The Markives

23 December 02010: The Reader Becomes A Writer

As a kid, I read a lot of encyclopedias--two complete sets of the World Book in elementary school, for starters. While I don't claim to have read every page of the one-volume Columbia Encyclopedia, I did look at it more than was probably healthy. To this day, I read the yearly update of my Encyclopaedia Britannica when it arrives--perhaps not every word of every article, but I at least look at every page. Even the statistical clutter at the end.

In an effort to contribute back to the world of minutiae, I have just finished the final revision on an article for the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Mathematics and Society, on "Calculators and Society". There was some confusion over how long they wanted it to be--my original contract said 3500 words, and version 1 came in at 3502. The reviewers called my work "fantastic, but four times too long". Apparently, in their universe, 1.000571... = 4.

This didn't enhance my faith in their ability to put out a quality mathematical product, but subsequent communication back and forth revealed a miscommunication on the production end. The final version, after some renegotiation, comes in at just under 2000 words.

I wouldn't expect anyone to rush out and buy this when it comes out next year, but there's something about contributing to an encyclopedia that feels right right about now.

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28 November 02010 (Happy 22^nd!): ACME-7--An Attempt To Be Part Of The Solution

Usually, I'm part of the problem. For no apparent reason, it's gotten into me to try being constructive with the annual Christmas music entry.

My railings against abuses of the musical scale at this time of year have been an annual tradition here at The Markives. For a change, I have compiled a track list of holiday songs worthy of more attention than they typically get in the clutter of pointless remakes that typifies Christmas music. A couple of ground rules:

1. No remakes. Obviously. Sampling, as is sort of done in track 9, gets in just under the cut line.
2. Along the same line: No pseudo-operatic bellowing. This probably doesn't cut out anything that rule 1 lets through, but better safe than sorry.
3. It's me, so there's going to be comedy on this list. While parodies are eligible for consideration, there will be no parodies of "The 12 Days of Christmas" here. Not that they're all bad, but too many of them run out of good ideas around Day 8. Examples inlcude Frank Welker and the Bob Rivers Comedy Corp. Exceptions include Allan Sherman and Jeff Foxworthy--neither of whom feel compelled to repeat the entire list all that often. This matters. For an example of a non-comedy parody that does it right, check out the version by the Canadian Brass.

On to the music!

1. "Christmas In The Caribbean", Jimmy Buffett. This one came up recently on Sirius/XM's "Holly" channel--I found it while channel-surfing--and got me started thinking about compiling this set of tunes. Pretty much remake-proof, as it's hard to imagine this song sounding anywhere near as authentic in anyone else's hands. Not that lack of authenticity stops some remakers, of course--but I can't see this one ever appearing on, say, a Björk Christmas album.

2. "Deck The Stills", Barenaked Ladies. Since we're already having fun with the first track, this is a good place to ramp up the levity. DTS is simply a repeated recitation of the name of the band Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young to the tune of "Deck the Halls", and just silly enough to dodge the "remake" bullet. For those of you inspired to try this at home, it runs one verse, and you close out on "Crosby" if you've done it correctly.

3. "Must Have Been Old Santa Claus", Harry Connick, Jr. The humor level drops off, but the fun continues. Harry C., of course, remains free to remake "Mistletoe and Holly" as he may wish with my preapproval (The Markives, 4 December 02005), which should mean exactly nothing to him.

4. "Kill A Tree For Christ", Celtic Elvis. Nowhere is the tension inherent in the secular/religious duality of the holiday explored so well as in this number. In light of her frequent annual declaration that she wasn't sure what possessed people to cut down a tree and bring it into the house in mid-December, I think even Mom might appreciate this one.

