Whine Tasting: It snowed today. An unconscionably stupid act on the part of Mother Nature. Can you believe that? We've been cruisin' along in with 70s-ish weather, then we wake up to snow today. I take this as a personal insult.

++++

I recently picked up two CDs on the cheap from Half.com, both of which served to remind me why I should not buy CDs. So Much For The City by The Thrills - a sort of under-produced alt-rock sound, with pop hooks and a dash of alt-country slide guitar. Got critical raves as a first class debut. If you say so, but there are only like 3 or 4 memorable songs and the rest I could live without ever having heard. Baby Monkey by Voodoo Child (which is the name Moby uses for his dance oriented mixes) is even less inspiring. A couple of interesting tracks but basically, the guy mailed it in.

Why do I not subscribe to Napster and just buy the tracks I want? It's not like it's a lot of trouble to do. It's like picking up the digital camera on my desk and taking a few pictures. Simple little things I should do and I just inexplicably never do them. I'm sure there's some kind of syndrome for that. Everything's a syndrome.

++++

So I've been working on redesigning this site (more emphasis on the articles, less on the blog) and, like a good web designer I attempted to follow what are called "web standards" in structuring the underlying HTML. "Web standards" are guidelines for the use of the underlying language behind web pages which are suppose to assist in consistency and interoperability across browsers. Laudable. The problem I had was no matter how much I read or how many tutorials I followed I could never make it do what I wanted. Now, I am not an idiot (don't give me that look). My day job is as a manager in product development for a software company. That is to say, I know my way around technical concepts pretty well. Yet no matter what I did I could not find a way to structure the page like I wanted while adhering to "web standards" (strictly speaking in this case, avoiding the use of tables to format a page). I also discovered that a good deal of the "web standards" are not implemented properly in Internet Explorer (meaning for 95% of the universe) or work differently in different browsers, which really defeats the purpose. So I suspect even if I was able to follow "web standards" I would still be turning back flips trying to get everything right. What an enormous waste of my time. I went back to not following "web standards" and, sure enough, actually got a good skeleton working that looked and worked just fine in the matter of a couple of hours. I have resolved that all "web standards" advocates can bite me.

++++

I an involved in the mother of all battles against a cold virus. The dastardly critter has a solid foothold in my throat and is making forays into my sinuses but has been consistently beaten back so far. I really need my immune system to launch a decisive counter-attack but that remains an involuntary biological function. If the eggheads who spend so much of their time working on cures for limp willys would devote their time to the broader problem of re-engineering people so they have willful controls over some of these involuntary processes not only would Viagra be obsolete, but I could bring an anti-viral hammer down on this cold. I truly believe human beings evolved in this manner just to piss me off.

++++

I saw the movie Identity, starring John Cusack and Ray Liotta, on HBO. It was awful. It started out as a mildly interesting thriller, in the vein of Ten Little Indians, and then it goes swiftly and surely down the toilet. I like John Cusack and Ray Liotta and they were very good, but I can only assume they were being blackmailed. HBO promises a new first time on cable movie every Saturday, but they only serve to remind me why I don't go to the movies or rent DVDs. An extraordinarily high percentage of them suck beyond the event horizon (astronomy reference, never mind). The following week featured Solaris which I don't really have an opinion on because I couldn't gut it out beyond the halfway point. A sedated snail could blow the doors off this film. People whose opinion I respect have told me that it is a thoughtful movie, about the nature of memory and grief. Wrong vehicle guys. A movie is not for deliberate extended meditation. That's what those four-inch thick novels that they study in graduate school are for.

++++

Here's something to look forward to: One of the very worst aspects of the '70s is about to make a comeback. Disasters. First we have an earthquake miniseries called 10.5 which should be bloody awful. And then there's The Day After Tomorrow, wherein global warming causes massive floods and ice ages and droughts and dogs and cats living together, which should be bloody awful. Apparently this is what happens to the unfortunate folks who survive the nukular holocaust of The Day After, which was bloody awful. The day after the day after tomorrow, the beleaguered human race will suffer mass suicides rather than see another bloody awful disaster film.

Is there someone somewhere who decides when inane fads are supposed to make a comeback? If so, I will pay real folding money to have him killed rather than suffer the second coming of leg-warmers.

++++

My car rattles. My shoes squeak. And contrary to popular opinion it is not in my head.

You Got To Know When To Hold 'Em…: I have no idea why I get like this. I like to think its just intellectual curiosity, but it may be some slow acting form of ADD. Anyway, I get freakishly interested in certain topics for a brief while, learn about them, read everything I can about them, to the point of neglecting more practical or important pursuits, and then the feelings fade. The latest one is casino gambling. You might think that I am planning on breaking the bank, but no. I have no illusion that I have any influence -- psychic, mystic, or otherwise -- over the laws of probability. In fact, a serious investigation of casino gambling by a rational mind can yield no other conclusion except: you’re hosed any way you look at it.

So what's the point of my interest? We'll part of it is that I would like to be a smart gambler. That is to say, I'd like to know how to make the smartest plays possible, given that the odds will NEVER be in my favor. To me, the point of casino games is not to beat them, because you CANNOT in the long run. But since you presumably have a set a maximum loss, you can minimize the likelihood you'll reach it. And you will also maximize the chances of a good long run that will turn your trip into a winner, provided you can stop when you’re ahead and even though -- and I can’t stress this enough -- the odds are AGAINST this no matter what you do (does it sound like I’m trying to convince myself?). Plus, you won't look like some wet-eared rube.

Another thing that fascinates me about it is the psychological aspect of it. For instance, there are bets that are completely uncomplicated and require no understanding of strategy at all that are pretty darn close to even money, and yet they are also a good deal less popular than truly long-odds stuff like Keno. The way a quick fix, easy money bet can overwhelm rationality is not news to anyone. Casinos revel in these types of people. Are these the same sorts of people who respond to spam in the naive belief that if something too good to be true could be true?

I would guess more complicated motives are behind the players who play the more benevolent games -- Blackjack, Pai Gow, Craps (some bets) -- but play based on superstition; following trends and streaks, rather than probability based strategy. These folks are like mystics, believing in unseen forces affecting the outcome of all sorts of events. Are these the same sort of people who buy into conspiracy theories, unable to accept that strings are not being pulled by someone or something.

What prompted all this is my reading of Casino Gambling Secrets by Marten Jensen, a clearly written and comprehensive guide to casino gambling (not sports betting or poker). It explains rules odds and strategies for someone who wants to gamble as intelligently as possible without making a career out of it. I had a handle on Blackjack, now I'm thinking Pai Gow and Craps are good goals for my next trip, especially Pai Gow (although it's a bit scary). In both cases you can keep the house edge down to around 1% or less if you play it smart. Stay away from Keno. Keno is like a state lottery in miniature, and there’s a reason states like their lotteries.

I really wish I had read this book prior to my last trip, and it will be the first thing to go in my suitcase next time around.

Sheri Is So Very: I briefly lost track of Sheri, one of my longtime favorite bloggers, only to get an email from her putting me back in the loop. Funny thing about Sheri, she always seems to be a step (or six, or seven) ahead of me. She has just recently redesigned her site, and here I just spent a good portion of today on a false start in my redesign. And if you check in on her site regularly, you'll notice she has been posting photographic self-portraits. Really good ones, too; girl has mad skillz. And here, just the other day, I thought about picking up the digital camera I got for Christmas and haven't used yet.

Next thing you know she’ll be in Vegas playing Pai Gow.

Status Report: Yet another bit of TV criticism, this time about HBO's new Old West drama, Deadwood. Do check it out.

Amazingly, I think it was this morning until I completely got over the bio-terror attack from last week. I was able to make it to work every day, but by the time I got home I wanted to do nothing except go completely zombie. I think it was probably the longest period I have had ready access to a computer but not even turned it on.

As a result I have little to share with you. I probably could have scraped something up to write about but tonight but I kept getting sidetracked by this innocuous site, Travel Channel's Worlds Best, that gets me thinking about travel and all the places I 'd like to go and then I look ever at Frommers and maybe go to Trip Advisor to read opinions. Next thing you know, and hour has passed.

The good news is the weather is getting warm -- we must have been over 70 today because it's 67 right now. The cold sport, hockey, is in the playoffs, and the warm sport, baseball is just starting. I had the opportunity to go see the Red Wings first playoff game with a couple of friends and had a great time. Yes, I had a great time in Detroit. Will wonders never cease? (You can read my opinions on Detroit in this article.) We had everything well planned, we got down there early and things were pretty smooth exiting the city.

With due respect I must point out that hockey is undoubtedly the fastest and most exciting of sports to watch in person. We were in row four, you could seemingly reach out an touch the ice. I hope to get to see more of them in the future, but there's no way I could afford another playoff ticket (the cost is one major appendage with an option on a future minor one) and next season is in jeopardy because of labor disputes.

Next up is baseball. As I write this, Boston is hammering New York in their first match of the season and the Tigers have a winning record. More wonders.

