In case you've missed it, James's take on Archie in Red-verdale is pretty funny.

It's kind of... a bummer

I've got to get a Mac. Based on their ads alone.

Feiss became an Internet celebrity after starring in a 30-second Switch ad for Apple, in which she testified to switching to the Mac because a Windows PC ate her homework. After the ad debuted in the summer, Feiss quickly shot to Net celebrity, largely because many people thought she was stoned.

Here's her ad. It's pretty funny.

Ironic note: I got an apology from Vinnie today -- apparently the unsolicited apologies come more quickly than the solicited ones (the longer you wait, the longer the list, Nick).

So HBO comes to the rescue of American culture yet again.

HBO has ordered up 20 episodes of the yet-to-be-titled Maher project, which launches February 21. According to HBO, the hourlong show, like its predecessor, will "be devoted to news and comedy, allowing Maher to offer his unique perspective on contemporary issues."

My dad sent me this poem this morning. He says he first read it when he was 23 years old and had just moved away from home. He also told me, "I could die tomorrow and be content with what I achieved in my life." What a strong man. And he's never done yoga, either.

Salutation to the Dawn
By Kalidasa

Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth
The glory of action
The splendor of achievement,
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision,
But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope,
Look well, therefore to this day!
Such is the salutation to the dawn.

My mother also sent me an inspirational email today, a story about how Itzhak Perlman once played a symphony with a 3-stringed violin (instead of four; one string broke). The message:

So perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live, is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have
left.


I guess they feel I'm in need of some spiritual and emotional support. I recently sent them an email explaining a curious phenomenon I've been experiencing.

I've been thinking hard about some of my memories lately. And I find sometimes that I get a sense of claustrophobia when I think too intently about the past. I mean it makes me physically uncomfortable to remember things too deeply. I'm not sure exactly what that's about. Part of it is a sad realization that those times will never happen again.

Where should we place the past? I just finished reading Voltaire's Bastards which is, in part, about the Western World's inability to remember anything important about the past and our need to view history with nothing more than a kind of coarse sentimentality. Yes the past is gone, but if the present is to have any point, then surely there must be a reason for the past as well?

My problem with remembering the past is, I think, one of identity. To really remember something 20 years past is to somehow abandon the person I've become. I have to put myself outside my identity somehow, remembering my teen-aged thoughts and motivations. It is very uncomfortable to do this, to let go of what I am now.

I used to think that having the opportunity to go back and re-live those hellish teen years would be a great opportunity. Later I thought of it as an interesting experiment. Now I see it as a nightmare.

Timeline of a fiasco

September 2002

• John Galvin decides to compile a list of Supereponymous albums -- recordings where the album title, artist and one song are all the same.
  
• He invites the readers of his blog to contribute.
  
• James Macdougall wows him with many high-quality contributions. Galvin makes a note of this in his blog.
  
• Inspired by a tidal wave of contributions from Robert McMillan, Galvin decides to make a contest of things, promising updates for the participants. A complex scoring system is created, and prizes are promised. The contest will end November 11. No mention is made of when a winner will be declared. The contest score is updated for the first and only time.
  
• Macdougall and McMillan clog the Internet with a high volume of top-notch contest entries.
  
• McMillan promotes the Supereponymous contest to local San Francisco musicians. A "buzz" is created. McMillan believes the list could become the equivalent of the "pet rock" craze of the 1970's. He begins exploring publishing possibilities.
  

October 2002

• October 18 -- Disturbed that, despite the hours of effort he and MacDougall have put into the contest, no updates have occurred, McMillan writes: " I can't believe that Galvin has still not updated his stupid Supereponymous thingie."
  
• October 23 -- Galvin calls McMillan a "prick." McMillan, at first, cannot believe the insult is directed toward him.
  
• October 24 -- McMillan's wife, Anna Dow, explains the slander to an incredulous McMillan.
  

November 2002

• November 11 -- Supereponymous contest ends with neither fans nor fare.
  
• November 19 -- Wondering if he's been had, McMillan obliquely speculates that there may be a darker meaning behind Galvin's "Chiseler" sobriquet.
  
• November 19 -- Last-placed Supereponymous contestant Michel Gregory inexplicably calls McMillan a "Jerk." Though McMillan says he has no idea why Gregory, a close personal friend, would launch such an unprovoked ad hominem attack, contest-observers read this as a last-ditch attempt to influence judging.
  
• November 19 -- In an effort to add to the momentum of his "Public Apology Week," perennial pundit Nick Adams implies that McMillan is not "a winner." But as far as the abandoned Supereponymous contest goes, the point cannot be disputed.
  

