I Might Want to See This Show

James McMurtry and Justin Earle (Steve's kid) are going to be playing in Bloomington May 16.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame - In Normal

Hey, this would be cool:

Multiple investor groups have expressed an interest in bringing an independent minor league baseball team to Normal, according to consultant Mike Thiessen. Thiessen is discussing with potential investors a stadium that would seat 3,500 to 4,500.

A Normal baseball team would likely play in either the Frontier League or the Northern League. Both Northern League commissioner Clark Griffith and Frontier League commissioner Bill Lee have expressed interest in having a Normal team join their league, possibly as early as 2009.

The Frontier League and Northern League are really low leagues - it's where you play if no major league team drafts you into its farm system. But baseball is baseball.

Apparently they're looking at building a stadium near Heartland Community College, which wants a decision by April 1. So we'll know something soon!

I Need to Read This Guy

I've never even heard of this guy, but I need to read him. From today's Writer's Almanac:

It is the birthday of Russian humorist, dramatist, and novelist Nikolai Gogol, born in 1809 in Sorochinsk, a town in what is now Ukraine.

Gogol wrote about his childhood in Ukraine, and some of his writings featured the devils, witches, and demons of Ukrainian folklore. These writings led to his book Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka -- a book that delighted the Russian literary world and made Gogol an overnight celebrity.

His novel Dead Souls (1842) was a satire and is considered to be Gogol's masterpiece. Gogol also wrote two famous stories, "The Nose (1836)," about a nose that disappears off the face of a collegiate assessor, is found by a barber, and then parades all around St. Petersburg, and "The Overcoat (1842)," about a man who acquires an overcoat and then dies of a broken heart when it is stolen. Gogol once wrote of his comic works, "The merriment observed in my early works corresponded to a certain spiritual need. I was subject to fits of melancholy which I could not even explain to myself and which may have originated in my poor health. To distract myself, I imagined every conceivable kind of funny story. I dreamed up droll characters and figures out of thin air and purposely placed them in the most comical circumstances."

The writer Dostoyevsky once famously remarked, "We have all come out from under Gogol's overcoat."

Russians are funny.

BTW, today is also the anniversary of the release of Bob Dylan's debut album.

The Lunatic Express

Here's a nice new blog, The Lunatic Express, logging the round-the-world exploits of writer Carl Hoffman, who explains the reason for his journey thusly:

We’re lucky. The world is on the move; people aren’t just in their villages anymore, and most of them are subject to horrendous travel. Buses that turn over and plunge from cliffs. Commuters literally crushed to death on the trains in Mumbai. Planes that might not leave at all, or worse – you’re 25 times more likely to die on an African airline than on an American one.

So I’m off to circumnavigate the globe, traveling as the rest of the world must – on the world’s slowest, most crowded, or most dangerous, buses, boats, planes and trains. I want stories, yes, but perspective, too. I want to see the world in a new light, a new way. I want to meet these people.

Hoffman's eventually going to write a book about his travels. And apparently he's not kidding about the hazards of his travels. Today he's in Colombia and writes:

Regarding bus safety, the government of Columbia was progressive: since 2004 it required bus companies to post safety statistics in every ticket window. At first the stats for my bus didn’t seem too bad – only 18 accidents, eight injuries and six deaths. But that was only for the first two months of 2008. And no one seemed to have died on other lines. Oh well, I bought a ticket and settled in.

A hundred years ago writers traveled around the world and then wrote books about it when they returned home. Now we get to follow along during the first-draft. Pretty cool.

Maybe the Most Bizarre Story I Have Ever Read

I am simply speechless about this:

Authorities are considering charges in the bizarre case of a woman who sat on her boyfriend's toilet for two years — so long that her body was stuck to the seat by the time the boyfriend finally called police.

Police found the clothed woman sitting on the toilet, her sweat pants down to her mid-thigh. She was "somewhat disoriented," and her legs looked like they had atrophied, Whipple said.

Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman's skin had grown around the seat. "We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. "The hospital removed it."

The boyfriend told investigators he brought his girlfriend food and water, and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom.

"And her reply would be, `Maybe tomorrow,'" Whipple said. "According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom."

I guess not.

Thanks for All the Fish

Douglas Adams would have been 56 today. It's still hard to believe he was gone so young. This is a quote of his that I hadn't read before today:

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

I can relate to that!

Move Here Today!

Here's a place where Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged would feel right at home:

The mayor of the French village of Sarpourenx has passed an edict forbidding the 260 residents of his small hamlet from passing on within city limits.

Mayor Gerard Lalanne complains his town has run out of room at the local cemetery, so he's passed an ordinance that states "all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish."

What happens if you do? The law promises to severely punish the offenders, which would literally have to be a fate worse than death.

Apparently the undertaker's lobby is very weak in Sarpournenx.

Myspace Sucks

I've got a myspace page which I don't visit very often. Lately, though, I've been trying to keep up with it a bit.

But almost every time I log on to myspace, I get an error message because the pages time out before they finish loading. These are not fat pages - I'm just trying to read comments, friends' blog entries, etc. And this is on a broadband connection.

Myspace sucks.

Politics

This is the kind of political writing I can relate to:

One of the few really reliable rules of presidential political warfare [is]: Bugs Bunny always beats Daffy Duck.

Bugs and Daffy represent polar opposites in how to deal with the world. Bugs is at ease, laid back, secure, confident. His lidded eyes and sly smile suggest a sense that he knows the way things work. He's onto the cons of his adversaries. Sometimes he is glimpsed with his elbow on the fireplace mantel of his remarkably well-appointed lair, clad in a smoking jacket. Bugs never raises his voice, never flails at his opponents or at the world. He is rarely an aggressor. When he is pushed too far and must respond, he borrows a quip from Groucho Marx: "Of course, you realize this means war." And then, whether his foe is hapless hunter Elmer Fudd, varmint-shooting Yosemite Sam, or a raging bull, Bugs always prevails.

Daffy Duck, by contrast, is ever at war with a hostile world. He fumes, he clenches his fists, his eyes bulge, and his entire body tenses with fury. His response to bad news is a sibilant sneer ("Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin!"). Daffy is constantly frustrated, sometimes by outside forces, sometimes by his own overwrought response to them. In one classic duel with Bugs, the two try to persuade Elmer Fudd to shoot the other—until Daffy, tricked by Bugs' wordplay, screams, "Shoot me now!"

In every modern presidential election in which the candidates have personified a clear choice between Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Bugs has prevailed. Go back to 1960, the first campaign in which television was the clear dominant medium. John "Bugs" Kennedy was cool, restrained, ironic. Richard "Daffy" Nixon was brooding, suspicious, scowling. Look at 1980, when Ronald Reagan's sunny approach to the campaign and to the world stood in sharp contrast to President Jimmy Carter's talk of a crisis of the spirit. Or think about 2000, when George W. Bush suggested a candidate who could easily live with defeat, as opposed to Al Gore, who seemed wound far tighter.

