Driving On Long Island

I'm going to switch gears today and talk about something I've been observing the past year or two...lousy driving etiquette. I drive roughly 25,000 miles a year so I've seen a lot of craziness out there. Here are some examples and proposed solutions.

1.) I'm pretty mild mannered but the one thing that can set me off immediately are people who lay on the horn behind you at a red light when said red light turns green.

Solution: Give a two quick toots of the horn. Its more friendly than a long blast.

2.) I'll be driving on major highways doing 70mph and will be passed by a car who's driver has a dog on their lap. Are you kidding me? I think its safer driving with a child on your lap than a dog. At least a child will stay put while a dog constantly moves around. Highly dangerous.

Solution: Put the stupid dog in a crate or in the backseat. Or just leave it home and let it shit all over your carpet.

3.) I'm at a red light intersection going straight and the guy facing me going the other way making a left turn nearly cuts me off when he guns it as soon as the light turns green. Can't you wait another minute or two? What's the rush? This is usually where I almost get into accidents.

Solution: Chill out and listen to your hip hop with the bass that shakes the mirrors on your car for another minute, let the traffic clear, and then make your left turn.

4.) Tinted windows....I can't STAND tinted windows. I rarely wish very bad things to happen to people but these people I hope blow out their transmissions or lose a treasured pet. Tinted windows are illegal in the first place so they are getting them knowing they are breaking the law.

Solution: Nothing really can be done but I've honked my horn driving by people who have gotten pulled over at this.

5.) Motorcycles. I'm probably jealous but I hate the fact that motorcycles weave in and out of traffic at their leisure. They are also hard to catch by the police too adding to my jealousy.

Solution: I guess the easiest way to solve this problem is to open your door as they try to drive by you in a traffic jam. That would be pretty cool but would most likely damage your car in the process. Motorcyclists are more prone to fall off their vehicle than a driver of a car would so I guess you're in deep trouble if you get into a motorcycle accident.

6.) People who play Scrabble on their phone while stuck in traffic or watch 80's music videos on their IPOD while driving home at work. Talk about distracted driving, that's probably the stupidest thing a person can do.

Solution: Oh wait, that's me...

Taking A Day Off But Let's Try An Experiment

Things are too busy to put together a proper post today but I want to try something out.

1.) Go to the Yahoo search engine (not Google) and type in the url of this website, www.hungieman.blogspot.com.

2.) The only entry that should show up is on a Wesley Snipes website...called Rocketnews-Wesley Snipes.

3.) Click on the cache link, not the main link, and the page it takes you too references this blog at the bottom.

Random right?

I guess somebody is a huge fan of Wesley Snipes and anytime his name is mentioned on a blog, it goes on this Rocketnews website. I had mentioned him when I did the top 10 trilogies for Blade and it somehow ended up on that Wesley Snipes fan page.

Since Wesley Snipes is getting four mentions in this post alone, I'm intrigued to see if this it will show up again on that website...I'll keep you posted.

Charity Singles Of The 1980's - Part One - "Do They Know Its Christmas?"

The 1980's had several charity singles to promote a worthy cause or raise awareness to different world issues. The Granddaddy of them all is the holiday music staple "Do They Know Its Christmas?".

Written by Bob Geldof (probably best known as the actor who played "Pink" in the Pink Floyd movie, "The Wall"), he wanted to promote awareness to the fact that people in Africa are starving. So while the more well off people are enjoying the Christmas season, the poor people in countries like Ethiopia might not even know what Christmas is. Hence, this song.

Alright I'll admit, as much as I don't like poor hungry Africans starving to death, I LOVE this video. In fact, I'll play it for friends after a night of drinking and see how many people they can get right (lame, yes...but try it sometime). If you can stand the detailed review below, trust me, you will NEVER look at this song or video the same way again and will impress your family and friends when the song comes on the radio. Let's go through the video for some highlights shall we?



0:00-0:14 The opening of the video. That's Bob Geldof in his 80ish trench coat around the 0:07 second mark. I love the quick glance of the bass player for Duran Duran as well as Sting.

0:15 - 0:30 - The first line is sung by Paul Young who is best known for the song "Everytime You Go Away" which was actually written by Darryl Hall of Hall and Oates? That alone will score you points in the completely worthless trivia category if there was one. He's also one of the few people who get more than one line.

0:31 - 0:43 Oh yes, Boy George! I'm not sure if he was banging his drummer at this time or if they had broken up but he looks pretty happy here.

0:44-0:48 I absolutely LOVE Phil Collins and to know he played drums on this song is pretty sweet to me. He also shows off the textbook "drummer face" at the :47 second mark. More on him later...

0:49-0:57 George Michael's turn. He's still baby faced here and I'm assuming liking women at this point in his life.

0:58-1:07 - A weird transition here to Simon LeBon, the lead singer of Duran Duran. Its like he's interrupting George Michael. I love how he grabs his headphones for extra dramatic effect too.

1:08-1:13 Hey now, look who magically appears next to Simon...its Sting with a trendy red scarf. Its a shame that this duet lasts only 5 seconds.

1:14-1:22 - The dude joining in here is the guy who sings the song "True". He was lucky that True was a hit around the time they recorded this song or he'd be singing in the background chorus with Bananarama (I'll show you later).

1:22-1:30: The greatest combination of voices around one microphone since the Beatles? Seriously...try and out do that one!