Flash: Uri Geller to give Jacko parenting lessons. (Thanks to Anna for this link)

German authorities have launched a probe into the sickening act, while Jacko pal, the spoon-bending psychic Uri Geller, said he'll confront the entertainer to ask: "Michael, what have you done?"

Famous Last words of the Redneck: "Hold My Beer"

Famous Last Words of the Redneck, Part 2: "It's OK, I do it all the time."

Apparently this is National Don't-Kiss-a-Rattlesnake Month

George was showing friends the snake he had caught on a recent trip to Arizona. Holding the 2-foot snake behind the head, he kissed it.

This kid's gonna grow up normal.

Chisel -- ...vi. Slang To use unethical methods to gain an end: CHEAT. --chiseler n.

--Webster's II New College Dictionary

Ugh. So this is what it's like to be back at work on a Monday with a cold. Yesterday is just a fog of football and Thera-flu and wanting the pain to end.

Whenever I'm sick, I secretly enjoy the sense of altered reality that it brings. It's scary, knowing that your body can so relentlessly command attention, and it always makes me think of how my final hours might be. Not in a good way. In a buried alive in a coffin, going down with the Titanic, lying in a bed for the last time kind of way. There is comfort in knowing that most sickness will end, but that idea of a final sickness -- of that journey with no return -- is very claustrophobic.

Though I was becoming sick on Friday, I did manage to write a short article on how the W3C has adopted a royalty-free intellectual property policy. I've been thinking a lot about software patents for the last week, and I'm starting to believe that they could kill the IT industry in the United States... the same way that Royal charters killed free enterprise in Britain. Ultimately, this is a story about the little guy and whether or not we believe that little guys can contribute to our economies in a meaningful way. Software patents create barriers for little guys -- if you have to worry about a frivolous lawsuit from IBM, you may think twice before inventing the next Apache Web server.

We may be coming to the end of an era in computing. PC's are interesting because they are so open and they let you do so many different and unexpected things on them. When they released the operating system, nobody at Microsoft anticipated that people would be blogging with Windows 95, and yet it's happening. The fear I have is that, for completely rational reasons -- wanting to reduce unauthorized copying and tech support costs -- the big computer companies will soon make it impossible for you to do anything unexpected on your computer.

And that will be the end of an era. And the end of the high tech industry in the United States.

Is Microsoft about to launch a patent attack against open source software? Some hackers think so. By me.

And last week, those worries seemed justified when the advocacy group Open Source Initiative published a leaked Microsoft memo that claimed that, in a survey of IT managers and "business decision makers" last year, "74 percent of Americans ... stated that the risk of being sued over Linux patent violations made them feel less favorable towards Linux.

"This was the only message that had a strong impact with any audience," the memo continued.

Toward the end, the memo stated simply: "The discussion of IP rights needs to be tied to concrete actions."

Anna was having trouble getting an X-ray machine to display on TV at a work meeting yesterday, so she paged St. Luke's engineering department to help her out. The meeting was falling behind schedule, and because it sometimes takes engineering weeks to respond to things, she paged them "stat," which is hospital lingo for "right now, dammit!"

A few minutes later, engineers (at the hospital, this means dudes who are handy with tools) burst through the door like a amped-up Emergency extras and, quickly assessing the gravity of the situation, began berating Anna for her flagrant abuse of the "stat" designation.

Apparently that should only be used when broken sewage pipes are threatening to submerge the neonatal intensive care unit.

Watching the 11 o'clock news last night, their Boy Scout perfervidum was explained.

Hospitals in San Francisco and three other American cities received an alert from federal and local officials Wednesday that they are the targets of a "general, uncorroborated" terrorist threat set for around Dec. 15.

I'm starting to weary of the 21st Century.

Triathlon thank-you week
OK, I'm going to drop this triathlon stuff soon, but I really need to thank everyone who helped me.

Anna -- for the camping... and unwavering emotional support
Karaab -- for the bike, energy boosters, glide-stick, and shoelaces, and for failing to convince Anna that camping was a bad idea.
Nick -- for the Tom Sawyering and shoes.
Dave -- for the car.
Mike -- for the helmet.
Vinnie -- for the sleeping bag.

So thank you all. When I was on Catalina I spent some time thinking about how many different people had contributed to this one event; I'm a very lucky person.

