Beer Bars.

The opinions of my friends to the contrary notwithstanding, I actually do not spend all of my spare time drinking in beer bars. So it was with a bit of surprise to find that I have, none the less, been in a number of the best ones, at least as determined by a poll on Beer Advocate. Yes, yes, I understand: This kind of rigor-free poll is nothing more than a popularity contest and a bar’s rating may reflect little more than how many people have heard of the bar or how many people live in the same city as it.

A couple of the ones listed are in Richmond, and I’ve been to them. Fairly frequently. (The Capital Ale House ranked # 30 is about a 10-minute drive from home and the one ranked #19 is a block-and-a-half from my place of daytime despair [ah, I mean “work”].) I’ve also been to # 16, the Great White Bear in Portland ME, and to # 17, the Toronado in San Francisco (although not to its trademark annual barleywine festival)

One of the advantages of a ranking like this, created with no objective comparative measurements, is that it leaves plenty of room for discussion and debate, for suggesting that your favorite place which isn't listed in the top 50 is actually better than ones in the top 10 or that those in the list are clearly in the wrong order. And to that end, I would suggest that the Mellow Mushroom in Charlottesville is better than the Toronado, and the rankings of the two Capital Ale Houses ought to be reversed.

A Jedi craves not these things, either.

Okay, this is just frightening. They now have Star Wars costumes that you can buy for your dog. The Yoda costume is above. They also have a Darth Vader costume, and two different Princess Leia costumes - one is the traditional white robe from Episode 4, and the other is the Slave Leia outfit from Return of the Jedi. Now, I can certainly understand wanting to have a Slave Leia costume and someone to wear it, but a metal bikini (or its cloth equivalent) for your dog? How very, very bizarre. And you need not share the further details with me.

Other newly released Episode III items are tainted with the peculiar as well. There’s a whole bunch of M&M figures in Episode III costumes (my favorite is the Emperor), there’s a Team Jedi baseball jersey, and there’s even a Darth Vader lawn sprinkler.

Three months ago, who would have thought that the Darth Tater Mister Potatohead toy and the Darth Vader lava lamps would have been the sane and reasonable marketing tie-ins?

Only 35 days to go.

Another outdoor cat update.

I took her to a quick vet check-up Saturday, and the vet agreed that she's pregnant, and guesses that she'll deliver "sometime within the next 30 days". Wow. Way to go out on a limb, there. The vet did say that kittens weren't imminent, as the Alien Cat has yet to show any mammary development. No guess as to number of kittens without doing an x-ray, something I thought was unnecessary. The vet also thought that the cat is about 5 or 6 years old, based on tartar buildup and the like.

The Outdoor Cat was not pleased by the trip, the cat carrier, or the vet inspection, and when she was released back into the torture chamber, she made a beeline for the back of the closet (where she'd slept the first night, although she's slept out in plain sight the other nights). Poor, unhappy kitty.

Google Sightseeing.

As soon as Google Maps became available, there would naturally be a blog with neat shots taken from the satellite images available on Google Maps. Stadiums, landmarks, bridges, and odd things in the landscape. My current favorites include Mount St. Helens and the guy who selectively cleared a forest so that what remained spelled out his last name in letters 1700 feet wide and 3100 feet tall, so that his name would be visible from space.

Outdoor Cat update.

Well, I now have the cat safely ensconced (or, as she’d put it, “cruelly imprisoned”) in the guest bedroom (“torture chamber”). I grabbed her the night before last around 10:00 and swept her upstairs past Mia, who didn’t even look twice. Once the new cat got into the bedroom and was set loose, she did normal indoor-cat explorations (jumping onto the bed and furniture, sniffing around under the bed, etc.), and settled down. Well, until it was time for me to go to bed, at which point she started voicing displeasure. This naturally got Mia’s attention, and she took up sentry position outside that bedroom door, occasionally growling and hissing (and getting growls and hisses in return).

And yeah, she’s pregnant. Mighty pregnant. She’s also a little cat, so I hope she pops them out soon.

Not exactly the most restful of nights. The outside cat wailed for about an hour, rested for an hour, and started in again. Mia spent much of the night jumping down from the bed to go investigate and stand sentry, then jumping back up. I’m now ready for a nap.

So yesterday morning, I didn’t hear anything from that bedroom, even though I was back-and-forth in the hallway a number of times and Mia breezed by on her way to and from breakfast (stopping by to hiss once at the smell of the Alien Cat). When I went in to feed her, there wasn’t any sign of her. Not sleeping on the floor or in any of the beds/nests I set up for her, or on or under the bed, or in or behind boxes. Not meowing or otherwise grumbling about the wretched situation she found herself in. Finally found her, behind a box in the closet. My guess is that she thought that was the safest place in the room. (And it’s now a frontrunner for where she’ll have the kittens.) She came out, and she gave me a couple of comments about still being locked up in prison. She then spent the next ten minutes head-butting me, rubbing her body against my legs, and purring up a storm. This would lead me to conclude that she’s not feral, and that she’s had a fair amount of human interaction. That, or she’s trying to seduce me into setting her free.

By today, she seems adjusted to and comfortable in her new surroundings (although it might just be “resigned to” them). She’s also beginning to look a little bored, shut up in a room with its limited amount of things to interest her – certainly, in comparison with the Great Outdoors. But regular feedings have a certain amount of attraction, too, and I expect that in a couple of days, she’ll have enough little distractions around her to keep her more than occupied.

My goal will be to let her have the kittens, raise them to adoption age (8-10 weeks), and find homes for them. Then have her spayed, and find a good home for her, too. Well, that’s the plan, anyway. I’ll also be on the lookout for “Missing Cat” signs in the neighborhood, although (a) I don’t think they’re likely, and (b) if I see one, I might not give them their cat back; at least, not without a long discussion of how reasonable it is to allow a pregnant cat to roam around outside without a safe place to have her kittens and without properly feeding her.

Res ipsa loquitur.

It's one thing to file an appeal of an assault conviction based on the incompetence of the lawyer at trial. It's quite another to file that appeal when defendant represented himself at trial, and is now complaining of his own incompetence.

The Massachusetts Appeals Court heard that precise appeal this week though, with the defendant now arguing that the trial judge should not have let him defend himself against charges of attempted poisoning and assault, stemming from the defendant's giving a friend a bottle of beer laced with nitric acid.

He makes a compelling case for incompetence: he has tried to file (and then sell) mining claims in various places, such as George's Bank, the asteroid belt, Mars, and the moons of Jupiter. And he's succeeded in filing such claims - in Texas. He's also threatened to sue NASA for trespassing, and had just gotten out of a state mental hospital.

On the other hand, he did a good enough job of representing himself that the jury acquitted him of the more serious attempted poisoning charge.

And in any event, it doesn't matter all that much: he's scheduled to be released from prison this summer.

Here come Bible Reading Marathons! Sign up now!

Scheduled for dates leading up to May 5 (the National Day of Prayer, as any good non-heathen would know), local Bible Reading Marathons will take place "at such venues as county courthouses, town squares, at State Capitol buildings.

I'm looking to sign up for one around here. I'm volunteering to read Matthew 6:6 -

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Near as I can tell by looking at the list of places where the performances will take place is that there is no mention of closets at all.

Google Maps.

What a great little time-waster! Ah, I mean, what a fine research tool. Google has a beta version of a map feature, complete with satellite photos that you can zoom in on enough to see automobiles and markings on tennis courts. Definitely worth looking at.

Soft touch.

I now appear to have a second cat. There’s a neighborhood cat that wanders around and occasionally is willing to be fed. I first saw her about a year and a half ago, when she sat on my oil tank and looked in through the window at me. (When I went outside to make friends with her, she ran away.) At that point, she looked to be about 6 or 8 months old. I fed her for a week or two last August, but haven’t seen her since. Never seen her wearing a collar. Monday of this week, she showed up at my side door as I was leaving for work, and looked at me expectantly. So I went back inside and got her some food. She’s been back every morning since, and now talks to me while I’m getting her breakfast and backing away from her so she can eat.

She’s a little cat, on the small side for a female (and would be an excessively small male, so I presume she’s female). Just the right size to sit in your lap, though. And she still seems to be curious and playful. She’s skittish, and doesn’t let me get within 15 feet of her. She looks well fed, although it might also be that she looks pregnant, in which case I’m glad I’m feeding her. If she’s not pregnant and is merely well fed and getting to eat more at my house, then good for her for finding another place to chow down. Her fur looks long and unkempt, which makes me think she isn’t just coming over here to eat during the day and then going inside someone else’s house at night.

If she is pregnant, I wish I could figure out a way to get her inside the house. I’d have to keep her closed up in one of the basement work rooms, but that’d be better for her and the kittens than being outside somewhere. Of course, it would drive Mia insane, and I don’t believe that would be a terribly long trip. (And if Mia’s upset, who suffers? Me. Not the ideal solution.)

And no, she doesn’t have a name yet. Until she’s willing to sit on someone’s lap, she doesn’t get a name.

