Sorry for the convenience

Looking at the bright side

2011-08-02T19:54:00.000-07:00

I suppose this reflects a ~~somewhat~~ completely skewed view of the world, but when I saw this headline on CNN.com tonight, my first thought was: Well, at least there's a chance they'll be alive the next time my Baltimore Orioles win a World Series. A chance.

By the people, for the people, screw the people: The shocking conclusion

2011-07-27T22:52:00.000-07:00

A mere seven years after instituting a program that would eventually issue 180,000 traffic tickets to motorists who drove through red lights - outrageously expensive tickets that, in a hilarious little twist, it now turns out, weren't the kind of traffic tickets that you actually have to pay - the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously today to discontinue the initiative.

After only seven years and 180,000 tickets. That L.A. City Council is one agile little decision-making legislative body, ain't it?

Here's the Los Angeles Times story about today's staggering development, complete with lots of photos of - well, what else? - red traffic lights.

Here's my previous blog post with more background. (And a photo of Jason Bateman, if you're into that kind of thing.)

By the people, for the people and screw the people

2011-07-26T14:54:00.000-07:00

Whichever side of the political spectrum you're on, it's easy to get riled up about the government these days.

On the national scene, Democrats, Republicans and Tea Baggers all all hate Washington because - respectively - Congressional leadership, the president and space-aliens-from-god-knows-where are out to run our country into the ground. In case you haven't seen it yet, a #F---YouWashington hashtag has been lighting up Twitter for the past few weeks, prompted mostly by this debt ceiling fiasco, which seems mostly to be an excuse for the ultra-tan John Boehner to get some extra broadcast time for his apparently limitless collection of unabashedly green neckwear.

Here in California, the state is something like $600 trillion in debt (I might be exaggerating a bit), the public education system is one of the worst in the nation and ... I imagine there are lots of other nasty problems, too, but the weather is so nice, who can complain?

The point is: We're all used to bitching and moaning about getting taxed to hell and screwed over by the jerks in federal and state government. That's old news. Somehow it seems worse when you learn that you've been getting royally hosed by your local government. People who are your neighbors. But another wonderful - and very creative - example of that came to light today in Los Angeles.

The city is deciding whether to discontinue its controversial red-light traffic camera program - where motorists get their photos taken by automatic cameras when they run red lights, and then have to pay a whopping fine, on the order of $480. The main issue being that although they generate a lot of tickets, they're not actually an effective traffic safety mechanism, which should have been the point.
Now, it turns out, those "fines" for running red lights weren't actually fines so much as they were, um, suggested donations. Today, in an L.A. Times blog post, the esteemed* city councilman Bill Rosendahl explains:

"The consequence is somebody calling you from one of these collection agencies and saying 'pay up.' And that's it. There's no real penalty in terms of your driver's license or any other consequences if you don't pay."

Yep. Turns out that the tickets were actually part of a "voluntary payment program." As in optional. As in, keep that horrible black-and-white traffic-camera photo, keep your money and treat yourself to a weekend getaway instead.

Caught on camera.

Which I'm guessing wasn't exactly made clear on the violation notices. And, which I'm guessing is going to be news to all of those people who assumed that the traffic tickets they got in the mail from the City of Los Angeles and that huge Amount Due were - how do I put this? - real.

Wonder what other Los Angeles fines and fees I've been paying that are actually voluntary payment programs. Only one way to find out....

* "Esteemed" in the same sense that the tickets seemed "voluntary."

Preparing for Carmageddon

2011-07-05T22:35:00.000-07:00

If you live in or near Los Angeles, or if you're Twittered or Facebooked or LinkedInned with someone in L.A. - or if know someone who knows someone who acted in a movie with Kevin Bacon - chances are you've heard that a big portion of the 405 freeway is going to be closed next weekend.

Which isn't that big of a deal, except that about half a million cars use the route each weekend, including, most importantly, mine. And that - even when every lane is open - you can usually count on getting stuck in traffic.

In other words, it's going to be a complete and utter nightmare. (Well, either that or I'll just go to the beach.)

This city being the creative capital of the world, we've come up with a catchy name for the event: Carmageddon.

The Los Angeles Times covered it this way a few months ago, which was fine, except that the reporter made one observation that I found rather odd:

(Click to enlarge)

I don't play the lottery too much anymore. Do a lot of winning tickets have 11 picks? Or three-digit numbers? More to the point: Is there any possible way the writer could have made that potentially helpful information - alternate routes and bus lines for those who need to get around L.A. - any less useful? Thank you, L.A. Times. Thank you for nothing.

Which leads me to the main reason for this nugget of bloggy goodness. Despite the Times' best efforts, for those of us whose driving activity is going to be affected by the freeway closure, there really are only three ways to prepare. They are:

1) Leave Los Angeles for the weekend.

2) Stay extremely close to home for the weekend. (Which works for me, since "close to home" incorporates "beach.")

3) Outfit yourself properly, with one of the five following new t-shirts designed by S and J Market, the official apparel mart of SFTC. I give you: Carmageddon wear 2011, available for a limited time only!*

(Subtle plug: Click images to visit the S and J Market store.)

Don't live in L.A.? Pick up one or a few anyway! They're the ultimate mid-summer gifts/conversation starters. And you'll make me feel better about having spent a really long time designing apocalyptic versions of the 405 freeway sign. Win-win.

* Not really. I'll probably keep them posted until I sell a whole bunch more.

In which Aimee Mann doesn't hate my suggestion

2011-06-28T22:15:00.000-07:00

I read today on Facebook - rapidly, and sadly, becoming my go-to source for Important News of the World - that Tom Petty has a bone to pick with Michele Bachmann.

It seems that yesterday in Iowa, as Bachmann closed the kickoff speech for her soon-to-be-failed presidential bid, her staff played Petty's 1977 song "American Girl." Makes sense, what with her nationality and gender being properly reflected right there in the title. Of course, this didn't go over too well with Mr. Petty, whose political tastes run a little more toward the mentally capable. (Here's the L.A. Times recap of the incident.)

So I wondered: What would be a better - and somewhat more recent - pop song that would just as accurately summarize Ms. Bachmann's campaign and carry an equal measure of musical credibility? Two and a half seconds later, I had it.

Or, actually, Aimee Mann had it, in a song from her 1995 album, I'm With Stupid:

Thanks to lightdarkens in the UK for letting me link to your YouTube video.

I thought this was a pretty good idea. So I thought I'd tweet the idea and see if Ms. Mann - of whom I've long been a fan - would see it.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, my BlackBerry buzzed. The highlight of my week, for sure.

Aimee Mann had responded:

(Thanks, Aimee!)

Now, how do I get the Bachmann campaign on board?

My kind of town

2011-04-25T22:28:00.000-07:00

What a weekend. What a city.

Several great meals, including a magnificent dinner at one of the best restaurants anywhere followed by an unexpected bonus: a tour of the kitchen (including a quick hello and thank-you to the executive chef) provided by an unbelievably gracious waiter. A lot of walking and public-transportation-riding. (Kinda forgotten how to do that in L.A.) A solo late-night photo expedition. A completely-worth-it 90-minute wait to get into the one-and-only Hot Doug's. A picture-perfect day for Cubs baseball at Wrigley Field, which, as my wife pointed out, "smells amazing." Reunions with a couple of very special friends. First encounters with, seemingly, dozens of new high-rises that have sprung up since I left just a few years ago, including the stunning Aqua (bottom photo). And, a return to the exact spot where my wife and I first met, five years ago.

Going to have to get back for another visit soon. If I'm lucky, I'll get a few more sights like these:

Deep thought of the month, Number 1*

2011-04-13T14:32:00.000-07:00

"Saying something and then repeating it won't necessarily make what you said any more profound. But it will make it rhyme."
- Me

I'm still working on the phrasing, but I wanted to memorialize it here. Because, you know, it's pretty profound. And I'm not sure it would fit on one of my hilarious T-shirts. Which are now available for purchase. In an array of colors and sizes.

* Likely to be Number 1 of 1. But who's keeping track?

Phood foto phun

2011-02-24T11:42:00.000-08:00

If you were the editor who wrote captions for the photos accompanying the Los Angeles Times' restaurant reviews, wouldn't you try to learn the visual differences between - just for example - a stuffed chicken on the one hand and pierogies on a bed of sauteed cabbage on the other?

No. Apparently, you would not.

Unless Jidori is Hebrew for "cleverly disguised to look like pierogies," I think this description is a bit off.

One other quick thought: Are those of us in L.A. and New York getting to the point where a restaurant having a "Top Chef" alum on staff is sort of like having a basketball team with a "tall dude"?*

* I think we are.

A sharp mind

2011-02-18T09:39:00.000-08:00

It seems highly unlikely, but maybe my migraines are being caused by something like this.

I hope not, though, because the doctors who were unable to properly diagnose that dude's problem four years ago deserve to have the title of Stupidest Doctors on the Face of the Planet all to themselves.

Why I'm waiting until (at least) tomorrow for those tattoos and piercings

2011-02-15T16:49:00.000-08:00

I'm just about an hour away from my first-ever visit to the inside of an MRI.

I understand that metal objects and recently inked tattoos don't really get along very well with MRI machines, so I'm thankful that I recently made the decision to not get my nose pierced, and that I managed to go another year without a tattoo. (I had been thinking about getting one that replicated the design of the snazziest t-shirt I've ever designed, which you can find here.)

Anyway, I'm going in to get my brain scanned, which makes me think that tomorrow, I'll be quoting Dizzy Dean a lot. In 1934, the pitcher, then with the St. Louis Cardinals, was hit in the head by a baseball while trying to break up a double play, and suffered a concussion. After his trip to the hospital, he reportedly said, "They x-rayed my head and found nothing."

I've Got Reservations*

2011-02-07T17:04:00.000-08:00

My aunt and uncle are coming to L.A. next month. The other day, to ensure that I was aware of every possible detail I might need to know about their travel plans as well as some I might not - and, possibly, to give me some kind of guilt trip for not having an apartment with a second bedroom - my aunt forwarded the hotel's reservation confirmation email.

I wasn't sure what she intended for me to do with the information. (Make a note of the last four digits of her credit card number, maybe?) But I decided I'd use it as an opportunity to write back and reinforce the notion that I am Very Excited about her visit.

To that end, I sent a one-word response: "Awesome!"

I thought that would probably be the end of the conversation. I was mistaken.

A few minutes later, a reply arrived. "Hardly," it read. "A much overused word, I'm afraid!"**

There was only one thing to write back: "Is 'Whatever' overused?"

* Post title inspired by this Wilco song.
** Capitalization corrected to improve readability.

Why I'm pretty sure Juliette Binoche hates Yugos: A dream illustrated with helpful links

2011-02-01T19:38:00.000-08:00

As if you needed further proof that my brain just does not shut down - even when I'm sleeping - I have been having some wacky dreams lately. Often two the same night. I've been visited during the night by celebrities, strangers, and people I grew up with but haven't seen or thought about in 23 years.

Oh sure, there are the common, everyday dreams that everyone has - like the one last week, in which I came off the bench to hit a few clutch baskets for the Bulls in the seventh game of the Eastern Conference finals. But, unlike that one, most are completely unrealistic.

It could be that this new dream activity is related to the new herbal extract pills that I'm taking in an attempt to do something about those migraine headaches I wrote about a few weeks ago. I haven't read the little pamphlet that comes with the supplement to try to figure out what the possible side effects are, but I did look it up on Wikipedia, which is usually a pretty trustworthy source for Medical Information You Can Trust, and there was no mention of side effects, so I'm sure I'm in the clear.

Anyway, last night's dream was another winner.

For some reason, Juliette Binoche, the lovely French actress, was on the Late Show, sitting in the chair next to David Letterman. Like any good guest, she had a story to share with the TV viewing audience.

"We were driving through Europe in a Ford Fiesta," she began, before a man in the studio audience interrupted.

"That's like a Yugo!" the dream audience member shouted.

Juliette-in-my-dream, who I have never known to lose her temper, was not pleased.

"That's it. Fuck you all," she said. And she stormed off the set.

Anyone want to interpret that one?

My brain on drugs; Or, Seven sequential thoughts on a migraine treatment

2011-01-14T10:59:00.000-08:00

1) I get migraine headaches four or five times a month.*

2) As my doctor recently called to tell me, that's far too many, and I should not have migraines so frequently. I'm not sure how that advice is supposed to help me, but I'll give it a few weeks.

3) A few months ago, my thoughtful and amazing wife - who frequently researches potential cures and treatments for migraines - mentioned that she had read an article about Botox being used to prevent migraines.

4) Although I was very appreciative that she had discovered this news, I thought using Botox as a remedy sounded somewhat silly, considering that I didn't need to eliminate crow's feet or frown lines in my brain.

5) I hate injections. I'm sure you don't like them either, but however much you hate them, I hate them more.

6) While poking around online today, I came across an item about the Botox migraine treatment.

7) After reading this article, I was reassured that I have made the right decision in not pursuing Botox as a treatment for my migraine headaches. Mainly because one of the common side effects is, um, headaches.

[Click to enlarge]

* Sometimes more. But I don't want it to look like I'm begging for sympathy. Or pills.

So, why would CNN even bother covering this?

2011-01-13T11:33:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought there was no reason to blog this month, I came across this "news" on CNN.com, the website I love to despise.

Apparently, Peter Fonda - notable in my world mostly for inspiring the Beatles song "She Said She Said" - found a dead man in a car on the side of the road. OK, cool enough. I'm with you so far, CNN.

What really ticks me off about the article is probably as much a reflection of America's general celebrity-obsessed insanity as it is about CNN's general journalistic inanity*. But I couldn't get over the last sentence of the story, which read, and I am not making this up:

Poor guy. To be found dead in your car is one thing. But (gasp) it's even worse: He's never been on TMZ**!

* This might not be a word, but I couldn't think of another appropriate synonym for incompetence that rhymed with "insanity."

