The Responsibility Pyramid

This a post I have been wanting to put up for a while, but hadn't gotten around to composing. I want to be able to refer back to it for my next post, though so, in the immortal words of Elvis Presley, It's Now or Never.

I want to introduce you to a way of looking at your purchases (some other decisions too, but mostly purchases) from an overall responsibility standpoint. It is a sort of shorthand notation, handy for looking at the “Big Picture” without actually having to take the time to look at the actual Big Picture. (It is a big picture, after all, so it takes some time to look at all of it.) The concept is known as the Triple Bottom Line, or "3BL" for short, but I have three-dimensionalized it, and call my version...

The Responsibility Pyramid*!

(*actually it's a Responsibility Tetrahedron, but who's counting?)

The Responsibility Pyramid works like this. Imagine a solid made of four regular triangles. (For You D+D Gamers -and you know who you are- yes, that's a four-sided die.) Or Better Yet, Imagine a tripod of three sticks, coming together at a single point, over a triangular base. Or Better Yet, Don't imagine it at all!

My Pyramid. Let me show you it.

• The Red Stick in my crude little illustration, is Money, or the purely Economic decision. This is quite often the starting point for a purchasing decision. “Can I afford it?”, or “Is it a good bargain?” are the questions we often ask ourselves after we calm down from drooling over whatever it is we want to buy. We have a Responsibility to ourselves, to our families, and to society at large, to use our money wisely, so that we end up able to help others, rather than needing help from others.

• The Blue Stick represents People, or the Social aspect of the decision. After all, like I learned in Mr. Haley's 11^th grade economics class, you vote with your dollars every time you make a purchase. I, for one, want to vote for companies that are treating people well. You can't always know whether a company is good or not (and your notion of “good” may not line up with mine precisely), but we have a Responsibility to make ourselves reasonably informed, so that we don't end up helping companies exploit people. If you want a worst-case scenario, just do a web search for “Mariana Islands Sweatshop”

• The Green Stick is for this Planet that we live on, or the Ecological decision we make when we buy something. How much packaging, and of what type, does it come wrapped in? How far did it have to travel to get to me? Is it reusable, or recyclable? Was it made from petroleum? And on, and on, and on... There are 1000 or more questions you can ask on this one, and you may not be confident of the answers, but we have a Responsibility to at least ask, and to pass over products we know to be harmful.

If you make a decision to buy something, like... A pair of Starbury^® Athletic Shoes, simply because they are dirt cheap, Your "Purchase Point" is on the point where the red "money" line touches the base of the triangle. This is unfortunately where the vast majority of our decisions get made. If plastic junk made with slave labor in Vietnam is buy one, get one half off, we buy two, even if we weren't sure we needed one! At this point on the pyramid, we are farthest away from our Responsibilities to People and the Planet.

A decision to buy a gas-guzzling SUV made right here in the USA, by Unionized Auto Workers, may have a "Purchase Point" located on the black baseline halfway between "Money" and "People", if it is a really good bargain, but then again... a gas guzzler is always going to end up being expensive, so it is probably over in "People" corner, far from being a smart choice for your wallet or the Earth.

Are you starting to get this? A Toyota Prius, when it first came out, was a great decision, planetwise. But they were certainly no bargain! How many Anti-Malarial Bed Nets could you have provided African Children with for that price?
Organic "Fair Trade" Coffee at the grocery store can cost a pretty penny more than the stuff next to it, but is it worth a few more cents a cup to have supported a farmer sweating a living out of the soil in Central America?

If you make it to (in your judgement) a Win-Win-Win situation, then congratulations, you have made it to the top (and center) of the pyramid! Look down on us all from your lofty perch, and start helping us to climb up there with you!

I Am Officially a BlogStar!

My Buddies over at Tiny Choices found my post about Newspaper Seed-Starter Pots interesting enough to expand on, and they did what I forgot to do. Link to instructions for making them! So, without Further Ado,

How To Make A Newspaper Seed-Starter Pot.

When I tried to access this page this morning, I was greeted with an error message saying that the page had exceeded its data transfer limit, or something, so if it doesn't work, fret not. I will try to put up my own pictorial step-by-step instructions soon.

Also, I got a nod from Mama Bird over at Surely You Nest, who found my Tiny Choices Interview to be inspiring!

And, I engaged Peter Sagal, playwright, author, and host of NPR's News Quiz "WaitWait, Don't Tell Me", in a conversation about movies that are "fractally bad". He makes some great points, but I am afraid we will just have to agree to disagree about "Unbreakable". Read the comments to get my take. Also, if you have a few minutes to be entertained, follow the link on his post to the video for "Mandelbrot Set". It amused me.

Have You Voted?

There are, as of this writing, 10 hours left to vote in what I believe is the best TDBotD poll, ever!

Those of you who get this blog via e-mail will probably get this too late, but for RSS or Atom Subscribers, make sure you click through to vote on...

Which Candidate Would Make The Best New Flavor of Ben+Jerry's Ice Cream?

I have done roughly a poll a week for almost eight months now, and this one is my favorite. I put a lot of thought into it. You may vote based on which Presidential Candidate you like best, OR which Ice Cream sounds the Yummiest to Eat.

Please Keep in Mind - The future of absolutely nothing in particular is riding on your decision. (freeing, isn't it?)

