Awesome

See, makers of 17/20ths of the commercials out there? Being good and funny while getting your point across isn't so hard.

Martin chimes in

Roland Martin takes a solid shot at Palin for talking a lot of trash without confronting any tough questions of her own. Martin brings up her most egregious statement, that the report on troopergate cleared her of any legal or ethical wrongdoing. Pay attention, now, Sarah: the report cleared you of legal wrongdoing, but stated that you violated the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. I could be insane, but that's pretty much the definition of ethical wrongdoing.

Time's analysis of the troopergate report, which delves into the report in more detail, can be found here.

Wackjobs

I've never really clips from al Jazeera before, but this is pretty well done, in the sense that if you watch it you get the sense that America is populated by a bunch of dumb, ignorant hicks. I can't believe I share a country with these people.




I have to give major props to the guys waving the Obama signs along the road to the rally. Given the makeup of that crowd, I don't know if I'd have the courage to do that.

I also need to give credit to Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, since that's where I saw this. It's an excellent site, and he posts a lot of interesting political coverage.

Electoral

First let me say I think the Electoral College is outdated and should be abolished, especially in the wake of what happened in 2000. However, I'm not surprised that it hasn't been, nor am I surprised at the lack of movement in that direction. Earlier this summer I read an article on the possibility of McCain winning the college but Obama winning the popular vote-and not by a little, like Gore did in '00, but by several million. At the time is wasn't hard to imagine: Obama winning big in the states he took and losing only by a little in the states he lost. The article quoted an anonymous campaign (McCain's, I think) source as saying that the American public could take an election like that (meaning 2000) once every hundred years, but not twice in eight. I agreed at the time, and I still do, but it's starting to look more and more like that won't happen.



On and off for the past week or two I've been fiddling with CNN's Electoral Map Calculator. It's pretty cool-it let's you assign the states to either candidate, and starts it out based one what their current poll numbers show: safe Obama/McCain, leaning Obama/McCain, or tossup. Before the market blew up I thought there were four possibilities: Obama wins big, Obama wins small, McCain wins small, or a tie, with Obama winning small being the most likely possibility. But over the last couple of weeks Obama winning with an electorally significant margin has become a greater possibility. While there's a decent bit of time left yet, and victory is by no means assured, the math is starting to look imposing for McCain.



CNN's map (again, guided by their current poll numbers) has 264 electoral votes safe or leaning Obama. This includes Maine, who gives 2 votes to the statewide winner, and then one each to the winner of the two congressional districts. I've heard McCain has a shot at one of the district votes (the 2nd, I think), so let's say 263 for Obama. This includes the western seaboard and Hawaii, NM, MN, IA, WI, MI, IL and everything north of DC (including PA). This is hardly an optimistic projection, and it means all Obama would have to do to win is take OH, FL, VA, CO, NC, IN or MO. CNN lists all of these at tossups, but you can get more detail from pollster on each one of those key races. I would be shocked if Obama didn't come away with at least one.



So the question starts becoming how many electoral votes can Obama get? Fivethirtyeight.com lists the most common Obama totals as 375, 380,383, 338 and 381. Personally, when I go through the map I end up coming out somewhere in the 330s. There's one thing in the back of my mind, though. There's been a lot of talk recently about the Bradley effect, which basically is the fear that people are saying they're going to vote for Obama out of fear of appearing racist. The race that keeps coming back to me, however, is the MN gubernatorial race in 1998, when Jesse Ventura won a three-way race because of his ability to get non-traditional voters to the polls. This meant that going into election day, polls of likely voters that had been put in the field hadn't given him much of a chance. Now, I have no idea if or how the 2008 national polls take likely vs non-likely voter into account. But since Obama's candidacy, backed by an excellent organization, turned a lot of first-time voters out to the polls in the primary, it's a good bet that they'll do so in the general (something backed up by the significant new voter registration numbers that have started to come out across the country). If this gives his election-day numbers an unexpected bump, we could see something even more remarkable than anyone expects.

"More fun than Shark Week!"

I've liked Nathan Fillion ever since I saw the first episode of Firefly, so I'm pretty psyched about this new cop show that's coming out on ABC. Granted, it looks a little like Bones, but since Fillion's last show got canned before I could start watching it, I'm hoping this one is good enough to hang around. It certainly looks like it.

RS article

If you have 15-20 minutes, take some time and read this article about McCain that's coming out in the latest Rolling Stone. It's long-10 web pages-but it's in-depth and an important look at McCain's behavior during his life. Essentially it's closer look at the biographical story the GOP has made so much of during the campaign. It's a damning article, but well-supported and thoroughly researched. I wasn't voting for McCain before, so it didn't change my vote, but it did change my opinion of him as a public servant. I recommend reading it.

Scary as hell

If you've been paying any attention to election news over the last week, you've heard about some of the stuff McCain supporters have been shouting during his (and Palin's) rallies. Someone will wait for him to pause, then shout "terrorist", "traitor", "off with his head", and other completely insane comments. If you need to see some of the wackjobs I'm talking about, you can check out this, this and this.

For me, the scary part was that the last clip was from a town hall meeting that McCain held in Lakeville, MN, just a few miles north of Carleton, where I went to college. The crazies have invaded my own state. Damn it. Not only that, but this Star Tribune article quoted the Obama-is-an-Arab lady as saying after the meeting

"You can't trust Barack Hussein Obama because he is a Muslim and a terrorist."

Now, I'm a big Obama guy. I have no problem with people supporting McCain, but my hope would be that they do so because of some policy stance he takes or some conception of his leadership skills, despite the fact that I may disagree with them about said policies or skills. However, I am seriously disturbed by these morons who are so willfully ignorant that they believe Obama is an Arab, a Muslim, a terrorist or whatever other totally false, loony charges they level against him. And now, on election day, my vote for Obama will be cancelled out by this crazy woman's vote for McCain. My only hope is that her inability to discern truth from fiction will cause her to spend election day hiding in a field after hearing a rebroadcast of War of the Worlds.

Skyscraper times a billion

I don't know how many man-made objects can be seen from space, mostly because I've never been there. I'm pretty sure the Great Wall of China is the only one, because the other possibilities have involved someone calling the person who said it an idiot. But I'm pretty sure that this could be seen from space, since it would actually go from earth to space. If they could pull this off it would probably be one of the greatest feats of human engineering of all time, and just the possibility of seeing it happen in our lifetimes is kinda cool.

Branagh's next project

According to this Variety story, Kenneth Branagh is in negotiations to direct Marvel Studio's Thor, which is set for 2010. Presumably the film will introduce the character and set him up for The Avengers, which is due out a year later.

I'm cautiously psyched about this choice. Yes, Branagh hasn't flexed his action chops in awhile, but neither had Bryan Singer before he did X-Men. Branagh has talent. How it will translate to this material is a question, but I'm feeling pretty good about my belief that he won't make a crappy movie.

Woohoo!

I've been living and dying (mostly dying) with the Twins over the past week as they try to make the playoffs. But in the fantasy baseball world the season ended yesterday, and I pulled out a 1st place finish in both of my head-to-head leagues, despite finishing 4th and 5th in the regular season. So no matter what happens in reality, and least I have those two fantasy victories. Now if I could just figure out how to win a roto league...