Pretty true, that.

"What's up, Doc?" vs. "You're despicable!"

Is Mushroom Soup Soup?

So I'm enjoying my lunch today - a yummy bowl of cream of mushroom soup. And I'm wondering:

Does anybody else besides me actually eat cream of mushroom soup, as soup? Every other time I've seen it served, it has been and ingredient in a casserole.

Mom always used to serve it as soup, so it seems perfectly natural to me.

But maybe I'm the only one.

Headline of the Day

Kid Rock pleads not guilty to battery in Waffle House fight

Dentyne Field?

Apparently the CEO of the Tribune Company is thinking of selling the naming rights to Wrigley Field.

What a boneheaded move. It would be colossally stupid for any company to buy those rights. Cubs fans - and a lot of baseball fans in general - would hate you for it.

So in an attempt to market yourself, you'd actually hurt your marketing and PR. Talk about "perversity in Chicago..."

One exception: I think The Wrigley Company could get away with it. :-)

Think Positive!

It may be only 22 degrees this morning, but I just put away my space heater till next winter.

It's almost March, dammit!

In the interest of positive thinking, I am also posting a photo of spring flowers.

Warm weather will eventually come!

Arrrr.....

I'm Against Pollution! (A Rant by India)

I think pollution stinks!

Man is going to pollute himself right out of existence!

Pollution kills animals and plants!

If we keep polluting the earth, pretty soon there will be so much trash on the Earth that the plants will die out and the animals will die out, and then we will run out of oxygen!

My pollution solution is to pick up trash and find the nearest trash can!

We are our own enemy!

A New Great Song

"Breath Thin" by Tulsa

I swear they stole that guitar riff from an old REM song, but I can't figure out which one.

Band Name of the Day

A Gun That Shoots Knives

That would be pretty cool, wouldn't it?

A Nice Piece of Writing

From today's Writer's Almanac, an excerpt of:

Leaving Kansas City
by George Bradley

Kansas City depends a lot on the way
You look at it. If you approach from the West,
It takes on a certain weary beauty:
Misguided, uninspired, familiar.
But driving through from the East,
It's just another group of grubby people
After you thought you'd passed all that. ...

On the only radio station, a voice explains,
In an accent you wouldn't have thought possible,
The most practical way of doing something
It would never have occurred to you to do.
The voice is distant and doesn't seem aimed at you. ...

There is a place called Colorado where you will,
Of course, be very glad to arrive, where the others
Wanted to go; and you will sit smug in the shade
High up on a mountain, feeling the wind
Send shivers over your body, looking back
At the great sickening swoop of the plain
And think it part of a grand design:
Satisfying, necessary, even beautiful.

What Spam Does to My Mood

Does anybody else have the same reaction to spam as I do?

Ideally I like to start my day with a nice clean desk and a nice clean slate. But because of spammers, every morning I start my day the exact opposite way. My inbox is flooded with a huge mountain of garbage, and my first task is to sift through it to find the few nuggets that are worthwhile.

It's just a depressing and altogether wrong way to start each day's work. It has a negative psychological effect on me. It makes me grumpy.

Monday Fun

It's impossible to watch this without laughing. (Make sure sound is on.)

How Old Is YouTube?

Believe it or not, it's just three years old, and today is its birthday:

It is the birthday of the popular web site YouTube. The domain name was registered on February 15, 2005.

The Weather Two Blocks From My House

One of the joys of the Internets:

Anytime I want, I can check the weather two blocks from my house.

It's 22.5 degrees right now, with south winds at 5 mph and humidity of 75%. (I thought it was supposed to be warmer today?)

w00f!

The beagle that won "best in show" at the Westminster Dog Show is from Belleville!

Uno, the champion beagle bred and born in Belleville, was top dog after he made history Tuesday night — becoming the first beagle to win Best in Show title at the 132nd Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in New York.

Tuesday night, Uno was clearly the crowd favorite, and drew a standing ovation from the sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden when he was picked.

The only dog consistently listed among America's most popular breeds for nearly 100 years, a beagle had never won in the 100 times Westminster picked a winner.

Uno was born and bred in Belleville by Kathy Weichert, but a team of co-owners and handlers show him.

"We're known as Team Uno," Weichert said. "You have to have a team when you want to campaign a dog like this. Dog showing is very, very expensive. There is no money in dog shows, none to be made. It's an expensive hobby and we do it for the love of the dogs. It's for the betterment of the breed, and that's why we do it."

It's sort of weird there's no money in it, what with dog shows being on teevee and all. You'd think the owners would get a cut.

But still ... good boy, Uno!

(BTW, the Jennifer Bowen who wrote the article is no relation.)

This Post Is For Shane Only

Listen to Ramsay Midwood today. You may find this a challenge, as his website says:

There is almost no usable information about him available, not even on this site.

Howsoever, his MySpace page says:

I am concentrating on creating a device that can manipulate electron holes. This will allow me to create a spin-based transistor.

This is your mission.

Magic Mirror

Wondering something:

All three of our girls have the habit of talking into mirrors. I don't mean they go off by themselves and do goofy stuff in front of the mirror - everybody does that.

I mean, you're having a conversation with one of them, and instead of looking at you when she's talking, she's looking at herself in a mirror (e.g., a dresser mirror in the bedroom or the door mirror in the bathroom).

I can't count how many times I've said to them, "Talk to me, not the mirror." India seems to be growing out of it, but Anya and Quinn do it all the time.

What I'm wondering is, is this normal? Do other kids do this, or is this just another data point for the weirdness of our family?

They Sound A Bit Like DEVO...

playing at a small-town summer festival in a moon colony.

Estocar

Thought for the Day

Still working through Confucius. Reading the book backwards, for reasons unclear even to myself. Anyway, this is Book 14, Chapter 28:

The Master said: 'One does not worry about the fact that other people do not appreciate one. One worries about the fact that one is incapable.'

I'm forever worried about whether other people appreciate me. Someday I'll eventually figure out that, in reality, they hardly ever think about me at all.

The Songs, They Are Funny

Songs to Wear Pants To

Favorites: "It's Too Loud" and "I Am Bjork."

I Am An Ass

I spent some of this morning clearing out some e-mails from my inbox. It's been a couple of years since I did this - seriously.

I noticed a definite and upsetting trend - a couple of years ago, I used e-mail a lot more to stay in touch with friends. (Isn't that the whole idea of the Internets - to be able to stay in touch with people better?)

Lately, I never write or call or anything.

I am an ass.

Please feel free to comment to this posting, telling me just exactly how much of an ass I am.

You can expect a call or e-mail from me.

Today

If you're in a Super Tuesday state, remember to vote today.

I did this morning, on the way to work. For Obama, who shouldn't have any problem winning here in his home state. It was nice to vote in a primary that actually mattered.

