doodledee

You have to register to see stuff on the Star Tribune's website now. Here is their reasoning for the change. [Spoiler: it's related to advertising!] I really don't care that much about having to register. You set yourself up with a freebie yahoo account and you make up a birthday and an address and you're back to reading articles. It's almost kind of fun. Especially when the articles are about Target closing its North Minneapolis store.

The store isn't making money. It's in a bad location in a bad part of town. Target has tried remodeling, changing management, and lord knows probably tons of other stuff in an attempt to turn it around. And I believe that. It's not like admitting a store sucks and closing it down makes Target look like a bunch of geniuses. It makes them look like doofs. Which is why they so rarely close stores.

Not surprisingly, people are upset about the closing. Local residents claim they visit the store all the time, but I was there a couple weeks back and the parking lot was empty on a Saturday morning. (Maybe people were sleeping in that day, though, who knows.) What I do know is that if lots of people go to a store lots of times, that store usually makes money. Dots.connect().

The area's City Council Member, Natalie Johnson Lee, also chimed in with her thoughts:

Losing Target was not included in the plans" for the area's revitalization, said Minneapolis City Council Member Natalie Johnson Lee, whose ward includes the store.

Johnson Lee said she understands the business reasons for the store's closing, but she wonders why the retailer couldn't keep an underperforming store if the rest of its portfolio could balance it out.

Yeah! Why can't they keep it open!? How about BECAUSE THEY'RE A BUSINESS AND ME AND THE OTHER SHAREHOLDERS DON'T LIKE TO SEE THEM LOSING MONEY?! Oh, yeah, there's that.

And lest we forget, Target is already far and away the most philanthropic corporation in America as a % of operating income given away as cash. They do plenty of good stuff.

So let's not pick on the hometown team. At least not this time. Save your outrage for Ulrich's way too short Q&A session at the annual meeting.

For those of you who haven't seen the new Matrix yet, be sure to watch the cartoons that give all the good background information before you go. They're pretty huge downloads - and the UI on that site is horrendous - but they're worth it fo shizzy.

After you see the movie, this comment thread at Kottke has a lot of good guesses discussion about what it all means.

Geeks attempting to outphilosogeek each other. Hoot.

Recipe for web surfing bliss:

1. Download the latest version of Firebird. [download] [release notes]
2. Install it. It's easy. It's just a zip file. Unzip it to your Program Files directory.
3. Chug a beer. Oops, not softball.
4. Find the file MozillaFirebird.exe in the new folder. Run it.
5. Right away, make the following config changes. To make the changes, open the Tools -> Options menu. All changes are under the General group.
   • click the 'Use Blank Page' button
   • uncheck the Open Links in the background checkbox
6. What the hell, chug a beer.
7. Close Firebird.

Here's where it gets a little tricky. But stay with me, it'll totally be worth it.

1. Open My Computer and find your user's Firebird data folder. From the Firebird help page:

   On Windows 95/98/Me, the path is usually C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Phoenix\Profiles\default\xxxxxxxx.slt, where xxxxxxxx is a random string of 8 characters. Just browse to C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Phoenix\Profiles and the rest should be obvious.

   On Windows 2000/XP, the path is usually %AppData%\Phoenix\Profiles\default\xxxxxxxx.slt. [see note]

   Note: %AppData% is a shorthand for the Application Data path on Windows 2000/XP. To use it, simply enter %AppData% in a normal Explorer address field and press Enter. You will be instantly taken to the "real" folder, which is normally C:Documents and Settings[User Name]Application Data.
   

   
   
2. In the chrome folder will be a file named userContent-example.css. Rename that file to just userContent.css


3. Open the userContent.css file. You can probably just double click on it and then select Notepad when Windows asks you what to open it with.


4. Paste this entire block of code into the userContent.css file. Put it at the end of the file.


5. Save the userContent.css file.


6. Close Notepad or whatever program you used to edit the file.

>whew!< That's it.

I know, I know, it's 13 steps, but they're not that hard, so suck it up and do it. If you get totally stuck, send me an email, maybe I can help.

