Mucous Cream Puff

That would be my sinus cavities right now. Speaking of cavities, yesterday all along the roots of my upper jaw, my teeth were killing me. I of course began imagining the worst. What cruel irnoy. I just went to the dentist last week and got a clean bill of dental health AND I had just re-committed to flossing. But seeing as how I have received nothing but chocolate and fudge from kids at work, I assumed that all the pain I was feeling meant my teeth needed about twenty fillings. See if I ever floss again. What good does it do?

But it turns out I already had too much filling, of the mucosal variety. Thank God it was Sunday so I couldn't call my dentist, because I would have around noon. But by dinner it hit me that I had about three atmospheres of pressure sitting in my sinuses, and that's what was causing all the pain. I took a decongestant and all the pain was gone. This is bittersweet, as it looks like I'll have to keep flossing, as it may do some good afterall.

I relayed this story to a couple of people at work today (needless to say, it was a slow day). Both of them said they had the same problem in the past and actually went to their dentist. Well, $100 later the dentist ending up saying "Your teeth are fine. Blow your nose more and go buy a decongestant. You can pay the receptionist on the way out."

It reminds of a time when I was in grad school and living in fear for my teeth, since annual check-ups and cleanings were luxuries I didn't feel I could afford. But then my teeth were feeling more and more pain with each passing month, or so I imagined. So I forced myself to go the University of Minnesota Dental Clinic, a place I imagined full of whiskey bottles, leeches, and crude pliers. Well, it wasn't as bad as I'd thought, but it wasn't so great either. But it turns out all I had to do was switch toothpastes and the pain subsided.

Given that episode and yesterday's false alarm, I fear my brain will believe my teeth now cry "WOLF!" at the first hint of dental pain. I hope not. Because maybe next time my brain will tell my teeth to quit being such babies next time they feel pain, only to find out, three root canals later, that my teeth were actually right all along, and not just crying "WOLF!" for the hell of it.

Crumpled Dollar Bill In My Back Pocket Reminds Me I Had Twenty

That is an opening line to a Jayhawks song, and it sums up how I feel right now. I don't know how my mom and dad were able to give us a full Christmas tree year after year, because I know we had some pretty lean times growing up.

But last night a guy came to our house collecting money for Sister's Camelot, a charity that helps feeds the homeless and those who can't afford food. And this is a charity that screams my name. All the food they cook and serve to people is from local, organic, CSA (community supported agriculture) farms.

As I mentioned below it was so very cold last night, and this guy was going door-to-door. I gave him the money I had in my wallet (which is never very much). He said they were having a hard time raising money this year, which is hard to believe because how can you not give a donation to a guy freezing his ass off going door to door.

And now I am helping get the word out about this group. Emily said they were the charity of the month at St. Martin's Table. So those of you in the Twin Cities who are looking for a good group to volunteer with or support in any other way may want to ttake a look at Sister's Camelot by clicking here. There are so many charities and people who need help and we all only have so much energy, time, and money it can be overwhelming. But I figured there are still some people like me who could still do a lot more to help the community than giving five bucks here and there to charities and writing occasional letters-to-the-editor that never get published.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

A lot of random Christmas Eve thoughts. I have one of my few days off from work today.

Here's a shocker. I have some last minute Christmas shopping to do. Poncho and I are going to a few stores.

After shopping, I'm planting my ass on the couch to watch the Vikings/Packers game. Emily even bought beer, diet Lemondae, and salty snacks for the game. I think even she knows this is a bigger than usual border battle. Normally I would watch this game guilt-free but I am actively trying to phase pro and college sports out of my life. I am trying to enforce a rule that I will watch football when it's a social event and the Spurs whenever I get a chance. Maybe that will start in 2005.

It's cold. So very cold. I have a hard time letting go of the fact that there are so many homeless people in the Twin Cities freezing right now. It makes me so very grateful to have a warm home, but I have yet to spring to action to help these other people, other than a donation here and there. Maybe that too can change in 2005.

And I was at my friend's last night watching the Spurs destroy the Timberwolves. He has Tevo so we watched the game after it started and skipped all the commercials and halftime. We were done watching in under 100 minutes. It was pretty awesome.

If we had Tevo, then I could justify watching sports because the time-commitment would be halved. BUT, if I just stop watching sports, then the time commitment would be eliminated.

Merry Christmas to Emily, my mom, my dad, sisters, their husbands, and my friends.

Rock Chalk Pioneers!

Crazed basketball fanatcis at my alma mater, Grinnell College, have between now and February to come up with a catchy cheer to chant because Pioneer basketball is going big time, baby!

On February 3, 2005, when ESPN2 will televise, yes nationally televise, a regular-season, Midwest Conference match-up between your Grinnell College Pioneers and the Beloit College Buccaneers.

Click here for the full story.

As I suggested in the title above, we could borrow the University of Kansas' cheer ("Rock Chalk Jayhawk!") Or maybe we should give props to Grinnell's Iowa roots and change the cheer to "Soil Corn Pioneers!"

Okay so neither rolls off the tongue as easily "Rock Chalk Jayhawk."

Maybe our cheer could be "Our mascot makes sense!" as the Beloit Buccaneers hail from land-locked Beloit, Wisconsin.

Anyway, the game is significant for two reasons. First, I don't know of the last time a regular-season division III game was nationally televised. Secondly, Grinnell will be playing in its new gym (still named Darby Gym) for the first time ever.

First Beloit, then bring on the Tar Heels! We could still use the "Our mascot makes sense" cheer against those guys. Hell, bring on the Illini! I don't care if that mascot has a context, we're ready for the big time so we're ready for them.

"Soil Corn Pioneers!!!"

No word yet if ESPN2, hell ESPN8 for that matter, plans to televise the Grinnell College home track meet this April, but I don't see why they wouldn't want to! Midwest Conference Fever... Catch It!!!

Exploit... I mean Use... I mean SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!

If the Bush adminsitration can win an election with nothing but lip service to the troops, why can't a sagging country singer do the same and revitalize her career?

According to The Tennesean either country singer Chely Wright or her fan club relied on an organized effort, built on lies, to boost her song towards the top of the country charts. Specifically, people called in to radio stations and lied about having relatives in Iraq and requested her song be played on the radio. Her song, as you can infer, defends a US Marine sticker on her SUV. The name of the song? The Bumper of My SUV.

Click here to read the article.

So the troops-loving Ms. Wright completely uses the troops and the war to boost her career. And her song takes pride in the fact that she drives a vehicle that makes us even more dependent on oil from the Middle East. I can't think of anything less patriotic.

It's evil genius that's diving the GOP machine right now. Problem is, it's evil genius in a 1984 kind of way, rather than an Austin Powers variety.

Click here to read the Daily Kos summary.

As a footnote, you should read the lyrics at the end of the story. She chastises a "minivan driver" for giving her the middle-finger for having a US Marine sticker on, you guessed it, the bumper of her SUV. Fair enough. But after ripping the minivan driver a new one for being so judgmental, she then mocks the middle-fingered assailant and assumes she's drving the minivan to pick up kids up at a private school (code for liberal elite). Ummm, what happened to not prejudging people?

Hypocrite, in so many ways.

i am a prowd produkt of texas public educashun

People often wonder how I ever managed to even make it out of third grade.

Click here to see how I pulled it off.

This is reason #26098 No Child Left Behind is a bad idea.

Back to the Future

As I type this, Emily is burning the midnight, I mean noon oil at school. She is finishing up the final portion of her prelims for her doctorate program. She has to design an original study and write a pseudo-grant for it.

So, to support her, I have been doing some epidemiological thinking of my own. As you will (hopefully) read, I came up with a pretty good idea. Even if it's too late for her to use this idea for her prelims, she can always use it for her dissertation.

According to Emily I talked briefly about Segway scooters in my sleep last night. While I don't recall this, I am not surprised that my comments weren't flattering towards Segways. People are already sitting on their asses too much in this country as it is. And the logistical nightmares of a bunch of yahoos trolling around the streets of downtown Minneapolis on Segways would be enough to make me move to a spider hole, or at least I wouldn't work downtown. Some kids at work have those shoes with built-in wheels and those are already annoying enough.

And this brings me to a study design Emily may want to consider for her dissertation:

Why wasn't George Jetson fat? If you ever saw the The Jetsons, I'm sure you remember that:

1. George sat in a chair that moved around the office so he didn't have to walk.
2. Rather than e-mail, George communicated with his co-workers from his desk through telescreens, which requires even LESS effort than typing out a message.
3. People's houses and businesses had people-moving conveyor belts (like at the airport), eliminating the need to walk.
4. Rosie the robot maid did every damn thing that required any physical effort. And yet Rosie was the most portly charachter on the show.

The Jetsons and their peers should have weighed 250 pounds or more, given how little calories they had to burn a day.

Cartoons from the 60s are always thought of as quaint and charming and The Jetsons is no different. It never crossed the minds of the folks at Hanna-Barbera in the early 1960s that obesity and active lifestyles would be an issue.

Or maybe they were visionaries and they constructed The Jetsons' world with subtle features and built-ins that kept people fit and active, despite the fact that they could get all their daily needs met without getting out of their chairs.

The prudent epidemiologist should buy The Jetsons DVD and view each episode closely and look for clues as to how we should design our world so we stay as trim as George Jetson in the future.

And the careful viewer will note there are no Segways in the show.