Also remember to celebrate Mardi Gras! Before voting, after voting ... doesn't matter!

Song Title of the Day

"Death to Los Campesinos!" by Los Campesinos!

Very much fun is this music.

Probably Pointless, But Kind of Fun

Test your vocabulary and end world hunger (?)

Thought for the Day

Confucius again:

Zixia said: "If day by day one is aware of what one lacks, but month by month never forgets what one is capable of, one may definitely be said to be fond of learning."

The "lacking" thing? Easy.

The "capable of" bit? Not so much.

The Weather

Here's what it looks like right now:


Tonight it's supposed to be 11 degrees.

Now We Are Six

It's somebody's birthday today!

When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five, I was just alive.
But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

- A. A. Milne

I Thought It Was Gonna Die

Good news! They're going to refurbish the Hubble Space Telescope.

When astronauts overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope this summer, they will leave behind a vastly more powerful orbital observatory to scan the universe.

Set to launch aboard NASA's shuttle Atlantis on Aug. 7, the Hubble servicing mission will be the fifth - and final - sortie to upgrade the aging space telescope.

"We're not only going up to Hubble to refurbish it, but also to expand its grasp tremendously," said Alan Stern, associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate, in a recent briefing. "We expect to make the very best discoveries of the entire two-decade plus Hubble program with the new instruments to be installed."

"This refurbished Hubble [will be] a new telescope," said astronomer Sandra Faber of the University of California, Santa Cruz. "We estimate that at the end of this repair Hubble will be 90 times more powerful than when it was first launched."

"When the astronauts leave Hubble for the last time, it will be at the apex of its capabilities," said senior project scientist David Leckrone of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "It will be the first time since 1993 that there will be five working instruments aboard."

The result, researchers said, is about five extra years of science for Hubble before its controlled deorbit sometime after 2020. To prepare for the space telescope's eventual demise, spacewalkers will also attach a connecting port that will allow a robotic tug to dock with Hubble.

"None of us could have imagined what this fourth-generation suite of instruments can do," said Stern, adding the 90-fold jump in observation power for Hubble will be unprecedented. "We will have the capability, literally, of approximately 100 Hubbles [circa] 1990 when this mission is done."

Yea!

The last I'd heard, I thought they were going to let it die.

A Great Song

"The Righteous Path" by the Drive-by Truckers.

It makes you want to shout, "Yeeeeee-haww!"

Seriously.

Thought for the Day

Another from the Analects of Confucius. Today I ran across his version of the Golden Rule. It's virtually the same. This is Book 15, Chapter 24:

Zigong asked, "Is there a single word such that one could practice it throughout one's life?" The Master said: "Reciprocity perhaps? Do not inflict on others what you yourself would not wish done to you."

I like that word, "reciprocity." I also like the way it's phrased as a question. Uncertainty is more often a virtue than a fault.

Mari-Rose May Feel Vindicated By This

Kids don't like clowns.

Bad news for Coco and Blinko -- children don't like clowns and even older kids are scared of them.

The study, reported in the Nursing Standard magazine, found all the 250 patients aged between four and 16 they quizzed disliked the use of clowns [as decorations in kids' rooms], with even the older ones finding them scary.

"We found that clowns are universally disliked by children. Some found them quite frightening and unknowable."

Mari-Rose doesn't like them, either ... bad experience at the Bozo show. (Don't ask.)

I must be the outlier in this survey. I liked clowns when I was little. They gave me candy at parades and made me laugh at the circus. The only weird part for me was, sometimes at local parades and fairs, my dad would talk to one of them that he knew. The clown would totally break character - so even though he was still in his clown costume, he'd suddenly become this sort of fat, ordinary, middle-aged guy talking to my dad about cars and taxes and stuff.

If You Like 80s Music

You'll like The Mary Onettes.

I swear, almost every band I find myself liking these days is a Swedish pop group.

I Saw One of These...

On a walk today.

It was just barely poking out of the frozen ground in the park, right here in Atlanta, Illinois.

It must be a tough little bugger, to be growing in this weather. At present the temperature is 26 degrees, with a dusting of snow on the ground.

I guess the dandelion sprouted last weekend, when it got very warm and springlike and rained biblically, flooding Pontiac and Watseka.

This makes two years in a row I've seen something odd in January. Last year I saw a robin. But last winter was extremely warm, until we got a cold blast in February. This winter has been quite normal.

By the way, if you want to feel warm, just do a Google Image search for dandelions. Endless images of spring.

Hops!

I'd noticed this trend anecdotally, but today it appears in the newspaper of record:

Whether using an inordinate amount of traditional ingredients like malt or hops, or adding flavorings undreamed of by Old World brewers, American brewers have created a signature style that beer enthusiasts seem both to love and hate.

Forget about I.P.A.’s, strong, hoppy brews developed by the British centuries ago to withstand the ocean voyage to colonial India. Americans are now making double I.P.A.’s, Extreme I.P.A.’s, even Unearthly I.P.A.’s.

From Asia to Italy, brewers are trying to emulate these beers. Not content with the Moylander Double I.P.A., Brendan Moylan, the founder of Moylan Brewing Company in Novato, Calif., now makes what he calls a triple I.P.A., Hopsickle Imperial, which he said was “the hoppiest beer on earth.”

I've not tried the beer, but I like the idea. Not everyone does, though:

“The hoppiest beer?” asked Garrett Oliver, brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery. “It’s a fairly idiotic pursuit, like a chef saying, ‘This is the saltiest dish.’ Anyone can toss hops in a pot, but can you make it beautiful?”

Most of the extreme beers today are characterized by their ultrahoppiness. Of the 25 beers we tasted, at least 20 of them would fall into the category of exaggerated I.P.A.’s regardless of what they call themselves.To carry their extraordinary bitterness and aromatic zest, these beers need a sturdy foundation, so they tend to have outsize malty qualities as well as high alcohol.

Yum. So what's good?

Our favorite was the robust 90 Minute Imperial I.P.A. from Dogfish Head, a beer that balances its exaggerated caramel and chocolate sweetness with a bracing bitterness derived from hops.

Our No. 2 beer, the Weyerbacher Double Simcoe I.P.A., seemed to embody the term “killer,” the extreme beer fan’s favorite compliment. Killer hops, killer fruit, overwhelming yet bearable, even enjoyable, because it is so well balanced.

The No. 3 beer, the I.P.A. Maximus from Lagunitas, was something of a lightweight in this crowd with a mere 7.5 percent alcohol, yet it was lively and energetic with a lush citrus perfume.

You would not call the Victory Hop Wallop mellow, but it was fresh and delicious. And you would never call Mad River’s Steelhead Double I.P.A. or Flying Dog’s Double Dog Double Pale Ale subdued. Their signature hop aromas practically punch you in the face.