Newman

I like movies, but I can't claim to be a film buff. I can't walk you down Newman's imdb page and discuss point-for-point the finer aspects of his lesser-known roles. I've only seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid once, I've seen most of Cool Hand Luke but not all of it (and on tv, no less), and I even haven't ever really sat down and watched Slapshot. But after hearing that he died Friday after battling cancer, I started thinking about some of the films I had seen him in. I enjoyed Butch Cassidy the one time I saw it. The Sting is awesome, and probably responsible for my love of the artfully concealed late reveal. The Hudsucker Proxy is my favorite Cohen Bros. movie, due in no small part to Sidney J. Mussburger. And Road to Perdition, his last physical movie role, is a fantastic and massively overlooked film. Newman is notable in all of these films because he stands out, because his character stays with you after the credits. He doesn't steal his scenes, either-his performance make the whole movie better. Obviously he hadn't done a film since '02, and his health made it unlikely that he'd have done any new major films. But it still sucks to lose someone that good.

Debate

I was at the Twins game on Friday night, so I didn't see any of the debate. I've read a lot of reaction to it to see how it played, but this is probably the most intelligent analysis about what exactly debates accomplish these days.

Wow.

Why do some people still think Palin for VP was a good idea?

Why Wait?

More and more, the internet is where I'm getting my TV from these days. Take the last three days. Monday I bought the season premiere of House from Amazon Unbox. Yesterday I caught up on the summer finale of Burn Notice and the season premiere of How I Met Your Mother, both of which I had missed when they aired. Then today I happen upon the news that the season premiere of Chuck, which will air next Monday, is already online and ready to watch. So I did. Not only is this freaking awesome, but three of the four were free, and those had less commercials than an episode that was traditionally broadcast.

Now that's just good stuff.

Chicago Heavyweights

Here are some photos from this past weekend, which I spent in/outside of Chicago playing in a frisbee tournament. I apparently have the tendancy to have funny expressions on my face when I'm playing, which I didn't realize until I looked back at some of the shots taken of me while playing ultimate. In any case, it was an excellent time. The amazing view is courtesy of Java's aunt, who was nice enough to let five of us occupy her 18th floor condo just north of downtown. I also highly recommend Karyn's Cooked, a vegan-only (or mostly, I'm not sure) restaurant that I have now eaten at twice. It's quite good.

Why I love the Daily Show

You won't see this on any network or cable news show. But you should. Because this is what's wrong with politics. Is there any way someone can show these people a tape of this and force them to answer for their idiocy?

Daily Show in St. Paul

I didn't know the Daily Show was coming to St. Paul early enough to get tickets. Damn. At least I still get to watch it.

In any case, check out this billboard that the Daily Show set up to welcome people to the RNC. Now that's humor.

Backfire

Another post by Sullivan with an interesting look at how the Palin pick could backfire with some of the people McCain was trying to court.

Obama=Palin?

Sullivan makes an excellent point here: comparing Obama to Palin is, at this point, ridiculous. On paper it might work, depending on how you equate her "executive" experience with Obama's legislative experience. But you'd have to ignore two things: First, the fact that since being elected to the Senate (and even before then), Obama has engaged the major issues the country is facing on the national stage. Where are Palin's major policy addresses on...well, anything? From what I've seen so far, she hasn't engaged any foreign policy issues in any meaningful way.

The second thing you'd need to ignore is the last 18 months, that is, Obama's campaign for president. The way he's conducted himself during the primary and the way his team dismantled the Clintons. You want executive experience? Running what may be the smoothest campaign in modern politics and defeating an entrenched opponent with almost every initial advantage takes serious leadership ability. I'm not saying that Palin couldn't have some serious chops (although I'd be surprised if she had anything close to Obama's level of ability), but at this point she's an unknown. Even Obama had four years in DC and some of the best people in the business on his team to get him to this point. And by most accounts it still took him several debates to get to the point where he could compete with Hilary. Palin has the Everest of learning curves ahead of her right now.

Who?

McCain's choice of Sarah Palin for VP clearly indicates a desire to gain the vote of my friend Java, who grew up in Alaska and who worked on a commercial fishing boat for two summers (Palin's husband is/was a commercial fisherman). I think that's really the only vote he was looking to pick up here.

That's not true, of course. McCain clearly wanted to accomplish three things with this pick: First, mollify the right. Palin (reportedly) has solid conservative credentials, both socially and economically. Second, he wanted to cement his own position as a maverick. Palin is definitely a non-traditional pick that gives the Republican ticket its own claim on history (but only if they win). Third, McCain wanted to go after disgruntled Hilary voters. Pawlently and Romney don't help McCain with two of those three.

It's a risky move. McCain has essentially sacrificed his ability to make the experience argument against Obama by nominating someone who's younger and has less foreign policy experience. She could get destroyed by Biden in the debates. And I don't buy the argument I heard on CNN about injecting energy and excitement into the convention next week. Curiosity I buy, but not excitement. She's also under investigation for the firing of an official who refused to fire her sister's ex-husband, a state trooper. I have to assume that the McCain vetters looked into that enough to be satisfied that there's nothing actionable there, but the possibility remains of the press corps digging up something on her.

It could pay off, of course. It gives the ticket more outside-the-beltway cred to push the change message, and after watching her speech this morning it's obvious the campaign was looking for her to play the family card. It's kind of funny (but makes a certain amount of sense) that the candidates essentially picked their own party's version of their opponents as running mates.

Overall it seems like McCain has decided the experience argument wouldn't work, and has decided to change the game a bit. Whether or not it works depends on how effective Palin is at bringing in the support McCain needs from her.

Obama Accepts

According to the yahoo pundits, who first critiqued Michelle Obama's speech on Monday for not attacking McCain enough then backtracked and called it an excellent set up for the rest of the week, Obama's acceptance speech last night had to accomplish about 18,000 different things, many of them contradictory. By my estimation, he was able to get almost all of them done (almost-according to one of the idiots, the speech was too long. ugh.).

In any case, I thought he did a fantastic job defining himself, his policies and the way he intends to run his campaign. It wasn't quite as inspiring as the "Yes We Can" speech after New Hampshire, or as historic as the "More Perfect Union" speech in the middle of the Rev. Wright fiasco. But it balanced inspiration with substance, drew a line between attacking policies and attacking the candidate, and laid out a reasonable, bi-partisan approach to some of the biggest cultural problems in the country. The section toward the end when Obama spoke about having differences on abortion, gun control and gay rights but still making progress on the issues was ridiculously good. I heard someone comment on both Clintons' ability to deliver big-game speeches. Obama's performance last night cements his reputation as the best big-game speaker in the business.

Analysis

An excellent look at Hillary's campaign, and why Obama won.

Wanted

I've seen the trailers for Wanted for awhile now, and they looked pretty cool. Although I had heard about the comic series, I hadn't read it. So last Friday I picked up the trade paperback so I could read it before the movie. And after finishing it earlier today, I can safely conclude that the movie will be very, very different from the comic. Not necessarily in plot, but in particulars. In the comics, the plot revolves around a boring, everyday loser whose father, who he's never known, dies. But his father, who was part of a Fraternity of supervillians who killed all the superheroes in 1986 and now secretly run the world, left him a ton of money and a genetic legacy of being able to kill just about anything. However, to collect his inheritance, this kid must become part of the Fraternity, which means he gets to create a trail of rape, murder and mayhem wherever and whenever he wants. Essentially, Wanted takes place in a universe where the bad guys won. And it means they get to indulge in every sick, twisted fantasy they want with repercussions.

I enjoyed the comic quite a bit, and I'm guessing the movie plot will have many of the same elements. But I'm going to go ahead a guess that Hollywood will change the edgier aspects of the comic into something a little more palatable for people. We'll see how well it works-the superhero/supervillian dynamic is kind of what gives the comic its backbone. That and the massive amounts of unPC violence and swearing. I'm now slightly skeptical about the movie.

