Ramblin' and Gamblin': In the course of my various wanderings to the sacred land of Nevada I managed to place some sports bets. Every year I make futures bets and every year I regret it, but I just can't seem to stop myself. And this year is no exception.

First, you will note how the Tigers were dominating the baseball world for most of the year. Just completely trouncing everybody. Now, I almost never make homer bets. I might be rooting for the home team, but when it comes to laying down money, if I think it's smart to go against my sentimental favorite then I will go against them. Normally I am totally ruthless in that respect. Yet, here I was plopping down cash on the Tigers to win the Series, an event that I was not remotely confident in but, for whatever reason, I suddenly decided to make a homer bet.

Sure enough, starting at the precise second I handed my money to the nice man in the sports book at the Mirage the Tigers went on a potentially historic slide and managed to finally lose the division lead on the last day of the season, thus causing them to face the fearsome Yankees in the first playoff series.

Now, the book is not closed on this yet, but note two things: 1) they had to get swept in their final series against the horrendous Kansas City Royals to complete their crash, and they managed to do it, and 2) the 9th hitter in the Yankees lineup has a higher batting average than anyone on the Tigers. Let's just say I would have been better off buying lottery tickets. It's conceivable they can turn things around somehow, but if they don't, my apologies to Tiger fans everywhere who have been waiting so long for a post-season chance. I hammered the poor Cats with my foul juju.

Next, I kept minding the line of the Miami-Pittsburgh NFL season opener. It started with the Steelers -3.5, before Ben's appendix exploded. By the time I had arrived in Tahoe, Harrah's had it at even money. The Montbleu (where I was staying) had the Steelers -1.5. That a pretty big difference, which suggested to me that there was an opportunity there.

My big issue was that the Steelers were starting Charlie Batch at QB. Ex-Lion Charlie Batch. I couldn't get past that fact. Even though the Steelers were at home and even though they have a killer pass rush of the sort that Daunte Culpepper just can't comprehend, I couldn't get past Ex-Lion Charlie Batch. So I took the Fins +1.5 and from early on, even when they were seemed to be still in the game, they were as shaky as a refrigerated junky. But I didn't give up hope because I knew Ex-Lion Charlie Batch had the ability to hand the game over with a single throw. Sadly, so did Daunte Culpepper. And Nick Saban.

This was a painful one for me. Just a stupid gut level bet that I should have known better than to take. I never kick myself over a gambling loss when I made a good call based on the info available at the time. That happens to all gamblers as often as not. This wasn't one of those. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

But wait, it gets worse.

During my last Vegas trip, I noticed that the line on the Lions opener was Seattle -3.5. Unbelievable. That the reigning NFC champs could not come into Detroit and take the Lions by more than a field goal was unthinkable. This was Found Money, I'm telling you. As close to a sure thing as anything I have seen. And I was right -- at first. By game time, the line a rose to 8 points, meaning the Seahawks were expected to win by more than a touchdown and here I was with them giving up only 3.5.

Even better: a couple of days before the game the Lions D-line coach got caught ordering drive-thru at a local Wendy's apparently under the mistaken impression that it was clothing optional. Had he been a player it would have wiped Ron Mexico and the Vikings Love Boat off the sports comedy map. As it was, imagine a Lions defensive lineman having to come to practice the next day and take instruction from this guy. It had to mess with their heads, didn't it? Tell me the D-line wasn't giggling to itself when it should have been keyed up to kill the QB. The Lions were toast. I was sitting pretty.

So what happens? The Seahawks did win, but by only 3 points. What the hell? What kind of lame-ass performance was that? How could they do that to me? Now I have to hate the Seahawks. I hope they finish the season 8-8 and miss the playoffs. I hope Hasselbeck has an allergic reaction to Rogaine. I hope Shaun Alexander's ACL turns out to be a garbage bag twist-tie. I hope come midseason, they are like some kind of South Pacific cargo cult praying for Steve Hutchinson to come back, possibly including a sacrificial offering of Mike Holmgren's still beating heart. That was my money, you bastards.

So that really leaves me only one bet and of course, the outlook is not positive. I have money on the Steelers to repeat as Super Bowl champs. I got long-ish odds on that one, so if it comes through, that makes up for the rest. As I write this, they haven't even come close to being the team they were last year. There's still time and, like the Tigers, they may pull it all together (they started slow last year too). But I can't help but remember that Roethlisberger had one of the worst performances for a Super Bowl QB ever, he got hammered his face into a car in the off season, his appendix went south, and he hasn't put up a decent performance yet this year.

Why do I do this? Why can't I just wait for the season and make my regular picks? You'd think by my age I would have found a more fruitful self-destructive behavior to adopt.

I'll get to the next post after I take a moment to punch myself in the head about fifteen times.

Shallow Views of The Wire: HBO has announced that The Wire will get a season 5 due solely to critical raves (ratings suck). Interesting because, even though The Wire is as good as it gets, it's not any better than Deadwood, although I will admit that its quality is probably more accessible than Deadwood's, and Deadwood was denied a final season. (And yes I'm still bitter.)

HBO has been putting out episodes of The Wire a few days ahead of general release through their on-demand and I have been chomping at the bit to see each one the minute it is available -- meaning after midnight on Sunday evening. It's that good.

It's so good that most critics (and to a qualified extent, series creator David Simon himself), while sensing its undeniable quality, don't even have a clue how to describe it. They fall back on it being and "indictment of urban neglect" or a "cautionary tale of inner-city despair" or other such triteness drivel. They say the low ratings reveal how nobody wants to be reminded of the underclass. Bollocks.

The low ratings are because it is deeply complicated and slow. You cannot watch it casually and get anything out of it. It demands attention and patience. Whatever the subject matter, ratings are going to suck for such a show. Just ask the folks who produced Deadwood. To deem otherwise is to sell the show short.

The Wire is not an indictment or a caution at all. It is simply a cold-eyed view of reality. It does not follow the pathetic clichÇ of innocent ghetto dwellers victimized by whoever the fashionable evil demographic happens to be. As often as not, these downtrodden types have made the choices that got them where they are, whether something could have been done to change those choices remains an open issue, but no one here is remotely innocent.

Simon has stated that this season is about institutions and how all institutions end up corrupting individuals. That's probably not true in the gross and common sense of the word "corruption"; however in the more subtle sense of individuals having to compromise with institutions to maintain mutually beneficial relationships it is almost certainly true. Still, without institutions there wouldn't be any civilized people to corrupt.

All this is not the stuff of ratings or pithy critical descriptions. It is absolutely the stuff of phenomenal drama.

By the way, if you decide to get into The Wire don't just start watching this Sunday. If you have HBO On-Demand, start working through all the seasons from the first. Only then should you move into season 4. If you don't have On-Demand, get the DVDs for season 1, 2, and 3 and watch them first. Don't rush. After that, wait for HBO to replay season 4 from the beginning or just wait for the season 4 DVD.

I'm not sure what options are available for you downloaders, but the point is: Watch the entire series and watch in order.

Crescent City Blues: Do I seem particularly cynical this month? Well, I probably am.

I'm even pretty much fed up with the city of New Orleans. For the longest time I have been angling to get a weekend set-up down in the Quarter just to see how things are going first hand and to drop some cash to do my part, but at the moment I don't want anything to do with it. I can't imagine anything more unseemly than the self-indulgent, woe-is-me wankfest over the Katrina anniversary. Good God, people.

All this reached a pinnacle with the reopening of the Superdome for a Monday Night Saints game. We were treated to hours -- literally hours -- of heartfelt testimony and special interest segments on how meaningful a moment this was, how it was so much more than just a football game to the demoralized New Orleans residents. The folks at ESPN just live for this sort of tripe. They yearn, day in and day out, to turn sports events into stories of Great Social Relevance. (They must have some kind of serious inferiority complex about being grown-ups overly concerned with silly games to go to the lengths they do.)

Of course, you can't have Great Social Relevance without celebrities, and we had a seeming endless progression of them, either shots of them as spectators, or doing interviews in the booth and the on the sidelines all night long. Lucky they got to watch the game in person while some poor schmuck from the 9th Ward couldn't afford a ticket 'cause they had been bid up to $1000 a seat.

And you know you've reached the pinnacle of Great Social Relevance when that insufferable assclown Bono shows up. Yes, in celebration, the game was kicked off by live performances from U2, the professionally processed punk band Green Day, and the Goo-Goo Dolls. (I was so surprised to see The Goo-Goo Dolls I almost dropped my Sega Saturn.) It had to be one of the top 5 most tawdry moments in television history.

But then, that's the way of things, right? Disasters breed victims; victims are immediately granted high moral standing and Great Social Relevance. What follows is that famous personalities, who know in their hearts how superficial their wealth and glory is, try to buy into the high moral standing of the victims as a misguided way to find a sense of importance.

Just a pathetic display from start to finish. And pretty close to meaningless, too, but we do love our symbolism don't we?

