By unpopular demand

Confessions of a bad fan

2009-01-08T12:46:00.000-08:00

I'll admit, I feel just a little bit guilty. I feel like I didn't give my all as a member of the Minnesota rooting public. As members of the peanut gallery go, I was a real goober.
I'm not saying the Vikings lost to the Philadelphia Eagles in Sunday's first-round playoff game because I didn't show enough support. That would be egotistical even for me. The Vikings lost to the Eagles because their special teams seems to have an aversion to human contact and their quarterback appears unclear at times on some of the basic concepts of professional football.
Or something. I don't really know football.
I'm just saying that while news about whether Sunday's game would be televised was treated as one of the most important stories in Minnesota last week I was mostly thinking about how a blackout would free up my day Sunday.
Is that wrong?
It's not that I'm a bad fan. Just an indifferent one. I knew that if the Vikings were on TV I'd feel obligated to watch them because — actually, I don't know why; it just seemed like the thing to do. If I'm really honest, I mostly wanted to be aware enough of what happened so I could participate in conversations the next day with in-depth analysis like, "Boy, that Tarvaris Jackson sure does appear unclear at times on some of the basic concepts of professional football."
I can totally talk sports.
With the game relegated to radio coverage, I would have been free to get about important tasks like watching the Sports Night DVDs I got for my birthday. Or clipping my toenails.
It's just who I am, and I've accepted that. With the notable exception of Minnesota Gopher basketball I am at best a fair-weather sports fan. I would enjoy seeing the Vikings win the Super Bowl. But now that they've been eliminated from the playoffs I will go about my life with hardly a second thought about the season that just ended. For the first time in months my Sundays won't revolve around half-heartedly watching a football game and I'm OK with that.
I took the light rail past the Metrodome on New Year's Eve and there was a sign advertising broadband Internet service that's "Adrian Peterson fast." Instead of thinking fondly of the star player's powerful running style my first thought was "Boy, I sure hope they don't drop the connection like AP drops the ball."
My interest in the Twins is nearly nonexistent each season until the Sports section starts talking about Magic Numbers. And I hardly even think about the Timberwolves since they disbanded the franchise a few years back.
I try to be aware enough of what's going on with the local teams that when someone starts a conversation with "How about them Twins" I don't come back with, "Yeah, that Kirby Puckett's really something," but that's about the extent of things.
Most of the time I'm with that. But this feels different. This feels like some kind of betrayal of my duty as a Minnesotan. Of my unspoken and totally non-dues-paying membership in the greater Minnesota Viking community.
I'm pretty sure I'll get over it, though. There's a Gopher game Sunday.

Building a better pet

2009-01-08T12:45:00.003-08:00

With the Christmas season now here, last-minute shoppers around the country are searching desperately for the perfect gift. No doubt many will bring home a pet for their loved one. And who can blame them? Kittens and puppies are cute. They'll make hearts melt on even the coldest Christmas morning. They will create happy, loving feelings right up until the first time someone has to clean up their poop.
Animals could be even more appealing as gifts this year. It appears we're entering a golden era when it comes to pet selection. Never before have we had so many options when it comes to customizing our furry companions.
Take the kitten. In the past our choices were limited to the breed of cat we wanted to own. Purebred or mix? Long hair or short? There are even cats with no hair at all, although they're entirely too creepy to think about.
But is a handful of breeds really enough? Can a pet truly help us express our purest identity when all we have to choose from is a bunch of different colors? One Wilkes-Barre, Penn. woman says no. That's why she started piercing the ears, throats and tails of kittens and selling them to the highest bidder on Internet auction site ebay as what she called gothic kittens. Because really, how many times have you looked at your cat as it lazed around the house and thought, "Sure, Mittens is nice and all. I just wish she had some more bling"?
I see a lot of opportunity here. Why stop gothic kittens? There are hundreds of cliques out there not yet represented by the custom kitten industry. Surely there is a market for preppy kittens dressed in Abercrombie & Fitch.
Vampires are popular now thanks to the Twilight books and movie. Kittens already have fangs. Now we just need to breed in a lust for human blood.
Gone are the days when pets are simply freeloading creatures that provide us companionship and unconditional love. Finally even the animals we surround ourselves can be creepy extensions of whatever personality we're choosing to take on at the moment.
Pennsylvania police, not nearly as enthusiastic about the potential for target-marketed felines, have arrested the woman in question and shut down her kitty-piercing operation.
Fortunately, there are other options. Even for people who can't wait until after an animal is born to start controlling its appearance.
We're talking way beyond doggie sweaters here. We're talking cloning.
According to foxnews.com a Korean company called RNL Bio has begun the process of creating carbon copies people's pets. Using preserved ear tissue from a California woman's dead pit bull the company in August created five genetic reproductions of the dog that died while saving its owner from an attack by another dog.
Michael Vick just got really excited.
This opens up all kinds of options for pet owners. All you pet lovers who were content to freeze dry your animals and stand their hollowed out corpses over the mantel as tributes to the years you've had together, it's time to kick things up a notch. Now instead of having a dead-eyed statue to bring back bittersweet memories you can have a living, breathing carbon copy of your beloved Fido to remind you every day of the good times you had with the original.
At $150,000 a pop pet cloning is not for everyone. But if you love your pets enough it's really the only way to go.
Besides, science fiction movies and Stephen King novels have taught us anything it's that cloning and bringing animals back from the dead always leads to good things.

A word from our sponsors

2009-01-08T12:45:00.001-08:00

Tom Farber is either a genius or the latest example of the mounting challenges facing the American education system. I'm honestly not sure which.
Farber is a math teacher in San Diego, which doesn't make him an example of anything other than someone who knows how to pick a home where you don't have to worry about frostbite when you go out to get your mail. But Farber has started selling ads on his math tests. And that's where things get interesting.
According to CBS News, Farber sells one-line ads on the front pages of his tests to local businesses or to parents who want to wish their children luck. Ad costs range from $10 to $30, with the price rising in proportion to the seriousness of the test — from quizzes to final exams. The money he collects covers printing costs, which apparently are not part of the school's budget.
Maybe this shouldn't come as a surprise. Schools aren't exactly strangers to advertising. There are Pepsi machines in the halls and class ring vendors set up in the cafeteria. The average American teenager is a walking billboard for any number of products. But this seems different.
For one thing, it seems like a pretty questionable business move on the part of the advertisers. Is it really effective marketing to put your name in a spot where the people who see it are likely to be nervous and irritated? What's next? Trips to the principal sponsored by Travelocity? Detention brought to you by Immodium AD?
It seems like there should be some opportunities here for enterprising teens who have trouble remembering formulas. You know, this math test is brought to you by A2+B2=C2.
The sad fact is that as school budgets shrink costs get passed down the line. Farber told SignOnSanDiego.com the budget he gets for printing was cut to $300 for two semesters. Printing his quizzes and tests costs more than $500.
So maybe Farber is on to something. Maybe advertising is the answer. But why stop with tests? There are plenty of marketing opportunities in schools. Couldn't a landscaping company sponsor the school's grounds crew? A music store the school band? A chiropractor the desks?
Why shouldn't teachers dress like NASCAR drivers? It's biology class brought to you by the Discovery Channel.
But maybe that's too obvious. Today's teens are pretty savvy. They're not going to buy something just because it's on a patch across the back of their teacher's jacket. Maybe subtlety's the answer. Why ask story problems about trains leaving different stations at different times? Amtrak's never going to cough up the cash to make that profitable.
How about something like this: Jane and Jen just bought the same outfit. Jane paid full price at Burnsville Center — Open late for last-minute Holiday shopping! Plenty of convenient parking! — but Jen got hers for 25 percent off at Target — Expect more, pay less! If Jane spent $80 on her outfit, how many nasty rumors will they spread about each other when they both show up at school wearing the same thing?
See what I did there? That's what we call subliminal marketing.
So, which is it? Marketing genius or unsettling sign of the times? Or both?
"I think this is one in the same time a story of American ingenuity and a story of American tragedy," Public Education Network's Arnold Fege told CBS.
Maybe we'll never have a good answer.
Maybe we should all just have a Coke and a smile.

Snow dazed

2009-01-08T12:44:00.001-08:00

When I was a kid, an early-December snowfall was an important, some might say vital event. Thick blankets of snow in the early days of the month meant that when my birthday party came around there would be sledding. There would be icicles to devour like popsicles. There would be heavy, icy snowballs to whip at the heads of unsuspecting friends.
And what's a party without the risk of someone getting a concussion?
When I was a member of the Stillwater High School cross country ski team early-December snowfalls meant the end of dryland training, which is really just a fancy term for running around town carrying ski poles. Then again, it also meant we had to start skiing. It was a mixed blessing at best.
Admittedly, I was never an enthusiastic skier.
Walk-ing through a snowy landscape, city or country, can be an incredibly peaceful experience.
A good blizzard creates roads for snowmobilers and hope for students who are behind on their homework. It hides the dirt that ordinarily covers things and provides the genetic material that will become hundreds or thousands of snowmen.
Who doesn't love snow? Right?
Thing is, I'm not celebrating my birthday as these things occur to me. I'm not skiing. I'm not hiking. I'm not snowmobiling or rolling the beginnings of a snow family. I'm not even hauling my stupid ski poles up yet another flight of stairs.
No, as these thoughts run through my head I am making my way home from work.
Very. Slowly.
It's 10 p.m. I've just spent more than three hours in a Farmington School Board meeting listening to people talk about tax levies and contracts and redesigned report cards. I'm doing 30 miles an hour on a stretch of road where the speed limit is.... OK, I don't know what the speed limit is. I can't see the signs. But it's definitely faster than 30 freaking miles per hour.
The day's heavy snowfalls have made traffic lanes a matter of driver interpretation. Roads that were once three lanes are now two. Roads that were two lanes are somehow four. I don't pretend to understand how that happens. It's the perverse math of the blizzard.
I'm not sure if this qualifies as white-knuckle driving. I'm wearing gloves.
I want to be home, not in a still-warming-up car with my hands wrapped tight around the steering wheel. I want to watch the snowfall from my bedroom window, not through my windshield. I want to be getting ready to go to sleep, not wondering how long it will take me to shovel the sidewalk in front of my house. I want to be warm.
At the very least I want to be aiming a lump of snow and ice at a friend's face.
Snow when you’re a kid is great. But you know something? When you’re an adult snow kind of sucks.

Shop talk

2009-01-08T12:43:00.004-08:00

I've been a bad consumer. On what was supposed to be the busiest shopping day of the year — the day businesses nationwide use deep discounts items to drive shoppers into a kind of retail psychosis — I was a bystander at best.
While shoppers still digesting Thanksgiving meals lined up outside stores in hopes of being one of the first through the doors, I was warm in bed.
While adrenaline-fueled consumers crowded the doors hoping for the first shot at the bargains inside, I was getting ready for work.
And while shoppers at a New York Wal Mart were trampling one of the stores employees in their rush to get a good price on a flat screen TV — well, I managed not to stomp on a single person's head.
I consider that a pretty successful day.
Then again, I've never been much of a shopper. Even under the best of circumstances all I get from most trips to the store is a chance to wander through aisles of poorly organized merchandise looking for a chance to hand over money that could go toward more important things. Like beer.
It's not the notion of trading cash for goods that really bothers me about the shopping experience, though. Mostly, it's the people.
I should probably clarify that. Working in the newspaper business as I do, dealing with people is a pretty significant part of my job. And for the most part I'm OK with that. Alone or in small groups people are generally pretty decent.
There are exceptions to that, of course. I'm not really cool with the two guys who body-checked my dad off his bike last week and threatened to, I quote, "slice him" if he didn't hand over his cash.
Thankfully, I've only had a handful of interviews that ended with the subject threatening violence against me.
Shopping, though, rarely involves people in small numbers. I can hardly get through a mall parking lot without my opinion of humanity dropping a notch or two. And on the rare occasions I venture out to the Mall of America, that Mecca of American consumer culture, I usually leave feeling like I need to lock myself in my bedroom by myself for about a week.
I've never dared to shop on the day after Thanksgiving, but I imagine it's like being at the mall on its busiest day with a bunch of people who started their shopping trip with about a dozen Cinnabons and a thermos of espresso.
That's the impression I get when I read about Jdimytai Damour, the 34-year-old Wal Mart employee who died last week after a thundering herd of shoppers knocked him down and walked over him as they rushed nab the toasters and digital photo frames they'd waited in the cold to get.
I don't imagine that will change anybody's approach to the so-called Black Friday. Stores will continue to have big sales because they draw people in and get them to spend money. News outlets will continue to cover it because telling the same stories about a made-up event each year is easier than coming up with something new. And hey, who doesn't like to see video of stampeding shoppers?
I'll be at home.

Being thankful is a gas

2009-01-08T12:43:00.003-08:00

We've once again reached the final week of November, which means according to international newspaper columnist guidelines I am required to write something with a Thanksgiving theme. I don't make the rules, folks. I just follow them unquestioningly when I don't have any better idea for a column topic.
Besides, I've got a lot of things to be thankful for this year.
Maybe the biggest is the fact I've managed to survive more or less intact my first year as a homeowner. It's been a year just about to the day since I signed away a healthy percentage of my paychecks over the next three decades and everything is still in one piece. I haven't taken out any load bearing walls with an ill-advised home improvement project and I still have all my most important appendages. I consider that a pretty significant victory.
I'm thankful for the recognition this little newspaper continues to receive. In September I made the trip to St. Paul to collect an armload of awards presented to the Rosemount Town Pages by the National Newspaper Association. Among them was a first place trophy in the category of General Excellence.
As if that wasn't enough, earlier this month we learned the Minnesota Newspaper Association loves us, too. We won't know what places we've taken until the association's convention in January, but we know the Town Pages will take home prizes for general reporting and use of photography
I'm thankful for the gradual triumph of laziness over the need for human beings to do anything for themselves. The latest victory here comes on the pizza delivery front, where I can now use my TiVo box to order a Domino's pizza from the comfort of my couch. I don't have to walk to the phone. I don't have to talk to anyone. If I could just get someone to chew my food for me mama-bird style I might never have to move again.
I'm thankful for other, less pathetic advances in technology. A few weeks ago I gave in to my desire for shiny, new gadgets and bought an iPhone. In the short time I've owned the phone I've already used it to record a podcast for our web page and to jot down some of the ideas for this column. As soon as they make a phone that comes up with better ideas I'll be set for life.
Maybe most of all, though, I'm thankful I'm not the unnamed 13-year-old Florida boy who, according to the Associated Press, was arrested Nov. 4 for, I quote, "'Passing gas' and turning off his classmates' computers."
The AP reported the boy was taken into custody disrupted his class by "intentionally breaking wind" and shutting off computers other students were using.
As my mother helpfully pointed out when I shared this story, it is unclear from the story whether the boy somehow managed to use his toots to deactivate the computers. If he has somehow managed to harness his body's baser functions with such precision I say he's dangerous and should be locked up.
The boy was charged with disruption of school function and released to his mother. Who was no doubt incredibly proud.
And who almost certainly took beans off the menu for Thanksgiving dinner.

All a-Twitter

2009-01-08T12:43:00.001-08:00

I did something earlier this month I'm not very proud of. It's not the first time, I have to admit. Just one example in a long line of them.
I signed up for something called Twitter. It is like the blogs everyone used to keep, but dumbed down. Like, way down. I know. Scary, right?
You have just 140 characters to squeeze in every foolish thought in your head. It is the concentrated orange juice version of the Internet.
With cell phones or computers Twitterers can share every thought they have got from anywhere in the world. And this is somehow a good thing.
I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't want to know what a strange man's burrito, ice cream and crusty apple snack dinner has done to his stomach.
Here's the arc of my Twitter interest: Hey, neat idea. But most people aren't interesting enough to fill 140 characters. But I am. I'm neat!
Think of all the fascinating thoughts I have every day about things like ... um.... Well, I'm sure there's something. Just give me a minute.
Plus, with the new program I downloaded for my phone it is crazy easy. And doesn't the world deserve to know my every thought as it happens?
I think it does. Surely, there are not enough random rantings and poorly considered boob jokes in the world. I have to make my contribution.
For an example, check out my most recent post: "Headline: 'Woman shoots 200 lb. deer with 27-point rack.' So, which one had the great rack?"
See, totally worth it. I have to admit, though, there are times when even 140 characters can seem like a lot of space.... Uh.... Soup pants!
And for posts like that I've got followers. Three of them! OK, one is the friend who introduced me to Twitter. But two more, too! Ego boost!
There are actually some serious Twitterers around. CNN Twitters. MinnPost, also. But so do people called shoemonkey and bigsexyshaq. And me.
I'm not sure if my contributions add to the validity of Twitter as a medium or detract. Am I Twitter Hemmingway or Twitter romance novelist?
Wait. Do not answer that. We know which one. But the closest I have come to romance in my 5 posts is a photo of Williams Arena. Happy place!
In any case, I'm not sure how long I can keep my posting up. Already use this space to share most of my pointless thoughts. Really any left?
If I think I might find other uses for this tool. Like, I could use it to compose limericks. But I think Nantucket has too many letters. Dam
Is writing my entire column in Twitter a good enough gimmick readers won't realize it's not funny? Nope. Subscribers are too smart for that.
I think that means I just wasted way too much of an evening. Eh, that is pretty much par for the course with this column, now I think of it.
Oh well. I am a relatively intelligent guy (Though I'm sure some out there would be happy to disagree.). I'm sure I will think of something.

Good news?

2009-01-08T12:42:00.001-08:00

The modern mainstream media takes plenty of heat from people who believe the days of serious, in-depth reporting have gone the way of reporters who wear fedoras.
Much of the criticism is unfair. There are still thoughtful stories out there. But there's also a lot more space to fill. The growing popularity of all-news networks and web pages that allow stories to go out at any time means the hard news stories people say they're looking for are usually drowned out within minutes by shouted opinions about the latest politician to say something stupid or young female celebrity who forgot to keep her knees together when she got out of her limousine.
Honestly, who can focus on the details of an economic bailout when we've got YouTube clips of someone casting the devil out of Sarah Palin?
Still, when the leadup to this year's historic election featured multiple news networks using high-tech display boards and questionable poll results to predict results as far as 47 weeks in advance and CNN spent a fair amount of its election night coverage conducting interviews with creepy holograms, people might have a point.
Last week Minnesota Public Radio's Bob Collins pointed out that the sixth question asked at president-elect Barack Obama's first news conference following the Nov. 4 election was about the kind of dog the new First Family would bring with it to the White House. Unless the question came from the White House Correspondent for Dog Fancy, I suspect someone wasn't quite grasping the significance of the moment.
Besides, everyone knows the only sensible choice is a labradoodle.
(While we're on the subject: If you're a kid is there a better place in the world than the White House to own a dog? You know you're never going to have to walk it, and cleaning up its messes? Forget about it. Someone else will take care of it before the next tour comes through.)
Meanwhile, I spent an entirely unreasonable amount of time Monday reading about Senator Obama's Oval Office meeting with president Bush. Maybe it's just the fact I can now get Associated Press updates on my phone whenever I want, but have we always spent so much time obsession over what is essentially an open house. Nobody knows for certain what the current president and the soon-to-be president talked about during their two-hour meeting, and yet the AP updated the story feverishly during the day, sharing details about, among other things, the fact Obama dropped his daughters off at school Monday morning, then went to the gym or the color dresses worn by Laura Bush (brown) and Michelle Obama (red).
So, now we know our future leader worked up a sweat before he flew halfway across the country so someone could tell him where all his new house's secret passages are. Awesome. I'm pretty sure Woodward and Bernstien wrote something similar before they broke the whole Watergate thing.

Celebrating a bright new era

2009-01-08T12:16:00.000-08:00

We've come through a dark time recently but I think we’re finally starting to see some light ahead.
I wanted to say something earlier, but I needed to be sure. After what happened earlier this week I finally am.
We have emerged from an era that began with no small controversy but with also a few rays of hope. Despite all we had been through in those early days most were happy to put the disputes behind us and look to the future.
Over the years, though, things only got worse. And in the increasingly dark times even the rare bright spots — those small victories — seemed all the more hollow when the defeats that followed continued to mount. Even in times of success there were many who wanted our frequently bumbling leader deposed.
Now, though, the regime has finally changed. We once again have optimism. We have hope.
As you can tell I'm pretty excited about year two of the Tubby Smith era of Golden Gopher basketball, which officially tipped off Monday with an exhibition game against basketball power St. Cloud State.
Did you think I was talking about something else?
Granted, the Tubby Smith era in Minnesota officially began last year. But I think most fans needed a year to get over the tenure of former coach Dan Monson, whose time in Minnesota tested the faith of even the most faithful.
Besides, Tubby has his first recruiting class in town. And what a class it is. He’s got the son of a former NBA star, a new point guard who was almost good enough to make the Olympic team in basketball-crazy Canada and South Dakota center Colton Iverson, who neatly fills the Big White Guy void created by the departure of Spencer Tollackson.
How’s that for diversity?
And sure, maybe an eight-point win over the Huskies isn’t the most encouraging beginning for this new era. I’m not sure St. Cloud State even has a separate basketball team. They might just use hockey players who weren’t good enough to make the varsity team.
Still, it’s a start.
Maybe it’s a small thing. Tubby Smith won’t drag this country out of its recession. His brand of hard-nosed defense cannot heal our economy — unless maybe he can assign Al Nolen to defend the country’s banks against their own decision making. But he’s made it possible for lifelong Gopher basketball fans to go to games without that lingering feeling of dread that hung over Williams Arena for so many years. His message of distributing the basketball and lifting up your teammates has made us believe again.
Can this team make it back to the NCAA Tournament this year? I don’t know. Can it compete in the Big Ten Conference? We’ll have to wait and see. But can we fans be excited to follow this team in the years to come?
Yes, we can.

Where’s that draft coming from?

2009-01-08T12:15:00.001-08:00

When I moved into my house last December winter was already well under way. About all I could do to prepare for the cold weather was blow-dry some plastic wrap onto a couple of my windows and think warm thoughts. As a result, I spent my first several months as a homeowner signing over somewhere in the neighborhood of 3/4 of my paycheck to the natural gas company in the interest of keeping my extremities from turning blue and falling off.
I'm hoping things will be different this time around. That's why I spent time over the weekend listening to people tell me about how making small improvements to my home can save me money, single-handedly reverse the effects of global warming and make me more desirable to women everywhere.
That's what I heard, anyway. I might not have been paying the closest attention.
Act-ually, if I'm being honest, learning about saving the planet wasn't really why I was there at all. I was there, sitting on an uncomfortable chair on the second floor of a church on what might have been one of the last truly great days of the year, because I'd been promised free stuff. It was part of some grant my neighborhood organization got. All I had to do was sit through an hour of people explaining how taking shorter showers would save the polar ice caps and I'd walk out with a free programmable thermostat, a power strip that turned out to be not nearly as high tech as it was described and faucet aerators.
What guy can resist a free faucet aerator?
I learned that turning my thermostat by just two degrees can save me 6 percent on my energy bill. By that math I just need to drop the temperature 33 degrees this winter to get my heat for free. I also learned about something called phantom load. It's power my freeloading appliances suck back even when they're not turned on. It would also make a great name for a Scooby Doo villain.
When it was all over and I'd collected my free stuff I had a chance to sign up for an appointment to have someone come look at my house and tell me what I can do to shrink my carbon footprint from a clown shoe to a baby bootie and to strike a balance between suffering hypothermia and needing one of those federal bailouts I've heard so much about just to keep the gas company off my back every month.
I can only assume one of the first things my inspector will point out is the gap between my front door and door frame that is large enough to allow free passage to small woodland creatures, provided they haven't put on too much winter weight. I suspect that might be contributing to the draft in my living room.
If things go the way I hope they will I'll come out of the whole thing with both an idea how to save money on my utility bills and a feeling of smug satisfaction for the role I'm playing in saving the world.
Hear that, ladies?

What?

2008-10-30T12:03:00.000-07:00

I am not an outdoorsman. Not remotely.
I did some fishing when I was younger, mostly on annual trips with my uncle to the Wisconsin trout opener. But somewhere along the line the appeal of getting up at an hour when decent people are comfortable in bed just to sit in the cold and dark in hopes of jamming a hook through the lip of a slimy, wriggling fish and pulling it onto the shore — where you have to, like, touch it — just lost its appeal.

I've never hunted in my life. Never fired a gun at anything more threatening than the left over jack-o-lanterns we shot at from the deck of my mom's house when I was growing up. In my defense, some of those pumpkins were pretty intimidating.
My experience with firearms starts with a BB gun, runs to a .22 rifle — the one we called Pumpkin-bane — and pretty much stops there.
All of which meant I was in for a really big surprise when I showed up at the Dakota County Gun Club last weekend to take pictures of the club's annual deer rifle sight-in.
The event, which is covered in more detail on page 6B of this issue, is a chance for hunters to fine-tune their aim so they can whack woodland critters more efficiently when deer season rolls around next month. This is a good thing, I realize, because accurate shooting means more deer killed immediately and fewer ticked off animals wandering through the woods with a bullet in their spleen and a score to settle.
So, yeah, the sight-in is a benefit to hunters and lingering-wound-averse deer alike. But it's also really, really loud. Like, uncomfortably loud. Like, feels-like-you-got-punched-in-the-kidneys loud. Like, Rosie O'Donnell loud.
I guess I should have expected that. But remember, most of the weapons I've fired are either powered by air or being held by a character in a video game. These deer rifles are new to me. I asked someone at the sight-in what type of rifle was most common and he rattled off some numbers that might as well have been launch codes for nuclear missiles or the combination for his high school gym locker. All I know is, based on the noise they generated, most of the rifles fired last Saturday would hold you in good stead were you ever attacked by a a deer, a rhinoceros or a Soviet tank.
Are deer tougher than I realized?
I don't have any moral objection to hunting. I don't think I'll ever need my meat to be so fresh I'm willing to hack it off the bone myself. If you want to track wild game to put meat on your table, by all means do. If you want to pop a cap in Bambi's white tail just because you think he's giving you the stink-eye, knock yourself out. I'm just not sure I see the appeal of getting up sometime before dawn to sit in an uncomfortable tree stand all on the off chance I'll get to fire a weapon that will deafen me and slam into my shoulder like Billy Joel into a Hamptons home.
I'd rather go biking.

A little help?

2008-09-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

Dear Federal Government,

I’m not sure how I’m supposed to go about this and I’m a little embarrassed to even ask, but do you think I could get one of those economic bailouts I keep hearing people talk about?
I admit some of my current financial situation is my own fault. I realize now I didn’t actually need a solid gold toilet in my new house. And yes, in retrospect, committing so much of my savings to building a breeding operation for Argentinian Performing Hamsters was probably not a good idea.
We all make mistakes, right? Why dwell on the past? However it happened, I need help and I need it now. I’ve got bills to pay and an angry man named Arturo breathing down my neck. He’s got a show to put on and I can’t get any of his stars to run on that little wheel without tripping, much less walk the high wire.
As you can see, there will be some pretty significant consequences if my finances are allowed to collapse in such a spectacular fashion. This isn’t just about me, though. My financial troubles will have far reaching consequences. With money tighter I imagine I’ll eat out less, for example, which could spell disaster for Taco Bells and Burger Kings throughout the south metro. Who will eat the bean burritos and cheeseburgers if not me?
If I don’t get a fast infusion of cash I won’t be able to pay my mortgage. I keep hearing about what a problem foreclosures are becoming. Well, here’s your chance to start turning the tide.
Also, and I really can’t stress this enough, I’m pretty sure Arturo is about to take me out with a bolo. I freak out every time I see someone dancing the tango. This is no way to live.
I’m not asking for a lot. I don’t need the billions you’ve promised to save American International Group or that guy Freddie Mack I keep hearing about. I’m just looking for a little something to help me get back on my feet. I think $972.36 should do it. If you wanted to throw in one of those new iPhones that would be totally cool.
I’m not just asking for a handout, though. In return for your investment in my future I am willing to offer the Federal Government a .73 percent share in my life. If you come through with the amount I’m asking for I will allow you to make crucial decisions like what socks I wear each day and where I eat dinner (choices limited to Taco Bell or Burger King or, if I’m feeling adventurous, Chipotle). If you throw in the iPhone I’ll let you choose one menu item for me at each meal (Come on, cinnamon twists!).
I appreciate you taking the time to listen to me here, Federal Government. I know you’ve got a lot on your mind but I think I’ve laid out a proposal that can work for everyone. Please let me know if there other steps I need to take to get this process moving — if I need to fill out an official bailout form, or come to Washington to make my case in person. If I need to apply in person, though, could you please add the cost of airfare to my bailout request?
I await your response.
Thank you in advance,
Nathan Hansen

Living in a fantasy

2008-09-11T13:13:00.001-07:00

To the commissioner of the Vicious Viking Fantasy Football league:
First, I want to thank you for the opportunity to compete in your league this year. I know some members were reluctant to take in someone with so little fantasy football experience. I promise to take seriously the responsibility of managing the statistics of millionaire athletes who neither know nor care that they exist and I appreciate you allowing me in at only twice the normal entry fee and. I hope I do not disappoint you or the rest of the fantasy coaches. They seem like a great group of guys.
However, before we get too far into the seasons there seems to be some draft-related draft confusion I'd like to get cleared up. If you don't mind, I'll go round by round so we can clear things up.
Round 1: This is a big one. Clearly I was joking when I announced my decision to take Vikings quarterback Tarvaris Jackson with the first overall pick. I thought that was obvious when I made that "T-Jack? More like cheddar-jack" comment and everyone laughed. In retrospect they might have been laughing at something else. Anyway, my intended pick here was Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Please make that change.
Round 2: I'm thrilled with this pick. I never would have expected Tom Brady to be available here? I'm excited about his durability. This is one guy you can count on having on the field week in and week out.
Round 3: Honestly, someone should have pointed out that LaDanian Tomlinson had already been taken. I'll admit I was managing the stats of my World of Warcraft character and not paying as much attention as I should have been, but fair is fair. I propose my opponent and I split LT's points or maybe alternate weeks with him in our make-believe backfields.
Round 4: A lot of the guys warned me against taking Adam "Pacman" Jones here. I understand it's a risk, given that he plays defense. But this is a guy who got suspended from the league for being involved in a fight that ended up with a dude getting paralyzed, then took up professional wrestling. Clearly you never know what he's going to do, and I like that kind of excitement.
Round 5: I hesitate to make any unwarranted accusations here, but I'm starting to think people were treating the new guy a little unfairly. Is it my fault I didn't know Walter Payton was both out of the league and several years dead? Where's the sportsmanship? I'd appreciate you replacing this pick with O.J. Simpson. Fair is fair.
Round 6: Apparently I drafted the Minnesota Gophers offensive line here. I have no idea how that happened.
Round 7: I really don't see the problem with drafting only the Vikings run defense here. If there was a rule against that someone really should have explained it ahead of time.
Round 8: It was explained several times during the draft that it's unusual to take three quarterbacks before drafting a single wide receiver but this just feels like the right place for T-Jack. Skål Vikings, right?
Rounds 9-12: In the interest of moving things along I let my fellow league members choose my receiving corps out of a hat but I seem to have lost the slips of papers with the players' names. I'm open to suggestions here.
Round 13 and beyond:I honestly don't remember what happened from this point on. I believe I had dozed off. If anyone can fill me in on how my team ended up I'd appreciate it.
As you can see these are all fairly minor issues and they should be easy to resolve. Now, if you don't mind a little good-natured "trash talk" — did I use that term right? — I am quite confident in the my team and believe you might just as well turn your entry fees over to me now. In the face, dudes!
Kind regards,
Nathan Hansen

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Going nuts for the convention

2008-09-05T12:07:00.000-07:00

For four days this week the eyes of the world will be on St. Paul as the Republican Party holds its convention and officially names John McCain its candidate for President.

Or, if not the world, then at least the United States will be paying close attention.
And, OK, if not the entire United States, then at least the Americans out there who are truly invested in the political process. That's gotta be at least a couple dozen, right?
There's not much surprise left in the political conventions these days. Where candidates once fought for the support of delegates things now are wrapped up well before the convention ever rolls around. The biggest uncertainty heading into this week's Republican convention had to do with whether McCain would choose Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty as his running mate. Apparently, though, McCain did not feel he needed help pulling in the coveted Pond Hockey demographic and instead went with a governor from one of the few states even colder and more remote than Minnesota.
With all the uncertainty removed from the process we're left with a series of overlong speeches meant to get people excited about the wagon to which they've hitched their Presidential hopes. It's the Academy Awards without the glamour, the star power or the awkward musical numbers — well, unless you count dancing delegates.
According to one news report last week the Republican convention is expected to draw such notable celebrities as the guy who played Toby on The West Wing — apparently forgetting he played a Democrat on TV — and Laura Prepon, who played Donna on That 70s Show — apparently forgetting that nobody much considers her a celebrity anymore.
You want a sign actual work is far from a priority this week at the Xcel Center? Consider that one of the big decisions local politicians made in the weeks leading up to the convention — right up there with whether to strip search everyone in the city or just people within two miles of the convention — was whether to allow bars to stay open later. Nothing says Serious Political Debate like a debate about how late you can get your last martini.
None of which should suggest the conventions can't be fun to watch. Barack Obama's speech at last week's Democratic National Convention was very good. And while McCain is not known as a dynamic speaker we can at least look forward to shots of delegates in clothing no self-respecting person should ever consider wearing outside of their own home.
Then, there's the promotion of the convention. A couple of weeks ago the committee responsible for organizing the convention sent me a media kit that included a bag of peanuts. I'm still trying to decide whether the message of the package was, "The symbol of the Republican party is an elephant. Elephants like peanuts. Isn't this whimsical?" or, "Republicans hate reporters with peanut allergies."
By the time most of you read this column the Republicans will have given their speeches and moved on from St. Paul. All we'll be left with is a bunch of memories and a faint smell of self-importance as we gear up for two more months of political campaigning.
Well, that and a bag of stale peanuts.

