Thanks to those of you who peeked in during my day of IM. I think I'll have to do this more often.

In reasonably unrelated techie news, I'm involved in the beta test for Gmail, Google's web mail application. It's now the address mail from here goes to, so feel free to drop me a line so I can actually try the thing out. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get some stock for my trouble. Right.

Played my first round of miniature golf of the season tonight. though unlike some people, I didn't get a trophy for it. I did manage to eke out a win over the missus by one stroke. Like Jon in his recently reported round of golf, I was bitten by a couple of lip-outs (including the 18th, no free golf for me). But there were plenty of other times where I just stank. We played at this place called the Village Green on Route 9 in Natick, which has a New England/colonial theme. If you ever wanted to putt through the Massachusetts State House, or under the Bunker Hill monument, this place is for you.

We then rented a couple of movies, first watching Something's Gotta Give, which was OK for something whose plot was derived mainly from a sitcom-type contrivance. Keaton was pretty good (Oscar nod-worthy, not sure), though Frances McDormand was great for the 10 minutes or so she was in the thing.

I've never used IM very much. When I have used it, it's mostly been for a specific reason, like talking with folks not on site during a fantasy football draft.

But I had it open by accident the other day, and had the opportunity to share some words with the Champion of the West. The unexpected conversation was a nice change, so I figured I would give it a more consistent try.

Given that, I'll be leaving my Yahoo Messenger open all day tomorrow. If you've got an account, feel free to find me and say hi.

As part of a surprise presidential holiday, Sam and Heidi from The Apprenctice are on campus, currently in the theater next door talking about the show and so forth. I thought it might be interesting, but didn't go because of a 1:30 appointment with a student.

As you might guess from the time I'm writing this, he never showed. You can imagine how the meeting is going to go if he blew me off to go to this thing.

In other iTunes related news, the service is giving away downloads to celebrate its first birthday. I was very excited to see that the Foo Fighters were today's featured band. I was less excited upon learning that the free download involved The Colour and the Shape - which I own and have already loaded onto my iPod. Dang.

And I think our next free artist is Avril LaVigne. Double dang.

Even with his youthful air and pasty charm, weeks of dismal vocal performance finally caught up with John Stevens on American Idol, as he got the gate. Even so, he tallied over 4 million votes. Many, I think, from viewers who can't see or hear well enough to know he's not Clay Aiken.

Next week, the kids sing the songs of Jethro Tull. OK, not really, but I'd like to see Diana DeGarmo tackle "Locomotive Breath."

For all you iTunes users out there, a chance to get another free song!

Go to the Ben & Jerry's website and take their Oath to Vote. The first 50,000 to take the oath get a free song download.

Just remember that once you take the oath you'd better vote. The last thing you want is Ben and Jerry on your doorstep on November 10.

Gloria Estefan brought her Latin beats to American Idol, along with the Miami Sound Machine to back the kids. Which at least meant that the music was pretty good. The singing... not so much.

No one really stood out tonight, though the usually less crappy singers were, as you'd expect, less crappy. Which means any one of them could get the axe this week, freeing us up for another week of John Stevens: Ghost Vocalist. Man, I think he gets paler every week.

This may be the week he finally gets shown the door, though I'll guess Jasmine Trias, for no good reason other than she's stopped wearing a flower in her hair. That was her gimmick for being from Hawaii, which the image folks on the show have finally beaten out of her. Now that she's lost the source of her power, how can she go on?

Oh, and there's another live tour planned for this summer. For your own safety, you should remain at least 500 yards away from any possible concert venues at all times.

Today's phrase that bodes poorly: Olympic cancellation insurance.

The IOC's taken out a $170 million policy in case the Games are cancelled by war, terrorism, earthquakes, landslides, or flooding (among other things). I'm sure the Greek tourism board is thrilled.

IOC president Jacques Rogge said getting the insurance was a case of using sound judgement rather than lack of trust in the Athens organizers. That this is the first time such insurance has been taken out makes me think otherwise, at least to some degree. I mean, if you didn't take out insurance for all the possible natural disasters that could have hit during the LA Games in 1984, what would you be waiting for?

Turin and Beijing will have their own policies as well, so if there's an outbreak of SARS or a bad batch of meatballs they're covered.