25'

After getting back from the Boundary Waters on Monday night, the first thing I did was to pick up the paper and see what had happened with Puerto Rico and Florigan in the Democratic primary. I was amazed to find out that Obama would be speaking at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul after the end of the primaries on Tuesday, especially since at that point he would have most likely captured the nomination. Being a massive Obama fan since I watched his speech at the 2004 convention I knew I had to go. So at about 3:30 the next day, I headed to St. Paul to stand in line and hopefully get in to see history.

As I started walking along the line outside the Xcel at a little after 4pm, it was already huge. I came to the end of the line, but was informed that it reached back across the intersection I was standing right next to, and indeed I could see that stretched many blocks into downtown St. Paul. However, this line was set up along a metal fence that had been set up for the event. As I stood at the intersection, I saw people walking on the other side of this fence toward another entrance and forming new lines at the doors there. I knew that two entrances would be opened for the rally, so I just followed the line that was moving. So I ended up in one of six lines, about 20 people from the entry doors. I don't know if I was supposed to be able to do this, but no one told me not to. After two hours they opened the doors. I got in, bought some food and hit the bathroom (which turned out to be a very good decision, as I would have never gotten my spot back if I had had to leave it). In another stroke of luck, I overheard an usher saying that entrance to the floor could be gained from the line to my right. So I went to my right, stood in line, got onto the arena floor and grabbed the best spot I could-right in front of the empty podium, about 25' away.

The seats filled up slowly over the next three hours, and my feet started to hurt as I had been standing for a long time. But when Barak Obama and his wife, Michelle, came out, it was as if the room had exploded. MSNBC had been on the jumbotron earlier, but it had been turned off before Obama had been declared the nominee. Thus, when he came out and began to speak, the line "I will be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States" almost caused the crowd to riot. The closest thing I can compare it to would be the footage I've seen of Beatles' concerts in the 60's. I couldn't even hear the whole line-everything after "nominee" was cut off.

The speech wasn't long, but that was fine. Afterward I stayed and tried to get as close as I could to the rope line. I didn't get to shake his hand (I was about 2 people back from being able to do that), but I did get within about five feet of him as he worked the line. And that was pretty freaking cool.

Thinking about it later, it occurred to me that this might be the most historic event I'll ever personally get the chance to witness. Something could best it, of course, but for now it's easily at the top of the list. The best five hours standing I've ever spent.

BWCA

Last weekend I got the chance to go on a very short-notice trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which takes up a decent part of the northern Minnesota boundary with Canada (it extends into Canada as Quentico National Park). I've been several times before, but the last time I went was just before the beginning of my senior year at Carleton, which was the fall of 2001.

I consider the BWCA to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and this trip reminded me just how correct I am in that assessment. I went with my good friend Dustin Allebach and two other guys. We entered through Brule Lake, camped one night (in a bit of rain), then did five portages the next day (totaling 324 rods) to Winchell Lake, where we stayed for two days. Though we fished for most of the weekend, only one fish was caught out of a canoe, a 2 lbs. sucker that was hurriedly thrown back.

However, the guy who had set up the trip (Dan McCarthy by name), had the practice of throwing out smelt on a hook at each campsite, letting it sit on the bottom and wedging the fishing pole into a position on shore such that we would hear the drag going out if there was a hit. Well, I didn't hear the drag, but I did see the rod bending after we arrived and set up camp on Winchell. After about 7 minutes of fighting, I managed to land an 8 pound northern, which I'm pretty sure is the biggest fish I've ever personally caught. It was turned into Saturday night's main course, which was good because we figured we'd catch enough fish for at least one meal. Unfortunately, other than these two incidents the fish were conspicuous by their absence during the weekend.

On Sunday we bushwhacked to the top of a cliff on the south side of the lake, where we saw rain go by off to the north of us, giving us a rare double rainbow effect. Even more rare was the fact that the brighter rainbow split at its apex into a second color spectrum, so we kind of had three. We then proceeded to take the steepest route down the cliff that didn't involve jumping into the lake. No one was hurt.

A fantastic trip. I'm glad I was able to go.

Let Deathball Begin!

I love Futurama. Its best doesn't quite reach the Simpsons' best, but it's more consistent (even during the earlier, good Simpsons seasons) and it's more creative. It sucked when it was cancelled, especially since it was Fox's fault for moving it all over creation. I was a devoted fan for the last season or so, and I couldn't figure out when it was on half the time.

Anyway, that's all in the past, as Futurama is coming out with movie-length dvds. The first offering, Bender's Big Score, was excellent (although with a different tone from the episodes). I eagerly await the next release, The Beast With A Billion Backs.

Look! A trailer!

VPs

An excellent look at Obama's potential VP candidates. I'm all about the Obama-Luthor ticket.

Stardust

This is pretty cool.

Good News/Bad News

The good news is that Joss Whedon and J.J. Abrams, the creators of two of my favorite TV series (Firefly and Lost), have new shows coming out next fall. The bad news? They're on Fox, the channel notorious for cancelling shows quickly after FUBARing the marketing. The most notable examples being Firefly, Futurama and Family Guy, all of which have had some form of post-cancellation life.

So on the one side I hope they're good. On the other side, I'm a little afraid of really liking them only to have them cancelled out from under me.

Here's a preview for Abrams' Fringe, and here's a preview for Whedon's Dollhouse.

Hillary Clinton is pissing me off

Yes, I am an Obama fan. But that's not the reason. The race was pretty much decided when Obama won NC big and lost IN small, but I have no problem with her staying in until SD, MT and PR have voted (by the way, isn't it weird that US administrative holdings like Puerto Rico, Guam, etc. vote in the primaries but not in the general? I think it's weird). She might as well, at this point.

What's pissing me off is the Michigan and Florida thing. This used to be a non-issue, until Hillary got behind. Then she suddenly changed her mind about the great injustice that the DNC had perpetrated on the poor states. Here's where I stand on that.

Fine, I get it. FL and MI are two big states come November that the Dems could really use. They don't want to piss them off too much. But for Hillary to seriously suggest that the delegations should be seated according to the voting results is idiotic to the Nth degree. It's dumber than a bag of lombotomized emus. It's dumber than playing golf in a thunderstorm. It's dumber than the movie It's Pat. It's offensively stupid.

Let's look at the facts: the DNC pulled the delegates after MI and FL moved up their primaries to get more national media attention. All the candidates knew it, and no one protested. Neither Hillary nor Obama campaigned in either state before their primaries. The only names on the Michigan ballot were Clinton, Kucinich and Gravel, as Obama and Edwards pulled theirs at the request of the party. This meant Hillary, with one of the biggest brand names in politics, had a massive advantage over Obama, especially among older and lower-income voters who would have limited (or no) access to the internet to research the candidates themselves.

Both races would have been much closer had the candidates actually campaigned and had Obama's name been on the ballot in MI. Hillary would have stood a good chance of winning both states, but since the delegates are proportionally allocated the margin of victory is all-important. Hillary's assertion that the results should stand as they are is lunacy. Declaring victory over an opponent whose name wasn't even on the ballot is about as un-democratic as you can get.

Flag pins are stupid

They are. They really, really are. I honestly can't believe so much time and energy has been spent paying attention to this ultimate non-issue.

CNN's Roland Martin, who I find consistently astute and insightful, has a Swiftian solution.

War in Lebanon

CNN and the BBC are reporting that fighting has broken out in Beirut after Hezbollah essentially declared war on the Lebanese government. At this point the fighting mostly seems to between Sunni (who back the government) and Shia (oppose the government/backed by Hezbollah) militias, rather than between the army and Hezbollah itself. Roadblocks have been set up throughout the city and the airport has been effectively shut down.