** Well, he hadn't been. Until now.

Scene in Noo Yorc

2010-12-11T20:23:00.000-08:00

We were in the Big Apple last weekend.

I wonder whether the natives will eventually learn how to spell the name of that big expanse of recreational space that separates the east side from the west side north of 59th Street.

On the other hand, you have to admire their tasteful and sophisticated sense of humor when it comes to altering the instructions posted on hotel elevators.

Either CNN or Adrien Brody's attorney sucks at math

2010-10-19T14:50:00.000-07:00

The only "D" I got in high school was for 12th grade calculus*.

Even today, I don't think the poor mark was because I was bad at calculus - which I'm sure I would have been - it was just that I literally slept through almost every class. But I had a good reason: At the beginning of my senior year, I knew that I was just months away from starting college, and I knew that college students often stay up until very late at night, and I reasoned that I should start, well, training for that particular aspect of college. Yes, I would train my body for those crazy late nights of college that were sure to come by just... staying awake until 1:30 or 2 a.m., as often as possible.

So every Monday through Thursday night, after I had finished practicing the violin and doing my homework (except for my calculus homework, of course), I'd watch the 11 o'clock news, and then the Tonight Show (this was in the pre-Leno days, when it wasn't awful), and then watch reruns of Benson and/or Cheers followed by as much as possible of the Letterman show. (Unlike other, normal cities, Baltimore in the 80s apparently couldn't handle going right from the Tonight Show to Letterman.)

That meant I was getting somewhere around four hours of sleep every weeknight. The remedy: A 48-minute power nap during calculus. The result: My beloved "D."

All of which is to say that I'm puzzled about the math in this hard-hitting CNN.com article.

The piece explains that actor Adrien Brody was to be paid $1.5 million for starring in a movie that nobody will ever see. It says that he has been paid $960,000 so far (which sounds pretty decent for a direct-to-DVD flick) and that Mr. Brody is still owed $640,000, which would seem to total up to $1.6 million - not $1.5 million. At least I think that's right - maybe there's some weird rule about adding dollar figures that I missed in calculus.

* Actually, it's possible I got a D in trigonometry, too. But there's no idiotic story behind that one.

Just plane dumb

2010-10-15T09:26:00.000-07:00

I can finally sleep at night, knowing that the United-Continental merger is done.

Except that - even though I don't care very much about either company - I just don't get the decision to keep the United name but drop the well-known United "U" logo in favor of the Continental typeface and the incredibly bland Continental globe icon, which could easily be the logo for just about any company in the world.

I guess United and Continental leadership both needed to save face, but in doing so, I have to imagine they cost themselves an immeasurable amount of brand equity. I hope everyone at what used to be Continental is totally stoked by their big win - getting the signature typeface and unremarkable logo of a now-nonexistent company to survive. Nice going.

Oh, also, I appreciate the airline's assurance that the integration - matching up all of that frequent flier data, route codes, in-flight snack offerings, etc. - will go smoothly. Except that it seems they haven't quite figured out how to code an email yet. To wit:

I shot a bird... and a flower

2010-07-21T09:14:00.000-07:00

... with my camera.

My ability to write anything remotely interesting has obviously deserted me for the summer. But given the proverbial worth of a picture, I believe these two photos would add up to approximately 2,000 words worth of new material. Which isn't too shabby.

I took them last weekend during a quick anniversary-celebration escape with the world's most superbly awesome wife, in Ojai, California. (Have you ever had a one-day/one-night mini-vacation that was so fun and relexing that when you got home you felt like you'd been on an actual vacation? This was one of those.)

Cue the images:

No-kill overkill

2010-06-22T10:40:00.000-07:00

“I want to plead guilty, and I’m going to plead guilty 100 times over."
- Times Square bombing failure Faisal Shahzad
in Federal District Court (Reported in The New York Times)

No, that's OK. I think once is enough.

Great moments in non sequiturs, Part 1

2010-06-16T16:42:00.000-07:00

I'm hoping that you've noticed that SFTC has been on the downlow for the past few weeks.

I apologize for the lack of hilarious anecdotes and wry observations. Although, in fairness, none of you wrote in to ask if I was OK. If I were you, I'd have been worried about this sudden and unexpected online silence. "Oh no!" I might have thought to myself. "SFTC might have had his hands cut off by a combine in a tragic farming accident."

But I (overly dramatically) digress.

The real reasons for the hiatus were that I was unusually busy with my other kind of writing - the kind I get paid for - and that I promised that I wouldn't post again until I came up with a monumental blog post, a captivating story truly worthy of my triumphant return to blogging.

I have since reconsidered on that second point, in favor of "whatever the heck I could think of on Wednesday." So here it is:

My aunt is the queen of non sequiturs. Conversations often take odd left turns, making it an adventure to keep up. Emails often contain random mixtures of topics, often completely out of context. Like the one she sent last night.

It read: "Did u know Paula Abdul is Jewish? Guess where I am? xxoo "

I wrote back: "I didn't know that about Paula. I also don't know where you are, but given the setup, I'm guessing Paula Abdul's bat mitzvah."

It turned out she was just in Baltimore. But I was pretty close.

The National Gallery, Volume 2

2010-05-25T22:08:00.000-07:00

About nine months ago*, I wowed and amazed you** with a photo-and-video scrapbook of my visit to Los Angeles' famed Wiltern for a rockin' good concert by The National. Saturday night, I returned for the first time since then. For a concert. A concert by The National. I'm nothing if not creative.

Further evidence of that creativity? Today's post will be a photo-and-video scrapbook of Saturday evening.

I haven't been to a whole lot of music venues in L.A. yet, but I've decided that the Wiltern is one of the best in town, thanks in part to its kick-ass marquee, which on Saturday, looked a lot like this:

Another thing I love about the theater is that the name is an amalgamation of WILshire Boulevard and WesTERN Avenue, which intersect near its entrance. The name would have been even catchier if the theater had been built where Jackson Street runs into Kass Avenue, but, sadly, whoever was building art deco theaters in L.A. in the early 1930s missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. (Also, there's no Kass Avenue in Los Angeles, but whatever.)

The National mixed in several songs from its newest album, High Violet, including Bloodbuzz Ohio, which I especially like, and Conversation 16, which is a favorite of my exceptionally gorgeous wife.

Among its other wonderful qualities, Conversation 16 includes this rather snappy lyric:
I was afraid I'd eat your brains
I was afraid I'd eat your brains
Cause I'm evil
Cause I'm evil

And one of the highlights of the concert was hearing lead singer Matt Berninger explain the deeper meaning behind those words. "That song," he said, "is a metaphor for this one time that I ate a girl's brains while she was sleeping."

We in the audience assumed he was kidding, of course, and we got a good chuckle out of that metaphor.***

Another cool part of the night was meeting - in person! - my online friend Violette, a music connoisseur with whom I've been exchanging tweets since that first National concert last August. Violette has a great (and recently redesigned) music blog, which you should check out, so long as you finish reading this post first.

OK, enough with the words. How 'bout a few of my very favorite photos I took Saturday night, and a couple of videos that I might or might not have shot with my digital camera, depending on whether I needed the band's express written consent to videotape anything ...

The stills

If you were in a band, you'd put this on an album cover, right?

My favorite picture I've taken in a really really long time.

Motion & Sound

Start A War

Mistaken For Strangers

The band's remaining 2010 tour dates, you ask? Right here.

* Tip for all of you aspiring writers out there: This strikes me as a potentially dramatic way to start any story not involving the birth of a child.
** Well, two or three of you.
*** For more metaphor-inspired hilarity, please don't hesitate to read two other recent SFTC posts, this one and this one.

SFTC Cribs: Inept bomber edition

2010-05-06T13:42:00.000-07:00

Once in a while when I'm scanning the latest headlines on my Google home page, I'll see a link to a seemingly inane "news story" in the CNN.com feed and cringe. And I'll wonder: "What kind of idiots would waste their time reading about this nonsense?"

And then, typically, I answer my own question by clicking through to read more.

Today, that happened when I came across a Very Important News Article about the "$65,000 home equity piggy bank" belonging to Faisal Shahzad, the man being held in connection with the botched attempt to car-bomb Times Square last weekend.

I'm not sure why this seemed interesting, except perhaps that I've never seen the inside of an incompetent bomber's home, or maybe I'm the kind of guy who just likes virtual open houses. As you can see here, it's all pretty unremarkable. No telltale signs of an "aspiring terrorist bomber," as CNN so eloquently* put it. Not even any photos of Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

In fact, what I found most interesting were the cloying little blurbs accompanying the photos, which read as though they were co-written by Captain Obvious and a very dimwitted real estate agent.

For example, the master bedroom:

This is precisely the reason we turn to CNN. For analysis like this: "Green is the theme color in the Shahzads' bedroom. The curtains pick up the tone of the bed linens, and a bamboo print hung between the windows extends the botanical motif."

This is not retouched or edited. Someone really wrote that.

Walk with me to the kid's room, won't you?

The extraordinary analysis only deepens here, where we learn that the child's bedroom "appears to be slightly more cluttered than the rest of the house - a not-uncommon characteristic of a child's room."

Penetrating insights from the news organization that is quickly becoming known as the world leader in boudoir-organization reportage.

OK, let's go out back:

In case you can't quite make it out, this is a photo of an empty wooden deck. Which is empty. And has nothing on it.

CNN helpfully explains: "There's certainly no evidence that anyone barbecued or lounged on the house's deck; it seems to be entirely empty."

Yes, yes it does.

*Either eloquently or ridiculously. You decide.

In which I talk trash (mildly) with Jack Welch

2010-05-03T10:24:00.000-07:00

How bad are my beloved Baltimore Orioles this year?

I know we're only 25 games into the Major League Baseball season, but the O's have a .280 winning percentage, which is the worst record in the American League, and bad enough that it probably can't reasonably be called a "winning" percentage.

To help put that in perspective, the team with the worst record in the National League, the Houston Astros, began the season by losing eight consecutive games (which is a winning percentage of roughly .000) and have now lost their last six games... and they are still doing better than the Orioles.

This has made me a little defensive about my Birds.

So on Friday, I took umbrage when I saw that Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric and (as his website notes) the man Fortune magazine called "Manager of the Century," was using his Twitter account to talk smack about his favorite team's upcoming games:

Unfortunately, I was pretty sure he was right: The Red Sox probably would do what they usually do when they come to Baltimore, and beat the tar out of the Orioles. But still, I made a mental note

And then, something magical, nay, miraculous happened.

Friday, the Orioles won, 5-4.

Saturday, they won again, 12-9, for their third win of the season against the Sox and sixth win overall. (Sort of a good news-bad news situation when you're a month into the baseball season and half of your wins have come against the Red Sox.)

And then, Sunday, the Birds completed the sweep, winning a 3-2 extra-inning thriller.

Which immediately reminded me of Jack Welch's tweet. So just for fun, I got on my BlackBerry and wrote:

I normally don't engage in trash-talk with corporate titans, but how often would I get a chance like this? (The last time the Orioles swept the Sox in Baltimore was 1998.) And, to my credit, I thought I showed great restraint in not pointing out that he spelled the word hapless with an extra s. Besides, what are the odds the great Jack Welch would even see my tweet?

Pretty good, as it turns out:

Thank you, Mr. Welch. And, may I just say, Orioles Magic! Feel it happen.

Missed metaphors, part 2

2010-04-25T22:09:00.000-07:00

(If you missed SFTC's groundbreaking Missed Metaphors, part 1, feel free to either scroll down a bit or click here.)

I realize that because of the iPad and Kindle - and, frankly, because we as a society just keep getting stupider - the good old hardback book is quickly becoming obsolete. Which probably means that book-inspired metaphors are also becoming more and more archaic. Soon, I would venture to guess, the very concepts of "judging a book by its cover" or "throwing the book at someone" will be nearly meaningless.

I think that explains why the good folks who edit Associated Press sports articles failed to catch a botched attempt at turning such a phrase. Trying to explain that the UCLA gymnastics team's two most recent championships occurred immediately before and after a string of five straight championships by the University of Georgia, an AP writer offered:

The Bruins won the title for the first time since 2004, bookmarking the Gym Dogs' five-year run.

I don't read a whole lot, but I'm pretty sure a bookmark is something you stick in the middle of a book, not on either side of one. It would have been nice for the editor to realize that UCLA's 2004 and '10 victories bookended the Georgia wins.

This sentence also reminds me of one of the main reasons I never tried out for Georgia gymnastics: the name Gym Dogs.

Missed metaphors

2010-04-22T12:46:00.000-07:00

Rod Blagojevich kicks ass at several things - selling Senate seats to the highest bidder, styling his hair, assessing and then reassessing his place on the racial continuum and getting booted off of Donald Trump TV shows among them.

But one thing at which he does not kick ass is understanding the meaning of common metaphors. Consider, for example, his explanation in this CNN.com piece of what he thinks will prove to be "the smoking gun" in his corruption trial:

During his news conference Tuesday, Blagojevich repeated that he was innocent and that the tapes of his conversations would prove it. "It is because there is a smoking gun in those tapes, and the smoking gun is that the government is covering up the big lie Mr. Fitzgerald gave to the world when he had me arrested," Blagojevich said.

It's clear that while a former governor awaits his fate, logical rhetoric is also on trial.

Fallout

2010-04-16T10:31:00.001-07:00

In the past 24 hours, SFTC has logged hits from two people - both of whom, I'm certain, are brilliant and exceedingly good-looking - from Scandinavia.

Now, we here at SFTC don't get too many clicks from nations with offset crosses on their flags - which, I know, is probably a shock to longtime SFTC readers - so this development caught my attention.

I can only assume that this exciting trend is occurring because Finns and Swedes are staying inside more than usual to avoid being overcome by all of that volcanic ash blowing in from Iceland, and they're profoundly starved for entertainment.

Anyway, I really appreciate the hits from overseas, because I know this blog is really out of the way compared with all of the Scandinavian blogs you have to choose from. Just want to say to our friends across the Atlantic: Välkomnande! And mieluinen!

