Between RA training and a network problem here, I didn't know if I'd get on this weekend at all. Now that I have, time to address serious business.

ESPN Pigskin Pick 'Em

Group Name: Dan Klecko Fan Club
Password: kraft

While I didn't have the sort of Dan Klecko experience that led me to draft him for fantasy football purposes, it was nice to see him have some good pre-season work. He also fills the bill for our pre-season Patriots crush, that time when a player, probably someone who won't start much, catches our attention and spurs our imagination.

Rohan Davie got a taste of that when he joined the club, and Michael Bishop made his mark as well, but the best case of it was in 1990 when Michael Proctor (the Murray State QB, not the Alabama kicker) had a whale of a camp but didn't quite catch on, getting cut. Which left us with the likes of Tommy Hodson (who was "considered to have a bright future," ha ha) and Marc Wilson. Things got worse with the Year of the Five Quarterbacks before Drew Bledsoe showed up and helped straighten things out.

Proctor wound up in the WLAF's Montreal Machine, spent some time in Cleveland's camp, made the Steelers practice squad in 1992, signed with the Saskatchewan Rough Riders in '93, Arena's Charlotte Rage from '94 to '96, and then just kind of disappears (not unlike the Rage themselves).

More than you wanted to know about Proctor, I'm sure, but I'm in a football frame of mind.

I only caught the last inning or so of tonight's LLWS game between Saugus and Richmond, Texas, but it was pretty much a full game's worth of baseball.

Saugus took a 10-4 lead into the sixth, but gave up six runs for the tie. Richmond took a 13-10 lead, powered by a 2 run homer. Most of those 9 runs came with two outs.

But, as this game proved, no lead was safe. Saugus did the unlikely, putting together a series of hits and walks that, when crowned with a slow roller down the third base line that the Richmond third baseman couldn't get to first in time, resulted in a 14-13 Saugus win.

Saugus will now get a rematch with Boynton Beach, Florida on Saturday. Should be interesting, as I think both teams will get to use their top pitchers. Game time is 7:30 pm EDT on your ABC affilliate.

Moving on to a fall sport, I've set up a group for the 2003 College Pick 'Em at ESPN.com

Group Name: Witty Group Name
password: bcs

Kevin Millar became the latest in the string of new arrivals to Boston who plead for support when the team enters one of its late-season swoons.

To quote the Globe story:

"I want to see somebody cowboy up and stand behind this team one time and quit worrying about all the negative stuff and talking about last year's team and 10 years ago and 1986," he said. "I don't know any better, man. I'm here to win and have fun. [The past] makes zero sense to me."

A couple of things come to mind:

1. Cowboy up? What the hell does that mean?

2. I appreciate his can-do attitude, but perhaps he should consider that the past makes more than zero sense to people who've lived through the collapses he's discounted. Millar's statement that it's a "new team" forgets the six or seven previous decades of interesting ends of seasons.

(I will note here that I know we've got it pretty good with the Sox. I look at this as more of an internal matter than trying to get, say, Tigers fans to have pity. I think we all know it could be much, much worse.)

Part of the problem (probably most of the problem) is that Millar based his comments on remarks made by local media and the people who call in to sports radio. Perhaps not the most stable or unbiased group of people to identify as the representatives of Red Sox Nation.

Millar, for his part, did go 2 for 6 last night, leaving 4 stranded out of the 17 left on base overall.

I will say that the performance of in-year acquisitions (most notably Jeff Suppan's return to his previous Sox form) will surely bring the Theo doubters out.

For positive baseball talk, let's all think happy thoughts about the Saugus Little Leaguers, who will take on Richmond, Texas tonight for the right to face Boynton Beach, Florida for the US berth in the finals. Saugus beat the Floridians in pool play, but they did not have to face Michael Broad, their ace who one-hit the Arizona team that muscled its way through the other US pool. My guess is that he'll be ready to go on Saturday.

Bridezilla aspects aside, I just have to say there is nothing more classy than a bride all tatted up for her wedding day.

(I should note that this post is dripping in sarcasm, just in case certain people think that visible tattoos would enchace my wedding day. They would NOT.)

LLWS Update After posting 3 runs in the top of the first inning, Saugus held on to best Boynton Beach, Florida 4-3 in the final game of their pool play. Saugus thus wins the pool and will play the second place team from the other US pool next (the winner of today's game between Richmond, Texas and Wilmington, Delaware).

I can happily report that the team from Guam pushed three runs across the plate in their game against Mexico. Unfortunately for the Guamanians, the Mexican team scored 10.

Fantasy Football Update Both the Bruce and Jon Couture have given relatively detailed breakdowns of their respective teams in the league that I run. I will spare you the same, other than to say that I think this is the third or fourth year in a row that Corey Dillon is a featured back on my team. Let the fraught watch commence, though I should be more concerned that I also managed to draft a back who may be on the way out (Antowain Smith, though Kevin Faulk is no prize, either) and one who may be on the way to prison (Michael Pittman, who is involved in a case of aggravated assault).

I have bought heavily into the Philadelphia Eagles passing game, owning Donovan McNabb, James Thrash, and Todd Pinkston.

Not much to say about the others, really.

In fauna news there's a fox hanging around campus, looks like a juvenile who's been separated from its parents. It's fairly small and kind of emaciated, probably from not being fully up to speed on hunting down food. This led to some discussion about what exactly foxes eat. There being no WhatBadgersEat.com for foxes, I had to do some digging, but discovered that they do favor small mammals, eggs, fruit, and birds. We've got plenty of squirrels for the fox, though I fear for the bunny friend who Sarah and I see occasionally by where we park.

That's about it for now. I really should get back to the parts of RA training that I'm responsible for, but I've got a major league case of apathy I'm working through. We'll see how it goes.

On the little league front, the boys from Saugus punched their ticket for the next round by defeating Richland, Washington 2-1. It was a pretty exciting game, given that, had the breaks gone their way, Saugus could have scored 6 or 7 runs. However, the most important breaks went their way in the perilous bottom of the sixth, the inning where they gave up their run and had opposing baserunners on second and third.

The Saugusians will round out pool play against Boynton Beach, Florida today. This will determine who wins the group, as both teams are undefeated.

A related shout-out to the team from Guam, who will round out pool play against the team from Mexico today. Guam has been shut out twice, so here's hoping they can break the streak.

I was also a little confused about the meaning of "Transatlantic" for the region that Dhahran, Saudi Arabia qualified from, until I saw some of the other locations and saw that they all have some sort of military connection (I suppose Saudi can have oil connections as well).

In unrelated sports news, our fantasy football draft last night was held captive by technology for most of the evening, as the unreliability of Yahoo Chat and a wonky DSL connection led to some delays, though the large percentage of live drafters helped keep things moving. I got to draft 11th out of 12, which when added to the computer problems and working proxies for two other owners, resulted in what feels like a very sub-par draft. Oh well.

Yesterday was one of the big fun pre-wedding days, as Sarah had her bridal shower. I am happy to report that she was taken completely by surprise, her bedrock faith in that it woulnd't happen until her aunt got here from Britain blocking out the various and sundry inconsistencies that would have gotten her to figure it out.

Interestingly, most of the presents were kitchen-themed. Considering that I do the bulk of the cooking, it's like she got the party and I got the presents. I also got some late birthday gifts, so it was doubly fun for me, especially as I was able to stay in the apartment and watch baseball while the thing was going on.

For those of you who are readers and were in the know, thanks for not spilling the beans! I know Sarah was working over some of her co-workers pretty hard.

I was just looking at a story about a poll for the California recall, and while the tight race between Cruz Bustamente and Ahnud isn't that surprising, what did stand out was the 5 percent of respondents who said they didn't back any candidate.

There are, what, 135 names on the ballot? And five percent of Californians can't find one of them to support? What do they do when there are only a single-digit number of candidate? Stay home, I suppose.

So while the Sox appear to be having their typical August swoon, there is one good baseball story coming out of the Boston area at present.

A team from Saugus, a town known far and wide for such roadside attractions as the 30 foot cactus outside of the Hilltop Steak House and the orange dinosaur gracing its miniature golf course, is currently 1-0 in pool play at the Little League World Series. They bested a team from Tallmadge, Ohio 2-1 yesterday, and will take on Richland, Washington on Sunday. Go team!

I've developed a love-hate relationship with getting my hair cut. I love the time where I don't have to worry about it, and hate having to go.

I'm not sure why this is. Could it be that I'm angry with the inverse relationship between the price and the amount of hair I have left to cut? Is it that the barber chairs seem to be getting incrementally smaller? Or perhaps it's the growing insistance by the person doing the cutting to introduce some sort of "product" into my hair that, in an earlier time, was used to dope the canvas that covered airplaine fuselages?

There are moments when I think it's due to the increasingly impersonal relationship I have with barbers. During my formative years, my mother (who went to hairdressing school, though by the time I knew her she'd left the trade) would cut my hair. Round about junior high I was transitioned to the local barber shop, where I would have my hair cut for well nigh the next decade by a chummy group of locals. I eventually moved on to a barber shop on the BU campus, where the barbers change more frequently.

The counter-argument here is that I really don't care for chatter. I've never cottoned to the "some weather we're having" school of customer interaction. Even at home, where topics were more familiar and there was an actual relationship between me and the barber, I tended towards a parsimony of words.

