Site Finished: I think I've finally cleaned up all the loose ends with the site design. The archives are now working correctly. And some of the little oddities of formatting have been sorted out. So proud am I that I offer this cleaned up template should any other bloggers want to use, or build on, the design. Just click the link and you'll see the dam template page. The right click and select View Source (or View Page Source in Netscape/Mozilla, or View/Source in Opera) to save the template file. There's a lot of explanatory comments on the how and why of the style in the source. If you use it, please link back to a dam site and send me a note and I'll link back to you.

Now maybe I can get my nose out of technical books for another year or so.

How Did I Get Involved With These People?: I've written a couple of short book reviews and I hope to do more – they're linked over on the sidebar. But I'm pleased to say I actually read and finished the books I've reviewed. This appears to be counter to the generally accepted method of reviewing, according to this article.

Reviewing books is not a particularly well-paid form of journalism and it takes time. A book of any more ambition than a thriller can't be read for review at a rate of more than 40, or at most 60, pages an hour. Some books are only 120-pages long and can comfortably be digested in a couple of hours. Others, though, are 400, or 600 pages, or, in some dreadful instances, even more, and they can easily take days to get through.

The reviewer's fee, however, usually remains the same. So, shocking as it may seem, the truth is that some reviewers skip some books. And there are a few who skip through all the books.

But surely they are speaking of unscrupulous scam artists, not serious reviewers? Nope.

In the New York Times Book Review, a professor of creative writing, Beverly Lowry, reviewed a book by one of the people involved in the Whitewater affair, The Woman Who Wouldn't Talk by Susan McDougal. An Arkansas newspaper columnist, Gene Lyons, soon spotted that Lowry's review contained a basic error about whether or not the author eventually testified in court (she did).

The New York Times has subsequently had to publish a correction.

Or worse, this anecdote about one of my favorite historians, Paul Johnson

[H]istorian Paul Johnson [was asked] to review a big book - more than 800 pages - on the American Civil War. To give Johnson more time, Wilson asked his assistant to have it biked over that same day. The next morning, she admitted she had forgotten to send it and that it was still sitting on her desk.

At that moment, "the fax machine had begun to whirr into action, and 800 perfectly formed words on the American Civil War, with observant comments on the merits and faults of the book, had dropped into the intray. I saw no reason not to publish this review", says Wilson. "Like all really good journalists, Paul had somehow intuited the true nature of the thing under discussion."

Now, A.N. Wilson believes all journalism to be a form of imaginative literature rather than "an exact science"…

It is well known that few people buy books and the ones that do don’t read them. So in a way, reviewers are being true to the book buying public.

How Did I Get Involved With These People? 2: As an author I have to ask myself this: Is it better to have excellent reviews (here, here, here) in small local papers, or one really really really bad review in the Washington Post?

Back from Bolivian: The premiere comic genius of our time, Mike Tyson, has once again reared his rather thick head. Let us all rejoice. The comedy team of Tyson and his tattoo fought a guy by the name of Clifford Etienne. For you unsophisticated types, that's pronounced ay-TEE-on, and the guy appears to be a tough as the sound of his name. It's a little known fact that Etienne is French for Palooka.

The fight itself was trivial. Tyson knocked out Etienne in 49 seconds flat. Etienne was immediately compared to Greg Louganis. Upon picking himself up from the canvas he was heard to say, "I still get my check, don't I?"

Of course, all the fun occurs after the fight during the press conference, where we are treated to one of Mike's finest stand-up routines.

"I like doing other things. I like getting high, hanging out with my kids. I like drinking," Tyson said. "I have so many demons."

Classic. And:

Tyson claimed after the fight that doctors told him he had a broken back from a 1997 motorcycle accident. His doctor said the injury was uncomfortable but nothing serious enough to keep him from fighting.

Best of all, there is the suggestion that our buddy Mike needs a reality series. Oh, please let this happen. I shall gather all his best dialog and publish "Living in Bolivian: The Wit and Wisdom of Mike Tyson" and make a gajillion dollars. Unfortunately, they seem to want to center this on following his training up to a fight. That's wrong. The only way to do it is to follow his daily life like the Osbournes or Anna Nicole. That would be the perfect comedy and the pinnacle of reality TV.

Face the Music: The Grammys, like a four letter word that begins with 's', happens. Usually, there are two things you can count on. First, you'll get to hear live performances of all those songs that have been played to death on the radio in the past year. Second, you get to hear some performers - the ones who think record sales make them, like, real smart and important and stuff - proselytize on foreign policy.

I didn't watch the Grammys, but I gather there wasn't any political posturing this year. Sheryl Crow claims that is because the TV suits called everyone and told them to lay off. The TV suits say they didn't do any such thing and Sheryl needs to lay off the crack pipe. Either way, it's too bad. The only good thing that ever comes out of award shows is the material for a satirist.

From what I've read the highlight of the night was when some R&B vocalist named Erykah Badu struggled read the words on her cue card. The writers thoughtlessly used words with more than one syllable. Once she finally managed to stammmer them out, she didn't know when to stop and read the "APPLAUSE" instruction that came after her line. If anybody knows of a video clip of this on the web, please, please forward it.

The good news is two anti-divas were winners. Norah Jones took home too many pop music awards to carry, and Diana Krall took best jazz vocal. Maybe the Grammys are getting better after all. They may catch up to The DAMMYS.

Life Imitates a dam site: Remember this essay on everything wrong with the movies? Well, check out ArcLight Theatre in El Lay and tell me this isn't exactly what I suggested. I wonder what it will take to get them to open one in Dexter?

Cheese and Whine: The fundamental problem with humans at large is that they keep passing their diseases on to me. I am once again suffering from a head cold, mild so far, and I've learned that the absolute worst thing you can do when you have a cold is huddle under the blankets with a box of Kleenex, a pack of cough drops and the TV remote. So I put a lot of effort into continuing with my so-called life in spite of the horrible illness, and count myself lucky that I get to complain about it.

Blogger (including blogspot) was purchased by Google. This should be good - long term. For now, Blogger is still flaky. Half the time I can't connect and no matter what I do, I can't get the archives working. Blogger is a free service so don't have much cause to complain. They have a premium pay service, but informed people tell me it's not much better. Google is a top notch company - I hope they can sort things out.

Blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I've managed to lasso a few interesting links to hold you until I get my sniveling butt back in gear.

• Coming to Vegas, The Moon Resort and Casino. Moon and Stars, Shoot the Moon, Fly Me to the Moon - this could be the world's easiest advertising account.


• Signs. (Not to be confused with the movie by a guy whose middle name is Night. What's that about?)


• A Ford executive explains that the Camry outsells the Taurus because, "Very frankly, Camry is a better product that Taurus." Passers by shouted, "Duh!"


• I did not make up this Wet Burqa Contest, but I bet Weekly World News did.


• What's more gross than a frog flattened by a car? How 'bout a sheep? Irony: You remember that episode of Seinfeld where George was trying to preserve his high score on Frogger? That was playing on TV when I stumbled on this game.


• You simply cannot make things like this (.pdf) up. "A passionate interest..." Excuse me while I bust a gut.


• Dave Barry is funny even when being interviewed by Slashdot geeks.


• You have to read this utterly amazing obituary of aristocratic, eclectic socialite Bindy Lambton - including go-kart accidents, deep sea diving, and size 24 shoes. It reads like a real-life black comedy. Somebody - maybe Paul Thomas Anderson - needs to make a movie of this.

Stupefaction: So Joe Millionaire came to an end the other night, and it's all anybody's talking about. Annoying, since, though I never watched a single episode, I feel pretty safe in assuming it was stupefying. That Giant Sucking Sound you hear is the average IQ of Americans going down the toilet.

Now a lot is being made of the fact that the bimbo accepted the proposal despite finding out he is actually poor. I'm going out a limb, but I'm guessing she figured that after the show aired and he had all the publicity in Fox can buy, he would get a big contract for posing in his undies, a pile of cash for posing in less for Playgirl, and some extra tip money for miscellaneous public appearances and bit parts in made-for-cable movies. Same for her (except probably Playboy instead).

Then a few years down the road when she's divorced and sitting around sipping cosmopolitans with her divorced girlfriends, the conversation will turn to what went wrong with their marriages and the answer will invariably be, "I got married for the wrong reason." She'll be the queen of that circle.

So what's next? How about a show wherein exhibitionist losers are wed based on who the viewing public thinks would match up best. I want you to pay close attention to what I say next.

DO NOT WATCH THIS SHOW. IT WILL MAKE YOU RETARDED. NO MATTER HOW YOU TRY TO AVOID IT - TELL YOURSELF YOU DON'T TAKE IT SERIOUSLY, DO HOUSEWORK WHILE IT'S ON - BY THE END OF THE SERIES YOU WILL BE A RETARD.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Hold Yer Horses: Absolutely everything is going wrong. I'm having problems with both my web sites. My laptop has suddenly decided to display text all fuzzy and indistinct. The IRS rejected my electronically filed tax return for the most trivial reason imaginable, now I have to re-submit it. I hate technology. I'm going to go live in a cave. A warm, well lit cave, with indoor plumbing and cable TV, but still a cave.

Will actually post actual content in the next couple of days. Promise.

Link Fishin': First, I have no idea what is wrong with the archives. Apart form being oddly formatted, the last four months seem to be omitted. Heavy sigh. Just another thing on the to-do list.

For now, here's the latest from my recent casts into the cyber sea.