An over-the-hill geek am I.

I'm not sure where I go to turn in my Geekdom passport, but it would appear that the correct time for that is now. They've released the lists of nominees for the 2005 Hugo awards, and I don't even recognize any of the authors in the Best Novel category, and only four of the 12 nominated authors in the categories for shorter works. And the novels and shorter pieces themselves? "It is to laugh."

Best Novel

The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks
Iron Council by China Mieville
Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
River of Gods by Ian McDonald

Well, just maybe I can keep my membership for one more year. Now that I look more closely at the titles, I recognize one of them as a book I've started - but not yet finished - reading: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It's actually quite good - sort of a Harry Potter for adults - but it's also very, very long. Just the sort of book you want for a cross-country plane trip. Or possibly a train trip.

Monty Python vs. Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Not, alas, coming to a theater near you. But there is a six-minute ad for The Institute for Backup Trauma - okay, for some sort of disk-based backup system - that stars John Cleese, with a cameo appearance from Michael Dorn, minus his crabshell forehead.

And whatever you do, don't press the third button.

If you can't beat them.

While you're watching the NCAA regional finals next weekend, if you look closely at the wrist of Coach K, or of any nearby Duke fan, you'll probably spot a blue bracelet. One that looks very much like the one above.

Sure, it's a "spirit band" - but like the Lance Armstrong "LiveStrong" bracelet, it's much more. The proceeds from the sale of the "Duke for Life" bracelets will go to support the Emily Krzyzewski Family Life Center. Named after Coach K's mother, it will be a community center with programs to support families and children in the Durham, NC area.

And if you're looking for a certain dark blue fashion accessory, you can buy it here.

(And who is behind the "Duke for Life" bracelets? Five students at Duke's Fuqua School of Business, who found enough time to look up from their books to plan the fund raising effort. Their initial goal was to sell 5,000 bracelets - raising $10,000 for the Center - and to raise public awareness of the Center. Since when I ordered my bracelet, I was put on back-order while they made more, I'd guess they've already achieved their sales goal.)

The early bird eats a worm.

Of late, I’ve been trying to do something that does not come naturally to me: get up early. Not for any good reason, other than I’m trying to get more hours in at the contract attorney job (and thereby get paid for more hours), and since they kick everyone out at 7 p.m., the only way to get in more hours is to show up earlier.

So the plan for this morning was that I’d get up real early, shower and dress and whatnot, and have a quick session at the computer, catching up on email and checking various news sites. And then I’d be out of the house and on the road by 8:15, getting me to work an hour earlier than I’ve been able to do at any time in the past three weeks.

Didn’t quite succeed.

What was the first sign I wasn’t going leave the house by 8:15? When I looked over at my clock-radio and read that it was already 8:25.

Oh, well. At least I was well-rested when I got to my soul-deadening job.

Pfft, internet.

More on the Numa Numa guy, who you've already heard about. Or possibly less. It's sometimes difficult to tell.

And March lunacy.

If you haven't had enough of filling out brackets for your local NCAA pool, here's something else for you. Some St. Louis republican support group has put together a bracket of "64 Notable Republicans" that you can choose from as a predictor of the 2008 Presidential nomination. Among the notable republicans you can choose from are Dan Quayle, John Ashcroft, Rick Santorum, and Ahh-nold. And Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan. No Dick Cheney, though.

So here's your chance to vote for Dan Quayle (or possibly Kwale, his preferred spelling) for President.

March madness.

Yes, it’s that time of year again. Time for the NCAA basketball tournament.

Back in the Olden Days, when I was in college at Rice, it seemed unlikely I’d ever see Rice playing in the NCAA tournament. After all, while I was there, they won 14 games. Total. In four years. And half of them came in one year. And most years since then, they have not especially distinguished themselves on the basketball court. (They did get a mention in Sports Illustrated around 1980, when they had a ten-point play scored against them – and this was in the days before the 3-point line.)

So it’s with some amazement to me that this year, they’re playing in the NCAA tournament. Well, okay, it’s the women’s team in the NCAA, earning an automatic spot by virtue of winning the WAC tournament. And there was no women’s team at Rice when I was there.

And even more amazement that the men’s team is also playing in a post-season tournament, the NIT.

It turns out that the men have played in the NIT in four previous years, as well – 1943, 1991, 1993, and 2004 – and in the NCAA, back in 1942. And the women previously played in the NCAA tournament in 2000. But this is the first year they’ve both played in post-season invitational tournaments.

Update: True to Rice men’s basketball tradition, they lost in the first round this year. But the women’s team is still alive.

Ohhhhh.... so THAT'S what mitichlorians look like!

"She would rather die than eat the Offical Snack of the Empire."

"Leave that to me."

Hello? Is there anybody out there?

I love Caller ID. I love the National Do Not Call Registry.

I got a phone call tonight from someone who I presume was a telemarketer. Don't know for certain, because they never identified themselves, and they blocked their name from Caller ID. In fact, they never spoke, despite 3 or 4 attempts to get them to say something.

Didn't stop me from filing a complaint with the FTC on them. Did they have my permission to call me? No. Did they have a previous business relationship with me? No. Are they a political group? or a charity? or performing a telephone survey? No. So they're breaking the law.

The Caller ID did capture their phone number, though. It's 877-517-4896. If you want to call them up, feel free.

Update: The comments seem to indicate that this is some sort of promotion for Virgin Mobile, telling you that if you visit a certain website, you'll get a 25-cent credit. Or something. Of course, since I don't have an account with Virgin Mobile (and never have), then it's clear that they're engaging in illegal acts (violating the federal Do Not Call Act), and that their marketing campaign is both stupid and sleazy. Bottom line: I'll never do business with Virgin Mobile. And neither should you.

Further update, July 27, 2005: A comment added today indicated that they'd just gotten a phone call from Comcast cable from this number. Hmm - I got a voice mail from Comcast today, too. So I checked back on my caller ID, and sure enough, I got a phone call from this number corresponding to the Comcast voicemail. (Just the number, and "Name unknown" on the name line.)

Don't know whether this means that the phone call I got in March was from them, or whether Comcast contracted with a third-party promotional telemarketer who calls people and sometimes leaves messages with them. I'm beginning to suspect the latter, because a lot of comments have been from people who can also identify the number as belonging to a phone call - from Virgin Mobile, or Toys R Us, or someone else.

Making anonymous phone calls like this is always sleazy. I'll be letting Comcast know what I think of their tactic.

I approve.

The trailer for Episode III is out, and it looks pretty good. Amazingly dark, but this could turn out to be a better conclusion to the Prequel Trilogy than one might have predicted from Episodes I and II.

(I hope the URL works. I make no promises.)

Updated March 19 with a new URL, one which should work better.

May 19 is coming.

Poodles. Exercise videos. What more can you ask for?

I don't make 'em up. I just send 'em on.

Panasonic has evidently done a contest to make short movies honoring the Olympics. Or something. This one is very, very funny. And yet, incomprehensible at the same time.

Nary a cross word was heard.

I think I impressed the daylights out of my co-workers today. It was after 5:00 p.m., and the BigLawFirm's babysitter had gone home for the night, so we all relaxed a bit. Of late, people have been pulling out crossword puzzles to work on, usually a single puzzle, photocopied so a bunch of folks could work on the same puzzle at one time.

About 10 minutes after the other guys had started in, I got a copy of today's puzzle - this week's Sunday puzzle from the Washington Post. A big one, probably 25 x 25 or so. A half-hour later, I was ready to go home, and compared my progress with everyone else. Well, okay, I was comparing the fact that I'd finished mine. And no one else had more than a third of theirs complete. Heh.

What they didn't know is that I grew up working on the Sunday crossword puzzle from the NY Times, and after that, the "difficult" puzzle in Games magazine. And while I haven't worked a hard crossword puzzle in the past 15 years, it seems to be a skill that - like falling off a bicycle - once learned, is not easily forgotten.

Your - well, New Mexicans' - tax dollars at work.

Citizens of New Mexico are doubtless proud to know that their legislature is considering the "Right to Eat Enchiladas Act". This is not to say that there are a lot of modern-day Carrie Nations running around New Mexico, trying to prevent people from eating enchiladas. Still, what better time to protect a cherished right than when it is not in the least bit endangered?

If you go the boring route - and that would be me - and actually read the proposed legislation, you'd find that this is a bill not unlike those introduced in perhaps half of the states since October, and passed in 10 or 15, which limit the liability of manufacturers and fast-food chains from "frivolous" lawsuits by those who claim their health problems stem from eating at the above-mentioned restaurants and fast-food outlets. (See, for instance, Super Size Me.)

So, disappointingly, it turns out that New Mexico legislators are not going to go out and stand behind you when you order enchiladas at your local Outback Steakhouse. And the better name of the act would be the "Right to Sell Enchiladas Act".

Not since bleakfast.

Didn’t we just have one of these? Election Day rolls around again. This one was for five bond issues and a meals tax referendum. And based on how much I heard about them, there must not be any controversy about them.

