California's muy super duper primary is coming up next week and I'm not sure for whom I'm going to vote. Let's review the candidates.

I'm a pretty liberal guy and probably have never voted for someone on the conservative half of the spectrum for any office above the county level. That being said, I've enjoyed the Republican race so far, so let's include their candidates too.

Rudy Giuliani - Megalomaniacal head-case completely obsessed with 9/11. Spent most of the campaign trying to convince everyone that he was a conservative by becoming increasingly xenophobic. Also, 9/11. Has now dropped out of the race. 9/11.

Mike Huckabee - Has a funny and charismatic demeanor which nicely covers the fact that he'd like to remake the Constitution over in the image of the Bible. Doesn't believe in evolution, is admittedly ignorant on foreign policy, and isn't a fiscal conservative. Plays guitar.

Mitt Romney - No clue what this guy is about. Looks good in a suit.

Ron Paul - The most principled guy running in either party (with Kucinich coming in 2nd). His basic philosophy seems to be to get rid of as much of the federal government as possible. In lieu of things like environmental protection policy or educational standards, we're all just supposed to sue each other for "property damage". Although I'm pretty sure that's a naive approach, if the Republicans nominate this guy, I will seriously consider voting for him. I think his policies would fail, but we've been failing the traditional way for longer than I've been around, so let's give Libertarianism a try. Also doesn't believe in evolution.

John McCain - Would be the oldest President ever. Often crossed party lines to craft policy back before he was running for President. Has now received the endorsement of Giuliani. If they run on the same ticket, it will be the first Republican ticket that consists of zero true Republicans.

Now for the Democrats. This coming Tuesday I'll be voting for one of these people in the California primary.

Hillary Clinton - Wicked smart. Has the "career politician" stench despite having only been in the Senate for a few years. A policy wonk who trots out positions and proposed policies with ease. A chick. If you're a Democrat and you don't vote for her, you are a misogynist.

Barack Obama - Inspirational. Nearly glows with the ability to start healing rifts, whether they be between Republican and Democrat or white and black. Makes uplifting speeches in lieu of laying out policy. Says the word "change" a lot. Mostly black. If you are a Democrat and don't vote for him, you are a racist.

John Edwards - Son of a mill worker. The choice of misogynists, racists, and mill workers. Dropped out of the race.

This is a tough call for me. At heart, I love numbers. Every time I hear Clinton speak, I'm impressed with her command of numbers and the fact that she has a well-defined set of policies on every issue I've seen thrown at her. She is an exceedingly capable candidate. Also, being the father of an eight year-old girl, I cannot help but wonder about the impact she'll have on a new generation of women, who will look up to the most powerful position on the planet, and see a woman there. That's an amazing amount of encouragement for about half the people on this planet.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, seems to be more of a feel-good candidate than a facts and numbers candidate. He may have well-defined positions on all the issues, but he'd rather talk about healing the nation. I'm not surprised that Oprah endorsed him because if he loses the election, he'll probably take her job. I am, however, intrigued by his idealism. I like that he doesn't have an axe to grind. I like that he'd talk to any world leader. I like that he hasn't been around politics long enough to be owned by the lobbyists. Unlike Clinton, I don't think that he's just telling me what he thinks needs to be said to get elected. The guy just seems like our first 21st century presidential candidate.

So many things to consider. Is Hillary hated too much to be electable? Would some wacky KKK member assassinate Obama? Is it important to have your policy laid out in the election or does that all get thrown away on your first day in the office? Is Obama more smooth talking than substance?

I guess I must ask myself, "Mike, are you a racist or a misogynist?"

I'll find out on Tuesday.

I am not above faking pain or injury to achieve my goals. Of course, by "achieve my goals" I mean "avoid achieving some goal".

About once a week, when Hank is trying to get me to do something I don't want to do, I'll clutch some random part of my body and moan, "Ohhhhhhhhh, my ovaries!" It's a line I learned from the Master, Bart Simpson. I figure an animated ten year-old malcontent is a pretty good mentor for me.