• Speaking of music industry bollocks, and I always am, check out this description of how Clear Channel manufactures the syndicated radio show, Carson Daly Most Requested. It is constructed like a pastiche from a database of phrases like "coming in at no. 4..." Technologically fascinating, but symptomatic of Clear Channel-itis.


• Finalists in the World Trade Center, The Next Generation contest. I like the one on the right. Although we need a better name than "Wedge of Light." It brings back bad memories of Junior High. It sounds a like a Bevis and Butthead remix of Madonna. It's like asking for a piece of low-fat pie. I could go on...


• One magazine's opinion of the best Simpsons episodes ever. The top four are all from ten years ago, but the Simpsons is still good quality TV, even now approaching their 300th episode.


• I'm not sure what to make of this optical camouflage. It reminds me of those X-Ray Specs in real life. There's video here. Weird.


• Lawsuit madness here in Michigan. Sue your school for an A+ instead of an A. I'd give the kid points off for doing something so stupid, but then I'd probably get sued for it. Better yet, a manicurist nicks a cuticle and gets sued for a half million. Mind-boggling.


• A real tragedy down in Kentucky. I'm put in mind of Bluto's reaction to the moving guys dropping a case of liquor in Animal House. As a matter of record, I am categorically opposed to using sewer water in your maragarita. (Link via The Legendary KK.)

Who Gets to Play the Wolf?: This must be a hoax. It has to be. Once I get over my amazement, I'll probably bust a gut laughing.

Mikhail Gorbachev is teaming up with former US president Bill Clinton and actress Sophia Loren to record a new version of the classic children's musical "Peter and the Wolf."

Retitled "The Wolf and Peter", the remake of Sergei Prokoviev's tale will tell the story from the point of view of the wolf, faced with the encroachments of urbanisation on his dwindling forest habitat.

Words fail me.

Hold The Olive: Roger from Great Falls, VA writes in with this advice in response to The Perfect Martini.

"Only things I would add are to chill the gin before making; put glasses in freezer for about an hour beforehand; peel fresh lemon rinds and squeeze oil, not juice, on top of prepared martini; hold glass by stem, don't cradle in hand; make ice cubes with spring water."

Wise words. Also he recommends Citadelle gin in place of Bombay Sapphire. They like it over at Tastings.com.

Hippies, Nostalgia, Etc.: I have been (very mildly) taken to task about my characterization of Ben Fong-Torres as a nostalgic ex-hippie (in this post). I suppose some clarification is in order.

Ben Fong-Torres is the former news editor of Rolling Stone magazine. In response to that, many of you young'ns are saying, "And?" Well, you have to understand that back in the late 60s and through the 70s, Rolling Stone was very different from the slick, high-style glossy it is today.

One of my hobby horses is the way in which high-quality, vital prose, especially journalism, is key to any activity coming to the forefront of popular culture. Rolling Stone did this for Rock and Roll music back in those years. To this day I can remember some of the stories I read back then, specifically I remember coverage of a Rolling Stones tour that captured the drug and groupie hedonism of that time, and I remember reading some intense early coverage of the London punk rock scene and how it flew so defiantly in the face of the cocaine and disco scene (which included my high school). It was also where I first read Hunter S. Thompson. Truly great stuff. (Do I sound nostalgic?)

Rolling Stone still tries to stay relevant - they gave P.J. O'Rourke a regular job, so they can't be all bad - but now it's loaded down with skin, fashion and spring break trendiness. MTV in print, and that's not a compliment. Yes, they try to be more edgy than, say, Teen People, but in the context of the superficiality of the magazine, anything weighty seems like a calculated attempt to impress.

For example, remember this post (can't find the original story, sorry), wherein we find Joan Jett was dissed with a mere mention whereas Britney and Mandy got all the coverage in a Women in Rock issue of some sort. Well, in the latest issue, we get a mea culpa, and they print the open letter complaint I quoted from in that post. I'd guess some focus group results indicated it was time to show they were hip after all so they took the opportunity. This is me being cynical. The point is that this is not what that magazine was like in the time Ben was there.

Anyway, Ben left Rolling Stone in 1980 (do any of you even remember 1980?) and has been intimately involved in music media ever since. Check out his web site for details. Most recently he was involved in a now defunct venture called MyPlay. MyPlay offered on-line storage lockers for your music files - the idea being you can access to your music collection from anywhere you can get to the internet. Visiting your friends and want them to hear that great CD you just bought? MyPlay to the rescue. OK, that may not sound like much, but it has a very powerful idea behind it.

You see, I don't want to own any CDs, or any DVDs, or any magazines, or any sorts of media. That's just clutter. What I want is to have access to the content when I want it from anywhere - home, office, car, Motel 6, and so forth. If broadband and wireless connections were ubiquitous, a service like MyPlay would be invaluable. Sadly, that's still years off. And then there DMCA to worry about...ugh.

The clarification I've been staggering towards is that Ben Fong-Torres has spent most of the duration of my life as a driving force in music media and is still standing and working and creating and flourishing in spite of the dire state of the contemporary music industry.

Which is what I meant by 'nostalgic ex-hippie'.

Ahem: Sorry to be out of touch but I was in DC for the past few days (actually in Northern VA, I didn't get into the district proper). The most amazing thing happened. I flew Northwest and had what was simply the most painless and pleasant air travel of my life. Yes - on Northwest! Once I recover from the shock I'll get some new material up.

Service Resumed: I've got the redesign straightened out for the most part - the only lingering issue is the bizarre way the archive links are rendering (those are created by a script hosted by the Blogger service so it's all guess work) - so I'm taking this opportunity to dump some first class links on you for chasing away the February funk.

• If you think talking horses, puppet aliens, or flying nuns are strange check out this defunct sitcom from down under featuring "a motor-cycling transvestite boxer" called Auntie Jack. Sound bites included. And Nero Wolfe is still cancelled.


• The second installment of The Lord of the Rings gets lost in the translation. Check out these screen caps of an Asian version of LOTR:TT, with hilarious English subtitles.


• An intriguing DVD. Looks to be made of short videos from the "world of 'demos,' originating from the European computer underground and created by talented programmers, artists and musicians."


• An intriguing web site. Made up of clever and funny Flash animations. Mostly I hate Flash - it wastes ungodly bandwidth for no reason, but this site makes me wish I had broadband and some free time.


• A couple of timely Columbia links. This forum thread was started by some folks who were watching the Columbia re-entry as it happened. They start to realize what was happening at about post number 20. And Washington Monthly unearthed this article from 1980 by Gregg Easterbrook (also Tuesday Morning QB at ESPN.com) regarding the riskiness of the shuttles. Very eerie links.


• One of the most fascinating articles I've read in a long time on sleep disorders at the NYT. Set aside some time.


• Dave Barry has a weblog, and I am not making that up.


• I have a new favorite word.

More on the Update: The first thing that you will notice is the colors. They are not random, they are, in fact, a reversion to colors that I used in the pre-blogger days. Long time readers will remember them. I like the blue; I'm not sure how I feel about the green anymore - it may change to white.

Things seem to render reasonably well in the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Netscape/Mozilla, and Opera. I can’t say how it looks in that new browser, Safari, which comes with the latest Macs, since I am Mac-less. I think it looks best in Internet Explorer, since the margin settings are more even, but that's fairly trivial.

The other thing you need to be aware of is fonts. Except for the title, the font used throughout the rest of the page is Trebuchet MS. If you use Windows, you probably have this - I think it installs with Windows. If not, you can get it here. If you don’t have Trebuchet MS, it should appear in plain old Arial, which I'm pretty sure everybody has. I think Trebuchet MS is a little more readable than Arial, but that's mere opinion.

The font for the title is Calisto MT (you can get it here if you don’t have it). If you don’t have Calisto MT, it will use Garamond. If you don’t have Garamond, it will use Georgia. If you don’t have Georgia, it will use Times New Roman. Again, not really a big deal.

The other thing about fonts is the size. I have made just about everything larger than before. This is to enhance readability. As I surfed around looking at other sites, one thing that struck me was how so many bloggers use small fonts, presumably in an effort to decrease the amount of scrolling needed. I got sick of squinting and vowed that I would increase the size of my fonts, scrolling or no. So there.

Also note that each post will have a tiny "permanent link" in the footer. If you wish to link up a specific post, rather than the page itself, just right click and "copy shortcut" (or whatever the non-IE equivalent is). This will always link to that post directly. This is not really new, it was available previously by click on the time posted, but now it's a bit more explicit.

There are even greater changes beneath the surface (and you can skip this paragraph if you have no interest in the technicalities of web page design). There are no TABLES used for formatting and no use of the FONT or BR tags. Everything is handled via Cascading Style Sheets. Conceptually, this implies the separation of structure and content, which in turn implies easier tweaks and updates. In the case of this site, that doesn’t mean much since everything is on a single page, but in the case of a large multi-page site it becomes hugely important. Even though it is not all that important to me, it's a good technology to understanding - so in a way, this was all spurred merely out of intellectual curiosity. (Who says I have too much time on my hands?) Once I get the design settled I'll post a blogger template that others can use an build on. In fact, sharp-eyed web monkeys may realize that this page is based on css/edge by CSS uber-guru Eric Meyer, which I started with and began hacking away at until I got here.

