More notes from the trip (Days 4 and on) Again, please examine other articles on it before proceeding:

Something I forgot from Miller Park: Leaving the stadium, there was a band playing in the Biergarten as we passed, playing some pseudo-jazzy rock instrumental. At the same time, Ned Yost's postgame press conference came through a speaker. The result sounded almost exactly a track off of a Cake album.

Okay, Day 4.
Sioux City Stadium: I give great credit to the folks at the stadium for putting up with us. We asked if we could pick up some souvenirs. I went after another hat, this time with the letter "X" on it. I had the thought, that as an ultimate pranking of the world some day, in the tradition of human chess and giant scale Monopoly, I should try to arrange human Scrabble. (100 baseball caps, each with appropriate letters). The budgetary constraints, of course, kill the notion for me.
Corn Palace 1: Okay, Craig brought up the picture but I have to point out how much it bothered me. If you're going to what purports to be the Corn Palace, you would expect it to have, thematically, corn everywhere. The fact that the vending machine contents are predominantly potato-based, is incredibly disillusioning to me. Even if you grant them corn syrup (which I will), they don't even get to 50% corn content there. Yes, it's crazy, but it bothers me.
Corn Palace 2: They have a special exhibit dedicated to the farmer who has supplied them with different color corn for decades. This was the impressive bit for me. He has collected various strains from around the world and bred them to get them beyond yellow, and black, to shades of red, blue, and in development, orange. The whole design of the Corn Palace reminds me of my Christmas time job of sugaring cookies (where I end up striving for as much realism as the pointillism of crystal sugar will allow.) That this guy gives them the ability to shade their presentations with additional color means he gets my approval.
Driving across South Dakota: If it weren't for billboards, South Dakota would be amazingly bleak. With the billboards, however, it becomes incredibly amusing. I kept getting upset at the ads for "Reptile" Gardens. The first billboard I saw had a spider on it. The second, a rainforest frog. In fact, we saw something like 10 billboards for this, and it wasn't until we got within 20 miles of it that they even hinted, via pictures on ads, that they actually had reptiles.
Wall Drug: Much like the Disney oblasts and as we later discovered, Vegas, the Wall Drug staff have name tags that indicate where they are from. Very strange. I fulfilled another childhood necessity here, I collected patches for all the states I hadn't been in before for the trip. (Save New Mexico, which I forgot about.) As a small child, I collected these obsessively for a denim vest I had. Now I've got more patches than space for a vest.
The Badlands: Wow. I got involved in fluid mechanics in college because of how cool the patterns were, and because if I had tea in a glass mug I could watch the dynamics. The Badlands are another cool example. You can see where the air took away the rock, you can see where the water took away the rock. Very cool, but I still wouldn't want to live there.

Day 5:
Mount Rushmore: Giant stone heads are works of art that engineers can appreciate. Neoclassicism meets high explosives, I like it. Also it's very cool to see the slope of rocks that were blown off, and note exactly how large the trees that have grown in the waste have become, and how tenacious those trees must be.
Crazy Horse: I almost like this one much more, because it's still in progress. There's something very cool about the notion that I can come back in about 50 years, and point out to future progeny: "Yeah, it's still not quite a horse yet.
Somewhere in Colorado: We have perhaps the bleakest Mexican meal ever. I can't be sure, but I think the entire town was in the restaurant with us, and there were only four people there.
Nebraska: It's South Dakota, minus the amusing billboards. Carhenge WAS the high point.
Sonic in Fort Collins: Why couldn't this have been the southern chain to move into Washington County? (I don't really know if it's southern or not. All I know is in previous travels it's had the same ecological niche as Waffle House.) Green chiles on cheeseburger, strong. Coconut slush, strong, blue does not mean raspberry there.

Day 6:
The Guns Guns Guns Shop: What utterly made this was other sign that I missed photographing. A sign that said "Safe's Homeland Defense." It was almost like I was home.
Mascots at altitude: Man, we were whacked out. I can only blame lack of oxygen.
Boulder's Mall: The previous gold standard I saw for bad mall collapse was either Parkway Center Mall in Pittsburgh (lost all its anchor stores simultaneously), or Village Square Mall in South Hills (lost its anchors, and finally decided to close the interior of the mall, and only have exterior stores. It's doing okay now, but it was touch and go.) This was an amazing collapse. Not only was it larger than the other two I had seen, but this looked like it had taken out the center of town in the process.
Pearl Street: Certain things will irritate me and push me further to the ideological right. If you want an example, consider the sign I saw in Boulder at the pedestrian mall.

"BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
BLAH MONEY BLAH BLAH
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH"

I may have missed the count on "blahs" but I think I have the gist right. The last thing you should ever be when panhandling is be smug. Clever is nice, cutting through the bull of the transaction is nice, but I'm not giving you money.
Coors Field: I've now eaten sushi in two ballparks, in locations where I should know better. I can't argue against $1 seats. (even though it was due to us spending $50 at a Rockies store hours before, especially when it gave me a chance to add the letter V to my possible Scrabble game.) I can argue against the Santa hat giveaway. I called a quality seasonal pimp hat, sight unseen, because I realized how fraught and limited in usage the concept of velour finish purple cloth can be.
Leaving Denver: The 11:20 SportsCenter radio comes on. "Pittsburgh Pirate Randall Simon has been arrested..." Once again, a Pirate screws up, and does so in the most ridiculous, deranged, embarrassing, and yes, funny method possible. It's the reverse of Red Sox fans. They expect these things to happen, and can't rationally explain why they happen. Pirate fans don't expect these things to happen (who could predict this), but we certainly, immediately can trace why this happened.

Day 7:
Silverthorne 1: Good grief, Randall's on CNN.
Silverthorne 2: Combustion is harder than you would expect at high altitudes. But that doesn't make it impossible. An attempt to prove this generates my best line of the trip, mostly due to my delivery in the style of Travolta in Broken Arrow: "Can you please not light a fire next to the gas station...thanks." Very low-key, and with that, I just piled in the van.
Moab 1: We were all set to eat at a restaurant (not the one offering the finest sushi of the Utah desert), when we find they are not open for lunch. This despite them having a very clearly lit neon sign marked Open. Are neon signs not binding contracts in Utah? We never found out the answer.
Moab 2: Why are snow cones so good? I don't know. There is a fundamental simplicity in ice+syrup, but there's so much more to it. All I know is that I had my third and fourth snow cones of the trip in Moab, and with the temperatures in the low 100's I needed every bit I could have.
Moab 3: We spent most of the way to Moab arguing which route to take down to Four Corners and then to Las Vegas. Eventually we decide to ask the locals. The overwhelming response is, on the return trip, come back through Moab and go back to 70. It wasn't so much that the road was better, it was that if the car broke down, your bodies might be found. Nice.
Four Corners 1: The original plan for Four Corners was for US to play Twister there. 100 degrees basically killed that idea, if we had brought a Twister mat rather than the dots, we would have needed tools to scrape the mat off.
Superstition Mountains: I just want to note that it was midnight, the elevation was high, and it was still 100 degrees outside the car.
Four Corners 2: It occurs to me that the overwhelming message of the Las Vegas "What goes on here, stays here" ads is that Vegas apparently doesn't obey extradition treaties.
Las Vegas: The first thing we encounter in the lobby of the hotel is two people definitely acting out a financial transaction, complete with purchase of room, and an order of 7 and 7. Going up to our room, my only thought was "You ain't in Nebraska any more, Mr. Kidder, you ain't in Nebraska any more."

Day 8:
The Strip: The original plan for some point of the trip was a long walk up and down the strip. The first steps out of the hotel stopped that idea. It was 105 in the shade. Instead we drove up to a buffet for lunch. In spite of my efforts at our training buffets at Mitchell and at Moab, I felt I was woefully unprepared for this. Technically speaking, any buffet offers the best payoff odds in the casino. Still, I only went through 3 trips. The bit that amazed me was that I didn't eat a meal again until the next morning. The only thing I can assume is: they do pump oxygen in those things.
UNLV: The interesting bit about UNLV is that it looks like it isn't there. I mean, you can see the arena, but until you're actually on the campus, you don't actually see the campus. For that reason, I kept thinking of the old SNL sketch about Winston University, a school that doesn't really exist, just splits 50-50 with you the tuition money your parents give them.

Day 9:
The conference/tournament 1: I'm not sure what to make of the attendance. While it was probably below what the organizers thought it would be, I thought it was more than well balanced by the quality of attendees. Even better, I think it's a positive step in growing quiz bowl, beyond the what is now the circuit. Before we can reasonably expect people to flock to quiz bowl, we have to make sure they know we exist. Between TRASH's work in setting this up, Kevin's appearance, and Mike's Game Show Round, they know we exist, and they know we are people they want to come together with. Even better, the teams that had never played quiz bowl before did well, once they adjusted to format.
The conference/tournament 2: It's a weird thing, playing in hotel rooms. I always have the feeling the room is too crowded (air conditioning is not designed to support nine people at once), and I'm way too used to playing sitting in desks to get my positioning right. A slightly bad thing, I guess, but I can work through it. The other bit of that that was weird was realizing people were playing games in your room while you played somewhere else. That creeped me out a little, on either end. I didn't know whether I should use the rest room (I didn't) or if someone was looking through my stuff in my room (I'm sure they weren't, but it was one of those nagging paranoias that preys at the edges of your consciousness.)

