It's that time of the week again

Newsweek!

And if last week's Jesus cover made my face screw up you should see what happened when I saw Jack "Straight From the Gut" Welch on this week's cover. Frankly, I think there's a nice little dichotomy thing going on there. If it isn't the son of God being exploited it's the Fruit of Mammon.

God, Welch is perky. I wish I were that sassy.

Terri Schiavo has a bit of space on the cover today; I bet now that she died they're wishing they'd gone all out. Or maybe next week they'll have all those crying protestors inside. Also, I'm sure you've seen that picture on LiveJournal by now of "Chuck" holding the sign "We're All Idiots" over the protestors. Man that gave me a good laugh. If not, do yourself a favor and go to this site.

Mark Whittaker has a guy crush on Welch. Oh, man this is bad. "Welch embodies pure energy and passion for the art of leadership." "When you have a long, freewheeling conversation with Jack, as I was fortunate enough to do at a dinner not long ago ..." GET A ROOM!

And he's not done irritating me. Terri Schiavo: "personally distasteful to watch. Yet since it's a story we couldn't ignore..." you're NOT CLASSY. LIVE WITH IT. "Fareed Zakaria will host a new weekly show on PBS ..." Which is another sign that PBS can't stop sucking up to the retarded right.

Interesting photo "essay" with pics from some of baseball's now-famous steroid users' rookie cards. Man, Giambi and McGwire were some skinny dudes. I mean, really. Now, apparently, their rookie card prices have taken a hit. Props, Newsweek, for having an interesting and illuminating little photo feature.

Wow. The Schiavo protestors are even weirder than I thought. There are three women, big ole fat white women in Rascals (those scooters. Possibly they are hoverrounds) and one is holding a sign that says "This Agnostic Liberal says 'Thanks Pres. Bush.'" For what, exactly? Cozying up to the religious right by jumping a plane to get to DC then looking at poll numbers and backing off the Schiavo thing? You are wierd. Also your friend with the sign "Women Deserve the Right to EAT no matter how it is acheived." Yes, the right to eat. But not the right to die with dignity as per her wishes, as found by three guardian ad litems and numerous courts!

Speaking of Terri Schiavo, the most boundary-pushing of all Tragic Last Sentances occurs with hers. I mean, you saw that coming, but can you imagine a more moralistic, overly familiar, repugnant, wanna-be GI Joe TLS than this? "And for Terri, who struggled so mightily for control in her battle for her weight, there was only the terrible irony that, in the end, she had no control at all over the forces that warred over her fate."

More TLSs:

"The question is, given the public's distaste for Wall Street following the stock market bubble, will anyone care?"

"What's shaping up there is likely to be anything but pretty."

"And so, this thoughtful essay earns the top score."

"Her biggest talent is convincing readers she has."

"Let's hope the Men (and Women) in Black don't let that happen."

"If not, in a few years they'll be talking to the next group of commissioners who'll inevitably come knocking on the door."

"For him, Working for the Good of the Priesthood (all sic) means healing those wounds."

"It was a preview, it seems clear, of the doomsday coming to Red Lake."

"And that could mean Custer Battles and other companies will ultimately answer to no one."

"He might have been speaking for the sea."

"But he's still setting goals, and still stretching to reach them."

"As even Red Sox fans learned last year, sometimes spring dreams can come true."

"This time, they better stick around a while."

"Ishiguro pulls you under, even as youconvince yourself you're just going wading."

"And she sure knows how to clean her plate."

Fiona Apple looks like what Rory Gilmore would look like if she started smoking crack and faux tanning. Here's the TLS devoted to her: "The mystery's fun, but it's the music that matters."

"Now, wherever you go, you can breathe deeply before the big meeting."

OMG. Speaking again of celebrity fug, I do believe the shot of miss Paula Abdul is from the same night she was written up on Go Fug Yourself. She is wearing the peachy quadra-boob, armpit cleavage dress. The quadra boob looks particularly heinous from this new angle.

Ah, and it's over. Nighty night, NW.

New food craving blogging

I have found a food that can break the Frosted Mini Wheats' grip. It is Tacoma Boys' Tomatillo Salsa on corn chips. It's spicy and awesome to the max.

Notice it's from Tacoma Boys. That's the place. Get your produce and meats there, people, I'm not kidding. It's about the same or cheaper than Safeway and for sure cheaper than Trader Joe's fresh stuff and the salsas are not to be believed.

Tacoma Boys. Mmm mmm good. Trader Joe's. Uptight, with bad sushi, stupid faux-pretentious two-buck-chuck plonk and it's a chain people!

Tacoma Boys. Sells plants and housewares outside, open 24/7, has frozen berries by the box and the best seafood, you can taste about any of their fruit pre-purchase and they're cool with it. Trader Joe's — in University Place. Nuff said.

Tacoma Boys Tomatillo salsa — green, spicy and fresher than cut grass. Eat it! It's good! It will make you an addict! How do I know this? Because I was contemplating my tomatillo salsa fix late last night as I sat through a city council meeting. They were talking about view corridors, I was thinking about volatile oils and salt. They were talking about environmental impacts, I was thinking about green green salsa. The jalapeno is a fixation, people.

I'm feeling a little more stream-of-conscious than usual. Of course, I don't have any salsa lying around for me to eat. I ran out last night.

Quiz time

Which Incredibles Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla


You are the warrior anime girl.You are the type
that can start a fight and win.You are very
strong and can beat anyone up (but just don't
^_~) and some people can be afraid of you but
alot of people admire your strength and want to
be just like you well the people that want to
fight.You can defend yourself very easily and
can probably handle some kind of weapon.You
have a short temper(like me)and get angry
easily but you can be really nice at times
^_^and once a fighter always a fighter.


If You Were An Anime Character What Would You Look Like?(Girls Only)
brought to you by Quizilla


Athena


?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
brought to you by Quizilla


Your Hidden Power Is:
Earthly

You are sort of childish yet brave. If you get
pissed off you become a very strong fighter.
You hate seeing the earth die and you use your
special powers to save the earth from becoming
hell. You are loved by many and hated by few
but you only despise those that try and destroy
your wonderful earth.

Gem Stone:Emerald Eye Color:Lime
Green Hair Color:Brown with green on the
bottom tips and it is shoulder length flipped
out.

Quote:I tear my heart open. I sew my
self shut. My weakness is that i care to much.
And our scars remind us that the past is real.
I tear my heart open just to feel.


What Is Your True Hidden Power? .::Beautiful Anime Pics::.
brought to you by Quizilla

(If I could prevent the Earth from becoming hell, well, we wouldn't be where we are today, non?)

And the winner is ...


Your a wind Dragon! Hey, you, the smartest dragon
of the branch. You love reading and writing,
but are quite shy. Your IQ is probably sky-high
and your stories can win trophies. Your not
very good in sports, or maybe you are, and just
not inrested.. You are very wise, smart, and
kind.


What elemental dragon are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

my stories can win trophies. Truest quiz yet.

Food coma. Uuuuuuhhhhhhh

If I'm going to die of food coma, let Janice McMillan be my Dr. Kevorkian.

Janice and Hugh were having an Easter lunch for friends and family, which was morphed into a wake of sorts for two trees on the McMillan property, including possibly the most important tree on their property -- the one popping up through their second story deck (well, they have a daylight basement on a tilted lot). My family has seen the McMillan's house, this will come as sad news.

Well, the tree hasn't been completely removed. It looks like a "view obstructor," according to Hugh, who was reluctant to let the whole tree go right away but agreed to let the part most likely to bring the whole thing crashing down -- the top -- go. Really, it looked sad.

Anyway, it was pretty entertaining to watch the crew climb the tree and use chainsaws and stuff.

But to the menu. It started simply with an apertif of sparkling wine with sliced strawberries. A viognier complimented the table, which was set with a fresh fruit salad with cantaloupe, banana, strawberries, nectarines, pinapple, apple, blueberry and blackberry and I may be missing something there. A broccoli salad, which had teensily chopped fresh broc with bacon, raisins, sunflower seeds and possibly other stuff I was not as passionate about as the bacon and sunflower seeds, dressed in a sweet slightly creamy white sauce followed. Then there was the quiche. Bacon (too much is never enough) and asparagus in a thin creamy egg custard over one of Janice's impeccable crusts. I don't know how she makes pastry so good. It was a little bit chewy, a little bit flaky. I know, chewy isn't the word of choice for pastry. But it worked. Sheri, who made the fruit salad, brought whole wheat, homemade rolls.

For dessert, there was strawberry shortcake. Then I told Cameron that if you put Peeps in the microwave they blow up. So we started with one and before we knew it we were making Peep rings and towers and watching them get big and gooshy and poofy. Cameron, who is in fifth grade, was freaking out. We must have gone through thirty Peeps. And we weren't eating them. I mean, Peeps are kind of gross. We just tumped them in the trash, which at first seemed altogether too decadent, but Sheri, Cameron's mom, reckoned that was a superior use to actually eating the damn things. Smart, that Sheri.

If you haven't ever microwaved a Peep or four or five, I can't recommend it enough. It's not Janice's fine but simple meal, but it's satisfying in a whole different way.

