Spam's Victims: I occasionally receive emails similar to this recent message:

From: djmak@freak.fr [not the real address]
To: dzot@usa.net

Hi.
Do you know how many rooms has in the pyramidal luxor hotel?
Thanks, David

I don’t really know what to make of something like this. I could assume that it is someone who read my essay on Vegas, and mistakenly took me for someone who knows something (clearly a stranger). But then I think, No it could be some sort of super-sophisticated spammer method to see if my email belongs to someone stupid enough to respond to odd requests. So poor djmak gets nothing but silence thanks to the atmosphere of anxiety created by spammers.

So, djmak, if that is your real name, the answer is No, I don't.

Don't Say I Didn’t Warn Ya: Like I forewarned, it has been a slow summer; well, slow for this place, but quite busy for me. Nothing has changed, Business As Usual is off to the printer and now all the ancillary work begins so I will continue to be neglectful. For now, I need to clean out everything I've been saving to share with you, so here we go. Ain't you lucky?

Health and Science Round-up: Some cool sci-health stuff I've stumbled on.

• You should know about epidemiology. It's what will prevent you from flipping out over the alarmist nonsense that the media wallows in. Check out, this introduction from Michael Fumento.


• The late Richard Feynman (Surely, you're joking…) chimes in on Stupid Science Tricks that he calls Cargo Cult Science.


• A fabulous article on the state of cancer research in Wired, and why, though we just recently found out how phenomenally complicated cancer is, we're closer than ever.


• A terrific series on misconception about diet and obesity by Sandy Szwarc over a Tech Central Station. Of course, some of it is old news to me.

Just Kidding: Once you are sufficiently jaded about science you can get a new perspective on the recent announcement that there is only a 50-50 chance humans will survive the century (thanks KK) by Sir Martin Rees. Wow – he's both a knight and a scientist, he must be an unquestionable authority.

Or not, check out this review from The Economist.

So how does he justify his suggestion that mankind might have only a 50-50 chance of surviving the 21st century-our final century, to use the alarmist title of the book? Even before your correspondent could ask him that question at a recent literary event, Sir Martin confessed to being a fan of Bjorn Lomborg-a Danish academic who recently caused some controversy when he suggested that greens have been systematically distorting the fact that the environment has been getting healthier in many countries.

Sir Martin then took the reviewer's copy of "Our Final Century" and pencilled in a question mark after the title. His publishers had ruled it out. The American publishers even changed the title from "Our Final Century" to "Our Final Hour". Sir Martin is clever enough to know that the end is not nigh, but he put up with the chicanery in order to gain a wider audience. A small sin, perhaps, in such an important book.

Writers are such whores.

Tech Round-up: Some cool recent techie stuff I've read stumbled on.

• It may be getting just too darn easy to play real money poker on-line. My problem with this has always seemed like betting on a coin flip with out actually seeing the result. If only there were more hours in the day…


• I can’t think of a better use for nanotechnology than cheap big-screen HDTV.


• What is the right cellphone for you?


• Amazon is going to start a full text search of books. I'm not exactly sure of the value here, but if it sells books, I'm for it.

Random Round-up: Where do I find this stuff?

• Ten Cars available in Japan that you won’t see here. Curious, but nothing all that compelling.


• An article about tedious lawyerly doings – not worth reading, but check out this quote.
  
  

  The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy is having a coming-out party this week. For three days starting Friday, law students and attorneys will hear speeches by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.; attend discussions on the environment, abortion, gay rights, government surveillance, human rights and other subjects; and mingle with dozens of top legal scholars and judges.
  
  It's not all heavy lifting. There also is a Janet Reno Dance Party on Saturday night.

  
  Par-TAY! Get down with your bad socio-political self!


• A fine review of Comerica Park (home of the Tigers, technically a professional baseball team) from ESPN, that makes points about Detroit that I have made before.


• Fascinating article about the life of an EBay fraudster on the lam. There's a movie in that.


• This looks like it might be a reason to live.

I Drink, Therefore I Drink: Courtesy of The Legendary KK, we have Signs That You Drink Too Much (don’t know why she thought of me).

• That pink elephant followed you home again.


• You're as jober as a sudge.


• Don't recognize wife unless seen through bottom of glass.


• Your job is interfering with your drinking.
  
• Your twin sons are named Barley and Hops.


• The whole bar says 'Hi' when you come in.


• You have to hold onto the lawn to keep from falling off the earth.


• Your idea of cutting back is no salt on your margarita.


• At AA meetings you begin: "Hi, my name is... uh..."


• Mosquitoes catch a buzz after attacking you.


• The parking lot seems to have moved while you were in the bar.


• Hey, five beers has just as many calories as a burger, forget dinner!


• You fall off the floor.


• Ozzy Osbourne shakes his head when he walks past you.


• You can focus better with one eye closed.


• Two hands and just one mouth... - now that's a drinking problem!
  
• 24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case - coincidence? - I think not!


• Your doctor finds traces of blood in your alcohol stream.


• You lose arguments with inanimate objects.


• Your career won't progress beyond Senator from Massachusetts.

It's Been A Long Time: Whew. Final edits for Business As Usual are submitted (hooray!). And as a reward for your continued patience I offer you a couple of articles.

First, over at blogcritics we have an extend musing on cheesy action films, James Bond, Chopsocky and Stupid Hotel Tricks. As you will no doubt realize, this all came to me during my recent travels. You may notice bits and pieces of past material reworked with a stricking effect. Or not.

Second, months late, you get Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch, a recap of my mid summer journey to Canyon Ranch Health Resort in the scalding Arizona desert.

And soon, I will get back to posting some of my garden variety nonsense, and get you all caught up on any recent developments.

My Humblest Apologies: I have been scurrying around the country again - down to DC, up to Mackinac - all the while trying to get the final edits done on Business As Usual. The result is no posting here and little work on all my other writing projects, including new content here. I can think of at least three projects for this place that I have partially begun and a couple other that are just ideas. Once I start ‘em I usually finish them, I just don’t know when.

Also, I have to start work on a web site for Business As Usual, plus I have some ideas for a redesign of this site (yes, it's that time again). ACK!

This is me begging for more patience. The best is yet to come.

Business As Usual: Now that's what I'm talkin' about!

Just Thought I'd Say Hi: Been a while since my last post and likely to be a week or so until my next. Sorry, busy time. I am working on a couple of things that should see the light of day before too long. In the meantime, the good folks at Kuro5in.org re-published my essay Aerobics for Regular Guys. The ensuing commentary ranged from interesting to deeply disturbed.

I wish I could tell you Apple Pie was still on sale at Amazon, but I have no idea what is going on with it now. Ah well, soon it will be Business As Usual.

Pillory Hillary: Not surprisingly, P.J. O'Rourke has little good to say about Hillary Clinton's book. But in fact, she's got no one to blame but herself for saying stuff like this:

One snowy night during my freshman year, Margaret Clapp, then President of the college, arrived unexpectedly at my dorm. . . . She came into the dining room and asked for volunteers to help her gently shake the snow off the branches of the surrounding trees so that they wouldn't break under the weight. We walked from tree to tree through knee-high snow under a clear sky filled with stars, led by a strong, intelligent woman alert to the surprises and vulnerabilities of nature. . . . I decided that night that I had found the place where I belonged.

That sort of prose makes Dan Quayle seem sharp and witty. She is blandly free of anything remotely resembling a soul or personality. Check out this quote:

Ireland invigorated and inspired me, and I wished we could bottle up the good feelings and take them back home.

Has the woman never heard of Guinness?

There Goes the Neighborhood: If this guy lived near me I believe I would be within my legal rights to pipe bomb his ride. First Divas, now this. Is it possible to legislate Quiet Time?

Day of Future Past: MIT has reprinted an article from 1950 about what the next 50 years would be like. Fascinating stuff. They got some very right, like this description of what came to be a microwave:

[The] expansion of the frozen-food industry and the changing gastronomic habits of the nation have made it necessary to install in every home the electronic industrial stove which came out of World War II. Jane Dobson has one of these electronic stoves. In eight seconds a half-grilled frozen steak is thawed; in two minutes more it is ready to serve.

And some stuff very wrong:

It is easy enough to spot a budding hurricane in the doldrums off the coast of Africa. Before it has a chance to gather much strength and speed as it travels westward toward Florida, oil is spread over the sea and ignited. There is an updraft. Air from the surrounding region, which includes the developing hurricane, rushes in to fill the void. The rising air condenses so that some of the water in the whirling mass falls as rain.

