A label is worth a thousand words.

Life sometimes presents you with opportunities you just cannot make up for yourself. I was out walking around at lunchtime yesterday, on a dreary, chilly, gray day that couldn’t decide whether or not it wanted to drizzle. Dull, crummy weather, matched only by the attire and visages of the other people on the street.

And then there she was: Radiant, and covered in vibrant, discordant colors. Her hair was brunette; well, the roots were. The rest of her hair was Bozo-the-Clown red. Lime-green sweatshirt, over an electric yellow t-shirt. A forest-green backpack. A mostly-red tartan miniskirt over blue jeans that were about 3 inches too long, based on how far the cuff went down over (and under) her shoes, topped with a five-inch wide belt made up of silver strands. Of course, she had a Walkman on, allowing her to be oblivious to her surroundings: not just the other pedestrians, but crossing lights and vehicles as well.

And the best part? Her backpack was emblazoned with what I presume was the name of its manufacturer but was also a fine commentary: DOLT

One last Eisenhower post.

And, with luck, I'll be off of this odd little Eisenhower kick I've been on of late.

There I was this evening, sitting at a traffic light, waiting for it to change, and staring at anything that looked at all interesting. One step before figuring out the prime factorization of the license plate of the car in front of me, I read its license plate frame: "Eisenhower Panthers." A high school and its sports teams, I suppose. But why in the world are they the Panthers? I'd expect the Generals, or even the Fighting Ikes, but Panthers? Was it the idea of someone who, being clever, translated "Panzers"? I just don't see it.

But what do I know? It's not as though the "Yorktown Patriots" is an especially inspired choice.

S'More or Less.

Hershey’s has come out with a new candy bar, called a S'More. (Well, it’s new to me, even if it’s not really new.) And a bag of them showed up at the office today, as a co-worker’s contribution to Using Chocolate to Avoid the Afternoon Blahs. The bar is clearly an attempt to render the impression of a traditional S’more, without the bother of building a campfire in your kitchen. It’s marshmallow, on a bed of something like chopped graham cracker pieces, and all covered in chocolate. No open flame to heat it over, and singing campfire songs is optional. (Perhaps not, depending on your workplace.)

It’s okay, but not grand. What I think it does that is awesome, though, is that it has found and filled a very precise candy niche: what to buy to give out at Halloween. It’s good enough that you won’t feel unhappy if you have bought too much, and end up with an extra bag and a half at the end of the night; it’s not so good that if you buy a bag of it three days before Halloween, you’ll have eaten it all by the time the 31st rolls around. And that’s a difficult line to walk. I have experience with both extremes, and neither one is much fun. (Well, okay. Actual experience shows that it’s easier to pretend that you’re not home by turning out all the lights so the little hobgoblins don’t knock on your front door than it is to eat two bags of chocolate-covered coconut bars when you despise coconut.)

Cognitive deficits.

Did you know? Ten years ago, George Bush was a skilled debater, capable of expressing his thoughts clearly, concisely, and quickly. As you've seen from this year's debates, that's not so much the case any more. If you need a refresher, watch this short movie. Then ask yourself:

Do we really need another president with pre-senile dementia?

And more from Eisenhower.

Folk songs aren't dead. Here's one for 2004, shown in a movie complete with quotations from relatives and cabinet members of the President, and from former Presidents Eisenhower and Jefferson.

A couple of key quotes:

“May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. General, Republican Politician, President; Speech, May 31, 1954, New York City

"Every gun made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." -Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower

I like Ike's son.

John Eisenhower - son of the former president - explains why he's voting for John Kerry.

That's "PRESIDENT Drooling Moron," to you.

You heard him say so tonight: President Chimpie says that legal reform is necessary so that people injured by, say, contaminated flu vaccine should not be allowed to sue the manufacturers of that vaccine. Does that make sense to anyone?

Look before you leap.

A nice weekend for a change. Sunday was cool, but warm enough when the sun was out, and with a reasonably clear, blue sky, the sun was out most of the time. Great day to be outside doing something and enjoying the autumn weather, so I went to the Great Falls of the Potomac for a picnic. Nice little park, especially for a wild area in the middle of the suburbs, nice views of the falls. Well, nice enough until you notice the parents letting their toddlers climb on top of the railings at the overlooks, where there's a 3-foot drop on one side, back to the concrete or rock floor of the overlook and a 75-foot drop on the other down to the river. At least the adults who climb out onto the last rock at the edge so they can have their photos taken are (arguably) responsible for their death-defying decisions.

When one has a fear of heights, it's fun to go to a park like this with someone who shares that fear, so that you don't feel especially silly standing four feet back from the railing to look.

And it's also fun if your companion shares your opinion of the kayakers playing in the river rapids below the falls: Reasonably entertaining to watch them in the rapids, and probably would be fun to do for about 10 minutes, but not worth the time and aggravation to get the equipment and the training, just to be out in 55-degree water for the afternoon.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Boy, do I feel like a doofus.

One of the things that I like about my ISP – and I recognize that this isn’t a terribly unique trait for ISPs – is that you can access your email account from a web interface, so you can read and respond to your email from anywhere. Thus, I’ve been able to read email while at work.

(Brief aside: Work. Bah. There’s only one internet-capable computer for 25 people, so access to the web during the work day is mighty limited. And getting to read email coming to my main email account is the primary thing that makes the job almost tolerable. Almost.)

Yesterday, I was expecting reasonably urgent email communications from three people during the day. (Up from the average of about half of an urgent conversation per day.) Weekend plans, a possible reasonable job lead, and the like. So I was surprised to get onto my mail site an hour after getting to the office, and there were no emails waiting for me: none of the ones I expected, none of the far-too-many wine-related newsletters, and not even any spam. The next time I got on to check, an hour later, there still weren’t any emails.

Hmm. Did I forget to pay my ISP bill and they’ve shut down access to my account? Well, no, since I can get to it and send email. Is there something wrong with the server, and it’s bouncing in-bound emails? Well, one way to check: I went to one of my free web email accounts, and sent myself something. Yes, it showed up just fine. Good, it’s not broken, so I’ll just wait for something to show up.

A half hour goes by, and I log back in – and now the email that I sent myself has disappeared. Hmm. Did I delete it? No, it’s not in the trash bin – but the ones I deleted yesterday are. Did I imagine sending myself an email? Anything’s possible at this point, so I send myself another one. It arrives. I stare at it long enough to make sure that it’s real, and I log out. And immediately log back in, to see if logging out and in has any odd effect. Nope; the email is still there. Okay, I’ll log out and hope that I begin receiving emails that I haven’t sent to myself.

An hour later, I check in again: and once more, the email I sent to myself has disappeared. Now I’m getting frustrated: it seems as though there‘s Someone Out There who is logging into my account, and sweeping the server clean of newly-arrived emails.

And *ping* that little 15-watt refrigerator light bulb goes on over my head. There is someone out there doing precisely that, and it’s me. It dawns on me that I left my computer on when I left the house this morning, and the email program was running, and it automagically checks the mail server every 10 or 15 minutes to see if there’s any mail, and downloads it if there is. So all of those emails I wanted to see and respond to during the day will have to wait until I get home after work. (And unless I can get the cat to answer the phone and then follow my instructions to turn off the mail program and the computer, there’s nothing I can do to intercept the rest of the afternoon’s emails, either.)

In retrospect, I’m not sure which should cause me more concern: that I was forgetful enough to leave the house with the computer and email on, thereby denying myself access to my email during the day, or that I am geeky enough to have figured out what happened without having it happen to me before and without getting home to see the day’s pile of emails waiting for me.

Maybe it was from the other Weathermen.

I was listening to the radio as I drove along during one afternoon last week, and the announcer came on with the updated weather forecast:

"They're calling for a high this afternoon of 73, a low tonight of 76, and a high tomorrow of 75. The present temperature in the Richmond area is 78."

How could one possibly read that out loud without saying, "Hey! That doesn't make any sense!"? I suppose that if it's a weather forecast, you just don't expect it to make sense.

Planning to blow your stack?

Do it right: do it live on a web cam. Just like the Mount St. Helens VolcanoCam.

Well, perhaps not precisely live, but pretty close. They claim that the image is updated every five minutes. So I suppose you won't get to see the action shots of villagers screaming in terror as they run away from the flowing lava.

The last hurricane report of the year.

Well, we can always hope.

In any event, this will be the very last of the Gaston updates. I promise. Most of the folks I work with who lost their cars in the flood have gotten replacements. One in particular, though, was interesting: He evidently paid cash, as a week and and half after he picked up his new car, he was overheard, laughing at himself and shaking his head bemusedly. “I can’t believe it. I’ve had the car for ten days and driven over 800 miles already, and I still don’t have insurance.” Much eye-rolling on the part of everyone within earshot. One would have thought that since he just got his car replaced due to having insurance, his first phone call after signing the contract for the replacement vehicle would have been to the insurance company. (One would have been wrong, however.) And yes, he’s licensed to represent you in state courts across the Commonwealth and in all federal courts.

This past Sunday, driving home from from Durham, I heard a Public Service Announcement on the radio, exhorting Richmond residents to shop and dine in those stores and restaurants in Shockoe Bottom that were closed by the flood and have since reopened. “C’mon, Richmonders! It’s your Bottom! Get in touch with it!” Perhaps not the tagline I would have chosen.

