The TV series

It's not easy to maintain dramatic tension in a series. I have great admiration for the production values in the first season of The West Wing. But in episode five of season two, two new characters are introduced, neither of whom I believe. They are over the edge, changing the tone of the series. I am close to quitting.

Modern education

The Great American Novel

Today I learned that none of my students, including several grad student English majors, has ever heard of John Dos Passos. O my.

Quotation of the day

From The Passive Guy ...

If my books had been any worse, I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better, I should not have come. --Raymond Chandler

Why Isn't Closing 129 Chicago Public Schools National News? | Common Dreams

Why Isn't Closing 129 Chicago Public Schools National News? | Common Dreams:

"If you don't live in Chicago you might not know that the CEO and the dozens of other six figure a year mayoral cronies who run the Chicago Public Schools want to close 129 public schools this year, more than a third of the city's total. It's not national news for the same reason that closing 40 public schools in Philadelphia last year wasn't national news, and massive school closings in the poorer neighborhoods of cities across the country is not news either."

Omen?

For reasons known only to them, the little coffee stand in the Student Union only stocks three maple bars a day, and they are typically gone by 9ish in the morning. Imagine my shock today, then, to see one left at 10:30! Naturally I grabbed it, and naturally I am presently enjoying the hell out of it. A good surprise with which to start the day.

Marketing lecture today, and a kind of recap of where we've been. No scripts due today, which is convenient since H has her surgery Saturday and I'll have more free time than usual over the weekend.

Going to a retirement party Sunday: the professor who hired me. I want to thank him.

Eureka!

Rachel Bruner has a Fire blog full of tips and info. I just downloaded a player that lets me watch the flash files in my archive. Kept getting error msg before. Frustrating. The solution was quick and easy but, of course, you have to know what to do in the first place. Thanks, Rachel!

Close calls in the neighborhood

Almost got creamed on the way home from the store. Made a right turn and as i did an impatient driver in left lane swerved to pass on the right and just missed me. I should have taken the long way home without rush hour traffic. Safe now with stock simmering. Two hour process.

In the kitchen

Time to head to the store, get what I need to make scrapple this morning. A return to normalcy. Also tofu in Korean marinade.

Later a bit of prep work to do.

Mellow.

Baseball fever

Thanks to the Fire, more prepared to follow the Mariners than ever, with team and baseball apps, news feeds, a real obsessive array of audio tools lined up. It's a young team but mayby they can climb out of last place. Great to see Ibanez back. My favorite old man on the team.

Rob the weatherman

A few years back, a new weatherman came to one of our stations, named Rob Marciano. He was good. Moreover, he was young, handsome, charismatic on camera. And it was easy to guess, well, he won't last here long, he belong in bigger markets. And sure enough, after a few years he went off to CNN.

I saw him do the weather there. I saw him stand in the middle of a hurricane, on location reporting. He narrated a weather special or two. And then on a Sunday, I saw him sit in the anchor chair. He was going places, clearly.

Imagine my shock, and hilarity, when I saw him last week as the new co-host of ... Entertainment Tonight. With a do-over to make him look more like a Hollywood stud! My, my. I'd accuse him of selling out but clearly this must be a pay raise and promotion.

So Rob made it. What can be next? A book! You heard it here first.

Zags #1?

Indiana got upset tonight, in the craziest season in memory. If Gonzaga, ranked 2 for first time in school history, keeps its nose clean all week, it should be numero uno. Imagine!

The Last Slow Dance

The Last Slow Dance: minor league baseball in Portland.

"THE PORTLAND Urban Minor League Baseball Experience begins at the New Moon Tavern before the game.  It begins in Fred Vranizan's long tunnel across the street from the stadium, Westside, the New Moon Tavern, where pennants hanging from the ceiling cite championship years for the Beavers, where the walls are papered with superstars from Ruth to Mays, where behind the bar autographed baseballs and Louisville sluggers are found instead of go-go girls."

Bullpen Tavern, Portland

I have baseball fever. Here's something I wrote some 40 years ago for Northwest Magazine. I think "the last slow dance" today is distance running, the longer the "slower."

Back to normal

Hitched a ride to the office with H on her way to taking our guest to the airport. So we will be getting back to normal. HOORAY! I have fallen behind on a number of things. Time to catch up.

H has her first knee surgery on Saturday, so the routine will change again, but this time to a necessary good purpose. We have too small a house to make this as convenient as it might be, I fear. We'll see. She has many friends who have gone through this, getting lots of advice and having models of how good it can turn out.

All the same, I think I would decline the surgery if it were me. I'd rather fast, lose 150 pounds, and reduce the weight the knees must deal with. I'd rather use a cane. Maybe I'd think differently at the time but that's my take on it now. I think we're becoming guinea pigs for wonderful new medical devices. Until everyone gets a "peace pill" on the asking after age ... what? 70? 75? ... I am not convinced the medical establishment has my best interests at heart. If they did, a high priority would be Comfortable Death, at a time of personal choosing, rather than at a time of Terminal Illness, and very few states provide even that. I know, hardly anyone agrees with me. That's what I get for not being a Christian ha ha.

How interesting the protagonist in my new book is a Catholic. I'm still trying to figure Brinkley out. CJ I have down pat (hint hint). How interesting the argument is from Brinkley's point of view, not the other way around. Well, the latter would be too easy. Easy is boring. So I struggle on ...

Remembering Holden

There's a nice moment in The Catcher in the Rye when Holden Caufield expresses the desire to call the author after he finishes a good book. Indeed I've always enjoyed the occasional fan email.
I bring this up because The SF Chronicle has a feature I haven't seen in other papers: a live email link to an article's author. The LA Times gives an author's email address but it's a dead link. At the Chronicle one tap gets you into an email and another gets you back at your spot in the paper.

Thus I find myself thanking writers for good work, as I did a moment ago on an analysis of the Oscar app that I thought was right on.

Perfect storm

The incredible ineptness of Congress meets the accelerating revenge of Nature ... and we do the very opposite of what we should be doing with regard to policies (and spending). American political life is more of a sick joke than ever. This is the reality of American Exceptionalism.

Baseball

A great time to rewatch the series of films on baseball by Ken Burns. I begin today!

Following the Mariners

Listening to Mariners via MLB Audio, a good service, but it only works on my netbook, not Fire, alas. But I do have a Mariners app that gives me pitch by pitch text to follow the game, so I can follow anywhere.

A few loose ends but mostly done with prep for class tomorrow.

Headline of the day

From The Huffington Post, re Argo as Best Picture.

Which they quickly changed to: How Do You Like Them Apples? Oh yes, where do we live now, and what can we expect our readers to understand? Our spoon fed culture deserves a spoon fed headline, right? How many would understand the delightful grammatical thrust of the first? Change it! O by the gods, must we always play to the lowest common denominator?

App revisited

Oscar app does have one cool feature: video archive from various cams in the program. It's free, too, so worth getting after all. Just disappointing during the live show.

Oscar app

Not impressed, alas. Like the concept. Executed with too many commercials, disappointing options in actual real time.