Only a futurist could imagine a constructive oil spill. Good read. Check it out.

Gunga galunga...gunga, gunga-galunga: This may be the funniest story I've ever read. It seems the Sports Editor of the Roswell Daily Record, in Roswell, NM (yeah that place, the global center of alien abductions) was fired for publishing a story about a local golf tournament wherein he placed a certain quote:

[He] quoted [Carl] Spangler as saying he invented a new kind of grass for the tournament. The quotation in Jones' story is taken directly from "Caddyshack":

"'This is a hybrid ... of bluegrass, Kentucky bluegrass, featherbed bent and northern California sensemilia (sic),' Spangler said. 'The amazing stuff about this, is that you can play 36 holes on it in the afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt that night on the stuff.'"

He got fired for that. Memo to the management of the Roswell Daily Record: Please see your doctor about getting irony implants. I suppose if you get probed by aliens often enough, you tend to lose your sense of humor.

#*$%#)*&#%^!!!!: I was about 600-700 words into my essay on Canyon Ranch and it appears to be gone. Disappeared. Vaporized. Devoured by poisonous flying monkeys. I would like to blame it on my computer (a Dell laptop, which contrary to their reputation, is flaky as all get out), but the fact of the matter is that I probably had a bunch of documents open and accidently clicked the red 'X' on it and even more accidentally clicked 'Don't Save.' Curses! A pox on all technology!

Yet, I shall start again and persevere. Basically, the check is in the mail.

Depends On the Meaning of Ironic: An remarkably witty article on irony in the Guardian Unlimited. I apologize in advance for the lurid language.

But other strands of media use irony to assert their right to have no position whatsoever. So, you take a cover of FHM, with tits on the front - and it's ironic because it appears to be saying "women are objects", yet of course it isn't saying that, because we're in a postfeminist age. But nor is it saying "women aren't objects", because that would be dated, over-sincere, mawkish even. So, it's effectively saying "women are neither objects, nor non-objects - and here are some tits!"

Guffaw. The article is not only remarkable because it's such a clever, fun read, but also because it appears in the Guardian Unlimited, an insufferably snotty paper where humor takes a back seat (way back) to pursed-lipped sanctimony. Ironic, that.

Gotta Click 'Em All: Just a few quickies.

• Government employee buys Ford Mustang by accident; redefines phrase "Close enough for government work."


• Supposedly, these Ten Inventions will change our world. Oddly, none of them are alcoholic.


• I really need to get this beer. It's brewed in San Diego. Anyone up for a road trip?


• Hey, did you happen to know the Apple Pie is on SALE at Amazon. No lie.

Just Because: Yeah, it's orange. Blue is far too common in weblogs, so I'm orange now. Summer = Warm = Sun = Orange.

Don't worry. If you don't like it I can change it back in a flash.

Scribbling For Fun and No Profit: First, in case you weren't paying attention, Apple Pie is on sale at Amazon for $9.98. You should buy a copy. Two or three maybe, they make excellent gifts.

I still don’t have a specific release date for Business As Usual, but I will be very surprised if it isn't available for Christmas.

Sounds great, eh? Wouldn’t it be cool to be a writer? Well, before you follow that path you should read this article, which will give you a good idea what to expect. Not that I regret it, but it's nice to see a realistic description rather than be told if you write a perfect query letter you're on your way to riches.

Did I mention that Apple Pie is on sale at Amazon for $9.98?

Calling B.S.: Michael Fumento has spent many, many years debunking popular health myths – Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome, Erin Brockovich, etc. He has argued that SARS is primarily a matter of hysteria and the Atkins diet is little more than modern day snake oil. Contrary to most of what you read in the press his opinions are researched and documented.

One other advantage he has over most health journalists is that he writes in a passionate, confrontational style that makes for lively reading. It also generates a great deal of Hate Mail which is an out and out riot. Here's a sample from the latest hate mail page.

Subject: Low Carb Friends

Mr. Fumento,

It's really too bad that you are so uneducated about the Atkins diet. Just last week, Primetime Live did a study on 6 overweight people doing 6 different kinds of diets and guess what???? The Atkins diet resulted in more weight loss than any of the others. As a matter of fact, several of the others said they felt they were starving and losing squat. Several research instituations (sic) are doing and have done studies on the Atkins diet versus other so-called healthy diets and found the same. I don't have all the technical information but am sure that even if I did, it would be wasted on you. And really, why bother, there are plenty of other low-carbers sending you all the pertinent info as we speak, through this same email address.

Btw, the reason obesity have steadily crept higher and higher during the last twenty years or so certainly isn't because of the Atkins diet. It's because the rising amounts of refined sugars and grains that the "low-fat" craze started, not to mention the upside down food pyramid. Ask any farmer and he will tell you the best way to get his livestock to gain weight is through an increase in carbohydrates, specifically corn and grain. And amazingly, the formula for hog grain, matches nicely to the food pyramid ratio.

But anyways (sic), say what you want, I've been low-carbing for three years and maintaining for two and nothing you say can take that away from me or MILLIONS of others who are living their life skinnier, healthier, and longer.

Enjoy your spaghetti you putz

Sincerely,
[omitted] Wilburn

Dear Mr. Wilburn:

Prime-Time Live? Funny, I've never heard of that medical journal. Where is it published and how does it pick referees for peer review? I'm also impressed by the fact that its Atkins cohort comprised a grand total of one (1) person. That sure beats the heck out of that recent JAMA review that I mentioned surveying 107 articles comprising 3,268 participants that found "insufficient evidence to conclude that lower-carbohydrate content is independently associated with greater weight loss compared with higher-carbohydrate content." And those "several institutions" you've named; none of them have published their findings. But again, I can see how you would find that more impressive than those 107 studies. In any case, I discussed those findings at great length in earlier articles. Too bad the only thing you seem to know how to read is what's posted at that Atkins propaganda site, "low-carb friends."

I think that if I "asked any farmer" he would tell me that corn is a grain and he wouldn't think much of you for not knowing either that or that the feed grains that farmers use are employed not because they are high in carbohydrates but because they are high in fats and protein. The main ones in this country are corn and soybeans. Does it strike you as coincidence that two of the most popular cooking oils come from those two grains?

As I discussed at length in one of those articles you neglected to read, Americans are growing fatter for one simple reason: They are eating more of everything. More fat, more carbohydrates, and more protein. But certainly you'd think that 15 million successful Atkins dieters would have an impact on the obesity epidemic, wouldn't you? But they haven't. Why? Because while 15 million people may have started it, virtually nobody has been able to stick to it. Your "millions" figure is sheer fabrication.

Finally, I do eat spaghetti and absolutely anything else I want. I just eat it in moderate proportions and I exercise. Finally, if I'm a putz, I'm one that's in excellent shape as shown in pictures posted to my website. And my data are strong enough that I don't feel the need to hurl epithets instead of responding with numbers. Or is being so sour, like being constipated, a result of the Atkins diet?

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Chortle. There's plenty more. The articles are sharp, the mail is fun. Spend some time there.

Anyone for Some Bowling?: I have to apologize to Miss Kate for being too late to tell her about the Second Annual Big Lebowskifest. The Big Lebowski is one of Kate's favorite movies of all time, and she'll be heartbroken that she missed it. It occurred on July 19th in Louisville and featured such events as "Recovery Brunch with the Dude." Sadly, I had to miss it being at Canyon Ranch and all (still working on an essay). Maybe next year.

Phone Follies: A public service announcement. It's been all over everywhere, so you probably have seen that there is a national opt-out list for folks who want to stop annoying unsolicited calls from telemarketers. There is still three months before the telemarketers must comply but after that, big fines will arise for violations – theoretically. There are quite a few loopholes so only time will tell if it will be helpful.

The other phone news is that in many areas, and hopefully nationwide in time, we have cell phone number portability – meaning if you change wireless provider, say from Verizon to Cingular, you can keep your phone number. Nice. Choices are good and not having to change your number if you can find a better deal makes going all cellular more appealing. If I could get in gear to get cable modem service installed I might just do it.

Tanned, Rested and Ready: Greetings all! I have finally returned after spending the last week-ish at the Canyon Ranch Health Resort in Tucson Arizona. A remarkable place - more details will follow.

For now, just be aware that Amazon has placed Apple Pie on sale for $9.98 (which is about what I would price it at if I had any say in the price). No idea how long the sale will last, get 'em while they're hot.