Callie and Cameron's Peeps ala Micro-onde

One Peep
microwave safe plate

Place Peep on microwave safe plate. Place in mircowave, heat for 30 second on high. Watch through view window.

Recipe can be doubled or more easily; do not underestimate blow up ability of Peeps with small plate for three or more Peeps. If three or more Peeps are cooking, increase time to one minute.

Remove Peeps with care, they make the plate hot! And sticky!

dear WashingtonPost.com

Please get a new body font. Yours is too big, round, and identical-looking for my eyes. It's a bunch of big circles evenly spaced from each other. It makes me google. And I don't mean that the internet way. I can't marvel at your words when I am leaning 18 inches back from the computer squinting to try to make them normal sized.

I know, you don't want to look like the NYT, your number one enemy and hated outsider. Hence, you refuse to have an easily navigable front page that zips readers to other section fronts. That I can dig, you are not alone there. Also, you always have a link to the twice-weekly "lean plate club," which is a dorky name and a relatively unhelpful column that reiterates conventional wisdom. Yet other sections columns don't get the same kind of play. Why is that?

You are different from the Times and the WSJ. I can accept that.

But I can't accept your font.

Well played, Tacoma Municipal Court. Well played.

I got TWO tickets this week. One from being parked too long on Friday in front of my apt. building and one from "wrong way" parking on a fairly ambiguous street. That's $45 I have managed to spend by not eating lunch at Thai Hut frittered away.

I blame Newsweek for the $15 ticket. I got overheated and involved in blogging its shortcomings. They jack me on the "professional rate" now I owe $15 to Muni court because of them.

Damn you, NW! Damn you all to hell!

"Collapse"

Sigh. I always *mean* to like Jared Diamond.

But he writes like an academic/sociologist (sorry Dr. Butler).

For a writer, the first lesson is "show, don't tell."

Sample sentence picked from a random page: "Still another solution was to occupy an area for only a few decades, until the area's soil and game became exhausted, then move on to another area." And it doesn't get livelier than the passive voice.

I know, I know. He's talking about vanquished societies. He's presenting a thesis. But it's more than 500 pages of this stuff. John McPhee would have been able to take the same sources, the same information, and wring something magnificent out of it all. Diamond can't.

I really wanted to like the "Germs" book. I really wanted to like "Collapse." But it's missing a little oomph.

If you want information in a rational, empirical way that wants to make a point, fine. If you want a great read, or maybe a story to latch into that info, go somewhere else.

By Jove, the Precor's got it!

I just came from this site and it has the most handy activity calorie calculator. It turns out that Tae Bo can bust out about 1,000+ calories per hour for a chick my size (!) so I'm thinking, dang, there's something to that exercise! It also says I burn about 70 cal/hr sitting on my butt. So I'm thinking, hmm, that sounds pretty realistic. I do some more calcs on how many cal/hr it takes to wash dishes (and by the time I'm done in my kitchen I'll have burned 500 cal) and clean the bathroom and sleep and walk and everything seems pretty reasonable to me.

What kills me is this makes it look like the Precor Elliptical Number — that of the 1,000 cal/hr — may not be the complete fraud I assumed it was.

The thing that kills me is even though I go pretty much all-out on it, it doesn't wear me out. Contrast and compare that to Tuff-E-Nuff, where Mark jacks up the aerobics music to about 156-160 bpm, gives us wind sprints and Denise puts us through the wall sits and weight lifting paces. My booty is still sore from two days ago. I must be vanquishing whole days' worths of calories.

Mmmm. Calories.

Comments on other blogs

I like to read them because every so often you'll see something to the effect of: "What is the matter with you people? I expected your blog to be updated more than once a week!" or "You need to blog about X Y Z."

Generally, the comments aren't like this; they tend to be supportive or refutational or rebuttalistic (is that a word?). More and more, however, these "you aren't working hard enough or on my favored topic!" are making the rounds.

Get used to it, bloggers. This is what people are like. There's no free service that can't be griped about.

My uncle, who lives in a charming ski town in Colorado that has blossomed into a oasis next to a dystopic hellscape of second homes, once went to a tourism meeting where the presenter laid out what today's consumer is like. In a nutshell, cheap and demanding. The assembled townspeople, laid-back ski bums and longtimers with stoic rancher/miner roots, were stunned. Those who didn't work "on the mountain" or in hotels or whatnot, at any rate. They had thought that was just the "New York Jews." Oh, no, people. This former waitress can tell you there is harshness within that Christian family from Indiana.

The presenter said that basically, in order to compete in today's ski tourism climate, prices were going to have to drop, amenities and activities were going to have to soar and there had better be some decent limo service, pronto.

Most of the people in that room probably got there in a little beater car. Beaters, by the way, are how actual rugged people get around in the west, not in huge SUVs. I have been to Alaska and throughout the U.S. west. Truly, the official car of outdoor workers with Carhartts is the AMC Eagle.

These people thought that the charm of their town — which is darn charming! — and its laid-back, live and let live attitude would be the attraction. Maybe that worked for a while. But people don't want charm anymore because it isn't convenient enough nor catering enough.

Back to blogs. Maybe if you only have a small audience, they see you and love you and are cool with the fact that you have a real job and are appreciative. But once you have a decent sized readership, some of them aren't going to understand that you are blogging for your own fun. They think you are doing it for the audience, and that there are certain expectations. They have no idea of the limits out there.

I have to laugh because as a reporter at a teensy paper that serves an oft-privileged community, I get the same kind of attitude (the paper recently disbanded its readership panel, which spent a lot of its first meeting griping about how little the 40-page-a-week paper (with sports and lifestyles) wrote about until it realized that there were only four writers on staff and we were all in that room). At least there were some shocked faces for our entertainment.

So enjoy your first taste of being considered legit media: Complaints.

Jesus, NW bugs me.

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It's my buthday!

I feel like Kelly Osborne. You know that one episode, where she's all angry because she doesn't think she's getting enough attention so she takes a few swings at her brother Jack and gripes on about where they're going to spend her birthday dinner and ends up having what appears to be a pretty good time at "Medieval Times"?

Well, I don't really feel like that. I wish I had my brother around to take a few whacks at, though. There is something a little bit like the Jack and Kelly (though much more low key) in our relationship. He's so calm; preternaturally so. And I'm kind of explosive. I spent basically my entire childhood provoking him. I basically immunized him from provocation.

So in the 31 years I've been around, I guess I've learned that provocation has its place. I'm not sure where that place is. Also that watching jousting while hoisting a turkey leg is pretty cheesy.

For the record

If I'm ever in a Permanent Vegetative State, pull the plug. Let me go. Even if my eyes can track a balloon and certified quacks say that I'm able to say "mommy" and "help me" (where's *that* tape, huh?).

Even if I'm minimally conscious pull the plug. Because I don't want to live if I can't read or think. I don't want to live life functioning at the level these self-righteous Terri Schiavo "protestors" and nit-witted, grandstanding, disingenuous jerks who are trying to make political hay out of her prolonged death do.

In a related story

Usually I would be done blogging NW by now. Oh, that's a lie. I hate that rag. And this week the task is made particularly appalling its being one of the Jesus covers the weekly magazines have started running every couple of months or so. Honestly, any excuse to put Jesus on the cover. Time ought to just make him man of the year every year.

Anyway, speaking of Time, I was in the supermarket picking up Cream of Mushroom soup (because those casseroles aren't going to make themselves) and the cover was Teri Hatcher, a so-called "Desperate Housewife," looking consternated with a remote in hand. The tag was "Has TV Gone Too Far." Well, after seeing what's going on on Fox, which has apparently drafted psychic and "speaker for the dead" (and, it goes without saying, utter charlatan; The Amazing Randi could take him down in minutes) to speak on Terri Schiavo's behalf. John Edwards is convinced Terri is conscious of what is going on and her "soul" is living in her body. Which is exactly the kind of medical expertise you'd expect from FOX. I think it's an example of someone who knows what to say to make money and doesn't care how full of bull it is or how it affects the only people that matter in this issue: the family.

Oh, where was I. Oh yeah, TV has gone too far. But not on "DH," which, since Gabby and John broke up and likewise Susan and Mike and also Bree and the pending divorce, plus the rerun factor, is less racy than the average episode of "Charlie's Angels." But where have I seen this question asked before?

Oh, yes, on the cover of Newsweek a couple months ago. And surprise, surprise, who was on the cover but Teri Hatcher, along with her fellow castmates.

Did Time think we'd all forgotten?

If Newsweek is icky and nasty, Time is basically a xerox of said ickiness. Except you get swag when you order from the TV. And they make those stupid books.

More Jacko trial blogging (I'm sorry)

Seth Stevenson at Slate has this to say about the end of day whatever at the Jacko trial:

Even Brian Oxman (Michael Jackson's personal attorney) seems to be getting bored by this and begins to slump in his chair.

2:32 p.m.: Oxman slumps a lot further. Oh, my; Oxman is not tired—he is seriously ailing. Officials clear the courtroom and call in an ambulance. The last we see of him, he's being carted off on a stretcher, though he looks relatively alert and stable. (Later, reports indicate that he should be fine.)

Is everyone in the defense going to have a health issue before this trial is over? And what does that mean? Is this a ploy or what?