Do your Readerly Duty, Go Vote! or Comment. Or Both.

Am I Dumping Flickr, Or Has Flickr Dumped Me?

Either way, We are through!

My attempts to upload my pictures to flickr have proven futile. Since flickr doesn't want my images, I am sending my unpaid business to Google's picasa, instead. I used to have picasa on my PC, but it did a bit of a wierd-out on me when I got to reorganizing my filing system, and creeped me out. That is a long boring story, and unlike many other long, boring stories, I won't tell it here.

The point is, I am back with picasa, flickr, and no, you can't have back your sweater, you gave it to me, and I am keeping it, along with the mixtape you made me. But don't expect me to just jump back into your arms, flickr - not after this.

Three separate times, I tried to upload my SharPei pictures, and thrice you rejected them. I downloaded your fancy "uploadr" program (or tried to, rather), and couldn't even get it installed without being told I lacked a required driver. Will I ever have enough drivers for you? Why won't you just tell me what driver I need, or where to get it? Why the emotional distance?

Oh well. I won't say it's goodbye forever, flickr. The truth is, I've been burned by picasa, too. But picasa's version 2.7 is looking, mighty improved. If you go do some improving, too, then maybe you can win me back. But you are going to have to woo me, flickr, you are going to have to woo me big time.

Weekly Charity O' The Week #3 - Happy Spay Day!

Happy Spay Day!*

Spay Day USA is a Fake Holiday in the Fine Tradition of Fake Holidays, thought up by the nice folks at The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), as a day to promote the neutering of pets. Their cute tagline this year is : It's Not Just Rabbits that Breed Like Rabbits.

Neutering domestic animals is something I feel VERY strongly about, and 5 out of 6 of the animals in my care have been neutered. The lone exception is Toot, our little "Crack Baby", whose previous life trauma seems to have made spaying unnecessary.

First, A Linguistic Quibble:

We use the phrase "Spay Or Neuter" all the time, but it is redundant. "Neutering" is the rendering sterile of an animal by surgical means. The process for neutering a male animal is called "Castration" (or "gelding"). The process for neutering a female animal is called "Spaying".

So Bob Barker Should have been reminding us, for all those years, to have our animals "Spayed or Castrated", or just to have them all, regardless of gender, "Neutered".

The Danger of Smeat:

I went to the Spay Day Website, prepared to donate, then found out that my donation to Spay Day was really a donation to the HSUS. I have a serious problem with the type and amount of correspondence I get from the HSUS.

After I responded to their URGENT ACTION NOTICE to write the NFL about Michael Vick's Canine Atrocities back in July, and gave them my email address (so that they could send an email on my behalf), I have gotten an URGENT ACTION NOTICE in my e-mail inbox every time a restaurant anywhere wants to kill and cook a non-free-range chicken. (Like killing and cooking a happier chicken is Humane? It's tasty, but not Humane.)

As you may be aware, Charities are exempted from the Federal "No-Call" list, and while I don't know for sure, I am relatively certain when the federal "Can SPAM Act" was passed (yes, that is the name of a real law!), they got a similar exemption. So the junk correspondence that charities
send, is sort of not technically SPAM. So I am calling it Smeat. As I donate to more and more charities this year I will keep you posted with warnings of particularly Smeaty organizations as I encounter them.

Smeat cuts into a charitable organization's efficiency, big time, and it also just ticks me off. I found it interesting that the Spay Day website touts the HSUS "4 star rating" with Charity Navigator, with a link you can follow to see that a whopping 13.8% of its expenses (Over $11M!) go to fundraising. The average for their sector is only 10%. The American Red Cross, a much larger organization, has fundraising expenses of only 2.5% ($140M), and The League For Animal Welfare, a smaller organization, and Spay Day-related charity, has fundraising expenses of only 6.6%.($0.35M)

Obviously if you spend no money on fundraising, you are going to have no funds sooner or later. But 11 million dollars is going to hassling me about causes I don't particularly care about. I do care about the living conditions of livestock (I am placing a deposit on a Free Range Turkey this week), but I draw a distinction between torturing dogs for entertainment, and limiting the freedom of birds destined for extra-crispy breading and a side of cole slaw. The "Urgency" is just not the same on those two items. I don't wear fur, but I do wear leather, and don't see the difference.

If you are vegan, and want to donate to HSUS, then today, on Spay Day, is as good a day as any to do so. However my 52 dollars this week** is going to my Local Humane Society, the Franklin County(TN) Humane Society, where my money is needed more, and where they stick to rescuing animals that I don't eat. Or wear. If you started a Network For Good account back at Charity #1, and want to keep things simple for tax purposes, then I will recommend the League For Animal Welfare mentioned above. Just click on the "Network For Good" button over on the left, and you will be good to go.

*since it is a presidential election year, it is actually Super Spay Day.

**actually, I am only giving $50 to The Franklin County Humane Society, Because I have already given $54 to Charity #4. It all evens out.

Success! Followed quickly by Failure.

My Altoids Tin of Goodness has been Found!

My lovely and wonderful wife did a little tidying-up around the house in preparation for company coming over, and found the Altoids tin I keep some of my pocket sized technology in.

