I permitted myself to be mildly amused by the closing ceremonies of the Olympics on Sunday, in the way one smiles at a stranger's wedding and tries to clutch at the fleeting bits of emotion that make you feel all warm and glowy inside. The ceremonies themselves were almost as flashy as the opening ceremonies (although dipping well into the realm of frivolity, evidenced by the thousands of red clown noses worn by the athletes). They were visually appealing, but not particularly gripping; the only parts I really enjoyed were the parade of flags and the passing of the Olympic flag. In the former case, the athletes from each country chose one of their own to carry that country's flag in a procession consisting solely of flagbearers, and many of the choices were symbolic (new philanthropist Joey Cheek, for example, carried the U.S. flag, which I found quite appropriate). In the latter, the passing of the Olympic flag from the mayor of Turino to the mayor of Vancouver (whose city is hosting the next Winter Olympics) had a touch of the Olympic spirit in the form of the mayor of Vancouver's personal struggle (a paraplegic since a sporting accident when he was 19, he designed a modification to his wheelchair specifically to permit him to participate in the flag-passing ceremony).

The rest of the show was colorful and frenetic (with a bevy of clowns, in the Carnivale rather than Bozo format), if somewhat unmoving. A long montage that served essentially as an advertisement for Canada (including a ceremony by indigenous Canadians, a rather silly bit on ice fishing and a song by Avril Lavigne) was surrounded by moshing athletes, a group of "skydivers" who flew on the updraft of a very large fan and the tired accompaniment by NBC commentators desperate to find *something* to hold American audiences, even if that's fixating on Shaun White's crush on Sasha Cohen ("OMG! Like, I heard from Abby that Timmy likes Suzy, but don't tell, kthx!" God, this isn't junior high . . .).

Probably my favorite part of the entire ceremony, though, was the large display of Stargates (five of them!) that dominated the arena.

The Web was a little less friendly. I read multiple columns about the (not new) irrelevance of these games to a large portion of the world (NBC's ratings problems aside). The Winter Olympics are much smaller than the Summer Games, and dominated almost entirely by European and North American athletes, not only because a country really needs to have snow in order to produce winter athletes, but also because on the national level winter sports are far more expensive (for example, the cost of a pair of running shoes or a discus pales in comparison to the cost of a pair of skis or the rental fees for an ice rink), which hands the advantage to nations that actively pursue winter sports as a national past time (which is pretty much limited to Europe and North America). A common criticism was that, even though the games went well and Italy did a good job hosting them, most of the world didn't care (which defeats the purpose of the Olympics). The Summer Games, by definition, enjoy more events, more athletes and better representation from the entire globe.

I'll be looking forward to them.

Lane went grocery shopping with me this evening (and our consensus is that the Whole Foods market is great, even if I'm still a little dubious on the star fruit). We talked about vampires, Flash programming, the Silmarillion and the general immaturity of 10-year-old boys (and I'm afraid I disappointed her when I informed her that it's a general trend among the entire male population).

The twins hadn't seen me in awhile, and took a little awhile to adjust to me. As in, frantic screaming for about 5 minutes. Alec has a definite dislike of new people; Kyle is more jovial, but tonight she was the one recoiling. They eventually decided I was safe (and thought it would be fun to play with my camera lens).

My camera does okay in low-light, but not as great as I'd like. I knew that was a limitation when I bought it, but it's a pretty common limitation (lower light means a longer shutter speed, which means more movement blur). The image stabilization doesn't help much because it's designed to eliminate blur from *me* moving, not the subject. The continual shooting mode, on the other hand, is slick (2 frames per second for as long as you hold down the button). I took 5 or 6 pictures for each one that turned out and just picked the least blurry one (plus with kids you can get a range of expressions instead of trying to predict when to take the picture).

Alec's not as fond of holding still as Kyle is, so she tends to be a blur in most low-light pictures (hence the disparity). But I also played with my movie mode, and even she doesn't move fast enough yet to escape 30 frames per second. I'm a little annoyed, though, that Canon had to use motion-jpeg instead of mpg for its video compression. That means Premiere won't read it; I'm going to have to find a way to import clips without quality loss (which means an extra step converting it in another program).

Labels: twins

My attention has been focused predictably on the unfolding (and nearly completed) Olympic games, experienced in my case through a 2 a.m. replay of a time-delayed "live" showing of events completed hours earlier in another part of the world (putting me in the irritating position of seeing the results of events posted on Yahoo!News 7 hours before I see them; rest assured, I complain for attention, knowing full well I have only myself to blame for being a news junkie).

I watched the figure skating performances over the last couple of nights. Although they're my favorite winter events, I found little inspiring in them this year. My favorite skater finished a disappointing third, Sasha Cohen managed to win a silver after falling twice (however that happens) and a relative unknown took the gold. The performances were good, but not fascinating. In fact, the most memorable point was Bob Costas' interview with Sasha Cohen, which concluded with him putting her on the spot with a video of a previous interview he'd conducted with the Shaun White (the gold medalist in the men's snowboarding event) in which White confessed a crush on her and said he was going to try to use his gold medal as a way of meeting her. Despite her obvious "deer in the headlights" look and discomfort, Costas pried her with questions about whether she'd met him, whether "two California kids might meet up" and what she thought of his crush. What a jerk. (She handled it with surprising tact, simply stating "Well, this is awkward" and saying she was being intentionally ambiguous.) I realize NBC is desperately clinging to *anything* at this point (the highest-rated Olympic program was *fifth* in the U.S. ratings this week), but embarrassing athletes on talk shows probably isn't the way to do it.