5. "Old City Bar", Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Dipping into TSO's work for the first of two* selections, we have this overlooked gem. One of the more annoying subgenres of bad Christmas television is "curmudgeon (of any age, from 6 to 600) discovers the 'true meaning' of Christmas, and maudlin-ness ensues". Frequently this programming includes bad remakes of holiday tunes. Leaving out the fact that the "true meaning" of Christmas is a pagan ritual celebrating the winter solstice, thus calling the legitimacy of that whole enterprise into question, OCB does neither. There may be some discovery--the lyric "For the rest of the night/No one paid for a drink." suggests that--but it is far from maudlin. It's enough to forgive the songwriter for setting this piece in New York City for no apparent reason. Even in live performance, the presentation focuses--astonishingly--on the music, not the drama.

6. "Same Old Lang Syne", Dan Fogelberg. Track 5 takes place on Christmas Eve, and Track 7 will reference New Year's Day briefly, so let's venture up the calendar a little for this one, which facilitates the transition by doing both. For better or worse, given his December 02007 death, this is probably the song that Dan F. will be best remembered for. He had a fine sense of humor and loved abusing the English language, so slotting him before Weird Al seems like a good fit. The song is set on Christmas Eve and uses a chunk of ALS in the closing, which makes it just fine for the holidays in my opinion.

7. "Christmas At Ground Zero", Weird Al Yankovic. This song gets less attention now than the little it did before 11 September 02001, which may be the result of some folks pushing the sensitivity lever too far. Celebrating Christmas during a nuclear attack is just the right kind of crazy for my tastes. This record deserves better. "The Night Santa Went Crazy" doesn't rise to the level of this one, alhtough it's been getting more attention since "Zero" has slipped in these politically senstive times.

8. "A Lonely Jew On Christmas", Kyle Broflovski. In perusing the South Park holiday oeuvre, and in desiring to maintain a minimum standard of decency (this list does, after all, appear in close proximity to Natalie's picture), the field is rapidly narrowed to this.** It continues the thread of recognizing other winter holidays as well.

9. "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24", Trans-Siberian Orchestra. One more from TSO. I'm a bigger fan of this assault on punctuation than I am of their other radio-friendly tune, "Christmas Canon", and while "Wizards In Winter" is another fine instrumental, it's not as clearly a Christmas record. This is probably my favorite non-comedy Christmas song, in no small part because it holds up outside the context of the story running through the Christmas Eve and Other Stories album.

10. "Can't Wish You A Merry Christmas", Capitol Steps. Most of the Steps' holiday tunes, like most political satire, have a very short shelf life--we're not going to be singing "Now CBS Has Letterman" much now that the late-night battle of 01992 is over. (Too bad, actually--that one's kind of a fun song.) This one is quick (less than a minute), still relevant today, and name-checks the ACLU. A triple play, and a fine way to close this imaginary album.

Io Saturnalia!

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*--I might also have picked "Ornament" by TSO (I find it interesting that there aren't more Xmas songs with "ornament" in the title), but two out of ten from one artist already seemed to be pushing the limit.
**-- I did consider Christmas Time In Hell as well as the Santa-Claus-and-Jesus-as-lounge-singers medley, but the former loses too much without the video and the latter is all about remakes. Right down to Rio.

15 November 02010: Liveblogging Nephice 11

(Now that the excitement has shifted [for it's never over], I've reordered this entry.)

9:53 AM EST: It's beginning to look like there'll be a birthday today. Rather than attempt, through any poor words I might speak, to add aught to the drama playing out, I thought I'd start by just copying Laura's recent emails:

1. At 2:50 AM today:

I just got home from the hospital and Jif is in labor. I got there around 8 and left a little after 2. She was dilated to 6 when I left and she was feeling comfortable with her epidural. She is tired because she has been having contractions since 10 on Saturday night. She (and Dave) were hoping to get a little bit of rest before she has to start pushing. Both sets of grandparents were still there when I left. I'll let you know if I hear anything else.

2. At 8:34 AM today:

Just talked to Jif, it's been a slow night. She has now dilated to 8 and they are hoping things keep moving in that direction, but because it is taking so long , they're having the understanding that she may need surgery. Her doctor comes in at 9 and they will take another peek. They are giving her until noon before they make any major decisions.