Also on that drive up I-85 from Durham to Richmond, I passed a convoy of tree-trimming trucks, presumably heading home (to Dayton, Ohio) after helping out with some of the tree-clearing tasks from the first few hurricanes of the season to hit the southeast. I wanted to stop them to ask whether they were aware that Hurricane Jeanne was in Florida, creating more work for them and their tree-cutting brethren. They probably knew that, though, and (a) had already been in Florida (and away from home) for a month, and (b) were getting out while the getting was good.

And, speaking of Hurricane Jeanne, my father reports that his retirement complex lost power for 8 hours on Sunday. Excitement enough for him. Jeanne pretty much passed Richmond by, dropping about an inch and a half to two inches last night and today. But there's more ahead: lots and lots of rain out to the west, and it'll all drain down into the James. They're predicting a flood crest at the recording station about a mile from me for Thursday afternoon, and it'll be 3.5 feet above flood stage. Luckily, my home is much higher above the river than that: enough higher that if there's a flood up here, then most of downtown Richmond will be under water, and there will be far worse things to worry about than my deck furniture washing away.

Is there anyone from Kerry's debate staff out there?

Because here are a bunch of lines I wish he'd use in the upcoming debates.

Among them:

"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"

"Vietnam was the
defining issue of our generation. I chose to go there and fight, and when I came
to the realization that the war was wrong I tried to stop the killing. Those
were my priorities, what were yours?"

"If you'd been on that boat with me, Mr. Bush, we could have all this confusion cleared up by now."

"FDR told us the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Your administration tells us time and time again that the only thing we have is fear."

An indoor wedding, we presume.

You'll recall the California-style wedding noted here a month or so ago, and the wedding announcement published in the Richmond paper? There seems to have been a small backlash: this happy couple made a point of making it clear in their announcement that they consider themselves to be normal.

As they put it:

There were no frolicking elves or dancing fairies at the wedding.

I'm guessing they're also substantially less fun than the couple married in California.

Leaflets three, leave it be.

I have long been under the impression that, as a result of passing through puberty, my body exchanged one allergy for another - that I stopped being allergic to poison ivy and started having hay fever. Not the best of possible choices, as presumably I could avoid poison ivy a whole lot more easily than I could avoid the pollen that causes hay fever, especially in this part of the country that includes both the southernmost reach of northern hay-fever-causing plants and the northernmost expanse of southern plants.

It turns out that's not the case: I'm still allergic to poison ivy, as I've discovered from a run-in with a large stand of it in my back yard. It's gotten all over the inside of my left arm, such that whenever I bend the arm, it starts itching. No fun at all.

I'm rather hoping it'll be another 35 years before I rub up against poison ivy again.

So where's the flipping rainbow?

Here it is, Thursday night, and the National Weather Service has announced a Flash Flood Watch. It covers the entire state of Virginia. And it lasts until Sunday.

That's how much rain they think we'll get. Here in the Richmond area, they're calling for maybe 3 to 6 inches. Or maybe 10.

Not as though we especially need the rain. For the month of September, we've already gotten 4 inches of rain. And that's after August's 16.3 inches, a monthly record for Richmond. Needless to say, we've already gotten more rain this year than the average yearly total for Richmond, and we've got 3 1/2 months to go.

And Hurricane Jeanne is set to get here in the middle of next week. Maybe the rain will let up enough that I can go out and mow the moss that is now my front yard.

Vote early, vote often.

Possibly a more interesting election than the other one facing us in November.

And you can call the candidate a snake, and he won't mind.

Email jollies.

So I've got this email account on Yahoo!. I've had it for a long, long time - long enough that the email address is some combination of my initials and last name, and without numbers at the end or bizarre spellings. The oldest email I still have in it dates back to 1999, and I'm sure the account is somewhat older than that.

I use this account mainly for subscribing to newsletters that I'm vaguely interested in, but am afraid that the sender may eventually sell my address to someone else, and that way lies mountains of spam. (Indeed, I get over 300 spams each day on this account, and Yahoo!'s filter gets over 98% of them, without ever getting an email I intentionally signed up for.) As a result, I generally don't read the mail that accumulates more often than twice a week.

Sometimes, though, instead of spam or mildly interesting newsletters, I get emails that are intentionally addressed to this account, but aren't to me: either the person gave out the wrong email address or the sender misremembered or mistyped the address. I'll usually read those emails, and will usually respond to them, telling the sender that whoever they meant to get the email didn't receive it, and the probably should check to see what the correct email address should have been. Half the time, I don't hear from the sender again, but that's a good result. A quarter of the time, the sender will write back and apologize for the error and thank me for telling them; again, a good result.

It's the other results that are entertaining. One person was convinced that I really was her niece ("Judy Stone" or somesuch), and that I was unjustifiably mad at her and was hiding out behind a false identity. One or two more rounds of explanatory emails didn't seem to help. Poor Judy is going to be surprised when she next encounters her aunt.

Today's email is too good to keep to myself, though. Here's someone who thinks she's writing to "Jeff" at my email account, despite the fact that I've told her at least 3 times that she's sending her mail to the wrong address. I suppose that she only sends email, but doesn't ever read the ones she receives. Today, she says:

Hi Jeff, We are going to Loyalton. I am still not 100 percent. I was in the ladies room and things are not normal. I will talk to you a little later. Love, Lynnette

I don't think I'll tell her to stop sending these emails.

Not gonna let those pesky "meek" inherit the earth!

California: Land of opportunity.

Well, perhaps not so much, any more. California now has a law banning necrophilia.

It does make you wonder what new recreational pastime the folks at UCLA will have to take up, now.

Aside: The spell-check suggests that I might want to replace "necrophila" with "microfilms." Mighty odd spell-check, that.

Wine. Baseball. Where do these terms go together? In California, of course.

If you live long enough, you'll think you've seen everything. But here's a new one on me: a comparison of the Oakland A's and the San Francisco Giants, comparing the wine served at their ballparks. Since, after all, now that going to a baseball game is so expensive, fans expect a luxury experience.

A description I never thought I'd see:

Indeed, the Sauvignon Blanc, a 2003 vintage, is a superb ballpark wine. Its
simple, straightforward green-apple flavor and clean aroma is a fine palate
cleanser for heavy food like garlic fries or linguisa sausage with peppers and onions.

The review gives a slight nod to the Giants' ballpark, but it's close. I'm taken by the concept that they're serving wines costing between $4.50 and $12 per bottle in stores, and charging $7.25 for a 4- to 5-ounce pour.

The review ends up with some classic ballpark pairings: hot dogs and white zinfandel, garlic fries and pinot noir, and nachos and merlot.

I can't wait to see what wine gets served at Senators' games.

My last Gaston update.

It's getting back to normal. Well, normal, except for those who were directly affected by the floods. Cleaning up is going on, with damage estimates soaring. The City of Richmond is estimating a final toll of twice as much as it suffered when Isabel blew through last year. Not surprising, I suppose: the intense, focused flooding destroyed buildings and roads, where Isabel's damage was more wide-spread and less intense in any given location: uprooted trees downing power lines isn't as costly to repair as a flood propelling pickup trucks into restaurants.

And while the streets are looking more normal, it doesn't take much to notice that there are still problems. If you figure all the garbage and debris and raw sewage left in Shockoe Bottom from the flooding, and all the meat and seafood and vegetables in the Farmer's Market area warehouses and in the restaurants in the bottom that are now rotting because there's no electricity going to the refrigerators and freezers - well, perhaps you can imagine what it smells like. (You can't? Well, let's be polite and say that it smells like vomit that's been marinating in the warm August air.)

Yummers. Think I'll head the other direction to find a restaurant for lunch, thank you so very much.

The folks at the office are coping, mostly. Getting new cars, or at least looking for them. Griping that the insurance companies aren't giving them "enough" for the personal property lost when their cars flooded (mostly CDs - lots and lots of CDs). And tomorrow, I'm off to help the person with the flooded basement sanitize her now-drained basement. (We're calling it a Bleach Party, and will play music by the Bleach Boys.)

Comets: do they really foretell evil times ahead?

Here's a link to a photo of Comet C 2003 K4 LINEAR, which may be visible to the naked eye by October. Or maybe not, as the prediction of future comet brightness is almost as difficult as predicting the course of hurricanes.

MMMmmmMMM, chocolate. And in a good cause, to boot.

So I received an email from a friend last night; or perhaps I should say, I received a successfully propogated viral marketing email from a friend, on behalf of the makers of M&Ms and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, explaining the new product containing pink and white M&Ms, and how 50 cents from the sale of each bag will be donated to the Komen Foundation, so you should go out and buy a lot of these special pink and white M&Ms.

OOooh, looky! There's the small print: They'll contribute 50 cents per bag sold, up to a maximum donation of $650,000. That is, they'll contribute, but only for the first 1.3 million bags they sell.

Don't get me wrong: over half a million bucks is certainly more than I'm likely to donate to charity this year, even if you combine all my charitable contributions. And 1.3 million bags of M&Ms is likely more than I could eat during the three months this promotion will be going on.