Now that I've officially announced my emergence from marathon retirement, I'm taking stock of my aches and pains, because if you're going to make excuses, it's best to have them rooted in the truth. So far, I've identified the following injuries/defects:

1) My hip hurts! It's been bothering me for over a year now. I went to see a physical therapist for a while, but after a couple months with no discernable difference, I decided to stop going. The hip doesn't really bother me during normal activities and only bugs me a little during running, so I figure I can run on it until it withers and falls off. Thankfully, hips are one of the body parts that surgeons can replace these days, so no biggie.

2) My right heel hurts! This one just sprang up yesterday, which was a fairly slothful day. I have no idea what caused it or what it means, but each step on my right foot is painful. I blew off my lunchtime run today because of it. Giving up is one of my core competencies.

3) I'd like to lose a few pounds.

That last one really sticks in my craw.

In my nearly 40 years of life, I've never had to go on a diet. My build has ranged from skinny to medium. At any given time either my exercise regimen or my metabolism has kept my weight under control without me having to pay any attention to what I cram into my cry-hole. This has come in extremely handy because I cram a lot of crap in there. Do you know how many delicious chocolate treats there are in the world? I do. A crapload.

Running a marathon is hard work though and I'm probably a couple of pounds heavier than I was the last time I did ran one. So, wouldn't it be a lot easier to run those 26.2 miles if I lost 5 or 10 pounds, especially when I'm trying to qualify for Boston? Otherwise it's like carrying a dumbbell for the duration of the race, and there ain't room for another dumbbell in this body.

So, for the very first time in my life, I might try to lose a few pounds. The very thought unnverves me. I mean, one of the reasons I run is so that I DON'T have to watch what I eat, and now I'm considering restricting my diet so that I can run faster? Has this whole world gone topsy-turvy?

Middle-age has addled my brain

I can't wait to give up on this plan. Seriously, I think I sprained one of my Fallopian Tubes.

Our new room slowly inches towards completion.

Over a month ago, just before we left for Vermont, I reviewed the top three to-do items with our contractor. The real to-do list is much longer but I wanted to emphasize the important items, like getting the heating system turned on. That would make the room livable. Also, having a handrail on the stairs, and any railing at all on our deck, would reduce the general deathiness coefficient of living in our house.

"Not a problem" he assured me. "I've got the handrail ready to go, and I'll have the heat turned on tomorrow."

Given our past experience with our contractor and his mental block with hitting deadlines, I walked away from that conversation knowing only one thing for certain. It was 100% guaranteed that he would not be turning on the heat the following day.

Sure enough, when we got home from Vermont 8 days later, we raced down into the room (using the new handrail!) to see the progress. We found the heating system still not functional. However, what he did leave behind was a couple of fancy space heaters, a note of apology, and a bottle of wine.

The guy can't make a date to save his life, but booze, apologies, and space heaters go a long way towards easing the pain.

So, we've been using that for the last month, and it's worked ok. Space heaters aren't a very efficient way to heat your home, but they're better than shivering while watching A Daily Show. This week, however, IT finally happened. Our contractor finally turned on our radiant floor heating system.

"Ta dah!" I thought. And nothing happened.

As it turns out, flipping the switch on a radiant floor heating system is about the most anti-climactic thing you can imagine. A little red light glowed on the water heater, and it made a slight humming noise, and then a few minutes later you could feel some tepid water moving through the pipes. Then, a mere FIVE HOURS LATER, our room was warm.

Ok, I knew beforehand that radiant floor heating systems were not the fastest way to warm a room, but I didn't know that it was going to take five hours to raise the temperature less than 10 degrees. Five hours?!?! I'm pretty sure that I could heat the room by myself in that amount of time using only my flatulence (assuming a burrito and a glass of milk for lunch).

So, now, each morning, I'm left with a decision. Do I flip the switch on the thermostat and begin the epic process of heating that one room, or do I just wait for summer? So far, it's a close race.

Bobby Fischer did it.

George Foreman did it.

Jay-Z did it.

Roger Clemens did it FOUR TIMES!

Now, I'm thinking about doing it.