This is not to decry charity. When Reggie Bush goes into the devastated areas and hands out supplies or just tells some kid everything is going to be all right, that has meaning. That is personal. That is real. But every camera crew, politician, b-list actor or pompous rock star who hitches along for a ride cheapens the act.

The other side of the coin from Katrina was that New Orleans had something resembling a fresh start. Semi-lost in the discussion is the fact that, outside the tourist centers, pre-Katrina New Orleans was crime-ridden, destitute and downright dirty. Well here is your opportunity to redo things right. Now is the time to think big. Why not lay grand plans? Why not see New Orleans as the next Orlando or Las Vegas? Somebody call Moe Green. It could happen. Why not?

I'll tell you why not. Because nobody with any authority in the bayou has that sort of vision. Nobody can think beyond glad-handing and backslapping and protecting their own paltry standing. That fresh start for New Orleans was pissed away when they promptly re-elected the same sort of small-minded, corrupt, and outright stupid officials that they had prior to Katrina. In America, one way or another, voters usually get what they want. Unfortunately, getting what you want goes hand in hand with getting what you deserve. (Although no one really deserves Bono.)

If I were Mayor Nagin, these anniversary displays would alarm me. Symbolic or not, all this hand-wringing is bringing about a sense of closure, which means he might start to lose some of his victimhood mojo in the broader world. More importantly, if I were a resident of New Orleans, I would realize that my city is only fractionally recovered and I may be facing some difficult times with only Hizzoner and his cronies to count on. Scary, that.

At this point I don't have any more sympathy for New Orleans. The Katrina disaster was unspeakably awful, but money is pouring in and goodwill is, for the moment, blooming. So what are you going to do with it, New Orleans? Are you going to define yourselves forever as Katrina victims or are you going to build a great city? Frankly, from what I've seen so far, I don't think you've got that greatness in you.

So let me know how it turns out because I've ceased to pay attention. For now, I just need you to keep a path clear from the airport to the French Quarter for me.

The Month That Was - August 2006: Late as usual. But this time my excuse is all the articles that are now available for whiling away those long, boring afternoons at work, including the previously promised write up on Turks and Caicos. The rest are referenced in the posts or you can check the sidebar. On with the show...

Vegas Without A Second Thought
IKEA Invasion
Crystal Football
Lost Cargo, Found Doorstop
Adios Deadwood (Sort of)
HBO, No End in Sight

Vegas Without A Second Thought: I don't even think twice about going to Vegas anymore. This time it was for a couple of days, mostly because I had a winning football bet that I had to collect on from last year. (I had to head home before the bet resolved, and you only have a year from that time to collect your payout.)

I flew out midday on Sunday and back Tuesday. Took only a carry-on so I didn't have to wait the 45 minutes it often takes Northwest to get your bags to the carousel. Sunday afternoon there was no line for a cab, saving another possible 20 minutes. I even managed to secure sweet exit row seating both ways. Could not have been simpler.

I checked into a new property called Signature which is a luxury property associated with MGM Grand. As you no doubt expect, you can read a full review over at Hotel Chatter.

Like I was saying, a Vegas trip is dead easy for me now. I don't feel any need to investigate or explore too much, unless there is something new since my last visit. I know what I want to do and I know where I can go to do it.

This trip was about perfect. Sunday evening I snagged a quick bite to eat at Sensi in the Bellagio (since I could not get near Olives), followed by a profitable blackjack session at the Monte Carlo on the way back.

The next morning was spent at the MGM pool, then a late afternoon low-stakes poker session at Excalibur, which I ended in the red. I only really played three bad hands -- one was an outright bad beat when my opponent caught a straight on the river, one was because I was stupid enough to try to bluff someone who turned out to be the most aggressive player at the table, and the third was not really a mistake -- I played out a marginal hand because the pot was so fat I thought it was worth the extra risk.

After that I headed up to Caesar's to cash in my winning ticket. It was such an old ticket that it took them a while so I had to deal with a couple of drunken idiots who had bets on the Dodgers game and decided they were going to tell me how to bet the upcoming football season. They had "guaranteed winners" and were going to give them to me just because they "like me". They were also getting belligerent with the staff in the sports book, demanding free drinks. It was one of those borderline situations where they haven't quite gone far enough to get themselves kicked out, but security was hovering around anticipating a confrontation.

Luckily, I was able to get my winnings and disappear into Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill for some dinner before things got ugly.

After that, I did something that I have been meaning to do ever since I started going to Vegas: visit the downtown area. It's a cab ride to get there, about $17 each way, and I would have to judge that it is not worth it. Most of the activity is centered on a blocked off area of Fremont Street. It is, as you can imagine, casinos and crap shops up one end and down the other. With the exception of the Golden Nugget, most of the casinos are of the low end variety; the type that have been displaced on The Strip by all the ritzy properties.

The other main attraction downtown is something called the Fremont Street Experience, which is an enormous electric sign that acts as a canopy over Fremont Street covering several blocks. Every hour they play about a five minute animation on it that seems to cover the whole sky if you are standing on Fremont. Cute and impressive, but not worth $30+ in cab fare. It might be worth it to gamble downtown if you were looking for very advantageous blackjack rules (single-decks, bonus payouts, etc.) and probably very loose video poker. As it stands, though, I'll likely pass on a downtown visit in the future.

I checked out Tuesday morning and didn't have to leave for the airport until about 4PM. I thought about doing some more gaming, but instead, I chose to while away the afternoon at the spa in THEhotel, alternately soaking in the hot tub, reading, saunaing, writing, eating the tasty snacks they layout. A sweet place to chill for a few hours.

And that was it, a relatively low-key but superbly enjoyable weekend in Vegas. What could be better?

IKEA Invasion: Yes, that's right, I went to IKEA.

See, I have been ham-fistedly working on my bedroom. I managed to get it painted -- an experience which, by the way, I found greatly disappointing. After all the years of technological advancement we have seen, there is still, apparently, no better way to paint a room than move all the furniture, tape all the borders, cover everything with a tarp, pour paint into a tray and then apply it with a clumsy roller. Has this process changed in the last 50 years? Is there not a better way, or do people really enjoy doing it like that? If entire houses can be made modular, why can wall panels be made so that you can remove them one at a time, take them outside, spray them quickly and efficiently using high tech paint that dries in 15 minutes, then just snap them back into place. You could mess with the colors pretty much at will. Ah well, nobody listens.

But I digress.

I needed to pick up some new chests-of-drawers so I headed to the big new IKEA compound in Canton (probably 25-30 miles west of Detroit). The place is mind-blowingly large. It is roughly the size of a big casino in Vegas (this is how I measure size) and like a casino, you are guided on a path to make your way through the store, partly because you could get lost so easily, but mostly because they want to make sure you pass everything on display, just in case you see a slot machine you want to play...er, I mean, you see some household item you didn't know you wanted to buy.

Stupidly I got there at about Noon on Saturday and it was a zoo. I drove around for a solid ten minutes to find a parking space. I eventually found the chests I wanted, but I realized I had to do some measurements before I could safely buy them. So I headed back home to get the measuring done, telling myself I'd go back that evening when there wouldn't be such a crowd. Wrong. The place was still packed at 7pm. Incredible -- especially for the worst economy in the nation.

The most interesting thing was to see all the solid middle-class families standing around and talking in the aisle and at the cafeteria (did I mention IKEA has it's own cafeteria?). If you are ever in the mood to people watch, find a comfy chair in an IKEA store. It's like the place instantly became the social hub suburbanite homeowners, kind of like a post-modern counterpart to Main Street U.S.A. I find that fascinating. I don't particularly ever want to go back, but I find it fascinating.

Crystal Football: I've been biting my nails over the prospect of restarting my football column come the last week of October-ish, but I am committed to doing it for one more year. To help get myself back in the swing I wrote up a two-part season preview (Part 1, Part 2). If you're a fan, do check it out.

Lost Cargo, Found Doorstop: I was subscribed to a magazine called Cargo. It was a decent rag. Pretty much wall to wall stuff. Any and all sorts of stuff. By "stuff" I mean toys, gadgets -- "kit" for those of you in the U.K. And clothes to some extent, but not the kind of stuff you would find in fashion magazines; the kind of clothes you actually wear. It was decent to flip through once a month, and worth the price, considering I only paid a couple of bucks for the subscription from bestdealmagazines.com. Well, Cargo didn't make it, they ceased publication and in its place, subscribers are now getting the equivalent copies of GQ.

Have you ever looked at a GQ? It weighs about 15 pounds. The first 100 pages are ads (not exaggerating). In fact I would guess 70%-80% is ads. The photography is unabashedly soft core porn and is equally split between men and women, suggesting that their demographic skews exceptionally gay.

In contrast, the articles, such as they are, are designed to seem deep and important. To that end they are angled towards Timely and Relevant Issues; the kinds of issues that merit Capitalization. The political edge is uniformly, snarkily, and superciliously leftish, which is to say it's just like the rest of the magazine: fashionably correct.

