Recently in Weird, wacky, wonderful Category

I have no way of explaining it, but as I write at the Daily News' Click technology blog, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, quite a tweeter in his own right (at least that's the word on the virtual street) has begun following my very own, extremely nerdy Twitter feed.

I never "tweet" (as the verb describing the act of posting to Twitter is written) about politics, certainly not L.A. city politics ... although I just might now that Antonio is in the audience.

I mostly write about the computer hardware and software (mostly free and open-source) I'm using, how well it works (or doesn't), and what I'm going to do with that hardware and software in the minutes, hours and days ahead. I do throw in a little breaking technology news and generally anything I want to write about and be done with in seconds (rather than the minutes it takes to cook up a "proper" blog entry; yes, I have no attention span, that much should be clear).

We all know that Twitter is the geek/technology equivalent of Marilyn Monroe in the '50s, Brigitte Bardot in the '60s (and most of the '50s, it turns out), Farrah Fawcett in the '70s ... you get the idea. Twitter is now. And now Antonio is Twitter. Or so it seems.

At any rate, welcome to my Twitter feed, Mayor V. Only the best for you and my 82 other Twitter followers ...

For those of you who miss LA's Adam Carolla Show, the original group is back here today for a podcast. More here.

Is there no other wit to be found on L.A. morning radio? I've tried waking up to other morning programs, but I'm at the point that I prefer silence.

I'm pro-choice, and that means a woman should have the choice to have no babies, or to have 14 babies if her body is up to it.

And that's the choice that Nadya Suleman, the Whittier mother of six who recently gave birth to octuplets, made when she found that all her fertilized embryos were viable. Apparently, her belief was that terminating them was killing them, and it was her right to make that choice.

Yet, people who know nothing about this woman have been weighing in on her character based on a few questionable facts, and concluding she's some sort of horrible person because she wants to raise a bunch of babies. Some have even suggested that she be prevented from having babies because of her mental state. Wow! Does anyone really want to start down the slippery slope of regulating who gets to reproduce?

No one should force a woman to make a choice about having or not having babies. That's what being pro-choice is all about. Besides, my grandfather came from a family of 22 kids, and he turned out ok.

So please, leave Nadya alone. She's got enough to worry about with eight preemies. And if you can't leave her alone, then at least send her a pack of Pampers.

I'm fascinated by Earl seeing a link between politics Illinois-style and politics L.A.-style. At first I'm tempted to differentiate between a guy brazenly selling a seat for personal gain and a PAC giving money for influence. But the key here is that money and power and influence do go together.

We're okay with that, to an extent. The Supreme Court says that spending money on politics is a form of free speech, in many cases. But drawing the line is harder than it might seem.

I worked a few years in the mortgage industry, where it was natural for lenders to competitively woo brokers through wine and song. In the legal profession, that sort of conduct would have been a scandalous conflict of interest. And looking back at how mortgages turned out, we should have been more like the lawyers. Our society is still rife with conflicts of interest, and we could all do well to see a little of ourselves in Blagovayovagebecic or whatzizname.

Our former Daily News and Friendly Fire colleague Chris Weinkopf might have moved on, but he still loves to share the silly things found online. He sent along this video today that someone with too much time on his or her hands crafted. If you don't know what Rickrolling is, read this description before you play the video. Then enjoy.

Thanks Chris. We all miss you.

When I originally saw this article I thought it was about L.A. wasting money on freeway renovation.

But no, it's literally a story about a man (code named "Mr. Yee") whose backpack flew open and out poured $2,000 worth of cash.

Incredible. The one time I actually wish I were on the 10.

I'd never have guessed that The Dark Knight would rise to #3 in the all-time domestic box-office chart in just a month, with a chance to move into #2 by next weekend. After the film spent three weeks at the top of the charts, I might have imagined that the country would run off instead to see Pineapple Express this past weekend for some comedic catharsis. But Batman topped the charts again.

It is a decent comic-book movie, but I disagree with the critics who see it as so much better than the rest of the lot. It is quasi-profound, but not profound in fact.

I also quibble with the notion that Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker is Oscar-worthy. Jack Nicholson played a far more compelling Joker some two decades ago, with more range and charisma and convincingness. Ledger's Joker is just creepy, and creepy is one of the easier roles to play. The overwhelming and irrational human sentiment that gushes up when a life ends prematurely has much to do with the acclaim he is getting. There, I said it...

Yet I suspect that the sullenness of The Dark Knight, the despair of Ledger, and the morose quality of Christian Bale must in some way tap into something happening in our culture at large. We need to get our nation on a couch.

Who knew at the core of Nirvana's famous anthem there was a swinging beat? Paul Anka, that's who. While walking my doggies through a deserted grove in Elysian Park this morning, I was listening to a podcast of an previous Fresh Interview with the former Rat Packer. They played an bit of his retooling of this iconic tune from my misspent youth, so of course I had to waste some time finding it and listening it on Youtube. Now, I share it with all of you folks. Enjoy it. I did.

I don't know why I get letters like these, but alas, I do. From today's inbox:

Chris, I am an 88 year old man and I am trying to write a book relating to global warming but I have not been able to find out what the height and position of the pollution belt is. I am very concerned about the effect the pollution is having on the Earth. I need that information because of the two possible solutions I have for eliminating the pollution belt. The first is to fly space ships through the belt with collecter devises that would pick up the pollution. I need that information because I am not sure if the space ships could fly at that elevation. My second idea is to explode an atomic bomb in the pollution and the chain reaction would destroy the pollution. BUT I do not know the height of the belt and do not know if the radiation fall out from the bomb would contaminate the Earth. I would appreciate it if you could help me in any way to find that information.

--Name withheld to protect the well-meaning but frighteningly delusional

This story from City News Service ...

Travelers at LAX had more to deal with than long lines Monday morning: The air conditioning went out in "most of the terminals," said airport spokesman Marshall Lowe.

The air-conditioning problem stemmed from a "10-secound outage caused by a squirrel on one of our commercial lines that feeds the airport," said Joe Ramallo of the Dpeartment of Water and Power.

... reminds me of this: