a dam site

the monthly diary of author David A. Mazzotta

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Friday, November 29, 2002

 
Football Picks - Week 13: This hasn't started well. I spent the afternoon writing up my picks and I stupidly did not save them before I connected the laptop to the port replicator while it was on stand-by instead of hibernate. This always causes me to have to shut down and this time was no exception. Picks lost. Start over. The temperamental nature of my laptop matches well with the unpredictability of the NFL this season, yet here I go back into the swirling chaos.

--posted at 9:22 PM-- ~permanent link~

Wednesday, November 27, 2002

 
Football Results - Week 12: I knew it was going to be tough. Quarterbacks are dropping and recovering at a furious pace. Teams are more unreliable than anytime in recent memory. Still, you know those cartoons where the characters get flattened by a steamroller? Or better, you know that episode of the Sopranos where Tony belt-whips the congressman? Or even better, you know those "You Gotta See This" type shows where someone bungee jumps from a bridge and the cord breaks? Well, that'd be me. In all cases. I am ashamed to even type the numbers. 4-12.Here's a point of interest. One would think that point spreads are set such that there would be about a 50-50 likelihood of a victory by either the favorite or the underdog. So in 16 games you figure the favorite is likely to cover about 8 times. Not this week. This week, the favorite failed to cover 11 times and lost outright 8 times. So it would seem like the odds makers had just as bad a week as I had.

Of course, it doesn't actually work that way. Point spreads are not really set based on expert evaluation of the teams. They are set so that an equal amount of money is wagered on either side of the spread. The points are adjusted over the course of the week as wagers are made. So what it really means is that the collective expectations of the betting world were seriously trounced last week. That makes me feel better. Misery loves company.

--posted at 9:06 PM-- ~permanent link~

 
Football Picks - Thanksgiving Day: Lots of hemming and hawing goes on about who has the advantage on these weird mid-week games. Statistically, the home team gets an even larger boost than usual (although not much larger), but these statistics are misleading. Usually what you get quoted is something like Dallas (or Detroit) has won 54% of the time on Thanksgiving versus, 51% of the rest of the games. That's all poppycock. First, to do this properly you would have to control for all sorts of things, not the least of which is to compare only home games, or compare versus home games in the same year, or games versus opponents with similar records. Suffice to say that, outside of baseball, sports statistics are so horribly misguided they are little different than superstition. I never pick winners because of any silly statistics. I pick based on what the voices in my head tell me.

--posted at 9:01 PM-- ~permanent link~

 
Scam Alert - Seriously: For those of you who connect to the web through Earthlink, there is a scam email going around. It reads like this:
Subject: Important information reguarding your Secure Earthlink Mail!
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 23:11:58 -0500
From: securityemail@earthlink.net
To:

Dear Valued earthlink member,
We have noticed that you have not been reading your Secure ELN Mail.
This is a new feature we have recently added to our system, and have been sending important account information to your Secure Earthlink Mail! Please be advised that we need you to log into your Secure Mail within the next 72 hours to keep the Secure Account information in our database.

Below is the site to log into your account
HERE link omitted, or if your EMail client doesn't support HTML You may go to HERE link omitted

Thank you for your time on this matter
Do not respond to this. It is a scam designed to steal your login and password. You login and give your password to the site that is linked and you expect to get something called Secure ELN Mail, but instead you have just given your login and password to a bunch of crooks. If you get one of these, please forward it to this earthlink address: joez@corp.earthlink.net.

--posted at 8:59 PM-- ~permanent link~

Tuesday, November 26, 2002

 
Holiday Links: Just some stuff to read when you get tired of Aunt Ethel asking why you're not married yet.

--posted at 10:13 PM-- ~permanent link~

Monday, November 25, 2002

 
Scoopage, Wearily: I am resolved to throw up the redesign sometime over the Thanksgiving weekend. (By "throw up" I don't actually mean regurgitate, thanks for asking) So if you check in and things look weird - patience please. I'll have a lot to say about it once it's in place. You may be thoroughly underwhelmed.