Now I know some brands to look for. But alackaday! All is not well!

The brewing world is now facing an international hops shortage. No, it’s not because of the daunting amount of hops used in many extreme beers. It’s more a result of the normal cycle of supply and demand.

Overproduction of hops in the early 1990s resulted in excess supply and depressed prices, said Ralph Olson, a hops dealer based in Yakima, Wash. As a result, world hop acreage has fallen from about 234,000 in 1994 to 113,000 in 2006. It may take several years, Mr. Olson suggested, for hops production to be able to meet current demands.

Meanwhile, expect beer prices to go up.

Sigh. Some rain must fall...

She Hate Me

So ... last night after rehearsal for the play I'm doing at the local community theatre, a few of us in the cast go out for a frosty beverage. It's a tradition of sorts on Tuesdays.

At the local watering hole, a few other people always show up - people who do stuff at the theatre but aren't involved in this particular production. Everybody knows that the theatre people will be there on Tuesday night, so they just come.

Last night, I noticed something odd. One of these other people - a collegeish-aged young woman whom I've seen there a couple of times - really, really doesn't like me. She shot me a couple of dirty looks, and when I left for the evening, gave me a contemptuous sneer before looking way. Trust me about this - she's an actress, so if she wants to nonverbally communicate contempt, she's really good at it.

The weird thing is, I don't think I've ever said more than two words to her. She's been at the Tuesday night table a few times, but we've never had any conversation or anything.

Which is curious to me. She clearly does not like me. Why? I can understand why someone - probably most people - would be ambivalent about me. I'm just this guy, you know? But I don't understand why someone would make such a display of disliking me, when I haven't even talked to her.

Anyway - she hate me.

Thought for the Day

I've been browsing through the Analects of Confucius lately. Today I liked this one (Book 15, Chapter 19):

The Master said: "The gentleman is pained at the lack of ability within himself; he is not pained at the fact that others do not appreciate him."

This Just Leaves Me Blubbering

How odd.

First, I found this story in Time Magazine:

After six years of childless marriage, John and Cynthia Burke of Newark decided to adopt a baby boy through a state agency. Since the Burkes were young, scandal-free and solvent, they had no trouble with the New Jersey Bureau of Children's Services—until investigators came to the line on the application that asked for the couple's religious affiliation.

John Burke, an atheist, and his wife, a pantheist, had left the line blank. As a result, the bureau denied the Burkes' application. After the couple began court action, however, the bureau changed its regulations, and the couple was able to adopt a baby boy from the Children's Aid and Adoption Society in East Orange.

Last year the Burkes presented their adopted son, David, now 3, with a baby sister, Eleanor Katherine, now 17 months, whom they acquired from the same East Orange agency. Since the agency endorsed the adoption, the required final approval by a judge was expected to be pro forma. Instead, Superior Court Judge William Camarata raised the religious issue.

In an extraordinary decision, Judge Camarata denied the Burkes' right to the child because of their lack of belief in a Supreme Being. Despite the Burkes' "high moral and ethical standards," he said, the New Jersey state constitution declares that "no person shall be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshiping Almighty God in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience."

Judge Camarata ordered the parents to send David's sister back to the New Jersey adoption agency. Two weeks ago, aided by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Burkes appealed directly to the New Jersey Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. If they fail in their appeal, Eleanor Katherine may have to leave the only family she has ever known and await adoption by another couple whose religious convictions satisfy the State of New Jersey.

Now, two veryweird things about this:

1. It seems that, in Judge Camarata's opinion, the State of New Jersey has a fairly narrow and dogmatic definition of "Almighty God." Since my own beliefs are somewhat pantheistic, I'm just slack-jawed about this.

2. Upon further review, I found out that this is a story from 1970, which is making the rounds today. It's #3 in Time's list of most-viewed stories. It's amazing what you can cook up on the Internets - even interest in a 37-year-old story.

Today in the U.K.: Blaaaaaaaachhhh!

Ugh.

A "vomiting virus" is sweeping Britain.

Band Name of the Day

Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.

It's good stuff, too. Brit pop. I like the song they've got as a free download, "Waiting for the Monster to Drown."

Fact of the Day

From the Washington Post:

In Sweden, Britain and Italy, new homes average under 1,000 square feet. By 2005, the average newly built U.S. home measured 2,434 square feet...

The only thing that surprises me is, I thought the average new U.S. house would have been bigger than that. Most of the new ones I see are a lot bigger.

Guess What's Legal Again?

Absinthe.

Break out your Hemingway short story collection and raise a glass!

Classy

After the Washington Redskins' starting safety, Sean Taylor, was killed by an intruder in his home, his team lined up with only 10 men on the field for their first play against the Buffalo Bills.

They gave up a 22-yard running play, but it was a perfectly classy thing to do.

Another Good Quote

A nice quote from Madeleine L'Engle, who would have been 89 today:

"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children."

The Song on the Radio

Right at the present moment, BBC 6 is playing "Pretty Vacant" by the Sex Pistols.

Somehow it sounds different on the BBC.

Pretty cool.

Don't Make an Analogy You Don't Understand

Good grief. I came across this today and I'm having a hard time imagining how this guy could have any less of an idea what the suicide squeeze is:

For sports fans like George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice, the Annapolis meeting is the diplomatic equivalent of baseball's suicide squeeze bunt play: in the last inning of a nine-inning game, with runners on base and everyone wound up with anticipation, the manager tries a daring move that puts all the runners in motion while the hitter taps a soft bunt that aims to bring in a run and win the game.

The suicide squeeze is one of the most exciting plays in baseball, perhaps in any sports. But it usually fails, because it is based on a combination of desperation and offensive deceit that rarely add up to a winning strategy.

For the record: The squeeze play does not occur only in the 9th inning; it does not involve starting all the runners, and it usually is successful - 86 percent of the time.

I Think I'm in Pittsburgh

Every now and again I check my blog stats through Blogger, just to see if anybody ever visits this silly thing. (Surprisingly, people sometimes do. I get maybe two or three hits a day, and my Technorati rank has soared all the way to 8,911,336.)

For a few weeks I'd been noticing that the blog was getting regular hits from Pittsburgh, which was odd because I don't know anybody in Pittsburgh and I've never even visited there.

Still, I flattered myself that there might actually be somebody in the Steel City who found my blog so interesting as to become a regular visitor. Wow! I have a public!

But yesterday I noticed something else. I've been getting almost no hits from Illinois. Lots of hits from Pittsburgh, no hits from Illinois. Hmm.

There is only one explanation I can think of for this: My Internet connection must have been rerouted, and my mysterious reader in Pittsburgh is ... me.

So I guess that's where I am now. Pittsburgh. If you're every traveling through, stop by and, umm, say hello.

One for The Quote Book

"You don't have to leave my side, but you do have to let me pull my underwear out of my butt."