Day 10:
The conference/tournament: Hey, we won this thing! Cool.
CBS: We spent an hour serving as a test audience for pilots and pilot ads for the fall season. I don't think my opinions will be well recieved by the CBS suits (in fact I probably voided all opinions from Pennsylvania for quite a while), but you might enjoy them.
On "Joan of Arcadia": "By putting Joe Mantegna in this show you are taking away time he could be spending working with David Mamet. Please stop."
On "Rock me Baby": "Oooh, baby pee joke, edgy. Do you slackjaws not understand the white-hot passion that Americans reserve for the loathing of Dan Cortese?"
On "Two and a Half Men": "Please take the gag writers from this, and give them an original concept to work with. This is just The Odd Couple with a kid, right down to the poker game." The other guys liked it a bit more than I did, because the gags were sharp, but I just loathed the concept. It felt pre-fab as all get out. The one really good character, psycho girlfriend, simply can't last long term.
Running around before our flight: There is no truth to the rumor I was carving obscene cartouches in the Luxor bathroom. That's a dirty lie. No that's not MY book on hieroglyphics.

Day 11:
Leaving Detroit Airport: Okay, we now have billboard ads styled like Calvin Klein ads, featuring Snuggle the fabric softener bear. That's some quality cognitive dissonance. I guess the ugly rumors about his sexuality finally got to him.

Overall, I enjoyed the trip, going across the country was something I needed to do once in my life. That said, I don't think I'd do it again for a long time. As for Vegas, I'll go back if they hold it there again, but I remain convinced that it's some sort of parallel universe out there.

Okay, Craig's given a good overview of the trip (Parts one and two), and Mike is about to unleash his version, so rather than give you 50% more Rashomon, I'll just add some footnotes. Please start off reading their versions, up to day 3 and come back here when you're done.

I'll wait.....

Okay, done? Good.

Day 1:
Before we leave the Ann Arbor-Livonia metroplex: The cooler (a former Honeybaked Ham container) begins to squeak loudly from rubbing on the back seat. I immediately respond with "What's that boy... Timmy's trapped in a walk-in refrigerator?!" This immediately starts the "name the cooler" competition. Winning entry: Caleb the Cooler.
Indiana toll road: What exactly is wrong with this picture? (update: Curse you, geocities!)
Gino's East: You can tell you're deep in sausage country when the options on your deep dish pizza are to have the sausage in patties or broken up. (For the record, patties is recommended, and it makes sense given breaking it up could release more grease.)
Miller Park: We need to remember to send this one to Page 2. Separated at birth: Wes Helms and John C. Reilly.
Driving through fireworks in the night: Dave had a video camera with nightshot. It will be interesting to see how similar the scenes shot in Wisconsin with nightshot resemble embedded reporter feed.
Black River Falls, WI, Super 8: The hunting lodge theme at the Super 8 was very cool. (One of my utterly botched shots was one of the bear towering over the lobby.) However, the really cool bit was the fact that they kept their pool running until 2am (a positively unheardof time). This allowed me two things I thought I'd miss out on for the Fourth of July: swimming and fireworks.

Day 2:
Breakfast: McDonald's. Sausage biscuit. This is the fourth meal I've had involving sausage. Must cut down.
Mall of America, The cereal snack store: Realizing I need to start eating healthier, I go with a snack with a Wheaties base. While this was my best option, the notion of Wheaties in a brownie form, marshmallow fluff binding, and a layer of chocolate icing isn't a long term winner.
Mall of America, Legoland: The amazing bit of the whole thing for me was not so much the giant statues, or the ingenuity of some of the designs, no, for me the two big things for me were the fact that you had benches made out of Lego. Structurally sound, but worn through in places from sitting.
Lunch: Arby's. The sausage streak is broken, but since I had the Chicken Bacon and Swiss, the pork product chain continues. In future we'll call this Hams across America.
Sioux Falls 1: The most amazing thing to me about the Sioux Falls Storm game has to be that the game was played on the same night that there was a Sioux Falls Canaries game in town. (The Canaries are Northern League baseball.) I didn't expect the two to be willing to conflict. I certainly didn't expect them to be willing to share the same parking lot. Yes, the arena and the stadium are adjacent. It appears that neither game suffered. Go figure.
Sioux Falls 2: They kept asking the fans at the Storm game to make some noise with their thunder sticks. Problem was, aside from the 5 or 6 sets dropped from a blimp in the arena, the only thunder sticks in the stadium were being beaten by a Bismarck fan.
Sioux Falls 3: Dinner, barbeque sandwich. Pork trend continues. Dessert: Snow cone. Sioux Falls breaks out real quality snowcones, I got Margarita flavor. Only problem is under fluorescent lighting, I'm eatin' the yellow snow. (Zappa will return later in the trip.)

