doodledee

I finally beat Libby at Scrabble. All it took was a double word combo of 'ex' and 'xi' where the 'x' was on a triple letter score. That's like 50 points, which you would think would have blown the game wide open, but somehow it still went right down to the wire.

After this win, I think my record stands at 4-122.

I played cards with some of the guys on Saturday night. It's fun to see how our card playing has changed since ESPN and The Travel Channel started showing professional poker on television. We play new games, we know a bunch of new rules, and best of all, we've got a whole new set of cool card-junkie vocabulary words to throw around. I must have said 'all in' like 20 times, and I have no idea what it really means.

As usual, I lost money. Well at least I think I did, as by the end of the night the change in my jar was clearly lighter than when I got there. I suppose there's a chance I may have just swapped a bunch of nickels for a bunch of quarters, but I doubt it.

I've concluded I'm not very good at the poker stuff. I remember Ira Glass saying something one time that pretty much sums it up:

What I've learned is that I don't really have the patience to be a great poker player. Specifically, I get bored waiting for a good hand, and play all sorts of cards I really should be folding. This has lost me a bit of money. Another weakness of mine: I find I'm often more interested in knowing whether people are lying than I am in winning money. And in the end, they show me their cards. They're almost never bluffing. This has cost me a bit of money as well.

What's worse, I've been told I have a crappy poker face. And that fist-pumping when you get dealt a good hand is considered - at least in some circles - a tell.

Thankfully, I usually manage to win the occasional non-poker game, so the night doesn't end up hurting too badly. Pig.blind() am I.

We walked down to the coffee shop this morning. We normally walk there just to get coffee, but lately our walks have also taken on the awesome responsibility of inducing labor. This means that (a) we never stray far enough from home that I wouldn't be able to comfortably sprint back and get the car and (b) it's less of a walk and more of a waddle.

That new show Coupling debuted last week on NBC. I think it got bad reviews, though to be fair, that's just the sense I got because I didn't really read anything about it.

I did see that ratings for the show were lower than last year's new show in that timeslot, Good Morning, Miami. And that's a big 'ouch'. Don't get me wrong, that Ashley Williams chick is hot and all, but Good Morning, Miami is profoundly stupid. Denominators do not get any more common. If Coupling didn't do even as well as it did, then it's only a matter of time.

Personally I didn't watch because after seeing like a thousand commercials and reading flipping through tons of magazine articles about the show and the cast and how it was British but now it's American but it's basically the same thing only here in America we have better lighting and hotter chicks so tune in please oh god please we're dying here seriously did you see how old that Phoebe chick looks she can't act 28 anymore it's just silly and I was sick of the whole thing before it even started.

I think there's a real, measurable backlash against things that are so forcibly marketed at us. And it think it's realized most strongly in the type of people who are in the meaty part of Coupling's target demographic curve. And I think the show will fail because of it.

They should bring back Freaks and Geeks when it does.

Last night there was a Gubernatorial debate in California. It got some pretty heavy coverage in the media, most likely because Schwarzenegger hinted that there might be a Terminator 4. Unfortunately, he didn't reveal how he manages to stay so tan all year round.

Tonight, way over on the other side of the country, there's a big debate featuring all the Democratic Presidential candidates. For some reason it doesn't seem as popular. I think it's on CSPAN5 if you're interested, though.

My suggestion to the Dems: convince either Goldberg or The Rock to run. Act like you're taking him seriously for a couple months, just to get people interested, then have him throw his support behind one of the old white guys who always wears a suit other candidates. The media coverage alone would be worth it.

Am I the only one who understand big time politics?

Today at work we had a huge discussion about this really abstract concept and it took like 2 hours and we used a whiteboard and when it was done my brain kind of hurt. It was one of those things that you only understand as long as you keep it right in the front of your head; one of those things where as soon as you stop totally focusing on it, it retreats a little bit and *click* it's gone.

It was sometime around the 70th minute that I started wondering what happened to that P'Zone thing that Pizza Hut used to advertise all the time. I never see commercials for it anymore. I wonder if you can still get them?

Wait, what'd I miss?

Lately I've been listening to a lot of Vic Chesnutt. You should, too.