And here I sit rambling, when I should be writing fiction. Which reminds me, I think I'm very close to getting Apple Pie placed with a new publisher. Of course "very close" in these things could amount to many weeks.

And I really have to redesign this web site again.

And yet here I sit.

That's Just Sick: I have spent the last 48 hours in dire circumstances. Clearly I was fed something that was laced with some sort of bio-terror weapon. I will not repulse you with the details; let's just say that a tubercular slug in the midst of severe clinical depression would have been more positively disposed towards life than I have been in the past couple of days. A wet and soiled cleaning rag would have had a more substantial existence. Luckily things are getting back to normal, but I am left two days behind in every aspect of my life. Lousy terrorists.

Anyway, more when I get caught up mentally and physically.

Degenerate Gambler Update: In my last Vegas article I mentioned that I didn't understand betting on baseball because it isn't done via a point spread like football and basketball. In the midst of one cold sweat or another last weekend I managed to figure it out, I think, so here's the deal.

Betting lines are quoted something like this:

Yankees -120
Tigers +110

What that means is for a $1.20 bet on the Yankees you will win $1.00 if the Yankees win. It also means that for a $1.00 bet on the Tigers, you will win $1.10 if the Tigers win. Confusing, no?

Here's one way to think about it. Remember everything is relative to a dollar. Also remember the favorite gets a "-" and the underdog gets a "+". Lastly remember that to win a dollar on the favorite you have to bet more than a dollar. However, you only have to bet a dollar on the underdog to win more than a dollar. That may or may not have provided a systematic way of understanding it. Examples might help:

I bet $1.20 on the Yankees. Since they are the favorite (minus), if they win I get my $1.20 back + $1.00. I bet a dollar on the Tigers. Since they are the underdog (plus), if they win I get my $1.00 back + $1.10.

Now I suspect the way casinos make money on this is by adjusting the line so as to keep the same amount of money on both sides of the bet (just like football or basketball). With one bet one each side, the formulations for the casino would be as follows:

$1.20 bet on the Yankees + $1.00 bet on the Tigers brings in $2.20. If the Yankees win they have to pay out $2.20 to the winner (return the 1.20 bet plus 1.00 winnings) so they break even. If the Tigers win they pay out $2.10 (return the $1.00 bet + $1.10 winnings) for a gain of a dime. Put another way, with an equal amount of money on each side the average wager is $1.10 (($1.20 + $1.00)/2) and the average return is .05 (($1.00 +1.10)/2).

In fact, with well balanced wagers, the house's expected gain is always one half of the difference between the two quoted number -- in our example (120-110)/2 = 5. It stands to reason then, that if a casino wanted to increase their take, they would just increase the differential between the two. If they went to a Yankees -125, Tigers +105, their take doubles, provided they can keep the wagers balanced. In fact many casinos do just that, because baseball is not a common bet, they crank their take up as high as they can. They have a product such they can simply crank up the cost without much worry about losing business.

Of course, if they could make it simpler to get a grip on, baseball would probably be as popular a bet as football, but there are not enough points scored in a game to make a spread meaningful. I find the mechanics of all this fascinating.

Toob Notes: I must write some fiction. I must. For now, here are some TV stories I found interesting.

Slate has collected a couple of mob experts and is having them comment on each episode of the current Sopranos season (which has been quite good so far). You can catch up with them at these links: Episodes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Fun reading. Spoiler warning: Don't read these if you haven't seen the shows and don't want to know what happens.

++++++

The Iron Chef lives! The rumor I posted about this earlier has borne out (although it's not clear what role Alton Brown will play). FoodTV is bringing two of the original Japanese Iron Chefs over to battle some of their big names. Read all about it. This should be fun. I'm big on Wolfgang Puck after visiting a couple of his restaurants during my recent sojourn to Vegas. No idea why I fund this stuff interesting when my entire culinary experience consists of pressing the start button on the microwave.

++++++

"I have a vewy gweat fwiend in Wome." HBO is planning a new series on ancient Rome. Probably be good. However you can take this show about Rome and throw in the Passion and neither will hold a candle to the upcoming re-release of Monty Python's Life of Brian. "People called Romans go to their houses????"

++++++

I wrote a short article on one of the very best TV writers in history. This was prompted by seeing what was a probably a ten-year-old X-files episode of his on a late night re-run and it still absolutely blew me away.

A Long Time Coming: The glorious recap of my recent trip to Vegas. Grab a snack for this one, it ran a little long. Now I need a nap.

Chuckle-worthy: I was very pleased to see a short blurb on Business As Usual over at Midwest Book Review. I will quote it in its entirety:

Business As Usual by David Mazzotta is a wry tongue-in-cheek novel of two up and coming corporate stars - who may at first seem overrated for their slimy true characters and resistance to doing actual work, but who just might be well suited and upstanding individuals compared to the mindless company figurehead, the utterly ruthless albeit beautiful vice-president, the blackmailer who doesn't know what he's doing, and others. A chuckle-worthy tale of schemes and office politics spiraling out of control, Business As Usual is highly entertaining reading from start to finish.

Rockin' good news.

Wheel of Misfortune: My Vegas recounting is only about half done (sorry), but I'm proud to say that I actually finished a couple hundred dollars ahead this time around, mostly thanks to a killer session at blackjack. I never bet games I don't understand and I don't understand roulette, or at least I don't know a good betting strategy, but I made a proxy bet for Miss Kate of $20 on 18. So she finished my trip down $20. But here's an interesting tale of how a group of people beat the roulette wheel using a laser in a cell phone. Paging Dr. Evil.

Slapping to the Oldies: Three reasons you Richard Simmons-haters need to turn a 180. Fast.

• He is a goofy, rah-rah, semi-fruit nebbish, but he has a certain audience that responds to his particular form of encouragement. He has never forsaken them, which is both smart and decent.


• Unlike many diet fad guru scam artists (*cough* Atkins *cough*) who claim it's what you eat, not how much, and uncountable infomercial shills for bizarre contraptions to give you rock-hard abs in five minutes a day, he doesn't sugar coat anything. Cut away the treacly sop and he makes it clear to all his followers that losing weight is a matter of willpower.


• Most importantly, anyone who pisses him off, even an ultimate cage fighter, is subject to a right and proper public bitch slapping.

Something tells me that cage fighter is not going to strike fear into many opponents anymore.

Something You Don't See Every Day: The Exorcist in thirty seconds, re-enacted by bunnies. Magnificent.

Et Cetera: My Vegas essay is coming along, with luck it'll be up this weekend. In the meantime, I'll just set these links down here in case you're interested.

• A new scent for the man who's looking for that three-years-in-a-cave fragrance.


• For your inner Emeril, cook-it-yourself restaurants. The author is down on this trend, but I think it's brilliant. The ultimate solution for the gather-in-the-kitchen syndrome. Plus, no dishes to clean.


• "...table tennis is an intense sport with all the earmarks of big-time athletics -- steroid scandals, colorful characters, Byzantine romances and groupies. Also, there's a lot of glue sniffing."


• Now that crucifixtion is all the rage, in a particularly grisly development, it seems some guy decided to commit suicide by nailing himself to cross. Turns out, this is not physically possible, as the article deadpans: "When he realized that he was unable to nail his other hand to the board, he called 911." I'm hoping this shows up on an episode of Cops.


• But perhaps even stupider are the City Council of Aliso Viejo, Calif., where they almost banned Styrofoam cups after learning they were processed with Dihydrogen Monoxide, which was claimed to be a dangerous chemical. To wit: "Dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there. Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. " Its other name is water -- H2O. Snopes has the scoop on this long running hoax.


• "Omigod! I have Chris Rock's old cell phone number!!" And, to coin a phrase, high jinks ensue.

Where Am I?: I think the last week was devoured by locusts. I guess I never really recovered from Vegas. I have spent the entire week unable to stay awake. It's bizarre. Up until this weekend I could barely keep my eyes open -- no excuse for a five day jet lag, so it must have been something else. Who knows? Plus, I just can’t figure out what happened to the little time I had awake this week. It was like some kind of time warp or something. It's all just gone. I did get some fiction written but unfortunately that leaves you high and dry for the time being.

In any event, now that the book signings are over and my weekends are free again, I'll be able to get some stuff going. The Vegas article is coming. And sadly, my tan is fading away....

Tan, Rested, and Not Quite Ready: I have returned....from Vegas! I got in late last night and am in decompression mode. I got the glistening tan that I wanted so badly when I was in El Lay over the holidays, plus I finished up a couple hundred dollars. Worship me!!!! You will be treated to good long article filled with the requiste judgemental savagery -- not that I'm opinionated or anything. (I have lots of notes to put together so please be patient.)

In the meantime, make plans to come to my book signing this Saturday (March 20th) from 1-3PM at B. Dalton in the Genesee Valley Mall in Flint (map). You will be under no pressure to buy, just stop by and say Hi, or to talk about blogging, or to talk about Vegas, or for no good reason at all. Be there.