Turns out that the proposed EU flag design is a couple of years old. Thanks to Dwight Kidder for pointing that out. Clearly, I have to remember to read the dateline and not get sidetracked by the colors.

With apologies for the ESPN.com Page 2 rip-off, it's time for Makin' it Better: the European Union flag:

OLD



The classic EU flag, its 12 stars don't represent member nations (there being 15 current members, 10 "new" members, and another three with applications out), but rather the "number twelve is traditionally the symbol of perfection, completeness and unity," this according to the EU website. By using numerology and not the number of states, the EU website claims that "[t]he flag will therefore remain unchanged regardless of future EU enlargements."

Which brings us to:

NEW



This prototype for a new EU flag is by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, asked to come up with a new flag at the behest of EU president Romano Prodi. Koolhaas was going for a single image to represent Europe's diversity and unity, and thought of using all the EU member flag colors in linear form. To me it looks like a UPC representation for an acid trip, but then again I've never won the Pritzker Prize.

Thoughts and votes, should you be so motivated, are welcome via email.

While I didn't get to see either of tonight's episodes (opting for the conclusion of Prime Suspect 6 on PBS, which was solid as usual), I did want to weigh in on Iron Chef America. This is not to be confused with the Iron Chef USA shows that UPN put together a few years back. The Food Network version of things tries to stay closer to the Japanese original, but where the UPN version embraced the over the top nature a bit too much (Shatner as Kaga), the Food Network version is a little too staid.

Let's start with the Chairman, who in the new series is Kaga's nephew. He's a martial artist who has equal passion for food, and with the uncle's OK sets up a Kitchen Stadium here. The new Chairman is about a tenth as flamboyant as Kaga, and to make up for it he's given extra mouthfuls of verbose dialogue, which doesn't fill the bill. In watching IC America I realized that much more what Kaga means to the original. There's also no build up to start the episode - the new Chairman announces who's fighting, what the ingredient is, and off we go. And the chefs don't even have to run up to the ingredient stand - they're standing right next to it when the ingredient is announced! The Food Network folks have completely missed the boat on all of the things, major and minor, which gives the original version its spark.

Keeping in the staid category there are the new Iron Chefs: Bobby Flay, Mario Batali, and Wolfgang Puck. They make great food, but seem a little restrained, especially in the face of the Japanese Iron Chefs who come over to do battle. I mean, Sakai made ice cream with trout! You'd never see any of the new Iron Chefs do that. I do think the new Iron Chefs are probably the right ones for the job (especially as they all have shows on Food Network, nice synergy there), but perhaps need a little extra schooling as to the originality that the original Iron Chefs put into things.

The judges are also pretty dull, though we don't get to hear enough of their comments to really judge. Most of the celebs are c-list to boot (J. Peterman and the guy who plays Gunther from the coffee shop in Friends, for example).

On the plus side, Alton Brown does a good job filling in for Dr. Hattori as color commentator, but he's also expected to do play-by-play. That's no good, too much is going on for him to fill both roles. The floor commentator, whose name escapes me, is no Otah. In the first episode he couldn't recognize foie gras, while in the second he thought tomato paste was sun-dried tomatoes. Perhaps hiring someone who knows something about food would have been a first step for the floor guy.

So while I can't say I'm crazy about Iron Chef America, I do give the Food Network props for the attempt, and hope that they have a chance to tinker in making future episodes.

More genealogy today, as Sarah and I wandered over to the state archives. It actually turned out to be a pretty good trip, as we were able to confirm a bunch of information about by grandfather's family. We were also hoping to find some information regarding where my great-grandfather came into the country, but to no avail.

We also confirmed something Sarah's mom told us based on her years of genealogy: expect dates to be all screwed up. There's definite confusion where my great-grandparents are concerned. It also doesn't help that their names keep changing their spelling (my great-grandfather's first name alternates between Myles and Miles, while his wife's maiden name is Kell(e)y, with the second 'e' seeing to crop up with every other official entry).

While I usually don't post whole news stories, this one struck me funny:

(with thanks to Yahoo, the AP, and whoever else was involved.)

Louisiana May Ban Low-Slung Pants

BATON ROUGE, La. - People who wear low-slung pants that expose skin or "intimate clothing" would face a fine of up to $500 and possible jail time under a bill filed by a Jefferson Parish lawmaker.