It could be my general disdain for grooming. OK, that doesn't sound right. What I mean to say is that I'm not the sort of person who luxuriates in a hot bath or packs mud onto my face. I take a quick shower, shave every other day, use the appropriate anti-stink products, and that's about it.

I also seem skittish about the whole payment thing, as I feel a little awkward handing the barber a wad of bills. I'd be much happier if it was handled like a restaurant, with a little portfolio for the bill. Heck, I don't even think my current place takes credit cards.

Changing barber shops was something I tried some time ago, but found that I was subjected to even more chatter and even more pushing of "product" than at my relatively old-school establishment.

Something tells me I won't be happy until I can shave myself bald or lose that last shed of self-respect and scour eBay for a Flowbee.

The sports movie thing has already generated more email that most of the things that I ask you folks to write in about, which is kind of neat. Two people (the Bruce and Greg) made their case for Searching for Bobby Fisher, which were generally well done but don't change my mind any about chess as a sport.

Greg was also smart enough to point out that if I was rejecting The Deadliest Season for being made for TV, I need to reject Brian's Song as well. This pained me, given that I'd forgotten it was a TV movie to begin with. I am tempted to give it special dispensation.

Greg also inquired about the status of The Hustler, which is about pool, which is a pretty marginal sport if it even is one.

Can you tell Greg is the movie person among the people I know?

Given the discussion of what may or may not be a sport, I'm prompted to do something.

ANNOUNCING THE TOP 50 COMPETITION MOVIES LIST

The goal: to compile a list of the top 50 movies all-time where some form of competition is integral to the plot of the movie, if not the entire purpose of the movie.

It's a fine line, to be sure, and like pornography you'll likely know what movies fit here by seeing them. For example, just because Ralph Macchio gets into a guitar duel in Crossroads doesn't make it a competition movie.

Anyway, send your nominees to me via my mail link. I'll compile a list and put something together for your edification, though probably not soon, what with RA training and the start of school coming.

Sticking with Sports Illustrated, I got the issue with the story on Ted Williams' remains in the mail today. Thankfully, the worst the pictures get is the "neuro-can" that is apparently the current home of the Splinter's head. Given the descriptions, I was fearing something more graphic.

This issue also interests me given its cover story of Bill Parcells and what it'll take for him to turn the Dallas Cowboys around. It's not the story as much as the quote on the cover from Jerry Jones:

"I had no idea I was hiring someone so intimately involved in every single thing..."

He knew he was hiring Bill Parcells, right? You don't think he got the Tuna confused with Pete Carroll, did he?

I was working on a longish deconstruction of Sports Illustrated's 50 greatest sports movie list, noting the unusual lack of comment from some of my fellow bloggers, when it hit me why there was little comment.

What I was writing wasn't very interesting.

The main problem was that in most cases, the argument would be about order rather than place on the list, especially in the top 15-20 movies. I don't agree that Bull Durham is the greatest sports movie of all time, but I don't think I'd leave it off entirely, either.

In any case, I am taking five movies off the list and replacing them with five that I think should have been on it.

GONE: Searching for Bobby Fisher
WHY?: Chess is not a sport.
IN: Fear Strikes Out
WHY?: It sticks with the father and son theme, but in a much darker way. Jimmy Piersall, whose story is the basis of the movie, was driven by his father to become a major leaguer, with the stress and pressure eventually leading to a breakdown during one season. Tony Perkins plays the adult Piersall, while Karl Malden plays his abusive father.

GONE: Fists of Fury
WHY?: If simply having martial arts in a film makes it a sports movie, wouldn't The Matrix be eligible?
IN: Enter the Dragon
WHY?: It at least uses a competition as a backdrop to the plot. It's Lee's last film but his first Hollywood-backed movie, and the bigger budget allows for better production and a better class of martial artists to compliment Lee. It also has early appearances by Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, a nice little bonus.

GONE: Any Given Sunday
WHY?: It sucks. Oliver Stone's fever dream about pro football is obvious and loud, and most of the characters fill some sort of archetype (grizzled veteran, cocky newcomer, stern coach).
IN: Black Sunday
WHY?: If you want life-and-death drama mixed with pro football, you can't do any better than mixing terrorism, the Super Bowl, and a blimp.

GONE: The Deadliest Season
WHY?: It's made for TV.
IN: Idol of the Crowds
WHY?: OK, after Slap Shot it's hard to find really good hockey movies (and no, the Mighty Ducks movies do not count). This one has, to me, one of the more entertaining story lines: a guy signs up to play pro hockey to make money to enlarge his chicken farm. Seriously. Gangsters try to get him to throw a game, he refuses, etc. The hockey player is portrayed by a young John Wayne. I have to imagine that it's better than it sounds.

GONE: Best in Show
WHY?: Dog shows aren't sport. Dog shows, like debutante balls and country club membership, are competitions in grooming and genetics. Not sport.
IN: Major League
WHY?: Best in Show was at 50, a spot where I'd probably put a movie whose rougher edges are smoothed out by cult following and quotability. Major League fits the bill quite well. And hey, it gave Cleveland a winner back when it looked like they'd never have one.

Finally got around to seeing most of an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy last night, and I will say that I was generally entertained. I would never submit myself to the treatment that last night's subject went through. It will be a cold day in hell before I let someone, using the show's term, "manscape" whatever hair exists on my torso.

Most of the other stuff done to the guy would be fine (I'd have to pass on learning how to eat a lobster), and I'd love to have somone come in and get the apartment into shape.

I'd be interested to see how NBC gets the show down to a half hour, but given that Tuesday at 10 doesn't offer much else that I'd normally watch, I don't suppose I'll have to find out.

In a related Bravo note, I was pleased to see them add The West Wing to their lineup, though revisiting the first season means having to work around Moira Kelly and her character. I don't look forward to the reprise of Ainsley Haines, either, but Emily Proctor doesn't rub the raw nerve that Kelly does. I was clearly subjected to The Cutting Edge one too many times.

While checking out the news that Iraq is pumping oil to Turkey again, I was able to read this fascinating story in the Denver Post about how Montana Power basically willed itself out of existance in five years.

I have feelings towards deregulation that are akin to those I described regarding pharmaceutical companies, a vague uneasy feeling that I have trouble quantifying. In this case thought I feel that I have a little more direction, as utilities have always struck me as the sort of thing the government should be keeping an eye on (if not both eyes).

Not that it always helps. I have a feeling my hometown's approach to water has screwed folks for decades, given that a town of under 6000 has more than one sewage treatment plant. While it may verify what I've felt- that many of the folks in my hometown are indeed full of crap - it also suggests someone was keeping an eye on things while their brain was on holiday.

I really don't have much to say today, other than I'm enjoying looking to see what sites have referred people here. Most of them are expected, while one - CEO Express - is surprising. If you got here from there, drop me a line and let me know how it is you come to be here from there.

I was going to complain about our string of humid, rainy days, but then I keep reading about the European heat wave and figure I've got less standing to gripe than they do. Any time you live in a place when it records its highest temperature in the history of keeping such figures, as London did on Sunday when they broached 100 degrees for the first time, you get bumped to the front of the line.

There isn't much more I can say about the passing of Herb Brooks that you won't find elsewhere, other than to note that if you've not seen this documentary on the Miracle on Ice you should do so post-haste (do not confuse it with the made for TV Miracle on Ice, where Brooks is played by Karl Malden).

(Something I didn't know before looking at the IMDB info for those films: Mike Eruzione was the host on the first pilot of the video game game show Starcade.)

(Another something I didn't know: Brooks got an electrician's credit for the movie Dummy, a pre-Oscar vehicle for Adrien Brody. At least the IMDB gives him the credit. I have to think it was another Herb Brooks, but part of me is holding out for it to actually be him.)

Something I'd meant to comment on when it happened was the end of the line for the original VW Beetle. The last one rolled off of the assembly line in Mexico a couple of weeks ago, ending sixty-some odd years of production for the original model.

I have a particular fondness for the original Beetle given my mom's prediliction for them. She drove one for years. Well, not just one, as she went through a number of them, but for years it was her car of choice.

Many of my earliest memories of going places with my mother are in a Beetle. I can remember fighting with my sister Cathy on a fairly regular basis about who got to ride in the well, the depression behind the back seat meant more for storage than people. This was back in the day when you didn't need to put all auto passengers under the age of 18 in five-point restraint (not to mention back when I was small enough to actually fit in such a space, which takes some imagining nowadays).

I can also remember times when we had a convertible bug, and the ease of both putting the top down and the times when we'd have to hurry to get it back up if we got caught in rain. We didn't have many of these, but when we did it was a lot of fun, though probably not for my mom when she'd be driving it to work on all those winter nights.

My sister Maureen still has an original bug, a light blue one with white convertible top that she's been dragging around with her for years, unwilling to part with it but also not quite in a position to have it restored.

Given the happy family history with the bug, you can imagine that I'm a little dubious about the new Beetles. I imagine there's a British person about my age having similar misgivings about the new Minis. In both cases, you've got cars intended for the masses reborn for the hip and trendy with disposable income.

I've never been in a new Beetle, so I suppose I shouldn't dismiss them out of hand, but I find it hard to cotton to a car that comes with a bud vase. The real Beetle wouldn't have had such frippery.

After Friday's darkish post, I figured I'd follow up with the fun of the birthday weekend, as I know it'll calm those of you worried about my mental state (which, judging from all the frantic calls and emails, would be none of you).