I carry a flash drive, a micro-SD memory card reader, and a pair of cellphone-compatible earbuds around, and to protect them from unhealthy interaction with car keys, coins, ink pens, and lint, I keep them in a little metal box that used to hold some Curiously Strong Mints dipped in Dark Chocolate. I have the best smelling Flash Drive in town!

The problem is, when I take the headphones out of the tin for some reason, like to use them, the other two items clank around like crazy, making a huge racket at the slightest of jostles. When this starts happening, my Altoids tin gets to live somewhere other than my pocket for a while. For the last two weeks(?) I have had the headphones, but not the rest of the tin. This made me sad, because My memory card was FULL, full I tell you, and I couldn't take any new pictures without replacing some older ones.

So now I am here ready to upload pictures, finally, but flickr's uploader is not working. This is my second flickr frustration post in a very short period of time. I don't know what gives, but be on the lookout for a massive photodump this week.

I got pictures of puppy dogs, pictures of the wintry wonderland that was my yard a few weeks ago, and some random one-off pictures I've been meaning to get around to. If flickr doesn't get its act together, I'll have to use picasa, I guess.

Starting Seeds - Part 2

Here are my new peatless pots in action. They contain leaf lettuce, broccoli, spinach, head lettuce, roma tomatoes, and endive (which is pronounced "on-deeve", in case you were wondering) I didn't label which pot got what seeds, though, so I hope I can identify the sprouts.

I put the soil in the pots yesterday morning, put seeds and water in them last night, right before hitting the sack. four hours later, I woke up, and I already had one sprout! Later this morning, I had three!

Starting Seeds!

We are days away from Springing our clocks Forward, and I am ready to start making veggies!

I ran to the general stores here in town yesterday, (Both of 'em!), and failed to find peat pots for starting seeds.

And I am glad I did, because it wasn't until this morning that I remembered the cheaper and more eco-friendly way of starting seeds that I read about last Summer, after I had already bought a multi-pack of compressed peat pellets.

Paper Pots!

Using basic origami, a tabloid sheet of newspaper can be repurposed as a seed starter pot. When your baby plant starts to get big, and needs to go outside to play, then you can drop the whole deal, pot and all, into your hole, without disturbing the delicate root structures your little plant has worked so hard to build. The newsprint will biodegrade harmlessly into the soil, leaving your plant free to grow healthy and big.

As a matter of fact, about half of the soil I will be filling these pots with used to be newspaper (and food scraps, and coffee grounds, and teabags, et cetera), before my little wormy friends digested it for me.

A word about peat. Peat moss (actually it's technically sphagnum moss) is very useful in gardening, because it holds moisture very well, and it can be compressed into forms that biodegrade easily, feeding plants as they break down. But peat moss is being way over-harvested, and is only a semi-renewable resource. So not only does making these starter pots out of repurposed newspaper save you money, and get rid of some newspaper clutter, but you do your part to save the fragile ecosystems of peat bogs, where peat (sphagnum) moss grows.

Chapter 1 is Done!

I have finished the first 3,500 words of my novel's rough draft, and, while chapter divisions, nor nothing else, is fixed at this point in time, this roughly corresponds to chapter 1 being finished.

only about 46,500 words to go! It's starting to get more challenging, and more engrossing.

Charity #2 - Shar-Pei Rescue of Tennessee

My charity for last week, the second week of February, was Shar-Pei Rescue of Tennessee, which is a part of the Ralston Purina Rally to Rescue Network.

I was headed to the library last Saturday with an unusual amount of free time, when I passed signs for an "adoption event" happening at Sewanee's American Legion Hall. I popped in about ten minutes before the first dogs showed up, but within a half-hour, I was surrounded by Shar-peis of varying size, shape, color, texture, and temperament.

I spent the first part of the afternoon with the first three arrivals, Stewie, Bella, and Dinky. Then in the second batch came Lovey, Synda, Scooby, Thurston, Herbie, and Bonzai. Also in attendance were MuMu and Sybil and Savannah, who was not a Shar-pei, but a very large and lanky Boxer Mix, who looked entirely out of place. I volunteered to take Synda, a champion Face-Licker, off of the hands of one of the event organizers, and ended up holding her leash for most of the afternoon. She was adorable, and I wished I could adopt her.

I won a door prize - a pair of pink-and-blue knit doggie-toboggans, but refused the well-intentioned prize on the grounds that my dogs would never in a million years enjoy wearing a baby hat on an elastic chin-strap. I was given an embroidered beer coozy instead, and a pair of Purina-branded Tennis Balls... I'm sorry, correction, a pair of Purina-branded "Felt Fetch Toys", which, for some bizarre reason, came in a pressurized, airtight, canister. Do tennis ba.. er.. Felt Fetch Toys go stale if you leave them out?

Maybe Shar-peis aren't your breed of choice, and/or maybe you don't live in Tennessee. But at the Rally for Rescue Directory page, you can choose your state, and find a list of different small rescue operations, that need your support. I will reiterate, these are , for the most part, SMALL organizations - maybe just a family, or an individual, with a passion to care for castaway animals. The more help they get, financially, the more animals they can help, so your donation goes a long way.

I took a lot of pictures at the adoption event, but have lost my memory-card reader, so, for now, I can't get my pictures off my phone, and onto the interweb. I hope to find or replace the gizmo soon, so look for photographic cuteness in the near future.