Also, I recommend reading Stevenson's snarky posts. It's the only tone possible in a media circus with the possible exception of Rob Corddry's take-down of the whole thing the other night on "The Daily Show." (Example: "Michael! If you're guilty keep on walking!" (M continues to walk to his SUV, Corddry turns around and fist-pumps for the camera) "Oh yeah!")

Still, and fundamentally, I worry that with all the weird court drama the media is losing sight of some bigger picture issues. Not like this hasn't been said before.

I hereby nominate Dahlia Lithwick and Seth Stevenson to be the official court reporters and commentators for the media. Okay, let's throw some serious journalists in the mix, too. The rest of you, go cover something else.

And they say women are sensitive

Peep this.

Maureen Dowd writes a sarcastic column about how the X-chromosome is really a thing of remarkable complexity (this, ironically, is a proposition I made in a paper in my college "genetics and evolution" class, BTW) and quotes a male scientist as saying the Y-chromosome is "pathetic" and wounded men rush in to defend their ability to be complex, tenderhearted, incredibly perceptive creatures. (My paper, BTW, was not received with any sort of enthusiasm by the male professor — he wrote that in order to understand the X-chromosome, instead of studying it, we must study the Y-chromosome to understand how what it does makes it special from the X-chromosome. During my sophomore year, I was fairly unsophisticated in the sciences and not one to question a prof, so I figured he had a point I couldn't understand. At the moment, I look back at that C-paper with a "so there!" attitude, and also a bit of sadness that, at such a liberal college, a male professor would be so ungenerous and possibly stunt the scope of investigations of more serious biology students.)

So you write poetry, big whoop.

I'm sorry, but women have been kept back for centuries for the most spurious claims on the properties of our bodies. Nit picking the Y-chromosome does not a legitimate complaint against the male sex's capacity for sensitivity make. Instead of flipping this logic to apply to your hegemonic, chauvinistic ideas about women, you rush to defend against what is a phantom attack. By Maureen Dowd, people. Maureen Dowd!!!!

There isn't any legitimacy, knuckleheads. Glad you realized it about yourselves. Now realize it about me and my sisters.

I could've told them that

Ducks are chauvanist, power-obsessed rape-culture mongering thugs. I have known this since 1997, when I lived in Ecuador among a small gaggle of ducks. The girl ducks were okay; they never did nobody any harm. The boy duck, though, was a complete pisser. He duck-raped the girl ducks and would bite them spitefully.

I hated that drake. I understood why Daffy and Donald Duck were such hotheaded nitwits. This is the duck culture. It is a culture not only of live female duck rape but homosexual necrophilia.

Ducks must be stopped. Sure, they look cute and ecosystem blah blah blah. But they're twisted.

I'm being facetious. Well, a little bit, anyway.

Man, I hated that ornery drake.

Life imitates art. Crummy art.

This reminds me of that CSI where only the uncle of the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire, somehow tragically blinded, was the only reliable witness to a similar "murder."

And with that, I just showed how much terrible terrible TV I watch. Because really, CSI is kind of the pits once you are tired of the special FX.

Dear Florida,

You are the weirdest state of all. How do you manage to hold the rest of us states hostage time after time? Shall I count the ways? Elian. Voting madness 2000. Voting madness 2004. Terri Schiavo. I'm forgetting some stuff, aren't I?

Florida, take a chill pill. Just calm yourself down. Us reserved Pacific Northwesterners are tired of you.

What made you this way? Is it the retirees? The Cubans? The retired Cubans? The alligator wrasslers? DisneyWorld? I know it isn't the manatees.

Florida, be the manatee. Go back to chewing your cud underwater, lurking in the mangroves and avoiding alligators.

You are truly a hotbed of nutcases.

Florida, just chill out.

How embarrassing!!!

You know how women's mags and teenage girly mags all have their embarrassing stories? With titles like "I started my period while wearing one of those short frilly skirts like Paris Hilton wears and I wasn't wearing panties and it was on a date with my boyfriend — and his parents!!!!"

Well, today I had a shameful moment of my own. I was at my desk, chatting with (male reporter) Colello when (male freelancer and owner of house that I sit at) Hugh came in and handed me an envelope.

"Janice says you forgot this," he said.

It's soft, I take a peek inside. Oh shit. It couldn't be a sock. No. It's undies. God knows if they're dirty or clean, I haven't opened the thing fully, I'm still reeling from embarrassment.

Colelle: "What's that?"

Me: (because the part that prevents you from telling the truth too quickly has been shorted out in my brain) "Oh! Undies!"

Colello and Alison, at the next desk over and is halfway listening in, bust a gut. At least Hugh is hard of hearing and didn't catch that. But he must have known what was in that envelope. Married people don't keep secrets, and after all, he's a former spook so he has to know everything.

I turned about three or four shades of fuchsia, but I got a pretty good laugh out of it because, after all, it's only undies. And that's the only way to save face, sometimes.

Everything's an event with dad

This is an excerpt from an e-mail my mom sent me. I'm relating it because the world needs to know how hilarious my dad can be. Rest assured, ma, when dad has a heart attack, you're going to be the first to know. Wouldn't it be ironic if such a hypothetical heart attack were the only time in his life that my dad was ever stoic?

Anyway, four your entertainment:

"Thursday morning Ray woke up at exactly 3:46 clutching his chest on the left side and going OHHHHHHHHH! rather loudly--loud enough to wake me.  I thought he was having a heart attack at first.  He quickly pulled up his t-shirt and asked me what was on his chest.  It was a HUGE,tick, richly engorged with blood, right under his left nipple.  I think it had been there since the brush clearing business on Saturday.  I got alcohol, tweezers, and dispatched it.  He rolled over and went back to sleep.  I decided to do some laundry. I was too awake by then. Ray really does have the most amazingly dramatic 'medical' emergencies."

I'm sorry to anyone who threw up a little conceptualizing my dad's nipple.

Speaking of medical emergencies, I think Jacko's starting to freak out. There's not enough Jesus juice in the world to make the prospect of spending time as a convicted child molester in the pen. No wonder he's got some back injury, and by that I mean delirium tremens.

Oh, please, Big Pharma.

Here's a quote from a story about celebrity endorsements of anti-depressants in today's New York Times.

"Such campaigns are similar to pitches for drugs to treat erectile dysfunction, also a sensitive topic, said Mark Bard of Manhattan Research, a health care marketing firm.

'It's more like, "Let's open the discussion," ' Mr. Bard said. 'You don't know Lorraine Bracco personally, but you feel you can identify with her more than just a generic actor that comes on the screen.' "

"Open the discussion?" If that's the only descriptor you'd use for those excruciating Cialis ads that mention a certain four-hour-long side effect, give me a break. I have never, not once, seen a commercial for Viagra or one of its new competitors where the name of the drug was not mentioned. Over and over.

But that's advertising; mention your product a lot and connect the image on screen of happiness, fields of flowers and, now, celebrity, with that product. Honestly, is this reporter so naive as to believe there has been a broad campaign of "condition awareness" for Bob Dole Disease without specifically mentioning the drug in question? Or that, if there has on the part of celebrities, that the advertisers aren't completely aware that half their campaign rests on using the media to connect the celebrities to particular products?

This is not rocket science. I wish the NYT was a little more savvy.

Lousy lying cardio machine blogging

Today I either found the cardio machine of my dreams — the Precor EFX somenumber — or it is the most disappointing thing I've ever been on.

The lying, dirty-dealing, no-good machine told me that in the course of 65 minutes I burned nearly 1,200 calories in 4.5 (give or take) miles of running on medium resistance. I can't believe it. It's too good to be true.

Yet even knowing that fact was not enough to prevent me, during a routine trip to Safeway, from picking up some Easter candy — Hershey's dark chocolate eggs and a pack of Andes mints.

I did not, however, buy the Entenmann's chocolate fudge cake (the cake formerly known as the Devil's Food Cake but apparently these day's that's just too provocative a monikker for a freaking bakery product). Why is it that it's called Chocolate Fudge Cake here and in Arkansas? I don't see any notice on the internet (via Google) that the cake known to me as a sneaky, carb-loving elementary/middle school student is known as anything other than Devil's Food in the east coast; also that it has never been known as anything but Chocolate Fudge Cake anywhere else. I'm sure somebody would have made a stink about that on the internet somewhere. Or maybe not.

It's seriously the perfect cake. The really excellent part is where the thick icing meets the cake. It's extra-smooth and creamy there. That perfection is brought courtesy, I'm sure, of trans-fats.

Anyway, enough carb-obsession. Precor, I'm onto you, you deceiver.

It's my dad's birthday today

He's 59. But that doesn't mean he has respect for father time. Peep this and scroll to the pic that is titled "Don't ask." It's in the middle. I'd link to the pic directly, but that's not how .mac works.

Weird neighbor blogging

I left for the Y at about 1:30 today and heard my weird neighbor tunelessly singing "she's so beautiful" over and over. When I came back two hours (and an alleged 763 calories) later, she was singing "Don't worry if you come in last." Seriously, people, keep the Randy Newman away from the mentally impaired.