Sounds like it's been a rough couple of nights. We await further information.

11:10 AM EST: Once again from Laura, this time on Facebook:

Patiently waiting for my little sister to have her first baby. She has been at the hospital all night and they should have a new baby by this afternoon.

(This was posted at about 10:30 AM EST) One wonders about how "patient" anybody is after all this time, but never mind that for now.

11:16 AM EST: As the watch continues, it's worth noting that Dave & Jif were at a loss for a boy's name as of Saturday evening. Not that they don't have other things on their minds right now, but there's a 50% chance that that will matter relatively soon.

11:44 AM EST: More email from Laura:

Mom and Dad were planning on heading over to the hospital after going out to breakfast this morning. I haven't heard from them yet. Does anyone have their cell number? I have been trying to call Jif's room for the past half hour and been told twice that the doctor has been with her. Don't know what they are doing, but I'm thinking that it is very near baby time. I left a message for Jif/Dave to call me back.

12:09 PM EST: Update: Folks from at least two time zones have responded to Laura's Facebook post.

Time for me to go stamp out some ignorance and deal with the local press. This channel will likely be silent for a short while.

2:08 PM EST: I'm back from class, and there's nothing new to report. Stay tuned.

2:09 PM EST (That didn't take long): It's a girl! Natalie Anne Mazurek, 8 pounds 1 ounce, height TBA, born at 11:19 AM or so. That, of course, explains the radio silence in the 11 AM hour.

When the history of this day is written, the record will show that I first heard about this via a Facebook chat* with Melina K. Mazurek, who writes, in mid-chat at 2:15:

Shhhh...you didn't hear it from me.

The record will also show that Melina tried not to spoil the news for Clan Bollman. I insisted on being brought into the loop--besides, Aunt Melina has just as much a claim on spreading this word as anyone else.

A couple of things remain to be worked out:

1. How is Natalie's middle name spelled? With an "e" or without? That we might resolve today.
2. How is the nickname "Nat-Maz" going to go over? Laurie and I were noting a while back that none of the Gang of 10 11 has a really useful nickname**, and so we are resolved to work on that. This seems like a good place to start.

Welcome to the madness, Natalie.

2:47 PM EST: It's "Anne". Word has just reached me from Mom via email. Natalie landed at 21 inches tall.

5:46 PM: A couple of notes wrapping up the day:

1. It turns out that we did indeed get a phone call, at home and from Eric, at some point before 2:09. Nonethless, Melina gets credit for first informing me directly.
2. Laurie and I enjoyed our 1.5-day run at the top of Mom's list of favorite kids and kids-in-law, and are now back down there in our accustomed slot, bouncing between 5 and 6. As was predicted on Saturday. No hard feelings.

26 October 02010: On The Midwest Storm of 02010

It was certainly an interesting weather morning here in eastern Calhoun County. A couple of things learned this day:

1. There are schools in western Michigan that will close due to a tornado watch. There were apparently extra circumstances in at least some of the cases (power failures, mostly), but it looks weird to have the TV report saying that. Midwesterners know what "tornado watch" means, and often that means "72 and sunny".

2. We learned growing up that "A watch means that conditions are right for severe weather to develop; a warning means that the weather has been sighted". Apparently not anymore. This morning, a tornado warning was issued for Calhoun County, based on the finding that conditions were right for "rain-wrapped tornadoes" to develop.

That's something we all learned about. I'd never heard that term before. Apparently it refers to tornadoes that no one can see.

Fair enough, but none of them had been detected--by means other than observation, of course--when the warning went out. Odd.

We headed to the ground floor away from windows here, interrupting several classes and one exam to do so. I'd rather have the headlines tomorrow reading "Math chair overreacts" than "Math chair's inaction causes deaths of 50 students".

Call me selfish.

After some rain and wind, and about half an hour in a very humid hallway, we got the all clear. No real damage here on campus. Nonetheless, it was not a dull morning.