Fanboys and Fangirls, You May Now Wet Yourselves!

Here it is, from SuperheroHype.Com, a first, top-secret, sneak peek at the "Backbone" of Warner Brother's Upcoming "The Dark Knight"....

Aaron Eckhart as Two-Face!

Ok, now go change pants. You're embarrassing yourself.

His Name is Fred.

But if you called him "Fred Rogers", no one would know who you were talking about.

Mister Rogers, though, well.... Everybody knows him!

This was too good not to share. From Tom Junod’s famous 1998 Esquire profile of Mr. Rogers, courtesy of Peter Sagal's Blog:

Once upon a time, a little boy with a big sword went into battle against Mister Rogers. Or maybe, if the truth be told, Mister Rogers went into battle against a little boy with a big sword, for Mister Rogers didn’t like the big sword. It was one of those swords that really isn’t a sword at all; it was a big plastic contraption with lights and sound effects, and it was the kind of sword used in defense of the universe by the heroes of the television shows that the little boy liked to watch. The little boy with the big sword did not watch Mister Rogers. In fact, the little boy with the big sword didn’t know who Mister Rogers was, and so when Mister Rogers knelt down in front of him, the little boy with the big sword looked past him and through him, and when Mister Rogers said, “Oh, my; that’s a big sword you have,” the boy didn’t answer, and finally his mother got embarrassed and said, “Oh, honey, c’mon, that’s Mister Rogers,” and felt his head for fever. Of course, she knew who Mister Rogers was, because she had grown up with him, and she knew that he was good for her son, and so now, with her little boy zombie-eyed under his blond bangs, she apologized, saying to Mister Rogers that she knew he was in a rush and that she knew he was here in Penn Station taping his program and that her son usually wasn’t like this, he was probably just tired … Except that Mister Rogers wasn’t going anywhere.

Yes, sure, he was taping, and right there, in Penn Station in New York City, were tings of other children wiggling in wait for him, but tight now his patient gray eyes were fixed on the little boy with the big sword, and so he stayed there, on one knee, until the little boy’s eyes finally focused on Mister Rogers, and he said, “It’s not a sword; it’s a death ray.” A death ray! Oh, honey, Mommy knew you could do it … And so now, encouraged, Mommy said, “Do you want to give Mister Rogers a hug, honey?” But the boy was shaking his head no, and Mister Rogers was sneaking his face past the big sword and the armor of the little boy’s eyes and whispering something in his ear–something that, while not changing his mind about the hug, made the little boy look at Mister Rogers in a new way, with the eyes of a child at last, and nod his head yes.

We were heading back to his apartment in a taxi when I asked him what he had said.

“Oh, I just knew that whenever you see a little boy carrying something like that, it means that he wants to show people that he’s strong on the outside.

“I just wanted to let him know that he was strong on the inside, too.

“And so that’s what I told him.

“I said, ‘Do you know that you’re strong on the inside, too?’

“Maybe it was something he needed to hear.”

Are you teary-eyed yet?

If not, watch this: it's 6-and-a-half minutes, and the last half is terrific. at about the 5-minute mark, it really kicks in.

America's Got Comments!

Well, I've got comments, and I live in America, so.... There! My Title is Logically Proven.

Just a quick shoutout to my recent commenters on The Daily Blog of the Day. We have had a little cross-talk in the comment threads this week, and I want to go on the record as encouraging that sort of thing. If you haven't been reading or participating in the comments, then you are missing out a little.

If you flashback to my previous post about Magicians/Quick-Change Artists David And Dania, Liz had some great links, in the comments section of that post, to YouTube video of Vocal Genius Terry Fator, who was the eventual winner of the America's Got Talent grand prize. He is referred to as, and refers to himself as, a Ventriloquist, but I think this is underselling himself just a little. I appreciate a good ventriloquist as much if not a lot more than the next guy, but Mr. Fator's act transcends ventriloquism.

When he belts out tunes by Roy Orbison, Dean Martin, Louis Armstrong, Tony Bennett, Kermit The Frog, Garth Brooks, Nat and Natalie Cole and Etta James, he is doing more than Ventriloquism. He is singing sometimes very difficult vocal material in the voice of the original performer, without showing the slightest trace of effort or strain on his face. Most non-puppet-wielding singers would have veins popping out of their heads reaching for some of the notes he goes for.

So feel free, if you haven't clicked through to the site lately, to go check the comments out. You might learn something. Also, if you leave a comment, and want to keep up with others' responses to it, then click the little box when you leave it that says "e-mail me future comments on this post", or something to that effect. That way when someone responds to your comment with "yeah, you rock!", you can pop back with, "nuh-uh, YOU rock!", or something more intelligent about schroedinger's cat.

How To Tell If You Are Smart.

If you get this joke, congratulations! You are smart! If you don't get it, don't worry; you are probably just average. If you were stupid, you wouldn't be reading my blog. Stupid people don't read my blog.

SeaWorld Vacation Pictures on Flickr.

Have you ever wanted to bash your computer into little tiny pieces, set those pieces on fire, put out the fire by urinating on it, feed the charred, urine-soaked ashes to a rabid jackal, then light the jackal-poo on fire and fling it into the ocean, then invent a time machine so you can go back in time to join yourself in destroying it all over again?

