One thing planned, two to go

Today's my birthday and among several nice greetings I received was this note from my friend Denny Heck in Olympia: "I challenge you to do three fun things today -- three things you wouldn't ordinarily do!"

Well, OK then. I like that. An unusual birthday wish and a challenge to boot.

For my birthday Michelle is taking me tonight to a David Byrne concert here in Seattle. I'm really looking forward to that. I love his music but have never seen him live. So that's one fun thing I wouldn't normally do.

I'm still accepting suggestions for two other things. So far all I've been able to come up with is: Do an honest day's work and get a good night's sleep. Nothing ordinary for me about either of those, although it's already too late in the day to pull off the first.

I need to run out now and get a blood draw and buy some overpriced anti-seizure drugs, but I don't think those errands count as unusual or especially fun.

Hit me with a couple of ideas before tonight's concert!

Another M&M milestone

Don't look now, but we've jumped into the top 1 million blogs as tracked by Technorati. Number 966,270, to be exact. Now, 1 million isn't all that impressive, you may say. But it took a long time to get here. And it's not bad considering we have only the same seven readers coming back to visit.

I think what may have put us into the six figures was this recent link from WordCount/by Michelle Vranizan Rafter, a blog about freelance writing. She included M&M in a post about using an avatar or illustration to promote yourself. As Rafter says,

Michele Nicolosi, assistant managing editor at Seattle PI.com maintains a personal Website called M&M for herself and her S.O. Mark. The Simpsons-esque characters totally works because Michele really looks like that!

Leaving aside the spelling thing and the fact that we don't use M&M to promote ourselves as freelancers ... True that. She really does!

What genius created that picture anyway?

Wii-lympics Night 1: update

Mark: I challenge Gina to a game of tennis.
Gina: Okay. But you're going down.

Thank you, little chocolate donuts

In honor of the Wii-lympics and the Olympics, this offering from a great American.

Let the Games Begin

Tonite we began a vast undertaking: Wii-lympics, pitting Mark, Franny, Gina and me against each other in an extended round-robin of tennis, ping pong, skeet shooting and bowling.

Updates to come ...

Three rules

Thirty years ago, at the end of that interminable summer following high school graduation, it was finally time for me to leave little Roseburg, Ore., and go start my new life at the University of Oregon. I packed up the few things I needed and my parents drove me to my dorm. As we approached Eugene, about an hour from home, my mom cleared her throat and said she had something to tell me.

College is a big change, she said, and you're going to meet a lot of new people and have a lot of exciting adventures. As you should.

"I've only got three rules," she said, "and I want you to promise me you'll follow them. Don't grow a beard. Don't buy a motorcycle. And don't get anybody pregnant."

Well, those didn't seem so imposing. I had no money to buy anything but textbooks, I wasn't even able to grow a beard on my peach-fuzzy face, and lord knows I'd been in no danger of making any babies, even if I wanted to, which I didn't, although I wouldn't have minded being in the vicinity.

OK, then. Good advice, Mom, and no worries.

But, you know, things change with time. A few years later, while still in school, I had wormed myself a part-time reporting job at the Eugene Register-Guard and one spring I did in fact let a scraggly little red-tinged beard grow in. And I had become friends with Mike Stahlberg, who served as my unofficial newsroom mentor and was, as he is now, my poker Sensei.

Stahlberg also owned a beautiful motorcycle -- a 1979 BMW R65 (now a classic, but at the time still a pretty new bike) -- and he let me ride it a few times. Soon he decided to upgrade to a larger BMW, an R100, and offered to sell me his old one. Done. I barely thought about it. I loved the bike, the feeling of power and speed and sensory awakening it offered, and I was thrilled to own it. Mike and I shared many awesome weekend rides through the mountains and the Willamette Valley farmland and I imagined myself to be about a hundred times badder than I ever was.

At the time I was dating a very cool and pretty woman I'd met at the paper, Sheila. Remembering Mom's three college rules I proposed a surprise weekend visit to Roseburg. Mom didn't know about the beard or the bike, so I asked Sheila, who was a much better sport than she had reason to be, to ride down to Mom and Dad's house on the back of the Beemer with a pillow under her shirt.

When we got there, I parked the motorcycle within view of the front door and left it running as we walked up and rang the bell. There we stood with our helmets, my beard and Sheila's "belly" when Mom opened the door. The look on her face is still one of my all-time favorite memories.