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Perish the thoughts. There's been some continued bumpiness here as the migration to our new server finishes, which accounts for some of the delay. Some of the rest of it can be attributed to my first foray into prescription drugs in 31 years. I got hit pretty hard by some kind of low-grade infection that I originally called "24-hour anthrax". By the time it rolled into day 6, I recognized that that number was far too low, and sought medical assistance. Said assistance came with two prescriptions--my first since 1979 (Benadryl, which of course no longer even requires a prescription.). At this rate, the next time a pharmacist gets my money will be 2041.

I can wait.

Other thoughts on the universe:

1. Rick Snyder is not "one tough nerd".  I refer here to the Republican candidate for Michigan governor. The man has an MBA degree. No self-respecting nerd, nor anyone worthy of the name, has one of those. Not even an honorary one. QED.

2. Modern politics is a lot like academia.  --in that experience is routinely denigrated.  With the invective being spewed against so-called "career politicians", we seem to have deteriorated further into a world where knowing how a job gets done is less important than some wacky hats and a lot of untraceable money.

It's similar in the academic world, where experience in the profession has the unusual effect of rooting you to one place and limiting your mobility.  I'd be better prepared to live with that if my employer wasn't making incredibly bad decisions, or if the housing market here wasn't so bad that moving isn't an option.

I understand the desire to lash out at the government officials who got us into this mess, but the Tea Party folks aren't looking far back enough.  The fact that they're nominated so many certified loons (and I mean that in a bad way, which is not quite the norm for me) isn't helping their cause.

3. Photo adventures.  Here's something I found interesting.   I can't claim that having a photograph published on the Detroit Free Press Web site was a goal of mine, but it's now something I've accomplished.  This may well be the least exciting place ever submitted to this feature.  Also in that picture: The Winter Camp logo (on my visor).

As many of you know, at least 6 of my 10 nephices were afflicted, between roughly the ages of 1.5 and 3 years, with a dread fear of me. (Megan's in the middle of it now.) For a couple members of the next generation, this extended to the point where they couldn't even be in the same room with me. My standard reaction to this has been tending toward bemusement, and I frequently have noted that "Someday, you'll need help with your math homework--and then we'll see if Uncle Mark--> is still all that scary."

On Sunday, that optimism paid off. I got a call from Kendyl, who was perhaps the nephice with the most serious case of pogonosyngenesophobia*, searching for the answer to the question "Which numbers have an odd number of factors?'. I didn't realize that that sort of thing was part of the fifth-grade curriculum. Fortunately, I knew the answer.**

14 September 02010: Oscar If A Boy; If A Girl, Emmy

As the countdown to Nephice Eleven (as Jif and Dave's soon-to-be-born kid is referred to in Calhoun County) enters its final two months, those are my name suggestions, tying into his/her mother's love of movies. "Emmy", of course, would be short for "Academy".

I expect and hope that these ideas will be ignored, though perhaps someone might extract a chuckle before casting them onto the heap of discarded notions. On the other hand, the kid should have a record early on of how odd her/his eastern Uncle Mark can be.

22: Number of days on the road.
6389: Number of miles driven.

17: States visited. 6 of those were states I had not previously visited, which brings my lifetime total to 44. Laurie's at 41--she's been to Alaska, which I haven't, but I've been to Maryland, New York, Iowa, and Kansas. I thinks she wins that exchange.
15: Number of those states where we saw a Michigan license plate on a moving car other than mine. The two holdouts were Montana, where we only logged about 30 miles altogether, and Minnesota, which I can't explain. We drove across the state from Duluth to East Grand Forks, and it seems like there should have been another rogue Michigan driver somewhere along the way there.

590: Number of pictures we (okay, I) took. A condensed version is making the rounds of the world with us.

10: The population of Emblem, Wyoming. While on the small side, this ordinarily wouldn't merit mention, except...the town has its own post office. Many of the readers of this site spent a lot of time living in a house with a population of 8--and we didn't have a post office.

*--Today marks the start of Laurie's second semester at the state college in East Lansing.