Silver Lake is awesome.

Dave, getting in to bed, notices Libby is somewhat awake.

"Hey," says Dave.

"Hey," says Libby.

"Say, uhh, how soon can we travel with the baby?"

>pause<

"Dave, we're not going to any Phish shows this winter."

"Ok. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

I went down to the Jayhawks show at First Avenue last night. It was packed, but it was a mellow crowd so it didn't feel overly stuffed. Plus, seeing as it was basically impossible to get back to the bar, I only drank the one beer I picked up on my way in, ensuring I never had to worry about fighting my way up to the bathroom. Here's to being a dude.

The show was a benefit for the Development of Music & Arts Foundation, which is a non-profit that falls under First Avenue's wing. I think DMAF's mandate has something to do with supporting up-and-coming musicians and - surprise - the clubs that give them a place to play. This is important because First Avenue is trying desperately to recover from one of its semi-annual financial crises. The Jayhawks claimed "they would be nothing without this club" and seemed happy to help out. I seemed happy to go listen. Funny how that works.

Highlight inside the show was Gary falling off the stage. Highlight outside the show was being dumped into the street at the same time as the Insane Clown Posse show let out of the Target Center next door.

Uhh, hey Jugaloos, what's happening?

According to this CNN story, President Bush has declared that the US has "no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11" attacks. The same article goes on to point out that a new poll finds that 70 percent of the American public believe that Saddam was, in fact, *personally* involved.

Gee, I wonder where so many of us got that idea?

When I'm watching the Timberwolves on television, I usually turn down the TV and listen to the radio play-by-play instead. It's way, way better. Chad and Chris rule.

I'd like to do the same for Vikings games because I again think the KFAN boys do a great job, but for some reason the radio stuff is like 1 second ahead of what you see on TV, rendering the whole radio/tv thing undoable. What's up with that? Is Fox worried that their butthead commentators are gonna start throwing the f-bomb around? Or maybe 'accidentally' mention the name of a Democratic presidential candidate they spot in the stands? The humanity!

Whatever the case, KFAN should figure out a way to delay the signal so it synchs up with the television version. Chop, chop.

After some careful thought and a longer than expected conversation with Libby, I've decided that the David Lee Roth version of 'California Girls' is approximately 15 times better than the Beach Boys version.

Bozadee bozadee bop, biddie bop.

As you may or may not be able to tell, there are some changes going on. Please be patient if you find broken stuff, it will probably get fixed eventually.

Wee!

R.E.M. was one of the bands I grew up with. I bought all the albums, learned all the songs, and - predictably - got pissed when they got popular. (Seriously, what was that frickin' chick from the B52's doing singing with *my* band?!) I even bought a bunch of those stupid import singles because they had like 1 bonus live song on them. 4 songs for $13? Hell yeah!

They kind of lost me after 'Monster'. I'm not sure why. I think the guitar got too heavy, maybe. It was like whiplash going from 'Automatic for the People' to 'Monster'. I just couldn't keep up. Huh.

I'd never seen them live before tonight, when I mooched a seat in the KS95 suite with Molly. (Mooching *from* Molly... there's a new one.) It was a good show. They played some neat older stuff and a sampling of the new stuff they [apparently] just released. Attendance was crappy, but the band's energy level was high, so the people who were there seemed to generally have a good time.

It did seem a little odd, though. They're older now and while their angst is probably real, it doesn't feel as 'right' as it used to. Back in the day, when Stipe used to yell "This song goes out to the Exxon Corporation!" before they played 'Turn You Inside Out', it felt raw and real. Now, when he talks about Wellstone and sings some song about being fed up, it just seems kind of sad.

'Fables Of The Reconstruction' was the one of the first two discs I bought when I got a CD player. When I was 16 I would have given my firstborn to see a show like the one tonight. I'm glad I went and all, but I think I'm keeping the kid.

Wendell Gee is still one of my favorite songs.

As an occasional concert goer, I took note of the recent news that Ticketmaster was going to start auctioning off tickets to concerts and events. Seeing as Ebay is already full of GREAT SEATS!!! being sold by ticket brokers - usually at huge markups - I guess it shouldn't surprise me that the geniuses at Ticketmaster decided they want a piece of the action, too. Higher prices == more profits and all that.