I missed the competition skating in the men's division, but I did catch a "just for fun" skate (I don't know what the performance's actual name is, but most of the medalists from both the men's and women's groups were there) tonight, and I was enthralled with Yevgeny Plushenko's performance. He had a live violinist in the center of the ice and performed a flawless routine that had one of the commentators quip "He does know the competition is over, right?" I'll see if I can dig up the clip if/when NBC puts it up. I also watched some of the women's giant slalom (which took place in the middle of a snow storm), some of which was even more enthralling than Plushenko's performance (go ahead, laugh away).

After watching the freeskate, I was curious enough to spend 15 minutes on Wikipedia learning the differences between the different jumps. Actually, I still couldn't identify them, but at least now I know the commentators aren't just making stuff up when they call one jump a "triple Axel" and another a "double Lutz." I also learned that most of them are named after the people who first performed them (so the Axel is named after Axel Paulsen and has nothing to do with spinning like an axle), and even the "figure" in "figure skating" comes from a former (now dropped) component of the competition that involved carving specific figures (circles, figure 8s and the like) into the ice, with more points for greater accuracy. I shouldn't be surprised (it's not like anyone I know except Cris knows the difference between a lamé and a plastron, illustrating the nuances of specific sports), but I've never explored it before.

I've watched a few bits and pieces of other sports. Aerials are always fascinating to watch. I have no idea why curling is even a sport (I simply have no frame of reference from which to do other than stare in confusion). The moguls have to be hard on the knees . . .

The Olympics end in a couple of days, then I have a couple more Fridays of new Stargate episodes and then I'm pretty much done with television for awhile. Maybe I'll take up curling.

Lisa told me awhile ago that my comment boxes don't always open on her home computer. I looked at it a month ago and couldn't find a reason for it (since it worked fine on my computer and our work computers, I assumed it was a glitch on her computer). A few days ago Cris mentioned that they didn't always work on his. Tonight, for some odd reason, they stopped working on mine, although if I hit "refresh" two or three times they would come back. It annoyed me enough that I finally tracked it down.

I can't verify that Cris is using it, but Lisa and I both have Norton Internet Security, and NIS has a well-intentioned but poorly executed function in its ad-blocking functionality that actually *edits* the HTML code of a site before viewing it or adding it to the cache and adds a snippet of code that renders Javascript code nonfunctional (to prevent hostile sites from running Javascript-based code and ads). If my comments won't open and you look at the source code, chances are there will be a snippet using "SymError" or some nonsense just above my Haloscan code. Turning off the ad-blocking (not the firewall or anything else, just the ad blocking) and clearing the cache fixed the problem on my computer.

Things I *haven't* figured out: Why it disables my Web log specifically and not Cris's (his opens fine on my computer even when mine won't, and even though NIS inserts the same code snippet into his page), even though we use the same commenting code, why it allows it to pass if you hit refresh a couple of times and why it started doing it on my mine tonight after working fine for a year. I dunno.

I fixed the problem on my computer, but it doesn't address the problem itself. Haloscan's troubleshooting pages and FAQ are worthless (they point out that NIS *may* be a problem but give no solution for working around it or any indication that they're working on an alternative code that doesn't use Javascript). It's unreasonable to expect *everyone* running NIS to adjust the settings to view a specific Web page. So I have to decide whether I want to abandon Haloscan. The core problem there is I have almost 2,000 comments on my Web log, and Blogger's built-in commenting won't import comments. Bleh.

If anyone else has been having trouble opening my comment windows, I apologize. Let me know so I can see how widespread the problem is.

Cris: Do yourself a comedic favor and watch an episode of Dog The Bounty Hunter on A&E.
Jay: What is it?
Cris: It's a TV show that follows this bounty hunter. His wife is like a circus sideshow! It's great. Like a cross between COPS and Hawaii Five-0.
Jay: 'Kay. I'll look for it. Not tonight, though. Figure skating long program.
Cris: You are the gayest straight guy i've ever met. ;-)
Jay: Damn straight.
Jay: Sorry, man, I'm not coming out of the closet today. :)
Cris: No pressure.
Cris: Just kidding. :)

Song updates and recommendations:

I bought the entire KT Tunstall album. I recommend the radio single "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree," the darker "Another Place to Fall," the upbeat "Suddenly I See" and the gospel-tinged bluesy "Stoppin' the Love." Most of the rest of my recent acquisitions consists of live or acoustic versions of older songs (Collective Soul, R.E.M., Fiona Apple, Live). I did pick up "Soda Water" by Jess Klein, which is another bluesy, slow-dance song.

Jury duty update:

Sitting around and calling the recorded voice mail to see if they needed me. That comprised the totality of my jury duty (I didn't even make it into a jury pool). Somewhat disappointing.

Lament of the day:

Scarecrow: If only I had a brain.
Tin Woodsman: If only I had a heart.
Cowardly Lion: If only I had some courage.
Jay: If only I had some cleavage (oh well; guess I'll have to *buy* my beads).

A few photo updates (or you can just go browse my Flickr Photostream):

The reflection of the sun from the windows of my building onto the building across the street.

The base of the First National Tower.

Birds just outside the parking garage.

Me trapped behind the pattern in the elevators.

A couple of shots playing with the "My Colors" mode on my S2. The "My Colors" mode has a variety of functions that allows the intrepid photographer to enhance specific colors, turn all colors except a specified one to black and white or "swap" one color with another (for example, I "sampled" the red on a cup and used it turn a green apple red). When I first read about the feature, I scoffed and actually made fun of it (Lisa can attest to it). Now that I have it, I still think it's a "toy" (it doesn't do anything I can't do in Photoshop), but I have to admit it is kind of fun in a novel way.