- Mari-Rose, Nov. 24, 2007

A Little Late For Thanksgiving, But...

On the table at Alice's Restaurant:

Cream of Salt and Pepper Soup

(Yes, it's the Alice and the restaurant.)

Glam Rock Lives!

I'm getting behind the times. Something is happening under our feet, and I didn't even notice.

Apparently that ill-advised G-N-R tattoo you've been trying to hide all these years is becoming a badge of honor:

Call it “hair metal” or “mullet metal,” even “butt rock,” or worse, “cock rock.” But whatever you say it is, and whether you listen to it or not, 1980s-style heavy metal is here again.

Rockers everywhere have embraced the heavy-metal thunder. Again, at last, L.A.’s Sunset Strip looks on any given night like the video for Mötley Crüe’s “Girls, Girls, Girls.” You can rest assured that now it’s safe to roll down J Street bumping Whitesnake while belting out the lyrics to “Here I Go Again” with your windows open.

Bands such as Whitesnake, Dokken, Dio, Iron Maiden (with Bruce Dickinson) and Judas Priest (with Rob Halford) have recently reformed (or have come out of hiding) and are either working on new albums or on tour.

What does it all mean? It means what it meant the first time: not much. So how about just enjoying it? Grow out that hair, slip on those cock-rock boots and drop the needle on your favorite metal masterpiece.

For those about to rock, we salute you.

Your Quiz for the Day

Did the following headline appear in a major mainstream newspaper, or in The Onion?

Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything

Answer here.

On Creativity

After the death of Norman Mailer, who was noted for his tendency to swing for the fences and either hit a home run or embarrass himself, Joel Achenbach has blogged a two-part series on creativity, titled "When Genius Bombs."

I'm going to quote it at length because I like it so much. Emphases are mine.

Geniuses mess up too. This is a phenomenon that permeates the creative world.

There is bad Beethoven. There are failed Picassos. There are incorrect theories by Albert Einstein. Duke Ellington would be the first to say that some riffs worked better than others. In the 1940s Orson Welles made both the instant classic "Citizen Kane" and the instant trivia answer "The Lady From Shanghai."

Just because you are a great composer named Wagner doesn't mean that everything you do will be Wagnerian.

(snip)

The problem with "genius" is that it doesn't give the great talents their due for working hard and plodding through difficult problems and taking chances and knowing which ideas to dump and which to deliver. Geniuses create the same way total ding-dongs create. Geniuses still have to put on their paint one stroke at a time.

Picasso would paint something, look at it -- at this point it would fetch a staggering price simply because it was a Picasso -- and then just paint over it, start again, because it wasn't good enough.

W.H. Auden once said, "The chances are that, in the course of his lifetime, the major poet will write more bad poems than the minor."

(snip)

George Bernard Shaw talked about the "field theory" of creativity, borrowing a term from physics. Good ideas do not exist alone but in a larger field of imagination. As a young man Shaw wrote five novels. Can you name one? Shaw had to work through his novelist phase before he could arrive, in his late thirties, as a playwright.

Shaw believed in productivity -- just keep writing, was his advice to everyone. Norma Jenckes, a Shaw scholar at the University of Cincinnati, says Shaw's attitude was that "you had to write yourself through all sorts of things, and then something might become your masterpiece."

Herein lies the lesson for everyone, the pros, the amateurs, the dumb-dumbs, anyone who has ever tried to think creatively. Humans are by nature a creative species, but we have to learn to manage our creativity, feed it, weed it, prune it, whack it back if necessary. We have to forgive our mistakes. No one is always brilliant.

Children instinctively know this. It is only as they grow up that society drums into their little noggins the fact that they're without real talent and ought to put down the crayons and the finger paint and learn to watch television like everyone else.

(snip)

The academics who study creativity have concluded that geniuses come up with ideas and analyze situations pretty much like everyone else. "Nobody is a genius simply because of the shape of their head and their brain," says Howard Gardner, a professor of education at Harvard. "People get ideas. Nobody knows where ideas come from. And they try to work them out. And people who are the best artists are very good working out the implications of those ideas. But it's not the case that every idea is a good idea."

(snip)

Within a field such as math, someone can be good at one thing and inept at another. The mathematician Henri Poincare could not add. He wrote, "I must confess I am absolutely incapable of doing an addition sum without a mistake."

(snip)

Mark Rosenthal, a curator at the National Gallery, applies the rule to artists: "The really good ones are trying extremely hard every time out. They're always trying to make a masterpiece, they're always trying to do something wonderful."

He says that being creative is a lonely job. Every artist's studio is the same. There is one chair. The artist paints half the day, and sits in the chair the other half of the day, looking critically at the art. "There's only one chair because artists work alone. And they sit there. I'm sure if we could be transported back to Rembrandt's time, it'd be the same thing. There'd be one chair."

(snip)

Robert Sternberg, a Yale psychologist and co-author of "Defying the Crowd: Cultivating Creativity in a Culture of Conformity," says creativity has three aspects:

1. Synthetic. You have to generate ideas. Geniuses come up with a lot more ideas than everyone else. "In most fields, the people who really are well known are prodigious. They're large-volume producers. But you don't even realize that in their repertoire is a lot of junk. You just don't hear about the junk," says Sternberg.

2. Analytic. You have to know which ideas are the good ones. J. Carter Brown recalls the prayer that the esteemed art critic Bernard Berenson used to say: "Our Father, who art in Heaven, give us this day our daily idea, and forgive us the one we had yesterday."

3. Practical. You need to know how to market the idea. How to pitch it.

(snip)

Leon Botstein, the composer, says you can't plan your breakthroughs. You just have to keep plugging away, and wait, and hope.

"Breakthrough is not when you want it, it's not when you expect it. It's a function of the constant activity. It is only the constant activity that generates the breakthrough."

And what causes the constant activity? It's not money. It's not glory. It's an "inner necessity," he says. Unless you have this inner necessity to create, you'll probably never do anything of brilliance, Botstein believes.

"Without constant, almost irrational, obsessive engagement, you'll never make the breakthrough," he says. "The difference between you and the person you consider great is not raw ability. It's the inner obsessiveness. The inability to stop thinking about it. It's a form of madness."

So this is what separates the great ones from the rest of the world. It is not simply that they are smarter, savvier, more brilliant. They are geniuses because they can't stand to be anything else.

A Good Poem

"I Used to Be But Now I Am" by Ted Berrigan. My favorite lines:

I used to be part of the problem,
But now I am the problem.

Moooooo....

Ye gods:

A cow plunged from a 200-foot cliff onto the hood of a minivan on a highway in central Washington state, according to police.

The car's occupants, Charles and Linda Everson, were not hurt in Sunday's accident, but the cow was euthanized at the scene.

"If the cow had fallen a split second later, the animal would have landed right in their laps," said Jeff Middleton, criminal deputy of the Chelan County Sheriff's Department.