All this comes to mind because lately, for reasons I haven't really analyzed, I've found myself thinking again about owning a motorcycle.

I haven't had one for years. I took the BMW to San Francisco when I moved there in 1985 but it was stolen. I bought a crappy Honda off my boss, but it was stolen too. Later, after I moved to Seattle, I bought the same R65 model that Mike had sold me, but it didn't measure up to the original and I never loved it. By the time Gina was born in 1993 I felt through with motorcycles and sold the replacement-replacement Beemer to some guy on the copy desk.

The other day, though, browsing Craigslist classified ads, I spotted a "vintage" R65, which led to a vintage cycle site and finally, this click leading to that, to the Harley-Davidson site. I think I spent an hour reading all about Harleys and contemplating the differences between all the models.

When I mentioned this to Michelle she listed all the good (and true) reaasons I should have my head examined, not least that straddling an 800-pound machine at 60 mph would be a lousy time to have a seizure. She won't even get in the car with me.

Still, the Harley site brought back memories and relit a little pilot light. I noticed that a dealer located south of downtown Seattle offers bikes for rent, so this afternoon, with no agenda or commitment longer than midday tomorrow, I plunked down a few bucks to borrow the above-pictured 2008 "Softail Classic."

I haven't really spent much time on it this afternoon, just a cruise along the Duwamish River and Alki Beach, but I have to say it's an awesome ride. I'm not sure what's driving all this -- Death Wish 2008, maybe, or Rebel Without a Brain, or The Midlife Crisis That Wouldn't Die -- but it felt perfectly natural to be atop a motorcycle again. I like it.

Maybe that's all I needed. When I take the Softail back tomorrow, maybe that'll be that.

In other news, I shaved this morning.

'I've got that going for me ...'

The big news around here today is that the Dalai Lama is in town, part of a five-day visit about compassion. Cool. Free Tibet!, "See Yourself as You Really Are," and all that, but me, I'm celebrating by re-enjoying this classic scene from "Caddyshack" and one of the world's truly great spiritual leaders, Bill Murray. (Thanks to Michelle for sending the clip.)

Never mind

Hillary might want to rethink that thing about spotting Obama two frames.



Hat tip to Truthdig for the video.

Here's what we need ...

for the big M&M road trip. The title of this xkcd comic is "Cheap GPS."

Obama is no Jesus

The other day I was playing cards and glanced up at the TV to see some sportscasters laughing at what looked to be a clip of Barack Obama bowling. I checked it out later and, sure enough, stumping for votes in Pennsylvania Obama had the bright idea to establish his blue-collar cred with a trip to the lanes.

He should have taken a minute to think about whether he could bowl. Or at least asked if the lanes had those bumpers like they use for 5-year-olds' birthday parties.

Gutter ball after gutter ball. Check it out. Pathetic.



Hillary Clinton, no dummy, jumped right on the opportunity, challenging Obama to a "bowl-off" for the nomination, even offering, as Maureen Dowd points out in this excellent op-ed piece, to spot him two frames.

I don't know if Hillary can bowl either, or McCain. And I'm not sure settling the presidency in the alley is the way to go anyway. If it were, I guess my candidate would be Jesus -- no, the other Jesus, from one of the great movies of all time, "The Big Lebowski."

Now here's how to bowl:

scary

What homer would look like if he had ... human skin.

Don't ask why. Ask, why not?

Seriously.



Thanks to Catsandbeer.com for the pic.

Everything else is bookkeeping

I love xkcd. (Click cartoon for larger image.)

What I'm not doing

Normally, about this time of year, I'd be cramming through several spring-training magazines and a bunch of geeky websites with names like Rotoworld to figure out which real-life baseball players I wanted to draft onto my pretend team of players, the Humm-Babies.

Like millions of graying wish-they-were athletes and young stat freaks who could be (and often are) their sons, I've been a dedicated fantasy baseball player. For a long time. Our Eugene-based league, the Stathawks, has been going with the same core group of guys since 1987, and a few of us played in an earlier incarnation for five or six years before that. Sick.

But last summer, distracted by illness and not into it (and also with the beloved Humms once again holding down last place), I decided to hang up my pretend cleats. I sold the franchise lock, stock and pretend barrel to a Register-Guard guy I didn't know for the bargain price of nothing. He may have overpaid.