I think I'll let this one expire. All I wanted was to read about some toys.

Adios, Deadwood (Sort Of): So Deadwood finally ends its run as a television series. If you haven't been following, creator David Milch had planned on a fourth season to complete the story of the town of Deadwood, moving from barbarism to civilization, and HBO smacked him down. The compromise was that Milch would be allowed two two-hour movies to finish up rather than an entire fourth season which would have amounted to between 10-11 hours.

That is a shame, but perhaps not the biggest shame possible. For the movies to work, Milch will obviously have to cut every last second of fat from the planned fourth season plot. We can only hope he doesn't have to cut anything absolutely critical. Maybe he can convince HBO to extend the movies to two-and-a-half hours thus giving himself almost half the time he was planning on. Maybe I'll just record both movies and watch them an hour at a time, for old time's sake.

Deadwood obviously didn't get the ratings it needed. That's to be expected. Do you really think people will flock to a TV show in which the characters do not speak in a constant stream of ironic snarkiness, instead speaking in complete and well formed sentences -- even poetic soliloquies? Not gonna happen. But as sad as it is that Milch couldn't finish his story on his own terms, you would have to have no sense of perspective not to appreciate that Deadwood was made at all. Never would have happened in the three network, pre-VCR world of my childhood.

The series (pseudo) finale was a triumph as excepted. In the end, George Hearst never got his comeuppance. The camp had pulled together and was close to reaching solid moral ground, even to the point of guilting Hearst about his murderous ways. Yet, to avoid probable destruction, they ended up coercing the widow of one of Hearst's victims into a compromise with Hearst himself and worse, even the law-upholding residents of the camp had to tacitly condone the murder of an innocent. Hearst left smiling at the impotence of the camp authorities and gleefully headed off to his next conquest. The camp had to settle for a simple survival as a salve for their blackened consciences.

The bad guy won. Not just a pyrrhic victory. He won and will suffer no ill consequences. As beautifully done as it was, how are you going to sell that to the general viewing audience?

An Emmy should have gone to Gerald McRaney for his portrayal of Hearst. It's a long way from Major Dad.

HBO, No End in Sight: With Deadwood ending, The Wire going into what will likely be it's last season, The Sopranos finishing up in early 2007, I though I might finally cut the cord with HBO. That's now doubtful.

First off, I would be remiss if I didn't admit to that I have come to like Entourage. I started watching it about half way through the season, mostly because it came on immediately after Deadwood, and I kind of got attached.

It is nothing special, just a decent light-and-fluffy sitcom. There have been many comparisons between Entourage and Sex and the City and they are apt for the most part. In this case you have four men instead of four women, and you have El Lay instead of The City. The sex obsessed men are in their twenties, whereas the sex obsessed women were closing in on forty. And the men aren't nearly as crude as the women were. What that says about the gender wars I'll leave as an exercise for the reader.

The big advantage Entourage has is The Piven. It features Jeremy Piven in a role he was born for, which is worth the price of admission. I also like the Kevin Dillon character, Johnny Drama.

Anyway, Entourage would not be enough to keep me subscribed to HBO on its own, but there are two upcoming projects that might end up being fascinating.

True Blood is a horror/fantasy project based on the "Southern Vampire" series of novels by Charlaine Harris. In this series, a blood substitute is discovered that eliminates the need for vampires to drink human blood. In turn they come out of the closet, so to speak, and try to integrate into modern society. The series is to be headed by Alan Ball, creator of Six Feet Under, who has apparently moved on from the dead to the undead.

According to Ball: "It's not Gothic...It's contemporary rural America, white trashy, very funny and really scary." Sounds like fun.

The other upcoming show of interest is John from Cincinnati, this one from Deadwood creator David Milch. Here's the canned description:

"The dysfunctional Yost family of Imperial Beach--patriarch Mitch, a former surfing star who can now levitate (slightly), married to the aggressively unhappy Cissy, parents of the drug-addicted, dissolute Butchie, also a former surfing champ and the father himself to the talented but resentful skateboarder Shaun--find their lives disrupted by the arrival of the dim but wealthy John From Cincinnati, a boarding savant who's come to take lessons from Butchie, and Barry Cunningham from Azusa, whose personal connection to the Yost family has him returning to Imperial Beach to avenge a wrong done to him, by them, 23 years ago."

I love the "levitate (slightly)" thing.

Looks like I'm gonna have to stick with HBO at least until I can get a good read on these two new series.

{Me looks back at the HBO graphic on the TV and says, "I wish I could quit you."}

The Month That Was - July 2006: Better late than never.

Bloody Robbers
Turks and Caicos
Up North
Head Butt
Passing Strategy
Floyd in France
Deadwood
Google is Coming

No Honor: Until just now I have been very lucky. I've never been a victim of any serious crime, cyber or otherwise. But when I opened my Mastercard statement I knew those days were over. Bloody robbers got my card number.

Interestingly, there were three charges of 39.95 to something called "People Search USA" all of which were credited a within a couple of days. The real killer came next with a $600.00 cash advance from Wells Fargo and the associated advance fee of $18.00. None of these did I have anything to do with.

More interestingly, these charges were to a card I use exclusively for tax deductible writing expenses, and considering the state of my writing career at the moment, this was the most activity the card had seen in a long, long time.

I'm not sure exactly what went on. It could be the bloody robbers were testing the waters with the People Search USA charges, then when it was clear I was not checking the charges regularly, they went for the $600 haul. The thing is, they stopped after that first $600. They had plenty of time to charge more before I saw a statement but they stopped. That makes me think this is some kind of professional outfit. Instead of doing high-risk multiple large transactions on a single card, they probably get thousands of card numbers from Russian hackers and scam them for a few hundred dollars each and hope that they don't attract a major investigation.

Anyway, I'm not liable for any of it. A call to Citibank got that sorted out very quickly. They issued me a new card number and told me they would send a fraud affidavit for me to sign. Presumably this will cause the Citibank fraud squad to get all Elliot Ness with the bloody robbers.

Kudos to Citibank customer service, by the way. I got a real English speaking rep on the line in a matter of a few seconds and he knew exactly how to go about getting things set right. Nice. I may have to look into a card from them that I would use more than once in a blue moon.

Still, there is a question of how they got my card number in the first place. I never used it for casual purchases. I can think of two possible outfits that might have had my number sitting on a transaction server, and in neither case would it surprise me that security was lax.

If the bloody robbers are really pros, it's unlikely they'll be caught, I'm sure. But if they do I would gladly pay that $600 for a chance to turn the thumbscrews myself.

Back to the Islands: Turks and Caicos is an island group just south of the Bahamas and just north of Haiti. It is certainly the most awkwardly named nation in the world. But they have a lovely beach that goes by the very appropriate name of Grace Bay. I managed to swoop in for a few tropical days there. A full report (including travel rant) is coming; the usual hotel review is available over at Hotel Chatter.

For now, I do have some pics:

The Palms courtyard (~610k)
The Palms landscaping (~660k)
The croquet lawn (~1M)
The pool (~725k)
The pool again (~725k)
Not me at the swimup bar (~700k)
The pond at the spa (~700k)
The beach before the sun (~410k)
A slow day at the beach (~380k)
Really fresh fish (~320k)
Thanks Ameritrade (sarcastic?) (~240k)
It can get windy (~640k)
A hazy sunset (~460k)

Up North: Not content with a tropical paradise, I also made two trips Up North. To Michiganders, Up North means the northern part of the Lower Peninsula. The Upper Peninsula is certainly up north, but generally, I believe if you are going to the Upper Peninsula you are going to 'The U.P.' (Da You-Pee), and it is subtly differentiated from simply "Up North". While we did go briefly across the Mackinac Bridge into The U.P., for the most part we were just Up North. By 'we' I mean Miss Kate and H.R.H. Miss Anna. There were two separate trips, one to drop Miss Anna off at her summer camp in Cheboygan, and another to pick her up.

The kickoff was an evening in Beulah, one of the myriad little resort towns peppered along the coast of Lake Michigan. Every summer families from southern Michigan, northern Indiana and Ohio, and the Chicago area fill the cars with luggage and troll Up North to little towns like Beulah. Why? Primarily outdoor activities -- camping, hunting and fishing for the self-sufficient types; the rest of us are content with canoeing, hiking, biking, or just hanging on the beach (yes, there are beautiful beaches -- not necessarily in Beulah, but you can find beaches along Lake Michigan that rival the best in the world). The evenings are filled with Norman Rockwell style activities such as walks through town at dusk to get a soft serve and watching the sunset over the lake. Up North is beautiful in a verdant woodsy kind of way. There is really no downside for a family trip, except possibly the traffic on holiday weekends. As usual, there is a reason places get to be recurring vacation destinations.