Really, how honest can that elliptical ski machine be? I read in an article in one of those lady workout magazines that the count can be off by as much as 20 percent, which gives me a range of 610-916 calories burned. I'm thinking the machines overcount. Here's another skeptic, but she doesn't give any idea of how accurate the count might be. Anyway, I "skiied" more than 6 miles, so it's an accomplishment either way.

I had an attack of acute embarrassment at the gym because my newish workout pants are suffering from a case of mom's pyjamas. My mother can't own a pair of pyjamas and refrain from washing them in the hot water wash. Trust me, I, too, have occassionally succumbed to the pleasure of a hot-water cycle — ever put your hand in the allegedly "warm" wash cycle? It ain't. Clothes need the heat for cleanliness. Anyway, her pyjamas shrink and she ends up giving them to me. Well, my pants shrunk enough to make me self-conscious. I mean, there's hugging the curves and there's hugging the curves. I'll have to stretch them out again and keep washing them in the tepid cycle.

Graven images

Well, I have to wonder what it says that the Virgin Mary is considered a suitable design for a check. Also her son.

I guess if you are rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's, instead of using cash with Caesar's image, you might as well use a promissory note with Jesus' image. A promissory note from ... a bank.

In archaeology classes in elementary school they always said "people of the future will look at our money and think that these are our gods," but that was pretty ignorant, in my view. Why? Because inevitably they'd show slides of money from ancient history and the face was always that of the current ruler. Cleopatra, not Isis; Augustus, not Janus. The ancients made a pretty decent distinction between what was holy and what was commerce.

Apparently, modern America is not so good at making such a subtle distinction. Market forces = God's will. Which is a terrifying and truly cruel doctrine.

ETA: This country is so freaking wierd. I love it. I just checked out the most popular Bradford Exchange checks and the list includes: Thomas Kinkade's Lighthouses (puke), God Bless America w/Eagle patriotic checks (gag), Angel Kisses Inspirational checks (bleh), which are counterbalanced by "Spirit of the Wilderness" Wolf checks (egad) and "The Awakening" Native American checks which look like the cover of a romance novel except they're all white people's fantasy of pre-Columbian Native peoples. Also, on the non-Jesus and country side are the Lord of the Rings checks. Rounding out the non-spiritual check favorites are flowers (puke), Gone with the WInd ( but miz scahlett! I ain't know nuthin bout buthin no babies!), John Deere tractors (now THAT's a check I can get behind) and Yellow labs. Their owners must be the most ga-ga of the dog lovers. And some plain jane checks.

I'm considering these checks, for the record. As soon as I plow through about 400 Hawaiian-print themed ones I ordered last year. Which is tough to do when you have a debit card.

If journalism was easy

Newsweek would do it.

That is how the sweatshirt of a minor character in "Rule of Four" read. So loving it. Too bad the rest of the book was uptight whitebread ivory tower wannabe pap. Which is why the NYT loved it. Me, not so much. I like my symbological thrillers to be proud of their cheese. Feel the cheese! Love the cheese!

So here is my weekly gripe against NW.

Is it just me or did they make an insanely unnecessarily graphic-looking piece of art so that it would be perfectly obvious it was graphic art and not a photograph? Should I wonder if they thought about using a photorealistic hand and dollar before going for the faux silkscreen effect? Eh. Whatevah.

Why I hate Mark Whitaker, editor, this week: He blathers on about Robert J. Samuelson, a crappy columnist with, if not an ideological bias, a deep-seated sense of anger and rage at all things kindly and gentle. Oh, spare me Mark Whitaker. Your flamboyant, overbearing praise is the sort that really only points to the complete undeservedness of it all by the object of said praise. Also, words like "ominous" and "stunning" are too powerful.

Periscope is quite demur today. The conventional wisdom blames Viagra and Jesus Juice this week. I blame the CW on the merits — or lack thereof — of its character.

The letters page, which on a typical day has both the best and worst prose in the whole thing, again has some of the worst. Matt Barnwell of Athens, Ga., a self-identified J-school student, criticizes NW's cover last week (martha) as enhancing the "credibility crisis journalists face today" and "how can I embark on a career to shine a light in the dark corners of the world" blah blah. Honey, just because you read Romenesko doesn't mean you should believe every word of it. NW won't relate to your job uncovering the dirty dealings of the municipal parks and rec committee at the Pittsahola Weekly FIshwrap.

Heinous last sentences:

"After all, a dog has to be only man's best friend — not the best looking."

"Now let's see if the blogosphere can self-organize itself to find them." (again, I'm not understanding the bug at the bottom of the page. I just don't understand the color scheme for the "buttons," I don't get why this is a good feature in a paper medium. It's just dorky.)

" 'God needed Daddy in heaven,' she explained recently. 'Well,' he replied, 'I needed him, too.' "

"The question is how much frank talk will help in a time of diplomacy."

"In the rematch, at least, Villaraigosa knows it."

"Regrettably, he was right."

"Until that pattern is broken, the lure for Euro-jihadists will persist — as will the risks for the rest of us."

"It's far from certain that America could do better."

"Still, there's not guarantee Washington will like the result."

"To paraphrase former Treasury secretary John Connally: the dollar may be America's currency, but it's the world's problem."

"And if you don't you have to make changes."

"A prison ministry sponsored by an evangelical church converted her."

"There may be millions of people looking for love online, but the loneliest hearts are the four-legged kind."

"You don't have to be reading the same book to be on the same page."

"They may be pushing the boundaries of architecture, but that doesn't mean their buildings can't be just plain beautiful."

"If she knows how dangerous idealism can be, she also knows the danger of living without it."

"Even if the happy couple has to make do with the fortune she already has, her prenup shold make The Donald's look like a grocery list."

Wow. NW did not disappoint with all the crummy, uptight last sentences.

What makes Irish eyes smile?

How best to celebrate St. Patrick's Day? Honestly, it's amateur hour at the local bar.

Besides which, I'm not too Irish. Sure, they say the family blood is Black Irish, Scots-Irish, there must have been some regular Irish in there. I don't doubt it. But the Scots-Irish, though they intermixed to some degree, really treated the auld sod as a layover on the way to America from Scotland. They were irritating hillbilly protestants whose countrymen in Scotland couldn't stand them. They were people for whom the harsh climate of the North Sea area was not ascetic enough so they went to the New World, where the land east of the Mississippi was too crowded.

Anyway, I come from a long line of slightly misanthropic ascetics. Getting loaded on Guiness based on a comeradery-inducing ethnic affiliation doesn't seem appropriate.

Since I'm still aching in the head, I'm thinking maybe the curative muscle relaxer and a nice pass out might be appropriate. I was also considering going to Tuff-E-Nuff, because actively seeking suffering is my genetic heritage. Since I also consider the railing against vice part of my heritage, I thought about getting an Entennmen's chocolate fudge cake, eating something like half of it and feeling bad about caulking my arteries.

Also, I was pleased today to read that the people of Northern Ireland, the McCartney family in particular, are rejecting the redneck rule the IRA is offering. We here in the U.S. are suffering from some of the narrow vision and self-righteousness that has infested both sides in the N. Ireland conflict. Of course, we have the bomb.

Good funeral weather

Today I went to the funeral of my work friend Beth's mother. The weather was drizzly and chilly, like it ought to be. It was kind of a nice funeral surprise, I guess.

My two friends named Beth have suffered an inordinate amount of hardship over the past couple of years; I am about this far from telling people not to name their daughters Beth. It's like a guarantee of family problems and health issues.

I've been to a Catholic service before; this was my first funeral. I didn't realize there would be a cantor. Wild. I was aware there would be standing and sitting and kneeling. I was not prepared for the frequency with which the first two would swap out.

Man, I'm not up to blogging today. I've got a two-day headache due to woman issues and allergies. Sarah Jessica, keep enjoying the imminent pleasures of being a girl while I suffer through the biological ramifications. Grrr.

OMG

I can't get a second look from a daily paper and here's some NYC movie reviewer dipwad openly ogling Samantha Bee's boobs as she interviews him.

I have never understood how the hardest job to get in print journalism has always gone to the freakiest, least appropriate acting people in the world. I can't recall a movie reviewer I've ever met that I would consider allowing into my acquaintance circle.

And so bad around women. I had the misfortune of talking to a movie reviewer outside a preview of Star Wars episode 2 or maybe it was X2, I get all those important sci-fi adventure flicks confused, and the dude is just a big ole unkempt dude. And he goes on and on about whoever the director is's oevre and blah blah blah hot air, and blah blah blah he's so smart. And I'm pretty sure he was checking out my boobs, too, because when you're looking at the babes in fantasy RPG playstation games all day, you tend to be surprised by the diminutive size of the real thing — really, you gotta hunt for the sweater puppets. Oh my lord, shut up, I'm thinking. Shutupshutupshutup, you self-important twerp with the social skills of a garter snake.

I think Michael Medved might have been in the audience. Which, once again, proves my point.

And they're all men. I have met *one* professional female movie reviewer — she was black and wasn't too bad, personality-wise, for a movie reviewer. The thing is, though, she wasn't employed by a daily paper. She had to run her own website, which was movie reviews by a black woman for black people. I bet she knew who Tyler Perry is.