When I first heard the news, I thought it was great for a bunch of reasons. First and foremost, I also liked it because it's efficient. Tickets sell for what people think they're worth. Simple and beautiful. Like a swiss cake roll at dawn.

I also figured TM brand auction would probably eliminate a lot of the 'back doors' and stuff that help get the GREAT SEATS!!! into the hands of the brokers in the first place. Once TM has their own auctions, the brokering community loses most of its bribing buying power as, bizarrely, TM becomes their own middleman. And while sure, that sounds bad on paper, I assert that TM is at a minimum slightly more scrupulous - and certainly more accountable - than your average sleaze-ball ticket broker. So yep, it's a good thing.

Then I dug into the details.

It turns out that only the 'super deluxe choice' seats for events will be auctioned off, not the whole arena, so you can forget scoring last minute nosebleeds for $10 just because nobody else wanted them. Sure, it's a smart move on TM's part, risk mitigation, blah, blah, blah, but it sucks big time for the ticket buying public. It also completely violates any notion of efficient pricing. And it's total bullshit.

In conclusion, the auction idea is stupid.

If Ticketmaster keeps pulling stunts like this, they will be off my Christmas card list so fast...

So Bush asked for $87 billion to rebuild Iraq. Jesus that's a lot of money... so much it's really kind of hard to comprehend. $87 billion is like $300 for each man, woman and child in the US. $87 billion would be enough to build a new stadium for every team in every major pro sport. And if my math is correct, there'd still be enough money left over to give away every ticket to every game for like 5 years.

Cha-ching!

When you bundle Bush's request for a quasi ludicrous amount cash with last week's signals that we're about to go crawling back to the UN for help, you're basically begging the I Told You So Club to work themselves into a tizzy. Molly Ivins wastes no time:

I opposed our unprovoked, unnecessary invasion of Iraq on the grounds that it would be a short, easy war followed by the peace from hell. I predicted that every terrorist in the Middle East would be drawn to Iraq like a magnet.

I was right, and I'm not going to apologize for it.

Well that's big of you, Molly.

Personally, I'm waiting for all the pre-war mega-doomsdayers to step forward and admit they were wrong. I think Amnesty International predicted *millions* of civilian deaths or something. So even though Iraq had one of the worst human rights records on the planet, AI felt it was too risky to go in and do anything about it. It was going to be a massive humanitarian disaster. Swingandamiss.

Anyway, while reading the rest of Molly's column, my mind wandered a bit and I think I came up with an as yet undiscovered conspiracy theory. It goes like this:

Let's say that Bush & Co. never expected the whole Iraq thing to go smoothly. Let's say that they never actually tried to capture Saddam. Let's say that by [not] doing so, they counted on Iraq remaining highly unstable and volatile environment, and, as a result, a gathering place for terrorists and the like.

And what happens next? A few truck bombs go off, some buildings and mosques get blown up, and some people get killed. Then the US backs up the money truck and man, it really, really looks like we're trying to make it better. But maybe we're just perpetuating the problem. After all, $87 billion mostly just pays our military and intelligence costs. Seriously. So while some things will undoubtedly improve - like the icky torture stuff, obviously - maybe they don't improve as much as they should.

So we keep hanging around, working to make things right, and as we do, the terrorists focus their energy on kicking our asses out of Iraq instead of attacking us over here. Sure, they'll score a few points, probably even manage to kill a handful of Americans, but at least they're not gassing any subways or poisoning the water supply.

In the end, $87 billion buys our safety by providing plenty of tempting targets far, far from home.

I don't really believe it, but it's crazy enough that I bet I could get others to. Wee!

Response received:

Thank you for taking the time to write to American Dairy Queen Corporation (ADQ) with your feedback on the napkins offered at Dairy Queen restaurants.

I have forwarded your comments to our Research and Development Department for their information and investigation.

Regards,

Carolyn

I tremble at the notion that at this very moment, there is crack team of Dairy Queen Scientists hard at working solving the small napkin problem. Let's hope they don't harm any animals, animatronic or otherwise, during the testing phase.