On the whole Abby Sunderland fiasco: One thought that crossed my mind in this "race to the bottom of the age spectrum" record pursuit is this: If the Guinness Book of World Records would simply stop listing all records beginning "Youngest..." that require actual effort to achieve*, that might go a small way toward diminishing this kind of risky craziness.

Not enough, to be sure--Guinness has lost a lot of its stature in the record-obsessed I'net-enhanced world--but this has value as a gesture. They did it with eating records out of a concern for safety. (Of course, we now have the International Federation of Competitive Eating, but even they don't let people under 18 play.)

The Big Bang Theory: It amuses me greatly when people ask me if I watch that show (I do.) and then try very hard to avoid comparing me to Sheldon. Often they don't succeed.

Occasionally, I make their job easier. In my recent sojourn to KC, the irrepressible Michelle Davis Baker tried not to make that connection, for which she deserves at least a B+ for effort. Then we got to talking about Wal-Marts in the area. One of the tasks of a table leader at the AP calculus reading is to keep your room adequately stocked with candy, which I was doing by making the occasional trip to a Wal-Mart in Kansas. It was on streets that I recognized (very important) and was far enough away to be worth driving to (somewhat important).

Michelle, on hearing this, pointed out that there were several Wal-Marts closer to my hotel than that one--probably even ones that didn't involve crossing a state line. I countered that the store where I was sort of a regular was located on a street called Parallel Parkway, which seemed extremely appropriate for a group of math teachers.

My second Sheldonic moment was a little less obvious--indeed, I contend that it doesn't qualify. The discussion eventually turned to an embattled monsignor, whose mother apparently lived with him and cooked for him. Michelle made mention of a woman hunched over the stove with her oxygen tank nearby.

My immediate reaction: "I hope it wasn't a gas stove--you don't want to mix pure oxygen and an open flame."

*--If they want to keep something like "Youngest person to ascend to the British throne", that's fine. It's not like there's going to be a crowd competing for that one.

Now that I'm back from Kansas City (320,000+ calculus exams this year), it's time to catch up on some items that needed commentary while I was away.

The Doctor Is Out: A big recent news item calling out for a reaction was the departure of The Doctor Demento Show from ordinary radio**, just a short while before it would have celebrated its 40th anniversary on the air. Details are here, here, here, and here. The show will continue as a streaming online broadcast, which is sort of the same thing. Nonetheless, this is a loss.

I think the first link there, which connects to Mark Evanier's NEWS from me site, has the reasons down the best. The fragmentation of the music business (on which I commented on 17 August 02009) was also surely a contributing factor. This seems also to continue to validate the theory that all-comedy isn't a viable commercial radio format (it's been tried in Washington DC and a couple of other markets, but it never lasts all that long).

I have 60 or so tapes (and a couple of LP's) of various broadcasts of the show from the 80's and 90's which, while not collector's items by any stretch, are still a pretty decent assemblage of musical comedy. As I work through my Winter Camp hobby of converting my analog music collection to digital files, those will surely be near the top of the next conversion wave.

In other, more current, news, last night's storms took out a very large tree at the head of Linden Ave., which in addition to leaving us without electricity, has also made it impossible for vehicles to get on or off the street. We've been advised that the street will be open by 2:00 PM today. No word on the power situation.

Fortunately, I could walk to the office this morning--the tree removal crew was very nice about letting me pass. I was prepared to swim for it, but that proved unnecessary.

**--Except for Amarillo, TX, which through a curious deal will have the new online show over the air at least for a short while.

Every once in a while, YouTube accidentally hosts something that's worthwhile. In honor of the upcoming Altar Boy golf outing, take a look at this.

As Laurie joins the corps of humans closer in time to their 90th birthday than to their birth today, she also starts her new life as a graduate student at the state college in East Lansing.