Cris jokingly encouraged me to apply for this show when it was announced several months back. It sounded like a good idea, other than the whole "it takes place in L.A." and "I'm not particularly telegenic" factors. I was a big Lisa Loeb fan in college (starting with her first album in 1995), so Cris's plan wasn't exactly out of left field. :)

Today Lisa (who sits across from me, not the singer) sent me a link with a reason or two why I should have applied (probably not work safe warning). Apparently the show (which I've never seen) is showcasing some of Lisa Loeb's, erm, other talents. I mean, just look at those . . . boots (a couple of you are laughing right now for reasons most of the audience isn't going to understand).

P.S. - I'm infringing slightly on Cris's trademark by using a song title for the title of the post, but since I mentioned him in the post I don't feel guilty. It's one of my favorite songs from her original album, and it seemed appropriate.

I had an amusing tech at the donation center today. One of those guys who induces polite chuckles from the people who are there for 10 minutes and a constant rolling-of-the-eyes from his coworkers. He sang. He danced. He asked me the fifty questions from the "Can you donate?" form in a Scottish brogue. He waved at a door so that he could reply "Well, I thought it was a-door-able" when someone asked him what he was doing. He said "We're having a ball now" when he gave me the little rubber ball to squeeze. He said "I've been told I get under people's skin" when he put the needle in. His coworkers didn't seem to think he was nearly as funny as the people donating did.

I noticed today that I've never seen the same techs working there. I wonder if it's a rotating job or if it just has a high turnover rate. I also noticed that my temperature was a cool 95.5 (it's always low, but that's the lowest I've seen it). Maybe my batteries are running down.

As any rabid iTunes fan knows, it's just not a good CD mix unless you combine some Curious George kids tunes with a little death metal.

I just noticed that my post about volunteering said "I'm not officially soliciting . . ." when it should have said "I'm officially soliciting" (which it says now). Really, I'm open to advice. :)

The Red Cross left a message on my voicemail today. Not to discuss the CPR volunteer position (still not a peep on that), but to remind me to sign up for my next donation. I shook my head when I heard this message:

We're facing a critical shortage right now and we really, really, really need you to donate because you're O-positive and are the universal donor, so anyone, absolutely anyone, can use your blood.

Um, nope. I *am* O-positive, but that's not the universal donor (that honor falls to the O-negatives). Only people with a positive factor (e.g., A+, AB+, etc.) can use O+ blood (and getting a transfusion of the wrong blood type can be fatal).

The local Red Cross has been having a rough week.

At the persistent yet well-intentioned exhortations of a few of my (largely unpaid) therapists, I've decided to find some more volunteer work. The most pressing compulsion is to, in effect, "get out of the house," meet some new people, find some new friends, [insert analogy of choice describing forming social structures here]. I have some good friends, but I don't see them very often, and a lot of them have moved on to bigger and better things. If I could finagle a relationship out of the deal, that would be great, too, but if I make that a goal it runs the risk of souring the experience when I show up for work along with three high school kids and a couple of retirees. The "push" from Cris and Lisa aside, I do like helping people and it will be good for my mental health to do something that benefits others.

I still volunteer for the Election Commission (in fact, I received a letter from them today; the election for governor is in a couple of months, so go register to vote if you haven't yet). And I still donate blood every two months (although that's not exactly "volunteering). I'm officially soliciting advice for the addition of at least one more and perhaps a couple (if they're compatible) positions.

I already tried to contact the Red Cross about a CPR trainer position. I remain unimpressed. I tried to volunteer for the Katrina call center several months back; I received an e-mail a week *after* it closed thanking me for my inquiry. This time I received one "thanks for checking; I'm forwarding your e-mail to the proper people" e-mail from the woman listed on the official contact page for the position itself . . . two weeks ago. Since I have aversions toward being a pest, I'm not one to repeatedly inquire, which means this one is probably being scratched. I don't know if the Red Cross staff is really disorganized or if volunteers just aren't that important to them, but either way, they're not doing themselves any favors.

Other possibilities: Fontenelle Forest guide (I'm thinking seriously about this one, although it's a longish drive), public library reading club (this one doesn't start until summer, but it's right across the street from work and I like kids!), talking to families at the hospital (the only thing going for this one is it's close to my house), and doing "special projects" and mass mailings for the public library and Children's Hospital (these are sporadic, so I could probably do one or both in addition to another one).

Anyone know of any other volunteer activities involving lots of late-twenty/early-thirty-something single people who don't mind the introverted-but-well-intentioned? ;)

The cold logic of mathematics and the subjective emotions of belief are not always the best of friends (in fact, if the gossip is true, they've tussled on the playground over whose turn it was for the teeter-totter, or maybe whether playing the lottery is a good idea, depending on whom you ask). I imagine most people have heard the widespread proverb that "a majority of people believe they are above average," which is, of course, a statistical impossibility.

The World-Herald yesterday had a blurb about this Washington Post research poll (which I can't find on the Washington Post's Web site, or any other online source for that matter, so don't take it as fact; it's possible the World-Herald was hoodwinked). According to it, the numbers are even higher than "a majority." 86% believe they're more intelligent, 89% believe they have more common sense and a whopping 94% believe they're more honest. Of course, asking someone if he is more honest than most invokes a logic trap (if he's less honest, he can still answer "yes"), reminiscent of the following conversation:

My cousin Tabitha: "Do you have a girlfriend?"
Me: "Not at the moment."
Tabby: "Are you lying to me?"
Me: "Yes, Tabby, I'm lying. And now that I've lied to you, I'm going to tell you that I'm lying to you."
Tabby: "Okay, just checking."

More realistically, I would imagine most people believe the "average" point to be much lower than it is (which is a scary thought) and aren't cognizant that "average," by its definition, is a point that changes as the population changes.

