This assumes, arguendo, that (1) there will be a “now” five years from now and that (2) I will be around to see it.

Commenter Stretch added these gems to a Tamara K. thread about stupidity:

Congressional hearing ca. 1975 on toxic waste sites. Neighbor has a PhD in chemical engineering and is testifying that the pH levels at one site are down to 7.2. Congresscritter leans forward, removes glasses for dramatic effect and asks “And how soon will you have it down to zero?”

The stare he got from the expert was probably dripping with acid contempt.

07 or ’08 Detroit auto firms are in Lansing looking for help from state government. When asked about fuel efficiency an engineer said “We’ve taken the internal combustion engine as far as the laws of thermodynamics will allow.” Yes, a state legislator leaned forward, removed his glasses, and asked “What amendments can we make to these laws to improve mileage.”

The common thread: legislator removing glasses. Gather enough examples like this, and we’d be justified in mandating contact lenses for these yutzim. It’s not like they have any problem forcing us to do stuff.

We don’t check in with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals too often, perhaps for the same reason we don’t watch Jersey Shore: you’ve seen one train wreck, you’ve seen ‘em all. We did, however, acknowledge their 2004 effort to persuade Slaughterville, Oklahoma to change its name, and I suppose they ought to be congratulated for maintaining their focus all these years:

With city officials contemplating a proposal to rejuvenate the struggling Mid-Market and Tenderloin with a payroll tax break to lure more businesses to the two neighborhoods, the activist organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals suggests another way to — at least — revitalize the Tenderloin: Rename it the Tempeh District after the protein-packed fermented soybean product.

”The city deserves a neighborhood named after a delicious cruelty-free food instead of the flesh of an abused animal,” PETA’s executive vice president, Tracy Reiman, wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to Mayor Ed Lee.

I’ve eaten enough soy in my lifetime to reject utterly anybody’s claim that the stuff is “cruelty-free”: it’s sure as hell cruel to my insides. Not that PETA would care about that sort of thing.

Captain Joe Garrity, who commands the Tenderloin police station, has a better idea: “Lipitor.” Yes, really:

After all, it’s a drug used to help combat high cholesterol of which eating red meat can be a contributing cause, and it could be a corporate sponsor to help pay for city services.

And Lipitor could use the publicity: the first generic will arrive late this year.

(Once again, via a Nancy Friedman tweet.)

My four-year-old four-gigabyte MP3 Walkman is getting a nearly-daily workout as the sound source in the car, thanks to a gizmo that slips into the Bose head unit’s tape drive.

Generally, I have 700-750 tracks stuffed into the little cuttlefish, and during an average month I’ll probably scissor out twenty of them and replace them with songs I haven’t heard so damned often. This can be done with good old Windows Explorer, by popping open the OMGAUDIO folder, but Sony does its best to obfuscate matters, so I’ve learned to deal with SonicStage, which has all the irritations of iTunes without any of the benefits. (Next time, screw it, I’m getting an iPod.)

And every time a SonicStage session was completed, regardless of the shuffle setting, the first track upon resuming use has always been the same: “Waterloo” by ABBA. I don’t object to this too strenuously, since this is a longtime favorite (it’s even the perfect length!), but last night, I toyed with the idea of deleting it anyway, and seeing if the new default first track was what I expected, which would be “The Boy from New York City” by the Ad Libs, second in the artist listing since I cycled Ace’s “How Long” out of the rotation.

Instead, I pasted in an ABBA album track — “Gonna Sing You My Lovesong,” from the Waterloo LP — and waited. G comes before W, right?

Nope. I pulled the USB cord, hit the button, and up came “Waterloo.”

Next time maybe I will delete the damn song.

Kobe knows to pass when the time is right:

(Via Ball Don’t Lie.)

“The Thunder defense,” said radio guy Matt Pinto early in the fourth quarter, “has just gone away.” So had the offense; after scoring 59 points in the first half, Oklahoma City managed a mere 11 in the third quarter, and the Trail Blazers, taking advantage of several calls Pinto thought were dubious, turned a six-point deficit into an eight-point lead, which would grow to double digits shortly thereafter. Halfway through the period, the Thunder started to get stops again, though the offense didn’t recover so much, and the Blazers waltzed to a 98-91 win at the Rose Garden, salvaging one game from the four-game season series.

