Tubby, Tubby, Tubby

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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?

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

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...

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

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

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

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.

Watch out for the cursed carrots

I don't get the haunted hayride concept. Every year around this time businesses and civic groups in the Twin Cities around the country who have an interest in scaring a population primed by Halloween (and possibly campaign ads) to be frightened. Presumably this is because they lack ready access to an appropriately spooky old house.
These groups assemble scary scenes, hire local teenagers to dress in masks and face paint and load wagons with bales of hay to haul people through the woods late at night.
But a hayride is not inherently scary. Hayrides are about harvests and full moons and the bounty of the earth. Sometimes they are about moonshine, I think. They are not about demons and witches and trying to make people wet their pants with fear.
I can't imagine someone ever saying, while being pulled on a haywagon under a harvest moon, "I sure wish I could enjoy myself, but I can't shake the feeling a serial killer might come lurching out of that thicket." Sitting in hay just makes a person feel safe. And nobody makes horror movies about cursed soybean fields.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm just not a haunted hayride kind of guy. Maybe the fact I haven't done much to acknowledge Halloween's existence since I was about 15 plays into the equation.
Or, maybe I just got a bum hayride. Admittedly, while the people behind this particular hayride put some work into the scenes on display -- the giant, animated demon-thing that appeared to have been inspired by the computer game Doom clearly either took a whole lot of work or cost a whole lot of money -- the hearts of the hayride haunters themselves did not seem to be into the activity.
There's nothing frightening about a teenager in a gorilla mask and a jean jacket. Not even a little. And if the costume didn't make it clear enough this particular employee was thinking more about the next day's English test or the girl he has a crush on or Deal or No Deal host Howie Mandel's disturbing shaved-head look, the quiet "rawr" he gave while ambling alongside the wagon was a pretty good sign. (I'm honestly not sure what the best way is to write out a half-hearted roar. I did the best I could).
Granted, this particular hayride had some other factors working against it. It was really cold Monday night. And it was windy. And since attending was a last-minute decision the only jacket I had was a windbreaker. So it was a little uncomfortable at times.
And that doesn't even take into account the drunk girls. They seemed less bothered by the cold. Or, for that matter, by just about anything else going on around them outside of taking pictures of each other and nearly falling into my lap a few times.
Or, there was the girl who asked nearly every hayride monster for his phone number. Actually, that's not true. She only asked the ones who had face paint, not the ones with masks. She wanted to be able to see their bone structure, she said. A girl's gotta have standards.
There were distractions, is what I'm saying. So maybe under other circumstances I would have been terrified. Maybe if it had been warmer or if it had been earlier of if I had been 9 I would be afraid to go to sleep tonight because I knew I would have nightmares about the guy dressed up like Halloween serial killer Michael Meyers. Instead, I was confused why I was supposed to be scared by a character that hasn't been in a decent horror movie for about 20 years. Do kids today know who Michael Meyers is? Do they confuse him with the Austin Powers guy? I'm confused about this hayride's target market, I guess.
Like I said, though, I could be wrong. Some people on this particular hayride seemed genuinely frightened from time to time. Although the fact they were just as frightened by the same thing over and over might mean they're not entirely credible.
The only chills I got, though, were from the wind.