It's all academic, of course, since everyone I know is above average. Shame on all of you for skewing the results. ;) Especially those of you who make the 79% of people who believe they're better looking than average feel bad.

Last night I experimented with the extreme telephoto range (the moon is probably the most distant object I can actually photograph in detail; I'm not pointing my camera at the midday sun, so don't ask). Tonight I messed around with the macro function. This camera actually has two macro functions, Macro (10cm and beyond) and Super Macro (0cm-10cm; it will actually focus on dust on the lens). Of course, the problem with trying to photograph things between 0cm and 5cm is lighting; the lens blocks the flash, so you have to be creative in arranging lighting from different angles. Or you have to fake it like I do. I took some pictures of my eye using the light from my bathroom light fixture. I've already warned Cris about them (he doesn't like zoomed pictures of eyes); if any of the rest of you don't like pictures of giant eyeballs, don't look at these. :)

You're free to vote on what color my eyes are. I've heard different answers from different people. Some say blue. Some say grey. Some say blue-grey. I dunno. And I don't know what causes that gold inner iris, although Wikipedia mentions it.

I've been playing with my new camera this weekend. And then I had the brilliant idea to go try to photograph the moon. I knew the moonrise was at 11:40 p.m., so I left my house around 11:15 p.m. to find a place with less city light (supposedly north of Omaha), ended up lost, couldn't find the street I looked up on Yahoo!Maps, ended up on the Sorensen, decided to say "screw it" and drive to my office building and take the photos from an office window, ended up in downtown Omaha, realized you couldn't see the moon from my office building, drove around behind the Durham Museum, hit three dead ends and *finally* found a fairly secluded area the railroad uses as a gravel dump or something that allowed for a view of the moon, then fumbled with freezing fingers and a few trips back into the car to warm up over a 15-minute period while trying to figure out how to work the exposure and manual focusing controls in the dark. In 4-degree weather. The first 12 I took didn't turn out. I finally figured out how to spot focus (so it was using the moon itself as the average light instead of using the entire night sky; the first 12 just have a white circle for the moon). I had to adjust the exposure a bit (in an amateurish fashion, I'm sure). But I had a couple turn out okay.

This one seems to be the best. I used the 1.54x telephoto lens and the full optical zoom, then clipped the picture to 800x600 in Photoshop so the moon filled the entire shot. (It gets bigger if you click "All Sizes," like so.)

This one was taken without the telephoto (just the full optical zoom) and then clipped to the same size as the previous one.

This is the original of the first one, which shows how much of the picture is occupied by the moon (and gives an idea of the resolution of the camera).

A few days ago I mentioned that Joey Cheek donated his bonus for winning an Olympic gold medal to a Darfur charity and called on others to match his donation. Today I smiled when I read that not only did others match his $25,000 donation, they donated $250,000 in three days. Yay for human kindness and the domino effect.

So it turns out that men lie about the number of partners they have. Duh. Given that even I know about "the rule of three" (divide a man's claim by 3, multiply a woman's claim by 3; a result of a society that views promiscuity through a dichotomic lens for the genders, summed up by one of my college professors as "men who sleep around are studs, women who sleep around are sluts"), this shouldn't be surprising. At the same time . . . 31.9? Part of the art of lying is lying realistically, guys. I'm sure there *are* guys who have hit that number (well, technically they'd have to round it off to 32, since people tend to come in units of 1), but the average guy? Even (the admittedly fictional) Dr. Cox on Scrubs, a walking advertisement for ego and testosterone, "bragged" about a total of 18. And to make up for the honest guys who put down 0 or 1, some guys are writing down numbers in the 60s or 70s.

I would imagine this reflects a relatively deep-seated insecurity in most males, but maybe most men are just bad at math.

Quick poll: What instant messenger(s) do you use, which do you like/recommend and which do you suggest avoiding?

I don't even know why it piqued my interest, but for some reason I read some forums on instant messengers today. Among the tidbits of lore I discovered were pages criticizing AOL and ICQ for including sections in their Terms of Services regarding "surrendering your copyright" to them on anything you send through their system (so essentially they claim the right to read your messages, recompile them, use them in advertisements, store them or turn them over to authorities) and pages talking about how great iChat is . . . except it doesn't really talk to anyone who doesn't have iChat (and their new hyped feature is the ability to have videoconferencing with more than two people, if you have 2/3rds of a T-1 line available; yeah, that's useful to the average person).

I'm still running the same ICQ program from several years ago (I haven't even updated it, so mine lets me see people in "stealth mode" and the like because my client doesn't know what it is). I tried updating it and didn't like the new versions, so I uninstalled it and went back to the old one. Most of my contact list is either on ICQ or using a client that accepts the ICQ protocol, so I've never really had an incentive to switch (I also discovered that ICQ is now assigning numbers in the 300 million plus range, and it's possible to sell your number on eBay if it's 6 digits or less; since I've had the same number for a decade, I could stand to make a grand total of $24 or so on eBay for my investment). I also have Yahoo IM now because it's a requirement for some of Yahoo's functions. I tried Trillian once and couldn't get it to work, but maybe I had a bad install. I dunno.

How many of you run more than one chat program? Have you found a good cross-platform one that does everything you want? And how many of you use webcam or voice functions? It's not a high priority now, but eventually I'd like to streamline as much as possible into one program, hopefully something that would take advantage of the iMac's built-in iSight camera and would import my (considerable) chat logs.

Ever have one of those days when you wished you could have a license plate like this?

I found this article . . . interesting. Some of you who know me well will find that amusing.

"Her shapely rounded hemispheres were so appreciated by the Greeks that they built a special temple Aphrodite Kallipygos, which literally meant, 'Goddess with the Beautiful Buttocks.' This was probably the only religious building in the world that was dedicated to buttock worship."