I don't get why Dairy Queen - who serves some of the messiest food around - insists on only giving out those stupid little napkins. They should have big ass paper towels or something. Seriously. You ever try driving while eating a chocolate dip cone? It's insanity. By the time you're finished you end up holding like 10 little wadded up disgusting balls of sticky napkin. Eww.

The DQ website has a FAQ, but go figure, the FAQ writers are too busy explaining how - through the magic of animatronic chickens - no 'real' chickens were hurt while filming the newest 'chicken strip' commercial to properly document why the ice cream loving public is forced to wipe its collective lips with a napkin the size of a playing card. STOP HIDING BEHIND YOUR ROBOT CHICKENS AND ANSWER THE QUESTION!

Needless to say, I've harnessed the power of the interweb and taken my campaign for bigger DQ napkins right to home of the beast: Consumer Relations has been notified.

Standby for response.

My super kick ass friend Erin is going to be on the season premiere of Trading Spaces on Saturday night. Apparently the show is super popular, but since I'm not a woman, I don't watch it all that often ever. I'll be watching this time, though, as they finally figured out what it takes to draw a male audience: four hot chicks.

Tune in and see how it goes.

From this article in the Times covering Bush's Labor Day speech:

Mr. Bush's only new announcement today, the traditional start of campaign season in election years, was the creation of an assistant secretary of commerce for manufacturing, a step clearly intended to reinforce his commitment to bringing back blue-collar jobs.

But Mr. Bush said that in creating the post, he would address head-on the loss of what he said were "thousands of manufacturing jobs" in recent years.

In fact, around 3 million jobs have been lost since Mr. Bush took office, about 2.5 million of them in manufacturing.

Zing!

I watched that speech, and I gotta admit, ever since Letterman started doing The George W. Bush Joke That's Not Really a Joke every night, watching Bush has been a lot more fun.

And now, another chapter from Life Imitates Seinfeld

Yesterday morning, Libby and I were cruising the streets and lots around the Minneapolis Farmer's market looking for place to park. Being a holiday, it wasn't crazy mad busy, but seeing as there were more than 14 people there, most of the parking was taken.

I was just completing a lap of the area when I saw backup lights glowing in the distance. I got on the gas and was easily - like by 30 seconds - the first car to the soon-to-be-empty spot. I pulled a couple car lengths ahead of the exiting car, put it in reverse, turned on my blinker, and reached for my coffee. All was well, we'd be parked in no time.

That's when chaos ensued.

As the car begins to exit the spot, this little silver car comes toolin' down the street. I figure hey, no big deal, I've got my blinker on, I'm in reverse, I'm sure they recognize that I'm waiting on the spot.

Guess again.

As time stood still all around me, THEY WENT IN HEAD FIRST AND TOOK THE SPOT. Unreal. I was stunned. I backed up to look at them and the driver lady started going crazy. She was cursing and yelling about how she wasn't going to move and all kinds of stuff. Oooookay. That's when I remembered our new concealed carry laws and decided that we best move along.

Thankfully, we [quickly] found another spot. All was well again.
On the way out, as we were looking at their car, we realized that we were walking about 30 feet from the owners. They were headed out at the same time we were. It was a guy and a girl, maybe mid/late 20's. Urban hipster types. I just laughed at them, but Libby elected to scowl. I also took a picture of their car.

Nothing better than taking away a parking spot from a 35 week pregnant woman. I hope they sleep well knowing that someday their shitty karma will catch up with them.

For like the 3rd year in a row, the fashion industry appears to be hell bent on getting people to wear camouflage in non-military situations. For a couple of years, it was just the uber hip crowd that was supposed to be playing along, but now it's migrated into the mainstream. It's even in the Target ad this week. Blech.

I'm clearly no expert on fashion and I don't pretend to know what's hip or what's with it*, but I don't think I'm alone in saying that the whole 'urban cammo' idea is stupid. I'm not sure where it came from, but - other than paintball and/or Packer games - I don't see anybody wearing it in public. Where I do see it is on TV and in magazines and on 80% off clearance racks.

Or maybe I'm missing something. Are the schools actually full of 12 year old kids in fatigues and berets? If so, we may have bigger problems to worry about.

* - takka takka takka