Which leads me to what there is left to change, and this is as much an exercise in reminding myself, as informing you. Some of this may be done by the time you read this. 1) The green background needs to go white (or at least very, very, very light green). That will make things more readable. 2) The section headings in the sidebar need more emphasis maybe some sort of underlining, maybe less spacing between the letters too. 3) The Date in the main portion looks silly and is spaced poorly, and maybe it should be in green. 4) The archive links needn't be spaced so far apart. I like the highlighting of links when you hover over them, but the text should not go black. 5) Many sidebar links don’t have tool tips. 6) The leader of the each post is green. It may look better in maroon.

Any other changes will come from your suggestions - don’t hold back, I can take it.

And then, it's back to the usual content.

Testing 1-2-3: Your eyes are not deceiving you. I'll have a lot more to say about why things are like they are soon. For now, it appears to be functional and that's about all I'm asking for. Needs teaks. Definitely needs tweaks. And your comments are welcome.

A further test. Here's a quotation.

This should be block indented and observably smaller. If it's not, that means I mangled something royally. If it is, that'll be a miracle. So, is it? Let's see...

Now here's what a link will look like. Nifty highlight, eh?

Back with more soon.

Not So Super: Since I bored you to tears with my football predictions back in Nov/Dec, I was a good boy and stopped. But I think the Super Bowl is worth an exception.

I was rooting for the Raiders. The question of whom to root for in a game wherein one feels no particular loyalty to one team or another is a complex one. Some people go through superstitious contortions to come up with a reason: "Tampa Bay is in the same division as my team and no Super Bowl winner in a year with a zero in it that was held west of the Mississippi has ever won their division the following season so I'm rooting for Tampa Bay cause I want them to be hosed next season." Some people go on the basis of who has the cooler uniforms, "That orange color of Tampa Bay is sooo 2001." The most valid reason is, of course, that you've placed a bet (I didn't).

I always like to root for the good guys, so that means I have to rationalize who the good guys are.

In Tampa Bay's favor:

• I like Chucky. I bet he's a lot of fun in the clubhouse. He also gave the least charismatic QB in the league, Brad Johnson, a chance at success after Dan Snyder sacked him in DC because he's "got no arm". He became an MVP candidate and the top passer in the post-season.
• I like the Florida Gulf coast. Not that it has anything to do with football, but still.

Against Tampa Bay:

• Warren Sapp is loud and obnoxious.
• Keyshawn Johnson is more loud and obnoxious than Warren Sapp.

In Oakland's favor:

• Some players with a whole lot of class: Gannon, Rice, Rod Woodson.
• Lots of old guys - not much younger than me in some cases. This counts double, in my book.

Against Oakland:

• Al Davis - A freak in a sweatsuit.
• Bill Romanowski - A pharmacologically maintained Neanderthal.

In the end I got behind Oakland because of the classy old guys. That worked out well.

You may have been following the story of the Raiders Pro Bowl center, Barret Robbins, who showed up drunk as a skunk for a team meeting and was subsequently told he was out of the lineup. In a plot twist worthy of Six Feet Under, it turns out that the guy is bipolar (I know I sleep well at night knowing there are 325 pound bipolar individuals roaming freely in society, how 'bout you?) and had gone off his meds. Under the pressure of the upcoming Super Bowl, he cracked and found himself going mental in a bar in Tijuana. Picture this: A 325-pound no-neck in a south-of-the-border dive, alternately buying rounds of Tequila for the house and crying in suicidal despair at the possibility of letting his teammates and family down.

The Raiders team, along with virtually all sports talking heads around the country, have been declaring that, while it was an unfortunate incident, it was not the reason the Raiders lost. Sorry, but it very much was.

If there is any consistent theme in football, it is that the play of the offensive line is ALWAYS underappreciated. This is done even by folks who make a career in football. In the first two seconds of a play, if the offensive line doesn't achieve it's goals - open the right lanes, form a good pocket, pick up a blitz - I'd be willing to be that the odds of a play succeeding drop by about two-thirds. And it is not just a matter of stopping a defender in a strength on strength battle. Defenses have all sort of tricks and shifts and strategies to confuse the o-linemen into missing their blocking assignments. The o-linemen have to work as a unit to adapt to these and pick up the right defenders. (Interestingly, the NFL regularly does some sort of IQ test for all players and it turns out offensive tackles come out on top position-wise.)

After losing four in a row early in the season, the Oakland o-line had been phenomenal. At least as good as the Tampa Bay defense, which has been heralded as one of the best in history. They were responsible for consistently giving Gannon enough time be one of the most accurate passers ever, and, in the few situations where a ground game was called for, the RBs had openings just as if they were the first options.

Generally quarterbacks and running backs understand this. That's why, since offensive linemen don't make the big bucks QBs and RBs do, the QBs and RBs buy extravagant gifts for their linemen. I read this year it was common to buy a $10,000 plasma TV for each of your linemen. Think about that. Linemen are so important to those who play the glory positions that they don't mind dropping round about a hundred grand to keep them happy.

All this was blatantly on display in the Super Bowl. There were instances where the Oakland o-line was out-of-sync or even confused. More than once Tampa Bay rushers went by virtually unimpeded. The result: Gannon sacked 5 times, and when not flat on his back, he was so thoroughly pressured that he coughed up 5 interceptions - so much for Mr. Accurate. If you think the o-line just happened to have a bad day and Barret Robbins had nothing to do with it, it's time to check in for a news update from Reality. Never underestimate the importance of the offensive line.

So, yes, it was Barret Robbins fault. Or it was the fault of his DNA sequence that made him bipolar. Or it was his bad judgment in going off his meds. But, as harsh as it sounds, there is one person to look at when assigning responsibility.

What a story, eh? A man's fatal flaw (bipolar disorder) combines with his fear of failure to bring about the failure he feared. A Greek tragedy in real life.

Poorer quality drama came after the game. Raiders fans, disappointed at their teams defeat, decided the stores and buildings and cars of Oakland were at fault. The intellectual rigor behind this strategy was exemplified by a two-bit rapper, improbably named Hannibal Willis.

"We lost, and that bothers a lot of the young people out here," said Hannibal Willis, a member of the rap group Hazardous Materials. "A lot of them are real Raider friends. I ain't gonna lie -- if we had won, we would have done the same thing, but milder."

But then, why give out your name when you can provide more solid evidence of your own criminality.

About 10 vehicles were set on fire and crowds broke the windows of at least one television news van, police and witnesses said. One group of young men set debris on fire in the middle of a street and then posed for news photographers.

Yes, in future neutral match-ups, this will count heavily against the Raiders, despite all their classy old guys. Time for Weird Al Davis to move the team again.

As a final close to football season, it's appropriate to review predictions by the football intelligentsia over the past few months. No one does that better that Gregg Easterbrook, Tuesday Morning Quarterback. Check out his final column of the season for a review of the prediction carnage.

Toolin' Around at a Dead Stop: You may now read the details of my arduous journey 50 miles east to the North American Auto Show in Dee-troit. Sadly, it didn't turn out to be so much about cars.

Industrial Suicide Watch: The radio industry continues its self-immolation, as thoughtfully documented in this longish feature (5 pages) in the Washington Post. Start with this apt description of the current state of affairs.

Owing to a growing sophistication in audience research, light-speed consolidation of radio ownership and the attendant rise in value of FM stations, the commercial FM dial has been essentially reduced to six musical formats: Pop/rock, hip-hop, country, classical, Spanish-language and variations on the theme of "adult contemporary," a sort of light pop or R&B. Research has shown radio owners that these are the moneymaking formats, and this is where they've flocked. Swept off the dial are niche formats, such as blues, bluegrass, easy listening and jazz, except for Kenny G-style "lite jazz," which falls neatly in the adult contemporary category.

One good point is the answer to the question of why we even care if radio exists.

Sure, you can download your entire CD collection onto your iPod and walk around with it. But those are the songs in your library, and even in random play there is a certain joyless satiety to that. The magic of radio long has been and will continue to be: You're alone in your car, flipping the dial, and, every so often, at exactly the right moment, exactly the right song comes on the radio. It makes you slap the steering wheel with happiness. The serendipity is spellbinding.

We are treated to a brief history of FM radio and Lee Abrams, who, in the early 70s, took FM from the free form, DJ programmed broadcasts to scientifically programmed playlist. As described by Ben Fong-Torres, nostalgic hippie magazine editor, immortalized in the movie Almost Famous.

"At its height in FM, you could look to the announcer as a person to inform you about not only the music and artists, but about the community at large," says Fong-Torres, 57, who lives in San Francisco and is a writer and lecturer. "They could bring in personal sensibilities to his or her broadcast day and, by their mood, tell you what is going on in the world around them. Then, if you happened to fall in and match their mood, they could play music that would be an underscore, an underpinning to what you have in common. Whatever you're thinking politically or socially; if you're coming down from a high or getting high, whatever. At the right moment with the right person on the radio, you could go on a little journey together."

Yet despite this, it turns out corporate programmer Lee Abrams may actually be the one to bring radio back as a big wig at XM radio, the 100 channel satellite network. Abrams, and anyone else who's at least partially sentient, seems to believe that Clear Channel (eew! ick!) took his system to an insane extreme.

Ten years ago, the nation's more than 12,000 radio stations were owned by 5,100 companies and individuals. Now, that number stands at about 3,800 owners. San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications may own more than 1,200 stations, but the issue is larger than sheer numbers. Because many of those Clear Channel stations are in the nation's largest cities, fully half of the U.S. population hears the company's stations every day. (The eight stations Clear Channel owns in Washington are the maximum allowed in one city.)