And this is a legit promotion; no doubt about that. But what's the catch? Just this: they'll donate 50 cents per unit sold, up to a sales level of 1.3 million bags. So, presumably, they're raising the wholesale price by some amount - possibly 50 cents per unit, possibly 33 cents, to allow a 50 % markup and thus a 50 cent retail increase. (Or they're keeping the price the same, and reducing the size of the package; perhaps from 10 or 12 ounces to 8 ounces, to the same effect. And, of course, just possibly they're keeping the wholesale price and the package size the same, and it's completely a corporate contribution.) Anything they sell over 1.3 million, they keep the extra proceeds. Just how many units are they going to make, and how many are they expecting to sell? I don't know, of course, but my feeling is that selling only 1.3 million units - nationwide - in a 3-month period - with a big advertising push, and a lot of free P.R. and viral marketing (e.g., this email) - even plus-or-minus 100,000 - would actually constitute a marketing failure, and if this were a regular product with those results, they'd pull it from the market and never sell it again. With no hard data to back up my guess, I'd have thought they'd sell 1.3 million units in either New York or California alone.

True, the Susan G Komen Foundation gets free publicity from this promotion, and each unit sold might lead to someone asking for more information or making a separate, additional contribution. And certainly the pink-and-white combination of M&Ms can be a conversation-starter, the way that the Lance Armstrong yellow bracelets are. But that should be counterbalanced by the fact that anyone who buys a bag beyond the first 1.3 million sold will be misled into believing that her purchase is actually contributing to the Foundation, and thus she doesn't need to contribute anything more.

That's what I don't like about "cause-related marketing": when there's an artificial cap on the contribution, the company expects you to buy into the hype and the PR and not realize that they've gotten you to pay more for a product when the excess price is just going into their pockets. In October of the past few years (October being Breast Cancer Awareness month), the SG Komen Foundation has been the recipient of a $100,000 donation "funded" by people clicking on a link on the sponsor's page, each click yielding an additional $1 contribution, up to a $100,000 cap. The year the NFL sponsored it, it was a month-long promotion - but 1.75 million people clicked on the funding link on the first day it was active, so the limit was quickly passed and additional clicking was unnecessary and useless.

I much prefer an open-ended contribution - "for every unit sold - each and every unit - we'll contribute X amount ..." And that's what Nike did with the "Live Strong" yellow bracelets, contributing (to the Lance Armstrong Foundation) something from each individual bracelet sale. (They even took it a couple of steps farther by completely underwriting the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of the bracelets, and by contributing the entire purchase price - not just a portion - to the Foundation.)

My bottom line: Buy M&Ms because you want to, always a good choice. Buy the pink-and-white ones because they stand out, and will be conversation starters. And if you want to ensure that your donation makes it to the Susan G Komen Foundation - another good choice - go to the website and contribute there.

And would you like your change in Fifteen-dollar bills? Or Thirties?

Someone in Philadelphia purchased a $99 item, and paid cash. To be precise, she paid with a fake $200 bill, complete with George Bush's picture on it. And she gave change.

The article doesn't say whether the hapless store clerk still works at that store.

Well, it's not Spam, exactly.

But in the unlikely event that you want to email a link to one of these posts to someone, you can do so by clicking on the little envelope icon at the end of the post. (It doesn't mail the post itself, just a link.)

The mighty unlikely event.

More on Gaston.

Here's a day-after slide show of the aftermath of the floods Monday. And another.

Further details on my mostly vicarious experiences with the flood: It turns out that six of my twenty co-workers parked their cars down under the I-95 overpass, and only one of them still has his car. The others have been hearing sympathetic and mostly positive things from their insurance companies, but have not been able to go down and look for their cars (or the belongings which may or may not still be in them). It really wasn't until this afternoon that the police were letting insurance agents into the area where the cars are piled atop one another or buried in the silt, in hopes that the agents could identify the cars. One of my co-workers has seen his SUV, on TV, upside-down and on top of another vehicle, but still hasn't seen it in person (which he'd like to do, to get the 75 CDs he has in the car).

Someone else from the office got home to find five feet of water in her basement. It's drained, by now, but I can't imagine it did much good to her washer, dryer, or furnace. Or, for that matter, the house's fuse box, mounted about 4 1/2 feet off the floor. (Needless to say, she also has no electricity.)

Dominion Power is doing its usual fine job in reconnecting people's electricty: Tuesday morning, there were about 35,000 people without power in the Richmond area. By Wednesday morning, that number had decreased to 39,000. Yeah, I don't know, either. Fifteen or twenty thousand of them were serviced by substations that were destroyed in the flood, so that much is understandable.

My commute to the office has gotten back to normal, although Tuesday's drive in was still exciting: a couple of ponds were still overflowing their banks onto the road, although by that hour, it was only 4 - 6 inches deep. Still a bunch of tree limbs down in or near the road; a mudslide had covered up half a lane, slowing traffic. And a couple of dozen cars abandoned on the expressway downtown, where clearly they had run out of gas the night before, trapped in the traffic jam. (They'd been retrieved - or towed away - by this morning.)

After you, my dear Gaston.

Why do weathermen get paid? At 9:30 yesterday morning, the forecast was that Tropical Storm Gaston would blow into town around 11, leave by 2, and deposit about an inch of rain. It actually arrived somewhere around noon, left around 11 p.m., and dropped ten to fourteen inches, depending on your precise location.

Tremendous rainstorm, not surprisingly. Wind blowing at 30, 40, 50 mph, so the rain was coming down sideways. And with all the rain we've already had this summer, this additional rain had no place to go but into the streets.

Four people I work with have been parking in a free parking area underneath I-95, and they discovered yesterday why there weren't any official lots there: one guy got to his car at 3:00, and drove it off. The next guy arrived 45 minutes later, got his car started, but then it stalled - and the car started floating away. He got out and swam to safety. The other two guys? Their cars got swept away - and one of them was a pretty hefty SUV.

Lots of power outages - not at my place, thankfully - lots of limbs down. Reminded me a lot of a miniature version of Isabel's visit last fall.

And what do you want to bet about where Hurricane Frances will go?

The truth behind the War Medals of George W. Bush.

Since we're looking so closely at the medals that Kerry received for heroism in Vietnam, it seems only fair that we take a close look at the War Medals of George W. Bush.

Seems like a Pulitzer Prize is just waiting to be awarded here.

Not enough time to watch all 9 DVDs of the Alien series?

(And, for the record, these would be the "good" Alien movies; i.e., those with Sigourney Weaver in them.)

Well, you could always watch Alien in 30 seconds, as re-enacted by bunnies.

And thereby save enough time to also watch Jaws.

"Muh. Huh. Huh. Li'l man make joke. Me no get."

What can you do at Kansas State University that you can't do at the University of Virginia? Or at Ohio State University, but not at the Naval Academy? Or at the University of Southern California, but not at Virginia Tech? If you're a football player, you can get course credit for playing football. Often, it's course credit towards graduation, although sometimes it's only credit for fulfilling a university physical education requirement. But it counts towards an NCAA-required minimum number of course hours per semester. At Ohio State, for instance, football players can take SFHP 196.06 ("Varsity Football") five separate times, for a total of 10 academic credits. Academic powerhouses like Brigham Young, Florida State, Georgia, Nebraska, and Penn State all have similar policies, allowing college credits for playing football.

If we're required to go through the pretense of calling football-playing behemoths "student-athletes," wouldn't it be nice if occasionally they actually were students?

Beer in aluminum bottles.

The people who make Iron City Beer have a new gimmick for you: they're selling their beer in aluminum bottles. Yes, I can hear you wondering: aren't those things called "cans"?

Well, yes. But these are special aluminum cans, shaped to look like bottles. Complete with bottle caps, it looks like, so while they might be better at places where you don't want to drop and break a glass bottle (such as at a swimming pool), you appear to need a bottle opener to get the cap off.

The theory behind the gimmick is that beer is purported to stay cold "longer," although the article doesn't say longer than what. And it seems to me that it can't possibly keep beer colder than a glass bottle, aluminum being a good conductor of heat and all, while glass is a good insulator. (One of the arguments for aluminum cans is that they cool down quicker than bottles, which would be in direct opposition to this claim.) The brewery also thinks they look "cool," although is that enough to cause you to pay $1 more per case?

Not for me; but then again, I've had Iron City beer, and $1 is not the magic amount that would cause me to drink it again, even if you paid me that much per bottle.

Parachuting not exciting enough? Then parachute into a pond.

Speaking of newly legitimized sporting events: "Pond swooping" is the new thrill for those people for whom stepping out of a plane at 10,000 feet has gotten routine.

The idea is that the jumper converts downward velocity into sideways motion and lift, to sustain level flight at ground level such that the jumper skims one or both feet for up to 240 feet along the surface of a pond, coming to rest on the far shore. Doesn't always work correctly, of course, with resulting face plants in the mud, hard landings on the ground, broken bones, or worse.

I guess I can see the attraction in the adrenaline rush, but it's clearly not for me. (I've been skydiving before, once, and that was enough for me.)

But, I suppose this must be a legitimate sport: they've just held the sixth annual national Pond Swooping championship, and competitors there take part in the national professional tour.