Nearly three years ago I ran the Boston Marathon. It was the crowning achievement on a decidedly lackluster marathoning "career". When I crossed the finish line in Boston, a solitary thought stuck in my mind which would profoundly and positively affect the following years of my life.

"Never fucking again," I thought to myself, and I immediately retired from the sport of marathoning.

That well-considered and eloquently expressed sentiment turned into one of the greatest decisions of my life. I have enjoyed my retirement immensely. No 20-mile training runs. No ice baths. No staring at the staircases in my house and wondering how I'll get down them in my sore and hobbled state. Mmmmm, it's been a good three years.

This year is a little different though. This year I turn 40 years old. That means two things. First, I'm due for a mid-life crisis. Second, the qualifying time for the Boston Marathon gets easier by 5 minutes (11.45 seconds per mile!).

My first thought on the mid-life crisis was to go get a sports car or a mistress. Our house only has a 1-car garage though, so an additional vehicle would be a hassle. As for a mistress, that would be awesome, but apparently those things don't grow on trees. Being a work-at-home hermit, my mistress-meeting opportunities are rather limited. I thought about trying to have sex with the ceramic skull on my desk. I also considered the under-the-desk dust bunnies, which have a certain sexy flair.

Long story short, if you're going to screw a ceramic skull, bring lots of lube.

I analyzed what a mid-life crisis is supposed to accomplish. As near as I can tell, it's some way to throw your life into disarray. Passage into mid-life is generally accompanied by performing some sort of physically or psychologically damaging act. As much as I tried to fight and ignore the truth, for me that type of act is running a marathon.

So, there it is. Like Fischer, Clemens, Foreman and Z before me, I now unofficially come out of retirement. My plan is to run two marathons in my 40th year of life. I hope to qualify for Boston on the first one, and then run Boston on the second one.

Per my motto, however, I am prepared to give up on this idea at any time.

There are some subjects that 99% of all married couples will eventually argue about. Topping this list are subjects like money and household chores. A close third place on that list is the topic that Hank and I covered during our date-night last night.

Me: Which one of us do you think is blacker?
Hank: Me.
Me: You? You're whitebread incarnate. What makes you blacker than me?
Hank: Well, you can't dance or dress, so I've pretty much got you beat.
Me: Okokok. IGNORING my inability to bust a move on the dance floor, I'm clearly blacker.
Hank: How are you black at all?
Me: It's in my soul.
Hank: Your soul? You've got the soul of a black man? How exactly does that manifest itself?
Me: I don't know. I mean, at least I've bought some rap albums.
Hank: What? I'm the one here who has bought a rap album!
Me: Liar. What rap album did you buy?
Hank: NWA!
Me: And the last time you listened to that album was...?
Hank: Well, I don't have it anymore. I had it on cassette and it was in my car when my car got stolen.
Me: So, that was a decade ago? And you had it on what? 8-track? Nice. Ok, at least I've bought rap albums THIS century.
Hank: What rap albums did you buy?
Me: I bought The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and I bought that Outkast album. You hate that Outkast album.
Hank: I do not! Besides, you have no rhythm.
Me: We're IGNORING that.
Hank: You're ignoring that.
Me: Alright, if you had to pose for a Colbert-esque picture with your black friend, who would you get?
Hank: Uh...
Me: Exactly.
Hank: No! Wait! There was this one contractor at work...
Me: Someone hired to be with you, uh huh.
Hank: And she described me as her girl-crush! There! Have any African Americans had a crush on you?
Me: Yes! A hunky fireman! That trumps your contractor big time.
Hank: You can't dance.

And so a stalemate was born.

What Hank is forgetting is that I'm a Jew (term loosely used), and Jews and African Americans have much in common. Persecution is an excellent example. African Americans have that whole slavery and racial intolerance thing to suffer through and similarly the Jews endured the Holocaust as well as thousands of years of people hating us. (Seriously, what's with all the hate? Sorry about the Jesus thing, but quit blaming us for crazy crap like 9/11).

Jews and African Americans also dominate U.S. pop culture. As a combined power, we almost completely control Hollywood and U.S. music. I mean, take comedy for example. If you remove all Jews and African Americans from comedy, you're left with.... Jeff Foxworthy?