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A little spooky, a little lame

2008-08-29T12:57:00.001-07:00

So, I'm starting to think my house is haunted. Which, you know, kind of sucks.
It's not that I have anything against ghosts — or spiritual-Americans, as I think they like to be called. I just wish they'd stop messing with my stuff.
They haven't done anything particularly spooky yet. They don't seem particularly dangerous. They're more the kind of ghosts that do things just to mess with you a little. Less Poltergeist, more Ghostbusters.
They're the prank callers of the spirit world.
Take my refrigerator. Since I moved in last December it's occasionally made odd ticking noises. For weeks I thought people were knocking on my door every time it acted up. At first I figured the noises were the result of the refrigerator's internal mechanics going haywire. I don't know the technical term. Cooling coil ping, or something. Now, though, I'm pretty sure I'm experiencing the intervention of supernatural forces.
A less open-minded observer might point out that the refrigerator itself appears to be relatively new and installed not long before I bought the house. Those people have no imagination. I suspect there was a tragic game of hide and seek in the Frigidaire factory and now I'm stuck with a cursed refrigerator from which the ghost of some long-forgotten assembly line worker is forever trying to escape. Desperate for revenge on a co-worker who really needs to work on his seeking.
The refrigerator spirit by itself might not have been enough to convince me if there hadn't been other signs. Like, a few months ago when I found my basement in disarray. There was soot on the floor from a chimney that, so far as I can tell, no longer connects to anything that requires venting. The tops of my washer and dryer were filthy. A bottle of laundry detergent had been knocked off its shelf. Most of the liquid had leaked out through a pin-prick hole. At first I figured some kind of critter had gotten loose down there. Now I know better. More appliances, more obnoxious ghosts.
The last haunting took place over the weekend. I was downstairs brushing my teeth when I heard a crash and a heavy thud coming from the floor above me. The door at the top of the stairs was closed for the first time since I moved in. It was odd. And it didn't exactly make me excited to figure out what was on the other side. That's the point in the horror movie when the killer jumps out and chops someone to pieces. But, like I said, my ghosts are pretty lame.
When I finally mustered the courage to push the door open I discovered a closet door had fallen off of its hinge and pushed the door closed.
The result of shoddy craftsmanship that caused part of the door's frame to buckle? Yeah, keep telling yourself that. I know better.
I have ghosts. And they're jerks.

My Olympic flame burns bright

2008-08-21T14:46:00.001-07:00

I thought I was done with the Olympics. When the 2004 summer games were held in Athens I couldn’t have cared less. I was even less interested when the winter games were held two years ago in ... well, wherever they were held. I can’t be bothered to look it up. All I remember is some U.S. skier who partied a lot and didn't worry so much about little things like the actual competition.

Somehow, though, things are different this year. Since the Olympics started two weeks ago I've spent nearly all of my free time sprawled on my couch watching men and women who have dedicated their life to achieving physical perfection. With my near total inaction I am paying tribute to their lifetime of work.
I couch potatoed at an Olympic level.
Like any American with a soul I got caught up in the story of Michael Phelps. I caught all but 1 1/2 of his gold medal swims and most of his preliminary rounds. I wondered like everyone else if he could accomplish a feat as monumental as bringing home eight gold medals. But even more I wondered what NBC would have done with its approximately 93 hours of Michael Phelps features had he come out and stunk up the pool in his first two events.
Fun facts I've learned about Michael Phelps since Aug. 8: His heart pumps eight gallons of blood a minute. He has three extra toes. He eats an entire cow at every meal. His touch can cure the common cold. He can communicate with fish but finds they rarely have much to talk about.
I'm not just getting caught up in the big stuff, though. Anyone can sit down for two hours of gymnastics and call himself an Olympics fan. Getting excited about women's beach volleyball is easy, too. But it takes true dedication to spend most of a beautifully sunny day watching Eastern European women compete in power lifting or tiny Asian men play badminton — both alone and in pairs. Since the Olympics began I have seen fencing and field hockey, trampolining and team handball. I've watched people I'll never care about again play sports I'm pretty sure nobody ever actually plays outside of the Olympics or maybe a particularly adventurous gym class.
I've learned things watching these Olympics. I've learned that competitive trampolining is a real thing, and that even guys who compete in something as lame as air pistol get caught for using performance enhancing drugs. If we can't trust the guys with the BB guns, who can we trust?
I learned that Croatia had the top men's water polo team in the world coming into these games, which came as a surprise. I would have guessed someplace sunny and surrounded by water. Australia, maybe. Or Barbados. Or Atlantis. I can only assume the Croatians are able to draw strength from their totally excellent mustaches.
I'm not sure I'll be able to maintain this level of interest for the rest of the Olympics. I wasn't prepared coming in for the kind of couch time I'd be putting in, and I'm afraid I'm out of condition for these extended sessions in front of the TV. If I can't even get through the 84 heats of the 400-meter hurdles without feeling like I need to go up for a walk or read a book or something I don't know what chance I have when it comes time for a marathon session of, well, the marathon.
I have to try, though. These men and women are giving their all for their country and I will, too. Even if it means picking up my own performance-enhancing substances — another case of pop and a giant-sized bag of chips — to get me through.
USA. USA. USA.

Ready for some bad football?

2008-08-14T11:56:00.001-07:00

I'm not much of a sports guy. I'll never be able to talk off the top of my head about how many home runs Justin Morneau hit last year, the Timberwolves' ability to attack a zone defense or the number of illegitimate children fathered by former basketball star Sean Kemp. I follow enough sports to know that when someone brings up Visanthe Shiancoe they're talking about a Vikings player and not a rare tropical disease, but that's about it.
All of which probably made me a bad candidate for watching the Vikings' first preseason game live at the Metrodome. The last time I saw a Vikings game in person Darrin Nelson was the running back and everybody seemed perfectly happy to be playing in the Metrodome. This was back in the days before the Internet when a surprisingly large percentage of the population still genuinely believed the mullet was a good look.
I was pretty OK with my long run of non-attendance. But the Town Pages’ parent company has season tickets, and they never seem to filter down to my level for the really good games. So when general manager Chad Hjellming offered me a seat for Friday's pre-season opener against the Seattle Seahawks, I couldn't say no.
Actually, that's not entirely true. I did say no. More than once. But when the end of the day came and nobody else had claimed the fourth and final seat I started to feel guilty. My reluctance to waste a perfectly good ticket won out over my otherwise complete lack of interest in discovering whether the Vikings' third stringers could outplay the deep reserves of the Seahawks.
"At least it will be fun to see Adrian Peterson carry the ball once," I joked. Who knew I'd be one carry high?
What I got in place of the star running back was a series of passes, a few fumbles and an air guitar competition that should have embarrassed everyone in the Metrodome that night. The PA announcer wanted the crowd to pick a winner, but much like "mullet" and "quality hairstyle," "winner" and "public air guitar" are two things that really never go together.
I also got a whole lot of noise. You know that scene in "This is Spinal Tap" with the amplifier that goes up to 11? I think the Vikings' amplifiers go up to 42. I'm not sure if the crowd ever actually cheered. I'm not sure I could have heard them over the classic rock blaring from the roof.
I saw a few exciting plays last week. In the end, though, my desire to preserve the integrity of my ear drums and my overwhelming lack of interest in just how many times the Vikings reserves could turn the ball over won over my lifelong belief a fan should never leave a sporting event early. I walked out the Metrodome doors and headed for home in the middle of the third quarter, just after fourth-string quarterback John David Booty fumbled the ball away for what was, I think, the Vikings' 17th turnover of the night.
I'm not sure quite what to make of my pre-season football experience. I know the results on the field will have little to no bearing on what happens once the games start for real. And I can't imagine I'll remember any specific plays.
If I can take one thing away from the trip, maybe it's this: Our fourth-string quarterback's name could lend itself to some pretty hilarious commentary. We're one sort-of game into his professional career and I can already describe his play with phrases like "Booty runs," and "Booty fumbles."
When you get right down to it, maybe that's enough.

Oops

2008-08-07T14:01:00.000-07:00

I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but we got some good news a couple of weeks ago in the Independent office. Seems the National Newspaper Association, as part of its annual better newspaper contest, has decided our little paper is worthy of some recognition.
The Independent has won a general excellence award, though we won't know whether we took first, second or third until the NNA convention next month. We also took first place in our circulation category in the category of best editorial page, something that has become something of a tradition for us in both state and national competitions.
I mention this in part because we're pretty proud of the awards. Add in the general excellence award won by the Rosemount Town Pages, the other newspaper we publish with the same staff from our office in Farmington, and we took two of the three top awards in our circulation category. Throw in the awards the Rosemount paper won for design and local news coverage and the award I won for a feature story on a Rosemount triathlete and we're feeling a little bit like Lance Armstrong must have when he was winning all those Tours de France. Only, without the possibility of turning our success into opportunities to date a bunch of celebrities. And without anybody accusing us of using performance enhancing drugs.
Mostly, though, I bring up the subject of awards because these are the kinds of things I want you to keep in mind when I make small, hardly noticeable mistakes like, say, running the same column in this space two weeks in a row.
Granted, this isn't the kind of error the casual reader is going to pick up. You'd have to be a pretty attentive, pretty dedicated fan of this column to pick up on something so subtle as an entire column running word-for-word the same two straight weeks (Hello, family members.).
In my defense, the headlines were different each week.
What you should have gotten in this space last week was an hilarious column about how stupid contraptions called "Pedal Pubs" are. If you really want to see it you can catch it on the Independent blog at areavoices.com/independent. It's there along with pretty much every other column I've written over the last year or so. What you got instead was the second straight week of jokes about how confusing roundabouts are. Not that jokes about hit 80s songs aren't just as hilarious the second time around. But even the best humor needs a little time to breathe before you repeat a joke.
I'm not really sure how this happened. Things can get a little hectic around here at deadline time. But honestly, how hard is it to notice you're putting out the exact same material week after week? Are you listening, Saturday Night Live?
Then again, people keep going to see romantic comedies, so maybe it's not such a bad idea.
Maybe I'm just confused from spending too much time in roundabouts. Or from listening to too many hit 80s songs.
Whatever the reason for the mistake, there's something I think we need to keep sight of. No matter what we do from now on we can say we have the best editorial page in the country.
If you're not convinced now, just read this column again in next week's paper and I'm sure you'll change your mind.

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Now playing: Dirty Three - Ends Of The Earth
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Pedal for your potent potables

2008-07-31T13:56:00.001-07:00

I've never made any secret of the fact I enjoy bicycles. I've talked about bikes and bike trips and bike races so much in this space over the years I imagine there are some readers out there who would just as soon I suffered a sudden an inexplicable inner ear problem that made it impossible for me to ever again balance on two wheels.
Fair enough. A little mean spirited, but fair enough.
Still, there are some forms of pedal-powered transport even I want no part of. I've mentioned some of them here before. I think recumbent bikes are silly, and if I ever own a tandem bike I'll consider it a sign I've pretty much given up on life. And don't get me started on tandem recumbents.
Tall bikes, homebuilt contraptions that perch the rider twice as far as usual from the ground, are only for people who didn't get enough attention paid to them when they were children.
Now, I can add another contraption to this list of velocipedal shame. It's called the PedalPub and, as the name implies, it invites passengers to pedal their way around Minneapolis while throwing back a drink or two.
So far as I understand, it works like this: You gather 15 or so of your dearest friends. Ten of you hop onto bicycle seats. The smarter ones choose chairs in the back that don't require pedaling. The rest put their legs to work powering the 2,000-pound, VW bus-sized contraption at speeds of up to five miles per hour through the streets of the Twin Cities. For the rate of $150 per hour you get a driver, a bartender and the right to pedal yourself sweaty while you throw back a few cold ones. Because what's the fun of drinking if you can't do it while running the risk of being run over by a bus?
Oh, and you have to provide your own alcohol if you want to drink. Which, when you think about it, is a little bit like asking first-time skydivers to bring their own parachutes.
Actually, drinking on the PedalPub at all is a relatively new addition. Until May the mobile bar was defined as a motor vehicle and covered under the state's open bottle laws. As of May, the portable patio is in the same category as limousines and party buses. Personally, I'd categorize it somewhere between clown cars and medieval torture devices.
I admit there may be others who feel differently about this contraption. According to a story in the July 17 issue of Vita.mn, a 25-year-old pub pedaler called her group's ride — stocked with coolers of cheep beer, vodka slushies and snacks — "my favorite night of the summer so far."
And who knows? Maybe she knows something I don't. Maybe there's something magical about getting tanked while sitting on an uncomfortably wedgie-inducing seat and working up a sweat under a summer sun. Then again, maybe this news story has helped me identify someone whose idea of fun is so far out of whack with my own I need never worry about meeting her.
Thank you, news media.

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Now playing: Dirty Three - Sirena
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'Round and 'round we'll go

2008-07-31T13:55:00.000-07:00

My day-to-day life got just the tiniest bit more annoying this week. Early Tuesday morning construction crews closed Highway 3 to traffic between Farmington and Rosemount to install a roundabout, a traffic feature that is part intersection, part landscaping feature and part carnival ride.
The Town Pages’ office is in Farmington, I spend a fair amount of time in Rosemount. I make the drive up and down Highway 3 several times a week. This is a project that affects me and that I can only imagine will frequently make me dizzy once it's finished sometime around the end of September.
Granted, a lot of people who know a lot more than I do about traffic management are convinced roundabouts are the future of keeping people safe on the road. And, sure, the roundabout concept has a long history. They've been used for decades in Europe, presumably with no significant ill effects. I think the hit Dead or Alive song "You Spin me Round (Like a Record)" might even have been inspired by a roundabout. And if a bunch of people who can't even figure out which side of the road to drive on can make it through in one piece, then why can't we, a nation with the skill behind the wheel necessary to eat a three-course meal, read a map and tap out text messages at highway speed?
Still, I have misgivings. Although they're based on nothing more significant than watching people try to drive through an actual roundabout.
There are two roundabouts I travel through on a semi-regular basis. The larger of the two is located between me and the Target and Home Depot stores closest to my home. In the weeks after I bought my house I went through it something like 16 times a day as I discovered basic necessities of life I was suddenly lacking. The other is on a route I occasionally take either to or from work. In recent weeks, as I found myself contemplating what will soon become of the main route between the two places where I spend the majority of my working life, I found myself on several occasions wanting to shout what we'll refer to here as helpful instructions to people who would come to a full stop at the entrance to the traffic circle when there were no cars approaching or slow dramatically while going around to let in someone trying to enter the circle. Sometimes I felt the urge to use what I'll call a friendly pointing gesture to accompany my instructions.
I should point out, the speed limit on both of these traffic circles is less than 35 miles per hour. I'm sure everyone will get it down when they're driving 55, though.
There are some reasonable-sounding reasons for installing more roundabouts. Roundabouts, the theory goes, do a better job than stoplights of both calming traffic speeds and keeping cars moving in an orderly fashion. After watching a parade of brake lights come on in front of me recently I can't argue the first part of that, though I might take issue with the second. People slowing for roundabouts (assuming they don't choose to simply throw their SUV into four-wheel-drive and go through the middle) also means the accidents that happen there will be less severe than what would happen if someone ran a red light.
And, who knows? Maybe that's all true. I just think we might need to spring for a roundabout instruction course for everyone before we open this sucker up to traffic.

Bike racers can be exciting, too

2008-07-31T13:54:00.000-07:00

The Tour de France, the world's most popular rolling drug test clinic, got under way Saturday and sports fans across the United States found themselves asking the same important question: "Which one is Lance Armstrong, again?"
Armstrong, of course, is not in this year's Tour. The seven-time champion who in the later years of his career inspired Americans everywhere to at least pretend to understand things like time trials and blood doping, has retired from competitive racing. These days he's mostly known for raising money for cancer research, dating a string of increasingly hot celebrities and hanging out with Matthew McConaughey and his pecs.
Meanwhile, concave-chested men with thighs the size of maple trunks continue to pedal their way over the Alps each year in hopes of getting to wear a yellow t-shirt.
This year's Tour is filled with questions, chief among them whether any of the sport's major figures will get tossed out on his spandex-clad backside for using performance enhancing drugs or injecting himself with goat blood or whatever else it is cyclists do in hopes of making it to the finish line first. Cycling's doping problem hasn't gotten the same attention in this country as drug problems in other professional sports — apparently no legislators believe they can score points with voters by going after scrawny Europeans competing in a sport most Americans gave up on around the time they took the baseball cards out of their spokes.
It's too bad the Tour doesn't get more attention, really, because there's just as much off-the-road drama in professional cycling as there is in any of our more popular sports. Last year several pre-race favorites were booted during the race for using illegal substances. Michael Rasmussen was leading last year's Tour when his own team booted him because they discovered he'd lied about his whereabouts when he missed a couple of drug tests. There were also reports he asked a former teammate to bring him a delivery of synthetic blood that was inexplicably packed in a shoebox. Which is kind of like the Yankees pulling Roger Clemens in the middle of a no-hitter in game seven of the World Series because he lied about taking his kids to Disney World.
And we're getting excited about what songs Alex Rodriguez has on his iPod?
Floyd Landis, the American who won the Tour two years ago, had his title stripped because he was found to have used synthetic testosterone on a stage in which he made a major comeback. But he didn't go down without a fight that involved a hearing in which one of his cohorts casually mentioned that Greg LeMond, another American Tour champion, was molested by a relative when he was child. Let's see you try that on Capitol Hill, Barry Bonds.
Alberto Contador, winner of last year's Tour, and Levi Leipheimer, the American who finished third, are both out of this year's competition because they joined a team that has been linked to doping, even though none of the current riders ever has. Tom Boonen, one of the sport's biggest current stars, is also out this year because he was busted for cocaine use.
A few football players take a boat trip and it's all we can talk about for months. How badly do cyclists have to behave to get a little attention around here.
Even if cycling never catches on here as a sport, you'd think it might at least win some viewers for its court proceedings.

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Heavy lifting

2008-07-02T14:31:00.001-07:00

I am not built for manual labor. The kind of burly build necessary for jobs such as highway construction or ditch digging just isn't in my genetic makeup. Anyone who's seen me in a t-shirt can tell you that.
I'm OK with that. I've found ways to make my living that do not require me to lift heavy things. Tromp through fields, yes. And climb fences occasionally. But nothing that requires any degree of plain, brute strength.
Even in my personal life, I rarely have need of bulging biceps or rock-hard abs. Outside of moving things for my parents, who seem to have gone out of their way over the years to accumulate some of the heaviest, most ungainly home decor items available to the public (Honestly, a life-size chainsaw carving of a cowboy? Why don't I just carry a mature maple down to the basement?) I've always been pretty well able to get by with the underwhelming upper-body musculature ensured by Hansen family lineage and a general lack of interest in any formal weight training program.
There are exceptions, of course. And I assume that owning a house — and having to do home-related chores — means those exceptions will pop up at least a little more frequently.
Last weekend, for example, I might have wished, if only for a second, that my upper body was more Arnold Schwarzenegger and less Tom Arnold.
One of the less appealing features of the house I bought last November was a decrepit-looking swingset installed in the back yard. Judging by the rust on the main structure and on the metal seat of the swing it was installed sometime shortly after the Civil War.
The swingset had to go, but getting rid of the thing was a bit of a challenge. The structure was simple enough — just an arch of steel pipes braced by two more pipes angled up against it. But it was designed to stick around longer than Hillary Clinton.
The support pieces weren't too tough. Once I'd separated them from the main structure it was as simple as digging out around their bases and rocking them out of the ground. The main structure was another matter altogether. Anchored in two places, it didn't want to move no matter how much I dug.
Eventually, a neighbor loaned me a sledgehammer. Heaving a heavy piece of metal over my head was a challenge — I'm fairly certain one of my biceps ruptured — but I have to admit: breaking up concrete with a sledgehammer is about as much fun as you can have swinging a giant hammer without police officers getting involved. There's just something satisfying about shattering stone into tiny pieces.
There was plenty of stone to break up, too. I'm pretty sure they built Soviet-era apartment buildings with less concrete than I pulled out of my back yard. I don't know the kids that thing was built to support, but I'm glad I'm not responsible for feeding them.
I spent most of my Saturday breaking rocks and pulling at the aging play structure. Nothing. Ultimately, it took my neighbor and his truck to pull it up. The thing bent nearly double before the crossbar finally broke off. After that, we were able to pull the remaining pieces out of the ground without too much trouble.
I woke up sore all over Sunday morning. My arms responded only grudgingly to any request to lift anything and my hand seemed mostly unwilling to grip things. But at least I got the job done, underwhelming musculature and all.
Now, I just have to get the other one out.

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Now playing: The Hold Steady - Southtown Girls
via FoxyTunes

The people in my neighborhood

2008-07-02T14:29:00.000-07:00

I've lived in my house for a little over six months now. That's half a year of making mortgage payments, fixing leaks and paying gas bills that at points during the winter threatened to go from merely unreasonable to Scrooge McDuck's money bin-level ridiculous.
All in all, it's been a good experience. It has not, however, been a particularly social experience.
In the more than half year I've owned my house I've met just three of my neighbors. Four if you count the conversation I had a couple of weeks ago with the neighbor who never actually told me her name. I don't, though, because the conversation consisted mostly of passive-aggressive questions about whether I planned to mow my lawn. In my defense, I did.
There are some legitimate reasons for this lack of interaction. For one thing, I closed on the house in November. We had our first significant snowstorm before I ever packed a box. I was shoveling sidewalks at my house before I lived there, and through the long and snowy winter there was never much reason for neighborhood residents to congregate outside.
Still, would it have been so hard for people to welcome me to the neighborhood with a cake or a pie or a four-course dinner? I don't think so.
I've started to meet the neighbors since spring weather started to show itself in the Twin Cities. And they've started to fill me in on a little bit of my new home's history. Mostly, they seem eager to tell me my house was used once upon a time as a practice house by the Minneapolis SWAT team.
Apparently this is one of the things that goes along with buying a house once owned by the city. On the positive side, I don't owe any property taxes this year. On the negative, on more than one occasion men in riot gear stormed through my house practicing R.T. Rybak knows what kinds of emergency scenarios.
At least I know if I'm ever taken hostage by Finnish terrorists demanding herring and sun lamps in exchange for my freedom my potential rescuers will know their way around.
I've learned a few other things about my neighborhood in recent months. I've learned, for example, that it's a pretty decent area, and that the problems my neighbors had a while back with people breaking into their garages is pretty much done now. I've learned that my neighbor to the south addressed the break-in problem in part by buying a pit bull.
I met that particular dog before I ever met a human neighbor, back before I'd even moved in. I was checking out the shed in my back yard when the dog lunged halfway into my yard with hate in its eyes. I've since learned from the dog's owner that the miniature Cerberus displays those kinds of face-eating tendencies only when its in the house or on the line in the yard. By my count that leaves "when it's asleep" and "in Milwaukee" as the only places this particular beast would not immediately try to disembowel me.
What a relief.
I'm sure I'll learn more as the months go by and I meet more of my neighbors. Maybe I'll discover my neighbors to the north have an unhealthy fascination with whether I've washed my windows. Or that the guy across the alley has a mutant parakeet just waiting to peck out my eyes. Or that Army Special Forces units still plan to use my basement as a practice facility for defusing bombs.
On second thought, maybe I'll just stay inside.

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Now playing: Mason Jennings - Little Details
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The mystery of my pants

2008-06-27T10:48:00.001-07:00

In the interest of fairness I should probably point out right at the beginning I have no clear proof a Rosemount-area skateboarder is responsible for what happened to my pants.
Here's what I know for certain: when I put this particular pair of pants on last Wednesday morning they were, so far as I noticed, free of any major blemishes. I also know that not long after I left a day camp held at Rosemount's skateboard park it was pointed out to me that the back left pocket of my pants looked like someone had used it as an impromptu canvas for some form of really simplistic abstract art. I don't mean a few stray marks. I mean all my backside needed was some PVC tubing and a black turtleneck and it could have jammed Blue Man Group.
Video evidence from the skate camp clips we recorded for our web page suggests the marks were not there when I showed up at the camp. Looking-at-my-butt evidence makes it pretty clear they were there a short time later.
The only one with a reasonable chance to scribble all over my rear between the time I left the camp and the time the marks were discovered is the band director at Rosemount High School. I do not suspect him.
Anyway, if anyone feels unfairly accused by this column I apologize. But a pre-teen skater with a hyperactive pen hand seems like the most logical explanation for this unexpected colorization of my kiester. In my mind it narrowly edges out other potential explanations, which range from an unseen pen hanging from the camera bag I was carrying to Gremlins.
None of which should suggest that a scribble-happy skater is an entirely satisfying explanation for the graffiti-fying of my sensible workday trousers. For one thing, the amount of drawing that was done would have taken some time. These were some serious pen marks. Put a white hat on it and my pocket would have looked right at home in the Smurf village. Just call me Vandalized Smurf.
I'd like to think I would have noticed someone putting in that kind of effort on my derriere, but it's possible I could have missed it. I had a calendar in that particular pocket, so it's certainly possible I wouldn't have felt the point of the pen as it sketched a work of modern art behind my back.
But it seems unlikely any young skateboarder would have wanted to devote that kind of attention to my pants when there were other skaters performing tricks with names like "Fakey Rock-it" or "Corkscrew Whackadoodle" or "Hey, I Didn't Fall Down This Time." Even if all the tricks looked, to me, like someone rolling up a ramp, stopping and rolling back down.
I don't get skateboarding.
With all that going on is it really reasonable to think someone would bother to take the time to attack my rear end with a pen?
To tell the truth, I'm not even that upset about the whole thing. All I lost was a pair of pants. And it gave me an opportunity to talk about my fanny in polite company. That can't be all bad, right?
I'm just confused. Outside of abduction by alien art students or marking by some trouser-related secret society I've yet to learn about I just can't figure out how this happened.
Those skateboarders seem like the most likely culprits (everyone knows kids these days are all up to no good, right?) but it's hardly an open-and-shut case. If the pen don't scribble you must not quibble, or something.
Maybe I'm just not meant to know. Maybe some mysteries are beyond the grasp of human understanding.
First Stonehenge, then crop circles and now my pants.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Skaters, you're off the hook.

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Now playing: The Hold Steady - Lord, I'm Discouraged
via FoxyTunes

What's the cause?

2008-06-12T12:42:00.001-07:00

I'm starting to think we've run out of really good causes for people to champion.
Voting rights for women? Done. World peace probably isn't going away anytime soon, but jumping on that bandwagon's hardly original. Equal rights aren't exactly sorted out, but the effort's there. Even the whole Save the Whales things seems a little played out.
These days, it seems like anyone who wants to champion a new cause left with previously unattractive options like laziness or eating other people's garbage, both of which are actual movements with actual names and actual media coverage.
CNN reported this week on something called the Slow Movement, an organized — if presumably lethargic — effort to get people to relax a little bit. Edgar Cahn, a 73-year-old lawyer identified by CNN as one of the movement's leaders (which I assume in this case means "guy with a web page") says people cause themselves stress by trying to cram more and more activity into their lives.
In response, Cahn has started something called TimeBanks, a nonprofit group through which members trade blocks of time with each other. So, for example, you could offer to go to the grocery store for some person you've never met (get them lots of Nutter Butters) in exchange for having some other perfect stranger come mow your lawn or walk your dog or clean your toilet. I don't understand this concept. Easing busy schedules by trading chores with some random person a little bit like easing the economic crisis by trading some dude on the street a $20 for two $10s.
Then again, Edgar Cahn is getting interviewed by CNN while I'm typing a column at home by myself at 10:30 p.m., so maybe he's onto something.
Getting together to discuss having too much on our schedules seems counterintuitive to me, but Cahn is apparently not the only one to have the idea. According to CNN, a group called Take Back Your Time has launched a campaign to address what it calls "time famine" with conferences and "teach-ins" to help people learn they don't need to be busy all the time. Here's my advice: try avoiding anything called a "teach-in." That should free up a few hours right there.
In San Francisco, a group called The Long Now formed to "provide an alternative to a 'faster/cheaper' mind set and promote 'slower/better' thinking. I have no idea what that means, but I imagine their meetings last forever.
Still, as silly as it sounds to organize entire groups around a messages as simple as, "Chill out, dude!" at least the time management people don't dig through your trash looking for a snack. That's a whole other movement. Something called Freeganism which, as far as I can tell, is based entirely on the idea that paying for anything — from furniture to clothing to salad fixin's — is for chumps.
Several years ago I had a roommate who announced proudly one night that he'd just had his first dumpster diving experience. I wasn't sure if congratulating him was the right response, but I made sure to have him point out exactly which bag of chips was his.
Look, I really don't care if you get all giddy about finding a slightly bruised eggplant in a grocery store dumpster. I don't want you to ever invite me over for dinner, but you do what works for you. I just don't think it deserves a whole movement. Freegans seem to believe what they're doing is some kind of statement against consumer culture or something. Mostly, though, I think it's a statement that they're less afraid than most sensible people of getting a stomach parasite.
Maybe it's not their fault. Maybe if these people had been born a few decades earlier they would have been marching to end segregation or trying to ban the bomb or staging sit-ins against New Coke.
Then again, maybe they've just got too much time on their hands.

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Now playing: Massive Attack - Five Man Army
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Words of wisdom

2008-06-06T10:27:00.000-07:00

It's become something of a tradition, this column addressing another class of fresh-faced high school graduates. This annual attempt to impart some final words of wisdom to another class of students as they prepare to dress themselves in uncomfortable gowns, perch funny-looking cardboard caps on their heads and sit in the sun for a few hours in a bizarre ceremony designed to provide some kind of closure to more than a decade of learning, growth and Guitar Hero. As I write this I like to picture you graduates, swathed in polyester and sitting in folding chairs. In my mind's eye, you look like a box of black crayons. Very distinguished. There are reasons these columns pop up year after year, of course. Writing this, I have learned, is the closest I will ever get to actually addressing a graduating class in person. Because while I make my case year after year I have yet to be asked to give a commencement address. Honest-ly, I believe I could bring some real star power to a commencement exercise. I'm known nearly citywide. Columns like this are also easy. They're what idea-starved columnists like to refer to as a gimme. Who, after all, can't come up with a few words of advice for a group of people so unworldly they still believe tapping out misspelled messages on a cell phone keypad is an effective means of communication? Sharing the hard-earned wisdom we've accumulated in the years since we were in your gowns. Most of which consists of repeating the same things someone told us back then. Work hard. Have fun. These are the best years of your life. Small-town journalists get all the women. Granted, some pieces of advice are better than others. High school seniors are conditioned to accept advice this time of year. Studies have shown that high school students who do not receive a consistent supply of advice from parents, family friends or complete strangers on the street frequently develop unsettling symptoms that include an inability to dance like no one is watching. The advice is not all cliché, of course. The people who give it have all been where you will soon be. We've worn the flimsy robes and the dinner-plate hats and we've all asked the question you're bound to ask yourselves as you consider all you've done to this point and all that lies ahead of you: Now what? The prospect of leaving behind the safe halls of Rosemount High School to explore something unfamiliar can be frightening. Remember, though, this is the least frightening graduation you will ever go through. Most of you will go on to college next year. And for all the new experiences it offers college is not the real world. College is the real world with training wheels. You will make decisions there that will affect the rest of your life, but mostly you'll just make decisions that will affect whether you try to scrounge up quarters to do laundry or plan a trip home. Ridiculous outfits and diplomas aside, this isn't the end of the journey. It's just a stop along the way. So pick up your diplomas this week. Listen politely to all the people who want to give you advice. Then go figure it all out for yourself.

Slow ride

2008-05-29T14:16:00.001-07:00

A lot of people took advantage of the long Memorial Day weekend to relax. To welcome summer by getting together with family and friends. To eat large slabs of meat cooked over an open flame, drink cold beverages and think patriotic thoughts.
Not me.
By 8:30 a.m. last Friday I had embarked along with my father and brother on a leg-deadening, butt-numbing and ultimately frustrating attempt to ride a bicycle from St. Paul to Chicago.
That's 450 miles. In three days. I never said it was a good plan.
The trip started well enough. Aside from a steady east-southeast wind blowing in our faces the weather was about perfect as we set off down Summit Avenue with a mixture of enthusiasm and confusion about how, exactly, we had talked ourselves into this.
Day One was unremarkable. There were a few healthy-sized hills early on but the bulk of the riding was on relatively flat roads along the Mississippi River. If not for the 150-mile distance it was the kind of pleasant, scenic ride a sane person might take.
Day Two was another story altogether. At 130 miles it was shorter than the trip's first day. But it also took us through south central Wisconsin, a region with topography clearly designed by someone who enjoys pastoral scenery but hates bicycles and everything associated with them. We climbed more big hills than Sir Edmund Hillary. We were up and down more than John Travolta's career.
Put it this way, when something called Wildcat Mountain isn't even one of the day's five biggest hills it says something about the route. And not something encouraging.
Through it all the wind kept blowing in our face. It was like pedaling a stationary bike in a wind tunnel, but more painful.
In the end, the wind and the hills were too much. At least with the prospect of a 170-mile ride looming on the third day. Eighty miles in, demonstrating for the first time in the weekend something resembling common sense, my brother and I called for a ride. Our father continued on. He might say he was more determined than we were. I can think of some other words that work better.
I was disappointed with my decision almost immediately, even though I knew saving energy for the third day's ride made sense. And that's what I told myself right up until the time we decided a third day of riding unreasonable distances into yet another stiff east wind was more trouble than it was worth.
It seems like we could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble and figured that out at the beginning. Better late than never, I guess.
The trip ended with a Sunday morning car ride from Madison to Chicago. We ate lunch at a restaurant rather than standing outside a convenience store. We sat on seats designed for comfort rather than weight savings. It was an imminently more sensible way to travel.
There were bumps the rest of the way. The hotel didn't have our rooms ready when it was supposed to. The bar wasn't open when it was supposed to be. But at least we could sit without pain.
Despite the hard work, it wasn't a bad way to spend the long weekend. We didn't get to grill or sit in a lawn chair, but we accomplished something, even if it wasn't exactly what we set out to do.
And we woke up Monday morning to a strong west wind.