That sounds suspiciously like a challenge. I wonder if I can get a tax-exemption for a temple dedicated to "shapely rounded hemispheres."

If you're in a position to appreciate the elements encouraged by Valentine's Day, I hope you have a great one. :)

Whether you are or not, take a moment to reflect on V-Day, the campaign to end violence against women (and one of my charities). If you have the time and money, make a donation, for yourself or to honor someone else.

For my part, I celebrated a day early (because I had jury duty, again, and thus had an afternoon free) by seeing "Something New" at the Oakview theater and then renting "Just Like Heaven" (and eating a lot of chocolate). I think there's a term for that sort of behavior (overdosing on, rather than avoiding, what bothers you), but I can't think of it.

Granted it was a 5 p.m. matinee and thus not reflective of a weekend crowd, but I found it amusing, given the context of "Something New" (the difficulties inherent in an interracial relationship), that the entire attending audience consisted of three African-American couples, and me (and we laughed at different parts of the movie; apparently the writers wrote for two different audiences). It was a good movie, although not particularly believable; I got more out of the subplots of prejudice and racial suspicion than I did of the main love story, and those tended to make me sad (I understand the motivations behind racism and prejudice, but I don't experience them, so seeing them in action always frustrates me). I was particularly interested in the demographic data presented. I've written before about how educated, career-oriented women are at a disadvantage relationship-wise because men are socially conditioned to "marry down" (to use a possibly charged term) and remain the main income providers (and many are threatened by strong-willed career-oriented women), while women tend to "marry up" or "marry equally" (these are not absolutes, just social trends). The movie makes the point that educated, career-oriented minority women are at an even greater disadvantage because of the disparity in education rates (it's something like a 60/40 ratio of college-educated African-American women to men, and if the trend continues it will be 75/25 within 20 years). Sobering thought.

"Just Like Heaven" was not that impressive. I'm not particularly enamored of Mark Ruffalo, and some of the plot twists were just silly (and very forced). I did laugh when I realized I picked two movies that both feature landscapers as male protagonists and the construction of gardens as plot elements to woo the female lead; maybe I should take up horticulture.

I also had lunch with Cris for the first time in what might well be 300 years (give or take a decade). I'm not fond of getting up at 6:30 a.m., but its nice to see old friends.

Team USA has had a rough start (failing to medal in several favored events), and today saw injury added to insult (I saw Lindsey Kildow's pelvis-bruising downhill crash and actually winced; I missed Samantha Retrosi's luge crash that put her in the hospital with a concussion and short-term memory loss, but it didn't sound pretty). A more pressing concern (for NBC, anyway) was an article I read on the low ratings for the Olympics so far and NBC's panic over the loss of its hyped "big name" athletes to draw in viewers (NBC even offered Michelle Kwan a job, which she turned down, as a commentator within hours of her withdrawal from the Olympics, hoping to be able to use her name in some way during the skating portion). I tend to watch the Olympics for the Olympics and I'll sit and watch events I like even without U.S. competitors, but apparently the majority of the American viewing audience won't, and NBC already faces stiff competition from non-Olympic programming.

On the up side, the U.S. snowboarding team, men and women, has kicked ass. And I saw a phenomenal performance by a Chinese skating couple; she fell early in the routine, landing on her hands and knees from a throw, limped away doubled over in pain, and then conversed with her coach for several minutes as she was examined before the pair, to the roar of the crowd, started over and performed a flawless routine, taking the silver medal before submitting to the doctors. And on a more philanthropical note, American speedskater Joey Cheek, who won the gold in the 500-meter, is my new hero. Rather than talking about his win at his follow-up interview, he instead announced that he was donating his entire bonus for winning the gold ($25,000) to a children's organization in Darfur (a conflict I've written about before) and talked about his plans to visit the region as a volunteer. I was happy to see it get some major media coverage.

I love the Olympics.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way . . . The Olympics are the only sports events that I actually watch, and I watch them more for the camaraderie and sense of unity that the participating nations at least pretend to acknowledge during the games. I think a lot of people, including Olympians, would be comfortable with that position.

The opening ceremonies for the Olympics were on Friday night (during the concert), but luckily for me they replayed them at 1:30 in the morning. They were good. Not as good as some of the ones in the past, but very entertaining. There were a lot of choreographed performances, ranging from speed skaters with flames coming out of their helmets to acrobats on ropes who used their bodies to create the image of a dove 30 feet above the ground to an absolutely phenomenal moving picture of a skier composed of people in different colored outfits (who moved in such a way as to make the "skier" realistically look like he was crouching, going off a ramp and landing). There was a very heavy European influence in some of the segments that I realize is important to the heritage of the region hosting the games, but I have to admit the image of men in suspenders with odd hats blowing on 20-foot-long bullhorns has been ruined for Americans by the Ricola commercials, and the dresses that were supposed to look like alpine mountains with little trees on them were too angular to be attractive. A 9-year-old Italian girl gave a very strong performance of the Italian national anthem (and only seemed nervous for a few seconds; there's a girl with nerves of steel).

The parade of nations was great; it's one of my favorite events, not only to see the various teams but to learn which countries are being represented, which athletes have overcome impressive odds to attend and which geographies have been altered since the last Olympics. A few countries, including all of the African countries represented, had only one athlete, and many of those didn't actually live in the country they represented (one of the African athletes is a 49-year-old professor who lives in the U.S. but has dual-citizenship and convinced his home nation to create an Olympic committee). Not surprisingly, nations without strong winter seasons aren't well-represented at the Winter Olympics (Mexico, for example, has no competitors this year). The two Koreas marched together (although they're competing separately), which was a big event. There was mention of the fact that Taiwan has its own team but under agreement with China marched under a special Olympic flag rather than its own flag, with much musing about how China will handle the situation when it hosts the next Olympics. I also noticed that Hong Kong had its own team, a fact I didn't realize until last night (I wasn't aware that Hong Kong was that autonomous, something that surprises me given China's preoccupation with Taiwan).