So, the Jews and the African American community, we are one (despite any thing you might read in the news saying otherwise).

What this really comes down to is that Hank and I are going to settle this issue like we settled our last big argument, by polling the people who know us both best. Liz, Larry, and Pablo, you are the jury.

I was watching a nature show the other day that showed a mother bear and her cub playing. Their play consisted of a mock fight. This was not only fun for the cub, but also taught the cub valuable bear life skills. The cub gained physical strength and knowledge of how to fight.

I tried to map that interaction to my relationship with my daughter, Daisy. Occasionally we do wrestle, and although it's fun for her, it doesn't really teach her valuable day-to-day skills. Daisy rarely has the need to wrestle herself some dinner or wrestle up an 'A' on her multiplication test. Our mock fighting wasn't really the same thing as the bears'.

Eventually I realized that the closest match to the bears' fighting was the way I argue with her. I mean don't most humans settle their disagreements with discourse (current administration excluded) ?

I have mock arguments with Daisy all the time. I'll insist that we currently live on Mars, or that 2 plus 2 is 5, or that I'm the child and she's the parent. I'm pretty good at propping up these ridiculous arguments by keeping her on the defensive and constantly "logically" concluding things that aren't quite logical. A typical argument will go like this:

Me: I'm the baby and you're the daddy.
Daisy: Nope.
Me: Of course I'm the baby. What makes you think you're the baby?
Daisy: I'm smaller than you.
Me: So what? Your friend Kate is younger than you and she's taller than you, right?
Daisy: Yeah.
Me: So, we agree that height has nothing to do with age. Now, aren't you pretty mature?
Daisy: Yeah.
Me: And you have to agree that I'm very immature, right? Always joking around?
Daisy: yeah.
Me: We're in total agreement, Daddy!
Daisy: NO! YOU'RE THE DADDY!
Me: Then explain why my diaper is poopy?

Ok, that's not the best example, but you get the idea. I really enjoy seeing if she can cut through the nonsense and identify the cracks in my arguments. She used to be terrible at this, but in the last year she's gotten pretty good at pinning me down in the right places. It makes me proud.

(I used to do the same thing with my girlfriends. Those arguments usually ended with the girl hitting me. The first woman who didn't hit me? That one I married.)

Anyway, if Daisy grows up to be a hard-working, kind, and smart person with good social graces, then we can credit Hank. If, however, she can turn complete gibberish into a superficially plausible argument, then that's all my doing. We all parent to our strengths.

You'd think that in the 5 days since I last blogged that something blog-worthy would have happened. This is particularly strange since I don't seem to have any standards for how interesting or intellectual a topic should be. I've blogged about farting before. Are we to believe that nothing that interesting has happened this week? I think I just have blogger's block.

Someone, maybe it was my high school English teacher, explained how to start writing. He said if you have a topic, like perhaps San Francisco, and you can't figure out what would possibly be interesting to write about it, then think smaller. He suggested, for example, that we could try to start by writing about a particular building in San Francisco instead. If that didn't work, then go even more specific, and focus on a single brick in a specific wall of a particular building.

This spoke to me. The idea of focusing on the details about what made a single brick different from all other bricks seemed much easier than finding something of significance to say about an entire city.

One of my all-time favorite books, The Mezzanine* by Nicholson Baker, took this idea to the absurd. Baker spent the bulk of the novel focusing on tiny details of the protagonist's life. Many pages were dedicated to dissecting topics like shoe-tying, straw usage, and other minutia of everyday life. In all sincerity, I can say that this was fascinating to me. Hearing someone articulate the details of previously mindless bits of my life was illuminating to me. What do you think when you tie your shoes? As it turns out, I find that interesting.

This is probably why 99% of my blog posts are just daily fluff. I can't say many insightful things about politics, but I am the #1 Worldwide Expert on my most recent trip to the grocery store.

So, why the blog post drought? Just lazy, I guess.


*Despite the fact that The Mezzanine is a favorite of mine, I hesitate to recommend it. People near and dear to my heart have found it a complete bore, and I can completely understand why.