In Beulah, we did exactly what you should do. Canoeing on the Platte River in the afternoon, followed by dinner at a precious small town diner called...are you ready...here it comes...The Hungry Tummy. The evening was capped with a visit to the Cherry Bowl -- a not-to-be-missed genuine 1950s style drive-in theatre where we saw Pirates of the Caribbean 2. Miss Anna insisted we get there about two-and-a-half hours before dark (roughly 10pm) to make sure we got the absolute perfect spot for our car. We did, which resulted in this (~710k). But we filled the time with miniature golf and wandering around the playground until dark. This is a great place to bring kids who desperately need to understand what it was like in the pre-On-Demand world. Guess what? There is no remote, no pause, no rewind, and you have to wait for the movie; just like when we lived in caves.

Next up we went yet further back in time for a couple of nights on Mackinac Island, a sweet little semi-Victorian kind of place (Is it necessary to point out that it is pronounced mack-i-naw, as if the terminating c was a w?); no motorized vehicles allowed, so you get around on bikes or horse drawn carriages -- hope you enjoy the smell of horses and their, ahem, droppings.

You get to Mackinac Island from Mackinac City via one of three ferry lines. Nothing complicated about it: park you car, buy tickets ($20 round trip if you don't have a discount coupon), load up your bags and go. Ferries leave and return roughly every half hour. Lots of people bed down in budget hotels in Mackinac City and scurry over to the island for the day, thus avoiding the premium prices for on island lodging at the expense of some inconvenience.

For those enamored of spending exorbitantly, Mackinac is the home of The Grand Hotel most famous for being the shooting location of the enduring chick-flick, Somewhere in Time wherein Superman time travels in search of some Medicine Woman booty from Dr. Quinn.

The Grand Hotel is formal and elitist and unashamed of it. Gentlemen will wear jackets after 6 and women will dress comparably. They even have their own private horse and buggy service. Non-guests are held at bay outside the lobby, although on an earlier trip, Miss Anna and I managed to slip past and wander about for a while -- it's not so hot.

We stayed in a bed and breakfast closer to town called The Metivier Inn. Highly recommended. Very friendly and helpful staff. Decent breakfast. The rooms are clean and tastefully done, if a bit snug. A comfy living room, big shaded porch and beautifully landscaped grounds. Free wireless. Coffee, lemonade and snacks throughout the day. They will pick up and drop off your luggage at the ferry dock. I can't imagine anyone being disappointed. (Unless you come to the island to watch TV. There are no TVs in the rooms, just a communal one downstairs.) It is what people think of when they think of a sweet little B&B.

There is really only one village on the island, maybe ten square blocks. There are five kinds of businesses: 1) Inns, 2) Restaurants, 3) Gift Shops, 4) Bike Rental shops, 5) Fudge shops. Other services are limited. The island is eight miles in circumference (about an hour's bike ride). There are a number of natural areas and a slew of historical structures such as forts and so forth. All of this is very much worth seeing, but the larger point is that you really don't want to spend more than three or four days.

Our days were filled with multiple bike rides around the island, including one which required a flat tire rescue and a couple wherein we took the strenuous route up and over the middle of the island -- great scenery, great views, cool stuff to see, but the ride is not for the faint of heart or weak of leg.

We managed to get in a swim off a very rocky beach. There is no sandy beach on Mackinac so water access can be painful without surf shoes, but once you get out in the water, floating around is a bracing, refreshing experience. The northern Great Lakes are clean and clear.

Another option for getting out on the water is the Mackinac Breeze, a cruising catamaran that will take you (and other guests) on a brief tour around the island, but be prepared for some, well, let's call it risque commentary from the deck hand. (We found out what a 'Hot Carl' is. We wished we didn't, and so will you.) Good times.

Mackinac is a great long weekend destination. In fact, just about anywhere Up North is.

Now, there's a good project: Sketch out an itinerary for a family week or two in Michigan. For out-staters, I would fly into Grand Rapids, rent a car and head for a two nights in Saugatuck area. Then up the Lake Michigan coast to Muskegon for an overnighter and a visit to Michigan's Adventure. Another night or two in the Crystal Lake area for some canoeing and a visit to the Cherry Bowl and hike across Sleeping Bear Dunes if you have the fortitude. Continue on to Charlevoix for a night and maybe take a day trip to Beaver Island, then on up Mackinac Island and settle in at a nice B&B for three nights.

Probably more interesting and fun than a week at Disneyworld. And way, way cheaper.

I should expand on that. It would be a great travel document. Hmmmm...

BTW, here are some pics from Mackinac:

Shore view from the ferry (~590k)
Another shore view from the ferry (~600k)
Yet another shore view from the ferry (~560k)
Mackinac bridge from the ferry (~200k)
Up one side of the village (~720)
And down the other (~620k)
The rocky shores make uncomfortable beaches (~680k)
Hunting for jet skiers? (~660k)
Arch Rock (~470k)
Fort Mackinac (~660)
View from the island high point (~550k)
Another view from the island high point (~700k)
A lighthouse, because I was feeling rustic (~370k)
The lawn in front of Mission Point resort (~1M)

Butting Heads: I actually watched the end of the Metric Football World Cup Final and saw the now infamous Zidane headbutt live. Has to be one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Original reports suggested the Italian guy, Materazzi, said something about Zidane's mother or, possibly, even called him a terrorist (Oh, the horror!). Materazzi admits he insulted him, but said he didn't call him a terrorist because, "I'm not cultured and I don't even know what an Islamic terrorist is." FIFA, the Federation Internationale de [Metric] Football Association, investigated the incident -- it's not clear if they also investigated whether Materazzi is, in fact, some kind of retard -- and decided to suspend both players even though Zidane has retired and is therefore suspended from games he doesn't have. Makes perfect sense.

As for Zidane, two things: 1) Sticks and stones, dude. Sticks and stones. 2) Where the hell did you come up with a headbutt, of all things? Why not just coldcock the guy? Did you think because it is Soccer you wouldn't get in trouble if you didn't use your hands? Look, if you're going to go down, go down in flames -- go for a full-on Ron Artest level meltdown. A headbutt? To the chest? What a butthead.

I'll Take a Pass: Meanwhile back in the normal football world, Football Outsiders has published a four part guide to understanding the pass offense. If you are a football nerd, this is truly great stuff.

Enjoy (parts 1, 2, 3, 4).

Football's popularity continues to amaze. Now that training camps are open, they are packing stadiums for scrimmages. Not real games, not even pre-season games: scrimmages. Wow.

Flaked Out Tour: Another event I watched a bit of was the Tour de France. The first Lance-free TdF was likely a huge ratings let down, but since it was broadcast on OLN it couldn't have had very high expectations to begin with. It was won by an American rider named Floyd Landis who is, quite clearly, an out and out flake.

There was a good bit of drama. After being in contention from the beginning, on one particularly bad day Landis hit an agonizing wall and slipped 8 minutes behind the leaders causing what little press there was to write him off as toast. The following day he retrieved nearly the entire 8 minutes in what has been termed the greatest single day ride in TdF history (I wouldn't know how hyperbolic that statement is), and was in the driver's seat for the victory. It was a remarkable thing to see. And, though no one was watching, OLN did a great job of covering it.

Despite that, there were only minor mentions in the broader press. Sports news outlets really missed a good story in the TdF this year, I thought. The two big favorites get kicked out before the race due to doping scandals, a flaky American puts up the ride of his life for a victory, and it turns out that now that the race is over he has to undergo a complete hip replacement (for a pre-existing condition) and may not be able to ride competitively again, providing the obligatory sentimental Oprah-esque angle everything seems to need these days. How could ESPN or Fox Sports not get at least an hour-long special out of this?

But Wait! A few days after the race it is reported that Floyd has a suspicious drug test. Now, finally, everyone is paying attention. Floyd denies it, says there is no way he was juiced -- too much testosterone? there must be a mistake. A few days later, his 'back-up sample' shows the same results. What's more damning, the samples were taken after the 'greatest single day ride ever!' As of this writing, Floyd looks to be completely disgraced, although he still maintains his innocence. And the sport of cycling goes yet deeper into the toilet.

In a way, this strengthens Lance Armstrong's legend. If dopers and druggies are getting caught left and right, including Lance's primary competition, but Lance, the most drug tested man in the history of the world, never turned up positive, just imagine how much better he must have been than everyone else.

Shakespeare in the West: Deadwood is in the meat of its season now and continues to blow me away. The addition of the character of George Hearst -- expertly portrayed by Gerald McRaney -- has moved everything into Shakespearean territory. Hearst is a malevolent force of chaos and destruction: irrational and inscrutable. The entire town has, for the moment, united in their joint interest in resisting the outsider. Sworn enemies are playing kissy face. Blood feuds are set aside. The common enemy becomes another step in the move to civilization. The greater evil causes the town to contemplate the moral aspect of the conflict and, thereby, examine their own moral scores with respect to each other. Remarkable. Deadwood will never be popular, but I am convinced that, in the fullness of time, it will be seriously appreciated as a work of dramatic art.