Day 3:
Breakfast: Omlette, with ham. Streak continues. I totally befuddle a waitress in Sioux City by asking for hot tea. I'm not exactly sure what was so frightening to her about this, but for the rest of the meal our party is eyed strangely by the diner denizens.
Driving through Sioux City: At a stop light, we find a tire store which has made a statue entirely out of tire parts. Later, while stopping for gas, we find that they have made concrete barriers more weatherproof by wrapping them in strips of cut up tires. Conclusion: much as the ancient Sioux of the Plains used every part of the buffalo, the modern Sioux of the City use every part of the tire.
Rosenblatt Stadium 1: I understand it was 100 degrees, but if the crowd we saw was typical (three digits of attendance), they're in a lot of trouble.
Rosenblatt Stadium 2: By far the most disturbing mascot we encountered in our trip had to be the Coca-Cola polar bear. The reason for this was its method of interacting with the kids. First it would greet the child, then deflate its own head. Yes, the polar bear was an inflated suit surrounding its operator. So children would be greeted by this bear creature that would wiggle its ears by deflating slightly, then once it had the poor kid's attention, it would deflate it head completely. Once the kid is scarred for life by this behavior, pop it up to full size and move on. Creepy.
Rosenblatt Stadium 3: I bought a new hat, an simple Omaha Royals "O". My reasons: I could play games with people and my other hat on the trip, the Quebec Capitales "Q" hat, and swap them when people weren't looking. I also enjoyed the notion of odd letters on hats. I passed on some of the more interesting souvenirs: the angry O symbol on some hats, the Royals tarp crew shirt with the slogan "Shut up and Pull" (thanks, Craig) with the angry O dragging what looked like a distended colon, and a Warren Buffett bobblehead. Yes, I did say a Warren Buffett bobblehead, why do you ask?
Rosenblatt Stadium 4: Extra nice touch of the Omaha scoreboard: When the opposing team huddled at the mound, the scoreboard went to a view of a stopwatch and a digital count up of elapsed time. Excellent way to speed up the game.
Rosenblatt Stadium 5: Around the sixth inning, Craig went questing for a foul ball that had ended up in the right field stands. He attempted to get past the security people, and he did convince them to let him into the empty stands. However the ball had fallen down into a gap between the outfield expansion and the regular seats. He was able to see the ball, three drunk guys fighting over it, and a book someone had left behind. Ironically, it was part of the Left Behind series. It became increasingly obvious. Low attendance, surrounded by mascots behaving bizarrely, and abandoned books....obviously the Rapture hit Omaha. It was time to move on.
Lincoln: I break the trend up with Chili Cheese Fries. After Craig had fought the mascot (Homer the Saltdog), and I recorded the event, I went to get the fries and a Coke. After returning to my seat, I am surprised by Homer who demands to see the pictures, and sits down beside us. He reviews the film, including the fun with Omaha mascots, and leaves, apparently enjoying it. Five minutes later, I realize Homer has had his revenge; in sitting down, Homer passive-agressively knocked over my Coke while he had us distracted. Curse you, Homer! Vengeance will be mine!

I'll recap the trip when my job stops dropping on me, (figure that to be Thursday, they set a deadline of 5pm dev freeze.) Until then, I'll just make the joke I've been making since this news hit. If someone else has come up with it before I got it to you, I apologize.

Randall, that's not how you make a corn dog. Yes, I know the recipe said "batter the sausage"....

Have vacated. Gone west.
Those of you heading to Vegas next weekend, see you there. Don't know if I'll have anything from the road.

Even money says this article won't net you two questions next year, but I find the names fascinating.

I had a magnificent ride going on my suck league team in the past month (basically rolling from middle of the pack to being within one pitcher inferno out of first), but in the past couple days it's all come crashing down. To wit, I've seen 20% of my active roster get sent to the minors. Jimmy Anderson, Ruben Quevedo, Brian Meadows, and the two that really kill me, Josh Bard, and Omar Infante. The last two really hurt as they were the majority of my offense of late (or lack there of), and most catchers and shortstops (being the two most valuable positions) have been snatched up by now. I've got backups, but I really need to solidify them before I go on the trip.

Joe mentioned the Ohio Valley Greyhounds game, but I do have to mention what I thought were a couple great punchlines for something. The first was an absolutely obvious offsides by Myrtle Beach, which prompted the response as the accused returned to the huddle: "Hey guys, the count was on two-and-a-half, right... right?" The second was when Blitz, the Greyhound mascot basically realized he had way more cookies to give out than people in our section. After he went nuts throwing cookies into the stands. We noted. "Everybody Gets Nutter Butters Night... sponsored by Oreo."