I think that would make a hell of a dissertation.

Movie Coffee

To me, coffee is not a fine beverage, the way wine, beer, or a milkshake is. So it's not at the top of its beverage class, but it's good enough and I really enjoy drinking it. Emily has reintroduced me green tea and I have been drinking that at least four times a week in place of coffee. But I still have yet to pass up an opportunity to drink coffee when it's in front of me.

There are movies like that for me as well. They're good enough but not always top of their class. But no matter what, if I stumble across that movie on late night TV or pop it in the DVD player I will watch the movie until the end. It doesn't matter at which point I begin watching the movie; there is always a greater than 90% chance I will watch the movie until the credits roll.

I have been mentally making a list and this is what I have so far (in order that I can remember them):

1. The Fugitive
2. Shawshank Redemption
3. North By Northwest (a top-of-the-class movie)
4. Casablanca (same as above)
5. Raising Arizona
5. The Usual Suspects
6. Fletch

I'm sure I'll think of more. If I do, I'll add them to the list.

Pop II

I do have a newfound appreciation for a different kind of pop. Pop music.

As I posted a few days ago I thought the Modest Mouse CD was kind of fun to listen to. For Emily's birthday I bought me, I mean her, the most recent Beastie Boys and Guster CDs.

The Beastie Boys will always have a special place in any 30something's heart. I haven't heard the whole CD yet, but so far it sounds like their standard output, which is always a good thing. I read a preview for the Beastie Boys concert in the Twin Cities a few years back. I believe I was reading the City Pages. The Beastie Boys were touring with Tribe Called Quest. The preview said something to the effect that those two bands represent what mainstream rap music would be like if it hadn't been overtaken by police helicopters and womanizing. I don't know enough about rap to know if this is true or not, but it sounds plausible to me.

The reason I haven't heard much of the Beastie Boys CD is because I've been busy listening to the Guster CD. It reminds me a lot of another Boston trio, called Buffalo Tom, which is still rocking along and going strong. Guster is a lot more mellow and the law of diminishing returns isn't as dramatic for me when I listen to Guster. I go from really liking Buffalo Tom (and wondering why I don't play their CDs more) from being sick of them in about five songs. But I could listen to Guster all day.

I have been in a music-listening rut lately. I unconciously found myself listening to Texas musicians only for the past 12 months. Now I'm on this pop music kick. It's kind of refreshing, in ways that soda pop are not.

Pop

As a kid, soda pop our house was the nectar of the gods and more precious than oil. Water and milk were our only choices. It was a magical beverage. Not anymore.

My dentist has a 20 ounce bottle of pop at the receptionist's desk. And instead of pop, it is 20% full of sugar. It turns out that is how much sugar is in a 20 oz Coke. Yuck.

So I just went to the dentist earlier this week, (one night after having two glasses of Coke at a restaurant) and needed a refresher of how nasty that stuff is. The dental hygienist continues to beg me to floss everyday instead of when I remember or feel I have the time. But that lesson is lost on me, even if I appreciate the logic and importance of flossing. However, each time I go to my dentist that pop bottle and all its sugar is etched in my mind for a solid four months and pop loses all its appeal.

Now if they could only do the same visual for the sugar in mini Reese's peanut butter cups. Or if they showed me all the disgusting bacteria in my unflossed gums vs. flossed, then I would probably floss eight times a day.

But you know what? Writing that last sentence was gross enough. I think I've just gone from being a semi-regular flosser to a full-time flosser. I wonder how well that job pays.

Oh well. Must go floss. Be back in a few minutes.

Need a little more motivation to quit drinking pop?

Click here, here, or here.


Of course, there's at least two sides of every story. According to the Coca-Cola website, soft drinks are a "wholesome beverage" and

The amount of sugar in soft drinks is similar to the amount in fruit jucies and fruit flavored drinks. Individuals as a rule can use this sugar as source of carbohydrates that produce energy.

Click here for the link.

So all that sugar is good for you; it gives you energy! Creepy. It is eerily familiar to the propoganda spit out by the tobacco lobby and cigarette companies over the past 50 years.

Jackassalope Reviews in 3-2-1

Allow me to briefly review three CDs, two movies, and one book.

3 CDs

Emily bought the new U2 and Modest Mouse CDs. I really like the two Modest Mouse songs they play on the radio. The album is a bit more ecclectic and bitchy than their two singles. Modest Mouse to me is like a mix between Everclear and The Cure. Like Everclear, many of their songs piss and moan quite a bit about, well, nothing besides that it sucks to be a grown-up with a little baggage. And I don't think this is a bad thing. It's something we can all idetify with. And I imagine Modest Mouse is what of The Cure would sound like if The Cure didn't take itself so damn seriously. And again, this is no knock on either band. The Cure has a very special place in my heart. I think they're a great band. But it probably wouldn't kill them to loosen up a bit.

U2's How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb is a solid very buyable album. It feels more sterile than their last album, but you have to give them credit for staying relevant through three decades. I have written before that REM is the band I hold closest to my heart, but U2 is a pretty ubiquitous part of anyone from my generation, whose pop culture awareness began about 25 years ago. Pretty amazing.

But the best album I have bought lately is Steve Earle's The Revolution Starts Now. It is already a dated album in some regards since he wrote it with 2004 Election consuming his frontal lobes. So it may be depressing to some to see such energy gone to waste. But I am inspired that there are musicians and writers out there who can express some of my views more succinctly and with more eloquence and melody than I can.

Two Movies

We rejoined Netflix, which is a good thing since our local $2 movie theater is now a $4 movie theater. This means that whatever movies I see will be very, very dated.

We watched Shrek 2 last night, which should, not very cleverly, be called Shit 2. It reminded me of Back to the Future 2 quite a bit. A lot of clever one-liners and gimmicks, but absolutely no attention to storyline. I was hoping Shrek would lose his moral compass and would chase after fame, fortune, and looks. He'd lose his way until almost losing Fiona and his loyal donkey friend. This would be the epiphany he needs to re-discover that beauty is indeed skin deep. That would have made for a much more believable movie and it wouldn't hurt to give Shrek a little complexity. But instead we were subjected to Dreamworks patting itself on the back for how clever it could be for 100 minutes.

So instead of Shit 2, go rent Supersize Me. You'll be glad you did in a Fast Food Nation, I'm-Never-Going-to-McDonald's-Again sort of way.

And now for a book review. I just finished The Fourth Hand, by John Irving, so you don't have to start it. I had to remind myself easily 50 times that this was indeed a John Irving novel. How could this be the same guy who wrote Owen Meany, Garp and Hotel New Hampshire? He developed a storyline about a hand surgeon a good 60 pages and then he just dropped the guy altogether halfway through the book. It's like he forgot all about him. This book is remarkabke in that it is the biggest gap between an author I admire and a book that I disliked. And it is a tribute to John Irving that he wrote this thing well enough to keep me reading it to the end, when I didn't give a rat's ass about any of the charachters and nothing thought-provoking happened to any of them. The one charachter I did like was dead before the story even really got started.

So there.

Too Abstract To Fit

Okay, here I go with another story that revolves around me walking the dog.

The cold part of winter has finally arrived in Minnesota, but the snow hasn't. So I had to go through the closet to find a warmer jacket to wear when I took Poncho for his nightly jaunt past all the Christmas lights I want to see,

But the fact is, the weather right now feels more like an Iowa winter to me. There is even a form of precipitation that I call it "Iowa" (I used to call it "God Pissing"). Basically, "Iowa" is any mixture of snow, sleet, and rain with a lot of wind. It's this nebulous, gloomy form of precipitation that was a part of Iowa winter and spring and has been migrating north more and more with each winter I pass here in Minnesota.

So it was Iowaing again tonight. As I was fumbling through the closet I stumbled across my old Grinnell letter jacket, which I am pretty sure I have not worn since the last cold spring day of 1994. But I figured "What the hell, I might as well wear it. It is Iowaing outside, afterall.

I was surprised that I still had the jacket. I don't when I last thought its fate, much less if I should try it on. So I tried it on tonight, figuring it would bring back memories of college, since I wore it on every cold day in college (it was my only winter jacket). But whatever memories are attached to that jacket are as accessible as my college 5k and 8k times. They are simply to remote and abstract to even conceptualize.

The only thought I had was, "How the hell was this my winter coat for four years? It's too light!" So I thought I'd try it out for Poncho's walk and see if the jacket was now too cold for me, which would be a sign I'm getting soft in my old age. I wore this jacket at a time in my life when I believed scarves, gloves, and knit hats were pretentious accessories for blue-blooded pretty boys. I have since come to realize using these accessories make winter here almost pleasant.

But I'm shitting you negative, that jacket kept me adequately warm during tonight's walk. I forgot one thing about the jacket though. The sleeves have a vinyl shell and in really cold weather they stiffen up big time. This always makes feel like I'm a robot which makes me happy, even if it does feel like it's four degrees outside.

I'm finding it harder and harder to find things to spark my memory from things between two and fifteen years ago. The weird thing is I can stumble across all sorts of smells, sounds, and sights from my childhood in Texas and I involuntarily feel like suddenly I'm seven or 17 years-old. But I can't figure out why it's so hard to unearth being 27. Time just seems to be speeding up more and the last decade just seems to be blur while my first 18 years of life seem like a still-life.

Spurs Rule

I know I haven't been blogging much. I will try to get back in the swing of things.