Friday saw us go up to Portland for the tilt between the AA Sea Dogs and and Binghamton Mets. And let me say right now, Mets fans, that the team of the future is going to look an awful lot like the team of the present. The Sea Dogs posted a 7-0 win at lovely Hadlock Field.

It was pretty much like any other minor league game otherwise, though one promotion was classic Maine. Two guys with lacrosse sticks lobbed plastic lobsters at two women carrying a lobster trap, who had to catch 10 of them to win a prize. If there was ever a time I needed a digital camera, it was then.

We spent the night at the Eastland Park Hotel, which had a shabby gentility to it. The lobby was very nice, and they still have an elevator wth an operator on it, a nice touch. But there were places where repairs were made and not completed (such as the wooden panel screwed into the wall near the ice machine), and some of the furniture is problematic (the beds were too soft, and our TV stand was a collapsable half-table that looked like it came from an employee's garage).

In any case, we then went up to Sarah's parents house for the rest of the weekend. Not much to note there, other than for your TRASHy types who, if attending the regional at BU, may take home some of the goodies picked up at the annual American Legion Post 157 yard sale. There's one prize which, I swear to God, must have been banned by international convention. Or should be if it hasn't been.

I also came up with two new laws I'll be passing once I'm in charge:

1. If you are not in the stadium when the first pitch is thrown, you're not getting in until the 6th inning.

2. All RV drivers will be required to have a map of the US states on its back demarcating the states its owners have driven to. It gives the rest of us something to look at when passing.

As some of you may know, today is my birthday. I wasn't sure how to best address this here, so I went back to the archives to see what I did last year. Turns out my 2002 birthday post mostly described the Fox offering 30 Seconds to Fame, but also included a little bit about people born on my birthday and events that happened on my birthday.

But today I turn 34, moving from my lower 30s squarely into the mid-30s. My right foot hurts and I have an irritated throat (thought I was getting a cold, now I wonder if it's related to the fumes we've had at work the last couple of days as they've resurfaced the stage in the theater that's connected to our campus center). And it's another in a string of dark, humid, rainy days.

I was going to be overly-dramatic and list all the famous people I could find who died on August 8, but it's not much of a list, depending on how much of a fan you are (or were) of Louise Brooks and Richard Deacon. Checking out the IMDB, it also appears that Alan Napier, who played Alfred on the TV version of Batman, died on August 8. I always liked Alfred, he helped even out the camp. Kind of like how lemon juice helps to even out sauces.

Oh, add Shirley Jackson to the roll call, too.

On a brighter note, August 8 was the wedding day for Julie Tenuta and Emo Phillips. They've since divorced, but can you imagine that wedding? Other notables married on August 8 include Ty Cobb (his first), Roman Pulanski (his third), and W. C. Fields for his first and only, which is heartening. You'd think all the drinking and cards would have irritiated his wife to no end.

Relative to Cooch's thought that California should be your starter state for deciding to live somewhere, it should be noted that a recent Census report says that Americans, as a people, are no longer manifesting their destiny.

Seems that the in- and out-migration patterns of the 1990s have most moving Americans heading south, more particularly the southeast. California actually wound up giving people to surrounding states.

The news in this end of the country was also towards the negative, though it seems that New York was mostly bleeding people to New Jersey and Connecticut. Even so, net losses for New England and the mid-Atlantic states over the decade.

Oddly, I suppose, I've never thought about moving to California or the southeast. I'd applied to some law schools in North Carolina, and one in California (Santa Clara, not requiring an application fee, an application I turned around in 20 minutes that led to an acceptance, which suggests an lack of selectivity). In any case, I was more likely to end up in Seattle or Chicago if I was to leave here. Of course, I didn't leave here, which probably says something about me. Not sure what, though I have some guesses.

"In Sacramento today, Governor Coleman refused to commute the life sentence of The Gooch, whose last felony bullying offense led to his incarceration at San Quentin under the state's three-strikes law."

This recall thing just gets better and better. Word is that Gallagher is collecting signatures, too. Seriously.

Some meta-blogging for you, assuming you've read others listed at left...

I think Scott is on to something with the "in" status of the grape tomato. I will say that I think they're on the way to earning a permanent place on the culinary landscape, given that they're easy to manipulate in salads and generally have a more notable flavor than larger varieties.

Then again, they may be on the same flight path as baby corn, going from ethnic niche to near ubiquity to background noise.

If you click through on Scott's blog to read Amanda Conaway's blog (which I should link to, really), you'll learn about the recent sadness in the bourbon world. If you don't read her blog, I would also suggest going back through the archives for her poignant discourse on the issue of women and office toilet use.

Kudos for Greg with his fairly passionate discourse related to the recent naming of a gay Episcopal bishop in New Hampshire. One of my greatest struggles with being Catholic is trying to rectify my generally left-leaning social views with the continuing (or burgeoning) conservatism of the leadership. And I don't know if it's going to get any better under a new Pope, given how many cardinals got their red hat during JP2's run. I do take solace in the fact that there is room for dissent when you've got a billion people involved, but hope that at some point that dissent bubbles up and actually leads to positive change.

(Beyond that, congrats to Greg's mom and her partner - at least they aren't eloping :P)

And, in a non-meta-blogging note, I am looking forward to a possible gubenitorial debate between Larry Flynt, Arianna Huffington, and Ahnud. I won't be able to tell what any of them are saying, which may be for the best.

Three items of note from since my post on wanting to play at the WSOP.

1. As James Dinan was quick to point out, one can play at sattelite tournaments to get into the big event, where the combined entry fees of the tournament represent the winner's stake (James McManus plays a one-table sattelite to get into the 2000 WSOP's big event in Positively Fifth Street). James was even kind enough to mention one happening at Foxwoods in the near future, but I need a lot more experience before doing anything like that.

2. Pursuant to that, I had the opportunity to play for "real" at a program one of my RAs ran tonight. I got to bust a guy after going all in with a straight which he didn't think I had, but generally played like a moron otherwise. Hey, it didn't cost me anything and I wasn't eligible for the prizes. Hopefully, the RA will make this a regular game, but I doubt it.

3. Since my initial entry, I've gotten 3 or 4 emails letting me know about various on-line opportunities to play. Pass. If I'm going to spend money on computer poker, it'll be to get a Wilson Turbo Poker program. Sadly, no Mac version available.

Can someone tell me why I'm supposed to care who the song "You're So Vain" is about? Or, better yet, why the various media outlets are all over it?

Is this some sort of self-absorbed baby boomer thing that I'm just not going to get ever?

If nothing else, it gives me one more reason to dislike Dick Ebersol. I'm sure he's using money earned while screwing up Olympic coverage to find out the answer to this burning secret.

Time to open the mail bag for the readers challenge I posted a while back asking folks to give their ideas for French words to take out of English (prompted by the French language police's decision to replace e-mail with courriel).

The missus chimed in by suggesting we replace "resume" with "C.V." This is apparently the more standard term world-wide, and given that it's in use in American academia, it's at least got a foothold.

Dave Vacca wrote to give the old standby of replacing "garage" with "car hole." He also liked the idea of calling the art movement Fauvism by a more literal translation: Beastiality. Imagine, as Dave did, this intro to an art text: "The artists most closely
associated with Beastiality include Henri Matisse, Albert Marquet, Andre Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck."

I had three suggestions for re-naming the eclair, France's pastry contribution to atherosclerosis. Matt Bruce suggested "fancy Twinkie," which I like quite a bit, though perhaps the eclair is more like a fancy Chocodile. Scott Monty had both the generic "puff pastry" and the salute to French military prowess, "dessert Wellington."

Scott actually had several more ideas:

* Montpelier, Vermont would be called North Bumf*ck. If you've been through, you'd probably agree.
* Suisse Chalet would be called Howard Johnson's. Having stayed in both, that may be a slander to Mr. Johnson. And wouldn't the Suisse Chalet be Swiss?
* Crayon would now be a pee-wee pencil.
* And my favorite, apparently inspired by the Deck of Weasels, a beret would now be called a "sissy hat."

Scott also included a Wall Street Journal editoria which made an interesting point. The French seemed more concerned with the use of the word "mail" than the word "electronic," which in French is "electronique." According to the OED, the word "mail" dervies from a Middle French term for a courier's bag. "Electronic," meanwhile, came to use from the Greek via Latin. French is a Romance language, but you'd think they'd not want to put the kibosh on a putatively native word.

We're back. Or, more accurately, I'm back. Sarah had to work at the Gap.

It's been a long day, but a productive one for the most part. Most of the sessions were helpful, as they sparked some good conversation on what Sarah and I are looking for in each other as we go about our married life, and in how we want to approach the spiritual dimension of married life.

I do think it would have been a tough day if you weren't that religious, in that you wouldn't have that much to talk about during those sessions. I doubt that many folks in that position go through with a formal Catholic ceremony (though they may to appease the family), so they wouldn't be at the class to begin with.

There was a finance session that wasn't too helpful. It was pretty basic, more for folks who may be just starting to be financially independent.

The sex and family session was better than expected. For most folks, the idea of the marriage prep thing is that priests and nuns give you the business about sex, why you'll go to hell if you fool around before marriage, etc. That's not the case. The priest did talk more than usual, but mostly in relating the areas of sex and marriage to various Bible passages. This is where the couples who presented really helped, in that they gave some concrete and personal examples of troubles they had and how they grew into this portion of their marriage.