On the upside, a lot of mom-and-pop station owners became instant millionaires and retired happy. On the downside, these new, huge radio chains were saddled with debt. Tiny, privately owned companies became big, publicly traded companies now subject to the demands of Wall Street, which expected continued growth and escalating earnings.

To meet the Street's demands, stations had to increase revenue and cut costs. Cutting costs meant consolidating jobs. If a company owned five stations in one city, it might fire three program directors and put all five stations under the charge of two PDs, who could hardly devote their full attention to the sound and music selection of all five stations. The big chains fired local on-air hosts and replaced them with syndicated shows.

To raise revenue, stations increased the number of commercials they played. Once in the 10-minutes-per-hour range, most stations now more than double that, often playing the ads in uninterrupted blocks.

Individual radio stations -- some of which big chains paid more than $100 million to acquire -- simply became too valuable to become laboratories for anything chancy, such as trying an unproven music format, tolerating extended deejay disquisitions or spinning a song that wasn't a guaranteed hit.

Stations became slaves to the kind of research Abrams pioneered.

Amen. This has gotten me excited about XM radio and it's competitor Sirius. I'm gonna shop around.

For added spice, Wired is running a couple of related articles. This one speculates what would happen if the music mega-firms actually disappeared, and this one highlights one way the music industry is, not surprisingly, misguidedly trying to fight the inevitable. Embrace or die, dudes.

It's Not TV: The hotly anticipated (at least by me) follow-up to my critical appraisal of HBO Original Programming is submitted for your approval. WARNING! I discuss the action in detail. If you haven't seen the latest seasons of The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, or Sex and the City and want to be surprised, DO NOT read the review. You have been warned.

In case you decide not to read it, you should know I have created a new word - Ozworthy - defined as: a plotline or event in a dramatic presentation that exists solely to for the sake of voyeuristic shock. I will use this word in the future without explanation.

Say What?: A couple of pages I found courtesy of Bill Simmons, the ESPN Page 2 Sports Guy, inventor of the Unintentional Comedy Scale, and writer for Jimmy Kimmel's new talk show.

First, a home page for Drobnjak Manjaks, center for the Seattle Supersonics. Words simply cannot do this page justice. It's mostly made of Flash animations, but they are small and quick to download. And be sure you are somewhere where you can listen to the narration. Your reward for doing so will be absolutely gut-busting unintentional comedy. Don't miss Advice for Children, and be sure to click on "This blob shape is my country. Now you know."

Second, Greg Hall, sports columnist for the Platte County Landmark (Missouri) has developed an intriguing method for covering sports. He just reproduces quotes and comments on them. Simple, original, and very effective, it seems to me. Anyway, he collected some quotes from a former Chiefs defenseman turned annoucer. It is a cruel irony to say they speak for themselves.

Neil Smith’s comments made during his appearances on Channel 5 for their pre- and postgame shows this past season resulted in a new phenomenon here in the land of OTC that I dubbed "Neilbonics." If Neilbonics were a Broadway show, it would be sold out for the next year. That is how popular the former Chiefs’ defensive end’s verbiage was to those who frequently read this column. Here is a heaping helping of some of Neil’s more "perceptional" quotes and my comments as they originally appeared.

• Actually this guy (Troy Brown) had a perceptional year today. ... I think he went 10-for-10 or 12-for12. ... His completion percentage was great. I love the way he was catching the ball.


• You know why? I think why. This is the reason why. Because I think what New England did today, they axe-ually they just everything you could probably the reverse they tried to do all kind of trick plays.


• Here’s what I think is going to happen. The coach, Dick Vermeil, is going to overlook everything and there will be some changes here (on the defense). I think what’s going to happen is that they are going to have to putting some players and benching them.


• They always come through because they always says what they have to mean.


• Rod Smith actually did have a great game but what when he did come back and redeemed himself early he dropped the football.


• Only thing he do is he go along the line of scrimmage and no one untouched him.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Go here, and check out the entries for 1/6/03.

Life Imitates Dilbert: Hot air in the summer, A/C in the winter; an article in the 1/15 WSJ explains why you can't do anything about it (it's subscriber only, but I will quote liberally).

Looking for an office thermostat that actually works? Good luck and Godspeed.

You may never find it. The controls for your company's heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) are likely hidden in the office ducts. If you do spy a thermostat, it's probably locked, or encased behind shatterproof glass.

Even worse, HVAC experts acknowledge what millions of office workers have suspected all along: A lot of office thermostats are completely fake -- meant to dupe you into thinking you've altered the office weather conditions.

The specialists are unrepentant. Fed up with of complaints from sweaty men and shivering women, HVAC technicians install dummy thermostats to give workers the illusion of control. In some leased buildings, even the corporate tenants don't know the thermostats are useless. Other times, it's the companies themselves, barraged with calls from workers, who ask the landlord's HVAC technicians to "fix" things.

And there's more.

Richard Dawson, an HVAC specialist from Homer, Ill., who has several landlord clients, says too many office workers feel their environment is "anything but what they want it to be." Better to install a dummy when they're out to lunch, he figures. He estimates that 90% of office thermostats are dummies (others say it's below 2%).

Does he feel bad? "I did what my employer told me to do," Mr. Dawson says. The complainers in the cubicles wore him out. "You just get tired of dealing with them and you screw in a cheap thermostat. Guess what? They quit calling you."

I guess we know what becomes of over-the-hill game show hosts now. But wait there's more.

That's just one of several examples where the mere illusion of control seems to satisfy us. Plenty of placebo buttons give the same false impression. That "close door" button on elevators? It won't work unless you're a fireman or an elevator operator with special access to the system. The rest of the time, in deference to various building codes, it's deactivated, according to engineers at Otis Elevator.

I don't know if I buy that. I swear those buttons work; maybe only 10 percent of the time, but still.

The average office worker almost has to be a NASA engineer to get these thermostats working. That's exactly what Scott Packard is. The 39-year-old staff engineer, who works for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has used various illicit techniques to control climate at the different offices he has worked in, including obtaining a rare wrench to remove a thermostat cover.

He and other suffering employees have been known to hold a desk lamps or computer monitor up to the sensor to fool thermostats into turning on the AC. For heat, they strap a baggie full of ice water to it.

Non-working thermostats would be a luxury for me. The thermostats where I work are designed to react randomly to any adjustment. To address the problem the HVAC folks posted a sign over the thermostat that says, "Watch the swearing, please."

Life Imitates Dilbert 2: Or perhaps, life imitates a scene from Office Space.

A 32-year-old Boulder man who had opened his apartment's patio door to enjoy Wednesday's unusually warm weather was later overheard screaming threats and seen waving what appeared to be a handgun, prompting a maintenance worker to call police.

Officers, as a precaution, evacuated the man's apartment building and called SWAT officers to assist in defusing the situation.

It turned out that the man was simply upset at his computer - which he had called a "bitch" he "wanted to kill," police said - and the gun was a plastic pellet gun, not the .45-caliber automatic handgun it was made to resemble.

Maybe he thought this (415k) was an instructional video.

Don't Mind Me: Still being a posting slug. Actual content coming Real Soon Now, but I simply must finish this this wicked cool jigsaw puzzle. A one and a two and... Found on Who would buy that?, a blog of weird ebay auctions - check it out.

The State of Me: I have been a slug about posting new material, as Miss Kate pointed out recently. Sorry, I've had a good bit to do in other areas of my life, including work which has suddenly gotten a rather busy and is eating up my weekends, as it always does at this time of year.

Fictionwise, I have completed what I hope to be the final revision of A Pleasure Doing Business With You and it being evaluated by a literary agency on an exclusive basis. Not as exciting as it sounds, more often than not, these things don't work out. But I am confident that it will be published this year, one way or another. I have about a third of the first draft of my third novel Misspent Youth completed, which means that completion is a long ways off. It will go faster once APDBY is out and off my plate.

The other thing I really need to get going is a follow-up essay to my previous HBO essay, now that all the shows have been through new seasons and next seasons of both Sex and the City and The Sopranos are likely to be the last. Also, it looks like I will be attending the North American Auto Show at some point in the next couple of weeks. You can expect to hear about that experience too.

Then, of course, there is the site re-design that I obsess over yet never complete. I recently bought a copy of Eric Meyer on CSS which has given me all sorts of new and dangerous ideas - a great book if you have a smattering of CSS knowledge and need some examples of how to apply it. Naturally in my case, this makes me want to just go back to the drawing board entirely and throw away. It is a character flaw. Also, I've become envious of Sheri, the her new blog, Life is Suck...(except when it doesn't), is really cool. She has all sort of nifty little things going on, including allowing her readers to post comments. It uses a posting engine called Moveable Type, as opposed to Blogger which is what I use. Moveable Type is a lot more flexible, but to use it I'd have to change my URL from damsite.blogspot.com which would be a bit of an upheaval and would, of course, take time. I suppose I will have to continue to obsess from afar.

Enough blather...

Life Imitates Satire 6: The most widely publicized senselessness of late is the Raelians claim of have produced a cloned human through their research company called Clonaid. (Word is that Willie Nelson showed up one day volunteering to play. Bada-bing! Thanks, I'll be here all week..) That these whacked-out nut cases would pull such a stunt is to be expected; the real stupidity is in the press, who reacted with breathless journalistic pseudo-prose to this Watershed Event That Would Challenge All Our Cherished Beliefs To The Very Core. Funny isn’t it, that the finest scientific minds have been struggling with cloning for a long time - they've done mice; they managed to get a sheep done, but it didn’t work out all that well. But wait! - they missed something important: cloning humans requires detailed instructions from extraterrestrials on the planet Moron. Reporters fell for it, including one malletthead in particular who guaranteed verification. What a story! Front page above the fold! Of course, when it came time to actually verify the claim, the lights were out, the blinds were drawn and nobody answered the door. Lo and behold, it seems, we've heard that song before.