That's kinda how I feel right now. I am in a library, so not only did I not bash my computer into bits, but I also refrained from unloading my fury in any other outward manifestation. But if Fist-and-Teeth clenching were an Olympic sport, I would be in contention for the gold medal right about now.

Besides, I don't even know where to find a Rabid Jackal at this time of the day.

I just uploaded 37 photos of my San Diego Vacation to Flickr, and spent at least 45 minutes (that I should have been sleeping) titling, filing, tagging, and describing them in my typically verbose fashion. I dislike looking through other people's pictures when they are all titled things like DSC234000005, DSC234000006, DSC234000007, Etc, And I try to put some effort into presentation if I am going to bother to post them on the web.

Then when I hit the "Save This Batch" Button at the end of this incredibly long labor of love, My 7 year old laptop got a bad case of Alzheimer's, forgot what it was doing, forgot it was a computer, forgot it was connected to the internet, briefly wondered what it was,if not a computer, and decided it was probably a 7-pound rectangular paving stone, and behaved accordingly. It froze up so solid, I couldn't even turn it off.

I couldn't bring myself to RE-title and RE-caption every picture, so...

Here's your stinking pictures! Sorry they aren't captioned or titled. I did RE-tag them, and I will make the attempt to further describe them some time soon, after I have cooled off a bit.



All VacationPhotos
SeaWorld Photos
Bahia Resort Photos
Mission Beach Photos

Devil In A Blue, no... Red, no.. Black- Striped..No.. Green Dress!

This lady changes clothes faster than you can change channels!

if the embed doesn't work, here's a link. And the Legal Department here at The Daily Blog of the Day wants me to add: "This blog is not responsible for the content of any outside links, their advertisers, or affiliate programs" There.

Quick Change Artists - The most amazing bloopers are here
As mentioned in my post on Competitive Magic, I was raised by Magicians. I have consequently seen enough tricks and illusions to make me probably one of the world's most skeptical cynics. There is an old standard of stage magic called "Metamorphosis", in which a Magician* locked away inside multiple layers of captivity, and his assistant** quickly, almost instantly, switch places. This trick frequently involves a quick-change as well, using techniques that are only moderately difficult to master, compared to the relative challenge of the rest of the escape.

But this lady blew me away! I lost count of the number of transformations she made! Even if you have some idea of how it was done, the flawless execution of it should still inspire some awe for a perfectly crafted performance. I am positive I do not want to know how much her chameleon wardrobe cost.

*Actually one of two magicians, although that's giving away part of the secret, and the posters rarely acknowledge that.

** The other magician, quite frequently even more talented than the one with his name on the poster in the big print.

Waiter. Blogger. Novelist.

Last time I mentioned my novel-in-progress there was a question mark at the end of that post title. No more. I have been energized to put something out there, and I am following through. I have experienced a paradigm shift in the way I think about novel writing. A long-form work of fiction does not have to be the work of a lifetime. The Great American Novel is kind of a cheesy myth. People who really write novels do it in a few months. 3-6 months of writing a few hundred words a day, and bango! You got yerself a novel. If you have a couple of other jobs, and pets, and a wife, and civic organization memberships, and a garden and a worm bin and a home under construction, then it should still take no more than a year.

In the last four days I have sloshed the premise of my book around in my head, and it has started to congeal nicely. There are still quite a lot of blank spaces and unknowns to work out, but I am attacking it aggressively. I have already knocked out over 1400 words of the rough draft. Only 48,600 words to go, and I will go from "aspiring novelist" to "novelist seeking publication". And from there, hopefully, to "published, award-winning, multi-millionaire novelist and celebrity"! Okay, maybe not all of that last one.

An Open Letter To MySpace's "Tom".

Seriously Dude,

How long could it possibly take to come up with your "Fancy New" rich-text editor? I have friends with blogs on your Adver-splosion of a site, and every time I have left a comment, for the last several months, I have seen your lame apology for the absence of a rich-text editor.

The rich-text editor is currently disabled. We're working on a fancy new one.

Oh really? Are you? Well it better be really fancy when it finally gets here, because you have been "working on" it for months! 1000 monkeys locked in a room with 1000 typewriters could have come up with a few good options by now!

Or maybe that is your strategy? By "working on" it, do you mean you currently have monkeys in a room with typewriters, and we should all just wait for that to pan out? Because if a high school senior can hack the iPhone inside of 8 weeks (and now without even touching the hardware), and folks can counterfeit the "counterfeit-proof 20" within a week, then I am thinking you have not done such a good job of hiring coders.

If you had provided the right 12 year-old with a free linux distribution and a steady paycheck, he could have carved an advertisement for Classmates.com into the face of the moon with a laser by now! Their website would still suck, but every 30 days, when we turned our faces to the sky on a clear night we would be able to see two yearbook photos from the 1960's, above the words:

"She Married Him!??" - brought to you by MySpace.com's Lunar Ad Project. See http://myspace.com/lunarads for details.

Get Cracking, Tom! Your site is owned by Rupert Freaking Murdoch, for crying out loud! Borrow a couple thousand bucks, and give me a button for Italic Font, and a button for Bold Font. That's all I'm asking. Now hop to it.

Your "Friend" (but then, who isn't?),
Frank.