State Rep. Derrick Shepherd said he filed the bill because he was tired of catching glimpses of boxer shorts and G-strings over the lowered belt lines of young adults.

The bill would punish anyone caught wearing low-riding pants with a fine of as much as $500 or as many as six months in jail, or both.

"I'm sick of seeing it," said Shepherd, a first-term legislator. "The community's outraged. And if parents can't do their job, if parents can't regulate what their children wear, then there should be a law."

The bill would be tacked onto the state's obscenity law, which restricts sexual activity in public places and the sale of sexually explicit items.

Joe Cook, head of the American Civil Liberties Union's Louisiana chapter, said the bill probably does not meet the U.S. Supreme Court's standard for the prohibition of obscene behavior under the First Amendment.

"What about a woman who is wearing a bathing suit under her garment or she has something like a sarong wrapped around her and it's below her waist," he said. "I can think of a lot of workers, plumbers, who are working and expose their buttocks ..."

There's just something about the intersection of civil liberties and plumber's butt that makes me chuckle.

Here's a nice quote for the post-9/11 era:

In written testimony submitted to the House aviation subcommittee, Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin said Transportation Security Administration screeners and privately contracted airport workers "performed about the same, which is to say, equally poorly."

His report, as well as a study by the consulting firm Bearing Point, portrayed the TSA as an unresponsive, inflexible bureaucracy that is failing to provide an adequate level of security at airports.

I can't say this is particularly surprising, but given all the rhetoric that flew a few years ago it's disheartening. Not sure what the answer would be - you can't trust the airlines given how they've handled things in the past, but clearly the new government set-up is leaving a lot to be desired. There's a small part of me that wants to call out some sort of existing law enforcement or military police unit, or maybe state police for each airport location, but I don't know if that would work, either. Asking cops or soldiers to spend the day staring at a screen or pawing through underwear seems like a waste. So you could create a new branch of these existing bodies, but then you're back to doing something like the TSA.

Or maybe we keep the status quo and bring back the guys with the M-16s to wander the terminals to scare bad guys off. Frustrating.

High drama on American Idol tonight, and like Comic Book Guy I've taken to the Internet mere minutes afterwards to register my disgust (well, OK, I'm not disgusted, just surprised).

Similar to what they did a couple of weeks ago, the kids are herded into two groups. The three "divas," Jennifer, Fantasia and LaToya, are in one group, while the leftovers (John, Diana, and Jasmine) are in the other. George, who is the last one called, is told he's safe and is instructed to join the top group. Note that he is not told which group that is.

After a little hesitation, George wanders over to the diva group. Somewhere, the producers smile. For you see, he's made the same assumption the rest of us have, and in the words of Lee Corso, "Not so fast, my friend!". The leftovers were the top half this week. Which means it's time to lose a diva.

(Apropos of not much, I would like to see a week where the ESPN College Gameday trio switch places with the AI judges. Corso would have to be Simon to Herbstreit's Paula.)

Turns out we lose Jennifer Hudson, who in a previous week had been the top vote getter (I'm guessing the Elton John week). Reaction from the leftover group is more muted than in the past when they were spared. John looks somewhat less bewildered at cheating eviction for another week, while Diana has apparently learned something about winning gracefully, not being quite so much Miss American Idol when she finds out she's safe.

So there you have it, an even split between reasonably talented and utter crap. And I think I just might start rooting for the crap.

Good news: our luggage finally came back from its impromptu vacation in Memphis.

Bad news: the book I left on the plane looks like a lost cause. The Wellesley public library's going to take away my card, I can feel it.

Taking a page from Julie's blog, I've had several sightings of carpenter ants lately. Unfortunately, they've all been on my desk at work. And I'm not the only one in the office that's seen them.

And while I know this isn't Julie's preferred method of dealing with things, we did get some bait put down that will send many of them to ant heaven. But, judging from the 2 or 3 I've seen today, not all of them.

I'm not much of a Barry Manilow fan, which made tonight's episode of American Idol pretty dull. Barry was in the house as guest judge, and didn't add anything too insightful. He did work with the kids during the week, setting up personal arrangements and such.

This seemed to work for most contestants, but it worked really poorly for George, who oversang things. Thanks, Barry. Oh, glory notes were required for all female contestants as well. Thanks again, Barry.