Somebody Stop Me: I had hoped to have some original content, but the best I can up with is yet more curious links. Plus, it'll probably be around ten days or so until my next post but at least you have a lot of reading material to keep you nice and unproductive.

• An English expat football fan hits an Irish bar in New York to catch a football game and gets nasty grub and loads of Guinness all before 10AM, plus some insight into American football fans. By the way, we're not talking about proper football here, this is soccer or, more correctly, metric football.


• If you know how many halves there are in a basketball game, then you are well on your way to a University Diploma. Guys, at least pretend it’s a real education. Of course, you can get your kids an early start by encouraging them to do nothing.


• Comical quotes from Murray Walker, who is the Yogi Berra of Formula 1 auto racing.


• A French study approves of the Big Mac over Quiche Lorraine. Vive le malbouffe!


• Speaking of Mickey D.'s, they are running a no purchase necessary, just be in the restaurant to win, contest after losing a lawsuit over previous contests being misrepresented.


• A short list of books that should never have been written. One author even selects one of her own. This is one list I'm happy to not be on.


• A fascinating series of photos from a Ukrainian woman who rode her motorcycle through the 'dead zone' of Chernobyl.


• The Sopranos starts tomorrow, but here is some advanced info -- nothing so detailed that it will ruin the season for you.

Tube Notes: Recent TV news that has caught my eye.

Monk Season Finale is Friday. If you don't watch Monk you are missing one of the very finest extended comedic performances seen in a long time, courtesy of Tony Shaloub.

You can think of Monk as a modern day Columbo with a better sense of humor. Ostensibly a police procedural, the "mysteries" range from clever to cheesy and there is no violence to speak of. The charm is in the interplay of the characters with Adrian Monk, an extremely obsessive compulsive Sherlock Holmes. That premise may make Monk seem like a one-trick pony, using the gimmick of Monk's fastidiousness and limitless compulsion for order to generate gags and punch lines. It is to a point, but there's enough leftover personality to care about and Shaloub plays it without any sort of bombast and with utter conviction.

It will run thin eventually, but not yet. Episodes should rerun all summer; catch 'em if you haven't yet.

+++++

The Sopranos begins a new season on Sunday and I have mixed feelings about it. They can certainly do good previews -- the one running on HBO is more riveting than most of last season's episodes were. The past three seasons have been uneven with occasional flashes of the brilliance of the first. The movers and shakers behind the series maintain that the topic always was and will be Family, as opposed to Mobhood. That's a good sentiment, but they haven't really meshed the two very well since season one. We know Tony's family is falling apart; he's a scummy husband and a misguided father whose self-delusion shields him from change and guilt. Those facts really do not depend on Tony being the mob boss to be valid. There are plenty of non-mob bosses like that. Since season one, the relationship between the two has been tenuously held through circumstance. Tony's mob connections just accidentally play into the family problems, they are not as deeply interwoven as they were.

The end result is a bit of a disconnect between family soap opera and mob drama. Still, James Gandolfini is one of the most spellbinding actors around and besides, I wanna know what happens and I wanna know who gets whacked. How can you not watch?

+++++

Iron Chef U.S.A. redux? I have only seen one report of this so far, so I suppose it has to remain classified as a rumor, but it has been reported that Alton Brown of Good Eats fame is set to host another attempt at an American version of the cult hit Iron Chef. The previous attempt by UPN featuring William Shatner didn't fare too well. This one is from FoodTV so it may fare better (and perhaps have more realistic expectations).

+++++

The Family Guy lived in the animated area between The Simpsons and South Park on the outrage scale. It was very funny at times -- anyone who says they never harbored secret dreams of being Stewie is lying. Over the years a cultish following has developed. (I know I watch the reruns while chanting Quahogian incantations.)

It looks like The Family Guy is scheduled to make a triumphant return either to the Cartoon Channel (on Adult Swim, no doubt) or to Fox. If they can recapture the original season or two of top notch shows, they'll have a hit this time around.

+++++

The reality of reality. The Wall Street Journal provided a nice list of recent reality TV "concepts" that were under network consideration. It's a subscriber only site so I won't bother with a link but here's a list:

• "Convict Island" -- former convicted felons live together on an island, competing for prize money to donate to a crime victim's relatives. (NBC passed)


• "The Contender" -- 16 men learn how to box and take turns fighting each other, with Sylvester Stallone as their task master. (NBC would like to run next winter)


• "The Jackson Five House" -- Five Michael Jackson impersonators live together, and high jinks ensue. (NBC passed)


• "The Benefactor" -- Internet tycoon and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban stars and promises to give away $1 million to one winner from about 30 contestants. (ABC will run this summer; Cuban says the only goal is to make him happy by any means necessary)


• "Amish and the City" -- Several Amish 18-year-old men and women leave their community to live in a house in a major city. (UPN plans to run this year, but Amish groups are up in arms. Two questions, why would an Amish person agree to this and what are they doing with TVs anyway?)


• "I've Got A Monkey on My Back" -- A cross-country relay race that sends two teams passing a monkey as a baton at each leg. (Fox passed)


• "The Swap" -- Two mothers trade places, and the show follows how the families react. The show is a hit in Britain. (ABC plans to show in 2004)


• "Iron Lung" -- Smokers in a house compete to see who can quit their habit. The winner would get a lung transplant. (rejected by an unspecified network)


• "The Virgin" -- A sexually inexperienced guy seeking a mate among women he has been told are equally inexperienced. The twist at the end when he selects one woman as his love: Not only is she not a virgin, she's a porn star. (rejected by an unspecified network)

A single word comes to mind. And that word is cesspool.

And The Rest: More links to make up for previous anemia.

• All Hail Helix! Thanks in part to your help, Helix is Petendipity.com's Ms. February. You folks are the wind beneath my wings.


• I didn't realize the wolverines had disappeared from Michigan 200 years ago. I'm very disappointed in my alma mater for perpetuating such disinformation. The good news is they're back.


• I'm also disappointed that my alma mater is not a top ten party school. Clearly they don't understand the real purpose of college.


• The most pointless research imaginable regarding some flippin' coins. Stanford would have done better to have spent the money on partying awareness.


• My current favorite travel site. I really wish I was rich. So do the airline and hotel industries.


• About Last Night, an exceptional arts blog by Terry Teachout, writer for the Arts page of WSJ. Good, smart reading on all forms of art.


• How to deal with a rodent problem. "So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas..."

Found Around: A round-up of links that may interest no one but me. Hopefully, these will distract you from the lack of recent content.

• More on the Quiznos subs commercials. If you are a regular reader, you had the low down on this long ago.


• Talk about getting shot down. Rejected in front of thousands, and all caught on video.


• "No other object has been misidentified as a flying suacer more often than the planet Venus." (For Bonus Points this time, you must name the TV series. For extra bonus ponts, name the actor who said that.) Pictures of Venus.


• Workin' in a Salt Mine, Goin' Down Down Down.. The city of Detroit sits on a labyrinthine salt mine. I had heard about this when I was little, but forgot all about it until now.


• Apparently the crosswalk buttons in NYC are little more than placebos. As are the ones in San Mateo. I'm so disillusioned.


• Joe Bob Briggs was once the Paris Hilton of the b-movie scene. Now he's writing on more serious topics. Here he finds Muammar Qaddafi to be like a b-movie villain. Some skills you never lose.

Public School Follies: Here's a couple of classics.

First, it seems a third grader was suspended for bringing a replica of a gun to school. Of course, the replica was an inch long plastic gun for a G.I. Joe doll. Possible punishments include expulsion and alternative school. I'm sure the principal said someothing along the lines of "rules are rules." Idiots.

And then there's the teacher who planted dope in a kids locker prior to calling in police to search with dogs. When the dogs missed it, he told them about it and that he knew it was there because he planted it. This man was educating the leaders of tomorrow.

Recapping: Let me remind you all that the first of my two upcoming book signings is this coming Saturday, February 28th at the Burton Mall in Burton, Michigan just outside Flint. Here are the details. Please stop by, I'd love to see. You may also get to meet The Legendary KK.

Also, I still need as many recommendations as I can get over at Amazon. Here are the details. You can really help me out here.

Lastly, my friend Darcy really needs your help. Or rather, her goofy black lab, Helix, needs your help. Here are the details.

We are eternally grateful.

Lad-Lit: One of the most interesting reviews of Business As Usual recently got posted over at Amazon (scroll down a bit to see it) by a reader named Darius7. I will quote it in it's entirety:

I read this after reading and enjoying Mazzotta's previous book, Apple Pie. This one has an entirely different feel to it. It is written in third person and has more of what could be called adult themes. It is being marketed as a 'caper' comedy, but like his first book, it really starts from a foundation of 'Lad-lit' and builds from there. In this case, the protagonists are two men trying to come to terms with their situations, though at very different points in their lives. They face the usual 'lat-lit' absurdities with the requisite combination of irony and introspection. The difference here is that instead of spending the entire book stumbling helplessly through life they feel driven enough to take action, and this action is what builds into the caper. The caper only serves to accentuate the absurdities and irony which in-turn further feeds the caper. It is a very smartly constructed book.