Writing a check is time consuming

2010-04-14T08:48:00.000-07:00

I've had my share of complaints about Sprint in the past - notably, this one - but I have to admit, ever since the company's CEO started wandering aimlessly through Central Park or Impressive Office Buildings in black-and-white TV ads, I think the customer service has actually gotten better.

Now, for example, when they lie and tell me that since I just renwed my contract for two years through a special promotion, they won't make me re-renew it again when I buy a new phone three weeks later... and then they make me re-renew my contract when I buy a new phone, I can actually get them to honor their commitment by badgering a customer service rep on live chat for about 10 minutes. (I love live chat.)

And, now, when they charge me an $18 "upgrade fee" for - I think I have this correct - the right to buy a new Sprint phone that cost more than my last three phones combined, I can get the nonsensical charge reversed by calling customer service and asking them three times to reverse the charge. (The first two times I asked, I was told there was absolutely, positively, no way they could change it, because it was their policy. Apparently, the cliche is true: The third time really is the charm.)

And, now, when the Fancy New Phone I've bought is eligible for a $100 mail-in rebate, I get an confirmation email from the company a scant five weeks after sending in my receipt, telling me that the "rebate is in the final stages of processing and should be mailed to [me] within the next three weeks."

If whatever they're doing to "process" a check is going to take three more weeks, I'm thinking that they're still a little closer to the preliminary stages at this point.

Separated at birth, black cassock edition

2010-04-08T21:42:00.000-07:00

This was the front page of the New York Times website a few days ago:

The dude in the main photo is a Vatican priest who landed in some matzoh ball soup* for comparing the criticism of the Catholic Church's latest sex abuse scandals to persecution of the Jews. Which, as you might imagine, didn't sit too well with a whole lot of Jewish people. And, apparently, it wasn't particularly well received by advocates for sex abuse victims, either. I have to imagine that's a pretty rare double-whammy in terms of groups being offended by a single comment.

Upon reading the story, I had two main thoughts:
1) That was sort of a dumb thing to say; and
2) I'm almost sure I've never met Raniero Cantalamessa before, but, golly he looks familiar.

And then I thought: Sure! I know where I've seen this guy before! The short white hair, the close-cropped white beard, the glasses, the black turtlenecky thing, the somewhat imperial stance behind a lectern on a stage. Why, that's not Raniero Cantalamessa at all! It's Steve Jobs!

Well, I guess if the priest gig doesn't work out, Raniero could always move to Cupertino and hawk iPads.

* That's Jewish hot water. 10 points if you figured it out without checking this footnote

I think it's "i before e except after gg"

2010-04-02T08:57:00.000-07:00

Whoever edits the Los Angeles Times website is doing such an awesome job these days. To wit, an excerpt from a police blotter item posted last night on the always-fascinating L.A. Now page:

The attacker is described as Latino, 20 to 30 years old and unshaven. He was wearing a baggie black hoodie and baggy black pants, police said.

I feel like that description is really going to help narrow the suspect list a lot. Also, nice to see that "hoodie" is now acceptable newspaper writing.

The 11th plague: Preschool assemblies

2010-03-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

The Cadbury Creme Egg commercials are on TV again, and that can only mean one thing: Passover is almost here.

While that might bring joy and excitement to most of North America, my younger nephew seems rather nonplussed. But still, he was required to celebrate the holiday during some kind of wacky preschool song-and-dance-and-sit-in-a-chair routine.

When I saw this photo, I was immensely proud. It's clear he's way too cool for this nonsense:

Actually, I think he was just ticked off that he had to wear a green, frog-related hat that read (and this is too good to be true), Hoppy Passover.

Mississippi learning

2010-03-12T12:00:00.000-08:00

I still don't get why the U.S. doesn't have a minimum IQ requirement for people interested in serving on school boards.

I'd certainly support some kind of federal legislation in that area. It might minimize the chance for morons to be in positions where they can teach children that it's a good idea to hate people for being gay.

Imagine the message it sends - and not just to the students but to the entire town - when a Mississippi high school cancels a senior prom because a female student wants to bring her girlfriend and (gasp!) wear a tuxedo. I know, soooo dangerous.

Seriously, I don't get it: What do they think is going to happen when two girls show up at the dance together? Why does a school board even have a policy against same-sex couples at a school event?

The new law - could we call it All Morons Left Behind? - would also help prevent Texas science teachers from having to instruct their students on the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolutionary science (which I wrote about here). It might help us avoid the awkwardness of reading - in a New York Times piece on curriculum revisions being pushed through by the Texas Board of Education - quotes like this one:
"I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state," said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. "I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution."

Yep. It's 2010 and that dude is a member of a state board of education.

Wow, that must have been one fabulous arrest

2010-03-08T13:28:00.000-08:00

To the growing list of Republican legislators who have consistently voted against gay rights measures despite eventual revelations that they are gay, we now add the name of California's distinguished Roy Ashburn.

You can get the details here. Mostly, though, I just want to call your attention to the strangely composed NPR.com headline, which - for a moment - led me to believe that the arrest itself had somehow changed his sexual orientation:
Calif. State Senator Says He's Gay After DUI Arrest

Best in show

2010-03-08T11:55:00.000-08:00

Without a doubt, the best part of the Oscars telecast - better than the crazy lady in the purple tablecloth channeling Kanye, better than RDJr. channeling Chris Kattan (sartorially, anyway), better than Sandra Bullock's best-acceptance-of-the-night, better even than Christophe Waltz's invention of the word "uber-bingo" - was a commercial.

Specifically, a commercial for My New Favorite TV Show, Modern Family. Because nothing during the Academy Award ceremony was better than watching Sofia Vergara blurt out, "Cloudy with a chance of the meatballs!"

In case you missed it:

One word more or less

2010-03-04T10:41:00.000-08:00

I found two eye-catching headlines on Yahoo! News this morning. Probably because they were so eye-catching and all.

For the first one, it occurred to me that if an editor had accidentally dropped a word (in this case, "vote"), the headline would have been overly logical and, at the same time, shockingly stupid:
White House discourages Armenian genocide vote

And for the other, I actually thought the inclusion of one specific word ("temple") made the story seem much more interesting than it would have been without it:
63 die, dozens injured in Indian temple stampede

Speaking of India, have you read about this monkey-man crime spree in Delhi? Not kidding: There's even an article about it on the BBC website.

I don't really even have anything funny to say about it, although I think this line from the article speaks for itself: "One theory is that a rogue male monkey is causing the panic."

Job stress

2010-03-02T15:17:00.000-08:00

(No, this isn't about me.)

I'm just concerned that the world of international diplomacy is taking its toll on Secretary Clinton. She looks so much older than she did when she was appointed. For comparison, here's her official portrait from early 2009:

And here's a headline and photo from the New York Times website, apparently showing her after her arrival in Chile today:

Also, for someone offering lots of financial aid for disaster relief, she doesn't look especially pleased to be making a difference.

Not so fast

2010-03-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, driving through the mind-numbing Los Angeles traffic on the 10 (or the 110 or 101 - Angelenos are nothing if not creative with the numbering of freeways), I spotted a billboard that looked something like this:

Except a lot bigger. And without the drop shadow.

Point is - and I should have thought of this about five months ago - amid all of its, um, "unplanned acceleration" issues lately, wouldn't you think that the geniuses at Toyota would have come up with a slightly less dangerous-sounding tagline by now?

Like, maybe, braking appropriately?

This post written by an increasingly nervous Prius driver.

Up, up and away

2010-02-18T21:30:00.000-08:00

Maybe I'm missing something, but I think my not-quite-favorite online news source could have removed the word "apparent" from the phrase "apparent stowaway" in the headline for this article.

Usually, it's a safe bet the passenger has not bought himself a ticket when he's (1) a passenger on a cargo jet and (2) trying to fly in the wheel well.

PC squared: Phil Collins and the evolution of politcal correctness

2010-02-15T17:46:00.000-08:00

Occasionally - usually while I'm supposed to be doing something productive - I wonder whether we're all way, way, way more politically correct than we were when I was a kid or it's that I've just been listening to Bill Maher too much.

This afternoon, I think I answered my own question, thanks to, of all people, Phil Collins. (Well, Phil Collins and the other guys who were in Genesis after Peter Gabriel left.)

Mike, Phil and Tony in matching sombreros.

And I'm pretty sure my answer is, that, Yes, PC has reached levels we couldn't have imagined in 1983, which is the year Genesis released a song called Illegal Alien. Because today, it's equally impossible to imagine a Top 40 music act recording a song and appearing in a video, complete with sombreros and tequila and vaguely Mexican facial hair, like this one. Or, if they did those things, not getting absolutely slammed for it.

A slightly related thought: I wonder if California could find a way to use this song as a PSA.

Easy answer

2010-02-10T12:57:00.000-08:00

Joanne Herring: Why is Congress saying one thing and doing nothing?
Charlie Wilson: Well, tradition mostly.

- portrayed by Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks

Charlie Wilson's War, 2007

R.I.P., Congressman Charlie Wilson (1933-2010).

If eating you is wrong, I don't want to be right

2010-02-05T16:26:00.000-08:00

Perhaps I have a very very very very subtle death wish. But any time I see a list of "worst foods" or "unhealthiest meals" or "snacks that will kill you dead as soon as you take your first bite," I immediately want to eat most of the foods on that list.

When I saw the latest such countdown of the worst artery-clogging, blood-pressure-spiking cuisine, courtesy of Yahoo! and Men's Health, I also felt a sense of pride. Because I'm pretty sure that during my 13 years in Chicago, I ate about 794 Jimmy John's Italian Night Club subs (oh, the bread!), also known as Number 8 on the list.

So, let's see: 794 sandwiches* times 2,165 grams of sodium means I might have consumed something north of 1.7 million grams of sodium during that part of my life. That sense of pride has just ballooned. Kind of like a cardiac catheter.

* It's possible it was somewhat less like, say, 780 sandwiches.

But I sent you away, Oh, Grammy

2010-01-31T21:51:00.000-08:00

The Grammys have sort of sucked since at least 1967, when Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was beat out for the Best Performance By a Vocal Group award by that timeless Fifth Dimension masterpiece, Up Up and Away.

The awards' suckiness was reconfirmed the year that Lionel Richie won 394 awards and kept saying "Outrageous!" every trip up to the podium, and more recently when Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot wasn't even nominated.

But this? This is the last straw.*

A quick side note:** As I was researching tonight's post, I came across the roster of Best New Artist winners and nominees. And I guess the Academy sometimes gets those awards right. For instance, I don't really care about Marc Cohn's music that much, but the mere fact that he beat out Boyz II Men, C+C Music Factory and Color Me Badd is somewhat redeeming. (On the other hand, if you're Marc Cohn, do you keep that Grammy hidden so you can avoid having to answer the question, "So, who else was nominated that year?")

Perhaps the strangest two-year stretch in Best New Artist history was 1970 and 1971.

1970 Winner: Crosby, Stills & Nash ... Nominees: Chicago, Led Zeppelin, Oliver, The Neon Philharmonic
1971 Winner: The Carpenters ... Nominees: Elton John, Melba Moore, Anne Murray, The Partridge Family

Has ever the musical tide turned so dramatically for the worse? I'm a big fan of early '70s Elton John, so his nomination in '71 seems warranted, but otherwise that 1971 list is astonishing - particularly coming on the heels of a year in which CS&N, Chicago and Zeppelin were contenders - isn't it? Plus, wouldn't you have guessed that Elton would have won if for no other reason than The Carpenters, Murray and the Partridges would have split the ballots coming from the fluff-pop voting bloc?

* In case you missed it, I really hate Kings of Leon.
** It turns out the quick side note is longer than the main subject of today's post. These things happen.

I'll take "No shot in hell" for $400, Alex

2010-01-28T20:22:00.000-08:00

I just took the online test to try qualifying for a Jeopardy audition. How'd I do?

Well, let's just say you probably won't see me standing behind a video-monitor-equipped podium, with a signaling device in hand, asking Alex Trebek questions like, "What is the Venus de Milo?" (er, actually, I mean this one) or, "Where is Lake Titicaca?" anytime in 2010.

I think I acquitted myself fairly well, but in the immediate aftermath of the 50-question test (15 seconds to answer each one), the only thing I'm confident of is that I've got almost no chance to make it to the next round. I'd guess I got about two-thirds correct, but I can think of too many I flubbed. For better or worse, the website doesn't recap which ones you got right or wrong, or even give a score, and I don't even know if there's a preset minimum number of correct responses to qualify for the next round, but... eh.

A few quick highlights and lowlights from the test:

The first question was about a Dr. Seuss character - child's play! was my first thought - who has some thing or other to do with trees. Argh! Pretty sure that ruled out The Cat, Horton and Sam He Is, and for the life of me, I couldn't think of The Lorax.
My mom always used to tell me I should read more books, and although I usually do alright on trivia questions about novels, even when I haven't read them, tests like this are pain-in-the-ass reminders that my mom was probably right. One question referred to a Faulkner novel with a title that repeats the same word twice. As time ran out, "Absalom, Absalom" came to mind, but literally only because it was the one two-repeated-words title I could think of. Except that I was completely sure it wasn't a Faulkner work, so I left that one blank. Um, oops.
I always like ending on a high note, so I was glad that the last question was about a pro tennis player born in Basel in 1981. A cinch for an incurable sports fan.
My wildest guess that actually worked came on a question about a Supreme Court justice who, from 1801 to 1804, wrote a biography of George Washington. Thought process: "Marshall sounds like an early 19th century judge kind of a name.... There was another Marshall besides Thurgood, right?... Oh, whatever, I'll go with Marshall."
ZenMom is going to absolutely murderize me for missing the question that sought the name of the TV show whose theme song includes the line "Our whole universe was in a hot dense state" and is performed by the Barenaked Ladies. I knew it was "that show with three science dorks and a cute chick that I watched once and swore never to watch again," but I think the judges were probably looking for The Big Bang Theory.
I did, however, guess right on another pop culture question, figuring that it was Penelope Cruz who played "neither Vicky nor Cristina, but Maria Elena in Vicky Cristina Barcelona."
I got the one about Ben Franklin's 1784 invention that was probably a result of his advancing age and increasing trouble reading - bifocals - and I dug back into the recesses of my 11th grade chemistry knowledge and remembered that the chemical symbol for potassium was K. (Fist bump!)
The one that really fried my brain was a geography question having something to with Albania and a large lake and some peninsula. (Possibly they were going for the Balkan Peninsula - I don't know.) I couldn't even discern the question what the question was asking because as I was reading it, all I could hear was a hilarious scene from a 1985 Cheers episode, with Coach and Sam studying for Sam's GED exam by singing, "Albania, Albania. You border on the Adriatic."

