Say What?

Well. Yesterday, at the trial of Michael Jackson's doctor, a one Conrad Murray, the prosecution played some audio tapes of Jacko when he was kind of...well...out of it. It was probably due to his being under the influence of a particular sedative used for things like, say, when people are having brain surgery. (It could also be used to sedate any number of uptight rhinocerii. The point here is that it's strong.) Seriously, it's pretty sad. You can barely understand the guy. It's not so much like you're hearing him from beyond the grave as much as it is that you're hearing him from in the grave. It sure sounds muffled. And while I'm not here (just yet) to pass judgment on the guy, I am going to say that if you know anyone who is in the condition that Michael Jackson was in, you should probably do a little bit more for that person than to tape their barely coherent little screeds. See for yourself. There's some of the audio (and don't worry about understanding it because it's transcribed) below. And if it doesn't load, click here.

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The Worst "Documentary" Ever

I'm reconsidering my affiliation with The Discovery Channel. And by "affiliation" I mean that I watch the channel and presume that the folks that run it know what they're doing and are truly interested in showing something that could qualify as a "discovery". But after I heard that they were going to "re-enact" Michael Jackson's autopsy, complete with sparkly glove, I started having second thoughts. Wait. What now?

Correct. The Discovery Channel, according to something called CBC News, was going to air a program that claimed "...to be a medical documentary re-enacting the autopsy performed on Michael Jackson." I don't even know what in the world that would consist of. But I DO know that the commercial that they aired for it showed a sparkly gloved hand poking out from under a white sheet. Behold!

Oh, that's real tasteful. Way to go Discovery Channel. What exactly was it that you were discovering during this episode? Was it to see how low you could really stoop? I believe we've discovered that it's quite a ways farther than anyone would have expected. Fortunately, they have "indefinitely postponed the broadcast" citing "...the start of hearings next week in the criminal case against Jackson's doctor and a request by the late superstar's estate as reasons for the postponement." Hmm.

I don't know if that's the real reason or if someone finally just came to their senses. I find it amazing that the whole thing made it from the idea stage all the way to the point where the thing was filmed and ready to go on the air! Think about it. How many different people would have had to have heard this bizarre idea and thought to themselves, "Yeah. This is a good idea. We should do this. We should do this fast before someone else gets the same idea and does it first." It would have had to have been several people thinking that this is a viable concept to air on The Discovery Channel. That's troubling in and of itself. I'd really like to talk to those folks who gave the go ahead on this. Just for a few minutes. I want to know what other sorts of things they think are good ideas. I'm sure it would be a very entertaining, albeit mind-boggling, conversation.

I'm sure that the next bad idea that they would come up with along this same ridiculous line of programming would be a re-enactment of the Elvis autopsy. Then a re-enactment of the Anna Nicole Smith autopsy. They'll have to implement Autopsy Wednesday. Each and every Wednesday, it's a different re-enactment of a celebrity autopsy. Don't miss the Gary Coleman autopsy! Tune in the week after that for the Buddy Holly autopsy! (In this silly scenario, I envision the morons at The Discovery Channel trying to reach out to all morons across the board who would even think of watching something like this.) And don't miss the season finale where they recreate the autopsy of the alien that crashed at Area 51!

Good Lord, Discovery Channel. I realize that you're not PBS or anything like that, but I truly expected more out of you. From now on, however, I will be expecting less. Not autopsy re-enactment less, but less.

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Still Dead!

The one year anniversary of Michael Jackson's death was Friday and it was, in keeping with the theme of his life, a little weird. Let me just say that there are a lot of people out there who really need hobbies. Or jobs. It's kind of hard to tell, but I'm guessing that the latter would mostly be the case.

I'm going to start over there at Forest Lawn Cemetery where Jacko is entombed. They have him in some drawer in one of the crypt walls over there. I don't know exactly how it all works, but I do know that it seems like the reason for that sort of interment was to avoid having his location become a constant freak show. This way, it's inside a building and you need some sort of permission or sparkly glove or small child in order to get in.