Back in a couple of days with new material after I decompress.

My Outhouse is Your Outhouse: This whole Outhouse Springs water thing (scroll down a few posts) has turned out to be a scam. Both The Legendary KK and The Always Delightful Chrissy have passed along quotes. From KK:

...To gain ''exposure,'' a six-pack of Outhouse Springs was sent to the local media late last week. For effect, toilet paper was used as part of the packaging. The press release accompanying it said the Atlanta company promoting the drink wanted to remain anonymous. Adams Outdoor, of Atlanta, with an office in Bethlehem, had no comment on Monday. But the same campaign hit the South in early May, with the Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C., later admitting ''the media, including this very newspaper, ate it up, and Adams got its marketing coup. It can now use that information to demonstrate the power of billboards.

And from a email forwarded from Chrissy:

By now you have probably have seen the billboards promoting Outhouse Springs Water. This is a campaign from Adams Outdoor to get people talking so they can go to your clients and tell them how great billboards work.(not) They are doing it all over the state using unsold inventory.(this is why you are seeing so many)

So the mystery, such as it was, is solved. As far as a the scam goes - it was pretty clever. Just stupid enough to work. Now, with all the publicity, they should really market the water as a novelty gift. Might be more lucrative than selling billboard space.

OK, that's it. Two weeks of Real Life. Starting now. This time I mean it.

Site Weirdness Update: I had to make some adjustments but paragraphs should break properly now. The explanation is complicted and I'm not sure I like the answer, but it'll have to do for the moment.

Now, I really do have deal with real life for a couple weeks. This time for sure.

Later, gator.

Status Alert: The good news - I think all systems are go for A Pleasure Doing Business With You, which I still may rename Business As Usual because it's easier to handle. My hope is that it will be available by Christmas. It'll be a great stocking stuffer. More as things develop.

The bad news - I'll be on hiatus again for a while; probably the next couple of weeks. In the mean time, you can take a look at my latest contribution to Blogcritics, A Music Buying Paradise, Relatively Speaking.

Site Weirdness: First off, there is some weirdness going on with the site rendering. Suddenly, there are no lines in between paragraphs. I have not changed anything on the site that I know of to cause this. I am baffled. It seems to still work in Opera or Mozilla, but doesn't in Internet Explorer. This is truly deeply freaky to me. For example, there should be a blank line between this sentence and the next.

For some reason there isn't - for me anyway, I don't know if you are experiencing the same thing. If anyone has ideas I will be eternally grateful for the assist. Until I get it sorted out, please bear with me.

Outhouse in Lansing: I believe the editors of Men's Journal magazine (to which I am a long time subscriber) need to step away from the crack pipe. They have released their annual list of the 50 best places in the country to live (not available on-line). Boulder, CO is number 1, which seems reasonable, but there is only one city in Michigan in the top 50, and that city is Lansing.

What? I'm sure Lansing is a fine town, but there are at least 50 better cities in Michigan to pick. Lansing was chosen because of "football weekends and state government." I repeat: What? First off, I'm sure the MSU football games are a lot of fun and all, but football weekends in Ann Arbor at the Big House are legendary. And, State government? So that means you got an extra helping of bureaucrats wandering around.

Lansing is most recently notable for being the target market of Outhouse Springs a new bottled water with a truly disgusting name. You can read some background here (If that site doesn't work you can read Google's cache of the page.)

That’s the message media organizations received last week along with a six pack of bottled water labeled "Outhouse Springs." The offering heralded a billboard-only campaign launched in Lansing for the anonymously produced water that touts itself as "Truly Tasteless."

The press release, from an equally anonymous marketing agency (only the address, which is in Atlanta, was on the release) says the company that makes Outhouse Springs is "utilizing an outdoor media campaign with edgy imagery and sharp taglines" to draw consumers to what is describes as a ‘tasteless’ product.

"While this type of campaign is not new, it is the first time that an area like Lansing, with its traditional values and conservative nature, has been selected as a launch site for such an unusual product."

In other words, if Outhouse Springs can fly in dull old Lansing, it can make it anywhere.

Please don't write to give me grief for dissing Lansing. I'm not. I just pointing out that Men's Journal's selection of "dull old" Lansing as one of the top 50 places to live in the US and, implicitly, the best place to live in Michigan, is evidence that they are hitting the crack pipe with alarming regularity.

I'm just saying...

No Fear of Commitment Here: This is a remarkable story. It seems this Army Colonel, stationed in Iraq, managed to propose to 50 women over the past couple of years, many accepted despite never seeing him. Some went on to plan weddings. The scam didn't last.

The matter began to unravel after a television station in Washington, KNDU-TV, showed a segment in April about a woman in Pasco, Wash., who was engaged to Colonel Saleh and awaiting his return from overseas. That story was posted on the MSNBC Web site. Soon, other women who thought they were Colonel Saleh's fiancée called KNDU. According to these women, Colonel Saleh was a two-timer of massive proportions. They now derisively refer to him as "Kassanova."

[snip]

"We are not a group of stupid, naïve women," [one of the victims] said. "We are bright, intellectual, professional women. I can't tell you how much he wooed us with his words. He made us feel like goddesses, fairy princesses, Cinderellas. We had all found our Superman, our knight in shining armor."

I bet there's a bunch of expatriated Nigerian businessmen who love to get the email addresses of these women.

You'll Never Take Me Alive: Hunter S. Thompson, Godfather of Gonzo, describes his first encounter with the feds.

My first face-to-face confrontation with the FBI occurred when I was nine years old. Two grim-looking Agents came to our house and terrified my parents by saying that I was a "prime suspect'' in the case of a Federal Mailbox being turned over in the path of a speeding bus. It was a Federal Offense, they said, and carried a five-year prison sentence.

"Oh no!" wailed my mother. "Not in prison! That's insane! He's only a child. How could he have known?"

"The warning is clearly printed on the Mailbox," said the agent in the gray suit. "He's old enough to read."

"Not necessarily," my father said sharply. "How do you know he's not blind, or a moron?"

"Are you a moron, son?" the agent asked me. "Are you blind? Were you just pretending to read that newspaper when we came in?" He pointed to the Louisville Courier-Journal on the couch.

"That was only the sports section," I told him. "I can't read the other stuff."

"See?" said my father. "I told you he was a moron."

Since When Is It Saturday, Already?: I'm not entirely clear on why it's been so long since my last update. I believe I may have slipped into a time warp or something. More farm fresh, quality content coming soon - I promise.

If you get a chance, you should start watching the HBO series, The Wire. It is a terrific police drama, set in the gritty areas of Baltimore. Completely cynical, but completely humanistic. The characters are almost uniformly ineloquent, yet you come to know them thoroughly. Fabulous drama. I hesitate to recommend it because, as I write this, we are one episode into the second season and even at this early stage it may be difficult to catch up.

I'm looking forward to adding it to my next HBO Original Programming review, along with the superb, just finished season of Six Feet Under.

Busted...More or Less: A fascinating 3-part story (part 1, part 2, part 3) of Russian hackers, whose modus operandii was to compromise the security of a US firm, then blackmail them under threat of releasing sensitive information. They were convinced that being in Russia, the FBI couldn't touch them. They we're wrong, but it was not accomplished without a struggle. This would make a great documentary.

I Could Tell You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You: First rule of being Ronald McDonald - NEVER talk about being Ronald McDonald.

So protective is McDonald's of the character's mystique that men who play Ronald are never to admit that they do. Ronalds in costume aren't to say who they are in civilian life. That rather annoyed Craig A. Oatten, a police chief in Michigan, when a Ronald, in full red-and-yellow regalia, got into a fender bender near Saginaw a few years ago. Asked several times, the Ronald steadfastly refused to give his name for the police report.

[snip]

One former Ronald is a vegetarian who has since joined forces with animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to chide the chain. "I feel badly about what I've done with young people," says Geoffrey Giuliano, who played Ronald in Canada in the early 1980s. "I was the happy face on something that was horrendous."

Poor tortured soul. Another victim of the corporate injustice.

Science For Dummies: Scientific American presents their award winners for best science links. I haven't been through them all, but Cancerquest is absolutely the best layman's explanation of cancer I have ever seen, and I think I could expend some of my scientific curiosity at The Virtual Body.

Zero Down and Low Monthly Payments: This article in the Detroit Free Press speaks for itself.

In Iraq, no set of wheels is held in higher regard than the large, mostly white Toyota Land Cruiser sport-utility vehicles long favored by government officials, intelligence agents and VIPs from Basra to Kirkuk.