Nate McMillan shuffled his starting lineup, installing Marcus Camby in the middle, moving LaMarcus Aldridge to power forward and letting Nicolas Batum come off the bench. This apparently cut down the Blazers’ rebounding capacity a bit — OKC had a 48-34 advantage on the boards — but Aldridge scored seemingly at will, finishing with 32 points, and Portland’s ball control was sterling. The Blazers shot only 43 percent, but that was two percent better than the Thunder.

And way better than the Thunder’s main offensive threats: Kevin Durant went 9 for 24 (25 points), James Harden 6 for 15 (21), and Russell Westbrook 5 for 15 (16). OKC, not getting points in the paint, resorted to jump shots, especially long jump shots, and they wouldn’t fall: only 7 of 27 connected. If there was any upside, it’s that Kendrick Perkins made both his foul shots.

Now the downside: this is the first half of a back-to-back, and yes, the second half is against the Clippers, but The Other L.A. Team is dangerous on its home court. Seven games yet to play.

Says sculptor Finn Stone:

Seeking to keep alive the boldness and flare adopted from an earlier generation, I experiment with a rich mix of pigments and textures, exploring colour and form. With an impulsive lust for vibrancy, my beloved reds and yellows collide with unstoppable momentum.

This particular project, I suggest, is indisputably bold, possibly even vibrant. Stone calls these LEG-GO Stilettos, likely a nod to the iconic Scandinavian construction system and to the trademark-infringement lawyers employed by its manufacturer, and they will be produced, says Design Milk, in an edition of twelve. If there are any left this fall, I’m guessing Byard Art, which represents Stone, might exhibit them at London’s Affordable Art Fair, the spring edition of which boasted no pieces over £4000. Historically, this would work out to about £3850 over my budget, but hey: it’s art, right?

(Sent my way by Smitty.)

Morgan Freeberg contemplates Wonder Woman’s new garb (see, for instance, here), and decides that it’s yet another failure of the system:

The new Wonder Woman movie is going to be a financial Japanese-Tsunami-Reactor. And it’s not because Wonder Woman is covering up her legs; it’s because, since she is, we know the makers of the movie have all their priorities cockeyed. They’re focused on the wrong things. They won’t work hard to entertain the audience. They’d rather be politically correct than deliver the entertainment value to the audience, that the audience was promised.

What’s the problem with female legs, anyway? Where’d this come from? We’re a year and a half away from electing a female President with an awesome looking pair of legs. Isn’t it time we got past this?

I’m guessing he’s not referring to Michele Bachmann.

Seriously, if you can lay eyes on a Wonder Woman costume and your first instinct is “those two need to get covered up” … and you’re not talking about the breasts … you are way, way off base and there is something wrong with you.

Commenter Severian added:

Contrary to popular (read: feminist) belief, guys do not have a problem with gorgeous women kicking ass. Or un-gorgeous women kicking ass. So long as said ass-kicking is epic, total, sustained, and even quasi-plausible, guys are there … because we’re simple creatures who enjoy few things more than a bout of old-fashioned butt-whoopery.

As Dodge might say, “Car chases make movies better.” And I speak as someone who actually enjoyed both Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring, despite a total absence of hoonage in either.

The Ward 2 runoff is Tuesday, and I can hardly wait: it will mean an end, at least for the moment, to some of the nastiest politicking in the history of the state, and if you’re familiar with the history of the state, the bar for Nasty has been set pretty high.

If you’ve missed any of the Monster Mud Rallies, Doug Loudenback’s place is your one-stop resource for everything Ward 2-related, and at the very least we all ought to buy him a beer, or something, since he’s done a satisfyingly-thorough job of documenting things, and he doesn’t even live in Ward 2. Maybe it’s easier to do this if your own vote isn’t on the line.

I haven’t said a whole lot myself, perhaps because I made up my mind a month ago:

The [Ward 2] race quickly narrowed down to two, and the Oklahoman prefers banker Charlie Swinton. I like the guy, but he’s not my first choice for a couple of reasons: in a meeting with our Neighborhood Association, he seemed to be unable to grasp the MAPS 3 Zeitgeist — almost two-thirds of Ward 2 voters favored MAPS 3, the whole package, and we expect him to share in our enthusiasm for same — and besides, is anyone seriously worried that the interests of bankers and such are not going to get any traction in the Council?