You wonder what the cow was thinking...

In similar news, last night while driving home on Old Route 66, I had to come to a complete stop because three deer were in the road. They were like the three bears: one big, one middle, one small. The little one just stood there in front of my car but eventually it joined its parents, big brother/sister - whatever they were.

Unhealthy

Scary:

Children who are on the path toward obesity have some worrisome cardiovascular disease risk factors as young as age 7, according to researchers tracking early childhood weight fluctuations.

What To Eat?

The answer, as it turns out, is food.

A Real Nice Beer

Crooked Tree IPA by the Dark Horse Brewing Co. of Marshall, Michigan.

Mari-Rose bought me some a week or two ago. Yummy!

Kitty

On my way to work there's this little black and white cat I sometimes see at the edge of town. It seems to be a loose cat - I generally see it around a bar and a car customization shop.

A couple of weeks ago on that stretch of road I saw a smashed animal with black and white fur. It wasn't a skunk; it didn't smell. So I thought kitty had bought the farm.

But this morning I was happy to learn that kitty is safe and sound. I saw her again, walking in the weeds outside the bar.

Just a nice little thing that happened today.

Curious About the News

Here's one thing I've been curious about. You know that news story about Sen. Larry Craig, who was busted in the bathroom for allegedly soliciting another guy?

His excuse was that he has a "wide stance" while using the bathroom, which is why his foot tapped the foot of the other guy in the next stall (an undercover cop, as it turned out).

But something about that excuse has never made a bit of sense to me, and I haven't heard anybody else bring it up: When you're sitting on the pot, you've got your pants and underwear around your ankles. That limits how far you can move your feet, doesn't it? It means your stance can't really be too wide, doesn't it?

Anyway that's my curious thought for the day.

Okay, now I have to go to the bathroom...

Oooooh, This Is a Bad Idea

Homeowners Using Credit Cards to Make Mortgage Payments

Yikes!

John Raises Eyebrow; Says, "Fascinating..."

I read a fascinating, if very long, three part article, that asked and finally answered what seems an exceedingly simple question:

Two photographs were taken on the same day in 1855, during the Crimean War. The two photos are nearly identical, except one of them might have been staged for effect. Was the photo staged for effect?

It's remarkable how much effort it took to learn the answer.

The question isn't interesting. The quest is.

Here's What I Don't Get

I followed one of those links to a dumb, salacious news story today and I learned this:

The so-called "Preppie Killer," who served 15 years in prison for strangling a woman in Central Park, was arrested Monday on charges of selling drugs and resisting arrest.

Robert Chambers was released from prison on Valentine's Day 2003 after serving 15 years for the 1986 strangling of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin during a tryst in Central Park.

The undercover sting began after police received complaints alleging drug sales at Chambers' residence, where he lived with his girlfriend...

His girlfriend? He lived with his girlfriend?

Can somebody explain to me how a guy kills a woman "during a tryst" and then after he gets out of prison, finds a girlfriend to live with him?

Wouldn't you think that doing 15 years for murdering a woman would sort of take you out of the dating pool?

A Good Quote

From today's Writer's Almanac:

"[Writing a novel is] like creeping along on your belly with shells exploding around you. It's only occasionally that there's a ceasefire and you can get up and run."

Look What the Girls Caught

The girls went down to the creek yesterday afternoon with a babysitter, and look what they found.

Pretty impressive. It was about 2-3 inches long. Not huge, but bigger than any crawdad I'd ever caught as a kid.

This is a picture of it crawling back into the water after we let it go.

Cool Art

I didn't know you could do this to a book.

Kind of shame to lose all those words, though.

How to Be a Complete Jerk

From today's Writer's Almanac:

It's the birthday of the memoirist and novelist Bernard Cooper, born in Los Angeles (1951). His most recent book, The Bill from My Father (2006) is about a bill he received in the mail from his father itemizing every expense he had incurred on his father's bank account since the day he was born. The bill totaled 2 million dollars.

The thing that's hard to believe is that the dad would take the time to compile this list. It had to take hours and hours and hours and hours. And for what?

What a jerk.

A Total Scrum

The baseball season in the National League is coming down to the wire. With only 3 games left, everything is still up in the air. The wildest possibility is a five-team tie that would have to be resolved to determine the winners of the NL East, the NL West, and the Wild Card.

ESPN breaks down how silly this could get:

Among the fun possibilities if five teams in the East and West finish the season with the same record:

The San Diego Padres theoretically could play in Milwaukee on Sunday, in Arizona on Monday, in San Diego on Tuesday, in Philadelphia on Wednesday, back in San Diego on Thursday and then in New York on Friday.

Wow.

A Hard Word to Type

"Ethiopia"

Go ahead ... try it.

Lawn Mower

One of my favorite newspaper writers is Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post. I'm not exactly sure what his beat is - it's sort of science, sort of society, sort of whatever comes to his mind. He's sort of like a thinking man's Dave Barry. Anyway, today he wrote a good blog post about his lawn mower:

Being the recipient of an ego-boosting compliment was not something I anticipated when I took my mower to the hardware store to get the blade sharpened.

The mower didn't mean much to me, other than as an object of mild resentment. I used to have a gas mower that, while nasty and loud, left no doubt of its agenda. It was violent. It was a satisfying machine for whacking the fescue. But it had to be put to sleep earlier this year. That left me with my relatively new backup mower, an electric number given to me by a friend. It is a mild, modest device. As I've noted here before, it's like something a lady would use to shave her legs.

And it was literally dull in every way. Hence the trip to the hardware store.

So I'm waiting around. I can hear the blade being sharpened in the back of the shop. A grating sound, a high frequency industrial whine. Then the guy comes out of the back of the shop, and he's pushing my mower, and he tells me there was a lot of grass jammed underneath, and that the blade had certainly been dull, and then -- out of the blue -- he says, "That's a nice mower."

"Really?" I said.

"Yeah," he said. "That's a nice mower. They don't make those anymore."

And then another guy agrees with him. A nice mower, and you can't find that model anymore.

I'm like: Yo.

I got me a hot mower!

This is like a new identity. I'd needed one. Now I'll be that guy: The dude with the mower.

Mr. Mower Man.

With this new identity comes the responsibility to share the magic. I'm going to have to spend more time letting the people out there, the citizenry, check out my mower. I'll have to take it for a stroll down the sidewalk, maybe through the business district. Strut my stuff. People might wonder why this man is pushing a mower through a pedestrian mall, or the food court at Tyson's, or whatever, but mostly what they will ask themselves is, "How can I get a mower like him?"

Haven't we all felt like that?

Nasty Stuff

"The Most Badass Whiffle Ball Pitching You'll Ever See"

Cool.

Musical Bottom-Feeding

Today I came across this page, reviewing the best finds that a fellow musical bottom-feeder has come across. That album by The Tractors sounds really good...