Look me in the eye -- it's really clean

Apparently, I have poor eyelid hygiene.
I didn't even realize there was such a thing.
Granted, it's been a while since I covered this topic. I was a student at Oak-Land Junior High School when I tool home economics. This was back in the days before it was called family and consumer science. Although, if I'm honest, there was nothing either economical or scientific about anything I did there. Mostly I baked cakes nobody would actually want to eat and sewed felt pillows that were too small to be functional and too ugly to be decorative. I think there was a crude cutout of a dolphin on it.
One of the other things we covered in home ec had to do with personal hygiene, a topic of particular importance in a school filed with students all hitting puberty at roughly the same time. I remember learning about the importance of daily showers. And of washing all parts of the body thoroughly. And of paying particular attention to often-neglected areas like armpits and bottoms of feet. But I swear nobody ever told me my eyelids deserved any special attention. As far as I was concerned, they were just another part of my face, remarkable only for their ability to block out the light when I needed to sleep and to provide some degree of protection in the event of a Three Stooges-style eye-poking. That's all.
Apparently, I was wrong. Apparently eyelids are sensitive instruments requiring the same kind of specialized attention given to teeth or high-end swiss timepieces.
Last week, I got my eyes checked. In part I did this because it has been something like five years since the last time I'd seen an optometrist. In perhaps larger part, though, it was because the Nicollet County Attorney's office said I had to if I wanted them to dismiss a ticket I got last month for driving without the glasses my license said I needed.
I thought the fact I'd passed the driver's license eye exam again since then would be enough, but apparently those don't actually measure what you can see.
Actually, when you consider the way some people drive, they might have a point there.
Anyway, during the exam I complained to the optometrist about having a sensation best described as the corners of my eyelids had been sticking to my eyes. I'd been dealing with the problem by frequently either blinking or opening my eyes wide. This provided temporary relief and had the added benefit of driving my mom crazy. But it wasn't really a long-term solution.
According to the optometrist, my problems were the result of clogged glands in my eyelids. Apparently, the oils the glands were producing were not getting either onto or around my eye -- I didn't ask for details; for all I know it's the oil's responsibility to contract out eye-unsticking duties -- and the result is something called Blepharitis, which sounds kind of like the title of a Judy Blume book.
According to the information I was given Blepharitis is very common. Actually, it sounds like I've gotten off pretty easy. At their worst my symptoms included sticky and maybe occasionally tired eyes. Other symptoms include excessive tearing; red, swollen eyelids, crusting and scaling around the eyelashes and frothy tears.
In other words, ew. I mean, frothy tears? In other words, this is a condition that can make people look like the world's creepiest liquid soap dispensers?
The optometrist gave me something called eyelid scrub to take care of the problem. I'm not sure how it's different than ordinary soap, except it costs $13.50 per bottle. Getting diagnosed meant my insurance covered the visit, though, and saved me more than $100 so I didn't ask too many questions. The bottle claims the stuff is pre-lathered, which is nice because it saves me seconds of difficult work.
I'm a little worried the fact I have specialized eyelid scrub means I've become one of those metrosexuals everyone was talking about so much a few months ago. But I can't complain too much. My eyes feel less sticky. And there are hardly any eyelid scales.

Taking politics at face value

You know what would suck about being President? You could never, ever grow a beard.
I mean, I can’t grow a beard. But that’s a matter of genetics, not my position as the most powerful man in the free world. Give me a couple of weeks and I could come back with some facial hair. It would be the kind of thin, patchy beard that most people wouldn’t actually notice. It would look terrible and probably make small children weep. But I would know it was there and that’s what really matters.
Can you imagine what would happen if George Bush showed up at a press conference with the beginnings of a goatee? Nobody would hear a word he said. Every newscast for weeks would lead off with speculation about the Presidential facial hair and what it might mean for the country’s fortunes in Iraq or its plans for Iran. Is the President trying to impress someone? Did he lose his razor? Does he have an exit plan for this pseudo-hipster fashion statement?
It would be the most talked-about facial hair of all time, with the possible exception of Luke Perry’s soul patch on Beverly Hills 90210.
In fact, if the Republicans really want to get past this whole Mark Foley thing, they just need to talk George Bush into trying out a mustache. Maybe one of those curly Rollie Fingers/barbershop quartet deals.
It's not that beards can't be Presidential. According to CNN.com, five U.S. Presidents — Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield and Benjamin Harrison — had full beards when they served. A handful more had facial hair of some kind. Martin Van Buren had mutton chop sideburns, which is kind of like a beard for quitters. Of the 12 presidents between Lincoln and Taft, only two were entirely clean-shaven.
But things have gone downhill for hirsute Commanders in Chief in the century-plus since then. Harrison, elected in 1888, was the last President to serve with a beard, and Thomas Dewey, who had a mustache when he ran for President in 1944 and 1948, was the last candidate-with-facial-hair to have much success with voters. Jesse Jackson doesn't count.
But even Lincoln, our most famously bearded President -- to the point he looks mildly creepy in pictures where he doesn't have one -- didn't win election with a fuzzy face. He was clean-shaven when he worked as a lawyer in Illinois and still hadn't tossed the razor when he was first elected in 1860. He grew the beard between election and inauguration, reportedly at the advice of an 11-year-old girl, probably one of the best-qualified political advisers of all time. Then again, Lincoln didn't have CNN and Fox news standing ready to analyze the the socio-political implications of his five o'clock shadow. Presumably by the time he was up for re-election in 1864 the whole freed-the-slaves-and-restored-the-Union thing carried enough residual good will to overcome any hit in the polls caused by a few chin whiskers.
I don't know why we as a country prefer clean-shaven Presidents, but more than a century of election results don't lie. Even during periods when beards were fashionable for the general public, they were taboo at the ballot boxes. Were we afraid beards made our leaders look too sinister? Too creepy? Too much like Fidel Castro?
Why do we want our elected leaders to be powerful enough to command the world's greatest army but not so masculine-looking they could put on a flannel shirt and film a guest spot in a Brawny commercial?
Why is it OK for George W. Bush to show off for TV cameras by clearing brush on his ranch but not OK for the President of the United States to grow a Van Dyke if thinks it makes him look cool?
Some of you probably think this is a frivolous question. You think this is all just coincidence. But what did Al Gore do as soon as he lost the election in 2000? No, I mean after he complained about voter fraud and demanded a recount. You know, once he actually accepted it was over? That's right. He grew a big ol' beard.
Think about that for a second and tell me I'm wrong.