I'm only giving it four stars because I'm not sure the portrayal of some of the characters is realistic in a corporate setting. But it is as funny as its reputation suggests. A worthwhile read.

I have never heard the term "lad-lit" before, but I take it to be sort of a compliment to the term chick-lit. A very astute observation. I must say it's very cool, and a little surprising, that a complete stranger has given so much thought to my writing.

Thanks Darius7, whoever you are.

The End of 'Sex': I posted the following over at blogcritics, regarding Sex and the City shortly before it's series finally which appeared tonight.

Whenever I hear people talk about the social or political importance of some TV show or movie, I reflexively sneer. If I had a nickel for every time some sycophantic reviewer declared a show to have had a revolutionary effect on society, I could afford that incredible looking 50-inch plasma TV I saw at Best Buy this weekend.

So it goes with Sex and the City. Some of the current love fest is obligatory with the series coming to an end, but even a critic as august as the late Pauline Kael felt there was something special about it. If I recall, Kael said the interesting thing about Sex and the City is that it portrays women talking about men the way men usually talk about women. (I'm paraphrasing, I couldn't find the exact cite.)

Kael was, I believe, only half right. Men don't actually talk about women like that -- at least not after their late teens/early twenties (technically, still boys), and the ladies of Sex and the City are coming up fast on the big four-oh. I have spent my share of time in sports bars and locker rooms and other areas where men congregate and I have never heard women spoken of the way men are spoken of on Sex and the City.

I can verify, however, that women of that age do talk like that. You can find yourself in a mixed group of 30-40 year-olds having an active conversation and, invariably, the ones talking bluntly and crudely about sex are the women. Often it gets so bad that the men have to go off to watch Sportscenter. Women are pigs.

So when I read that Sex and the City has been a cornerstone in the empowerment of women, I can only think, "Empowerment to do what, shamelessly converse like pubescent boys?" You've come a long way, baby.

Given all that, it might surprise you that I like Sex and the City. Stripped of the hype, Sex and the City is -- or was -- a good quality half-hour sitcom. Since it's HBO, they can turn up the nudity, sex and profanity which can make it seem like something out of the ordinary, but that's about what it is. They have done a good job over the years of growing the main characters out of their original superficialities. Fine acting performances, including the ones from the guest stars, are de rigueur. There has been a good balance of comic contrivance with soap-opera storylines. And they are getting out before everything goes stale (although I hear there is a full-length movie planned, which is worrisome).

Not actually revolutionary, but still a very good job. That's nothing to sneer at.

I have now seen the 45-minute finale. It was well crafted, not too overwrought, and it generally escaped the pitfalls that usually ensnare series finales. It held my attention the whole time and was mildly amusing.

It was followed immediately by Curb Your Enthusiam and I was on the freakin' floor laughing for a half-hour straight.

That about sums it up.

Not Much: I have actually a little bit of fiction written in the last week. Wait a minute...

I am leaving the previous sentence exactly as I first typed it, in its original Yoda-esque construction. That is the way it came out of my head. No editing. It will serve as a reminder to all who read it of the necessity of revision of even the most casual of writing. And also of how muddleheaded I can be, which probably does not exactly shock you.

Anyway, I have lots of projects, both real and potential. I'm sure you will see them in the fullness of time. For now, what follows will have to suffice.

Axis of Evil, Food Service Division: The Atlantic has posted excerpts from the reminiscences of a Japanese sushi chef who spent nearly 13 years as Kim Jong Il's personal chef. The guy is obviously not much for high prose, but it only adds to the surrealism of his memories of that time. He unwisely whomps the maximum moonbat in a jet ski race...

At that moment I thought maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to win, and I regretted it a bit. But he had said it was a serious race, so I decided I wasn't wrong in winning. Until then nobody else had ever won a contest against Kim Jong Il.

...but fortunately escapes unflayed:

A month later he once again challenged me to a race. However, this time at the starting line I was surprised to see that he had traded his old Jet Ski for a much larger one. With a different engine capacity there was no way I could win.

The worst was yet to come:

The liquor cellar also had a karaoke set, a piano, and a round table that could seat fifteen or sixteen people. There, I remember, we often sang together the Japanese song "The Bride in Seto."

I knew it. I've always suspected karaoke would only appeal to the sadistic mind of a freaky, paranoid, bloodthirsty dictator. Had to be.

The wack-job almost makes the Democratic candidates seem sane and sober. Almost. I'm hoping for a 2 hour special on Food TV.

Baseball is War: I don't know if you have been following the Red Sox/Yankees off-season war but it has made the baseball off-season more interesting than the football on-season.

Sadly, what will be remembered from the previous football season are the controversies over Rush Limbaugh and Gregg Easterbrook and cell phones under the goalposts. Even the exceptional Super Bowl -- one of the best ever -- will live forever in the shadow of Janet Jackson's right jubbly.

(BTW -- I never commented on the Super Bowl game itself. Let me just say it was the second Super Bowl in a row where the game was undeniably decided by the offensive line. Oakland's lost it for them last year and New England's won it for them this year.)

More compelling than any football news all season has been the on-going battle between the Bosox and the Yankees. All summer, the Bosox seemed to have the upper hand; they fired Grady Little, they snagged Curt Schilling, arguably the top pitcher in baseball, and were actively pursuing Alex Rodriguez, the reigning American League MVP (from Texas). Meanwhile Roger Clemens retires from the Yankees, then unretires and joins Houston. Andy Pettitte, the Yankees' ace free agent pitcher, also ditches the Yankees for Houston. Steinbrenner was looking a little ragged at that point.

But then the Bosox attempt at snaring Alex Rodriguez breaks down and, secretly, the Yankees move in and snag him for themselves. You can bet Steinbrenner was chuckling to himself about getting the last laugh over the sentimental favorites.

Just recently John Henry, owner of the Bosox, suggested the Yankees/A-Rod deal was evidence of the need for a salary cap in baseball, to which Steinbrenner replied, "Quit yer sniveling," (more or less). This is going to get really nasty over the course of the season. I wouldn't be surprised to see fans attacking each other or attacking umps or attacking players at Red Sox/Yankee games. Seriously. Ramp up security and hope they're unarmed.

More quietly, in the National League both the Astros and the Cubs have shored up their pitching staffs. Especially the Cubs who, with the signing of Greg Maddux, now almost certainly have one of the top five starting rotations in the game. With Bartman afraid to show his face at Wrigley, there may be no stopping them now.

Definitely shaping up to be one of the most drama filled seasons ever.

Previously Occupied: I have done two jobs in my life that I think everybody should be required to do as a right of passage. The first is work in fast food, because everyone should spend sometime on the lowest rung -- it would make people a lot more appreciative of the stupid office space job they get right out of college. The other is a car salesman. Only by working in this profession, if just for a brief stint, can you truly comprehend the meaning of the word 'sleaze.' Hang out with car salesmen for a while and you will yearn for the simple honest company personal injury lawyers. This undercover investigation, Confessions of a Car Salesman, from Edmunds.com brought me back. Unpleasantly so.

Kiss The Next Few Days Good-Bye: Classic video games from the '80s that you can play in your browser. You may not sue me for wasting the next 3 days of your life. Consider yourself forewarned.

I Need Your Help: This will only take a couple of minutes and won't cost you a thing. To do this, You have to have made a purchase from Amazon at some point in time and be logged in to their site. I know just about all of you have bought something from Amazon, and Amazon generally remembers you when you land on the site, so that shouldn't be a problem.

It turns out that Amazon allows you to make recommendations to readers for similar books. For instance, you could go to the listing for Moby Dick and recommend Emeril's Seafood Cookbook or something like that. In a couple of days, anytime somebody went clicked on Moby Dick, there would be Emeril's Seafood Cookbook as a reader recommendation.

What I want you to do for me is visit some book listings and recommend Business As Usual. This is a very simple process. Let me walk you through it.

First, you need the ASIN of Business As Usual. Here it is: 159299024X. You can copy it to your clipboard (just double-click the text and press ctrl-c).

Next, visit some listings for books that might attract the same kind of readers -- I will link some below. You will see one of two things when you visit the listing.

One: If you scroll about half way down you will see a heading in orange called Our Customer's Advice. Click the link that says "Recommend an item!" On the next screen just enter the ASIN of Business As Usual -- 159299024X -- in the I recommend box and click the submit button.

-OR-

Two: If there are no previous recommendations, there will be a heading in orange called What's Your Advice? In that case just enter the ASIN of Business As Usual -- 159299024X -- in the I recommend box and click the submit button.

Simple, quick and painless. You will be done in less time than it took me to explain it.

Here are some good books for a Business As Usual recommendation. You may want to open them in new window (select ctrl+N in Internet Explorer) so you have access to the instructions above.

• About a Boy


• The Wishbones


• Lucky Jim


• High Fidelity


• Love Me


• Jake's Thing

Of course, you can feel free to recommend Business As Usual for any book you want.