Only You Can Decide the Fate of This Baseball

The guy who bought the baseball that Barry Bonds hit to break Hank Aaron's record has set up a website where we, the people, get to vote what he will do with the ball. The three options are:

1. Give it to the Baseball Hall of Fame
2. Brand it with an asterisk, then give it to the Hall of Fame
3. Put it on a rocket and shoot it into space

I think the "asterisk" option will win. Shooting it into space seems too...final. And handing it over to the Hall of Fame seems too...ordinary.

Besides, burning an asterisk into the ball would just have to irritate Barry Bonds. That makes it a good option right there.

UPDATE: This is already irritating Barry Bonds!

Bonds said Ecko could have found a better way to spend three-quarters of a million dollars.

"He's stupid. He's an idiot," Bonds said. "He spent $750,000 on the ball and that's what he's doing with it? What he's doing is stupid."

Ecko did not directly respond to Bonds' comments Wednesday, but said in a statement he would make Bonds a custom T-shirt that says, "Marc Ecko paid $752,467 for my ball, and all I got was this 'stupid' T-shirt."'

I think Ecko is very smart. Apparently he's a fashion designer by trade, and in that business your name is your brand. This guy has bought tons of brand recognition by doing this.

We Have An Excuse!

We just can't help it!

Whether we’re looking for someone to date or sizing up a potential rival, our eyes irresistibly lock on to good-looking people, a new study finds.

Participants, all heterosexual men and women, fixated on highly attractive people within the first half-second of seeing them. Single folks ogled the opposite sex, of course. But those in committed relationships more often eyed beautiful people of the same sex.

Jon Maner (University of Florida) based his research on the idea that evolution has primed our brains to subconsciously latch on to signs of physical attractiveness in others, both to find a mate and to guard him or her from potential competitors.

Maner's experiments, which flashed pictures of attractive men and women and average-looking men and women in front of participants and measured the time it took to shift their attention away from the image, surprisingly showed little difference between the sexes.

"Women paid just as much attention to men as men did to women," Maner said.

Hmm ... in my experience I'm equally ignored by men and women. Apparently that means something. :)

Song Title of the Day

"Sick Hipster Nursed by Suicide Girl," by Film School.

Meteorites Make You Sick

Weird story:

Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday.

Around midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.

Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor," local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP.

Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said.

Things I Didn't Know About Ken Kesey

From today's Writer's Almanac:

In 1969, he moved to his family's farm in Oregon and spent much of the rest of his life raising cattle and sheep and growing blueberries. He joined the local school board and coached wrestling and taught a creative writing class.

His last novel was Last Go Round (1994), an old-fashioned Western based on the pulp fiction he'd loved reading when he was a kid. He died in 2001.

Ken Kesey said, "The trouble with super heroes is what to do between phone booths."

That would be pretty cool, having Ken Kesey on your school board.

Album Title of the Day

Calvin Harris, I Created Disco.

Dead Mean People Suck

For instance, Leona Helmsley:

Helmsley left her beloved white Maltese, named Trouble, a $12 million trust fund, according to her will...

No one [in Helmsley's family] made out better than Trouble, who once appeared in ads for the Helmsley Hotels, and lived up to her name by biting a housekeeper.

She also left her chauffeur, Nicholas Celea, $100,000.

Twelve million for the dog, and only 0.83% of that for the chauffeur. Nice...

But at least she did this:

She ordered that cash from sales of the Helmsley's residences and belongings, reported to be worth billions, be sold and that the money be given to the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust.

I wonder what sort of charities the trust invests in.

I Shoulda Been an Entrepreneur

I thought of this idea when I was about 13 years old.

Heck, I'd do it. I'm not proud.

For Sale: My Car in Flames

From the "no good deed goes unpunished" file:

We're trying to sell our car, a '96 Mitsubishi Galant. It's a great car - we've had it 5 years and it has run like a top. We're selling it only because the girls don't fit in the backseat anymore.

Anyway, our next door neighbor says he wants to buy it. Great. That's easy.

As I'm putting the paperwork together for him, I realize that the car is due for an oil change. I think to myself, "It would sure be a neighborly gesture if I change the oil for him before we make the deal." So last night after work I take the car to one of those speedy-lube places and they change the oil.

Except there's one problem: They take off the old filter but forget to put on a new one.

I get in the car, start it up and tell them, "That clicking noise wasn't there before." We shut off the car and they quickly spot the problem. Oil has gushed out where the filter is supposed to be - almost all of it. The car is clicking because it's running without oil.

They apologize profusely, put on a filter, refill the car with oil and send me on my way.

A few blocks later I ask myself, "What's that smell?" After another block or so I can see smoke curling out from under the hood.

I zip back to the speedy-lube and when we re-open the hood, smoke pours out as if Cheech and Chong had been in there instead of the engine.

They apologize profusely again, telling me that the smoke is coming from the burning oil that has splattered all over the engine and exhaust. They rinse it off as well as they can and tell me that, while they couldn't get it all off, there's only a small amount left and it'll just burn off as I drive the car. "It'll be gone by tomorrow," the guy assures me.

Okay, fine.

I decide I'll just take the car out on the highway and burn it off. I figure that at highway speeds the oil will burn off fast and the smoke will dissipate quickly.

But before I can get to the highway the car is smoking badly. As I'm sitting anxiously at a stoplight, two women pull up next to me and one of them yells, "Sir, there are flames under your car."

Okay that's it.

I say "Thanks," pull over, call a tow truck and have them tow the car to my regular mechanic. He assures me he can wash off the oil.

So here I am, trying to sell the car - a great, reliable car - and the damn thing is smoking and flaming because the guys at speedy-lube forgot to install a bloody oil filter.

I don't know what to tell my neighbor: "Oh, those flames and smoke? Ignore them - that'll burn off."

Sheesh.

A Story That'll Break Your Heart

And it's about baseball, no less.

Bad Luck = Good Luck

I bought this new CD yesterday, "Sun Drenched" by Justin James. Never heard of the guy before - just a random purchase because it looked like a good summer album. Six songs in, it's pretty good. Reminds me of Jack Johnson - same sort of laid-back singer-songwriter-surfer ethic. (I'm guessing Justin James probably gets that a lot.)

Interesting story in the liner notes, though.

The guy didn't play guitar or write songs until he needed something to stave off boredom during an extended rehabilitation, after he nearly got his foot bitten off by a tiger shark. He came close to dying, apparently.

But if not for sharky, the guy wouldn't have a career in music.

Bad luck = good luck. You never know where it's going to come from.

Check Your Green Beans

Here's your friendly safety advisory for the day. Check those cans of green beans because there's a recall due to a - gulp! - botulism risk:

Consumers should not eat certain brands of French-cut green beans because of concerns they could be tainted with the toxin that causes botulism, U.S. health officials warned on Friday.