There was talk of Natural Family Planning, the replacement for the rhythm method. Women got a very professional-looking brochure discussing NFP, while men got a cartoony booklet that I think was written for high school sophomores. It included pictures of reproductive systems and some simply worded Q&A on making babies, NFP, etc. I'd be offended if I really cared.

I do think NFP has to be a tough sell, between the negative connotations left over from the rhythm method and all the work that goes into doing NFP right (taking basal temperatures, checking mucus, etc.).

The day ended with a mass, which was kind of interesting given that it was during a period of fairly steady thunder and lightning. Not sure if that was a comment on us or not.

Outside of the one couple I mentioned earlier, we didn't get much of a chance to interact with others, which was too bad. The couple sitting to our right was an interesting one, in that the woman is pregnant with twins. There were a few other couples there already working on the family, which was actually kind of nice to see to show that they aren't shunned or anything.

(I did feel badly that after lunch we inadvertantly blew off the other couple by leaving for a walk thinking they were behind us when they weren't.)

The only other thing that stood out for me was that I don't think we met anyone who is getting married later than we are. One other couple at lunch is getting married the same day, while everyone else was a September wedding. I think there may have even been a late August or two that we ran into. We were originally going to go to a class in Wellesley in March (it was cancelled), so good on us for being ahead of the curve!

Anyway, it's done, and it wasn't as painful as we thought. For those of you thinking about Catholic nuptuals, take heart.

Just a quick note as we prepare to go back for the second day of our marriage prep class. The first day wasn't so bad - mostly discussions on personal and interpersonal issues. We got to meet a few other couples, nothing really in-depth, but we did meet a pair getting married a few weeks before us up in the North Shore area. They mentioned that they were having hotel problems, but thankfully aren't using the same one we are.

Today is a full day session, and we'll venture into topics including finances and the dreaded sex and family session. There are two married couples who are doing most of the presenting, so the Catholic paradox of getting sex advice from the supposedly celibate shouldn't be in play. Actually, the priest in charge has mentioned sex a couple of times, but usually in reference to something else. He seems pretty realistic (and considering this place has handled something like 8000 couples, he'd have to be).

OK, one more, just to see if I've changed the right thing to silver.

You may be stuck with this color scheme for now, I'm sick of having to repost to see changes!

Just as Scott Monty pointed out that the silver and green paid homage to the Eagles, perhaps my blue and green pay homage to the Seahawks. But I'd need to keep silver in there somewhere...

I'm still fussing with color changes, and given that the template preview button doesn't work when you Blogger with Mac (it saves changes rather than show a preview for some reason), you may see a few more posts like this until I either give up or move over to Sarah's machine.

You know it's the last day of trading in baseball when, after a day away from your fantasy team, you don't know who all of your players play for any more.

Such as it was for me, when I discovered last night that Jose Guillen and Aaron Boone were no longer Reds. I'm now in a tough position relative to them, as they are both now on teams where I would really prefer that they not contribute to the franchise's overall success (A's and Yanks, respectively).

In my suck league, I have the opposite problem. I drafted Jeff Suppan due to his track record of sucking with the Royals, but then he was doing OK with the Pirates, who have since shipped him back to his original team, the Red Sox.

(Then again, I did have Roy Halladay on my suck league pitching staff going back to that rocky time in April where he had four straight no decisions.)

As you can imagine, I'd have no problem with real life working out at the expense of my fantasy teams, with apologies to my one known A's fan in the readership.

Welcome to today's episode,

The City of New York v. Mark Coen, or
The Million Dollar Bus Ride?

It all started last week, when I found an email from the good folks at Millionaire in my Yahoo account, saying that I was welcome to come down to New York on July 31 for a 1 pm audition. This was unexpected for a couple of reasons:

1. I'd requested the audition several weeks previous, and assumed the lack of response indicated no audition, and

2. My lack of ever getting an audition spot for Jeopardy! suggested to me equal bad luck across the game show spectrum.

So, surprised as I was, I happily made the arrangements for the audition, taking the day off from work and searching out transportation.

I'd decided to make it a one day trip given that I'd be spending most of the weekend in a marriage prep class that you need to take before a Catholic wedding. Also, my most likely source of living space for any extended trip, Matt Boggie, is currently working out of DC. I do get along with his wife, but I think she'd rather have her husband around than his no-account friend.

You may be asking yourself, "why didn't I hear about this before?" You may especially be asking yourself this question if you are part of that subset of friends and acquaintances that I usually tell personal things to. My two part answer:

a. How much do I really ever tell anyone? (there's at least one obvious example here)
b. I didn't want to jinx things.

I did mention the audition to the other RD who I share office space with, but to other folks I just said I was going out of town.

In any case, that's how it came to pass that I got up at 5:20 this morning to start my journey. I got ready, Sarah got ready (and big ups to her for getting ready well before she needed to so she could cart my ass to the bus station), and we were off. We made pretty good time, perhaps not surprising for 6 am on a Thursday.

Got to the station and they almost immediately started boarding for the 7 am bus, the only one that would leave at a reasonable hour and get me to New York in time (were I really concerned I could have taken the 2:30 am bus). I do have to admit some trepidation with the bus, in that traffic could play havoc with the schedule. On the other hand, Amtrak would have cost 3 to 4 times as much and is known to break down on occasion (such as my initial trip on the service, which had a multi-hour breakdown in New Rochelle).

I was on the second bus to New York (good thing, in that it wasn't full), and we pulled out about 10 minutes late. Our driver sought to make up for this, and we passed the first bus in Framingham (for those not familiar with the geography, it's about 20 minutes west of Boston).

Entertainment on the ride down (and I use the term loosely) was in the form of the movie The Adventures of Pluto Nash. And, unlike my subjection to How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days when flying out to California, the bus had the audio playing for all to hear (Concord Trailways, who we'd take to get to Maine if we didn't want to drive, goes with headphones, which gets my seal of approval).

About all I can say about Pluto Nash is that it is loud. If there were an Oscar for Best Volume in a movie, it would win hands down. What really surprised me were the number of people in the movie who should have known better. Peter Boyle, Alec Baldwin, Illeana Douglas, Joe Pantoliano, John Cleese, Luis Guzman - all appeared in this pile of dung for reasons as yet unknown (I exempt both Randy Quaid and Jay Mohr, for obvious reasons).

It was not a good movie. What it really needed was a talking pie.

Anyway, our driver leadfoots it to New York, and we get into the Port Authority bus terminal 10 minutes early (note to Boggie: the old neighborhood looks the same, nice to see that the West African market is still in business). I then begin my assault on the New York city subway system by heading the wrong way.

Cue the foreshadowing music.

I took the time to parse the subway system before the trip, because rather than use something that makes sense, like color-coded lines with clear geographical names, New York uses some odd combination of color, number, and shape that semioticians in the 28th century will write doctoral theses on. Thankfully, I had a local boil it down for me so I thought I knew where I was going (thanks again to Boggie).

So I got to the right platform for the number train that I wanted, but was immediately unsure if it was going in the right direction. Such is my first suggestion for the New York subway: route maps in the stations. The ones in the trains are nice but only help you figure out your way once you may have already started going the wrong way.

(The foreshadowing music should be louder now.)

And yes, it'd probably not be a problem if I took a second to consider the difference between "uptown" and "downtown," but I'm not from the area. What do I know from either of those?

In any event, I ask a man on the platform if I'm on the right platform for Lincoln Center. He doesn't know, and to be honest his command of English did not appear to be that strong. Another guy, standing nearby, says I should go to the other platform. Which I do.

I get on the train. It goes to the next stop, Penn Station. That doesn't seem right. Then it hits 28th Street. Nope, not right at all.

(Foreshadowing music comes to jarring halt.)

I reference the map on the train and verify that I am going the wrong way. Probably a good thing, as an older man was about to ask me for directions (that happens a lot to me). I get out and reverse myself, and get to the stop I want in more than enough time.

In retrospect, I just should have asked for 66th Street.

Oh, and my other suggestion for the subway: fans in the stations. It was a lovely day in the city, but in the subway it was 100 degrees if it was one. Fans may not bring a lot of relief, but it would at least help the sweat evaporate that much faster.

The place I need to go to, 30 West 67th Street, is pretty much right there (it's an ABC building, with handy Disney Store to reference as a landmark). I kill some time in the large Barnes and Noble across the street, and wander over in the 12:15 to 12:20 range. To find a fairly sizable line, a good 60 people at least. Not that it matters, we're all going to get in.

I didn't chat folks up in line too much (I tend to keep to myself in such situations), and my relative silence makes me privy to the all-on verbal assault of a woman just ahead of me in line, holding court with four other women. For reasons unbeknown to me I take an almost immediate dislike, probably due to the volume of her speech (both in loudness and number of words).

From what she was saying it seems like she's tried out before. At one point she references the all pop culture edition of the show (tryouts August 9, see the show website to request an audition) and says something about it being "too easy," yet when she mentions that the "little girl from the Pepsi ads" is an occasional patron of the deli she works at, she doesn't seem able to come up with her name (Hallie Eisenberg, though the spelling may be off).