Sky high shopping

I have no idea who Northwest Airlines' SkyMall catalog is for. Presumably, it's targeted at either people who have so much money they can afford to drop $300 on a pair of loafers while they're in the air somewhere over Topeka or people who shop so compulsively they can't go the length of a redeye to Cleveland without making some kind of purchase, even if it's something as seemingly unnecessary as the world's largest write-on map mural or the snow flurry projector, an outdoor lamp that shines what the catalog claims is "the illusion of gently falling snow" (in the picture, it looks more look like "the illusion of giant, mutant fireflies") on the front of your house.
It's hard to pin down a target audience here. The catalog I picked up on my recent flight back from California has everything from shoes and clothes to lawn furniture to stuff to help you organize your garage. It's a catalog for the well-dressed handyman who likes to entertain people in the backyard after showing off his color-coded garden tools, I guess.
Pet convenience is a big thing here. The catalog has a ramp to help your dog get into your van and two separate options for people who want to provide stairs to help their tiny dogs get up onto their couches. Presumably if you're the kind of person who believes your dog's comfort is important enough it shouldn't have to go through the strain of jumping, like, ever, you're also not the type who believes maybe the dog shouldn't be on the couch in the first place. Although the catalog also offers an electronic device to keep your pets off of furniture and counter tops. Talk about mixed messages.
There are $600 watches in the catalog, perfect for people wondering when the damn beverage cart is going to come by. There are video goggles you can plug into your iPod. There's a $300 heart monitor but, so far as I can tell, no defibrillator.
There's even an $800 crystal chandelier. Let me tell you, nothing says "high society" like buying showy light fixtures with some guy's seatback wedged against your knees and a baby crying in your ear.
There's luggage, which makes a certain amount of sense. And there is a carpet steamer, which really doesn't. A travel outlet adapter, which does. And a $200 chrome tool set. If you buy it on a plane, shouldn't you be able to carry it on? You think you can get a hammer and a hacksaw through security? We couldn't even make it to the plane with a tub of sea salt and brown sugar body scrub. Apparently airborne exfoliation is an issue.
There is a wine cooler and a hot dog cooker. There's a fish finder and a bird feeder. There are drink dispensers shaped like fire hydrants and orange traffic cones that read "Caution, party zone: Beware of falling guests." I assume these are for people who like to throw parties but don't have any friends.
The catalog has all manner of overpriced toys. A radio controlled hovercraft and a remote control "reconnaissance plane," complete with removable spy camera. Use the plane's 1,000 foot range to snap top secret, really grainy photos of, um, the neighbor's patio. Although the neighbors might get suspicious when the big silver plane keeps flying by 50 feet over their heads. So, maybe secret is an overstatement.
My favorite, though, is the $100 radio-controlled shark, with a battery that, according to the description, runs for 15 minutes on a one-hour charge. Not since the invention of Sudoku has the effort-to-payoff balance been so lopsided.
Basically, SkyMall is all of the useless junk you find in the Sharper Image and Hammacher Schlemmer collected in one, high-altitude place. With patio furniture. And plasma TVs.
Oh, and really trashy dresses.
So, you know, it's not all bad.