Lobster-Eating Contest.

I guess they've now found something to make Rhythmic Gymnastics and Synchronized Swimming look like legitimate sporting events. In Kennebunk, Maine, they had a lobster-eating contest, won by a 105-pound Virginia woman who ate 38 lobsters - representing 9.76 pounds of lobster meat - in 12 minutes. (Presumably that 105-pound figure is pre-competition.) "I could eat more, but something else - not a lobster," she says.

But this must have been a legitimate sporting event: it's sanctioned by the International Federation of Competitive Eating, which notes that the winner also holds records for eating pork-and-beans, and hard-boiled eggs. (Yes, those were two separate competitions.)

Art collecting, the quick way.

Amazing to see that art thieves have gone after Munch's paintings again, this time stealing The Scream and Madonna from the Munch Museum in Oslo.

Personally, I think it's just a bunch of wacky Norwegians who believe that they are supposed to take The Scream out for some fresh air during the Olympics.

I've been to that museum, and saw The Scream, back some 30 years ago. (Don't recall Madonna, although I'm sure it was there.) And we've seen a lot of The Scream since then, usually in connection with some phrase like "President Quayle."

And I've even had inflatable versions of The Scream, both the 19-inch desktop one and the 4-foot one, and - somewhere - I have a Scream tie, perfect for wearing to the office for interminable meetings.

Also, probably not what my mother had in mind.

Sure, the one thing my mother wanted, more than almost anything else, was to see me married off. But I just don't think that this could possibly be what she had in mind. And yet, why not? For surely there can be nothing more romantic than a double-tattoo ceremony. Especially one where the bride and groom are escorted by dancing woodland fairies and frolicking elves.

Yes, this is a good reproduction of what was in the paper. But to get a better flavor, you have to click on the "Photo Gallery" button.

But wait! There's more! You also need to check out the Gift Registry (example: give money to MoveOn.org, to defeat George Bush) and the Guest Book.

And if that's not enough, you can always check out the Happy Couple's website, with even more photos of the ceremony.

Interesting reading at Slate.

A bunch of interesting articles there, actually. And I suppose I'd fine even more there if I didn't have to spend so much time at work. Alas.

Anyway: here are a couple. One article talks about how the red-state/blue state Bush/Kerry dichotomy isn't reflected only in news channels, films, and musicians. It's also reflected in discount retailers: Wal-Mart = Bush and Costco = Kerry. Of course, I don't especially enjoy shopping at either one. I suppose that makes me an independent.

The other article looks at men's soccer in the Olympics, and how it's virturally meaningless in international soccer. The other international tournaments - including the World Cup, the European Championship, and the Copa America - take all the time and energy of the top players, so there's little enthusiasm for yet another international tournament. And the Olympic organizers play along with this, by capping the number of players older than 23 to 3 per team. I look at Olympic soccer to be a view towards the future: you're seeing the players who will be playing for their countries' World Cup teams 6 or 10 years hence.

Rain, rain, go away.

The good news is that the worst of the hurricanes passed Richmond by, for which we're grateful. Last fall's Isabel was enough to last us for a while. The bad news is that, while the high winds and horribly intense downpours missed us, we did receive a lot of rain in the past three days. I'd guess something on the order of six inches in that period.

Yes, yes, I know. That's one and a half hours' worth of rain along the path of the storm. Trust me, I know. It's still more than enough to cause flooding (flash and otherwise), because we've had so much rain lately and the ground is saturated. Since the beginning of June - during a period where we'd receive an average of 10 inches of rain - we've gotten over 22 inches. (It seems to start about 5 minutes before I leave the office in the evening, and has done so 4 days out of 5 workdays in each of the past three weeks.)

So you 'd think that with the hurricanes blowing through, today ought to be clear and sunny. And you'd think wrong: overcast, and cycling through Threatening To Rain, Drizzling, and Raining, on about an hourly cycle.

Oh, well. We need the rain. It gives me an excuse not to mow the lawn.

Batten down the hatches.

Storms a-comin'. What are now Tropical Storm Bonnie and Hurricane Charley will hit here tonight through tomorrow and Saturday through Sunday, respectively. Lots of rain expected. Lots. and maybe related tornados. Flooding alerts already out. But the expectation is that they'll each have lost enough power (by travelling overland) that they will no longer be named storms by the time they reach us.

The first Tuesday after the first Monday.

Can't wait until November to tally up the electoral votes? Here's a site that will do it for you. They take the most current poll in each state as a predictor of actual Election Night results, and add them up as a predictor of electoral vote totals.

The count changes almost daily, as new polls come in, so you can play out your own scenarios. Last week, if one Kerry-leaning state (Missouri) went for Bush and all the others went according to the current polls, there would have been a 269-269 tie, throwing the selection of the president into the House, where the likely majority of state delegations would be Republican even if the majority of representatives were Democratic (there are a lot of western states with one Republican representative; each counts as much as California or New York in this particular Constitutional role), so Bush would be re-elected. On the other hand, the Vice President is chosen by the Senate, and if the Democrats regained a majority (requiring a two-seat pickup), John Edwards would be the Vice-President. Yes, we could end up with a Bush-Edwards administration.

At the moment: Kerry leads in this calculation, 307-231. But many states have one candidate leading by less than the margin of error in that state's poll, and even more states have the lead less than the margin of error plus undecided voters.

To me, the most amazing statistic is that Bush's lead in Virginia is only 3%, with 5% uncommitted. That's in a state where Bush won in 2000 by 8%.

And yes, I know: come back in September and October when the polls will finally start to mean something.

A message from White House West.

A commercial for ACT, with Will Ferrell as the Prez. Very funny.

Where were you?

Let's play this game again. Where were you, thirty years ago today? When Richard Nixon resigned the office of President and flew off into the dustbin of history?

I was off in the wilds of Norway (Trondheim, as I recall), doing the Youth Hostel and Eurailpass summer-in-Europe thing, where the International Herald-Tribune - published in the morning in Paris - arrived by train about 5 p.m. the next afternoon. Whenever you saw someone who looked American, you'd stop them and ask if they'd heard anything. Invariably, they'd pull out the same copy of the Herald-Trib that you had. Finally, I saw a local paper with the headline "NIXON STORGT". Below the headline was a photo of Ford, and a caption with a word about 50 letters long, and someplace in the middle of that word was something that looked like "president". So, while we figured that something had happened, we really weren't sure what. At the youth hostel that evening, someone whose English was better than my Norwegian told us that Nixon had "gone by himself" and made the little gesture with two fingers of someone walking.

In the hindsight of many years, I regret not picking up a copy of the "Nixon Storgt" paper.

"Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit drinking."

I’m not normally one to pay attention to signs and portents. Perhaps I should be.

I took a quick weekend trip out to Indiana a couple of weeks ago. Flight out was fine: medium-sized jet to Charlotte, where I caught a medium-sized jet to Indianapolis. Smooth flights, no delays.

For the flight home, I made my connections through Pittsburgh. More reasonable departure time, shorter layover, substantially more reasonable arrival time. But, oops: I didn’t look very closely at the planes involved. Turns out that both of the flights were on tiny planes: only about 22 rows long, and each row consisted of one seat on the left side of the center aisle and two seats on the right. Worse still, although both flights were the same model plane, only the flight from Indianapolis was a jet – the other was a propeller-driven puddle-jumper.

The pilot wanted to leave Indianapolis early, due to the severe thunderstorms rapidly (and loudly) approaching from the west. And I suppose that pulling away from the gate at the scheduled take-off time qualifies as “early” for USAirways. Before we got to the runway, the skies opened up. We took off anyway, into the storm, and had a mighty rough ride for the first fifteen minutes, which is a pretty good-sized portion of the 55-minute flight. Up, down, up, dowwwwnnn, up, whoops! Way down. Urp. But the flight finally settled down, and we got into the Pittsburgh landing approach.

The view out my window on the approach was fairly repetitive: hill, golf course, water tower, hill, water tower, golf course, hill, etc. Finally we got set for wheels-down, and the last landmark off the left side of the plane was a hill, covered with little white buildings. The top of the hill was at window-level, so you had to hope that the pilot had the plane lined up properly. Thankfully, he did. As we passed the hilltop, I realized that we were a lot closer to it than I’d thought, and the little white buildings and spires on the hill actually turned out to be the gravestones and crypts in a cemetery.

Fine. Rush to the gate for the flight to Richmond. Get there just barely in time for boarding. Well, just barely in time to start waiting, as it turns out. They’ve decided that they have overbooked the flight by six customers. A flight with about 66 seats, you understand. So they want volunteers to step aside and take the next flight to Richmond, which will get you there around midnight instead of around 7:30. Ten minutes later, they ask again for volunteers. Ten minutes later, they ask again. By now, it’s already past time for wheels-up from Pittsburgh. One person volunteers. They ask again for volunteers, with the dual threats that (a) they won’t begin boarding until there is an appropriately small number of passengers and (b) if they don’t get enough volunteers, they’ll start bumping people. By the time it’s a half-hour past scheduled take-off, they grudgingly allow boarding to start. We all bolt for the plane and claim our seats.