This week, Football Friday will fall partially on Wednesday due to there being games on Thanksgiving day. I'll posts picks for Thanksgiving day and results from last week - the horrible, horrible results from last week - and then I'll post again on Friday with picks for Sunday and Monday.

I've actually been thinking of renting a couple of DVDs over the weekend and maybe getting a review or two up for you. I promised TAD Chrissy to give Lord of the Rings a second chance. Maybe this would be a good opportunity.

Speaking of reviews. I don't know what to make of the Sopranos this year. The portrayal of Tony has been remarkable. They managed to make him more human and more of an animal at the same time. A good deal of this has to do with what a phenomenal actor James Gandolfini is. There's been some exceptional humor - Christopher's intervention was a hoot. But they have been dwelling on two plot lines that are pointless and boring. The Furio and Carmella situation (I'm being careful not to spoil things for those who get by on rentals after the fact), is as far as I can tell, totally unmotivated. Janice and Bacala is another one that perplexes me (although the manipulative Janice is a terrific character). There are two shows left and traditionally the second to the last show is the big one. Maybe they can sort it out.

One last thing. If you are a blogger, think about visiting the Blogger User Support Group over at Yahoo. It's a good spot to get help. I quickly got an answer to why the spacing screwed up when I put a table in a post. Bookmark it.

I have more, but I'm exhausted. Maybe I'll slip you some links tomorrow night.

--posted at 11:04 PM-- ~permanent link~

Friday, November 22, 2002

 
Football Results - Week 11: Tasteful is how I would describe it. Unassumingly tasteful, in fact. 9-7. On the plus side, but tastefully so. For the year, that makes me a somewhat more gaudy 31-24-3, mostly owing to my phenomenal, season-making performance in week 10. (Do you realize I was 10-3-1 last week? Amazing.) Still, one doesn't want to make like Terrel Owens with a Sharpie, so a bit of restraint was in order this week.

Please note that I have begun including the final score in my comments. Generally, in fine literature, it is thought to be good to have a certain context for your action. In this case, it causes eveything I write to make sense without having to go to ESPN.com to find out what I am going on about. It's a technique thing.

--posted at 9:31 PM-- ~permanent link~

 
Football Picks - Week 12: The new offical name for the Patriots is the Evil Minions, or Minions for short. As mentioned above, the Falcons QB will be reffered to as Rhymes with Sick - sort of like an Indian name or something. With QBs dropping like passes to the Lions receivers, this was a tough week. Troy Aikman is the new Waldo.

--posted at 9:30 PM-- ~permanent link~

Thursday, November 21, 2002

 
Two Quick Notes: 1) I have no idea why an ad banner is appearing at the top of the page. Some confusion between me and blogspot. I'll sort it out. Bear with me. 2) Football Friday is tomorrow (but you knew that already).

--posted at 11:37 PM-- ~permanent link~

 
Assorted Linkage: Some curious links to chase away your boredom.

--posted at 11:32 PM-- ~permanent link~

 
No Moore, Please!: Well, once again Michael Moore has oozed up from bowels of Flint, MI and subjected the human race to another movie. This one is called Bowling for Columbine, which is supposedly a scalding critique of the horribly sick culture we live in that forced the a couple of depraved maniacs to slaughter their classmates. I haven't seen it, and I have no intention of seeing as I refuse to contribute to Moore's obvious Krispy Kreme addiction, but it contains such clever humor as taking one of the Columbine victims, who still has a bullet lodged inside him, to Kmart to ask for a refund on the bullet. Moore's fans find this to be the height of comedy. This suggests Moore's fans skew heavily toward college freshmen who sit in coffee houses and laugh through their noses at Bill Maher.

As always, as soon as Moore puts anything out for public consumption it is quickly demonstrated to be noting but lies and innuendo. In Bowling for Columbine he goes to a Wal-Mart in Ontario to show how easy it is to purchase ammunition. In the movie, the clerk just hands it to him - but wait! It seems the Canadian Department of Justice wouldn't tolerate that; they investigate, but Moore will provide no details. Could it have been staged? I'm shocked!