A specialist on the Raelians said she would not be surprised if the entire cloning episode was a stunt designed to attract new members and money.

''The only way they can succeed in that is to court the media,'' said Susan Palmer, religion professor at Dawson College in Montreal.

Palmer, who completed an 80-page report on the Raelians for the Vatican library, said swelling membership rolls is crucial to the sect's success.

The Raelian movement claims 55,000 members, mostly in France and Canada, though Palmer said active members number far less. All members must turn over 3 percent of their income, said Palmer.

Clonaid is no stranger to questionable claims. In 1998, the group made waves by boasting it would create a cloning lab in the Bahamas. It later admitted the entire operation was a publicity ploy never amounting to more than a post office box.

''For a minimal investment, it got us media coverage worth more than $15 million. I am still laughing,'' wrote Rael about the venture in his 2001 cloning manifesto, ''Yes to Human Cloning.''

Did it not occur to anyone the Rael is not quite real?

Life Imitates Satire 7: I'm generally annoyed by protests of any sort but this one looks interesting.

A group of Marin County women plan to march naked through San Francisco on Jan. 18 to protest the possibility of war with Iraq.

It's a shame more women won’t shed their…um…apathy in this manner.

Poison Gas Attack in England: You can always depend on Michael Moore. The walking mound of blubbering waste emitted a truly noxious outburst while in London, suggesting that the reason hijackers succeeded on 9/11 is that the passengers were white.

During one performance, according to the New York Post's Page Six, Moore shocked attendees of his road show by calling the passengers on the hijacked 9/11 planes "scardey-cats because they were mostly white."

His implication was that people of color, had they been a greater percentage of the planes' passengers, would have been able to disarm and disable the hijackers.

One regrets Moore was not on one of those planes. The hijackers would have been rendered helpless by his bovine odor, that is if the plane could have actually taken off with all that weight. Moore subsequently went on to piss off just about everyone else.

...But Moore didn't stop with the one outburst. On one of the last nights he was scheduled [to perform], the massive moviemaker turned bellicose blusterer, fuming at his "measly $750 a night" compensation and, according to the Roundhouse manager, criticizing security, even though Moore himself was responsible for it.

"He completely lost the plot," a member of the stage crew told another London paper. "He stormed around all day screaming at everyone, even the 5-pound-an-hour bar staff, telling them how we were all con men and useless. Then he went on stage and did it in public."

These are the sorts of things that should be videotaped. Is that asking too much?

Stick it to the Man: In the realm of useful information, many states are generating Do Not Call lists in an effort to fight telemarketers. Sadly Michigan is not one of them, but this page has a list of States that do and links to their lists. Check it out and sign up if you can to stop the irritating pests. The rest of us may have to wait for the proposed federal list. Now if they would only come up with a do not spam list.

I'm not sure if how is going to work out, but as a result of the recent price collusion suit lost by CD distributors, you may be owed a share of the settlement. If you bought a CD retail from between 1/1/95 to 12/22/00 you are eligible. Theoretically, you just fill out the claim form on line and you get a check for somewhere between $5 and $20. I have no idea how they decide who gets what (I'm sure if you wanted to wade thought he site you could figure it out) but it took all of 90 seconds to complete the claim form, so I say go for it.

Bits and Pieces: Just in case you haven't used your share of bandwidth for 2003 yet.

• I think we need mandatory sentences for cookie related crimes. Can you imagine the tune-up the perp would have gotten if this was over a donut?


• Marx. Harpo Marx. At least you know that if he was caught, he wouldn't talk.


• Think first. Then speak. Lake Superior State U. gives it's annual list of words and phrases to be banished. Some aren't so bad. Weapons of Mass Destruction is used pretty accurately. I'm glad they brought up using "challenge" instead of "problem". Maybe next year they will include opportunity. Anyone who says there are no problems, only opportunities should be struck with a blunt instrument. Repeatedly.


• The Diary of Samuel Pepys - a 17th century diarist who, through his ten year long diary, provided the a excellent view of the Restoration in England - is being reproduced as a daily weblog. Neat idea.


• Speaking of history, the First World War looks to be pretty comprehensively documented at this site.
  
• If you live in your Mom's basement and have way too much time on your hands, try Star Wars Origami.


• Stop in to visit Ginger Girl, a blogmistress who reads a lot, is crafty, and links to me.
  
• A strange attempt to meld words, music and the web, I'm not sure what to make of Young Hae Chang Heavy Industries. Curious. Very curious. (Watch the language in some of the presentations.)


• Stupid Drunk Tricks.


• It seems that even casual web surfers are pimp-slapped with pop-up ads everywhere. Some browsers, such as Mozilla based browsers, offer a way to turn them off, but Internet Explorer doesn't, since Microsoft doesn't want to risk alienating potential advertisers. To the rescue comes EMS Free Surfer. Load it up and you get no pop-ups, it's that simple. Recommended even if you aren't a web-head like me.


• Nothing to add to Dave Barry's year in review.

DAMMYs and SLAMMYs: A DAMMY is the coveted award given by yours truly for outstanding performance, exceptional quality, and general coolness. A SLAMMY is a metaphorical flip-off; a modern equivalent of a scarlet 'A' to identify evil wherever it may thrive. These need not be timely, they just have to have occurred to me in the last year or so. Herewith, the 1st annual DAMMYs and SLAMMYs

Category: Music

DAMMY - Pizzicato Five. This is the now defunct Japanese pop ensemble that I still listen to more than anything else at the moment. I don't understand the lyrics, but the perfectly crafted tunes carry me along. In a lot of ways, it reminds me a combination of '60s bubblegum and '60s pyschedelica and '60s groovy movie soundtracks and contemporary laser sharp production. Anyway, I like it; you probably won't. I have a friend who refers to this as Japanese Squirrel Music because, she claims, it sounds like highly caffeinated chattering squirrels. But then, she likes Creed. Which brings me to...

SLAMMY - Creed, the plodding, mopey, hurl-inducing chart-toppers, formulated in the foul depths of Clear Channel headquarters. I am still looking for ways to erase their very existence. You could add their weak sister Nickelback in there also.

SLAMMY - Divas (your Britneys, your Whitneys, and so forth). They have two volumes: Loud and Ear-splitting. They accurately mimic the sound of a gargantuan duck being given a roman candle enema. Dress like a slut, yowl like a banshee, and Clear Channel will beat a path to your door.

DAMMY - The Anti-Divas: Diana Krall, Jane Monheit, Norah Jones. These three jazz influenced singers demonstrate how bad most popular female vocalists are. Complex and subtle phrasing, a full range of emotions. Singing this good becomes and expression of humanity.

DAMMY - CDNow.com and AllMusic.com for their song previewing, and whoever makes those listening stations in Border's and Barnes & Noble where you can preview any CD in the store. We are saved from buying CDs only to discover they were nothing like what we wanted.

SLAMMY - Clear Channel (you were expecting otherwise?) for succeeding in reducing popular music to it's worst state since the mid-seventies. As a bonus, they did it all in the name of greater profits and ended up in dire financial straits. Way to be.

Category: Movies

DAMMY - Ocean's Eleven. A truly fun movie. Fun pacing. Fun acting. Dialog destined to be repeated ritualistically for years to come. HRH Miss Anna can already quote some good lines.

DAMMY - The Godfather Saga. Godfather I & II, recut in chronological order and with many missing scenes added. Whereas many think the Godfather movies are the best of all time I never thought them more than just good movies. This version moves it into the great category.

DAMMY - The Graduate. An old classic, still funny, still interesting, still more original than most current movies, probably because it never went through "script development" in front of a focus group.

SLAMMY - All the sci-fi/fantasy blockbusters ranging from the passable (Harry Potter) to the insipid (Star Wars) to the monumentally tedious (Lord of the Rings).

Category: Tube

DAMMY - Nero Wolfe. Tremendously well done dramatizations of the Rex Stout mysteries. Stylish and clever. The best acting on TV. Best show on TV.

SLAMMY - A&E. Cancelled Nero Wolfe.

DAMMY - Larry Sanders. Now rerun twice a night on Bravo and as funny as anything ever produced. Only show equal to Seinfeld at it's best, even edited from it's HBO form.

DAMMY - Blue Planet, for the most amazing nature footage ever shot.

SLAMMY - OZ. Totally depraved. Superficial characters, poorly portrayed. I suffered through a few episodes for the sake of my review of HBO Original programming and I found it to be thoroughly without artistic, intellectual, or social merit.

Category: Personality

SLAMMY - Barbra Streisand, Shakespearean Scholar.

SLAMMY - Mike Tyson. After getting noogied silly by Lennox Lewis, he announced he was going to "fade into bolivian." A few months later he announced his return saying, "I'm tired of being stupid."

SLAMMY - Michael Moore. To paraphrase Dean Wormer: Fat, stupid, ugly, ignorant, smelly, dishonest, greedy and poorly dressed is no way to go through life.