Locals call the vehicles "Monicas," as in Lewinsky, after the former White House intern.

Personally, I would have suggested a large, white Hummer.

My New Friends: I have been admitted to the "sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, and technology" known as Blogcritics.org. I am honored, although I'm not entirely sure of the requirements for membership other than being a blogger and being critical. And being superior - let's not forget superior.

Seriously, Blogcritics.org is well renowned and widely read. This is very cool.

I posted a quick rant on Divas, which will surprise none of you, but I'm looking forward to having a second home to express my nasty self in the future.

Future of the Past: My interest in intriguing graphic art is never ending, and recently I stumbled on the works of A.C. Radebaugh, currently on exhibit in Philadelphia. This is amazing stuff of the 1930-Art-Deco-In-The-Future-Cars-Will-Fly genre. Check out this one for a quick taste (may take a few seconds to download). Is this one not perfect?

Tigers by the Tail: The woeful state of the Detroit Tigers is perfectly described in this terrific article by ESPN Page 2's Eric Neel.

...they sit dead last in all of baseball in team batting average (.214, and nobody on the squad is hitting as high as .300), on-base percentage (.285 -- every other team in the majors over .300), and slugging percentage (.324), and next-to-last in home runs (37 -- less than half the 80 put up by the Braves so far).

They got it bad and it ain't good.

For those of you who like your coffee black, your whiskey straight and your stories told in cold, hard facts, let's put it like this: The three pitchers receiving the worst run-support in the bigs right now are Tigers Jeremy Bonderman (2.22 runs/game), Adam Bernero (2.26) and Mike Maroth (2.97). For those of you who think more poetically and metaphorically, let's say it like this: The Tigers score runs the way governors grant clemency and pretty girls hand out their phone numbers -- rarely, and only after great pleading and prayer.

Eric was assigned to watch the Tigers for a week and to his credit, he worked hard to find some sort of positive angle. He ended up with something along the lines of "just ignore how bad they are and appreciate that you are watching baseball." Nice try, Eric.

What's happened to the Tigers is a shame. Certainly the owner, Mike Ilitch, is not sleepwalking through his tenure. The guy also owns the Red Wings who have dominated the NHL for the past few years. The President and CEO, Dave Dombrowski, has built winners elsewhere and has a rep for being as sharp as they come. Last year, Dombrowski made noises about needing room under the salary cap and not having any tradable players. Maybe he's just cleaned house this year so he can start rebuilding with some wiggle room.

That's probably the best scenario, and it wouldn't surprise me if the Tigers are contending again in a three or four years.

Bully, but what about in ten years when they are bad again. A winning team will fill seats and make everyone money, but it seems to me that baseball owners would want to think about what they have to do to make money when the team is in the midst of a few losing seasons, which will be about 50% of the time.

Maybe they don't care; maybe they plan on building a winner and selling at a profit. Or maybe they don't think it through. A few years ago, Ilitch committed to a new stadium, Comerica Park, in downtown Detroit - a 40 minute inconvenient drive from primary audience, which is out in the suburbs. I have expressed my misgivings about Detroit before so I won't rehash them. The fact is, yes, people will make the trek into Detroit for a winner, but not for a loser. Wouldn't it be better to make going to the game an event beyond the result of the game? How about locating the stadium 40 minutes the other way - west - towards Ann Arbor, which has the infrastructure to handle 100,000 Michigan football fans on Saturdays in the fall. It also has little problems with crime, great restaurants for post-game and, in the outskirts, plenty of room to build. You could leave work a little early, pick up the kids at school around four, hit Ann Arbor by 5-ish and have some fun hangin' around town or in the multitude of parks before the game. Instead, you get to pack up the kids, fight traffic and horrendous streets, hop back in the car as soon as the game is over to get the kids to safety, and stop at Chuck E. Cheese in Dearborn on the way home. Are you going to be keen on doing that for a no-name loser? Didn't think so.

Memorial Day Links: Since you probably spent half the day in traffic just so you could get to an overcrowded park where you discovered you're not so good at Frisbee, ants are a superior species, and that splinter in your arm from the picnic table feels like it's turning gangrenous, why not distract yourself with some these random links I've collected.

• In contrast to your basic tabloid psychic, the folks over at Long Bets are making 'educated' guesses about the future. And some are putting their money where their mouths are. Now we just need Vegas to set odds for the rest of us to join in.


• Remember that game Mousetrap, where you design a Rube Goldberg style contraption to drop cage over a mouse? Well, if you have a little bandwidth (4 Meg) to spare check out this Honda commercial from the UK. Amazing. For more background read this.


• Since I've taken up climbing at my local climbing gym, I've been looking for something like this to improve my technique. Now if I could just get some super strong web silk to spray out of my wrist I'd be upside down kissing Kirsten Dunst in no time.


• For my Ann Arbor homies, the Top of the Park schedule is out. That makes it officially summer.


• For further reading, go ahead and check out the nominees for this year's Webby Awards. (Unjustly, a dam site is not included.) The selections are on the conventional side, but there are certain to be gems among them.

Moose Sighting: Even if you've only been paying passing attention to the news lately, you know the saga of Jayson Blair, who completely fabricated or plagiarized all sorts of stories for the New York Times and still managed to have a stellar career either because the NYT management was desperate to promote and encourage a black reporter or because they were completely clueless and grotesquely incompetent.

It really doesn't matter to me. It's not like I would read or believe the NYT any more than any other paper. Besides, journalism is easy - comedy is difficult. That's why this report from the competing New York Daily News caught my eye.

In a surreal moment that reminded one staffer of Shari Lewis' old TV show, [publisher Arthur "Pinch"] Sulzberger produced a stuffed toy moose that he sometimes trots out as a symbol of open communication.

Its use struck some in the audience as a tone-deaf and patronizing gesture.

Sulzberger handed the moose to Raines, who laid it aside.

No, not Shari Lewis - South Park, with Pinch Sulzberger and the Moose as Mr. Garrison and Mr. Hat. We're I in that room, the only thing that would be going through my mind is: Oh. My. God. Time to update my resume.

Here is a man who has considerable influence over one of the most respected journalistic outlets in the world, not to mention the careers and livelihood of countless NYT staff. His company is mired in an embarrassing, debilitating scandal. It is a time of grave crisis, and he is trying to make a point with a TOY MOOSE. If I worked diligently for my entire life, I could not come up with more venomous satire.

This moose business - often referred to as the "moose on the table" or the "moose in the room" - comes from a favored metaphor of overpaid management consultants and other people looking to sound thoughtful and knowledgeable. A sample can be read in this otherwise dry article from the American Institute of Architects (but don't read the article, just follow this excerpt):

When a group of people get together to discuss an issue, to solve a problem, to vision for the future, sometimes there is a moose in the room. But no one wants to acknowledge its presence. The moose walks around, sits down, at times crosses its legs and is totally ignored by people in the room. Why is that? Well, it may be uncomfortable for some to talk about the moose; discussion about the moose could open up a whole new can of worms that some people are not prepared to handle. Some are in total denial of its existence even when the moose stops and stares them in the face. It could be just plain scary and awkward to discuss the moose, but, in order to have a truly meaningful, in-depth discussion on any issue, we need to overcome our denial and put on the table those aspects of the issue that may be difficult, scary and awkward to discuss. If we don't, we limit our chances for success. The likely outcome will fall far short of our hopes because, no matter how much we would rather not deal with it, the moose will not be ignored. In short, we need to throw the moose on the table.

Or this entire book, titled Put the Moose on the Table:

Like a moose in the living room, some problems are hard to ignore. Randall Tobias says that whether these problems are in business or in life, it is best to confront them openly and honestly.

Now, I'm all for dealing with things honestly and courageously, but if you treat me like a child I am going to immediately write you off and dismiss everything you say. Memo to all managers: If you find yourself in a situation where people don't think it is in their best interest to be honest and open with you, it is because you have not given them any reason to think they can. Who knows, maybe they're afraid they'll find themselves in conflict with the latest management fad and thereby fall into your bad graces. Or maybe they just don't get paid enough to stomach another metaphor. Whatever the case, unleashing the Moose is going to make things worse. If you can't deal with a problem without resorting to cliched leadership seminar doublespeak or silly attention grabbing displays, why should I think you can handle the truth (apologies to Jack Nicholson)?