Nice day for an election, too. Chilly, windy, and rainy. (45 degrees, gusts up to 45 mph, and too much, respectively. And snow, later in the day, although it didn’t stick.) I stopped off at the polling place on my way in to work. A couple of voters were leaving as I arrived, and there were no other voters inside while I was there. Someone else showed up as I was leaving. Perhaps only one-tenth as many people had voted by 9:00 as had voted in the general election last November, although probably 4 times as many people had voted as had voted by the same time in the Democratic primary last February. So I had plenty of time to punch the butterfly ballot carefully and make sure there were no hanging chads.

Well, no matter what the result is, it’ll have to be a better result than last November.

Knee-deep in the hoopla.

Abandon all hope, ye who listen here.

Wonderful report on a motivational/celebratory conference for Starbucks executives (go to the February 24 entry). After the usual nonsense you find at such corporate events, they had a performance of the "Jefferson Starbucks" - upper-management types dressed in 80's rock and roll costumes (the hair, the leather pants, and the like) - singing a Starbucks-specific rewrite of "We Built This City (on rock and roll)" as "We Built This Starbucks On Heart and Soul!"

Sample lyrics:
Knee-deep in the mocha/making coffee right
So many partners/working late at night
We just want to build here--IMDS, does it pass?
We call on development to complete the task!
Living the way of being,
In the Green Apron Book!
Don't you remember?
We built this Starbucks on heart and soul!

Had enough yet? No? Then you simply must listen to the song, which Starbucks put onto CDs for your personal enjoyment.

And once you hear it, you'll probably need a Brillo pad to scrape it out of your memory.

Dragostea Din Tei.

An update to the story of the guy who made the bizarre video of himself singing and dancing to an unusual tune.

The music was Romanian. But he's from New Jersey, which probably explains everything. And he certainly got his 15 minutes of fame. On the plus side, he wasn't as embarrassing as the Star Wars Kid.

Celebrity wineries.

Interesting piece over on Slate, regarding celebrity wineries: Wineries that bear the names of celebrities, and which presumably were purchased with some of the funds they’ve been paid over the years, either because they’re truly interested in owning wineries or as a diversification of assets, or even as a tax write-off.

The article lists Coppola-Niebaum as being the "dean" of celebrity wineries, with Francis Ford Coppola using his Godfather movies’ income to purchase the Niebaum winery. I’d guess there are some earlier ones, with TV entertainers leading the way. (The Smothers Brothers, Pat Paulsen, and Fess Parker among them.) It also lists some golfers' wineries (Ernie Els and Greg Norman) and a couple of others.

I guess the article doesn’t claim to be a comprehensive listing of even golf-related celebrity wineries, as it’s also missing Arnold Palmer. And then there are the celebrity-related, but not -named, wineries that didn’t make the list, such as Blenheim (owned by Dave Matthews) and RH Cohn (owned by the only business manager that the Doobie Brothers have had).

Pig in a poke.

The excitement at work Friday was that one of our number bought his sweetie an engagement ring. (No, he hasn’t asked yet. He thinks he’ll ask next month.) The bigger excitement was that he did all his research and shopping online. (Yes, tying up for a couple of hours the single communal computer with internet access to be used by 35 people.) The biggest excitement was that he made his purchase on eBay.

Yes, he bought the ring sight unseen, except for the photos on the auction web page. Okay, he has the option to return the ring and get his money back, less shipping charges and eBay fees. But shouldn’t he have been a bit suspicious of a diamond ring claimed to be appraised at $6,500 going for $1,250?

"Do-Not-Call"? Surely you don't mean us!

Got an unsolicited and unwanted begging phone call this evening, from The Dove Foundation (motto: "Supporting Ignorance and Bigotry for at least a couple of years!").

Hello.
Hello. Could I speak to the lady of the house?
There is none.
[Three seconds of silence.] Then could I speak to the man of the house?
That would be me.
[At least five seconds of silence.] Oh. All right.

The guy on the other end of the phone sounded disappointed, as it was pretty clear even to him that he didn't have a live prospect this time. He launched into his spiel, "We're not trying to sell you anything" although we'll certainly be glad to take your money, and "Isn't it horrible how Hollywood doesn't make clean movies that you can show your children any more."

He went through a couple more leading questions, designed to have me agree that his organization would do a much better job of selecting movies for children to watch than parents could do. Not surprisingly, when I repeated failed to agree, he eventually went away.

After I filed a complaint with the FTC alleging violation of the Do-Not-Call list, I checked out their website. It was filled with the usual right-wing born-again claptrap, betraying their true agenda of making America safe for God's Chosen Elect, who must be white and stupid. They have "reviews" of movies available in theaters and on video, and I'm sure you'd be surprised that one of the movies they praise as safe for all is a gushing biography of George W. Bush, while Fahrenheit 9/11 is condemned. Bend It Like Beckham is also deemed to be unsafe for family watching, but National Treasure is a good choice. (At least they don't feel bad about disagreeing with actual film critics.)

It would seem that if the Dove Foundation's activities were a good idea at *all*, the Holy Spirit would provide all the funds that they need and then some. And since God hasn't yet seen fit to do so, perhaps they aren't doing the Lord's work, after all.

The only thing we have to fear is Kia itself.

There’s this really annoying TV commercial being shown for Kia. It’s part of their “Presidents’ Day” sale campaign. And while I’m mildly annoyed by the spate of “Presidents’ Day” commercials (the national holiday is Washington’s Birthday, not “Presidents’ Day”, and even if you can forgive a foreign car manufacturer for not knowing American holidays, their ad agency should know better), that’s not what bugs me. That honor belongs to the campaign’s catchphrase being used: “Ask not what you can do for Kia; Ask what Kia can do for you.” Incredibly offensive to those who recall the original.

I’m guessing that the slogan they use for their extended warranty program is “Kia: Good for a thousand days” and that their slogan for next year’s “Presidents’ Day” campaign will be “Kia: It’s a real shot in the head.”

Treats. Yum.

There are always treats around in the office, apparently on the theory that everything goes better with chocolate. An eminently reasonable theory, that. (Understand, of course, that the treats are brought in by the peons, and aren’t provided by BigLawFirm, because that would be treating us like, you know, people.)

Today, someone brought in what looked like a big Zip-lok bag of strawberries. Cool! Big, juicy strawberries in the middle of winter! A better treat than the bag of Hershey’s Kisses I usually bring in. Until you got closer, and saw that they looked like a big bag of big, juicy strawberries that had been individually frozen and thawed. And then frozen and thawed, and frozen and now halfway-thawed. Well, okay, they could still be tasty, but I’m not going to try one just yet. I waited a couple of hours for someone else to try them.

Someone eventually did, and he didn’t run away or shriek, so I wandered over to get one. From up close, they looked even stranger and less appetizing. Rather as though someone took the thrice-frozen and -thawed berries, sprayed them with a thin icing, and put red sparkles on them. I took one anyway. Very odd texture, to match. Some give with no rebound, when you squeeze on it, but not as much give as you’d expect from gently squeezing room-temperature thawed strawberries. Roughly comparable to squeezing a dried hairball that my cat had produced and hidden in an out-of-the-way corner. And that probably should have been a clue to me.

I bit into it. Yuck. Yuck. El yuck-o. These things turn out to be mock strawberries, made of coconut flakes, sugar, red food coloring, artificial strawberry flavoring, and red sugar sparkles. And maybe mashed potato flakes. Really disgusting. I believe that we were the ones being mocked, not strawberries. I think they’d be disgusting even to someone who doesn’t think that flaked coconut has the flavor and texture of tiny pieces of waxed paper, but I didn’t need to hear anyone else’s opinion to form my own. And I cannot imagine why anyone would ever make them, except to play a mean prank.

And you know? No one ever went back for a second mock strawberry.

Gorilla my dreams.

One of the wonderful things about the Internet is that if you can imagine something, someone already has a web page up about it. Case in point: Someone's collection of images of gorilla-themed comic book covers. Over 500 of 'em.

A good reason to take the stairs.

Disco appears not to be dead, after all. Alas.

A lost cause.

More than a hundred Trekkies picketed the gates of Paramount Studios to protest the cancellation of Enterprise.

Key quote: "None wore costumes, however, in a departure from many gatherings of Trekkies."

Well, if they can't be bothered to wear their Star Trek uniforms, how can they expect to be taken seriously?

In the privacy of your own home.

There's a reason why I don't have a webcam attached to my computer.

(Speakers necessary for the full effect.)

Update: The guy in the video is from New Jersey, which probably explains everything. It certainly explains enough.

NHL cancels season. Dozens yawn in protest.

So they've decided not to play professional hockey this year. What I want to know is: when did anyone realize that hockey games weren’t being played? If it hadn’t been for the stories about the lack of progress in the labor negotiations, I doubt I would have noticed prior to May or so (and even then, I wouldn’t have cared).

