sad,” Lyons said, “though it’s probably sad, that I couldn’t get hardly any of the snot-nosed punks to read the thing when I was teaching, but it seems like all the little bastards are lapping it up now that it’s going to be on Twitter. I’m retired, I can call them punks and bastards now. No whiny parents can gripe to the PTA or the dean now, huh? Right? Jackasses.” Continue reading →

Alleged Long-Lost Descendant Of Francis Scott Key’s Suing Over Back Royalties For “The Star-Spangled Banner”

Posted on by
2

One thing Francis Scott Key and alleged relative Roger Cadwallader have in common: they were both detained on a ship at one time in their lives.

Baltimore, MD—A man claiming to be a distant relative of National Anthem writer Francis Scott Key filed lawsuits yesterday in federal court against Major League Baseball, the National Football League and the National Basketball Association for “a bajillion dollars,” for unpaid royalties “spanning literally decades” over the use of “The Star-Spangled Banner” being played or sung prior to the beginning of professional sporting events.

Roger Cadwallader, 28, said he filed the lawsuit because “these fat cats have been screwing me and my family over for far too long, and I’m done letting them play the song that my great uncle, or great great grandfather, whatever he was, the song that he worked so long and hard and, truth be told, risked his life to compose. He nearly died in that cell on that ship out in the ocean writing that poem, and me and my family have never seen one dime from any sports association. Nothing. Well the rooster has come home to roost now, people.” Continue reading →

Opera Star Barely Passes Weigh-In Before “Carmen” Opening

Posted on by
Reply
Cookin' with Luciano: The Pavarotti Cookbook

Cookin' with Luciano: The Pavarotti Cookbook. A staple in opera circles.

By: Scott Meadow, Contributing Arts Scene Reporter
 
Washington, DC—Baritone opera juggernaut Miles Fueli III was widely harassed by fellow opera singers this morning when he weighed in at “normal body weight” and “approximately 8-9% body fat” prior to tonight’s opening performance of Bizet’s “Carmen” at The Kennedy Center. Although not bad enough to prevent him from taking the stage, it was “dangerously close” according to opera commissioners.
 
Tonight wasn’t the first time Fueli’s controversial weight has created waves (albeit small ones) within the opera community.  Continue reading →

TDQ Tech For The Week Of 3/26/12

Posted on by
Reply

The GrinderyIn this week’s TDQ Tech, The Grindery reveals that maybe not every Toyota hybrid is as good as they want you to believe, and they also bring you a story about a fun new historically-accurate video game, though it may be tough to find.

We wish there were more video games that provided a history lesson, too. That “Oregon Trail” thing was okay, but how often were we really going to have to steer a raft down a river with just the arrow keys on our computer?

You are now technologically informed. Go and do likewise.