A Working Definition of "Eclectic"

It seems like if you ask twenty people what kinds of music they like, about 18 of them will immediately say, "Oh, I like really all kinds of music", or "a little bit of everything" or, if they are feeling especially honest, "Pretty much everything except Rap*".

Ask one of these question-avoiders something more specific, like "What is your favorite artist?" and you get a much more helpful answer. Someone who likes "pretty much any music" whose favorite artist is Tim McGraw, is a different someone than a "all kinds of music" appreciator whose favorite artist is Modest Mouse.

The "What's on your iPod" question removes even more ambiguity. So, picking up from Art's post on the same Subject, here are the random 10 songs at the top of my iTunes "party shuffle" playlist. It's a pretty eclectic list, and by eclectic, I mean this:

If I played this list for 100 people, everyone would be guaranteed to really love, and to truly hate, at least one. And the songs some enjoyed the most would be the same ones driving the other listeners crazy.

Here, without further ado, is the list.

1. "She Said" by Parker Theory from Can Anybody Hear Me?
2. "Drawer" by Summercamp from Pure Juice
   
3. "Something So Right" by Paul Simon from Negotiations and Love Songs 1971-1986
   
4. "Cure" by Plumb from Plumb
5. "Clint Eastwood" by Gorillaz from Gorillaz
6. "Counting The Crossties" by Bad Livers from Hogs On The Highway
   
7. "Everybody Knows" by Echo And The Bunnymen from Flowers
8. "Where The Streets Have No Name" by U2 from Best Of 1980-1990
   
9. "Wild Horses" by Sundays from Blind
10. "$300" by Soul Coughing from El Oso

and for extra credit, The next three are kinda' fun...

1. "Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman from Tracy Chapman
2. "Trouble" by Coldplay from Live at KCRW
3. "My Hero Zero" by The Lemonheads from Schoolhouse Rock Rocks!
   

If you have heard of more than half of the first 10 artists, then pat yourself on the back, and remind me to never play Musical Trivial Pursuit against you!

So, What's on your iPod? or other music player? The comments section is wide open! Check the link to Art's post for the "Official" rules.

*The iTunes "randomizer" didn't put any of it on to this list, but I own, and enjoy, quite a lot of rap. Now that I look at it, the list is eclectic, but it is awfully white. I need to work on that, put a little more "soul" into my mix...

Waiter, Blogger, Novelist?

I have over the years been creative in a number of media. Having flexed my writing muscles enough with the blogging thing, I am hoping I will be able to now successfully complete a novel.

I have started one or two other novels in my life, and I get a little further along with each attempt. I have had characters a-go-go. Characters come to me so easily that it almost seems as if they already exist, and want me to put them down in ink. (or pixels, nowadays.) Plot, on the other hand, is hard. Plot is also the thing I appreciate most as a reader. I meet "Characters" everyday (some of them even read my blog), but in real life, a sufficiently complicated and satisfying plot is harder to come by. That is where I really admire the craft of the writer, and where I have less natural talent.

Well, I have more of a full-bodied idea of this book than I have ever had for any previous attempt at fiction, and my hopes are high. Also different this time around, is that I have a daily dose of cheerleading and community from the blog MagicalWords.net, a blog about sci-fi/fantasy writing maintained by 4 published authors who have all enjoyed some commercial successes.

I won't go into too much more than that here and now, but this blog is for sharing my thoughts with the world, and today, my thoughts are fixed on developing this literary zygote into a full fledged story worthy of publication.

I'm The Guy Who Reads The Newspaper Over Your Shoulder.

Whenever anyone says the word cheeseburger, with the emphasis on the first syllable to differentiate it from a hamburger (which should have ham on it instead of cheese, really, if you stop to think about it), my mind automatically and involuntarily plays this song for me.

Because I want all of my readers to be cursed with the same problem, I bring you: Here I Am, by Lyle Lovett, and his Large Band.

Turn up your speakers and enjoy. The song is actually better without the video, so run it in a separate window or tab, or just shut your eyes. That is a commentary on the video's cinematographer and/or director, not on the appearance of Lyle. Although his looks were probably not why he was Mr. Julia Roberts for a while.

Charitable Giving: Better Late Than Never!

Anybody remember that $52 a week I was going to give to charity?

No? Good. Forget I mentioned it.

Oh, you do remember, eh? You didn't want to hassle me about it and seem like a nag or anything, but you were wondering if I was going to follow through? You thought I had forgotten all about it?

Well you were half right. I hadn't forgotten all about it, but I hadn't actually done it either. This blog exists, to a large degree, to keep me accountable. I have reneged on a number of promises already (including the ones mentioned in the two links above), and failed myself as well as my readers.

But the time has come to get back up off the mat, dust myself off, and get back on the saddle/wagon/bicycle again, depending on your preferred mode of metaphorical transport.

(side note: I just opened up my cellphone to see how many weeks have already passed this year, and it took me a while to figure out that my phone thinks it's 1980. If it were 1980, my cellphone would be the size of an outboard motor, and it certainly wouldn't be the first place I looked for a calendar! Although maybe it still shouldn't be!)