And I’m a little tired of the claim that this is the first time that a professional sports league has lost an entire season to a labor dispute. We don’t know whether that accurately describes this situation, because it presupposes that there will be subsequent seasons: if there aren’t any, then this is just another professional sports league that folded, and the sports record books are full of such leagues. (The WUSA, the XFL, and the NASL, to name but three.)

A Valentine's Day story with a Happy Ending.

The triumph of True Love over Adversity. Mary Kay LeTourneau and her ex-pupil set a wedding date.

And as of now, you can still get the Happy Couple one of the two Belgian Wafflers they've listed on their registry. 'Cause you can never have too many Belgian waffles.

Hugs! Just in time for Valentine's Day!

I'm really not quite sure why I'm finding all these wonderful toys and plushies of late, but here's another: A Facehugger from the Alien series. Just the sort of thing you want to have poised at the top of a sack. Better still, the legs/fingers have enough of an armature in them to wrap around your head.

And if this isn't to your fancy, you can instead get a Chestburster, which you can pose coming out of your shirt.

An Idea Nuova whose time has not yet come.

Just in time for the release of Episode III, the answer to the oft-asked question: What sort of movie tie-ins would have been available had Star Wars come out in 1967 instead of 1977?

A line of red and orange beaded curtains, lamps, and bean bag chairs, evidently.

It's what's for dinner.

How did you celebrate Burns Night this year? Probably not with the world's costliest haggis, I'd imagine. The haggis yielded 10 servings, at a price of 285 pounds each.

"It is made with finest Scotch beef, boiled, as tradition dictates, in a sheep's stomach and infused with one of the rarest whiskies in the world." Yum. And we'll blame the cost of the whisky for the high price of the haggis.

I love my job.

At least, so far as any employer reading this is concerned. And any references I've made to employers? They weren't to you. Really.

Article in today's Washington Post about bloggers who bad-mouth their jobs on their blogs, even when neither employer nor employee is identified.

Utah knows something you don't.

And that's why the Utah House of Representatives has passed a resolution exhorting the U.S. Senate to confirm the President's nominees to the Supreme Court. And you probably weren't aware that there were even any vacancies, were you?

My guess is that even in Utah, they can tell that Clarence Thomas is brain dead.

One thighs fits all.

As much as I try to listen to books on disk (or music) at the office, I can’t always sit there with headphones on, often to my regret. However, if I’d had the CD running today, I’d have missed the discussion amongst some of the women regarding their “rules” for whom they’d be willing to go out with (height, age, hair length, whatnot). I missed the first half of the discussion, alas, but the part I heard included this gem:

The Thighs Rule: Never date a guy whose thighs are smaller than yours.

When your time is up, it's up.

Timing is everything. The good news for this guy is that he canceled his Christmas trip to Sri Lanka at the last minute, thereby missing the tsunami. The bad news? He went to Austria instead, and died in an avalanche while snowboarding.

A new take on girls' basketball.

You simply cannot make these things up. A tumbling gymnast - or possibly cheerleader - is flipped up into the air and comes down through a basketball hoop.

I suppose she's just as happy they didn't try a three-point shot.

Or what you will.

I’ve always enjoyed good presentations of Shakespeare in the movies. Certainly the classics by Olivier and Branagh come to mind: Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V, and so many others. And they don’t have to be set in the traditional setting of the play: McKellan’s Richard III is wonderful.

A new version of Twelfth Night came out on DVD this month. A British Channel 4 production, it’s set in present day and stars Parminder Nagra as Viola. It’s excellent, and I happily recommend it. Will you ever find it at your local Blockbuster? Unlikely. Yet another reason to get Netflix.

Speaking of which, over the first year that I had Netflix, I’ve watched about 45 movies. Enough to break even versus renting at the local video store (especially if you factor in convenience and not having to make repeated trips to the store to get and return the DVD). Well worth the cost when you figure that something between a quarter and a half of the disks I rented wouldn’t be available at the local store.

On tap for this weekend: Y Tu Mama Tambien and Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. (Unless I successfully make it out to the theaters this weekend to see one of the many Oscar-nominated movies I haven’t seen yet.)

Squeeze a cold, starve a fever.

Someone out there with a warped imagination has come up with the idea of making plushie versions of germs. Above, you see the Common Cold. There’s also Sleeping Sickness, the Flu, and Dust Mites, among others.

Something to give to kids you want to have grow up to be doctors, I suppose. Or a guilt-free way to give someone a serious disease.

My favorite? Probably Steptococcus pyogenes.

Can spring be far behind?

Well, yes.

The nice weather we’ve had for the past couple of weeks – since New Year’s Day, 5 days above 70 and a few more in the upper 60’s – had its effect on my front yard.

A bunch of crocuses have bloomed in my yard. (Crocusses? Croci? How about “A crocus came up in my yard, and then a bunch of others did, too.”) They looked festive over the weekend, when the temperature was in the 50’s; bright spots of color enlivening the dull winter lawn.

They don’t look quite so festive now, closed up and frozen, following Monday night’s 9 degrees. And I’m sure they’re not looking forward to today’s possibility of snow. I know I’m not.

Indiana Jones and the Elevators of Doom.

The building I work in was built around 1912, and is on the National Register of Historical Places for being the first skyscraper in Richmond. Strictly speaking, the elevators in the building don’t date back that far; if for no other reason, because they don’t have elevator operators driving us to the appropriate floors. But they probably date back to the mid- or early-sixties, as they have buttons that depress (and illuminate) when you push them, and not flat-panel buttons that light up when touched. And I’m not sure that the elevators have received any serious maintenance since then.

It’s always entertaining to get into one of these elevators, because you never know how it’s going to behave. Is this the trip that gets stuck between floors for a half-hour? Is this the one where the elevator doors don’t even begin to close for 45 seconds after you’ve punched the button for the floor you want to go to, or the one which begins or ends with a six-inch drop? Is this the ride where the elevator doors will open with an eight-inch step up to the destination floor?

I got into the elevator on the 17th floor, and pushed the button for the lobby. Went down to the 16th floor. Doors opened, and a couple of attorneys came in. They checked to see that the Lobby button was already pushed, and continued their discussion of whatever case they were working on. Doors closed. We didn’t move. After about 15 seconds – during which time it was clear they hadn’t noticed that the elevator wasn’t moving as they were too busy discussing confidential aspects of their client’s case – I asked if they could push a button, any button, in hopes of getting us moving again. One of them stared at me until she realized we hadn’t left the 16th floor yet, then waved her fingers over the panel of buttons without touching anything. It seemed to work, though, as we jerked into motion. Went down to the 12th floor, where a building maintenance person got in. He pushed the button for the 13th floor, and up we went.

The three of us who had been in the elevator stared at each other, and then pointed out to the maintenance guy that it certainly was strange that we just went up, as we’d been in the process of going down to the lobby. He looked at the panel, where the Lobby button was still lit, and agreed that it was odd, but since the elevator seemed to be working, it ought to take us to the lobby. He got out, and the doors closed.

We pushed the Lobby button again, and nothing happened. After 15 seconds, we pushed the Open Door button, and happily piled out, running into the maintenance guy – who was extremely surprised to see us again so soon. He agreed that perhaps the elevator was acting up, and did something to take it out of service.

The next elevator that came by properly delivered us to the lobby, but I stayed out of that particular elevator for the rest of the week.

A Jedi craves not these things.

Hasbro announces a new toy in the Mr. Potatohead line: Darth Tater. Yes, a Darth Vader with removable eyes, nose, and whatnot.

Very, very bizarre. And just in time for the new movie.

Update: And now, the link should work. Sigh.

One born every minute.

America: Land of opportunity, land of innovation. And certainly one of the places that acts as a showplace for frequent innovation is the grocery store, with hundreds of new products appearing every year (and most of those disappear quickly).

We ran across one of this year’s products recently, the Grapple. (The trademarked name is pronounced “grape - ell" and not to rhyme with “scrapple,” alas. Didn’t stop us from using the latter pronunciation, however.) Described as “Looks like an apple, tastes like a grape!”, it’s started appearing in local grocery stores in 4-packs, selling for $4.99 (on sale this week only, for $3.99). Sounds like an intriguing cross between an apple and a grape, and it’s located next to other engineered fruits and vegetables (“square” oranges and the like).

Someone at the office had a birthday today, so we bought her a 4-pack of Grapples. Even before she opened the container, the aroma was wafting throughout the room – and this is a warehouse. The aroma? Mostly concord grapes (i.e., Welch’s), and too much of it. The Grapples looked like regular apples, picked to fit nicely into the clear plastic 4-pack.

We cut one Grapple into slices, and tried it. The smell of concord grapes was reduced, masked by the aroma of ripe apple. When you bit into it, it had the texture and taste of a ripe, crisp apple. About 10 seconds after you swallow it, though, the lingering aftertaste goes from “apple” to “grape soda” – and then that aftertaste far outstays its welcome, turning from “grape soda” to “generic industrial grape soda,” not a good thing.