Given the hundreds of thousands of dollars being poured into the Swinton campaign, the answer to that question appears to be Yes. It’s dispiriting, really.

As a sidelight, some of us are getting what might be our first full immersion in 26 USC 527, which authorizes political action committees outside the jurisdiction of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the time, one’s reaction to 527 organizations seems to be whether the goring is being administered to one’s own ox or to the opposition’s. I don’t have a particular problem with 527s generally — they’re deployed all over the political spectrum, so it’s not like they tend toward any specific ideology — but one line in a poll conducted by Bloomberg before the 2010 elections [pdf] suggests that participation by 527 groups is viewed at least slightly negatively by the electorate: forty-seven percent of respondents said they would be less likely to support a candidate if his “campaign was aided by advertising by anonymous business groups.” (Forty-one percent said it didn’t matter.) Since I consider the private sector and the nonprofits to be essentially equivalent in terms of lobbying, or the noxiousness thereof, I’d count myself among those 47 percent. At least we know where Ed Shadid’s money is coming from: out of Ed Shadid’s pocket.

This may be the first time I’ve ever been envious of Tigger:

Turns out, She & Him — which, you may remember, is the duo of Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward — will be recording some songs for Disney’s reboot of Winnie the Pooh, due in theaters this July, and this is the song you’ll hear over the end credits:

Yeah, I know, I could be saving these up for a Zooeypalooza, but it’s not like I’m having trouble accumulating photographs or anything.

Rather a lot of WTF moments at the Staples Center tonight, starting with a fistful of technicals, including a pair of offsetting Ts (Blake Griffin and Nick Collison) and one to each coach. Of course, one could also ask how it is that the Thunder were up twelve at the half and were down two fourteen minutes later, but that’s a bit more easily explainable: at least once in every game, everything just jells for the Clippers and they put together a seriously impressive run. If they could do that on a consistent basis, they wouldn’t be flirting with the 50-loss mark. Griffin, as almost always, was the top scorer, but Eric Gordon fired a trey with 43 seconds left to break a tie, and after Russell Westbrook fouled out — Serge Ibaka was already gone — Randy Foye iced the game with three out of four from the stripe. It was Clippers 98, Thunder 92, the Other L. A. Team’s second win in three tries over OKC.

In some ways, this game replicated the debacle in Portland the night before: first half good, second half crapola. The Clips outshot the Thunder by three percentage points and got a couple more rebounds, but the X factor here was the general failure of the Thunder starters to execute up to spec. Westbrook hit only one from the floor all night, though he did deliver the ball well (9 dimes); Ibaka scored in double figures, but collected only four boards; Kevin Durant was 10 for 24 and missed all four attempts from beyond the arc.

Meanwhile, Griffin had about his twelve thousandth double-double, and DeAndre Jordan got one too. Moreover, the Clippers put up 38 foul shots and collected on 27 of them. (Griffin went 12-18 from the stripe.) The Thunder, which usually can cash in at the foul line, only got 24 shots, 20 of which went. Add to this a six-point advantage in points in the paint, and you start to wonder how come the Clippers didn’t actually turn this into a blowout.

Six games to go, and the first four will be hairy: at Denver, back home the next night against the Clippers, followed two nights later by the Nuggets, and then off to the Left Coast again, to face the Lakers on Sunday and the Kings on Monday. There’s one last home game — against Milwaukee — but right now, Oklahoma City has more to fear than the Deer.

I’d done a preliminary run-through of my 2010 tax return in late January, inasmuch as I’d received all the pertinent forms to be included therein, and the results were sufficiently deflating to the pocketbook that I resolved to stall as long as possible. Nothing had changed between then and now, of course, but I still had to print out all that paperwork, review it for internal consistency — by which I mean “if you use the middle initial on the 1040, don’t spell out the full name on Schedule A, you knucklehead” — and then write a large check. So that was yesterday’s project, between dinner (combo #2 at Popeye’s) and the basketball game, motivated at least slightly by the desire to get this damn thing out of the house so I don’t obsess over it any further.

And no, I didn’t consider farming out the task to one of the professionals, such as they are; I used to be one of the professionals, such as I was, and I’m pretty good at keeping up with things.