Peter Pan really shreds in a halfpipe

There are certain things no right-thinking person can do if he truly hopes to be considered adult by the population at large. He can't wear flip-flops as everyday footwear, for example. He can't use Internet chatroom-spawned lingo — Cya L8r, for example — in regular communication. And he can't ride a skateboard.
There are other things, obviously (no cartoon characters on bedsheets OR underpants; no backwards baseball cap) but these are some of the basics. Unfortunately, it appears even at the most basic level things are going downhill.
Consider flip-flops. Minnesota winters ensure they're out of the question for at least half of the year, but during the warmer months a style of footwear commonly referred to as shower shoes is becoming increasingly popular among a group of people apparently in too big a hurry to tie a pair of shoes. Last year, a member of the national champion Northwestern University women's lacrosse team caused a stir when she wore her flip-flops to the White House to meet President Bush. The act was annoying both from a fashion standpoint and because of the number of horrible "flip-flop flap" headlines it spawned.
And chat room lingo? It's everywhere and as instant messaging becomes more popular it's only going to spread. Florida Rep. Mark Foley has been in the news lately for the sexually explicit instant messages he exchanged with underage former pages. Yes, it's unconscionable that a grown man would solicit sex from a 15-year-old boy. But isn't it also terrible to realize that this same man also on multiple occasions typed "lol" instead of "laugh out loud" and on at least once typed "me 2," apparently too busy to bother with the additional keystrokes necessary to spell out "too"?
OK, maybe that's not the best comparison, but still, do we really want our country to be run by people who might respond to a particularly good e-mail forward from the Prime Minister of Canada with "ROTFL!"?
As bad as those other things are, though, it's the skateboarding that's been most on my mind most lately. Until last weekend, I didn't even realize it was an issue. When I come across skateboarders around the Twin Cities they appear to be almost exclusively 15-year-old boys with no apparent fear of catastrophic injury. Apparently, the skateboard culture is a whole lot different in other parts of the country.
Last weekend I was in Santa Barbara, Calif., to attend my cousin's wedding. With some time to kill Saturday, I wandered along the beach and happened upon a skateboard competition, a fact that should have let me know right away things were a little bit different. In 31-plus years living in Minnesota I have happened upon bicycle circuses and Lutefisk suppers but never once an organized skateboard competition.
The really amazing part, though, was who was competing. I caught only two age divisions: the 30- to 39-year-olds and the 40- to 49-year-olds. And there were a lot of them. The oldest competitor there was 61. SIXTY ONE! Next thing you know my parents are going to take up big wave surfing.
It appeared to be a pretty diverse group. Some of the guys could have been doctors or lawyers. One claimed to be a distant relative of existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. The guy who did the announcing had long, blond semi-dreadlocks and spent the entire time shirtless. Actually, he looks exactly like the guy you pictured a minute ago when I told you I saw a 40-something California skateboarder.
They are guys who, if they came of age somewhere other than California, would probably spend their Saturdays golfing or jogging or, in some cases, panhandling.
I guess it's just a different culture. I actually heard one skater refer to another as "bra," a greeting (I assume it's short for "brother") that I didn't think existed outside of the Partick Swayze/Keanu Reeves surfing/bank robbing classic "Point Break."
Still, while I'm willing to make an exception for those X-Games skaters who make their living on a skateboard, I have to draw the line somewhere. At a certain point it's just time to put the flip flops and the skateboards and the Super Man Underoos away say Cya to childhood for good.