Somewhat belatedly, I looked at the ingredients, listed on the label. Turns out that Grapples aren’t a modern cross of two fruits, after all. They’re apples, with artificial grape flavor added. (Can’t tell if it’s injected or sprayed on, or some combination.) Not even sprayed with grape juice; it’s artificial grape flavor, which I suppose is why the dominant grape flavor was Grape Nehi.)

I can’t imagine anyone ever buying this stuff twice, and unless it goes on a much better sale, I can’t imagine many people buying it once. (And I’m glad that I wasn’t one of them.)

Junk mail can be entertaining.

Well, sometimes.

There’s one mailing list that I’m on jumps out at me when it’s used: it misspells my first name in a unique way, and one which creates a “name” never before used by anyone; at least, in any English-speaking country. And it appears that this mailing list is marketed as a list of current undergraduate students. (Its genesis evidently was either Duke or Duke’s alumni association, but somehow the degree and entry date information associated with my name got changed from the two-year MBA program beginning in 2000 to an undergraduate program starting in 2002 or later.)

Last week, I got junk mail from the US Army, exhorting me to join up. And if I’d send back the postage-paid card so they could send me more propaganda, they’d send me a t-shirt. Not entirely sure why the Army wants excessively aged and out-of-shape recruits, especially to rappel out of helicopters (prominently pictured in the ad), but there you are: your tax dollars, hard at work.

This week, I heard from NYU’s Stern School of Business, inviting me to take part in this summer’s program for undergraduates (the Stern Advantage Program, which sounds like it ought to be a finishing school for dominatrices) that serves as a 6-week introduction to business school. That's six weeks, and $8500. (Just to be clear, they want me to take part as a paying student, not as an instructor.)

To make my mailbox even more interesting, I also receive junk mail addressed to the parents of this nonexistent student, offering me loans at bargain rates to finance the remaining years of the student’s undergraduate career. Those offers go directly into the trash, though

Comet Machholz.

If you're looking for a reason to stand around outside in the dark, here's one: Comet Machholz is said to be visible to the naked eye. Visibility will be obstructed somewhat between the 16th and 27th, due to the moon.

Of course, you'll also want to have a sky that isn't filled with clouds.

Iokiyar.

In the NY Times, Paul Krugman muses about writing a political novel. A bad political novel. One in which the basic rules of ethics don't apply to people aligned with the ruling party.

Oh, wait. Maybe he doesn't have to write it as fiction.

Toasty. MMmm.

Do you recall a few years ago when there was a short-lived fad promoting cooking on your automobile’s engine block while you were taking a long drive? If you triple-wrapped your food in heavy-duty aluminum foil, when you stopped 150 miles from home, you’d have piping-hot beef stew, or baked chicken, or poached eggs, or whatever. Well, I’ve just seen the computer geek equivalent. While working diligently at the BigLawFirm this morning, I noticed someone taking his sandwich out of his lunch bag, and placing it – still in its plastic sandwich bag – on top of the heat vents on top of his monitor, and then putting an insulating layer of papers on top of the sandwich. About an hour later, he retrieved his sandwich and ate it, presumably now nice and warm and with the cheese melted.

Personally, I use the microwave. But maybe that’s just me.

Nothing succeeds like excess.

A favorite Christmas pastime is driving around and looking at the lights that people put up on their houses. The Richmond variation on this is to seek out and view the tackiest light displays. The local newspaper has its own list of residences with tacky Christmas lights, and also lists limo and bus companies that will take you on a tour of the homes (so you don't have to look at a map at the same time you're marvelling at the lights). Some of these homes boast upwards of 50,000 lights.

There's even a slideshow of the tacky light displays (the Tacky Lights around town one). My favorites were # 11 and # 25.

There surely is enough light being blasted into the sky to direct three men from the East, although it's unclear what they'll find.

At last: the explanation for why I'm still single.

It's because I don't use (or, at least, have not yet used) a hand puppet to meet single women.

Luckily, the author explains in detail how the scheme works. "First, you will need a hand puppet."

Equally luckily, he has another article giving advice once you're successful: First date with a topless dancer.

Gang aft agley.

Okay, maybe I won't go to Florida for Christmas, after all. An American Airlines plane went off the runway into the grass, blocking the two runways that carry 98 % of the traffic at the airport. So they closed the airport. Some 3 hours later, they hadn't been able to move the plane.

Thus, my flight to Charlotte was going to miss its connection to Miami. The airline gave me some options: I could fly to Charlotte and hope that I could find a standby flight to Miami. (This would be at my own risk, so they wouldn't put me in a hotel or anything if I didn't find anything.) Or they could confirm me on to a flight tomorrow, leaving Richmond at 6:00 a.m., connecting in Philadelphia, and arriving in Miami at 4 p.m. (So I could be there for one day, and then fly back to Virginia? Don't think so.) Or they could refund my fare.

I took the latter choice. Well, now I have that much more I can spend on presents. For myself.

Update: The plane went off the runway around 8:20 this morning. And from an evening report, "Finally by nightfall, a local towing company brought its 52-ton wrecker and pulled the plane out of the mud."

Management skills? We don’t need no steenking management skills.

I had long thought that one of my former employers was the most dysfunctional organization around. Certainly that employer provided lots of fodder when I was in business school – any time there was a “good” or “best practice” discussed, it took no effort whatsoever to think of how that company did the opposite. (And after the class on outsourcing, I had the Operations professor laughing uncontrollably with tales of what that company did.)

It turns out, though, that the BigLawFirm for whom I’m working as a contract attorney is even worse. No employee management skills at all, and precious few project management skills. They share information according to the “Growing Mushrooms” principle (keep ‘em in the dark and feed ‘em manure); they don’t have complete written instructions (why try to have 60 people following a consistent procedure?); they don’t like to train people (they’ll seat a new person next to someone who’s been around for a while, and tell the new person that it’s okay to ask questions); they announce changes to the established procedure by telling about a third of the people and suggesting that they might want to pass it on to the others. They don’t keep track of documents terribly well (the thousands of file boxes are labelled on the outside but fairly randomly placed onto shelves, and there’s no master list keeping track of the location of a particular box of documents or of what processing its documents have undergone), and they manage by deadlines (e.g., the mid-day Thursday announcement of “All of this has to be done by Friday” without regard to whether we have enough resources to get it done by Friday, and sharing for the first time that there’s a Friday deadline despite their having known about the deadline for two months).

The latest trick was to have a partner and associate explain – and with surprising clarity, for once – some new set of procedures to respond to a specific document request, procedures which differed from the “standard” process in a major way. They explained it sufficiently well that all 10 or 12 of the people who heard the explanation and followed it understood it the exact same way. About a week later, the associate returned to inform us that we all had misunderstood the instructions, that it clearly was our fault that we misunderstood, because it had been explained so clearly, and that she’d explain it all to us again, using smaller words in the hope that we might catch on this time. She then set forth an entirely new procedure, markedly different from the original instructions. She then left, leaving us to figure out how to reconcile the two sets of instructions. She came back the next day, to explain it all to us yet again, with exaggerated patience and the thinly veiled belief that we were, collectively, dumber than a box of hammers. And this explanation didn’t match either of the two earlier explanations.

Sigh. I so look forward to working for a real organization.

Going-away present.

Today was the last day for the woman who’s been supervising the project I’m working on. It would be incorrect to say she was in charge of the project, because that’s something no one is, but she probably knew more about the procedural aspects of the project than anyone. Anyway, she’s off to New York and a new job. (Leaving us to flounder, but that seems to be totally in keeping with BigLawFirm’s overall philosophy towards the project, so I won’t rant on it further here.)

Someone among the 30 or so of us contract attorneys took it upon herself to get a card and collect money for a gift certificate. So, over the last week, the rest of us signed the card and contributed to the certificate, which she went out and got last night.

What kind of gift certificate got purchased? An American Express gift card? Or a certificate for one of the local malls? Or something generic like a chain bookstore? Not at all. She got a gift certificate from Victoria's Secret.

Yes, a mixed group (half male, half female) of employees apparently decided to purchase erotic lingerie for the boss as a going-away gift, and to present it to her with all the ribald comments that you’d expect (e.g., “[Your boyfriend] will really like this!” and “Send us a photograph of what you purchase, with you wearing it!”). Well, okay: not all of us; just those who were doing the presentation.

Some of us truly were appalled; primarily those of us who have sat through classes and seminars on sexual harassment in the workplace, who recognize that a public presentation of crotchless panties to our boss could easily be construed as a hostile workplace environment, leaving us and the employer open to a fair amount of liability. Appalled from the moment we realized where the gift certificate was from. And further appalled that half of the group – all attorneys, mind you, and not all people who just graduated from lower-tier law schools who have never practiced law – saw absolutely nothing wrong with the gift certificate.

Luckily, she took the situation in stride, and seemed to appreciate the present, so it’s unlikely she’ll sue either us or the law firm for sexual harassment. And no one else seems to recognize that any of the rest of us could now complain of the hostile workplace environment, even if not directed at us.

At least it wasn't 14 inches of rain in 3 hours.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. I surmise that weathermen aspire to the level of accuracy of broken clocks.