But Jesus, man, you're on camera! Get your eyes off her bits and pieces!

What, me, bitter?

"Rule of Four"

So I thought this was the companion piece to "The DaVinci Code," because it was polling well for people who had read that other book against their better judgment and also chose Powells Bookstore, the best bookstore in the world, all in one city block of Portland, Ore., as their preferred book dealer.

Well, it's not easy reading about Princeton students. I'm not sure that even now, when one must be an overmotivated, overeducated, overambitious to be an Ivy Leaguer, that any of them have the kind of character to get entranced by the mysteries of an early attempt at the novel with numerous digressions on architecture and woodblock prints from Greek and, uh, non-Greek mythology. I mean, antiquarianism is a cute hobby, but it's the sort of resume padding and essay material a contemporary ILer would use strictly as a means to getting into the school, not their motivating passion. I mean, please, the student loans you're going to carry! Even your most coddled Gen Y-er is going to be more motivated than this!

Anyway, that's the first hurdle. The second is caring about IL students at all. The third is this alleged source of all wisdom, a boring book that we don't get to read. What's the puzzle? The characters are trying to figure it out too.

I'm still plugging away; I think the book has potential, even if it doesn't make me feel so barmy smart like "DVC." Actually, it does, because I can see the formula this book needs clearer than the authors. But I thought I'd write down my thoughts because I might not make it through this book.

I feel pretty bad that I can't finish books lately. But there's only so much I'm willing to subject myself to when I can barely get a moment to myself. When there are eight million things I want to do and teach myself and enjoy, I don't think I can read the near-pornographic detail of financial transactions in a book like "Den of Thieves" or a mediocre adventure that wants to, but can't, transcend its archetype.

iPod madness

So I've been trying to reconstitute my cousin Stephen's "Forgotten Favorites" smart playlist. It's the only one I've heard him mention, and he has brought it up, like, the past three times I've seen him. I figured it must be a pretty impressive playlist if it's his default discussion playlist. It gets high-rated songs that haven't been played in while, so it's like an aural surprise and a pleasant one at that.

It appeals to the part of me that wants everything to come out even — a pathology that I trace back to being a fan of the Frances the Hedgehog books, about a little girl hedgehog who, among other things, eats all her meals so that they came out even — and the part of me that wants to not have to listen to some of the dreck I have stocked my iPod with.

Further fuel for the random playlist that creates a democracy out of my iPod music, Stephen pointed me to this website which is chock full of great ideas. Also very much for the OCD musicphile males that walk among us. The kind with jobs that only last 40 hours a week and who make enough money to waste a great deal on their technology and music collections.

I'm going to have to get over my music library as a dinner plate. And if that means that "Mo Money Mo Problems" makes it on to my Top 25 Most Played list, I will just have to deal.

Dear Eric Alterman: I get it

You are not against Jewish people. You are not a "self-hating Jew." You were impugned by Cathy Young of the Boston Globe. I get all of that.

What I don't get is why you are obsessively posting every little bit of this slight and your response and the Globe's response and your responses to their responses and your readers' responses to all those responses for nigh on three weeks now. This has gone beyond the point where it is just asking the Globe for a simple correction. You have launched what I would call an "epic struggle of wills" that is probably slightly less retarded than the one I have going on with the paper delivery lady Lani.

It is not, however, any more interesting. In fact, you are coming off like a whinybutt. The Globe? Pompous. But we knew that.

Also, I do not consider it to be an interesting post when you post a critique of a Nation piece you wrote and your response to said critique *when the whole passage has been printed in the Nation in the first place.* Are you totally out of ideas or something? Don't you realize the people who read the first piece will likely read the followup on their own in the Nation or on its website?

I am considering taking you off my bookmarks unless you get more interesting and provocative. And fast.

Editied to add: Is this something about proving you have groupies? Because fine, YOU HAVE GROUPIES. Now quit grousing. It's embarrassing and also a little bit megalomaniacal to hope your point of view will be replicated and shared in by the editorial board staff of the Boston Globe.

reluctant NW blogging

Oh, Lordamercy I don't want to read Newsweek. I am jonesing for my New Yorker, which did not make it into my mailbox by Saturday, making it excruciatingly late. I know there is an article on building perfume in it, and because I like to smell everything and have fantasized about having a career at IFF (International Food and Fragrances, a taste/smell firm that makes "flavor" and "smell profiles" for anything processed under the sun), I have been eagerly awaiting this issue.

But, to Newsweek, I must do the hating.

Nice cover photo. Do all the lebanese gals look like that? Salma Hayek is of lebanese descent. Males, to Lebanon. The babes are hot there. They know how to eyeline. Also, the weather looks nice. I'm not sure what the local customs are for getting the babes, but since this one is unburka'd (in jeans!) and on a dude's shoulders, they're probably considerably looser than the mores of neighboring, oh, Saudi Arabia. Maybe even Jordan. Hee. That's a tourism slogan, "loosest ladies in the fertile crescent."

All the dudes, however, look like refugees from "A Night at the Roxbury." Baby don't hurt me, no more. Rinse the gel from your hair.

Have you read "Blink," or Malcolm Gladwell's article in the New Yorker about face-reading? Do yourself a favor and read it. There's a part where a facial reading expert (or whatever) mentions that Bill Clinton looks like he wants to be caught with his hand in the cookie jar and loved anyway. Well, that's what Whitaker's talking about the Martha Kerfuffle last week looks like to me.

"We ... thought the combination of exaggerated imagery and and cover line ... would make clear that it was playful visual commentary," he says. What exaggerated imagery? It's Martha ostensibly holding open a curtain! She does that all the time in real life! Half her job is window treatment touching (the other half is matching paint chips to her champion breed chickens' eggs)! If you want exaggerated imagery, start with Heironymous Bosch. I can see Martha, on a stage, laughing through curtains at the media vultures, faux Martha ripoff artists who would take her place, prissy NW writers, uptight white collared bizmen who got away with far worse than she ever did, FBI tricksters, elephant tamers ... I'm losing my train of thought. Anyway, my point is, minimalism is rarely a starting point for "exaggerated imagery." Punk.

Hey, "Periscope," it's gross to have "loved the sex scenes" in a Judith Regan roman a clef if the seducer man is 73-y-o Tom Perkins *and* you put a picture up of him. I mean, aren't you a little creeped out? Also, you got the rules wrong for "I Never" or you didn't realize the game that you're schilling for got them wrong. You drink if you *have* done the action in question. At least, that's the way I remember playing it. Honestly, "Periscope" is the right word for this page. Except it never extends past the sphincter (up which the head of NW is lodged. Get it?).

I'm really curious not only what the green, orange and yellow keys assigned to "Blog Watch" mean, but if they're randomly selected. Likewise the icons. They kind of make sense, but they don't seem to have an overarching theme from week to week.

Fareed Zakaria again beats his own damn drum — "The theory did not originate with Bush's administration. Others had made this case: scholars like Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, the Arab intellectuals who wrote the U.N.'s now famous 'Arab Human Development Report' and even this writer. (Three weeks after 9/11 I wrote and essay titles "Why Do They Hate Us?" that made this case.)" You're not going to convince me you're so clever if you're going to reference Thomas Friedman, who's kind of a dipwad.

Why are you pimping yourself, FZ? Are you not content to sit back and be clevah?

Here's his dreadful last sentence: "As Jumblatt is quick to say, Arabs are sick of living in occupied countries, whether the occupiers are Syrian or Israeli or, for that matter, even the well-intentioned United States of America."

Number one, why don't you quote yourself if you're so smart?

Number two: I'm sure Syria and Israel think they're well-intentioned. The world is looking askance at the U.S.'s intentions. Are you sure we're that well-intentioned?

NW asks "Can stagecraft save Bush on Social Security?" and, instead of breaking down what's going on with the big SS, they break down the politics around Bush's promotion of his "plan." It's about more than the cult of personality, you know.

DLS: "In a debate shaped by Congress and outside pressure groups, it is becoming harder for the president to control the script once he steps off the stage."

Another classic: "But she doesn't know if she'll ever be able to walk into her house again."

"This time, he joked grimly, he'd be coming back in one piece." (this story, about soldiers who have had amputations and are going back to the war zone, is pretty disturbing in its concept)

"Now they get to see their gardens grow."

Big big synergy piece on "Robots," which is supposed to be pretty bad. I'm sorry, but flashy animation has ceased to be worthy of articles until there is a quantum leap style advance. Also, until a good spate of non-family movies come out that are animated — that will show that the technology has truly arrived.

"Anyone who sees 'Robot' can only hope he's wrong." NW means they hope there is more of what this man describes as "epic silliness." I am too cynical to believe there is such a virtue in a family movie that cost as much as "Robot."

"We don't know what to say, either, except that in Hollywood progress is a work in progress."

"Six hours may seem like an investment, but the emotional payback is beyond price." Barf.

"M. Ward for president? Forget it. He's too good at his day job." Barf.

"... it's a good thing the Bandwagon is such a commodious vehicle, because a lot more listeners will want to jump on board." Barf.

"With Sheen's investment history, he better hope Social Security doesn't change over to private accounts." Weird, to drop a political comment like that in the "Newsmakers" page on an item about Charlie Sheen and Denise Richardson's impending divorce. If those two crazy kids ...

