I think I’ve already made my views clear on michael moore and his filmmaking style (summary: he makes you think, but do not call his films ‘documentaries’). and with only 2 days left until the inevitable name-calling and water cooler wisdom, reviews – with a few exceptions – are split down the middle… exactly as you’d expect in our silly little bipartisan world.

but I think the most interesting bit is what the mouse is offering up as an alternative, according to newsweek:

Disney will offer a counterdocumentary called “America’s Heart and Soul,” with panoramic vistas, soaring music and heartwarming profiles of cowboys, gospel singers and handicapped athletes.

cowboys and handicapped athletes?

wow. point, disney.

now that the non-disclosure agreement has expired, steve and katey got engaged tonight… and I’m told that it was not at a picnic.

congratulations to the two of them. unfortunately, this may put a damper on the hunger4munger campaign, as the gay vote will probably decrease, since he’s no longer “available”.

thanks to this past weekend, I am now able to unveil the latest findings on the JDS (or jaske drunken scale) in relation to phone behavior. so, on a level of 1 to 5 (5 being the most drunk), here are the determining factors:

• she asks about penetration: drunkenness level 3-4
• she screams out “krenzel!”: drunkenness level 2
• calls nelly: drunkenness level 2-3
• calls nick: drunkenness level 1
• calls nick past 1am: drunkenness level 3-4
• she leaves her phone number after a voicemail: drunkenness level 5. DO NOT APPROACH. WAIT FOR HELP.
• number of ‘ehhhh’s 1-3: drunkenness level 1
• use of the word ‘faaahncy’: drunkenness level 0 (normal behavior)

results are still being processed, but I think that paints a pretty clear picture.

this is a much more difficult scale to rate than, say, the MMDS (mary mccann drunkenness scale), where the level of intoxication is directly proportional to the volume of her voice. in other words, the more drunk mary gets, the louder she screams into the phone like a freakin’ banshee.

I was poking around the local news and radio channel websites, and kept running into a disturbing similarity: the fact that none of them were any good. in fact, they were all terribly done, trying to jam as much information onto as small a space as possible. it was an amazingly frustrating experience, but I just couldn’t stop.

don’t just take my word for it, though; see for yourself:

• wcmh 4
• wbns 10
• wsyx 6/fox 28
• upn 53
• and the crowning jewel, wnci 97.9

wsyx gets props for their (relatively) clean design…but a black background? pretty ominous for a news site. wcmh and wbns seem to be trying their hardest to trick you into clicking one of their ads. upn is…well, amateurish at best, but I didn’t expect much from them, anyway.

but by far, the worst offender - and the reason I’m writing this - was wnci. it amazes me every time I look at it. the entire thing is a jumbled mess: there’s nothing to focus on; your eye jumps all over the damn place, because you just don’t know where to look. the navigation is all-encompassing, and not in a good way. it’s like they have someone else’s site map in there too, just to see if anyone calls them on it.

yeah, so maybe I’m being a snob about it. my guess is, the majority of those pages were created and/or are maintained by interns. hopefully as an exercise in what not to do. because if a design firm had a hand in any one of those, they probably aren’t around anymore.