The torch-lighting ceremony was great. I think I need an Olympic torch. It was followed by musical entertainment, including Peter Gabriel's rendition of John Lennon's "Imagine," which is as much of a Secular Humanist song as any ever written. I was tickled.

Random observations:
- Yoko Ono is scary.
- That actually bears repeating. Yoko Ono is scary.
- Sophia Loren is older than my grandmother; we can probably stop with the plastic surgery now.
- NBC anchor Bob Costas reminds me enough of Mark Hamill that I laugh (in my head) every time I see him on television.
- If I don't hear about Bode Miller again, I won't be unhappy. So he's an antisocial bad boy who likes to defy authority just because it's there. That doesn't make him "cool." And it doesn't make him a good representation of the Olympic spirit.
- Michelle Kwan, on the other hand, not only was friendly in every interview and put forward a positive face, even when in pain, but she gave up her spot to another U.S. competitor rather than staying in "just for the hell of it" when she decided her injuries were too significant. And then gave a lengthy interview despite the disappointment of missing her last chance for a gold medal. Take notes, Bode.

I've watched some of the luge, women's moguls and pairs skating so far. I think today is speed skating and snowboarding.

I need to buy some of these for the twins. They'd make cute pacifiers . . .

The most popular news article on Yahoo today? Not the Olympics. That's because only 12.8% of Americans watched the opening ceremonies, a far cry from the 44% of single Americans.

I found out today why the telephoto lens I was supposed to get on Wednesday hasn't shown up yet; the little slip of paper the Postal Service left advising they needed a signature got caught in the back of my mailbox and I didn't find it until today. So now I can go pick it up at the post office on Monday. On the other hand, the $400 camera that showed up on Friday was left rather unceremoniously on my front step in a thin layer of melting snow. What, no signature needed for that, guys?

Brandy and I attended the Nickelback concert at the Qwest Center tonight (yes, I know, Nickelback differs slightly in some respects from Sarah McLachlan or Coldplay, but Brandy wanted to go . . . and the Coldplay concert is sold out). It was a good time. It was the first concert I've attended in over a decade (not a lot of concert opportunities in western Nebraska, although I'm still kicking myself for not blowing off a week of classes and going to the last Lilith Fair).

The walk there was very cold. And full of idiots. I suppose expecting rationality from a crowd of 13,000 is slightly unrealistic. But come on, people, they make crosswalks for a reason. Inside, we were divided into two groups: the group going to the concert, and the group going to a home and garden show (?!). Not exactly the most efficient booking scheme, unless Nickelback really likes to garden, I guess. The list of banned items amused me. I have a working hypothesis on the rationale for their distinction between cameras with removable lenses (professional SLRs) and others (our cheap pocket cameras) involving media cartels and maybe an alien plot, but at the time it confused me. I was also amused that "cameras" was number one, in bold, while "guns" was a poor third.

While I was taking pictures of the line, Brandy was buying a t-shirt. She didn't believe me when I told her I took pictures of her buying it, but she will now. After that, we went through the most ineffective pat down I've ever experienced (not that I've had a lot of pat downs, but I have been to the court house a time or two). It involved me opening my coat and the security guy feeling around my waist for half a second. I suppose the logistics involved in admitting 13,000 people in half an hour makes a thorough airline-grade search somewhat prohibitive, but this pat down existed more for the intimidation factor than any real threat detection.

We had assigned seats on the very end of a row. Which was great for getting to and from the seats. And not so good for sitting in peace while the rest of the occupants of the row came to and fro (and fro and to). Plus the whole "spilling beer next to me while going up and down the steps" thing. The assigned seating was separated from the main floor by a series of monitored entrances at the bottoms of the stairs; since the main floor ("standing room only") didn't have seat designations, blue wristbands were used to separate those allowed on the floor from those not, a system that was tested at many times during the night (there's nothing quite so comical as seeing a woman in her early 50s with an exasperated look chasing down two high school kids who had ducked past when she stopped to help someone locate a seat; she really needed a taser or something).

Interlude: What's a concert without commemorative photos? Especially if you went to the trouble of getting a haircut three hours earlier?

Lisa recommended I pick up some earplugs earlier in the week. Good call, Lisa. I had to put them in a few notes into the first act and wore them for the entire concert. After 15 minutes or so I forgot about them, so I don't think I was really missing that much (and I can still hear today!). The first act was a band called "Default" (which was good, although the only song I knew was "Wasting My Time"), followed by the second act, "Trapt," another hard-rock band that only had one song I knew. :) In between, we were entertained by the family of four a few rows down who spent somewhere around 10 minutes talking to someone named "Kelly" on a cellphone while shouting and waving their arms. It was amusing for the first minute ("I'm at the bottom of Section 120, in a brown shirt and blue sweater! Do you see me?! I'm waving! I can see you! No, the other way. You can't see me? We're waving!!"). I don't really understand the incentive behind making sure someone you know sees you at a random location (if it's convenient, cool, but four people waving and shouting for ten minutes is a little obsessive). Kelly will probably see you next week. I doubt she's going to lose sleep if she doesn't make eye contact with you at a concert. If it's that pressing, call and arrange coffee after the concert . . . We were also amused by the guy who was ejected for mooning the audience (I mentioned the beer, right? There were some people who had probably had a few too many).