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Now playing: The Black Keys - Aeroplane Blues
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Spend for America!

2008-05-22T15:04:00.001-07:00

My economic stimulus check has so far been less than stimulating.
I was as excited as anyone when I found out a few months ago that $600 would soon show up in my bank account. Who wouldn't be? Someone wanted to give me money not because I contributed anything of value to society but simply because I exist. It's like any given day in the life of Paris Hilton.
At the time, I had visions of making calls on a shiny new iPhone, finally framing some of the posters I have stashed in the closet of my home office or undergoing unnecessary surgical procedures, all in the name of shoring up the strength of the dollar. Who needs a spleen when the American economy is hurting?
But a funny thing happened between the day the free money was promised and the day it actually appeared in my bank account. I paid bills. Lots of them. And with each mortgage payment and natural gas bill and insurance premium I watched my bank balance fall lower than the Timber-wolves chances of getting a decent player in the upcoming NBA draft.
I wasn't having MC Hammer-level problems or anything, but all of a sudden I didn't feel like I was in the kind of position where frivolous spending seemed like a good idea. Not even in the name of spreading truth, justice and the conspicuous consumption way.
So, ever since that money showed up in my checking account it's done nothing but sit there. It has not brought me high-end consumer electronics products. My walls are still largely bare. And I haven't had so much as a mole removed.
I bring this up now because I feel like I owe America an apology. I was not given this money to selfishly save for my own future. It did not appear as if by magic in my bank account so I could buy boring things like food or gas or beef jerky. When my bank accepted that electronic transfer on my behalf it came with an unspoken demand: in the name of all that's mass produced and disposable, spend like a drunken socialite. And in that I have failed miserably.
I want to make up for my shortcomings, America.
Well, one of my shortcomings. We really don't have time to go into everything else right now.
America, I will shop like I've never shopped before. I'll buy things I never imagined I needed, like a pet urn with a built-in digital photo frame. I haven't had a pet in years, but if I get a dog someday and it dies tragically in an incident involving a clown, a pony and an ill-timed game of fetch (Or something. I don't know.) then what better way to pay tribute than a $250 wood box with a built-in screen that displays low-resolution photos.
I will spend $300 on ESPN's so-called ultimate remote control, because I've lived far too long without a device capable of simultaneously changing the channel to SportsCenter and sending angry e-mails to Kevin McHale.
I will buy things I don't need. Things I don't want. I will buy things nobody could ever possibly use. Why just get an iPhone when for just a few thousand dollars more you can get one encased in gold or caked with crystals? Horribly ugly, sure, but think of all the economic good you'll be doing.
I might even buy a copy of Windows Vista.
We're all in this together America. Now, what do you say we all go out for ice cream. I'm buying.

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Now playing: Fountains Of Wayne - The Valley Of Malls
via FoxyTunes

Name that tune?

2008-05-15T13:58:00.001-07:00

I feel like I used to know more about music.
It's not that I was ever any kind of expert. I could never have told you who else was on the bill when Dylan went electric, or what the Kingsmen are singing in Louie Louie or what, exactly, living la vida loca entails (presumably a lot of ointment). But I used to at least know the names of the songs I was listening to.
Set the bar low. That's what I always say.
These days, though, I struggle to maintain even that much knowledge. I've bought three CDs in the last month or so and listened to each of them multiple times. I've enjoyed each of them, some a lot. And yet, off the top of my head I can come up with the titles for maybe four songs. And to be fair, that's largely because in three of them the song's title is featured in the song to an almost ridiculous degrees. For example, here's the chorus to the Black Keys song Lies: "Lies, lies, lies, oh lies." Taking credit for getting that one right feels a little like taking credit for predictions like, "I bet we'll have a new President in January" or "I bet some celebrity will get a lot of publicity for doing something embarrassing this week." It just feels hollow.
There are songs I like a lot on each of those three CDs but I'll be damned if I could name them for you.
By contrast, with roughly the same amount of thought I was able to come up with five song titles from REM's 1992 classic Automatic for the People even though I haven't listened to that CD in at least a year.
I'm not sure what this says about me as a music listener. I still believe music is important, and I still enjoy discovering new artists. But the way I listen to music is different than it used to be.
Back in my younger days I'd get a new CD or, let's face it, cassette — but only rarely an eight-track — and pop it into the player. I'd sit and listen to it while scanning through the liner notes to see if they'd included lyrics or photos or free gum or anything.
These days the liner notes don't always even make it out of the case. That is, if I have them at all.
Technology has changed things. With more and more people buying their music online, physical packaging is becoming less common. Those last three CDs I bought all involved me going to the store and bringing a CD home, but the purchased music file in my iTunes player has more than 250 songs. And even when I buy an actual CD the second thing I do usually involves transferring the music to my computer.
The first thing I do is listen to the CD in my car on the way home, but that's a process that doesn't much lend itself to in-depth reading.
The third thing I usually do is dance around in my underpants like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, but that's really neither here nor there.
One by one, it seems, song titles are being moved out of my brain and into my iPod playlist. They're still there, but I'm usually devoting my attention to something else, anyway.
I suppose this isn't all bad. Eliminating the song title section of my brain frees up more space to remember things like credit card numbers or recipes for mixed drinks.
And sure, it can get a little challenging when you want to tell someone about a song you like and can only describe it as, "You know, that one with the guitar?" But honestly, which would you rather have: A song title or a well-made mojito?
That's what I thought.

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Now playing: The Bad Plus - Everywhere You Turn
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One big biking family (jerks and all)

2008-05-01T14:53:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of things I like about biking. I like that it keeps me in shape, that it allows me to go fast and that it provides an excuse to wear stretchy shorts in public.
I'm not crazy about being honked at or run off the road by drivers with more pent-up anger than common sense, but sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.
I also like the fact just about anyone can do it. Outside of foot power, a bicycle is just about the most universal mode of transportation around.
I was reminded of this last Sunday morning as I shook off the effects of a Saturday night dinner that prominently featured Belgian beer to ride in the Minnesota Ironman, the popular bike ride that begins each April at Lakeville High School.
Pedaling the 100 or so miles of my particular route provided a pretty fair overview of the bicycle community. As I rode I passed entire families on bicycles, mothers and fathers pedaling full-size bicycles while children pedaled furiously to keep up on their BMX bikes. I passed fit men and women wearing high-tech bike gear and pedaling bikes that cost as much as a decent used car and others who appeared to be making an effort to get into better shape, toiling on bikes that hadn't left the garage in months. Some of the latter reminded of that song about the ant and the rubber-tree plant. I'm not sure if they had high hopes of finishing or of just avoiding the emergency room. For a few, either one might have been an accomplishment.
I passed more than one person making the ride in jeans, which brought to mind horrifying visions of the chafing that no doubt awaited them.
About the only thing missing was a senior citizen on one of those gigantic tricycle deals with the basket on front.
We were like one big family out there. Together we braved wind and cold and red, stinging thighs. I'm sure we didn't all finish, but we all tried. And that's worth something.
Bikers get a bad rap sometimes. As I write this, KSTP TV is preparing to air an investigative report it has titled, "Bicyclists breaking the law." In it, the station's hard-hitting investigators point a long, shaming finger at cyclists who don't come to a complete stop at intersections.
Fair enough. I'll admit I haven't stopped at every single stop sign I've seen — momentum is a beautiful thing. But I also know as a driver I've never once been inconvenienced by a biker breaking the rules of the road. I have, however, been riding my bike legally only to have an angry motorist flash me an obscene gesture and threaten to run me off the road. I've had a driver yell at me for running a stop light while I was stopped at a light. And my brother once smashed his bike into a car when it made a last-second right turn from the left lane in front of him.
There are bikers who are jerks just like there are drivers who are too aggressive. Maybe this isn't as obvious as I think it should be, but the average bicyclist has no interest in being hit by a car. The odds just aren't in our favor. We just want to ride.
Well, ride and wear stretchy shorts.

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Now playing: Radiohead - How To Disappear Completely
via FoxyTunes

The myth of a job well done

2008-04-24T14:34:00.001-07:00

Somewhere along the line, and I can't say exactly when, I convinced myself that if only I owned my home the chores that might otherwise seem tedious and unpleasant would be magically transformed. Somehow, I reasoned, otherwise unappealing jobs like mowing the lawn, raking leaves and making mortgage payments would be rewarding when I was performing them in the interest of my own home. I believed the sense of satisfaction that comes with a job well done would outweigh the drudgery involved in getting the job done.
I am quickly coming to realize that this line of thinking is what the great philosophers refer to as "total bunk."
I moved into my house in November and, honestly, winter wasn't too bad. I don't have a lot of sidewalk to clear, and it seemed like half the time one of my neighbors would use his snowblower to clear most of it before I got home. Apparently when you have a home with 20 feet of sidewalk frontage you need to do something to justify owning a gas-guzzling snow throwing machine. Whatever his reason, I was fully in favor of the results.
Spring has been a different matter. I haven't had to mow the lawn yet — we'll talk more about that in a bit — but I've spent a fair amount of time already raking. It's a job made more challenging by the fact I have several large trees in my back yard. And by the fact the home's previous owner didn't bother to do any raking of his own last fall. My yards, front and back, were covered with a thick coat of leaves that had spent months under a blanket of snow. The leaves seemed perfectly happy to stay where they were.
I made a first pass at the back yard a few weeks ago, but that was more out of curiosity than any interest in actually getting the job done then. Once the snow had melted I started to notice there was a decided lack of grass in the yard. Turns out, the grass in my back yard is thinner than Nicole Ritchie on a diet. By the time I was finished the tips of my rake tines were encased in fair-sized balls of mud and my shoes were caked with enough gunk to make me a couple of inches taller.
I made another attempt at the job on Sunday. The front yard was easier. There are fewer trees there, and there was at least a respectable lawn underneath the leaves. In two-some hours of work I filled 10 bags — all I had — with leaves. I'd also developed a sore back, a twinge in my right shoulder and a healthy skepticism about the true value of pride in a job well done.
I can take pride in painting a room or building something. Those jobs take at least a little skill. Even if its your own yard you're cleaning up, raking is just dragging around a fancy stick. There's no pride to be found there. A moderately intelligent monkey could do it.
In fact, if you know any particularly sharp monkeys I've got more leaves to clear. I'd be happy to provide the bananas.

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Now playing: Radiohead - Morning Bell
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Do you have the status of the daylight?

2008-04-17T13:06:00.001-07:00

It's hardly my place to tell other people how to spend their money. If you want to fill your home with expensive art and take luxurious vacations, more power to you. If you want to pamper yourself with lavish meals, well, I'm sure that steak was totally worth $150. And if you want to spend your hard-earned cash putting spinning rims on an otherwise stock Toyota Camry, well, go find your inner Sprewell, baby.
There comes a time, though, when you start to feel like the super-rich are just messing with the rest of us. A time, for example when you see something like Swiss watchmaker Romain Jerome's Day&Night watch.
Now, I can appreciate a nice watch. I could have spent $5 at a drugstore when I bought my last watch but I didn't. I wanted something nicer. I didn't get anything extravagant. It looks nice, but when you get down to it it's just a way to tell time, something I figure is an important feature of any watch.
The folks at Romain Jerome appear to disagree. Their new showpiece, which at $300,000 costs as much as a pretty decent house in this market, will not tell you whether you're running late for your dentist's appointment or your tee time at the club. It doesn't have a calculator or a Dick Tracy-style radio or even anything to show you the date. It just tells you whether the sun is up.
And according to Reuters, the time — er, daypiece? — sold out within 48 hours of its launch.
It's an admittedly striking watch, presuming you like the "left to rust for three years in the bottom of a rain barrel look. But is a pitted, grimy-looking exterior really enough to explain why people are dropping the equivalent of a nice split-level on a piece of jewelry that tells them something they should be able to figure out simply by opening their eyes.
I can see how the Day&Night watch might be useful for a race of well-to-do mole people, but is this really a reasonable purchase for any of us who lives in the surface world?
To be fair, the watch apparently uses something called Tourbillon movement, a complicated mechanical something-or-other designed to counteract the effect of Earth's gravity on the watch's accuracy. Which means it can tell you with astounding precision whether there's enough light out for you to see your wrist in front of your face.
What is the justification for this extravagance? Romain Jerome chief executive Yvan Arpa told Reuters it's because people want a trophy. And what better way to tell everyone around you you have more money than you could possibly spend than spending more than a decade's worth of minimum wage salary on the equivalent of a window?
I'll tell you what, ridiculously rich people of the world — if you really want to show off, you can hire me. I'll give you my cell phone number and guarantee I'll pick it up any time, day or night. If you're ever uncertain whether the sun is up, you call me and I, using a series of complex mathematical computations — or maybe Google Maps — will tell you whether you should be eating breakfast or dinner. And I'll do it all for the bargain price of $250,000.
How can you beat that?

Ah, the spring bike ride

2008-04-11T08:09:00.000-07:00

Early season bike rides are always tricky business. The weather's unpredictable. The equipment is usually in need of a tuneup and the physical fitness of the previous summer has gone the way of the dodo and Britney Spears' dignity.
Take Sunday. It was 40-odd degrees and rainy when my father, my brother and I set out from our respective homes. Each of us knew the experience would be unpleasant, but nobody wanted to be the one to actually call it off. I suspect this is how Two and a Half Men stays on the air, give or take a detail or two.
Anyway, there we were. We were all soaked within minutes. We were cold. And our faces were steadily being caked with mud kicked up by the person riding in front of us. It was the kind of ride where you start anticipating a hot shower roughly 15 minutes after you start.
Then things started to get bad.
The first flat tire happened about 10 miles into the ride. We were headed south on Highway 13 when my dad announced his rear wheel had sprung a leak. We stopped under the overhang in front of a Mexican restaurant to repair it and, having given our bodies an opportunity to vent any spare warmth they'd built up to that point, set out again into the mist.
Here's the other thing about early-season rides in the rain. Rain, it turns out, fills up the multitude of potholes that develop on Minnesota roads over the winter. This makes the potholes difficult to see, which in turn leads to an uncomfortable number of jolts as you ride into holes large enough to swallow mid-sized dogs.
I don't know if those bumps were the cause of the next flat, but for one reason or another my front tire started leaking air a few miles after our first stop. Air was jetting out of the tire fast enough to make bubbles in the puddles on the road. That leak blew harder than Memphis' free throw shooting Monday night.
At this point, we started to worry. Each of us carried one spare tube. My brother's was the only one left. And considering we had something like 30 miles to go, that suddenly didn't seem like good odds.
We didn't beat the odds. Just over 30 miles into the ride, my back tire suddenly went softer than the Twins' bats this season. My brother grudgingly gave up his spare. I put it on the rim and started to pump it up. I got it about half full before all the air rushed back out, leaving us spare-less on Old Shakopee Road in Bloomington. When a self-adhesive patch I carried with me failed completely to adhere, my ride was officially over.
I spent the next hour and a half waiting in an Oasis Market in Bloomington while my dad finished his ride. My face was caked with mud from forehead to chin. I looked like a Navy Seal getting ready for a night mission. A scrawny, ineffective Navy Seal.
I was wearing spandex shorts, bike shoes and a close-fitting rain jacket. I felt, I have to say, a little out of place among the people stopping in to buy cigarettes. Or the college-age clerk who spent the entire time listening to Beatles music who said at one point he would have been taller but all the drugs he'd done stunted his growth.
My dad finally made it back to get me, but not before getting one last flat half a mile from home forced him to call for a ride of his own. By the time I got home it was nearly 5 p.m., roughly five hours after I'd rolled away from my front door. I was wet and cold and tired and generally uncomfortable.
But, hey, at least it's supposed to snow this weekend.

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Seasons change; people change

2008-04-04T11:17:00.000-07:00

Dear Winter,
We need to talk.
I know what you're thinking. I can see it in your eyes. You're worried this is one of "those" talks. And, well, it is. Because as important as you are to me, I think it's time I moved on.
I'd like to start seeing other seasons.
Hey. No. Don't do that. Come on. Dumping six inches of snow on everyone isn't going to change things. You can't hide the distance that's grown between us. You can't bury feelings under ice crystals. Things between us have grown cold, and I need something warmer. Something greener. Something that doesn't cause me to injure my back heaving wet snow off my sidewalk.
We had some good times, Winter. Remember a few months ago when I slipped on some ice and got bruises all up and down the side of my body? That was a hoot. I ached for days.
But, Winter, I need to move on. I'm a different person now than I was five months ago. I'm in a different place. I've put away my shovel. I've stored my bag of sidewalk salt. I bought a garden hose. I bought a lawn mower. That means I need a lawn, Winter. And I'm never going to have one if you don't stop dumping snow all over my yard. Given my past demonstrations of gardening skills I might not have one anyway, but you've got to let me at least try to grow.
I've got my bike out, Winter. You know what that means? It means slushy streets and sub-freezing temperatures are not cool. Spandex and sleet do not mix, Winter. I need you to understand that, because the way I've been eating these last few months — it's because I'm uncomfortable around you, I think — I need to get out there and get some exercise.
It's not just me, Winter. You've worn out your welcome here and people are starting to get uncomfortable. They're too polite to say anything, but there are a lot of people who are ready to trade in their boots and snow pants for flip-flops and cargo shorts. You've got to let them go.
If it helps, I have a feeling this isn't the end for us, Winter. People change, you know? Sunny skies and warm weather might seem good now, but who knows if it will last. We might feel very different in a few months. We'll have tired of swimming and walking in the park and long for an opportunity to ski or snowshoe.
We've been through this before, Winter, and somehow we always end up back together. Pretty soon we'll realize life in Minnesota just isn't the same without you. Let's face it, you're as iconic in this state as lutefisk and underachieving football teams.
For now, though, you need to go. Take your things with you. Yes, the toothbrush, too.
It's been fun, Winter. But you've got to go.
Love, Nathan

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A lovely shade of Social Butterfly

2008-03-28T11:21:00.001-07:00

I feel like I've spent a lot of time since I bought my first house last November about my ineptitude when it comes to doing household projects while simultaneously describing my successful home repair projects. Frankly, it's starting to seem a little disingenuous. I feel like I need to set the record straight.
Yes, I can use a circular saw without bashing my thumbnail, and I can swing a hammer without cutting off any limbs. Given enough instruction and enough help I can build a sofa table that is functional, if not necessarily a work of furniture art. And I was able to figure out why I had water in my basement and fix the problem by caulking a window in my shower.
I'm not exactly Bob Vila — or even Bob the Builder — but I know which way to point the sharp end of a drill.
None of which made me particularly confident when I set out to paint my living room last weekend.
Painting is intimidating. I lived for three years in an apartment with awful floral wallpaper on one of the living room walls because I couldn't bring myself to face the possibility of painting.
It's never been the work itself I've objected to. I actually kind of like that part, at least on a small scale. And while I'd never painted an entire room on my own before I was pretty sure I understood the underlying concepts. Where I really got lost was the color selection. Not the number. The names. I didn't realize until a few weeks ago just how far out of control the paint color namers have gotten.
With my new house I knew early on I wanted to paint my living room a kind of dark yellow. No problem there. But then I had to find a name I could live with. I don't care how much I liked the color, I don't think I could ever tell my friends I'd painted my walls First Light. Or Uplifting. Or Champagne Sparkle. I definitely couldn't go with Newborn. Way too creepy.
What if I'd chosen something browner? Could I live with myself knowing I was surrounded every day by shades of Cotton Field? Or Cozy Melon? I really don't think so.
Ultimately I settled on a dark yellow called Sunflower. If you ask me, though, it's more of a cheddar cheese color than anything flowery. It's definitely cheesier than the sample I've got of Sharp Cheddar. Explain that one.
Some names are definitely better than others. I can live with the Smoldering Red I got for another room in my house, but I'm not going anywhere near Shy Cherry. I grudgingly settled on an orangey brown called Tangerine Dream for my bedroom, although based on name alone I was tempted to go with something called Butterscotch Tempest. I'm still holding out hope I can find some Chocolate Thunderstorm or Tapioca Hurricane for the dining room.
The painting itself was uneventful if not exactly flawless. By the time I was done there was paint on my hands, on my clothes and on the bottoms of my shoes. There was paint on the baseboards and on the ceilings, although I think I've mostly gotten that off. I think the room looks good. But let's just call it yellow.

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Life story? Say it in six

2008-03-20T11:36:00.000-07:00

Rumor has it someone once challenged Ernest Hemingway to write a story using just six words. The result, or so the story goes, was this: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
I have no idea if this story is true, though I've seen it recounted several times in recent years. For all I know the whole thing started because some guy sitting around in his underwear felt some sudden literary inspiration on the same night he cranked out an e-mail about Nigerian princes who want to give you money and an inspirational story about a kitten rescuing a firefighter.
I'd like the story to be real, but it doesn't really matter. Whether or not it was Hemingway, somebody wrote that tiny little story, and it fascinates me. A big part of my job involves finding ways to squeeze people's stories onto the ever-shrinking pages of this newspaper, and seeing someone — whether it was Papa Hemingway himself or the anonymous underpants guy — pack so much emotional significance into so few words is remarkable. I'm better at that kind of thing now than I was when I started in this job a little over a decade ago, but clearly I've still got a ways to go.
The first time I heard the Hemingway story was in November of 2006, when Wired magazine posed a similar challenge to a collection of professional authors. Science fiction writer Orson Scott Card submitted, "The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly." Foulmouth director Kevin Smith added, "Kirby had never eaten toes before." Some of the entries were good. Some weren't. Some were funny. Some were serious. But none had the same kind of impact as the original.
More recently, an online publication called Smith Magazine made the experiment more personal, asking celebrities and readers alike to submit six-word memoirs. The results were published recently in a book called Not Quite What I Was Planning.
That's what got me thinking about all of this. Could I tell one of my subjects' stories in so little space? Could I tell my own? How would I even start?
I could focus on work, I suppose. Keep it simple. "I came. I saw. I reported." Or, "Excuse me, but I have to ask...." But does that capture the fact I'm doing a job for which I never received any formal education? That I never took a journalism class, nor worked on a school paper? How about, "Journalist? Me? I don't think so."?
I could write about the things I do for fun: "Biked far. Rode fast. Butt sore." Or I could try to convey the emotions of owning my first home: "I pay the mortgage monthly? Ugh!"
There are plenty of options, but I'm not sure any of them really captures every aspect of my life. There's just too much there. And my life isn't even that interesting.
In the end, maybe I'll just go with this: "Had fun so far. What's next?"
So, that's mine. Now it's your turn. Starting this week there will be an opportunity on our web page, www.farmingtonindependent.com (or www.rosemounttownpages.com), to post your own six-word memoir. Make it funny if you want, or keep it serious. Write one or write a dozen. Do it online or mail them to me at PO Box 192 in Farmington. Heck, you can even call and ask us to transcribe them if you want. We're going to post a few of our own, too, but we really want to know how you define yourself.

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Just keep it short.

It's all a lie

2008-03-13T13:29:00.000-07:00

Daylight Savings Time started Sunday morning, which means roughly one-third of Americans showed up for their first activity Sunday morning and wondered where the heck everyone else was.
Most of us have adjusted by now, but highly scientific data I just made up suggest that at least 12 percent of people still have at least one clock they have not changed. Another .3 percent simply never bothered to set their clocks back last fall will now finally be on time again.
Daylight Savings Time disrupts our lives every year around this time. It robs us of an hour of sleep and forces us to dig out long-buried instruction manuals so we can change clocks on microwave ovens and car dashboards. Yet for all that it remains one of our most beloved examples of mass self-deception, right up there with the beliefs baseball is exciting and American Idol contestants are talented artists.
Let's face it: at its core Daylight Savings Time is really nothing more a near-worldwide agreement to spend several months each year pretending it's an hour later than it actually is. The flow of time doesn't actually change. Days didn't magically become longer Sunday morning. We're all lying to ourselves so we can play in the sun a little longer while it's warm outside.
According to the California Department of Energy's website, the idea for Daylight Savings Time began with Benjamin Franklin, who while a minister to France proposed it in an essay titled "An Economic Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light." Less well known is that Franklin published a similar essay around the same time suggesting a worldwide agreement that overweight, bespectacled, balding men were super sexy.
Frankly, this only confirms my belief that Franklin was the lyingest of our Founding Fathers. In fact, the more I think about it the more I'm convinced all of the Founders were just out to mess with people. Free press? People took that seriously? Those kidders.
Granted, there are some good reasons for this kind of self-deception. Pretending its suddenly staying light longer gives us more time after work to do things like mow the lawn or go out for ice cream. And various studies have suggested that Daylight Savings Time leads to everything from a reduction in violent crime to safer roads. According to the website webexhibits.com, several studies in Great Britain have found that safer roads during the now-illuminated evening hours more than offset an increase in accidents among people forced to drive to work in the dark. In other words, if you have any driving to do this summer try to do it after noon. Otherwise, you're taking your life into your own hands.
Still, Daylight Savings Time isn't without its controversies. Hawaii still doesn't recognize Daylight Savings Time. Nor does Arizona, although the Navajo Nation within the state does. Which really messes you up when you visit the casinos.
In 1965, not even Minneapolis and St. Paul could come to an agreement on Daylight Savings Time. That year, St. Paul set its clocks ahead on the same day as the rest of the country, while its neighbor to the west conformed to state law and waited a few weeks. So, depending on which way you were going, crossing the Mississippi River that summer could have taken either an hour or sent you back in time. Although, that’s kind of what it’s like driving from Minneapolis to St. Paul anyway.
Even the Amish have trouble agreeing on Daylight Savings Time. According to webexhibits.org there is no consensus among the Amish communities about whether to observe Daylight Savings Time. In one Ohio county, the site claims, 10 of 90 Amish church districts opt out of Daylight Savings Time. Which inevitably raises questions about how exactly a person goes about setting a sun dial an hour ahead.
I, for one, am all in favor of Daylight Savings Time. It's been nice this week driving home in the daylight. And considering I'm already hard at work convincing myself I'm talented and handsome (at least as good-looking as Ben Franklin) I don't see how a little more self-deception could hurt.

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Check out the spokes on that one!

2008-03-06T13:12:00.001-08:00

Plenty of guys get excited this time of year for the arrival of Sports Illustrated's annual swimsuit issue. I can appreciate that. When I was younger I spent plenty of time paging through the annual collection of superfit models in superskimpy outfits, just knowing somewhere in there a well-placed splash would have turned some woman's bikini top just translucent enough to reveal ... well, you know. Naughty stuff.
These days, though? I get my late-winter thrills from a different and not necessarily healthier source: bike magazine buyer's guides.
Oh, sure, there's still something to be said for an entire magazine full of mono-named models lounging seductively in what appears to be highly impractical beachwear. But these days there are so many more options for seeing attractive women in their almost-altogether. Magazines like Maxim and Stuff and, I think, Popular Science, bring that kind of thing to readers every single month. Scantily clad women are practically required viewing on the Internet.
Pictures of supermodels in mesh tankinis are great, but how about the carbon-fiber weave on a new Trek? And what's the finish on that new titanium model? Is it ... nude? Good golly!
Let's face it, a well-made bike frame is about the sexiest a couple of triangles are ever going to look.
For the last week or so I've been pouring over Bicycling magazine's annual buyer's guide the same way I used to flip through pictures of Kathy Ireland and Elle MacPherson. Is it entirely healthy to linger over photo after photo of lovingly crafted bikes when I'm already riding something that costs several times more than a lot of people's first cars? Maybe not. Five-figure price tags aside, a lot of these bikes just weren't made for someone like me. I'm 6-6, and this is a sport where someone who stands six feet tall and weighs 180 pounds is practically a giant. High-level bike racers are like slightly taller jockeys with bigger thighs. There's a legitimate risk some of the really featherweight bikes would just plain fall to pieces under someone my size.
Why do it, then? For the same reason -- well, sort of -- I used to get excited about that swimsuit issue. It's an aspirational thing. As much as I'd like to have enough in the bank to drop the price of a Toyota Yaris on a custom-made Italian dream machine that will do everything but pedal me up hills on its own, that's not going to happen anytime soon. But I'm never going to date a swimsuit model, either.
At least, that's what the restraining orders say.
It's still nice to look at the pictures, though. It's just, instead of looking at pictures of beautiful women in exotic locations and wondering where the tide might have washed that poor model's bikini top I'm reading about exotic frame materials and beautiful frame geometries and wondering just how much faster I could ride right now if I'd spent the extra grand or two to knock an extra few grams off my bike's weight.
Now that's sexy.

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I just don't get it

2008-02-21T13:16:00.000-08:00

I never claimed to be any kind of genius, but I don't think I'm a dummy, either. I got good grades in school. I read books with big words. And I'm pretty sure I understood the deeper meaning of last summer's Transformers movie. The heroic Autobots represented Man's quest for understanding and peace among all people, right? And the evil Decepticons represented big freaking robots?
See? I've got a couple of brain cells to rub together. But there are still some things I just don't understand.
I don't understand tattoos, for example. I get that body art has special meaning for some people, and that's fine. It just seems to me there are better forms of self-expression than having someone permanently etch a strand of barbed wire around your bicep or Tweety Bird on your fanny.
Still, a lower back tattoo of a butterfly is downright ordinary compared to what a Canadian tattoo artist did to himself recently. According to the Edmonton Sun, 30-year-old Lane Jensen wanted to add a little something to the tattoo of the buxom cowgirl on his calf. So, last December he gave her breast implants. Like, actual bags of silicone implanted in his calf. How he ever intended to make his socks fit right again I have no idea.
Perhaps not surprisingly, things did not go well for old Lane. His tiny fake calf-breasts got infected and by Christmas eve the sutures had split and, according to the Sun, drained a liter of lymphatic fluid. For those unfamiliar, a liter is metric-speak for "a whole lot of gross leg-goo."
In other words, ick.
I don't understand people who are way too into their pets, either. It's great if you love your cats and dogs and treat them well. But when you find yourself shopping on a site like kittywigs.com it might be time to take a closer look at your life. Kittywigs, as the name suggests, produces wigs for your feline friends. You know, in case you ever feel the need to make kitty look more like a shorter, hairier Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The wigs come in four models, each certain to induce weeks of nightmares involving former first ladies hacking up hairballs.
When it comes to producing feelings of unease, though, even cat wigs have nothing on dog armor. I have no earthly idea why, outside of severe mental instability, a person would want to dress his dog like a character from an awful fantasy novel. If you do, though, the people at organicarmor.com can take care of you. Even better: You can get you and your dog matching suits. Probably a good idea to be well protected when your dog, sick of parading around in his jeweled helmet, tries to chew your throat open while you sleep.
I'm sure I'll never understand fashion.
I'm not talking about that Haute Coture stuff. Those aren't really clothes. I'm pretty sure they're an elaborate method devised for communicating with alien beings who secretly visit Earth to find great bargains at our outlet malls. I'm talking about everyday stuff. Stuff like Reebok's recently released line of Kool Ade scented shoes. You know, for those times you find yourself saying, "Gosh, I wish my shoes smelled more like I'd just spilled a pitcher of fruit punch on them."
The shoes, available in grape, strawberry and cherry, went on sale at the beginning of the month.
I just don't get it.

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Now playing: Tim Fite - Over The Counter Culture
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Coming soon to prime time?