It will just take three or four of you to do this to give me a bit of extra exposure and every bit helps. If you really love me, you will do this and you will have my eternal gratitude and you will offically be The Bomb! Let me know if you have any problems: dzot@usa.net.

A Friend Needs Your Help: My friend Darcy is coming to the end of a stint doing some basic live-in training of a Paws with a Cause dog -- namely Helix, a daffy but loveable black lab. Helix will be moving on to the next phase of training, so as a going away present we need to have Helix named as Pet of the Month at Petendipty.com.

So here's what you do. Click this link. Select Helix (down at the very bottom of the photos). And click submit.

You must do this. If you don't, Helix will be sad. And being responsible for a black lab crying is about a low as you can go in this world. Do it.

Don't Let School Stop You: A very interesting article about how pop culture is not necessarily the reason kids struggle in school. The case in point here is something called fan fiction. Fan fiction generally coalesces around popular sci-fi or fantasy storylines such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Buffy, etc. From the base characters and universe of the show, fans write their own stories or episodes or even entire novels and publish them on web sites to share with other fans. To wit:

When she was 13, Heather Lawver read a book that changed her life: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Inspired by reports that J. K. Rowling's novel was getting kids to read, she wanted to do her part to promote literacy. Less than a year later, she launched The Daily Prophet, a Web-based "school newspaper" for the fictional Hogwarts. Today, the publication has a staff of 102 children from all over the world.

Lawver, still in her teens, is its managing editor. She hires columnists who cover their own beats on a weekly basis -- everything from the latest Quiddich matches to Muggle cuisine -- and edits each story. She encourages her staff to closely compare their original submissions with the edited versions and consults with them on issues of style and grammar as needed.

Or this one:

Consider, for example, the girl known online as Flourish. She started reading X-Files fan fiction when she was 10, wrote her first Harry Potter stories at 12, and published her first online novel at 14. She quickly became a mentor for other emerging fan writers, including many who were twice her age or more. Most people assumed she was probably a college student. Interacting online allowed her to keep her age to herself until she had become so central to the fandom that nobody much cared that she was in middle school.

All the English Composition classes in the world probably could not generate the desire to sit down and write like that. Which is exactly the point of the article:

We often act as if schools had a monopoly on teaching, yet smart kids have long known not to let schooling get in the way of their education.

Dead on. Personal aside: I think HRH Miss Anna would be a natural for this.

We Like The Moon: Have you seen those disturbingly wacked-out animations in the Quizno's Sandwich Shop commercials. Here's the source. Brilliantly bizarre and fantastically freaky.

Damn Site: I just realized there is horrible bug in Internet Explorer 6. Technically speaking, you cannot select text in what is called an absolutely positioned "div". It so happens that the text you are reading now is contained in such a thing. The sidebar is OK, but in structuring the page I had to use an absolutely positioned div to get the content on this part of the page to position correctly. If you are using earlier version of IE you are probably OK. If you are using something other than IE you are probably OK.

You can select a word by double clicking it, but if you try to select a sentence, it will highlight pretty much all the text up to the top of the section.

Stupid web browser.

The reason this is important is that very soon I am going to ask you all for a favor. And it will involve cutting and pasting a word from this page. And so, when the time comes, I am going to have to tell you to be sure to select the word by double clicking on it, rather than just tell you to select the word by any means you choose. Just another complication to pester me.

Oh, and your eyes are not deceiving you, I did change to text over to a serif font (specifically Georgia, and if you don't have Georgia, Times New Roman). I just think it's a bit more readable that way.

Lots more to come soon, possibly including an excerpt from my third, and yet to be completed, novel, tentatively titled Misspent Youth. Maybe possibly.

For now, some links to amuse, fascinate and inform you.

• Dogs are the weak cousins of the noble wolf, dependent on man for nearly everything. But with the wolf outnumber 300 to 1, who is the real evolutionary success?


• Looking for retro or obscure sports logo clothing? Look here. My new object of desire is a Michigan Panthers hoodie (remember them?). I still can't find an EMU Hurons sweatshirt.


• Ten technologies that refuse to die. And some that did.


• The theory and practice of beating your wife.


• When is trailer not a trailer? Park me one of these by the beach and I'll gladly while away my retirement complaining about the government and driving really slow.


• Blog awards. Check 'em out. Once again, I am heartlessly overlooked.


• There are some things I don't want to think about.


• And some places I don't want to go. But if you're on vacation in North Korea, there's an easy way to get around.


• Paging Simon from American Idol! Why do people have to fight? by Herve Villchaize. Warning! This has audio and video in Quicktime format so you'll need a high speed connection and it'll work best with a Mac, but if you can play it, it is comedy gold.


• Speaking of music, such as it is, this is wrong in so many ways...

Meet Me: I have two book signings scheduled in the near future, both in the area of Flint, MI. The first is on Saturday, February 28th from 2-4 PM at B. Dalton in the Courtland Mall in Burton, MI (map), the second is Saturday March 20th from 1-3PM, also at B. Dalton in the Genesee Valley Mall in Flint (map). Both stores either have, or will shortly have, Business As Usual in stock.

Stop by to get a signed copy. Or stop by to say Hi. Or stop by just to point at me and laugh. Whatever you do, stop by.

Noise Annoys: I hate politics. Really hate it. And that is going to make the next 10 months a living hell. For me, politics is like having a rusty sewing needle stuck in your eye. As such, I do not find anything funny about political humor. Having a rusty sewing needles stuck in your eye does not encourage lighthearted jocularity. Oh, I know that given enough time everything is a target for humor, even eyeballs pierced by rusty sewing needles, but the problem is the rusty sewing needle doesn't get removed. It doesn't even heal in place. It keeps getting twisted around every time some heavily coiffed talking head on CNN or Fox asks some weasely politician a question and the weasely politician responds with a weighty-sounding, carefully-rehearsed response that is so devoid of substance it borders on non-sequitor, which is in turn followed by a panel of interchangeable motor-mouths speculating on what it all means.

DIE IN A FIRE. TAKE THE GAS PIPE. I DON'T CARE.

I can isolate myself from this inanity for the most part, except when someone has turned the TV in the gym locker room to one of the 24 hours news stations or when I am with friends who don't share my distaste and covering my ears and screaming "lalalalalalala" would be rude. Not only that, this is the time when otherwise apolitical activities are suddenly imbued with editorialization.

You see, politics is really the only topic that is considered Serious. If you don't harbor strident and righteous political opinions, you are deemed shallow. Actors, musicians, scientists, doctors, professors, athletes, you name it -- whenever they feel as though the work they do is not Significant enough, they decide proselytizing about politics is the way to show they are Deep and Important. So they throw their celebrity and/or credentials behind some poorly thought out, small-minded political stances in an attempt to transcend the perceived superficiality of their lives.

Meanwhile, otherwise sane people (including many bloggers) go nuts and start accusing everyone of being a Nazi. Or claiming righteous victimhood because they were called a Nazi. Or calling people Nazis because they called you a Nazi. I am glad the youth of today will never equate Nazis with murderous villains who slaughtered millions, but with easy targets in First Person Shooters. Maybe there will come a time when Nazi isn't the most popular political description anymore.

I understand the unfortunate necessity of politics. What I despise is the way it is treated as the source and purpose of all life by many people. You know the type. They classify you personally by asking you if you are Republican or Democrat or Conservative or Liberal and then proceed to color every interaction with you by their political prejudices. (Living in Ann Arbor, I've known plenty such people. Hell, I've dated such people.)

Understand this: None of this does anything except add more noise to the world. There is no topic in our culture that gets more mileage with less substance than politics. Any substantial political question can be reduced to a debate about core assumptions in about ten minutes tops, so why do we have to go through all this? It's just noise. Stop talking about it. Do something else. Go for a walk. Wash your car. Cook some pasta. Anything else, for cryin' out loud. It will make the world a better place. And that's Important.

I have made a point of keeping a dam site politics free and will be extra vigilant in the upcoming months. Visit here to escape.

Before I Get Old: One thing about getting old. It's not so much that you can't learn new things; it's that you really don't want to anymore. You have a lifetime of pointless information in your head so learning a new skill means trying to free up some space in there to remember stuff, which means you probably have to take the opportunity to throw something out, which means you lose some of that hard-earned prowess in trivial pursuit and you risk accidentally disposing of something important, like the fact that underwear goes on the inside. It's fraught with difficulty.

Take, for example, a digital camera. Miss Kate and HRH Miss Anna bought me a Kodak digital camera and mini-printer for Christmas. An excellent gift. I think I could really enjoy photography once I figure out how to take more than just a snapshot, or maybe I could have some fun Photoshopping. In the past I would have just picked up the camera and started blasting away until I figured out how to do everything. (This was Anna's chosen method when she unceremoniously wrenched it from my hand to play with before I could even say thank you.) Now I find myself over-thinking it, trying to grasp the functionality like some senior citizen confronted with a new-fangled remote control.

