M&M morning news meeting

We don't get a newspaper anymore (weird, I know), so the news meeting in our sun room begins with opening the laptops and glancing at the electronic front pages.

"Any news today?" I ask Michelle.

"Halo."

And it's true. Both local rags are devoting big space at the top of their web sites to the release of "Halo 3," the new military shoot-em-up video game by Microsoft. The P-I (it's review: "awe-inspiring") seems proud of its photos of Bill Gates at a local Best Buy, where he sold the first copy to some wacko kid at precisely 12:01 a.m.

The Seattle Times put a clever hed on its coverage: "Couldn't get a 'sick day'? Blogging Halo 3". Looks like the idea is that a couple of staffers are going to blow the virtual crap out of each other all day and write about it. I may skip that one.

The Times also has a big picture of Gates, but theirs goes with a Q&A for their ongoing ass-kissing of the Gates Foundation, "Confronting Malaria." Ugh. Day 3 now, and counting. With Gloria dead of brain cancer, I guess, we're stuck with a new disease every week.

Michelle, looking at the Times site, blurts out: "Argh! We don't have the goat story."

I think I know what this is about (the City Council has been considering some P.C. idea to allow goats to be pets), but in my head I think, you just used the words "goat" and "story" in the same sentence. I think the Republic will survive.

The other thing I notice, looking at the miniature PDF of the P-I actual front page, is that about two-thirds of A-1 seems to be devoted to some giant, photo-heavy feature I can't quite make out except for, in large red type, "1989." I ask Michelle what's up with 1989.

Oh, she says, that's some story about how college freshmen this year were born in 1989, so they have it so tough and can't relate to their teachers because they don't have anything in common.

Me: "Isn't that the case every year?"

Michelle: "That's exactly what I said in the meeting!"

We probably drove them crazy when we both attended those lame-o meetings. It's a good thing I don't work there anymore.

I couldn't find the actual story on the web site. Michelle said someone screwed up and published it online yesterday, so it's come and gone already.

Newspapers are stupid.