Once again, Ben Fritz over at Spinsanity.org puts Moore's boundless mendacity on display for all to see.

Best ever description of Moore (I wish I knew where I heard it): Michael Moore puts the hippo in hypocrite.

--posted at 11:29 PM-- ~permanent link~

Tuesday, November 19, 2002

 
Like Nelson Says, "HA HA": As you probably know by now, I hate spammers. I think they should all be drawn and quartered. No - drawn and sixteenthed, just for good measure. Equally evil are their spiritual forefathers, telemarketers. There is a $50 device called the Zapper which theoretically sends a signal back to the telemarketer over your phone line that automatically removes you from the calling list. Interesting, but it sounds kind of suspicious, doesn't it? Well, here's how it works and how you can duplicate it for free. (I got this via email, but I think it came from Wired.)
Junk mail can be tossed and spam can be filtered, but telemarketing has always had a technological edge. At least until the TeleZapper. The device - AS SEEN ON TV! - promises to erase you from telemarketers' lists and stop the unsolicited solicitations. And it works, at least until the industry devises a workaround. But why spend $50 for uninterrupted evenings? The fledgling Telemarketing Resistance has banded together online to help you do it for free. Just follow the steps below.

1. Get the Audio: The TeleZapper fools telemarketers' autodialing equipment by emitting the ascending three-note special-information tone you hear before, "We're sorry, the number you have reached has been disconnected." You can download this tone from the Web. Do a Google search for "sit.wav" to find one of these audiofiles.

2. Chop It Down: Open sit.wav in an audio-editing program like Microsoft Sound Recorder. Edit out the second and third notes. (You don't actually need those, and they're sure to annoy family and friends.) Save the WAV file.

3. Press Record: Play that one note on your computer and record it as the first sound on your answering machine's outgoing message. Follow with an oh-so-witty greeting.

4. Enjoy the Silence: Now sit back and screen those calls. Over time, telemarketers will get the "zapping" tone and take you off their lists.

--posted at 9:57 PM-- ~permanent link~

 
My Apologies In Advance: Sorry to do this to you, but I felt it was necessary to pass this along. I have deemed it the Stupidest Joke Ever and I think you will too.
A Russian scientist and a Czechoslovakian scientist had spent their lives studying the majestic grizzly bear. Each year, they petitioned their governments to allow them to go to Yellowstone. Finally, their request was granted. But at Yellowstone, rangers told them it was mating season. It was much too dangerous. But this was their only chance, so the rangers relented. They were told to report in daily.

For several days they called in, and then nothing was heard from them. The rangers mounted a search. They found the scientists' camp ravaged, with no sign of the missing men. They followed the trail of a male and a female bear. They found the female and killed her. Cutting her open, they found the Russian's remains.

One ranger said, "You know what this means, don't you?"

(Are you ready for this?)

(Get ready!)

(Here's the punch line!)

"Of course," said the other ranger, "the Czech is in the male."
I feel terrible now. I'll do penance somehow, I promise.

--posted at 9:56 PM-- ~permanent link~

 
It Gets Worse: What could be more depressing? I'll tell you. Howard Stern is planning to remake the movies Rock and Roll High School and Porky's. Note this.
Stern is waiting to see the completed scripts before deciding whether he'll play any onscreen roles in the movies.
Seeing as Stern stole his "look" directly and blatantly from Joey Ramome, he should be ashamed. Of course, that would be like a serial killer being ashamed of littering.

--posted at 9:56 PM-- ~permanent link~

 
Ya Think?: I don't follow basketball too closely, but this comment, in Charlie Rosen's Page 2 column, from a Dallas Mavericks coach kind of stuck out.
Next up is one of Dallas' posse of assistant coaches, Del Harris. He explains that the Mavericks' overall philosophy is based on the concept that the team that scores the most points always wins the game.
I'm stunned. I can think of no snide comments regarding Captain Obvious that are worthy of that quote. Del Harris is also credited with the discovery that a player's height is directly proportional to how tall he is. In related news, scientists today announced the remarkable discovery that higher temperatures always occur when there is an increase in warmth. I could go on, but I don't want to make your head explode.

