My champ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.