Now, the media was treating this like it was going to be some sort of big event. And considering there was a substantial article over there at the still going strong LA Times (nice job, guys!), I was under the impression that there would be some hooplah. Yeah, not so much. According to the article, "About 30 fans lined up early Friday morning outside Forest Lawn cemetery in Glendale to visit Michael Jackson's grave site on the one-year anniversary of his death." Thirty? And what purpose were they serving by lining up early? It's not like he's going anywhere. How early? Why, 3am, of course! If you are lining up at three in the morning so that you can wait until eight in the morning before you can get into a cemetery and not see someone that you never met (and now never will), you need to check yourself. Seriously. You people know that there aren't iPhones in there, right?

After reading the article in the LA Times I was really wanting to know one thing: What were those people expecting to happen? They seemed to be surprised and not all that impressed with the nothing that was made available to them. "After the gates opened, fans were granted limited access at the mausoleum where Jackson is buried...As they passed, they were permitted to hand flowers and cards to cemetery personnel. Once they passed that point, they were asked to move along. Some said they were disappointed at the level of access." Did anyone tell them that he was still dead?

I don't think that they did. One crazy person fan, had asked an attendant, "This is it?" (Probably no pun intended there.) "This is terrible." I'm failing to understand what it is that's so terrible for this woman. The woman said "...she has traveled to the cemetery six times from her home in Atlanta." SIX times?! The man has only been dead a year! And I think that he's only been in the mausoleum for 11 months! She's traveled the equivalent of once every other month from clear across the country? For what exactly? I have no clue. "As she walked through the line, she said Jackson was actually on the opposite side of the mausoleum." Well, I guess that the lady who has been there six times in less than a year would probably know. But she expressed her expectations when she said "I was hoping we would get to go in and see Michael." ::: blink ::: ::: blink ::: I don't think he's seeing visitors today. Perhaps come back another time...not that he'll be any less dead.

Another unbalanced individual, a one Irene Childs from the Bay Area, "...said she was unhappy with the security personnel at the cemetery. "They were too pushy. There should have been more viewing time." What exactly was she viewing? It's not like they wheeled his corpse out there for everyone to gawk at. What was she hoping for, exactly? A meet and greet?

But the winner for the individual who could probably benefit the most from a little time on a shrink's couch would be a one 31-year old (and in need of growing up) Tallora Digirolami, who came all the way from freaking Australia because "I couldn't be here last year, so I had to be here this year." Couldn't be there when he died, so you had to be there a year later? You know, if you couldn't have made it this year, you would have had many opportunities to show up on the anniversary of his death, as I anticipate him being dead for quite some time now!

And of course, there were people dressed AS Michael Jackson. Why do people do that? They did it at the memorial service as well. People showed up dressed like Jacko. I've been to a lot of funerals in my time. I've visited a lot of cemeteries on the anniversary of someone's death before as well. I have never attended either function dressed as the deceased. It's never even crossed my mind to do so! It's a little weird if you're asking me. When I go down to check on my Dad's gravesite, I don't don a bolo tie, coke bottle glasses and a wide brimmed hat! Why are people dressed like Jacko?

In Tokyo, a fan appears to have brought a picnic basket to some big wall painting of Jacko and is taking her (I think it's a her) picture in front of it. She's kind of striking that same Jacko pose, but the lime green cover on the picnic basket really detracts from that. There's also the fact that she looks nothing like him, but don't ever expect logic or reality to deter Michael Jackson fanatics.

And in India, a bunch of young fans apparently lit birthday candles around what appears to be some sort of decorative sheet or banner emblazoned with images of Jacko while they all knelt and prayed. Upon closer examination of the photo, I hope that they are praying for some sort of solid flooring, as those candles are just stuck upright directly into the ground.