As I'm trying to ignore this woman, I notice someone checking in with the staff. I had thought I might see someone I know. It did not occur to me in the slightest that it might be Mike Hoey-Lukakis, who you see linked to the left. Turns out he's on vacation this week, and was able to get the audition to work into it. We chatted for a while, caught up (I think it's the first time I've seen him since TRASHionals), and made plans to do something after the audition if there was time.

At the appointed hour, the production staff troops us off, not into the ABC building, but down the street a little to a bar they rented out for the auditions. We're put into tables of four. I wind up with two women from New Jersey (one of whom had been a guidance counselor and had at least heard of Babson) and a guy from Manhattan.

The test was 30 multiple choice questions, with 11 minutes given to complete. Interestingly, I recognized some of the questions from episodes of the show, including one on the source of the Faulkner title The Sound and the Fury (uttered by Macbeth) that was on earlier this week.

I answer about 25 of the questions straight away, leaving the other 5 for some extra thought. I thankfully had time to double check my answers as well, as there was room for error given that the scantron sheet went from top to bottom and the question sheet read in rows from left to right.

When it was over, the sheets were collected and scored. That actually went very quickly, no more than 5 minutes for what I'd estimate as 60 tests. They didn't say what the passing mark was, which made me a little antsy.

Then it was the announcement of who passed, by test number. One of the Jersey women at my table (not the guidance counselor) was one of the first called.

And then the numbers rolled. Once they got past the first dozen, I started to worry. I thought I'd done well enough to pass. Could I have choked? Did I do too well? I don't think they'd cut high scorers out of hand, but the conspiracy theorist in me got to work.

And then, finally, they called number 77. My number (well, Ray Bourque's number, really).

(In the interest of full disclosure and Schadenfreude, I should mention that the talkative woman from the line did not pass.)

I then wandered over to the bar to wait for my interview. I was a little apprehensive about this, given that I'm not exactly the sort of person who will just start talking about themselves at the drop of a hat. I passed a couple of minutes chatting with another person who passed (high school teacher from North Carolina) before my name was called.

So I go to the table, am greeted by a producer, and have my picture taken (also problematic, I don't photograph well). She compliments me on my test score and says she likes my application. She then asks me to tell her something interesting about me.

And here's where the problem is. I've written all this stuff on the application, in the hopes that the person who sees it will ask about specific things on it. By asking an open-ended question, I'm left to figure if I should start repeating what's on the application. It's not what I'd normally do, and were I doing the interviewing it's not how I'd start. But I'm not in TV production, so what do I know.

I start to talk about the impending nuptuals, she asks me about how I proposed, and at some point she breaks from the question to say that I sound like somebody. In the back of my head I know who she means, and she says the name just about the same time I do.

Casey Kasem.

I've been told this before, and while I don't hear it, I assume there's something to it given that it's been said to me by different people in different places. I do take the opportunity to mention my mediocre radio experience, but it doesn't take. The producer does call over another of her number to see if he can hear it. He can. I suppose it's a good thing, as it's something that resonates that wasn't on the application.

And that was it. I will say I think the audition went OK. The staff was very nice and the whole process went very smoothly. My only regret was that I forgot to take the souvenir pencil with me.

As I was leaving Mike's group was just being led down the street. I walked with him, told him how things went, wished him luck, and waited across the street. In the meantime I called Sarah to let her know how it went and tell her that I'd bumped into Mike. As we tried to coordinate my return, Sarah discovered that there was an earlier bus.

So, as much as I did want to eat lunch with Mike at Tavern on the Green, I bade him farewell after he got out (he also passed the test and got an interview). Many thanks to him for understanding; I'm sure lunch didn't disappoint.

The trip back to Port Authority went without incident, though I am reminded of something else I wanted to mention about the New York subway. They've replaced tokens with fare cards (like the DC Metro), which is a good thing. Except that it's very hard to find a machine that will take something other than exact change (and even take bills at that). As flukey as the T token machines are, trying to find the right fare card machine to take whatever bill I had started to resemble the Let's Make a Deal problem on crack.

But I did get to the 3 pm bus, only to have the driver take one of the more roundabout routes possible - the Lincoln Tunnel back into Jersey, the Turnpike to route 46 to the lower deck of the GW Bridge to the Cross-Bronx to 87. If nothing else, I did get to pay homage to the Vince. Not that I could actually see it from the bus.

Another plus to catching this bus was that it stopped in Framingham, absolving Sarah of having to either wait around after work or make a special trip back in to Boston (she could have had me take the T out to Wellesley, though that would have taken twice as long as driving, at least). Another minus was all the traffic, first in Jersey and then in Connecticut (construction related on 84 from Waterbury almost all the way up to Hartford).

A moderate plus was that they showed Ocean's 11 on the return. A minus is that it was the remake. A plus was that, with the Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow credits, I feared that I'd be subjected to Pluto Nash again.

It was an eventful 12 hours, what with all the intermodal transport and trying to find my way around the big city. Whether or not it will turn out to be profitable will be something I'll find out... eventually. I'm looking forward to four months of expectantly checking my mail for a postcard.

I'm not sure if the silver, grey and green look is a keeper, but I like it. I just wish I could change the color of the blue underlined links. I know, there probably is, but it's probably more complex than just typing a color name into the template.

I've come to the conclusion that I want to play in the no limit Texas Hold 'Em event at the World Series of Poker. I've been watching much of ESPN's coverage of the 2003 event, as well as Travel Channel coverage of the World Poker Tour, and I'm intrigued.

There are a few problems with this idea, though.

1. I don't have the $10,000 entry fee. If you do, and don't mind sending someone to the tournament to be dead money, feel free to drop me a line.

2. I don't play cards that much. Suffice it to say that I'm a very raw novice, with almost all of what I know coming from watching tournament coverage. Some time perusing books by former champs and playing in other tournaments would help, though it adds to the problem above and the problem below.

Even when I do play cards, I'm not that good.

3. I'm too cheap to play. The idea of losing that much money is a little galling. I could use it for other, more important purposes. Or piss it away over time.

4. I may not be screwed up enough to play at that level. As seems to be the case with top-shelf competitors in things like the National Spelling Bee, pro Scrabble, and college bowl, a heaping bowlful of the WSOP players seem to have interesting personality quirks, so to speak. Of course, there's also the sizeable minority of players whose lack of affect suggests that under slightly different conditions, they'd have turned out sociopathic.

My guess is that I'd be a reasonably affable yet slightly annoying amateur. Someone who forgets when to bet yet stumbles into pots.

I suppose I'll just keep to watching poker for now.

If you can't tell, I'm killing time before a meeting. If I were really adventurous I'd go the spring cleaning route and come up with a whole new look. But I'm not. That and I have less than 10 minutes, enough time to goof around with font colors. Perhaps a new font, too? Hmm...

And while we're on changes, I've also moved some of the less active blogs to a section I call "On the Bench," in the hopes that it'll serve as a gentle nudging for those people to write again. Orphaned blogs, like excess verbiage, make the baby Jesus cry.

It's not comments, but I have added a thing at left that tells you where people have come from to get here. Perhaps you'll find something you like that I've not previously linked to.

On the one hand, I can see where this futures market for terrorism was coming from. If futures markets are that accurate, it's a way to get information without having to perform dangerous and costly acts of espionage. It's also not unusual to have people wager or otherwise "invest" in outcomes of various events.

On the other hand, I'm not that comfortable with the idea that some Gordon Gekko type would get to the point where bankrolling, say, the overthrow of the Nepalese monarchy is a sound busines decision. I know the business of America is business, but this may be a little too much.

Also of interest is that the idea was created by DARPA's Information Awareness Office, the same folks who brought you Total/Terrorism Information Awareness. That program would have data-mined pretty much all of cyberspace in the hunt for terrorists, which as you can imagine had some people fairly concerned about privacy.

Even more interesting, to me at least, is that the office is headed by John Poindexter, a retired admiral and former National Security Advisor who some of you may remember was convicted of a number of things during the Iran-Contra scandal. Turns out those convictions were overturned. This site has its own pointed take on Poindexter's life and career.

(And for those of you who may accuse me of slandering Silent Cal with the "business of America is business" reference, here's a clarification/defense of what he said.)

And, for the want of anything else to post about, my weekend.

Friday started off as a slow day off, but ended with an unscheduled trip to the Registry of Motor Vehicles to get a new ID (my old one being 15 years old and bearing the address of a house my family no longer owns or occupies).

It actually went fairly smoothly, with one exception. When you first get to the Registry branch in Boston, you check in with a greeter, tell them what you need, and the greeter generates a number. You then go to the appropriate floor and wait for your number.

The problem (or at least what seemed to be a problem) came when a person who I assume is a manager started pulling people out of order based on what they needed. If you were, say, converting an out-of-state license or renewing/replacing a license and using the same picture, you got put in a line. If you were me, just needing a new ID, you waited with the numbers.

This led to numbers being called out of sequence to get them off the system. Which was confusing, at the least, and perhaps unfair as it means that folks who got to the Registry after I did were helped before me.

Not that it mattered a great deal, my wait time was pretty much what was expected given the information on the Registry web site (you can get current wait times for each branch, which should tell you something about the Registry).

A query for those of you from other states: do you get your license immediately, or do you get a temp and have the permanent one mailed to you? I got a paper temp and will get the actual card within 30 days. Considering that I have co-workers who converted from out of state and took months to get their licenses, I'm wary.