Kind of a mistake, it turns out. A plane which is painted dark blue and which has been sitting in the strong July sun all afternoon turns into an oven. Especially when there’s no air conditioning on the plane. If you then load that plane up with more than 60 people, it turns into a mobile sauna. (Well, if it were moving, it would be a mobile sauna.) How many more than 60? By the time we finally took off, there were five empty seats. (And two of the filled seats were filled with USAirways pilots, dead-heading.) Somehow – between pre-boarding and post-boarding – the flight went from having 72 paying customers to having only 59 (plus the two freebies). Difficult to be successful at running an airline if you misplace that many customers at once. Add in the crew (I’m guessing 2 pilots and 1 flight attendant), and you get a total of 64.

So there we were, 61 passengers who had made a beeline for the plane, only to discover that it was about 120 degrees inside, and getting hotter. Minimal air circulation and no air conditioning. You can’t open the windows (all in all, probably a good design in an airplane). And the long wait inside the oven starts while USAirways looks around for the missing customers. Or something. They never actually told us why we were waiting, but wait we did. And the temperature went up. A half-hour later, I’d guess it was at least 140 degrees, and at that point, it really doesn’t matter if it’s “in the shade” of the plane’s interior. Everything that everyone was wearing was thoroughly soaked from perspiration. The flight attendant was as unhappy as the rest of us, and promised us cold drinks once we got up into the air (and not until). The pilot came on the intercom and assured us that once the plane was airborne, it would cool down.

We soon discovered what he failed to tell us: that when he fired up the engines, what minimal air circulation we had would go away, not to return until we hit cruising altitude, when the propellers no longer needed all the power that the engines could generate. And he warmed the engines up for 5 minutes – with the cabin door closed, of course – before we moved away from the terminal.

After we pulled away from the terminal, we stopped and waited a few more minutes, taxied a little more, waited some more, and finally took off. We got up about 2000 feet and leveled off, and the air conditioning finally kicked in, so the interior cooled off to a more reasonable level (and in this instance, “reasonable” means merely 105 degrees).

We did a slow 60-degree right turn, and I settled in to read my book. A few minutes later, I felt another 60-degree turn to the right, and tried to concentrate on the book. Or possibly to take a nap, no telling. After we’d been aloft for 20 minutes, I took notice of yet another 60-degree turn to the right (and realized there had surely been others that hadn’t impinged on my consciousness), and I could see a big city out my window; and you know? There really aren’t all that many big cities on the flight path from Pittsburgh to Richmond. And fewer still that have skyscrapers near the confluence of a couple of major rivers. And, hmm, that particular configuration of golf course, hilltop, and water tower looks awfully familiar. And while we’re at it, why are we still only about 2000 feet up? Other passengers have noticed, too, and are starting to murmur.

The pilot comes on: “You may have noticed that we’re still near Pittsburgh. When we got off the ground, we discovered that we have an instrumentation problem. So we’re going to circle Pittsburgh for another 20 minutes, land, and get the problem fixed.”

So we fly around for 20 more minutes, with a 60-degree right turn thrown in every few minutes, and eventually come back to my friends the water tower, golf course, and hilltop. And down we go to land, with the usual pre-landing instructions of putting the seat upright and the like.

As we land, we saw that the Pittsburgh airport had prepared a festive arrival for us, with a parade of yellow fire trucks beside the plane, pacing us down the runway with lights flashing and sirens blaring (presumably; we can’t hear them over the sound of the engines). I counted 5 hook-and-ladder trucks, 3 other fire trucks, a couple of ambulances, and a couple of pickup trucks painted fire truck yellow with the airport’s logo on the door. Very nice of them to have a parade for us, to make us feel better about having our trip delayed.

Oh, wait. Maybe that’s not why the fire trucks were staying so close to us.

The fire engines stay along side the plane until we hit the end of the runway, then they follow us almost all the way back to the terminal, before peeling off to go back to the airport firehouse. It’s chili night, I guess. We taxi back to the terminal we left from, and they open the door, but don’t let us de-plane. I imagine that they figure we would scatter and find another way to Richmond. (And what do you think happened to the air conditioning? Yep. Anyone who had gotten most of the perspiration evaporated from the first pass through the oven started sweating again.)

Oh, and once we come to a rest, the left-side engine starts smoking. Enough that you’d be worried if you saw that amount of smoke coming out of your car’s tailpipe, but not so much that you could legitimately call it “billows of smoke”. Certainly more smoke than I ever recall seeing come out of an airplane’s engine before, not that I’ve flown on propeller planes more than a dozen times. Perhaps you can imagine how calming it is for the passengers to see the engine suddenly start pouring out smoke when we’ve just been treated to a landing surrounded by fire engines. One of the dead-heading pilots looks at the engine and tells us not to worry, that’s common. The murmuring dies down some, only to start to build up again as it sinks in that it’s such a common occurrence on this airline’s flights to have the engine smoke profusely that it isn’t worth having a mechanic come look at it.

A guy in a suit watches as mechanics do something to one of the panels in the cockpit and possibly to something around the front wheel well. The pilot in the passenger section identifies him as being the head of operations for the Pittsburgh airport; presumably the head of operations for the airline, although that’s a big job since Pittsburgh is a US Airways hub. Still, you can tell he isn’t head of public relations for the airline, as he doesn’t pop on board, tell us what’s going on, instruct the flight attendant to pass out cold drinks (ideally with a slug of scotch in each), and wish us a happy flight.

Forty-five minutes of waiting passes. Slowly. Finally, it looks like we’re ready to take off. I’ve kept a close eye on the two dead-heading pilots, using them as my guides to staying on the plane. I figure that they know more about the safety of these planes than I do (and I truly don’t want to know it if they don’t), and if they’re willing to chance it for the flight to Richmond, I guess I will, too.

No problems on the flight to Richmond; at least, none that I could tell. Sure, the left engine started pumping out smoke when it was shut down at the terminal in Richmond. And sure, there’s no way to tell whether it was doing that all the way from Pittsburgh. But we arrived safely, albeit more than 3 hours late.

And if I had been driving from Indianapolis, and started home at the same time that I started out for the Indianapolis airport, I’d have probably driven up to my house about the same time that I actually arrived home from the airport after the plane trips. Hmm. Something else to consider.

Mystery ingredients.

I know that I've mentioned before that I read the ingredients panels on food. I've found another one.

Nestea has an interesting new product out, Unsweetened Iced Tea Concentrate. I got a sample packet of it a little while ago, and finally mixed it up today. Not bad. Better flavor than instant tea, easier to make iced tea this way than by boiling water to brew the tea from scratch. Not sure I'd go out of my way to buy it again, but I won't put it on my "don't ever buy" list.

The ingredients panel lists: water, tea concentrate [Okay, this means that they brew a more concentrated version of tea and water it down to put into this package. Not sure I understand the theory: why not leave it really concentrated and sell it in a smaller package?], natural flavors, phosporic acid, potassium sorbate (preservative), and caramel color. Wait a minute: they're making concentrated tea, and they feel the need to add coloring to it, like it was a Coke? That just seems wrong.

Perhaps the FAQ at the Nestea Iced Tea Concentrate website will help:

Q: Does this product contain artificial flavors or colors?
A: No, our NESTEA Liquid Concentrate does not contain artificial flavors or colors.

Personally, I'd have thought that putting caramel color into tea was the introduction of something artificial. But what do I know?

Poetry? In this blog?

Not that it happens all that often, but the past couple of weeks, Calvin Trillin's book of poetry is on the NY Times best seller list, appearing tomorrow at number 14.

In response to the news that President Bush was not attending the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, Mr. Trillin wrote:

At least there's no Bush eulogy
On why they had to die.
It's better that they're laid to rest
Without another lie.

I may have to gouge my eyes out.

I made the mistake of watching a couple of minutes of Johnny McEnroe's talk show last night. And yes, I'd like to know where to write to demand that they give me those minutes back.

Mister Obnoxious was wearing a Lance Armstrong-style yellow jersey (although it seemed to be missing a few of the sponsors' names). No telling why, although perhaps he said something during the opening minutes of the show. In any event, it was the perfect example of why some people should not wear clothing associated with athletes.

Live strong. Wear yellow.

Okay, of late I've been busy. Too busy to post here most nights. But I haven't been to busy to watch the Tour de France this year.

In Monday's Post, Sally Jenkins has an article about Lance Armstrong and what he may choose to do in coming years. (Her guess is that he'll ride the Tour next year, because he would hate to miss it.)

She also talked about his performance in this year's Tour, adding this fascinating note:

He also took the final time trial Saturday in Besancon, despite the fact that he only needed to ride safely to clinch his record title. One of the reasons he streaked across the course so aggressively was that he received a meaningful e-mail reminding him yet again of how much he meant to other cancer patients.

Ten minutes before Armstrong went out to warm up for the final time trial of the Tour in Besancon, he checked his Blackberry, and read a message from a friend at Nike, Scott McEachern. That day, a man had gone into a Niketown store and purchased 500 yellow Live Strong bracelets, which are being sold as a fundraiser by Armstrong's cancer foundation. The goal was to sell them for a dollar apiece and raise $5 million, but $8 million have been sold. The gentlemen who bought a case of 500 had bought them for this reason: his father had just died of cancer. While he was alive, the father had watched every minute of the Tour. His son wanted to give the bracelets out at the funeral.