The Spurs lost to Seattle last night. But the Sonics seem a lot like the Timberwolves from a few years back. They live and die by the jump shot and that makes for a pretty regular season, but they should fold early in the playoffs.

Anyway, there is a lot wrong with pro and college sports right now. The only reason I still follow the NBA is because the Spurs are easy to like.

Click here to see why Marty Burns agrees with me.

Walking the Blog

This is going to be a long post, so I could re-title it,

Be Careful What You Wish For

, because a certain resident of St. Hedwig, TX reponded to an e-mail I sent him with a beef: I have been neglecting the Jackalope blog. He also wanted to know my excuse. Was I too busy walking Poncho to find time to write? Well, read on. Was I too depressed from the Bush re-election to post? Partly. But mostly I'm overhwelmed by what happened on November 2, 2004. My thoughts are too scattered and conclusions/opinions are either not my own or too unfounded to be blogworthy.

So, I will stick to simpler topics I can juggle between the 8 synapses my brain averages an hour: like walking the dog. So Jake, this post is for you.

Today Poncho and I walked to our local nursery because I had to buy some fertilizer for the lawn and get it ready for the cold-ass Minnesota winter. As I was walking him I thought how each walk we take is always unique and each has a highlight.

This is in contrast to when we go running. All runs are the same. I run the same route and we are going too fast for things besides running to materialize or for Poncho and I to observe things.

But when we walk something noteworthy always happen. Here are two examples:

1. Today I heard some music blasting from a house three to four houses away from it. Quick, predict the genre.

Heavy Metal? Rap/Hip Hop? R&B? Those would have been my guesses.

But it was actually Steely Dan turned all the way to 11. Rrrrright. You don't hear that every day.

2. I call story #2 Old Mike Winter.

I was walking Poncho towards a house that we regularly pass and the yard is regularly littered with kids' bikes and kids' toys, in the presence or absence of the kids. But a few weeks ago these kids did happen to be out playing in the front yard. As per usual there was about six of them. As Poncho contemplated which tree to piss on, I contemplated whether or not I should cross the street so I could stay out of their hair and Poncho could walk in peace.

And then all of a sudden I hear one of the kids scream, with great urgency, "There he is. Code red! Code red! He's coming! Assume your positions!!!!" And before I could finish watching Poncho and his three-second token pee on a tree, all the kids were suddenly nowhere to be seen and it was very quiet.

So that was weird and I suspected that for some reason they were hiding from me. And that is even weirder, as I look like pretty much like all the other white 30-somethings that owns a dog and lives in the Longfellow neighborhood (believe me, there are a lot of us). If those kids ran from every guy that looks me, they'd be the most fit band of five year-olds ever. But I didn't think much of what they were up to, until I was well past the house they play at and was, in fact, leaving their block. Suddenly a kid circles around me on his bike and heads back to the house yelling, "Code green! He's left. At ease!"

As a kid I used to this same thing. I'd act like I was a spy investigating random adults who I pretneded were criminals, sometimes even taking notes. Or I would make up other stories about them. There was a guy who jogged by our house at the same time every night and I'd act like he was the President of the US out for his nightly jog and it was my job to secure the corner that made up our front yard. The pathetic part about all this is, rather than act this out with five other kids, I played "Secret Service" all by myself.

Anyway, it was a pretty funny walk that night with Poncho, but it also made me feel like an adult, completely severed from the world of children. This is no small task as I am in kid mode 40 hours a week. Sometimes I have a hard time compartimentalizing who I am as an adult and my identity as a child. But belive me, that night it was very cut and dry who I was. I was just some generic grown-up with a generic dog and I served as a pawn in some game a bunch of kids were playing. I don't feel old too often but I did that night.

What's Worse Than Shaving Your Eyeball?

I would imagine shaving both your eyeballs.

Which brings me to my next question:

Is there a crappier song than I'm Too Sexy For My Shirt?

And the answer is YES. The extended club mix of I'm Too Sexy For My Shirt sucks more ass and it sucks that ass for a lot longer, as it is stretched into a five minute song.

All of the CDs we want to get rid of are up in the office and the good stuff is downstairs. It turns out MTV Party To Go from 1993 qualifies as a CD we want to get rid of. Actually now that I think of it, I need to return the CD to its rightful owner.

Anyway I'm too lazy to go downstairs and pick out a new CD, so now I'm enjoying the likes of House of Pain, Positive K, Sir Mix-A-Lot, and you got it, Right Said Fred's extended dance re-mix version of I'm Too Sexy. Hope those guys all invested their income from 1991 to 1993 wisely.

Making a Liar Out of Myself

I claimed a few months ago that I was making my only epidemiological post ever, as I would leave the chatter about public and personal health to Emily.

Well, to paraphrase our President, fool you once shame on me, fool you twice, um shame, um.... let's see, uh well, I guess, uhhhhh, don't get fooled again.

So on with the Epidemiology. Emily has told me in the past about studies that have shown kids will purchase healthy drinks out of a vending machine when they are cheaper (or maybe even the same price--I can't remember) than soda pop. The point being if you give kids options they may surprise adults with their nutrition choices.

Those of you who shop at Whole Foods or your local co-op are probably familiar with the ubiquitous Stonyfield Farms line of yogurt and other organic dairy products. They now have yogurt vending machines in select schools throughout the country and are looking to expand.

I would like to think that I would have bought some yogurt back in high school, if I had the choice, instead of a Coke. When I had twenty minutes to burn between the end of the school day and track or cross country practice, or when I would stay late working on the school paper, I usually spent that time with a Coke from the school's vending machine. I didn't necesarrily crave that Coke, it's just that it was there to buy and nothing else was.

I hope the kids that have these healthier choices take advantage of them. Nothing like using the market forces to drive a student health intiative.

Click here for a nice story about the Stonyfield Farms project, or here for a general story about machines that offer healthy choices.

A Ringing Endorsement

Billboard Magazine now has a new chart: Top 10 Ring Tones people download for their cell phones.

I guess now you haven't hit the big time until your song has made it to someone's cell phone. Well then it looks like ol' boy Georgie Handel has finally made it big time, as I just got a new cell phone and Water Music is the best of the options I have for a ring tone. But that will all change once I download the new Lil' Flip song for my ring tone.

Click here to see Billboard's chart.

Crow: It's What's For Dinner

I have eaten crow tonight, and it tastes like chicken.

My Thanksgiving feast of crow was eaten in honor of Megan, a classmate of Emily. I spent quite a bit of time on her blog last spring saying how she was crazy to think the Red Sox (or any team for that matter) could contend with the Yankees after the Yanks got Alex Rodriguez from the Rangers.

Well, it turns out I was wrong. I don't know what's more unbelievable: that I'm admitting just how wrong I was or that Boston came back and won this series.

In my defense, I did say the X factor would be injuries, and that the Red Sox could get past the Yanks if they stayed healthier than the Yanks.

Well that didn't happen, both teams had major players with major injuries or mystery steroid related illnesses. But the Red Sox, in part, were the better team because they overcame their injuries. One name: Curt Schilling. And in the Yankee dugout, Jason Giambi's absence suddenly became very noticable in games 5, 6, and 7. Steroids or no steroids, this was a guy who could get on base better (in terms of walks and singles) than any other power hitter in the Yankee line-up. The outcome may had been different if Giambi played. But as I have said before, part of being a good athlete is being a healthy athlete. The Red Sox won this thing fair and square and it is pretty awesome.

I still think the Cy Young should go to Johan Santana, but the Sportsman of the Year for all sports should go to Schilling. If his performance in game 6 (bloody sock and sutchered tendons included) were actually in a Disney movie, we'd all be rolling our eyes at the melodrama and lack of realism in the movie. But there was no Hollywood bullshit to the way he pitched last night. Amazing.

And I thought Josh Beckett and the Florida Marlins made for a magical post-season last year. What we have seen (in both the NL and AL) so far has been memorable to sayt the least. And we haven't even made it to the World Series. You can't make it up.

Growing up I had three favorite teams: the Astros (especially when Nolan Ryan was on the team), the Cardinals, and the Red Sox. I'm shitting you negative. While all three teams still have a special place in my heart, I can't say I am really all that fired up that all of my former teams are still in the hunt. I've become that big of a Twins fan; I just can't throw my allegience over to another team. That being said, I think I'd like to see the Red Sox win it all. Hell, is there anyone outside of the Bronx who doesn't?

Do You Want Fries With Your Cheerios?

Ten years ago I was mocking the idea that people would actually spend two dollars for a freaking bottle of water.

Well, the owners of Cereality Cereal Bar and Cafe must be delighted that their business idea is the dumbest idea since bottled water: a restaurant that specializes in cereal. This means they are destined to be millionaires for sure. And in the interest of full discosure, while I have purchased less than 10 bottles of water in my life (mostly only when I had no other choice), I wouldn't mind checking Cereality at least once.

Click here to go to their website.

No word yet if they do Happy Meals. But if they do, I am sure the free toy will be the Pet Rock, the original product based on the business philosophy that there is a sucker born every minute.

Those Crazy South Minneapolis Liberals...

...have the money to go with their social conscience. Now they have a 527 and an anti-Bush ad to boot.

Click here to go to Georgethemenace.org to see their ad and their website, or click here to read the whole story (I have included the first few paragraphs of the story below). Their ad is worth looking at. It's clever, but I can't say that furthers, much less opens, the dialogue that has been closed between the red and blue camps over the past 36 months.