George Will just sounds like a raving lunatic. His whole last paragraph would merit blogging for its depth of stupidity, profound lack of professional objectivity, profound lack of charity to the readers and its exceptionally patronizing tone to everyone. Mr. Will, it's called "Metamucil." It can help your attitude.

Oh, finally. I blogged NW. Now I need to learn whatever it is in Lebanon that they speak and start a reality show: "What Not to Wear in Lebanon: Hot men in acid wash jeans edition." Maybe I can get some eyeliner tips.

Where's the rain?

Here it is!

Wow. Totally wack. January and February are unseasonably dry and sunny up here, and in Death Valley it's been storm central. There are even lakes filled with rainwater! Well, for the next couple of days, at least.

There's a drought emergency in Washington State, BTW. Farmers out on the eastern half won't have enough for as much planting as they'd like to do. As for the western part, well, we're being told to not wash our cars and "brush every other tooth" (Thanks, Gov. Gregoire. That makes a lot of sense.) No problem with the first part of that. Probably ought to step up the dental hygeine, though (smacks fuzzy, latte-d tongue against roof of mouth).

I'm most interested to see what will happen with the formerly tiny and still completely insane town of Bonney Lake, however.

Bonney Lake perpetually runs low in its water reservoir over the summer. The area has just developed exponentially over the past decade. It went from nothing to the state's fastest-growing community with a rate hovering above 50 percent for the past couple years in less than a decade. Its infrastructure is in straits — dire ones — when it is overburdened with the California transplant yuppies that work in the tech industry in Seattle and Bellevue to the North.

Well, Bonney Lake has to decide how to keep up with demand in the summer. In 2003, that meant tapping a well that had manganese and iron deposits in it. The water was sludgy and brown, smelled funny and tasted terrible. Residents had to bathe in it and they didn't come out clean. Worse, some residents said their water heaters were ruined by all the sludge gunking them up.

So Bonney Lake didn't want to go through that again. Best ask the city of Tacoma for some emergency supplies for 2004, right?

Or not so right. Because some wackos that are still fighting the anti-fluoride crusade live out in Bonney Lake and they stormed the city council. I know, I'm a journalist, I'm supposed to be objective, but for Christ's sake, we're talking fluoridation here. Where are the mind-controlled Soviet zombies you nutcases promised us back in the 1950s? Fluoridation works, knuckleheads. Deal with it. And while you're at it, quit driving whitetrash redneck 80s-model Crown Victorias, Bible yuppie unconcerned with passing a camel through the eye of a needle SUVs, enormous jacked-up trashy pickups and other smog makers, which are actually producing carcinogenic pollution, you fathead hypocrites. Get the government out of your water AND your right to pollute the heck out of the air? Get with the program, homunculi.

So the cro magnons demanded the city not use Tacoma water (from the fresh banks of the Green River, after which the serial killer was named) which is fluoridated but rather the stinky water with manganese and iron and gawd-knows-what in it. Because nutso psycho John Birchers haven't bothered to study the effects of what may happen to their thyroid should massive doses of other kinds of metals whop it.

There was some internal debate. I forget how it all came out; mostly I was shocked that this blue state would have pockets in the western, true-blue part about fluoride, of all things.

So I'm curious to see what will happen.

Heck, the Green River's snowpack is low. Tacoma might not extend the courtesy at all.

Ah, what a summer we have to look forward to.

Does this post make me sound like a 70-year-old man or what????

Epic struggle of wills

My paper lady and I are locked in an epic struggle of wills. I think, without ever having seen each other, we totally hate each others' guts.

I know why she hates me. When I started my service I went through the paper's website to sign up and then told my HR person afterwords so as to get the employee discount ($3/week, comes straight out of the check) and that just muffed up the whole payment system and (!!!) took away the avenue that Lani, the paper lady, would get tipped through. She had to leave me nasty notes to get me to get the payment thing caught up to date.

Well, the next reason she hates me is because somehow I was not getting a paper for several days and I complained to the paper and she got docked a dollar. Which is just wrong on the part of the paper. Maybe she didn't leave it at my place because the payment thing hadn't been straightened out, I have no clue. But that dollar left her in a pissy little mood and she left me a note about how she would love to hear from me if I have a problem so I don't call the newspaper delivery HQ and have her docked a lousy buck that I'm pretty sure they can afford and that ain't even how much a single copy of a paper is worth.

So I'm fine with that, but I start to hate her when I see her little pissy handwritten addenda where she underlines that she has been delivering papers *everyday* (sic) to my doorstep and maybe one of my neighbors covets my paper.

Oh, please. Nobody covets the Tacoma News Tribune unless it's Sunday and it has the coupons. Even then most people are ambivalent.

Thus I began to hate her.

I also noticed that Lani was pitching them at my door at 5 a.m. so that they'd make that loud slapping noise and resonate in the hallway. This was marginally better than when I lived in the Oakwhatever apts. in Little Rock and my bedroom window was right by the paperbox and the stocker would let that metal door slam shut at 5 a.m. Oh, I hated that paperbox. But it gets on my last nerve that instead of letting it fall on the hallway carpet or just dropping it off softly (which would require walking about two feet from the staircase), Lani had to make a big honking deal.

So she's all passive aggressive, I figure what's good for the goose is good for the paper delivery wiseacre.

As it turned out, I had an appointment to housesit for Hugh and Janice coming up, and I thought, well, let her see how much people want the stupid paper. I don't call in that I'm going on vacation and I want my paper paused. I just let it all build up in front of my door. How ya like me now, punk???

I end up doing this every couple of months. I never call in to say that I'm on vacation or whatever, just let that paper pile up. She can't stand this. Actually, I can't so much either because I have to pick up the papers and take them out to the curb regardless.

So one time she actually quits delivering papers (I think I was visiting Arkansas — I told some neighbors if they wanted the paper to take it, but I guess they didn't care, just like nobody else cared!!!!) and I have to call the newspaper delivery HQ to get service restarted. Then a big ole plastic vacation bag shows up. I don't want that!!! So, touche, Lani. Well played.

Now that I have the internet, I've found it about three million times as interesting to check out news electronically instead of on paper. So I've been ignoring the papers outside. Again. For no reason.

Lani has just quit delivering the paper. I have NO idea what that is about.

I told my HR person I wanted to quit the paper, she said I'd have to call circulation to cancel. I have not yet called them. Lani, where are my damn papers??? Am I messing with your mind, little one???

To confuse the matter further, there is no neighbor next door to me (moved out a week ago, the maintenance guys have been working on the apt. to clean it up) and there are papers piling up in front of that door. I'm thinking about jacking the Sunday paper for the coupons.

I wonder if I'm causing Lani any grief by not getting the payment/cancellation issue resolved. I hope so. That would be worth $3 a week.

Clearly, we are locked in a completely petty and ridiculous struggle of wills of epic proportions.

George Lucas, deciever

So Mr. Skywalker Ranch thinks he can just go around popping off that the upcoming Star Wars flick is probably going to have to be rated PG-13 and little kiddies shouldn't go and it's real dark and think all is forgiven?

I'm sorry, but since your last two movies were the worst exercises in Hollywood flash-em n smash-em, I'm not buying.

Look, you can't build a cannon on sooper dooper special effects to the point where said effects become a way of cynically expressing the actual point of the movie (making the big buckarooskis). Dialogue and acting was such an afterthought you switched around people's faces and reactions from different takes with a little Photoshop magic. That's just weird.

The problem is, we all knew there would be darkness in the telling of the making of Vader. I mean, duh, we already knew he'd destroyed the "old republic," left his pregnant wife, killed his Jedi masters, etc. etc. We just expected the story, as a whole, to be better told. I mean, you had all the money in the world and actors who wanted a better vantage point to extol their talent were willing to give their left arms to be a part of the movie. You had the advantage of what, 20 years, since the last movie had been done to cogitate. You had an army of superior writers and directors at your beck and call.

Don't go out there trying to tell me "Revenge of the Sith" is going to be all dark and try to raise my expectations or my level of excitement. I'm betting it's going to be as ham-handled, as choppy, as confusing and as unnecessarily pagentrientric as the other two. Your last two SW films have all been a bunch of meaningless and feckless signifying. Why should "Sith" be any diff?

Even Al-Qaeda reads US Weekly

Boy, I figured destroying the World Trade Center would be a pretty tough act to follow for Al-Qaeda, but in my weird, paranoid imaginings I never figured the next logical step would be kidnapping Russell Crowe.

All that money spent on Homeland Security in Wyoming and all along the threat was to ... an Australian actor. What the heck was that cell meeting like? Oh to have been a fly on the wall. A fly who speaks Arabic.

There's an irony here. With the 9/11 attacks, the terrorists set themselves up as people who actually knew where to hit for a number of strategic reasons: the Pentagon, center of the military, the WTC, a financial hub with massive nearby media for the quickest dispersion of the most horrifying images, allegedly the White House or the Capitol, with its seat of political power.

