Tuesday, February 23, 2010














Survivor Casting Call: "...and I'm unemployed"


Recently I entered a casting call contest for people who wanted to be on Season 21 of "Survivor". There were something like 525 video audition entries submitted -- and I watched almost half of them. One of main themes or threads that seems to run through all too many of these videos was the phrase, "...and I'm unemployed." Boy if you really want to see a cross-section of America, go watch some of these videos and count the number of times that the phrase "I'm unemployed" gets said.

However, one of the ten winners of the casting call contest does state that he works two jobs a day. You can't get much more American than that either!
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor/casting_call/video_player.php?vid=2968&vs=Default&play=true&section=videos.

Moving right along. I then watched the latest episode of "The Amazing Race". Yes, I know, I have no life. But to my surprise, the contestants were all sent off to Puerto Montt in Chile. Hey, I've been to Puerto Montt. They have great German food, a rodeo and a Studebaker museum.

And I want to be on America's Next Top Model next -- the geriatric edition.

PS: The Berkeley-Albany Bar Association just had its annual "Income Tax" luncheon, wherein we all learned about which changes have taken place regarding our tax laws during 2009. And guess what? Almost NO changes have occurred. Yes, there have been almost no changes in our income tax structure since the Bush years. Plus the IRS was taken to court by a single mother (
Vinatieri v. IRS) who charged that the IRS was being too draconian with their punishments despite resulting economic hardship. Ms. Vinatieri accused the IRS of abuse of discretion -- and she won her case!

Too bad that the guy who flew his plane into that IRS building in Texas didn't have a good tax attorney. If he had, he might have been a "Survivor" instead!


PPS: On March 9, 2010 (that's two whole years before the Mayan calendar ends) I'm going off to Honduras to see just exactly how many Mayan ruins my poor sweet bad knees can survive.