I still feel just as cheated today as I felt a year ago. Those concerts of his were going to be the gift that kept on giving. I could feel it! I was practically guaranteed to have awesome blog material for months on end. And what did I get? Nothing. Oh, don't get me wrong. The folks showing up at Forest Lawn hoping for a chance to see Jacko are amusing. But they're nothing even close to what those concerts would have been. Not even close.

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Jacko's Last Day

Well, we finally know how Michael Jackson spent his last day on this earth. I kind of thought that we knew the basics already, but apparently CBS News felt the need to re-hash it a little bit given as how Jacko has been dead for almost a year now. (Is that really possible? Has it really been a year? I would swear to you that it was only like a month ago that my cell phone was blowing up with texts telling me he had croaked it. A year? Really?) Here's what we know (knew).

"Early in the afternoon...Michael Jackson came down the stairs of his rented mansion" and "wanted to eat something light but sustaining." It had to be both. Light but sustaining. Not just one. Not just the other. Both. Light but sustaining. He ended up with his personal chef preparing him "...seared ahi tuna with an organic salad and a glass of carrot and orange juice." Hmm. That does sound light but sustaining. It also sounds like his last meal.

The article says that shortly before 7pm, he left the aforementioned rented mansion and he "...traveled downtown to the Staples Center, where Jackson and his team of musicians and dancers were in final rehearsals before heading to London". So, wait a minute. It's now seven o'clock at night and all the guy has done is have breakfast? It sure wasn't a very busy last day on earth. I had busier days than that when I was 5.

"Later that night, Jackson and his dancers performed "Thriller" on stage in full costume for the first time." Tell me something. Did Michael Jackson really need any sort of costume for that show? Couldn't he have looked like a creature that was undead and not necessarily human just as he was? I'm thinking that his makeup wouldn't have required a whole lot of extra work. I mean, maybe a little extra adhesive to make sure that his nose stayed affixed in the correct position, but other than that, probably not a lot of effort.

His rehearsal ended somewhere around midnight and one of his hired, Islamic goons drove him home. "Soon after Jackson arrived home, he started complaining of fatigue and that he needed sleep." Hmm. So, it's likely after midnight and he's complaining of fatigue and needing to sleep? Is that unusual? It sounds like me...at night. I get fatigued and I decide to go to bed because I need to sleep. It's not a unique occurrence! But what happened next will shock you! And kill him!

Around 1:30am that fateful day, the now infamous Dr. Conrad Murray gave Jacko 10 milligrams of Valium. Considering that Jacko usually wanted the equivalent of a horse tranquilizer to get to sleep, that did nothing. Thus, about half an hour later, Dr. Murray gave him 2 milligrams of lorazepam (it's the same drug family as Valium) through a saline drip. It's unclear as to why the Valium was in pill form and the lorazepam was administered through a drip. It's also unclear as to why Dr. Murray (or any doctor, for that matter) would have agreed to such an arrangement.

How would you like it if that was your job? You spend all of that time going through medical school just so that you can sit in a chair and watch Michael Jackson sleep? Yes, it sounds like an incredibly easy gig. It also sounds like an incredibly boring gig. And the way that we now know that everything turned out? He probably could have had Bubbles the chimp doing what he did.

Regardless as to the amount of drugs now coursing through his veins, Jacko was still awake around 3am, so this time Dr. Murray gave him 2 milligrams of another Valium relative, this one called midazolam. By 5am, all of this had done absolutely nothing, so it was back to the lorazepam for another 2 milligrams. And by 7:30am, it was back to the midazolam for another 2 milligrams of that.

At this point, he now has taken 10 milligrams of Valium, 4 milligrams of lorazepam and 4 milligrams of midazolam and the guy is still wide awake. By 10:40am, Jacko had been begging for the propofol or what he called, his "milk". Look, Jacko...it's almost eleven o'clock in the morning. You have several drugs making their way through your emaciated system. It's over. Stop trying. Just give it up and get up. You've been lying there all night. It's not like you're exhausted or anything. Yes, not sleeping sucks, but come on, man! Get over it. Get up and get yourself a light but sustaining breakfast and go about your day.