Last of Twenty Ought Two: I don't know if I'll get a chance to post again until the new year. Redundantly speaking for only for me, myself and I for one, I'm not particularly sad to see 2002 go. The highlights were my trips to Vegas and Naples (FL), and there were lots of little pleasures along the way, but mostly I found it frustrating. I should have been published again; at the very least, I should have written more fiction than I did. For that matter, I should have written more non-fiction for this site. I could make excuses for that all day long. I should have gotten more accomplished at work, which makes me wonder whether I'm losing focus in my old age. Which makes me further wonder whether I ever really had more focus, or it's just selective memory. I feel as though my life is filled with half completed accomplishments and promises delayed. My prevailing feeling is that my life should be somewhere other than where it is.

And, of course, I should be wealthier than I am.

If any of you say, "At least you have your health," I shall find you and throttle you with your computer power cord.

Who am I kidding, though? It's all just a self-indulgent, pensive whine. I have nothing to complain about except myself, so the means of improving things are immediately at hand. When viewed from afar, I have no doubt 2002 will be fondly remembered. Here's to an even better 2003.

Speaking of which, maybe I should institute annual DAMMY awards for the Best and Worst This or That of the year. Lemme give it some thought.

Moving Pictures: I hate it when I'm suckered by hype. I rented Minority Report because the DVD cover said "Reminds us of why we go to the movies. A masterpiece! - Ebert & Roeper at the Movies". It was nothing of the sort. Oh, it was a solid thriller. The production was impeccable, as one would expect from Spielberg/Dreamworks. Tom Cruise was not entirely offensive. Some of the rest of the cast acted quite well. The effects were pretty cool. To me, it was just another in a long line of well crafted and mildly entertaining action-thriller-dramas that seem to come up a bit short in the inspiration department. A cut above Schwartzenegger, but not even close to a masterpiece.

Anyway, to my way of thinking, the last action flick that had any creative merit was The Matrix, so I find I am susceptible to the hype surrounding the upcoming sequels.

I don't think it qualifies as an action film or a thriller, but if you are looking for a truly entertaining movie, check out Ocean's Eleven, which is currently in rotation HBO. The plot is entirely implausible (but no more so than Minority Report), it is essentially free of any deep philosophical issues (in contrast to Minority Report, a cautionary tale), it has a sense of humor, especially about itself (unlike the grim, solemn tone of Minority Report), and frankly it's just a whole lot of fun. The acting is uniformly delightful, with Andy Garcia as the standout in the role of the bad guy casino boss. It's hard to imagine anyone not smiling through this from start to finish. Plus, it's set in Vegas with many scenes in the Bellagio itself; what could be cooler? (Did you know they're filming a sequel?)

Here's a prediction: In thirty years we will think of Minority Report the way we think of now think of Logan's Run, and we will think of Ocean's Eleven the way we now think of The Sting. The Sting is still a good movie, entertaining and worth watching. Logan's Run on the other hand...do you even remember Logan's Run?

Oh, and one more thing. A commercial just came on TV for the movie Chicago, based on the Broadway musical I saw with HRH Miss Anna and Miss Kate. The voice over said, "Nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Picture! Opens Friday in select theatres!" It's not even released and it's up for a Best Movie award. Huh? Is anything so blatantly Hollywood? All you've got to do is release it in select theatres by the end of the year and you get your shot at a Golden Globe. I suppose it's not so bad, I'm sure the folks who vote have seen it in preview, or at least had the opportunity to. Why does it bother me to hear that? I'm not sure - hype is a fact of life, and you can ignore it if it bothers you. But it just seems like a dirty backroom deal somehow. I have no doubt I'm in the minority, but if anything that will make me predisposed to be cynical about the film.

Good Lord, am I cranky lately.

The musical on Broadway was pretty good, by the way.

Michael Moore Needs Your Help: Last time I checked Michael Moore was falling behind Jimmy Carter for Idiotarian of the Year. I'm not sure what an Idiotarian is, but I think it probably translates to something like 'one who has adopted a philosophy of idiocy'. Michael Moore should win this. He must. Please click the vote button and punch Michael Moore for me. If you do, you don't have to buy me anything for Christmas. I'll even dispose of your fruitcake in an environmentally conscious manner.

Year-End Sale on Links: I have no idea where the last week went - devoured by locusts, perhaps. Luckily I've got a large garbage bag full of miscellany to entertain you while you are struggling to digest that fruitcake.

• Whoa! Junior High flashback! Powers of Ten, the classic of educational filmmaking is available on-line. All I need is a little carton of milk, dried out fish sticks, and a spitwad in the eye to make the experience complete.


• I don't remember having any professors like John Cleese. I hope he's teaching hotel and restaurant management. Or maybe classical Spanish. Que?


• According to this long essay by author David Brin, Tolkien/LOTR is an enemy of democracy, technological advancement, and progress in general. I would have to agree, think of how much productivity will be wasted watching the INTERMINABLE movies in this series.


• Obviously inspired by the refrigerator magnet word games, a "poet" in England has received a grant to do something similar with sheep. This, she claims, is an exercise in quantum mechanics. Um, no, it's an exercise in fuddleheadedness (would that word fit on the back of a sheep?). Now if the sheep were to spontaneously form the phrase Mutton is Murder or Wear Synthetics, that would be something.


• Speaking of odd research, < ahref="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/12/20/wbunny20.xml">a multi-national study of the anatomical dimensions of Playboy centerfolds just concluded and was published in the British Medical Journal. Someone paid these people to examine Playboy centerfolds in detail. That's pretty stupid. I would have done it for free.


• Apparently they have now mapped all the shipwrecks that have ever occurred in the Hudson River - not just some, all of them. But they won't release the map because their afraid the Discovery Channel will be overrun with documentaries about raising 19th century barges and recovering the cargo of bowler hats and mustache wax.


• 99 years ago, as of December 17th, the Wright brothers made their historic flight, which has enabled such contemporary miracles as the Untied Airlines bankruptcy. Back in the '30s, John Dos Passos wrote this intriguing, stylistically creative account of the brothers and the event.


• If you, like me, despise the CAPS LOCK key because it makes you type stuff like, "wELCOME TO THE hOUSE OF sTUPID," PC Magazine has a free utility that can remap your keyboard as you see fit, including disabling the CAPS LOCK key. kUDOS!


• If you are Lions fan (or anti-fan) don't miss this deal. (Thanks to The Legendary KK for the link.)

A Mutual Misunderstanding: From the usually annoying Michael Kinsley in Slate.com, we have the definitive quote about writing.

Agreeing to be a judge of the National Book Awards, nonfiction division, was especially hypocritical because two things I have long claimed to oppose in principle are books and awards. Nonfiction books are especially regrettable. There is too much nonfiction going on in the world already without writers adding to it.

Many years ago, I conducted an experiment of placing a note in copies of several briskly selling books in a local Washington bookstore. The notes had my phone number and offered $5 to anyone who saw them and called me up. No one called. Though hardly scientific, this tended to confirm my suspicion that people like buying books more than they like reading them. And of course, in the famous formulation (credited to Gloria Steinem, among others), writers don't like writing - they like having written. They like having written under the impression that this means they will be read. The whole book thing is thus based on mutual misunderstanding.

No wonder it feels so futile.

A Practical Mona Lisa: Anyone who is interested in graphic art or the visual representation of ideas has probably encountered Minard's Map. It is a graphical depiction of Napoleon's invasion of Russia and retreat from Moscow. It is generally thought of as the Mona Lisa of graphic data depiction. You can read this article about it for more background. But start by taking a look at this readable graphic to get a sense for how information-packed, yet perfectly clear, it is. If want to look even deeper, this site has many variations and rethinkings of the map.

Celebratory Links: In honor of the completion of my Christmas shopping I present you with some linkage to distract you from your egg nog.

• If you are frugal, you want to keep an eye on Google's new shopping search, Froogle.Google.com. It's just a beta test but it's already killer.


• Who knew you could actually make a profit by making vinyl records anymore. OK, maybe that's not all that interesting, but it's a good segue into these two album cover sites. First show and tell offers categorized pictures of the odd sorts of cover art from albums you might find in thrift stores, thumbnailed for convenience. Second, we have 317X, wherein a fellow has scanned the covers of his record collection, nearly all of the lounge/swank/shagadelic variety. I love retro-graphic art. What I want to know is how'd they get this picture of my place last Friday night on an album cover.


• Speaking of Lounge, one of the funnest sites on the Web, that went out of business a year or so ago, appears to be ready to make a comeback: LuxuriaMusic.com.


• That nasty old spammer who lives in my corner of the world; the one that preened and bragged in the Detroit Free Press about how much money he was making. He's getting his comeuppance. Allow me to quote Nelson: "Ha Ha."


• As if we didn't have enough to worry about here in Michigan, what with spammers roaming free, now we have to worry about Emus. They suggest you should call the police if you see them, but I can't see that ending up in anything but a breathalyzer test.


• I have argued in the past that Satan's primary agents in the sporting world are the New England Patriots. My logic in this analysis was undeniably correct as anyone who read my football analysis would agree. It now seems, however, that the only reason Satan has agents on the football field is that he is so busy playing right wing in the NHL himself. If the best Satan can do is Player of the Week, hockey players must be as tough as everyone says. Some NHL team needs to draft a player named Jesus (Hay-soos). Satan gets five for fighting and Jesus scores on the power play. That just has to happen.


• OK, here's one for your next six degrees session (that is to say, next time you get in the time machine and head to the late nineties, Dr. Evil). George Clooney and Marcia Brady (Maureen McCormick): one degree of separation. How much you want to bet Clooney put the moves on her and got shot down when he accidentally called her Marcia? I know I would have. Here's a smart-arsed summary and review (warning: includes profanity).