With that in mind, there are a couple of techno-changes at the home of The Markives, to wit:

1. We have Internet access at home again, and for the first time, it's from a wireless outlet in our home. We had modem access a couple of times, and there was a brief time period when I was able to work my way into our neighbor's wireless connection. It may not have been all that secure, but if someone is passing electromagnetic radiation through my home without my consent, I consider it my prerogative to tap into said radiation and establish a data stream.

2. Laurie has a cell phone. Apparently, the years of experience that the human race has had in successfully traveling distances of as many as 60 miles without the need for constant emergency communication options have not registered with the army of folks who were advising her not to make her twice-weekly treks to EL without being so equipped.

...but this puzzles me. It's a list of the three stars from last nights Red Wings-Coyotes showdown in Arizona. The #1 star is Nick Lidstrom; the #2 is Pavel Datsyuk. Both reasonable choices.

At #3, we find...Ilya Bryzgalov. The losing goalie. Who gave up 6 goals in regulation.

The article linked seems to find it impressive that he faced 50 Detroit shots last night, which is certainly an exceptional feat--or it would be had the Wings not put six of them past him.

The only way that the losing goalie should appear among the trio of stars is if the final score is 1-0. Preferably only then if in an overtime game, and then behind the scorer of the game-winning goal and the winning goalie.

I suppose it's sad commentary for Phoenix that their best player last night was a goalie who let in 6 shots.

As the Large Hadron Collider continues to function without destroying the planet, we turn our attention to matters monetary.

So it's tax day again, and with it comes the allegedly helpful information about post offices that'll be open ridiculously late to accommodate people needing the talisman that is an April 15th postmark on their returns.

Given the volume of mail that's directed to the IRS this week, common sense would dictate that an April 16th postmark--probably even the 17th--would raise no eyebrows. Common sense, oddly, is becoming more and more uncommon these days.* Even if it wasn't, I seem to recall reading somewhere that an IRS official confirmed this. I'd like to think that Postal Service employees would object to this curious work schedule, but I kind of suspect that the workload tonight won't be all that arduous. It may also just be one of those quirky features of the job.

*--See also: paranoid X-raying of Halloween candy absent any confirmed cases of treat tampering. Also the Tea Party.

Now: I don't want to alarm anyone, but apparently there's a renegade who's wanted by the Michigan State Police in this part of the land, and he looks rather like me.

I learned this on Saturday when I got an unexpected police escort for 9/10 of a mile through Albion. I was stopped at a routine red light and noticed a state police car in the left-turn lane next to me. No big deal.

In passing through the subsequent green light and traveling downhill toward the railroad tracks, I noticed that said car (or one just like it) was following me. Odd, but not all that alarming.

Now there's a traffic light here in Albion* that's remarkably unfriendly to east-west traffic, allowing barely enough time to clear the intersection before the green light turns yellow. Since I frequently drive the streets lying northwest of said light, I have been known to make a couple of unusual-looking detours down relatively lightly-traveled side streets in order to bring myself to that intersection proceeding south. I did so.

The officer followed me through two left turns and two right turns (in the order LRLR) onto Linden Avenue--a dead-end street that certainly doesn't attract much casual traffic. Only at that point did he flash his lights at me.

I stopped, of course, but with absolutely no idea what had motivated his interest or his dogged pursuit. He asked for my identification (no registration or proof of insurance), and when satisfied that I was not the guy he was looking for--whom, he said, looks just like me--apologized for the confusion.

And documenting those sorts of things was one of the reasons that Dan & I set up this corner of the I'net in 02004. So here it is.

I don't claim that this is up there with woodchucks chucking as a timeless question, but it's one to which I now have the answer. This came up twice last Sunday.