Look: I know what offside is in hockey. I prepare and file my own taxes. I can tell you how to price stock options. Hell, I once learned the basics of Unix, for Pete's sake (that was the first thing to go once the noggin filled up). I can pretty much figure anything out.

That doofy guy struggling with a simple camera -- that's not me. That's me thirty or forty years from now when I've got my pants hiked up around my armpits.

I am not old. I WILL learn to use this camera and take reasonable photographs. And if it kills me, at least I'll leave a good looking corpse.

(Don't worry; I will not inflict my pictures on you. At least not yet.)

You've Got To Be A Football Hero: The Miami Herald is running a series of articles following a heavily recruited high-school football prospect, one Willie Williams, as he goes from college to college (FSU, Auburn, Miami) and gets the VIP treatment. It's obnoxious that some kid gets treated like a king for playing football while everyone else is filling financial aid forms, but this is worth the read -- believe me. This kid is like a young, naive Mike Tyson. Everything he says pegs the unintentional comedy meter.

He eats a lot at FSU:

"...defensive line coach Odell Haggins was there to greet him. "When he picked me up, he had a box of chicken wings for me," Williams said. "I was starving, but there was only like two wings. I told him 'Coach, we're still going to dinner right?'"

"Dinner was tight," Williams said. "We had our own section in the restaurant, but the only thing that bugged me was that I sat all the way in the back -- so I was the last one to get my food.

"Coach Haggins told us to order as much as we wanted. I ordered a steak and a lobster tail. The lobster tail was like $49.99. I couldn't believe something so little could cost so much. The steak didn't even have a price. The menu said something about market value. I was kind of embarrassed so I didn't order a lot.

"But then I saw what the other guys were ordering, I was like, 'Forget this.' I called the waiter back and told him to bring me four lobster tails, two steaks and a Shrimp Scampi. It was good. I took two boxes back with me to the hotel."

[snip]

After the tour, Williams said the players were treated to lunch at Doak Campbell Stadium. But it wasn't the type of meal the players had been treated to the night before. Just sandwiches.

[snip]

"I asked Coach Odell, 'Where we eating tonight?" Williams said. "He was like, 'The stadium' I thought he was playing. Then we ended up eating at the stadium again. I guess we spent all their money the night before."
What the recruits didn't know at the time was that they were in for a treat -- a trip to Bobby Bowden's home for his wife's homemade deserts.

"Coach Bowden was cool, but Ms. Bowden was the bomb," Williams said. "I swear, she must be related to Betty Crocker or something. When we walked into that house, it was like walking into a Publix Bakery -- banana pudding, chocolate cake, cheese cake. I had one of everything. I didn't want to leave."

The eatin' binge continues at Auburn:

Before heading out to dinner, the recruits waited for the Auburn coaches in the hotel lobby, where a spread of shrimp, cheeses, cold cuts and fruits awaited.

"They told me they heard about my trip to FSU and how I love to eat," Williams said. "They were like, 'Willie, Why don't you have a few snacks before we go to dinner.' So, I served myself like six little plates of everything."

Following the "snack," Williams and the recruits headed for a restaurant called Old Charlie's. After experiencing a long wait for his food on his trip to FSU, Williams made sure to sit at the front of the table near the waiter to order first.

"I really wanted to go to Red Lobster for some more lobster and steak, but they told me the wait was two hours. So I got me some babyback ribs, buffalo wings and shrimp," Williams said.

But even Williams has his limit. And he wasn't about fall for the trap those country bumpkins at Auburn laid for him:

During the wait, several of the female hosts, nicknamed the "Tigerettes", offered him some of their spinach dip.

"You know how it is, those girls are supposed to be there to cheer you up," Williams said. "But I told them, 'I ain't no animal, and I ain't going to eat no plant.'

"But they kept pushing it toward me. It was disgusting. I told them, 'I'm from Miami. I don't eat that. You farm people are used to it, but not me."

[snip]

Later that night, the recruits were invited to a party on campus with their hosts.

"The girls at the party were much better than the farmer girls we'd see all day around campus," Williams said. "I was kind of worried all Auburn had to offer was those farmer girls that talked funny. But the girls at the party weren't farmer girls at all. I thought they must have bused them in from Miami."

The farmer girls talked funny. Poor Willie must have been buggin'. Oh, the irony. Meanwhile at Miami, Willie is ven more impressed:

Williams was surprised when Coker picked him up.

"Coach [Coker] looks like an old guy in his 50s or 60s, but he's real cool," Williams said. "When he talks, he sounds like he's 18 or 20.

"And when I saw he was driving the Escalade, I was like, 'Dang, coach got some taste.'"

Yes, an Escalade is the height of style and grace. Coach also reads the papers:

Following the stadium, the recruits were bused to Monty's restaurant on Miami Beach.

"As soon as I got off that bus, it was like a cartoon," Williams said. 'The smell hit me right away. Coach was like, 'Willie, you've got an eating disorder.'"

After the recruits were greeted with nachos and crab claws, the main course quickly followed -- along with the arrival of UM players, including D.J. Williams and cornerback Antrel Rolle.

"Coach Coker must be related to Cleo or something," Williams said of the famed TV psychic. "The man knew what I wanted and had it already ordered. I didn't need a menu. I told him, 'Coach, how did you know what I like?'

"He was like, 'Willie, I've been reading up on you.'"

Then of course, they finally get to the real purpose of college: video games and girls.

Dinner was followed by a trip back to Rolle's apartment for a few hours of video games. Then it was off for a night out on South Beach.

"They took us to this place called 'The Bed.' Warren Sapp, Clinton Portis, Jevon Kearse and a whole bunch of really hot girls were all there."

Yep, this guy is definitely college material. You may be tempted to make fun of WIllie, but never forget: He ain't no animal. He ain't going to eat no plant.

I will be watching his career with interest. For the quotes.

LA Out: You can finally read about my LA trip. I hope it doesn't dissapoint. Also, I realized that the link to my previous travel article Babylon on the Make actually tok you to my first florida article of some years back. Stupid Dobby! Bad Dobby! IT's fixed now so you may want to check that one out too, since it may be new to you.

Copies in the Wild: Well, the good news is that Business As Usual is starting to appear in some stores. I know for a fact you can walk into the Community Newscenter in the Frandor Shopping Plaza in Lansing, MI and buy it off the shelves. There may be others. None of the big boys (Border's, Barnes & Noble, etc.) yet, but it's still early in the game. Of course, you can walk into just about any bookstore and order it.

The best way to purchase remains ordering it on-line. It's currently 30% off at Amazon and even cheaper at Buy.com.

If your are a blogger or anyone else interested in reviewing Business As Usual, please contact me about a review copy.

And, as always, you can visit the official website for info and the first eight chapters on-line -- no ads, no tricks.

Si Quaeris Weblogam Amoenam Circumspice: I've recently stumbled on a few excellent Michigan blogs that you should visit. First off, The Land of Anne. Blogmistress Anne is from Mt. Pleasant where she is a punk rocker and librarian. Presumably she spends her nights playing guitar in deafing clubs and her days telling people to be quiet. A confusing life. Srah is a fellow Ann Arborite, specifically a grad student at the School of Information specializing in Human-Computer Interaction. Presumably that means she has to spend a lot of time with angry people who smash keyboards. More coincidental is StarryEyes a blog by Karen Correll (it appears to be down at the moment), an author and journalist out in the Detroit 'burbs who recently published her first book, Saturday Nights at the God Café through the former publisher of Apple Pie (she has my sympathy).

I offer a virtual nod of kinship to all of them.

Things Not To Do: I'm sure I'm guilty of these, but hopefully not egregiously so. Ten Mistakes writers don’t see. Sound advice.

You're Making That Up: A fun way to waste...uh, I mean spend a few minutes is at The Museum of Hoaxes. I remember quite a few of these. Turns out that almost as soon as photography was invented, people started doctoring them as a scam.

Get Thee Moving: A follow up to the article I linked previously about why exercise may have no affect weight for most people, explaining why you should exercise anyway. Absolutely on target.

You Didn’t Hear It From Me: Notice how I didn’t mention my LA essay. That's right, I didn't.

Lame Excuses: My LA story is not done yet, so quit asking. It will be ready when it's ready. What are you, my editor or something?

I have been working on promotion of Business As Usual; trying to get some more reviewers lined up and hoping to get bookstores to stock it. (I hate marketing, so I'm a bit pissy these days.) And, of course, it's tax time – I generally get a big refund so sooner is better than later for me. Plus, I have a little thing we like to call a day job that pretty much wipes out a third of my life. And what with sleep and all, well, there's just not all that much time left. Plus, tonight is the season premiere of Monk.

For now, I present some links for your dining and dancing pleasure.

• More of the Worst Album Covers Ever. They speak for themselves.


• Wabbit season! James Bond has retired to Belgium and is in the habit of poaching bunnies.


• Drugs are bad, mkay? Drop acid and draw a middle aged man with glasses. Fun times.