Otherwise, slow day. I did get to see the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that had Kirsten Dunst play an alien kid who is part of a chain of events that reveal a dark page in the history of the Troi family. Woo.

Saturday saw Sarah and I go to the Museum of Fine Arts to take in the Gainsborough exhibit. Not bad, though I have to say that art is not one of my better things. I always feel like I'm missing something. Sarah got the audio tour, which helped me catch things I'd have missed otherwise.

We then walked around at some of the other exhibits, and I realized that I was getting the MFA and the Philadelphia Museum of Art confused with some of their holdings. Considering I've been to the Philadelphia museum once (and that was at least 10 years ago), you can tell how often I get to the MFA.

In any case, we stayed until closing time, and learned at lunch that naming your kids Gideon and Allegra probably says more about you than your own first impression.

Sunday was the day we didn't do much of anything, outside of head up to Peabody to have dinner with my brother and sister-in-law. We did watch the pathetic CBS coverage of the Tour de France. I won't get started.

I also managed, for like the thousandth time in my life, to turn away from a Sox game, only to find the Sox in the lead upon my return. So, yes, I missed them putting six runs on the Yankees in one inning. Damn.

Rather than give the cover to Lance Armstrong or surprise British Open winner Ben Curtis, this week Sports Illustrated went with Kobe Bryant's mug shot.

Is an NBA star in legal trouble even really news anymore?

I know, Kobe is supposed to be nice one as opposed to Iverson being the thug one, Shaq the tall one, and Vince Carter the overrated one. Still, I think it would be more noteworthy if SI waited and did a cover celebrating a week where nary a member of the NBA is in court for something.

There are certainly other nuances here, from the positive versus negative news aspect to drawing parallels between this cover and the Time magazine cover of OJ Simpson's mug shot (same corporate family... hmm...).

In other sporting news, you'd be forgiven if you didn't know the Greater Hartford Open was going on this weekend - it's one of the smaller PGA stops, even if it is Jon Couture's favorite - but there was a time when this weekend was going to loom far larger than it is now.

That was when Suzy Whaley, a club pro, won a sectional tournament and played her way into the GHO, making her the first woman to qualify for a PGA event in 58 years. She got a fair amount of press at the time she qualified.

And then, later, Annika Sorenstam got invited to play at the Colonial. We don't need to go down that road again, do we?

I suppose Whaley may not mind that thunder-grabbing. Sorenstam is more used to the attention, and it's not like Whaley's gone unnoticed.

It's unlikely Whaley will do well, not so much due to gender as the unfortunate record of Connecticut sectional qualifiers at the GHO. Of the four, the last two missed the cut.

Then again, Whaley won't have to contend with Ben Curtis. He decided he'd take the week off, and isn't playing the GHO.

Perhaps he's mad he didn't get the SI cover.

What I didn't mention about my performance yesterday was the 0-2 turn at the plate, with neither ball leaving the infield. I'll blame the conditions for the first one (lots of mud in the batter's box, enough that an opposing batter slipped when trying to run from first).

I'm clearly pressing at the plate. I could use some quality batting cage time, but would have to go to Middleton or Woburn. Perhaps I can talk Sarah into a trip...

The Student Affairs Sox were well on their way to victory over the faculty yesterday in Babson's "Summer of Fun" softball "league," holding a 10-1 lead in the third inning when the skies opened up for the third and heaviest time. We even got bolts of lightning (some actually hit on or near our graduate housing).

Except for the gale force winds, it was very much like the bishop's final round of golf in Caddyshack. I even used the "I don't think the heavy stuff's going to come down for a while yet" line, but to no avail.

I pitched one scoreless inning before being lifted for the director of our chapel and spiritual programs (he's a minister, how can I argue?). I also made a bit of a bonehead play, as I took a grounder and wheeled to throw to second base - only to throw to our shortstop, who was the first person I saw. Oops. He relayed to second in time, but the faculty whined to the point that we let their safe call stand. They eventually stranded him at third. Ha!

It's time for America's favorite game show... Fun With the Federales!

This week's episode features the Secret Service investigating the possible threat of an editorial cartoon that, despite its appearance, is actually pro-W.

I have two thoughts on this.

1. I suppose I should appreciate the literal-mindedness of the Secret Service, but unless the artist, Michael Ramirez, actually knows someone named "Politics" I don't think there's much of a threat.

(Then again, there was that NewsRadio episode where one of Bill MacNeil's broadcasts brought about the beating of a New Yorker named Joe Vigilante.)

2. I'm not sure if the cartoon is a case of overstatement or not. I can understand Ramirez's position, but part of me thinks the current situation isn't as dire as that of the original photo. There must be some sort of corrollary to Godwin's Law that covers this.

The part of Massachusetts where I grew up now has something in common with Los Angeles. In the words of Lewis Black, the earth done quaketh.

As the article suggests, it's not the first time. Besides the larger quake mentioned in the article, I did notice our radiators swaying during a smaller tremor. Not completely sure when; a Lexis-Nexis search suggests April 4, 1981, which seems right from an age perspective. There's also a January 19, 1982 quake epicentered in New Hampshire that could be right (and is probably more likely, given the strength and reported areas that could feel it).

This new one is pretty much the closest epicenter to my house in my lifetime, though. Perhaps it'll drive property values down so Sarah and I can finally afford to buy up there.

If you didn't see any of yesterday's stage of the Tour de France, you missed one of the more captivating athletic moments (using the MLB definition of moment) in recent memory. To sum it up, Tour leader Lance Armstrong fell (caught a spectator's bag on his handlebars), got run over by the cyclist behind him, restarted, had trouble keeping his right foot in the pedal, and then got pissed off enough to attack and win the stage, adding almost a minute to his lead over Jan Ullrich, his closest rival.

Now while he doesn't have this thing sewn up (another mountain stage tomorrow and an individual time trial on Saturday are the two key stages left), it's looking better for him now than a couple of days ago. The big question will be what he has left in his tank to fend of the inevitable attacks tomorrow.

And showing that there is still room in sports for sportsmanship, Ullrich and the other top riders waited for Armstrong to get back in the saddle rather than taking off. There's an unwritten rule that you don't take advantage of a rider who's been the victim of bad luck (it probably also helps that Armstrong did the same thing for Ullrich in 2001 when Jan went off the road and down a hill). Unlike baseball's unwritten rules, this actually makes sense and don't make those involved look like 12-year-olds.

Oh, another reason I like the Tour: it has its own devil. If you want a picture, look here.

Busy weekend.

Friday saw Sarah's family come into town for things we did on Saturday. I had the day off (our flex time Fridays off during the summer) and got to clean and stuff (woo!).

Saturday brought together all three of Sarah and my nieces to get them dresses for the wedding. Sarah's dad and I went to get him measured for his tux, and then we killed time rather than go back to the dress shop. Thankfully, the suburban sprawl of Route 9 west in Natick and Framingham offered plenty of distraction.

Not surprisingly, the girls found dresses they liked pretty quickly. It's just that they found several of them. From descriptions I kind of wish I'd been there to see the carnage... kind of. We then had lunch, my sister in law took off with my two nieces, and we then returned to Babson. All the Harriman women went back to the mall, while the guys did the typical Saturday afternoon thing - sports and sleeping while watching sports. I nodded off during an ESPN Classic replay of game 5 of the 1982 World Series. I'd forgotten how hideous the Cardinals' light blue away unis were.

Saturday night brought the fun point of the weekend - getting the wedding invitations squared away. I had a supportive role in the operation, as Sarah's handwriting is several orders of magnitude better than mine. But it's done, thankfully.

Sunday was an early day for all, as Sarah's family hit the road to beat race traffic (the NHIS 300) and we went out to western Mass for a baby shower for Scott Monty's wife Mindi. Sarah actually attended the shower, I just came along to provide moral support to the father-to-be.

The event was at Scott's parents' condo development in Agawam, making this the first non-Six Flags and non-Couture related trip to this place of tradition and opportunity.

I did get to revel in some of the shower fun, mostly related to getting food prepared and delivered to the development's clubhouse. I did not get to participate in the games related to guessing baby food flavors (though I understand it was scrapped due to time), but I did get to see some items from Scott's youth, which puts some things into perspective. :)

On our end we grilled a bit and took the Monty reality tour, as Scott drove and his dad narrated a trip around Suffield, Connecticut, where they both grew up. Nice town, some great houses, lots of tobacco (for New England, at any rate), and a hint of controversey (I'll let you decide if you think the new high school is ugly or not).

Oh, one thing I have to mention: playing at the shower was a CD of songs that were accompanied by what I believe was a fetal heartbeat. What's that about?

Anyway, after the shower we got home and just relaxed. Finally.I wound up passing over the first episode of The Restaurant for Tour de France coverage. From this article, I suppose that's a mixed blessing. For what it's worth I did see the episode of Into the Fire that covered The Cheesecake Factory, and have to agree on its infomercialistic feel. Of course, Sarah and I wound up eating there the next night. Damn you Food TV!

Unsurprising news today: somone's thinking about impeachment proceedings against the President. You knew it was a matter of time, premature as it might be. It mostly serves as a reminder from Bob Graham that he is alive and running for President.

It worries me that trolling for impeachment charges may be the new thing with each administration. It's already hard enough to do anything given that every pundit worth their swizzle stick will be on you if you make a mistake, but throw this in and how can you expect anyone to govern?