What apparently set this off was the government's decision to sack the head of security at the airport, after he was accused of allowing Hezbollah to install their own surveillance cameras. The government then followed this up by declaring Hezbollah's "extensive fixed-line telecommunications network" illegal, leading Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, to declare war (kind of) on the Lebanese government.

You know, I've heard Beirut is actually a pretty nice city-modern, cosmopolitan, etc. It's a shame that they've got crazy bastards running half their country. Plus, can't the Sunnis and Shias just figure out a way to play nice?

Given amount of control Hezbollah has in the south and east of Lebanon and its presence in the government, this could go one of two ways: one, the government backs down (or "compromises") and things blow over, or two, it doesn't and the country rips itself a new one.

We're Nazis on the Moon, We carry a Harpoon...

This is a teaser trailer for a movie called Iron Sky. Nazis are a pretty stock bad guy at this point. So they had to jazz them up a little bit. Therefore: Space Nazis!

Primaries

Right now Obama is projected to win NC by a sizeable margin. I'm hoping it ends up at least 60-40, although it's currently 56-42 with 56% reporting. That's good but expected news. At this point Indiana is the story. With 75% reporting, Hilary leads 52-48 with about a 39,000 vote lead which has been shrinking all night. Several of the counties that have yet to finish reporting are around Indianapolis and have been supporting Obama so far. If Obama can manage to pull even it would be a serious victory for him.

Boundarylessness

I just finished applying for a job. This process, as it often does, required me to register with the company's employment website. When I finished, they sent me an email confirmation to let me know my application had been received. Here's the last line, which I guess is meant to list their corporate ideals:

Customer Focus - Valuing Our People - Passion For Winning - Innovation - Boundarylessness

Wow. Boundarylessness. Now that's bold.

"You think you're the only superhero in the world?"

Before the two days of insanely nice weather, frisbee madness and sunburn that was the weekend, I saw Iron Man on Thursday night at 12:01. First things first: seeing movies at midnight on the day they come out is awesome, especially when you're able to haul a group of your friends who have to work the next day along with you. Second things second: I am not an impartial reviewer. I've read Iron Man comics, and I love superhero movies. I am the target audience. However, I also had fairly high expectations of the flick, given the positive reviews I'd read and the fact that the trailers kicked ass. I was not disappointed.

How not disappointed? Marvel has had (by my count) nine origin films: Blade, X-Men, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Daredevil, Punisher, Ghost Rider and now Iron Man. One is out-and-out bad (Ghost Rider), two have enjoyable elements but are fatally flawed (FF and Punisher), two are decent (Blade and the director's cut of Daredevil), two are pretty good with minor issues (X-Men and Hulk, which is consistently undervalued) and one, while not perfect, is fantastic (Spider-Man). Iron Man is Spider-Man good. That's how good this is. Don't get me wrong, it still has flaws, but it's so easy to look past them you might not even notice the first time you see the movie.

Robert Downey Jr. makes the film. It's all about Tony Stark, and RDJ does a great job playing a great character. Jeff Bridges makes a great villian, Terence Howard is very good as Tony's friend, and Gweneth Paltrow totally delivers as Pepper Potts (which I was worried about after seeing Sky Captain). The performances are backed up by the fact that Iron Man is probably the coolest-looking superhero yet. The FX are slick as hell, and when Tony finally suits up in the red and gold it is damn impressive.

Iron Man is the first production by Marvel Studios, the production company Marvel started a few years ago when they stopped selling their character rights to Hollywood studios for production. This is important in two ways: first, it gives Marvel creative control over its movies, so presumably we'll never have anything as bad as Ghost Rider of FF:Silver Surfer inflicted on us again. Second, with its charcters under one roof, we can start to see the Marvel Universe as a whole, instead of everyone is separate worlds. If you don't already know, there's a scene at the very end of the movie, after the credits. Make sure you stay for it.

When the movie ended and the lights came on at about 2:30am, my only real problem with Iron Man was that I couldn't watch the sequel right then and there. It's planned for 2010, which is honestly much, much too long to wait. Marvel needs to get its ass in gear on this one.

Skip Day

I'm skipping my planned post on Iron Man, which I saw at 12:01am this morning, since I spent nearly the entire day in the hospital with my grandma, who had a heart attack on Thursday. Fortunately she's fine (or as fine as can be expected), so things went ok, but I'm still pretty exhausted.

I'll also just say now that I don't expect to post tomorrow, as it's the day of the GOP alumni game down at Carleton. I expect to be drinking quite a bit, along with playing frisbee in what might possibly be snow. In May.

Jib Jab

For my money, JibJab has some of the best comedy videos on the web. Their Shawshank in a Minute sketch is probably the funniest thing I've ever seen online, but they're most famous for their political animated shorts from the 2004 election cycle. Which is why I'm disappointed that they haven't done anything with the Hilary/Obama mess yet. I'm hoping that once the primary is over, they'll come out with some Obama/McCain stuff (yes, I'm fairly sure at this point that Obama will be the nominee). But since '04 they've only come out with one or two animated shorts a year. Their year in review bits are funny, but I'd really love to see more political bits.

Back on the Blogging Horse

Alright, let's try to get back on this blogging thing again. Ahh, blogging.

My last post promised a review of the RSC's production of King Lear that came to the Guthrie. Since that was awhile ago now, I will merely say that I enjoyed the production immensely and that the audience was given a full view of Ian McKellan's Little Gandalf.

For this post all I wanted to do was provide this link to a website my good friend Mr. Bartley has set up so people can follow his progress as he and his wife Jodi hike the Appalachian Trail. They are currently taking a short break to get their finances back in order after a case of identity theft, but should be back on the trail sometime soon (although not too soon, as I just finished picking them up from North Carolina which took two long days of driving).

If you go to the site, you'll find they're not just hiking the trail, but using it as a fundraiser for the Susan G. Koman Breast Cancer Foundation, as both Caleb and Jodi have relatives who are breast cancer survivors.

My goal for the blog will be one post a day, on whatever happens to strike my fancy at the time. Let's see how well I keep it up.

Why it Matters that Everyone Hates the Yankees

I'm composing my thoughts on Lear, but in the meantime I thought I'd pass this along, from Tom Verducci at si.com, about the massive swarm of bugs that hit the second game of the Yankees-Cleveland series.

OK, you've probably heard too much already about those infamous sacrifice flies of Cleveland, the mighty midges that, unlike almost all AL hitters, knocked Yankees phenom Joba Chamberlain off his game. But this is too good not to pass on: When the bugs started swarming Chamberlain, a local insect expert in Cleveland telephoned the Indians with an urgent message -- those bugs are called midges, and whatever you do, do NOT use insect repellent; midges are attracted to the stuff. The Yankees practically bathed in bug spray; the more Chamberlain put on, the more the bugs swarmed him. So there you go. The Yankees can spend $190 million on payroll and still leave a blatant weakness: no, not their middle relief -- their lack of an entymology expert.

Now that's just good stuff.

Lear at the Guthrie

One nice thing about having parents who are members at the Guthrie Theater is that, from time to time, I get free play tickets (and pretty nice seats, too). Another nice thing is that when I hear there's a traveling production of King Lear coming to the Guthrie, and it stars Ian McKellan, is directed by Trevor Nunn and is produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company, I can order them to buy tickets I would otherwise be totally unable to get.

We're going to the final production on Sunday. It's listed on the website as 3 hours and 40 minutes, and I'm betting it's going to be a damn sight better than the last 3.5 hour play I saw (sorry, Hanberg).

I'm very excited, of course. I'm going to be in the same room as Gandalf, which will kick ass. Add to that the fact that he's one of the most accomplished and respected stage actors alive, performing one of Shakespeare's greatest plays, and you've got a recipe for an English-major geek-out.