Even with the overall better female performances, I expect Diana and Jasmine to go back to the bottom three. Not sure who'll join them. Maybe John, who did a reasonable cover of "Mandy" (reasonable for him, really)? Sure, why not.

Oh, and after weeks with Barry Manilow, Elton John, and Motown, I fully expect the song book of Sammy Cahn or Gilbert and Sullivan to be upcoming themes. Or maybe just a night of music in the public domain; I imagine someone would clean up wailing out "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

The most entertaining part of the night was the first 4 or 5 minutes, when the audio and video didn't synch. The kung-fu dub effect is only second to a man getting hit in the crotch by a ball in terms of funny media gags (OK, the thing where you play tape at double time forward or backwards is pretty cool, too).

Apologies for the hiatus, spent the last few days in Chattanooga and Atlanta on a combined quizbowl/sightseeing long weekend. Not much to say on the tournament end, other than it appeared to go well and most folks I've talked to expressed that it was a good time (and these are folks who aren't afraid to say what's on their mind).

On the travel front, I did get to do something I'd never done before: fly first class. On the way to Atlanta (via Detroit in the backwards logic of more flights costing less money) we were offered a relatively low-priced upgrade on the Detroit to Atlanta leg. We figured what the heck, and bought in. It did make that part of the flight less irritating, though I think there were limits to what Northwest could do in putting a first class section in a DC-9 (I'm still a little stunned that anyone still uses DC-9s). I got to spend that part of the trip sitting next to a very pleasant woman who is some sort of regional player with Amway (and no, she didn't try to sell me anything).

Coming home, we were booked to go from Atlanta to Memphis to Boston, the first leg on Delta, the latter on Northwest. We started boarding a little late, everyone got into place, and then the announcement from the cockpit: thanks to three "discrepencies," we're going to be leaving a little late. Two of the three were fixed no problem; the third - a faulty harness for the pilot's seat - was proving more difficult.

Time passed. Our new intended departure time of 6 pm came and went. More time passed. We started to come hard upon 6:30, which even if we'd instantly went from gate to air meant that we'd miss our connecting flight. I asked a flight attendant about this, and she referred me to a gate agent.

The gate agent was very helpful, and got us on a later direct flight home. We wandered over to our new gate, and Sarah thought she'd ask the gate agent there about an upgrade. After hearing our story, he gave us one free of charge (my guess is if I'd been the one who'd gone up to ask, we'd have gotten nothing and liked it).

Unlike the DC-9, the Boeing 757 has a very nice first class cabin. I don't think I've ever been more comfortable on a flight anywhere. And now I have to go back to flying coach - what ever will I do?

The downside to all of this was that our bags wound up spending the night in Memphis - didn't have time to get them off the original plane, and there weren't any other flights that would get our bags to Boston last night. So they'll be coming today. Not too big of a deal, except that I had to shave this morning using soap and a Venus razor. While you'd think that'd end with spurting and suturing and such, it actually went very well. Not that I'm going to switch to that all the time.

As far as the sightseeing portion of things went, Sarah and I took in the CNN tour and the World of Coke (with a walk through Atlanta Underground) before heading out. More on that later.

There's sadness in Bag End tonight as Jon Peter Lewis, the hobbit emissary to American Idol, failed in his quest and was voted off the show. Clearly, he could have used some ass-kicking elves. At least he can now go back to romping through the fields shoeless and, well, doing whatever else his people do. John Stevens was in the bottom three as well. Rounding out the group was Diana DeGarmo, who was the contestant sent back to safety. From her reaction you'd think she'd won something other than public acclimation that out of the 8 contestants, she's only the 6th best liked.

Warning: next week will apparently feature Barry Manilow tunes.

On The Apprentice, Trump went with Bill Rancic over Kwame Jackson, which seems like the right choice. For his trouble, Bill now gets to oversee the construction of a 90 story building in Chicago, an interesting case of serendipity given that Bill is from Chicago. Hmm...

The live portion of the show wasn't that great. There wasn't enough time to really answer questions - Omarosa got called out for being a liar, but was able to skate by giving some BS/joke response that got followed quickly by other contestants seeking their brief time in the sun. Even when Trump got to mention someone - Tammy, for example, is having a baby - there wasn't much time for follow up. We did learn that Amy and Nick dated briefly after the show, but to no avail. Trump pretty much spoke for everyone when he noted that their "romance" may have been the lamest TV fling ever.