2008-02-15T12:13:00.000-08:00

There is good news and bad news to be found in the end this week of the three month-plus strike by the Writer's Guild of America. Certainly, the deal is good news for television fans. With professional writers back on the job we will once again have quality, first-run entertainment flowing to our living rooms each night. It hurts me to think fans of According to Jim have been left with unresolved storylines although not as much as it hurts to realize there are actually fans of According to Jim. The deal is also good news for writers, who will now reportedly get paid more for DVD and online reproduction of their work. This is entirely reasonable. These people are professionals and deserve to be compensated as such. You certainly can't trust amateurs with important things like plots involving oafish husbands, their disproportionately attractive wives and their sassy children and/or wacky neighbors. It would be chaos. Most of the jokes involved in these shows have been around since Jackie Gleason and The Honeymooners and they've grown brittle over the years. Handling them now takes a delicate touch. The news isn't as good for television studios, which will have to pay more to a class of employees that, given the success of high-quality reality fare like that show where they hook people to polygraphs and ask them whether they've ever cheated on their taxes or been physically attracted to livestock, has started to seem less and less necessary. So much for next season's Thursday night lineup of Playing Shuffleboard with the Stars, Hey, Dummy, this Preschooler is Smarter than You and Fornication Beach. The WGA deal is also bad news for me. Sure, I'm as happy as anyone to have a fresh stream of new CSI: Without a Special Victims Cold Case episodes on the way, but with professional writers returning to work there's almost no chance the networks are going to want the scripts I've been working up to help fill the gaps. These scripts still needed a little polishing, but since they'll probably never see the light of a cathode ray tube I figured I'd share a few of them here.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: The scene opens at a party. Attractive women in short skirts are laughing and having a good time with square-jawed men. Suddenly, there's a scream. Someone has been impaled on an ice sculpture. There is no evidence. But wait! Here come the CSI guys! They look at the crime scene and smirk knowingly. (Insert 40-minute special effects sequence of CSI investigators collecting evidence and suggesting theories) The investigators wrap up the case with an improbable explanation of what happened and more special effects. They high-five.
CSI: Miami: See above, but replace impaled by an ice sculpture with swarmed by rabid bats. Also, instead of high-fiving the CSI investigators dance the twist. Also, intercut special effects sequences with shots of David Caruso looking impossibly smug.
Law and Order: The one With the Crazy Guy: Vincent D'Onofrio acts like a lunatic for an hour.
Medium: Patricia Arquette sees spooky things, gets spooked, never seems to get used to the idea that she's seeing spooky things even though it's been, like, three seasons now. Cold
Case: Detectives look into a case from several years ago. First suspect tells them he didn't do it, but sends them to someone else. Period-appropriate music plays. Detectives accuse second suspect, who blames someone else. (Music) Detectives accuse third suspect, who puts the blame back on first suspect, who the detectives then arrest. More music. Viewers try to figure out what the heck just happened.
According to Jim: Jim does something exasperating, acts goofy. Jim's wife gets exasperated. Jim bickers with his sister-in-law or whoever that woman is. Jim redeems himself. Viewers continue to watch for some reason.

Minnesota's official state column?

2008-02-07T08:38:00.000-08:00

So, I'm driving to work the other day and I'm listening to NPR and they're airing a story about somebody trying to get something or other named the official state whatsit of Maryland.
I'll admit I really wasn't paying close attention. And even though later review has revealed it was walking Marylanders were trying to have enshrined as the state's official exercise I still can't say I care too much.
What caught my attention, though, came at the end of the story. That's when the reporter revealed some in the state opposed granting walking state symbol status because they feel Maryland has too many such symbols, including blue crabs (official state crustacean), the shell of an extinct snail (official state fossil shell) and jousting (official state sport).
This revelation raised two interesting points. One, the fossil shell of the cucuella ginanta really got a raw deal. And, two, apparently the sporting scene in Maryland has yet to advance past the middle ages. Which, I guess, explains University of Maryland basketball.
It got me thinking, though. I know the ladyslipper is Minnesota's state flower, wild rice is the state grain and the loon is the state bird (unless you believe the novelty t-shirts, in which case it's the comically oversized mosquito). But are there other symbols I should know about? Was I somehow living in ignorance of the fact my home state for some reason identifies its sporting scene with jai alai?
Apparently I wasn't. Minnesota's list of state symbols is almost disappointingly short and predictable. The state fish is the walleye. The state gem is the Lake Superior Agate. The state tree is the Norway pine.
Yawn. There wasn't an archaic sporting practice or a long-dead mollusk anywhere to be found. California has a state fife and drum band, Michigan has a state reptile and all we've got is a state drink.
It's milk, which, I suppose, goes really well with our state muffin (blueberry). If only we could get our legislators to designate Nesquick mix our state powder I could have myself an official Minnesota chocolate milk.
It's not until you get to the list of our rejected state symbols that things start to get interesting. I'm not sure whether the fact we have on multiple occasions rejected efforts to name the leopard frog our state amphibian means we have better things to do than other states or if it just means our legislators really can't get anything done.
It turns out there's a long list of rejected state symbols. Most recently, there was legislation introduced in 2007 that would have made the tilt-a-whirl our state ride. A companion bill that would have made queasiness our official state of being didn't go anywhere.
The competition for state mammal status has been heated over the years. There have been eight failed attempts to give that status to the white tailed deer and six attempts to give it to the eastern timber wolf. You have to figure the performance of our state's NBA franchise isn't helping that animal's chances.
There were competing bills in 1987 to designate a state beer. I cannot confirm that supporters of either Schell's Deer Brand beer or Cold Spring beer missed the votes in question because they were too hung over to get out of bed that day.
There has been legislation to name an official state fossil (the giant beaver), state folk dance (square dance) and state mineral (iron ore). HF970 tried to introduce a state soup in 1998 (wild rice) and in both 1998 and 1999 there were attempts to name a state reptile (the blandings turtle).
Maybe most unsettling, though, is HF970, which Senator Jack Davies introduced in 1977 in an attempt to have the leech named Minnesota's state parasite.
I mean, everyone knows that should be the lawyer.

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What's next? Smurfs: the Movie?

2008-02-01T12:28:00.000-08:00

Little by little, Hollywood is destroying my childhood.
Not all of it, obviously. So far as I know no producer has proposed a sitcom exploring my brief careers in 4-H or Cub Scouts. And there will probably never be an inspirational sports movie about the time my indoor soccer team won its league championship (Although there totally should be; we were awesome!).
No, mostly our nation’s entertainment industry has limited itself to producing mildly soul-killing updates on the television shows and movies that brought me so much joy when I was younger.
This isn't a new trend, I realize, but it seems to be picking up speed. Writers and producers don't have time to wait for their audience to actually become nostalgic about something. They have to create the nostalgia out of bailing wire, papier mache and the tears of tiny infants.
It was just a few years ago, remember, that the viewing public was subjected to remakes of before-my-time material like The Mod Squad, The Avengers and Bewitched. And while I'm not sure it's fair to say anyone was truly nostalgic for a show about the hilarious consequences of a human marrying a witch, at least enough time had passed that it was possible.
Now, the window between original and remake keeps shrinking. The past 12 months alone has brought newfangled versions of at least four television programs I enjoyed in my youth which, I swear, wasn’t all that long ago.
The adaptations met with varying levels of success. Transformers, which took its inspiration from a series of half-hour commercials for a line of toy robots, was big and stupid but ultimately kind of fun. I could have done without the scene where a robot relieved itself, but I’m willing to let it go.
I didn’t see either Underdog, about a super-powered canine, or The Chipmunks, but I saw trailers for both and feel confident when I say the would have made me weep for the lost innocence of youth and the death of creativity. Or maybe they just would have made me nauseous.
The movies share some characteristics. Both bring live action into what was once entirely a cartoon world, and both feature Jason Lee, who seemed pretty cool back when he was making movies like Mallrats and Chasing Amy but who now apparently sees nothing wrong with scenes in which he eats chipmunk poop.
I don’t know what the deal is with remakes and bodily function-related humor, but it makes me really nervous about any potential MacGuyver remakes.
Just a few weeks ago, NBC relaunched American Gladiators, the long lost and little mourned competition in which ordinary folks went up against steroid-crazed “Gladiators” with names like Thunder and Tower and Bulkyguy in events that involved whacking each other with padded sticks and rolling around in oversized metal balls. Watching the remake, which somehow managed to bump the crazy level of the gladiators up about three notches and which features Hulk Hogan and Mohammed Ali’s daughter as hosts, I had a hard time remembering what I ever found appealing about the original.
There are more remakes coming, too. A live-action version of G.I. Joe, perhaps the finest cartoon of my childhood, is due soon. So is a remake of Knight Rider, which promises to be awful, but in a completely different way than the David Hasselhoff-filled original.
I imagine the trend will only pick up steam. The window between original and remake will only get shorter.
I, for one, can’t wait for the theatrical release of Saved by the Bell: The Movie.

Sorry, Swedes

2008-02-01T12:26:00.000-08:00

I don't have anything in particular against the Swedes. I spent 10 months living among them during my junior year of high school. I studied their culture, a surprising amount of which revolved around pickled herring and cheese sandwiches. They are a fine, sturdy people who possess many admirable qualities, not least the ability to live in a country that is dark for a good seven-ninths of the day during the winter. Trust me, Sweden is a good place to own a franchise on a flashlight shop.
Sweden has also produced many things that are of great benefit to the world as a whole. I am a big fan of their meatballs, their red gummy candies and their bikini teams.
So please, believe me when I say I have no quarrel with the Nordic peoples as a whole. But I worry that if I have to shop at their furniture store one more time I'm liable to punch someone in the head.
Fortunately, given my marked lack of upper body strength, that is unlikely to do any significant damage. It sure would make me feel better, though.
IKEA, that massive marketer of hex wrench-assembled furniture, caused a big stir when it opened several years ago in Bloomington, it's gigantic blue-and-yellow building proclaiming its overwhelming Swedishness to anyone driving by. People lined up for days for the chance to be the first to buy attractively priced knickknacks with whimsical, pseudo-Swedish names.
I have been to IKEA precisely three times since that day, and I believe a little piece of my soul died each time.
The crowds are part of what drive me crazy about IKEA. For someone whose job involves talking to other people I have remarkably little patience for humanity as a whole.
Actually, I'm generally OK with individuals. It's when you gather a bunch of people as a group, cram them into a confined space and wave bargain-priced glassware in their faces my eyelid really starts to twitch. This is why my rare trips to the Mall of America are typically followed by me locking myself in a dark room for about a week.
It's the design of the store that bugs me most, though. If you've never been, basically you enter through one door, go up an elevator and, with the exception of a few shortcuts, are forced to wander through acre after acre of competitively priced sofas and bed frames. There's only one way in. There's only one way out.
Walking through the store I imagine I understand how cattle feel as they're herded down a long chute toward the slaughterhouse. Only instead of a guy with a hacksaw there's a cash register and a plastic bucket of ginger cookies waiting for me at the end of the line. I think I'm getting a better deal than the cows, but not by much.
I imagine it didn't help that the first time I visited IKEA, ignorant of the unidirectional traffic pattern, I circled the store in reverse, like a salmon swimming upstream. By the time I'd made it halfway I was hoping a bear would come along and put me out of my misery.
Still, when a store's got what you need it's got what you need. And since I needed more cabinet and counter space in my new kitchen I girded my loins, put in my favorite ABBA CD and made the short drive to Bloomington. I got my counter. Now I just need to put it together.
Is anyone good with pictographs?

Dude, put some pants on!

2008-01-17T14:18:00.000-08:00

Dear naked guys hanging out in the locker room at the gym,
Seriously, guys, what's that all about? I get that there needs to be some degree of nakedness in the locker room. It goes with the territory when you've got large crowds of men who need to change clothes in the same room. And I get that, even in the typically reserved Scandinavian population of Minnesota, there are some people who are more at ease with the idea of lounging, stark raving naked, in a room filled with other dudes in similar states of undress. Maybe you're really excited about your body. Maybe you've reached a point in your life where you just don't give a darn. Maybe I'm just being uptight and I should applaud you for the level of comfort you have with your own body. If so, kudos. But I still don't want to see your fanny. There need to be limits in the locker room. A pants-up pact, if you will. Like I said, some level of nudity is unavoidable. Naked dudes in the shower is a given. I certainly don't expect the nation's gym-going public to suddenly wash up in their bathing suits. But if you're going to or coming from the shower, for god's sake put on a towel. I realize we all have basically the same parts, but I really don't care. My co-workers' cars all have engines that look more or less like the engine in my car, but I don't want to see them. Speaking of the shower, know that if one or both of us is naked in the locker room I do not want to talk to you. If I don't know you, please do not try to start a conversation with me in the shower. I don't want to be rude. I just really won't have anything to say to you. As long as one of us is showing more than 75 percent of our skin I'm not going to have an opinion about the big game, the election or the weather. Heck, even if we're close friends chances are I'm not going to want to chat. Please understand. I also accept a certain amount of nakedness is necessary as people change from street to workout clothes and vice versa. Still, some of you seem to stretch this farther than is absolutely necessary. There is really no reason to be topless and bottomless at the same time. Changing clothes should not take long. And it should not involve conversation with the person at the locker next to you. Again, my level of chattiness is nearly directly proportionate to the degree to which I and those around me are clothed. And I'm not all that talkative to start with. I don't understand men who choose to perform detailed acts of personal grooming at the gym, but if you truly feel the need to shave in the locker room, please put some pants on. Finally, to the guy my brother saw Sunday using the urinal while mooning anyone who happened to look the wrong way — seriously, you don't think that was a bit much? Put some pants on!

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Now playing: The Shins - Your Algebra
via FoxyTunes

A manly weekend

2008-01-11T12:20:00.001-08:00

I've never claimed to be particularly handy. Actually, I've frequently said just the opposite. Carpentry and I go together like peanut butter and asparagus.
When my dad and I successfully built a coffee table a few years ago it was less a sign of my skill with hammer and nails than it was a evidence there truly is a higher power in the universe and he really wants me to have sturdy furniture.
Still, I am a man and thus not entirely immune to the lure of power tools. If Tim Allen and the inexplicably long-running sitcom Home Improvement have taught us anything — and I would argue they haven't — it's that all men are drawn to heavy equipment on a genetic level.
My dad and I spent New Year's Day working on our second furniture project. I realize hoping for two successful efforts in less than a decade might have been a little ambitious, but the sofa table we built seems sturdy enough. And it's definitely attractive enough for the location I have in mind, tucked in behind a couch where nobody will ever see more than its top.
Last weekend I decided to push my luck. I didn't necessarily plan it this way, but Sunday turned into what I'm calling my Manly Power Tool Day. I drilled. I sawed. I hammered. I got so much done I felt like I should be in a commercial for pick-up trucks. One of those ones where the Toyota Tundra uses its massive engine and rigid frame to haul the remains of the Titanic to the surface, maybe. Or where a Ford F-150, thanks to the power of its oversized brakes and big honkin' leaf spring single-handedly brings peace to the Middle East.
And, OK. Maybe installing mini-blinds in my office isn't the most masculine of activities. And maybe there are tougher-sounding things to do than install what the signage at Home Depot described as a "closet system" in my bedroom. But the important thing to remember here is that there was a drill involved. And a jig saw. And I still have every single one of my fingers and most of my toes.
There was almost no bleeding involved, though, so I'm declaring the day a resounding success.
While we're on the subject, I have to admit I'm new to the concept of the closet system. I apparently wasn't savvy enough about the world of fashion to realize keeping clothes off the floor required a system. Running a solid NFL defense requires a system. Beating the odds at the blackjack table requires a system. Hanging your clothes in the closet requires a stick. But then, you can't charge ridiculous prices for a closet stick.
Granted, the specific stick that was in my closet when I moved into my house last month was less than adequate for the job, having fallen to the floor as soon as I hung my clothes on it. Still, I think elevating metal rods and wire shelves to system status is just asking for trouble. Next thing you know the appliances will unionize.
It's hard to complain too much, though. As of Monday night my windows were still covered and my clothes were still hanging high and proud.
Thanks, furniture gods!

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Now playing: The Black Keys - The Flame
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Sending Jesus a text message

2008-01-11T12:18:00.000-08:00

The last time I spent any significant amount of time in a church I was there to write a story about a community meal program. About the only exposure I get to religious sermons is when I accidentally flip on some television ministry on a Sunday morning. So I'm hardly the best person to comment on what would or would not be an offense to God. I'd hazard a guess He'd be none too thrilled if Paris Hilton were cast as Mary in a new Christmas movie, but I have no idea if the "Grow Jesus" figure I was given for Christmas (grows six times its size in water, though surprisingly does not float) will keep me from having a happy afterlife.
God's got a sense of humor, right? I mean, how else can you explain aardvarks?
Still, there's one new trend that has sparked divided opinions in people more knowledgeable than I about the petty annoyances of the Lord. And it's an issue I suspect will become increasingly common as technology becomes a bigger part of our daily lives.
According to a Reuters story, Vatican representatives have expressed disapproval of a new Italian company that allows the faithful to download images of saints to use as wallpaper on their cell phones. Representatives of the company, which is available at www.santiprotettori.com/indexusa.html, say they are simply offering an updated take on "santini" — images of saints that the faithful tape to the dashboards of their cars or carry in their wallets.
I don't pretend to understand exactly why they do this, but it seems like a kind of holy version of Pokemon, only a lot less popular with pre-teens. (He's using St. Pio of Petralcina — Go, St. Lucy of Siracusa! Use your vow of chastity defense!)
Some in the church, however, see the downloadable saints as much less innocent.
"This is in really bad taste," Bishop Lucio Soravito De Franceschi, a member of the Italian bishops conference committee for doctrinal matters, reportedly told told the Turin newspaper La Stampa.
"It is a distortion of sacred things ... selling 'santini' for cell phones is horrifying."
I don't know how God would feel about my Grow Jesus, but I'm guessing Bishop Lucio Soravito De Franceschi wouldn't be cool with it.
I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. On one hand, I can see how some people might object to treating the images of saints the same way you might treat, say, the photo of the funny road sign you snapped on your last road trip (Buckle up — the life you save could be your own self).
And cell phone saints open the door for technology to horn its way into other aspects of religion. Before you know it people everywhere will take confession by text message. "Bls me Fr. 4 I hv snnd. Kthxbai."
On the other hand, is putting a picture of Saint Patrick on your cell phone really that much worse than sticking Jesus' trading card in your wallet? Let's be honest: there are much worse things you can download on your cell phone.
I know. I get e-mails about them all the time. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure God wouldn't be thrilled about those.

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Now playing: Teddybears - Little Stereo
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The things I'll do for terrible television

2008-01-11T12:12:00.000-08:00

I’m not sure if it was during the three hours I waited for the Comcast technician to show up, or the sixth time a customer service representative put me on hold or the second trip in less than a week to the Comcast office, but at some point last week I found myself wondering just how much hassle I was willing to put myself through in the name of having access to a wider selection of bad television shows.
The answer, apparently, is a lot.
It really shouldn’t be this hard. I’ve never had a significant problem with a cable company before. Service technicians showed up on time. The service was reliable. Even when there was a problem it worked in my favor. I once got free cable for a year because the company forgot to charge me.
Apparently now I’m paying.
Things went bad pretty much from the start. All I wanted to do was get cable hooked up in my new house. I called the company’s 800 number and told them what I wanted. They told me I couldn’t have it. Apparently the last person to live in my house was a deadbeat who didn’t pay his cable bills. If I wanted access to quality programming like America’s Next Top Model, they said, I’d have to apply in person so I could prove I was who I said I was.
For the record, I am.
Still, even that wasn’t too bad. I set up an installation appointment and even got a great rate on programming.
That’s when things really got obnoxious.
The installation technician showed up last Saturday two minutes before the end of his three-hour installation window. He looked at my house and told me he couldn’t do the job. The house wasn’t connected to the system, he said. It would have to be a new installation, and he didn’t have time, he said.
This confused me, I’ll admit. I was fooled by the fact there was a cable coming out of the wall in two separate rooms in my house. It seemed logical to me that someone would have had to have had cable service at the house in order to be guilty of not paying his bill.
In any case, he left and I called to set up a new appointment. I explained my situation and was put on hold. For a very long time.
While I waited, the technician came back. His schedule had been rearranged, he said. He had time to help me now. He was going to do one quick job and he’d be back. Easy as that.
So, he left. And the customer service rep. to come back on the line to tell me she’d canceled my installation and was ready to schedule a new one. When I explained that was no longer necessary, she seemed dubious. She wanted the technician to check in when he got back.
She had good reason to be uncertain.
When the technician came back he told me he could no longer do the job because the installation had been canceled and he didn’t have access to the good deal I’d gotten at the store. The best he could offer, he said, was a bigger package — even more channels I don’t care about! — for twice the price.
Somehow it didn’t seem like a great deal. So, I made another call to customer service. They couldn’t find the deal I’d gotten, either, and sent me back to the store. It was annoying, but for the kind of money I could save I figured it was worth it. So, I jumped in the car and rushed to Richfield, where the office was located, before they closed Saturday afternoon.
They couldn’t find my deal, either. Apparently this particular cable package existed in this dimension for only a brief moment last Wednesday afternoon thanks to a sub-atomic disturbance caused by solar flares, global warming and the inexplicable fact that According to Jim is still on television.
I’ve been assured now that the situation will be taken care of by the time a technician returns to my house this weekend, but I have my doubts.
A nice set of rabbit ears has never looked quite so good.

They've gotta (try to) give me credit

2008-01-11T12:10:00.000-08:00

Say what you will about the junk mail industry. Call them vile names. Accuse them of wasting paper. Visualize yourself punching them in the face. Whatever your opinion, though, these are people who clearly know their business.
I closed on my new house in late November and by the time I moved in last Sunday I'd received somewhere in the neighborhood of 83 applications for pre-approved credit cards, all in my name and with my current address. At this rate, I figure I'll have enough to paper the bathroom by the end of the year. Add in the menus, coupons and other special offers and I could probably move on to the smallest of my bedrooms by early February.
If we really want to get serious about catching Osama bin Laden, we just need set the countries armies of bulk mailers loose in Afghanistan. They'd have anthrax-laced MasterCard offers and warnings that the warranty on his car is about to expire sitting on the stoop of his cave within a week.
The plan isn't perfect, I'll admit. Since nobody actually opens their junk mail this particular strategy would have limited strategic value.
While we're on the subject of moving (We were, weren't we? Back before we started talking about terrorist leaders?) I have a few thoughts.
First, and maybe most important, don't do it. I can't emphasize this strongly enough. Moving solely with the help of those people either closely related or indebted enough to you to feel obligated, is not a pleasant experience. My house would be so much tidier now if I'd never moved in. The floors wouldn't have gotten mud tracked over them. And I'm sure nobody would have left a big gouge on the stairwell because the couch we were trying to move upstairs was squeezed in tighter than Britney Spears in her Video Music Awards outfit.
I realize not all people feel this way. When I was growing up we moved so many times I started worrying we were on the lam. At one point we moved from a house on the 16th fairway of a golf course in Stillwater to a new house on the fifth hole of the same course.
I figured my parents had blown up a government lab during a protest of the Vietnam War or something. Anyway, that's the story I told all my friends. I didn't care if it was true. It sounded a lot cooler than any alternatives.
If you must move, I seriously recommend doing it sometime other than a day in early December when the temperature is somewhere in the neighborhood of absolute zero. I don't know if boiling water would have frozen when thrown into the air last Sunday, but it was cold enough that a light fixture in my stairwell shattered when all we did was ram a couch into it. Talk about brittle.
I also recommend putting a ham into the oven as soon as you start moving. I don't care if you don't like ham. It smells really good. Also, the oven will provide some heat.
I'm not sure when this moving process will actually be over. There are boxes and bags I have yet to fully unpack. There are some that haven't made it out of my old residence yet. I don't have cable TV. I don't have an Internet connection. I don't even have all the pieces of my desk yet.
But if I ever need a sweet rate on a credit card I'm set.

Looking ahead — and for a fork

2007-12-27T12:09:00.001-08:00

I realize I'm supposed to get all contemplative at this time of year. 2007 is almost over. People everywhere are compiling lists of their favorite music, movies and celebrity scandals of the past 12 months. Well, phooey on that. Here, in no particular order, is what I'm going to remember from the year that's about to wrap up: I bought a house. That's pretty much it. I realize there was some other stuff going on. Some of it was fairly important. I keep hearing things about a Presidential election. I know one of the candidates is a Mormon, one used to be mayor of New York City and one used to be an actor on Night Court or something. I suspect at least three or four of them are just plain nuts. But that's all about that I can tell you about the campaign. I'm sure someone will let me know when I need to start paying attention. I'm fairly confident we celebrated Christmas recently, but I can't be sure. People gave me gifts. I gave some wrapped packages to other people. There were family members in town I hadn't seen for a while, and I kept hearing annoying, Christmas-related songs on the radio lately. For the past month or so, though, I haven't thought about much besides buying and moving into my first home. I'm sure you know that, though. I keep writing about it. Don't worry. I promise I'll stop soon. For weeks now I have been surrounded by boxes. I'm awash in cables and cords. I've got so many wires connecting my DVD player to my TV and my TV player to my speaker system and about a dozen other audio-visual components to each other that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to puzzle them all out. I'm a little afraid I'm going to push the wrong button and trigger a situation right out of WarGames, the 1983 classic in which Matthew Broderick nearly causes a global nuclear war while playing a computer game. I'm not sure how that would happen, but I'm not taking any chances. Slowly but surely, I've put away most of the bags and boxes I used to move my possessions to my new house, which has simultaneously made the house seem both cleaner and much emptier. I'm not sure if that's better than cluttered and full. I hauled the final load from my old home on Tuesday night — a fan, a jar of gumballs and four sheets of wood I'd been using in place of the box spring that didn't fit down the stairs to my bedroom. It was an odd collection of stuff, I'll admit. I still can't find my silverware, though. And pretty soon I'm going to run out of things I can eat with my fingers. I have cable TV (finally). I have an Internet connection. I have done dishes in my new dishwasher and laundry in my new washer and dryer. Sometime this week I'll have to write my first mortgage check, although I'm kind of hoping the bank will kind of forget about it. That happens sometimes, right? I didn't sleep very will my first night in the new house, but that's gotten better. I've had to shovel a couple of times since I moved in. It wasn't bad. And it was certainly better than the two times I had to shovel before I had a single possession in the house. I'm not sure the house feels entirely like a home yet, but I'm sure that will happen. The heck with looking back, then. I'm looking forward to that.

International relations

2007-12-06T09:32:00.000-08:00

Dear unidentified Venezuelan woman, Please stop calling me. Seriously. Enough is enough. It was actually kind of funny when you called the first time last Thursday and tried to speak to me in Spanish. But when you left a voicemail message that consisted entirely of you singing unintelligible words to me, I started to worry I was in some bizarre Spanish-language sequel of The Ring. I spent the next few days waiting for a creepy girl to come crawling out of the TV at me, only in this case I imagine she'd be dressed like a bumblebee or something. When you called me 15 more times over the next four days, I started to feel like I was the victim of the least efficient stalker ever. Honestly, you called me two times as I drove from Farmington to Rosemount and three more as I sat in McDonald's trying to eat my lunch. It just seems like overkill. I hope you don't take this personally. It's not that I dislike you. How could I? To the best of my memory, the sum total of our intelligible conversation would, if transcribed, look something like this: Unidentified Venezuelan woman: Do you speak Spanish? Confused Minnesotan editor: No. UVW: What ... city ... are ... you? CME: Farmington, Minnesota. UVW: What ... city ... are ... you? CME: Farmington. UVW: I ... am ... Venezuela. It goes on like that for a while, but you get the idea. I can hardly claim I know you well enough to form an opinion of your personality. For all I know you're perfectly pleasant when you're talking to people who understand you. It's just that I'm not one of them, and I'm starting to question the value of continuing this long-distance conversation. I have no idea why you're calling me so much. I know everyone in your country is very excited about Twins pitcher Johan Santana, but I promise I don't have any inside information for you on his status with the Twins. Even if I did, what good would it do? You don't speak English, remember? We're kind of at a stalemate there, you understand? Of course you don't. As I write this it's been two days since I've heard from you, unidentified Venezuelan woman. Maybe you've grown tired of trying to figure out what city I am. Maybe you've finally figured out the intricacies of international dialing and are finally calling the person you've been trying all along to get through to. I hope that's the case. If I've heard the last of you, unidentified Venezuelan woman, I hope life treats you well. I hope the weather is nice in Valencia, which according to the city code in your phone number is where you're calling from. We've had a lot of snow here in Minnesota (That's a serious chubasco to you, if about.com has that translation right.). I can't say I'll miss you, unidentified Venezuelan woman, but you certainly made four days of my life a little more interesting. Seriously, though. Stop calling. Sincerely, Nathan Hansen

Wanna hear something scary?

2007-11-29T12:08:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I heard the most terrifying words anyone has ever spoken to me.
I was sitting at home at the time. Minding my own business. Chances are I was watching TV. Probably something terrible. Then, the phone rang. It was my realtor.
"He accepted your offer on the house," he said.
Gulp.
I realize this was supposed to be good news. Most people, I understand, make an offer to buy something with the hope that offer will be accepted. In theory, that's what I did when I made a bid on this particular one-and-a-half story home. In that particular moment, though, my most immediate thought was something along the lines of, "Nonononononono! Take it back! Take it back! You can't make me!"
I'm paraphrasing, obviously. And more than likely editing out a few less than printable words.
I've had a little time now to adjust to the idea of home ownership. I've bought supplies. I paid a whole bunch money that could have gone to something important like a new iPod or a few Playstation games for something silly like an inspection to make sure the home is structurally sound.
On Tuesday I officially closed on the purchase, a process that largely involved someone pointing at a line on a piece of paper and me, blank stare on my face, signing my name. They told me all of the documents were related to the purchase, but as far as I know, in addition to my mortgage and loan documents, I signed away the rights to any oil discovered on the property, my entire baseball card collection and my first born child.
I signed my name so many times Tuesday morning I started to understand how professional athletes must feel, only without the legion of groupies or the steriod rush.
I'm looking forward to moving into my new home now, although I've discovered the line between excitement and terror is surprisingly thin. I think it will be good to move out of the room I've rented for the past year or so in the basement of my step-sister's house. I understand moving away from my 5-year-old nephew will seriously cut down on my opportunities to play with Thomas the Tank Engine toys, but nobody ever said owning a home was perfect.
Really, what's not to get excited about? Now that I own a home I'll have a lawn to rake and mow. I'll have a sidewalk to shovel and gutters to clean. I'll have mortgage and insurance and property tax payments to make. But I'll also have an opportunity to borrow tools from my neighbor and never return them. This, I've come to understand from comic strips and situational comedies, is what neighbors do.
Buying a house means I can finally get a puppy, although given the amount of time I'm actually at home these days that seems like a bad idea. It means I can throw big, loud parties without worrying about disturbing people in neighboring apartments. Scrabble parties can really get out of hand when people start arguing about triple letter scores.
I suppose it's appropriate that this particular purchase takes place just a couple of weeks before my 33rd birthday. If anything, buying a home is just another part of getting older.
Like I said. Gulp.

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Now playing: Rilo Kiley - Portions for Foxes
via FoxyTunes

Searching for patriotism

2007-11-21T09:37:00.000-08:00

I would certainly never suggest that veterans of the United States Military do not deserve recognition for their service. The men and women who have served this country, even those who returned home safely, have made significant sacrifices in the name of protecting the rest of us. They fought bravely and they deserve our respect.
It's just, in "lets support the veterans" efforts, as in war, it's important to pick your battles.
Livable conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center and efforts to help Iraq and Afghanistan veterans adjust to life at home? That's an important way of supporting veterans. Patriotic logos on the home page of search engine Google for Memorial Day and Veteran's Day? I mean, that's got to be a little bit farther down the priority list, doesn't it?
Possibly not.
Several conservative groups seem to have gotten themselves worked into a tizzy in recent years over the fact the search company, which frequently modifies its logo for special occasions, had until this year not made an effort to recognize either Memorial Day or Veteran's Day. In a web log posting last year a group called California Conserv-atives called it "utterly disgusting" that Google would fail to recognize U.S. veterans while using its logo to pay tribute to such obscure events as Persian New Year and the birthday of Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
If that's the group's reaction to the lack of a military-themed cartoon, I'd hate to see it's reaction the local paper ever pulls Beetle Bailey.
The questions about Google's perceived lack of patriotism have gotten so serious that the Los Angeles Times last month published a story about the controversy. In the story, a conservative blogger named Giovanni Gallucci who clearly gets too emotionally involved with his Internet searches, calls Google's logo shortcomings "A kick to your belly."
The story also quotes Joseph Farah, whose worldnetdaily.com site clearly has issues with Google. The site has no fewer than 15 stories about the evils the world's most popular search engine has visited upon this country and the world at large. It's a lot of anger to build up over targeted advertising.
Google's response to the controversy had been to suggest its logo alterations, generally light-hearted doodles, were not solemn enough to capture an event like Veteran's Day. According to the Times a web site called zombietime.com took that as a challenge and sponsored a contest to solicit suggestions.
Certainly we must take something called zombietime.com seriously as a source of political discourse. If you'd like to see the suggestions they're on the site somewhere among links to photos of San Francisco's World Naked Bike Ride and a topless protest at a Hillary Clinton rally.
A word of warning: You really, really don't want to click on those links. Talk about utterly disgusting kicks to the belly.
This isn't the first time the lack of overt displays of patriotism have caused problems. Presidential candidate Barack Obama took heat recently for failing to wear a U.S. flag lapel pin, and shortly after 9/11 a women's college basketball player caused a stir by choosing not to face the flag during the National Anthem.
I'm all for displays of patriotism, but wearing a flag pin so everyone knows how much you love America is a little bit like driving a Toyota Prius instead of a more traditional-looking hybrid so everyone will know how much you love the environment. Saying the Pledge of Allegiance out loud doesn't make me any more patriotic in my heart than reading the Vikings' playbook out loud makes me qualified to play quarterback in the NFL.
(OK, that's a bad example. At this point, I think I might be a better option at quarterback than anyone currently playing the position for the Vikings. And I can't even throw a decent spiral.)
For the record, this Veteran's Day Google's logo sported World War I-era Army helmets on both of its Os and its E.
Now that we've got that taken care of we can turn our attention to the next blatant example of disrespecting this country: McDonald's, which honors St. Patrick's Day with a Shamrock Shake but has yet to introduce red, white and blue McNuggets.
Shame on you, Ronald.