Apparently 5 weeks have passed in this Non-1980 year, So I am 4 donations behind. Why not 5? Because one of those weeks I donated to a political candidate, and I have striven valiantly to keep my fiery, passionate political perspective out of this blog lest it cause any of you to share yours with me. I am, of course, like anyone who claims a political affiliation, a closed-minded ideologue, incapable of accepting alternative ideas without shouting them down. Better for us all if I just keep it to myself.

I may donate to this candidate again, or maybe to another one in the general election. If this happens I will simply advise everyone to give to whichever candidate they support. (Unless, of course, it's the WRONG one! Just kidding. You can support the wrong candidate if you want to. It's still wrong, though.)

See why I keep (mostly) mute on this subject?

Well today's Donation, for the 1st week in February, is going to The American Red Cross. Glad I did that research, are you? You could never have learned about the Red Cross otherwise, right? I mean they are such a small, unheard of group, right?

Well the Tornado Victims in the American Southeast right now are being helped by the Red Cross, and by the other Huge Name in Charity, the United Way. As a matter of fact a search for "Tornado" at Charity Navigator comes up with only one result. So I have given to The Red Cross this week, through the "Network for Good" button at Charity Navigator.

If you are going to be matching me in donating to the 52 different organizations I find this year, I recommend using the Network for Good, because at the end of the year, you will get a single tax document cataloging your donations, so that you may make Uncle Sam aware of your generosity with a minimum of fuss. You will need to sign up for membership to use these services, but it beats writing, stamping, and mailing 52 checks, and/or receiving 52 separate Form-1080's in the mail in 2009.

Improv Everywhere: They Cause Scenes.

A Roving Band of performing artists known as "Improv Everywhere" staged this scene in Grand Central Station. It seems that they do this sort of thing all the time, and have done similar stunts in Best Buy and Home Depot stores. But you can film things more obviously in a tourist location than you can in a retail location, so this one got better cinematography. I would love to have been there when this stunt began. It is surreal.

200 People Freeze In Grand Central - Watch more free videos

Tales of Clerkdom presents: Really Bad Conversation Openers

If you have just pulled your 1984 Monte Carlo in to a convenience store at 2:30 AM in the middle of nowhere, and you walk in wearing an undershirt on your upper body, and a large denim sack mostly on your lower body, to find yourself alone in the building with the Clerk, who is either trying to mop the floor or finish his crossword puzzle, here are a few good ways NOT to start the conversation:

1. Hey, Slick!
2. Hey, man, do you smoke?
3. Hey, can I ask you a favor?
4. Hey, man, I gotta ask you something...
5. Hey, I'm gonna be straight up...
6. Hey, do I need my ID to buy cigarettes? (If you don't ask, I am allowed to exercise common sense judgement as to your apparent age. As soon as you do ask, the answer is, always, "yes")
7. Hey, can I use my Food Stamp Card to buy a beer? C'mon, man, I just want one...
8. How much is your cheapest pack of cigarettes?
9. Hey, I usually come in here, and [other clerk] let's me get a free coffee. Can I get a free coffee?
10. Hey, will y'all cash a check?
11. Hey, I ain't got my credit card/food stamp card, but I called my mama, and I got the numbers off their card wrote down here. Can I use that to get some nachos and stuff? ("stuff" = beer.) It's really her card, I can give you her phone number and you can call her if you need to check, It's really her.
12. Do y'all got any food? (You are standing next to four aisles packed with every variety of pastry, potato chip, candybar, snack cracker and soft drink imaginable. Yes, we have food. But I would bet money we do not have whatever variety of food you happen to be thinking of.)

In general, "Excuse Me" works better than "Hey", and "Sir" works better than "Man". (Although if I am turned around when you come in, and you only see my ponytail, and call me "Ma'am", I will not be embarassed . You will be, but I won't.)

After several late hours glued to the radio coverage of primary election results, the Nashville newspaper showed up,and the huge "Super Tuesday" story was superseded by a story I had not heard about.
Tornadoes had ripped through my sister's current hometown of Jackson, TN, killing at least 2 people, and possibly burying an unknown number of college students in two Union University dorm buildings, which were demolished in the storm.
I am, as I think we all are, exposed to a constant, numbing, drone of violent, disastrous, and depressing news. There are not enough hours in the day to feel all the shock there is to feel, so like everyone else, I have developed ways of coping, of putting up defenses to the bad news. Somehow, this picture busted through those walls.
So to all those affected by this disaster, my heart goes out to you. I wish you all the peace that's possible in the next few days, as you reclaim what is recoverable, and grieve what is lost. Know that I grieve your losses too.

Do: Vote. Don't: Litter.

A few thoughts for today.
Firstly, GO VOTE! If you, for whatever reason, feel like, after a full year or more of media coverage of these candidates, you are not informed enough to cast a responsible vote, then call or email me, and I will inform you. I would go vote for you if I could, but the lady at the polling place already told me I can't.
Secondly... I am really very happy for Mr. Manning and the rest of the Giants, but I am not "50 tons of confetti" happy for them. In the olden days, before E*trade and paperless offices, as local heroes were paraded down the streets of New York, businesses would throw the paper "tapes" from their pre-internet stock "tickers" down out of their high office windows onto the streets below, creating a nice spirally streamer effect as they trailed through the air to the ground. They called this a "ticker tape parade".
Nowadays, however, we have E*trade, and iPhones, and CNBC, and throwing paper on the street is called "littering".