There was also a brief "preview" for next season, which was just Trump talking about how next season's tasks would be harder, with shorter deadlines, and involve Fortune 500 companies (who are getting into the act now that the show's a hit - why take a risk?). I don't even think the show's been cast yet, so no intros to new contestants or anything like that. Trump even mused that he might bring some of this season's folks back, giving us shots of Sam, Troy, and Omarosa. As they say, two out of three ain't bad.

I'm not sure what's more disturbing - Quentin Tarantino serving as a guest judge on American Idol or finding out that the favorite movie of one of the contestants is Sister Act 2 (for the singing, we're told).

In any case, movie music was the theme last night, which explains Tarantino's presence (and not, you know, that he has a movie coming out tomorrow) and all the kids musing about their favorite movies. That was odd, at least to start, as George Huff went from talking about The Wiz to singing the title song from Against All Odds. He'd have been much better off singing "Ease On Down the Road," not his best performance.

Odder still was that both Jon and John were listenable last night, singing "Jailhouse Rock" and "As Time Goes By" respectively. Both were still clearly out-classed by other contestants, but it wasn't the nausea-inducing horror show of weeks past.

That was left to Diana DeGarmo, who sang "My Heart Will Go On." I really don't need to say any more here, do I? My guess is that either she or Jasmine Trias, whose song I can't remember, will get the boot. They were both in the bottom three last week, and have both made at least one other appearance there as well. For the third spot... George may actually take it, though Jennifer may go back down given that Fantasia and La Toya performed late in the show and did well.

As I've mentioned a couple times before, I've been bothered by a rash for a while. Nothing serious as far as I could tell, just itchy on my lower legs and a couple placed on my midsection. My primary doctor tried a few things with no avail, so I finally got myself to the dermatologist this morning. Worth noting that it's the first time outside of the ER that I've had a woman doctor, more for that it took this long for it to happen than anything else (naturally, I was asked to don a johnnie for the exam).

And, after she looked at the spots in question, her diagnosis was something called nummular dermatitis. Suffice it to say that it's a fairly non-specific malady, one of those things that just seems to happen thanks to dry skin or an injury or something (in my case I'm going with dry skin). So I've been put on some sort of cream, we'll see how it goes. I was on one before, but in kind of a half-assed way. Hopefully going full-ass will stop the itching.

In case you missed it yesterday, Yahoo had a story about a website that calculates impact effects for various things that could hit the earth. It's a dandy little time-waster.

For example, my office sits roughly 10 miles from Boston. Would I die if, say, an asteroid 100 meters in diameter made up of dense rock hit the city at a 60 degree angle?

The short answer is no, but there'd be a hell of a racket. While there'd be seismic and thermal effects, the air blast would cause the most damage, almost completely knocking down wood frame houses, shattering glass, and knocking down most trees.

Now, a comet of the same dimension and make-up (assuming it's physically possible) would do much more damage, thanks I assume to its greater velocity. Thermal effects would cause first degree burns, we'd get some ejecta, and the air blast would pretty much level everything around here. Hope I'm near a ditch.

I really don't have much to make note of from the weekend that others didn't capture. But that won't stop me from writing.

My plan to watch the NCAA men's div 1 ice hockey final in Maine worked perfectly, as the Pioneers of the University of Denver took their first title since 1969 by notching a 1-0 win over Maine. As Shawn noted, this won't be one to turn college hockey on to the masses, though the last couple of minutes were sheer terror the likes of which you'd never see this side of the NHL.

And, of course, I wound up winning my gentlepersons wager pool for the tournament. I'll be enjoying my windfall of bupkis.

The rest of the weekend in Maine was pretty low key. Spent most of Saturday in Bangor doing various errands, none of which require much note here, other than if you are in the Bangor Mall area, you too may enjoy dining at what might be the slowest Pizzeria Uno in all of the Americas (actually, it was just our booth that dragged, so if you can get a table or eat at the bar you'll be fine).

Got to listen to the Sox lose the opener on the way up and win in extra innings on the way home. At no time did we have to station hunt, though, so it wasn't the true New England driving experience.