Go figure. Normally, my vast knowledge of Cheers dialogue comes in handy in everyday situations, but this time it was merely a distraction. Maybe if I had been reading Faulkner in 1985 instead of watching Cheers, I would have gotten two more questions correct. Well, at least my mom can say she told me so.

Today's main course? Inspiration

2010-01-27T10:39:00.000-08:00

It's going to be very difficult for me to post a feel-good, sunshine-and-happiness kind of story without making some kind of snarky comment, but I'm determined to try.

Because I can tell: You could use a pick-me-up today.

So here's a big ol' heart-warmer, courtesy of that newspaper in Chicago (where, as I write this, it's 19 degrees with flurries, but I'm not gloating). It's about a woman who's been blind since infancy being offered a job as a chef at a world-class restaurant in the Windy City.

The whole story is impressive enough on its face, but to help put it in perspective, here's a sample menu for the restaurant where she'll be working. N.B.: You get to eat everything on the menu for dinner.

Ah, damn. Five minutes ago, I was feeling very inspired. But after looking at that menu, now I'm mostly just hungry.

Castle burger

2010-01-21T17:28:00.000-08:00

If you've got a sec, follow me over to World's Best Burger, where I'm doing a mini-rant about an article I just read about beautiful European castles.

Be sure to leave comments, too, because if I get enough traffic over there, I'm in line to win a castle of my own.*

* Maybe.

Shine, the weather's fine

2010-01-20T15:22:00.000-08:00

In the past two days, I've received emails and texts from East Coast friends, hoping to make sure I was OK. Well-meaning relatives have called to express their concern. My sister asked if I was thinking about moving back home. A colleague offered to cancel our lunch meeting yesterday so I wouldn't be put out by having to walk outside.

No, I'm not sick.

It is - as you might have heard on national newscasts - raining in Los Angeles.

"When the rain comes, they run and hide their heads"

In all seriousness, there are going to be real problems caused by the rain - mudslides and erosion and stuff like that - and there have been tornado warnings within a hundred miles of where I'm sitting. And apparently it hailed for a minute yesterday. But you would think that it's armageddon, the way the natives are reacting to this weather. (Also, you would think that more people would understand that hooded cotton sweatshirts don't really protect you from getting wet, even when the hood is in the upright position.)

But for the most part, it's rain.

So I just want to assure those of you west of San Bernardino that, yes, I am OK. Although if you want to send hot chocolate, feel free.

Kidding

2010-01-14T13:42:00.000-08:00

I don't have children, but I think it's fair to say that I've learned a thing or two about kids over the years.

For example: It can be really really hard to just look at one of 'em and know whether or not you're staring at a terrorist.

I'm not the only one who's having this problem. There's the Transportation Safety Administration - better known as the government agency responsible for not letting me travel with salsa or pomade for my hair* - which apparently is finding it difficult to grasp that an 8-year-old Cub Scout from New Jersey doesn't need to be molested by security officers every time he gets on a plane. (Thanks to Highland Park Attorney, once again, for the news item.)

Mikey's mom gets the award for best quote of the article. "It’s quite clear that he is 8 years old, and while he may have terroristic tendencies at home, he does not have those on a plane." Touche, terror-mom. Touche.

You might laugh about this, but clearly, it's not as easy as it sounds, separating the pre-teens who terrorize their parents from those who might actually pose serious threats to our lives, liberties and pursuits of happiness.**

Like, for example, this seemingly cute and innocent Irish lass.

* The pomade is for my hair; the salsa just tastes good on chips.
** I guess the Founding Fathers had it right: Sounds weird with plurals.

Putting lipstick on a Fox

2010-01-11T14:46:00.000-08:00

It simply cannot be a coincidence that I became aware of these two news headlines today, and that I learned of them in the same sequence in which I'm presenting them to you.

First, from MSNBC.com (courtesy of the world's most wonderful wife):
Sarah Palin gets deal as Fox commentator*

And then, from the news site I love to hate, CNN.com:
Too much TV may mean earlier death

Anyone else thinking we have the cause and effect here?

* The article's subhead is, purportedly, a quote from Palin: "It's wonderful to be a part of a place that so values fair and balanced news." Yes, I get that she cleverly incorporated the network's mantra. But when does Fox give up that joke? I'm going to go work at Coca-Cola and tell people that it's wonderful to be a part of place that never sells any kind of liquid that contains sugar, chemicals and bubbles.

Endorsement burger

2010-01-08T16:24:00.000-08:00

It's not that I actually care that St. John, the women's clothing brand - er, excuse me, luxury knitwear brand - dropped Angelina Jolie as its lead endorser. Truly, I don't. But I did think I'd be able to get a blog post out of it. And, so, I have.

The brilliance is just a click away, on World's Best Burger. (Warning: Unveils my possibly half-baked Tiger-Angelina Endorsement-ending Tryst Theory.)

Weather forecast courtesy of that sensei from Karate Kid

2010-01-08T09:09:00.000-08:00

Once in a while during the months of October, November, December, January, February and March - and occasionally April - I like to check in on the weather conditions in my former hometown of Chicago and gloat a little bit. (It's possible that I've blogged about this once before, like, say here.)

This probably makes me a terrible person, but being able to gloat about weather is one of the perks of living in Southern California, and I'm someone who likes to take advantage of the perks afforded to me.

I've been hearing about snow and arctic temperatures in the Midwest, so I thought today would be a good day to visit the Chicago Sun-Times website. I was not disappointed - and mostly because it seems that the two-word weather summary on the site's home page was written by the sensei from Karate Kid. (Did you know? The character's name was John Kreese! Thanks, imdb!)

Before I get to the forecast itself, please refresh your memory by reliving this relevant Karate Kid dialogue:

That's Martin Kove, left, as the immortal John Kreese.

Kreese: What do we study here?
Highly pumped up dojo students: The way of the fist, sir!

Kreese: And what is that way?
Students: Strike first, strike hard, no mercy!

Kreese: I can't hear you.
Students: Strike first, strike hard, no mercy!

Which brings me to the Chicagoland forecast synopsis that appeared on the Sun-Times banner this morning:

Grill burger

2010-01-05T12:32:00.000-08:00

As I wrote in my very first blog post - two years and two days ago - a major reason that I started SFTC was that I was constantly posting comments on World's Best Burger, a blog authored by the witty and creative duo of Loree and Laura. So fervent was my commenting that I started to feel like a moderately deranged fan/stalker, and I was pretty sure that if I didn't just get my own damn blog, they were going to banish me from theirs forever.

So you can imagine my great joy when - after letting WBB lie dormant for most of 2009 - L&L announced plans to revive WBB. And then it got better. They invited me to be a WBB contributor! It was like being a kid who grew up watching the Orioles (which I did) and getting an invitation to play catch with Cal Ripken (which I haven't). In other words: Big time.

So I hope you'll go check out my very first post on World's Best Burger, the blog that got me into this whole blogging mess in the first place. It'll be worth your while - I'm offering up tips for saving big bucks on a propane grill.

The price of ice

2010-01-04T10:23:00.000-08:00

Whenever my mom is considering a new car, she couldn't care less about whether it has four-wheel drive or traction control or ABS brakes - or, I'd guess, whether it has brakes of any kind. She doesn't care if the engine has four cylinders or six; or whether it comes with dual temperature zones or keyless remote entry.

Pretty much all she wants to know is that whatever car she drives is going to have a button on the air-conditioning panel that lets her see what the outside temperature is.

Which seemed pretty strange to me until last week.

Last week, the world's most fantastic wife and I became homeowners, and aside from the packing*, moving** and unpacking***, we couldn't be more thrilled. It's a great place - an upgrade in almost every way from the apartment we had rented for the past 18 months.

But what I had forgotten about our new apartment until we started unpacking our 694 boxes of kitchen stuff was that the previous owners left behind - for free**** - a refrigerator/freezer with one of those automatic water-and-ice dispensers. And not only that, but you can select ice cubes (more like crescents, actually) or crushed ice! Oh, and if you're getting water - or ice! - at night, the thing lights up, so you can be confident that the water you're dispensing goes right where it's intended. Amazing!

I've never had one of those things before - not growing up and not in any of the other apartments where I've lived. So when we walked in last week and I saw that snazzy thing on the front of our new freezer door? Well, that was the moment I knew: Despite the L.A. price we just paid for the place, it was totally worth it.

Now, if I can just find a contraption to tell me what the temperature outside the apartment is....

* Hated it.
** Really hated it.
*** Impossible to describe how much I hate it.
**** Yes, I'm kidding about the "free" thing.

End of the aughts, Part 2

2009-12-29T09:58:00.000-08:00

If you were here yesterday, you were wowed, amazed and possibly blown away by Part 1 of my end-of-the-decade wrap-up chat with Daddy Geek Boy. And you're dying to catch the rest of the conversation in Part 2.

Well, this is your lucky day. Because Part 2 - which, as I mentioned, is way more interesting - is now up on Daddy Geek Boy. So check it out. And then take care of one of your 2010 new year's resolutions by signing up on his site to become a DGB follower. (What? That wasn't one of your resolutions? It should be.)

If you weren't here yesterday, you should should stop what you're doing right now and go read Part 1 immediately. Seriously. Failing to do so would be like watching Step Up 2: The Streets without first seeing Step Up.* That is, you really might not understand the sequel.

End of the aughts: A deep conversation with my (other) favorite blogger

2009-12-28T10:44:00.000-08:00

You might have heard that we're rapidly approaching the end of a decade.

To mark this momentous occasion, I decided to... um... blog about it. Which sounds very predictable, but you're in luck, because I decided to blog about it in the form of a witty, snappy and enlightening conversation with Daddy Geek Boy.

We talked music, movies, politics and more. We laughed, we cried. And we did it all on instant messenger, which made it incredibly easy to transpose. I'm nothing if not brutally efficient.

Part 1 follows; you can read the equally amazing conclusion on his site on Tuesday.

DGB: At the end of every year, there are all of these recaps. And since we're at the end of a decade, the pressure to put a fine point on it all is huge. But I've been thinking about what we didn't have 10 years ago.

SFTC: Well, right now, I'm watching the Ravens game on TV, and checking Twitter and email in between our instant messages.

DGB: That's something right there - how much multitasking did you do 10 years ago?

SFTC: A little, I guess, but it's nothing like now when I'm checking Twitter, blogs, email, Facebook and whatever else at work and at home. How about you?

DGB: Yeah, the way I communicate with people is completely different. How are the Ravens doing?

SFTC: Ravens were down 17-0, are still trailing, but now back in the game at 17-14. You mostly don't follow sports, right?

DGB: I don't. Nothing against sports. I really like them. But I feel I don't have the time to really devote to them. I guess I could call myself a Redskins fan, if I kept up with football. But from what I gather, this season it wouldn't really matter.

SFTC: You're right about the Skins. I have to say it's hard for me to imagine doing everything I do now, and then adding two children to the mix, and having time to do anything else - like watching sports - so working parents have my immense admiration.

DGB: If it's a choice of sports over movies, I'm going to have to pick movies. But since we're talking about sports: What events capture the '00s in sports for you?

SFTC: You know, none of my favorite teams won championships, so the most memorable sports events for me were the ones I got to see up close and in person thanks to my job. (Not the same job I have now.) I went as a reporter to the NBA All-Star Game in Houston and the MLB All-Star Game in Detroit. And although I'm not a big NASCAR fan, the coolest experience of all was getting a ride in a stock car that was driven by Rusty Wallace... on the day before the Daytona 500 at the Daytona Speedway. It was unreal.

DGB: OK, you rode in a stock car? Sports fan or not, that's really cool right there. For a lot of my friends, the Red Sox winning the World Series will go down as their favorite moment this decade.

SFTC: Yeah, the Sox win was amazing - I was hoping the Cubs could follow suit in the next few years, but they might never win.

One of the things that I've delved into on SFTC is the too-good-to-be-true political scandals. I know you don't really get into those on DGB, but did you have any, um, favorites of the 2000s?

DGB: The whole Larry Craig thing was the first to jump in my head. For the sheer ridiculousness of it, mixed with a dash of pathetic. How about you?

SFTC: Maybe because I spent so much of my life in Chicago, I got a special thrill out of the Blagojevich incident. Just his arrogance, his complete disregard for the law, the audaciousness of it. I got to see a large part of his rise to prominence and it was amazing how swiftly he just fell apart.

DGB: This has been the decade where I've started to pay attention to politics. But every time I get sucked in, I get turned off just as quickly. It's sad to admit this, but it feeds my pessimistic side.

SFTC: Well, there was a long stretch last year where it was interesting without being terrible. It was nice to be able to follow it and be interested for reasons that weren't negative.

DGB: True. I was never so involved as I was during the election. But I think the same thing - it seems like a never-ending story of greed and corruption and ego and inefficiency, and it's hard to stay tuned in. It's all so contentious and nasty. Though I feel like that's something that's developed over the past handful of years. I feel like as a nation after 9/11 we were told that it wasn't okay to have dissenting opinions.

SFTC: Speaking of which, where were you when you first heard about the 9/11 attacks?