Sadly, we still are not going to get a fourth season, because HBO can't seem to come to its senses. David Milch (Deadwood's creator) has stated that he wanted one more season to complete his story, but all HBO has offered is two 2-hour movies instead. I haven't heard if he has accepted that or not. I am deeply pissed off at HBO for not letting Milch finish his story. In fact, with no more Deadwood, the (most likely) last season of The Wire coming up and The Sopranos winding up its run in early 2007, I think my days as an HBO subscriber are numbered. I've been watching HBO since back in the Larry Sanders days, but it may have outlived its utility. Rome is uninspiring, Entourage is lukewarm, what is left?

All the better, I suppose, since I give Comcast enough money as it is.

Google is Forgiven: Google is coming to Ann Arbor. Good choice. Ann Arbor is a great place, although there are those who feel it is overrated.

Ann Arbor has picked up a ton of jobs from the Toyota Design Center. Hyundai is following hot on their heels. Pfizer can't manage to leave (although some suspect they would like to). And of course, the University sucks cash out of unsuspecting parents from around the globe and provides an influx of 100,000 football fans a half dozen times a year. Even when the kids are gone for summer tens of thousands more come in for come for Art Fair(s). Great restaurants have been popping up steadily. Housing is tight in the city but booming in the surrounding towns to the north and west -- such as Dexter, my adopted hometown -- which are transitioning from Norman Rockwell rural to upscale bedroom communities.

Unemployment in Michigan is horrendous and Detroit and its suburbs are artless places. Outside of metro Detroit, Michigan as a whole is exquisitely beautiful but not much better off economically. Except Ann Arbor, which is like an island of coolness and prosperity. It's a good place to be.

So I have forgiven Google for last month's map fiasco and it is now my default search engine again. I know they were worried about that.

The Month That Was - June 2006:

~The new plan
~New York Weekend
~The Sopranos Ends
~Deadwood Begins
~Google Maps Evilness
~Mac Switch Eval
~Women's Football Camp

Going Forward: I think I have it. I think I know how to structure this going forward. I will stay on blogger and continue to make monthly updates. Each section will be a separate post to facilitate linking, but there will be an introductory "Month That Was" Index to delineate the monthly diary style I have adopted. See above for a case in point.

Still need to rework the page design, though.

Like all other decisions I make, this one will stay in effect until I change my mind.

Fool For The City: I took a quick weekend in NYC, early in the month just to try to shake some blues.

Because of weather in NYC, my flight to LGA was delayed an hour and twenty minutes from taking off in Detroit. Blah. So I cleverly went a few gates down and got myself on a flight to JFK which was leaving at exactly the same time as my LGA flight and was, strangely, not delayed. Of course, instead of waiting in the terminal for my original delayed flight, I got to spend the equivalent time circling JFK with my tray table lifted and my seat back in an upright and locked position. Bad weather is bad weather, you're either going wait to take off and know you can land on time, or you're going to take off on time and circle before you can land. I should have realized...

Combine that with the fact that the cab ride from JFK to Midtown took is about 30 minutes longer than it would have from LGA because of construction, the result of my brilliant adaptation was that instead of spending the delay in the relative comfort of McNamara Terminal in Detroit (one of the nicest airline terminals you will ever see, no kidding), I got to spend it wedged into a coach seat on a packed plane and in the back of a cab slogging through construction delays in Queens. Who's a clever boy, eh?

I stayed at the famed Waldorf=Astoria, which was something of a let down, as you can tell from my review.

Still, whenever I hit the Manhattan streets, I always feel like everything will be OK. And once again, it was. I wandered down to this top notch tapas restaurant, Solera (real Spanish tapas, made by real Spaniards, not Puerto Ricans from the Lower East Side), because that is the kind of thing you do in The City, you wander down the street to get tapas. Then I hopped on the E train over towards the Theatre District and caught the early set at Birdland because that is also the kind of thing you can do in The City, you hop the subway to catch some live jazz.

The next day, a Jamba Juice Mango Madness for breakfast, then up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to check out a fairly minor display on Tibet, which has special relevance for a certain project I'm working on, then a walk across Central Park, with a stop for a pretzel and a nap on the Great Lawn. Then over to the American Museum of Natural History to see the Darwin exhibit. While there I also took some snaps of the nature displays, like Sugimoto (see last month), to see if I could turn them into beautiful photographs. Sadly, I don't think mine turned out as well (Ostriches (350k), Birds (410k), Rhinos (390k)). But it's a fair bet Sugimoto was working with something a bit more sophisticated than a 4MP Kodak point-and-shoot and Photoshop Elements.

Back down town to Le Parker Meridian hotel, where there were people lined up out front in anticipation of some celebrity or other, which was fine with me because I wanted to hit the Hidden Burger Joint, which is something of a tradition for me. I had ordered, been served, and completed my meal and the celeb still hadn't arrived. Never found out who it was.

Another Jamba Juice breakfast the next morning, this time Pineapple-a-Go-Go (Is there a valid reason we cannot have a Jamba Juice in Ann Arbor? Or better yet, Dexter?), then some time for writing and all that was left was to hop a cab to LGA for a thankfully uneventful flight home.

A great weekend getaway. I should do it more often, but New York is as expensive as everyone says.

I have three favorite urban places that I like to visit once a year: Manhattan, the Vegas Strip, and the French Quarter. Two to go for 2006.

Sopranos Ends: The Sopranos wrapped up a fine season. Like everyone else, I got a little sick of the Vito-is-gay-and-will-be-whacked storyline, but it did serve as a good springboard for the upcoming battle with Phil "the Shah of Iran" Leotardo.

Also, it was a counter example of my favorite aspect of this season, watching the characters come to terms with their own personal limitations. Some did it in a small way: Silvio came to see that he was not cut out to be the boss; Paulie came to terms with his Mom's "betrayal"; Meadow disappeared to the West Coast, perhaps coming to terms with separating from her family.

Others had larger epiphanies: Carmela now accepts Tony's philandering and, in one of the most telling scenes in the series, the tacit complicity of her children in Tony's life, provided she can sufficiently distract herself with her real estate project; Christopher seems to have closed the book on his movie career -- finding himself no match for Ben Kingsley -- he may also be accepting that drugs are part of his life that needs to be controlled not avoided; and biggest of all, A.J. now sees that he is not player on the social scene, nor a street tough wiseguy like his Dad -- he may end up as a decent working class guy, taking compromised victories wherever he can.

Vito, on the other hand, could not be a good citizen in a gay friendly New England town, so he tried to return to the homophobic mob. Accept thyself or be whacked. That seems to be the moral of the story.

And all this soul-searching has its roots in Tony's near-death experience. Oddly though, Tony seemed to get nothing out of it except to appreciate every day of life. Banal. But then, I think Tony had already achieved self-acceptance. Perhaps he is advancing from acceptance to appreciation. I really hope not. He is, after all, a vicious, violent criminal who deserves to suffer.

Nicely done. I'm looking forward to the final eight episodes come January.

Deadwood Begins: The Sopranos end signified the start of Deadwood. As with the opening episode of last season, the first show was a masterpiece.

Anybody who appreciates words can not help but be completely blown away by the dialogue in Deadwood. A visual comparison would be if you were frozen in the fifties having known nothing more than a black-and-white Philco then somebody sat you in front of a 60-inch high-def plasma. Quick, catch your jaw before it hits. Actually it may even be more stunning than that; there has simply never been anything like it.

But it's clear that there is not a big audience for history making teleplay dialogue since the Deadwood actors have been released from their contracts for a 4th season, an act that can be interpreted to mean the show won't last past this season. There is still the possibility of renewal, but it's not looking good as of this writing. That is a particular shame since the creator, David Milch, had planned on four seasons to tell the complete story he wanted to tell, adhering to Mazzotta's 2nd Law of Great TV Drama: "Thou shalt not create a storyline without knowing the end." (See this essay at Blogcritics for more details.)

HBO needs to let Milch finish his story, for the sake of posterity. While it is certainly true that a network survives on ratings, history doesn't care about ratings, only artistic merit. A wise network will balance the two and sacrifice ratings now and then for the sake of great drama. One more season of Deadwood is a good tradeoff for HBO to make. Just run a bit more late night soft core or adult reality shows to make up for the loss.

For the minority of us who crave quality, throw us a bone, wouldja?

I'm Not Ready For Some Football: The march towards a new football season continues, which also means the march towards the return of my Thoughtful Fool column come mid/late October. It's a brutal thing, and will undoubtedly take over my life again. (Seriously, unless I can get it syndicated and get paid for it, I think this will be my last year writing about picks.)

For now I have been slowly getting back into the swing of things. I have decided to change and enhance some of the gambling aspects of the column -- specifically, I am going to start using on-line odds makers to get betting lines instead of waiting for the lines to be published in Vegas, and I am going to enhance the spreadsheets I use to present data.

But the real difficulty in writing the column is that it is writing on a deadline, which can be best described as having a horrible empty feeling in the pit of your stomach as you stare a blank page hoping words come to you; words that must be clever or witty or informative.

No point in getting ahead of myself though, I'm not there quite yet this year.