Why Dr. Murray ended up caving in is beyond me. I think by 10:40 in the morning, I would have said "Screw the propofol!" and just thwacked him over the head with a baseball bat or something. That would have knocked him out. And you'd probably only have to do it once. It wouldn't require multiple applications like that lorazepam and midazolam crap. One good "THONK!" and you're done. Or maybe suggest to him that he count sheep. Or count Macaulays. Something.

Unfortunately, I wasn't around to keep Jacko in line. Nor was I there to keep Dr. Murray in line. And Dr. Murray ended up giving him 25 mg of propofol through his drip. Now, usually propofol is used on people as they're being cut open by a surgeon. It's rarely used on reclusive pop stars, once married to Elvis Presley's daughter, who have a hard time nodding off.

What happens after that, in the end, is fairly clear. (He croaks it.) How it happens (the dying and all) isn't. Dr. Murray says that he gave him the propofol, stayed with him for 10 minutes, left for 2 minutes and came back to find him not breathing. Of course, he didn't end up calling 911 until about 12:27pm. That translates into about an hour an a half after all of the breathing stopped. He wasn't pronounced dead until 2:26pm, so that means that they were essentially trying to revive a corpse for about 2 to 2-1/2 hours. I know that it seems silly to state that it was clearly a waste of time, but I'm kind of thinking that they would have known that then as well. Wasn't he starting to get stiff by that point? You can pound on a guy's chest all you want, but once you notice that it's the equivalent of pounding on a 2x4, what say you call it a day, all right? Ok, then.

Sounds like a pretty sucky last day of life if you're asking me. I mean, at least Elvis had some stuff on his schedule before he died straining at stool in his own bathroom. He had a dental appointment at 2 in the morning. He played racquetball at midnight or something. He had lots of stuff going on. All Jacko did before 7pm was eat breakfast. A sad end to a rather sad life. I still can't believe it's been a year.

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You're Not Searching For These, Either

To recap, yesterday was the Top Ten Searches on Google for 2009. I don't know who was searching for these things, but apparently people were. Hence, the list. But I noticed that the Yahoo! list of their top searches for the year was a little different than the Google list. Not much, but a little. Both lists accentuate my theory that the Internet is not so much of a tool as it is a toy. And that's fine, I'm all for toys. But let's just stop pretending that we're all doing such important work when we're online, all right? We're either on Facebook or looking for porn. The end.

Just for the sake of memory refreshing (as I can't remember what I had for breakfast, let alone what I read yesterday), the Google list was as follows:

10. Torpedo Gratis (free text messaging, not free self propelled, aquatic weaponry)

9. Dantri.com.vn

8. Windows 7

7. Lady Gaga

6. New Moon (the movie, not the lunar rotation cycle)

5. Sanalika

4. Twitter

3. Tuenti

2. Facebook (2, 3, and 4 are due to the laziness of the Turkish Internet users, apparently)

1. Michael Jackson

That's what people are searching for on Google most frequently. Now, onto the Yahoo! list.

While text messaging for free was a priority for Google searchers, for Yahoo! searchers, their Number Ten search was Runescape, the popular (duh) free online role playing game which, according to the description, involves "...monsters to kill, quests to complete, and treasure to win." OK, then. You now know as much as I do.

Number Nine was NASCAR. NASCAR has been really popular in the recent past, but it's popularity has been waning. I attribute that to folks figuring out that no matter how long they watch, those folks ain't never going to turn right.