--posted at 9:55 PM-- ~permanent link~

Friday, November 15, 2002

 
Football Results - Week 10: There was once a female stand-up comic named Judy Tenuta. Her signature line was to shout, "Worship me, pigs!" at the audience. And there was once an animated comedy called The Family Guy wherein a super-genius infant named Stewie plotted to take over the world. Stewie made liberal use of the imperative and would loudly inform everyone he met that "You will bow before me!"

Let me just say that those two have nothin' on me this week. 10-3-1. I repeat with gusto: 10-3-1. I'd be willing to bet that in the annals of game picking, you could count the number of times anyone has done that well without removing your shoes. Ah yes, that glow of victory has given me a nice bronzed skin tone this week. Strangers in the street involuntarily genuflect as I pass.

Did I mention that I was 10-3-1.

--posted at 12:28 PM-- ~permanent link~

 
Football Picks - Week 11: I've decided to start implementing specialized nicknames for certain teams. Green Bay will be the Cheeseheads, or the Cheese for short; the reasons are obvious. I realize it's a cliche to refer to Wisconsinians (Wisconsinites?) like that, but the fact remains they are adults wearing cheese shaped headgear, so really, you owe it to them. The Raiders will be the Seniors, in honor of the discount they get at McDonalds. Washington will be the Potatoes, in deference to racial sensitivities. I thought about the Washington Burn Victims or the Washington Guys-Who-Are-Blushing-From-Embarrassment, but neither of those has the right ring. (Besides, aren't the Washington Burn Victims a minor league baseball team or something?)

Along similar lines, why in the world do they call them New Potatoes at Boston Market. What's New about them? Do they think if they call them Redskin Potatoes they will offend any Native Americans standing in line? Or would they convey a message of implicit support for Washington football, which wouldn't play well in Dallas? Look, they have RED SKIN, that's why they are called redskin potatoes. I mean, NEW as in what? Fresh? "Yes, these NEW potatoes arrived just recently, when they get old and rotten and mildewed, we'll mash 'em." Yum.

Oh, and speaking of comic ethnic food moments, you know that scene in the Godfather where Sollozzo and McClusky are meeting with Al Pacino. They drive to an Italian restaurant called Louis in the Bronx. As soon as they sit down, McClusky asks loudly, "How's the Italian food in this place?" Sollozzo tells him to try the veal. But that isn't the right answer. The right answer is "It's an Italian restaurant. It doesn't matter how the Italian food is here because that's all there is to eat. Idiot." One suspects that was in the script but changed at the last minute to preserve the weighty drama of the scene.

Am I rambling?

--posted at 12:24 PM-- ~permanent link~

Thursday, November 14, 2002

 
Another Memo: I had hoped to get something up before Friday football posts, but I got terribly distracted by The Godfather Saga, on Bravo. The Godfather Saga is a re-cutting of Godfather parts 1 and 2 such that the story is in chronological order. Additionally, there is a bunch of footage that was cut out of the originals.

Many people believe the Godfather 1 and 2 to be the greatest movies ever made. I never agreed. (Are you surprised about that? You must be new here.) Excellent movies, yes, but not the works of awe and splendor that they are often described as. For the record, Goodfellas is the best mob movie ever made. However, the added footage really adds to the story; it fleshes out the incidental characters and just generally better explains the motivation behind the actions that move the plot forward. Still not as good as Goodfellas, but definitely a step up the greatness ladder. Sadly, you cant get the Godfather Saga on DVD. The closest you get, is a multi-CD package that includes all three movies (including extra footage) and a couple of CDs of ancillary "Making of" type nonsense. For 70 bucks. Sorry, I'll pass. Coppola is rich enough. If anyone knows of a way to get just the Godfather Saga on DVD, please pass it along (no I don't mean record it on your Tivo and burn a DVD, but thanks for the offer).

Plus, I am at war with a head cold that is trying to cause me undeserved grief. I must fight. I must win. So for the moment I lack energy for major posting. At least until football Friday.