DGB: I was in the gym. Which is crazy to think about now because I've become such a sloth. But I was working out with a trainer, and we watched it go down on the monitors in the gym. We finished the workout, because frankly we didn't know what else to do. I came home and spent the rest of the day crying on the couch with the woman who would become WW™.

SFTC: That seems practical. (The gym part.)

DGB: How about you?

SFTC: A woman who lived in my building in Chicago said something about it to me while I was on the elevator that morning. But she brought it up by asking just, "Did you hear?" I assumed she was talking about Michael Jordan's return to the NBA from his second retirement, because that had been the big news on SportsCenter the night before - that he was about to come back. So I told her that I'd heard about Jordan, and she said, "No, a plane flew into the World Trade Center." Of course at that time, we obviously assumed it was just a bad accident. The Sears Tower is visible from the building where I lived in Chicago, and as I was walking to work that morning, I kept looking up at the Sears Tower and thinking what it would look like for a jet to fly into the top of that building. Then, spent most of the day at work just watching it on TV.

DGB: You know, I flew four days after the attack?

SFTC: You did!?! Why? Where? What did FWW™ think?

DGB: I was living in L.A. and my best friend was getting married that weekend in Philly. There was no way I couldn't be there. I got lucky and when they reopened the airports, I got a seat on a flight. FWW™ was really nervous about it. She said that's what made her realize she loved me. Oddly, I wasn't nervous.

SFTC: Wow. I'm impressed. Were you drinking heavily?

DGB: The odds of something happening again so soon were astronomical. And it really did bring people together. Everybody huddled together in the airport bar and just talked to each other. I was so focused on being there for my friend. That wedding, by the way, was one of the best I've ever been to. It was such a catharsis.

Don't forget: Part 2 - which I promise you'll find way more interesting - is on Daddy Geek Boy tomorrow! We talk Wilco and Harry Potter and reveal how DGB scored a wife-approved absence on Valentine's Day. Don't miss it.

The second annual nothing-to-do-with-Christmas holiday post

2009-12-24T14:22:00.001-08:00

Some people get bent out of shape about not being surrounded by snow during the winter holidays.

I am not one of those people.

Photo credit: Me

Palm trees with lights - even if they're located in someone's front yard next to a fountain that could generously be called tacky - are just fine with me.

Lawn ornaments representing the crew from Peanuts aren't bad, either.

Photo credit: Once again, Me

Whatever you're celebrating (or have already celebrated) this December, and whatever weather you're celebrating them in, happy holidays from snow-free Los Angeles.

If I can make it there

2009-12-23T20:39:00.000-08:00

First, let me just say that as I'm typing this I'm eating a Ritter Sport chocolate bar*. And yet - despite the name - I don't feel any more athletic.

--

I was born in New York City. I visit at least once a year. I have at least twelve and a half relatives who live there. I spent my college years way the heck up in sunny** Rochester. Which is why I don't find this New York Times article the least bit surprising. A survey that concludes New Yorkers are the least happy citizens of our great nation? Sure, I'd believe that.

(One of my very best friends in the whole wide world lives in the Empire State, too, but I think the Oswego metro area must have been exempt from these ratings because it's a little slice of heaven up there.)

I hope I'm not making my New York readers even more upset by posting this. But you have to admit that if you place below New Jersey in too many national rankings, it's probably not a great sign.

* Don't fret, lactose patrol. It's dark chocolate.
** Just kidding about the "sunny" part.

It's in his kiss

2009-12-17T23:31:00.000-08:00

One of the top 57 reasons I probably won't kiss any ladies in Miami in the foreseeable future is to prevent something like this from happening.

I'm guessing the attorney who got tennis star Richard Gasquet exonerated on the all new Coked-Up Kiss-Off defense is probably not the same lawyer as the one who wears Spanish-language "No Cupable" t-shirts for his clients.

(A big ol' tip of the SFTC cap to Highland Park Attorney for sending the story.)

Speaking of cocaine: I don't remember much about elementary or middle school, but while researching today's post* I was reminded of the drug education classes we had to take in the 80s. This was during the Nancy Reagan years, so if memory serves, the main message we were supposed to take away was that when we were inevitably offered heroin and/or PCP by our local ne'er-do-wells and hoodlums, we were generally supposed to say "no."

I guess that lesson stuck, but I don't recall much else about those classes. Except that - at least in my mind's eye - the teacher seemed to spend a lot of time with us poring over the drugs' street names. Like a dozen nicknames for each of them. Nothing better than a middle school teacher explaining that the pushers might call marijuana "Mary Jane" or "weed."

It was edifying, though. Certainly, I was prepared for the eventuality that if I were at a sixth grade party and the other kids were talking about doing some "blowcaine," I'd know they were talking about something other than a new hairdryer.

* What? You thought I was doing this sans research? This is serious stuff.

Fighting impotence

2009-12-16T00:51:00.000-08:00

I'm writing today's headline against my better judgment. I thought it would be a nice way to introduce today's SFTC Quiz!*

Ready? OK!

Today's headline, "Fighting impotence" is...
(a) a funny oxymoron, sort of like the name of the Dodge Ram. (Did the geniuses who came up with this name want you to dodge things or ram into them? If I had one of those trucks, I'd constantly be wondering about the proper driving strategy.)

(b) almost guaranteed to result in a steady stream of Viagra and/or Cialis ads over there in the right sidebar for a few days.

(c) refers to my impression of today's Story-That-Doesn't-Quite-Seem-To-Add-Up from my favorite online news source**, CNN.com.

In case CNN.com edits the headline before you get there, here's what it says at 1 a.m.*** on December 16: "800,000 H1N1 vaccine doses for young children recalled; safety not a concern."

Yeah, sure.

Makes sense - I mean, companies recall hundreds of thousands of their products for their lack of impending danger all the time. If anything, according to the story, the vaccine doses might have been too safe - the pharmaceutical company claims they were 12 percent less potent than they were supposed to be. Oh. Kay.

I guess it's reassuring that the CDC says all kids who have received the vaccine are safe. But still, I'm taking a wild guess that the CDC spokesman's comment - that parents should do "absolutely nothing" - might not exactly mollify parents of vaccinated kids all across our great land. Parents are funny like that.

Speaking of the CDC, its full name was changed 17 years ago to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - the last two words added to the agency's moniker - but the initialism remained "CDC." If I were one of the scientists who worked on the "and Prevention" stuff there, I would be pretty pissed. It's like their contributions don't even count.

I bet it's why these vaccines are so weak.

--

If you have any interest whatsoever in good music, I'd like to point out that an SFTC emerging favorite, Amy Cook, is offering a free download of "Hotel Lights," a tune from her forthcoming album, over here on her website. Consider it a holiday gift from your sixth-favorite blog.

--

Oh, the answer to the quiz? I guess it's (d), all of the above. Which you probably already figured out.

* Since when do we do quizzes around here?
** Not really "favorite," so much as it is the most useful for this blog, on account of its frequently questionable news judgment.
*** I really need to go to sleep.

The Good Wife

2009-12-11T15:51:00.000-08:00

Wowie. Anyone else see this news coming?

OK, so we all saw it coming. Actually, I think it's nice that as 2009 comes to an end, we all get some closure on one of the juicier adultery stories of the year.

I have - for your comfort and convenience - decided that I didn't need to add my two cents about that golfer who apparently cheated on his gorgeous Swedish wife. I'm alluding to it here only to pay a compliment to the soon-to-be-former Mrs. Sanford: Very smart media strategy to announce your impending divorce from a philandering, high-profile husband during Tigergate.

Know when to fold 'em

2009-12-08T10:42:00.000-08:00

On the way home from family Thanksgiving festivities, our flight stopped for about an hour at scenic Las Vegas McCarran International Airport. And by "scenic," I mean "dark, depressing and filled with people trying to gamble away every last nickel before boarding their flights back to the Midwest."

(If you haven't had the pleasure of dropping by McCarran yourself, the terminals are lousy with slot machines, and the slot machines are constantly busy.)

So, obviously, I was inspired to give Lady Luck a whirl and waste a few minutes on the 25-cent slots. Here's where I was smart about it: I didn't want to get too deep into a hole, so I set a limit: One dollar.

Big player that I am, though, I was going to go for it and bet the full 25 cents per spin. First spin: nothing. Second spin: zilch. Third spin: Nope.

Aw, man, I thought. I've lost 75 cents. How am I going to explain this to my super-amazing wife?

Down to my last 25 cents, I hit the Bet button one more time: A blue 7, a red 7 and a white 7! Jackpot! I had won $1.25! Oh, the feeling! I hit the Cash Out button and carried my ticket up to the redemption window. "Buck twenty-five, please," I proudly said to the cashier. "I'll take it in paper and silver."*

I found my wife in line at the airport shop, where she was about to buy a bottle of water, and I told her about my good fortune. "I guess that means you should probably pay for this," she said.

What I learned from the whole joyous experience was far more valuable than my 25 cent winnings. (Which, now that I think about it, isn't saying that much.) What I took away was an affirmation that it's important to know when to walk away - a lesson that I wish I could have shared a few years ago with Terrance Watanabe.

Who's Terrance, you might ask? He's the guy who did this.

* I didn't really say this. But I was thinking it.

Tartlet

2009-12-03T11:46:00.000-08:00

There's an episode of Friends* in which Monica, auditioning for a job as a chef, cooks several dishes for a very stoned restaurateur, played by Jon Lovitz. When Monica tells him that she's going to be serving tartlets, he responds by very stoned-ishly** repeating the word back to her:

"Tartlet. [pause] Tartlet. [pause] Tartlet," and then adding, "The word has lost all meaning."

Which, thanks to Barbara Walters, is now exactly how I feel about the word "fascinating." You know, because of this.

Come to think of it, tartlet is about right.

* I guess this is the week in which I draw most of my inspiration from long-gone NBC sitcoms.
** Suggestions for a better adverb, anyone?

New feature! Say It, Sajak

2009-12-01T14:39:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the first installment of a feature that I hope will be a regular part of SFTC for years to come*. I'm calling it Say It, Sajak!

In each exciting webisode, we'll recap something really funny that game show host extraordinaire Pat Sajak said during a recent Wheel of Fortune telecast. Today's quote, for example, was so freaking hilarious when it aired, that the world's most beautiful wife and I nearly spit out our beverages, in tandem, all over the living room floor.**

One metaphysically challenging aspect of this feature is that although I obviously am sitting in front of a computer screen, typing about things Sajak said on the air, you will never get me to admit that I watch Wheel of Fortune, much less that I watch it an average of 3.5 nights a week.

One ground rule for Say It, Sajak: Each entry will be presented without any explanation. Which could possibly mean that the only way you'll agree that it's rip-roaringly funny is that you'll just have to trust me. Oh, and since I'm doing this by memory, the quote might not be totally, 100 percent accurate. Other than that, I think this is going to be an awesome idea.

Today's Say It, Sajak! Quote of the Day is... "Somewhere in Nashville, someone is getting ready to massage chickens!"

See what I mean?

* Upon further reflection, I sort of hope this is the one and only installment.
** This is actually true.

Running for my life

2009-11-30T23:42:00.000-08:00

Diane: Our relationship was a two-way street.
Frasier: Yes, and I was run over in both directions.
- Cheers, "Dinner at Eight-ish" (1987)

While back on the East Coast for Thanksgiving, I thought I'd go out for a pre-turkey jog around the neighborhood - you know, to preemptively work off some of the holiday calories. That's just my typical holiday m.o.*

So it's Thursday morning and I'm all geared up, complete with black Brooks running tights (subtle product plug and possibly disturbing visual image), ready to run. But my dad catches my attention. How nice, I think, he's going to give me a pre-Thanksgiving-pre-run pep talk.

Well, almost.

"This former colleague of mine - someone who was really respected in his field - was at a conference in Florida** a few years ago," he tells me. "One morning, he went out jogging, a few hours before he was supposed to give a presentation."

What are the chances this story doesn't end well?

"Several hours went by and he didn't show up, so his wife called the police. Turns out that he was jogging along a narrow road. One car pulled over to let him by, but the next driver sped up to pass, and the car hit him. Killed him instantly."

How's that for a pep talk?

"Awesome, Dad. Thanks for the inspiration."

And with that, I set out on the winding, rain-slicked roads near my parents' house, hoping mainly to avoid becoming the future subject of another of my father's similarly uplifting stories.

--

The previous day, I had received a cell phone message from Greg, a long-lost friend who was, without question, the funniest person I met during four years of college. Hearing his voicemail reminded me of one of his most memorable - if not most tasteful - quotes from back then.

Fittingly for today's post, it also had something to do with a run.

Greg and I were with a handful of friends, watching our college basketball team play against an overmatched opponent. During one stretch, our team was outscoring the opposition pretty handily. One of the guys in our group shouted, "I smell a run!"

Without skipping a beat, Greg yelled back, "Get your head out of your pants!"

* That, sleeping 10 hours a night, and spending most of my other waking hours sitting on a couch.
** The conference might have been in a less-crappy location than Florida, but I really wasn't paying too close attention.

Passed tents

2009-11-18T19:51:00.000-08:00

I went to bed wearing my earbuds last night - probably not great for my otological health - and a Michael Penn song, Strange Season, came on the iPod. The very first line of the song is: This story is past tense.

Maybe because it was 12:30 a.m., I started fixating on the lyrics, and I decided it would be a pretty great idea to write the homonyms for the last two words, "passed tents," on my left palm.

I thought that phrase would be a great name for... I don't know, something. Perhaps I could use it as the title of my next smooth jazz album or maybe I'd start a retail chain that sells deceased camping equipment. Then, I quickly remembered that I sort of suck at the soprano sax - and, for that matter, I haven't even recorded my first smooth jazz record - and that I have less than no interest in rugged outdoor sports.

So I decided I'd use it as the headline for a blog post. Which worked out great, except that - as you've noticed if you're still reading this - I really didn't have an interesting story to go along with my new clever headline.