"I read that literally 10 minutes before I got on the bike to warm up," Armstrong said. "Do you think I was a little motivated?"

Great fun to watch this year. It'll be fun to see what he does next.

I feel safer. Don't you feel safer? I feel safer.

More from the clowns at the Department of Homeland Security, and their assault on the civil liberties of Americans. A photography student taking photographs of the Ballard Locks in Seattle for a class assignment was followed and harassed by Seattle Police and "Special Agents" from the Dept of Homeland Security. On public property, taking photographs of the area's premiere tourist attraction. After having gotten permission to do so from the National Park Service's resident Park Ranger.

The Special Agent showed his special understanding of the law:

"I've listened to this for over five minutes. Look here. You see this?" Special Agent McNamara said, producing his badge. "This is a federal badge. We're not with the rest of them. We're federal agents from Homeland Security...."

He told me that I'd broken the law by not providing my ID to the original investigator (a man who I personally feel has entirely too much power). I told him that I'd asked if I was legally obligated to produce my ID, and that he'd clearly told me "no," but it was obvious that that didn't matter to Special Agent McNamara in the slightest. I was just wrong, and he was just right.

He went on to tell me that the minute I'd photographed federal property, citing the Ballard Locks, the train bridge and the Patriot Act, that I'd, again, broken the law. Of course, I asked why there weren't any signs on that parcel of public property disclosing that photography was forbidden...

The countdown has begun.

With luck, George Lucas won't change the title between now and next May.

Is Bush the Antichrist?

A reasonably thoughtful article asks the provocative question: Is Bush the Antichrist? The author notes the incongruities between Bush's actions and Christian teachings, and concludes: "Bush pretends to come in the name of Jesus Christ and misses no opportunity to exploit Christ for his own personal political advantage. But in every case, Bush has done the opposite of what Christ taught us to do.... Is it possible that Bush is the Antichrist? His Antichrist-like actions make one wonder."

I just send 'em on.

Overheard at Bark Bark Woof Woof:

George W. Bush objects to "four activist judges in Massachusetts" changing the marriage laws of the country, but he has no objection to the five activist justices who made him president.

And this one:

The Republicans rail against trial lawyers like John Edwards, but if it wasn't for a trial lawyer, George W. Bush would still be the governor of Texas.

California can have him.

Good old Ahh-nold. Apparently it appeals to his Waldheim-style of leadership to call California Democrats "girlie men", and to refuse to acknowledge that the remark is sexist and homophobic.

Seems to me to be awfully strong language for someone who appeared in gay porn movies.

Is Bozo the Clown running the Department of Homeland Security?

It sure seems so. Between last week's announcement that they were looking for ways to "postpone" the November elections, and this article which indicates that on-board air marshals are required to dress in suits, so that they're no longer able to blend in with the general flying public (who usually wear jeans, tennis shoes, and no ties). Kind of defeats the purpose of making people wonder whether there's an armed marshal on board if a marginally-alert 10-year-old can identify him.

Do you suppose that Tom Ridge has a squirting carnation in his lapel?

The REAL October surprise.

The Homeland Security Department wants to find out how to "postpone" the presidential election if the election is risked being disrupted by terrorism. And what do you know, last week the head of that department announced that there was a credible threat that the terrorists were going to do "something" designed to disrupt the election. Precisely what, he couldn't say. And not so credible as to cause the Terrorism Traffic Light to change color, or to give anyone any precise - or even vague - instructions on how to guard against this credible threat.

Why don't they just set fire to the Reichstag building and cancel the election and be done with it?

Want a bumper sticker?

Limited offer: Get a Kerry - Edwards bumper sticker. Probably wouldn't hurt to make a contribution, too, as the period in which you can make a private contribution is rapidly coming to an end: when the convention hits, they go onto public funding. So send 'em a check, too.

Wondering what "Dick" Cheney did before he was Veep?

And, God willing, after next January 20? It seems that he made industrial movies.

Okay, probably not something you really want to open at work. Unless you're putting your sound through headphones.

Not that you need another reason.

But if you needed further reason to not watch CNBC, here's one: John McEnroe will have his own talk show. And it will be a "cosmopolitan mix of topical guests, music, art, sports, and a lot of comedy." You know, just like Whiny John himself.

I suppose that CNBC doesn't have all that much to lose by putting The Brat on the air: the business program that currently has the timeslot averages 189,000 viewers. Nationwide. Still, that's 189,000 people that McEnroe has yet to alienate. I predict it'll take about a week.

"Hoop Dreams" retrospective.

Perhaps you recall the movie "Hoop Dreams" that came out about 10 years ago, documenting the lives of a couple of Chicago teens who wanted to become college basketball, and then NBA, players. Great movie, and at the time, the highest-grossing documentary ever (since passed only by two Michael Moore films and "Winged Migration").

The Post has a nice article today, looking at what has happened to those two teens since. Neither made it to the NBA, although one had tryouts scheduled before injury torpedoed his attempts. An interesting "where are they now?" story.

I saw "Hoop Dreams" when it came out; I saw it because Roger Ebert - at one of his shot-by-shot film study seminars at the Virginia Flm Festival - made everyone in the room stand up, raise their right hands, and swear that they would go see "Hoop Dreams" when it came to town, even though it was about basketball, and even though it was a documentary. Apparently enough people took the Roger Ebert Hoop Dreams Pledge that when it came to Charlottesville, the little repertory theater it showed in sold out for all showings, the entire three weeks it was there.

Contract attorneys.

No, this isn't like contracting MLB teams, though some might think that was a fine idea. And it's not how The Mob gets rid of shysters it doesn't like. Instead, a "contract attorney" is what I now am. A temp lawyer, if you prefer. Someone hired by a law firm to do the scut work that they can't even get their own associates to do.

So I'm now doing document review and preparation for discovery in a pair of related investigations - criminal and civil - against a big company accused of doing accounting irregularities affecting stock prices a couple of years ago. (The official line is that everything met generally accepted accounting principles, so it was okay and there was nothing wrong.) The project is a couple of years old, and is expected to go on for another couple of years: that's an idea of how many documents (and by "documents," we also mean emails, PowerPoint presentations, weekly status reports, and notes written on the back of napkins) there are - someplace between tens of millions and squillions. I'm not alone on the project - 25 of us contract attorneys started the same day, on a project that probably had another 25 then working on it, in addition to the "real" lawyers at the firm (partners and associates).

Of course, one of the reasons they brought on 25 on the same day is that they've got a high rate of turnover. Not all that surprising with temps, I suppose. But in addition, it is mindnumbingly dull. I believe I've stayed awake all afternoon exactly once so far, and I think that's about average for my group.

But it pays the mortgage while I look for a job I'm actually interested in, so that's a good thing.

Where *do* they come from?

One of the benefits that the freebie tracking program (which tells me the number of hits I get, when I get them, the domains they come from, that sort of thing) does is that it will tell me the page that a viewer comes from to get to my blog. Most of the time, that's from a search engine results page; the rest of the time, from a link in a blogroll or comment or another blog.

Here are some of the more entertaining searches that people have used to get to this blog:
stoner movies of the 1970's - during my little-known acting period, I guess.
john mcenroe girlfriends 1984 - I would be hard-pressed to care less about this than I currently do
"george will" and "stoner" - What are two phrases rarely heard in the same sentence?
patricia kluge sex - Okay, now I'd rather be interested in Johnny Mac's girlfriends.
I want to see Tatum O Neal put on her perfume - And that makes one of us.
funny stoner quotes - They're all funny, thank you very much.
dirty pretty things explalined [sic] - From the guy who made the Patricia Kluge request, perhaps?
tolkien "full text" "return of the king" - Oh, just go to the bookstore, would you?
is $20 piece double eagle gold remake real - As opposed to imaginary? Yes.
Pricing of permanent tatoos [sic] in Richmond, Virginia
cats constantly meowing
sea monkeys and revenue
Movie plot – retired marine cuts off finger
cat car song "rest stop"

A fair number of wine-related requests:
pat paulsen wine bottle labels
grape stomping clip downloads
stores massachusetts cakebread wine
"wine in a box" high quality "red wine"
winery construction powerpoint presentation
theory on wine festivals
Cardinal point cabernet price
virginia wine cellar installers
torturer naked wires

And other single-minded hobby pursuit requests (in addition to the ones already mentioned):
"hot Lips houlihan" nude picture
Paraminder Nagra nude photographs - some would call her "Parminder", but who am I to argue with Google?
keira knightly nude free no membership
naked foosball california - No further explanation necessary.

I've also learned a fair amount about constructing good web searches, from seeing the unexpected results of these searches. But that's for another day, if ever.

Happy birthday to me.

Well, not to me, precisely, as that would make this November, and I'm not ready for cold weather just yet. But this blog is a year old today.

And an interesting year it's been.

I've found that I enjoy this outlet for writing.