• For the last, and funniest, word on Christmas gifts, I give you Dave Barry's annual gift guide.

Hasselling Hasselhoff: Oh my! This is one of the funniest things I've ever run across. You have to read the reviews of David Hasselhoff's Best Of CD at Amazon. Some choice quotes:

The thought of missing out on David Hasselhuffer's melodic voice during those short car trips to my therapist have caused me to purchase two of these delicious CDs.

Where else, on a single CD could you find the demented gruntings of a jeaned and jacketed 80's throwback who talks to his car?

Just when you though that the greatest hits of John Tesh and Wiliam Shatner, could not be out done, Hasselhoff pulls this miracle out.

What really makes David Hasselhoff stand apart from his contemporaries is his magnificent voice. Some critics have compared his resounding tenor to that of Mario Lanza or Johnny Hartman, but I would compare it more to a wounded jackal getting whipped by a screaming pornfilm fluffer.

"Everybody Sunshine" is the clarion call that awakes us from our nihilistic ideals and existential slumber. As it washes into "I Believe" you can't help knowing what is now right and wrong and yearn for the times when "Knightrider" taught us that the love between man and a mechanical object was not morally wrong but a beautiful and natural thing to behold.

There's like 40 pages of reviews like that. I'm still laughing.

Life Imitates Satire 5: This is old now, but known cannibal, avowed child-eater, convicted rapist and serial buttocks fondler, Mike Tyson is ready to turn his life around, saying "I'm tired of being stupid." That's nice Mike. We're tired of you being stupid too. In fact, we're just plain tired of you. Kindly just go away forever, and take the headliner of your undercard, convicted criminal conspirist and white trash ice queen Tonya Harding, with you.

Yahoo Review: Yahoo has posted it's Picks of the Year, the 25 best of it's site picks for 2002. Some real gems in there, quite a few I've linked up before.

Snakebit: This is a guaranteed guffaw.

Little girl walks into a pet shop and asks in the sweetest little lisp:

"Excuthe me, mithter, do you have wittal wabbits?"

The shopkeeper gets down on his knees, so that he's on her level, and asks: "Do you want a wittle white wabby or a soft and fuwwy black wabby or maybe one like that cute wittle brown wabby over there?"

The little girl in turn puts her hands on her knees, leans forward and says in a quiet sweet voice: "I don't think my python weally givth a thit."

Snort.

Hello, It's Me: OK, I've spent the last week(ish) in San Diego. I don't know if I'll write an extended essay about it; I've done that before (I've been to SD three times). And let me say up front that SD is one of the best places in the world. Of the two places I would re-locate, should I ever get motivated to leave my warm and freindly home in Dexter MI, San Diego (specifically LaJolla) would be first one my list and Naples FL would be second. But for some reason I couldn't get out of my anxiety ridden skin while I was there this time.

I had the same wonderful Southern California moment that I have had each time I've visited - the hop in the rental car, hit the freeway in the sunshine, crank the radio moment - but the rest of the time I was still fretting over my life like I always do. Part of the reason for this is that I am suffering from a injury that is beyond annoying. Head's Up: Piss and Moan and Whine and Snivel Alert.

I have a problem with my foot that comes and goes; actually it never goes, just eases up from time to time. It may be a stress fratcture. It may be a bone spur. It may be Plantar Fasciitis. You can look them all up on foot.com if you have some sort of foot fetish. Whatever it is, when it flares up I can't walk for more than say a couple of hundred yards and I can't run at all. I have no doubt that this was a long time coming, owing to spending eight hours a night on my feet while tending bar through most of my 20s, and more recently, owing to the fact that I am pathetically addicted to exercise - primarily high impact sorts of stuff. Bottom line: I spent a few days in Coronado (most wonderful beaches in California) and I could barely take a walk up the shore. As I sit and type this, however, I am in no pain at all. I'll get up in the morning and be in pain, by the time I get to work it's not bad, half way through a workout in the evening it flares up.

However, it seems the worst thing is walking - presumably due to the longer time extended pressure is put on the foot. If you think about it, you'll realize that when you are travelling, an enormous amount of walking in involved. Walk the beach. Walk the Gaslamp District. Walk around the mall trying to squeeze in some Christmas shopping. Walk from one end of the airport to the other to make your flight.

As a result, I was measuring everything I did by how well my foot would hold up. On the flight out, I was resolved to drive up to Newport and catch the ferry to Catalina Island, after a day or so I realized that would involve a lot of walking around once I got there - nope, better write that off. Another thought I had was to spend a day wandering around Tijuana. Oh wait - bad word: wandering. That won't do. So basically I spent a lot of time in the hot tub and in bars. And despite what you may have heard, that's not how I usually live my life. You see, if you are not a workout maniac like yours truly, you have no idea what it means to be deprived of your endorphins for any length of time. It means depression, anger and all those other nasty emotions that the endorphins usually cover up. Woe is the 90 year old driver who happens to get in front of me, or one of the slothwitted simpletons at Taco Bell. Luckily I can still vent to you on the Web.

I don't want to go to a doctor about it because I have no doubt the diagnosis will end with, "Stay off it for a few weeks. That'll be $200," or something to that effect. But still, I had better do it just in case there is something they can actually do for me. Like a foot transplant.

Do I sound like some kind of decrepit old man or what? End Piss and Moan and Whine and Snivel Alert.

In other news, I've decide to sack doing football picks. It was a misguided plan, as I realized this weekend. I spent so much time trying to hunt down enough superficial information on games I didn't see, that I didn't get a chance to enjoy the ones I did. This weekend I saw the Chargers/Raiders game amidst a bunch of rowdy Chargers fans, and the Fins on Monday. (I would have picked both correctly, by the way.) Both were a lot of fun to watch, at least partially because I watched them in Coronado at the Costa Azul where they claim to have the best Margarita in the world. Not strictly true; but they use a homemade sweet & sour mix which is somewhat less offensive than the highly toxic chemicals most places put in their Margaritas.

There are only a few weeks left in the season anyway. I may take a different tack next year - I was thinking of picking three or four teams and just following them, picking and commenting on their games, and maybe tracking hypothetical wagers. We'll see.

The primarily reason is that I suspect all of you were bored stiff with it.

One good thing that came out of San Diego is that I got a minor revision of A Pleasure Doing Business With You sketched out. I'm also back to the Hope side of the interminable Hope/Disappointment cycle of trying to get a publisher. I have set a goal to have a contract in place by July 2003. If not, drastic measures will have to be taken.

By the way, if any of you webloggers out there are willing to make a commitment to read Apple Pie and, if you like it, say nice things about it on your site, I can probably see that you get a review copy. Drop me a line and we'll make arrangements.

I owe TAD Chrissy and apology of sorts. I had thought about giving Lord of The Rings another viewing in response to her shock at my dismissive comments of it. Then Miss Kate (who, like me, felt it was interminable and tedious) scared me away. Apparently the DVD edition is EVEN LONGER - which I find unimaginable. Sorry, Chrissy, I couldn't work up the courage. Maybe someday there will be a condensed version.

I did see Attack of the Clones on the hotel tube. Chrissy was quite correct about that one. It was a startlingly stupid movie.

I'm off to bed. More on SD this weekend. And some links. Thanks for waiting so patiently.

Can't Think...Head Exploding: OK, I need a week or so away from this site again. I've got too much going on in the 3D world to keep up for the moment, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to take a few days to catch back up. No picks this week. As know from my previous breaks - I'll be back.

And yes, Christmas shopping is partially to blame.

Life Imitates Satire: Clearly the most absurd occurrence of late has been the Miss World riots - just try to think about that phrase and not shake your head in disbelief: Miss World riots.

The pageant decides that a hellhole like Nigeria, where Muslims treat women like dogs, is an appropriate place for the contest because, in the finest tradition of multiculturalism, we should respect their cultural right to misogyny.

Several contestants protest, and some wisely decide it's not worth it, naivete takes the day and the contest continues.

A Nigerian journalist, while commenting on the contest, says something about how the Prophet Mohammed would have wanted these women in his harem - or whatever it is called to make it Islamically correct.

In truth, that betrays a deep ignorance of beautiful women. Clue about beautiful women: They tend to shun smelly, ill-groomed, religious zealots who berate them for not wearing black from head to toe, when everyone knows that it's all about hip-huggers, cute little capris, and tarty tank tops with sparkly designs. And 400 pairs of painfully ill-fitting shoes.

Never, I mean never - even with a childhood image of women borne of cheesy, Austin Powers-esque retro spy flicks - even in the most misguided moments of hormonally enraged adolescence - have I ever been so thoroughly ignorant of women as the Islamicists are. These guys are like the He-Man Woman Hater's Club with automatic weapons.

So the Muslims start slaughtering Christians, or anyone who looks like a Christian, or anyone who isn't helping them slaughter Christians. A Fatwa - which sounds like a Star Wars character - is declared against the journalist who made the comments.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Miss World delegate gets all, like, whatever and says "I'm out-ee," and hops a plane home. The pageant summarily disqualifies her for leaving, and then a couple of days later, decides to take the whole thing "out-ee" and decamps for London, where the pageant officials blame the media for the whole thing rather than the ass-headed stupidity of the troglodyte Nigerian Muslims.