The main act was great. Pyrotechnics. Jokes. Crowd-pleasing antics. Vague assertions of Omaha being their favorite town and suggestions about filming their next DVD here (yeah, right). At one point they had four people with compressed air cannon (yes, the plural of "cannon" is "cannon") firing various assorted prizes into the crowd. Plus I actually knew about half of their songs. That's always a bonus.

I got in a good deal of people watching tonight (always one of my favorite public hobbies). Random observations: Omahans are apparently not coordinated enough to "body surf" (of the four attempts I saw, all four ended within 3 or 4 seconds, usually with the person tumbling to the floor). The majority of the crowd fell into two categories (the 20-something "hip" crowd and the 40-something heavy metal biker crowd), which is an amusing contrast. People still hold up lighters. Or cell phones. Or they'll call people on their cell phones and then hold the phone up to the band so the person on the other end can be annoyed by the horrible mash of tinny noise with no way of telling the concert-goer that he/she is being an idiot (Rainbow of all people wrote a column on that last month and I scoffed that people would actually do that; score one for Rainbow). People think they can dance after they're well on the road to inebriation (no, you can't; stop trying). If you have the unfortunate luck to be seated between two 300-lb. men (as a woman in the row behind us was), your concert experience is going to suck. Some people think it's better to look cool than to be warm (it's 24 degrees and snowing, people; walking 15 blocks in a t-shirt might just afford you the opportunity to learn how to spell "hypothermia").

It was a fun concert. Hope everyone who went had a good time.

I bought KT Tunstall's "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" from iTunes a little over a month ago, but I had to wait until today to buy the rest of the album. Included with the album was a video of her live performance on "The Today Show," and until watching it I didn't realize that she is, literally, a one-woman band. She plays the guitar as her main instrument, but she also stomps on a tambourine to provide accent, and uses an electronic system that she runs with her feet to do this cool little trick: she records what she's playing/singing live with one foot tap, and then replays it as an accompanying chorus with a second foot tap as she begins the next line, until there are several "copies" of her singing different parts of the same live song. And she has a blast while she's doing it. Give the video a look; you won't be disappointed (click on the video for "KT Tunstall").

"I love my child and would do anything to protect him."

Except refrain from placing his head directly in front of an airbag that could deploy at 200 mph anytime I so much as bump something with my front bumper while I'm driving erratically to get away from photographers. 'Cause that would just require, you know, common sense.

Everyone stop giving her money. Maybe she'll go away.

Hope everyone is having a great week. :)

Labels: twins

I'm sure this will elicit a resounding (or perhaps silent) "no," but I figure it's worth a shot. I need to update my CPR certification before April. My employer normally pays for me to take the standard class, but this year I've decided to upgrade to the more advanced class (CPR for the Professional Rescuer) because it includes child and infant CPR (which I've never had), which thus saves me from taking two different classes (and I get to learn two-person CPR, which I'll never use, as a bonus!). I won't try to smooth talk people for my benefit; this is an 8-hour class, instead of the normal 4-1/2 for the "basic" course, and it's $65 (which is cheaper than taking the adult and child classes separately, but still more than the basic class). If you're interested in taking the class with me, let me know.

I lack a certain degree of motivation this week, possibly stemming from the impending arrival of the most divisive holiday of the year (this holiday manages to stick its tongue out at a whopping 44% of the population; let's see Christmas pull that off). Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for everyone who will be receiving cards and chocolate and those little candy hearts with the silly phrases on them (for the guys reading this, yes, you only have a week left; don't put it off to the last minute). But for those of us who don't get to play along (a temporary status, I'm sure, or so I'm assured), it's something of an annual mid-life crisis. Some become angry, some become bitter, some become drunk. I just lapse into a lethargic, almost languorous, if you will, state and ignore the entire thing until it passes.

And thus, in place of some rambling diatribe about my life, I humbly offer up another form of Web voyeurism. In order to showcase its ability to filter large quantities of e-mails (in a bid to sell its software to companies of notable size), this company has taken a little over 500,000 e-mails subpoenaed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from Enron and released to the public in 2003 and put them into its database, allowing random surfers to search them by keyword or subject. If nothing else, let it be a reminder that your work e-mail isn't private and could end up in court someday . . .

. . . and now it's just being derivative. They did this comic two weeks ago, Wiley.

I had some vague awareness of a sporting event of some degree of magnitude today (enough to know that Denver wasn't playing, anyway; silly Yahoo). My antipathy toward commercial sporting events is no secret (although my fondness for the word "antipathy" might be; it amuses me that the root word allows one to be "antipathetic"). So I skipped the testosterone and aggression of the football game and instead did something that makes many grown men quiver with trepidation. I saw "Brokeback Mountain."

Either the time period during the Super Bowl is a uniquely opportune time for seeing a movie or there's some secret network that keeps track of my comings and goings and spreads the word that everyone else should avoid the theater, because Oakview was completely dead. Like, the deadest I've ever seen it. No lines at the ticket counter, no lines at the concession stand, etc. It was almost like "28 Days Later" where everyone else has fled the city and only those who haven't heard of the impeding disaster are wandering around wondering where everyone is. Even though I arrived only 10 minutes before the movie started, I was the third person in the theater (and I held the door for the first two); grand total by the time the movie started was two couples, nine other women in various group combinations and me. So we all had plenty of room. If I was capable of playing my cards right, my odds for finding a date might have been good (except for the whole "there's a 4% chance you like a good film and aren't bothered by the context and a 96% chance you're gay" thing that seems to have been attached to the film - "I don't know what straight men will make of 'Brokeback Mountain,' but I suspect it won't be much. Only the homosexuals, the henpecked, the metrosexuals and Chris Martin will go.").