Still, every year I start the form, I ask “Why the hell doesn’t Congress do anything about this?” The answer, unsurprisingly, is always “Why should they care? It’s not like they have to do this themselves.” Which suggests a piece of Fantasy Legislation: all 535 of them have to complete their returns, on camera, live on C-Span, on April 14th. If that doesn’t give them some motivation to clean up this misbegotten system, nothing will.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, interviewed by Entertainment Weekly (#1149, 4/8), on how action heroes have changed in the last quarter-century or so:

The ’80s were a unique era — the hero had to have muscles or he was not believable. But things change. Heroes still have muscles, but it’s all CGI. Look at the movie 300. I mean, that guy was ripped. I said to [300 producer] Mark Canton, “You have got to get ahold of this guy. I want to know what his training regimen is.” Canton said, “What are you talking about? [Those muscles] cost me a lot of money.”

For some reason, the phrase “stunt abs” just popped into my mind.

The 31 March edition of Carnival of the Vanities, the 418th, was delayed until today because of Comcast, says Andrew Ian Dodge.

I have no dealings with Comcast myself, but at least one of their customers has had good luck with this RF Remote Control Extender, which operates on 418 MHz.

Murilee Martin has been paging through Sammy Hagar’s memoir RED: My Uncensored Life in Rock, and he found the very sort of thing that I must mention here: when Hagar drew his first sort-of-rockstar paycheck, he went out and bought a car.

A Citroën 2CV.

“The most uncool car on the planet,” said Hagar: “a French car that looks like a sardine can. I thought it had class.”

Which explains much, since in the absence of a tailwind or a steep downward slope, he’d have had a devil of a time trying to drive 55 in that little boîte.

Seen, one assumes, at the Department of Redundancy Department:

(Via FAIL Blog.)

If you’re new around here — and all of us were at one time or another — this is a weekly feature wherein the logs are gone through with a fine-toothed comb, and then anything which causes an individual tooth to quiver with delight (or with pain, the difference being insignificant with mere combs, fercryingoutloud) gets stuck here for public consumption. It beats actually having to write stuff.

graphic novel women stripped and raped by invisible ghosts:  Starring Charlie Sheen in Two and a Half Menaces.

99 cougar hard shift blinking light:  Believe me, you don’t need a blinking light to tell you when you’ve had a hard shift.

States that make allowance for the pharmacist’s “moral concerns”:  No Lipitor for you, chubbo. Try Kansas.

when was daylight savings time adopted in oklahoma:  At two in the morning. Except that all of a sudden it was three in the morning. Farmers just shrugged.

a woman’s salad days are shorter than a man’s:  Provided, of course, you can get a man to eat salad at all.

the boondocks oklahoma city:  Did you mean “the boatdocks oklahoma city”?

too attractive for work:  If this describes you, see me for an application.

rich capitalysts enjoy driving:  Then they become government consultants and enjoy being driven.

deathwish slacks:  And you thought Sansabelt was weird.

“people who don’t date”:  Easy to spot. They’ve spent the last fifteen years online.

Words one can hardly imagine in any context, let alone this one:

Stephen Colbert swung by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to perform Rebecca Black’s “Friday,” following through on a bargain he struck with Fallon earlier in the week. (Fallon had held up his end by successfully raising $26,000 for Donors Choose. Which, when you think about it, means that Rebecca Black has evolved in the span of a fortnight from “adorable national punchline” to “legitimate force for good in the world.” Hey, what did you do with your last fortnight?)

I suppose I derived some peripheral joy from seeing various New York hipsters who no doubt would rather have heard a dirge about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire — a lot less mainstream, doncha know — getting caught up in the fun, fun, fun, fun of it all. But mostly, I feel somewhat vindicated: separated from the dime-store video and given a proper arrangement, this is actually not a bad little song, and if the lyrics occasionally veer off the edge, they couldn’t possibly be any dumber than, say, “Wild Thing,” and you know that one already, if only by osmosis.

And you can learn this one yourself: as the phrase goes, four chords, no waiting.

Over the past decade I have had occasional bouts of insomnia, and while it seems for the moment to be treatable by the right chemical mix, there’s something a bit disconcerting about having to rely on that mix, not to mention the fact that by the time the stuff wears off, I’ve already been at work for several hours.

Of course, I can always wait for the government to hector me about it:

More than one-third of Americans routinely sleep fewer than seven hours a night, which affects their concentration and general health, new government research shows.