You know, in Vietnam, when soldiers were in life-threatening situations and the officer was going to make things worse by leading them based on high-sounding procedures from some army manual, they just shot the officer and blamed it on the enemy. Those were more civilized times.

I'm put in mind of the show Northern Exposure. The doctor from New York finds himself having to practice medicine amongst the goofy and eccentric residents of a small town in Alaska. Occasionally, a moose would amble through the middle of town. The goofy residents paid no attention, but for the doctor from NY, it symbolized how far he had come from conventional reality - he was really out there.

Well that's the New York Times these days - really out there. They have transcended journalism and achieved comedy. Bravo.

Keeping it All Hush Hush: The NYT has a feature on how bloggers are getting in trouble in some cases for posting about their personal lives and or careers under the assumption that other concerned parties won't read them. Case in point.

Heather Armstrong, a 27-year-old Web designer from Utah whose blog is at www.dooce.com, might be the ultimate example of blogging gone awry. Her parents are devout Mormons, she said, but because they are also technophobes, she felt perfectly comfortable publishing an entry on her site in which she harshly criticized her Mormon upbringing.

Unfortunately for Ms. Armstrong, her brother in Seattle stumbled across her Web site that very day and alerted her parents to the entry. After that, Ms. Armstrong said, "all hell broke loose." "Next to my parents getting divorced 20 years ago," Ms. Armstrong said, "it was the worst thing that ever happened to my family. It was shocking for everyone."

Ms. Armstrong's run-in with the perils of self-publishing did not end there. She also wrote about her job and her co-workers in her blog, often hyperbolically.

When her bosses were alerted that Ms. Armstrong was writing about her office life, they fired her, she said. She is now much more careful about what she publishes in her blog, and she had a word of caution for bloggers who write furtively about others. "If you're publishing under your own name, they'll find out," she said. "I was extremely naive."

This is like putting slanderous flyers up all over your street and feeling safe because the person you want to insult lives two streets over. It's not called the World Wide Web for nothing.

It highlights a fundamental problem with vanity blogging. If you are writing primarily about yourself, you are either going to have to cover the various personal relationships you have, or you are going to end up documenting what color socks you wore or what you had for lunch everyday. You may occasionally have a brilliant insight you can expound on, but life is mostly made up of the mundane.

Keeping a blog relevant is a surprisingly difficult task. That's why the most successful blogs are themed around a single topic, or at least they go light on personal details of the author's life and heavy on smart-arsed commentary (like the one you're reading now).

For the record: I NEVER write about work. I NEVER write about my personal relationships (not much of a problem for me). When I write about my friends I always use first name only or a pseudonym. And if I publish an email from you I will hide the full address - unless it's terribly insulting or threatening and I want to reveal you for the cretinous dolt that you are.

I Got Nothin': So when I got nothin', is it better to post to tell you I got nothin', or just not post?

OK, I have a little more than nothing. For Miss Kate, the coaster queen, I have a blow-by-blow account of a ride on Cedar Point's Top Thrill Dragster. You have yourself a good time. I'll be in the bar.

And, since every other weblog in the universe seems to be linking to this story, I suppose I had better let you in on it. It seems a woman with the pseudonym Isabella is telling a story of fleeing her home country and going into hiding to avoid an arranged marriage. This article in Wired gives you a good summary and all the links you need if you want to follow the soap opera along. I'm inclined to think it's a hoax, but a harmless and entertaining one, I suppose.

Who am I to gripe, at least she has something to post.

Business As Usual: If you've been following the overly melodramatic saga of the title of my next book, you know it's gone from Hijinks Ensue, an unknown phrase to an alarming number of people, to A Pleasure Doing Business With You which is fun, but a bit unwieldy. The latest entry is Business as Usual which I kind of like. It's flippant, yet terse - just like me. We'll see. Opinions are welcome.

A Man Out Of Time: The good folks over at Boing Boing gave my Casino Royale Review a nice plug. The associated comments contain one of the best quotes ever.

I wish I could go back to that time sometimes, when people smoked and drank constantly, over dressed, and were blatantly mysoginist racists. The closest thing I've experienced is the Kentucky Derby.

Classic.

Quality Is Job 1: The latest J.D. Power survey of initial quality is out and here are the results in complaints per 100 cars:

76 Lexus
103 Cadillac
110 Infiniti
111 Acura
112 Buick
113 Mercury
117 Porsche
118 BMW
121 Toyota
122 Jaguar
128 Honda
128 Volvo
130 Chevrolet
132 Audi
132 Mercedes-Benz
133 Industry Average
134 Oldsmobile
136 Chrysler
136 Ford
137 Dodge
139 Lincoln
139 Nissan
142 Pontiac
143 Hyundai
143 Volkswagen
144 GMC
144 Suzuki
146 Jeep
148 Mazda
148 Mitsubishi
158 Saturn
160 Saab
166 Mini
168 Kia
190 Land Rover
225 Hummer

Many things jump out. First, Lexus is head and shoulders above anyone else - by a lot. Second, Hummer is almost as outstandingly bad as Lexus is good. Third, some rebadged models have very different ratings. For example, Fords and Mercurys share many models, as do Buick and Olds and Pontiac, but the ratings vary widely. Fourth, who did Cadillac have to get drunk and take to whorehouse to get that high rating?

There are a number caveats to this whole process. First, there could be wide variations between models within the marque. Second, this is initial quality, it may have no bearing on durability. Third it is a measure of complaints, not defects. For example, 22 of the complaints about the Hummer were over poor gas mileage. It's a two and half ton truck, you were expecting 40 mpg? 12 more Hummer complaints were for wind noise. Yah, it's as aerodynamic as a brick. You knew this going in - quit yer whinin'.

I continue to think a better, but still flawed, measure of quality are the surveys done my Consumer Reports. You know the ones, where they track repairs and recalls over multiple product years and have the black dots for bad and red for good. It's subscriber only so I can't link up the site, but you can get a copy in your local bookstore. One thing Consumer Reports does provide on the web is recommendations on used cars. Here's their latest.

Good Bets

These are the best of both worlds: models that have performed well in Consumer Reports tests over the years and have had better-than-average overall reliability. Models are listed alphabetically.

Acura Integra
Acura RL
Acura TL
Ford Escort
Geo/Chevrolet Prizm
Honda Accord
Honda Civic
Honda CR-V
Honda Odyssey
Infiniti G20
Infiniti I30
Isuzu Oasis
Lexus ES300
Lexus GS300/GS400, GS430
Lexus LS400, LS430
Lexus RX300
Mazda Millenia
Mazda MX-5 Miata
Mazda Protegé
Mercury Tracer
Nissan Altima
Nissan Maxima
Nissan Pathfinder
Saab 9-5
Subaru Forester
Subaru Impreza
Subaru Legacy/Outback
Toyota 4Runner
Toyota Avalon
Toyota Camry
Toyota Camry Solara
Toyota Celica
Toyota Corolla
Toyota Echo
Toyota RAV4
Toyota Sienna
Toyota Tacoma
Toyota Tundra

Reliability risks

These cars have shown several years of much-worse-than-average overall reliability.

Cadillac Catera
Cadillac Seville
Chevrolet Astro
Chevrolet Blazer
Chrysler New Yorker, LHS
Chrysler Town & Country (AWD)
Dodge Caravan (4-cyl.)
Dodge Dakota (4WD)
Dodge Durango
Dodge Grand Caravan (AWD)
Dodge Neon
Ford Focus
Ford Windstar
GMC Jimmy
GMC Safari
Jeep Grand Cherokee
Lincoln LS
Mercedes-Benz M-Class
Oldsmobile Alero
Oldsmobile Bravada
Oldsmobile Cutlass
Plymouth Grand Voyager
Plymouth Neon
Plymouth/Chrysler Voyager (4-cyl.)
Pontiac Grand Am
Volkswagen Jetta
Volkswagen New Beetle
Volvo S80

This makes a little more sense to me. Either Saab and Mazda have gone down the toilet, and Caddy, Volvo, Mercedes have cleaned up their act, or durability is not highly correlated with initial complaints.