• I have no interest in seeing the movie, Torque; I just want to point out that Roger Ebert knows how to write a movie review. Description and opinion, yes, but it's the context that makes the difference.


• File under W for Wicked Cool: Visual Thesaurus.


• You may remember my pointless and annoying trip to the Detroit Auto Show last year. Well, thankfully, "Car and Driver'' has relieved me of the need to do that this year (not that I would have). All the new and notable cars.

Say Hey: The latest on the kid who was suspended for saying "HEY!". He has a web site where he gives his account of the story. Check this out:

Dr. Santiago is the assistant principal at my school. I went to his office, and he talked to me about what I did. There was a North Richland Hills police officer in Dr. Santiago's office. I told Dr. Santiago I didn't mean to send the message to the entire school. He said it didn't matter that I didn't mean to send it to everyone.
[snip]
Dr. Santiago pulled out a book of crimes and punishments for the school, but they couldn't find anything like what I did. But he started listing off punishments I could get. He said, "Punishment by officer" and the officer was smiling and nodding his head while he pointed to himself.

Dr. Santiago is, simply put, a dickhead. The kid's Mom is brought into the foray:

When I went to the school, I tried to explain that NET SEND wasn't a big deal. Mr. Rollins told me that I had to respect his position. He knew Carl was a good kid, and if it weren't for that he would have taken Carl out and put him in an alternative school.... which is a school for kids that get caught with drugs and are real criminals.
[snip]
I tried to explain to him that there was a simple way to keep NET SEND from working on his network if he didn't want it to be used, but he had no interest in that. Later I called the school and asked if I could get a job as a network administrator. I told them that they must need someone who actually knew what they were doing. They didn't seem interested in interviewing me, though. I don't know why.

At least they have a sense of humor about it. Judging from the business site of the kid's parents, they are a bit on the gothy side. (It's odd for goth-types to have a sense of humor, though.) Goths are characterized by an abysmal sense of style, a generally sour and mopey disposition, and, since Columbine, a penchant for firearms and mass murder – at least in the eyes of the shallow and ignorant, which aptly describes the administrators of Richland Middle School.

I have a vision of these wanky, cowering school admins assuring themselves that they probably just stopped another Columbine because, Lord knows, the only thing that can stop a goth from going psycho is petty persecution.

Merely Human: We've long passed the point in sports where any top level competition that requires purely physical action (as opposed to learned skills) will be won by someone who is genetically predisposed to do well. Lance Armstrong's lungs can process oxygen more than twice as efficiently as the average human; An NFL lineman must be 300 plus pounds and run a sub 5 second forty yard dash; And basketball players, well, you can't learn height. Now there's the ultimate ultra-marthoner with the perfectly neutral stride who wants to run untold hundreds of miles. Freaks, I tell you; the lot of 'em. My only hope is technology (we can rebuild him -- faster, stronger, better).

Cannot Duplicate: There will come a time in the not too distant future when I can photocopy myself, have my copy get to everything I don’t have time for, then simply re-integrate all the experiences of the copy into myself and recycle the copy for the precious bodily fluids. However, barring some pretty amazing scientific breakthroughs along those lines, it will probably be another week until I get my LA essay done. Until then, here are some goodies.

Zero Intelligence: You may be aware of the latest "zero tolerance" situation involving the high school kid who, upon discovering an antiquated command line program for sending instant messages across his school's computer network, sent the one word message "Hey!" to about eighty people. Since the so-called adults at the school didn’t understand how he did it, he was promptly suspended for three days amidst dire warnings about the seriousness of his transgression.

At first, Principal Tommy Rollins didn't think much of it. "I saw it," he said. "It didn't say who it came from. I just deleted it."

Beverly Sweeney, a computer teacher and campus computer liaison with the district, entered Carl's computer class and quickly figured out where the message originated and who sent it.

According to Carl, Sweeney asked him, "Did you do this?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Do you know that this is serious?" she asked him, according to Carl.

"No," he replied.

Then she asked how he did it, and he showed her.

There's a hacker mastermind at work.

This kind of idiocy goes on regularly now, and there have been a lot worse cases of zero tolerance including expulsions and lawsuits. But the big difference is that in most cases, when confronted with how incredibly stupid their actions are, the school administrators rarely try to justify them, they simply shrug and say it's all a matter of policy and there's nothing they can do. Not in this case. The "teacher" involved here, Beverly Sweeney, actually believes the action was justified and explains thusly:

Having been a computer teacher in the real world of public education for many years, let me say that suspension of students who are guilty of such tampering sends a message to all students that is beneficial and necessary.

Students should not be of the opinion that it is acceptable to abuse the privileges that are afforded them by the taxpayers. If they are allowed to experiment and do things on the computers that the teachers have not specifically given them permission to do, we would never get any computer education accomplished.

I'm pretty sure this woman is a big admirer of Dean Wormer.

If this woman has so little understanding and perspective that she cannot see how harmless and clever the student was being, I seriously doubt anything resembling computer education is actually going on at that school. The fact of the matter is that as long as she is in charge the taxpayers will probably get more for their money if the kids do just experiment at will.

Looking deeper, we get a fair understanding of why. This is Beverly Sweeney's web site. If she is instructing unsuspecting high-schoolers in making sites such as that, she should be hung. And I think we an all agree that her taste in music brings her mental health into question.

Note her educational background: "BA in Sociology, a BA in Anthropology and an MA in Sociology." She also has a teaching certificate and claims she has "certification" in some computer fields like "digital graphics" and "multimedia." I have no idea what it means to be certified in "multimedia," but it appears her only expertise with actual computers involves learning some Microsoft applications like Power Point and Front Page. No wonder she was so threatened by a student who knew all sorts of "hacker" tricks, like using the command line. Lucky she didn’t call Homeland Security.

Judging from the little animation on her site, Sweeney has some hostility issues. She obviously works them out by bludgeoning her students with her ignorance.

Nano-Nano: The top ten nanotech products of the year, from Forbes.com. Wrinkle slaying clothes and wicked cool shades. Two of my lifestyle necessities.

Lose Weight by Sitting Still: An excellent article on why exercise is not the thing to do to lose weight. In many (most?) circumstances, it just doesn't matter. Just sit still and don’t eat so much. Exercise is for the sake of health and longevity. If you exercise to lose weight, you will probably fail and get discouraged and then not get the health benefits.

Flight Attendant Stand Up: This came to me via The legendary KK who received it via email, with the comment that it is a "true story". We both doubt it's a true story but it's a hoot nonetheless.

I was flying to San Francisco from Seattle this weekend on Air Alaska, and the flight attendant reading the flight safety information had the whole plane looking at each other like "what the heck?"  (Getting Seattle people to look at each other is an accomplishment.)  So once we got airborne, I took out my laptop and typed up what she said so I wouldn't forget.  I've left out a few parts, I'm sure, but this is most of it."

Before takeoff...  "Hello and welcome to Alaska Flight 438 to San Francisco.

If you're going to San Francisco, you're in the right place.  If you're not going to San Francisco, you're about to have a really long evening. We'd like to tell you now about some important safety features of this aircraft.

The most important safety feature we have aboard this plane is... The Flight Attendants.  Please look at one now.

There are 5 exits aboard this plane: 2 at the front, 2 over the wings, and one out the plane's rear end.  If you're seated in one of the exit rows, please do not store your bags by your feet.  That would be a really bad idea.  Please take a moment and look around and find the nearest exit. Count the rows of seats between you and the exit.  In the event that the need arises to find one, trust me, you'll be glad you did.  We have pretty blinking lights on the floor that will blink in the direction of the exits. White ones along the normal rows, and pretty red ones at the exit rows.

In the event of a loss of cabin pressure these baggy things will drop down over your head. You stick it over your nose and mouth like the flight attendant is doing now.  The bag won't inflate, but there's oxygen there, I promise.  If you are sitting next to a small child, or someone who is acting like a small child, please do us all a favor and put on your mask first. If you are traveling with two or more children, please take a moment now to decide which one is your favorite.  Help that one-first, and then work your way down.

In the seat pocket in front of you is a pamphlet about the safety features of this plane.  I usually use it as a fan when I'm having my own personal summer.  It makes a very good fan.  It also has pretty pictures.  Please take it out and play with it now.

Please take a moment now to make sure your seat belts are fastened low and tight about your waist.  To fasten the belt, insert the metal tab into the buckle.  To release, it's a pulley thing -- not a pushy thing like your car because you're in an airplane -- HELLO!!

There is no smoking in the cabin on this flight.  There is also no smoking in the lavatories.  If we see smoke coming from the lavatories, we will assume you are on fire and put you out.  This is a free service we provide.
>
There are two smoking sections on this flight, one outside each wing exit. We do have a movie in the smoking sections tonight ... hold on, let me check what it is .. Oh here it is; the movie tonight is Gone with the Wind.