Insufficient sleep also impairs work performance and the ability to drive safely, found researchers for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which published two sleep studies March 4 in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

In other news, weeds grow faster than grass, and you will probably not outrun a Ferrari with that new Nissan Versa.

Moreover, the Hyacinth Girl has noticed:

Even those of us who get “enough” sleep rarely get quality sleep. I’m not certain I should be ingesting as much coffee as I have been lately, but I need to get stuff done.

This is when I call the Dr — Dr Pepper, that is.

A recent survey by Wendell Cox and Erika Ozuna lists the Oklahoma City metro area as 6th in the nation in terms of opportunity for minority entrepreneurs. (Greater Atlanta took first.) One reason for this, much to the dismay of urban-planning types, is good old urban sprawl:

[W]ith [the] exception of the Washington and Baltimore areas, the fast-growing minority regions, and rapidly growing self-employed populations, are regions with diffuse, multi-polar and heavily suburbanized land patterns.

The strip mall, much detested among urban aesthetes and planners, often serves as “the immigrants’ friend,” says Houston architect Tim Cisneros. In places like Houston, Cisneros points out, Colombians, Nigerians, Mexicans, Indian and Vietnamese businesses usually cluster not in downtown centers or fancy high-end malls, but in makeshift auto-oriented strip centers, where prices are low, parking ample and the location within easy driving distance of various ethnic populations. You want a good Indian meal in Houston, you don’t need to head downtown, but to the outer suburbs of Fort Bend County.

See, for instance, OKC’s Asian District, or any number of locations on the largely-Spanish-speaking inner southside.

Then again, urban planning is getting to be mostly a SWPL activity anyway, and while it’s no longer officially used as a tool of Jim Crow, one of the presumably-desirable side effects — keeping property values up — just incidentally tends to discourage the new folks. Not that this is necessarily deliberate, of course, but not everyone has figured out this whole Law of Unintended Consequences business.

In the preceding post, I pointed out one advantage of the mostly-horizontal layout of towns like mine, though clearly it would never work in Manhattan: the island is home to 1.6 million people in a mere 23 square miles, about the size of Midwest City, Oklahoma (population 57,000). I’m sure I’d go claustrophobic in a hurry. Others, perhaps better adjusted, maybe not so much:

Two things I noticed:

• My bathroom is very nearly as small as hers. I have a full-sized tub, but it takes up almost half the available space, and the area reserved for the toilet is, shall we say, not expansive.
• The clock-radio up in the sleeping zone appears to be from Cambridge Soundworks, a sign of good judgment. (I have two of their radios.)

Obviously I have no idea what living in this space might be like. The smallest flat I’ve ever had was about 500 square feet. (We will not consider things like, um, Army barracks.) For that matter, I have no idea what living in New York might be like. (I dropped in at a walk-up just on the other side of the Hudson several road trips ago.) But I do understand, to a certain extent, the law of supply and demand, and I understand that if I want a thousand square feet on the Upper West Side, it’s going to cost me several times what I’m paying here on the prairie. For that matter, a house like mine a mere six miles south of me would likely bring half what mine would. Location, location, location, as the agents say.

(Via Fark.)

I have to assume that it’s coming eventually:

Technically, that’s an upload, right?

(From someecards via Deb S. on Facebook.)

About three years ago, we’d pretty much settled the idea that the proper Latin plural of “Prius” should be “Priora,” though Toyota, citing an online poll, eventually decided on “Prii.”

Which, of course, is their right, as owner of the trademark. Still, I was a bit befuddled by this, until The Truth About Cars ran a piece about the Russian auto market, and the second most popular nameplate in the land, moving 125,000 units last year, was a Priora: a Lada Priora, produced by Russia’s AvtoVAZ.

This Lada is a FWD compact dating to 2007, though it’s mostly a facelifted 110, which goes back to the middle 1990s. Looks pretty good, if you ask me; the interior is plain but unfussy. At option, you can get some of the stuff that’s being demanded in the rest of the world: A/C, Bluetooth, heated seats. On the other hand, you can’t get an automatic transmission at any price.

Once in a while, the doctor wants to Review The Numbers, and since they’re my numbers, I figure I ought to listen.