The cool part is I've seen productions by the RSC and Nunn before. When I studied in London my group took a trip (actually the first weekend, I think) to Stratford-upon-Avon, where the RSC is located. We saw productions of Comedy of Errors and The Rivals (unless I'm much mistaken), and both were excellent. Later that term I saw a production of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard with Vanessa Redgrave that Nunn directed at the National Theater (which I believe he was in charge of at the time). It was the one production that we couldn't get enough seats for the entire class to go at one time: we had to go in groups of four, since that was the maximum number of tickets they could get for one show.

I'll post my thoughts Sunday night. Expectations are high, I hope they get met.

Tacoma in Minneapolis

By the way, it appears that the Tacoma weather, which was grey and rainy during most of my long weekend there, has followed me back to MN. It apparently picked up some extra moisture on its way across the rocky mountains and the Dakotas, but other than that Minneapolis has been doing a very passable Tacoma impression so far today.

Back from Tacoma

I spent the weekend making what's become an annual Hajj to Tacoma, WA to see my good friend Mr. Hanberg. It's always a pleasure to get out there and hang with him, because it generally means an excellent few days when I get to eat good food, see good movies and play good chess. This time around the menu featured Thai food, burgers and omelets, all of which were fantastic. The schuedule featured a Mariner's game which we left when the M's were losing badly only to find out they staged a major comeback to take the game, a 3 hour play called The Steward of Christendom which was decent but probably should have been about an hour shorter, and screening of Shoot 'Em Up, King of Kong, Stranger than Fiction and several episodes of Heroes.

The King of Kong screening was notable because Steve Wiebe, who is pretty much the protagonist of the film, held a Q&A session after the movie. The movie was extremely well done, and it was nice to get a greater depth of understanding on the whole situation with the Q&A.

Erik and I also played several games of chess. This is pretty much the only time during the year that I play chess anymore, and it's something I always look forward to. I think we played somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 games this weekend. I'm the better player, and I got a couple of cheap victories when Erik didn't see an early checkmate, but he did manage to get two draws and really made me work for the last couple of victories.

The great thing about chess is that it's an equal battlefield. There are no surprise attacks, no extra forces you can call on. Your entire game plan is right there on the board for your enemy to see, and the only mistake you can make is to not consider enough of the relevant possibilities. Kudos to Mr. Hanberg for raising the level of his game and really putting the screws to me in several of our contests. And Erik, here's a link to the pawn power book that I read years ago that helped me out.

Thanks also to Mary, Erik's GF who had moved in since my last visit, for putting up with me for five days.

Weekend in Chicago

I just got back from an excellent weekend in Chicago. Most of my time was taken up by the Chicago Heavyweights Championship, which is a fairly large ultimate tourney that takes place every year just before sections. This is the second time I've gone (and the first with a team I didn't pick up with), and thankfully it was much cooler than the last time I was there.

But I did actually get to see a little bit of the city while I was there. Gregg, Kellie and I left the cities on Thursday night so we could get to Chicago by lunchtime on Friday. We stayed Friday and Saturday night at the condo of a friend of Gregg's. We weren't the only ones, either. There were six people sleeping on futons or the floor of that condo. Fortunately the floor plan was pretty open and there was plenty of space. I was very impressed by the absolutely beautiful view from the balcony, made more impressive by the storm front coming in from the North.

So after getting in for an excellent lunch at a vegan restaurant, we ended up walking into Union Station with a stop at a bar for a glass of amazingly (expensive) trappist ale and later that night riding the L to pick up a massive order of sushi for dinner. All in all a pretty good Chicago experience for only one afternoon.

I am Iron Man

The trailer for Marvel's next big movie, Iron Man, came out today on apple trailers. I think they were supposed to wait until tonight, as it's premiering on several tv channels, but it looks like they jumped the gun (which is cool, since I wasn't going to watch The Hills on MTV).

Iron Man's never been the most compelling of the Marvel superheroes for me, although I couldn't really tell you why. Tony Stark is pretty much the epitome of cool, a billionaire playboy who's a massively talented inventor (replace inventor with dective and you have Bruce Wayne, by the way). But he doesn't have the greatest rouges gallery and I ususally seem to like him more as part of the Avengers or the Ultimates. I thought the role he played in facing off against Captain America in the Marvel mini series Civil War was fantastic, though. I also haven't read the most famous Iron Man arc, where Tony, who's an alcoholic, bottoms out.

At any rate, the new trailer looks good, and I've heard excellent things about this movie so far. The sequence at the end is clearly the equivalent of Spidey swinging through downtown NY in his first trailers.

State Fair '07

I've gotten my fill of the Fair for another year. I went last Sunday Java and Carl for about 5 hours or so, and then yesterday with family for somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 hours. I consumed enough calories to feed a small African nation for a day and a half, most of those coming from cheese curds, mini doughnuts and fresh chocolate chip cookies.

I don't know how he hears about these things, but Java's mission on Sunday was to find the booth that sold Viper Jerky, which he had heard billed as the hottest jerky ever. After looking for most of the day, he ended up asking another jerky stand where it could be found, which was fortunately close to the All-You-Can-Drink Milk Booth. As Carl and I watched with curiosity and barely concealed hilarity, Java ate one of the two small pieces he had bought, tearing up after the first bite. It made me curious enough to try some, so I had a bite of the second piece. It was about as hot as eating a whole plate of fairly spicy thai food very quickly. Impressive, but only for the heat-it didn't have any other taste. I was fine, Java not so much.

Most of the time Sunday was just spend in a delicious wander from food to food, looking at various exhibits and what not. I did get to see Etta James, Al Green and B.B. King perform last night, which was cool. Although I would have liked to see more of B.B., as he only played a 50 minute set and talked for a good portion of that. Not that I didn't enjoy hearing him talk; he told several good stories, the best of which was about him slipping over to the "good" (read: white) side of the tracks as a young man in Mississippi under cover of darkness and taking a long drink from a segregated water fountain (after the concert I started working it out-B.B. was over 40 by the time the civil rights movement gained momentum in the 60s. Wow.). It's amazing that he's still touring at age 81 (82 in September), especially with the health problems he has (diabetes, bad joints, etc). The biggest cheer of the night was when he repeated a line he had just sung, saying "I'm going to play until I die, folks." It occurred to me that when he finally does go we're going to miss his voice almost as much as his guitar. It's still as powerful and vibrant as ever, and I'm glad I got the chance to hear it in person at least once. That's history right there.

Invincible

"This is Wolf Blitzer, and you're watching CNN. And now, for the latest insight into the nascent Presidental race, we go to our newest political correspondent, Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro. Nice to have you here, Mr. Castro."

"Nice to be here, Wolf. And please, it's Fidel."

"So Fidel, we're still several months before the Iowa caucus, and no one's dropping out of the race yet, but political pundits have been speculating that a Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama ticket would give the Democrats the best chance to win the general election. Your thoughts?"

"Well Wolf, I'd first like to say that I'm disappointed because both of them feel the sacred duty of demanding 'a democratic government in Cuba.' They are not making politics: they are playing a game of cards on a Sunday afternoon. That being said however, I do think that the two of them on one ticket would be invincible. The Republicans would have a very hard time matching that sort of star power."

"Interesting. Now, Al Gore hasn't yet entered the race, but several observers think he might declare late in the game. Do you think he will?"

"I don't think he will do so, although I must say that Gore, better than anyone, knows about the kind of catastrophe that awaits humanity if it continues along its current course. Of course, when he was a candidate, he committed the error of yearning for 'a democratic Cuba,' which is just one more example of how the US is hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma that perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society."

"Thanks for your insight, Fidel. We'll talk to you again as the primaries get closer."