Why go to the trouble, you ask? Because now when you use Firebird, you'll rarely - if ever - see an unwanted pop-up. In fact you'll rarely - if ever - see any ads at all. You get tabbed browsing and a whole bunch of other bitchin features. You get a super fast, lightweight browser. In short: it rules.

Rock on.

Check out the frenzied coverage for Annika's debut in the PGA. 6500 articles? Is that for real?

Juxtapose that with the fact that nobody raised an eyebrow about Sarah Fisher racing at Indy.

It's funny how in some cases you're a female athlete and in other cases you're just an athlete who happens to be female.

Years and years (and years) ago, when Libby went to girls camp, she learned to sail. For years and years (and years) I've had to hear stories about how great it was and how she really, really (really) wanted to have her own sailboat someday.

When we got married, she formed a home-based nonprofit organization (membership: 1) to lobby the other members of the household to purchase a sailboat. Being the only other member of the household, I received most of the attention. This included such fancy treatment as doing my laundry, and, on rare occasions, baking me cookies.

But I was not easily persuaded. Thinking outside the bun, I developed a series of plans to thwart the sailboat purchase process.

Plan A: At first it was easy. We're not getting a sailboat. Sailboats cost too damn much.

Foiled Again: After a few years of DINKing, Plan A started to wear a little thin. Plus, as luck would have it, it turns out that little sailboats don't actually cost all that much. Curses.

Plan B: It's been so long since you were at girls camp. You don't know how to sail anymore.

Foiled Again: Last year she took sailing lessons. Then she went out sailing with friends at work who have sailboats. Then she rented boats and went out on her own. Curses.

Plan C: Dammit! Out of plans!

So long story short, Libby is now the proud owner of a cute little AMF Sunbird sailboat. She's moored down at Harriet on buoy 21, which is pretty close to the shore, so say hi next time you rollerblade by.

It's neat.

This column about transportation funding by former State Senator Fritz Knaak left me dumbfounded. I actually had to read parts of it multiple times just to be sure he wasn't being sarcastic.

Case in point:

[...] the underlying source of the resistance to increased motor vehicle taxes [is]: Most Minnesotans, particularly in the suburbs, no longer believe that their taxes benefit the common good. Rather, they believe, with reason, that the taxes are, through politics, channeled to political "winners." Most of them don't feel like winners in the current system.

Whaaa? They don't feel like winners? Then what do they feel like? Losers? Holy crap.

But wait, there's more:

Meanwhile, in the same election that saw massive suburban pluralities for no-new-tax-pledging Republicans in the House, suburban Minnesotans willingly voted for local tax increases for schools and local improvements in which they themselves would receive some kind of direct benefit.

There is an important lesson in this: Suburbanite taxpayers can accept tax or fee increases if they see a direct benefit as a result.

I love that stuff. It makes people look so bad: Sure, I'll pay more so that I personally can have better schools and better roads and better police and better snowplowing, but if you expect me to help somebody else just because they don't have all the good fortune that I do, then you've got another thing coming, mister! (And if they're gay or something crazy like that, then it's double no!)

The other day, a letter writer referred to the DFL's larger budget as their attempt at enforcing 'compulsory, bogus compassion'. The writer argued that by giving as much money as possible back to the taxpayer, the taxpayer would have more control over how their money is eventually spent. (Duh.) I guess the idea is that if you give a bunch of money back to people that instead of buying that new jetski, they'll turn around and use to it better the 'common good'.

I would argue that attitudes like Mr. Knaak's reveal a startling lack of compassion and that as a result, a mandatory minimum level of compassion apparently - and unfortunately - needs to be legislatively enforced.

But hey, who knows, maybe someday we'll get away from that model. Here's hoping.

Boy oh boy, it's a boy!

I've noticed a lot of old-school flip-flops out there recently. So many so that I've decided to officially go on record as saying that they're making a huge comeback.

Deal with that, anti-floppers.

