Before I'm accused of being a Negative Nancy, I feel obligated to post this disclaimer; I am not a pessimist, nor an optimist. I am a realist. I don't see the glass as half full, or half empty. I simply acknowledge that there exists a glass and it has liquid in it. 
Take, for example, "The Breakfast Club," arguably one of the best coming-of-age stories to ever grace the technicolor screen. It's so real and believable... right up until the last fifteen minutes, when the Princess ends up with the Criminal, the Jock ends up with the Art Girl, and the Geek is left to write the essay (okay, the Geek writing the essay is the ONLY believable part of the ending). That wouldn't have happened in real life. In real life, the Princess would have ended up with the Jock while continuing to snub the Criminal, the Art Girl would have ended up with the Geek and the two of them would have written the essay together, while the Criminal would have walked home, alone, without the earring in his ear, because he doesn't need any of them - he's got his own friends. That is the ugly truth.
What about Janeane Garofalo as a modern day Cyrano de Bergerac in "The Truth about Cats and Dogs"? She thinks she's too ugly to get the man of her dreams, so she has her hot, yet vapid, neighbor pretend to be her. The object of Garofalo's affections figures it out, but in the end, everything goes Janeane's way. That's a load of horse pucky! In real life, Hotty McPerfectguy would have realized the twisted plot of these two women, thought they were BOTH insane, and married the dental hygienist that his friend's girlfriend told him he "just had to meet."
So I got some hate mail... 
Which she did...
Later in the show, Beyonce was awarded the VMA for Best Music Video of the Year, and she, in her classiest moment yet, got up on stage, and handed the microphone to Taylor Swift to give her an opportunity to give her acceptance speech.
West has since "apologized" in ALL CAPS on his blog, stating "I'm so sorry to Taylor Swift and her fans and her mom. I spoke to her mother right after and she said the same thing my mother would've said. She is very talented! I like the lyrics about being a cheerleader and she's in the bleachers! I'm in the wrong for going on stage and taking away from her moment! Beyonce's video was the best of this decade!!! I'm sorry to my fans if I let you guys down!!! I'm sorry to my friends at MTV.I will apologize to Taylor 2mrw (tomorrow). Welcome to the real world!!! Everybody wanna boo me but I'm a fan of real pop culture! No disrespect but we watchin' (watching) the show at the crib right now cause...well you know!!! I'm still happy for Taylor!!! Booyaa. You are very very talented. I gave my award to Outkast when they deserved it over me. That's what it is! I'm not crazy yall (y'all), I'm just real. Sorry for that! I really feel bad for Taylor and I'm sincerely sorry!!! Much respect!!!"
Final summation: It may have appeared to the audience that Kanye West ruined the night for Taylor Swift. Instead, he ruined his career. Good job, West! Maybe being tossed off your imaginary thrown will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
Thank you and you're welcome.
Joining the ranks of thought-to-be-extinct animals, presenting, the Arakan Forest Turtle!
12. Chubby
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_III_the_Impaler
While in prison, notorious mobster Al Capone wrote this touching song: 
From our colleagues at the Wheels blog:
General Motors may be so short of cash that bankruptcy is among its dwindling options, but the company is still in the business of creating dreams.
Its latest dream, the P.U.M.A. mobility pod, to be unveiled Tuesday in New York, is pretty far out — and as such, requires no big immediate investments. Indeed, Larry Burns, G.M.’s vice president for research and development and strategic planning, said the P.U.M.A. prototype cost “only one half of 1 percent of G.M’s typical engineering budget” for a year.
Of course, the P.U.M.A. (for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility) is not really a car, and it’s not really being introduced, except as a bit of blue-sky thinking about better ways to move around crowded urban areas than driving an automobile.
Mr. Burns has used the phrase “reinvention of the automobile” before, in relation to fuel-cell vehicles like the G.M. Sequel. But the P.U.M.A., a joint project with Segway, the New Hampshire-based creator of self-balancing two-wheel scooters, is quite different. Think of a larger, two-passenger, sit-down version of the Segway PT, with two gyroscopically balanced wheels. The prototype has minimal bodywork, but podlike enclosures (which look like computer mice on wheels) are imagined for production. If it gets that far.
If all of this conjures visions of a rickshaw, well, the prototype does somewhat resemble one. Mr. Burns imagines Singapore, which has rickshaws, as one possible early market.
The P.U.M.A., which will be displayed at the New York International Auto Show (which opens to the public on Friday), is an electric vehicle powered by lithium-ion batteries. James D. Norrod, the president and chief executive of Segway, says it has a 35-mile range and 35 m.p.h. top speed. A three-hour charge costs, not surprisingly, 35 cents. It is, in essence, a neighborhood electric vehicle, or N.E.V., whose limited speed keeps it off highways (and, in most states, off roads with speed limits over 35).
Mr. Burns said that six P.U.M.A.’s would fit in a standard parking space.
A new N.E.V. — many are little more than glorified golf carts— is not going to reinvent the automobile. Despite the claims by proponents that these vehicles could serve the driving needs of many millions, they have failed to make much of a dent in the car market. Ford abandoned its Neighbor N.E.V. when it sold the Norwegian company that made it, Think Nordic, at the end of 2002. Fewer than 6,000 Neighbors were sold in the United States that year. Chrysler still sells Global Electric Motorcars vehicles, which have had some success in gated communities.
In a meeting Monday with editors and reporters at The New York Times, Mr. Burns pulled out his cellphone to make a point: Project P.U.M.A. vehicles would be designed to tap into the two-way communications made possible by G.M.’s OnStar technology, which has six million North American subscribers. The vision is expansive: using “vehicle to vehicle,” or V2V, communications, these “100 percent digital” devices would communicate with one another over a quarter-mile range to prevent collisions, eventually allowing what G.M. calls “autonomous driving and parking.”
Mr. Burns imagines a hands-free urban driver ignoring dense city traffic to concentrate on sending text messages from a P.D.A. clipped-in to serve as a dashboard, as the mobile Internet pod moves toward its destination. “My daughter sleeps with her iPhone in her hand,” Mr. Burns said. “At this point, is using a cellphone the distraction, or has driving become the distraction?”
There’s more: the pods would also be equipped to communicate with the smart grid of the future (as is the Aptera EV, another podlike electric vehicle that is due to be introduced in the fall), returning electricity to utilities during times of peak demand. That’s not V2V, it’s V2G — vehicle to grid.
The Segway PT costs $5,000, so the more capable 600-pound P.U.M.A. would presumably be priced considerably higher, though Mr. Burns declined to speculate where the sweet spot might be. “This is a prototype, not a product,” said Mr. Norrod of Segway. “We have not made a decision to commercialize it.”
Mr. Burns concluded his remarks by offering a glimmer of what his company could become if it managed to transform the urban roadscape. “We were the S.U.V. company, and we accept that,” he said. “We want to become the U.S.V. company — known for ultra-small vehicles.”
Infomercial host Vince Shlomi, best known for selling the Sham-Wow product, is accused of punching a prostitute who he claims bit his tongue and wouldn’t let go.