Just so this isn't a total waste, I'll post a few photos from last weekend, when the world's best gift-giver, my gorgeous and hilarious wife,* treated me to a weekend in Hermosa Beach for my 74th birthday.**

Please pause and enjoy - I snapped 'em just for you.

* Damn, I'm lucky.
** Or something like that.

Stay with someone you hate

2009-11-11T21:30:00.001-08:00

I just got a promotional email from a hotel in Santa Barbara where the world's most beautiful wife and I have stayed a few times. Nice place and a great location, just across the street from the beach in one of the most picturesque towns in the land.

I guess the hotel is under new management or something because I noticed a new corporate logo at the bottom left of the message:

You could click on the image to blow it up, but I'll save you the trouble. The logo in question is for a firm called JRK Hotel Group.

I'm not one to make fun of names of people - although I still don't get why Mr. and Mrs. Gaga couldn't come up with anything better than "Lady" for their ubertalented daughter. But unlike most men and women, companies usually have a chance to pick names that don't suck. So I have less compunction about occasionally mocking a corporate moniker.

Maybe JRK is the monogram of the company founder. Or maybe the firm was started by three dudes named ... oh, I don't know, Jeremy, Rossifer and Keyshawn. And maybe Keyshawn lost a bet and his initial had to go last, which is why they couldn't name it KJR Hotel Group.

Point is: I look at the email, at the logo, at the website, and I can't get "Jerk Hotels" out of my mind. Why would I want to stay at a Jerk Hotel? Would you?

It's possible I'm overthinking this.

Uneasy lies the head

2009-11-09T09:53:00.000-08:00

If you're thinking about auditioning for American Idol or whatever the equivalent show is in England*, I have some important advice.

If you make it to the finals, there will be physical consequences. There's indisputable proof that one of the unfortunate results of shooting to stardom on a nationally televised singing contest is that your head gets bigger. I mean, it swells to the point that your neck alone is simply unable to hold it up.

Visual evidence comes in the form of the covers of the latest CDs by two recent singing sensations. Witness:

(Susan Boyle, from whatever that British show is)

I guess the only good news is that in some cases, singers only need one hand (usually the right) to keep their heads from falling over in all of their pop-star glory.

(Adam Lambert, on a cover that could only have been designed in the early 1980s)

It even applies to the previous generation of Idols.

(Carrie Underwood, going with the palm)

Apparently, Carrie Underwood is one of the fortunate ones, able to provide adequate head support with but a single hand. I assume she had exercises - like maybe taking a Louisville Slugger to both head lights and slashing holes in in all four tires - that helped her avoid the dreaded Boyle two-handed lift.

* I think it's Ye Olde British Idole, but I'm too lazy to look it up.

Clothes make the (dead) man

2009-11-06T08:35:00.000-08:00

A tip of the cap to loyal reader Highland Park Attorney, who sent me this rather strange tidbit about a dead Brazilian guy showing up at his own memorial service.

Alive, as it turns out.

It's the first time I've ever heard of someone actually acting out the cliche, "He'd be late for his own funeral."

I especially enjoyed the reporter's observation that "[the dead guy] did not get word about his own funeral until it was already happening Monday morning." Right. That must be such an awkward conversation to have with someone. I mean, I don't think Hallmark makes a card for notifying loved ones that they are deceased.

Aside from that, it made me feel incredibly grateful to live in a place where (I assume*) medical examiners identify dead bodies using clues other than being "dressed in similar clothing," as the police spokesman put it.

* I assume this because of the 37 different CSI: shows on TV. And Castle.

Two delicious

2009-11-05T11:51:00.000-08:00

In past posts, I've both poked fun at Baskin-Robbins and paid well-deserved respects to the company's founder.

That's a lot of SFTC love, especially when you consider that I'm lactose intolerant and probably shouldn't really be eating a whole lot of frozen dairy desserts.

But it's possible that this is one of the 12 best food ideas ever. In fact, it might rank even higher than the Taco Bell Double-Decker Taco among foodstuffs that combine closely related items of awesomeness.*

Now I need to get my mom to come up with a comparable invention so I can combine her obscenely delicious pumpkin chiffon pie and chocolate bourbon pecan pie into a single dessert item when I'm home for Thanksgiving. It could happen.

* Also high on the list of foods not to eat immediately after consuming Double-Decker Tacos. Which, come to think of it, is a pretty long list.

My aim is true

2009-10-30T14:54:00.000-07:00

(Headline inspired by lyrics from this classic song by my close, personal friend, Elvis Costello*.)

Quick post to kick off your weekend: It seems that the fine men and women of our armed forces are, once and for all, trying to put an end to those hi-larious Polish jokes.

Because if you're from a country that is "accidentally" firing a "machine gun" (OK, so the quotes around machine gun weren't really necessary) into a port city of a country that's not at war with you, you might be from one of the stupider countries on the planet.

What was this guy doing, Windexing his M240 while casually waving it around the Lido Deck?

I'm no munitions expert** but wouldn't you think the Navy has safeguards that would prevent a weapon from being discharged in the general direction of a foreign country while that weapon is being cleaned? Like, I don't, know... taking out the bullets first?

Actually, this incident reminds me of one other outstanding tune.

U-S-A! U-S-A!

* Elvis might characterize our relationship somewhat differently.
** Despite persistent rumors to the contrary.

Looking the gift card in the mouth

2009-10-28T22:15:00.000-07:00

It's more than two weeks until my birthday* and I've already gotten two cumpleanos cards.

One arrived yesterday, and it was from my local Hallmark Gold Crown store. Happily for me, it included a coupon for $5 off a $20 purchase at their shop, which is awesome because one thing I want to do for my birthday is buy approximately eight birthday cards for other people.

Following a tradition that continues to impress me and yet makes me feel like they could do better, the other card came from Southwest Airlines. The card now arrives so early every year that I'm beginning to wonder whether they even know when my actual birthday is anymore, or they just know that it's some time after National Deviled Eggs Day. Seriously, they must have dropped this one in the mailbox a full month ahead of time. If I lived in a remote mountain village in Nepal (is there any other kind?), it would have still arrived well in advance of my birthday.

Maybe they're sending it that far in advance because they think I'm getting so old that the chances I'll actually live long enough to see my next birthday keep shrinking, and therefore they'd better get those sincere laser-printed greetings to me as early as possible.

But if that's the case, what a waste of postage, because if I had only two weeks to live, let's be honest, I'd probably book some first class seats on Qatar Airways, take advantage of the on-board Jacuzzi (because what could be more hygienic than a hot tub on an airplane?) and the feather duvet, and fly wherever the hell it is that Qatar Airways flies.***

I realize I might sound somewhat ungrateful, but I really am happy that corporate America loves me so much.

* If this seems like a subtle hint, it's not.**
** Not subtle, I mean.
*** I'm guessing Qatar is one possibility.

I'm a winner

2009-10-22T10:25:00.000-07:00

And now, I would just like to brag that I won a shirt.

By "won," I mean that I responded to an email offer by sending my name, mailing address and shirt size to register for a promotion in which the company was going to send shirts to most people who submitted a valid name, mailing address and shirt size.

But, still. I'll take it.

There's a strong chance that the shirt, conveniently pictured below, is probably a little too fashion-forward for me. I'm not exactly sure where I'd go where black epaulets on a short-sleeve button-down would be situation-appropriate. (Maybe a screening of This is It?)

As worn by a model. A model standing in front of hay. (And, yes, the right breast pocket flap does fold down, in case you're worried.)

Still, I have to say it's a pretty nice garment. And, actually, it probably would meet the dress code for just about anywhere in L.A. It fits great, it feels well constructed and it's made of stretchy fabric, which for some reason I always think is a nice selling point in a shirt.

Thank-yous to the generous and trendy fellas at Cash Crop Clothing for bestowing the freebie, and to Thrillist for holding the contest. Which I won.

The Squid and the Pirate

2009-10-13T11:54:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, I boldly proclaimed that we were clearly in the midst of the Decade of the Pirate, what with all of the stories about buccaneers taking over cargo ships on the high seas. Not to mention the Johnny Depp movies. And Alan Tudyk's character in Dodgeball.

A few weeks later, I proclaimed - no less boldly - that I had proclaimed too soon because it then appeared that this actually was shaping up to be the Decade of the Octopus. (Virtually irrefutable proof here and here.)

And then ... silence.

Pirates and octopi seemingly had fallen off of the radar. Fewer pirate sightings was, I'm sure, good news for those who were responsible for traveling the highly prized Somali Coast route. But the sudden lack of information about eight-armed sea creatures was a troubling development for SFTC because, back in May, I promised you that this blog would be "The source you can rely on for the latest in octopus news."

Thankfully - for me, if not for sailors - pirates are back in the headlines. Unfortunately - for the pirates, at least - the latest attack went a little awry. Instead of storming a cargo ship, as they had planned, they (oopsie!) mistakenly attacked a French military vessel. Now, I don't know much about pirating, but I'm guessing one of the first rules is not to attack a boat on which everyone is armed and has military training.

Even if they are French.

And although I haven't read too much about octopi lately, squid news is close enough, right? OK, good. Because Yahoo News recently ran this piece about scientists accidentally discovering a 105-pound giant squid. (By the way, for a 105 pound mass of future sushi, isn't the word "giant" redundant?)

I especially liked that the writer points out that the discovery reminds us "how little is known about life in the deep waters of the Gulf." Perhaps that's because researchers don't really want to mess with the huge freakin' killer squid living down there.

Balls

2009-10-12T11:05:00.000-07:00

Monday is usually the pits, but I'm doing great so far today.

Mostly that's because I just remembered that CNN.com is still around, still bringing news-starved readers the kinds of important, hard-hitting stories that - let's just be honest - carry with them nothing less than the potential to change people's lives.

Like, for example, this one.

Seriously. Thank goodness the reporter was able to explain the incredible mystery of golf balls at the bottom of Loch Ness -"it is thought locals and visitors have been using the loch to practice their driving skills for quite some time" - because I had presupposed that Nessie had been stockpiling the small white orbs for her planned attack against Scotland.

Extra points to the online editor for categorizing this article in the "World Sport" section (see label at top of page). I guess they haven't come up with a tag for "Completely useless crap that doesn't fit anywhere else."

Reduce, reuse and, uh, print more stuff

2009-10-07T12:02:00.000-07:00

My employer is saying all of the right things about sustainability, reducing our collective carbon footprint, and blah blah blah blah blah. And, despite the indifference all of those blahs might connote, I strongly support those goals.

One recent step toward a greener workplace was the installation of low-flow urinals. I won't get too graphic here, but these babies use only a few cups of water per flush, instead of the 800 gallons per flush* that the old ones used. (It's actually sort of horrifying to think about how much water we've collectively wasted since the urinal was patented back in 1866.) (You're welcome.)

So it's great that we're conserving so much water. But here's what I don't get: On the wall above each shiny new urinal - and there are hundreds, maybe thousands, where I work - there is now a color-printed 3 inch-by-3 inch sticker extolling the contraption's water-saving greatness.

Do you think those stickers were really necessary? I mean, it's not like some dude is going to step up to do his business, see the blank, sticker-less wall and think, "I can't do this - it might not be a water-saving urinal."

Which means we used an awful lot of paper for no other purpose than to tell pee-ers how earth-friendly we are.

* Just an estimate.

Lettuce reconsider

2009-10-06T12:22:00.000-07:00

The lettuce in the Trader Joe's Asian chicken salad that I brought for lunch today was 24 or 36 hours past its expiration date. Which was a bummer.

But I can say with absolute certainty that I'd rather eat expired lettuce than read any more stories about Tyler Perry or Mackenzie Phillips being abused as children. (No links to their stories because, well, it's enough already.)

I'm sorry they suffered (although I feel like Perry is sort of getting his revenge with all of the Madea movies), but I don't get why celebrities think that a perk of being famous is the opportunity to spout off about crap that happened to them three decades ago. Maybe they're just doing it because they know I'll blog about it. Clever bastards.

- - -

In news that is - I'm fairly certain - completely unrelated, my incredibly gorgeous wife and I ordered a pizza from Domino's last night. And it was totally worth it. Not so much for the pizza, which was, frankly, a Domino's pizza, but because of Domino's online order tracker.

Have you seen this thing? We haven't ordered from Domino's in about two years, so I may be way behind the curve here. But it's so much fun, we're seriously considering* ordering another one tonight.

Once you place your order online - who talks on the phone anymore? - you're directed to a new screen with a gizmo that looks like this:

At each stage of the pizza-production-and-delivery-process, the appropriate section of the bar flashes red until it's complete, whereupon** that segment turns solid red. We watched in awe as Fabiola (that's what Pizza Tracker said her name was) marshaled our dinner order from prep to oven to quality testing.

I was somewhat concerned that "quality testing" our pizza meant someone was going to smush their hand in the middle of the pie and grab a handful of the tomato sauce, cheese and pepperoni that was rightfully ours, but after a few bites of dinner, I got over it.

* Just kidding, Bugs.
** I'll have to double check, but this is probably the first use of "whereupon" on SFTC.

Unquestionably worth it

2009-09-25T21:35:00.000-07:00

This hasn't been the best week ever, but lucky for me, it's getting worse right now because it's 9:30 on a Friday night and (1) I'm blogging, which is plenty lame, and (2) the jerkwad who lives upstairs from me thought this would be an awesome time to do some home improvement. Sounds like there's some electric drilling*, some sanding, and - probably just to mess with me - a little bit of hammering. Just awesome.

But please: Don't despair. Because I found something you could buy me to cheer me up. Two nights in Pennsylvania. Well, more specifically two nights at Fallingwater - perhaps the coolest private home ever designed. (Photos here, here and here - thanks, Flickrerers.) I'm a big Frank Lloyd Wright fan, and because I lucked out when it came to getting great parents, I actually got to take a tour of the place when I was in high school.

So, if you'd like to pony up the $1,200 for the two-night stay, I'll promise to send you a post card. Seems totally worth it - even if I'd only get to hang out and eat in the main house (sleeping accommodations are in a neighboring guest house rather than in Fallingwater itself). Yep, sign me up.