The Strib has been running this 4-part mini-series about a couple that's going through some tough times because the wife had an affair. [start with part 1] It's got me totally sucked in... It's like the Martha Stewart docudrama on NBC only it's way better. It's got everything: anger, sex, tears, laughter, and, to keep it interesting, there's this wacky religious group that somehow manages to play a role through the whole thing.

My favorite part was when they gave some background information about why the wife was pissed at the dude:

She hated the mess in the house, the may-not-pass-fire-code crowded mess. Brian collected everything, parted with nothing. The family room had three couches: one for sitting, one for "short-term storage" and one for "long-term storage." Stuff was piled on every piece of furniture -- mostly books and papers, but also hundreds of random things including the guts of a refrigerator ice-maker, a plastic ficus tree, a straw hat and bare wrapping-paper tubes.

A couch for 'long term storage'? That's arguably the greatest thing I've ever heard.

Along with the main articles, there were a bunch of supporting pieces that talked about infidelity as a larger issue instead of just focusing on this specific case. There was this one snippet - that I can't find online - where a psychologist said that in a good relationship there should be 5 positive experiences for every bad one. After I read that, I decided to start keeping score at home.

That night, we went out to dinner. After a simple 10-minute car ride, we were already 35 good experiences in the hole. ("I had plenty of gas when I was driving home, I have no idea why the light is on now." Sure you don't, babe.) I'm thinking that may be some kind of record, but I don't know who to call to find out. Dr. Phil, maybe?

During dinner, we wondered if/how our relationship could be saved. Then that got boring, so I wondered how anyone ever thought 3rd Rock From the Sun was funny. [Answer: who the hell knows.]

Later, on the ride home, I slid some Marley into the stereo and we opened up the windows and danced in our seats and decided to call it even. All was right with the world.

don't worry about a thing
cause every little thing is gonna be alright
don't worry about a thing
every little thing is gonna be alright

rise up this morning
smiled with the rising sun
three little birds
pitch by my door step
singing sweet songs
of melodies pure and true
saying, this is my message to you

Unfortunately, after only one verse, Libby got cold and we had to roll up the windows. And with that, we were back to 5 under par.

That whole Glenbrook High School hazing story is sick. No, not because more than a hundred kids got together on a Sunday morning to get hammered, play football, and watch the senior girls put a beatdown on the junior girls. And no, not because parents - parents! - were there and instead of jumping in and breaking it up, chose to pump the keg and video tape the whole thing. And no, not because kids are suing to avoid having to miss graduation and the prom after they got suspended for their 'honest mistakes'.

Ok, ok, it is sick for those reasons, but mostly it's sick because people are glued to the story. I don't know if it's a deep-seeded "the popular girls didn't like me in high school" thing or just a "cable news junkies love footage of high school girls fighting" thing. Or I guess it could be a little of both. In any event, it's another story that is getting more coverage that it should.

So in case you haven't noticed, in the aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom, coalition forces haven't found the presumed buttload of Weapons of Mass Destruction that were supposed to just be lying around. You may not have noticed because apparently people don't care and haven't been making a big deal out of it. (Is it even a big deal? The war is over, right? Wait, what do the polls say?)

The conspiracy fans out there remind us that "we'll find whatever we need to find" but that sounds too cynical even for me. My theory is that Saddam never actually had them, but that he personally believed that he did. This is where the "don't piss off Saddam" atmosphere kind of bit him in the ass. After all, if you were a scientist working on building Saddam's nuclear bomb, are you going to tell him that it's not going well? I think not. I think you tell him that it's going great! Couldn't be better! No, thank you, sir!

And what's more, if Saddam and his top brass are convinced that Iraq actually has WMD, it's not hard to believe that the CIA might think so, too. And last time I checked, the CIA gets to talk with the President from time to time. La-la-la-la, connect the dots.

So another prediction: few, if any, weapons of mass destruction will ever be found.

Colin got me a copy of the first Mike Doughty solo album when he went to his concert the other night. It's a couple years old, but I'd never heard it. It's great stuff.

His fansite has tons of stuff available for download. Thank jesusgoose for phat bandwidth.

He's got a 'new' album coming out sometime this summer. Might want to pick that up.