Even less surprising is the French coming up with a native term to use in place of e-mail. The new term for the French is "courriel," which is apparently a contraction of the term "courrier electronique." I will say that, if forced to choose, I'd take courriel over the full-length phrase. That you'd even have to choose is ridiculous, but completely in line with the French "defense" of their language.

I say we take the French on at their own game.

READER CHALLENGE What French word, adopted into English, would you get rid of, and what term would come up with to replace it? Email me with your ideas and I'll post what I get.

Locally, the big story is of a Wellesley woman who, suffering from a lengthy case of post-partum depression, called 911 while in the car with her husband, got out of the car, carjacked a commuter, and led police on a chase that ended up Route 95 in Peabody (about 15 minutes from where I grew up). You may have seen a link to this story yesterday on Obscure Store.

While many folks are focusing on the woman, I was interested to read what the carjacking victim said. He originally pulled over because he thought that she was involved in some sort of domestic dispute and wanted to help. He then figured that he should have minded his own business when she took off in his car (and with his dog, who got through the ordeal unscathed).

But how did the guy get help? By flagging down another motorist. Now, if minding one's business was really the best lesson here, he'd have been on the side of the road until a cop came by or he found a phone.

I'm all for being prudent, but the "mind your own business" school of thought has always hit a nerve with me. Kitty Genovese aside, I remember one parent I met with when I was working at BU who claimed that she taught all her kids never to get involved in things (in this case it was a major vandalism incident). She seemed very proud of this fact, and I really had to fight calling her on it. In the back of my head I think the student in question was looking at medicine, which makes me hope I'm never ailing on the street with him passing by.

As if you needed any more proof that the Emmys are a joke:

Best Comedy All five nominees from last year are back this year.
Best Drama Four of the five are repeaters, with The Sopranos taking Law & Order's place (the mob show wasn't eligible for awards last year based on when the new season started relative to the nomination deadline).
Best Actor - Comedy The most "diverse" group, as half of the nominated folks here weren't last year. Two are on shows up for best comedy (Eric McCormick and Larry David), with only Tony Shalhoub bringing in real fresh air for his performance in Monk
Best Actress - Comedy All five from last year return this year.
Best Actor - Drama Four of five returners, with James Gandolfini re-taking his spot for The Sopranos
Best Actress - Drama Three of five return, Edie Falco returns for The Sopranos, and Marg Helgenberger gets a nod for her work in the nominated drama CSI.

Not that this is a new phenomenon (see Bergen, Candace; Grammer, Kelsey; Hunt, Helen; Hyde-Pierce, David). I just wish that the voters were more able to nominate based on a given year of work rather than collective success/popularity. There's also the concern that the only channel to get new shows into the awards mix quickly is HBO, one that I'd share except that the lack of nominations for Arli$$ suggests at least a rudimentary threshold.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm not in favor of the ESPY Awards. We already have awards for successful athletes - MVPs, league titles, etc. Besides, is an awards show the best thing for the often sizeable ego of the professional?

My plan - give the ESPYs to amateurs, bench-warmers, and fans, and have the big-money types pound nails for Habitat for Humanity during the presentation. The people not often in the spotlight get to shine for a night, and we all win when we get to watch Shaq try to hang drywall.

A few weeks ago I was looking for some on-line information on the Manchester Cricket, my town's weekly newspaper. Where Sarah gets two of her home papers delivered, I thought it would be nice to do the same for my home paper.

Turned out I couldn't find what I was looking for (there's no web site for the paper, understandable given that the average paper has 10 pages), but I did find the Cricket listed in this article on unusual newspaper names. Hard to believe that the paper got a mention half a world away, but there you are.

(I should mention that, as a courtesy, I wrote the author to mention the town's previous newspaper, the Beetle and Wedge. He's now working with me and the Manchester Public Library to get mastheads from each, and has a follow-up article written for next month. You'll just have to wait. Be patient.)

Anyway, Sarah and I were in town over the weekend, and I took the opportunity to grab this week's Cricket. I got two shocks. First, the paper now costs 60 cents, which seems like a lot to pay for what is mostly real estate listings and school news.

The second shock was that my name was on the front page. There's a weekly column about things that had happened so many years ago in town, and 15 years ago... well, here's the copy:

"Mark Coen, Tom Mitchell, and Aaron Canale were presented with Boy Scout's highest rank, Eagle Scout at impressive ceremonies held in the Masonic Hall

"Impressive" seems a little hyperbolic, but it was a nice afternoon. My debate coach, Tim Averill, was my sponsor, and I would use the term impressive for the short speech he gave regarding me.

I'm a little dumbfounded that this happened 15 years ago. I think I need a moment.

As the Bruce mentioned, there doesn't seem to be anything normal about a major event like the Tour de France being stopped by protestors. I admit that it's odd, but it seems so, well, French. I mean, here you have members of a group called the Peasant's Confederation protesting for the release of someone most media outlets describe as a "radical farmer." Where else would this happen?

On the other hand, there's apparently some history with the Tour and protests. Phil Liggett referenced the steelworker's protest during last night's coverage, noting that it caused the cancellation of a stage. Of course, this wasn't even the first protest blocking this year's Tour.

From cycling to baseball, an invitation to join up for the second half of ESPN.com's Baseball Challenge.

We start from scratch for the home stretch, so if you didn't join in for the first half, no biggie.

Group: I Can Be Centerfield
Password: beanball

OK, I'll try to make this my last Tour de France-related post. For a day or two, at least.

I got names for the OLN host team for the Tour - Kirsten Gum and Bob Roll. Bob is a former cycler, member of the original 7-11 team, former Motorola rider, done the big races (Tour, Giro, Suisse). He sounded less like an imbibing John C. Reilly yesterday, perhaps he was keyed up given the excitement of the L'Alpe d'Huez ascent.

Gum is a reasonably seasoned news/sports anchor, having done some work for ESPN Outdoors programming and even some NASCAR. Creative Loafing Online lauded her previous work in Charlotte. Assuming that's her, she's let her hair grow.

Given that OLN is working with what I assume are French TV-provided visuals, they're doing OK. They could use some spotters on the course during mountain stages, given how often they were at a loss for knowing where a specific person was on the course. My thought is that they should adapt the GPS technology used for NASCAR's on line and PPV coverage for the Tour so they could keep tabs on specific riders. Not sure how easily you could adapt the tech for bikes, but if it was possible, that'd be cool.

Most impressive riding of the last couple of days would be from Tyler Hamilton of nearby Marblehead, who is climbing well and staying in the top 5 to 10 riders overall, all while cycling with a collarbone that's fractured in two places.

I was actually in Marblehead yesterday, which is the only reason I know offhand that Hamilton is from there (they've got a sign up in town; I suppose if he wins the race they'll have to move the state high school sailing champs sign at the town line). Sarah and I went yesterday for a little day trip, as she'd never been and I've only been once or twice (never had much of a call to go there).

For this local foray I was the cause of its abrupt termination, as I had some sort of reaction to something in my lunch. As reactions go it was minor - slight puffiness and discoloration to the lips - but enough to hit the road and stop at my brother's house for some Benadryl. Thankfully I'm on call this week; I fear another local tourism trip would wind up with one of us breaking a bone or something.

As you may have guessed from the previous entry, I've been watching the Tour de France. While I've been getting bits and pieces from the start, I've been able to watch pretty much all of the last two stages on the Outdoor Life Network.

The play-by-play is provided by Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen. Odds are if you've heard any English-language TV coverage of the Tour, either of these guys was involved (most likely Liggett, who usually took the color role in over-air network coverage of the race). Both are former riders, pretty good in the booth, though the nature of cycling makes it hard sometimes to get the proper names and positioning down (you try reading the number bib on a rider from a helicopter shot).

The OLN hosts are not as strong. The guy (for the life of me, I can't find links to them from OLN's pages) kind of looks and sounds like John C. Reilly after a few drinks. The woman is there to direct traffic. Sadly for her, when she was mentioning that OLN was the official English-language broadcaster for the Tour, she couldn't pronounce "English." Three tries, none right. Ouch.

Anyway, if you get OLN, try to catch some of the race. They've been running stages pretty much all day, so you can even coast in and out as needed (though they aren't showing tomorrow's stage live - CBS gets the broadcast tomorrow, probably a highly-edited digest of the week with some extra footage from tomorrow thrown in, especially if Armstrong makes the move that folks expect).

A couple of sporting thoughts.

1. How is it that we've heard more about Randall Simon's attack on faux-ground "meat" in casing over the last couple of days than Kobe Bryant's alleged sexual assault, the much more serious issue?

I assume it has something to do with there being an ongoing investigation in Bryant's case and the rather expeditious handling of the Great Sausage Caper. I do think that Bryant should send Simon a watch or something for taking the heat off of him for a while.

2. Lance Armstrong has taken all sorts of crap over the last few years from French cycling fans, who suspect he's used some sort of banned substance to reach his level of performance on their biggest stage. They seem to have a much more relaxed attitute towards Richard Virenque, who won today's stage of the race.

In 1998, Virenque admitted to doping during a scandal that rocked that year's Tour. His team, Festina, was booted from the race, and he eventually served a seven month racing ban in 2001. In between, he gave testimony about drug use on his team and cycling in general.

I know, the French are embracing one of their own, and have an attitude towards Armstrong not unusual in Franco-American relations. But it's still annoying.