From Minnesota Public Radio.org:

Minneapolis, Minn. — Had a handful of south Minneapolis neighbors simply gotten the Kerry-Edwards campaign yard signs they'd asked for this summer, they say they would not have ending up producing their own TV commercial.

Kelley Garry-Marschall came up with the idea while taking a walk around the neighborhood about a month ago.

"I think we were all just really frustrated by the way the whole campaign was shaking out. We wanted to do something because we felt like some issues weren't being addressed," she said.

What Garry-Marschall and a dozen friends came up with is a scathing 30-second attack on the Bush administration's war on terrorism.

The spot features archival videotape of Osama bin Laden, flanked by a few supporters, making an announcement in a desolate countryside somewhere, presumably in Afghanistan.

The fictitious translation has a street slang-speaking bin Laden crediting President Bush for bolstering his terror network.

"Those prison photos sent recruitment through the roof. Give it up for George W. Bush, the best friend international jihad ever had," the "translator" in the ad says.

Psssst.. Bush Was Wired... Pass It On

I have no idea if this is true or not (let's just say I wouldn't be shocked), but it is a compelling story.

From Salon.com. Click here for the whole story.

Bush's mystery bulge
The rumor is flying around the globe. Was the president wired during the first debate?

By Dave Lindorff

Oct. 8, 2004  |  Was President Bush literally channeling Karl Rove in his first debate with John Kerry? That's the latest rumor flooding the Internet, unleashed last week in the wake of an image caught by a television camera during the Miami debate. The image shows a large solid object between Bush's shoulder blades as he leans over the lectern and faces moderator Jim Lehrer.

The president is not known to wear a back brace, and it's safe to say he wasn't packing. So was the bulge under his well-tailored jacket a hidden receiver, picking up transmissions from someone offstage feeding the president answers through a hidden earpiece? Did the device explain why the normally ramrod-straight president seemed hunched over during much of the debate?

Bloggers are burning up their keyboards with speculation. Check out the president's peculiar behavior during the debate, they say. On several occasions, the president simply stopped speaking for an uncomfortably long time and stared ahead with an odd expression on his face. Was he listening to someone helping him with his response to a question? Even weirder was the president's strange outburst. In a peeved rejoinder to Kerry, he said, "As the politics change, his positions change. And that's not how a commander in chief acts. I, I, uh -- Let me finish -- The intelligence I looked at was the same intelligence my opponent looked at." It must be said that Bush pointed toward Lehrer as he declared "Let me finish." The green warning light was lit, signaling he had 30 seconds to, well, finish...

The whole story is worth reading. The part about Bush having his own frequency experts is a little creepy.

Baseblogs

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune ran a good story a few days ago about the best Twins blogs on the web. Suffice to say, mine is not featured. But it's a story worth reading.

Click here to read the story.

In the meantime, Emily and I got very lucky and landed some tickets for tomorrow night's game.

WIN TWINS!!!

An A.M. Dial Full of Brain Surgeons

There are a lot of things I would be terrible at. A brain surgeon. A rocket scientist. A manager of a major league baseball team. And this is what drives me crazy about rabid sports fans. They act like they could run a pro sports team better than the guys who get six figures to just that. For the past 24 hours KFAN and WCCO has been plauged by callers criticizing Gardenhire for leaving Joe Nathan in for a third inning last night.

Gardenhire says now he may have left Nathan in too long, but this is all in hindsight. And it's not even talk show listeners that are guilty of thinking they know more about a team and its players than the manager does. Even King Kaufman, whose job is to write about every single mainstream sport, thinks he could have done a better job last night than Gardenhire, whose job is to oversee the Twins every single day. But somehow Kaufman thinks he can manage Joe Nathan better than Gardie can, even though Kaufman is lucky if he has even met Nathan, let alone coached him on a daily basis. Click here for his story, which includes a decent synapse of last night's nail-biter for those of you who don't know that the Yankees beat the Twins in 12 innings.

Gardenhire had a tough call to make and it's easy to say he ended up making the wrong choice. But we have no idea how things could have turned out if he went another direction. Jesse Crain is a rookie and JC Romero is a head case. He could use one of those guys or bring Mullholland or Loshe out of the bullpen, a role they are not familiar with. These are all unappealing options. A 12 inning game is a war of attrition, and the Yankees just happen to have more fire power. It may not have mattered who Gardenhire threw out there to face the meat of the Yankees' line-up.

WIN TWINS!!!!

@&^@#@!?$*! The Yankees!!!!

oh yeah, and go edwards

Tonight I'm bringing our TV down from the bedroom and putting it next to the den TV. Sad but true. So now I can watch the debate (with the sound on) and watch Johan Santana kick the Yankees' ass (with the volume down).

To summarize,

WIN TWINS!!!

Drink Socially.
Drink Responsibly.

Now you can kill two birds with one stone and drink socially responsibly.

I owe this knowledge to a friend of ours (who may remain anonymous if s/he desires) who helped organize a fundraiser (Jazztoberfest) that we were invited to tonight.

We ate some food while a band played that was a cross between the soundtrack of The Triplets of Belleville and The Sweeny Sisters, from Saturday Night Live in the 1980s.

But what I came away with from the evening is the knowledge that Finnegan's Beer is the only beer in the country solely produced for charitable purposes. The beer company states that 100% of the profits go to charity.

Click here to learn more. The close reader will also see a link on this website to Jazztoberfest if you are dying to know more about how I spent my Sunday night.

The kicker is Finnegan's is brewed at the Summit Brewery in St. Paul, which (as of a year ago) is the only local brewery that uses wooden pallets in the stockroom that are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The FSC oversees responsible management of the world's forests. Click here to learn how Summit got the FSC's stamp of approval.

So even if you're drinking alone or drinking to excess, when you drink Finnegan's, you are always drinking socially responsibly.

Life From the Sidelines

The Twin Cities Marathon went right by our house (actually within half a mile), and Emily and I made great spectators. I am hoping to find a fun summer marathon to do and right now am leaning toward San Diego in June of 2005.

In the meantime, this was by far the most politcal marathon I have ever seen. If the election were held today and it was decided by how many marathoners wore Kerry or Bush stickers, Kerry would have won by 100%, which qualifies as a landslide.

There's a national group of runners who have mobilized against Bush. The group is Run Against Bush and they have clubs throughout the country. They also have a blog ( click here to see it).

Anyway, I don't know if this group handed out Kerry stickers to anyone who wanted them at the start, or if the Kerry campaign itself had the foresight to do it. Either way it was really cool to see all these pro-Kerry runners on the course with zero visibility for Bush.

So today was doubly inspiring. It gave me some momentum to keep training even as it gets cold and it encouraged me to think that Kerry may have a shot to win afterall.

I'm George W. Bush and I Approve of this Congressman

More on DeLay from Salon.com.

Click here to remember what a weasel this guy and is. And if you still aren't sure he needs more than the verbal admonishment congress just gave him, click here.

Trent Lott praises the Dixiecrats and is (rightfully) politically neutered. Yet DeLay commits ethics violations and probably breaks a few laws and still is choc-full-o-politcal-testosterone and Majority Leader of the House. Unbelievable.

Image Is Everything

No new insight here, regarding tonight's debate, but I'll give my two cents. I really tried to watch tonight's debate through the eyes of a swing voter, which is hard to do since I am not one. But, I tried to view Bush as an earnest, warm, straightshooter, just as Rove Inc. has sculpted him.

But I still think Kerry won this one going away. And this has nothing to do with soundbites, or if bilateral negotiations with North Korea is a bad idea, or if Poland was indeed part of the Coalition of the Willing or whatever the hell it is that's trudging throught the Quagmire of Iraq right now.

Kerry's victory (in my opinion) has everything to do with image. Kerry, to me, looked cool and collected. Bush was fidgety and defensive. Four years ago, I thought Gore verbally destroyed Bush, but I thought Bush still came out the winner. "Fuzzy math" was a veiled stroke of genius. Image is everything.

So overall, I think Kerry should gain some momentum tonight, but he needs to max out the next two debates to have a chance on November 2.

Normally I find Tim Russert annoying but he was on the money tonight. He said no one really gained or lost ground as much as both candidates simply solidified their base. Take, well, me, for example. For the first time I really feel like I can support the 2004 version of John Kerry. Who knows, maybe hope is actually on the way.

Speaking of propopanda, how tiring was it to here the same phrases over and over from both candidates? For every "hard work" phrase spewed by Bush there was an "I can do better" coming from Kerry. Cripes. They might as well have had a chanting contest tonight. Bush could have chanted "Four legs good. Two legs better!" while Kerry chanted "doubleplusgood!!" And whoever chanted the loudest would have been dubbed the winner.

Forty Hectares and a Mule (and $7,000,000)

An abandoned mining town in British Columbia is for sale, complete with two rec centers, a hospital, and houses. Now all it needs is some residents.

So what is 5% of 7,000,000? I am trying to figure out the APR to see if this is a viable option for Emily and me. The expected selling price is expected to be in the 7 million dollar range.

Let's see... we have about seven months worth of equity in our house, I am refinishing the deck, and Emily just put up new blinds. Any chance we can parlay all that into the town of Kitsault?

Click here for the story.

Story of My Weekend

This ( click here) was fun. But it yields little to no long-term benefit to my life.

This ( click here) was not fun, even though it will yield long-term benefits in my life.