The forecast for Sunday evening: lows in the mid-20's, 30% chance of showers or snow showers. Actual Sunday evening weather: 11 degrees, 3 inches of snow accumulation, and 45 mph winds.

Ah, well. Without the position of weather forecaster, blonde bimbos would never get on-camera jobs at TV stations.

A bridge I won't be driving over. I mean, across.

The world's tallest bridge was opened in France Tuesday, near Millau; one that you can drive across. And you'd be a mere 891 feet above the river valley below. Man, there would be no way I'd drive across that. I could only hope that the toll operators would provide the occasional driver, the way the Chesapeake Bay Bridge does. The alternative would be for me to start across, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that it would likely break, and hope that I get to the other end before I pass out from failing to breathe.

Of course, living below the bridge wouldn't be a picnic either, with drivers "dropping" things out their windows and over the railings.

Tie one on for Christmas.

I wore a tie to work today. Okay, normally not such a big deal. But this was the first time that I’ve worn a tie to work in 4 ½ years. (The main company I worked for during that period was all business casual, all the time, and nothing I’ve worked at since leaving there required a tie. Working at home for the legal publisher doesn’t even require a shirt, or pants for that matter, but that’s a different story.) It was a Land’s End Christmas tie with a festive scene of a horse-drawn sleigh through the wintry countryside.

Today was our Christmas party, the party for all the people working on the project. You understand, this wasn’t the BigLawFirm’s Christmas party – this was the party “sponsored by” (i.e., paid for by) the temp agencies. Of course, when the partner was “inviting” us to it, he always put it in terms of “WE’re inviting you …”. But it so wasn’t the BigLawFirm party for its employees. This was the party for the field hands, not the one for the house servants and certainly not the one for Massa and his family. It was, however, in the BigLawFirm building, instead of over here in the warehouse, so I guess we were to be impressed that we were allowed into the big building with the clean floors and the employees who bathe regularly, even though we were trooped in like a Boardroom appearance on “The Apprentice.”

And you’ve got to appreciate the festive touch: (a) Attendance was mandatory, (b) you can’t bill for the hour the party was going on, even if you didn’t attend, and (c) to ensure those, they cleared the office at 12:00 and locked us out.

The food was okay: a couple of salads (one pasta, one greens), cold stir-fry main dishes (chicken and pork), sodas, and a lemon pound cake. Not exactly festive fare, but a better lunch than I’d have bought for myself. Some amount of yammering from the hierarchy (“We’re so happy you’re working for us, and we’re delighted with the amount of work you’re putting out. Well, not so happy that we’d allow you to wander amongst us at our real Christmas party, or even to give you either a present or a bonus, but real happy none the less”), but mostly they left us alone to schmooze with our co-workers.

Until they came out with the kicker: “We’ve got all these Christmas cards that we’re sending to people at The Client Compay, and we’d like for you all to sign them. They’re so impressed that the whole team signs the careds: Whenever we’re up there, we see that they still have these cards from last year posted for everyone to see. So please don’t leave without signing them all.” There were about 10 of them, mostly addressed to higher-ups at The Client Company, head of the legal department, and the like. And one for the U.S. Attorney heading up the Feds’ investigation of The Client Company. Very, very bizarre. A couple of folks signed with names other than their own, but no one had the courage to sign “Looking forward to having you here with me. (s) Martha Stewart.”

If you wear it, they will come.

Interesting story in the Post over the weekend, about cause-related bracelets, of which the bright yellow Lance Armstrong Foundation’s “Live Strong” bracelet was the first. The figures on the Live Strong bracelet are outstanding: they’ve sold over 27 million of them, raising around $22 million for the Foundation’s programs for children with cancer. (It turns out that Nike picked up the manufacturing and distribution costs for only the first five million bracelets; after that, 23% of the $1.00 price goes to cover those costs, and 77% goes to the Foundation.) And demand still outpaces supply, causing a secondary market to emerge on eBay.

Anything that successful will have its imitators, and they started showing up in the fall. The Seattle branch of the Susan G. Komen foundation was the first, selling pink bracelets to raise funds for its breast cancer programs; following closely behind were autism programs (light blue), support for Israel (dark blue), fighting medical malpractice (lime green), bone marrow (royal blue), and colorectal cancer (cornflower blue). And then came schools and sports teams with their own colors. And rip-off artists, like the rainbow colored bracelets sold at 7-Eleven that say “Show your support” – but the only thing supported appears to be 7-Eleven.

Return of the mummy.

King Tut is making a comeback tour, this time going to museums that will charge an admission fee. So I'm guessing it won't be going back to the Smithsonian, where I saw it on a winter day when it got up to 5 degrees (and the Potomac was frozen over sufficiently well that one could walk across it, not that I did), which had the benefit of keeping the waiting line short as no one wanted to wait outside the museum.

At least there's a little justice in the world.

Famed crybaby John McEnroe's ill-fated talk show was canceled after four months of abysmal ratings, including the occasional 0.0 from Neilsen.

Good riddance.

Advertising madness.

It’s been a while since I’ve railed at TV commercials, so I guess I can have at it again. Today’s theme will be: cell phone providers.

One of the ads has been on the air for a couple of weeks, for n-Telos, a local phone and cell-phone company. Pretty generic ad: it starts off with an animated blue bird swooping and soaring around on a downtown street, past a building with a lot of columns, gliding around the clock on the corner of the building, down to a burgundy canopy over an entrance to the building, and up, up and away! into the blue sky, only to come back down in a meadow out in the country, surrounded by singing children. Stock footage, I’m sure, and not especially remarkable. Except: the downtown building that is swooped around is the building I work in, and I even go into the building through the door under the burgundy canopy. The clock on the corner of the building? Doesn’t work, and hasn’t for at least six months.

And the other thing I find fascinating about the ad is the choice of background music: “Volunteers” by Jefferson Airplane. Lifted straight off one of the Airplane’s albums, I believe, and apparently not done by a sound-alike studio group with rewritten words. Nice music, and I’m always happy to hear it, but a pretty inappropriate choice for the ad. When I think of Revolution Against The Man, I don’t think about cell phone providers, and vice versa. n-Telos is consistent though: they use the same music in their ad where the animated blue bird swoops around the inside of a shopping mall decorated for Christmas.

The other ad played heavily over the Thanksgiving weekend, and was (I think) for Verizon. Set at a big football game, it looks to be either just before the game or during the half-time entertainment, as the marching band is on the field, the cheerleaders are doing something appropriate, and the stands are filled with fans, dressed in team colors (and occasionally bare-chested and covered with paint, and thus presumably liquored-up). The stadium’s public address announcer comes on to tell about the great deal that Verizon has on camera phones – and that the sale ends on November 28th (Sunday). So everyone – fans, cheerleaders, band, and players – bolts from the field, heading off to get themselves camera phones before the fantastic sale ends.

Fine. No better or worse than most other cell phone ads, I’d say, and certainly better than the plethora of “Can you hear me now?” ads. So what earns it a place in this ranting? The time that I saw the ad: Sunday night. I saw it twice between 8 and 9 p.m. on the History Channel (a show about possible conspiracies surrounding the Lincoln assassination), and again around 9:40 p.m., during Desperate Housewives.

What in the world was the purpose of showing the ads that late on Sunday night? Surely the Verizon shops had closed by 6 in the evening, and even if they were 24-hour stores, who could they possibly expect to jump in their cars after 10 p.m. on Sunday night to go buy a new cell phone before midnight? Lunacy. Given that the ad was showing on two different networks at that hour, I won’t blame the advertising scheduler at the network for putting the ad on after the promotion was effectively over. Instead, I’d blame either the ad agency placing the ads or the manager at Verizon who approved the ad placement and the entire promotion, either (or both) of whom probably specified that the ad should run “throughout the Thanksgiving weekend” without realizing that Sunday ads would be wasted, so the commercial should have run only Thursday through Saturday. But I’d have also expected that it would part of their jobs to ensure that commercials pushing a promotion don’t air after the promotion has finished.

Winter's a-comin'.

At some point on the day after Thanksgiving, it struck me out of nowhere: it had been a long time since they’d come to refill my heating oil tank. A long time, and it was starting to get chilly, it being late November and all. I even went out to the tank, and peered into the fill hole. Couldn’t tell much, other than there was still enough oil to reflect my eye back at me, from way down there at the surface of the oil. I also remembered a year ago, when I did the same thing, and I was convinced that I was about out of oil, and had the oil company deliver that afternoon – and it turns out my tank was still two-thirds full, after all.

So I called the oil company. “Do you still have me on your automatic delivery plan?” Yes. “When is the next delivery schedule?” About a week and a half from now. “Really? Hmm. What do your records indicate was the last time you delivered oil to me?” Back in April. You know, it’s been such a mild autumn that we’ve had to delay our first delivery of the season by a couple of weeks.

Luckily, she then asked the correct next question: By our records, we have that you use oil only for heating. Is that correct, that you don’t use it to heat your water? “Uh, no. I use it to heat water that I use for both personal use and for heating the house.” Ah. In that case, we should put you on a more frequent delivery.

