Johnny Depp, Shirley Mansion, and Al Swearingen

You know it's going to be an exciting day when your favorite bathroom has a new towel dispenser for the first time in 20 years and you're all excited to use it.


I've been doing my taxes and I was amazed at how much of a tax break I get when I put in I was a veteran that now worked on the railroad but has black lung and was forced to own a farm.   SWEET.

I'm not getting all excited over the amount of medals the U.S. is winning compared to other years in the Olympics since there are just a lot more medals to be won.  But the U.S. is doing better then expected by about 3 medals.  Watch out for Gernamy as they had a real good day and have a chance to catch the U.S.  Poor Canada and Sweden are underachieving A LOT.

Two countries doing much better then expected are France and Slovakia.

And speaking of NBC - they are pulling out the stops with such GREAT shows after the Olympics, The Marriage Ref and that other one that seems to use a lot of toilet paper, ping pong balls and otehr stupid things - my goodness, we're watching a network go belly up in front of us.  

To all my readers (well - the three of you) up there in Finland and Sweden and Norway I'm really liking Nighwish, Theatre of Tragedy, Sirenia and Epica (well they are actually Dutch . . BTW - I'm very sorry for that little problem in the speed skating yesterday - they say you guys love speed skating as much as Americans like the NFL - OUCH).  Who knew you guys would be so different then your typical American rock.  Well done.   

I mention rock because there is news over Madison's band, Garbage.  If you remember Garbage is an American/Scottish rock band formed in 1994.  Garbage won the Breakthrough Artist award in 1996 and  their 2nd CD, Version 2.0, topped the charts in the UK upon its 1998 release and the following year they were nominated for two Grammy Awards, Album of the Year and Best Rock Album. Rolling Stone called their 3rd album one of the Top 10 Albums of The Year. Their 4th album peaked at #4 in the charts in the U.S. after which they went on hiatus.

 I took this photo of Shirley Mansion at one of their concerts.

Here is a photo of Jenny and Shirley Mansion backstage at the Dane County Coliseum

The news is that on Shirley's Facebook page she commented  “Guess who I just spent a week in the studio with? Would you be pleased if I said one of them was called Steve and one of them was called Duke and another was a Grammy-winning producer?”

So it sounds like Garbage is gearing up for something. 

For anybody not familiar with garbage. Here is a video from Europe (where they were much bigger).



And speaking of Johnny Depp.  Were we?

It seems the biggest A-hole in the world (on TV) that was in the best show EVER (Deadwood) Ian McShane will be teaming up with our hero Johnny Depp in the next Pirates.  McShane (Al Swearingen) will play Blackbeard in a tale that will revolve around the Fountain of Youth.  No word on whether they will use the Crawfish river for any of the filming.

Also - check out this link to a Johnny Depp interview and great video.

TONS of Alice in Wonderland clips and behind the scenes

To all . . .

Good day?

Rod