So now, while Stahlberg and Bellamy and Bellamy's kid and Moseley and all those other lovable nerds try to figure out how much Johan Santana will be worth on the open fantasy market, I'm enjoying not sweating it. Just now, I was flipping through the sports section and noticed that Kyle Lohse, pictured above, just signed with the Cardinals, hoping to make their rotation. To which my reaction was ... who cares!

I'm thinking it'll be fun this summer to watch a ballgame on TV and not sweat wondering why "my pitcher" missed a start or fretting that my slugging first baseman pulled a hammy.

I'm still excited for the baseball season. But in a different, fresh way. The Stathawks will have to carry on without me.

Always genius ...

The latest from xkcd:

Frozen in time

This is very cool.

American Idol again

"They call me the black Clay Aiken," says contestant 1. Janice, that's a guy from Idol Season II. Black Clay, no way.

Deanna, the bitter waitress: nope

A gross couple who met on the Idol message boards. No.

Jeffrey and Michelle. Brother and sister. Very flamboyant. Very funny. I mean, the man wears a tie around his head. They're in. That'll be fun.

Montage, ridiculing contestants.

Next: "I'm Amy, Amy Catherine, AC, whatev." ERrrr!
Simon says: "It was a bit like annoying girl singing in the bedroom. There are a lot of people who are going to find you very very annoying."

Mark bets me a dollar she's not getting in. I WIN! Pay up sucker.

"I'm shocked," Mark says.

Pay up, sucker!

Cheesy story line weaving in and out about contestant #1 (was supposed to be) whose wife goes into labor before he can step up. He looked so pissed that he had to go have a baby instead of singing for Simon.

Next: A blond wiggly voiced breathy singer singing Good Morning Heartache. We hate her. Randy/Dawg likes the tone. Paula's going for it. The blondness is working again. She's in. "Based on your vocals" Dawg says.

"Right," Mark says. "Based on your ass!"

Next: A chick who flies big planes. But she cain't sing. Pitchy, Dawg says. Simon says she's a good cabaret singer. "It's a no, sweetheart," Simon says.

Yow, now a chick with GIANT breasts in a bright turquoise dress that says "lookit my titties!"

"Oh my," Paula says.

Ouch. Close the mouth. Stop the sounds.

"The funny blue dress, the huge belt ... doesn't work," Simon says.

"I have an amazing voice," Aretha says. "I stop crowds."

"You seriously murdered the ... song," Simon says.

"I think I really did good with that song."

"You can't sing!"

"I really can sing! I heard a lot of people you let through here. They weren't even that ... some of them was not up to par. ... I don't even believe this. Can I get one more chance?"

NO!

"Honestly, I think I'm great," Aretha says in the hallway. Dang.

Next up: Joshua sings horribly, then claims "This show is faked and rigged. ... I am a good person and you're not."

Next: A montage of people who have heard no, no, no. Wiping tears, hand to the camera. "I am not going to cry," one says. "Because, why?"

The guy who had a baby -- Emma Grace -- sings with too much vibratto. Gets three NOs. I lose my dollar in a bet that he'll make it in anyways. It's an Idol Baby, Dawg declares.

"Emma Gross," Mark says. At least he's even money.

PS: The Idol Blogger at the LA Times is a genius:

"But at the end of an "Idol" audition episode, what the two hours really bring to light is just how fine a line our society walks every day. How often in each of our days do we stand beside people who wrongly consider themselves intelligent, beautiful, witty, brave? Often it seems just about everyone we know (certainly everyone I know) is deeply, horribly deluded in some way or another. And in real life, Simon Cowell never shows up with their glass of cold water. ..."

American Idol

Today, I'm doing a short version of Idol coverage to minimize the pain for Janice.
1. Blond. She's in.
2. Single dad, wife's dead. He's not that good. He's in.
3. Australian dude. He's in.

Man, they're sending so many suck people to Hollywood, I find myself wondering again if Idol is rigged. Is it? I can't find anything but speculation on last year so far, but I am finding this huge rash of criticism aimed at Idol producers for the way they're running the show. The gist is this:

"When American Idol debuted in 2002, its supposed goal was to find the best undiscovered talent in America. Singers like Kelly Clarkson and Clay Aiken, who had dreams of stardom but never had the connections, were catapulted to megastardom. The producers found diamonds in the rough and launched their careers," writes Vote for the Worst, the web site that famously encourages people to vote for people like Sanjaya.