If you sum up my easily amusing faults, number one on the list (for me, at least) is that I am cheap, extremely so when it comes to myself. I absolutely hate to spend money on anything out of the ordinary, whether it's new furniture (still don't have the coffee table), books (Half Price Books is my friend), food, whatever. My key problem is I've got to be one of the few people who has buyer's remorse before even buying something. I become physically ill at the thought of spending. I don't know if it's the product of nature or nurture (both my folks have the same cheap tendencies, but I'm much worse), but it's almost to the point where it's annoying me. It doesn't matter the scale of things, I've gotten worked up about stuff costing $10. I can fight through it if I feel I'm getting a discount, but full price and I'm nauseous. This was what I had to fight through on Sunday. I got a digital camera for the trip to Vegas, but it took me a good hour just to work up the stomach to even consider the price. I drove around to five different locations, considered prices, wanted to puke, and finally got something. Not top of the line, just functional. So expect some interesting bits from the trip, maybe from the road, we'll see how it goes.

News from Vanadium Stadium: Element 110 is going to be called Darmstadtium, which incidentally will be where the Bridgeville Trolls NFL Europe affiliate will play next year.

Actual Quiz Bowl Content
1 Biography of Empress Carlotta
2 Definitions of how you derive curves from a base curve (part of the Famous Curves Index)
3 Plot summary of Cosi Fan Tutte (among others)

Even money says this story nets you two questions this year.

It's an interesting write-up of this, but I'm more disturbed by the possibility that going from state to state running petitions is a viable trade. I realize it's no different than political consultants going where the money takes them, but this just feels off, like it's the personal equivalent of letter to the editor astroturf.

And now a new occasional feature: Am I fraught or not?

The article (Yeah, I saw the Houma, and the Cloverleafs)

First subject: The American Basketball Association.
Second subject: Arena Football League.
Third subject: The National Basketball Development League.

Read the article, and tell me: Are these three leagues fraught or not?

My view:
ABA, Fraught: Two Mexico, and a Trenton, and the last time I thought about Trenton, I thought of the guy who was arrested for fraud, for embezzling from AmEx to pay for his indoor football teams in Trenton and Boise (yes, Boise.)
AFL, Not: This looks like a push really, and the adjustment to reality that balances out their good fortune in getting on NBC.
NBDL, Fraught: Bad mojo to lose your champions, bad mojo that despite being the preferred minor league that the NBA is supposed to draw from, the teams aren't looking at NBDL players first, and 25% of your league dropping is very bad.


Actual Quiz Bowl Content
1 Timeline of NATO
2 History of the city of Tokyo
3 The Battle of Shiloh

Fine meat products cloud my mind this day.

The thing is, one of my running gags, any time I go to a baseball game is the question of "how does the hot dog giveaway reach the fans?" Or "What kind of meat gun technology does this city have?" (The original joke was when a large group of Korean businessmen were introduced at the same time the classic air-powered hot dog launcher was employed, leading to the quote "The North Koreans are here to steal our meat gun technology!" I don't understand what it means either, as past information has told us they simply don't have the ammo.)
Think of this as Jane's Defence Weekly's Guide to Meat Gun Technology.
First, the elastic launcher. This was the method employed in Erie as part of the "Smith's Provisions Wiener Catch" (Incidentally, we need more firms to enter the dying "provisions" industry. I leave the double entendres to you the consumer) Classic, effective, but it requires three crew to man it, and it's range is rather limited.
Second, the air gun. They tried using this for Erie's T-shirts, but ran into the problem that it jams easily. Again, limited range, two man crew required.
Third, the Canadian Mobile Meat Delivery Vehicle. MMDV appears to be an adapted dune buggy or jeep, or possibly a bullpen cart, with a turret mounted on the passenger side, giving added stability to its air gun, allowing for increased muzzle speed, and target range. (Its resemblance to one of the vehicles in Halo may or may not be intentional.) The MMDV was first observed in Olympic Stadium in Montreal, and was also employed in Columbus.
Finally, we have reports of a gigantic tube which apparently can be raised and lowered for targeting purposes, located in the right field foul area of Columbus Cooper Stadium. This may be the first long range meat gun, possibly the first Intercontinental Ballistic Meatgun (or ICBM). More research is obviously required.

Much less effective on the meat gun technology scale was another promotion tried at Erie, and I'm just going to take it straight out of the program.

PENNSYLVANIA BEEF COUNCIL COOKOUT CONTEST
Two teams of two will be selected to compete against each other every game at the bottom of the second inning. One teammate will stand on the dugout while the other stands on the field. The teammate on the dugout will flip steaks using a spatula over their heasds while their teammate tried to catch it wearing over-sized pants. At the end of 30 seconds, the team with the most patties will recieve a prize.