In the past year, I've had 420 entries - slightly more than my goal of one per day. And not that it's been every day; sometimes I'd go 3 or 4 days without an entry; some days I'd have 5 or 6.
-- Another goal was to have at least 1/3 of the entries be reactions to or comments on events, about 1/3 be things about me (or, more interstingly, the cat), and no more than 1/3 be "fun" entries, however I defined that. By my count, the year's entries came out to be about 55% reactions/comments, 28% stuff about me and Mia, and 17% "fun" entries. Not entirely sure what, if anything, that means, as I usually felt that the balance was about right as I was going along. Perhaps I should write more about the cat.
-- One goal was to develop some consistent readership among people I didn't previously know. I know there are a few of you out there; a couple who I've corresponded with and a couple of lurkers. (I'll presume the latter are shy, and aren't just gawking with disbelief. People I already know do that enough as it is.) And a sub-goal was to hook up with a cyberbabe. Well, okay, some of these are "stretch" goals, and can go into next year's list.
-- Another goal was to develop a better understanding of how to design a blog, and I've gone from solely text to including comments and trackbacks, so that you can join in on the excitement, and recently I've started including photos. Baby steps, I know, and enhancements that other people have left behind long ago. But this is my blog, and I'll develop it at my own pace.

And my favorite posting of the year? The first one, about JFK's speech at Rice.

Join Team Armstrong.

And you can do it without having to get onto a bike. You can buy a yellow "Live Strong" wristband for $1, and all of the proceeds go to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, to benefit Foundation programs that help young people with cancer.

You can buy the wristbands at Niketown stores (and related stores: I got mine at a Kid's Foot Locker), or in packs of 10, 100, or 1000 online, direct from the Foundation.

"Dick" Cheney is happy with his wit.

Vice President - and there's an apt title - "Dick" Cheney is pleased with his use of vulgar language, and says that he feels better after doing so. And as no speechwriter has come forward claiming authorship of the quip, we can only assume that the Dickster came up with it himself.

Here are some other things that "Dick" Cheney has said: "I look forward to working with you, Governor, to change the tone in Washington, to restore a spirit of civility and respect and cooperation." So said "Dick" Cheney on the day he was chosen to be George W. Bush's running mate. "The days of the war room and the permanent campaign are over. . . . We take seriously the responsibility to be honest and civil." So said Mr. Cheney in February 2001, in his first major speech as vice president.

His mother must be so proud of him.

Beer festival.

Off to a beer festival this weekend. No, not the Vermont Brewers Festival in Burlington, where I took this photo two years ago. The one at Old Dominion, which ought to be pretty good, too.

I just send 'em on.

On his recent trip to Great Britain, George Bush had a meeting with Queen Elizabeth. He asked her, "How does one manage to run a country so smoothly?"

"That`s easy," she replied, "You surround yourself with intelligent ministers and advisors."

"But how can I tell whether they are intelligent or not?" he inquired. "You ask them a riddle," she replied, and with that she pressed a button and said,"Would you please send Tony Blair in."

When Blair arrived, the Queen said, "I have a riddle for you to answer for me. Your parents had a child and it was not your sister and it was not your brother. Who was this child ?"

Blair replied, "That`s easy. The child was me." "Very good," said the Queen, "You may go now."

So President Bush went back to Washington and called in his chief of staff, Karl Rove. He said to him, "I have a riddle for you, and the answer is very important. Your parents had a child and it was not your sister and it was not your brother. Who was this child ?"

Rove replied, "Yes, it is clearly very important that we determine the answer, as no child must be left behind. Can I deliberate on this for a while?"

"Yes," said Bush, "I'll give you four hours to come up with the answer."

So Rove went and called a meeting of the White House Staff, and asked them the riddle. But after much discussion and many suggestions, none of them had a satisfactory answer. So he was quite upset, not knowing what he would tell the President.

As Rove was walking back to the Oval Office, he saw Secretary of State Colin Powell approaching him. So he said, "Mr. Secretary, can you answer this riddle for me. Your parents had a child and it was not your sister and it was not your brother. Who was the child?"

"That's easy," said Powell, "The child was me." "Oh thank you," said Rove, "You may just have saved me my job!"

So Rove went in to the Oval Office and said to President Bush, "I think I know the answer to your riddle. The child was Colin Powell!"

"No, you idiot!" shouted Bush, "The child was Tony Blair!"

Gee, Mister Vice President: Why don't you show us how?

Class and decency always show through, don't they? Vice President "Dick" Cheney uses an obscenity on the Senate floor to end an argument with Sen. Leahy (D-Vt) regarding Cheney's ties to Halliburton.

Key quotes from the Post's article:
" 'Fuck yourself,' said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency" and "As it happens, the exchange occurred on the same day the Senate passed legislation described as the 'Defense of Decency Act' by 99 to 1."

Sounds like he's under a lot of pressure. Perhaps he should take some time off from his job and just go home and count his money.

Bleeding into a bag.

I went out this afternoon and did one of the few things I appear to have a talent for: giving blood. A marvelous way to feel good about drinking orange juice and eating cookies.

They threw me for a bit of a loop when I showed up at the main donation center, though: a sign on the door said that the donation center had moved - across the street and up about half a block - although the main business offices were remaining in the building. Did they mention this in any of the phone calls I'd gotten over the past three weeks, pleading with me to come in and donate? Or on the website? Well, no. That might have been convenient to the donator.

Oh, well. My community service requirement is met for the next 8 weeks. And the best part is that I shouldn't get any more of those phone calls until August.

The Diebold Variations.

Cute series of magazine ad parodies - at least, they're claimed to be parodies, although I could see them showing up in republican publications - touting Diebold's touchscreen voting technology. You know, the one which creates no verifiable voting trail and which can be easily reprogrammed.

My favorite? The one which explains that charm and wit can take you only so far.

Easy work, good pay, no thought involved.

I swear, I don't know why people at the National Weather Service get paid. I know it's not original, and I know it's not even original with me. My theory is that you could get at least as good results by having a Weather Service Bingo card (a 5-by-5 matrix with weather phrases randomly filled in) and throwing a dart at it. (But they probably use the old-fashioned methods of examining chicken entrails.)

Last Friday's forecast: Partly cloudy. That "partly cloudy" included two inches of rain in a 20-minute period, rolling thunderclaps enough to make you think they were shooting a remake of Patton on the next street, and enough lightning to read by. (And, of course, many of my neighbors had to do just that, as some 25,000 Richmonders lost power during the storm.)

So today, the NWS issued a Severe Weather Alert for thunderstorms, between 2 and 8 p.m. Here's part of the forecast: "Hail To 2 Inches In Diameter...Thunderstorm Wind Gusts To 70 Mph...And Dangerous Lightning Are Possible In These Areas." What did we get? Sunshine, and lots of it, until it turned into partly cloudy.

Obeying the law is for little people.

And not for important people, like nominees for federal appeals courts. Thomas Griffith, Bush's appointee to the federal appeals court in Washington, has been practicing law without a license for the past four years in Utah. His excuse? He forgot. Or the dog ate it. Something like that.

He's been general counsel to Brigham Young University since August 2000, and that role includes giving legal advice, for which Utah law requires that he have a Utah law license. Under normal circumstances, he could get one through reciprocity - except that he didn't meet the requirement that he be a member in good standing of another bar for three of the previous five years. Why not? Because he had let his D.C. law license lapse for failure to pay his bar dues. For three years in a row.

The Utah State Bar even advised him that he needed either to get a Utah license - by passing the Utah bar exam - or to associate himself with a Utah bar member so that any advice was given by the licensed associate. He evidently did neither, and although he once applied to take the Utah bar exam, he never actually took it.

His continuing to practice law without a license in Utah, after being advised of what steps he needed to take to bring himself into compliance with the Utah regulations, takes his actions out of the realm of negligence and places them firmly into willful, unethical, unlawful activity.

And this intentional, unethical, unlawful course of activity should bar him from consideration for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench. Although I can see why it would cause him to fit in well with the current Administration.

TV doldrums, redux.

Two more shows I find to be worth watching: one is Monk, whose summer season started yesterday. I find the obsessive-compulsive character that Tony Shalhoub plays more than makes up for the mysteries, which are generally not all that mysterious. The other is a pre-Tour de France series on OLN, The Lance Chronicles. Their version of a reality show, I suppose; a weekly half-hour program on Lance Armstrong and what he's doing as he prepares for this year's tour.

Boiler? I hardly know her.

Ah, doing my part for the economy: both the local service economy, and the national industrial economy.

My boiler decided to spring a leak. (Part of the hot-water system in my house, the boiler provides hot water for the occasional shower that I take and for the baseboard radiating heat in the winter.) My local oil heat/plumbing guy comes out and tries valiantly to fix it inexpensively, but determines that it needs a grand's worth of this and that, and there's a good chance all that may not make the boiler functional, and I'd still need to buy a new one.

Fine. I'm convinced. Get me a new one. My choice is between a steel boiler and a cast-iron one, with the cast-iron one being 10% more expensive, and reputedly slightly more efficient and certainly longer lasting. ("If you're going to be in the house for a while - ten years or more - this one will last longer before it needs substantial maintenance.") Okay, fine. Get me the cast-iron one.

So they showed up yesterday to remove the old one and install the new one. A crew of three started at 8:30 and finished at 5:15, and they weren't goofing off. So I guess I got my money's worth out of the installation cost.