I like the phrase "I'm a lover and not a fighter." It sets up the dichotomy between lovers and fighters, stating that a person can be either one or the other, but not both.

Since I have never thrown a punch, slapped, eye-gouged, kicked, stabbed, or shot another human being, I am officially not a fighter. Therefore, I must be a lover. This will be big news to my wife, but the facts don't lie. Me = Lover. Me!

A couple of weeks ago though, I took a stand in a fight.

As everyone knows, there's a war going on. I've been asking a lot of people what they think about the war, and what side they're on. Every single person I asked gave me the same answer. "Mike," they'd reply , "Stay the hell away from this battle. You want no part of this."

I am speaking, of course, of the battle between the two competing standards for high definition DVDs: Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD. It's the new millenium's version of Beta vs VHS. Sony, who failed to learn their lesson from their in-vain plugging of Beta, is the leader of the Blu-Ray group. Toshiba, meanwhile, is the driving force behind HD-DVD.

What's the technical difference between these formats? Who cares. They both look good. DVD makers should have been salivating over the opportunity to sell us a new and more expensive format instead of warring over differences that are incomprehensible to Joe Consumer. Meanwhile, one or two studios had lined up in the Blu-Ray camp, and an equal number had signed up for HD-DVD. It was a dead heat.

So, if, hypothetically speaking, you have just purchased a fancy new high definition TV, and were eager to view high definition DVDs, which way would you go? Would you go with Blu-Ray and support yet-another Sony effort to cram proprietary formats down our throats (Memory Sticks, anyone?) or would you pick the other side, supported by distasteful companies like Microsoft?

The smart money said to do nothing. Let the other idiots, willing to plunk down hundreds of dollars on machines that may be obsolete in a few months, decide the victor of this meaningless battle. You go, Joe Early Adopter! Smart people should stay out of the way, instead buying cheap "upconverting" DVD players that make ordinary DVDs look slightly better on high def TVs. That was my plan. Me = smart. Me!

Hank and I strolled into my favorite TV store a couple weeks ago, ready to buy one of these $99 upconverting babies. Smart! We met with the same salesman who had given us excellent advice a couple months earlier on our TV purchase. He had earned our trust previously by discouraging us from buying speakers from his store and encouraging us to buy the cheapest HDMI cables, instead of gouging us on two traditional retail money-making fronts.

So, when he suggested that we skip over the $99 upconverting DVD player and instead, buy the on-sale $270 Toshiba HD-DVD player, we listened carefully. He explained that even if HD-DVD somehow lost the format war, we'd still have a decent DVD player, capable of upconverting all our old DVDs. By spending that additional $171 dollars, we'd be taking a position in the Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD battle, but not an expensive one.

So, we bit. We picked the HD-DVD side, and allied ourselves with the Toshibans. Given all of Sony's mis-steps in the market in the last few years, this felt like a solid choice. We didn't really want to ignore the high-def capabilities of our TV while this format war waged. Who know how long it would go on!

As it turns out, that question is answered now. The war ended a handful of days after we bought our DVD player. Studios are now flocking to Blu-Ray. The winner? Sony. The loser? Me.

I should have stuck to being a lover.

Although I have a corporate overlord master with a standard becubicled work environment, I rarely go into that office. I prefer to spend my work days at home, under-dressed and farting relentlessly. It just feels right.

Today, however, I had to enter the belly of the beast. I was scheduled to attend something known in corporate jargon as a "meeting". This was to be my first time in the office in about 4 glorious months. In fact, it had been so long that in my absence the office had changed location from one mediocre office park to a far more generic one. Now, it's officially Office Brand Office!

Getting ready for the meeting was weird. I had to put on those things with the pant legs that go all the way down. I think they're called pants. I affixed them with belts. I also inserted my arms into a piece of fabric with arm holes and sleeves. Shoes were non fuzzy and hairs were smooshed down into submission. All systems were go. I was fully prepared to interact with hu-mans.

