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No Zorbeez can sponge these tears.
No amount of Mighty Putty will heal my broken heart.
RIP u midnight stallion haired prince of sales, Billy Mays…

the Mays Family and Co-host Anthony Sullivan with Conan

I am pretty close with Billy Mays Jr, by which of course I mean that I follow him on Twitter, and he had the following to say for his late father:

# This feels like one of those times when I would call my dad and say “What should I do?” He’s still answering but now it’s from within.about 1 hour ago from UberTwitter

#wearblue4billy – Wear blue tomorrow in memory of Billy- I didn’t come up with this but it made me smile and my dad would surely be honored.about 4 hours ago from UberTwitter

All your replies and messages are a great comfort to me. Thank you all for the condolences.about 4 hours ago from UberTwitter

I’m thankful I got to talk to my dad last night. I miss him immensely already. But I feel him with me.about 5 hours ago from UberTwitter

With the family. Um… Not quite sure what to say right now. All the support from you guys does help.about 8 hours ago from UberTwitter

On my way to the house. He’s gone. I’m gonna be strong for him. Thank you for all the thoughts and prayers everyone.about 8 hours ago from UberTwitter

it seems to be all too real at this point. Thank you.about 9 hours ago from txt

My dad didn’t wake up this morning.. I’m sure you’ll all hear about it. It hasn’t yet hit me but it’s about to.about 9 hours ago from UberTwitter

Mays was unique in the infomercial world for not being a shameless huckster. None of his endorsed products, that I am aware of, have been shown to be junk that is incapable of performing the tasks claimed on their advertising. In addition to just appearing to be a pretty pleasant and genuine guy, Mays had a sense of realness about him that is lacking in both sales and showbiz, and he was holding a commanding lead in both arenas before his passing.

I would never condone violence against the ShamWow guy Vince, but I do feel us Mays fans are called upon to do SOMETHING to avenge his final wishes via “shamPow”…

I last saw Billy on the Tonight show talking to Conan with his co-host Anthony Sullivan about their new show Pitch Men.

First Ed McMahon cashed his final check, then God turned the Fawcett off and shortly afterward the same day, Michael Jacksons heart just beat it.

All media is a contest and thus every event has a winner and a loser.

WINNER: Ed McMahon.
He had the good sense to die when there wasn’t really any important news going on like a revolution in the middle east or whatever, so he soaked up his fair share of the obit spotlight. Where as poor Farrah got totally upstaged by the Jack attack, the lesser culturally significant McMahon received lots of replays of old footage montaged under fond memories.

LOSER: Governor Mark Sanford.

If only he had waited just one day to confess to the world that he wasn’t really hiking on an Appalachian trail, but was really digging an Argentinean hole (by which I mean “), he would have slipped under the radar in the news cycle. In fact, if he had waited that one day, his press conference where he confessed to banging a girl in south america would have literally been cut-off by all the channels covering it live and the reporters there in front of him would have all scrambled away to go cover the more important story of Jacksons passing and just ask the Governor to release a statement to be put on page C9 later on.

WINNER: Farrah Fawcett’s family

They get to mourn in peace.

LOSER: Democracy in Iran

I just found out that long time blogger Lee, died in his sleep while in China where he has been living for the past year. I started reading Lee’s bold take on the news in 2002 when, in a fresh-after-9/11 world, I was just starting to pay attention to politics. Lee was a conservative, operating Right-Thinking.com but later posted on other sites, including his last, LeeinChina.com which covered his exploits in the far east when he moved for work.

His partner on many projects and co-blogger Jim K, also known as the anti-Michael Moore webmaster featured in Michael Moore’s Sicko posted the sad news on Right-Thinking shortly after it happened back in April. I obviously had not kept up with Right-Thinking and just tonight read the sad news.

I’m posting this not because I think random people care that some random blogger has passed away, but because it’s a reminder that I’m going to die some time, maybe randomly like Lee (details are still unknown, but no word was given that he was ill or injured) and someone will have to post on my websites the news of my expiration for my viewers.

Unlike some bloggers who I’ve heard continueing their craft during cancer or some other terminal disease and losing the battle while still active online, Lee was just an average bloke who didn’t wake up one day.

In May the “worlds oldest blogger” died at 97 and in 2007 the wife of ColdFury blogger was killed in a vehicle accident. It’s weird… I have 10 thousand friends on Myspace and have had 3 die in the past several years. I would just visit their page and see memorial comments and tributes.  It was around then that I discovered MyDeathSpace.com which covered Myspace member obituaries (most are car accidents). It’s all very weird in the web 2.0 stage.

“I’m ready (to die), but I’m going to wait for the movie” – 10 year old girl with cancer too sick to see UP. Pixar flies a DVD to her home. She dies 7 hours later.