Number Eight, for reasons that are inexplicable to me, is Kim Kardashian. You must really know how to work...something if your father was technically a lawyer for OJ Simpson during his first trial (you know, the one where he was acquitted of the killing that he did of his wife and her friend) and that's all you've got. Well, that and, apparently, a pretty nice ass. OH, wait! AND a sex tape! It seems that everyone except for me has made a sex tape! If you haven't made yours, you'd better get on it because from what I can figure, it's becoming some sort of a requirement for all human beings that are or will be fornicating at some point. But other than that, you're dumb as a post and haven't accomplished a thing in your life. Amazing.

Number Seven was American Idol. I'm a little surprised that it didn't rank higher than 7. What with the be-makeup-ed and tongue wagging Adam Lambert turning in his spectacle of a performance week after week and all.

Number Six is something called Naruto. According to Wikipedia, Naruto is "...an ongoing Japanese manga series....(which)...tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki, an adolescent ninja who constantly searches for recognition and aspires to become a Hokage, the ninja in his village that is acknowledged as the leader and the strongest of all." Ninja aspirations. Sixth most popular search on Yahoo! Huh. More popular than NASCAR, but less popular than Britney Spears. That sounds about right.

Number Five is the aforementioned Ms. Spears. I think that's because she was doing her whole comeback thing this past year. I can't think of any other antics that would warrant her ranking fifth. No divorces, head shavings, seat belt-less driving, beating down vehicles with umbrellas, pregnancies, births, et cetera. She is hot again, though. But not hot enough to rank #1, which is where she has spent the past FOUR years. Good Lord, Yahoo! searchers. Get a grip on yourself. Oh. Wait. That's probably why she's ranked so high. All of the gripping. Never mind. (But just so you know, God sees everything!)

Clocking in at Number Four is Megan Fox. Look, I'll give you that she's attractive. But what in the hell has she done? Anything? Other than look hot? That's it? Huh. All right then. Number Four it is, but you people stay the hell away from me.

Number Three gives us WWE. Remember that Number Nine was NASCAR. Are you kind of getting a feel for the type of person who is using Yahoo! search as opposed to Google? Yeah, I think we are...and it scares me. (Somehow though, they've figured out how to operate their computers, so maybe it's not all that bad. Who am I kidding? It's that bad. We all know it.)

Want to not be shocked? Then how about if I tell you that the Number Two search was Twilight. Sparkly vampires? Very popular with the Yahoo! search crowd. The only part that I find slightly shocking about this is that the new movie was New Moon. Last year's sparkly vampire movie was Twilight. What's up with that Yahoo! searchers?

And the one thing that searchers far and wide can agree upon, Michael Jackson! Sadly, the King of Pop's death propelled him to the top of many, many lists this year. It's odd. When you're alive, people shun you because you were accused of child molestation and might have been a pedophile. But when you're dead and you've still been accused of child molestation and still might have been a pedophile, no one cares and thinks you're the greatest thing since sliced bread. Go figure.

I just wanted to point out the differences between the Google searches and the Yahoo! searches. The Google searches were mostly social networking sites, with a single technology site, the obligatory sparkly vampires, a freakazoid singer and Jacko. Meanwhile, over at The Yahoo!, you've got three hotties, two redneck pastimes, a role playing game with monsters, some anime with ninjas, a little American Idol, the obligatory sparkly vampires and Jacko. Yahoo! searchers don't seem all that interested in social networking at all. They don't give a fat rat's ass about anyone else unless it's a hottie or a sparkly vampire. They don't need anyone else to talk to. All they need is good looking chicks to look at and cars that turn left. Screw everyone else, so sayeth the Yahoo! searchers.

Should we take a look at the Top Ten searches on Bing tomorrow? I think we're going to because I've looked through them and (Spoiler Alert!) while Jacko is Number One on Bing as well, it's a very, very different list from The Yahoo! and from The Google. (By the way, Twitter made it to #2 on Bing, but I don't know if it's because of lazy Turks like it was on Google.)