By way of background: One of my traditional haunts in Las Vegas is the Gambler's Book Shop, a most excellent storehouse for all kinds of publications related to gambling.* I make it a point to shop there at least once per trip, and invariably come away with lots of new books. This, of course, has certain implications for my return luggage, which I've prepped for in the past by packing an empty suitcase in my full suitcase on the outward trek, to be filled (with finds both from GBS and the Gambler's General Store) for the flight back. This got a bit tricky when we were checking in for our flights and my checked bag was 13 pounds overweight. While the good people of Southwest Airlines wouldn't let me squeak by on the grounds that Laurie's bag was at least that much underweight, they did let me move approximately 13 pounds of stuff between bags, which solved the immediate problem. The rather amused agent asked what I was carrying that was so heavy. While the monster camera lens, 110 casino chips, and 252 dice didn't raise any interest, the book collection** was the source of some amusement.

Many of the books, of course, were in my expanded carry-on bag, which brings us to Part 2 of this tale. We had 35 minutes to get from gate to gate in Phoenix and of course had a good bit of ground to cover between the two gates. I was apparently laboring a bit in attempting to walk fast while laden down, which caught the attention of a motorcart driver named Jeremiah--who is now my favorite Arizonan. He offered us a ride to our new departure gate, which we were quick to accept. When he mentioned that he had noticed that I had quite a heavy bag, he then asked what I was carrying. I told him about the books.

Nonetheless, we made it to the gate in ample time---then the flight was delayed and the gate was changed, which involved an easy 2-minute walk. Every once in a while, I have days like this that almost convince me that the universe isn't out to get me.

*--Owing to my teaching obligations, most of what I buy there could reasonably be considered to be tax-deductible. This is not an insignificant bonus.

There's a wise adage about fashion trends and nostalgia that basically reads: If you were young enough to wear it the first time around, then you're too old to wear it when it comes back.

I've been applying that musically, to the recent release of the new version of "We Are The World". There's one small exception: I really didn't care for the first version of that song, and with that in mind, have been steadfastly avoiding all playings of the new edition. Mostly as a challenge to see how long I can pull that off.**

When WATW 1.0 came out, I was in college and doing a weekly shift on 3-watt radio station WXLO-AM 640. It was, in fact, the first song that WXLO ever played, on a night when I was breaking in the transmitter. Our format was "Top-19", for reasons that connect to the 2-hour shift length: 19 hits was about the right number, in and among some of the other songs we played, to fill that time--although in the course of one shift, the top two songs on the playlist (from the top 8, which were in heaviest rotation) got played twice.

So I got to play WATW twice on my first night in radio. It's a small wonder that I stuck around. There came a point later in the quarter when we dropped that song to the "recurrent" (and thus far less frequently played) list, not because its popularity had faded, but because we were tired of it. Nonetheless, it showed up on my playlist one night later in the spring, and so I introduced it with the tag "WXLO: More songs, more fun...and in general, less USA for Africa. But here it is, for all you social consciousness fans***, on 640: WXLO".

As to my reaction to the new version: As far as I'm concerned, I've done my time with that song. Thanks,. but I'll pass.

*--As of 7:05 EST tonight, Dan will be closer in time to his 90th birthday than to his actual birth. Happy birthday anyway.

**--I did the same thing in 01997 with Elton John's rerecording of Candle In The Wind, which to this day I have not heard.

***--I may have said "social consciousness freaks". I hope that I did. Somewhere I have my on-air notes from that night.

Kudos to Sports Illustrated, who steadfastly throughout this Olympics refused to list figure skating's "Champions' Gala" on the schedule of actual sports. If you checked out their calendar of events, figure skating was blank last night.

As it should have been. As pointed out in the space on 6 March 02006, this sort of exhibition proves what I and others have been claiming all along: Figure skating is not a sport.

Kudos also to CTV, who didn't televise said gala last night except in very small highlight pieces. Nay, they were showing...actual sports. (Okay, they interviewed Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper as well. Fluff, but not as fluffy as the Gala.)

Reverse kudos to...who else? NBC, for putting the Gala on their flagship channel.

The late-night Olympic coverage on the NBC family of networks was outstanding last night: Biathlon on NBC itself, and curling on CNBC. A fine festival of actual sports. Earlier in the evening though, the sound engineers at MSNBC or the Olympic broadcast center dropped the ball on the USA-Canada hockey game. The crowd was usually louder than the commentators. While I accept the idea that the fans were making more noise that you'd get for, say, Switzerland-Belarus, someone in the technical center should have been able to do something about that.