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Now playing: The Bad Plus - Iron Man
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Searching for patriotism

2007-11-21T09:34:00.000-08:00

Solidarity

2007-11-08T11:34:00.001-08:00

I thought about skipping this column. I wanted to show solidarity with the members of the Writers Guild of America, who went on strike this week after failing to reach a deal with studios. In the end, though, my sense of devotion to my loyal readers, all baker’s dozen of you, was simply too strong. Also, this was a light week for letters to the editor and I couldn’t find anything else to put in this space. This strike is serious business. According to Reuters, the motion picture and television industry generates $30 billion in annual economic activity for Los Angeles County alone and the U.S. film and television industry, which will in many cases be idled by the strike, employs 200,000 people. Economists estimate a 22-week writers’ strike in 1988 cost the entertainment industry roughly $500 million. That doesn’t even take into account the impact on the poor families who might now be forced to hold a conversation while they eat dinner. You can’t put a price on that kind of psychological trauma. Some of the strike’s effects have already started to show up. Late night talk shows went to re-runs on Monday. Apparently Jay Leno needs a full staff of writers to prepare him for reading wacky headlines. (City council runs out of time to discuss shorter meetings? Precious!) The film industry, which prepared for a possible strike by stockpiling scripts, will likely not be affected. But the impact elsewhere could be significant. Though the producers of television series typically work ahead a long strike could mean more reruns for prime time shows. This could actually be good news for fans who want to catch up with their favorite shows. It could be even better news for viewers looking for an excuse to finally stop watching Two and a Half Men. If there are too many reruns we could ultimately lose some of the weaker shows on the schedule. If things get really bad we could find ourselves cutting down to just six or seven CSI series and only a couple of dozen Law and Order spin offs. It’s the law of the television jungle. Ultimately, the strike could mean more reality shows popping up in the months ahead. In other words, the studios might finally listen to my “Strand seven unstable strangers on an island, make them dance and have an angry British guy yell at them” pitch. I call it Real Dancing with the Idol. It’s going to be huge. I shouldn’t make jokes, though. This strike is serious business for the people involved. And it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for the writers. According to most reports all they really want is a bigger cut of the roughly $315 million expected to be spent this year on Internet downloads of movies and television shows. That’s a whole lot of money. And who are we to say the writers don’t deserve every penny? Without the talented members of the Writers Guild, after all, we wouldn’t have quality television fare like Cavemen, the half-hour sitcom based on a series of insurance ads, or Cane, which is about Jimmy Smits being sexy and probably evil or something. I haven’t actually watched the show, but the commercials are pretty annoying. It’s hard to know how this will play out from here. The smart thing would be for everyone involved to work out their differences and get back to business before Americans realize they can fill the time they used to spend watching TV by reading a book or taking a walk, a process that by most estimates will take until somewhere in mid-2013. Then again, this is the entertainment industry we’re talking about. It’s hard to count on an industry that keeps Rob Schneider gainfully employed to ever do the smart thing.

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Your Halloween history lesson

2007-11-02T11:21:00.001-07:00

Earlier this week children and adults in Rosemount and across the country celebrated Halloween, a popular holiday that in its modern incarnation is largely associated with excess.
For children, Halloween is an excuse to dress in costumes that are typically either adorable or horrifying and go door to door extort massive amounts of candy from friends and neighbors.
For adults, Halloween parties are frequently an excuse to consume excessive amounts of food and alcohol, and to dress in excessively revealing outfits. In this way, Halloween has followed an evolution similar to many other popular holidays in the United States, from New Year's Eve to the Fourth of July to Arbor Day.
But to focus on the modern trappings of Halloween is to ignore the holiday's proud history. Halloween at its beginning looked little like the holiday we celebrate today. Originally called All Hollow Eaves, Halloween began in 1783 as a way for roofers of the day to show off their work. Essentially an early ancestor of our modern Parade of Homes, construction companies would use the promise of sweet treats such as sugar cubes and caramel apples to lure children and their parents to view what were then remarkable advances in roofing technology. In fact, had the advent of modern gutter technology not coincided that year with a bountiful sugar beet crop the last day of October might look very different today.
There were no costumes at the first Halloween. It is widely believed the first instance of dressing up for the holiday occurred the following year, when Jack O'Lantern, then one of the most prominent roofers in of the day, decided he could draw more people to his homes if he gave prizes for the best dressed visitors to his homes. Among the most popular costumes that first year were John Wesley, who had gained fame in February of that year when he chartered the Methodist church, and Carl Friedrich Gauss, a pioneer in the field of summation.
Also common in those early years, though frowned upon by many, were costumes we see still today such as the slutty nurse and the cat woman.
O'Lantern's Halloween inventions did not stop with the costume, of course. As you may have guessed he is also widely believed to be the first to carve a face in a pumpkin, which grew in abundance that year, and place a candle in it as a kind of torch so people could admire his handiwork well into the night. He called this innovation the punk-o-torch. The name was changed later, but surprising to honor not the creator of the punk-o-torch but an entirely different Jack O'Lantern whose direct connection to the carved pumpkin remains shrouded in mystery but there are those who believe he was the first to perfect the now common "pointy-teeth" carving method.
Halloween has continued to evolve over the years. Bobbing for apples, though now a popular and lighthearted event common at Halloween parties, has a surprisingly tragic origin as a commemoration of the Great Apple Drownin' of 1832.
The name of the holiday was officially changed during the Great Depression as a way to save on printing costs, and the association with with roofing gradually faded away, replaced with overtones of the occult as people decided witches and ghosts made way cooler costumes than roofers.

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Don't make me chime you!

2007-10-26T13:41:00.001-07:00

I'm....
I just....
I don't....
I'm sorry if I seem a bit incoherent at the moment. It's just ... have you ever read something that inspired so many thoughts and emotions you didn't quite know which one to follow? That's the way I feel right now.
I mean, how am I supposed to react when Time freaking Magazine runs a story on its web page about the growing trend in Japan that involves using a cell phone application to fight public train groping?
I don't mean groping public trains, obviously. I mean ... well, you know what I mean.
How do I react to the news that Japan, a country with a reputation for good manners, apparently finds itself the victim of a happy hands epidemic?
Should I be concerned it's become so difficult for Japanese women to keep their private parts private that many have turned to technology for an answer?
Should I worry that interpersonal skills have degraded to the point someone would rely on the assistance of a cell phone in a situation when a more direct response seems called for?
Should I hop a plane to Tokyo to find out just how effective this new kind of hands-free phone is?
I honestly don't know.
Here's the thing. According to Time this so-called "Anti-groping appli," released in late 2005, has recently climbed to No. 7 on the list of most popular cell phone applications. The free, downloadable program works by flashing what Time describes as a series of increasingly threatening messages from the gropee to the groper. The messages progress from, "Excuse me, did you just grope me?" (Does anyone ever actually admit this?) to "Groping is a crime." To "Shall we head to the police?"
There is not, so far as I can tell, a message that reads, "You want to keep those fingers, buddy?"
A "warning chime" accompanies each message, and users can advance from one to the next by hitting a button labeled "anger."
In other words, Japanese women are responding to blatant violations of their personal space with a chime, possibly the least threatening warning sound ever.
Citing numbers from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Time reports that 1,853 people were arrested in 2005 for groping passengers on trains in Tokyo. Experts (in groping? In trains? It's not clear) say the actual number of incidents in which passengers are harassed is much higher, but women are embarrassed to report them.
I respect Japanese culture. I really do. It's given us reliable hybrid cars and dancing robots and cartoons about adorable creatures that fight to the death. But there are certain situations that call for good, old-fashioned American directness. Women shouldn't be embarrassed about getting groped. They should be ticked off. Not button-pushing, chime-ringing ticked off, either. I'm talking about in-your-face, call-attention-to-the-creepy-guy, "Buddy, your hand better not be where I think it is," angry.
Dealing with subway gropers doesn't call for an anger button. It calls for a button that makes a giant boot pop out of the top of the phone and kick the mister grabby hands somewhere that will get his attention a whole lot faster than a digital threat to call the cops.
Now that's some useful technology.

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@%*&#!

2007-10-26T13:40:00.001-07:00

This is a big week for swearing-related news. Turns out, letting loose with a few choice expletives every now and then has certain benefits and certain drawbacks.
The week's better news for fans of blue language comes from the University of East Anglia, which reported earlier this week that, far from being inappropriate, spewing the occasional four-letter word in the workplace can benefit everyone by reducing stress and helping people get along. Because who hasn't felt better about their co-workers after letting loose with a long string of obscenities?
Randomly cursing at a computer when it won't print the document you want isn't causing a disruption, says the study, published in a recent edition of Leadership and Organisational Develop-ment Journal (Darn, and I just let my subscription lapse.). It's blowing off steam.
"In many cases, taboo language serves the needs of people for developing and maintaining solidarity, and as a mechanism to cope with stress," Barach told England's Sun newspaper. "Banning it could backfire."
Basically, the co-workers who curse together stay together.
Finally, a f***ing management style I can get behind.
Baruch seems to believe swearing at work is simply too common to control.
"Employees use swearing on a continuous basis, but not necessarily in a negative, abusive manner," he said. Apparently there is a way to swear in a positive, nurturing manner. "I love you, you little @#!*."
Though it is never specified, I can only assume the University of East Anglia has a lot of sailors on the payroll and that Baruch and Jenkins conducted the bulk of their research in the locker rooms of professional sports teams.
The news isn't all good on the pottymouth front, though. While swearing at work is apparently all the rage across the pond, in Pennsylvania the occasional curse word aimed at a malfunctioning potty can land you in jail.
According to web site ananova.com a West Scranton resident faces the possibility of up to 90 days in jail and a fine of up to $300 after her neighbor, a police officer, heard her swearing at an overflowing toilet. The police officer asked the woman to quiet down. When she didn't, he reported her.
I have to be honest, if this is the kind of trouble you can get in for swearing at inanimate objects in the privacy of your own home I just might go away from life.
For the record, the woman said she doesn't remember exactly what she said to her backflowing porcelain throne but admits she was frustrated and might have used some off-color language. She is fighting the charge with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union.
"You can't prosecute somebody for swearing at a cop or a toilet," ACLU representative Mary Catherine Roper told the Times-Tribune.
Darn tootin'.

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If you don’t read this column....

2007-10-26T13:39:00.000-07:00

Back when I was spending my junior year of high school in Sweden there was a series of ads for self-adhesive bandages — they might have been Band-Aids, they might have been some Scandinavian equivalent that users had to assemble themselves with an allen wrench; I can't be sure — that featured adorable young children about to suffer some kind of misfortune.
One adorable moppet, no doubt blonde-haired and blue-eyed as adorable Swedish children tend to be, was about to step barefoot onto a piece of broken glass. Another was on the verge of scraping himself on a nail or some other such sharp, menacing object.
The tagline on these ads, roughly translated, was, "Accidents happen so easily."
I always found them immensely disturbing. Why, I wondered, do the advertising efforts of Sweden's bandage industry sound so much like they were written by a low-level mobster running a protection racket.
"That's a real nice kid you got there," these Nordic bandage thugs seemed to be telling potential customers. "Be a shame if something happened to him."
Is the Scandinavian Mob (The Møb?) really so heavily invested in the home healthcare industry?
That could be, I suppose. But I'm starting to suspect there's more to it than a cunning crime syndicate that wants to both break your thumbs and sell you splints to set them with. I realize now that vaguely threatening advertisements involving children are far more common than I realized.
Take my trip out West earlier this year. I mentioned this a few months ago, but it seems worth bringing up again, if only because it was seriously creepy. Somewhere in Montana there was a billboard that featured a stark, black-and-white picture of a young boy aiming a firearm at the camera. "If he doesn't believe in God," the tagline read, "will he believe in you?"
In other words, take your kid to church or he'll shoot you in the face.
Then there's the ad I saw Wednesday night. The one that brought this all back to mind. It features a woman getting ready for what appears to be a night on the town. Her daughter, presumably about to be left behind with a babysitter while Mom and Dad whoop it up, is playing dress-up along with Mommy. They're laughing. They appear to be having the kind of happy mother-daughter moment they’ll both treasure in their later years. But then Mom does something terrible. She puts some lipstick on, then turns to apply a little to her daughter's lips. Meanwhile, an ominous-sounding voice-over warns us that if we adults fail to get our flu shots, "You're not just fluin' yourself."
Awful puns aside, I'm not convinced this is really the best way to push flu immunization. I'm not sure a message like, "Get immunized or BIRD FLU WILL KILL YOUR CHILDREN!" really makes me want to rush out to the clinic. Mostly it makes me want to lock myself in my bedroom and not come out until spring.
I’d do it, too. But I'm afraid there's something sharp in there. And accidents happen so easily.

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Up in smoke

2007-10-05T14:54:00.000-07:00

Boy, did I choose the wrong week to start smoking.
Just when I figured out the best way to fit in with the cool crowd is by sucking on a flaming tube of dried leaves and chemicals, the state of Minnesota tells me I can’t light up when I go out for a drink. If there’s a better time to fill your lungs with cancer-causing agents than when you’re soaking your liver in alcohol, I don’t know what it is.
I don’t know why it took so long for me to see the Zippo-fueled light when it comes to smoking. I made it through high school and college without once feeling the urge to pick up a cigarette. I’d like to think I was above that kind of peer pressure. Or that I was smart enough to recognize the many health risks associated with tobacco. Or even that I was so committed to my role as a mediocre junior varsity soccer player and cross country skier that I didn’t want to jeopardize the health of my lungs. You have to be able to breathe deeply if you want to cheer adequately from the sidelines.
More likely, though, I just knew I was unpopular enough that taking up smoking would never make me cooler. Just wheezier.
Things are different now, though, and I’m not sure why. I can only assume that exposure to countless images of celebrities smoking cigarettes has helped me to realize just how totally awesome I could look with a cigarette in my hand.
I’ve seen lots of pictures of Britney Spears smoking, and everybody thinks she’s cool. Right? And Lindsay Lohan? I’ve seen pictures of her smoking and she’s pretty much the epitome of Hollywood glamour these days. Isn’t she?
Anyway, I see both of them on the covers of People and US Weekly just about every time I go to the grocery store, so I figure they must be doing something right.
Celebrities are always smoking in movies, too. Although, now that I think about it, most of the characters that smoke are villains. Batman is dark and mysterious, but you never see him with a bat-cigarette lighter in his utility belt. Superman was a stalker and a deadbeat dad in his most recent movie, but he never used his heat vision to fire up a butt.
Heroes only smoke when they are in their darkest hour. Or maybe when they need a cigarette to create a delay for the fuse of a bomb. So, I guess cigarettes are useful for foiling evil plans, too. There’s pretty much nothing they can't do.
Now our state legislators want to take the cool-making, world-saving power of cigarettes out of our hands when we’re out at dinner or at the bar for a drink. And what do they offer us in return? Healthier workplaces for members of the service industry? Clothes that don’t reek of exhaled chemicals after a Friday night out? Free reign to look down our noses at people huddled outside bars in the middle of winter just so they can satisfy their urge for a cigarette?
Is it really worth it?

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A long time coming

2007-09-21T08:30:00.001-07:00

Somewhere in next week’s issue of the Town Pages, and I'm not going to tell you where, is a story I wrote 10 years ago this month. It is the first story I ever wrote for this newspaper. Actually, it's the first story I wrote for any newspaper. I strongly recommend you not read it. It is not what the kids these days would call competent.
On the level of things that should never been issued for public consumption I'd rank it somewhere between those first-day performers everyone likes to laugh at on American Idol and Britney Spears at the MTV Video Music Awards. I like to think that in the decade since I've progressed at least to the level of contestants on one of those karaoke shows that has been airing over the summer.
I don't mention this story, which I wrote about a new contract for District 196 teachers and nurses on my first day at work in September of 1997, because I think it's somehow a milestone worth recognizing. I don't have a lot of fond memories of that story, beyond the fact it was the start of what has turned into a surprisingly long and mostly happy association with the city of Rosemount. Mostly what I remember is walking into our office for my first day of work having never so much as taken a journalism class and having the guy who owned the paper at the time keep threatening as the day went on to send me to a school board meeting. It’s not that I was diametrically opposed to attending a school board meeting — having never been to one I didn’t know better. But I felt a little sick that day and, you know, really didn’t have any idea what I was doing. The story I ultimately produced might be the most enthusiastic story ever written about what was essentially a straightforward approval of a new contract. I know District 196 has lots of excellent teachers. I’m just not sure I needed to mention that 34 times in the space of three paragraphs.
Like I said, the story's not very good. And while reading the small part of it reprinted this week would not take long, there are definitely better ways to use that time. Go for a walk. Watch some of the exciting new programs premiering now as part of network television's fall season. Read to your children. Just, you know, don't read them the story. Trust me, this is one of those rare instances where a parent reading to a child could actually hamper that child's academic progress.
Mostly, seeing that story pop up again reminds me I've been here for a long freaking time. It's a realization I have from time to time. I had it a few years ago when a group of seventh graders with whom I traveled to southern Minnesota my first year on the job graduated from high school. I had it again more recently when I realized those same students are now going into their senior year of college. I can only imagine how I'll feel when I start writing stories about their kids. Do you think it'd be weird if I started out by mentioning I once played kickball with their dad?
There are people working in this office now who were in middle school in September of 1997.
A lot has changed since I wrote that first story. Roads that dead-ended in corn fields in 1997 now wind through fully developed neighborhoods. Fields that used to be empty are now filled with houses. In some cases, developments have been planned three or four times for the same property.
The city of Rosemount has changed administrators since I've been here, and the Independent School District 196 has hired a new superintendent.
The District 196 School Board has been remarkably stable in the years since I started covering meetings. Five of those original seven members are still on the board. Things are different at city hall, though, where there has been a complete turnover among city council members. I'm starting to worry it's something I said.
In the grand scheme of things, of course, 10 years isn't all that long. In geological terms a decade is nothing. Lots of people have done their jobs longer than 10 years. I should know. I've written stories about them.
Maybe I'll even let you read them.

When B movies attack

2007-09-21T08:23:00.000-07:00

Remember that movie The Island of Dr. Moreau. Probably not. I don't think it was very good. I don't mean the one that came out in the 70s. This one came out, like, 10 years ago. Based on an H.G. Wells story. It starred Marlon Brando, possibly in the first role he filmed after his death, and Val Kilmer. I think. I didn't see it, either. Like I said, I don't think it was very good.
Anyway, the movie's about this crazy scientist (Marlon Brando's possibly decomposing corpse) who lives on an island filled with bizarre human-animal hybrids of his own creation. Then things go wrong. No. Not that one. You're thinking of Annie Hall.
Anyway, that's all apparently happening now. According to the BBC, regulators in Britain have cleared the way for the use of human-animal hybrids for stem cell research. I don't think Marlon Brando is involved, but somehow that only makes things a little bit less creepy.
There's a reason for all this mad science. Scientists plan to fuse human cells with animal eggs for the purpose of extracting stem cells, which can then, at least in theory, be used to create cures for everything from Alzheimer's to athlete's foot. The embryos created by these science experiments — which sound a lot like something that started with two scientists who'd spent one too many Friday nights together in the lab daring each other to create dogs with human ears or ducks with stylish pompadours — will be destroyed when the stem cells are extracted. Long before they have the chance to gestate into full-fledged freaks of nature.
Actually, this kind of hot human-cell-on-animal-cell action isn't exactly new. Just look at Vin Diesel.
According to a January 2005 National Geographic story Chinese scientists in 2003 fused human cells with rabbit eggs. Oddly enough, this bunny boy would have been born in the year of the ram.
At the time the article was written scientists at Stanford were considering creating mice with human brains, presumably to win some maze-related bet. And in 2004 scientists at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester created a pig with human blood running through its veins. I've never been so conflicted about eating bacon.
British researcher Lyle Armstrong was in favor of his government's decision, although he admitted some people might now live in fear of our eventual overthrow by an army of super-smart, super-agile man-squirrels.
"It's not our intention to create any bizarre cow-human hybrid," Armstrong told the BBC. "We want to use those cells to understand how to make human stem cells better."
Others, of course, are less excited. One protester complained such hybrids harm the dignity of man and animal like. Honestly, though, I've been on a cattle drive. You will never convince me a cow has dignity.
I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I will always be a little bit more wary now about the chances there will be a freakish human-octopus waiting for me around the next corner, tentacles flailing and hungry for blood. On the other hand, it's hard not to get excited about when the plots from bad movies start to become reality.
I'm hoping Plan 9 from Outer Space is next.

Thoughts while boiling an egg

2007-08-31T08:05:00.000-07:00

Something terrible happened to me last week. Something life altering. Something that dramatically impacted my ability to do something as simple as feeding myself.
My microwave broke.
As food-related disasters go, this was miles worse than the great hot plate meltdown of ’04 or that spinach recall from a few months ago. If I had to make a comparison, I'd put it right up there with the Potato Famine.
Maybe you think I'm being melodramatic, but this was a major blow to my cooking routine. Gone from my home-cooked meal rotation are staples like frozen burritos and Hot Pockets and, for the love of Emeril Lagasse, Easy Mac. I can't go back to regular mac now. Boil water? On the stove? Are you crazy? I'm a busy guy. I've got things to do. I've got television shows to watch and video games to play.
I've tried to cope the best I can, but a man can only live on frozen pizza and Chipotle burritos for so long.
I've had to resort to drastic measures recently. I even fired up the grill. I cooked pork tenderloins. I had meals with actual vegetables. My digestive system is still recovering.
Anyway, all this waiting I have to do as I explore non-irradiating cooking methods has left me with a some time to think. And that's always a dangerous thing. Here are a few of the thoughts that have crossed my mind as I waited for the toast to pop up.
• I'm going to start a list of people I'd like to punch in the face. Up first, the guy quoted in the current issue of Newsweek who says he bought a hybrid Honda Civic but traded it in for a Toyota Prius because the Honda looked too much like a regular car and he wasn't getting enough credit from strangers on the street for being sensitive to the environment.
Second on the list is Michael Vick, but only if he's strapped into one of those Hannibal Lecter-style restraint systems.
• The NFL season starts soon, which means football fans nationwide have spent countless hours in recent weeks combing through magazines and web sites and police reports in an attempt to put together the best possible Fantasy Football team. If we devoted this much effort to saving the environment we could solve global warming and Al Gore wouldn't have anything to talk about at parties.
• I've never actually played Fantasy Football, but I see the appeal. It gives the average fan a chance to experience all the the glamour and excitement and prestige of managing a professional sports franchise, but in a way that nobody other than you actually cares about.
With the possible exception of the weather, Fantasy Football might be world's leading cause of incredibly boring conversations. If someone tries to tell me what receiver they drafted in the third round or how many yards their backup quarterback threw for I might actually try to punt him.
• Seriously, there has to be a Fantasy Football league somewhere that uses team arrests as a statistic, doesn't there?
• Fine, two words of advice for anyone out there with a high Fantasy Football draft pick and no idea how to use it: Tarvaris Jackson. But you didn't hear it from me.
• On the bright side, I continue to dominate my one-man Fantasy MLS Soccer league.
• In other super-geeky news that somehow seems acceptable because it's vaguely sports-related: The latest version of the Madden football video game allows players who win their virtual Super Bowl to design and order their own championship ring. And yet somehow people think I'm weird when I wear the "King of Pac Man" cape I made with a shower curtain and a Bedazzler.
• I bought a pack of plain white t-shirts the other day. They came in a resealable package. Why in the world is this necessary? Are my new undershirts likely to go bad? Should I keep them in the refrigerator rather than in my dresser drawer?
If you're ever standing near me and notice an odd smell, I guess now you'll know why.
Whoops, gotta go. My water is boiling.

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Who wants to live forever?

2007-08-24T14:39:00.000-07:00

A researcher at Cambridge University who runs something called the Methuselah Mouse prize for lengthening the age of mice (Motto: Because the world needs more crotchety old mice.) told the BBC recently he believes the first human to live to 1,000 might already be 60 years old. I imagine this will come as wonderful news to people who hold out hope of seeing Michael Vick play another professional football game.
Geneticist Aubrey de Grey, who appears to be shortening his own life expectancy by devoting considerable energy to maintaining a beard massive enough to hide an Olsen Twin, told the BBC he believes lifespans will increase dramatically in the years to come as new technologies evolve to fight the effects of aging. I don't claim to have a strong science background, but as I understand them the reasons for de Gray's beliefs boil down essentially to, because. Come on, though. If we can't trust science geeks with crazy-ass beards, who can we trust?
De Gray argues the technology to combat aging already exists in preliminary form, which sounds a little like arguing scientists are on the verge of building a working time travel machine because Doc Brown slipped on the toilet and invented the flux capacitor.
Still, de Gray is confident. He believes the technologies in question will be in use in mice within 10 years — finally bringing life to the dream of nigh-immortal super rats whose only natural enemies will be super-old cats — and in humans within a decade after that. Once that happens, we can kiss good-bye the frailty that currently comes with old age. Science, de Gray says, will correct all the wrongs that nature and millions of years of evolution have decided are a good idea. After that? Forget dying of old age and start watching out for passing trucks.
Seriously, getting hit by a truck appears to be de Gray's choice for leading cause of death in the anti-aging future. He mentions it at least twice. I see things a little differently. I see the number of deaths attributed to fights started over stupid little things that happened three centuries earlier skyrocketing. Alternately, I figure we'll all slowly starve to death as the population of undying humans and super-mice slowly grows too large for our natural resources to support.
Mostly, though, it's going to be the stupid fights between two 964-year-olds about whether the Timberwolves were stupid to trade Kevin Garnett or who got a raw deal in a fantasy football trade back in 2142.
Face it, if we're going to live to 1,000 we're going to have a lot of free time on our hands. And a lot of time to hold stupid grudges.
De Gray seems to think this eternal life deal is a good thing. I'm not so sure. I know plenty of people I wouldn't want to have around for 10 minutes, much less 10 centuries. I don't think I want to live in a world where I have to spend the next 967 years getting news reports of a centuries-old Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan beamed directly into my brain by the soon-to-be-invented neural-news networks. You think it's hard to get away from stupid reality shows now? Wait until everyone on the planet is all connected at the brain.
Hasn’t de Gray seen the movie Highlander? That was one unhappy immortal Scotsman.
Living for 1,000 years without a significant decline in mental or physical ability would presumably mean 1,000 years of getting up for work every day. These days people are worried about putting away enough during their working years to live comfortably from 65 until their death, which with current, non-made-up science, is likely to occur sometime in the 35 or so years that follow (runaway trucks notwithstanding). You think your 401k contributions are going to be enough to last you more than nine centuries?
And, ultimately, there's the whole natural resource thing. If global warming is a problem now, what's going to happen when we can legitimately count body heat from the undying hordes as a contributing factor?
Actually, I might have a solution for that last problem. By de Gray's beard-influenced logic it may already exist in preliminary stages. It's called Soylent Green, and I hear it's delicious.

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Two of a kind

2007-08-17T06:47:00.001-07:00

Dear Tiger Woods,
Hey, Tiger. Congratulations on your win last weekend at the PGA Championship. And congratulations on collecting your 13th major tournament title faster than any golfer in history. That's pretty sweet. I bet you're pretty excited.
I played a little golf last weekend too, Tiger. Around the time you were tying a major championship record by shooting a 63 in front of a crowd of thousands of cheering spectators, I was teaming up with Independent sports guy Pat Rupp to whup former Independent general manager Chad Richardson and the sports guy at our company's paper in Hastings. I realize our round didn't get quite as much news coverage as yours. But we won by 14 strokes. What'd you win by? That's right: two. Don't feel bad, though. Some people just perform better than others in the heat of competition.
Was that out of line, Tiger? Sorry about that. I'm not trying to make you mad. Actually, I think we're a lot alike, you and I.
Consider this: You play golf for a living. You spend countless hours refining your game and you make millions of dollars every year in tournament winnings and endorsements, including one for Buick where you talk about breaking the window of your car. My round Friday was the first I've played this year. When I got to the course I had to shake glass out of my shoes, because they haven't left my trunk since last summer and they were in there when someone threw a rock through my window a few weeks ago.
I know. Spooky, right?
You are known for your powerful golf swing. I often swing really, really hard. You can hit your pitching wedge something like 200 yards. I can hit my driver that far. On a good day. With the wind at my back.
Need more? How about this: You're married to a superhot Swedish model who recently gave birth to your first child. I'm single at the moment, but I've been to Sweden. Also, we just got a dog in the house where I live. I realize a dog and a baby aren't the same thing, but a lot of the same issues come up. You know: feeding, walking, flea baths.
It's like looking in a mirror, right? And that's not all.
You have your name on a video game. I play video games (not yours, though; I'm not a big fan of golf games). You have clubs made to your specifications with the latest golf technology. My dad made most of my clubs something like 15 years ago. Millions of people read about you in newspaper stories. Literally fives of people read this column every week.
Life's not easy for guys like you and me, Tiger. You've set such high expectations by performing so well at such a young age. Likewise, now that I've helped power my two-man team to a score of 84 people expect more from me. Like that I continue to hit the ball without causing it to slice viciously into the parking lot and maim innocent bystanders. Or that I actually play golf again at some point. We've got the weight of the world on our shoulders. There's you, there's me and there's Atlas, Tiger.
I guess what I'm saying, Tiger, is that we should hang out sometime. Drop me an e-mail. We can go bowling or something.

There will always be stories

2007-08-09T12:26:00.001-07:00

I will always remember where I was when the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up. I'll always remember where I was on 9/11. And now I suspect I'll always remember that I was in the Town Pages office, waiting to conduct a job interview, when I heard the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River had collapsed.
I'm not sure I'll remember quite so well how I felt at that moment, but the emotions are still clear now. There was confusion, of course. Surely they couldn't have meant an interstate highway had just fallen into the river. Clearly it was a bridge over the highway that had fallen.
Right?
There was amazement. An urge to to talk about the tragedy with anyone and everyone. "Did you see that?" I wanted to ask and be asked. "Can you believe it?"
Ultimately, as I drove home listening to reports of the collapse on the radio, there was a kind of intellectual adrenaline rush. A desire to be at the scene not so much to see the wreckage but to tell the stories. To dig around — literally, perhaps, but mostly figuratively — and find out what had happened. Why things had gone so wrong. Who had been affected and how.
Maybe it's a reporter thing, but as I pointed my car north on Cedar Avenue that's what was going through my head. On top of the confusion and the amazement and the sadness for the people who had lost their lives there was that desire to talk to people. To find out what they had experienced. And most important to put those stories into words. To share them with as many people as I could and to get it all done to meet a deadline that wasn't even mine to worry about.
There has been no shortage of stories in the weeks following the collapse. That much has been obvious to anyone who has opened a newspaper or turned on a television news broadcast since early last Wednesday evening. Even earlier this week Twin Cities daily newspapers are dedicating entire front pages to stories coming from the collapse. Some of those stories are based solely in fact. They're the stories that attempt to explain what went wrong. What could have been done to prevent such a catastrophic failure.
Many other stories are rooted more strongly in emotion. They're the stories of the people who were touched by the disaster. Those who made it off the bridge and those who didn't.
There are local stories, too. Some of them have happy endings. Farmington resident Jeremy Schutte was on the middle section of the bridge when it collapsed. He was on the phone with his wife at the time, on his way home from work. The last words he said before his cell phone lost contact were "Oh my God, I'm in the water. Help me."
Schutte's truck ended up in the water. He had to crawl out the window and swim to the bridge deck, but he made it. He was lucky.
Other stories lack that happy ending. Some, like Peter Hausmann’s story on the front page of this issue, don't have an ending at all. At least not yet. It is all but certain Rosemount resident Hausmann was also on the bridge. According to at least one report rescuers have found his car in the bridge's wreckage but not any sign of Hausmann, who last week was one of eight people officially listed as missing by the Minneapolis Police Department.
In the week since the collapse newspapers in Minnesota and around the country have dedicated thousands of pages to telling those stories and more.
It has been popular in recent years to predict the demise of newspapers. And there is evidence to support many of those claims. Clearly the newspaper business is changing, even in places as relatively small and out-of-the way as Rosemount. In recent years we have embraced new technology in our office. We've added web pages. We've bought video cameras. We've tried to find new ways to reach readers.
But here's the thing: In the end it all comes down to stories. And whether they are about a tragedy or a triumph, whether they're delivered online or in print, in words or in video, there will still be a need for stories. And for people who get excited at the opportunity to tell them.

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Now playing: Bright Eyes - Bright Eyes - The First Day Of My Life
via FoxyTunes

Wait for it ...