Ping Pong Back: I spent the last three days in Indianapolis; a sweet little city - an active downtown area, clean and freindly, decent restaurants, but smallish. How they manage to deal with a half million people who descend on them every Memorial Day weekend for the Indy 500, and similar numbers later for the Brickyard 400 (Nascar) and the U.S. F1 Grand Prix, I can't fathom. I stayed at what must be the only Hyatt in the world that doesn't have in-room internet access. They have a business center with two PCs for web access, but one was in the shop. So, once again, I spent a little time every day at Kinkos. It's a little over four hours from Dexter, MI so I chose to drive -an uneventful pilgramage through the storied Indiana farmland. I actually like roadside America in the heartland. No I don't want to drive across country, but a drive through the country of five hours or less is probably preferrable to a short flight - which would constitute an hour in the air and about three hours scurrying about dealing with the peripheral transportation and the associated asshats employed to make your experience more excruciating. Much nicer to set the cruise control in the Camry, put on a favorite CD, and stop whenever I want at one of the 9,317 McDonald's along the way.

Anyway, more material this weekend.

Lingering in Bermuda: I started to write about my recent trip to Bermuda, but it turned into a quasi-travel guide. Feel free to invite me along for advice when you go. Enjoy.

Links of Extra-ordinary Magnitude: Web pages to distract you from what you should be doing.

• 400,000 mini-bottles of liquor on the wall, 400,000 mini-bottles of liquor. Take one down, pass it around, 399,999...


• Bookfinder tracks the most requested out of print books. If I were a publisher I would pay attention.


• Iron My Shirt, but first, make me a sandwich. Could that be Jason Whitlock of ESPN Page 2 holding that sign?


• A lot of blather about tax cuts, government spending, and an oversized lady of the evening.


• Rest in Peace, Tony the Hat. (I want these guys to write my obit.)


• BeerAdvocate.com is the place for all things beer. Make a list before you go to the store. Note the preponderance of beers from the divine Kalamazoo Brewing Co., makers of Bell's beer.


• Stupid Cell Phone Tricks. Express you displeasure with the other team; Explain the finer details of debt management; Keep the battery charged.


• Will justice finally be served? Creed gets sued for sucking so bad.

Just Passing Through: OK, so here I am, but I still can't promise posting regularity (no Metamucil jokes please). I've got an awful lot going on in the 3-D world, but the good news is that includes writing projects which you will see, so if I go the odd week or so with anything, it just means I'm sacrificing quantity for quality. That's the story I'm sticking to anyway. The alternative is to turn this into the The World's Most Boring Weblog, and nobody wants that.

For now, the good folks at Kuro5in.org have seen fit to post a review I put together of Ian Fleming's Casino Royale - the first appearance of James Bond. Check it out. Kuro5in.org is a interesting spot. Anyone can register and submit stories. The community of users offers editing advice, then votes on where the article gets posted. A fascinating publishing model; I may have more to say about it in the future.

Busted: A friend of mine recently had some trouble with a charge card getting rejected for no apparent reason. Coincidentally, I stumbled across an article in the 4/24 Wall Street Journal about just such a phenomenon, and why it seems to be happening more often. The WSJ story is subscriber only (I think), but I'll quote liberally.

When Robert Selander, the chief executive officer of MasterCard International, went out for a round of errands earlier this year, he decided to shop with a credit card that he hadn't used in a while.

That turned out to be a bad idea. By the time he reached the supermarket, a fraud alert was out on his card. The upshot: He got rejected at the checkout counter -- and came home to a message on his answering machine from the bank that issued the card.

These days, no one is immune from the campaign to stamp out credit-card fraud, not even CEOs of credit-card associations. Banks and retailers have an army of computers sniffing out unusual spending patterns, and every year they freeze spending on thousands of credit cards with little or no warning.

How bad is it? Well...

Internally, card issuers refer to this as the "insult rate." Some card issuers deny more than 100 legitimate charges for every fraudulent one they prohibit. Even the best operators turn down 10 legitimate purchases for every crooked one.

That's an insult rate worthy of Don Rickles. I suspect that hurts card companies more than they realize. I've never had a charge rejected, but if I did, I wouldn't bother calling them on the spot, I'd just whip out a different card, meaning a lost commission for the rejecting card company. A good reason to have more than one card. Most of us know that card companies will flag purchases that don't match a cardholder's normal patterns, but what does that mean?

The card companies raise the red fraud flag for any one of dozens of reasons. They're constantly looking for spending that doesn't fit normal cardholder patterns, or those of the retailers where people might be shopping. Most Americans don't buy computers in Paris, for instance, but a thief who stole their card might. Card companies are skeptical of purchases in foreign lands with high rates of fraud, including Russia, most of Eastern Europe and South Africa.

The alarm can also sound when it appears as if you've traveled faster than humanly possible. Two months ago, Jeff Foster, an executive vice president at Retail Decisions, a company based outside London that helps banks prevent card fraud, used his debit card right before he got on a flight in Boston and tapped it again as soon as he got off the plane in San Francisco. His bank, worried that two different people were using the card, cut him off.

One reason for the crackdown: the huge increase in Internet sales, which means there are many more transactions where the cardholder isn't present. That made it easier for crooks to assume someone else's identity, which forced credit-card issuers to take countermeasures that snared honest spenders too.

At the same time, the number of cards outstanding -- and the number of ways to use them -- has exploded in recent years. Many cardholders lard up their monthly bills with every possible charge in a quest for frequent-flier miles. Others now whip out their debit cards instead of writing checks. This means that ever-more transactions are pouring through the card networks.

[snip]

When Mr. Selander, the MasterCard CEO, temporarily lost his charging privileges on his seldom-used card, his bank may have thought a thief had stolen his card and then put it on "ice." In that situation, crooks find a lost card but then wait several months before using it. By putting it away for a while, they're hoping the original owner has failed to report it and it will remain active.

Some of that makes sense, some doesn't. Not being able to verify Internet sales is meaningless. Half the time I'm not even asked to sign my card slip anymore, never mind have the signature checked or present ID. And where is the identity verification on a Mobil SpeedPass? (Not a surprising policy, though - there're a lot of misguided Internet security concerns.)

I happen to be one of those people who puts as much as possible on the credit card for the sake of airline miles or hotel points. That's why some of this seems so weird to me. I have never had a credit card purchase rejected despite the fact that I have three cards that I rotate through. That means, for instance, that one day I'll be charging frozen dinners at Meijer's on a certain card, then it won't see use again for a couple of weeks when, say, I suddenly use it to buy an fine glass of Bordeaux in Bermuda.

I suppose it would be defeating the purpose to explain the rejection rationale in detail - that would make it easy for the bad guys to circumvent - but it's instructive to note that I must have some of the most erratic purchase patterns imaginable and I have never been rejected, where as my friend, who has pretty consistent buying patterns, got an erroneous smackdown. It makes sense, I suppose. It just means the credit card companies have given up trying to figure me out, they're just letting everything go.

So if you want to avoid rejection at all costs, make a point of consistently making credit card purchases in a haphazard and irresponsible fashion. There's a moral in that somewhere, but I can't figure out what it is.

You Want Fries With That?: This has been bopping around the 'net via forwarded email for a while. It is supposedly an actual employment application filled out for a job McDonald's. It's probably a hoax, but I got a chuckle out of it.

NAME: Greg Bulmash.

SEX: Not yet. Still waiting for the right person.

DESIRED POSITION: Company's President or Vice President. But seriously, whatever's available. If I was in a position to be picky, I wouldn't be applying here in the first place.

DESIRED SALARY: $185,000 a year plus stock options and a Michael Ovitz style severance package. If that's not possible, make an offer and we can haggle.

EDUCATION: You realize this is McDonald's, don't you?

LAST POSITION HELD: Target for middle management hostility.

SALARY: Less than I'm worth.

MOST NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT: My incredible collection of stolen pens and post-it notes.

REASON FOR LEAVING: It sucked.

HOURS AVAILABLE TO WORK: Any.

PREFERRED HOURS: 1:30-3:30 p.m., Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

DO YOU HAVE ANY SPECIAL SKILLS?: Yes, but they're better suited to a more intimate environment.

MAY WE CONTACT YOUR CURRENT EMPLOYER?: If I had one, would I be here?

DO YOU HAVE ANY PHYSICAL CONDITIONS THAT WOULD PROHIBIT YOU FROM LIFTING UP TO 50 LBS?: Of what?

DO YOU HAVE A CAR?: I think the more appropriate question here would be, "Do you have a car that runs?"

HAVE YOU RECEIVED ANY SPECIAL AWARDS OR RECOGNITION?: I may already be a winner of the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes.

DO YOU SMOKE?: Only at very high temperatures.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE DOING IN FIVE YEARS?: Living in the Bahamas with a fabulously wealthy dumb sexy blonde super model who thinks I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread. Actually, I'd like to be doing that now.