--posted at 10:15 PM-- ~permanent link~

Monday, November 11, 2002

 
Memo - From:Me, To:You, Re:Status: I know it's not Friday, but let me just say the football gods smiled upon me this weekend. Which us appropriate since they owe me. Judging from the current state of the Monday night game (in progress as I type), I may actually end up 10-3-1. Unheard of.

I haven't discussed the redesign lately because I haven't been working on it much. I have decided to go to three columns instead of two, because I want to wedge as much of the permanent material up towards the top of the page to draw attention to it. I'm also considering moving from Blogger to something called Moveable Type as the post engine. Most bloggers I know who've made the switch think it is wonderful, but it means temporal deficit spending (i.e. more time than I have). And I'm already unhappy with the heading of the redesign. I just can't seem to make myself go with a decision - I always feel like there is something more I should do first (a microcosm of my life).

The search for a publisher for A Pleasure Doing Business With You continues to cycle through hope and disappointment ad nauseam. It WILL see the light of day - I guarantee. Eventually.

There are only a few episodes of the Sopranos left this year. It has been very uneven - occasional greatness, moments of uncharacteristic vacuity. Once it's over I'll probably do an updated sequel to my HBO original programming review.

Now back to your regularly scheduled posts.

--posted at 10:39 PM-- ~permanent link~

 
Tube Notes: Speaking of TV, it looks like there is a move afoot to pressure cable providers into providing a la carte programming subscriptions. Apparently, there is evidence to suggest that cable companies are required to do this by legislation. It may be worth a shot to contact your local cable monopoly and see what they say, but I'm thinking it's a long shot. I don't know what there would be to stop them from setting pricing so that a la carte is way too expensive.

In another vein, it seems that HDTV is a girl's best friend. That settles it. Chicks are the new guys.

--posted at 10:38 PM-- ~permanent link~

 
Vegas Matrix: An utterly absorbing article on Vegas is posted over at Popular Science. It's about seven pages long and it's packed with fascinating info on how Vegas operates beneath the surface.
What made Budz rich, and what has made casinos even richer in recent years, are new digital networks that connect virtually every slot machine in every casino in the country. Wheel of Fortune, for instance, is part of the MegaJackpots system, a network within 18 states and one Native American reservation that encompasses more than 8,000 machines, about half of them in Nevada. Because all these slots are wired together, every coin and bill inserted is monitored and tallied by banks of central computers, often hundreds of miles away. The maximum jackpot, advertised in flashing digits above each cluster of machines, mounts identically and simultaneously with each spin.
All this networking has allowed for a hidden revolution in odds (which I'm not sure I'm clear on).
Every game - slots, cards, sports betting, even bingo - is now attempting to adapt a [Norwegian mathematician Inge] Telnaes-style solution: Decrease the odds without increasing apparent complexity. That allows bigger prizes, which increases - by staggering quantities - the amount of money people are willing to gamble: In gambler-think, 10 bucks for a shot at a few thousand dollars is one thing; a hundred bucks for a shot at millions is another, even if the odds are much, much worse.
The result of this was the money began pouring into Vegas even faster - and so did cheaters.
[No thieves were more efficient] than Ronald Dale Harris, whose job as a software engineer for the state Gaming Control Board was to write slot machine anti-cheating software. Harris surreptitiously coded a hidden software switch - tripped by inserting coins in a predetermined sequence - that would trigger cash jackpots. After retooling more than 30 machines, Harris and accomplices made the rounds, walking away with hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So the casino build up counter-measures
...hundreds of cameras linked to banks of video recorders, software that can match physical characteristics to shared databases of the faces, names, and histories of suspicious individuals - all run from hidden control centers.
And so it goes. Good read. Enjoy.

--posted at 10:37 PM-- ~permanent link~

Friday, November 08, 2002

 
Football Results - Week 9:There are three stages of primatological de-evolution involved in getting eviscerated by the NFL. You begin the day as a rational intelligent Homo Sapiens, by mid-Sunday a passer-by might mistake you for a retarded Baboon, and by the end, you are the intellectual equivalent to a hydrocephalic Tree Shrew.5-8-1. And that good only because of a heroic comeback in the night games. Maybe I should just play Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Point-Spread to get my picks in the future. So that leaves me at a politely humble 12-14-2 for the season.