I Hear Ya, Man.. I Hear Ya.

Just a quick note to everyone who has commented on my blog this... year.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I don't have a lot of time with access to an internet-enabled computer lately, as evidenced by the fact that my blog has been substantially sub-daily lately. So I don't get to respond to comments left by you wonderful readers in a timely manner.

However, I did want to take this opportunity to say that I do Read all of your comments, and quite frequently within a few minutes of your posting them, and they are all appreciated. I receive your comments on my cellphone, but unfortunately responding to them is problematic if not impossible on the go.

So to Art, Becky, Liz, Jeremy, and Valorie, Thanks for commenting recently.

And to Karina, Thanks for commenting and subscribing!

And to Dad, thanks for emailing me, and maybe someday you will figure out how to comment. And set the clock on the DVD player.

And to Michelle Russell.... Holy crap! what are you doing reading this? I'd better start watching what I say, 'cause I have no idea who's checking in! Glad to hear from you, too!

Also A quick "shout-out" to Eva and "Jimmy", and the Pools, who all came to Mitch-Fest 1, and who are almost certainly not reading this, but as per the line above, I figure I'd better cover my bases.

Super, Thanks For Asking!

I hope Everyone is having a Super Super Monday today.

It is Super Monday, of course, because it is the day between Super Sunday and Super Tuesday. And, of course, because this Monday was the last surviving Monday from the planet Krypton, and our full-spectrum sunlight enables it to perform Super-weekday feats with an array of powers such as Hangover Vision, 24-Hour Political Stump-Speech Breath, and The Power to Amass 4 million Pounds of Purple, Yellow and Green Plastic Crap to throw from floats in an attempt to see women's bare chests for 1/16th of a second.

Because tomorrow is not only Super Tuesday, it's Super "Fat Tuesday", or as the French call it, "le petit bon homme soufflé plus grand quiche deluxe ratatouille Tuesday", or something like that. I learned all the French I know by listening to old Marcel Marceau recordings, but it's been a while, so I might have misplaced an accent mark or something.

For those of you worried about the overlap of the traditional celebration of excess with the solemn proceedings of the nation's electoral process, don't worry, Louisiana's primary is not until Saturday, when, hopefully, most of the SuperFat Tuesday revelers will have remembered which congressional district they live in. (Hopefully one that smells better than the one they woke up in!)

I, for one, am in favor of just making every 4th February (the hardest month to spell) "Super February". It's Able to Leap-Year Tall Buildings in a Single Bound!

Think about it! We'd have Super Groundhog's Day, on which meteorologically psychic rodents from the planet Krypton inform us of upcoming climatological trends. And let me tell you, Super Groundhogs do an even better job of it than our regular ones. They can really see through all the bullcrap. With X-ray Groundhog Vision, they don't even have to leave their holes!

Super February would also be Super Black History Month, in which we could remember the many contributions to society of our African American Superheroes, like...

uh.. Oh, Yeah! At least one of the Green Lanterns! and... uh..this guy! Ok, on second thought maybe not.

Maybe we just do regular black history, but with an extra leap day, to study even more innovative uses for peanuts!

Super Valentines Day! If Someone gives you flowers or chocolate, you have to marry them, right then and there. First come first served, Winner Take All. (*Void where prohibited by law. Which I think is pretty much everywhere. Except for Las Vegas. And maybe some parts of Utah.)

Super President's Day! Super Ash Wednesday! Super Susan B. Anthony Day! Super Chinese New Year!

Also Spay Day, Lupercalia, Iwo Jima Day, National "Introduce a Girl To Engineering" Day, Darwin Day, National Condom Day, and some More, and More And More....

I'm ready for Springtime already.

Just As I Was Achieving Dailiosity...

A blog Telegram...

SIDELINED BY SICKNESS TODAY STOP

NASTY STOMACH VIRUS STOP

GOING HOME TO BED NOW STOP

That's All I got, people. See ya' tomorrow.

My Interview at TinyChoices.Com

One of the Blogs I regularly read is Tiny Choices, which is a great little blog about being more conscientious consumers, and the reason I will soon own a pack of Bamboo Sporks. They not only have some great ideas about the Stuff we buy, but they also have some really great Ideas on how to structure a blog, some of which I will probably steal some day.

One of these Ideas is a simple, recurring Interview that anyone can respond to, which they post a version of once a week. (on Friday) The questions are always the same, but the participants' answers vary, so it is always fresh, and a nice little read before the weekend.

I took the Tiny Choices Interview, and my turn in the Enviro-Limelight came today, when I Checked in to find my name in the headline of a blog which wasn't this one!

So, to all my readers: go check out my interview, (and leave a comment, if you have anything to add) and check the rest of the site while you're there! You might learn something! And if you like that kind of thing, go ahead and subscribe while you are over there!

And to all Tiny Choices' readers: Welcome to The Daily Blog of the Day! I hope you enjoy the totally random hodgepodge of info-cational edu-tainment assembled here. Like Seinfeld, this blog is about Nothing. Unlike Seinfeld, this blog is virtually unheard of by anyone. But if you like what you see, then hey.. Why not subscribe (by RSS or by e-mail) while you're here? And yes, Jenn and Karina, that goes for you!