With the announcement that they were ever after a freaking celebrity, it's like the America-rejecting terrorists have become us, trapped into thinking kidnapping a star would actually terrorize regular people. I mean, I'd feel bad for Crowe if something happened to him, but if Al-Qaeda were kidnapping celebs, I wouldn't really worry about it affecting my life too much. What, are they going to kidnap me? Kill my legislators? Ruin my sense of security? Not so much.

Of course, there are people in this country who identify far too much with celebrities (confession, last night I had a dream I was hanging out with Oprah; she was really nice and encouraging, I'm trying not to read too much into it) and maybe this would shatter their sense of self. But for the terrorists to intuit that, they had to be awfully Americanized.

I'm just saying.

Housesitting blogging

I really like housesitting at Hugh and Janice's place. Waterviews, great dogs, a kitchen stocked with All-Clad cookware, books all over the place including every spy novel ever published in English under the sun. What is there not to love?

Also, Janice is the coolest. She left a tupperware container with the label "homemade marshmallows" on it, and I'll be darned if they aren't really amazing. I've only ever heard of one other person to make her own marshmallows, and she recently was let out of a certain federal facility where she spent time for lying about insider trading.

I wonder if Miss Martha will have all kinds of new recipes for making prison hooch and more. I actually looked at a forum site for prison food but it didn't seem at all like the kind of stuff you could whip up on the inside. Cake, chili, that sort of stuff. Also homemade Kahlua. Who is letting these prison people online to talk about baking and making chi chi liquors? Why is it okay to have a name like "hotlatinaMILF4U" on a prison-oriented online community? This is so weird. I'm sorry I ever went to google for a silly pruno link.

"What's the Matter With Kansas"

Wow. Hard to say enough good things about this book. This is no dry political book, no, this has a character in it who has been elected pope by his relatives and supporters (about a dozen) in Kansas City, which apparently is a hotbed of religious wackiness. Plus, a suburb of KC is allegedly the site of the Garden of Eden and Jesus' eventual return, according to Mormons, if this book is right. Great details.

Also, thank you, Thomas Frank, for explaining to me how Vietnam Vets, of all people, have become right wingers. They were given the ultimate betrayal when they were sent or volunteered for a fruitless, pointless war, and yet most of the vets from that war I've met are radicalized to the right. They love to be tough guys; at the beginning of this current action in Iraq I was in a house with a vet and he was all over kicking the "towel heads'" butts. And, yes, that was his word for Iraqis. His display of macho bravado was incredibly off-putting, to the point where I wanted to ask him what pleasure he derived from the murder of a bunch of civilians and defeat of under-armed, under-equipped and under-organized Iraqi forces. I kind of said, "I thought war was hell?" and he was all, "yeah, for them!"

There was an implicitness, I guess, to the fact that when it was his turn, he'd been on the losing team. The one that was under-organized, whose goals were under-understood.

I just figured he'd have reserved a little human compassion for the folks who were on that other side this go round. Even if they aren't our buddies. Of course, as you'll see below, he wasn't exactly showing human compassion to the person who I would have thought was most on "his side."

Also, he got on my nerves because he was so gleeful and his woman, whose son might have been in one of those choppers on the screens, was fighting in Iraq at that moment and she was terrified. Tears streamed down her face and she was breaking down every few minutes. I mean, for God's sake, if ever there was a moment not to act triumphalist this was it, you macho jerk. I wonder if they're still together. I think the display of bloodlust by one's partner, when one's kith and kin have their lives put on the line during the scene that is prompting said bloodlust, is a definite sign that the partner is in desparate need of being dumped.

Lest I make this one guy out to be a raver, he isn't the only one. He's just the one who had Fox news on while the war was going on and I was around to witness this crazy, red-state style drama.

Anyway, thank you, Frank, I really needed that.

"Florence of Arabia"

By Christopher Buckley. Read it. It is pretty dang funny. Kind of like if Kinky Freidman and Carl Hiassen decided to have an earnest protagonist and set a novel in the diplomatic jungle of the Middle East instead of Texas or Florida, two places that are maybe marginally less packed with crazies than that region.

Am now on "Den of Thieves," about the S&L and insider trading scandals of the 80s. Man, these guys think they're so smart, but the only way they made any money is by cheating the system. So you're not that smart, jerkos.

The book goes into really, way too much, almost pornographic, detail about the particular trades that Milken and Boesky were undertaking — along with Levine, Siegel, and all the rest of the bunch. Aye. So far there hasn't been a lot of discussion about the fallout that the sort of high-stakes, winner-take-all banking wreaked. I mean, there has to be a reason beyond the impropriety of it all that insider trading is illegal; companies were destroyed and broken apart and spun off and people lost their jobs and competition was diminished across literally hundreds of industries in the 80s. What it meant to be a company changed in the 80s because suddenly, you weren't just a maker of cookies, you had a publishing wing, a cigarette wing, a series of interests in weapons manufacturing and a string of home furnishing labels. It can't be called a vertical or horizontal trust because it is almost too random and across too many industries.

Although mergers and acquisitions was a way to make big money in the 80s if you were a financial biz, the way Boesky and Milken made their money was by buying positions on margin when they heard about mergers in the works. However, they gamed the markets and actually made it so companies were pressured to make leveraged buyouts! It's crazy!

Anyway, with all that gaming going on there have to be real losers. Regular joes like me, seniors with pensions invested in these companies and junk bonds that Milken would buy and sell at prices so favorable to himself he could easily make $10 million come and go in a wash of paper. I just think there's a big, complicated story out there that can mark the ripples that these greedy bastards caused to wash over the rest of us.

Also, James B. Stewart, nicely played with the New Testament reference for your title. Not only were they moneychangers, these captains of crookedness, but, as we find out, they were all of semitic extraction (like the dudes in the temple) minus a couple of minor players. To me, the biggest sense of indignation I got was at how the big players apparently were feeling like outsiders as non-WASPs, I mean, please, don't write this off on their heritage when clearly the only God they worship is Mammon! Or am I being too touchy there?

Tacoma, I love you

One time when I was out on the town with some wild and crazy people we ended up at this seedy bar that I'll call Barb's and can be found on North Pearl and 26th St.

It was such a den of redneckiness that one of the men in our crew got propositioned in the bathroom by a trucker. This does not happen at finer establishments anywhere, even gay discos, because there are protocols for looking, I imagine, at the least for a private room. There were these old skanks and their golf-clothes wearing sugardaddies and the lot of them were swingers and they danced (to karaoke music, mind you) in a big conga line of inappropriate touching.

At that moment, one of the women in the party and myself cried out "I love Tacoma!" It is our ironic rallying cry.

Here are some "I love Tacoma" people I saw in a single trip to the Ruston waterfront:

A big black dude with his SUV doors and trunk popped open. The stereo was blasting Bob Marley and the Wailers' "Stir It Up," and the dude was in the driver seat, going to town with it on a flute in improvisational jazz mode.

A little old white dude was sitting at a table with his old white friends and, by his side, was a big long carved stick with a snake carved as though it were twining blockily around the staff. There was a kind of flint arrowhead or spike stuck in the top and a tufted ring of ermine fur sat on the top of the staff. A bypassing gal told a friend of hers he was going to cast some spells and they giggled. I had to restrain myself from asking if he was planning to do battle.

In previous trips to the waterfront, I have seen a guy with a pet raccoon (not his first! Apparently they get to be about 40 pounds and *mean* and you have to let them loose in the woods) and virtually every time I go there I see Roller man, who has this elaborate setup of poles and sweatbands and a boombox and these rollerskates you can push off your foot and pick up later in the dance routine he does but never completes because he inevitably knocks over a pole and has to pick it up instead of just finishing the routine.

Roller man, just finish the routine someday. We are all rooting for you to finish your roller dance.

Also, where did you get all those sweatbands?

Trick #1

Apparently rabbis are trying to horn in on the priest's reputation for lecherosity! (See comment below) And no, that makes little sense.

The tricks I am referring to aren't *that* kind, people. They're family friendly!

So, here goes: Ladies and gentlemen, for your entertainment, I will now perform a feat so dangerous, so death-defying you may be compelled to look away! But don't, for if you do, you shall miss out on an act of unparalelled boldness!

(I am balancing a toilet plunger in my right palm! So gross! So germy! Will it fall? Will I touch the germ end? (Ooohs and aaaaahs)

No! The filthy toilet plunger does not drop on the ground! The dirty end does not touch her hand! She is still germ-free and loving it!
Ta da!

"Blink"

Malcolm Gladwell is a compelling storyteller. I just wish sometimes that he had a little more to say about the stories he tells.

I highly recommend "Blink" because it is really entertaining and well-woven together. However, here's the lesson: Snap judgements are good if you're an expert on what you're snap judging. But the way he gets around to this is the part that's really worth digging into.

Also, he wrote the book because of his hair, which made people stereotype him. Funny, every once in a while while I was reading I thought about his hair, but I hadn't gotten to the acknowledgements yet! I was thinking it was lucky for him that the David Remnick was able to look past his Q-tip head and into his clever little brain. Now, having read that he is judged by his hair, I find myself wondering, well, you know it looks a little uneven and shaggy AND it makes cops stop you on the highway, why not cut it?

Malcolm, you talented little thing you, are you kind of an iconoclast under all that cleverness?