By the way, I am about 75% of the way through brightening the deck. Then I have to waterproof it. Kickball lasts about two months.

It will be close, but which will end first: my deck project or the kickball season? And for all people married to me who read this, don't worry that was a joke. The deck project should win by five to six weeks.

Another Boring Baseball Post

Johan Santana is good. Really good. But it's easy to say that since he's red hot right now (he's won 12 straight and hasn't given up a run in 30 innings). Still, he has some of the nastiest stuff I have ever seen.

I'm not a big conspiracy guy. I think Oswald killed JFK all by his lonesome little self and (this is a big admission, since I love to argue otherwise), I don't believe the government staged the lunar landing back in the 60s.

But I do believe in the East Coast Media Bias/Conspiracy. NO QUESTIONS ASKED, if Santana was wearing a Red Sox uniform, he'd be sure thing for the Cy Young.

But because Curt Schilling happens to play for Boston the media types, even here in Minnesota are saying Schilling might win the Cy Young. Sure Schilling got to 20 wins first, but that's the only stat he owns over Santana (who picked up his 19th win today).

Click here for Santana's stats, and here for Schilling's.

Santana leads the American League in strikeouts and is neck and neck for the best ERA and win total. My favorite stat is that he only has 49 walks to go with his 250+ strikeouts. Unless they're named "Randy Johnson" guys who throw over 250 strikeouts in a season typically do not have this much control; they're walk totals are a lot higher.

I am sure that Santana will win the Cy Young. My only issue is that other names from East Coast markets have to named as possible contenders to win. Santana is by far and away the best pitcher in the American League this year. There should be no discussion at all about who should win.

Mouthful of Earthly Delights

Over the past month, Emily and I made two important discoveries for our bellies:

1. Fast Eddie's Pizza In terms of the cost-benefit ratio, this place has the best pizza EVER. The crust is thin, the sauce is good, and the toppings are servicable. There are better places in the Twin Cities for delivery pizza (Lake Harriett Pizza, Pizza Luce, and Beaks to name three), but all those places run over $18 for a large pizza. Last night we got a large one topper, two pops, and cheese bread all for $16.00. They even let you use multiple coupons on one order.

Last night I went to pick up the pizza since Fast Eddie and his band of pizza makers are less than a mile from our house. I got to meet Fast Eddie in person. He certainly is fast, if you mean abrupt. Stressed Out Eddie is more like it. He had like three posters of Kevin Garnett, which accounted for like 80% of his wall space. I was tempted to give him shit about that and tell him how Tim Duncan is the man, but figured I'd wait until I'm in there on a weeknight, when Fast Eddie isn't Abrubt Eddie.

2. Kemps Cow Tracks Ice Cream Sandwiches This is some tasty ice cream. Emily knows my propensity to eat steel drums full of Cow Tracks Ice Cream in one sitting, and she's all about portion control. So it's safe to say I get some judgemental looks when I eat a bowl of soup for dinner and two bowls of ice cream for dessert.



Image from www.kemps.com.


Well, now cow tracks comes in an ice cream sandwich. A win-win situation for me and Emily. She gets her portion control and I get my ice cream (as long as I don't eat 12 bars in one sitting as I am wont to do).

The bad part is if you click here, you will sees these bars are only being sold for a limitrd time. The blessing in disguise is I can tell Emily I need to eat a box a day to artificially drive demand up so these bars become a part of the Kemps Ice Cream Arsenal.

If You Win, They Will Come

Emily and I went to the Twins game tonight and I can't tell you how much I love the Metrodome. The fact is, I love watching quality baseball and feel so fortunate that the Metrodome drives all the casual fans away leaving great seats available to jackasses like me who get excited by watching Carlos Silva use his change-up to get the White Sox to hit into a bunch of ground balls.

And the simple fact of the matter is the Twins pack the Dome when they win. And there is plenty of atmosphere when the place is packed. If you buy the whole the Mom and apple pie BS about baseball and feel it HAS to be outside, go to a freaking St. Paul Saints game and soak up the atmosphere. You'll have plenty of time to do so, since the game is four action packed hours 80 mph fastballs, 12 errors, and a bunch of Punch and Judy singles.

Anyway, I cannot believe how incredibly well the Twins are playing. They are over 10 games up on the White Sox with their starting catcher out since the start of the season and half their starting infield on the bench nursing injuries. They've kicked the shit out of the White Sox both tonight and last night with something called Augie Ojeda starting at second base.

I truly believe the Twins have a shot to make it to the World Series. I had the same feeling about the San Antonio Spurs in 1999 and 2003 and look what happened (of course I also felt the same way about the Spurs in 1990, but that season didn't end as well).

This is one damn good team. Santana and Radke is one of the best back-to-back pitching duos not wearing an A's, Yankees, or Braves uniform that I've ever seen. Justin Morneau gives the team the power hitter they've always needed. Their fundamentals are solid. For the first time since I've lived here, they finally have consistent timely hitting (another reason it's easy to forget all about Doug Mientkiewicz).

But what makes this talented team a great team is the fact that they play harder (or as hard) as any team in pro baseball, from the stars like Radke and Hunter, to the scrubs like Augie Ojeda. It's pretty neat to watch, and I always feel like I got my money's worth. I can think of plenty of Spurs games I've been to where this wasn't the case. I love the Spurs, but I've seen them take nights off from time to time. I can't say the same thing about the 2004 Twins.

WIN TWINS!!!!

Do Mess With Texas (Please)

As I posted earlier, $250.00 is too rich for my blood to sit next to Gary Eichten at next season's Twins home opener (actually, I'm still kicking myself for not having the funds to make that bid). So the question is, how much would you be willing to pay to see Tom Delay face the House ethics committee next week? No word from St. Hedwig, Texas yet, but I bet I have a certain family member down there who'd pay $250.00 faster than you can say "Exterminator" if he knew Delay was going to finally meet a giant can of Raid.

Click here for the story.

Meet my New Training Partner

I have incidentally, if not accidentally, lost over ten pounds since mid-July. And I attriubute 80% of this welcomed shrinkage in waist size to what you see below.



And this post is as close as I'll ever come to being an Epidemiologist, like Emily. But I am now sold on the small changes you can make in your life that can lead to big improvement.

In my case, I now walk Poncho on a nightly basis for anywhere between two and three miles. If I didn't have a dog who loves the great outdoors, this hour and a half that I spend with him would be spent in much more on-my-ass, chips/cookies-in-hand fashion.

The other change that has helped is we keep all our beer in a fridge in the garage. So, now my laziness is a tool! I'm too freaking lazy to go grab a beer at night. Now I just drink water at dinner instead.

After spending the last 15 years of my life with a mindset that the only way I could stay fit was to train like I did when I was in college, I have now happily discovered that simple things like walking the dog or riding my bike to work have a lot of value I have never appreciated before.

Of course, I still have aspirations of getting my running form back to a competetive level. Old habits and goals die hard, no matter how unattainable they are.

One Last State Fair Posting

Insert your own caption; there's too many corny possibilities to choose from.

For Those Who Love MPR and MDN Equally

MDN is me, by the way and MPR is Minnesota Public Radio. Speaking of me, it is safe to say that the Minnesota Twins are one of my favorite things about Minnesota.

What else do I love about Minnesota? Midday with Gary Eichten of course!!!

Well, Minnnesota Public Radio is having an on-line auction. There's tons of trips, merchandise, and gift certificates up for grabs, and a lot of them are worth bidding. And maybe it's a bit narcissistic of me to think this, but I'll be damned if MPR didn't design an event for auction with me in mind. Well, at least designed for someone exactly like me, only with an extra $250.00 of disposable income.

Click here and see for yourself (or read some of the text I from the MPR page I cut and paste below).

Twins Opening Day with "Midday" Host Gary Eichten
and "Midday" Sports Commentator Howard Sinker

The winning bidder and a guest will join "Midday" host Gary Eichten and "Midday's" own Sports Commentator, Howard Sinker, for the Twins' 2005 home opener in lower deck reserved seats.

At this point, the date has not been announced and we don't even know if it's a day or night game, but we do know that you will be there for it! You know the great rapport Gary and Howard have, and you know how they both truly love the game of baseball, and now you'll be able to join right with them. (They might even sing a chorus of "Take Me Out To the Ballgame"

And the craziest part is, as of the writing of this post, no one has placed a bid on this magical event!

PAY ATTENTION TO ME!! LOOK AT ME! I'M ON THE WEB!!

Emily has uploaded a few photos to her webspace at the University of Minnesota. So now, in the ultimate act of "CHECK ME OUT!!" I am going to post pictures of myself. I'd post pictures of other people, but I haven't asked anyone if that's okay. Until then, you're stuck with my ugly mug. Like this one: me at the State Fair eating something on a stick. Well, it's supposed to be a reuben sandwich on a stick, but if you read Emily's blog you know that "reuben on a stick" is just a name. It tasted more like processed food product on a stick.



By the way, we are returning to the fair tomorrow night to see Los Lobos. It's free after we've paid the fee to get into the fair.

Poncho's Best Friend

I'm not naive enough to think it's me he loves. That nappy tennis ball in my hand is his object of affection. Emily and I debate as to whether or not Ponho or any dog can love and bond with us. I say "nope." He sure as hell bonds with the shelter, food, and security we give him, but that's about it.