And true to her word, the oil truck showed up the next morning to fill my tank. Did a very thorough job of it, too, putting in slightly over 220 gallons. Especially impressive since I thought my tank held 210 gallons. “No, that’s a 270-gallon tank,” the delivery man said, “but you did have it mighty empty there.”

Things appearing where they’re not supposed to be.

And no, I’m not referring to those tattoos that show up after a particularly memorable lost weekend.

It was the shadows that appeared suddenly on my office window. Shadows being cast downward, onto the window from the outside. Shadows of arms and legs and tools. On my 17th-floor window. And then the banging and pounding started. On the outside of the window.

Today was the day the window washers came to town.

We’re not talking a high-class operation here, with fancy platforms being lowered from the roof by inch-thick metal cables. This was a couple of guys, each sitting on a little wooden seat, lowered from the roof by a three-quarter inch rope. They looked to be attached to the rope, which is good; their tools didn’t appear to be tethered to anything, however. And I would imagine that a four-foot wide squeegee on a ten-foot metal pole would make a pretty impressive projectile when dropped from the 17th floor, as would the squirt bottle with a half-gallon of soapy water in it. And it was both chilly and windy; a good combination when hanging around near the top of a 20-story building.

It was bad enough seeing them working on windows at the other side of the room. When they finally got to my window, on their next trip down the side of the building, I literally could not sit at my computer and work while there was a guy on the other side of my window, dangling by a rope, balancing on the ledge while spraying dirty soapy water on the window and squeegeeing it off.

Even in the best of situations, I can’t stand to look down out of my window (I can look at the ground, but only if it’s a half-mile away), and the knowledge that this guy could look down and see nothing below his feet but the sidewalk, and the sidewalk is a three-second freefall away, was enough to give me a little dizzy spell and make me walk away.

And I suppose we can add “window washer” to the list of Occupations I Don’t Care To Practice.

That would appear to be my leg you're pulling. Alas.

Sigh. It turns out that that the article about the Indiana congressman introducing legislation to change the designation of Interstate 69 was from a satirical web site and was fictional. Who knew? If it had been The Onion, I'd have figured it out. But this struck me as being entirely reasonable for an Indiana congressman, given the present makeup of the national government.

The good news is that I wasn't the only person taken in by the article. From a page on their web site with comments they received about the article:

"Hostettler's proposal is truly the stupidest thing I have read all day. What's next on his agenda -- changing the name of French Lick to Freedom Lick?"

and

"This article on I-69 is making you people look like serious yahoos. I presume that's because you are. I live in Knoxville, TN, and to look like a yahoo from here, you have to be pretty awful."

and

"Could you also ask the Congressman look into that 'asphalt' term? It's very disturbing."

A little light housecleaning.

Very little, and figuratively only, as anyone who's seen the inside of my house will attest to.

Updates to a few entries I've had recently. The Washington Post editorial page takes the latest nominee for Attorney General to task. Key quote: "Why is a lawyer whose opinions have produced such disastrous results for his government -- in their practical application, in their effect on U.S. international standing and in their repeated reversal by U.S. courts -- qualified to serve as attorney general?"

There's been a partial settlement in lawsuits following the collapse of the bonfire structure at Texas A&M. $4.25 million to the families of four students who died and three who were injured, in settlement of claims against student leaders. Key quote: "The bonfire student leaders wanted to return to their lives and their household insurance companies wanted resolution, said Dallas attorney Chuck Aris, who represents four of them." Lucky thing the student leaders had lives they could return to, unlike - say - their followers.

And to the extent that the lunatic Congressman who wants to change the numbering of Interstate 69 (because it causes teens to snigger, wear their hair long, and create dance crazes, or whatever) had any semi-valid grounds that the extension of I-69 would be west of I-65, and thereby run afoul of the Official Numbering Scheme of Interstate Highways, the internet comes to the rescue: Someone has a web page with all the instances where the Official Numbering Scheme is violated, and nobody seems all that interested in changing any of the other violative highways. (My favorite? The stretch in Virginia where, on the same highway, you are simultaneously going north on I-77 and south on I-81.)

Darwinism at work.

Wonderful story out of Wisconsin. Deer hunters shooting at each other, apparently in a dispute over a hunting stand. Ends only when the primary shooter runs out of ammunition. Guess the deer aren't the only ones who should keep their heads down.

Your tax dollars at work.

An Indiana congressman is going to introduce legislation to change the name of Interstate 69 to something less dirty. Since, after all, the names of highways are well-known as erotic stimuli. Well, maybe in Indiana.

Thought for the day.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more
closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain
folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House
will be adorned by a downright moron."

- H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

Because so few mice know how to dance.

What’s worse than finding a dead mouse in your office? Finding a dying mouse in your office.

Okay, I guess we can’t blame Mia the Wondercat for this one. It’s the mouse on my computer that is on its last legs. (Or whatever.) The ball inside rolls around just fine, and it’s clean enough, but the sensors that detect the motion of the ball recognize only up-and-down motion, not side-to-side. And since no links or commands are ever lined up directly under the mouse’s location, or straight up or down from it, I now have to get around on the screen with some combination of Ctrl- commands and tabbing. No fun at all. But I’m sure I’ll go out tonight or tomorrow to get a new one.

What’s worse still? Having your cat find and play with a live mouse at 3 in the morning, and she’s enjoying it so much that she wants to share the pleasure with you, so she jumps up onto the bed with the mouse in her mouth, and lets it loose so she (and you) can chase it. (Again, not Mia. That was Sabrina, when she still thought of mice as self-propelled fuzzy chew toys rather than as snacks.)

Won-won-wonderful.

Waiting in traffic last night, I noticed the license plate of the car next to mine: “1-1-CAPT”

“One-One-Captain”? What a stupid plate to have, and an especially stupid one to pay extra for.

Yes, I understand: It could be somewhat funny if they were roman numerals representing “one” instead of arabic numerals, because you could pronounce “I-I-CAPT” as “aye, aye, Captain,” but they aren’t, so you can’t, and it isn’t.

Gah. Well, I suppose it’s an extra ten bucks for the Commonwealth every year, so that has to be the silver lining.

One bad choice deserves another.

Why would anyone think it would be any different? Bush's nominee for the Attorney General position is just as much of a train wreck as Ashcroft was.

He thinks a little torture - whether in Guantanamo or Abu Graib - is just fine. He thinks that the Geneva Convention is "quaint" and outmoded. He thinks that fair trials are a convenience we can no longer afford.

Just the kind of person we need to have in charge of enforcing the law.

He's back! And about time.

Starting Nov. 21, the Sunday-only and dead-tree-edition only comic "Opus" will bring back Steve Dallas. Older, and no wiser.

"Jodie. Oh, Jodie."

The Post reports that John Hinckley's lawyer is making the claim that Hinckley is no longer mentally ill, and thus should be permitted to have longer (four-day) unsupervised visits every other week to his parents' home in Williamsburg. Government attorneys oppose the claim and the request.

What I want to know is this: Since Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and is involuntarily locked up in St. Elizabeth's because he's considered mentally ill, shouldn't what follows the claim that he's no longer mentally ill be that he should be released? And not that he should have longer visits away before returning for continued incarceration?

The trailer is out.

And it looks pretty good; although, of course, that's what trailers are supposed to do.

Good use of the older Obi-Wan Kenobi for the voice-over. A little risky, though: reminding people of the quality of the original Star Wars movie raises the bar well above the level hit by Episodes I and II. Looks like we'll get some good scenes leading to the creation of Darth Vader, a Mace Windu lightsaber fight, and what seems to be a lightsaber duel between Anakin and young Obi-Wan. Looks like we get some weak scenes, too, with another Dancing Yoda lightsaber fight and ground-war scenes on the Wookiee homeworld.

How many more days until May 19?

Update: Well, the link I had here earlier worked this morning, but doesn't seem to be working now. So I've substituted the official Star Wars site, and I imagine that one will keep working.

A waste of five million dollars.

That's how much it cost to build Texas A&M's memorial to what they're calling the "bonfire victims". Yes, they're spending a boatload of money to memorialize the 11 undergraduates and 1 graduate student who died, and the 27 people injured, when the annual bonfire for the pep rally before the University of Texas football game collapsed while they were building it. (This would be a "bonfire" that was 170 feet across, made of thousands of telephone-pole-sized logs, layered like a wedding cake, weighing over two millions pounds.)

The university's official report found both engineering/design problems and behavioral/organizational problems as root causes for the collapse (including the lack of any written design or professional review of design changes of the Bonfire, the lack of student knowledge concerning structural integrity in construction), but played down other factors, such as the cavalier attitude towards safety, seen in the high incidence of injury (8 to 10 times that of similar occupations, such as forestry or heavy construction), and the hazing, horseplay, and drinking that went on at the construction site (two of the students who died had blood alcohol levels well in excess of the legal limit for driving).