I lurched into the office and stared at the first coworker I saw. Instead of being able to interact with him naturally, using my keyboard, I was reduced to forcing air up out of my throat and squawking noises at him. I chirped and moaned what I believed to be a traditional hu-man greeting and then stumbled toward my meeting.

When I got to the meeting room, I was dismayed to find it filled with live people. They waived their upper limbs at me and shrieked non-binary, un-compilable statements. I mimicked their noises, hooting responses each time the hu-mans aimed their eyeballs rays at me.

We continued this nonsense for 5.5 hours.

I'm not exactly sure what was decided at the meeting. I look forward to the email summary

I watched a good chunk of the Republican and Democratic debates this weekend. When the Republicans paused from accusing each other of supporting immigration amnesty, and the Democrats caught their breath between declarations of being the very changiest change bringers of all change time (infinity change PLUS one!), there was a single common theme between the candidates of the two parties. They all hate flip floppers!

Anyone within sniffing distance of the lead in either party immediately got accused by their most desperate rivals of being a flip flopper. Obama is a flip flopper, McCain is a flippityfloppinator, Clinton likes to flip her floppers, and Romney might as well have just sashayed across the stage in flip flops. A large portion of the debate was lost to sound bites of flip-flopping accusations and then indignant denials. Oh, how the low have fallen.

Now, I understand that this tennis match of finger pointing is how we pick our President in this fine nation of ours. What I don't understand is why we get our undies in such a bunch about flip flopping. Who cares?

Most of the time the "flip flopping" can be attributed to something changing in the interim. If Candidate X votes for Jolly Puppy Sunshine Clean Water Bill 1 and then against Jolly Puppy Sunshine Clean Water Bill 2, it's probably because those two bills were different. This does not mean that Candidate X is a waffler or is against jolly puppies.

Let's say, however, that those two bills really were the same. Let's assume that Candidate X really did change his position on puppies. What would happen if Candidate X was accused of flip flopping and then responded by saying, "You know, jolly puppies sure sounded good to me at the time, but then I spoke to a series of dog trainers and learned that jolliness isn't really the goal with puppies. We want them to be happy, but we also need to focus on training them and establishing a healthy relationship with them." ?

Wouldn't that be ok? In fact, wouldn't it be BETTER if a candidate admitted to changing his mind about an issue? Shouldn't we all change our minds on issues as we learn more about them? Are politicians supposed to have appeared on the political stage fully-formed and then remained in stasis ever since then?

Romney routinely gets excoriated for liberal positions he took when he was governor of Massachusetts. Now, I'm not a big Romney fan, but it seems pretty reasonable to me that he would have adopted a more liberal stance when HE WAS GOVERNOR OF ONE OF OUR MOST LIBERAL STATES.

I'm not saying that politicians shouldn't be decisive. I think we all get a little comfort from hearing clear declarations of positions. "Terrorism bad!" Ok! I agree! John Kerry, for example, was a terrible Presidential candidate because he was incapable of making simple declarations. Everything was nuanced and measured beyond sound bite comprehension. To this day I don't know if he was pro or anti puppy.

I'm not sure who I'm voting for this year, but I'm leaning towards supporting whomever gets accused of waffling the most, while denying it the least. That person will probably end up being the most reasonable candidate.

I stood in the cleaning products aisle at the grocery store and stared at the dishwasher detergent selection. My usual choice, the unscented one, was out of stock. I was stumped.

Now I was forced to make the same decision for my dishes that I've had to make for many other items. What do I want my dishes to smell like?

How can there possibly be one odor that I want applied to all my dishes? What fragrance works well with coffee mugs, butter dishes, spatulas, wine glasses, plates, and forks? I'll tell you which fragrance. NONE! That choice wasn't available though. Instead, I had to choose between: Lemon, Orchard Splash, and Fresh.

Lemon is a nice fragrance, but I don't want it near my coffee, bacon, cereal, sandwiches, burgers, ice cream, etc. There are hardly any foods that I want to be lemony.

However, I'll say this for lemon. The number of foods that I want lemon scented absolutely DWARFS the number that I want orchard splash scented. Orchard splash? Is this a smell that I should know? Is there anything splashing in an orchard that smells good? My god. Just a terrible terrible idea. I guess someone else had already patented Septic Splash.