Yes, folks, you have to catch the meat products in your oversized pants. Yes, they are not actually meat products, but plastic dog toys that look like meat products. Yes, that substitution in no way dimishes from the absolute mother lode of subtext this generates as you watch. Yes, this is apparently Pennsylvania's answer to Beef Quiz Bowl.

Finally, there's only one comment to this story. "I could have also accepted 'snacktacular'."

Actual Quiz Bowl Content
1 Timeline of modern Turkey
2 A history of Canadian Confederation
3 Biography of Andrei Sakharov

Yesterday, I fell off the wagon. Yes, I'm prowling used book stores again. Ordinarily, I'd keep my finds to myself, but this one scares me. If you happen to run across a copy of the Dictionary of Historic Documents, pick it up, pick it up NOW. (It won't be the cost listed in the link, I found mine for $12.95.) I caution that it can be used for both good and evil. (its possible uses for awesome will require more testing.) It wanders into a lot of odd categories that quiz bowl loves. Imagine a Dictionary of Treaties, a Dictionary of Legislation, a Dictionary of Famous Speeches, and a Dictionary of Religious Documents. Now combine them all.

Sad note, especially given I saw a copy of the film in CD Warehouse after I had stopped by the used book store, and it looks like stiffs.com won't touch it: William Marshall is dead. No truth to the rumor that someone staked him.

A collection of fabulous failures and fakeries.
This is just excellent, and probably would have made a much better reality show. Next week on FOX...Lifeboat!
I wish I could have called fraught on this. I like chocolate, I like potatoes. I don't like the two in combination.
This means we've been fooled.

Actual Quiz Bowl Content
1 A variety of articles on color
2 An article on Roman temple architecture and an attached glossary
3 Biography of Anders Celsius

I made a promise to myself (and to others) that I'd include some useful material over the summer. Stuff that people could read, and actually learn something. Well, laziness got me until now. Introducing Actual Quizbowl Content: stuff you can read, and I won't feel bad if you get points from reading it. My goal is three bits for every entry I make here. We'll see if I can keep that up. Target difficulty, answers that could fit in either in high school or Division II. So send your young'uns, and boost my daily hits.

1 Biography of Rachel Carson
2 Plot and criticism of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep
3 A quick guide to solubility rules.

Today (or more probably, yesterday), if you didn't know, was Bloomsday, the day upon which James Joyce set Ulysses. Writer's Almanac gives it a good treatment. However, being the perverter of academia that I am, and being of that strain of quiz bowler who will not lie as to having finished it (or for that matter cared to start it), the anniversary is more important for something I found a while back. While perusing my Biographical Dictionary of the World's Assassins, I happened upon the entry describing the death of N. I. Bobrikov, Governor General of Finland for the Russian tsar. Bobrikov's assassination was part of the impetus for Finns to overthrow Russian control of the region. The date of Bobrikov's death, June 16, 1904. So I now always wander around with this odd link in my mind, of Molly Bloom falling asleep, "and yes I said yes I will liberate Finland."

Tom and Hayden (but oddly enough, not Tom Hayden) pointed out that NBC wants to do an update of V. I'm ambivalent, one of the lower-tier film channels runs V on occasion, and frankly, it's not quite bad enough to be good cheesy fun. It just plays like a TV movie, and kinda lays there. The one thing this does prove is given that Ted Turner is now out of the loop at TBS, we will know exactly how long the revenue stream from Ted's favorite film will last someone.

UPDATE: Re: my comment on the drug war and cheese: It appears that there's smuggling at work here. Call in Popeye Doyle.

This is excellent advice to all of us who had that gut feeling that making the All-Star Game mean something was a bad idea, but simply couldn't place how it was bad.

Note: I've updated the Entering Freshman Contact List including stuff from HSNCT, upstate NY, and emails to me. More will be forthcoming.

Cleaning out the weekend notes

One aspect of the NIFL game I forgot about until now was the initial entry into the "arena". They were offering flyers of upcoming events. One of these upcoming events being an oldies concert featuring the Skyliners. When we can complete the circle DEK->NIFL->Relations of DEK, in three moves, I should have realized the pure comedy goldmine that lay inside. (As a side note: Nice picture of Skyliners playing pool available on Jason's weblog here.)
Connecting to that, I mention that as I'm typing this (Saturday), I flipped past one of WQED's infinite pledge drives. Tonight, instead of running the Doo Wop 50, featuring the Skyliners, they're running an R&B concert. However the real story here for me was the fact that I tune in to hear "Ladies and Gentlemen, Demond Wilson." My attention locks in, because this appears to be the only known appearance by Demond Wilson since Hammerlock (check the review, it looks like a possible rival to US Seals in terms of MST3k bot-fodder, we may have to test this theory). The one thing I'm wondering is whether the two events were simultaneous.