Five million dollars could have funded a lot of scholarships, which would have been a far better memorial to those who died in the collapse of the tower of logs. Well, it would be, at a school where education was considered important. But this is A&M, after all.

The Sage of Monticello.

There is a theory out there that you can find a quotation from Thomas Jefferson (or attributed to him, which is pretty much the same) on any topic you want.

And sure enough, like Nostradamus, Mr. Jefferson has already spoken on the 2004 election:

A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to it's true principles. It is true that in the mean time we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war & long oppressions of enormous public debt. ... If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, & then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are the stake. Better luck, therefore, to us all; and health, happiness, & friendly salutations to yourself.

And to show that he knows what's in store for us in with the office of Attorney General, he added a P.S. to that letter:

P. S. It is hardly necessary to caution you to let nothing of mine get before the public. A single sentence, got hold of by the Porcupines, will suffice to abuse & persecute me in their papers for months.

Bah.

You don't have to fool all of the people all of the time; it would appear that fooling 51% of them for four years will suffice.

I suppose this shows the power of appealing to your base support - and however you want to interpret "base" is fine by me - instead of appealing to the broad center or the other guy's support. Works fine for being elected; doesn't work quite so well for governing, as Mister "I'm a Uniter" has discovered.

Still, it's pretty amazing how well Bush has gotten people to vote against their best interests: convincing low- and middle-income Americans to vote in favor of tax breaks for billionaires, convincing the self-styled religious that someone who doesn't go to church has "more faith" than someone with a life-long commitment to his religion, convincing 18- to 24-year-olds (and their parents) that a draft-dodger with megalomania who sends American troops off to die in a pointless war solely for his own glory is a good commander-in-chief.

All we can do now is pray for Rehnquist's speedy recovery and his discovery of the Fountain of Youth, so that he sticks around as Chief Justice for at least four more years. (And who'd have thought I'd ever say that?)

The early bird gets to vote.

Done.

Took nine minutes from the time I left the car in the parking lot at the polling place until I got back to it. And that included hiking across the parking lot to get to the building, and waiting in line at the end-of-the-alphabet table.

Of course, it's easy to vote quickly when there are only four issues on the ballot: the presidential race, a virtually uncontested congressional race (there was a lunatic independent; I voted for him), and two silly state constitutional amendments (extending the line of succession for the governorship in case of, you know, attack or something, and providing for interim elections for vacant congressional seats after redistricting).

At the time I voted - 6:50 this morning - I was somewhere between the 250th and 300th voter in my precinct. Back in February, when I voted in the Democratic primary at 6:50 a.m., I was the first person to vote. Says something about the precinct I live in, not that it's a surprise, given all the Bush placards in people's yards.

Now all we have to do is wait.

Pretty interesting.

Across the room today, there was some sort of discussion relating to the time-value of money, and how much something invested today would be worth in 18 years. (I had tuned out the beginning of the discusion, but I think it had to do with saving for children’s college education. The time period would be about right for that. Possibly the choice was between purchasing an HDTV or putting money away for the kid’s college fund.)

Very funny listening to the mathematically challenged try to figure out how much today’s investment would be worth in the future. “It has something to do with compound interest. Anybody know how to figure compound interest?” “I figure you can get 8 percent return every year, so let’s use 8 percent.” “I can’t figure out compound interest, and I’m proud of that.” “All you need to do is to multiply the original amount by 8 percent, then add that into it, and do it again a total of 18 times.“ “Or you could multiply 1.08 by itself 18 times, and then multiply that times the original amount.” “That’s too much work. There has to be a simpler way, like using a formula or something.” “Those two ways are doing the exact same thing. They just give you different results.”

And a helpful suggestion: “It would be easy to set up a spreadsheet to figure it out. Unfortunately, we don’t have Excel on our computers.”

Or, of course, you could always use that old rule of thumb, the Rule of 72: Divide 72 by the interest rate, and that gives you a pretty close estimate of how many years it will take to double the original amount. And that works especially well with the numbers they were throwing around: An 8 percent investment will double in 72/8 (or 9) years, and in 18 years, it would double twice: So you’d have quadrupled your original principal amount. Ten seconds’ effort, even for people who have to count on their fingers.

And would it surprise anyone to learn that the guy who was proud of the fact that he can’t do fourth-grade math is the same one who wears the pants with duck pictures on them?

Get out the vote.

Hmmph. Article in today's Post about both sides unleashing "unprecedented efforts to mobilize voters."

Maybe so, but I have to say: I have been contacted the least of any presidential election since 1976. No telephone calls. No junk mail from either party. Nobody knocking at the door. Nothing. Not a single contact. For any of the contests on the ballot, not just the presidential race.

I can understand why the Republicans don't contact me: they're hoping that I'll wake up tomorrow and not turn on the tv, radio, or internet, and forget that it's Election Day. But the Democrats? They haven't even contacted me for a contribution since July, and they certainly haven't gently reminded me to go and vote.

And it's not as though they don't know I'm here: I contributed to the Kerry campaign, starting in August 2003, a matter of public record. I voted in the primary in Februray, a matter of public record. (And I shoot off my mouth in public often enough.)

I know: Virginia isn't a battleground state, although it's likely to be closer than it was in 2000. And this congressional district doesn't have a Democratic candidate, and I think the only other things on the ballot are noncontroversial constitutional amendments.

Doesn't matter, though. I'll go vote anyway.

Darth Vader Mugs Pizza Man.

Ah, Florida. Hot on the trail to take over the title of "Nation's Kookiest State" from the current champion, California. Darth Vader tries to mug a pizza delivery guy, but is unsuccessful. Delivery guy drives away, but not before being zapped by a light saber. Or maybe it was a stun gun.

Scary sights for Halloween.

Okay, so people don't wear costumes to work at my office. They do to work at the grocery store, though, and I saw a strange one today.

And you could tell that the employees had to wear costumes today, the work of a store manager who decided to make everyone feel the excitement of the holiday season, whether they wanted to or not. Some employees got into it: my groceries were rung up by a woman dressed as a gypsy. Some of the costumes were minimalist but effective (the WASP who costumed himself as a Mexican, by wearing a red checkered shirt and a straw sombrero, and sticking a Mexican flag in his shirt pocket), and others were just minimalist (one woman had an orange, Halloween-themed t-shirt; another had Halloween-themed deely-bobbers on her head).

But one guy was downright creepy. His clothes were raggedy, as though he wanted to be a hobo. His face and hair, though, were made up as a clown. The hair was clearly a clown's fright wig, but the facial makeup was bizarre. Very black skin, thin red lips, and white makeup on the top half of his face: nose and up in front, and just above the jawline and up on the sides. The effect was very strongly that of turn-of-the-last-century minstrel shows, with the Black performers in whiteface. "Why?" I thought to myself as I entered the store. "Why would a Black man today want to wear a costume that so clearly brings to mind performers wearing whiteface?"

As I left the store, I passed by this guy again, close enough to see his hands, which didn't have any makeup on them. Imagine my surprise to discover that he's actually Caucasian, which means that he put on a very thorough layer of blackface before putting on the white portion of his makeup. I decided I didn't need his assistance in getting my groceries to the car.

In retrospect, I kind of wish I'd asked him what he thought his costume was supposed to be, but I guess I was afraid that he'd burst into an Al Jolsen imitation.

Halloween at the office.

What a boring bunch of folks I work with. No one dressed up in a costume to come to work today. (Well, with the possible exception of the guy with khaki pants that had ducks printed [or embroidered, I didn't look all that closely] all over them. But since he wore them last week, I'm guessing it wasn't a costume and was, somehow, intentional.)

Still, people brought in candy. Loads and loads of candy. One of the stashes around the office was in a big cardboard box, and it was maybe 8 inches deep in little candy bars, SweeTarts, hard candies, Twix bars, and the occasional Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. At one point, someone was raking through the box, looking for the elusive last peanut butter cup, doubtless hiding at the bottom, and it sounded just like a cat in a litter box.

Ah, the images one conjures at the office.

Live strong. Sell high.

Incomprehensible, on so many levels. There are now people who are selling their Lance Armstrong Foundation “Livestrong” bracelets on eBay, where they’re getting upwards of $15 for them. For the bracelets that go for a buck apiece at Footlocker, or $10 for a package of 10 if you get them online from the Foundation.

I understand the sellers: they’re using eBay to make a profit off of stupid people, a time-honored eBay tactic. It’s the buyers I don’t understand. Sure, I can see that if you live in the middle of nowhere, and there’s no Footlocker or Niketown within a hundred miles, you’d have to get your bracelet through the mail. But why wouldn’t you order it from the website, where you’d get a package of 10 for $15, including shipping, and $10 would actually go to the Foundation and you'd have extras to give or sell to your friends, rather than from eBay, where you’d get one bracelet for $15, plus handling of $3 to 5, for a total of $18 to $20, of which nothing goes to the Foundation?

Going, going, gone.

Coming to the sky near you this coming Wednesday evening: a total eclipse of the moon.