This new boiler sure puts out hot water - substantially hotter than the old one - and runs for shorter periods, and is quieter when it does. And - knock on wood - it won't spew water all over the utility room. Sounds good so far.

And it only cost me everything I've earned with my freelance legal editing work since the beginning of May. sigh

It fell to earth, I know not where.

A fun little archery timewaster. Play for practice, or against the computer.

And yes, something special happens if you shoot it straight up in the air.

The summer TV doldrums.

Well, perhaps it's not just reruns, anymore. Thanks to cable networks, there is actually new programming showing up in the summer.

I guess that most of it is new seasons of returning shows: the new season of Six Feet Under started on Sunday, and even the "previously" recap was better than most stuff on the big networks. It's such fun to watch the dysfunctional Fisher family, even on a relatively slow episode as this first one. And Joe Schmo is back, as Joe Schmo 2, premiering tonight on Spike TV. Not just a remake of last year's show, this season they take on "relationship reality shows" like The Bachelor. And they've got two suckers, instead of one, both pursuing dream partners - as though a reality show was a good way to find one. Looks like fun.

Celebrity Poker Showdown is back for a new season, too. I'm enjoying it for the opportunity to see some of the players outside of their characters, and because some of them are such terrible poker players. You'd have thought that they'd learn the rules of the game before showing up for the taping, if not actually played some, but that seems not to be the case. (Adam Rodriguez, we mean you.)

And I watched Welcome to Mooseport recently. Fun little movie. Gene Hackman does a wonderful job, as always, and Maura Tierney is always good in a comedic role. Ray Romano doesn't do much other than play his TV character, so he's not especially good in this movie, either. I'd recommend it for an evening's diversion.

Better pay your taxes.

John Ashcroft will get out the thumbscrews and iron maidens, just for you. Justice Dept. Memo says torture "may be justified." And if you have a history of setting puppies on fire, Ashcroft has just the job for you.

And this is why they call it Trivia.

A Pi trivia game. I got 14 of 25, and I don't feel at all bad about the ones I missed.

You simply cannot have too many musical Reagan tributes.

So here's one which is as tasteful as it is understated.

Stay the corpse.

As if things weren't bad enough, here's a potential Republican ticket to make you really afraid: Bush/Zombie Reagan 2004. After all, there's nothing in the Constitution that says a zombie can't be elected Vice-President, is there?

No, cornbread are square.

I am constantly surprised by the pointless inventiveness of stuff on the Web. Here, for instance, you can type in your birthdate and you'll be told where in Pi your birthdate appears. Simultaneously cool and utterly without social merit.

And I guess that if you were born on March 14th, 1915, you win.

Yet another reason to think Baltimore is, at best, a third-rate city.

Its fine newspaper has made it possible for you to download Reagan wallpaper for your computer. As though you would want to have pictures of Reagan's body being pulled by a horse as your computer's wallpaper.

Rush Limbaugh would be proud.

Up at the University of Alaska - Fairbanks, a student DJ was suspended for his anti-Reagan radio show. Suspended from the radio station, I presume; not from the school.

"I said that I was sick of all of the media that was glorifying Reagan and rewriting history that was pretty despicable," the suspended DJ said. "Basically, what the gist of the show was, it was a celebration that Ronald Reagan was dead, was finally dead."

He said he played requests such as "These Boots Are Made For Walking" and told listeners he wanted to "walk over the newly laid dirt" on Reagan's grave.

The DJ's real problem, at least in the eyes of the station management: he wasn't supposed to be on the air live - he was supposed to be playing a prerecorded show.

The Reagan dime?

The morons who think that Reagan was God now want to put Reagan's face on the dime, replacing Roosevelt, who actually did something good for the country and for the world. Or on Mount Rushmore. Or maybe they want to name the Pentagon after Reagan. All stupid, all inappropriate. (Hard to tell whether these are more inappropriate than renaming Washington National Airport after him, thereby trashing the memory of George Washington. Or did the morons think that the airport was named after Martha Washington? Or George Washington Carver?)

Seems to me that the proper thing to rename in Reagan's honor is IRS Form 1040, since most people and their children will be paying taxes all of their lives in order to make a dent in Reagan's free-spending ways and monstrous record-setting budget deficits.

National holiday: Embrace the spirit.

I thought it was in poor taste, but who am I to argue with the President? If the Prez says that we should have a national holiday to celebrate Reagan's death, then so be it. In the words of a younger George Bush, and the U.S. Postal Service, "Party on!"

Now, for any good party, you need to bring a cake. And the appropriate one here would be a cake in the shape of a key. (If you can have a lunatic deliver it, so much the better.)

And guests. You need guests. Make sure to invite some of the neighborhood welfare queens with their Cadillacs. They'll be sure to eat a lot of the cake. Well, if they show up.

What's a party without music? Might as well play some Ray Charles, to honor someone who passed away this week who deserves being honored.

But nothing says "summer party" quite like a barbecue, so that's what I'm planning to have. Steaks, wine, whatnot. And ketchup as a vegetable, of course. And to get the charcoal going, I'll douse it with plenty of charcoal lighter fluid, to make sure it gets good and hot, with flames rising high into the night. You know, like the firey vistas at Reagan's new home.

Fun spam.

Subject: Re: muzak crisis

Really? I know that I find it to be obnoxious, but a crisis?

Alas, no. Just a spam. The text of the spam was:

I just reviewed your m o r tgage info. You are appro ve d with 2.35 % fixed
r a t e. Please visit this page [link removed] today and specify your application ID #7876699938629 to confirm everything.

Thank you.

Marquita Carr
NCS Bank

***
And, of course, I haven't recently applied for a mortgage; nor would I look for a mortgage from someone with a return address of [gibberish letters]@registerednurses.com.

And if you don't like speaking Anglo-Saxon, perhaps Elvish will suit you better.

More linguistic news from the BBC: a school in Birmingham has an after-school program teaching one of the Elvish languages, Sindarin (the "conversational" form of Elvish).

The best part of the article: "The number of Sindarin speakers worldwide is unknown but thought to be growing rapidly." I'll bet: growing from 5 to 25 is a tremendously rapid increase; at least, in percentage terms.

Better still are the comments following the article: "Great. Will be really handy when these kids grow up into the real world and need to get jobs." and "Brilliant idea! Elvish could be the new Esperanto!" and "My wife Carole is an elf and I have been learning Sindarin from her for the last approximately five years." And many more.

"Speaking Anglo-Saxon not make one great."

According to a professor of linguistics, and as reported on the BBC (so it must be true), Yoda speaks like Anglo-Saxon; at least, Yoda's sentence structure is similar to old Anglo-Saxon. This professor notes that Sam Gamgee and Gollum speak a non-standard form of English, while Frodo and Bilbo Baggins speak a standard form. All of this in an effort to recognize non-standard English.

The sad part? He thinks that using Yoda as an example is a good way to get children interested in how preferences in English word order changed from the Anglo-Saxon era to that of Middle English. Using Yoda won't be enough for that, I'm afraid. It would also take chocolate, video games, and a pile of cash.

"Bitch set me up." And so did the Park Police.

Everyone's favorite cartoon DC politician - Marion Barry - is planning to run for office again, and part of his pre-campaign strategy is to blame everyone else for his drug problems and especially his arrest and the subsequent discovery of drugs in his car.

I really do wish he'd go away, and allow a new generation of cartoon politicians to take their rightful place on the podium.

Dancing for dollars.

The NY Times has an interesting series this week, on Las Vegas: its people and problems. This article is on dancers at strip clubs, and is pretty interesting for those of us who have seen such things only in the movies and on TV. It talks about how many of the dancers have goals to be something else - actress, model, veterinarian, teacher, attorney - and that this is hoped to be a stepping-stone, a way to earn enough to take the next step up, and how it's successful for some. But only for some. And it talks about how the dancers view the customers: as meat with money, and the goal is to separate as much money from the meat as possible. It also mentions that some clubs - like the one discussed at length in this column - do a good job of providing a support group for the strippers who work there, almost like family.

A similar club appears in the movie Dancing at the Blue Iguana, a non-glamorous look at the lives of five dancers in a strip club. Supportive of the women who work there, it takes the place of family for these dancers who don't have much of a supports system or family outside of work. (Different from the NY Times article, then, in those dancers tend to do a really good job of drawing a line between work and an outside life, and continue to have somewhat of a normal outside life.) And Blue Iguana was astonishing in another way: it wasn't scripted; it was done entirely through improvisation. Five months of improvisation to come up with a basic story, followed by 3 weeks of actual filming. As a result, the actors were deeply immersed in their characters, and the performances were fresh, lively and extremely believeable. A movie worth watching, and another reason to have Netflix.

No, I am the walrus.

Not terribly surprising, of course, but Paul McCartney admits that many Beatles' songs were about drugs. And while it's clear that Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was one of them, I guess I'd fall into the category of those who didn't suspect that Got to Get You Into My Life was, too.

An interesting use for cicadas.

Don't eat 'em. Drink 'em. A homebrewer in Arlington has made a barleywine with roasted cicadas as an ingredient. And you can see for yourself how many went into the mix.

I cannot imagine how much aging will be required to smooth out the flavor, and I can guarantee you that a cicada beer would not be my first of the evening (although it might well be my last).