"Persepolis"

Good graphic novel. Nice fast read. Cool use of black and white graphics and style of drawing. Interesting perspective on the Iranian revolution. Worth taking a couple hours out of your day for.

I'm now about halfway through "Blink," and I have once again proved I am a thuperbrain. By misunderstanding instructions, naturally. There was a test and I totally didn't pay attention on how to take it (explaining, perhaps, my academic career) and I thought to myself, "what's all this old-people stuff about? Bingo? Florida? What the heck?" and it turned out the subtle cues of agedness in the test (to those who take it correctly) make them walk slower on turning the test in.

This is not the first time I've foiled the discipline of psychology. Once I was taking a test (this was part of a research project) that was about unscrambling words and I was on fire, then I got back a "results sheet" that said I had scored in the bottom 10 percent of people who had been unscrambling words and would I please continue with unscrambling these other words?

Well, I was pretty taken aback for about thirty seconds before, duh, it dawned on me that there was no way they could have scored all the kids in class that fast. So I wrote a nanny-nanny boo boo type note on the test and declared I was too smart to fool, then felt kind of bad that I bunged their experiment. So I erased the note and tried to do the unscrambling but I had wasted too much time and didn't do nearly as good, so I probably completely validated the point they were trying to make.

I'm kind of a sucker, aren't I?

Newsweek, processed

Like sausage, it is.

Noted: Newsweek has written not only an article about fmr. Time managing editor Henry Grunwald, he gets a mention in "The Editor's Desk," since the editor knew through his daughter at school and Grunwald is recalled by another Newsweek writer who worked for him, I get the overwhelming feeling of media inbreeding.

Noted: Newsweek calls it an "exclusive" to report that the Pope has no living will. Well, while I can see this meriting some space, in the sense that an article about Catholic doctrine and the reality of modern medicine for, at the least, the Western world's most comfortable and how they grate against each other so bad that even the pope can't figure out what sort of living will he should have. But, in the sense of the pope not having a living will, well, duh. Kind of what I'd expect, actually.

Noted: the U.S. gov't is going to open a 1,700 person embassy in Baghdad. They are teaching these ambassadors about different weapons.

Also noted: The CIA's gulfstream jets used to shuttle terrorist suspects out of the country (extraoridanry rendition anyone?) have been having their comings and goings documented by "plane spotters," who record the comings and goings of various planes at various airports across the world. How insanley nuts are these people? Yet they are shockingly contributing to the organization of today's data glut for a higher purpose.

But, onto the raisin deter — last crappy sentences.

"Gentlemen, does that start your engines?"

"For Iraq's independent-minded women, hemmed in between Sunni terrorists and Shia hardliners, the struggle for Iraq's soul could last generations." (get it? HEMMED?? Plus, not only is there a pun, there's a struggle for a soul!)

"Now that's a Manhattan project for the 21st Century."

"Ensuring a peaceful future will take a special kind of power: brainpower."

"It might just be his last chance to persuade his soulmate in the Kremlin to come in from the cold."

"And if the Bush administration wants to fight a war that is increasingly becoming a legal morass, it may have to think up some new ideas."

"And only when they laugh will Martha get the last laugh." Plus this sidebar closer: "Then again, it's not surprising that controversy will be part of Martha's legacy." Masters of the obvious much?

Here's the last question Newsweek asks Keri Russell in their mini-Q&A feature: "Keri, that's called being a lesbian." I can't decide if it comes off as too literal or what.

That is all the NW I can deal with at the moment.

"Prep"

Reading this book was something of a chore. I just wanted to smack the protagonist around a bit in places. On the other hand, it also sent me into dark, chilled place because the boarding school had a lot of similar features to Germantown Friends School, where I spent Junior High. The whole thing with money and how you don't talk about it, the conformity, the structure of the cliques. It was creepy.

It also put into relief, for me, the difference between East Coast private schools and anything more than 100 miles west of the Atlantic. Here, in the West Coast, the moneyed sort want their kids to participate in sports and music and art. On the East Coast, you suck it in and act like everyone's equal while you prepare to take over duddy's investment firm. On the West Coast, you learn to perform perform perform for everybody's benefit!!! The East Coast has layers and protocols. The West Coast just has a certain unbridled enthusiasm — all over the place, for the performers and the watchers alike. You! Must! Love! Everything! You! See!

I'm not sure which is ultimately more annoying, but I know which coast's style screwed me up psychologically.

Dear Alabama

Hi there,

I am a great admirer of what Judge Roy Moore has done with your courthouse. Two tons of granite? Loving it! How classy a monument to our first laws and our Judeo-Christian heritage can you get?

The statue of the Ten Commandments inspires us to reverence for political life. And, I bet, keeps those crazy local teens off the drugs and premarital you-know-what. I understand it has inspired some actual pilgrimages. But I bet it doesn't meet all the needs of your citizens, which is why I have a modest proposal.

Let me erect a statue next to the Ten Commandments. I would love to submit to you an artist's rendering of it: imagine, a bronze statue of a young bull, covered in a lovely, shiny gold foil.

This statue would represent so much that is part of our Republic's daily life and heritage; it would show how our ancestors had to till the earth using oxen. It would represent our country's early days — so brash were we as a young democracy! So much power yet to come! It would hearken to our glorious fiscal heritage of so-called "bull-markets."

Most of all, it would connect to our Judeo-Christian heritage of ancient times, extolling the values that practically pre-date Judeo, much less Christian.

Also, the damn liberals can't do nothing about it because it could be Hindu. But it's not!

Yes, when I think about the problems of the world, I don't see how they can't be solved with a couple of statues — the Ten Commandments and a golden calf.

Fitness Blogging day whatever

Finally I'm able to complete a Tuff E Nuff class without feeling like dying. I am so excited. I was all dying and sore and not wanting to go but I made myself and now I feel all jazzed.

Nice killer workout. There was the obligatory opening aerobic portion followed by a circuit consisting of running a lap around the track, then completing two sets (12 each) of two weight bearing exercises (say, squats, military press and repeat).

Speaking of cool killer workouts, I'm thinking about mixing it up with some weightlifting and I found a sooper dooper site run by a tuff lady weightlifter with a PhD. Anyway, here it is. There are some pretty inspirational pics of middle-age gals who, after years of spreading waists and inactivity, have become weightlifting champs and all-around hardbodies. So I figure I can do this stuff too.

Now, all I need to figure out is how much weight to start with.

What America gets right

America may not have the best sacred architecture, but I'll be damned if we don't have the best, most passionate sacred music in the new and old world.

I was driving and the Dixie Hummingbirds' "Christian Automobile" came on and, if you want to do yourself a favor, you'll listen to it.

It's amazing that out of the most plain and humble churches in the world — and Lord have mercy there are some terrible looking churches out there — some of the best music comes out.

Also snake handling.

"Blue Blood," "Cain n Abel"

So I'm mostly done with "Blue Blood" and I'm done. Man, this started out with the best Chapter One. Very good book. I made it most of the way through. It should have been two books, Mr. Conlon. If you like disgusting true tales from the NYPD front line, with a little family history of a multi-generation law enforcement legacy, plus a little bit about how police work goes down, you will like "Blue Blood."

Also breezed through biz book "Cain and Abel in the Workplace" and basically, it says there are goldfish and there are sharks and one will not only always be out to eat the other but it will be the only way they operate because *they are too incompetant to do their jobs* and hence they will get caught if the goldfish are smart.

This is directly counter to my experience as someone who lives in a world of complexity and ever-shifting alliances. However, it did have some good advice in that being neutral and keeping your ears open, instead of your mouth, can keep you from being a victim. Live like you're paranoid but be supremely levelheaded, in other words, sums up the biz advice.

I just saved you from having to read the book!

Some strange license plates I've seen

There's a bright taxi yellow Nissan Xterra in Gig Harbor that has "MSBITCHY" as its plate. That's real!

Today at the Y I saw an SUV with "MAJDICK" on the back. I didn't see it in action, but maybe that is meant to be an explanation for how the driver, you know, drives.

I also noticed an oldiemobile with a regular plate with its three letters (here in Washington state, generally the plates are three numbers and three letters) being SHT. I would have asked to have a different plate if it had been me at the DOL (here in Washington state we don't have a Department of Moving Vehicles, no, we have a Department Of (note the capital'd of) Licensing) I would have asked for a different plate.

Also I saw an SUV with "MOM PHD" on the back. Got labels? Got a need to tell people something? If you do truly "have it all" why are you driving a Mazda, knucklehead.

Here's some fun reading from the Smoking Gun. Notice the first license complaint is about GLFBTCH, which is a lot less graphic than MSBITCHY.

Newsweek, you disgust me

So this week's Newsweek, which eventually I shall have to dignify with a blog entry detailing its faults, has a picture of a, dare I say, glowing Martha Stewart.

Did I mention there's a catch?

This is a flagrant violation of journalistic ethics and it's offensive.

As a side note, O.J. was made darker, Martha was made thinner. Guess we know what adjective needs to be emphasized when the press wants to stress what makes a woman a ball-busting, castrating, power-hungry b-word.

BTW, Newsweek editors and art department, Martha could eat you for lunch. And you'd be served with a lovely sauce aurore in a milk glass dish .