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Top Ten Things You're Not Searching For

I've just glanced through the top Internet searches for 2009 on Google and on Yahoo! and I've come to this conclusion: The Internet is a toy which we use strictly for our enjoyment and pleasure. I've also concluded that while most folks are morons and judging strictly on what was searched for, folks that are searching on Yahoo! are simpletons compared to those searching on Google.

Let's just run down the Top Ten Searches for 2009 on Google first, shall we? In a very particular order, starting with Number Ten is something called Torpedo Gratis. I believe that translates roughly to "free torpedo". I would like a free torpedo. (It'd be a nice conversation piece. I never know what to say when I have company.) I have never thought of searching for one however. But since so many people did over the course of 2009, I figured I'd better check it out. It is a website in Brazil that allows you to send a free text message from your computer to a cell phone. I guess that's needed in Brazil. Hard to imagine it doing very well in the US.

Number Nine was equally puzzling to me, as it was something called Dantri.com.vn. It's in Vietnamese, so just looking at the page didn't help me a bit. But according to something called Xomba, "...it is a Vietnamese page where you can find news...Each news has its own headline that you can select to see the whole information." OK, so it's like a news aggregator t kind of a deal, only in Vietnamese. I get that. (Then again, Xomba could be lying. I don't know. It could be Vietnamese human trafficking and porn for all we know.)

Number Eight was Windows 7. Finally something I understand!

Number Seven was Lady Gaga. Crap. Right back to things I don't understand.

Number Six was New Moon (the sparkly vampire movie sequel thing to Twilight, the sparkly vampire movie original that started it all!).

Number Five was another head scratcher. It was something called Sanalika and according to the European Tech Crunch it is "a virtual world where you can play multiplayer games and join realtime events. It was launched on November 2008 and has already reached over 3 million users." That doesn't help me understand why it's so popular, but it seems like it has to do with little anime characters, and no one can ever help me understand why those are so popular, so I'm just going to have to take The Google's word for it that folks like it.

Numbers Four, Three and Two perplex the heck out of me. Four is Twitter (which is perplexing in and of itself, I realize that, but stay with me here), Three is Tuenti (which I think is pronounced like "twenty" and is basically the Spanish Facebook) and Two is Facebook. Now, I understand that those sites are popular, but I don't understand why they would be so popular on a Google search that it would warrant them being the top second, third and fourth search for an entire year. I wouldn't have thought that so many people didn't know what they were that they needed to search for them. But I only thought that because I was wrong. Fortunately for me, I can use Google to actually search rather than using it to be lazy, which is what would account for this phenomenon.

Back to the Tech Crunch folks for the answer to this. They claim that "Most Turkish Internet users search for the domain or keyword of a website on Google then click on the first search result to go to the actual site." Wow. I don't understand. I thought computers were computers. Do they not have the automatic fill in thing with web browsers in Turkey? You type in the URL once and then it remembers it? Or better yet, they don't have bookmarks in Turkey? Y'all can't bookmark your damn Facebook and click on that? Instead you type "Facebook" into Google and then click on it. This is why Turkey is Turkey and the US is the US. No further explanation needed. What is wrong with people?

The Number One search on Google this year, if you haven't already figured it out, was Michael Jackson. It took the guy dying for people to want to pay attention to him again. That's pretty sad. I'm not saying that he didn't bring a lot of it upon himself, I'm just saying that it's pretty sad. I'd like to think that maybe if he had known how much people had liked him and how many people had liked him that he wouldn't have had nearly all of the issues that he had. But it's the answer to that and other questions that are much more important that can't be found through a Google search. The Google is to entertain you and me and to make Sergey and Larry a gazillion more dollars. That's it. That's the sole purpose of the Google. The Google is like the Internet version of The Oprah (only without the intermittent weight gain and the lesbian rumors about Gayle King). It's to entertain and to make money. Tomorrow I'll delve into how Yahoo! is just like The Google...only without the making money part.

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