Just heard from Karaab about her show in New York last Thursday. Sounds like it was an amazing experience. I wish Anna and I could have been there:

Basically the performance met all expectations.
The piece looked great. A documentary crew (doing a documentary about the detainees) came and filmed the stamping and interviewed me after the show.
Simone, Matthew and I stamped out the portraits in unison. As we were doing it, all three of us felt upset in different ways. I was very moved by the act - which was a little surprising to me. The noise of the three stamps was the only noise in the gallery. All of the people were completely silent and still. I had self inking stamps made which give a bureaucratic click as we were stamping. At the end, the three of us moved to the back of the room and the audience was so still - there was no uncomfortable movement or coughing or laughing or even looking around.
I'm sorry I'm not conveying it well - but it really felt as though we shared something and as though we had witnessed something serious.
There was stillness in the gallery for five minutes with no one moving and then slowly people began to make noise and eventually started speaking. People were really moved.
It was everything I could have hoped for..
And I'm grateful for the experience.
I have a video a friend shot and although I think most of it is not conveyed on the tape, I can't wait to share it with you, Anna, and Billy when I come back to SF.

Another tip from this week's New Yorker, which has a profile of this publication's founder. I think Melissa should become a contributor to Found Magazine

Well this New Yorker article by Joe Klein says it all, doesn't it?

I agree that the reason the Democrats got their asses kicked is because they are too cynical and timid to make any election about real issues. As Klein points out, it's impossible for them to imagine that the American public could actually get interested and involved in political issues, so they present us with nothing either interesting or involving.

What a shame.

Check me out

Doing the triathlon thing, though I definitely don't remember that last photo being taken.

Oh, and Anna dug this one out of the "Lost and Found" section. It's my favorite.

Since it's Apology Week, I guess I owe an apology to all those liberal conspiracy theorists who thought Wellstone was murdered by Republicans.

Of course the conspiracy theorists have yet to provide a rational explanation for the decision to replace Wellstone with Mondale. I mean, if that wasn't intentionally throwing the race, I don't know what could be. Running Ferraro?

My latest theory is that the Democrats are going to let the Republicans hang themselves over the next two years in a desperate attempt to sweep back into power in 2004.

It's not much of a theory, but it's all I've got.

From Anna:

Stupid is as Stupid does.

Sixty-one-year-old James Welles has written books called "The Story of Stupidity" and "Understanding Stupidity." Both are about the dumb moves people make.

Welles now faces a charge in Lantana, Florida, with using the computer to set up a date with a 15-year-old girl. But the "girl" was really a 40-year-old undercover detective.

Mike will appreciate this one.

I get these emails from LexisNexis informing me of new publications and staff changes at various media outlets. This one caught my attention:

Issues Ink
Issues Ink will publish a new quarterly magazine, Manure Matters, starting in December. The magazine will focus on the science and stewardship of manure management; from the storage and handling of manure, to the innovative end uses it has. Its target audience will range from feedlot operators, stockyard operators, intensive livestock operators, farmers and ranchers, to productions consultants, opinion leaders and suppliers to the industry. For further information, e-mail Lindy Norris, receptionist, at issues@issuesink.com.

Too busy working to blog today. But here's a link to my triathlon results page. I finished 281st out of the 449 male competitors (there were only a couple of 60 year olds who were faster than me!). The Trans1,Trans2 numbers are the amount of time it took me to switch from swimming to biking (Trans1) and biking to running (Trans2). Total time: 1:42:24.9.

It was thrilling to hear the race announcer call my name out as I crossed the finish line at the end of the race. Speaking of which, check out the guy who finished 53rd, my new personal hero.

Anna and I just drove back from Catalina Island.

Here are the highlights of the weekend.
1) Location of the most beautiful small-town movie theatre in the world: Avalon, Catalina Island. This place had that 1930's millionaire's playhouse feel, with a real live organist who plays something resembling a police siren before the film starts.

2)Worst use of a millionaire's playhouse theatre: showing the film, "The Tuxedo."

3)Injury report:
Anna: Sprained ankle, scraped elbow, yellowjacket sting on same leg, early morning trip to ER room for Frankenstein-like swelling to right eye. Suspected cause: spider bite.
Bob: Blistered feet, intense swelling in left leg socket causing an inability to walk.

4)Accident report: Hours by which we missed participating in a 200 car pile-up on our way out of Long Beach: 7.

5)Location of worst karaoke in the world: Catalina Island.

6)Triathlon report:

Bob's ranking (of the 400 or so men who competed)
swim: 152nd
bike: 222nd
run: You don't want to know
total time (.5 mile swim; 10 mile (hilly!) bike ride; 3.1 mile run): 1 hour 42 minutes.


Executive summary: I finished the damned thing without stopping, and Anna and I had a hell of a good time.