Some things that are currently annoying me:

• People that think it's funny to tell you all about the new Matrix movie before you've seen it even after you tell them that you don't want them to say anything because you like to go in fresh.
• Spam.
• That new 'oven mitt' thing that is on all the Arby's commercials.
• Having a digital camera that is incapable of taking a picture of a lunar eclipse.
• Cans of mixed nuts that say "no more than 50% peanuts" but then have way more than 50% peanuts.
• People who think they can tell the percentage of peanuts in a can of mixed nuts by looking and/or eating said nuts.
• Not being able get anyone to come and give me a bid to put gutters on my house even after calling them back a bunch of times. Apparently the gutter business is a good place to be right now, because they clearly don't need the work.
• Having no fish tacos.

The other day I saw this girl wearing a shirt that said in big letters across her chest:

I thought that was a pretty neat comment for a shirt to make. Just shut up and stop acting like you're someone you're not. Stop thinking that you've gotta keep doing more to give your life meaning. Find some shit that that makes you happy and go do it. Listen to your favorite song as loud as you can stand it. Hang out with your friends. Read a book. Don't sweat the small stuff. Blah blah blah.

At least that's how I read it. Who knows, maybe it's supposed to have some bigger, geopolitical message or something. If that's the case, I guess it's not as cool, so I'm just going to keep pretending it's supposed to say what I want it to say.

Some other things I've learned from t-shirts over the years:

• You're with stupid
• If you give a dog a Budweiser, he will learn to surf
• People really do watch Nascar
• You were there, you heard of them first
• To get milk

T-shirts are so much smarter than we give them credit for.

There were a couple of big stories in the Strib recently about how Pawlenty has been trying to get the FAA to declare the airspace around the Monticello and Prairie Island nuclear power plants a no-fly zone. I guess the idea is that since a terrorist might try and crash an airplane into the plant, if we make it illegal to fly over the plant, there's no way for the terrorists to 'legally' approach. Problem solved!

Silliness aside, the FAA has repeatedly turned down the Governor's request. This seemed bizarre to me. What's the problem? Too many people sleeping well at night knowing that our state is free from the risk of a terrorist induced nuclear meltdown? Well, not exactly.

Their logic is:

[...] The agency believes that it has dramatically reduced risks of airliner hijackings by requiring reinforced cockpit doors, putting armed sky marshals aboard flights and conducting more sophisticated passenger and baggage screening.

To permanently restrict airspace over the plants, FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro said, "we'd wind up squeezing aircraft into fewer airspace pathways. We don't want to do that, because that would create the potential for safety and efficiency problems."

Translation: Northwest Airlines would be super pissed if we told them they couldn't get as many take-offs and landings as they wanted. All hail the great and powerful Oz.

If safety was really a concern, you could just reduce the number of airplanes in the new 'smaller' space, thereby eliminating the risk. But by doing that, you've reduced 'efficiency', which I'm pretty sure means 'the ability for airlines to generate revenue by not allowing people to use their frequent flyer miles'. Or something like that.

But maybe it's not a big deal, anyways. The boys at Xcel and the NRC have promised that a plane/plant collision would trigger - at most - a small radiological leak. That almost sounds kind of cute. I'm game.

In other news, last Sunday the FAA declared no-fly zones around Disney World and Disneyland. I guess I know where I'm headed the next time planes start falling out of the sky - I'm goin' to Disney World!

Just for the churros, though, not for the protection.

How working on a golf course and having a goose chasing dog changes your perspective.

Dave [walking to car, talking on phone with Keith]: Sweet! Keith: What? D: There's this mother goose that has been sitting on her nest for weeks. Her chicks finally hatched. They're all running around and cleaning each other and stuff. K: Really? D: Yeah, they're super cute. K: Awww, that's great. Now go stomp on them.

Guy at work brought in his new iPod today. It was neat, but I'm still glad I didn't buy one back when I had the urge to do so. That's obviously not to say I won't cave eventually, though, because I'm pretty sure I will.