Life Imitates Satire 2: Saddam is well know to have a policy of torturing women, or anyone else for that matter (which the Miss Worlders would probably deem culturally valid), so it's probably just as well that among the members of the vaunted team of U.N. weapons inspectors is one Harvey John "Jack" McGeorge, whose primary qualification appears to be running S&M sex clubs. From the Washington Post:

McGeorge is a former Marine and Secret Service specialist who offers seminars on "weaponization of chemical and biological agents" for $595 a session. Since 1983, he has been president of his own firm, Public Safety Group Inc., which sells bioterror products to governments. One online ad promotes his role as a "certified United Nations Weapons inspector."

McGeorge does not possess a degree in one of the specialized fields -- such as biochemistry, bacteriology or chemical engineering -- that the United Nations says it seeks in its inspectors. U.S. and U.N. officials said a background check apparently was not conducted on McGeorge or any of the inspector applicants.

An Internet search of open Web sites conducted by The Washington Post found that McGeorge is the co-founder and past president of Black Rose, a Washington-area pansexual S&M group, and the former chairman of the board of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom. He is also a founding officer of the Leather Leadership Conference Inc., which "produces training sessions for current and potential leaders of the sadomasochism/leather/fetish community," according to its Web site. Several Web sites describe McGeorge's training seminars, which involve various acts conducted with knives and ropes.

Stop. You're killing me.

Life Imitates Satire 3: In this case actual existing satire. Christopher Buckley wrote a satirical novel entitled Thank You For Smoking concerning the various farces and shenanigans perpetrated by the government and special interests in the name of public health and safety. I haven't read it yet, but I'd be willing to bet there is subject matter along the lines of this article at the NYT about how States are banking heavily on the money from the Big Tobacco settlement. Get this:

Eight states are using proceeds from the tobacco settlement to reduce state budget deficits, and six more are considering it, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Five of these states have already had their credit ratings lowered by the three main credit agencies or have been placed on alert about the possibility. New Jersey and Wisconsin have been downgraded, while California, Oregon and Washington are on the alert lists. When ratings are lowered, states have to pay more when selling bonds to compensate investors for the additional risk, raising their costs of capital by millions of dollars for projects from roads to schools.

To generate revenue now, these states are selling municipal bonds tied to some or all of the first 25 years of expected payments from the tobacco companies, under a pact signed with 46 states that has been valued at $206 billion. The rating agencies are concerned that states may be opting for a one-time infusion to help reduce a deficit and that such borrowing is a sure sign of fiscal distress.

How could anyone ever doubt it was all about the money from the start? Thank you for smoking, indeed.

Life Imitates Satire 4: This is beyond description. You have to read it. No, it is not comic book fiction.

Football Results - Week 13: 9-6, not too shabby, but I'll count it as a big victory after last weeks disaster. Just for the sheer, unadulterated pleasure of seeing how totally stupid I can be. I've decided to publish this week's results in context with what I initially wrote about the games. I have to ask, is there no humiliation I would not suffer for my readers.

• New England -6 at Detroit Pick: Evil Minions cover. A Winnah! Minions win 20-12 Normally I would pick the Lions, just because it's time for them to unexpectedly win another game. But they couldn't win unexpectedly because that's just what I would be expecting. On the other hand, since Marty and the Lions seem to be determined to give games away, any demonic curses the Minions cast to upset the Lions plans could end up making the Lions win. You see, it's all very complicated. Of course. Did you notice the play where the ball ricocheted off a lineman's helmet and into the arms of the Patriots. Tell me that was not the work of Satan.


• Washington -pick 'em- at Dallas Cowboys win. A Winnah! Cowboys win 27-20 On a hunch. The Cowboys beat the Jags last week when there was no earthly reason for them to do so. I'm thinking there is something going on there that I don't see, plus they will be pumped to salvage their season with a victory over the hated Potatoes. I was going to make some kind of vapid allusion to Mashed Potatoes and Thanksgiving, but I can't force myself to do it. Again, I was right (I love saying that). There is something going on with the Cowboys they are playing well, with a lot of desire. I have no idea why.


• Miami -2.5 at Buffalo Pick: Dolphins cover. Wrong! Bills win 38-21 The Bills are back-sliding and I'm back on the Fins bandwagon. Actually, I meant to write that I was under the Fins bandwagon. I have the treadmarks on my back to prove it. Said bandwagon was carrying was weighted down with the Dolphins defense since they had some much time what with not bothering to play and all.


• Chicago +9.5 at Green Bay Pick: Cheeseheads cover. A Winnah! Cheese wins 30-20 It's interesting to see how Green Bay has dealt with the whole Sapp thing. Outrage and righteous declarations of vengeance. I think the Cheese coaching staff is trying to create a crisis atmosphere to pull the team out of it's funk. At home against the pathetic Bears, it should work. Just barely. This should have been a cheesewalk for the Cake - er...a cakewalk for the Cheese. I officially declare the Cheese to be Swiss. (Full of holes for those who missed the allusion.)


• Baltimore -2.5 at Cincinnati Pick: Ravens cover. A Winnah! Ravens win 27-23 With a strong defense, I'm counting on the Ravens to restore my faith in science. Again, just barely. The Bengals led by 9 in the 4th and blew it, which validates all scientific theories and conjectures.


• Carolina +7.5 at Cleveland Pick: Browns cover. Wrong! Panthers win 13-6 The problem I have with a spread like this is that it's really easy for the lesser team to sneak in a last minute score, when the leading team stupidly goes into a prevent defense. Because of this, I actually typed 'Panthers beat the spread'; then I remembered how the Browns are fighting to get in the playoffs and how truly bad the Panthers are. Obviously, not bad enough. They didn't even have to sneak in a score at the end of the game. They led the whole way. The lesson here is to be as general as possible when predicting outcomes. But that only applies to people who want to maintain a modicum of dignity.


• Pittsburgh -3 at Jacksonville Pick: Steelers cover. Wrong! Steelers win 25-23 The Steelers still have something to prove now that their first stringers - Stewart and Bettis - are back. Beating the Bengals last week doesn't count. Meanwhile, judging from last week's folly, the Jags may have packed it in for the season. What I said above about the lesser team sneaking in. It applies here. I must have meant to write that here. Maybe it was a bug in my text editor. Yeah, that must've been it.


• Arizona +10 at Kansas City Pick:Cardinals beat the spread. Wrong! Chiefs win 237-0 The Chiefs have such an atrocious defense anything can happen, so I'll go with the Cards and a 10 point head start. The spread wouldn't have mattered, and the Chiefs defense was flawless. I could not have been more wrong.


• Atlanta -3.5 at Minnesota Pick:Falcons cover. A Winnah! Falcons win 30-24 The Vikings just plain stink. The Falcons should have romped, instead they got dragged kicking and screaming into overtime. Perhaps they were distracted by the stinky odor. Apparently Rhymes with Sick was wearing nose plugs and was able to save the game.


• Tennessee +3 at New York Giants Pick: Titans beat the spread. A Winnah! Titans win 32-29 I'm fairly surprised the Giants are favored after their dismal display last week. Another OT contest. Schroedinger's Cat is now permanently dead. Any victory from this point on qualifies as a dead cat bounce.


• Denver -3 at San Diego Pick: Chargers beat the spread. A Winnah! Chargers win 30-27 Another possible outcome is that the Broncos demolish the Chargers. The point being: I have no clue. But other things equal, I'll go with the home team and the 3 point spot. One man's cluelessness is another man's Zen wisdom.


• Houston +11.5 at Indianapolis Pick: Texans beat the spread. Wrong! Colts win 19-3The Colts should cruise, but no way can I pass up 11.5 points. Two spreads in the double digits this week. Both covered. So much for that theory.


• St. Louis -2.5 at Philadelphia Pick: Eagles beat the spread. A Winnah! Eagles win 10-3 I'm truly surprised the Rams are favored. The Eagles are at home and don't seem to have lost a step without McNabb. Marshall Faulk is still questionable. Nailed this one cold. The real human interest story here is Kurt Warner. Talk about a crash from the heights. One of the most revered quarterbacks in the league, he has now lost seven straight games going back to last year's Super Bowl. Meanwhile, his understudy is undefeated with the same team. Next week we get the third stringer. Imagine the horror for Warner if he wins. On the other hand, if Warner has enough fortitude and grit to survive this and come back strong, there will be no stopping him.


• Seattle +9.5 at San Francisco Pick: Seahawks beat the spread. A Winnah! 49ers win 31-24 The 49ers looked a bit confused last week and the Seahawks proved they could score a lot of points. And that spread is nice and fat. Spot on correct again. The 49ers should actually be a lot better than they are. (How's that for self-contradiction in the span of a single sentence?) Good chance they will be on top by next year.


• Tampa Bay -1 at New Orleans Pick: Buccaneers cover. Wrong! Saints win 23-20 One lousy point. Should be a gimme. Turned into a tookme. Obviously the Saints have the Bucs number, considering they got the best of the league's number one defense for the second time this season, despite a gimpy running back and losing their QB. No explanation.


• New York Jets +6.5 at Oakland Pick Jets beat the spread. A Winnah! Seniors win 26-20 Seniors are a better team, but not by that much. I've stopped disbelieving in the Jets. The outcome was about right. Seniors win but don't cover. The Seniors are a remarkable team to watch. They carve up opposing defenses like a hot knife through a goose. Um, yeah, that would work if the goose in question was some sort of fancy serving of butter that was carved into the shape of a goose at some pretentious restaurant. So that's what I meant.