"Thanks for having me, Wolf. Have a good night."

Why Sterotypes Exist

I've only seen Zoolander once, but I seem to remember some advice being given to models about answering any question with the response "world peace." This would have been good advice for Miss Teen South Carolina, whose response to a question about US education was all over the map on which 1/5 of Americans can't find America (supposedly).


I'm sure the poor girl simply got very flustered and started babbling, since she only had a limited amount of time in which to respond. But I'm afraid that she's set the cause of getting ridiculously beautiful blondes recognized for their brains back a few years.

This version of the video has subtitles, which makes it even better. Also, if you look closely at the guy holding the microphone at the end, it's clearly all he can do to keep from busting a gut laughing.

ConVick

I was watching CNN this morning, which was covering two stories: the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Michael Vick formally entering a guilty plea as part of his plea bargain in court. Two thing struck me about the coverage.

The first was that the Gonzales resignation was taking a back seat to the Vick coverage. I guess I shouldn't be surprised about this, as it's just another indication of the power of the cult of celebrity and the pull it exerts over our news programs. But somehow I thought that the resignation of an Attorney General who somehow managed to pull off the once-thought-impossible feat of making was forget just how bad John Ashcroft was would get top billing, at least on a station like CNN. A little later I was on JibJab.com and found this video, which struck me as being appropriate.

The second thing I noticed was from Vick's statement to the press after he entered the plea. He said that this situation had called him to "find Jesus." Now, I watched the statement and I don't doubt the man regrets his actions (facing at least a year in prison will do that), but the finding Jesus bit and "turning my life over to god" statements are starting to really be the go-to line for anyone who gets in trouble and has to account for their actions to the public. Not that it's not a good strategy, since sometimes it seems this country has been getting so rabidly religious that I'm surprised Bush hasn't slipped and called the war on terror a crusade. The "I did something bad, but now I've found Jesus" excuse has been used so much that it really strikes me as inauthentic. Whatever cultural or intrisic personality defects that caused Vick to be able to treat dogs in the manner reported weren't a result of not having an active religious life. Actions like that indicate the need for some serious help.

30-3

Yesterday the Texas Rangers were down 0-3 to the Baltimore Orioles in the fourth inning of the first game of a double header. By the end of the game they had rattled off 30 unanswered runs, the first team in over a century to do so (in 1897 the Chicago Colts beat Louisville 36-7). Sure, that's impressive, but if you look at the stats it gets even better.

-The Rangers scored 30 runs, but they only had 29 hits. There was one error committed by the Orioles and 8 walks given up by the four Oriole pitchers. So the Rangers left only 8 men on base in a game in which they had 38 baserunners. To put it another way, a Rangers baserunner had a 79% chance of scoring during yesterday's game.

-All the 30 runs were earned, so the one baserunner that reached because of error didn't score.

-The four Oriole pitchers combined to strike out 11 Rangers.

-Of the 29 hits for Texas, 21 were singles. 21! 2 were doubles and 6 were home runs. I only find this impressive because I'm fairly certain the Twins could find a way to hit 21 singles over the course of a game and not score any runs.

All in all, a massively impressive show of offense.

We've run out of things to study

A British study was recently undertaken to find out if carnivorous dinosaurs were faster than David Beckham. The results found that a T-Rex would have little trouble running down the famous midfielder. Reports that the English are still a little pissed that Beckham left for Real Madrid (and then for the LA Galaxy) are, as of press time, unconfirmed.

Best Lawsuit Ever

We live in an overly litigious society, in which idiotic lawsuits cause dire warnings to be placed on the simplest objects and nobody thinks anything that goes wrong could possibly be their fault. But it does have some benefits, as well. Like this lawsuit, filed by Jonathan Lee Riches against embattled Falcons quarterback Michael Vick. Vick, in case you've been living on Mars with your head under a rock, is being indicted for his part in a massive and brutal dogfighting ring.

Riches is suing Vick for $63 quintillion (or 63 followed by 18 zeros), claiming that Vick stole his pit bulls, sold them on ebay and used the profits to buy missiles from the Iranian government.

Wow.

Vick is only the latest target of Riches, who is incarcerated in South Carolina for committing wire fraud and apparently needs a hobby. The week before he sued Vick he named the Mossad, the CIA and Larry King Live in a suit. But here's the best one:

"In his most noteworthy suit, Riches submitted a 57-page list of defendants that included President Bush, Pope Benedict, actor Tony Danza, Fruit of the Loom, NASCAR, the Ming Dynasty, Skittles candy, the Philadelphia Eagles (2005 roster), the Doobie Brothers, the Congolese Army, the Magna Carta, "WKRP in Cincinnati," the King's Dominion amusement park in Virginia, the philosopher Plato, and the Liberty Bell.

He claimed they collectively owed him money."

It doesn't get better than that.

King on Rowling

I admit to not having read much Stephen King. In fact, until Mr. Hanberg gave me a book of his short stories a couple of years ago I hadn't read any of his writing at all. But since then I've read a little, enough anyway to disabuse me of the totally uninformed notion that he is a horror writer. Instead, I would say that Mr. King (much like Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite authors whose work I'm much more familiar with) is a writer: someone who loves to write and will do so at almost every opportunity, no matter what the topic.

All this is by way of introducing an excellent article that King wrote for Entertainment Weekly on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. He talks about the last book, but much more about Rowling, the series as a whole and what it's done for books in the 21st century. It's thoughtful and insightful, but beware of major spoilers, since King assumes that pretty much everyone who cares has finished the book by this point.

Ahh, Sequels

So what's more improbable than two people being able to steal the Declaration of Independence? Why, two people kidnapping the President and breaking into the Oval Office, of course. In the grand tradition of Hollywood striving to outdo itself in sequel form, the trailer for National Treasure: Book of Secrets is now on apple.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the first movie a fair bit, and I'm sure I'll see this one and probably enjoy it as well. But in a post 9/11 security conscious world these movies require a major suspension of disbelief. Luckily, that's what Americans are good at, so I'm sure the movie will do fine.

Bridge Photos

I went downtown to take a look at the collapsed bridge today-spent about an hour and a half walking around the south side of the river. I couldn't get closer than 300 yards at best. Everything was roped off, and not without reason, as there were a lot of people doing exactly what I was doing. Still, it would have been nice to have gotten a view from one of the surrounding bridges. Oh well.

This is the best of my shots, taken with my new digital camera. Unfortunately it's just a little sucker, and doesn't have much of a zoom. Check out these shots, taken last night by a guy I know who has professional-level camera equipment (and clearly got to the scene before they started roping everything off).

Video of the Collapse

CNN managed to get some security camera footage of the 35W bridge collapsing. It's pretty amazing-you can find it here.

Bridge Addendum

So it turns out that my friend's wife was in one of the cars in the middle section of the bridge that fell 64 feet down into the river. If you follow this to CNN.com (picture #1), you can see a picture of her car (the silver saturn in bottom center of the photo that's pointing toward the sky), as well as her (lower right in a white shirt, next to a girl in a green shirt). Pretty damn crazy. She's fine, which is excellent.

Bridge Collapse

If you haven't heard, the I35W bridge that spans the Mississippi River just north of downtown Minneapolis collapsed just after 6pm (CDT). Current reports have the death toll at 7 and the injured somewhere in the 50-60 range. My family and I are all present and accounted for.

I actually turned on the local news at about 6:10, just before heading out to frisbee practice. As I was leaving the house 20 minutes later the first video images were just starting to come in. When I got to the practice fields, the 6 guys who were there hadn't yet heard about the bridge. They checked their cell phones, and it turned out that the wife of one of my teammates was on some part of the bridge (I'm not sure which part) when it collapsed. He had three voicemails waiting for him, basically saying that she had been on the bridge but was now safe.