Where it got unfathomable, though, was on the subject of Vitamin D levels. Surely this couldn’t be an issue for me, given my presumed devotion to the sun. Then again, the sheer freakiness of this winter and the desire to avoid frostbite (or worse) has apparently depleted my stores: I showed up about 70 percent below spec.

He went into the speech: “They say that if we could all stand outside naked for half an hour a day, we’d get all the Vitamin D we need.”

I can do that, I thought, but didn’t actually say. Perhaps I should have. But maybe it wouldn’t have mattered: “Your level is so low that it will have to be corrected by artificial means.” Humongous sunlamp? Nope. Humongous capsule, or something.

And maybe this casts some light on my ostensible seasonal affective disorder: could it be just the lack of D?

You’re looking at The Actress Formerly Known As Reema Lamba. Early in her Bollywood career, she took the name Mallika Sherawat, reportedly on the basis that there were already enough Reemas. (“Sherawat” apparently was her mother’s maiden name.)

Sherawat’s ambition is considerable: she’s started making movies in the US, and she’s quite unapologetic about her particular gifts and her career choices. One quote floating around:

I may not be here to titillate, but I am not sorry if I have that edge. People aren’t coming to the theaters to see me in a burqa.

As they say in some parts of this country, it ain’t bragging if you can actually do it.

Rolling Stone brings you today’s Rebecca Black update:

Black — whose song “Friday” hit Number 38 on Billboard’s digital singles chart this week — and her mother, Georgina Marquez Kelly, are accusing Ark Music Factory, which produced “Friday,” of copyright infringement and unlawful exploitation of publicity rights.

A March 29 letter from Black and Marquez Kelly’s lawyer Brian Schall to Ark Music Factory obtained by Rolling Stone alleges that Ark has failed to provide Black with the master recordings of her song and video; has been exploiting her likeness and her song on YouTube, iTunes, Amazon and Ark’s website; created an unauthorized “Friday” ringtone; and has been advertising Black as an exclusive Ark recording artist on its website.

An Ark principal says we so excited for no reason:

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Ark Music Factory founder Patrice Wilson denied most of the allegations in the letter. “I have met with Rebecca Black’s mom and everything is fine,” he said. “She will get the masters and the song. They can have it all.”

Meanwhile, if you thought the worst thing about “Friday” was the synth work, here’s an a cappella version.

Is it time to throw some dirt on top of Western Civilization? Because it certainly looks dead to me:

Intern: “You’ve made no overt action. She feels intimidated by you, however, and wished to make an official complaint. We felt it was better to discuss the matter with you before taking any action, if necessary.”

Me: “Exactly what did I do?”

Intern: “Er … nothing, really … she said she’s intimidated by you, because you talk about people and events that she knows nothing about, and she said it makes her feel stupid.”

Me: “You’re kidding, right?”

Intern: “We have to take it seriously, it’s in the manual.”

Everything that’s wrong with the world is right there in that passage.

Hint: If you feel stupid, there’s usually a damn good reason for it. Every last one of us is capable of spectacular levels of boneheadedness from time to time; not one of us is entitled to compensation for it. Keep spitting in Darwin’s face, and you’ll wonder why subsequent generations drool so much.

Ballot #267 at a couple minutes past five at my regular precinct. I am somewhat heartened by the fact that during the general election, I was about two minutes earlier, and 65 fewer votes had been cast; this suggests that turnout has improved from “dismal” to “mediocre.”

Cold morning, unfortunately, so all three of the pollworkers were in slacks. (You can’t have everything.)

After the debacles in Portland and Los Angeles, I was prepared for the Thunder to show up at the Pepsi Center with all the strength of an uncapped, stale Diet Coke. And indeed, there were long stretches when Mentos could wander onto the premises undisturbed. But Oklahoma City put together a 15-0 run early in the fourth quarter, and while the Nuggets fought back to within four several times in the last minute, clutch free throws put it out of Denver’s reach, 101-94.

Ty Lawson did what he could: he racked up 28 points, a career high, while doing a creditable impression of The Flash. The Nuggets’ frontcourt — Nenê, Kenyon Martin and Danilo Gallinari — combined for 38 points and 21 rebounds. But the Denver bench tended to lose ground against the OKC reserves, led by Eric Maynor (10 points) and James Harden (13).