Regardless, here is a couple of pictures of a dog and guy who spends a lot of time in the dog house.

Minnesota 1, Indiana 0

We have more First Trumpeter munchkins at our state fair.

Some friends were visiting in town and we took them to the Minnesota State Fair. One of my friends is famous for his small bladder and went underneath the grandstand to find a bathroom. Along the way, he stumbled across a booth with Karl Slover, who as we all know is famous for playing the First Trumpeter in Wizard of Oz.

So my friend never did use the restroom as he got too distracted with the chance to talk to an 85 year-old midget. When my friend asked Slover's authograph he was told Slover would be happy to sign a framed picture of himself he was selling for $20.00.

My friend came back without having used the bathroom, without an autographed photo of Karl Slover and $20 to spend on mini donuts.



Image from www.teddwebb.com


Anyway, it seems like we're a little friendlier to the the little people up here in Minnesota compared to the other states of of the Midwest.

link
From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Munchkin who appeared at State Fair 'disinvited' from Indiana event
September 1, 2004

CHESTERTON, Ind. -- Two top Munchkins won't be taking the Yellow Brick Road to Chesterton's annual Oz Festival this month because of a contract dispute.

Jerry Maren, who played the Lollipop Kid in ``The Wizard of Oz,'' and Karl Slover, who played the First Trumpeter in the 1939 musical, have been regular attendees at past festivals in the town about 15 miles east of Gary. Maren appeared this week at the Minnesota State Fair.
But the two former Munchkins were ``disinvited'' this year following a flap over their agent's request that organizers pay his travel expenses, said Karen Spallina, president of Lakeshore Festival and Events.

Two other former Munchkins - Margaret Pellegrini and Clarence Swensen - still are scheduled to attend the Sept. 17-19 festival.

In the past, organizers have dealt directly with the former Munchkins, Spallina said. But this year Maren and Slover referred her to their agent, Ralph Zellem.

Former Munchkins receive $750 for their weekend visit, plus paid airfare, hotel and meals, Spallina said.

However, Zellem wanted organizers to pay his expenses as Slover's traveling companion and allow him to set up a booth to sell Munchkin merchandise, said Spallina, who refused both requests.
The festival traditionally has paid for Munchkins' traveling companions, but has a policy against including promoters, she said.

``This is a festival for the Munchkins,'' Spallina said. ``We want to keep our focus on that.''

Senior Seminar Revisited

In college I took this class about literary criticism and theory. The premise of the class is "this is what English grad students do for four to six years, so decide now if it's for you."

It sure as hell wasn't for me. But I am sure one of the many theories we bullshitted about for a semester can apply to the "Olympic Moments" NBC has decided define the Athens games.

And I'm pretty sure Reader Response theory is not one of them. According to NBC, the games are all about Michael Phelps, the American sweep in the 200 and 400 in track, Girl Power (softball, hoops, beach bootyball I mean volleyball), and Paul Hamm.

Lost in the shuffle is the amazing performance of Morocco's Hicham el-Guerrouj. Without a doubt he is the best middle distance runner, ever. He also never won a gold medal before. But then this year that speedy bastard goes out and wins the 1500 AND the 5000 meter runs. Does anyone out there appreciate just how fucking amazing this is? Cripes. That's hard enough to do in the shitty Midwest Athletic Conference that I was subjected to for four years in college. And this dude pulls it off in the Olympics. The range it takes to win these two events is unheard of, especially in the present day and age of athlete specialization.

Remember the hype Michael Johnson received in 1996 for winning the gold in the 200 and 400? Well, imagine if Johnson had never even won a gold medal prior to this (he won one in a relay in 1992), had been dominating the sport for over five years, and instead of winning the 200 and the 400, won the 100 and 400. Then you'd get an inkling of what el-Guerrouj accomplished in Athens. And not only that, his kick at the finish was by far and away the most exciting finish to a race I've seen this side of Billy Mills.

But do we hear anything about el-Guerrouj here in the Unites States?

Quick: think of distance running in Athens 2004 and tell me what image pops in your head.

I'm willing to bet it is a defrocked and freaked priest pushing Silva into the crowd in the men's marathon. As bizarre as that whole incident was, el-Guerrouj's is so much more enduring and much more difficult to duplicate than what happened in the men's marathon.

My Olympic moment is el-Guerrouj kissing the track after barely kicking his way to a gold medal in the 1500. But NBC calls the shots and Michael Phelps and Hammgate is what they'll be hanging their hat on for the next four years.

John Kerry Just Earned My Vote, 30 Years Ago

I just finished listening to a re-broadcast of Midday, hosted by my main man, Gary Eichten, on Minnesota Public Radio.

The topic today was the whole John Kerry vs. Swiftboat Vets for Truth nonsense. The highlight of the show was the first half, when Gary replayed, in its entirety, John Kerry's testimony to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations back in 1971. This speech left an impression on me because

1. It showed a side of John Kerry we don't get to see often: a articulate, well-spoken, impassioned and PRINCIPLED veteran.

2. All the bullshit about Kerry criticizing fellow vets for war crimes has been completely taken out of context. If you read/hear the speech, it is clear he is criticizing the Nixon administration for putting soldiers in positions where they see and are vulnerable enough to commit these crimes. He is sympathetic to the soldiers at every turn of his speech.

3. He didn't sound like a Kennedy in terms of his accent. But now, in 2004, he sure sounds like he's trying to invoke the nuances of JFK's speech in his own dialect. I guess what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If Bush can take on the cadence of a good ol' boy, John F. Kerry can take on the speech pattern of another JFK.

But bottom-line is Kerry has a lot of potential. If he can find the priniciples and the spine that lead him to make that speech in 1971, he can be a hell of a candidate in 2004.

Until then, since I can't say "Kerry in '71!!" I'll have to settle for Kerry in '04!

Click here for a transcript of the 1971 speech.

It's Not Plagarism

If I cite my source.

This has the potential of being a long post. I will begin my making it very clear that this topic was not my idea. This weekend a friend and I were driving back after a day at our co-op farm in Wisconsin. We had 90 minutes to kill so my friend (we'll call him Dig Dug) asked me a question he and his cousin had addressed a few nights before.

And my answer to his question is the topic for tonight's post.

His question was, if you could pick any sports team from the past to make a movie about, which team would you pick and which actors would you choose to play the athletes?

Dig Dug, being the Minnesotan that he is already had dibs on the 1987 Minnesota Twins AND the 1991 Twins. Good choices. I can remember he said Bill Cosby would play Kirby Puckett, Tom Selleck would play Jack Morris, and Cheech Marin would play Juan Berrenger (sp?).

So I thought it over and as much I wanted to pick the 1999 or 2003 San Antonio Spurs, I felt I had to choose a team with more pop culture ubiquity.

So how about the 1985-1986 Chicago Bears. The name of my movie? Super Bowl Shuffle, of course.

So without further delay, here would be the cast of my movie.

Mike Ditka--John Voigt

Buddy Ryan--Jim Belsuhi. This would be groundbreaking work for this die hard Chicagoite. He could finally break free from his pigeon-holed career as a bumbling, loveable suburban dad. This tour-de-force of the hard-nosed, controversial Bears defensive coordinator would get a lot of Oscar buzz!

Jim McMahon--Ashton Kutcher. Sure Jim McMahon would fancy himself played by a more a more rebelious actor, like Charlie Sheen. But he was basically a pretty boy with a headband and a few quirks. I could also envision John Cusack in this role, if the director wanted to focus on McMahon's quirks and not the prettiness and glamour that comes with being quarterback. Or I could live with Woodie Harrelson playing McMahon if the director wanted to accentuate the rebel in McMahon. But Kutcher is my first choice.

Walter Peyton--Denzel Washington. "Sweetness" played, lived, and died with a lot of dignity and Denzel could play the part. I am still pissed off that The Fridge scored a touchdown in the Super Bowl, but Sweetness never did. Imagine Denzel performing the Super Bowl Shuffle crooning,

Well, they call me Sweetness,
And I like to dance.
Runnin' the ball is like makin' romance.

The ladies would throw their underwear at the screen a la Tom Jones.

Willie Gault Wesley Snipes. Consider Willie's lyrics from the Super Bowl Shuffle

I practice all day and dance all night,
I got to get ready for the Sunday fight.
Now I'm as smooth as a chocolate swirl,
I dance a little funky, so watch me girl.

To me, those lyrics scream Wesley Snipes.

Mike Singletary Benicio Del Toro. There's the issue of Benicio Del Toro not being African-American, but this guy plays the smart, cool, tough guy better than anyone out there. If people picketed the movie theater because a Puerto Rican is playing the role of a Black man, I, as produce,r would remind people of Singletary's lyrics from the Super Bowl Shuffle:

I'm Samurai Mike I stop'em cold.
Part of the defense, big and bold

Samuri Mike?!?!?! Seems to me, Mr. Singletary opened the door to other nationalities portraying him when he compared himself to a samuri warrior. Maybe Samuri Mike could have been in the old Nike ad, and tell the camera, "I am Tiger Woods."

Steve Fuller Jeff Foxworthy. Fuller was the back-up quarterback and basically a hayseed from South Carolina. I don't think it would be too much of a stretch for Foxworthy to play the part.

Mike Richardson Jimmie Foxx. Foxx needs to be in this movie to give it the credibility it needs to be called a "football movie." Richardson was slick and cool. Foxx likes to think he is. He'd be perfect for the part.