For those of you who are weird like me, that is to say fascinated by probability in sports, I recommend a series of articles over at Football Reference where in the writer, making some assumptions about certain probabilities he simulates 10,000 NFL seasons to see how often truly odd outcomes come along. Interesting stuff: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

In one season, the worst team in the league actually stumbles into not just making the playoffs, but winning the Super Bowl (so the expectation is that this would happen once in every 10,000 seasons -- that a long time). Another discovery, the best team in the league actually wins the Super Bowl only about 24% of the time. Good stuff if you are as geeky as me, and you'll know if you are after you try to read this.

Evil Is As Evil Does: You want to know what's evil? Google. Specifically, Google Maps. I believe, for the second time, I printed out directions for a specific business only to discover I have been led on a wild goose chase through some labyrinthine side streets to a dead end cul-de-sac where I was supposed to find a bustling retail center.

Google Maps, and its father Mapquest, make it all seem so simple. You don't need an atlas, you don't need to call for directions, you just print this out and you're golden. Except when they send you to the wrong place. (This has happened to me in the past with Mapquest, which is why I started using Google Maps.)

The least they could do is point out when they are randomly assigning you directions because they don't know what you are looking for. They could put a disclaimer on the print out: "We have know idea if this is where the business you want is, but we think we got you in the right city at least, and it's as likely to be here as anywhere else."

As a result of this misadventure, I did discover that I have lost none of my ability to unleash a startling torrent of profanity despite a general mellowing with age. So I guess that's a silver lining.

But I have changed my default search engine to Yahoo in protest. That oughta sting 'em.

Post Switch Era: I am now many months into my life as a switcher (PC to Mac), and have even come to terms with Mac at home and PC at work dual mindset. I like my little iBook a lot, and I like OS X, and in general all the areas where people say the Mac is superior are true. Stuff really does just work. Keeping anti-virus and spyware products up to date is a non-issue. It is a very pleasant environment to work in. But there are some caveats for those of you who are thinking of switching to bear in mind:

(1) You lose certain keyboarding abilities. I miss accelerator keys badly. Accelerator keys are the ones underlined in the menu of Windows apps. These keys let you cruise through the menus without reaching for your mouse by holding the alt key and hitting the letter. Mac has none of this. The most of the important menu functions have hot keys, but they are not visible unless you have accessed the menu, you have to remember them. This has been a difficult adjustment.

Along the same lines, maneuvering through dialog boxes is trickier. Let's say you have a dialog box with three buttons, Add, Edit and Cancel. And let's say the system is designed with Add as the default. In windows you can use the arrow keys or tab to move around to different controls, and most will have accelerators which is even better. In the Mac you get the tab key, that's it. And I have yet to figure out how to use the keyboard to drop a list from a dropdown control or to mark a. All of which were second nature with the keyboard in Windows.

And while we are on a keyboard rant. My iBook has no backspace key. The delete key behaves like a backspace key in Windows and if you want to delete a letter to the right of the cursor (a 'delete' in Windows) you have to hit fn-Delete (a key combination). That is the single most consternating thing I have encountered so far.

(2) Limited on-line music options. iTunes (the Mac music player) and iTMS (iTunes music store) are second to none when it comes to building a library of music, whether it is ripped mp3s from your CDs or downloaded ones from the store. It's really great stuff. But the problem is that if you are going to use iTunes you are very much limited to iTMS. iTunes is great. I have a Roku sound box -- a wonderful little device that connects to my home stereo and which, through my home wireless connection, can take the output from iTunes and play it through my nice sounding stereo, instead of requiring me some how hook up iBook directly to the stereo to it's own set of speakers. It's pretty sweet.

But I don't want to have a big old library of mp3s. Broadly speaking, I don't want to own any media at all. I want an on demand subscription service. I want to pay $xx.xx dollars a month and be able to construct various playlists of music. Then I can just pick which ever of my playlists I want to listen to and have it streamed to me. Or better yet, I would like to be able to pick a detailed genre (say 'female jazz vocalists' or '90s Japanese pop' or whatever) and have the service compile a playlist for me. Such subscription services exist, but they are only for the Windows world. The best I can do is store up live365.com streams and play them through iTunes. Not really a bad solution as there is tons of stuff at live365, but not a match for what would be available in Windows.

Actually the perfect solution would be for Last.fm to play through iTunes.

(3) The one button mouse. It is really quite silly and deeply annoying. It's an easy fix on a desktop machine, but you can't replace the integrated device on a laptop.

I have focused on the negative, but balance I am a happy switcher. In fact, I can even see that most of the problems I have mentioned may go away. OS X is clearly going in a direction that will allow you to run Windows applications, which means I will be able to run Windows Office (which I like better than Mac Office) and will likely solve some of my keyboard issues.

Somebody already has a beta product that allows Last.fm to play through iTunes. And I am really hoping that Apple will implement a similar service themselves. This is the future of radio, so to speak.

If somebody would come up with a two-button integrated touch pad replacement I'd be all set.

I figure I have another year, if not two, with my iBook, then I will re-evaluate. For now, I'm cool with my Mac. If you're tempted to switch -- do not fear.

Sign 'Em Up Lloyd: Mid-month brought dear friends up from Reston, VA for the Michigan Women's Football Academy. This is an annual event to benefit cancer research, administered by the Coach Carr Fund. That would be Coach Lloyd Carr of the University of Michigan Wolverines.

It goes like this: As with most charity events, you (if you are a woman - no boys allowed) register for the academy and gather donations from you friends, relatives, total strangers, etc. In return you get to spend a day learning how to play football and running scrimmages. So what's the big deal? Well, you do all this under the tutelage of the actual Michigan Wolverines coaching staff and players. You are picking up the finer points of football from some of the best. Plus, if you are a fan of the Wolverines, you get to meet some of the players you have been following.

Yes, they work hard, but lest you be afraid, the scrimmages are two-hand touch (nobody gets clotheslined) and there are no ringers that I can see. Although ages run the gamut, I would guess the average is late 30s/early 40s. Athletic ability is not required.

The big bonus is that the scrimmages are played in the Big House, Michigan Stadium. The women come charging out of the tunnel just like in a regular game and the action is shown on the big screens on the scoreboards at either end of the stadium. Bottom line: These chicks have a blast.

Highly recommended for any woman looking for a charity event to participate in, especially if you have connections to the University of Michigan.

More info and registration: Coach Carr Women's Football Academy.

The Month That Was - May 2006: I spent a few days in Sarasota early in the month -- family issues, and so forth. Sarasota has grown out and up over the years. It's really a hot spot -- a very underrated Florida destination. It's no longer just a place where the white belts and blue hairs go to get the early bird special -- although that element in still in evidence. Fine restaurants (especially seafood) abound, and it has become quite a focal point for the arts in the South.

Along the quite lovely bay shoreline the city has been holding an ongoing outdoor sculpture exhibition featuring a remarkable, and enormous, sculptural rendition of the famous Life magazine cover from the WWII or the sailor kissing a girl in celebration of victory. It's a great piece with a fresh energy and youthfulness to it -- a solid contrast to the old, stogy Sarasota I remember from years past. People swarm below it for pictures. To their credit, the city elders are trying to put together enough money to purchase it and keep it on display. They should, it's the sort of landmark that would readily become identified with the city -- like the arches in St. Louis or the Hollywood sign in LA.

While in Sarasota I stayed at the Hyatt which you can read about over at Hotel Chatter.

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Of course, I rarely get through a trip without some bizzare occurance. In this case it was on the flight back from Sarasota where I sat next to a guy we'll just call Freak Show.

Freak Show was all nerves and twitches. He recited every action he was going to take out loud and chuckled nervously after each sentence. "I'll just look at this magazine. Heh, heh." "Guess I'll turn on the overhead light. Heh, heh." "Might as well inhale and exhale again. Heh, heh." (OK, I made that last one up.) He had a portable CD player on which he played what sounded like a some early eighties head banger crap, loudly enough to be thoroughly annoying to those around him, even though the ear buds were stuck in his ears. I can only imagine what was happening to his eardrums. Didn't bother him, he just twitched his head up and down ever so slightly with the beat. You know, maybe he was so deaf from keeping it cranked to eleven that he just didn't realize he was narrating the minutae of his life. I would have taken issue with these annoyances but I was mortified at the thought that he would take that as an invitation for conversation.

And let me just say Freak Show was particularly unselfconscious about belching.

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I also managed a brief weekend in DC and once again, you can read about my local digs, the delightful Hotel Monaco, over at Hotel Chatter. But here are some extra bonus scenes from The Mall.