--posted at 4:29 PM-- ~permanent link~

 
Football Picks - Week 10: Like a battered co-dependent I keep coming back for more.

--posted at 4:29 PM-- ~permanent link~

Thursday, November 07, 2002

 
Writers Are, Like, Smart Guys, You Know: OK, this is self-serving. I came across a couple of articles about how brilliant and wonderful writers are, so I think you should read them. First, this article about pre-discovery - the act of explaining a cosmological concept long before it is discovered by physicists. Turns out Edgar Allen Poe pre-discovered the big bang and black holes, in his own way.

More impressively, David Lodge, author of a bunch of comic novels (including the delightful Changing Places), provides a longish read on how and why we may get the best insights about human consciousness from fiction.
There are some thinkers in cognitive science, or on the fringes of it, who have acknowledged as much. Noam Chomsky, for instance, has said: "It is quite possible... that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology." The reason is that science tries to formulate general explanatory laws which apply universally, which were in operation before they were discovered, and which would have been discovered sooner or later by somebody.

Works of literature describe in the guise of fiction the dense specificity of personal experience, which is always unique, because each of us has a slightly or very different personal history, modifying every new experience we have; and the creation of literary texts recapitulates this uniqueness (that is to say, Jane Austen's Emma , for example, could not have been written by anybody else, and never will be written by anyone else again, but an experiment demonstrating the second law of thermodynamics is and must be repeatable by any competent scientist).
Well, of course I think so.

--posted at 10:19 PM-- ~permanent link~

 
May I Suggest Hooked On Phonics?: Long time reader and all around good egg, Inne ten Have, passed along this hilarious sound bite. An Australian radio station was giving away ACDC CDs, all the guy who called in had to do was spell A-C-D-C. One suspects a good deal of Foster's Lager was involved in this. (It's about 850K, it'll take a minute or two to download.)

--posted at 10:17 PM-- ~permanent link~

 
Thank You Sir May I Have Another: You may have been following the scandals surrounding University of Michigan basketball (yeah, it's local, and it's my alma mater, so I'm going to rant a bit) wherein Chris Weber and others members of the now infamous Fab Five of the early '90s accepted loans from some numbers runner while they were on the team. This is, of course, forbidden by the NCAA and U of M faced punishment. Today the president of U of M announced preemptive punishment which should no doubt satisfy the NCAA poobahs once they take up the issue.
"I am determined that nothing like this will ever happen again at Michigan," [UM President Mary Sue] Coleman said. "Let me say loud and clear: Integrity is our top priority."
To prove this, she announced the following punitive steps.
* U-M will forfeit all games won while the four players were ineligible, including the 1992 and 1993 Final Fours, the entire 1992-93 season, and all the seasons from fall 1995 through spring of 1999. The University has removed four championship banners from Crisler Arena and will remove all references to the victories from all written materials.

* U-M has promised to repay to the NCAA about $450,000 in revenue for postseason play with the players.

* The basketball team will not participate in the 2003 NCAA Tournament or the post-season National Invitational Tournament.

* The basketball program will go on probation for two years.
This is insane. What, exactly, is the point of forfeiting an entire decade of games? What does that achieve? And removing all references to the victories from all written materials? Huh? This is like Pharaoh removing all references to Moses in the Ten Commandments. Even Pete Rose hasn't been erased from the baseball record. All that does is make the written materials inaccurate.

And what sense does it make not to play in the postseason this year? Deny your current team - none of whom had any contact with the known crooks, all of whom want every opportunity to play in high profile situation for the scouts and were probably thinking about that when they were recruited - a chance at post-season accolades because of something Chris Weber did 10 years ago?

Pay the fines, fire anyone associated with the crooks, take the hit on future recruiting, be contrite, then move on. That's all you have to do. It'll hurt enough. Coleman appears to want to flagellate everyone in sight, guilty and innocent, so she can pat herself on the back over her image of integrity. But the real costs to real people don't justify her exercise in moral indignation.