Otis Wilson LL Kool J. For the same reason as above: you need LL Kool J in the flick, just as you need Foxx. If these guys were good enough for Oliver Stone in Any Given Sunday, they'd be good enough for me.

Richard Dent Will Smith. He wasn't exactly the second coming of Ali, but if he stays bulked up and strays from being "cute" and "goofy," Dent could be the role of a lifetime for Will Smith.

Gary Fencik William H. Macy or Bob Costas. The one guy on the Bears I didn't like. He'd like to think Clint Eastwood should play his role, but he's stuck with Macy if he's lucky. Otherwise, Bob Costas would make a perfect Gary Fencik.

Kevin Butler/Maury Buford Bob Costas. If Macy takes the Fencik role, then Costas can double as the Bears' kicker and punter.

And last, but not least....

William Perry Dig Dug suggested either "Cedric the Entertainer" or Reuben from American Idol Both of these are excellent choices.

Thoughts? Opinions?

I have been working on the 1994-1995 Houston Rockets. But beyond Will Smith playing Robert Horry and E.T. playing Sam Cassell, I can't think of anyone else to play the remaining 10 guys.

A Small Back Question

Today marks a historic day, and I'm not talking about the US basketball team's loss to Puerto Rico. I am talking about the first time the internet and Google have let me down. I was curious if there were chiropractors who specialized in working with midgets AND/OR if there were any chiropractors who were also midgets. This stems from a conversation I had with a chiropractor yesterday, and the midget context will make sense if you read the post below.

Granted, I didn't spend more than three minutes on this search, but Google couldn't find any webpages at all that had "midget" and "chiropractor" on it.

I was also unable to find out if there is a more PC term for midget. Now I could make like a library scientist and refine my Google searches, but I think I actually did a pretty adequate job with my Google searches.

But instead I'll make like a lab rat scientist and use the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis would be that there are NEITHER midget chiropractors NOR chiropractors who happen to be midgets. And since Google yieled no results when I searced for pages with the key words "midget" AND "chiropractor," the null hypothesis stands.

Wow. Well when I look at it that way, the internet didn't let me down at all. It's all in how you use your tools, not what your tools do for you.



This is a weird post. But it could be argued that I'm a weird guy, so I'll go ahead and publish it.

Free Drugs

Friday night, Emily was watching the Opening Ceremonies when I got home with Poncho from the dog park. Then Emily made like the girlie-girl she is and went shopping with one of her friends. But I kept on watching, even though the only part of the Opening Ceremonies I like is the Parade of Nations, or whatever they call it, when the athletes come marching in, one country at a time. But now that Bob Costas is covering the event, it has gone from something I liked watching to something I tolerate. Bob Costas is one smug bastard.

Anyway, I have never taken LSD or mushrooms or peyote or whateverthehell else would inspire hallucinations. And quite frankly, after Friday night, I don't have to.

First, there was the train of Bjork's dress during the Opening Ceremonies, which eventully was unraveled to cover all the thousands of athletes in the center of the field. Her train ended up being a map of the world. So that was as cool as it was weird.

Oh yeah and before that there was a woman walking around with a huge, lit-up belly, pretending to be pregnant.

Okay, so that was weird. But then, during a commercial break I flipped through the channels and on FOX TV (channel 9 for you Twin Cities people), there was a race. But not just any race.

It was a camel on the inside track

racing a relay of humans on the outside track

who were all midgets.

It was very unsettling and what I imagine a bad drug trip would feel like. I felt bad for the camel and even worse for the midgets, since their team lost in a photo finish.

So first I thought, "Dude am I carpeing some diem or what?!? It's Friday night and I am definitely living life to its fullest!"

But then I pondered more serious issues. Like whether or not I would enjoy watching a relay team of Bob Costas, Marv Albert, Bryant Gumbel, Bill Walton, and John Madden race a hungry polar bear.

Then I got worried. Maybe those M & Ms I was eating Friday night were actually laced with acid. So I went straight to the camel's mouth, FOX's website. It turns out I wasn't on drugs. I was as sober as I was lame that night, watching something called Man Vs.Beast 2. FOX's website also added the following:

Olympic Gold Medalists Carl Lewis, Bart Connor and Dan O’Brien will serve as commentators. (SP-0445) (TV-G) Events include a long-jumping competition between man and dog, a test of endurance while an orangutan and a man hang from a suspended bar; a contest of speed and agility as man and chimpanzee race up a palm tree and finally a relay race between five little people and a 1,500-pound camel.

I don't know what is more bizarre: the fact that this show exists, or the fact that Carl Lewis, Bart Connor, and Dan O'Brien are the hosts.

Click here for the FOX link.

First person to know (without using the internet--you're on the honor system) if it was Dan O'Brien or Dave Johnson that failed to clear his first pole vault height in the 1992 Olympic decathalon gets a special prize from me. Are you out there Gaio?

Abandoned Blog

I rediscovered my abandon side blog and just posted a new top five list.

The list is Top Five TV Show Intros (dating back to circa 1975).

Click here to check it out.

A Map To The Poor House

Somewhere over the weekend, I stumbled across the question, "If money was not an object, what would you collect?" The funny thing is I don't remember where I heard this question, but I cannot forget this question, even though I know the answer.

I am pretty happy with my baseball card collection from when I was a kid, but it would be fun to add a Nolan Ryan rookie card to my batch.

However, that's not where I would want to spend all my Monopoly money.

I pine, dream, and even fantasize about having a map collection. Framed maps of the Old World and New Americas all over each wall in our house, in my office, and on the cieling in my car (only Matt the Hatt and my family will get that reference if they remember the 1978 Cutlass Cruiser station wagon I drove in high school).

It would be like tattoos for me. One would not be enough. Good thing original maps are so freaking expensive. I can't even be tempted to buy one of the maps I pine for.

Click here to see what I mean.

Maybe I'm Just A Mamma's Boy

So we are going to be using a $50 laptop now that our 2 year-old iMac costs more to repair than our roof, which has a teeny-tiny leak. But now I think I truly will be able to blog on a consistent basis.

Anyway, if you haven't heard about the Bush-Cheney Sloganator, click here. It does contain that Green Day "Time Of Your Life" song, so if you are in a cube at work, you may want to turn your speakers down.

Definitely worth a visit. For a short while, you could make your own Bush-Cheney '04 signs with your own slogan on it. It would even say "Paid for by the Bush-Cheney Campaign." This practice lasted about a month, as the Bush campaign soon realized that people were making slogans like A New Kind of Dictatorship!

Funny stuff.

By the way, my mom sent me this link. Everyone give a shout out to my mom. I know my dad and brother-in-law often send me very blogworthy links, but I get them at a time when I don't feel like blogging. Maybe women have better timing than men or maybe I'm just a big old 32 year-old mamma's boy.

Game On

We went on vacation for a week.

We got back and our computer was broken.

It cost Emily more money to get the computer fixed than it did for me to fix my car last month (actually the car pictured in this link is in waaaaaay better shape than my 1988 gem).

And certainly a lot has happened over the last two weeks that are blogworthy, but I have totally forgotten what they are.

So I'll start anew this week.

Tomorrow night we are going to see Jim Hightower speak at a Barnes and Nobles in Edina (sorry Booksense). This seems somewhat hypocritical to me, as Hightower champions small independent businesses and rails against chain stores. And Barnes and Nobles is pretty much Wal-Mart disguised in a black turtle neck, hidden behind a copy of the New York Times. Maybe I'll confront Hightower about this tomorrow night. That will give me something to write about and get this blog in motion again.

Angry White Man

I just got done finished posting about how impressed by Maria Sharapova's play in Wimbledon today. Don't let the rant you are about to read make you think I'm contradicting myself. I loved watching her play today. The rant you are about to read is more about how she, so far, has received a free pass from the media, for some pretty selfish, prima donna-type, behavior.

So, on with my rant.

First off, there are somethng like seven young Russian women tennis players (like Sharapova) who are ranked in the world's top 25, and it's refreshing that they are not famous just for their looks (Anna Kournikova's 15 minutes should have expired long ago). Ironically, Miss Kournikova has been called the inspiration for this upswing in Russian women tennis players.

And my point is just that: I enjoyed watching Sharapova because of how good she was today. She was groomed to be a tennis star at age six, and she is a packaged commodity just like any other movie, rock, or sports star. I am too cynical to get into how charming she is, how close to her father she is, or how her family had to flee Chernobyl. I don't know what to believe and what not to believe when it comes to those kind of stories, so I stick to what I know. She and Serena played some amazing tennis this morning, and anything beyond that could be fact or fiction.

{START RANT HERE}

When Joe Horn grabbed a cell phone and made a phone call after scoring a touchdown, he was fined $30,000.00 and turned into a villian the instant it happened, and for months after, in the newspapers, on radio and TV sports shows.

Joe Horn was grandstanding and his behavior obnoxious, and he needs to live with the negative publicity he received.

But this morning (or afternoon, in London), after winning Wimbledon and running into to the stands to hug her dad, Miss Sharapova then returned to Centre Court and motioned for her dad to pass down a cell phone. Then she tried her call her mom while Serena had to sit there and watch, along with the rest of the crowd and the TV audience. She held up the awards ceremony with this stunt, and played to the cowd, pantomiming frustration because she couldn't get a signal.

The crowd laughed and the announcers joked about it too.