Go directly to jail

I suppose it's a little foolish to get worked up about consumerism in a game called Monopoly. The entire object of the game, after all, is to beat your opponents into bankruptcy by overcharging them for shoddy properties in questionable neighborhoods (Now that I think about it, a lot of my former landlords were probably pretty good Monopoly players.) so throwing a few corporate logos around the board shouldn't be that big a deal, should it?
Still, I'm troubled. Hasbro is in the process of releasing something called the Here and Now version of the world's best-selling board game. This particular version of the game has been thoroughly modernized. Money comes in larger denominations (players now get a cool $2 million for passing Go) and properties have changed from their familiar, Atlantic City-based names to locations chosen by votes conducted across the country.
Some of the new properties are familiar landmarks. The Gateway Arch in St. Louis is on there, as is the Golden Gate Bridge. Those make sense. They are iconic images of America. Others, though, are less encouraging. In an entirely predictable move that still managed to sadden me, Minnesotans chose to be represented by the Mall of America.
Also on the board: Disney World; Cleveland's Jacobs Field, home of the Major League Baseball team with the mascot most likely to offend Native Americans; the Liberty Bell; and the White House.
That's right, you can buy the White House. Apparently Jack Abramoff served as a consultant for this version. Even more unsettling: at $3.2 million, it's not even the most expensive property on the board. Boston's Fenway Park ($3.5 million) and New York's Time's Square ($4 million) both cost more than the home of the most powerful man in the world who's not Bill Gates. And the properties you need to create a monopoly with 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Wrigley Field and Las Vegas Boulevard. So, it's all perfectly logical.
There are other changes to the game, too. Cell phone and Internet service has replaced electric and water utilities. Airports have replaced railroads. Instead of penalizing players with "income taxes," the game has spaces that require $750,000 payments for "interest on credit card debt." I actually think that number is about right for a lot of Americans. Chance and Community Chest cards have been updated, too. Instead of winning $10 for finishing second in a beauty contest, players can pick up $100,000 for competing on a reality show. Presumably one that involves eating pig intestines, not one that involves dating washed up rappers.
I think it's the new playing pieces that bother me the most, though. Familiar tokens like the iron, the thimble and the dude on the rearing horse have been replaced by McDonald's french fries, a Motorola cell phone and a laptop computer.
The race car? Now it's a Toyota Prius. A Prius! You can't make vrooming sounds going around the board with a hybrid! And there's nothing exciting about making the quiet humming sound of an electric motor.
The Scotty dog? Now it's something called a labradoodle, a Labrador-poodle mix that's reportedly very popular these days. I don't care how popular it is, labradoodle is a ridiculous name. And if you're looking for a dog with a ludicrous name, why not go all out? Why not go with an affenpoo (part affenpinscher, part poodle) or a whoodle (part soft coated wheaton terrier, part poodle). I'm just saying, there are options. And whoodle is a lot of fun to say.
Finally, the ever-popular ankle boot has been replaced by a New Balance sneaker. This actually makes perfect sense, because you know how the kids today like their New Balance.
Admittedly, this isn't the first time brand names and Monopoly have mixed. The Hasbro web site lists versions of the game featuring Sponge Bob Squarepants, Disney and Star Wars, and there are many others out there. And reportedly none of the companies featured on the game tokens paid for the right. New Balance, it seems, was chosen because it is the only athletic shoe brand manufactured in the United States, which I suppose is admirable. Still, there's something that doesn't feel quite right about putting hotels on the Golden Gate bridge or charging rent for staying at the White House, at least since Clinton left office.
And I still think labradoodle is a stupid name.

Take me out to the (foot)ball game

I graduated from Stillwater High School in 1993. Leaving out my junior year, which I spent in Sweden, I was a Pony for two years and an Oak Land Junior High Raider for three years before that. I played sports -- well, JV soccer and JV cross country skiing -- and I took part in activities. And yet I realize now I have spent more time at Irish Stadium watching the RHS football team than I ever spent watching football teams that had a fair degree of success.
I guess I wasn't what you'd call filled with school spirit. But if the Irish games I have attended in recent years are any indication I might have missed out. I skipped games when I was a student because I had no particular interest in high school football.
The thing I’m realizing, though, is that an interest in football is not even remotely necessary for the students who attend high school football games. Last Friday I attended Rosemount’s game against top-rated Eden Prairie. It was a big game. And I'm convinced there were students there who did not know at any point what the score actually was.
It was last week's game that really drove this message home. Going to a high school football game isn't about football. It's about getting together with friends. It's an excuse to sit outside on a nice fall night or to stand by the fence and talk about nothing at all and especially not what's happening on the field. The younger the student, the truer that seemed to be.
At Irish Stadium there seemed to be at least four groups of fans, at least among the students.
At the top were the Superfans. They're the ones who paint their bodies funny colors and wear goofy outfits and jump and scream and cheer all game long. They're the ones who actually care about what's happening on the field. Or, they had enough school spirit to pretend they did. Or, I suppose, they just liked to yell.
I wouldn’t have been a Superfan in high school. I probably would have been the one making fun of the Superfans with my friends.
After the Superfans were the regular fans. They're the ones who showed up early enough to get a seat in the bleachers and probably spent most of their time paying attention to the game. If you had asked them at halftime they probably could have told you the schedule. Or at least known where the scoreboard was. Or what sport they were watching.
Next were the casual fans. They typically stood by the fence and spent most of their time talking to each other but turned their head toward the field every once in a while. It’s not clear they were actually watching the game, but they at least could have made that argument.
Finally, there were the nonfans. They could have been at the mall or in someone's basement or on Ellis Island for all the attention they paid to the game. They were at the stadium primarily because it was Friday night and that was where students were supposed to be.
For the most part, interest in the game tended to exist in inverse proportion to the student's age. For whatever reason, high school seniors appeared to care a lot more about how their team was doing than their freshman counterparts and freshmen, even the ones standing by the fence, were showing infinitely more interest than the middle- and grade-schoolers who couldn't even be bothered to stay in the stadium during the game. At any given time there appeared to be four or five pick-up football games taking place on the fields outside the stadium. It's not clear whether this group -- and there were hundreds of them -- even bought tickets to the game. The games could have been played just about anywhere. Aside from the occasional cheer and the noise from the PA system they might not have known there was an actual sanctioned game going on.
Not that there's anything wrong with any of this. More than just about any other activity, high school football games are about building community. There's something great about seeing those football games going on. Presumably, at least some of the kids playing did not know each other when they started playing. And given the things everyone keeps saying about Americans all being fat and lazy, playing a little touch football seems like a better way to spend a Friday night than sitting around and watching America's Funniest Videos.
I’m starting to think I missed out 13 years ago.