The FDA said the affected Lakeside French-cut green beans are sold nationwide under the brands: Albertson's, Happy Harvest [Aldi], Best Choice, Food Club, Bogopa, Valu Time, Hill Country Fare, HEB, Laura Lynn, Kroger, No Name, North Pride, Shop N Save, Shoppers Valu, Schnucks, Cub Foods, Dierbergs, Flavorite, IGA, Best Choice and Thrifty Maid.

The warning applies to cans with the following codes:

EAA5247, EAA5257, EAA5267, EAA5277, EAB5247, EAB5257, ECA5207, ECA5217, ECA5227, ECA5297, ECB5207, ECB5217, ECB5227, ECB5307.

The green bean warning is unrelated to a recall last month of chili sauce, canned meat products and dog food made by Castleberry's Food Co.

Botulism is one of the most lethal toxins known, and only a tiny bit is enough to do you in. It attacks your nervous system, and if you don't get treated soon enough, you don't stand much of a chance. And even if you do survive, it's a long recovery. Very very nasty.

Russkies

So the Russians are claiming that the North Pole belongs to them because they sent a sub down to the seafloor and planted a flag there.

I liked the response of the Canadian Foreign Minister:

"This isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say 'We're claiming this territory'," Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay told CTV television.

I also hope Santa files a lawsuit.

Song Title of the Day

"You! Me! Dancing!" by Los Campesinos!

If I Were a Book, What Book Would I Be?

According to this harmless little quiz, I am Ulysses, by James Joyce. To wit:

"Most people are convinced that you don't make any sense, but compared to what else you could say, what you're saying now makes tons of sense.

What people do understand about you is your vulgarity, which has convinced people that you are at once brilliant and repugnant.

Meanwhile you are content to wander around aimlessly, taking in the sights and sounds of the city. What you see is vast, almost limitless, and brings you additional fame. When no one is looking, you dream of being a Greek folk hero."

That's fair enough, I suppose. Especially the first paragraph. If only people could hear what's going on inside my head, they'd actually think I'm being quite coherent.

I'm not sure about the Greek folk hero thing, though.

Always a Great Show

This year's Perseid meteor shower is the night of Aug. 12-13. Mark your calendars!

Summer Music

Properly, every summer ought to have an album. Something not too serious, to sing along to, with the windows down and nothing else to do.

Something that reminds you of being half your age, instead of the age you are.

So here it is: a nice, breezy album for the lazy days of July and August:

Coconut Records, "Nighttiming"

A Great Moment in Baseball History

Ah, yes. Today is one of the high holidays of baseball.

It is the 28th anniversary of Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

Truly one of the great moments in baseball history.

Thank you, Steve Dahl.

Some Headlines Speak for Themselves

For instance, this one:

China bans toxic syrup in toothpaste

The Best Rock and Roll Band in Business Today

The White Stripes

Just my opinion...

My Celebrity Crush?

I followed one of those ridiculous links today. One that says, "What does your celebrity crush say about you?" Some schmuck at Yahoo outlined what it says about a man if he finds certain actresses attractive.

I'm pretty sure I don't have a celebrity crush, but I played along. There were only a few specific actresses named. Here's the list:

• Angelina Jolie
• Jennifer Aniston
• Paris Hilton/Lindsay Lohan/Britney Spears
• Halle Berry/Scarlett Johansson
• Julianne Moore/Michelle Pfeiffer
• Pam Anderson
• Beyonce/J-Lo/Fergie/Janet
• Any character from Grey's Anatomy (a show I've never seen)

Hmm. I went with Halle Berry. And according to the schmuck this means:

That he has darn good taste. Physically, they (Berry and Johansson) represent classic feminine beauty - their curves, their skin, their heart-stopping faces. That may mean he has very high standards - and seeks relationship perfection.

Oddly enough that's a fair description. I was always been picky about the girls I dated. All of which means absolutely nothing, but there you go.

I Guess When You Have a Billion People ...

you need a 1000-seat bathroom.

They're flush with pride in a southwestern Chinese city where a recently-opened porcelain palace features an Egyptian facade, soothing music and more than 1,000 toilets spread out over 32,290 square feet.

"We are spreading toilet culture. People can listen to gentle music and watch TV," said Lu Xiaoqing, an official with the Yangrenjie, or "Foreigners Street," tourist area where the bathroom is located. "After they use the bathroom they will be very, very happy."

Some urinals are uniquely shaped, including ones inside open crocodile mouths and several that are topped by the bust of a woman resembling the Virgin Mary.

There are also plans to build a supermarket nearby, which will sell toilet-related items, CCTV reported.

"Spreading toilet culture?" Crocodiles? The Virgin Mary? (The jokes, they are too easy!)

But since I don't know if I'll ever be able to use that bathroom myself, I would like to assure Mr. Lu that after I use the bathroom, I am indeed very, very happy.

I Found One of These ...

at the supermarket yesterday.

I picked up a box of grapes - you know those clear plastic things they come in these days. I just happened to notice a spider in there, nestled among the grapes. Almost certainly, it had made its home in the grape arbor, gotten picked, packed and shipped, and ended up right there in the store, waiting for me to pick it up.

I didn't recognize it right away - I just thought, "spider." But I didn't want to buy a box grapes with a free arachnid prize, and I didn't want to just put the box back, giving somebody else the gift of a spider-freak-out. So my first thought was to just go tell a store employee about it. I quickly scanned the store to find an employee, and after I sighted her, I glanced down at the box to make sure the spider was still there.

It was at that point that some little part of my brain started jumping up and down, and I thought, "Hey, that spider looks kind of familiar."

See, this widow wasn't gloss-black like the one in the picture here. My grape spider had red and white markings on its back. But a few months ago I happened to be at the library with the girls, thumbing through a kids' book about spiders, when I saw a picture of a black widow unlike any I'd ever seen. It had red and white markings on its back, along with the telltale red hourglass on its belly. I remembered thinking, "I'll be darned. I never knew a black widow could look like that."

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I assure you: They can look like that. Apparently juveniles are especially prone to extraneous markings.

Anyway, I shifted the grape box in my hands, and thankfully Little Miss Widow complied by turning on her back. And there was the little red hourglass, plain as day. I already knew that widows tend to be very shy, docile spiders, so I wasn't worried about it jumping out and biting me.

I walked over to where the store worker was, but she was helping another customer, so I waited until she finished. I was glad it was an employee I recognized. She always says hi to me and the girls, so it wasn't like she was a complete stranger.

Finally when it was clear I quietly told her about it and showed her the spider. After an initial "No way!" she took the grape box to the back of the store and - we can only assume - disposed of the widow. (She seemed cool about it, so I think she was perfectly capable of carrying out the squishing duties.)

All in all, it was pretty weird. The store employee kept thanking me. She even said that a lot of moms will open those grape boxes right in the store and let their kids eat out of them.

It goes without saying, I was happy to help.