I was surprised at the amount of ice on the lakes and ponds of mid-coast Maine, really that there was any. As cold as it was down here this winter, I assume it was that much worse up there, with the melt taking that much longer as a result.

On the tackiness side, one of the houses that was festooned with the large inflatable Santa and snowman at Christmas had large inflatable bunny and chick for Easter. The most tacky house in the region didn't do anything for this holiday - they just didn't take down the flying Santa and reindeer from four months ago.

Sadly, I didn't have my camera out at the time.

Most couples have a song. Something that, at some point in the dating/engagement period came to signfiy something unique about the relationship.

Sarah and I didn't have a song. This is due in large part to our fairly divergent musical tastes, though even where they do intersect nothing struck us as particularly meaningful in the context of our progression to marriage. We had a dickens of a time even coming up with a first dance song, settling on Norah Jones' version of "The Nearness of You" because it's pretty well done and mercifully short.

Jump forward to Friday, when a song came on the radio that reminded us both about our trip to Ireland. In fact, we heard the song on pretty much a daily basis while on our honeymoon, to the point where it was kind of the trip's unofficial theme song. We never expected to hear it again, but then we came home and not too much later it was gracing the airwaves, both on its own and in ads (for the album it's on and for a movie). Having it show up here unexpectedly, when taken with all the great memories of Ireland, filled that spot that had been vacant for so, so long.

And that's how "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" by The Darkness wound up becoming our song.

Yahoo has a link up now trying to convince me that it should serve as my "life engine." Thanks, I'm going to stick with the heart-brain combo for now.

For those of you who missed it the other night, Camile did get the heave-ho on American Idol after one of the most padded out results shows ever. Which, given the show we're talking about, is saying something. Even better was that by the end they were running long, so not only did they have all that padding, they screwed it up to boot. It didn't help that they did this stupid thing where they put the 9 finalists into three groups, two of which were safe. Pointless! Camile was joined in the bottom by Jasmine and Diana. Diana I could see, Jasmine not so much. She wasn't great, but there were worse people who weren't in the bottom three at all.

On The Apprentice, the final four candidates got pared down to two after a day of interviews with some top Trump people. Nick got canned, as he was widely seen as not being able to get beyond his sales orientation (they also didn't see the personality and leadership qualities that Nick has always professed to having, which, if they are there, don't come out as much as Nick thinks they do). Sadly, my pick to win it all, Amy, was also sent packing. She had the worst set of interviews by far, being accused of having no substance by pretty much everyone.

This left Bill and Kwame, each of whom was given a task to run in the Trump universe. Bill got a golf tournament at Trump National, Kwame a Jessica Simpson concert at the Taj Mahal (just what we needed, more of her). To help them, each got to pick three out of a pool of six former contestants to work for them. Bill went with Nick, Amy, and Katrina (odd choice there, as they butted heads more than once), while Kwame got to reunite with Troy, Omarosa, and Heidi. It was not too much later (in show time) that Omarosa, who was handling the logistics of getting everyone to the casino, royally screwed up the travel plans for both Simpson and her band and then lied about it. The fibbing hasn't really come out, but it's there. Kwame hasn't really pushed her on it, which is too bad. Bill's task is going a little better, but from what they showed it seems like Bill's a bit of a jerk as a boss. Scenes from next week suggest that will continue.

In actualy reality events, I spent yesterday at the Frozen Four semifinals. Amazingly, both of the teams I was rooting for won. Denver took full advantage of a Minnesota-Duluth collapse to win 5-3, scoring 3 goals in the first half of the third period. Denver has apparently changed their color scheme to more of a maroon and gold than the red and white I remember from years back, which really weakened their position as official rooting interest. But they held on, and are now solidly back in that role.

That's due, in the largest part, to their opponent in the finals: Maine. The Black Bears held off BC to win 2-1, really a testament to Jimmy Howard's netminding (stopping 40 of 41 shots). Maine scored twice on 18 shots. Make your own conclusions, goalie-wise.

Major thanks go out to Mike Burger for the tickets, and for putting up with me for much longer than anyone really should have to.

Some random thoughts:

* Reports out of India suggest that the dilatory powers of Viagra can also help with a pulmonary disease that can lead to heart failure. A larger study will help to confirm or deny this. Not sure why I find this significant, but I do.