"But a disturbing trend has surfaced with the spoiled contestants of American Idol 7 – they’re no longer even remotely undiscovered talent. A large percentage of them are failed singers and entertainers who have already had their shot at fame. Yet Idol thinks that repackaging these failures is a good idea to make us watch their show. Gone are the days where you or your friends could try out for Idol and make it big. Now you have to already have connections. ...this year’s show will just be a boring hash of recycled pseudo-celebrities who weren’t good enough to make it the first time around.

..."So what’s wrong with this? Well, it’s forcing Idol to expose its hand as the premiere marketing tool for struggling artists. Instead of discovering the next big superstar, music executives are deciding who should be popular and getting them on to Idol. Many people watch American Idol because they think they can help make the next big music star out of an Everyday Joe or Jane. But Carly and her large number of has-been companions are merely failed artists who are being planted on the show by their sources to promote themselves. Would the hundreds of thousands of people who auditioned this year be happy to learn that their spot was given to someone who already had connections?"

Then follows an amazing list of all the people on the show so far and the details behind how the record labels have tried and failed to launch their lame ass careers. What a rip. Worth reading past the jump.

Next: Three losers. They're not in.

4. A chick who thinks she's Mariah Carey. Wow. She really sucks. "It was actually terrible," Dawg says. Not in.
5. Guy in a sombrero with a mime. No.
6. Monique, singing Whitney. NOOOO. She cries. "Maybe I picked the wrong song." No, that's not it.
7. Her friend Destiny, or whatever his name is, sings horribly too. "Does that sound good to you, Christopher?" Simon says. "There wasn't a single note in tune." He won't stop singing. The guards take him away.
8. Some chick who is in love with Simon and can actually sing. She's going.
9. A guy who has tried out 10 times. Once in a statue of liberty outfit. Not in.

Bunch of losers. No, no, no. No, and no.

10. A guy named David. He's in.
11. Here comes Carly, one of the planted chicks, according to Vote for the Worst. According to VFTW: "Carly Smithson is the epitome of a record industry failure. She was brought to America by MCA Records and recorded a bland pop album that sold only 300 copies (that’s not a typo)." So what, she's in.

And ... it's a wrap.

LA Times & the Balmore Sun

"...it was ironic that the axing of L.A. Times editor Jim O'Shea (allegedly over his resistance to budget cuts) came to light the same day as job cutbacks were to be announced at The Sun in Baltimore -- in HBO's The Wire,'" E&P Editor Greg Mitchell writes on his personal blog Pressing Issues -- which is, by the way, a pretty good overall read.

"On the TV show last night, a very familiar scene showed the paper's publisher calling everyone together in the newsroom ... to announce that because of revenue shortfalls and that damn free Internet, heads would have to roll, or at least buyouts ordered. ..." See more up in here.

I'm going to add Pressing Issues to our favorite links list so I can easily check in to see if he has any new newspaper biz/Wire observations after each episode of The Wire, my second favorite TV show. Speaking of which, what are your favorite TV shows right now? Mine are:

1. Hoooouse
2. The Wire
3. 30 Rock
4. The Closer
5. American Idol
6. The Office

'OK,' Gina said ...

"... I'm now officially sick of Martin Luther King."

We were eating dinner the other night, and what prompted this politically incorrect outburst, apparently, was yet another -- one too many -- lectures at school that day about King. By the ninth grade now, Gina was saying, how many times can you hear the same thing?

On cross-examination she conceded that she wasn't so sick of him that she'd insist on going to school today, but I kind of get what she was saying. Sainthood gets boring. Even the stupid presidential candidates can't agree on whether MLK or LBJ should get credit for the big 1960s civil rights reforms -- and those are the Democrats!

When I was working for a living I always appreciated the paid day off but I also felt, especially as a manager, that it was best to work on MLK Day. That way you could get a bunch of stuff done in a relatively quiet office and save the paid holiday to take another time. Sweet. That's what Michelle's doing today.

Me, I'm planning to celebrate in my own fashion. I have a dream of pocket kings, or of flopping a pair with an open-end straight-flush draw -- something like holding the king and queen of spades on a board of 10 and jack of spades and queen of diamonds -- so I'm going to drive down to the Muck and see how many degenerates are there blowing their day off.

Unlike Gina, I'm officially not sick of Martin Luther King. As King himself surely must have said sometime, "Deal me in."