* Instead of Nordstrom's, this mall is anchored by The Capitol ~400k
* The Smithsonian Castle, which actually doesn't hold much of anything anymore ~500k
* Another angle on the Castle ~540k* *
* The opposite mall anchor is the Washington Monument ~480k
* In the Freer Gallery, this evil looking dude is the bouncer ~420k
* The Hirshhorn, which contains mostly modern and contemporary art, is basically a big ugly cement cylinder but with interesting sculptures surrounding it such as the lively brushstroke in front, and... ~230k
* ...the eerie empty suit, and... ~470k
* ...my favorite, the gossiping weeble dudes ~380k
* A panorama of the east (?) side of the mall ~720k
* Not on the mall, this painting of the Mandarin Princess lives in the Mandarin Oriental ~530k

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My main reason for going to DC was to catch an exhibit at the Sackler Gallery, which is primarily devoted to Asian art, that was ending that weekend. You may be familiar with a painting (actually a woodcut) known colloquially as The Great Wave (actually "In the Hollow of a Wave off the Coast at Kanagawa"), and if you're not, you'd still probably recognize it. It is fairly iconic. It usually resides at the Met in New York, I believe.

The Sackler Gallery (part of the Smithsonian) managed to gather it and a good deal more of the enormous output of the artist, Katsushika Hokusai. Hokusai was an unimaginably prolific artist from the late-18th through mid-19th centuries. He worked in many mediums and went through various periods of success and deprivation, remarkably becoming even more prolfic after the age of 60. He had a very strong influence on many subsequent Western painters including Whistler, Monet, Gauguin and Van Gogh.

The presentation was not the best, it seemed a little chaotic, and the crowd was troublesome; since some many of his works were small-ish there was a bit of competition for viewing space.

Whatever the space issues, there is no denying the striking character of his work. The subject matter was all over the place: landscapes, portraits, imaginary monsters, historical and religious depictions -- you name it. There is little deferrence to visual realism; the colors are often unsubtle and the shading and perspective is not always spot on, nor it is it intended to be. But in stradling the line between stylistic reverence and cartoonish frivolity he presages much of the playfulness of form and style that was to come in the art world, especially the commercial art world. If you cannot see a connection between Hokusai and manga or anime, you might want to look into Lasik.

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The other interesting exhibit I saw was over at the Hirshhorn. A collection from photgrapher Hiroshi Sugimoto. Definitely a guy who does not look at the world like the rest of us. Most impressive were his sharp black and white studies of museum exhibits. Specifically, some of the exhibits you would see at the Natural Science Museum on the Upper West Side, or photo portatis of historical characters from Madame Tussauds wax museum. The remarkable things about these works is how the stiff, fake-looking exhibits can seem completely life-like when rendered in 2-D. Clever stuff.

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Becasue I know you were worried about this, my new plan for the site is to continue to use Blogger after all. I came to the conclusion that, even though I am only going to post monthly, it might be beneficial to have individual links to the different little topics I post on. That doesn't work with one long post (like this one); for example, if someone wanted to highlight my comments reagrding Hokusai, that person would have to link to the entire post and tell readers to scroll down to the fourth item -- inconvenient. So I'm back to considering hanging on to blogger for a bit longer, but with a simplifying redesign. At least, that's the plan until I change my mind again; like when I remember that nobody has linked to any of my blog entires in eons.

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More 'Phins (sorry if this is boring you).

The Dolphins signed documented leg stomper Marcus Vick to a contract as a "Receiver Specialist" by which they mean someone like Antwan Randal-El, who lines up at receiver but is just as likely to take a lateral and wing a pass downfield. Nobody likes Marcus Vick because he is a stupendous jerk. Let's face it, he didn't get kicked out of Virginia Tech for throwing spit wads in the team meetings. Let's see: Wreckless driving, serving alochol to teenage girls, driving on a suspended license, ganja, and the Gator Bowl leg stompping. In deference to his older brother, he is already being referred to as "New Mexico."

I'm really having trouble remaining a fan of the Dolphins. I realize this is a low risk contract, and that Vick came cheap and Nick Saban can dump him instantly if he doesn't turn out to be worth the trouble, but I'm still struggling with the possibility of having to be happy if he makes a key play.

Their top running back is playing north of the border, where the weed is not illegal. Their big name quarterback has a dubious career to go with his dubious knee. Their back up quarterback is, well, Joey Harrington. And now they take a flyer on this notorious asswipe. None of these seem like solid, purposeful moves for a team that was on the brink of the elite. I'm afraid Belichick has put "keep up on the Dolphins" way down on his to do list.

Still keeping that open mind...

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Hopefully I will have more to report on my writing efforts next month.

The Month That Was - April 2006: As I alluded to last time, I need to redesign this site putting focus on my various writing efforts and dropping the blog altogether, going the monthly diary route instead. That likely means dropping blogger and getting a new URL. I've started a site redesign -- you can see the vestiges of it here. As usual, I started out trying to make the site conform to various web-design standards and to keep content separate from presentation and the be-a-good-designer kind of stuff, but I got so frustrated I just went and did it the old table-based way because it is so much easier. I have minimal time for this and there is little return for me to spend the time to become Joe Webmonkey. If I ever have extra time for site stuff, what I should do is set up a Flickr pool and get my photos posted.

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I managed to get to Chicago for a couple of nights toward the end of the last month and I should write about it, but all my sit-your-butt-down-and-do-it time has been allocated elsewhere.

Actually, I did get a hotel review done for Hotel Chatter, but I should write up the entire trip. Don't hold your breath, though.

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The Miami Dolphins traded for ex-Vikings, ex-Love Boat, QB Daunte Culpepper. The overwhelming majority of commentators declared that getting Daunte for a mere 2nd roung draft choice was a huge coup. Me not so sure. Me thinks his knee is at risk, not the least reason being because he is such a big guy. Me also remembers the Vikings suddenly making a playoff run under the entirely unappreciated Brad Johnson after Culpepper went down.

Culpepper caught hell of late for trying to be his own agent, mostly because it put him in a position where he had to say and do semi-obnoxious things in his own self interest that most players can leave to their agents. I can't fault him for that, I think it took some courage to go for it. Agents, are best viewed with suspicion. He's also virulently defended himself against all the Love Boat accusations. I have no first hand knowledge, but whenever I have seen him interviewed he usually seems like a first-class guy, so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt with respect to character.

But when it comes to quarterbacks, an average talent who makes few mistakes (see Johnson, above) is preferable to a great talent who can be too self-dependent. I fear Daunte is the latter. Also, the best spin you can put on his career without Randy Moss as a target is that it is, um, unproven.

Of course, Culpepper is not at all certain to be fully rehabbed by the time the season starts, so it looks like the Fins are going to sign none other than Joey Harrington as his back-up, because they need a below average ex-Lions QB to replace Gus "Hammerhead" Frerotte.

I really hope Joey and/or Daunte succeed, and I'm willing to cut Nick Saban some slack after the incredible finish to last season, but my gut tells me this may turn into an ol' fashioned pooch-screwing. Got to keep that open mind, right? I have a trip down to Miami to catch a game in person as a potential goal for this fall, despite my cynicism. (Even if they lose, there's still South Beach...)

Meanwhile, Ricky Williams looks forlornly at his bong and says, "I wish I could quit you."

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Speaking of football, I've been reading How Professional Gamblers Beat the Football Point Spread by J.J. Miller. First off, let me say that if you saw this book sitting on the shelf, you'd pass it off as in the same category as "How to Make a Million Dollars in Your Spare Time and Pay No Taxes". The cover design and the title need lots of work. But the content is very clearheaded and Miller makes no outrageous claims about how easy it is to pick winners or any unrealistic claims of winning percentages. Most of what the concepts he covers are spot-on accurate. Yet another book I should review in full, and I likely will before I start doing picks of my own this year.

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Speaking of book reviews, Temple Stark, journalist and Blogcritics editor, has posted a review of Business as Usual. It was a strange sensation to read it since, in my mind, I have placed both my novels in the "things I did in the past" category. One of the (few) good things about writing a book is that it is always just sitting out there, waitng for anyone who might be interested.

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Speaking of writing, here I am still slogging through Misspent Youth, with seemingly ever-decreasing efficiency, when what happens but I suddenly get ideas for two more writng projects (neither of which are comic satires). In fact, one is a historical mystery along the lines of The Name of The Rose, but with a special hook for dedicated whodunit fans. Unlike mainstream novelists, mystery writers occassionally sell more than a dozen or so copies of their books, which would be a nice change of pace for me. For the time being, it's nothing more than a wispy idea meandering about in my head, but I have a sense that this one might have some legs for the long run. First, I must do some research into Tibet at the end of the 19th century...

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Speaking of inconvenient segues, I'm still entranced by the current Sopranos season. If you are a big fan of mob movies, you're not going to be happy. I just can't see the genre recovering from this. David Chase is not just ripping out all the romantic cliches of the Mafia, he is not just reducing them to barbaric criminals, he is making it clear that they are a truly loathsome group both personally and professionally. Almost without exception, the mob characters are being portrayed as not just fat and stupid, but filled with nothing but vulgarity and self-delusion. They declare oaths of honor and adherence to long-standing traditions, but they live and die at the whim of their superiors who are even more vile and savage. And doomed, too. In a recent episode, Jamba Juice proved to be too powerful for the the Jersey wiseguys.