2007-08-03T13:53:00.001-07:00

These days it seems like anything really worth having has to be worth waiting in unreasonably long lines to buy. No major product can launch, it seems, without news stories about all of the dedicated fans who have pitched tents outside stores so they can be the first person to get one.
Take Harry Potter. When the most recent movie in the series debuted last month fans around the country attended midnight screenings. When the final book in the popular series hit stores a few weeks later dedicated Potterphiles — many dressed in costume, at least two straight foregoing their own wedding reception, according to one news report — loitered for hours at book stores so they could be among the first to discover whether the titular wizard died, as he was rumored to do. Or whether he killed his arch enemy. Or whether he turned out to be not actually a wizard but a leprechaun who lived in constant fear of children stealing his overly sugary cereal.
I haven't read any of the books, but I wouldn't be surprised if that last option turned out to be true. Writers love to throw in twist endings.
Anyway, whatever you think about Harry Potter it's hard to argue this: nobody ever dressed up as an old fisherman to wait in line for Ernest Hemingway books.
People waited in line for the iPhone, though. According to news reports hundreds of people camped outside of Apple stores for the earliest possible chance to seem even more pretentious while using their cell phones.
Don't get me wrong. I think the iPhone's awesome. I'd probably buy one if I was in a position to spend $600 for a phone — plus whatever early termination fee my current cell carrier would charge me so I could move to a provider everyone I know hates. I just think if I were going to do it I'd happily be a day or two late to the party if it meant I didn't have to curl up in a sleeping bag outside a mall.
Every new video game system seems to launch with massive lines these days. When Sony launched its much anticipated Playstation 3 earlier this year the truest nerds camped outside electronics stores for days for the chance to drop several hundred dollars on a souped-up Atari.
Actually, many of the people who waited for the Playstation 3 were there in hopes of putting their newly acquired systems on ebay and turning a quick profit. Thing is, so many would-be free marketeers had that idea it was hard for many of them to turn a profit. Some reportedly lost money on the consoles they spent as much as a week of their life camping outside Best Buys for. When you think about it, that's pretty hilarious.
Even the less anticipated Nintendo Wii, which remains the video game console with the most obscene-sounding name, drew lines when it launched a few days after the PS 3. One person outside a Woodbury Best Buy waited in line dressed as popular Nintendo character Luigi.
It's not just geeks who camp out for new products, though. These days people will put their dignity on the line for something as simple as a canvas shopping bag, as long as it's from the right designer. People clamored earlier this year for designer Anya Hindmarch's "I'm not a plastic bag," which was basically a simple canvas shopping bag with the phrase "I am not a plastic bag" printed on the side. Honestly, why just feel superior to people for being more sensitive to the environment when it's possible to feel superior to them for having better fashion sense at the same time. As of Tuesday, the bags, which originally sold for around $10, were going for upward of $100 on ebay.
How's that for a twist?

What a bunch of dopes

2007-07-27T13:54:00.000-07:00

For the past few years baseball fans have been forced to wonder whether some of their favorite players have been using performance enhancing substances. It's become something of a guessing game, trying to figure out which popular major-leaguers owe their success to illicit substances.
Barry Bonds' pursuit of Hank Aaron's all-time home run record has been tainted by suspicion he used steroids. Bonds, of course, denies doing anything inappropriate other than being kind of a pain in the rear end.
I, for one, believe Bonds. There are plenty of logical explanations for the change in his appearance over the years. I attribute his freakishly enlarged head, for example, to a little-known but relatively easy plastic surgery procedure commonly referred to as "the Charlie Brown." Everyone knows Charles' Schultz's adorable cartoon characters inspire some pretty loyal fans.
Fans of professional cycling have been playing a similar game for more than a decade now. Until last year, though, when American Floyd Landis had his Tour de France win challenged on the basis of a test that showed elevated levels of testosterone, very few Americans got in on the action. It's hard to blame them. Identifying cyclists who use performance enhancing drugs is way too easy.
Here's how it works. Find the rosters of the teams competing in this month's Tour de France. Point at a rider. That's pretty much it.
Maybe that's cynical. It's possible there are some of those tiny, emaciated-to-the-point-of-being-translucent men who haul themselves over thousands of miles of mountainous terrain without the benefit of blood doping or steroids or testosterone patches on their naughty parts. It's just getting harder and harder to believe that.
Just this week, pre-race favorite Alexandre Vinokourov, who required more than 60 stitches after a crash early in the race and has since been more erratic than Britney Spears in Vegas, tested positive for receiving an illegal blood transfusion. Surprise race leader Michael Rasmussen has aroused suspicion by failing to appear for drug tests and neglecting to tell Danish cycling officials where they could find him if they wanted to spring a test on him. There have been allegations he asked a friend to carry a shoebox filled with synthetic blood for him. Less commonly reported are suggestions he has replaced his entire skeleton with a lighter one made mostly of styrofoam and baling wire.
The cycling world seems to be nearly equally divided among riders who vehemently deny they would ever do anything illegal, riders who are defending themselves from positive tests and/or mounting suspicions and former riders who pop up to say, "Hey, you guys remember when I won all those races a few years ago? Yeah, I was filled with pigs' blood and horse uppers. But I really feel bad about it now."
It's a shame, really, because cycling can be a lot of fun to watch. I spent much of my morning last Sunday watching these skeletal men push themselves to their limit to ride up mountains nearly as big as Barry Bonds' ego. I, meanwhile, lounged on the couch and ate Cinnabons. It was awesome.
Fortunately, the riders are only part of the appeal. Races like the Tour de France are a spectacle unlike anything else in sports. Oakland Raiders fans get a lot of attention for showing up eight times a year dressed in black leather and spikes but there's one cycling fan who has become famous for showing up at just about every stage of the month-long Tour de France dressed as a devil and running alongside the riders. There are thousands of these fans, and for the most part there is nothing between them and the riders. As cyclists peak mountains they ride through a sea of screaming spectators who only clear the road for them at the last second. Fans pour water on riders or pat them on their spandex-covered rear ends. They run alongside wearing giant antlers or chicken costumes or, in one particularly disturbing instance, only a thong. In fairness, that's probably a good way to get riders to go faster.
Now that I think about it, as long as the fans stay off steroids, we should be OK.

Career counseling

2007-07-20T11:12:00.000-07:00

I didn't grow up wanting to be a newspaper editor. I didn't study journalism in college. I never worked on a school newspaper in high school or college. I got into this business, I used to say, because I enjoy writing and because I was looking for a job where I didn't have to wear a tie to work.
Taking that kind of path into newspapers makes me wonder once in a while if I made the right choice. If I'm on the right career path.
Mostly I wonder after we've written something someone disagrees with and people call and yell at me.
Whatever the cause, though, it's nice in those moments of uncertainty to know there are jobs out there for which I am even less well suited than I am for this one.
Those kinds of reminders don't come with any kind of regularity, and when I come across them it is often in the course of doing my job.
Several years ago, for example, the publicity crew from the Red Barron pizza company was in the area and invited me to go for a ride with a member of their biplane stunt-flying team. I accepted, expecting to have a chance to take some great aerial photos of the Farmington area. I never got the photos, but the experience taught me I would never have made it as a World War I-era fighter pilot. It's not that I'm afraid to fly. I just think it would have been hard to dogfight and throw up all over myself at the same time.
At any rate, it was one potential career path off the list.
Around the same time, I explored the possibility of becoming a professional bicycle racer by sending letters to the heads of the United States Cycling Federation and the United States Olympic Committee. I asked them if I could ride for the USA in the Athens Olympics. I even promised to bring my own bike, one of those old fashioned deals with the big wheel in the front. In the spirit of the Athens games I offered to ride in a toga.
No deal. All I got for my effort was a hat and a couple of pins. On the bright side, I can use those to convince people I actually did ride in Athens. In a way, that's even better. I get all the glory without having to do any of the actual work. It's as close as I'll ever get to knowing what life is like for Paris Hilton.
I haven't officially ruled out the possibility of becoming a world famous male model, but so far responses from potential agents have not been promising. I assume this is because the bike-shorts-and-toga look I've used in my promotional photos is simply too far ahead of its time.
The latest item on my this-career-is-not-for-you checklist is actually a return to the world of antiquated air combat. Over the weekend three World War II-era bombers visited Holman Field in St. Paul. Because my grandfather flew one of the models on display during the war several members of my family went to visit. My grandfather came dressed in his old flight suit, which earned him free admission. I'm not sure if it was a matter of respecting a veteran or of humoring a guy who was actually willing to walk around in public wearing a World War II flight suit.
Whatever the case, I had an opportunity to make my way through two of the three planes on display. And the planes, while presumably a good size by World War II standards, clearly were not built with ideas of accommodating someone who stands somewhere in the area of six foot six. Ceilings were low. Walkways were roughly the width of Twizzlers. Making my way from one end of a plane to the other required acts of contortion that would tax a contortionist (another career path off the list!). Were I required to move around one of those planes in any kind of hurry there is a very good chance I would either fall out a window or wedge myself so securely into a crawlspace I would still be there today.
I'm not too disappointed, though. I'm not sure I'd want to be a World War II-era bomber crewmember anyway. I'm not even sure what you'd have to major in to get into something like that.

Lessons learned

2007-07-12T12:21:00.000-07:00

You can learn a lot when you take a few days to do something as simple as drive halfway across the country. For example, you can learn there is a whole lot of space between the Twin Cities and the West Coast, and not a lot of stuff to put on it.
Much of that empty space is contained in North Dakota and Montana, two states that exist primarily as a place for the United States to keep prairieland it has no use for now but feels it might need later. Crossing Montana alone takes long enough that a good typist has time to conceive, write and edit a novel, three short stories and a typical Michael Bay movie.
I learned that while the average Montana city has fewer residents than a good-sized high school each city seems to have enough casinos to serve all of Las Vegas and then some. There are casinos on every corner, although each is roughly the size of a convenience store and offers little more exciting than keno and video poker. They have names that make them sound like they belong in the Old West (Lucky Lil's) or in James Bond movies (Casino Royale) and lighted signs on their walls that tempt would-be gamblers with payouts as big as $800. As jackpots go, Montana casinos rank somewhere between a good day at the track and a decent meat raffle.
Thanks to a billboard along the highway near Helena — it featured a photo of a child pointing a firearm at me and the message along the lines of, "If he doesn't trust God, does he trust you?" — I learned that if I do not teach my children about God they are likely to shoot me in the face. It's the most terrified by a roadside display since I was driving through Mississippi on the way home from my first year of college and saw three handmade crosses along the road along with a sign that read, "Prepare to meet thy God!"
I learned that in Miles City, Mont. — population 9,000 people and 700 casinos — it is possible to buy a home for $15,000. I also learned I have no actual interest in living in Miles City, Mont. Despite what the city's web site touts as its famous annual bucking horse sale. Although I know where I'm going next time I need a horse with a bad attitude.
I learned that sneaking stuff into Canada is probably a whole lot easier than sneaking anything back. The border guard who checked our IDs as we crossed the border going north couldn't have seemed less interested in the questions she was asking. I suspect I could have told her I had a trunk full of nerve gas and she would have shrugged it off and waved me through.
Coming back into the U.S. was a different story. By the time I got over the border headed south I was half convinced I was up to something.
I learned that Vancouver, B.C. is a nuclear weapons free zone. There was a sign that said so. That might actually explain the lax attitude of the border guard, now that I think about it. There's no need to search anyone for weapons when the city has an ordinance to take care of things.
I learned that life would be a lot easier if Canada would stop using that silly metric system. I can't tell you how much trouble I almost got in after we crossed the border and the speed limits went up to 120. Stupid kilometers. And can you imagine what a letdown it was when I realized gas prices were by the liter rather than by the gallon?
You could hear my cries of frustration for meters.
I learned it's good to have a responsive insurance agent. While I was vacationing in Whistler, B.C., I learned someone had thrown a large rock through the rear window of my car, which was parked in front of my home nearly 2,000 miles away (roughly 70,000 kilometers, I think). It was frustrating to be so far away, but one call to my insurance agent got everything taken care of except the vacuuming up of the broken glass.

And no leaving your blinker on!

2007-07-09T10:32:00.001-07:00

Last week the Vatican's office for migrants and immigrant people issued what has become widely known as the Ten Commandments for drivers, a kind of Biblical appendix designed to make the world's roads safer and happier for everyone who uses them. Among other things, the decree issues warnings against drinking and driving and advises drivers to help others in the case of accidents.
According to the Vatican's web page, the June 19 announcement also covered pastoral ministry for the liberation of street women, the pastoral care of street children and the pastoral care of the homeless. That's right. Street children, prostitutes and road rage. The office for migrants and immigrant people has a lot on its plate.
At the top of the list for drivers is a Commandment that should look familiar to anyone with a working knowledge of either the Bible or old Charlton Heston movies: "You Shall Not Kill." The double-dipping seems unnecessary — and I can only assume bumped a much-needed prohibition against fuzzy dice and "Calvin peeing" stickers out of the top 10 — but apparently, the Vatican wanted to make sure everyone realized God doesn't look any more favorably on vehicular homicide than He does on other forms of murder.
Second on the list is, "The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm." Honestly, this seems a little redundant after the first Commandment. I suspect the Vatican was padding its list here. To be fair, The Nine Commandments doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
My personal favorite Commandment, though, is number five, which reads, "Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin." Apparently even God thinks Hummers are stupid.
I can only hope this Commandment also covers vanity license plates. At least the ones like the "5-7HEMI" plate — a reference, so far as I could tell, to the size of the driver's ... engine — that I saw Sunday on the back of a Jeep. I'm not sure if I was more annoyed that the plate was so boastful, that it was boastful about something so stupid or that the driver was going so slowly in front of me. I was seriously in danger of abandoning the courtesy, uprightness and prudence that Commandment three claims will help me "deal with unforeseen events."
Even more remarkable than the list itself, though, is the way it was delivered to the public. There were no stone tablets. Nobody had to climb Mount Sinai. The Vatican Information Service just issued a press release and news organizations spread the word around the world. Imagine how much hassle Moses could have avoided if he could have posted "Dude, God says not to look at your neighbor's wife that way" on his blog.
Some might think reading the Catholic church's new rules online lacks some of the drama of the old way of doing things, but I think this opens up a lot of doors for getting God's message out.
I'm looking forward to the day I can get the word of God sent to my phone as a text message. Cell phone etiquette seems like a natural first topic. You know, things like, "You shall trn off yr phone in movee thtrs." Or, "OMG! Dnt covet yr nghbrs ringtone! LOL!!!!"
Amen.

The messy reality of weight loss

2007-07-09T10:31:00.001-07:00

People are willing to put themselves through a lot in the name of losing weight. They'll exercise until they're sweaty and red in the face. They'll try fad diets of all kinds — No bread! Cabbage soup! All pimiento! — as long as someone was persuasive enough to convince a publisher to put out a book about it. They'll even give up having full control of their toilet habits.
I'm basing this last claim on the introduction of something called alli, an over-the-counter diet drug recently given a big thumbs up by the federal Food and Drug Administration. Need proof that it works? That "a" in its name used to be an upper case letter.
According to the drug's web site (www.myalli.com, which, strangely, doesn't come up anywhere on the first page of a Google search), alli works by preventing your body from absorbing about a quarter of the fat you eat. That's the good news. The bad news, also according to the web site, is that using alli has a tendency to hinder a person's ability to control his or her bowels. Among the side effects listed: loose stools and "more frequent stools that may be hard to control" and gas with "oily spotting"
Oily spotting? So, I'll lose weight but my undershorts could end up looking like the paper towel you blot the bacon with?
Clearly this drug works. I'm losing weight just reading about it.
The drug's web site is full of useful instructions. For example: "You may not usually get gassy, but it's a possibility when you take alli. The bathroom is really the best place to go when that happens."
In other words, get somewhere nobody can see, hear or smell you, and fast.
The site also warns: "Until you have a sense of any treatment effects, it's probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work."
I don't know about you, but when a drug makers make suggestions about wardrobe I start to get nervous.
Also, eww!
On the bright side, alli sounds perfect for anyone interested in reliving those diaper-wearing days of their childhood.
According to Fox News the FDA has dismissed claims from a group called the Public Citizens' Health Research Group that alli causes colon cancer. Honestly, though, I'm starting to feel like cancer is alli's most pleasant possible side effect.
The alli diet isn't just about popping pills and soiling yourself, though. Like any good diet these days there's a book that goes with it. According to promotional material, the book — called The alli Diet Plan — is a "doctor-designed plan to make the most of this blockbuster product's extraordinary potential." Presumably it includes helpful advice like, "Eat less fat and there's less chance you'll mess yourself when you least expect it." Or maybe, "Sure, dark pants are a good idea. But might I also recommend rubber shorts? They're hot and they bunch but they're totally worth it!"
Reports from users of the drug seem mixed. The web site Medical News Today shared a sampling of e-mails from its readers. Some were positive: "It is the only thing that has worked for my very obese patients who did not want surgery" or "If you stick to a low fat diet it works really well." Some were more neutral: "It cannot replace exercise and a good diet."
And others? Well, they were ... um ... discouraging? Unsettling? Queasifying? I don't know. You pick the adjective: "The drug forced me to avoid fatty foods if I wanted to keep my underwear clean. I lost a lot of weight." Or, "I had to give up as my underwear was soiled all the time."
The bottom line? alli might be great for the size of that bottom, not so much for the clothing you use to cover it.

Just call me Mr. Fixit

2007-06-22T15:31:00.000-07:00

I am not what any reasonably observant person would call handy. Never have been. In junior high, my shop class bird house was so unappealing birds chose to go homeless, sleeping under tiny bird newspapers outside the school. The scale model wall frame I built might actually have been condemned. I don't remember.
For the most part, tools and I have an agreement. I don't try to use them to build or fix anything and they don't horribly maim me or anyone else unfortunate enough to be nearby when I attempt a tricky home maintenance task like installing a doorknob or replacing a light bulb.
I know this about myself and I'm generally OK with it. I have rarely had much urge to build anything. All of which makes a recent decision to tinker with an old bike especially puzzling.
I've had this particular bike, a Cannondale, since shortly after I graduated from college 10 years ago. It served me well for a few years, but I didn't care for it well and eventually, as I started to get more serious about biking I replaced it with something newer and lighter and all-around spiffier. The chain rusted. The gears rusted. It started refusing to shift in weather colder than about 80. So, I decided to strip those troublesome gears off, strip off everything related to shifting and rebuild the bike with a single gear.
The logic seemed sound at the time. If the project failed, I'd only have lost a bike I didn't ride anyway. If it worked, the bike would have new life as something on which I could cruise around town.
Plus, I'm pretty sure chicks dig guys on singlespeed bikes. Right?
Caught up in the excitement of the moment, I didn't give any consideration to my significant and well demonstrated lack of mechanical ability. I didn't care about little things like whether I'd be able to put everything back together again. I just wanted to start pulling things off the bike.
In fairness to me, the pulling-parts-off part of the job went pretty smoothly. Then again, I've never had a problem breaking things.
In retrospect, I probably didn't plan quite as well as I should have. None of the parts I ordered right off the bat seemed to work together. The chainring, that big gear wheel in the front of the bike that looks kind of like the disc weapons Xena, Warrior Princess used, was the wrong size for my pedals. New pedals were cheap on e-bay, but they didn't come with the right bolts to hold them to the bike. And nobody I knew seemed to have the right tools to either take everything apart or put it back together.
I never gave up, though. And after multiple online bidding wars, several trips to the bike shop for new tools and slightly less cash than it would have cost me to just by a new bike I had everything put back together.
Still, the completed project didn't exactly inspire confidence in the people around me. My brother said he wanted to be there the first time I rode the reconstructed bike. Not, I suspect, to share in my moment of triumph so much as in anticipation of the whole thing falling apart and me hitting the street face first the first time I tried to turn the pedals.
I chose not to invite him to the bike's maiden trip around the block. He would have been disappointed, anyway. Much to everyone's surprise, the bike held together. To my even greater surprise it has continued to hold up under the few short trips I've taken on it since.
The bike isn't fast. If my bike that replaced it is a greyhound then the newly be-singlespeeded Cannondale is, I don't know, a three-toed sloth. Only a lot heavier. It's like a cross between a three-toed sloth and a particularly lethargic moose.
That's OK, though. I built it. It stayed together. If only those snooty birds could see me now.

Much ado about nothing

2007-06-15T17:43:00.000-07:00

I know way too much about people I don't know anything about.
Know what I mean?
OK, maybe that's not as clear as it seemed in my head. So, an example.
Take Anna Nicole Smith. I have never in my life made even the smallest effort to know more about Anna Nicole Smith. And yet I know she married some rich old dude. I know she died of a drug overdose and I know roughly a third of the world's male population claimed to have fathered her child. I don't know why I know this. I don't want to know this. And yet there all that information is, taking up space in my brain that could otherwise be occupied with things like the best way to grill a hamburger or an idea for a movie script that will make me millions. If the knowledge has to be Anna Nicole-related, couldn't it at least be something like the date when she first appeared in Playboy? That's information I could use.
Or, take Paris Hilton. I'm still not even clear why anyone knows who she is (something to do with a home movie?) and yet I know she went back to jail recently, and I know she was crying when she went. I know this at least in part because Newsweek dedicated most of a page to telling me about it.
I know Lindsay Lohan held a knife to a friend's throat. I know Nicole Richie is so thin it looks like someone wrapped a blanket around a coat rack. And I know Britney Spears has as much chance of getting through rehab successfully as I have getting Britney Spears' phone number. Fortunately, I also know enough about Britney Spears and her decline from the days when men around the world were having criminally lustful thoughts about her that I probably wouldn't want her phone number anyway.
Everyone wins, I guess.
These days, thanks the increasing options for sharing information with the world, it's not just the inexplicably famous I know way too much about. I also know far more than I care to about the explicably non-famous.
I realize that as a person who dedicates 600-some words each week to telling people whatever inane thought is on my mind (how I know too much about people, for example) I'm on shaky footing when I come out against blogs, but I'm doing it anyway. I know people I have blogs, or web logs. I read one regularly to keep track of a former co-worker who has since moved out of the state. But that's it. I don't need to know what some dude in Milwaukee thinks about the latest episode of American Idol, or about what some lonely blogger's cats did that was really cute.
Full disclosure: I made a page on MySpace, a social networking site where teenage girls and aspiring musicians share intimate details of their lives. I did it because I wanted to see if I could locate any long lost friends. I abandoned it almost immediately because I don't need the world to know my favorite color (It's blue!) or favorite band (At the moment it's the Hold Steady!) or my favorite kind of soup (I don't eat soup much!).
By the way, if you want to check any of this later, you can read this column on the Town Pages blog, areavoices.com/townpages. Oh, the irony.
Blogs are just the beginning, though. A new program called Twitter lets people provide instant updates via cell phone to tell people exactly where they are at any given moment. Sites like flickr let people share their photos with the world.
A recent study by five psychologists, led by San Diego State professor Jean Twenge, found that college students today are more self-centered than at any time since 1982. Twenge suggests that is due at least in part to the growth of technology like MySpace and YouTube. Young people assume that the fact they can share the intimate details of their life — or at least videos of them getting hit in the crotch — means other people are actually interested in those details.
We're not, of course. Unless knowing some random college student in Portland is a terrible dancer and has no shame can help me forget Paris Hilton has a dog named Tinkerbell. Then it might be worth it.

Words of wisdom

2007-06-08T10:06:00.001-07:00

This being the graduation season there is no shortage of people willing to offer advice to the young men and women of America as they prepare to receive their diplomas. As commencement day nears for Minnesota high school students graduation speakers and newspaper columnists who never get asked to speak ,even though they would be totally awesome at it, prepare to share their wisdom, such as it is, with one more group of students about to head off to the real world. Or at least to college which, let's be honest, is only slightly more like the real world than that show on MTV where people spend all their time drinking and yelling at each other.
Live life to the fullest, graduates will be told. Aim high, speakers will advise. Always wear clean underwear and remember to call home, parents will admonish.
Words of wisdom come from all kinds of places this time of year. Places like the editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries, who recently released a list of 100 words they believe every high school graduate should know.
Some of the words on the list make sense. Nano-technology, for example. The science of really small things is an increasingly important part of everyday life, so it seems fair to expect high school graduates to at least know what it is. Plagiarize is a good one, too. It's important for college students to do their own work, so I guess students should understand what plagiarism is all about. Deciduous? Photosynthesis? Everyone knows discussions about trees and their ability to turn carbon dioxide into oxygen happen all the time in the hallways of college dorms.
It's a little harder to figure out why some of the other words made the list.
Take abjure, the first word on the list. It means to solemnly renounce, as in a belief. And while I realize college students change their views on any number of subjects, I don't see why they'd have to be so snooty about it.
Then there's expurgate, which the dictionary on my computer says means to remove material thought to be objectionable. This actually sounds like part of what I do in my job, but I think people would look at me funny if I started calling myself an expurgator. They might also start expecting me to pull this column out of the paper if they knew my job was to remove objectionable material.
I don't like the fact xenophobe is on the list, but that might just be because it's such a foreign-sounding word.
American Heritage Dictionary senior editor Steven Kleinedler calls the words on the list a benchmark against which students can measure themselves.
"If you are able to use these words correctly, you are likely to have a superior command of the language," he said.
That may be, but use them too often or in the wrong company and you are likely to have a superior wedgie, too.
With that in mind, I'd like to offer my own list of words and phrases every soon-to-be college student should know.
Ramen: A staple of any college student's diet. True story: A college friend of mine actually started yelling at a complete stranger after hearing him tell a friend he had no idea what ramen was. You don’t want to take that chance. Also acceptable: Easy Mac.
Nothing before 10: This phrase should be considered above all else when planning a schedule.
Snooze button: Understanding its proper use is important for any college student. It can be your best friend or your worst enemy.
Send money: Ramen and Easy Mac are cheap. Not free.
Priorities: There are a lot of distractions in college. Stay focused on what's important.
My computer crashed: Great for those nights when you're supposed to be writing a paper but Ferris Bueller's Day Off is showing on campus.
Good luck, graduates.

Crank up the tacky factor

2007-05-31T12:26:00.001-07:00

Last May my father, my brother and I took a week and biked something like 430 miles from Hayward, Wis. to Mackinac Island, Mich.
In case you're not familiar, Mackinac Island, located in Lake Michigan, is best known for its lack of motorized vehicles — everyone gets around either on bicycles or in horse-drawn wagons — and for fudge, which is available in roughly every other shop on the island. The buildings all look like they could be made of gingerbread, the businesses are staffed primarily by people who move to the island for the summer and its economy is based primarily on the sale of candy, tacky t-shirts and any number of other things nobody actually needs.
It's a tourist trap, but in a vaguely classy, oldey timey kind of way.
This year, we decided to take things to a new level.
Last Friday morning the three of us drove to Red Wing and set off by bicycle to LaCrosse, Wis. and from there to Wisconsin Dells. The trip itself was scenic and pleasant. With the exception some of the worst navigation since Columbus tried to find a new route to Asia -- what was supposed to be two 100-mile days in the saddle turned into 110 miles on Friday and 123 on Saturday -- it was uneventful. The trip's end, though was anything but.
Mackinac Island is quaint in its tourist trappiness. Wisconsin Dells, on the other hands, is about as gaudy and in-your-face as a city of 1,200 people can be. It's like the Midwest's answer to Las Vegas, only instead of gangsters it appears to have been built by harried parents looking for ways to keep their kids occupied for a week every summer. It may be the only city in the world with more mini golf holes than permanent residents.
In recent years Las Vegas has tried to lure people with the addition of high-end shopping malls. My mom remembers the Dells primarily — and fondly — because it once had a store called Chenille world.
In Las Vegas they build giant theaters for dubious stars like Celine Dion. In the Dells they built a theater for magician Rick Wilcox.
Vegas has gambling and is a prime destination for a certain kind of bachelor party. The Dells has go-karts and would probably be a sweet place to have birthday party if you were, like, 8.
It's hard to know quite what to make of the Dells. Back before I hit puberty and had the patience to wait 10 minutes in line for a two-second waterslide ride I'm sure I thought it was really cool. Now that I'm too big to fit comfortably in a go-kart (seriously, I've got a bruise on my knee now) some of the shine is gone. I still enjoyed my three go kart races and my 18 holes of "adventure golf," but I was also happy to go back and read my book. I could have wandered through the shops downtown, I suppose, but a person really only needs so many "Female Body Inspector" shirts.
I think it's great a place like Wisconsin Dells exists — people all over the Midwest need a place they can drive with their kids for a summer vacation — I'm just not sure I need to go back there anytime soon.
It's hard to know how we’ll top this with our next trip. Although people have already started talking about Vegas. I suppose it's the natural next step.

Local news, now with less local

2007-05-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

We live in a world where every job currently done by an American worker can be outsourced to someone in another country willing to do it for less money.
I didn't used to believe that. I mean, I always knew there were a lot of jobs that could be shipped overseas in the name of saving a couple of bucks. Some guy in Bangalore, India can help me troubleshoot my computer or activate my credit card just as easily as Carl in San Jose. It might be a bad deal for American tech workers, but at least they have more time now to play World of Warcraft.
So, yes. I knew there were plenty of jobs being farmed out to foreigners. But all jobs? That seemed unlikely. My job? No way, Jose. No way some guy telecommuting from another continent can provide the kind of local coverage readers of small-town newspapers want. No way someone sitting at a computer in the Far East can know as much about what's going on in Rosemount as someone who sits in the meetings and walks on the streets and talks face to face with the people who live here.
I mean, right?
Apparent ly not. And a web site in Pasadena is proving it.
Accord-ing to the Los Angeles Times, a web site called Pasadena now.com recently hired two beat reporters to cover Pasadena city government. Both will work from home, which for them is in India. They'll watch live webcasts of city council meetings and conduct interviews via e-mail. And the best part for the web site? Together the two reporters, one of whom reportedly has a degree from the University of California at Berkley, will be paid about $21,000.
The web site's publisher, James Macpherson, told the Times the new reporters would be, "a significant way to increase the quality of journalism on the local level without the expense that is a major problem for local publications."
I suppose when you consider most of Pasadenanow's previous city government coverage until came from press releases he might be right. But I imagine the thing he's most concerned with increasing is the size of his bank account. And when there's money to be saved who cares if the guy writing the stories has ever met the subject of his interview face to face? What's the big deal if he's never been to Leprechaun Days or sifted through the letters written about downtown redevelopment or had people call and tell him he doesn't know what he's doing? With a 13 1/2-hour time difference from India to Pasadena — not to mention the long distance charges involved — that seems unlikely.
What are a few culture-based misunderstandings when you're saving big bucks?
Then again, maybe I'm just being defensive. I bet the guys at the Visa call center never thought a bunch of foreigners could do their jobs, either. And when you think about it, with the growing popularity of satellite TV why couldn't some guy in Shanghai make just as many lame jokes as I do about stupid shows on TV?
So, there you go. Newspapers aren't just going out of style. They're going overseas. And if someone can cover a city without ever setting foot inside its borders why should we believe any job is safe from outsourcing? I'm sure this is just the beginning.
Why do we need so many local police officers, for example? Can't we just install a bunch of security cameras and have some kids from a Chinese sweatshop watch for trouble on their breaks? Maybe we can have a couple of local cops on duty in case of emergencies, but if we could rig squad cars up to remote control systems it would be just like playing video games for the kids.
Lawyers? I'm not convinced they actually serve a purpose as it is, but if you really need one why not just hook up a video conferencing system and patch in some guy from Hong Kong. He doesn't get paid until you get paid, and even then it's like 75 cents.
Why spend big money on famous actors for our movies and television shows? I bet there are all kinds of talented Croatians who are willing to do the same work for a fraction of the price. And do you really think the quality of a movie like Delta Farce would suffer?

I wasn't using my gums, anyway

2007-05-10T09:54:00.001-07:00

A couple of large, padded envelopes showed up on my desk one day last week. That's not unusual. Operating two newspapers out of the same office, we often get press releases and other materials in duplicate. What was in the envelopes? Well, that's where things get interesting.
As I write this column, I have sitting on the desk in front of me two packages of something the manufacturer has decided to describe as "dissolvable tobacco" — wintergreen flavor! — and two packages of something called hard snuff — "Spit Free," the box announces in red letters.
That's right. Mr. Postman brought me a veritable jackpot of addictive, cancer-causing substances. Outside of the thin mints the Girl Scouts send each year to announce the start of cookie sales it's the most potentially habit-forming press release I've ever been sent.
I realize the tobacco industry doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to the methods it uses to get people hooked on its products. Still, sending out samples through the mail seems sketchy even for people who chose pitch their products with a phallus-faced cartoon camel.
I don't know quite what to make of these particular products. According to the press release that accompanied my gum disease-causing gift, smokeless tobacco like Ariva and Stonewall — the names of these particular products — is "between 10 and 1,000 times less hazardous than smoking depending on the product." That's nice, I guess. But isn't that a little like saying my chances of ever getting a date with Charlize Theron are between 1,000 and 1,000,000 to one, depending on how much she's had to drink? Star Scientific, the company behind what I've decided to identify as suckable tobacco, recently added 40 new distribution centers, which the release claims are "capable of making the products available to approximately 50,000 retail outlets." Just like I'm "capable" of treating Charlize to a lovely dinner. You know, assuming she doesn't mind ordering from the dollar menu.
The packaging for both Ariva and Stonewall looks like a hybrid of a cigarette pack, a box of cold medicine and a package of chiclets. The individual pieces of Ariva, which come 20 to a pack, are sealed in plastic blisters like Sudafed. The football-shaped Ariva pieces are about the size of a pea. The similarly shaped Stonewall is roughly twice as big. I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to use them to ease a nicotine craving or clear up sinus pressure.
I'd like to tell you what these things taste like, but I've never used a tobacco product in my life. And as dedicated as I am to my readers I'm not going to start with something that looks vaguely like it should be sold on a street corner somewhere.
The back of each package has instructions, which seems like a bad sign when the only major step is putting something in your mouth. Still, the box strongly recommends against chewing the piece or swallowing it whole. Nothing ominous about that. Or about the warning on the bottom of the box that either product might cause gum disease and tooth loss. Or the warning that oral tobacco products can cause dizziness, heartburn, hiccups or nausea. No wonder they're giving this stuff away.
I imagine products like Ariva and Stonewall will become more popular as legislators continue to ferret out every last place a Minnesotan might try to light up a cigarette. This might explain Star Scientific's new marketing campaign for the products: "Better than Cigarettes® — Find out Why." Granted, when you're sucking on a lozenge of tobacco there's no secondhand smoke to worry about. And we've already covered the spitting issue. All we'll really have to worry about is a bunch of dizzy, queasy tobacco-suckers with no teeth and rotting gums.
Apparently, the convenience store industry is sold, though. An article in the April 2007 issue of Convenience Store Decisions calls Ariva and Stonewall "the future of tobacco use in the 21st century." I'm not sure how many other options there are for our future tobacco use, but I imagine people wadding tobacco leaves up and sticking them in their ears.
Me? I'm waiting until cookie time rolls around again.