AMUSING FOOD NEWS
Updating our previous mention of McDonald's serving its salads Pittsburgh-style (with fries on top), this article indicates that, amazingly, you might (barely) be making it healthier that way.

Meanwhile, this article indicates the next front in the drug war should be Wisconsin. I suppose it's too much to hope for that "gorgonzola chic" ever catches on.

Okay, now that I know who the voice in those ads for 10-10-987 is, I'm really certain I don't want John Stamos to rule the world.

Sometimes I do get depressed at my lot in life, and oddly enough, it's not when I see myself as different from the rest, it's more when I read articles like this and discover that I'm just one of the masses in this here town. So what gets me out of a funk like that? Realizing I'm not a New York Met, I'm not losing battles to a mascot, and I don't have to "pay tribute to Damion Easley." Realizing I don't have to hide behind a fake name. Realizing I don't write copy for Reuters that includes the word "nizzle-shizzling". Realizing I'll be able to confuse generations after me by simply writing something down. And possibly more than anything, realizing my special powers include being able to destroy Craig's productivity with a single link.

POSSIBLY AMUSING ANIMAL NEWS
I'm utterly convinced that when they get done with draining the pond where they hope to find anthrax-manufacturing equipment, they'll find one thing: Snakeheads.
This amuses me. Especially the fact that people were buying the Generation III dogs, that "could indicate the first letter of the drug's name".

And finally a note for you Cubs fans, linking nicely with the Elko Dependents plague. According to this study, the Cubs are a 50% lock to win the series by 2025! A. Whitney Brown said it best. "It's somewhere in the back of the book of Revelation. 'when the small bears from the windy place take the flag, ye shall know the world is nigh.'"

Back when we had fantasy XFL (yeah, I know.) there were special bonuses for oddities, like for instance if your players were ejected from a game, it was a big 20 points (naturally, the one time this came into play, I had the player on the bench...) I miss that, and so, I hope we'll consider this rule for next year, even though Mike's team (the Elko Dependents) would be the only beneficiary:

Team's home city devoured by Biblical-style plague: 100 points.

More later, I had some things written up over the weekend, only to be thwarted by a power failure.

Joe touched on this last week, partly to tweak me, partly because you can tell you're reading about how hard up my old hometown is today. They're going to build a Waffle House in Washington County, right off Interstate 79 in Meadow Lands. This represents a major breach in the Maginot Line. The running joke among many quiz bowlers has been that Waffle House was invading, but had been stopped at the Mason-Dixon, with some thanks from our allies at Tim Horton's coming down from Canada. But now we're stuck with one.
One one hand it only serves to reinforce the notion that, while I can slide around the issue, when it boils down to it, I'm definitely from redneck country. While I don't attempt to hide it before those who would rather put on airs of their own cultural superiority, I admit I don't revel in it. It just is. On the other hand, I look at and realize that in all likelihood, that Waffle House might be the third best source of revenue my old school district will have. The top draw is the dump. The dump has a deal with New Jersey to take a lot of its non-hazardous waste, and as a result, it gets lots of revenue, and pays lots in tax. Second place might just be the McDonalds at the same exit they're going to put the Waffle House. Even at that, I'm not certain that the area will get any relief. We have a long tradition of businesses building just outside the district, and I have the nasty feeling that while the access road the Waffle House is demanding (demanding?!), will probably end up part of the township budget, the Waffle House might just pull the same trick, and building tantalizingly close to the township border.

UPDATE: Maybe, just maybe, they should have called it Prong.

UPDATE: Wichita Falls! Welcome to the party. No, I don't want to know about your convention center. It's okay. No, really. Cherokee, I have a watch.

Been a while, hasn't it?

Suffice it to say that between Kidder Cup and HSNCT, I've been a little preoccupied. And since both were laden with topics, it may take a couple days to get all the bits typed out.

Collapsing into the seat of the airport shuttle last night, I thought: "So this is what it looks like when it all works." HSNCT was like that. I won't call it perfect, because such a thing just can't reasonably happen, but it might have been closer to perfect than anything we've done before. There were mistakes, but they were all minor, recoverable, and quickly corrected. For the first time since the first ICT, I was really, really happy with how everything ran. And that's not a slight against previous tournaments, it's just that this was one of those events that not only was everything we expected, which is where we have been before, but it also gave me the feeling that new possibilities have opened up.