If you haven't seen the images yet, go to any news site (the Star Trib will have local coverage). It looks like a major earthquake hit the bridge. This is one of the most heavily trafficed bridges in the metro, carrying over 140,000 cars a day. Beyond the infinitely more important loss of life, this is going to affect traffic in the cities for years.

At this point I've watched somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 hours of coverage on this today. What a crazy night. If I get the chance to go downtown tomorrow I'll try and post my own pictures.

Well, I'm Back

A lot's happened since I last posted in this space. Since the end of March, I've decided to move to DC with my girlfriend, driven out there twice (once to move her, once to move a massive truck of stuff), been to Las Vegas for Mr. Bartely's bachelor party, gone to my 5 year college reunion, been to weddings in Raleigh, NC and on Grand Bahama Island, and had said girlfriend break up with me. So it's been a tumultuous four months for me. I am no longer moving to DC, and am now trying to decide what I want to do next.

As I try to figure out that next step I'm going to try and start posting regularly again, as usual on whatever topic seems to strike me on any given day. Like pretty much everything in my life right now, we'll see what happens.

784!

That's the page count that's being reported for the American version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which reportedly will mean my British edition clock in at around 700 or so.

This will make Hallows the second longest book in the series, and while some people have been critical of Rowling's inability to cut it down, I actually prefer the longer books. The strength of Rowling's story has always been characterization and the detail which she puts into Harry's world, and a longer book just means we get more of that. Otherwise we'd have novel equivalents of the movies, and nobody wants that.

Of course, none of this will matter if Rowling has decided to kill Harry. Based on the responses I received in my highly scientific poll*, if Harry dies at the end of the book culture and civilization as we know it will cease to be and everyone will join mass suicide cults. Talk about pressure.


*Poll may not be highly scientific.

Pirates!

The trailer for the third Pirates of the Carribean movie came out yesterday (or the day before, it's so hard to tell with the web sometimes). You can check it out here.

Not a bad trailer. Lots of action, including some sweet shots of a pirate armada and Chow Yun-Fat as a particularly badass pirate. I really wanted to see Keith Richards though. No dice, this time anyway.

It'll be interesting to see when I see this movie, since I will be in Las Vegas celebrating Mr. Bartley's soon-to-be-lost bachelorhood when it comes out.

Bracket Time

In general, I pay almost no attention to college basketball. Maybe that's because the Gophers haven't been good in about a decade, but it's also kind of because there are so many damn teams it would take a ridiculous amount of time to actually be aware of them all, let alone know anything about them.

However, I do love the NCAA tournament. In fact I think it's one of the best sporting events of the year, especially the first weekend. During the first two rounds (the first round is Thursday and Friday, the second Saturday and Sunday) there are so many games going on that invariably three things happen:

First, there are always good, close games. The teams are so pumped up that everyone is playing their best, and you always end up with amazing plays in the final minutes and seconds that decide the game.

Second, there are always upsets, or at least possible upsets. Sure, a 16th seed has never beaten a 1st seed, and only two 2nd seeds have fallen to 15th seeds in the past 10 years, but other than that, I guarantee that over the next two days teams that experts picked to go deep into the tournament will lose. Brackets will be shattered. People will look like morons.

Third, there are so many games in the first two rounds that it creates a unique situation in modern sports: there will be almost no commentating. Sure, the courtside people who are calling the games will make comments and talk about matchups and stuff, but there's no post-game wrapup from the main desk. Just Bob Costas saying "And now that you've just watched that thrilling conclusion, we're going to send you out West where there's an even bigger upset brewing...." Just great basketball back-to-back-to-back.

Sometimes I Hate Computers

Because only with computers can an hour of your work suddenly vanish. I was writing a lengthy post for my fantasy baseball league in preparation of our draft this coming Saturday. It took me awhile because I was doing short profiles of all the managers, and with tweleve teams in the league, I was working on it for about an hour. Then I went to post it, and the damn system errored out on me. Unlike some programs (thankfully Yahoo mail now does this), you can return to the page and still have your lengthy composition intact. No such luck here. And of course I had no desire to just write it all out again. Ugh.

Dude, Where's My Car?

Well, I didn't get towed.

After two massive snowfalls in a week (at least 12 inches both times), if I had left my car in one spot for the last 5 days I wouldn't be able to find it right now. As it is evertime I've gone outside my legs get cold because snow goes up to my knee every time I try and get in my car.

Seriously though, I took a nice long walk yesterday during the second big snow, and it renewed my belief that there is no natural occurance as beautiful as a snowstorm. You can make an argument for a spectacular sunset, but give me some big snowflakes creating a blanket on the world anyday. Especially when it's just wet enough to stick to trees, powerlines, squirrels and anything else that it falls on. By the end of my walk I looked kind of frightening-probably helped by the fact that I did six or seven summersaults into massive snowbanks.

This winter started off pretty crappy, thanks to the damn El Nino effect, but with a nice sub zero strech at the beginning of February and these snowstroms things aren't turning out as bad as I thought they would. Now we just need it to start two and a half months earlier and last until April (or, as Calvin put it, "If I was in charge, we'd never see grass between October and May").

The photo is from Duluth, which is getting pounded even more thanks to the Lake Effect. Ahh, to have Lake Effect Snow.

Crackpots

So now the weather yahoos are saying that we're going to get anywhere from 5-16 inches of snow over the next day or two. This after a week with highs in the 40s. Just when you thought spring was here...

Feelin' Crappy

My lack of posts the last couple days has been due to me feeling under a rather large amount of weather. Hopefully I'll be back up to speed in time to enjoy some of the weekend.

Before I sign off, a big congratulations to Mr. Erik Hanberg, whose theater's first production opened yesterday in Tacoma, WA. For more info check out his blog or The Horatio's website. If you're in the Northwest, check it out.

Watch the Volume, Guys

Heard a pretty funny news story today. Seems a man in Oconomowoc, WI, thought he heard a woman being raped in the apartment above his. He grabbed a sword (yes, a sword), went upstairs, kicked in the door, and demanded to know where the woman under attack was. He forced the guy to lead him around the apartment at swordpoint and open closets and doors where he might have stashed the woman.

However, there was no woman. It seems the neighbor had been watching a porn video with the volume up perhaps a little too loud, and the guy misunderstood the screams he was hearing. The neighbor later played back for the police the part of the DVD that he thought had been misunderstood ("Sir, I think we're going to need to view this again, just to make sure there's no misunderstanding. And you have any kleenex?").

A couple of things stand out here (no, not that). First, the guy said that he never threatened his neighbor with the sword, he only "had the sword extended". I know that I never make the mistake of thinking someone threatening me with a sword when they are, in reality, simply extending it in my general direction.

Second, the guy said he didn't call police because he doesn't have a phone. So that makes him a 39 year old who lives with his mother, doesn't have a phone and keeps a sword readily accessible. Can we get Dr. Phil on the phone, please?

Heat Wave

So Minnesota has gone from deep freeze to Miami-Lite in the space of about 10 days. Sub-zero temps a week ago and now we're looking at multiple days above 40. Totally ridiculous. I've got one more game of broomball tonight that it looks like I'm going to get to play, then I apparently get to break out the shorts and sandals. I hate El Nino winters.

New Look

So this is my blog's new look. I've been thinking about changing it for awhile, and hopefully this is an indication that I'll be posting a little more frequently than in the past few months. Let me know what you think. Positive reaction will justify my course of action, and negative comments will be ignored as the ranting of lunatics (See? You can learn things from this administration).