Were we having fun yet?

2007-05-03T11:49:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I spent a healthy chunk of an otherwise lovely Sunday causing myself considerable discomfort.
I wasn't alone. By one estimate something like 5,000 people were out there with me, forsaking yard work and family time and other more productive activities like, I don't know, watching the NFL draft or cleaning the lint trap in their driers, to pedal their bicycles in big circles.
These people and I participated in the Ironman bike ride, which started and ended at Lakeville North High School. At least, it ended at LHS for people who didn't collapse somewhere along the way and require professional assistance just to relieve pressure from their super-stretchy shorts. I imagine there were more than a few of those.
Most of these people will tell you they enjoyed their ride Sunday. And they won't be lying. At least not entirely. So far as I can tell, there are three truly enjoyable periods in any long bike ride. The first is on the way to the ride, as you eat a banana and talk confidently about how fast you're going to go. The second is any stretch of road when you've got a strong wind at your back. There's something immensely enjoyable about speeding along at 25 miles an hour with hardly any effort. The third and most important period is long after the ride is done, as you convince yourself, you actually did have fun doing the activity to which you just dedicated five-plus hours.
This last period is vital, because it serves to convince people they should A) try the ride again next year and B) talk their friends into trying it with them. This is how rides like the Ironman, which more often than not takes place on cold, windy and otherwise miserable days, continue to grow year after year.
What I'm saying is a good distance bike ride is kind of like a really efficient virus. It causes discomfort in its host/rider but it never does enough damage that it can't sustain itself. And don't let anyone tell you riders in the Ironman don't suffer. Last year I rode 100 miles in 40-degree rain. A long bike ride doesn't typically cause as much coughing or vomiting as a nasty flu bug, but after 90 miles sitting on a seat roughly the size of that banana you ate earlier in the day, well, let's just say you're ready for a nice, cushy chair.
And no matter how much fun those with-the-wind segments are, you can never forget you're riding in a big circle. Eventually you'll have to turn around and go the other way. In the Ironman, this typically means around mile 85, as you hit Northfield and turn north up Cedar Avenue, you prepare yourself to spend the last 15 miles or so biking uphill and into a wind I estimate is typically just short of gale force. The next time someone tells you this is a good time I encourage you to laugh in that person's face. Or possibly to give them a solid smack.
Still, there's a lot to love about a ride like the Ironman. It gives a person a glimpse at just how diverse the bike community is. As I rode Sunday I saw bikes that probably cost as much as my car and bikes that probably cost as much as my shoes. One year I swear I saw a guy riding the 100-mile route on a bike he appeared to have built himself.
I saw riders Sunday who looked like they were fit and ready for any endurance test and others who made me start humming that High Hopes song about the ant and the rubber tree plant. These were riders who put the sag in sag wagon and, unfortunately, the big fat rear end in tight spandex shorts.
There were riders in full Lance Armstrong costume, with Discovery Channel jerseys and Trek bikes, and there was one guy whose outfit included way-too-short biking shorts, clip-in bike shoes and a Hawaiian shirt over a big gut.
Bikers are an eclectic group alright.
Sure the Ironman is a struggle. That last hill up to the high school is a killer every year. But there's also a whole lot to love about it. I suppose I'll go back next April.
Wanna come?

She can forget a Mother's Day card

2007-04-26T13:25:00.001-07:00

There is an unwritten Guy Code that spells out certain things any real man really should do for himself. Shaving is one. So is hooking up new electronic equipment. Sending hate mail to a former elementary school classmate you haven't seen in more than a decade? That's definitely on the list.
That last one should probably be self-explanatory, but some people have to learn the hard way.
Anthony Perone did. According to a March 16 story in the Hartford Courant, the 20-year-old Faribault resident wrote two letters to a girl he'd gone to school with in third and fourth grade. He wrote things like, "Your gonna learn about suffering and having nothing. Pain you will feel. Fear, Being alive," and filled the letters with drawings of tombstones and rifles and hearts with chunks bitten out of them. He signed them "Love, Death Stalker."
Then, he left the letters for his mom to mail.
This is where is plan starts to fall apart. Because Perone's mom, presumably thinking she was being helpful, put her son's name and return address on the envelopes and put them in the mail.
This might have been the easiest stalking case Connecticut police have ever solved.
Clearly mothers are nothing but trouble. Sometimes they put return addresses on letters that threaten death to people who are practically strangers. Sometimes they give their son's phone number to strange women they meet in book stores, just because the woman says she likes biking.
Not that I know any mothers who would do anything like that.
Imagine how much easier it would be to solve crimes, though, if every criminal was so dependent on his mother. The Unabomber would have been caught within days, although I imagine it would have taken some time to track down a return address for "crazy person's shack in the woods."
The anthrax scares that happened after 9/11 probably would have been over before they started because the mailer's mom would have been just certain her boy would never have meant to send such messy packages. And shouldn't he come out of that lab for just a little while? At least go sit in the yard. It's such a nice day.
Obviously Peron has some problems. Aside from bad grammar and a pushy mother, I mean. Police found an assault rifle and ammunition in his bedroom, along with a machete and evidence he planned to travel to Connecticut. He'd been obsessing over a girl who he'd last seen when both were in elementary school. And he wanted to go to Connecticut.
Still, there's no excuse for this kind of mistake. Does Peron ask his mother to soap him up when he showers? Does she clip his toenails? I'm guessing she doesn't. And he really shouldn't ask her to mail his anonymous, venom-filled letters. Hate mail is a very personal thing, after all.
According to the Courant, Peron has pleaded guilty to two counts against him and could face up to 10 years in prison and fines of up to $500,000 when he is sentenced June 5.
It is not clear whether he would write his mom from jail.

Keep on truckin'

2007-04-19T13:39:00.002-07:00

It seems like every third commercial on TV these days involves one automaker or another telling everyone how big and powerful their pick-up trucks are.
This isn't an entirely new thing. Americans have been infatuated with larger-than-necessary trucks ever since we as a culture decided we didn't give a darn how much gas cost — or how often news anchors told us prices were increasing — because we needed to drive around town in something larger than many people's first apartments.
Still, things seem to be getting out of hand. These commercials are everywhere. I see them a lot during sporting events, which makes a certain amount of sense. Manly Men watch sports, and Manly Men need big trucks so they can pull up stumps or haul construction debris or drag Rhode Island over to the West Coast just for the heck of it. Probably while wearing flannel shirts and steel-toed work boots. These are things Manly Men do.
But I also see a lot of commercials for these trucks during The Office. Do Manly Men like quiet, observational comedies shot in a documentary style? Do Manly Men care whether Jim and Pam end up together? Do they wipe away tears with flannel hankies? Maybe Manly Men are more diverse than I give them credit for.
I'm learning things watching these commercials. A few weeks ago I had no idea what a leaf spring was. Now two manufacturers are telling me their massive springs — "honkin'" is the term one of them uses — are the reason their trucks are strong enough to hold all of the rocks or manure or small office buildings you want to load them down with. Frankly, I would have thought a part so vital to making our trucks super-tough would have a more rugged-sounding name. Something less plant related. Like, biceps spring, maybe. Or tough-guy spring.
I've seen trucks pulling trains. I've seen trucks driven at breakneck speeds to the edges of cliffs. Manly Men have very little respect for the well-being of their trucks. Then again, their trucks are tough. Their trucks can take it. Their trucks want it that way, because they are Manly Trucks.
I'm sure there are people who need trucks like these. These are people whose job involves activities more strenuous than sitting at a desk and typing all day. Although, to be fair, I'm at serious risk of carpal tunnel. I take that risk every week because I want to entertain you, my readers. I don't consider myself a hero for that, but it's OK if you do.
Still, I'm not sure the market is so large I need to spend every commercial break learning about fully-boxed frames or supersized tow hitches or brakes the size of manhole covers apparently designed specifically to stop speeding trucks at the edges of cliffs.
Then again, maybe these automakers know something I don't. Maybe our environment is worse than we realize and we'll all soon need trucks so large they have their own gravitational pull just to survive. Or maybe our obesity epidemic is spiraling out of control and we'll need super-sized trucks just to haul our super-sized butts around.
Better beef up those tough-guy springs.

You wouldn't like me when I'm angry

2007-04-19T13:39:00.001-07:00

Can we please cool it with the rage?
Earlier this month the St. Paul Pioneer Press printed a Columbia News Service story about the growing incidences of what the story calls Sidewalk Rage, which it apparently defines as any incident in which one person gets really ticked off at another person where both of the people involved are on a sidewalk at the time. Apparently the term was considered more concise than "getting really ticked off at other people in public rights of way."
I guess I get that.
I don't know if Road Rage was the first commonly recognized form of situational rage, but it's was the first to enter my consciousness. This was back around the time we started seeing all kinds of stories about drivers in California who had started opening fire on the Interstate, having deciding a raised middle finger was no longer an appropriate response to the jerk who cut you off.
At the time, it seemed like an appropriate turn of phrase. Drivers were getting honked off at the idiots on the road all around them and were flying off the handle. They were on the road. They were in a rage. Simple as that.
Now, rage is everywhere. It's moved from the road to the sidewalk and there's no stopping it. Consider these terms that turned up at least one recorded incident in the first five responses from a Google search:
Travel Rage: A blanket term that includes Air Rage (getting miffed at altitude when), Hotel Rage (wanting to ring the bell of the clerk who lost your reservation) and Train Rage (like Air Rage, presumably, but on rails and generally at a lower fare and with more stops).
Restaurant Rage: Now getting irate at the waiter who takes an hour to bring your soup or the jerk at the next table who won't get off his cell phone gets its own diagnosis.
Cable Rage: The Urban Dictionary describes this as getting extremely frustrated at a particularly nasty tangle of cables. I'll admit, it sounds a lot better than, "Becoming upset at the realization your sloppy cable-routing habits have created a disgusting mess behind your home entertainment system."
Parking Rage: Pretty much what it sounds like. Someone takes the parking spot you wanted, you flip out. Someone parks too close to your car, forcing you to contort your body like Plastic Man just to get out of the mall parking lot, you key their door. Someone's car alarm won't stop going off, you smash a trash can through their windshield. Simple.
Snow Rage: This might be a particular concern this week. According to the Chicago Tribune a 73-year-old man was charged with assault in March of this year after he reportedly slashed his neighbor with a knife because he didn't like the fact the neighbor was blowing snow into his yard.
"I'm very upset about what happened," the man reportedly said after he was released on bail. "We're good friends, good neighbors. I just want this to blow over."
Apparently this assumes it doesn't blow into his yard.
Sports Rage: This one's easy. Parents go nuts at a sporting event. Parents attack ref. Parents attack opposing coach. Parents attack their own child's coach. Take your pick, really.
To be fair, there were several terms that don't yet turn up claims of rage syndromes. So far as I can tell, nobody has yet coined the term Soup Rage. There was nothing for Slacker Rage, although that one seems pretty self-explanatory. A search for Salamander Rage turned up a review for the Sega Genesis game Streets of Rage 2 (which was awesome, by the way) but no incidents of people getting angry over newts. There were no valid responses for Television Rage, which seems really surprising. Seriously, nobody's blood boils when they watch Two and a Half Men?
A search for Marshmallow Rage turned up a story about Fluffernutter wars raging in Massachusetts. That doesn't really fit this discussion but it suggests that despite playing a key role in the American Revolution Massachusetts now has the lamest wars ever.
I'm sure these types of rage and more are on the horizon, though. It's just a matter of time. And when I see them I'm going to get really mad.
Call it Rage Rage.

Tubby, Tubby, Tubby

2007-03-30T10:39:00.001-07:00

We're nearing the end of March, and you know what that means: Every person in the world is currently losing in their NCAA tournament pools.
This is the time of year when anybody with the remotest interest in sports — and even many without any interest at all — fills out a tournament bracket. It's also the time of year when newspaper columnists and late night talk show hosts write or talk about how poorly they're doing with those brackets. And since nobody ever talks about winning their tournament pools, I can only assume nobody ever wins.
It's simple statistics, folks. You can't argue with it.
For the record, I actually still have a chance to win one of my pools. If I've done the math right, never a certainty, Ohio State beating UCLA in the championship means I win. That could mean some decent money. You know, if I was in favor of betting on things like this.
Kids, don't gamble.
I don't want to talk about any of that, though. I don't want to talk about this basketball season. This basketball season is dead to me. It went on life support the day the Gopher men's team lost to Marist, and it started coughing up vital organs around the time the team started stumbling its way through the Big 10 season. You know how you can tell things are bad? When you start to wonder if the players know they're only supposed to throw the ball to players whose uniforms match theirs.
I've been going to Gopher games since before I was old enough to really understand what was going on. There were times this season when I still wasn't sure, but I blame the team for some of that. In all those years, this is the first time I actually felt relieved when the season ended. I haven't been to the dentist in years, but getting teeth drilled couldn't be as bad as this year's team. At least at the dentist you get Novocain.
How bad was this year's Gopher team? If I'd had any college eligibility left, I might have had a chance to walk on. I'm not saying we'd do better if I was on the floor (we almost certainly wouldn't) but we couldn't have done much worse. And I'd have had the chance to wear a tank top, which likely would have either made people laugh or made them a little queasy. Either way, though, it might distract them from the game.
But like I said, this season is over. The Dan Monson Era is over in Gopher Basketball and the Tubby Smith era has begun. It's fitting this happened in spring, because there couldn't be anything more refreshing.
I don't know a lot about Tubby Smith. I know his real first name is Orlando, and that his parents had something like 632 children. I know he was an assistant coach at Kentucky before moving on to Tulsa and Georgia, where he ran successful programs. I know he won 22 games this season, just three fewer than the Gophers won in the last two years combined, and still had people calling for the school to fire him. And I know people in Kentucky really, really need something besides college basketball and bourbon to keep them occupied.
There are certainly concerns with the hire. Some of those people calling for Tubby to be fired questioned his ability to recruit. And if Tubby can't recruit at Kentucky, one of the great programs in the history of college basketball, how can we expect him to recruit to a school with players who at times this season seemed unclear on the underlying concepts of the game? Maybe we could offer to have someone write the players' term papers for them.
Mostly, though, I'm excited. Because beyond the questions, beyond the doubts, beyond the idea that, hey, $1.8 million is an awful lot to pay a guy to coach a basketball team, there is one important fact. That fact is this: In the next few years we're going to have a lot more opportunities to use the word "Tubby." And that can only be a good thing.

Break out the fish pudding!

2007-03-30T10:38:00.003-07:00

They say everyone's Irish on St. Patrick's Day. I can only assume that in this particular instance "They" are "People who are looking for an excuse to justify drinking until they can't see straight."
As I headed out for a bike ride early Saturday afternoon (on a green bike, no less) I saw lots of people being Irish. By 1 p.m. they were already heading into bars or into tents set up specially for the occasion. Presumably they'd set aside a lot of time that afternoon for exploring their Irish heritage. Hopefully they'd arranged rides home with a somewhat less Irish friend.
When I attended college in New Orleans we had weeks at a time when everyone was Irish. They were called "Mardi Gras." Or sometimes "Thursday."
I don't think I've ever been Irish on St. Patrick's Day, though. Most years on March 17 I'm the same thing I am every other day of the year: Norwegian enough to know how to eat lefse the right way, but with enough other nationalities mixed in I've never thought to myself, "You know what I'd like? A nice piece of whitefish soaked in lye sure would hit the spot. Get me some lutefisk!"
I realize there are plenty of people who enjoy lutefisk now and again but I also suspect these people are the reason there are Ole and Lena jokes. And not even the funny Ole and Lena jokes.
(I'm kidding, of course. There are no funny Ole and Lena jokes.)
Norway is the only country where I've actually met distant relatives. This was during my junior year of high school, when I spent 10 months living in Sweden. My aunt, the genealogist in the family, came to visit and we went to find our kin in northern Norway. We met some relatives I'd never seen before and will probably never see again. And we got a tour of an old family homestead from some people who were in no way related to us. They picked us up from the library where my aunt was doing research (the librarian had called them) and fed us lefse and some kind of soup that was pretty much just milk and macaroni (I have no idea why people think Norwegians eat bland food). They would have let us spend the night, I think, if we didn't already have a hotel room.
In other parts of the country this story might have ended with my aunt and me chopped up in somebody's basment, but I think our biggest danger was that they might make us put Saint Lucia candle-wreaths on our heads.
I like being Norwegian. In Minnesota, it's practially a requirement. The only problem is, we don't get enough respect. When people think Norway they don't think famous people. They think fjords and white food and possibly Haggar the Horrible.
There are a lot of noteworthy Norwegians, though. There are explorers like Roald Amundson, the first person to reach the South Pole. Vilhelm Bjerknes, the father of modern meterology, is Norwegian. At least, there's a 75 percent chance he is. Norway has famous cyclists like Thor Hushovd and ski jumpers like Espen Bredesen. There are even famous Norwegian beach volleyball players. Which brings up the surprising realization there are beaches in Norway.
Norway has lots of famous entertainers, although two of the 20 people in the Film and Comedy category on Wikipedia's list of famous Norwegians are porn stars. That's 20 percent! Apparently the Norwegian film industry is really trashy.
Norway also boasts the band Mayhem, which so far as I can tell is like a cross between Kiss and the creepiest person you've ever met. They feature songs with names like Voice of a Tortured Skull and Necrolust. Those long winter nights can really mess with a person.
I think it's clear we Norwegians have a lot to offer. There's more to us than cross country skiing and fjords. Keep that in mind a couple of months from now. Because they say everyone's Norwegian on Syttende Mai.

The pain of a great loss

2007-03-30T10:38:00.001-07:00

Dear Diary:
Anna Nicole Smith is gone and I'm not sure what I'll do. Our world has lost an icon. A stylemaker. A role model for people everywhere. At least, for people who aren't all that bright but want to remain in the public eye despite having no readily identifiable talent. Where in Hollywood will we ever find anyone like that again?
I realize I'm late in writing about this, Diary. Frankly, it was too much to process right away. All I wanted to do was pretend it hadn't happened but there was nowhere I could turn. At the gym on the night she died I had to watch endless Fox News coverage while I ran on the treadmill. CNN is said to have gone 90 minutes commercial-free with nothing but Anna Nicole news. I don't blame them. What, after all, could be more important than the tragic death of a woman who brought joy to so many. Who brought news of TrimSpa to the masses and who, let's be honest, made us all feel just a little bit better about ourselves.
Even now, weeks after she left us, Anna Nicole's death is still very much a topic of conversation. Just recently a judge wept as he ruled on the fate of Anna Nicole's daughter. People made fun of him for that, but not me. He knew. Anna Nicole was gone and she was never coming back. How could any baby be better off with a mother like Anna Nicole out of the picture?
Just last week, Stephen King wrote about Anna Nicole in a column for Entertainment Weekly. He called her life a fairy tale, and that seems about right. She rose from poverty to prominence is just like Cinderella. You know, assuming that after she married the prince Cinderella got hooked on drugs, flashed her hooters in some bad movies and let a film crew follow her around for a few months while she made a fool of herself. Which I think she totally did. Just read between the lines in the original text. Also, I imagine marrying a wrinkly old rich dude is probably a lot like kissing a frog.
Frankly, Diary, I'm not sure what we'll do next. Who will we turn to for our regular doses of celebrity inanity? Who else out there can so consistently put herself in the public eye despite contributing nothing of any real substance to society. Britney Spears is trying, Diary, bless her heart. But she is just one woman and frankly I'm not sure how much longer she can keep up this pace.
Paris Hilton? Tara Reid? Jessica Simpson? It's a start, Diary, but somehow it's not the same.
Lindsay Lohan? Actually, I kind of liked Mean Girls.
It's hard right now, Diary, but I know it will pass. I know we'll move on. As hard as it will be, I know society will find someone to fill the void. We need to. It's part of what Wired magazine this month describes as our Snack Culture. In a world of YouTube clips and pop songs shrunk down to cell phone ringtones we don't want celebrities we have to think about. We want someone we can know all about even if all we read about them is the blurbs on the cover of Us Weekly. We don't want thoughtful, artistic films. We want Internet clips of cute puppies and guys getting hit in the junk.
I know all of this, Diary. I know life will return to normal just as it did after Barbaro left us. But that's for the future, Diary. For now it just hurts.

Up next: a Golden Girls marathon

2007-03-30T10:37:00.001-07:00

TiVo doesn’t know me.
Oh, it thinks it does. Just hours after I plugged in my new digital video recorder it was making suggestions. It was recording things it thought I should be watching. While I slept it recorded episodes of Sanford and Son and the Cosby Show. When I woke up the next morning it was in the middle of an episode The Beverly Hillbillies.
It was way off. I watched my share of Beverly Hillbillies episodes during the summers of my junior high school years, but I like to think I’ve outgrown jokes about cement ponds.
In theory, the machine is supposed to get smarter as it learns about me. It’s supposed to identify my interests and record accordingly. So far, though, it seems to be getting worse. In the weeks since I set the device up it has remained inexplicably devoted to the idea I like reruns of old sitcoms. It has recorded episodes of Full House, the treacly Friday-night fixture best known for introducing us to the Olsen Twins. It has saved copies of Family Ties and of Boy Meets World.
I realize the 80s were my formative years, but that doesn’t mean I want to relive them.
TiVo also appears to be under the impression I’m a middle school-aged girl. For several straight days it recorded shows from Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. It recorded something called Hannah Montana, which I gather is about a fictional pre-teen singer. It might be a great show, but considering it’s major characters are all played by 13-year-olds I’m not sure I could watch it without feeling like I needed to call the police and get signed up for a electronic ankle bracelet.
Lately, TiVo’s been all over the map. On Sunday night its list of suggestions for the week ahead included the O’Reilly Factor and Chris Matthews’ Hardball. It had Tucker Carlson and Maury Povich. Jerry Springer and Charlie Rose.
TiVo thinks I might want to catch an upcoming showing of Die Hard 2, which might not be a bad idea, but it also wants to make sure I don’t miss Desperate Housewives. Honestly, I think Wisteria Lane is the next place John McLean should be set loose.
If I listened to TiVo I would find myself a double feature of Brit Hume and Tyra Banks.
I can’t fix my car to save my life, but TiVo thinks I might like something called Automotive Vision.
The closest I get to farming is driving through what’s left of local fields on my way to work, but TiVo is ready and willing to record this week’s airing of Ag Day.
TiVo recommended seven separate Spanish-language shows on Univision despite I haven’t taken Spanish since I was in second grade.
The recommendations aren’t all bad. TiVo suggested Alias, which I own on DVD. It also alerted me to an upcoming airing of Ferris Bueller’s Day off. Once, in college, I put off writing a paper that was due the next day so I could watch that movie in our campus bar. Then again, I probably put off papers in college so I could wash my socks. It wasn’t a high bar to clear.
Mostly, though, the recommendations are confusing. It thinks I might like Little House on the Prairie and Gunsmoke. It wants me to watch the A-Team and Crossing Jordan.
I realize I’m coming late to the whole TiVo sensation. And I can see why people have gotten so excited about a magic box that can set itself to record an entire season of a television show with just a few button presses. I’m sure it will change my life once I get used to it. I just have to feel a little suspicious of any electronic device that tries to sell me on watching women’s golf.

TV: it’s a right, not a privilege

2007-03-30T10:36:00.000-07:00

I love television. That's no secret. I probably watch more than is good for me, and since I bought a new TV month ago I probably watch even more than I did before. Even According to Jim is halfway decent when you're watching it on a 42-inch plasma screen.
If you'd asked me two weeks ago, I might have claimed TiVo was the greatest television-related invention since the cathode ray tube (or at least since the remote control) but now I'm not so sure. Because now I've discovered high-definition.
I don't have access to a lot of HDTV at the moment. I don't have the digital cable subscription I'd need to get the full range of channels with that kind of crystal clarity. But with a simple $20 antenna I can at least get local networks in all their high-resolution glory. In the past two weeks I've discovered the joys of seeing every gory detail as Jack Bauer interrogates terrorists on 24. I never imagined I'd get so excited about being able to pick out individual beads of sweat on Kevin Garnett's forehead. Then again, when the Timberwolves are choking away one game after another you have to have something to keep you interested.
Even Antiques Roadshow is better in HD.
HDTV is the future for all television. In February of 2009 all over-the-air television will be broadcast digitally. The idea — aside from giving everyone the opportunity to see in vivid detail each wrinkle and age spot on Andy Rooney's face — is to free up the bandwidth currently used by television broadcasts for use by emergency workers. As a consequence, all Americans who don't already have a high-definition TV — or at least a box to convert digital signal to the analog signals most TVs use today — will have to make some changes.
Don't worry, though. The government will be there to help. Starting next January, the government will start handing out $40 coupons to help Americans cover the cost of digital-to-analog converter boxes. The National Telecommunications and Information Association has set aside $990 million for the program, with the possibility of spending another $510 million if there's enough demand. The coupons will only be available to people who do not subscribe to cable or satellite services.
Some people might think this is silly. They might argue there are bigger problems — homelessness, maybe, or funding for education — than making sure every American has uninterrupted access to Deal or No Deal.
I disagree. Frankly, I don't think they're going far enough.
Sure, the government is making sure we will continue to have access to television, but what are they doing to make sure we're watching? It's a terrible thought, but I know there are hours of television that go tragically unwatched. There are millions of Americans who each week neglect their patriotic duty to vote for our next American Idol. Look, America, this is your Idol. If you don't vote, you don't get to complain when whoever wins releases some terrible CD later this year. I've already ordered my "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Lakisha" bumper stickers.
We need TV to watch the news, too. If I didn't have access to local news broadcasts I wouldn't know important things like how Ricky Schroeder feels about joining the cast of 24, or what the latest theory is on the death of Anna Nicole. An uninformed populace is a scary thing.
The converter box coupons are a good start, but there's room to do so much more. If the government could spring for a new flat screen for everyone, I'm sure there'd be more interest in watching TV.
TiVo has got to go, too. As much as I love it, if people can skip through commercials willy-nilly they'll never know what products are out there that they just have to own.
What if we required modifications to TVs that kept them on all the time? That might help. And maybe one of those chairs like they have in A Clockwork Orange, so viewers can never look away. Is that going to far? I don't think so. This is the culture war, people, and extreme times call for extreme measures.
I think it's time the government gave up on this idea of fighting the growing obesity problem in the country and started trying to convince every man, woman and child in America to plop down in front of the tube with a bag of chips. At least it's a fight we know we can win.

Super Bowls and celebrity splits

2007-02-09T14:16:00.001-08:00

Some things that occurred to me as I recovered from seeing Prince's giant phallic silhouette during the Super Bowl halftime show:
• Everybody gets excited about the Super Bowl commercials, but if people really think jokes about people getting kicked in the crotch are so great why isn't my column more popular?
• Anybody who watched any TV at all in the weeks before the Super Bowl knows each 30-second commercial during the game cost advertisers $2.6 million. That comes out to something like $50,000 for every second of cleavage shown during the average beer commercial. Or $25,000 for every Chicago fumble during the game.
• According to USA Today the most popular Super Bowl commercial involved crabs worshiping a cooler filled with Bud Light. Seven of the 10 most popular ads were for Budweiser products. Other popular ads: One guy hits another with a rock in a fight for the last Bud Light; a Doritos eater crashes his car while ogling a woman; and two mechanics rip out their chest hair to prove their manliness after they accidentally kiss while eating a Snickers. Stupid people hurting themselves and those close to them. That's the way to move product.
• At what point does coverage of Barbaro's death officially constitute beating a dead horse?
• Honestly, this time last year there were like six people in the world who knew who this horse was and now that he's won a couple of races we're supposed to mourn him like we've lost a national hero? I like animals as much as the next guy, but how much longer do I have to fly my Kentucky Derby program at half staff?
• This week's Time Magazine features an item about Barbaro in the section reserved to mention the deaths of famous and important people. Meanwhile, Newsweek is examining the impact on our youth of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton going out without their undies. It's good to see serious journalism is alive and well.
• Up next: US News & World Report dishes on its best and worst dressed at the State of the Union and BusinessWeek examines the economic impact of Reese Witherspoon's divorce from Ryan Phillippe.
• I'm torn. I feel bad for knowing Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe just got divorced (and foolish for admitting it in print) but strangely good to know that Reese is single again. Do you think it's too soon to call?
• Then again, I'm not sure I want to date a chick with kids.
• Something I learned while looking to make sure I was spelling Phillippe right (sadly, I was): the web site www.ryanphillipe.com is devoted entirely to Minnesota-born actor Josh Hartnett. I smell an especially hunky lawsuit brewing.
• As far as I can tell, covering celebrities these days consists entirely of waiting for one celebrity to say something slightly mean-spirited about another celebrity, then running to the second celebrity to get their even more mean-spirited response, then repeating the process long enough to spark stories about how everyone's tired of hearing about this feud. You know who would make really good celebrity journalists? Just about any middle school girl.
• It's been really cold the last few days. I just wanted to make sure someone mentioned that to you.
• Am I too late to make a joke about Al Gore and global warming?
• A community celebration in Hartlepool, England has canceled its traditional sack race because it has gotten too expensive to insure the event. Up next at kids' fun day: Standing very, very still. The kid who stands the stillest wins. Also, everyone else wins. Trophies for everyone!
• There's like, there's love and then there's "Driving 900 miles with a plan to kill the woman who you think is making a move on the guy you like." Then, somewhere way, way beyond that, there's "Wearing a diaper while driving so you don't have to make as many pit stops." In other words, don't mess with NASA astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak. The Right Stuff, indeed.
• Maybe being single isn't so bad.

On the run

2007-02-09T14:15:00.001-08:00

Earlier this year I did something I didn't expect I'd ever do. No, I didn't volunteer to organize a Britney Spears fan club. It's something even stranger.
I took up running.
Until late last year I was pretty sure my opinion of recreational running served as pretty good proof there was no such thing as a jogging gene. My dad used to run all the time. He ran marathons. He ran ultra marathons. He ran on roads. He ran cross country. He was like Forrest Gump, only I don't think he ever met the President.
For several years straight he maintained a streak of running every day. By the time he was done nobody had any idea where he was (ba-dum bum!).
Meanwhile, my personal attitude toward jogging could be described as such: If it was done in course of another, otherwise enjoyable activity — say a game of basketball or soccer — I was OK with it. In the rare instances I needed to be somewhere faster than a brisk walk would allow, I could tolerate it. If someone was chasing me, well, I figure I'd better run. But if I'd ever said, "Gosh, I think I'll go for a quick three-mile jog?" Well, I'm pretty sure that would have been a sign some vital spring in my brain had finally come uncoiled.
I was a cross country skiier in high school, and by the time I'd graduated I figured I'd done enough running to last a lifetime.
I almost caved a few years ago. Back before biking became my exercise of choice I decided I wanted to get into better shape, and I decided running was the way to do it. So, I bought new running shoes. I bought shorts and t-shirts. I even bought an MP3 player so I wouldn't have something in my head besides my own thoughts. And I ran. Once. Maybe twice. And then I came to my senses. I eventually gave the shoes to my brother, who feels the same way I do about running but presumably found some other use for them.
I thought I was done after that. I really did. But around the time the outdoor biking season was winding down last year (say, early December) I decided I needed to find a way to keep from ballooning out of shape over the winter. That meant either riding a stationary bike, which I decided a few years ago is almost as pointless as jogging, or finding something else. I decided to give running another try, and I discovered something that surprised me: running on a treadmill is somehow less awful than running outside.
For the record, then: love biking outside, can't stand it inside; despise running outside, yet actually enjoy it when I do it in a situation that makes me feel a little like a hamster on an exercise wheel.
I have no idea why that is. Maybe it has something to do with the fact running on a treadmill doesn't require me to know where I'm going. Or maybe it's because I can watch TV while I do it. Maybe I just have something against the sun. Or maybe I just like the feedback I get running on a treadmill. On my bike I have a computer that tells me how far I've gone and how fast. Same on a treadmill.
Then again, maybe I've just managed to stick with it long enough that I can finally go more than 100 yards without collapsing in a heap. That wasn't always the case. The runs I went on a couple of years ago could probably be more accurately described as lurching staggers interrupted by frequent periods of walking — you know, to recover. When I ran last Sunday I averaged about eight minutes per mile and ran just over five miles in 40 minutes.
I was feeling pretty good about myself until later that day. Flipping through the channels I stumbled onto some kind of indoor track championships. I tuned in just in time to watch an Ethiopian woman set a world record by running 3.1 miles at a pace of just under 4:40 a mile. I never had any delusions I would ever be a world-class runner, but getting your butt kicked hurts all the same.
But let's see her write a column.