Oh, actually, one other thing that really cheered me up this week was that for the first time in months, I sold one of my t-shirts - my homage to Tulsa, Oklahoma. It's probably the most un-PC shirt I've designed, but it was also the first one I posted to my Zazzle page, almost a year ago. I was shocked** that nobody had bought one until now - seemed like the kind of thing that would really catch on.

Get yours today - it's the perfect Yom Kippur gift.

* No, not a euphemism.
** No, not really.

Two thinks about drinks

2009-09-18T10:41:00.001-07:00

That's possibly the stupidest blog post headline I've ever written. But I'm too tired to care. Why? Possibly because I stayed up till 12:45 a.m. playing around with iTunes last night.

But more likely it's because I haven't had a cola* or a Starbucks chai tea latte in almost two weeks. (I tried this once before, memorialized for your entertainment here and here.)

Fortunately, I haven't had any of the withdrawal headaches you hear about, but I'm constantly sleepy and I've finished a 48-pack of Pepto tablets this week, often follwed by Tums chasers.** Also, I've realized that my recent blog posts are almost completely lame.

I'm blaming it all on my well-intentioned but possibly foolish cola-and-chai boycott. Essentially, I have decided that my body is rejecting the lack of caffeine. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but, as you might have read three seconds ago, I'm working without caffeine, people!

On a very loosely related note, it occurred to me this morning that if I lost some of my mojo, it would probably leave me with a mojito.***

Thank you. Don't forget to tip your servers.

* My beautiful wife made fun of me for using the term "cola" the other day, but the word choice is intentional. I did have about a liter of ginger ale last weekend and I was distinguishing that from Coke and its brown, caffeinated soft drink brethren. Now, having explained all of that, I realize I sound even odder, but whatever.
** This is probably not FDA-recommended.
*** I'm sure 943 million people have thought and/or said this before, but I've never heard it, so I'm just going with it.

Amazing she knows how to work a steering wheel

2009-09-16T08:56:00.001-07:00

I've just parked my car on the fourth level of a seven-story parking garage where I work. I know it's the fourth level because it is conveniently labeled with large, bright painted signs, about every 100 feet, that read, and I quote, "LEVEL 4." I don't spend tons of time in the garage* but one thing I've noticed is that the other six levels are also conveniently labeled with large, bright painted signs, about every 100 feet, that indicate to drivers what level they're on.

So it strikes me as somewhat odd when a woman driving a Porsche Cayenne pulls up to me and asks, and I quote, "Is level 2 downstairs from here?"

After offering up my best incredulous stare, I offer up the most brilliant answer I can think of: "Yes."

"In the basement?" she asks.

Yes. They started the building with level 2, just to mess with you.

I am not making this up.

* I'm calling it a garage because that's what it is, although in L.A., for some reason, people call it a "lot."

Oh, good. I wondered where I'd left that temple

2009-09-11T12:20:00.000-07:00

Leave it to CNN.com to come up with those news headlines that really make you think. Take this one, for example, which appeared today:
Ancient synagogue found in Israel
Amazing. I wonder where they had been looking for it originally. I'd probably have started in Israel and worked my way out.

Anyway, I'm glad that came up in today's news because it reminds me of one of my favorite passages of motion picture screenplay, which is from the quirky - and vastly underappreciated* - 1998 movie Zero Effect (trailer here).

Bill Pullman plays a crafty but socially inept P.I. named Daryl Zero, who has a unique way of looking at his job. As Daryl put it:

Now, a few words on looking for things. When you look for something specific, your chances of finding it are very bad, because of all things in the world, you only want one of them.

When you look for anything at all, your chances of finding it are very good, because of all the things in the world, you're sure to find some of them.
I've tried to incorporate that logic into my everyday life, but it seems to work better in the movies.

* Either that or it was mediocre but I was in a great mood when I saw it and it just seemed really funny at the time. Which is possible.

Whereas other fish look like Michelle Pfeiffer

2009-09-10T16:16:00.000-07:00

I'm torn on this one. Which do you think the hoki - a deep-water fish mostly found in the South Pacific - resents more?

A) That New York Times writers are stating categorically that it is "an ugly creature"

or

B) That there's a good chance it ends up covered in "cheese" and served as a McDonald's Filet o' Fish sandwich

Thinking about that delectable combination of fish and cheese reminds me of one of my favorite (that is, one of the nastiest) restaurant reviews ever, which I blogged about back in the good old days.* If you missed it, you'll want to check it out. Unless, of course, you happen to own Gladstone's in Malibu.

* last year

Super, dawg

2009-09-09T14:28:00.001-07:00

Airport layovers usually stink.

But when you're traveling cross-country and you've got a few minutes to kill at Midway Airport in Chicago, layovers rule.

Why?

Photo credit: Me
Food credit: Superdawg

I sort of meant to take a picture of the hot dog, contentedly cushioned in its bed of french fries, but I ate the darn thing too fast.

The National Gallery

2009-09-02T10:32:00.000-07:00

My regular readers will be relieved to know that, despite the catchy, artsy headline, this post doesn't have anything to do with paintings.

Nope, I'm just posting a mini gallery to recap a magnificent performance by The National last Saturday at the Wiltern in Los Angeles. The guys played almost all of the songs I wanted to hear - only exception was my favorite National tune, Gospel - and sounded great doing it. Plenty of energy, and plenty of volume, too, which was cool because several of their songs are essentially loud ballads, so I was wondering how they'd sound in concert.

We were seated in the balcony, which on this night was only a problem because there was no discernible air conditioning and it was about 200 degrees. But despite the heat and the high perch, I managed to take a handful of pictures that I thought were not too terrible.

(To answer the snarky question that my sister will probably ask: No, I didn't take this one from the balcony.)

(Just setting the scene for you. Drink in the atmosphere, people.)

And, for those of you who prefer hearing music to looking at still photos of it, here are vids of two numbers from the show. They're a little dark - bordering on pitch black - for long stretches (I'm doing the best I can with my seven-year-old Sony camera!), but the sound is pretty good.

First, Fake Empire:

And here's Start a War:

Dates for the next few shows are listed here if you want to hear for yourself.

When you wake up feeling old

2009-08-31T08:32:00.000-07:00

(Today's headline courtesy of Wilco.)

You know that scene near the end of Goodfellas when Joe Pesci's character, Tommy DeVito, gets dressed up in his finest suit and tie because he's about to become a made man, and then he walks into the room for the ceremony, but the ceremony never happens because - BANG - Tommy gets shot in the head?

Saturday afternoon I had a similar - if somewhat less bloody - experience. Like Tommy, I never saw it coming.

I'm sitting in a barber's chair at Supercuts, getting the usual SFTC 'do - #3 clippers on the sides and back, scissors on top, sideburns trimmed. Everything's going just fine when my friendly hairstylist casually asks, "Do you use any styling products?"

"Yes," I say. "Pomade."

"Oh. You might want to switch to fiber."

Missing a sterling opportunity to make a joke about already having all the bran I need in my diet, I ask why she thinks I should take such a dramatic step involving my carefully chosen haircare products.

"Your hair is thinning a little on top," she said. "It'll help it look thicker."

[Needle scratches record]

Ouch.

This was especially painful to hear because, throughout my entire haircut-receiving life, I had been told by stylists and barbers that I had such a "thick head of hair." (Which, if you think about it, sounds kind of weird. Maybe it's the "thick head" part.)

I realize they meant it as a compliment, but it was sort of a drag. During my middle school and high school years, I could never wear my hear like the cool kids were wearing theirs. Despite my best efforts, it usually ended up looking... well, a lot like the guy on the right in this picture.

But apparently those days have come to an end. Because now I need to switch to fiber.

Thankfully, I just recently bought two more containers of pomade, which means that my thinning hair will just have to look crappy until approximately the end of the decade.

As I was considering that fact this morning - in what I hope will be my most esoteric thought of the week - I realized that my haircare products have evolved roughly every 10 years. For those of you keeping track (which I figure will be nobody except for Bugs), that evolution has gone something like this:

1980s: Mousse

1990s: Gel

2000s: Pomade

2010s (projected): Fiber

Interesting that the French-sounding products seem to be in vogue every other decade.

Anyway, the whole experience was a huge downer and I was really feeling old. But I had mostly gotten over it by Sunday morning, when I was driving home from the gym. I had the car radio tuned to the oldies station, which usually plays music from before I was born - Beatles, Elvis, The Supremes. But apparently, they've changed that strategy. Because some jackass music director with a twisted sense of humor thought it would be OK for the oldies station to play the vastly unremarkable Naked Eyes song "Promises, Promises." Which was released in 1983, when I was 11.

Thanks, everyone. I think I got the message.

In which I have a meaningful conversation with Hugh Laurie

2009-08-28T14:41:00.000-07:00

Actually, that headline might be a tiny bit misleading - "meaningful conversation" is stretching it a little.

But I did ask a question and Hugh Laurie, the multitalented portrayer of the title character of my current favorite TV show, answered it. Our magic moment took place Wednesday in an online chat on the Los Angeles Times web site but it was almost like we were hanging out in Starbucks like two old pals and since I like you so much, I saved the transcript so you could relive it. Again and again, if you wish.

(Click to enlarge; my question and Mr. Laurie's answer are boxed in yellow for your reading convenience.)

As you can see, it wasn't the most insightful question ever asked, but it's not like I used to be a journalist or anything.*

In my defense, I tried submitting three questions, but this was the only one the moderator chose to include in the chat. Which sucks because my other queries were much more profound. I don't remember the exact wording, but I think my first question was about his view of the potential economic implications of Obama's healthcare bill and the other might have been about Sartre or something.

As celebrity interviews go, I thought it went alright. I mean, at least I didn't pull one of these.

* Oh, right. I actually used to be a journalist.

The minimally annotated L.A. Times redesign announcement

2009-08-23T18:19:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing our nation's newspapers seem to love these days - even more than, say, good reporting or staying in business - it's redesigning their web sites.

So I wasn't surprised to see an email from the good folks at the Los Angeles Times, trumpeting the latest new look of latimes.com (click to enlarge):

Well, let me clarify. I wasn't surprised to receive the email. I was a little surprised once I cracked it open. My hastily considered analysis:

1, We're in 2009, which has to be at least 10 years after marketers figured out that they could personalize email messages, right? Yeah, that's what I thought. Which is why, "Hello Visitor," didn't strike me as the warm, personal greeting they might have been going for.

2, Looks like a slightly refreshed typeface for the masthead. Is it just me, or is it funny that big-city newspapers keep recycling versions of this sort of gothic-y typeface that appears approximately nowhere else in modern life instead of actually coming up with something new?

3, In case you missed it, Michael Jackson died June 25, approximately two months ago. (I'm pretty sure the Los Angeles Times was one of the few media outlets to cover the story at the time.) But, heck, let's subtly drop one more King of Pop reference into the promo email because what better way to tread on the year's most overdone news story than to use it to draw attention to a web site redesign?

4, Let me get this straight: You're drumming up excitement for your web site's new look which, presumably, makes everything look all pretty and nice. And the dominant image in your email is a huge fricking inkblot? A redesign that's so excellent, they'd rather spill crap all over it than show it to you in this message? Wow, I can hardly wait to see.

Short of useful

2009-08-21T13:47:00.000-07:00

Just picked up a tasty submarine from my local Quizno's. I left the store with my sandwich and a plastic cup full of banana pepper slices, of course, but also a potentially useful observation for you.

You know those measuring-stick stickers that businesses put near their doorways so employees can easily tell how tall burglars are while they're running out of the store? Well, the one at this Quizno's started at 5 feet, 5 inches, which I think means that if you've just robbed a Quizno's and you're 64 inches or shorter, your odds of being caught are much, much lower.

I'm 5-10 or so, meaning I'd be well within the burglar-measuring range at Quizno's. Now, I'm not planning anything criminal, mind you. But next time I go there - just to mess with anyone who might be watching me - I think I'll duck on my way out.

Only 2.19178% of a year late

2009-08-19T21:40:00.000-07:00

One of SFTC's most dedicated readers - and one of the proud few to be an official SFTC follower - recently celebrated a birthday. Since then, I have been trying to think of a brilliantly witty way to connect that important occasion into some other news item to create a birthday-worthy blog post. But while I was thinking about it, eight days - or 2.19178 percent of a year - went by.

That's not a very long stretch in geologic time, but in cyberspace and in the belated-birthday-wish genre, it's an eternity. The kicker is that I have heard that an SFTC birthday shout-out was one of the presents she most wanted. (Weird, because if it were me, a birthday mention on SFTC would be about 1,345 spots behind, well, one of these. But, really, who am I to judge?)

So without further ado - or as they say in my hometown, "without further adieu"* - I send the very schmanciest Happy Birthday+8 Days greeting to Jaya B.

* They don't really say this in my hometown; I think they say it in Indiana. I just didn't want to take a cheap shot at Indiana.

Late-breaking news. Emphasis on "late"

2009-08-19T16:36:00.000-07:00

I think it's great that the New York Times is so assiduous about citing reporters whose work helps produce published articles.

But I'm wondering if the credit line that appeared at the end of this article was, technically, completely necessary. Keep in mind, this ran in a story (about the death of legendary CBS News producer Don Hewitt) that was published August 19, 2009.

That's 2009, as in seven years after 2002.

Is it extra creepy that this appears at the end of an obituary? (Personally, I'm wondering if the Times editor felt compelled to add something like "... He just wasn't aware of it at the time.")

Well, either way, RIP Don Hewitt. And, while I'm at it, RIP Walter Goodman, too. Heck of a reporting job.

My champ

2009-08-17T16:09:00.000-07:00

A few of the highlights from a weekend back at home, way over on the other coast...

My nephew swam the full length of my parents' pool - without stopping! - for the very first time.

He had a blast when John Denver's "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" played during the seventh inning stretch at an Orioles game, just like I did when I was his age, which I think was around 120 years ago.