1:30-1:36 Perhaps the most famous lyric of the 1980's. If I ever had the chance to meet Bono, I would forgo cheesy questions and beg him to utter "WELL TONIGHT THANK GOD ITS THEM....INSTEAD OF YOUUUUUUUU!!!"

1:37-1:39 - A classic Phil Collins drum fill.

1:40-1:52 Some interesting things here...not sure who the bird necked guy you see before Sting is. At 1:45 the guy on the right with the drumstick is Boy George's secret lover. I also like the goofy guitar moves around the 1:48 mark yet you can't hear a single guitar anywhere on the song.

1:53-1:55 - There are only two ad libs on the entire song and Boy George gets them both.

1:56 - 2:09 - Random combinations of people and more fake guitar playing.

2:15-2:25 - The middle breakdown section and Paul Young again gets the forefront. I don't know why he got the first vocal and such a prominent spot. Bob Geldof isn't anywhere to be found on this song either. In fact where were other British superstars like Eric Clapton, Elton John and David Bowie?

2:26 - 2:41 - My favorite part...carloads of random 80's bands showing up to sing background vocals. I'm not sure all of them are but a few are easy....Bananarama at 2:28...Kool and The Gang at 2:29...Sade at 2:30. Listen for the classic drum fill by Phil Collins between 2:32-2:34.

2:41- End - The big finish featuring lots of playing around. Some quick questions...

1.) At 2:51, how does Bananarama stand closer to a microphone than Sting?!?
2.) Who is the random guy at 2:55 in the random suit looks like he has no place to stand and sing...I feel bad for him and he gets caught by the camera too.
3.) Who is smoking at 2:59? Sade?
4.) Again, how does Bananarama get front and center as seen at 3:41? Look at Bono using something like a fork to keep the beat. I love his hat there too...shades of the "serious" U2 on their soon to be released "The Joshua Tree" album.

Back tomorrow for the USA's response to this song...

Ranking The Facts Of Life Characters

The Facts of Life was a staple of my boring Saturday nights watching TV. I also recall this show being in syndication in the afternoon so I caught a lot of this in the summer time as well. In any event, it was a spin off of Different Strokes (how awesome is that) and it featured one of my favorite TV characters of all time...Mrs. Garrett. She was pretty cool for an older lady. Of course the students were pretty neat as well but as a 10 year old, I didn't understand much about weight problems, pregnancy scares, having a period, and even rape (all topics discussed on the show). Anyway, here's my fond memories of the various characters on this show.


5.) Blair


I never really got into Blair since she was sort of the pack leader / bitch of the group. As a kid, I never liked mean people and Blair seemed to be the meanest of them all. Of course she was pretty much the hottest character on the show but to my pre-pubescent eyes, that meant absolutely nothing to me. She still looks pretty good today although the actress that plays her is sort of like Kirk Cameron in that she promotes religion more than anything else today. I never noticed that huge jug of tobasco sauce until just now. She might be moving up the rankings. That's pretty hot...

4.) Natalie


Natalie was the stereotypical "heavy" character on this show. She actually lost weight as the show went on and grew into her face. If I remember right, her character was adopted so that meant several "very special" episodes dealing with that matter. Oddly enough I'll never forget the actresses name, Mindy Cohn, because she was always on the celebrity game show "Hollywood Squares".

3.) Tootie



Tootie pretty much grew up in front of my eyes as she was the youngest actress on the show. She always seemed to have braces or roller skates and was the one who'd get into the most trouble. Kim Fields, the actress who played her, turned into a pretty good looking woman and she was on a Fox show who's name escapes me. Tootie also has to be one of the most random names ever for a TV show character (though "Boner" on Growing Pains is miles ahead number 1).

2.) Jo



Jo was the rebel on the show and who can forget the moment in every opening credits where she removes her motorcycle helmet to reveal her pretty hair. I loved Jo because she was the one who'd crack jokes at Blair's expense and always seemed to dare to cross the line every episode. Sadly, I remember her being in a lot of bad TV movies in the 90's and haven't seen anything from her in years.

1.) Mrs. Garrett

I watched a lot of TV as a kid and the closest thing that I could identify to a TV grandmother was Mrs. Garrett. She was kind, warm hearted, and seemed to know how to have a good time. Of course I had two grandmothers growing up but if I could have a third grandmother, it would have been Mrs. Garrett. Of course Charlotte Rae left the show due to money and as a result, they completely revamped the show bringing in a pre-ER George Clooney, a pre Dancing With The Stars Cloris Leachman, and a pre-nothing MacKenzie Astin (son of Gomez Adams and brother to Frodo).

Honorable Mention:

1.) Geri

Geri was a friend of the girls who I believe had cerebral palsy. She was the first person I had ever seen (in real life or on TV) that had any kind of disability. I'll admit, I thought the slurred speech and jerky mannerisms were an act at first but then realized that the actress playing her actually REALLY had cerebral palsy. Anyway, I'm sure it was good for the actress that played her to have a recurring role on the show (she was a comedian in real life) and I obviously remember her to this day (maybe not for the most ideal reasons).

Anyway, here's the intro from Season 7. I choose this one because its one of the classic, "hey, our show's been on long enough to run a montage of our characters growing up throughout the course of many seasons!", type intros. I hope I don't put this song into your head the rest of today.