Words of Wisdom

For the past two years, I've gone to see Garrison Kellior do his Prairie Home Companion show from the State Fair. Both times have been fantastic, particularly the two years ago, when he had a New Orleans blues band perform days after the Katrina mess began (the band had been touring and was caught away from home when the storm hit). I don't know that I've ever seen a crowd so emotionally pumped up for a performance like that.

Last year couldn't match that high, but it did have an excellent insight into the Minnesota Mind with A Lake Wobegon Philosophy. This was printed on the pamphlet they gave out describing the show. As far as I am aware, this is the first time something interesting and worthwhile has actually been printed on one of these things.

A Lake Wobegon Philosophy

1. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Do this before they do unto you what you don't want them to do. Shame them with goodness. Kill them with kindness. Cut their throats with courtesy.

2. The way to do something is to do it. Persevere. If you want to become the Tallest Boy In The Sixth Grade, stick around, keep at it, and the prize will be yours.

3. Try not to talk about the relationship. And don't refer to it as a relationship. Either it's a friendship or a romance or an illicit affair or you're related.

4. The rules for marriage are the same as the rules for a life raft. No sudden moves. Don't crowd the other person. Keep all thoughts of disaster to yourself. Almost any marriage can be helped simply by having more fun. If necessary, try taking your clothes off.

5. Put a big dish by the door, next to an electric outlet, and when you come home, put your car keys and your billfold in the dish and plug your mobile phone into the outlet to recharge. Keep your extra pairs of glasses in the bowl too. In the time you'll save not looking for these things every day, you'll be able to write War and Peace. Or the Mass in B minor.

6. All tragedy is misunderstood comedy. God is a great humorist who is working with a rather slow audience. Lighten up. Whatever you must do, do it wholeheartedly, joyfully. As you get older, you'll learn how to fake this.

7. The secret of writing is rewriting. The secret of living is to see your mistakes and learn how to either correct them or conceal them.

8. It's nice to dream, but the urge to perform is not in itself an indication of talent.

9. You can't live life all at once so take it one day at a time, and if you need drama, read Dickens. The lust for world domination does not make for the good life. The urge to be No. 1 is a bad urge. Charisma is an illusion and brilliance depends on who's writing the test. Go for the bronze.

10. Life is short and it's getting shorter. On the other hand, never buy cheap shoes.

Mustache Pride

I have never been so proud to be a part of something. The February 11th edition of the Chicago Tribune has published a profile of Carleton's famous Mustache Club, of which I was proudly a member.

I joined the Mustache Club in its second year of existence, and was part of a massive boost in membership over the first year. I am sad to say that I did not join the Club in its first year of membership, but my good friend Andrew Eppig, along with the Club's founder and first President, Hite Geffert (pictured here), convinced me that the Mustache Club was for me. During my membership I not only learned to take pride in my Mustache, I also had the distinct honor to help co-author an article for the Carletonian defending the Club's purpose and existence.

I am thrilled that the Club has not only survived since I left Carleton, but thrived. I've never been so proud.

Stupidest thing ever

In a world with 6 billion people, there are bound to be some morons. I mean, let's face it, civilization keeps alive a lot of people who just wouldn't make it on their own. But in a society like ours that continually tops itself, this one strikes me as something of a benchmark.

OJ Simpson is publishing a book and giving a TV interview on Fox to promote the book at the end of November. The topic? OJ will tell the interviewer "how, hypothetically, he could have killed his ex-wife and her friend". The book will be titled "If I Did It."

Wow. So OJ's going to get up there and say, "I didn't do this, but if I did, here's how I would have done it"? I know he can't get tried for murder again, but damn. Do other people who didn't commit horrible crimes spend lots of time imagining how they would have committed them?

I recognize that he may have done this book/tv deal just to get some money to try and pay off some of the $33 million he owes the Goldman family, but still. This man has issues. I wonder if he's found the real killers yet?

Congratulations are in order

Been awhile since I posted, and several things have happened to people I know that deserve recognition. So here we go:

Good job, Democrats. You didn't massively fuck up and won back the House and Senate. Now just be smart about things and get some stuff passed so people can actually say you stand for something again.

To my good friend Sara Decherd, mazel tov on her engagement to her boyfriend Solomon Rutzky. You can see their wedding site here. I had the opportunity to meet Solomon when they visited the cities a few months ago, and I was impressed by his dry, sarcastic sense of humor, which I thoroughly approve of.

Also in the romantic adventures department, a good job by Mr. Java Fortran on getting a date with a frisbee girl. Java reminds me of the song "Tiger Woods" by Dan Bern, 'cause he's got "big ol' balls".

To the inestimable Mr. Andrew Eppig: Happy Birthday. Mr. Eppig turned 27 on Oct 25th, and I totally forgot until two weeks ago, and I'm just getting around to doing something about it now. Andrew, you're a better man than me, but at least I don't forget your birthday for long. I hope you had a nice traditional French celebration, which, as far as I understand it, involves wine and hookers, although not necessarily in that order.

Major props to Mr. Caleb Bartley, who went to Dallas looking for a job and has now found one. He is now the newest Emergency Management Specialist for the City of Dallas. Caleb, I think we're all disappointed that your job is Official Uniform Inspector for the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, but we all need goals to work toward. On the plus side, Caleb's hiring did inspire an unprecedented level of inter-faith cooperation, as various respected Mullahs and Rabbis joined the Pope and the Dalai Lama in calling for the people of the world to pray that the city of Dallas never has an emergency. Ever.

And finally, congratulations to Mr. Erik Hanberg (apparently I feel like calling everyone Mr. today). After he left his position as General Manager and Grand Pooh-Bah of The Grand theater, he decided that he wanted to open a for-profit, black box theater in Tacoma. Ambitious, certainly. But so far it looks like he's doing ok, and last week he announced The Horatio has secured a location in downtown Tacoma. Erik, I'm massively impressed. And if any of you has an extra $100 sitting around, ship it on over to Hanberg to help him get his theater up and running. He'll even give you stuff if you do.

And what's going on with you, Joe? Well, I've been playing my new video game: Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Nothing like kicking some bad guy ass while playing as Cap, Thor or Spider-Man. Also, I get to brew beer this weekend. Woo hoo!

Election '06 Jitters

So the election is tomorrow, and I'm nervous. "Why are you nervous, Joe?" you might ask with good reason. The Dems, at this point, are looking to be by far the less stupid of the two parties, and seem poised to take control of the Hill. It would be a massive upset if they didn't take at least one of the Houses of Congress.

Let's see. What's happened in the national elections since I turned 18?

In 1998, Minnesotans elect a professional wrassler governor. Jesse Ventura makes up 10+ points overnight, providing an excellent argument for Congress' subsequent bill which sought to institutionalize the state.

In 2000, Cuba offers to send election officials to Florida, the President is elected by the Supreme court, and the term "hanging chad" dominates the national dialogue for months.

In 2002, everyone is so freaked out that all politicians need to do point and yell "Terrorists!" and no one pays attention to what they're actually doing. Paul Wellstone dies less than a month before the election, and certain victory for his replacement (Walter Mondale), turns into crushing defeat after everyone goes Howard-Dean-insane at the memorial service. Minnesota elects Bush clones Pawlenty and Coleman as Governor and Senator, respectively.

In 2004, we find out that all this country REALLY has to fear is a president that windsurfs.

And that brings us to now. 2006. Water is banned on airplanes. The only thing we know for certain about Iraq is that whatever it is we're doing is working out so great. Inspired by the success of Girls Gone Wild, Congress has decided to put out a monthly scandal, which they keep sending out even after we've told them we don't want them. And the Dems might actually be getting back into a position where they can build up some street cred.

Yeah. I'm nervous. Big time.