* TV watchers may have seen the Coors Light ad with "Wingdog," the sequel to the great "Wingman" ad. It's basically a song about how a dog can be used by guys to break the ice with women. It's not as good as the original ad, but it's still head and shoulders above their usual advertising (though the lyric about the dog's "nine inch tail" is a pretty lame double entendre).

* I have no feelings regarding UConn's double titles. I don't hate UConn like some of my western Mass. bretheren, but I'm not a huge fan, either. I just hope the kids stop flipping and burning cars before the week is out.

* Another Yahoo headline (I think from yesterday) reported that Americans are now less vigilant about STDs than in the past. How are we going to stop al-Qaeda if we can't stop something microscopic? Remember, every time you don't use protection, the terrorists win.

* One of the things I love about early season baseball: your division leaders at this point are Tampa Bay, Detroit, Anaheim, Florida/NY Mets (tied), Milwaukee, and San Francisco. I'll set the over/under line on the number of these teams still being division leaders on September 1st at 1.5.

* And let's not even go to the stats portion of things, where Joe Mauer and Toby Hall are tied with the AL batting lead at .750.

* But let's go to the new rivalry for '04: Yankees-Rays. You apparently cannot stop Victor Zambrano, you can only hope to contain him. And while we're here, how is it that the Yankees played the Tigers to a 7-7 tie in the middle of all those games that counted? I assume a scheduling thing based on their trip to Japan, but it's odd nonetheless.

* In what I promise will be my last baseball point, this whole Pedro Martinez thing is a tempest in a teapot, but sadly the sort of thing that the local media loves to bray on about. The Knights of the Keyboard ride again.

* My personal development took a new step yesterday as I got to practice parallel parking on the mean streets of Wellesley. Not surprisingly, I suck at it. I don't remember if I had to do it when I last took the driving test, but as that was 17 years ago (or, as I like to call it, half a lifetime), I can't bet on it not being there.

Elton John made an appearance on American Idol last night, as everyone performed songs from his body of work. He apparently spent a day with them, worked on songs, and what did he get for thanks? Wide-scale butchery. You know it's bad when Paula has to actually give a critique rather than her usual blandishments.

Not surprisingly, the worst performances were turned in by John (Steve Irwin would have done a better version of "Crocodile Rock"), Jon (who warbled his way through "Rocket Man"), and Camile (who I think did "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," but I think I've repressed all memory of her performance).

The odds of the three of them representing the bottom three are pretty slim. I'm thinking Diana DeGarmo will get the boot, as she had a pretty weak performance, too. I'll guess Jennifer for the bottom three as well. I figure one of the three from above will get in this group, probably Camile.

Building on what Cooch is talking about today, the Bruins facing Montreal in the first round of the NHL playoffs should be of greater concern than anything the Sox are involved with, given the history of that match-up (even if, sadly, it's not an Adams Division contest anymore). Regardless of the seeding, there's no resting easy until Les Habs are finally put away.

That noise you heard last night was the wailing and gnashing of teeth in Red Sox Nation as the team dropped its opener in somewhat ugly fashion to the Baltimore Orioles. Unlike the Yankees, they couldn't blame jet lag or a pre-game meal of udon noodles on their performance.

Concern over Pedro will mount, though let's remember his first outing against the Orioles last year - that of the ten earned runs. It was a very cold night in Charm City, not exactly Pedro's favored conditions. Sidney Ponson seemed a little more comfortable, but not by much. Enough to keep the Sox offense in relative check, certainly.

If we're going to be concerned about anything with 161 games to go, the offense may be the place to start given how the Sox left upwards of a dozen guys on base last night (checking the box score gives an even scarier number - 14). Most notable last night was Johnny Damon's 0-for-5, even if he did manage a RBI. Actually, if we're going to worry about anything, perhaps it should be Damon's baseball-meets-Unabomber look. Perhaps there's a reverse Sampson thing here.

Those looking for other pitching to pound on can consider Mike Timlin's performance, as he gave up three earned runs in two-thirds of an inning. His ERA is currently listed as 40.50, which you know some idiot caller on sports talk is going to mention.

While the team's fan base isn't particularly known for restraint, I hope we can at least get through the road trip before people start calling for Pedro to get a series of MRIs (or for Terry Francona's head, though I think he'll be spared for now).