I have to imagine part of the problem too is that the French haven't had one of their own win the Tour since 1985. Heck, and Irishman and a Dane have won the Tour more recently.

Apparently, researchers in Chile have isolated a compound that works like Viagra, but with the added bonus of disabling the man's little soldiers. The mind boggling part: the compound was found in black widow spider venom.

The debate on the disease being worse than the cure rages on.

Good news: Jason Varitek nabbed the last spot on the AL All-Star team. Muchas gracias if you threw some votes his way.

Bad news: Geoff Jenkins outpaced the field to snag the last NL spot. I suppose I can take solace in the idea that Santiago (and Cabrera, really) have better shots at making the post-season than the Brew Crew.

Building on yesterday, I'm now torn regarding Orlando Cabrera. Not so much for my reasoning, but for the apparent tightness of the NL voting between Benito Santiago and Geoff Jenkins. Given that keeping Jenkins off the team is a secondary reason for my support of Cabrera, should I instead start voting for Santiago, who has a better chance of winning? Probably. Sadly, I don't have the luxury of 2000, where I could vote for pretty much whoever I damn well pleased because the winner wasn't in question.

Also building on yesterday, I can further erode my guy qualifications by noting that I found my summer crutch for American Idol not in its pre-teen doppleganger, but in UPN's America's Next Top Model. Then again, it is a show about picking a model out of ten young, attractive women, and it's not like I was watching for make-up tips.

Created and hosted by Tyra Banks, we got to watch week in and week out as the finalists participated in various facets of modeling, sometimes with some challenges (modeling swimsuits outside in January, a photo shoot with snakes as props). At the end of each episode, the judges (including Banks, a designer/model friend of her's, the fashion editor from Marie Claire, and first generation supermodel Janice Dickinson) would select one woman to eliminate, thus narrowing the competition each week.

Unlike most of the reality that's aired this summer, Model was actually done with some level of taste, class, and production values. Like all reality shows, you had some force-fed conflict and fun with editing, but as the number of contestants dwindled you did get a good sense of who these women were and how they interacted.

Religion was an unusual factor in the competition, as there were three devout Christians in the group. This not only led to some conflict between women, but also some times when one or more of the women would express concern about how what they were asked to do conflicted with their faith. Given that, at times, the conflict was over something very clearly a common part of modeling, you had to wonder just why the given woman was even there.

In any case, it was fun while it lasted, certainly better than Dog Eat Dog or all the craptacular sitcoms on ABC. A sequel has already been greenlighted (if you'd like to try out, hie thyself over to the UPN website), so if this sounds like it's up your alley, give it a look-see.

With under 24 hours to go in the last player balloting for the All-Star team rosters over on the MLB website, I would humbly ask that you cast votes for Jason Varitek in the AL and Orlando Cabrera in the NL.

Varitek, I admit, is a home-centered interest, though I do think he's had a good enough season to qualify regardless (oddly enough, I've had him and Ramon Hernandez, the A's catcher who was voted onto the team by players, as my roto league catchers for most of the season).

As for Cabrera, I just like the idea of having as many Expos on the team as possible in a continuing "up yours" to Bud Selig's contraction plan. It would also keep the Brewers' Geoff Jenkins off the team, which is a nice bonus.

So I'm at a college-wide staff social earlier this afternoon, and as some of the women from our class dean's office come into view, I notice one especially and think:

"She's wearing a Gap shirt."

(Sarah, who works part-time at the Gap, has the same shirt in a very similar color.)


Should it worry me that I can now detect Gap clothing, and if so should I be more worried for financial or masculine reasons?

Here's a question a co-worker posed at lunch. She was in a new employee orientation session with a smallish group, say a dozen or so, pretty much all people she doesn't know. One of the people running the orientation session had clearly forgotten to zip up his fly, as she could see the bottom of his shirt, well past where the shirt was tucked into his pants.

Question: is there any way she could have alerted him to his barn door being open that wouldn't have resulted in public embarrasment? Write me if you have ideas!

For no good reason, highlights of the weekend:

Friday Went to Manchester and watched the parade, about 20 minutes of stuff in 90 minutes of time. The funny thing is that it's been the same 20 minutes of stuff since 1996, at least. The only thing that really changes are the bands, depending on what we can get with the other towns in the area (Gloucester does their parade the night of the 3rd, Rockport the evening of the 4th, so they often split the cost of bringing bands up for all three). The cars, fire trucks, bicycles, even most of the floats, are the same year in and year out. But we keep going back.

It was slightly less hot this year as we drove to my sisters, and we had AC to boot. We also managed not to get lost using the same route as last year, though we encountered the same problem: there's no sign indicating where Route 133 junctions with Route 125. This year I just figured it out from the maps; last year we blew right by the turn and eventually tracked over to 495.

In any case, a good time was had by all at my sister's. I think I sawllowed part of a tine from my plastic fork, but in the words of Sherman Potter, "this too shall pass."

Saturday Started by going cake tasting in Danvers. This took much less time than anticipated. We wound up going with a lemon cake with a raspberry mousse filling, which does indeed meet the tasty requirement I put on our wedding website.

We then went over to Salem to do the touristy thing. Sarah was thinking beach, but we didn't have a lot of plan as to what beach. There is quite a bit to see in Salem, much of it witch-related and much of it pure crap, but in a fun way. As is our custom we did a trolley tour, not bad but our guide had an unusual accent which made it hard to figure out what he was saying from time to time.

We had a migrane-induced early end to the day, which was too bad. Sarah's feeling much better now, thanks. Probably a combo of too hot and too bright.

Sunday Nothing of real note here, other than I almost drove myself crazy watching a Mail Call marathon on the History Channel. Problem being that every commerical break, and I am not exaggerating here, had a promo for the Mail Call second season premiere. Thankfully, they got to some episodes I'd seen more than once as the day wore on and I could move on.

And on a similar note, if you're one of those people who forwards news of missing children or abused puppies looking for a home to everyone in your address book, check Snopes first. Odds are things have worked out, or were never at issue to start.

It must be my lucky day: I've won 800,000 euros from Omega Lottery International. Which is surprising, as I've never heard of them.

If you happen to "work" for Omega Lottery International (and by that I mean you're one of the idiot spammers who hopes I'll send you thousands of dollars in fees to try to get my fictional winnings), I have a few suggestions for you.

1. It's hard to believe that you're a reputable outfit if I have to keep news of my windfall quiet because of "mix up of some numbers and names." Make up some sort of security requirement or media blackout, something.

1a. I know you're coming to us from the Netherlands (or at least you're purporting to), but you could brush up the English a bit. I suppose you think it gives you more credibility, but if you were handling large sums of cash you could probably afford better translators.

2. Mix up the names a bit. There's at least one other scam using the last name of Jansen, according to the Snopes page on lottery scams.

2a. The same goes for the body of the email, which uses word-for-word language from at least a couple of other lottery scams. I know you're trying to get money for nothing, but how's about just a little effort?

3. You could at least use some of your scam money to get a more realistic domain for your email. The idea that a lottery would have to use email.com is a little odd. It'd be like the Powerball folks using AOL.

4. While I apparently won this money in a drawing held today, I have to claim the money by June 30, 2003. Unless I've also won a time machine, that's going to be difficult.

I suppose it's a nice break from the Nigerian scam (which I now get from several other west African nations). It does almost make me wistful for Make Money Fast. But not quite.

Today's episode: A slice of your righteous combat pie!

(I recently found a piece of paper with random quotes from The Tick (animated), so I'll be using them here from time to time. What I should really do is come up with an entry that uses them all, but I'm not sure how I'd use "Java devil, you are now my bitch.")

I am happy to say that Sarah and I are now post-Kia.

We took delivery last night of our silver 2004 Toyota Corolla, and so far so good. It sits higher, rides smoother, and is slightly roomier than the Kia. We no longer have the mysterious dripping fluid or power nothing, but I'm sure we'll get used to it.

Better that we didn't get it in time for the trip to Maine, as we have to keep it under 70 for the first 1000 miles or so.

Not much going on, still at work hoping we get let out early (as if I have somewhere to go; I'd just be home watching TV). Tomorrow sees us going to Manchester for the world's best 20 minute parade crammed into an hour and a half, followed by a party at my sister's. Saturday sees us going cake tasting, so if you have any requests let me know. I don't see us copying Adam Sandler's cupcake wedding cake, or the Krispy Kreme cake one of their execs reportedly had at his second wedding.

While Boggie beat me to being the first to do so, I would also like to offer one and all a happy Canada Day.

I'm not sure if it's the singable national anthem, the love of hockey, the bilingualism, or the gaily-hued currency, but I have a real fondness for our neighbor to the north. I've only been twice (four times if you count the Ontario drive-throughs to get from Boston to Detroit and back), but look forward to future trips, especially if I get to see any of the other provinces up close. I'd like to spend some time kicking around Nova Scotia and PEI (I apparently have family, distantly related, on PEI).

And, just to show that I'm not promoting a Western bias, happy Independence Day to all of you in Burundi and Rwanda, happy Republic Day in Ghana, happy Union/Foundation Day in Somalia, happy Unity Day in Zambia, and enjoy your Bank Holiday in such locations as Guatemala, Taiwan, and Iraq (where every day is a Bank Holiday, unless we've gotten the looting under control).