January 2007

Postings will be sparse for the next few days. I’m in Vegas with my dad. We golfed today and will be golfing again tomorrow … and the next day … and the next day … This is my third or fourth trip to Las Vegas since I moved to LA in 2000. I’m not much of a gambler, but I think I have finally deciphered the game of craps. I turned $20 into $225 and had a blast hanging out with my dad at the new Hooters Casino. I’m taking a ton of photos and will update when I return to the City of Angels.

The blog for inquisitive Gators, Saurian Sagacity, has done an interesting analysis of the effect of the 2006 NCAA football game clock rule changes. I was annoyed all year by the new changes because I felt that it was making the games shorter. I like college football. I don’t want shorter games. I want longer games! It seemed all year that the games were shorter, but the time I spent sitting in front of the TV didn’t change. And now I realize why.

Yes, the games were shorter by about eight minutes. But it’s not like the networks gave me that time. They took away six or eight plays per game, but we got to see around seventeen more commercials. That sucks. There are already plenty of commercials. It’s not like that cash is going to the schools to pay player salaries. Broadcasting college football is a license to print money. That’s why games are being carried by TBS and TNT now. It’s so lucrative as it is there’s no need to screw me out of those six plays.

The only real issue I have with this analysis is that I think it misses the point. What I’d really like to know is the difference between the number of plays run by quarter. The big change this year, I felt, was that the 4th quarter always seemed to be where the time disappeared. There were definitely some thrilling come-from-behind victories this season, but was it just me that thought there were more of them before the clock rule changes?

This Kitty Washing Machine may very well be effective, but I don’t think its efficiency trumps the fact that it looks like the cat is scared out of its mind. I think even a decade ago — before I owned any cats — that I would not have laughed at this poor feline’s frantic fright. <link via LYD>

Last night was another crazy cool one in Los Angeles. The fun began with dinner on the Sunset strip: Ron Jeremy was at the table on our left and Scott Baio was at the table on our right. The service was uncharacteristically craptacular, but the food was excellent. (You can’t do much better than the steak and lobster at the Rainbow Room.)

After that we went to see Von Cotton play at Molly Malone’s. (Photos at Flckr) They played eight or ten original tracks — all very, very awesome country tunes. I think my two favorites right now are “Shotgun Blast” and “The Tell”. Then Brant closed with a great cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”.

Genarlow Wilson, honor student and football star, had consensual sex with a fellow teenager. What happened to him next was a crime.

When he was a senior in high school, he received oral sex from a 10th grader. He was 17. She was 15. Everyone, including the girl and the prosecution, agreed she initiated the act. But because of an archaic Georgia law, it was a misdemeanor for teenagers less than three years apart to have sexual intercourse, but a felony for the same kids to have oral sex.

Now he’s sitting in prison. He got ten years. Been there for two. And there’s not much anyone can do about it, although some are trying.

Talk about cool! At photostamps.com you can upload a photo and they’ll create authentic USPS stamps for you to use. They’re a bit expensive — a sheet of twenty $.39 stamps runs $17.99 — but I can definitely see doing this for wedding invitations or some other important event.

Note: Until March 15th, 2007 you can enter promo code “2007″ and get free shipping. They sell NFL and college stamps, too, so now you can celebrate the Florida Gators National Championship by affixing a UF stamp to every letter you send!

This is one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do lately, but I feel I have no choice. As of today I am officially removing myself from consideration for the head coaching job in Dallas. As much as I love and respect the Cowboys organization, my life right now is simply too complicated for me to accept the responsibility. I wish Jerry Jones, et.al. the best of luck and I am sure someone else — someone with more experience and a much better coaching pedigree — will soon be interviewed for the job, and I don’t want to make things any harder on the team.

[click to continue...]

On May 20, 2006 I was tagged for speeding on the 405 while returning from my friend’s wedding in Valencia. This was one of the (rare) instances when I felt I was undeserving of a speeding ticket. There were cars on either side of me and a guy was coming up my rear like a bat outta hell. I even said, “Look at this happy a**hole!” as I gunned it to get out of his way and into the right lane. The happy a**hole was a CHiP and he gave me a ticket even though I tried to explain to him that I was only getting out of his way.

I had to deal with the ticket by July 14th, and of course that didn’t happen. I actually had the date confused with the court date of a different speeding ticket so I went to wrong courthouse. Ha! (Note: The LA Superior Court didn’t find this even remotely comical.) Even though they were upset, the State of California allowed me to reschedule and set a new court date. I had to appear at the San Fernando Courthouse in September.

[click to continue...]

At some point recently I stumbled upon Geni.com, a family-tree site. This is the kind of thing I seriously dig. It makes me sad that I can only go back two or three nodes on my family tree. My oldest nana is 86 and — when I called her a few minutes ago — was having a hard time remembering the names of even her brothers and sisters. Strangely, though, she had no problem naming papa’s aunts and uncles and dozens of other names I never knew.

This is the sort of thing that people kick themselves for not doing earlier in their lives. Pick up the phone and call your grandmother, for the love of God. When’s the last time you talked to her? She’s not on DVD, y’know? When that RAM goes, it’s gone … and you’re not sending it to the Apple store to retrieve it, either.

[click to continue...]

Got plans for January 24th? Of course you don’t. Now you do.
Mark it down. Von Cotton will be live at Molly Malone’s next Wednesday. These guys are excellent. You must be there. Come see them now before they sign a multi-record contract for millions of dollars. That way you’ll get to say, “I saw them before they signed a multi-record contract for millions of dollars.” Find me and I’ll buy you a beer.

Today marks my 2500th day of blogging. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than with two lovely collections of elephant jokes. I love elephant jokes.
And while you’re enjoying these elephant jokes, why not make a donation to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee? What a fine thing to do on a Wednesday afternoon!

Last night I writhed in agony while watching the 11 o’clock news. The local NBC affiliate was running a story about the Sacramento disc jockeys that were fired recently. (The radio personalities had sponsored a contest which led to the death of a woman.) Behind the anchorman the screen displayed DJ’s Fired. I’m sure that employees at my office are sick of hearing me say, “An apostrophe is never used to indicate a plural.” How can NBC not have someone to check what’s going to be printed in big block letters on screen? Why, NBC? Why?

“The ‘plural apostrophe’ (e.g. no dog’s allowed, sofa’s for sale) is running rampant these days, and it’s not just my imagination. It’s so wrong that I can’t even begin to fathom how anyone could make such a mistake. I hate it when people dismiss it with, ‘Oh, not everyone’s a grammar freak.’

Grammar? You think it’s an issue of grammar? I hate to break it to you, but if you can’t spell ‘dogs’, you’re illiterate.”

Quite nifty! My mini-tutorial — Five Tips for Smarter Playlists — has been published in the second issue of the online pdf magazine CRAM. A few weeks ago I received an email from one of their editors requesting permission to republish the essay. I had actually forgotten all about it. Then this morning someone at CRAM sent me an email announcing that the latest issue has been published. My article begins on page six. How cool is that?

About a decade ago I bought a Gotham model pen from Levenger. It is by far my favorite pen. This weekend I found it in the cigar box I use to hold all my “best” pens and was quite disappointed to discover that its ink had run dry. Levenger no longer makes this fabulous pen and a search of their site and Google searches of the whole web returned no results for refills. A last-chance attempt was made: I found a model number on the ink cartridge — PR0162 — and that yielded results on the Levenger site. I ordered three sets of two refills. If you happen to have a Gotham, I’d grab some refills now before they stop carrying them.