DO YOU CERTIFY THAT THE ABOVE IS TRUE AND COMPLETE TO THE BEST OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE?: Yes. Absolutely.

Pardon Me: In the last couple of weeks I have been in Washington DC, Bermuda, and the North Carolina Outer Banks. Now I'm back and I am exhausted - Northwest Airlines reverted to form for my trip back. More travel info in due time.

Oddly (or perhaps not so oddly), Slashdot isn't going to run my latest book review. I'm going to try another a couple other outlets but if they don't pan out, I'll post it anyway. And I have many writing projects in the works so here should be some good material soon, but it's going to be a few days until I can get back to things - with luck, I'll have some of my usual nonsense up this weekend.

Catch Ya On The Flipside: Time for another hiatus, since I have an awful lot to deal with in my alleged Real Life. It may be couple of weeks until the next update, but don't fret - as always, I will be back with a vengence and hijinks will ensue.

Status Memo: We're I a betting man, I would wager heavily that A Pleasure Doing Business With You will see light of day by year's end. And I am now thinking of changing the name back to Hijinks Ensue. The problem with APDBWY is that it is too long. The reason I changed it to begin with is most people I spoke with didn't seem to know what hijinks were, and many didn't know what ensue meant. Am I the only one who has employed the phrase 'hijinks ensue'? I think not. I'm beginning to think that if you really don't know the meaning of the words hijinks and ensue, you're unlikely to read it anyway, so it will do no harm to go back to the shorter title. I shall be agonizing over this for a while. You may just have to deal.

I have started work on a new essay - it will require a bit of research - with luck, by 4/8, without luck, 4/30. And I'm going on a minor adventure Wednesday night which I may document if it turns out to be interesting. Plus, still waiting my latest book review to hit the web. Don't touch that dial.

Toob Notes: The new season of Six Feet Under has been excellent so far. They have followed my advice and took it down a thousand, but I remain wary. The grimace inducing psycho chick from Nate's past returned this Sunday (haven't seen it yet, will have to catch a rerun) and that could destroy everything. We'll see. More comments will ensue as the season unfolds.

More importantly, I caught the World Poker Tournament on the Travel Channel the other night and it was wicked cool. They position a camera at each player's seat so that they can show what cards each player has. and so you can really see the thought processes of these guys as they place bets. It was engrossing. Here's the site. Somewhat disappointingly, the winner was determined by an incredible string of luck, not skill. I intend to watch each week. Vegas will fear me.

Link Roundup: A stupidity-free set of links for your viewing pleasure.

• Roger Ebert is the dean of movie critics. Even though I think he's wrong 30-50% of the time, he does write awfully well. But who knew he was a "hard drinking, guy-on-the-make during the seventies"?


• Check out these freaky cool paintings. At first glance you might think they are caricatures of some sort, but click through and look close, you can see influences of everything from Van Gogh to anime. Great stuff.


• Would you laugh at me if I told you I was posting from this chair? Well, I'm not, so don't bother.


• Finally a cell phone for the "descendents of Eve". Note the "features for women", including a "Fatness Index", a "Pink Schedule", and "Menstruation." (While you may think I'm documenting stupidity again, note that this is the Africa and Middle Eastern Samsung web site, so it's not stupid it's cultural.) Oddly, it does not include a cosmetics mirror or a burkha mending kit.


• Interesting commentary on how TiVo will alter television as we know it. I should get one; I could really use another remote on my coffee table. [[edit: also check out the follow up]]


• In honor of April Fools day, the 100 best hoaxes. Strangely, the George Foreman iGrill, a "low-fat, high-bandwidth solution to your networked cooking needs" is not included.

Blogology 101: Forbes.com ranks the best blogs in five categories, but makes you jump through hoops to find out what they are (links within links and pop-ups, ugh!). I'll do the hard work for you. I ashamed to say I'm not familiar with most of these (except, of course, for my buddies at Slashdot who publish my book reviews), so I post them without comment (imagine that!). I suspect all are worth checking out.

Tech

• Slashdot


• TechDirt


• Kuro5hin


• Gizmodo


• Reiter's Wireless

Media

• Metafilter


• Blogcritics


• I Want Media


• Gawker


• Romenesko's Obscure Store

Economics

• EconLog


• ArgMax


• The Knowledge Problem


• Winterspeak


• Institutional Economics

War

• Daily KOS


• Back-To-Iraq


• Tacitus


• Where is Raed?


• Vodkapundit

Enough is Enough: You know, when I sit down to gather material for posts lately it seems all I am doing is documenting all the stupidity I see around me. Yes, there's lots of it, but still, it's getting a little long in the tooth. So I promise not to post about idiots and their inane antics anymore. I need to confine myself to quality material for a while.

Seriously, my posts have started getting wearyingly negative. So that's it - I'm giving the chowderheads a break for a while.

But before I do that, I will treat myself to post this internet petition to get Michael Moore to go on a hunger strike for the causes he believes in. It's slightly misguided since there is nothing Michael Moore believes in more deeply than deep fried twinkies, but still a worthy effort.

OK, that's it. No more stupidity for the time being.

To prove it, I have another book review submitted to slashdot. I'll link it as soon as it appears. Also I have another feature I'm working on - it may take a while, but if I'm not going to take the easy road of stupidity, you're going to have to be patient.

My Baloney Has A First Name: I suppose I should comment on the Oscars, but it's difficult since I didn't watch the show, didn't see any of the films and don't really give a wombat's left gonad about the winners and losers.

However, from the reports in the papers, it is plain to see that Jack Nicholson is the wisest man in Hollywood. He kept his shades on throughout the evening, and considering Michael Moore attempted to pronounce the word 'fictitious' about fourteen times, Jack was the only one in the audience who didn't need to rush to the bathroom to flush the spittle from his eyes.

The Doggerel of War: I have to apologize again. First, for still having no solid new material. Second, for bringing the war into my posts, which I didn't want to do. And third, (partially because of the first two) I am once again posting about stupidity; in this case stupidity related to the war.

It's Not Like They're Running With Scissors: Miss Kate and Aunt Molly find themselves cut off at the knees because the fraidy-cat race committee for the DC Marathon has cancelled the race because of the war and fears for safety. Look, there are so many targets in DC, so many people everywhere, that an early morning marathon simply doesn't present any exceedingly special target of opportunity. Plus, it's a lot more eyes and lot more cameras on the street so your smart terrorist would avoid it like the plague. Even the incompetents in the Office of the Mayor were "stunned" by the decision. What's worse, the race committee did not offer refunds. Instead they signed everyone up automatically for next year. That's fine for semi-professional runners, but it's little help to amateurs - like Miss Kate and Aunt Molly - who don't intend to devote their entire lives to running marathons, and spent months in training, and had a whole bunch of pledges to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society riding on this. Sheesh. Get a spine, why don't ya?

No Pottys, No Peace: I have no sympathy for protestors of any stripe. Protesters - at least in the last thirty years or so - always seems like a bunch of children acting out; not really concerned with the issues as long as they get somebody's attention. No difference between them and the miscreants who riot after sporting events, in my book. I mean, really, what could be stupider than Puke for Peace:

In a unique form of opposition, some protesters at the Federal Building staged a "vomit in,'' by heaving on the sidewalks and plaza areas in the back and front of the building to show that the war in Iraq made them sick, according to a spokesman.

I could understand if they were trying raises awareness of the heartbreak of Bulimia, but that's a stretch. To answer my own question, I'll tell you what could be stupider: Poop for Peace.

At the Civic Center, a group of demonstrators defecated. Then they left, leaving the mess to be cleaned up by others. Not only disgusting, but this idiocy belittles the proud tradition of civic protest in our national history...

It's really hard to characterize this as free speech. Of course, these types are known for talking out their asses.

The best response, as usual, is satire. Check out this "protester's" sign. You can imagine the actual protesters eyeing this guy, wondering if he's making fun of them or not. Snicker.

Slowly Catching On: You may remember my warning about the monumentally stupid reality series Married by America. Well, it seems one Fox affiliate, in Raleigh, NC, took my message to heart and pulled the show.

I take total credit for this; I assume they feared the wrath of my millions of loyal followers. Plus, there's this.

"Married by America" features five singles who, with the help of family and the public, are paired with strangers and, according to Fox promotions, will commit to marriage. Last week, it was revealed that one of the contestants is already married.

I warned you about going retarded because of this show. See what happened to the Fox execs? That could be your future.