Now that the military phase of the conflict in Iraq is more or less over, the anti-Bush crowd is all wound up about how the president landed on an aircraft carrier to declare an end to the fighting. Now I'm no political genius, but it seems to me that if that's all they have to complain about, then maybe it's better to just stay quiet.

Then again, if this is the best defense you can muster, maybe the complainers have a point.

Message to both sides: Quityerbitchin.

The place we went to for the latest stop on The Quest for the Best Jucy Lucy was a bowling alley so Team Jucy decided to bowl a couple of games after dinner. I can't decide what I liked better, the brand new shoes a bunch of us got to wear or the little girl in the arcade blasting away with a shotgun.

Awww.

Watch for the Jucy review in the next few days.

I find it odd that when you ask somebody what their favorite eating utensil is that they invariably answer that it's a spork. You'd think that if that were really the case that people would have sporks in their house and they'd use them on a daily basis. And if that were the case, you'd think that when you went to their house to eat, you would be offered a spork with which to dine. Yet strangely, I've never been offered a spork.

This leads me to conclude that (a) sporks are fun to think and talk about, but nobody honestly likes them and (b) chopsticks get a bad rap.

For your [alleged] spork fans out there:

• the spork FAQ
• an anime spork warning
• adopt a spork
• thoughts on improving the spork

But honestly, is it even fair to make people pick a favorite utensil? I mean I like a good spork as much as the next dork, but there are so many other choices worth considering. Like, for example, the squirt free grapefruit knife. That thing is totally bitchin'! Or what about a pair of asparagus tongs? Shouldn't all food be eaten with tongs?

Think carefully, that's all I ask.

Kare 11's lead story on tonight's 10:00 news was an interview with Rick Kahn, the fiery former campaign worker whose speech at the Wellstone memorial outraged a whole lotta people. It's been like six months since it happened, but the dude still seemed so very fragile. He cried a couple of times, he talked [irrationally] about the aftermath of his speech being 'unfair', and - brace yourself - he kind of half apologized for being a key player in an election that ended up changing the balance of power in Washington.

The whole interview had a weird vibe to it. Kahn was a little too sad, a little too gushy, a little too... uhh, well, it kinda seemed like he had a crush on the Senator or something. When Kare 11 threw up a couple of senior picture style shots of Wellstone over some sappy background music, any pretext of subtlety flew out the window. I'd seen enough. Back to the Wild game, please.

On a less mournful note, there's an interesting article on Slate today that ponders if psychedelic drugs good for you. Read on and feed your head.

On a please-wait-at-least-a-day note, I thought this story about a couple of economists from the state's Council of Economic Advisors waiting all of 20 minutes to say that Pawlenty's tax ideas are cracked was pretty funny. The job market for big-shot economists must be in pretty good shape.

And lastly, on a fatso note, we're hitting the next stop on our Jucy Lucy tour on Friday night. I play my first outdoor soccer game the next morning. The forecast calls for pain.

Remember the spring of 2000? I do. I remember chillin' at the movies watching Gladiator on the big screen. (I was entertained.) I remember how the DOW was over 11,000. (I was skeptical.) And I remember how Dr. Dre was going crazy about Naptser.

At first he just went at Napster itself.

"We wrote a letter yesterday on behalf of Dr. Dre to Napster basically putting them on notice that the listing of his songs and masters on Napster and the facilitation of the transfer of those files constitutes an infringement of his copyrights," said Howard King, an attorney who sent the letter on behalf of Andre Young, known as Dr. Dre.

Later, he tried to sue some schools and bunch of students. He was seeking $100k in damages for each instance of copyright infringement, totalling around $10M. The lawsuit was settled and Napster tried to stop people from downloading Dre stuff. Now Napster is now basically dead. Coincidence? Yes.

But man, Dre loves his copyrights, eh?

Now today I see that that Dr. Dre is now being asked to fork over $1.5M for a backbeat he plagiarized on a song on his album '2001'.

Huh.

Apparently it was a battle fought in the courts. I guess he lost. I wonder how much he spent defending himself?