And the Thunder were in a rebounding mood, pulling down 50 boards. Kendrick Perkins had 14 of them. (Before you ask: he took no foul shots.) Serge Ibaka had 11 more. And the Durant/Westbrook Axis was working pretty well, garnering 50 points.

Is this a preview of the first round of the playoffs? Considering that OKC is a fairly-solid fourth in the conference, and that Denver has a two-game lead for fifth, it’s at least a reasonable possibility. It may become more so when the Nuggets come to the Your Name Here Arena Friday night. But before that, there’s a rematch with the Clippers on Wednesday.

Goldmine’s annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame issue duly profiles this year’s inductees, and then spends three pages arguing that Donovan ought to have been among them.

It is undoubtedly true that Donovan turned out some transcendent records, though “Mellow Yellow” really isn’t one of them. And the article trots out the old myth about three-quarters of Led Zeppelin playing on “Hurdy Gurdy Man.” John Paul Jones, who was there, and who, in his capacity as arranger for producer Mickie Most, had actually hired the session musicians, begs to differ.

Still, the man did have a unique vision, broad enough to include the wispiest folk and the jangliest blues-rock. (For a sample of the latter, see “Barabajagal,” which he cut with the Jeff Beck Group.) And if he occasionally veered off into the twee — or, in the case of “The Intergalactic Laxative,” the pee — well, his influence remains considerable, even if you don’t count being Diane Court’s dad.

So one of these days, the call will come in from Cleveland: “Good morning, Mr Leitch, are you having a busy day?” Heck, they might even get around to Rush. Or Paul Revere and the Raiders.

Lisa recounts the Legend of the Phantom Chicken of Sonoma, and even has pictures of the mysterious bird:

[F]or the past month or so, I’ve been fretting about a rooster who seems to have been abandoned in some wild land across the road from our back pasture. This is an area that, unfortunately, has been used for a long time for dumping, for teen partying and other nefarious activities. It’s also an area overrun with foxes and coyotes — who are so bold as to come out and sit there staring across at the terriers behind the fence. So, when I heard a rooster crowing from over in that area, I immediately assumed that he’d last about a day and a night before being torn apart by wild canids.

He lasted a day and a night and several weeks more. Clearly his sense of timing is nonstandard:

Instead of crowing at dawn, he crowed continuously day and night. Since chickens are flock animals, I assumed he was desperately calling for his hens. To dump off a rooster in the wilds like this is tantamount to sentencing him to solitary in Guantanamo. Except solitary confinement would come with the added danger of evisceration by wild animals. I began cursing the creep who couldn’t find a new home for the poor avian — or at least give him a merciful and meaningful end as Coq au Vin.

Still, he’s avoided that evisceration for a month now. For all we know, the Phantom Chicken may be the avian equivalent of The Shadow, clouding the minds of predators. Or maybe it’s just that coyotes have become leery of unusual birds after all these years.

Last man standing in the Ward 2 runoff was Dr Edward Shadid, who will now take his position around the horseshoe at City Hall. I congratulate Dr Shadid, and I trust he will be as accessible as his predecessor, Sam Bowman, who was always willing to take a question, even from the likes of me.

About five thousand votes were cast in the runoff. (Approximate population of Ward 2: 70,000.) Remarkably, something like $200,000 was spent on getting to this $12,000-a-year position. Which, I guess, means we’ve reached the big time in terms of campaign spending.

“Granny sandals,” they say:

“Am I stylish or simply a Sasquatch?” asked the not-all-that-old woman who actually bought these. The former, of course:

[W]hile most young European trendsetters still shun the shoes, Americans have taken to the Wörishofer. According to Bernie Richfield, the national sales manager at Laurevan Shoes, the only Wörishofer wholesaler in the United States, the sandals have exploded in popularity among the under-40 set. The president of Buddy’s Shoes Inc., John “Buddy” Banyas, says that he’s tripled his sales since 2009, and he attributes this jump to the brand’s popularity among young women.

Ms Not-A-Sasquatch indeed bought hers from Buddy’s. And apparently younger buyers are thinking more gin-and-tonic than Geritol:

[A] 25-year-old can wear an orthopedic sandal without fearing that she looks like she’s preparing for the nursing home, while the same shoe might cause a 50-year-old some consternation.

Besides, there’s a lot to be said for not being in pain.

I am not fond of tech support via chat, which seems unbelievably slow at times, but at least it’s generally in something recognizable as English, and it’s usually possible to keep a transcript for future reference.