And after he did that, he leaned over to me and whispered, "Uncle, I'm going to miss it when you're not here."

Me too, kid.

My kind of town

2009-08-10T17:38:00.000-07:00

The nice thing about Chicago is that if you're invited to a retirement party for an elected official, there's little chance you'll find yourself wondering, "Should I get a retirement present?" Much less, "What would be an appropriate gift for the occasion?"

Because the answers always will be: "Duh." And: "Cash."

If you need a concise parable to remind you of this advice, I just happen to have one, about the ethically awesome Alderman William J.P. Banks. Kind of cool that his last name is Banks, isn't it?*

Hard to imagine that this is the same city that gave Governor Blagojevich his start in politics.

* Also, I think J.P. probably stands for "Just Pay."

Statue of limitations

2009-08-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

Don't you think this incident, gnarly but somehow poetic, seems like something that would have happened in a Quentin Tarantino movie?

Sure enough, it happened in real life. Thanks, Drunk Belarusian Dude.

A decade away

2009-08-06T16:18:00.001-07:00

For no apparent reason, I read this article in today's Times that includes the prediction that the job of statistician will be H-O-T, hot, hot, hot in 2020.

I've always thought that if you're going to publicize some crazy-ass predicition* that you've made, you might as well (1) publicize it in the New York Times; and (2) make your prediction about something 10 years in the future.

Why, you ask?

Because on the off chance you're right, whoever is filling the role of CNN reporter-moron in 2020 will find the New York Times article and interview you about it repeatedly throughout the year, so your consulting firm will get lots of great exposure.

And if you're wrong, who the hell is going to go back through 10-year-old New York Times articles looking for idiots who made wildly off-base predictions about the employability of stasticians in 2020? (Hint: The answer is "almost nobody.")

Which is why I can tell you that I feel very close to certain that a decade hence, SFTC will be the crown jewel of a $10 billion-a-year media empire and I will be the NBA's first-ever 47-year-old all-star shooting guard.

* Yes, I do realize that it's incredibly stupid of me to make fun of this idea because there's a good chance that Google's chief economist, who made this particular prediction, knows much, much, much more about the subject than I do, even though I read almost all of the New York Times article in which he was quoted.**

** I still would argue that this post is a good guide to use if you do in fact want to make wildly off-base predictions while speaking to news reporters.

The Minimally Annotated Judd Apatow iTunes Playlist

2009-07-28T17:13:00.000-07:00

iTunes posted a playlist selected by movie director Judd Apatow. If I were really knowledgeable about a wider range of musical genres and if I were motivated enough to write a trenchant analysis of someone else's favorite songs, I'd give you a fabulous, in-depth commentary about all 15 tracks.

Lucky for you, I'm neither of those things, so just two comments:

1, I knew I liked this guy. His favorite band ("in life," he explains): Wilco! And apparently the soundtrack of Apatow's upcoming movie, Funny People, will include my favorite Wilco song, Jesus etc. I am on board, mister director.

2, Does it strike you as funny (or, if you are Tipper Gore, does it strike you as an epic mistake) that the Eminem song, "When I'm Gone" on this list is tagged with an "Explicit" label, but three lines below is a Warren Zevon tune called "My S**t's F****d Up," that doesn't have the warning? I'm pretty sure Zevon actually spelled it without those asterisks, and he certainly sang it without them. These iTunes censors are on the ball, no?

Where there's smoke

2009-07-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning with a strange craving for Cool Ranch Doritos and Twinkies, and now I know why: This newsmaking event was taking place just a few minutes from our apartment.

I wonder how many people gathered around to, um, observe.

UPDATE/DEVELOPING STORY:* My observant and gorgeous wife read today's post and informs me that the fire actually occurred earlier this week. It was only "news" in the sense that today was the day that I found a three-day old article about it.

This leaves open the question of why I had a sudden taste for junky snack food earlier today. Suggestions?

* I mean "developing story" in the same, presumably ironic, way that CNN means it when they're covering an event that has already happened but label it on TV and online as "developing." Which is to say, it's not really a developing story.

Undiscovered country

2009-07-22T14:36:00.000-07:00

I just got a promotional email from the fine people at Yahoo! Travel - their exclamation mark, not mine - that caught my attention.

Here's a lil' piece of it (click to big-ify):

See the right sidebar, billed as "Top All-American Destinations"? It makes me think that this email would be so incredibly helpful to anyone planning a domestic vacation! Imagine: A reminder that among the top American cities for tourism are places like New York, Philly, Boston, San Francisco and D.C.

(Really? Over Detroit, Schenectady, Timonium, Ogden and Akron?)

I don't even want to click that link to "see more travel ideas" because I'm overwhelmed with the amazing concepts Yahoo! Travel has already provided for me. I never would have thought of those five.

Nonstop fun

2009-07-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

OK, alright, already. I'm back from cruising around the Land of Palin. Great trip, thanks for asking.

I'm pretty sure the funniest thing I saw while we were away was actually in Vancouver, B.C., before we set sail.

While we were on our way from the Vancouver airport* to the Vancouver pier,** we spied outside of the starboard side (I'm all shippy now, but for you non-sailors, that's means "the right side") of our bus a traffic sign that looked a lot like this one:

And I wondered: How strange to cross out a stop sign. Because, wait... remind me, what's the opposite of stop? I mean, couldn't they just do this?***

The hijinks didn't stop there. On board our big huge ship, the main dining room took up parts of the seventh and eighth floors. I assume there are some times at which the stewards have to travel between the two decks, which led me to believe that it's one of the rare times you can see a dumb waiter on an elevator.

(Crickets, right?)

Thank you. I'm here all night.

* Possibly the cleanest airport in the universe.
** Almost certainly the most Vancouverish pier I've ever seen.
*** Before I get all kinds of angry comments from traffic-sign-loving Canadians: Yes, I know the sign actually means that you're not allowed to stop your car by the side of the road in that area. I maintain that when it comes to traffic instructions, there's a subtle difference between "don't stop" and "no stopping," which is why god invented this sign.

A, but not WOL

2009-07-12T00:02:00.000-07:00

Goin' fishing* for the next few days. Well, not actually fishing - I'm going on a cruise to Alaska. But I thought I'd write "goin' fishing" because it's folksy, and because I didn't want to reveal my exact plans. But now that I mentioned the cruise, so much for that.

This alleged "cruise ship" apparently charges 50 cents a minute for Web access, and while I dearly love all eight of you who read this blog, I don't think we're at that stage in our relationship where I pay 50 cents a minute to inform and enlighten you online.

Still, I do care. I know you'll want to be entertained while I'm gone, so I'm reminding you about a few of my favorite blogs that you should visit while I'm on the high seas:

Daddy Geek Boy: If you're looking for a entertaining blog written by a dude in greater L.A. (also how I describe SFTC), here you go. (That description sells DGB short, but it's midnight, I'm tired, and I have to leave for the airport in 6 hours.)

Color Me Katie: If you like wholesome goodness, sunshine, photos, pets and/or imagination, this is almost guaranteed to make you smile.

Swiss Miss: Satisfy your craving for cool design and neat new products.

Motherhood in NYC: I gather that most of MiNYC readers are moms. As you might know by now, I am not a mom. I do, however, consistently laugh MAO at this amazing blog.

Awkward Family Photos: Sort of self-explanatory, isn't it? Also sort of un-PC. Which is OK with me - I'm just sayin'.

I'm back next week - possibly with vacation stories. That'll get you to come back, right?

*Since I'm writing Goin', I suppose I should just write fishin', too? WWSPD,** right?
** What Would Sarah Palin Do?

Oooey gooey diplomacy

2009-07-08T16:58:00.000-07:00

Am I seeing things, or did Vlad Putin - Vlad and I are on a first-syllable basis - serve Toaster Strudels when President Obama arrived for breakfast yesterday?

Visual evidence from the New York Times:

Seriously, I think that look on Putin's face pretty much says: You take the strawberry strudel, Mr. Obama, and I'll go nuclear.

Oh, and if you're one of those folks who actually reads the news instead of just scanning the pretty photos, here's the story about their meeting.

One passage about U.S.-Russia diplomacy that I found interesting, if not very surprising:

Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev announced an agreement to open a joint early-warning center to share data on missile launchings. But Presidents Bill Clinton and Boris N. Yeltsin announced the same agreement in 1998. Mr. Clinton then announced it again with President Vladimir V. Putin in 2000. Mr. Putin and President George W. Bush recommitted to it as recently as 2007. And none of them ever actually built the center.

Well, good to know we're moving in the right direction on that front.

Occasionally, death is creepy

2009-07-08T11:03:00.000-07:00

The phone rings Monday night and it's my mom.

Me: Hi, Mom.
Mom (excitedly, without pausing to say something like "Hello"): You going to the funeral?
Me (trying to remember if a relative or close friend had died in the previous 24 hours): Huh?
Mom: Michael Jackson's!

Oh. That.

Of course, I did think for a few minutes about entering the lottery for the KOP's memorial service, but despite my love for recently deceased individuals who I've never met, large crowds, driving to Dodger Stadium to wait in line for stuff, Los Angeles traffic made worse by widespread street closures, and things that are generally overwrought, I decided against it. Sounds crazy, I know, but I think the right time to get Michael Jackson tickets was actually about 25 years ago.

And so I determined to skip the big to-do at Staples Center yesterday. But like any good child of the 80s, I did tune in for some of the online coverage.

There were plenty of creepy moments, ranging from slightly uncomfortable to cringeworthy - I'm looking at you, singing-to-the-casket-Usher - but I especially liked these two (click to enlarge images):

1) Video Michael reaches out for a low-five from Brooke Shields.

2) City of Los Angeles asks mourners to kick in a little coin to pay for all of the city's hard work in shutting down most of downtown for a day - with the clever spin that it would give Jackson "the world-class memorial he deserves." Right.

Wilco (the photos)

2009-07-06T22:01:00.000-07:00

If you've been paying attention, you've probably picked up a hint, here or there (or here) that my favorite (currently active*) music group is Wilco.

I have heard them perform live in four states (multiple times in Illinois, once each in Wisconsin and Washington, and now twice in California), which won't sound that impressive if you're into Phish or the Dead, but I can say with certainty that it's a personal best - and, thankfully that's three more than the number of states in which I've seen Huey Lewis and the News perform. (Landover, Md., 1986! Whoooee!)

I'm enough of a fan that I bought their newest album, which is cleverly titled "Wilco (the album)," despite the fact that before purchasing it, I had listened all the way through about four times and don't really like it. But, eh. It's Wilco - I'll like it eventually. Besides, the CD cover is a picture of a camel. That sort of hooked me. And, further evidence of my fan-hood (fan-ness?): In flagrant disregard of my already-overflowing T-shirt drawer, I now own three Wilco t-shirts.

The point is that I was fortunate enough to grab a seat - well, not a seat, actually, but a very small piece of standing room in between the chests, butts and elbows of fellow fans - for one of Wilco's three sold-out concerts at the Wiltern in Los Angeles a few weeks ago.

See, it says Sold Out right there on the marquee.

The performance was just fantastic - among the best shows I've seen them play. (Unless Laura is reading this. In which case: Laura, don't worry, it was terrible.) The songs from the new disc even sounded good - including a surprise Leslie Feist appearance for the duet "You and I" - and the band played several of my favorites, including California Stars, Pot Kettle Black, Passenger Side and A Shot in the Arm.

If I were feeling more enterprising, I'd post a video clip for you (I might add one later), but for now, I thought I'd share one of the only photos I took that actually came out alright. Here are Mikael Jorgensen, Jeff Tweedy, Glenn Kotche and John Stirratt in action. (Not pictured are Nels Cline and Pat Sansone, in case you're keeping track.)

I'm sorry you couldn't catch the concert with me. I'd suggest you make up for it with 3 minutes, 51 seconds of muscial excellence - my favorite Wilco song, Jesus Etc.

* To distinguish them from the Beatles, my favorite group in the half-of-the-band-is-now-dead category.

Half the battle

2009-07-06T15:15:00.000-07:00

A few people I know insist that I'd feel healthier and have more energy - and, possibly, my trousers* would fit better - if I incorporated more fruits and veggies in my diet. I'm skeptical, and, frankly it seems a shame to just ignore the Taco Bell/KFC right down the street.

(Just wondering - do any of you ever go to one of those combo places and order "dinner" from Taco Bell and get "dessert" from KFC? I'd be impressed.)

Not only that, but now I'm hearing that the fruits and veggies they sell at my local grocery store probably are all contaminated with god knows what, and that it's almost not worth buying produce unless it's certified organic, free-range, locally grown, tenderly harvested, nuclear-free apples and strawberries and whatever.

Which is great, because if there's anything in this world that gets me pumped up, it's the idea of paying $6 for a multi-adjective apple.

Happily, a few weeks ago, a new farmers market began operating nearby every Saturday. I knew this was my kind of farmers market, because in addition to leafy things I had previously only seen in photographs, this farmers market also has vendors that offer hand-ground chocolate and organic** pork sliders. Seriously, though, most of the stands had signs proclaiming their goodies to be organic and pesticide-free, which I knew would make my health-nut friends happy.

With their advice ringing in my ears, I knew I couldn't go to a farmers market and buy chocolate and pork. Or, I should say, I knew I couldn't only buy chocolate and pork. So I decided to invest in some strawberries, grapefruit, garlic, mint and - because my gorgeous wife loves them - avocados.

Which worked out well, because other than the avocados, which I knew would be eaten, I think I ate everything... well, everything except for the grapefruit, garlic and mint. And most of the strawberries. But let me tell you: The chocolate was truly out of this world. And nearly worth the $30 I paid for all of that other junk.

So now I'm just hoping that purchasing healthful food will help me stay fit and live longer. If so, I'm cruising toward 100!

*I'm going out on a limb and saying this is the first time I've written the word trousers on my blog.
** I have no idea if they're organic, or, indeed, if there is such a thing as an organic slider.