When Colby Curtin saw the Dream Works 3-D movie “Monsters Vs. Aliens” she was impressed by the previews for “Up.” “It was from then on, she said, ‘I have to see that movie. It is so cool,’” a family friend told the OC Register:

Two days later Colby’s health began to worsen. On June 4 her mother asked a hospice company to bring a wheelchair for Colby so she could visit a theater to see “Up.” However, the weekend went by and the wheelchair was not delivered, Lisa Curtin said.

By June 9, Colby could no longer be transported to a theater and her family feared she would die without having seen the movie.

At that point, Orum, who desperately wanted Colby to get her last wish, began to cold-call Pixar and Disney to see if someone could help.

Pixar has an automated telephone answering system, Orum said, and unless she had a name of a specific person she wanted to speak to, she could not get through. Orum guessed a name and the computer system transferred her to someone who could help, she said.

Pixar officials listened to Colby’s story and agreed to send someone to Colby’s house the next day with a DVD of “Up,” Orum recalled.

She immediately called Lisa Curtin, who told Colby.

“Do you think you can hang on?” Colby’s mother said.

“I’m ready (to die), but I’m going to wait for the movie,” the girl replied.

And she did…

“When I watched it, I had really no idea about the content of the theme of the movie,” said Curtin, 46. “I just know that word ‘Up’ and all of the balloons and I swear to you, for me it meant that (Colby) was going to go up. Up to heaven.”

Pixar officials declined to comment on the story or name the employees involved.

The content and theme of the movie, consequently is about death, loneliness, unfulfilled dreams and drive to complete long time ambition before your life is over.

Brief synopsis of this item in the first few seconds of this clip from the Register:

THE MOVIE

At about 12:30 p.m. the Pixar employee came to the Curtins’ home with the DVD.

He had a bag of stuffed animals of characters in the movie and a movie poster. He shared some quirky background details of the movie and the group settled in to watch Up.

Colby couldn’t see the screen because the pain kept her eyes closed so her mother gave her a play-by-play of the film.

At the end of the film, the mother asked if her daughter enjoyed the movie and Colby nodded yes, Lisa Curtin said.

The employee left after the movie, taking the DVD with him, Lynch said.

“He couldn’t have been nicer,” said Lynch who watched the movie with the family. “His eyes were just welled up.”

After the movie, Colby’s dad, Michael Curtin, who is divorced from Lisa Curtin, came to visit.

Colby died with her mom and dad nearby at 9:20 p.m.

Among the Up memorabilia the employee gave Colby was an “adventure book” – a scrap book the main character’s wife used to chronicle her journeys.

“I’ll have to fill those adventures in for her,” Lisa Curtin said.

In UP, 78 year old Carl Fredrickson buys a plane ticket for his wife and himself to visit South America like they always promised each other they would some day, but she dies shortly after the purchase.

UP is the story of Carl going to extreme lengths to fulfill his promise to his late wife after finding her “Adventure Book” from their childhood, so he may fill in the blank pages with the adventures in South America they never got to have…

26 NEW episodes coming in 2010 to Comedy Central!

And FOX could option them since they own the rights and allowed the cable deal, but WHO CARES – bottom line is FUTURAMA IS RETURNING TO TV NEXT YEAR!

Not a day after I finished my marathon of all 72 episodes of the Futurama series followed by the 4 direct to internet pirating DVD movies do I go to youtube for an embed code to blog about and see a commenter claim that the series is coming BACK. and what’s this? the comment is only minutes old?

Sure enough, the claim is true. The NY Times reports: Past Emmy winner “Futurama” got axed by Fox network in 2003 after five seasons, but it’s developed such a strong cult following since then on DVD and TV reruns that Comedy Central has picked up the show.” – I immediately called my source at Viacom (parent company of Comedy Central) to ask about this and they said that Cartoon Network tried to grab it but lost a bidding war and also it is not out of the question that FOX, who owns the rights to the show, could air these new episodes on the Fox Network first before sending them to Comedy cable.

“A spokesperson for 20th Century Fox Television confirms that the cable net has ordered  26 new episodes of Matt Groening and David X. Cohen’s late, great animated series to air beginning in 2010,” reports Mike Ausiello at EW.com

Check Jimmy Fallon playing a game of “break the boxes” with some Project Natal developers. Some people have no shame.

Let’s start with the red jumpsuits. Interesting sartorial choice. Wondering if we all have to don these janitor suits before we play “store room clerk mime”. Now, let’s move to the lame, flailing game mechanic – yeah that looks sexy. Now, the icing on this goofy cake: it’s the Jimmy Fallon show – the whipping boy of talk shows. What, Judge Judy decline? Jimmy Fallon is to tv shows what the Sega Dreamcast is to consoles.

Project “Mime” Goof-Score: 99/100.