On a related note, I did some cutting and pasting at work today. I'm hip. I'm with it. Takka takka takka.

hb ab

The Wild game was on tonight and it's a good thing we were winning big by the end of the second because I got hooked on a late night Nova on PBS before the third period even started. It was a rerun from a couple years ago that was about where babies come from. Seeing as I'm not too sure myself, I figured I should watch. Awesome, awesome imagery and Jonathan Lithgow saying 'gonads' a few dozen times. Wee!

Then they got to the birthing footage.

>gulp<

Congratulations!  You have just purchased tickets for the followingshow(s):
Jul 18 2003  Alpine Valley Music Theatre East Troy, WI (Delivery)(2 x$42.50 = $85.00)
Section - 203/Row - MM/Seat - 114Section - 203/Row - MM/Seat - 116
Jul 19 2003  Alpine Valley Music Theatre East Troy, WI (Delivery)(2 x$42.50 = $85.00)
Section - 203/Row - HH/Seat - 50Section - 203/Row - HH/Seat - 52
Total Cost of Ticketing $170.00Convenience Fee $17.00Shipping $8.00
Order Total $195.00

Whaaaaaaaaa-hooooo!

Under the roof both nights. Yeah, the first night we're so far right that Jason Lewis called to say he's jealous, but the second night should be just about perfect.

Dance. Dance. Dance with your prego wife, yo.

Went the Guthrie on Saturday night to see their production of Chekhov's Three Sisters. In case you're not going, here's the script. In case you're not interested in reading it, I'll provide a summary:

Three sisters complain about how life sucks. Then the play ends.

Really, that's pretty much it. But even if it didn't hold my attention like I was hoping it would, it was strongly performed and most definitely worth the trip.

As a bonus, one of the people in the audience had a huge coughing fit early in the second act. It wasn't one of those dry 'wrong pipe' type coughs, either. This was a full juice, mouth open, eyes closed, lose a lung mega fit. It was startling. I felt bad for the person, but I think I laughed for 5 minutes after it ended.

Then the doom-and-gloom theme of the play hooked me again, and the moment passed.

Here's an article about the glut of primo office space that's become available in fancy areas of San Francisco in the wake of the dot-com blowout. Gradually it's being rented by new businesses, few of which have anything to do with the internet.

Here's one that raised my eyebrows:

Shireen Pye, who once worked for Priceline.com, and Suzie Yannes, a former graphic artist for high-tech firms, have opened a spa and health-food store for dogs.

They found a century-old building in Potrero Hill, the last frontier of the dot-com expansion, that had been at various times a union hall, brothel, dinner club and futon store before a doomed dot-com takeover several years ago.

"We both love animals and it was something Potrero Hill needed," Ms. Yannes said.

Needed? A neighborhood needs a doggy day spa? That's stupid.

Almost as stupid as trying to play the first round of golf on a day that had 100 mph wind and occasional rain.

But not quite.

Almost as stupid as me cutting my mouth while trying to lick frosting off a sharp knife while Libby wasn't looking because she'd already busted me two times and I think she was starting to get mad.

But not quite.

hb mp

Today on the way home the traffic was bad so I took the back roads. While waiting at a stoplight, this dude in a 540 pulled up next to me. After about 10 seconds, he got tired of sitting there and just went ahead and drove through the red light. It was crazy. Traffic was still totally flowing from the other directions. They just had to slow down and let this dude through.

Huh, I thought. There's something you don't see every day.

I caught up with him a mile or so later. He made another cocky [but legal] move when he ducked into a left turn lane right as the green arrow was going red and sped through the intersection.

Huh, I thought. That dude must really be either (a) in a hurry or (b) an ass.

Then I ran into him again! We ended up on a neighborhood street about a block from my house. He was right in front of me. He was driving a black car with a tan leather interior. He was wearing a white dress shirt and a dark tie. He was wearing sunglasses. He was clean shaven. His driver side window was also down.

How did I notice such detail? Easy. When the cop pulled him over for speeding, I just slowed down and took a look.

Booya! One for the good guys.

hb j9