Bad boys, whatcha gonna do?

I rode in the 100-mile Defeat of Jesse James Days Bike Tour last Saturday, just one day after I realized how much I have in common with the famous outlaw. For months, it seems, I have been living the life of a criminal.
OK, so my crime isn't anything as glamorous as robbing banks in the Old West. Or insider trading. Or even serial jaywalking. Nobody sent a posse after me and I didn't even get thrown in the hoosegow when I got caught.
Although the State Trooper who pulled me over did give me a ticket and refuse to let me drive my car.
Here's the thing. Apparently I was wearing my glasses the last time I got my driver's license renewed. As a result, I had a restriction on the license that required me to wear corrective lenses whenever I was driving. Only, nobody ever told me that, and I never bothered to read the back of my license, where the restriction was printed. My particular prescription has always been pretty weak, so when I lost my glasses a few months ago, I didn't bother to do anything about it.
That’s right. I was living outside the law. Sticking it to The Man. Next thing you knew I’d be cutting off mattress tags.
For a while, nobody even noticed. I lived my lawless existence and reveled in the danger of it all. I didn't hit any old ladies in crosswalks or drive through any shopping malls. None of which swayed the trooper when he pulled me over last Friday south of St. Peter.
"You have a restriction on your driver's license," he told me, the sunlight glinting cruelly off of his own pair of lenses. He knew he was bringing down a hardened criminal. "That's a problem. I can't let you drive."
"I have a what?" I said, hoping to throw him off with the fallback of most hardened criminals: genuine ignorance. "Nobody ever told me that."
"It says it right here on the back of your license. Can you see that."
I could see it, a fact I thought should have strengthened my case. But apparently being able to read the fine print on the back of a driver's license was not adequate proof of my ability to drive safely.
I considered claiming I was wearing contacts (What’s a little lie to police to serial lawbreaker?) but it occurred to me if I was going to start lying to police officers I should not do it with a claim that could be so easily disproved.
The trooper asked if there was anyone I could call to bring me glasses or to drive my car. I pointed out, as politely as possible, that I live in St. Paul and was currently sitting somewhere just north of Mankato. I know very few people who like me enough to drive that far and the few I do were all at work, it being 9:30 on a Friday morning.
I neglected to mention that I no longer actually own a pair of corrective lenses. We outlaws don't like to give cops any information we don't have to.
The trooper eventually left me by the side of the road but not before warning me that if he caught me driving he'd tow my car and throw me in jail.
In the end, I called one of my co-wokers, Michelle Leonard, and made her leave the same training session I was late for when I got pulled over. She brought me to the training, then chauffeured me to a license center, where I took the eye exam -- without my glasses this time -- and got the restriction removed.
I felt a little bad about caving in so quickly. Who is The Man to tell me what I have to have on my face when I drive? Why shouldn’t I continue the Bad Boy life I had unwittingly been living for most of a year?
In the end, though, I pushed myself away from the Dark Side’s temptations. I figure it’s the wiser course of action. It’s not in my nature to scoff so openly at the laws of society. It’s just not who I am.
Besides, being an outlaw is hard.