I liked the movie, even though it was sad. I will admit to a few moments of discomfort; there was, unfortunately, a few minutes of material whose content really wasn't suitable for, well, anyone. I speak, of course, of Grand Ole Opry-style country music (ahhhh!). This is 1960s Wyoming, after all. That aside, the movie was great, and I won't spoil it for the people who haven't seen it.

I also saw a preview for another "difficult relationship" movie that I might see next weekend (the preview looked good; not only do I like both of the main leads, but it has Donald Faison in it, too). The other previews failed to catch my attention in such a spectacular fashion that I don't even remember them. I did, however, see the "Fritz" Coke commercial again. Which isn't really notable except for the fact that I've had 14 people find my site by searching for a variation on "fritz coke commercial" in the last week (and until a couple of days ago, I was the number one return on Yahoo! for it; I'm currently number 9). I realize I'm only feeding it by posting this again, so for everyone who has discovered this page by searching for those terms, no, I don't know who sings the song and no, I don't know what language it is in, but the official site for it is linked from this post (as of the time of this posting, anyway; if it's not there, e-mail Coca-Cola). Knock yourselves out.

One other thing of note: As I was buying my ticket, I overheard a group of high school kids at the next counter trying to get into "Underworld 2." Conveniently, they were all "old enough" but, despite the fact that at least one of them had to have driven them there, none of them had a license to prove it. They didn't get in, which I found ironic considering my rant on the abundance of 6-year-olds at the showing I saw (I considered telling them that "Brokeback Mountain" was only PG-13, but I doubt that would have gone over well).

Labels: overheard

I saw "Aeon Flux" tonight, just to have something to do. It wasn't all that great, although it did try to include some bits and pieces from the animated series for the fans (the opening scene shows the famous "catching a fly in your eyelashes" thing that freaks Cris out). I'd vent more, but it only cost me $1.50, so I'm not complaining.

It only cost me $1.50 because I saw it at the Stockyards dollar theater. A theater that is, um . . . past its prime. As in, "don't go there alone after dark." But, given they only charge $1.50, I suppose I can't expect Village Pointe accommodations. And they played the movie just for me (seriously, I was the only person in that screening), so either the theater's attendance in general sucks (and they'll be going out of business soon) or I was the only person in Omaha who decided to go see that movie tonight. About a quarter of the movie had an annoying moving thread on the screen, too (something caught in the projector, I imagine).

After the movie I did my grocery shopping for the week. I'd like to say I'm exaggerating for effect, but this was the actual scenario: the woman checking out in front of me had three kids and a husband trying to talk to her at the same time (the kids wanted candy, the husband was just a jerk) while she continually sorted through two handwritten notebook-size sheets of paper and challenged the price on everything she bought ("Those rang up as $1.37 and they're supposed to be $1.22"). The poor checkout woman was practically rolling her eyes, and I was tempted to say "Look, here's the $5 you're going to save; just let them ring up normally." She bought an entire case of Ramen and an entire case of Pop-Tarts. There's some good nutrition for the kids . . . The mother behind me was reading a magazine and seemed content to let her 5-year-old play with a box of *shotgun shells* until he became bored with them and decided to go through the stuff in my cart (yeah, you know, I like kids and all, but that's not happening). Most good parents would be horrified if their children started going through someone else's cart, but this woman apparently was too engrossed in whether Brad is trying to keep Angelina from doing drugs or talking to aliens or somesuch.

I successfully avoided the Valentine's aisle, but they scattered outposts all over the store. Bastards.

SNL was mediocre. My taped episode of "The Office," on the other hand, rocked.

I was almost in an accident today. I didn't realize I was almost in an accident until the potential for the accident, the point where the many latent future possibilities still existed, had nearly passed, like being handed a lottery ticket whose first five numbers had already been matched only to discover that the sixth, called as you wait with trembling hands, was one number off. Except in this case it was a good thing.

I was proceeding (in the language of traffic courts) on a street zoned for 35 mph. Behind a woman invisible except for her knuckles atop the steering wheel (a point I found amusing at the time given I just watched an old George Carlin special that addressed that exact point). A woman who seemed content to drive 25. Which would not in itself necessarily be a problem, except that she appeared to be concerned about the car in front of her, and continually braked at random intervals, varying her speed anywhere between 25 and almost-a-complete-stop. The catch in this particular case is that there wasn't actually a car in front of her (not for at least 3 blocks). Drive a little bit. Brake. Drive a little bit. Brake. I've had something of a languid ennui this week that shielded me from the normal annoyance that would cause (I was simply existing until I could go around). The man behind me, now . . .

After about the fourth chorus in the pattern, I suddenly heard the squealing of tires. A loud squealing. A very close loud squealing. A quick glance in my rearview mirror showed a car braking and swerving to avoid running into the back of my car, with a driver whose face was a curious mixture of panic and irritation. I can only surmise that he'd looked away for a moment, only to look up during one of the "brake" phases of the song and found the back of my car looming precariously. I'm glad he had good brakes. He'd have hit me, and I've had hit the woman in front of me, and that would have just made for an unpleasant contretemps all around (and neither of them were cute enough to ask out, which is really the only good reason for getting into a car accident).

The knee-jerk reaction to such a situation is "old people shouldn't be driving," but I'm not militant enough this week to actually argue pros or cons of such a position. I know that being able to drive is often one of the last lifelines of the elderly (a last vestige of independence when so much else has descended upon the shoulders of their caretakers); my own grandmother is going to lose her license the next time it's up for renewal due to vision problems, and I can only imagine what psychological impact that will have. At the same time, operating a 3,000-lb. vehicle is not something to be taken lightly, something people of all ages often forget. It goes along with the "driving while on the phone" discussion, and opens a myriad of arguments.

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

-Macbeth, Act V, Scene V