In a moment, we will be turning off the cabin lights, and it's going to get really dark, really fast.  If you're afraid of the dark, now would be a good time to reach up and press the yellow button.  The yellow button turns on your reading light.  Please don't press the orange button unless you absolutely have to.  The orange button is your seat ejection button.

We're glad to have you with us on board this flight.  Thank you for choosing Alaska Air, and giving us your business and your money.  If there's anything we can do to make you more comfortable, please don't hesitate to ask.

If you all weren't strapped down you would have given me a standing ovation, wouldn't you?"

After landing... " Welcome to the San Francisco International Airport. Sorry about the bumpy landing.  It's not the captain's fault.  It's not the co-pilot's fault. It's the Asphalt.

Please remain seated until the plane is parked at the gate. At no time in history has a passenger beaten a plane to the gate.  So please don't even try.

Please be careful opening the overhead bins because shift happens."

Between Meal Snack: I have to get my Los Angeles essay done, and then I'm thinking about an article on how to fix the airlines, or how not to. In the mean time here're some time passers.

• Two more folks responded to my plea for Business as Usual reviews on bookstore sites (Why don't you?); this time at Barnes & Noble. And I don’t know how Apple Pie got selected under Religion & Spirituality at this site, but I'll take it.


• Great and insightful lecture from Michael Crichton (author of Jurassic Park, et. al.) on the casual misunderstanding and outright abuse of science and the scientific process. I'm glad he was brave enough to point out what a snake-oil salesman Carl Sagan was.


• Speaking of misinterpreted science: Mad Cow Disease is primed to be the new SARS. Before you turn vegan, try to keep it in perspective. More.


• Ads you will not see in the US. We had some fun with the Rube Goldberg-like Honda ad earlier in the year, but frankly, I'm happy to miss some of these. To wit the one with "an overweight, useless parent who uses a sausage and a beer glass to illustrate the facts of life."


• "Welcome to Die screaming with sharp things in your head, our collection of impaled garden gnomes." Words fail me.


• Some good surfing courtesy of Yahoo. And you can now do a blog search courtesy of Blogarama.


• After seeing this I have decided my next book will be titled An Idiot's Guide to For Dummies books.

Welcome Back Me: I have spent pretty much of the last week in not-so-sunny, pretty-damn-chilly, Southern California -- specifically, El Lay. High temperatures all week hovered around 58. High temperature when I got back to Ann Arbor today: 58. A full accounting of my trip will be forthcoming, but let me just say that the Rose Bowl, while quite a spectacle, was a bloody disaster for the Wolverines.

I can only assume that the offensive line adopted the strategy of the Radiers in last year's Super Bowl, considering Navarre was too busy hitting the turf to hit his receivers. And Suzy Kolber demonstrated a better pass defense when she was opposing Joe Namath. Ah well -- it was all very traditional: The historically most frequent Big 10 champ loses to the historically most frequent Pac 10 champ. All we needed was Bo Schembechler and some throwback jerseys to take us right back to 1980.

More importantly, I have clearly done something to offend the travel gods. I don’t think I have ever experienced more delays, cancellations, and general frustrations than during my journeys there and back. I think I wrote nearly a thousand words solely on the first leg from Grand Rapids, MI to Milwaukee, WI.

But like I said, that and more will be coming soon. For now, jet lag is my steadfast companion. Once I lose him, you’ll see me again.

See You Next Year: Barring some extraordinarily compelling occurrence, this will probably be my last post of this year. The remainder of '03 will be devoted to chillin' and writin' and a little horsin' 'round. (One of the cool things about being a writer without an editor is you can do really fun stuff like put five apostrophes in a sentence.) Hope you all get lots of cool toys and have a righteous hoot time for New Year's Eve and I will catch you on the flip-flop good buddy. (Another cool thing: using godawful '70s CB-radio slang. I do make my own fun.)

freakmagnet10983@yahoo.com: Zach Everson, master of the curiously named zacheverson.com, dropped a line the other day. Unlike someone who shall remain nameless but whose initials are d.a.m., Zach seems to update fairly frequently including a couple of gems from his fearless interactions with the carnival sideshow we call Yahoo -- resulting from a poorly thought through profile update and a fellow who liked his site so much he "bookmarked the bitch". Stop by and have a look, but go easy on the propositions.

Dumb and Dumber: Read this. It is an attempt by someone to get a measure of revenge on an ex-friend for basically scamming him out of 30 large after pretending to be his friend. This fellow so trusted his friend that he made him an authorized signer on two of his credit cards. So his friend promptly maxed them out, promising to repay them from a big trust fund. Turns out the guy was a diagnosed pathological liar and had no trust fund and basically his entire persona was false. He goes on to list all of the lies he was told by his friend. Here are a choice few.

• Was in a Levi's jeans commercial


• Had Saddam Hussein in his sights during the gulf war as a Navy SEAL but didn't get the order to shoot.


• Told his Ex-Girlfriend that he had cancer and needed chemotherapy


• Dated Heather Kosar (before she posed in playboy magazine)


• Went on two dates with Alyssa Millano (told ex-girlfriend that he met Alyssa during a Baywatch tryout. He was selected but his C/O in the Navy wouldn't let him participate. Oh also stated that David Hasselhoff was a jerk)


• Played in the March Madness Final Four -- Cincinnati


• Been to Area 51 -- saw some incredible stuff. Told me about a plane / whatever that could hover and then shoot to another point miles away almost instantly.


• Had a story published in Readers Digest


• Won the local tough man competition in Pittsburg


• Fought in the Gulf War, came back and his wife was pregnant with someone else's kid.

This guy Todd is a crook, plain and simple, and should probably do time for this (if it's not a hoax). But after hearing that litany of obvious nonsense, to authorize this loser on your credit cards almost certainly makes you the most profound cement-head ever to punch a keyboard. The fact of the matter is you may not have a legal leg to stand on since it is patently obvious that if this asshat didn't steal your money, someone else would have -- maybe Miss Cleo, or some desperate Nigerian diplomat.

The only thing stupider would be me buying into this if it's a hoax. But I have been so desensitized to stupidity from years of dealing with idiots at large that it sounds completely plausible. What's your excuse?

Looking Bad: Al Gore's legacy. Can't you just picture him at Harvard, doing beer bongs and throwing up chili cheese fries all over the carpet? The only thing better would have been if he was wearing this shirt.

Go Joe Willy: Much has been made of the Joe Namath debacle. For those of you who don't know, Joe was being interviewed by sideline reporter Suzy Kolber during the Jets-Patriots game. He was completely hammered -- practically drooling. Calling his enunciation haphazard would be like calling Saddam Hussein slightly unkempt. Then he proceeds to put the moves on her and tell her how he wants to kiss her. On the air. It is a riot. If you haven't heard it here is the audio (about 900k).

Let me just say that when I am like 150 years old, half crippled from having my knees ripped to shreds, and completely butt-faced from pounding hard liquor, I can only hope I will still have the stones to make complete idiot of myself in front of millions of people in the pursuit of the nearest convenient chick. I hereby vow to buy a Namath throwback jersey.

More, More, More: Not a lot to post, but a couple of new things over at blogcritics.

First, a review of the over-hyped HBO special event Angels in America. I panned it and I may get a strong reaction since most everyone else has adopted it as a sacred cow. Just for the record, I didn't particularly enjoy writing this review. Contrary to what most of you think, I don't get a big kick out of slamming movies, especially if they have produced in a good faith effort to tell a story and not just to generate money-making trash. Also, I am loath to sully myself with politics in any way and Angels is primarily about political ideology (even though many don't see it) so I had to slog through it. Oh well, all done in the interest of trying to generate timely reviews when most of the stuff I read or watch is years old.

Second, I did a quick recap of the books I've read this year in my Book of the Year Award, this one was fun to write.

Now back to promotion of Business As Usual for a while. Joy.

Hang Up and Play: This has to have been one of the most dreary football seasons in history. The games have been fairly dull, by which I mean no team I am interested in has a shot at anything. And I'm beginning to get jaded about the whole notion of parity.

Aside: A magnificently dry analysis of the Lions last game from TMQ: "Detroit held Kansas City to 521 yards of offense."

More importantly, the season has been dominated by idiots, beginning with the Neanderthal Romanowski in pre-season and the latest being the clown who hid a cell phone under the goal post and called his Mom when he scored a touchdown. To the league's credit, they fined this dimwit 30 large. They fined his accomplice 5 large. And they fined a guy who held up a sign asking them not to fine him anymore 10 large.

If this player behavior keeps up, football is in for a serious falling out with its fan base, meaning me.

Another aside: It's interesting to contrast the culture of football, which requires constant misbehavior, trash talk, and fines, but rarely do things come to fisticuffs, to the culture of hockey you are supposed to be polite, modest, and reticent -- except when you're throwing punches, which is fairly common. An odd dichotomy.

The bottom line on this football season has been the fact that nothing in the entire season is anywhere near as compelling as all the off-season moves the Red Sox and Yankees have made. Boston and New York are lining up for a titanic battle next season and, for the most part, baseball has supplanted football as the top dog sport again.