This year, we are getting a taste of the effect of the life on the families. Both of Tony's children are finding themselves deeply affected by their father's choice of career. Despite all his efforts, Tony may have to witness the inevitable destruction of his family, and 'family' is what The Sopranos has always been about, according to Chase. This was referenced directly at the end of a recent episode when, in an extremely emotional situation, A.J. mentions a scene in The Godfather to Tony, and Tony replies, "It's just a movie. It's time to grow up." That, I think, is Chase telling us about mob mythology.

Dramatically this season is truly kicking some elephant arse. So much so that, in conjunction with the deeply negative message, I just don't see another standard mob movie having any relevance. It's like seeing the pastel drug dealers in Miami Vice after a sequence in a crack house on Cops. You can't help but see the silliness of the fantasy.

The Month That Was - March 2006: Like a Hollywood zombie, I have staggered back from the dead. Here's the thing: this isn't much of a blog any more. Over the past year I have been trying to devote myself to more directed writing at various spots around the web. The last couple of months I have been working really hard at fiction, making excruciatingly slow progress on my third novel -- Misspent Youth. So virtually no effort has been put into this blog and that is likely to continue.

Blogging is easy. Blogging well and successfully is not. And even if you blog well, it's not like you are standing out of a crowd anymore. So my plan now is to move to monthly posting. Each month I hope to post a summary update on the topic of me and one or two things that have caught my eye over the course of the month. Such trivialities only merit a monthly frequency anyway. Anything more than that is pure vanity or will merely be string of curious links that are being passed around the web like a bottle down south.

So monthly updates it is; that and linking up whatever writing I am doing otherwise (which will be very little until I either finish or give up on Misspent Youth).

Like I said, that doesn't make this much of a blog. I should probably rework this layout to something more appropriate. Or maybe I should start over from scratch with a new site. Or maybe I should shut up and write.

Speaking of which, the slowest piece of writing I have ever done is probably my write up of the trip to Hawaii from about six months ago. It's finally ready for reading. It's long -- be sure your schedule is clear before you click through.

I have to admit I have no idea where this final season of The Sopranos is going. It's pretty clearly not following the New-Guy-Appears-And-Eventually-Gets-Whacked formula of the past few seasons. That's a good thing. I am completely in favor of David Chase just running with it -- any insane idea that just might work dramatically, might as well go for it. After four episodes, with Tony emerging from a Purgatorial coma, the possibilities are endless. Bear in mind that Chase has always maintained that The Sopranos is about family. I expect a big part of this season is going to be the culmination of the effect of being mob kids on Meadow and AJ. If that theme can mesh believably with all the open threads going on in the mob family, that will be quite an accomplishment. This should be fun.

Speaking of fun, have you visited You Tube yet? Very fun way to kill time (because Time is evil and it must be destroyed). Site users just upload videos of varying length for all to see, kind of like a video veriosn of Flickr. There's a ton of them. They range from those geeky kids lip-synching to clips from old movies to homemade animations to clips from classic TV (do a search on 'Monkees' to see the MTV of my youth) and everything in between. Just enter a keyword into the search engine to see if there is anything on the topic of your choice. (Note: Google Video works the same way). You'll need broadband -- videos are not for the bandwidth challenged -- but take some time to troll around for gems.

I am currently reading two books that could not be more different. One is Prime Obsession, which is a combination of pop mathematics and history. It is a recounting of the history of the pursuit of understanding prime numbers and something called the Riemann Hypothesis. I hit my ceiling in math at college level calculus, and I can just about follow the dumbed down explanations of the math in the book. Equally interesting are the biographical profiles and history behind the mathematicians. It is exceptional for it's clarity in both areas. I'll try to review this in full once I'm done.

The other book is a famous one by Vladmir Nabokov and you would know the title if I said it, but I won't because the mere mention of the word can set off obscenity filters. Let's just say it is a nickname derived from Delores. I had always thought the book was primarily about male fears of mortality as manifested in a particular type of unsavory behavior. I was wrong, it is much deeper than that and it is as remarkable as its reputation. The movies do not do it justice. I may review this one too, but I have to imagine there is little left to say about it.

Lastly, let me just offer a big fat Happy Birthday to Her Royal Highness My Darling Miss Anna Banana who recently turned 14 and has a big soiree scheduled. I think she wanted an iPod Nano, but all she got from me was a Sims expansion pack. It's a cold, cruel world. Here's a recent pic featuring her world famous Mona Lisa Smirk. See and be owned.

Whatever: I am having a very hard time working up any motivation to write anything. Not fiction, not journalism, not this blog -- nothing. Not sure what that means; whether it it temporary or not; whether I should try to drive through it or simply move on to other endevours. (Not that I have any idea what those other endevours might be.)

Something will come up I'm sure. Sure.

Is it Safe to Look Yet?: I don’t know if it was the worst Super Bowl ever, but it was certainly the ugliest. Top five ugly things about Super Bowl XL:

5. Ben Roethlisberger’s QB rating (Lowest ever for a winning QB; lower than his age of 23)
4. Detroit
3. Seahawks two minute drill
2. The officiating crew’s understanding of the basics of cause and effect
1. Mick Jagger’s hips

Yet it was one of the highest rated ones ever. Why? Please tell me it wasn’t the Rolling Stones. Please tell me no one was tuned in hoping for a Keith Richards wardrobe malfunction.

And it had record money wagered on it in Vegas -- a Dr. Evil-esque $94.5 million. I can only assume that is the result of people reading my Super Bowl column.

The most amazing football news of the week has to be the newly announced ESPN broadcast team for Monday Night Football next season: Mike Tirico (will do a solid job), Tony Kornheiser (yep, the guy from Pardon the Interruption -- I have an open mind about his possibilities), and...wait for it...wait for it...Joe Theismann. That’s right kids, he of the salmon-colored shorts will be back for another year to regale us with scintillating insights like “In this situation, the running back is trying to move the ball forward as far as he can.” I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused. There is a part of me that is glad football season is over.

Long Gone: Good grief what's next? Will it be a month between posts this time? Actually I have been thinking of doing just that: doing a monthly diary style post. What I should do is completely rework this from a traditional blog; I am not keeping up on things at all, primarily because there is nothing special about blogs or blogging anymore and because I want to devote my writing to more directed ends. Of course, I'm not sure what that reworking is...

Last weekend I was in Manhattan. There are two places I need to visit a couple of times a year, Manhattan is one and Vegas is the other. This time Manhattan included a fine day at the MoMA, highlighted by 20 years of Pixar and an evening at English is Italian, delicious food but be hungry, there's lots. As always, it was a thrilling just to be in Manhattan, but like everywhere else, it's better when the weather is warm.

Football-wise, I did a quick postmortem on the Indy Colts. If you've been following the column you may find it interesting.

Lastly we have the usual linkage, both subtle and gross:

• An animated .gif of the famous Bigfoot film, but with the camera stabilzed. I found this oddly mesmerizing. That is because I am weird.


• From Slate, the story of how Blockbuster managed to get lobbed on to the ash heap of history.


• A list of some interesting satellite maps from Google Earth. Very cool. Naturally I zeroed in on The Strip...


• Why oh why do we need Clerks 2? I suupose I should keep an open mind, but is it so hard to leave well enough alone? What's next More Office Space?


• I'm a little late with this, but here is a good list of the most misinterpreted and downright inaccurate statistical pronouncements of 2005. (Abuse of statistics by the idiot press is a real pet peeve of mine.)


• Top 10 literary mysteries. I have read exactly one: The Name of the Rose


• The divine P.J. O'Rouke on writing. I love to hear how successful writers feel the same way about writing as I do.


• Josh seeks a Godly wife. Josh has certainly narrowed the field.

This is the End: Of regularly scheduled football columns, that is. It was a lot of work. The season wrap-up is up, and I'm taking a few days to chill and get some sleep (I can't count how amny three AM nights the column required). I'll try to get some links up before the week is out. Ciao for now.

Checking In: I spent the few days prior to New Years Eve in Toronto. It was warm and sunny and I could have lounged on the beach sipping mojitos all day long. Seriously, Toronto is a fine town. It's Canada in December so I expected it to be cold, I just didn't expect things to be shut down like they were. Restaurants and so forth were open on about a 50-50 basis. Plus, they don't have ESPN. They get something called "Score" that seems to carry ESPN programming sometimes, but is more of a hockey fan's wet dream.

Highlights were the Bata Shoe Museum (not bad, considering it's a shoe museum), Body Worlds at the Science Centre (notice how I spell center like a true canuck), and a quick jaunt down to Niagara Falls. A splendid trip, all in all.

Anyway, I did manage to get the penultimate football column up. And I was pleased to find out I was named Hotel Maven of the Year over at HotelChatter. For you folks at Ritz-Carlton or Four Seasons, please contact me for when you would like me to visit. My needs are simple, a jacuzzi suite and VIP access to local nightclubs will do.