So, by the process of elimination, I chose Fresh. I'm not sure what freshness they've captured the odor for. Will my food smell like fresh fish? Will it be laundry fresh? I have no idea. I'm praying it isn't a reference to the old Massengill commercials and their "not so fresh feeling". I don't need my dishes douched.

When I got home, I found Hank sitting in the living room, working on her laptop.

"Hey, what do you want your dishes to smell like?" I asked.

Hank bolted upright, completely startled.

"My dentist?!?!" she cried out, alarmed. "What should he smell like?! Uh..... minty?"

I busted up. It wasn't just that she mis-heard me, it was that she was so very traumatized by the question that she thought I had asked, as though I was on the verge of some evil scheme to perfume the dentists of America. Also, she picked a great answer. Dentists SHOULD smell minty, goddammit!

After I had cleared up the misunderstanding about my desire to smell-graffiti her dentist, Hank confirmed that I had made the right choice with the detergent. Fresh was the safest choice.

She revoked that opinion once I let her sniff it.

You ever walk into a museum, look at the modern art, and say, "I could have painted that!" ? Sometimes it looks like those guys just dump a bunch of paint on a canvas and it call it art.

That's what I did the other day, except with a computer. I randomly banged down on my keyboard for a while and then Avery Gray called it a blog post. Check it out.

I feel like the monkey to the left of the infinitieth monkey, the one who spends his day hurling feces instead of typing masterpieces. My bad.

Oooooh, my first post of the year.

(fp!)

It's a blank canvas on which I can spew my idiocy, vitriol, and small-mindedness. Mmmmm, small-mindedness.

Today I'm going to bitch about the media. Seems like a good way to ring in the new year. Ring a ding ding.

The other day I saw an article on the front page of the local section of the San Francisco Chronicle that set me off. It was about the results of a poll regarding people's view of the economy. It stated that 52% of the polled voters are pessimistic about California's economy.

Allow me to restate the contents of that article more insightfully: Blah blah blah irrelevant space-taking, soul-sucking, resource-consuming waste of all that is good and meaningful in the universe blah blah blah.

I care about the economy, but I don't care about what random people think about the economy. How is that news? I don't care about man-on-the-street interviews, or field polls, or articles where "journalists" ask people if they prefer puppies or nuclear war.

You there, (yeah, you reading this blog), unless your last name is Bernanke, I don't care what YOU think about the economy. I don't care what my neighbor thinks about the economy. I don't care what my wife thinks about the economy. I'd like for us all to experience financial prosperity, but random opinions about economic growth are not newsworthy, interesting, or productive. They're just noise.

How about, and forgive me if I'm going out on a limb here, the "reporter" tells me some information about the economy? How about contrasting employment or housing figures from 2006 to 2007 instead of non-statistically significant opinion numbers? If, however, your article leads with the "fact" that half of the uninformed populace picked the word "bad" when describing the economy, then, maybe it's time to throw in the journalism towel. Right after one more year-end Britney Spears retrospective, of course.

The sad part of all this is that reading a newspaper is probably my preferred way to get news. Reading articles on the web is a close second, but I slightly prefer the ease of scanning a large piece of paper for items of interest.

The worst way to get news is by watching a newscast. Why do people do this? I know my eight year-old daughter likes having stories read to her, but haven't most adults grown out of that habit?

Hang on. 1963 is calling. They want their interface back.

Honestly, it's an atrociously inefficient way to receive information. If you're not interested in a story, you have to sit there patiently and wait for the next one, which will probably just be a reporter standing in a rainstorm asking people whether or not they like the weather. That will be followed a reporter standing in a mall asking shoppers what they think about the latest poll results indicating how much people love hearing about polls that asked about whether polls are more informative than puppies.

You could record the news and fast forward through these bits, but wouldn't it just be easier look at a paper or a website? Or maybe you could trim your nails by filing them down on the inside of your retina? That would be equally productive.

And, hey, happy 2008, y'all.