Fido too fat? Time for a doggie diet

2007-01-30T15:22:00.001-08:00

Americans have heard for years about how fat we're all getting. But there's another health crisis that has flown below the radar. At least until now.
Apparently, it's not just humans whose waistlines are expanding at an alarming rate. Our dogs are packing on the pounds, too.
We're raising a nation of fat foxhounds, pudgy poodles and chunky chows. According to the Chicago Tribune, as many as 40 percent of America's pet dogs (about 17 million) are getting way too thick around the middle. Our best friends are tubbing out all over the place and it's affecting their health.
Now, though, there's a solution. And it's nothing unpleasant like taking our dogs for regular walks or resisting the urge to feed them treats by the shovelful. It's the kind of level-headed, minimal-effort solution any red-blooded America-loving dog owner looks for when it comes time to lose weight: diet drugs.
That's right. We're getting doggy diet pills. Pfizer, the company that brought us Viagra, recently received FDA approval for something called Slentrol, which it advertises as the first and only diet drug for dogs. Just pour the liquid on Fido's food or give it to him directly and watch the pounds melt away. All for no more than $1.50 per day.
Just make sure you give him the right drug, or you might never get him off your leg.
Somehow, it seems like there should be a simpler solution here. Something like taking the dog outside to play every once in a while. Maybe throwing a ball for it to chase. Or just not feeding Spot heaping bowls of food every day — all solutions, I might point out, that are completely free.
Supporters of the drug, though, claim Americans are far too busy these days to take their dogs for regular walks. We lead hectic lives. We have places to go, people to see. Sometimes ol' Rover has to take a back seat.
I don't know. In a world where millions of people watch The War at Home every week and movies like Little Man make more than $100 million at the box office I have trouble believing we can't squeeze in a half hour for a quick walk. Bonus: maybe that even helps with the whole "Fat Americans" thing.
In many cases, though, dogs have become so much like a member of the family people just can't resist spoiling them. One vet quoted in the Tribune's story claims some of her patients regularly drive their dogs to McDonald's or Burger King for a burger or an ice cream cone. She doesn't say whether they supersize the meals, but I'm guessing yes.
And that's not all. I used to live down the block from a bakery that sold nothing but treats for dogs. I've seen doggy-sized staircases designed so our pets don't even have to exert themselves enough to jump on the couch. And it is now possible to buy at least two different brands of beer for dogs.
That last one surprised me a little. I stumbled across the first doggie suds — a Dutch pet shop owner's concoction, called Kwispelbier — while I was writing this. Then, as I tried to find that story again, I came across Happy Tail Ale. Both dog beers are non-alcoholic. Both appear to be essentially meat-flavored water. If you're interested, you can order a sixer of the Happy Tail brand on sale from Petco.com for just $18 plus shipping. That's a little more than $3 a bottle, or roughly $32 per gallon.
So there's Slentrol, which seems to work pretty darn well. According to Pfizer's four-month study of the drug, 97 percent of 144 dogs lost weight on Slentrol and half lost 11 percent or more of their body weight.
Side effects? According to a Pfizer press release cited by the Tribune vomiting is the most common. Also possible: diarrhea, lethargy and anorexia. So, your dog will be thin but lazy and your carpets will be a mess. Also, Lassie will develop the same body-image problems as a runway model. Seems like a fair trade.
Anything to avoid that walk in the park.

Dear curb: You're a jerk!

2007-01-12T07:07:00.001-08:00

Dear curb that, like, totally messed up the front end of my car,
Seriously, curb, what was that about? I wasn't bothering you. I would have been perfectly happy never coming into contact with you. All I wanted to do was take a picture and get to work so I could finish laying out the paper.
But you couldn't let me do that, could you? For whatever reason, you needed to mess up my poor car's undercarriage. You had to jam my front wheel all the way back into the back of the wheel well.
Way to go, tough guy. Everybody's real impressed.
Do you know what you did to me? I had to wait almost an hour for a tow truck. It cost me $90 to get towed to a repair shop. And getting the car fixed? Near as I can figure the estimate's somewhere over two grand now.
That's not even all. My mom was out of town while my car was in the shop, so I figured I'd borrow her car and save on a rental. Except, her car started acting up on me mid-week. It stalled. It hesitated. Sometimes, I'd step on the gas and get no acceleration. Nothin'. I wasn't sure I was going to make it through the week.
So, yeah. Thanks a lot.
Jerk.
What did I ever do to you, curb? I've always had all kinds of respect for concrete. I use sidewalks every day. And when I was younger, concrete always did an admirable job holding my basketball poles upright. It's one of my favorite construction materials, right after steel and plexiglass and just ahead of fiberboard. That ain't bad. You're way better than aluminum siding.
I like you, curb. You do a good job of defining the edge of the street. So how about returning the favor, huh? You had to mangle my wheel like that? You couldn't just boost me up and over yourself? Apparently not. Apparently that's too much to ask. So now I have a repaired front end and the only thing you ended up with was a little scuff where my tire hit you. It's probably even washed away by now.
I suppose you'll try to blame all this on the ice. And sure, it was slippery. But I didn't have any problems until I ran into you. Ice and I are close, curb. Ice and I understand each other. Ice keeps my drinks cold and I don't mess with ice. I don't drill holes in ice to fish anymore (not a big sacrifice, I'll admit) and I've pretty much given up skating. Me and ice, we're cool, so stop trying to badmouth ice.
It sure as heck wasn't my fault. Like I'd do that to my own car? I'm still paying for it, man. I was driving safely, curb. Get over it.
This isn't the first time I've had a run-in with your kind, curb. I was a junior in high school, an exchange student in Sweden, when I tried to jump my bike from the street to the sidewalk, up and over one of your foreign brothers. I admit it was a bad idea, but did it have to take me down like that? I got scraped up pretty good.
More recently, I was riding across the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis a few years ago when a little lip at the edge of the bike path took me out. I ended up hanging by one arm from the railing. I could have gone over. I could have been seriously hurt, curb. As it was I got bruised all up and down my right side.
I know that little lip wasn't really a curb, curb. But it's close enough. It's the same obnoxious family.
I don't know why you did what you did, curb. Did it make you feel tough? Do you feel like a big curb now? Well, good for you. I'm sure you spent the rest of the week bragging to all your curb friends.
I hope it was worth it, curb. Because you and me, we're through.
Yours,
Nathan Hansen

Facing the new year with resolve

2007-01-12T07:06:00.001-08:00

I've never been big on New Year's resolutions. Maybe it's because I'm uncomfortable making out life-altering to-do lists on a night that has a well-earned reputation for heavy alcohol consumption. Maybe I'm not organized enough to figure out my goals for an entire year before that year has even begun. Or maybe I've always just believed I'm so perfect already no resolution could make me any better.
Well, except maybe that one resolution I made a couple of years ago to be more in touch with reality.
Whatever the reason, I have always entered the new year resolutionless. Adrift and without a list of hastily-scribbled, poorly-defined goals that I could halfheartedly follow for a couple of months and then abandon when I got tired of them.
Hey, I've been to Lifetime Fitness. I see the way the parking lot starts filling up this time of year. I've also seen it get less busy sometime around early March as thousands of resolution breakers settle into their easy chairs with bags of Cool Ranch Doritos.
This year, though, that changes. I figure it’s time to try something new. So, in no particular order, here are Nathan Hansen's New Year's resolutions for 2007.
• I resolve to breathe some fresh life into this column: People tell me they enjoy reading this column. They tell me I make them laugh. From time to time they question my sanity. All of this is good. But it could be better. For 2007 I pledge to shake things up. No more tired old jokes about about bad movies or C-list celebrities or Britney Spears getting photographed without any underpants. I resolve to find all new jokes about bad movies, C-list celebrities and dirty pictures of former Mickey Mouse Club members.
I'm looking at you, Christina Aguilerra.
• I resolve to make this column more local. One of the things we hang our hats on at the Town Pages is putting out a paper that is almost exclusively about Rosemount. Some Dakota County news sneaks in from time to time, but mostly it's about Rosemount people doing things in Rosemount.
Things are a little different with this column. Because we publish two papers from this office and this column runs in both, writing about something specific to one city means I can't run the column in the other paper. That would double my column workload. And that would mean an extra 10, 15 minutes a week. As a consequence, there is rarely much local flavor in the column. That changes this year, though. For example, how about that sports/academic competition team from the local high school? Can you believe how well/poorly they've done so far this year? It sure is impressive/embarrassing.
See, I think that adds something.
• I resolve to write more about the adventures of Bob Corn and his unending fight against the killer zucchini.
• I resolve to make fewer jokes that only my freshman year college roommate would get.
• I resolve to stop letting people know my freshman year college roommate and I had conversations about things like organized hunts for killer zucchini. It might make us sound kind of dorky.
• I resolve to write something that will really mortify my mom. I'm not sure yet what it will be, although she's been out of town since I published last week's Christmas music column so I might be able to check that one off.
• I resolve to clean up the spelling and grammar in this column. My dad tells me he finds some kind of error in this column nearly every week. That doesn't reflect well on me, and I promise to fix that. Failing that, I resolve to find a way to blame someone else.
• I resolve to do everything I can to make this newspaper something all Rosemount residents can enjoy. I know there are interesting stories out there about Rosemount residents and I want to find them. I resolve to find interesting ways to tell the stories that might not otherwise capture people's attention. Rosemount is a great city, and it deserves a great newspaper.
No, seriously.
Now, where are my Doritos?

Take a hike, ye merry gentlemen

2006-12-28T12:23:00.001-08:00

This is the most wonderful time of the year. You want to know why? Because now I can go another 11 months or so without having to hear "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." Or any other Christmas music, for that matter.
That's right. I'm I'm coming out against carols, those sappy, sentimental staples of the Christmas season.
I don't expect this to be a popular opinion. After all, who could be opposed to Bing Crosby crooning "White Christmas" or Nat King Cole doing "Silent Night"? Who could find it in their heart to hate the festive, trampling-based humor of "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer"?
Well, I could.
It's not that there there are no good Christmas songs, because many are lovely. It's not even that from mid-November through the end of December stores everywhere have Bing and Nat and Johnny Mathis on a continuous loop. I just can't get behind any music that only qualifies to be played once a year.
That holds regardless of the season or the holiday involved. I went to college in New Orleans, and as most people know Mardi Gras is a big deal in the Big Easy. It's like Christmas and a drinking binge and a trip to a particularly sleazy strip club all rolled into one. The holiday's theme song is something called "The Mardi Gras Mambo." It's a terrible song, and there's really no reason to ever listen to it. But for two weeks each year it's everywhere. It's like some evil force overtakes the part of everyone's brain that decides whether music is good or bad. I imagine it's the same thing that happens to people who buy Celine Dion albums.
It's the same thing with Christmas. I'll admit some Christmas songs have appeal. "White Christmas" is nice if you're spending wintry night lounging by the fire. And there was even a time I found "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" kind of funny. I was 8, but still. But when the malls and the radio stations and everyone homeowner taken over by the Holiday Spirit decides we need a steady diet of Christmas music and nothing but that things get dicey.
Then there's the fact Christmas albums have become the easy way for musicians to cash in. You're not really a successful recording artist these days until you've recorded a collection of Christmas standards. So, for example, Christina Aguilera, who called her second CD "Stripped," released a near-pornographic video to accompany one of her songs and made out with Madonna on some MTV awards show can now be heard singing "Oh Holy Night" and "Angels We Have Heard on High." Presumably, these particular angels have nipple rings.
These kinds of Christmas CDs are nothing new, of course. Elvis has several Christmas CDs. Even Kiss has one. Amazon.com currently offers a jazz Christmas CD, a Motown Christmas CD, even a CD of Christmas music played on steel drums. Because nothing says Christmas like "O Come All Ye Faithful" infused with the rhythm of the tropics.
Imagine if this trend extended beyond Christmas. Imagine every holiday had its own collection of traditional songs. Easy listening station would jump from all Christmas, all the time straight to marathons of New Year's Day songs ("Auld Lang Syne" on repeat, baby!) and from there to its catalog of Valentine's Day ballads. By the time we got to Thanksgiving we'd all be ready to gouge our ears out with a turkey baster.
I don't begrudge people their Christmas music. I know it helps get people in the holiday spirit. I can respect that.
I just don't think I should be held accountable for my actions if I someone puts on their copy of "Ultimate Christmas" when I'm in the room this week and I'm forced to listen to Kenny G's rendition of "Silver Bells."

Congratulations, everyone

2006-12-22T13:45:00.000-08:00

I am Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2006, and I have to say it's about time. I'm thrilled to know the letters I've been sending finally got through to someone.
To be fair, Time Magazine has apparently chosen to name every man, woman and child in American -- or maybe the world -- its Person of the Year this year.
The reasoning behind Time's decision, it seems, is that the Internet's power to bring people together and give everyone his or her own voice gave unprecedented power to the individual. The popularization of blogs gave everyone the potential to be a terrible journalist, and sites like YouTube meant we had a central location where we could see all those stupid movie clips we once had to wait for our friends to e-mail us. And honestly, who can get enough pictures of rapping grannies and monkeys smelling their own rear ends? Take that, America's Funniest Videos.
If you ask me, the whole thing sounds like a big cop-out. The Time editors probably just forgot they were supposed to choose someone and made up some junk about learning America's true nature by watching the videos they choose to post online. I know what that's like. Once, in college, I put off writing a paper because the bar on campus was showing Ferris Beuller's Day Off. These things happen. But if watching a minute and 15 seconds of some dude hand-farting the Star Spangled Banner really reveals the character of this country I'm going to think seriously about moving to Canada. First we've got photographers camped out hoping to get pictures of Britney Spears without her underpants and now this? It's almost too much to take.
But let's take a minute to consider Time's point of view. Clearly, many people have made a notable contribution online. Sites like Wikipedia have tapped the communal knowledge of geeks everywhere to build a kind of living encyclopedia, and bloggers have in some cases helped keep mainstream journalists honest. Blogs have also allowed real journalists -- you know, hard-working folks like me who make their livings writing jokes about Britney Spears' underpants -- to keep our fingers on the pulse of America without leaving our desks. Talk to people to find out how they feel about an issue? The heck with that, I'm going to go to blogspot .com and pull quotes from a bunch of anonymous people who seem to think the world cares what they think about when they're sitting in front of their computers in their jammies. I'm in favor of that, although it would help if I could find a few more blogs where people expressed opinions about Rosemount.
But think about this: If Time is naming everyone Person of the Year, we have to take the good with the bad. We have to take Britney, for example. And we have to concede that her ex-husband, Kevin Federline, is also worthy of being considered Person of the Year, even though all he did was get someone pregnant, marry her and release a terrible, terrible rap CD. We also have to welcome to the club people like the guy who earlier this year called police to report his quarter-pound of marijuana had been stolen, then showed up at the police station to identify his drugs. Or the countless teens who used MySpace , another one of those wonderful community-building online tools Time is so excited about, to post details of the crimes they had either committed or planned to commit. Then there's my favorite local Person of the Year, the guy who, pulled over by police, claimed to have a bunch of cocaine in his truck's spare tire, only to claim it was a joke when police didn't find anything. We even have to accept the hand-farting guy, who has apparently done an entire hand-farting series, including performances of the Jeopardy theme and Happy Birthday.
I'm not sure this is a road we're really willing to go down. I'm not confident we as a nation are ready to come together as a collective Person of the Year when we can't even get together long enough to agree it's OK to wish people a Merry Christmas.
I don't care, though. I'm still putting it on my resume. At least until People finally gets around to naming me Sexiest Man Alive.

What's that smell?

2006-12-13T13:19:00.001-08:00

The Christmas season is upon us, and people everywhere are looking for the perfect gifts to give their loved ones. Perfumes and colognes are one time-tested option, and now more than ever our celebrities are giving of themselves and providing opportunities for their adoring public to smell like them.
This is not an altogether new thing. Celebrities have been involved in the fragrance business since a soft-focused Elizabeth Taylor thought her white diamonds would give some anonymous gambler good luck. But the famous-person-odor market is getting more crowded all the time. I bring it up now because I just saw a commercial for a new fragrance from Antonio Banderas.
You know Antonio, right? Played Zorro? Was the voice of Puss in Boots in the most recent Shrek movie? Married to that blond chick from Working Girl? Yeah, that guy. Apparently he's got his own cologne now. Or maybe it's perfume. The commercial wasn't clear.
And Banderas isn't even the only Zorro castmember with his own signature scent. Catherine Zeta-Jones has one, too. Presumably it's a special concoction formulated to attract older men who look more like the Crypt Keeper every year.
There are plenty of others, too. Cher has one. She keeps threatening to pull it from the market, but it never seems to go away. So does supermodel Naomi Campbell, whose scent has "a blend of sensual and warm notes," sure to make you want to abuse your personal assistant. Celine Dion has one, too. I can only assume it is overpowering and not at all subtle with "piercing high notes."
Famous rich person Donald Trump has his own scent, which he presumably found easier to market than a line of hair care products. Substanceless pop star/ actress Hillary Duff has a fragrance that features the scent of something called Mangosteen fruit, which, according to an ad elsewhere in last week’s issue, cures more ills than Dr. McGillicuddy's Miracle Tonic in addition to making people smell good.
Even athletes have their own fragrances, although the idea of smelling like a locker room seems less than appealing. Basketball star Michael Jordan has one with "spicy lavender amber fragrance." I have no idea what amber smells like. I just know if you find a bug trapped in it you can make dinosaurs. Famous tennis player Andy Roddick has his own scent. It comes in an attractive bottle but despite early promise never seems to last as long as you think it should.
You don't even have to be a person to have your own fragrance. There are new scents available named after television shows like The O.C. and Desperate Housewives. Apparently desperation is an attractive odor.
I'm not really a fragrance person, but thanks to a website called kidzworld.com, I know what celebrity fragrance is right for me. Although some of the questions it asked about my ideal boyfriend were a little troubling, the site seems confident something called Taste by Jessica Simpson is right up my alley and will make me "kissable and smoochable" and "harder for peeps to resist." Sweet!
There are more options than I have space to mention here, but what follows are some of what my perfume-industry sources tell me are among the best soon-to-be released celebrity scents:
• Liberation, a new scent for men by recently-divorced Britney Spears ex Kevin Federline. It smells like Cheetos, Pabst Blue Ribbon, pot smoke and desperation.
• Top Gun, by Tom Cruise. A closet's worth of fruity scents that evokes enthusiasm, denial and general insanity. Scientology-approved.
• Reasonable Doubt, but O.J. Simpson. The former football star and accused murderer is not saying he's releasing this speculative fragrance, but if he did it would smell like leather gloves and cold steel.
There are even a couple of local options:
• Game Manager, by Vikings Quarterback Brad Johnson. An enduring scent that never seems to get its due. Everyone calls it an unremarkable scent that won't offend anyone but never seems to help you score.
• Trade Rumor by Kevin Garnett. Get it now. If news reports are to be believed it might not be around next week.

Taking the reins, selling them back

2006-12-07T07:59:00.001-08:00

When he accepted basketball coach Dan Monson's resignation last week, University of Minnesota Athletic Director Joel Maturi announced anyone interested in replacing Monson would be a candidate for the job. Since then, there has been a lot of speculation about who might become the next Gopher coach. Some have called for Flip Saunders, the formerTimberwolves coach who once played for the Gophers. Some have suggested former Utah coach Rick Majerus , although the fact he weighs something like 300 pounds and his heart may explode at any moment would seem to make him a liability. You don't want to have to deal with something like that during a TV timeout.
A few people have even suggested Bob Knight, the insane former coach of Indiana who is currently the insane coach at Texas Tech. Presumably any deal with Knight would include a provision to station someone with a tranquilizer dart gun near the court at every game.
There are a number of people out there who are qualified for the job. But I have another suggestion. Me.
I realize this might seem unorthodox at first. I have never coached any sport at any level, unless you count the seasons I've run through on Madden football. I agree that's a strike against me. But former Gopher star Trent Tucker has never coached, either, and that doesn't keep him from getting mentioned as a top candidate.
I also have the advantage of being associated with the Gopher program longer than Mr. Tucker. I've been going to Gopher games since the days I was the only one short enough to see past the overhanging upper deck and read the scoreboard. Considering I'm now 6-6, it's been a while. I've been going to games long enough to see two coaches forced out amid scandal and one pushed to resign. I attended NCAA tournament games in San Antonio that according to record books never even happened. I don't claim to know the ins and outs of a zone defense and I might not know exactly what "palming" is (it sounds kind of dirty) but that kind of dedication has to count for something, doesn't it?
Still, I imagine some might have concerns. How will I win games? How will I bring fans back to Williams Arena? Consider, though, that Dan Monson returned academic credibility to a program that lost that under former coach Clem Haskins. I don't promise to make the team any better on the court, but I promise I will continue making them go to class. Plus, I promise to give away $1,000 a night to a randomly selected fan. That should get people in the seats.
Still not enough? I understand. And if everything goes according to my plan I can guarantee my inept coaching will never sully the record of the Gopher basketball team. I'm talking about a buyout.
As a fan, I only want what is best for this team. And despite my affection for inspirational sports movies like Hoosiers and The Mighty Ducks, clearly I will never have any success as a major-college coach. I recognize that now, before I take the reins, is the time for me to turn the reins of the program over to someone who has a better chance to bring the Gophers success on the court. I am happy now, before I have had a chance to damage the good (well, sort of good) name of Gopher basketball, to step aside.
For a healthy payout, of course. I'm shooting for a cool million, but I might be willing to settle for less. Maybe half a mil. Certainly not less than $75.50. Just one quick payment and the overwhelmingly disappointing Nathan Hansen coaching era can be over even before it starts. Everyone wins.
Dan Monson reportedly accepted a $1.3 million buyout to leave his job. He got that money despite the fact his contract called for a $1 million buyout if he was fired. You can see why I think I might have a shot in this negotiating process.

Back in my day...

2006-11-30T14:35:00.001-08:00

I dread the day I start referring to my younger years as the Good Ol' Days, but there are times it starts to feel inevitable.
I get that feeling when I read about parents attacking referees at their son's little league games. Or when I hear about someone suing McDonald's for making them fat. And I get that feeling when I read stories like the ones I've seen recently about schools around the country banning tag and other so-called "chase games."
I only have one specific tag-related memory. I don't remember exactly how old I was, but I was a student at Afton-Lakeland Elementary School, which put it somewhere between second and fourth grades. We were playing tag on the playground during recess and one of my classmates, Bob Zajac, got away from a tag -- I might have been it, but I'm not sure -- by diving headfirst down a tube-shaped metal slide. I remember thinking it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen another person do (it's since been surpassed by that Japanese dude who eats all the hot dogs) and knowing that if I ever tried it myself I would brain myself on the slide's edge or twist my arm under my body maybe just miss altogether. Naturally graceful I was not.
Now, the game is disappearing from playgrounds nationwide. According to a Los Angeles Times story reprinted in Tuesday's St. Paul Pioneer Press, some parents are worried about their children getting hurt when a playground game turns rough and administrators are worried about the chance the parent of a child injured running either toward or away from a classmate might turn around and sue the school.
There was a time that idea would have seemed ridiculous (the early 1980s, say, when I was playing tag with Bobby Zajac) but times have changed. According to the group Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, a Montana man who legally changed his name to Jack Ass sued the people behind the MTV television show Jackass in 2002 for "giving him a bad name." Mr. Ass, who apparently changed his name in an effort to raise awareness about the dangers of drunk driving (I don't understand it either) asked for $10 million for defamation of character.
So, maybe the schools have a little bit of a point. If a person who voluntarily calls himself Jack Ass can blame someone else for giving him a bad name, nobody's safe. Still, other justifications for the bans make me want to cry.
In Santa Monica, an elementary school principal worried about the "emotional injuries" children suffered while playing tag.
"Little kids were coming in and saying 'I don't like it,'" principal Pat Samarge told Fox News. "[The] children weren't feeling good about it."
Somehow, and I'm still not clear exactly how, the next logical step became canceling tag for everyone, not just telling the kids who didn't like the game to go play on the swings.
Covering schools, I encounter this kind of attitude from time to time. Students don't get to win as often as they used to, because that would mean someone would have to lose. And that might make them sad. I once had a group of kindergarten teachers ask me if every kindergarten student in their building could be chosen Student of the Week because they didn't want to single one student out as "better" than the others. On one hand, I'm glad people are taking our Student of the Week designations so seriously. On the other hand, it made me want to go into those kindergarten classes and give the students the kind of speech I got from famous heart surgeon Michael Debakey when I graduated from college. Essentially, he told the entire graduating class they shouldn't set their goals too high because they'll only be disappointed.
True story.
These bans are taking their toll on kids. According to an October story in the Washington Times students at one Massachusetts school have created code words for banned games like tag. One parent declined to give the Times those names for fear students would face repercussions. Although it is far from clear how using code words would hide the fact kids were chasing after each on the playground.
"Hey, you kids running around after each other. Are you playing tag?"
"No, teacher. We're playing agt."
"Oh. OK, then."
This is what it's come to. We've turned an innocent kids' game into a taboo. We've told our children there is no such thing as a winner or a loser. And in an age when McDonald's and Burger King are making kids fatter by the minute we've discouraged them from playing a game that requires them to run as fast as they can.
Things just weren't like that in the good ol' days.

Camping for geeks

2006-11-22T06:51:00.000-08:00

Last week nerds by the thousands nationwide dedicated days of their lives to the Playstation 3, the newest and most powerful video game system to hit the market. According to the multitude of news stories that accompanied the occasion these brave geeks suffered cold weather and muggers and ridicule from friends and family all for the chance Friday to spend upwards of $600 on what is essentially the latest evolution of Pong.
Apparently at this level of evolution there is a lot more cleavage and wanton destruction than there was in the old days. If Ms.Pac Man were created today she'd have silicone implants and carry an Uzi.
The release two days later of Nintendo's Wii, the next-generation game system voted most likely to inspire sophomoric jokes, did not receive quite as much attention. When I stopped by a Best Buy store in Woodbury on Saturday, the day before the Wii was unveiled to the public, only a couple of people were camped out. Although one of them was dressed as the Super Mario Bros. character Luigi, so that ratcheted the dork factor up quite a bit.
My own history with video game consoles goes back to Christmas of 1983, when my brother and I received as gifts both the Nintendo Entertainment System and the competing Sega Master System. We continued to own systems from both companies through several subsequent generations, and when I got to college in 1993 I started to add more computer gaming to the mix. On at least two occasions I played online games with my friends for more than 12 consecutive hours, a fact women almost never find impressive when I bring it up in bars.
I once paid to take part in a video game competition. That's when I realized there were many people either more dedicated to gaming than I was or less dedicated to spending time outside. That was pretty much the end of my dreams of becoming a professional gamer.
What I'm trying to say is I've got some experience with this whole video gaming thing. I still own a Dreamcast, Sega's last attempt at making a game console before the company decided it could no longer keep up with Nintendo in the ridiculous-name department, and the just-replaced Playstation 2. I haven't turned either one on in more than a month, but they're there and both have logged their share of use.
I understand the appeal of the new systems. The Playstation 3 can produce graphics that border on photorealistic, and Nintendo's system has an innovative controller and a name that provides the opportunity for endless jokes about playing with your Wii.
Still, I have trouble understanding people willing to camp outside an electronics store to buy either system on the day it's released. The list of products I'm willing to camp out for begins and ends with Knight Rider DVD box sets.
Then again, many of the people who camped out for first-day Playstations turned around and sold them on ebay for $2,000 or more. I saw a couple that had bids above $30,000 on launch day and on Monday night Playstations were still going for more than $2,000 each and Wiis for more than $1,000. You can buy a whole lot of David Hasseloff posters for that kind of money.
These days, of course, people find reasons to be down on video games. Video games get blamed for everything from kids being out of shape to teenagers shooting up their schools. For the record, I don't believe Grand Theft Auto is responsible for Columbine any more than Lolita was responsible for deviant behavior, Ozzy Osbourne was responsible for devil worship, or Martha Stewart's television show is responsible for a growth in insider trading among housewives.
I'll admit I'm intrigued by this next generation of video gaming, including Microsoft's XBox 360, which has been available for a year already and has a name that isn't remotely funny. There may come a time when I'll buy one or the other of them. But I can guarantee you if I do there will not be tents involved.

Nap? Nope

2006-11-17T09:46:00.000-08:00

I'm not a nap person. Never have been. I just don't like the idea of sleeping in the middle of a perfectly good weekend day when there are other, more valuable things I could be doing. Things like watching Hudson Hawk on Comedy Central or televised poker on any of the 73 channels that show it every weekend. Important stuff that shouldn't be slept through.
I had all of this reinforced Saturday afternoon when, for the first time in years, I decided there was little enough else going on I could lie back on the couch and close my eyes for a while. I'm not sure why. It could be I was tired from the biking I'd done that morning. Or it could have been the fact Comedy Central really was showing Hudson Hawk, the terrible Bruce Willis vehicle from 1991. And it was the best thing on TV. Couldn't anybody get the rights to Ishtar?
But nothing about this nap went right. I closed my eyes at 1 p.m. and when I got up a few hours later I felt more tired than when I started. I had pillow marks on my face and I felt like I'd wasted most of an afternoon. I wasn't relaxed or refreshed at all. I might as well have spent three hours cleaning my bedroom or going for a walk or even writing this column. I don't know if the column would have made any more sense if I'd done it then, but on the bright side I'd probably be writing about something more interesting than naps.
Oh well. Live and learn, I guess.
I'm not sure what the problem was. Maybe I'm just not a very good napper. Presumably there was a time -- during pre-school, probably, or maybe even as recently as kindergarten -- when I was as good as anybody else at dozing during the afternoon. Maybe I'm just out of practice. I probably had flaws in my napping technique a more experienced napper never would have made.
Take my choice of nap location, for example. This particular couch was not especially long. I, on the other hand, am. My head was on one armrest but my legs stuck well beyond another. If I angled them right I could rest them on another couch set up nearby. Otherwise, my only choice was to curl up into a kind of fetal ball, a position that probably hasn't been great for getting rest since I actually was a fetus. I'm sure none of that was conducive to a restful afternoon.
Maybe I made other mistakes, too. The kind of errors only a true rookie napper would commit. Maybe I chose the wrong time of day. Would early afternoon have been better? Would I have had more success if I'd been sleeping through the late college football games rather than Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello mugging at the camera? Should I have closed the blinds? Turned off the lights? Turned more lights on?
Did I sleep too long? Did I doze beyond the boundaries of a true nap and into the realm of the too-short night's sleep?
I could ask someone, I suppose. I could find myself a nap guru and sit at his feet while he explains the finer points of catching 40 winks on a Saturday afternoon. My nephew will be five next month. I bet he knows a thing or two about this.
Or maybe I should just let it go. Maybe I'm just not ready to handle that kind of break in my day. Maybe, like I said at the start of this column, I'm just not a nap person.
Whatever the case, I need to do something to put all this behind me. All these questions are enough to keep a guy awake at night.

Please don't shoot; I'm not a deer

2006-11-09T13:08:00.000-08:00

Riding a bike through northern Minnesota woods can be a very pleasant experience. It can also be a little nerve-wracking. It’s all about the timing.
For example: riding through the woods during the peak of the fall color season is beautiful. Riding through the same woods on the first day of deer hunting season, though? That’s enough to make a guy a little apprehensive.
I can picture the hunter now, fingers and other important extremities numb from sitting in a tree stand since before dawn and eager to shoot something so he can go home and take a hot shower, seeing me, my dad and my brother riding by.
“Well,” he might think, “they’re about the right size to be a deer. They’re moving fast like a deer, even if they’re not quite so bouncy as a deer usually is. They appears to be wearing yellow jackets, though.Hmmm. Could be a trick.”
In retrospect, we might have been pushing our luck when we stuck those twigs in our helmets.
We saw several hunters along the path as we pedaled north, each dressed in blaze orange. A couple of times we saw deer standing along the path. Both times we waited for the gunshot, not entirely clear whether the bullet would be coming for us or for the deer. Or, for that matter, how we would feel about seeing Bambi get offed right in front of us.
It's scary enough just being in the woods during hunting season. But on the first day? When everybody's a little twitchy and eager to shoot at something? Well, maybe it wasn't the best idea. So far as I could tell blaze orange was the color of choice in the north woods last weekend for everything from walking the dog to mowing the lawn to showering. Fortunately, our bright yellow jackets seemed to be close enough.
Poor timing aside, there was a reason for this particular bike ride. Or, if not a reason, at least a goal. The three of us set out a little before 7 a.m. from Hugo and biked north to Duluth. Like I said, "reason" might be a little strong for this particular situation. Our reason for biking to Duluth is a lot like a mountain climber's reason for going up Everest: because it's there, and it's a challenge and we can tell attractive women we did it and make them think we're manly and want to buy us drinks. At least that's what I'm hoping.
In any case, our bike trip involved significantly less chance of falling off a cliff or dying of frostbite. And we didn't need to hire asherpa.
The ride is a long one, about 140 miles in all. But it's almost all on flat bike trails. The nice thing about biking 140 miles on trails that used to be railroad tracks is that there are no big hills to go up. The unfortunate thing is that there are no hills to go down. That's a whole lot of pedal strokes without a lot of chance for a break.
It can be mildly depressing to look ahead of you and see nothing but a perfectly straight trail disappearing somewhere over the horizon. This was the perfect ride for someone who has yet to master the art of turning a bicycle.
And scenery? Northern Minnesota is beautiful early in the fall, when the leaves are changing. Once they're all gone, though, that's a whole lot of naked trees and empty fields to stare at. It doesn't exactly stir the soul.
All told the trip took us about seven hours and 40 minutes of riding time. That's a lot of opportunity to think about hunters or how uncomfortable your bike seat has gotten in the past 20 miles or how warm you'd be if you were still in bed. Or how maybe attractive women aren't as turned on as we might hope by stories of long, flat, non-scenic bike rides. At least outside of Belgium.
It was hard. The last six miles, riding into a stiff wind from the end of the trail to our hotel, was the worst. We were tired at the end, but not exhausted. Overall we averaged just over 18.2 miles per hour. We felt like we had accomplished something.
And best of all, we didn't get shot.