One NIFL angle not covered by the others was an odd moment after the game. I can't explain exactly who the guy was, but having seen my Ohio Valley Greyhounds shirt, he not only identified it, but put two and two together, and started regaling me about various Greyhounds whom he "had". I'm not sure what to make of that, except I really hope he meant he was their agent. Then I think about it and realize, I'm actually hoping someone is an agent of NIFL players, NIFL players whose game salary is around $200. One thing about the NIFL, even when you're convinced we're making it up, we're not.

Heading north soon, but a short edition of "I know there's a question in there somewhere", and further proof that I am spotting trends well out ahead of the curve.

One of my proudest achievements in my day job has to be the day I found I could break the software simply by turning it on, and typing a single keystroke. It never made it out of the office like that, but it was the quintessential "bug that makes no sense." So today, my heart was warmed to see that in fact, the problem may not have been in our software, but in fact it may have been in the keystroke itself. This article explains much. Especially when I realize it was the same letter that blew up our stuff. In the tradition of this: P considered harmful.

1 From the engineers who like to screw with people's minds file.
2 This is merely an excuse for me to repeat my favorite Beavis and Butthead quote. "My Liver! My Liver!" "Lower, dude."
3 "When you have incidents like this, it gives a bad rap to the whole field of integrative medicine," No kidding.

The "People are turning into other people" edition.

1. I didn't watch much of American Idol more than the moments when it seemed to run long and cut into 24, but I'm really bothered that Clay (at least the restyled edition) looked exactly what I imagine a cross-breeding of Johnny Rotten and Martin Short would be.

2. Double headed special NBA draft lottery special: Stan Kroenke (owner of the Nuggets) was wearing a pinstripe blue suit to go with his cheesy moustache. The effect is that he looked exactly like a colorized version of John Astin as Gomez Addams. Meanwhile, Gordon Gund, sitting right next to him and accepting for the Cavaliers, is slowly undergoing the process to turn into a clone of Richard Gephardt, you can already see it starting from the eyebrows out.

Part of what makes going to a Pirate game at the PaNic Button interesting is being the guy who gets the joke, and then wondering if the joke was actually intended to be there. In this case, it was the eighth inning, and the Pirates were up 5-2, and call on their bullpen. For those of you who don't follow the Pirates this is the most easily callable "fraught" there is. The Pittsburgh bullpen has alternated between flammable and incendiary all year, and has caused the fans a mix of heartache and heartburn. So when the music starts playing to introduce someone from the pen, I'm left in a quandary: Did they just decide on this music because it was peppy, or did they actually intend people to hear the lyrics and address it with the proper degree of cynicism?

Allow me to diagnose:
"Have you ever been close to tragedy
Or been close to folks who have?"
Yes. All season.

"Have you ever felt a pain so powerful
So heavy you collapse?"
Like when you loaded the bases with no outs and struck out the side? It was really more nausea than pain, but yes.

"No? Well - I've never had to knock on wood
But I know someone who has"
Lloyd does that too?

"Which makes me wonder if I could
It makes me wonder if I've
Never had to knock on wood
And I'm glad I haven't yet
Because I'm sure it isn't good
That's the impression that I get"

I guess the part that really bothers me. Pretty much the last thing you want your closer, or any reliever to be thinking about as they come into the ball game is anything knocking on wood, or vice versa.

Okay, I'm all better now. I probably have to remind Joe about this so he can write about it: Warhol Pierogie.

Here I was figuring tonight was going to be the night I get the most disturbing bobblehead possible. That being the Bob Prince bobblehead. A bobblehead of a broadcaster who has been dead for the better part of 15 years. Then I see this.

Mostly trawling for blogstreet to see it picks up amazon links.

First of all, the initial list in table form is sitting here: I'll be adding more later. On the original list I forgot Robert Morris, and we can add TCU.

Two other things that are bothering me while I write the last third of my packet for this weekend:
1. I remember seeing this idea in one of the Carl Hiassen books, I think Tourist Season. It struck me at the time as almost the perfect coffee table. So why does it bother me now? Longtime readers will remember that I got rid of my coffee table last year, and I still haven't gotten one. Hmmm....

2. Right in the middle of reading this last week, I noticed that Archie had a clock radio which woke him up. This got me wondering, in that sort of bothersome wondering I get, because it's something I can't very well research, and I can't very well expect anyone I know to either know or care. Still I'll ask anyway: "When was the clock radio invented?" The book places it back as reasonably commonplace as of 1951(publication date), which probably is the basis of my surprise, it feels at least a decade early. Even worse, it's not likely to be a patent application, because that wasn't an era like today, where any crazy notion will get rubber stamped by USPTO. I'm not really expecting an answer from anyone, it's just a loose end that bothers me.

Finally: Fraught.