One Line Links: Don't blink or they will be gone.

• laughing in the face of danger


• another way to waste time


• this really pisses me off


• a truly terrifying website

Out Of Spite: I have a lot of sympathy for folks who are struggling for creative success and keeping weblogs. Can't imagine why. Fitting neatly in that category is Forrest, webmaster of TOSM (The Other Spite Meat). In addition to bloggery, Forrest's other occupation is playing bass for Just Another Victim, a band guided by a few less than stringent principles:

1) anything is fair game, if it's fun, we'll try to play it. 2) if you can't play it drunk, you probably can't play it live 3) it probably sounds better faster. and lastly, but not leastly, number 4) if you don't screw up, you're not trying. It should be noted that we try really really hard."

More importantly, TOSM is kind enough to link me up. Stop by for a visit, but consider this your obligatory naughty language warning, kiddies

Coming Up Empty: I have been a posting slug lately - as usual. Also as usual, I don't know where the time is going. One reason could be that work has been hellaciously busy. Another reason is this weekend has been insidiously warm and beautiful. 60+ degrees!! The snow banks are melting into sidewalk lakes and rivers. Today I was able to get into Ann Arbor and snag a bowl of Be Bim Bob at Steve's Lunch - a place I've mentioned before. Coincidentally, a brief review appeared in a local paper.

So nothing new for now, but as always I have plans. A new book review is coming. And an entertaining feature essay. And, I have a feeling A Pleasure Doing Business With You is crawling ever so slowly closer to reality.

So don't write me off just yet.

Going the Distance: The DC Marathon is coming up in a few days and it's a special one this year because two of the participants will be Miss Kate and her sister Aunt Molly. This dynamic duo took up marathon training to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and pay tribute to their brother, who was diagnosed with lymphoma last year. They are now in the home stretch of their journey; they've completed their longest training run (20 miles) and the next step is the finale (26.2 miles).

I can't think of a better tribute to a loved one fighting cancer than running a marathon, which is all about effort and perseverance. Beyond that, it is a life affirming endeavor to stretch your ability and endurance to the extreme just for the sake of the challenge, implicitly suffering now to strengthen yourself for the future struggles. It's especially poignant since their brother is a marathoner too.

So this is a small tribute to the two runners. I hope if such a battle ever confronts me I can face it with as much heart.

Link Chaos: A whole slew of blither and blather that has collected in my inbox.

• Ever thought of an exciting and lucrative career in horse dentistry? Turns out it can be depressingly lucrative. The woman is destined for the Stella Awards. (Hat tip: The Legendary KK)


• One of the folks waiting to stomp all over Saddam has a weblog of his ongoing experiences. I'm surprised you can't get court martialed for referring to a superior officer as a "Dragon Lady".


• Put on your tin-foil hat and check out Pole Shift Preparation. The end is nigh. Again.


• Remember that moron at Taco Bell? Life imitates satire.


• Are you a Google Guru? Check out these google search hacks. Very cool.


• Two words: Lion. Cut. Syllable count is key.


• Think you want to be creative. Think again. The average writer makes about $2000 per year from writing (I read that recently). It's better in the music industry, but not by much. Check out the finances of a "hot" new band.


• Ten cool techno cars. The only one that seems worthwhile to me is the Mercedes braking-by-wire, the rest are fairly useless or just gimmicks.


• You think you have a headache? What about the poor sheep? This article contains what may be the most perfect quote in history: "My relationship to sheep is a bit ambivalent now. I like them, but not when they come flying through the air."

Married in Maui: What do I find in my mailbox today but a very elegant looking note from my friends The Always Delightful Chrissy and her longtime beau Bob-o announcing that they up and got themselves hitched in Maui. No advanced warning whatsoever - thereby depriving us of the opportunity to check a box next to a small kitchen appliance on their registry and dance the hokey pokey in unkempt semi-formal attire.

To the newlyweds, I raise my glass and offer this advice (from one who wouldn't know).

To keep a marriage brimming
and fill the loving cup-
When you are wrong, admit it
and when you're right, shut up

Stupid Follow Up: Last time round I nominated the chowderheads who fall for those Nigerian e-mail scams as some of the stupidest people extant. Well it seems the scam perpetrators aren't very far behind them.

...the Everest of scam baiting is to con the conmen and get the fraudsters to part with cold hard cash. Only a few have managed this. One, writing under the moniker Bart Simpson, managed it by telling his Nigerian criminal target that he was being courted by another offer from West Africa. Bart said that this other correspondent had sent him $5 in a greeting card and he would sever his relationship unless the fraudster did the same thing.

BWAHAHAHA! Priceless. You have to click thru on that link and read the email exchange. More intricate and brutal is the solution of the true hacker.

Particularly vindictive anti-spammers will also send "supporting documents" to the fraudsters. When downloaded, these are found to contain not helpful bank details but particularly vicious viruses that cripple the criminal's computers.

One scam baiter managed to get her target to fall for this seven times before he got the message. Read how here. This means he either saw seven expensive PCs reduced to smoking rubble or spent an awful lot of money on repairs. It's hard to feel much sympathy for him.

Am I a bad person for celebrating the pain and hardship of spam scammers? I don't care.

Graphically Speaking: I meant to get a lot of work done last night but I got sidetracked by a combination of my interest in graphic and commercial arts and my intellectual curiosity (such as it is). I spent the evening perusing some interesting sites instead, so consider this your self-indulgence alert.

Graphic Design from the 1920s and 1930s in Travel Ephemera is exactly what it says. This is the kind artistic retro advertising that I would love to have decorating my walls (yes, that makes me weird). Some of my favorites from the airlines section here, here, here, and here.

Next I stumbled across Typophile which is all about type and fonts. A seemingly esoteric topic, but really quite fascinating. I spent a lot of time fretting over the font for this site and got mildly interested in the topic. If you have some time click on the courses for a brief history of typography.

Lastly, I found the site of Edward Tufte (pronounced TUFF-tee), who has been called the Leonardo Da Vinci of data. That is to say he is exceptionally knowledgeable in the visual presentation of quantitative data. For most of us, that means PowerPoint, but there's a bit more to it than that. There's some seriously creative stuff going on in this field. Check out the ET, Writings, Artwork and News section to get a feel for things.

I told you it was self-indulgent.

I'm With Stupid: We have a bunch of new entries in the ongoing reality series, Who Wants to be a Brainless Dolt. First we have the folks who displayed a valuable Dali original in a jail and were shocked when it was stolen.

The audacious thief was apparently not only brazen enough to confiscate Dali's sketchy rendering of Christ on the cross from a locked display case in the lobby of the men's jail, but he or she also managed to leave behind a schlocky, B-rate copy that at least three correction officers were puzzled to find upon reporting to work yesterday morning.

Imagine that. How ever could a hardened criminal from Rikers get past a locked display case?

It's a worthy entry, but for relating to the public at large, you can't beat the Captain Obvious senselessness of falling for those Nigerian e-mail scams. The added spice here is that, if you're reasonably active on the web, you get about 8 variations of this each day. How do you pick the one that sounds most real?

It seems the halfwits who fall for this can end up getting kidnapped or killing convenient accessible Nigerians in a violent rage. Kids, remember: Stupidity is not a game - just say no.

But the new leaders in the stupidity contest are the indescribably thick-headed creatures who trekked to Iraq to become human shields for Saddam. They went through hell to get to Iraq because they are convinced that Saddam is really a nice guy and only wants to defend children and small cuddly animals from heartless laser guided missiles. Once they arrived they were stunned to realize they weren't being used as human shields for pre-schools and baby-milk factories, but were being placed around actual military targets.

Suddenly, the slogan "Arms are for hugging" doesn't seem all that comforting.

My question is, How do people like this live to adulthood? Seriously, how do you go about your day-to-day life with the IQ of a hamster? Do you have to have a note pinned to your shirt to remind you to eat and breathe? Check this out:

...a 500 pound donation from a well-wisher in Istanbul was squandered on boxes of Prozac in a misguided attempt to cheer up the war-weary Iraqi civilians.

I am at a loss for words. Obviously, it is simply too easy to live and thrive in the civilized West. This is a real test of Darwinism. The fact that these drooling morons have survived to adulthood seems to fly in the face of natural selection. On the other hand, given the opportunity they have proven themselves willing to go to great lengths to die unnatural deaths and beat an early retreat from the gene pool. I guess time will tell. Either way, for the sake of the species, we must simply hope they have not bred in great numbers.