Besides, the alternative usually works out to being something like this:

I broke down and called my cable company’s technical support somewhere in New Delhi and as soon as “John” picked up I cried a little inside because I could barely understand him. Seriously, it was that bad. I kept saying “WHAT?” then “YES” loudly because I could only understand like every fifth word and when I can’t understand someone I usually just agree with them like an idiot. So, either someone is coming to replace my modem later today, or I accepted a proposal and I need to fly out this afternoon to India. I’m not sure.

Then again, the next-to-last time I called tech support for an office product, I wound up connected to a cheerful Scottish lass. I was sufficiently giddy to contemplate a proposal of my own, but managed to recover in time to avoid embarrassment.

After the Clippers thrashed the Thunder in Los Angeles Saturday night, you might have expected a certain urgency this evening. The first quarter, which ended with the Clips up 31-21, didn’t show a whole lot of it. OKC began battening it down, and worked their way to a twelve-point lead in the fourth quarter. But The Other L. A. Team always does well against the Thunder, and they put together a 10-2 run at the end, topped off with a Blake Griffin dunk, followed by some excellent harassment on the inbound. But it wouldn’t go beyond that, and Oklahoma City officially clinched the Northwest Division title with the 112-108 win.

I think by now we’ve learned that the Clips are a bit more than just Griffin’s backup squad. The Blakester did knock down 35 points, a game high, but five of his teammates broke into double figures, and Los Angeles shot just over 50 percent for the night. And if Griffin has perhaps too much ham in him — the man hangs on the rim like he’s glued there — he works his tail off. (And DeAndre Jordan, who normally doesn’t hang on the rim, lingered a bit too long once and got T’d up for it. Go figure.)

The Thunder offense, as usual, was mostly Kevin Durant (29 points) and Russell Westbrook (26); Serge Ibaka made it to 15. Meanwhile, Kendrick Perkins was pulling down 17 boards, 10 off the offensive glass. While OKC didn’t shoot especially well — 43 percent — they hit 25 of 29 freebies for 86 percent. If you pay attention to plus/minus, the Thunder bench was plus, and so was Westbrook, but everyone else was on the wrong side of the ledger.

So it’s a 2-2 split with the Clips this season. I get the feeling that they’re one season away from contending for a playoff slot — and that they always will be. For now, though, we have to sweat the second rematch of the week: against Denver, albeit here in the Quarter-Mile-High City, a friendlier milieu by far.

“Gimme a pigfoot,” sang Bessie Smith, “and a bottle of beer.”

No wonder Rep. Peter King (R-NY) was upset: they gave him nothing to drink.

(Dan Collins is following this a bit more closely.)

Andrea Harris, in a thread at Rand Simberg’s place, explains what the Internet is for:

Providing a place where big city liberals can pretend to reach out [to] the unsophisticated rubes, and get back some of that special feeling they lost when their meatspace experiences are always like this: “I ate at that new Syrian-Tongan fusion restaurant the other day. It was superb!” “Well, my eldest daughter, Fuchsia, came back from a year’s volunteer work in Lesotho with Doctors Without Borders. They tell me she was instrumental in saving three villages from an epidemic of beri-beri and typhoid! She’s in care now, but they tell me she’ll be able to walk again in a year, and will regain almost all movement in her right arm! On the other hand, Philip Junior’s cd of world music with the Fijian Deaf-Mute Choir just entered the charts at number 4!”

This is venturing perilously close to Family Christmas Card Updates.

The 3-Word Commentary feature, which survived here for five years — this was its introduction — has fallen into desuetude, as most of the quick-and-dirty stuff it was intended to highlight seems to have migrated to Twitter.

Rather than delete the stuff, though, I’ve migrated it all to this post. Keep in mind that the oldest links by now may have rotted away to 404ness. And because this is very long, it’s below the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

A true — and disturbing — story from Dawn Summers. Who knew hell was two and a half miles above the ground?

One of the books I’m reading this week is Adam Carolla’s In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks … And Other Complaints from an Angry Middle-Aged White Guy.

If Carolla is seeing things correctly, these guys are about forty-nine years ahead of their time.

(Via KingShamus.)

Addendum: Breda suggests an alternate title: “I don’t care how sensitive you think you are, you’re still not getting in my pants.”