Damn, Click here and read the AP story. I like the part that says,

After the match, Sharapova was giddy and giggly, fumbling with a cell phone while trying to call Mom, just like any 17-year-old at a suburban mall on Saturday afternoon.

I don't recall any AP story that talked about how "giddy and giggly" Joe Horn was when he made his call. Cripes...

How in the hell is this different from what Joe Horn did?

Emily said it was different because the match was over, while Horn pulled his stunt mid-game. I also think an argument can be made that Joe Horn was a member of 45 man team, 10 of whom were on the field when he scored the touchdown that lead to his phone call. Meanwhile, Miss Sharapova just won Wimbledon so the spotlight was on her already, so what she did wasn't as selfish.

BUT I'M NOT BUYING IT!!!!

Here's a bigger difference between the two episodes: Call #1 was made by an African-American man, playing a very violent sport that is full of poster-children for selfish, overpaid athletes, while call #2 was made by a cute, white, innocent girl (or at least one who has been coached just to play that part). Whether or not her call was pre-meditated like Joe Horn's was, isn't important. What is important is that Sharapova's cell phone was a classic act of grandstanding and a typical selfish act by an athlete that usually gets villified. So where are the angry commentators?

Maybe she will receive some backlash in the next few days. If she doesn't, there is a definite double-standard between the way the press and public opinion treat a cute 17 year-old and how it treats a grown man, even though Sharapova has been groomed on how to act for the last 11 years.

In the meantime I will continue to watch tennis stars like Sharapova and football players like Joe Horn. I value how they perform on the field, even if I don't approve of how they celebrate. But it would be nice if we treated the goose and the gander equally.

{END RANT HERE}

Is This Irony Or A Coincidence?

Poncho's favorite toy is a tennis ball he found on one of our walks. Recently crowned Wimbledon Champion, Maria Sharapova, reminds me of Poncho.

For those of you who have met Poncho and saw today's Wimbledon Championships for the women: don't you think Poncho and Maria Sharapova have a few things in common?

First, both are so skinny that they look unhealthy. About ten times a day, I think, "Poncho sure could use a steak right now." I thought the same thing ten times about Sharapova, while watching her completely blindside Serena Williams in today's final.



Image from DFS Classic Website

But once Poncho gets out in the open in an off-leash park he is one of the fastest (if not the fastest) mutt I have ever seen. He is also absurdly athletic in terms of how he can change direction mid-air (a la Kobe Bryant) to catch a ball. Then I forget all about how skinny he is.

And the same is true for Maria Sharapova. in between points and away from the game, she looks like the typical gangly teenager I see in Mall of America. The kind that I feel needs to be directed to the food court for a meal. But then everytime she chased down a ball or smashed a cross-court winner, I saw her as a world class athlete.

I had thought of officially naming Poncho, Poncho Parker, but now I think Poncho Sharapova is in order.

The Emaciated Mind

The mighty have fallen. You can never go home again. Chains suck the life out of a city and destroy its unique flavor. {insert your own cliche/platitude here}

None of it will undo the sadness and emptiness that now is part of Grand Avenue in St. Paul. Ruminator Books (formerly The Hungry Mind) is going out of business no later than July 31.

Click here for the story.

We've all experienced the anger and sadness that comes when a Home Depot, Starbucks, or Wal-Mart kills off the local, independent businesses in our neighborhood. But Ruminator Books was no Ma and Pops Hardware or Java the Hut Coffee Shoppe. It was an institution in the heart of a neighborhood that does cartwheels if someone simply puts the words "independent," locally owned," and "business" together in a paragraph.

So Ruminator's demise has as much to do with business mismanagement as it does with evil Wal-Mart, Barnes and Nobles, and Globocom.

But is is still sad to see such a great store go down, despite an impressive "Save Ferris!!" campiagn from its patrons.

So let this closing inspire all of us to support our local, independent merchants, by going to bookstores, like this one!!!!

And instead of using amazon.com to shop (don't expect me to hypertext the amazon link), use booksense.com for your on-line shopping. Booksense is a collection of independent bookstores and when you buy from booksense.com, you are actually buying from your nearest independent book sellee. The only drawback is you have pick up your order at the store, but it's worth the "inconvenience" on principle alone).

As Emily is wont to say, "Vote with your dollars!" Responsible shopping and market forces will do away with Barnes & Nobles and Wal-Mart in ways that pissing and moaning and local legislation will never able to.

Don't Mess With Texas, reason #34950

From the San Antonio Express-News

Shot in mouth, man spits at death

A San Antonio man is recovering after taking a bullet to the mouth.

Police say Gilbert Balderas, 36, was shot Monday night during a fight on F Street on the city's East Side.

The bullet went through his right cheek and hit his teeth. He was able to spit out the bullet, along with a tooth

Balderas is being treated at Southeast Baptist Hospital.

Authorities are looking for the gunman, who they believe fled to Laredo.

Click here for the link.

Are Opposite and Doppelganger Mutually Exclusive?

Emily and I went to see Farenheit 911 today, but it was sold-out. So we saw Terminal instead. As we were leaving the movie theater I said, "That was the opposite Castaway." My logic being that in Terminal, Tom Hanks was playing a prototypical wild and crazy Eastern European guy stuck in the epicenter of American society, trying to leave the airport. But in Castaway, Tom Hanks was playing a prototyical reserved, play-it-safe American guy stuck in the most remote outreach from American sociey, trying to find an airplane to save him.

In addition, the Tom Hanks charachter in Terminal befriends many different Americans who work at the airport. In Castaway his charachter befriends a volleyball.

So I would consider these movies as two opposite sides of the same coin.

But Emily said, "That was just like Castaway, except for in an airport." And she has a point. A certain crucial narrative element unfolds in a parallel fashion in both movies (I can't say too much, in case someone hasn't seen either movie yet, but plans to). So, if I interpret this correctly, she is saying the two movies are the same side of two different coins.

Are we both right?

This reminds of an old conversation Emily and I had before we were even dating. A small group of us had gone out and painted the town a twentysomething shade of red. As Emily and another friend (mad props to Kari) were dropping me off at my house I realized I had just become absurdly tired. So as I was saying goodbye I told them, "I'm going inside and either I'm going to kick sleep's ass, or sleep is going to kick my ass!!" Then there was this five second pause of mutual confusion, so I added, "I'm doing whichever one means I'm going to sleep a lot!"

And now, six years later, I'm still not sure which one means "I'll sleep a lot."

Maybe both expressions can co-exist, the same way "I could care less," and "I couldn't care less" mean the same thing. And maybe my take on Terminal as Castaway's polar opposite can co-exist with Emily's take that Terminal is actually Castaway's doppelganger.

I have some more observations to make about the moviegoing experience in general, but I'm going to save them for tomorrow, because it's getting late and I'm going to the bedroom to either kick sleep's ass, or to have sleep kick my ass!!

Dogwarming Gift Ideas

If anyone is looking for a gift for Poncho, our new dog, I recommend the following on his behalf:

1. A copy of Codependent No More. Poncho must believe the air we humans breathe is far superior to air he can find in any other corner of the house. He follows me from room to room, even if it's for a three second run from the den to the fridge while I'm reading the paper or watching TV.

2. A video of the The Coneheads. He's wearing one of those plastic bonnets (called an e-collar, or Elizabethan Collar) to keep him from chewing his wound (he was neutered on Tuesday). I figure if he saw The Coneheads, he'd realize he's not the only one in this universe with a cone head, and he'd see that having a cone for a head can actually be kind of funny.

You know come to think of it, he may also enjoy watching Little House On The Prarie. He could benefit from seeing all those ladies and girls in bonnets enduring the hardships of homesteading in the heartland. This may teach Poncho to see the bonnet as a symbol for having the strength and resolve to live through times in Minnesota. Then he'll begin to wear his plastic lamp shade like a badge of honor!

3. A prescription for medical marijuana. His vet is having me give him 100 mg of dog sedatives a day to keep him from being hyped up. The idea is for him to rest and stay inactive. His wound doesn't need to be more swollen than it already it is.

But this dog is freaking robodog. I think you could give Poncho 100 gallons of elephant tranquilizer and he'd still be pacing the floor and begging to play. I figure if I get some (medical) marijuana for Poncho and had him watch Futurama and The Simpsons on endless loop on the DVD player, he'd finally mellow out.

4. A bigger house. Just for the next week, until his cone comes off. Emily said (within five minutes of Poncho arriving home from the vet with his cone head), "Our house is not big enough for a dog with a lamp shade on his head!"

We found our tipping point. This place is plenty big for the three of us. But you put a cone on any of our heads (in this case, Poncho's) the house seems to shrink by 100 square feet. The Ponch keeps on smashing his cone into walls, walking into us, and he's even fallen down the stairs a few times (he clips his cone on the steps). It's very hard to watch because this is one confused, sad dog! I also feel I am doing a good job not being frustrated by all this cone-inuced clumsiness. It's not El Poncho's fault.

Actually, he's snoring right now, so the doggie valium is working. Poncho is such a good dog. He's just going through some tough times, seeing as how his testes were removed, the residual tissue is swollen to the size of a hackey sack, and he has to wear a freaking lamp shade on his head for ten to 14 days. And he's only been living us for two weeks. So he's emotionally and now physically been through the wringer.

But Emily, Poncho, and I are all ready for his stitches to be removed and his cone to come off. It will either be this upcoming Saturday or a week from Monday.