Boston magazine put their annual real estate issue out recently, listing 147 eastern Massachusetts cities and towns, ranking them in order of where you get the most bang for your buck.

Wellesley, where we currently live, ranked 142nd. Seems about right, really.

Most of the towns we're looking at for a future home base rank higher, thankfully. Beverly, the next town over from where I grew up, ranks eighth. Manchester, where I grew up, pulled in at 136. Won't be moving back there, apparently.

Moving to Beverly, should it happen, would be kind of a Coen homecoming, as my dad's family called it home for a while before moving one town over. Oddly enough, we were doing some genealogical stuff today and got to peruse some Beverly town records. We were not assisted by whatever idiot at the Census listed our family name as "Cole" in the 1900 Census.

I also learned that one of my great uncles lived in California for a while and was living in Mexico when he died. I don't think I knew that before.

Do you ever have that period in your life where it seems like days are just whipping by?

I'm not sure when this started, but I'm definately in that situation now. The weeks seem to fly, regardless of how I feel the days are progressing. The weekends have been a mere blip on the radar.

This can't be good. Not sure if it's an age thing or just the pace of my life (which, truthfully, is hardly what one would call breakneck). Regardless, I'd prefer it if my days could go back to feeling day-length. I'm especially worried that losing that hour over the weekend is going to have some sort of insidious additive effect, though that's probably just the paranoia talking.

At the risk of more mockery, a quick update on the last two weeks of The Apprentice.

Last week the teams went to Atlantic City with the purpose of getting gamblers to sign up for those swipe/tracking cards and spend as much money as possible. Protege (which is now ironically all guys) used a wheel, a white tiger, and the exclusive right to pick up VIPs in their check-in area to grab a win. The other team had some promotion where you could win a rental of a Chrysler Crossfire. They actually got more people to sign up for cards with them, even with the lamer prize (Protege was giving away $1000), but their folks gambled less.

In the boardroom, Amy took Katrina to the board room, and based on overall performance Amy stayed while Katrina got the wave down to the street. No walking on sunshine for her.

Tonight, the teams had to rent the penthouse at Trump World Plaza (I think that's the name; it was something appropriately megalomaniacal) for a function. Amy and Nick (who were outed to Trump by Katrina) won on the deus ex machina of a previous client with lease issues returning to grab the space. He showed up with about 15 minutes to go, the second time a real estate challenge saw a last-minute taker. Hmm.

Boardroom time, Troy takes in Kwame, interesting in that they've become pretty tight. Troy had spared Kwame before, and I think knew that doing so a second time would be problematic. In the end, Troy got the boot given his slick nature and lack of preparation to be a CEO, even of whatever paper company they're going to wind up running.

Interesting Nick and Amy moment for anyone who cares. Their reward for winning was being sent down to Florida to have lunch and hang out at some resort Trump has down there. They were surprised by being joined by family - Amy's sister and Nick's dad (known, apparently, as Moose). The sitcom rule about idiot dads apparently applied here, as Moose starts talking about Nick's past women in, what he says in an interview, is an attempt to put Amy on notice about Nick's past. Amy looks a little bent out of shape at this, which is funny given that she's been light and breezy with Nick. So some fun for the future, should anyone care.

Next week two folks get the boot - in the first half hour no less - in preparation for the live finale on April 15. Anyone care to wager that the final task will be to do Trump's taxes?

An early check-in on websites with April Fool's content:

Yahoo! doesn't seem to be spoofing, though Sierra Mist has some humor/spoof related ad on the home page. Their fake newspaper page saying that the Dakotas are merging isn't much of a joke, probably because it's too close to possible reality.

The good folks over at TeeVee are doing a riff on Salon.com, which is pretty good. I would especially suggest following the story on ABC turning into an all-reality channel, as the associated web site is very funny. Sad thing is, some of their suggested shows are coming dangerously close to reality (I think we've seen shades of The Confirmed Bachelor in a couple places).

It took me several minutes of poking around Froogle before I saw that I was looking for Google's gag in the completely wrong place. Another good gag this year, but they'll be hard pressed to surpass pigeon-rank technology.

There's even a blog linked at left that takes an April Fool's turn, partially at my own expense. And, let's be honest, I've probably been asking for it.