--posted at 10:14 PM-- ~permanent link~

Tuesday, November 05, 2002

 
Weekend Warrior: I know I promised not to post about football until Friday, but let me just say 5-8-1. Ah, well. Despite that, I had a good weekend. I played hookey on Monday because HRH Miss Anna was in town with her Mom and friend, Kate and Katie respectively. We had a great time scurrying all around Ann Arbor including a visit to the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum. Highly recommended, if you have critters to entertain. Equally fun for the girls was crossing the diag. Needless to say, the 10-year olds were thoroughly unimpressed with the college scene, instead preferring to classify everyone they saw into one of five categories, solely on looks. Everyone was either a Geek, Jock, Problem, Independent, Freak, or Gay. It's good to see they are well prepared to be shallow, yet popular, teenaged girls. Anyway, a it was a truly great day from start to finish.

--posted at 10:48 PM-- ~permanent link~

 
What To Read: The best thing I've come across from web reading lately is Business 2.0. They post the entire print magazine - for free - a couple of weeks after it hits the stands. This month you get a look at the latest Mercedes and all the high tech stuff that keeps a ham-fisted driver like you from mangling it.
Not that you'd smoke in this car, of course. That wouldn't be good for you. And this would displease the SL, since virtually every system onboard is focused on making things safer for you, the hapless, error-prone human. Are you taking that corner too fast? Not to worry. By now, one of the 13 sensors tucked between the coils and the car body has noticed your foolishness, and the car has already tightened the suspension to eliminate 95 percent of the body roll. Have you wigged out a bit in traffic, slammed the brakes into a spin? Well, actually, the SL would not have let you endanger it like this. When it sensed you were getting into trouble (by analyzing the time elapsed between when you removed your foot from the electronic throttle and when you hit the brakes), it launched a host of countermeasures to ward off your clumsiness.
Who needs a chauffeur? Then there's a quick note about a scary new soft drink. Lots of good reading. Peruse when have the time.

--posted at 10:45 PM-- ~permanent link~

Friday, November 01, 2002

 
Halloween is the New Christmas: Good grief. I'm sorry, but it's really gotten out of hand.

It starts with a hyperthyroidal fruit; gutted, and carved to resemble a disembodied head. We do this for the sake of entertaining the children, then we're shocked when the teacher wants to know why little Billy keeps saying, "It puts the lotion in the basket."

Then there are the witches with long noses and warts and cackling laughs, and zombies with deformed faces and eerie speech impediments, all designed to scare us silly. Let's see, Rosie O'Donnell, Howard Stern, Ozzy Osbourne, Michael Moore, Anna Nicole and Dennis Franz's butt have all gotten air time in the past few years. You do the math.

Next, we are subjected to a thirteen hour marathon of Friday the 13th movies, where we witness minor horrors such as graphic depictions of beheadings, to major horrors such as dialog like "Jason is out there. This isn't a game. You'll be sorry you didn't listen to me." Ya think?

The costumes are intended pay homage to demons and terrifying creatures of the underworld, which apparently would place Spiderman and the Powerpuff Girls as minions of the Dark Lord. OK fine, if little kids want to dress up that's OK, but it's not OK for adults at work. I just can't get comfortable with my pasta marinara being served by a waitress with a fake axe embedded in her head. (Aside: Best costume I ever saw was worn by a guy I lived with in the dorm who went to a party in preppy clothes with a small bullseye drawn on his forehead. It was a JFK costume. One sick, sick puppy. Cracks me up to this day.)

And just like Christmas, it's excruciatingly drawn out for weeks before hand so we can drown in cheesy decorations, excessive refined sugar, and tedious TV reruns.

There's only one good strategy for dealing with Halloween. Barricade yourself in your home and turn off all the lights and cower like a camp counselor hiding from Jason and hope the trick-or-treaters don't notice you.

--posted at 8:25 PM-- ~permanent link~

 
Football Picks - Week 8: I'm reserving Friday for football posts for the rest of the season. Just in case this bores you.

--posted at 8:14 PM-- ~permanent link~