How Do You Dress Yourself?

With all the hullabaloo about NSA and keeping everything we do private, Stephen has gone off the grid and is relying on old technology,  namely, the Pen. It works  fairly well, Stephen tweeted but then took a few minutes for just gazing at pictures.

Stephen restricts his Colbert Platinum segments to Platinum Members Only, but here is a bit of a teaser if you are not a member. Do you have a baby? Time for a $50,000 diamond encrusted pacifier.

(Here's is a word of caution that the parents of said baby might want to think about. Don't put valuable valuables in your baby's mouth. You're just setting up junior to be a crime victim. Or are you just going to use the pacifier at home? Well then, no one else will see it and know how filthy rich you are so then what's the point. Baby won't go to sleep any faster than with a $3.00 pacifier.)

But back to the show. Stephen highlighted some services that Platinum Members can partake of. Not sure if you are getting your money's worth for those services, so I won't mention them here. So I guess no endorsements today.

Of course you know that Stephen has won many awards (including a People's Choice) and is up for another award - a Grammy for Best Spoken Word. One of the other candidates for the award sent Stephen a letter. Here's what she wrote:

Dear Steve,
I saw on your show that you're going to crush me like a bug. You're a real class act. I'm never surprised when someone like you succeeds in show business. Keep up the great work. Break a leg and other things.
Carol Burnett

Stephen was thrilled to get a letter from her and even more thrilled to see her show up (via satellite or something techy like that) to talk with him. Turns out her letter was sarcastic. Carol used the opportunity to run down the list of her numerous awards and also explain sarcasm to him. She tried in vain to make him understand sarcasm, but even as she said that she hopes the best woman wins, it became clear that the concept of sarcasm somehow eluded him.

Stephen's guest was there on Thursday night to talk about a higher minimum wage and the right to unionize. Naquasia LeGrand, KFC worker, made many good points even though Stephen did not like to think about the possibility of paying up to four cents more for a meal at a fast food restaurant as a result of the workers getting paid a bit more in wages. You ask is there a website I can look at? Yes of course - Fast Food Forward. Lots of info and facts over there. Each time there is a discussion about issues such as this, I learn a bit more.

For example, Stephen asked her why she just didn't work another job. Thing is, her schedule keeps changing. She can't rely on a regular schedule so that she could get another job to supplement her income. I bet that would also make it hard to get more education in order to get a better job.)

It would have been a fine show if Stephen ended it there. But Stephen talked a bit about Colbert's Book Club and wouldn't you just know it? He gave us all some homework to be completed by Tuesday, which is tomorrow, and I just realized I should have posted this earlier so you could get your homework done on time. Sorry. So, by tomorrow night you need to read "Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway. Tune in Tuesday night to find out who the two special guests are.  Or you could just go over to Colbert Nation to find out who it will be.

Hello Handsome!

After last night's show, I was almost positive that Stephen would have Edward Snowden on. If not as the guest, at least as the pre-guest. That was not to be. Instead Stephen talked more about NSA and how everyone is concerned about who knows what and when they knew it and what they will do with it. There was a little bit about Prism and about NSA data mining with companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo!, paltalk, Google, Skye, YouTube, facebook and AOL. Well, all those companies are dealing in data, right?

 People are concerned and yet I would ask them, did you read any of those User Agreements or did you just check "I Agree?" It only takes a few hours to read the User Agreements, so no reason you couldn't have done that. And when you're buying something in the store and the cashier asks, "Will that be all?" do you say yes? And when the cashier asks what your phone number is, do you tell her???? Aha, I thought so. You willingly give out that information. So, as Stephen said, I'm okay with that. (I just typed "I'm okay with that," into Google search box, so I'm good to go.)

However, there is something that does concern me. I have learned through some channels, that I won't disclose here, some disturbing features over at Google. I innocently typed "do a barrel roll" into the Google search box and nearly fell out of my chair. Then I typed "askew" into the Google search box and felt like something was just a little bit off with my computer. So, I think Stephen is right to report on this turn of events even if he's okay with it. Only thing I'm not comfortable with is Googling those terms that Stephen Googled.

Enough about the NSA and all that data. It's old news in that Stephen told us it has been going on since 2006. And he showed us that there are other, older ways to communicate with your friends. Oh, and Stephen had an expert, Jeffrey Rosen, President, The National Constitution Center, on to put Stephen's mind at rest. Whew.

Daniel Bergner visited the show and talked with Stephen about his new book, "What Do Women Want? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire." It seemed like an interesting topic. Only problem is we all know what women want. They want Stephen. That's science. And while Daniel Bergner had some interesting thoughts to share with us, the interview too quickly evolved into a discussion about monkeys.

It seemed somewhat amusing to me that the whole show seemed to be about surveillance. I'm for sure not going to go into details, but even Daniel Bergner talked about various surveillance devices.