Question of the day: You're designing a long-track speed-skating arena, a venue for a sport where the events are all multiples of 500 meters. Why, then, would you put in a 400-meter long track? I refuse to believe that this is motivated by a desire to inculcate fraction sense in the skating community and its television fans--though it's an excellent way to do so. A traditional track length (perhaps having some connection to running events)? Sure, I'll buy that. Some sort of complication induced by the whole inside/outside lanes thing? Reasonable, although I submit that that could be accommodated on a 500-meter track.

In emailed news, Steve from Allen Park, MI has pointed out that snowboarding's half-pipe finds its roots in skateboarding. Thanks for the input.

*--Another day of snow, and another commute on skis. A colleague of mine has reportedly come in this morning on snowshoes.

I was catching some of the snowboarding action the other night, which really got me to wondering: Who in the world came up with the idea of the half-pipe event?

Somewhere on the I'net, I read a very apt description of the Winter Games: "Most events are just different ways of going down a mountain." True enough--but who thought that the mountain-descending experience would be enhanced by traveling down a semicircular semitunnel? There's a serious leap in reasoning there.

Half-pipe, of course, is not a sport, but there's more than just the presence of judges to thank for that. At several points during the evening, the announcers made reference to various "tricks" that the athletes were to the performing. Ergo, the next "sport vs. non-sport" rule:

As is the custom at The Markives, herewith some commentary on Olympics coverage.

1. It's been my long-standing contention that television coverage of the Parade of Nations at the opening ceremonies should be uninterrupted. While both NBC and CTV broke this rule by cutting away from time to time, they were, in general, at least decent enough to back-fill after the ad breaks with footage of the teams that entered BC Place while they were away. And by ping-ponging between the two channels, I was able to catch live coverage of all but four countries: Lebanon, San Marino, Senegal, and Serbia. Not bad.

2. Although I am heartily in favor of an animated map showing where each country is during the PoN, and I appreciate what CTV was trying to do, their map of Andorra was a little too close-up to be useful.

3. Perhaps the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili will cause NBC to think about what a "tragedy" really is before they air some of their over-produced distractions from sports in the guise of personal vignettes of carefully selected mediagenic athletes.

4. It was a big step forward for Olympic openings when the athletes were brought into the stadium before the great majority of the opening ceremonies. Good on Vancouver--and I hope that London, Sochi, and Rio de Janeiro organizers were paying close attention.

5. A suggestion for short-track speed skating: In the relay events, color-code the teams' helmets. There was a bit too much baby-blue last night to figure out who was who and where everyone was--which is part of the fun of watching short-track relays.

It's virtually guaranteed that, when heavy snow hits, some of my students** will complain about the fact the Albion College*** doesn't typically have snow days. If there's power, we're open. Unfortunately for any argument they might have had, they deliver this complaint in class, where they and I are all gathered.

This significantly invalidates the case that they're trying to make. Some of the faculty might not be able to make it in easily, but essentially all of the students live on campus. (This doesn't stop some of them from driving less than a mile to class, even in good weather, but that's not the point here.)

For my own part, I strapped on my cross-country skis this morning and skied in to work, arriving somewhat earlier than usual. There might be a lesson in that for the folks in the southern Northeast and northern Southeast who seem to be struggling with the white stuff. I parked said skis, and the accompanying poles, outside my office, which provides a fine visual reminder to all that it's not that hard to get here in the morning, provided that you live in town.

And in case anyone thought I'd forgotten, the Large Hadron Collider is up and running in Europe--and the planet is still here.

*--Yesterday was certainly an interesting Bollmanic day on Facebook, no? (There's a sentence I didn't expect ever to write.)

***--This applies to residential colleges in general, of course. One of my former employers closed down due to the weather once, but we soon found out that a prankster had called the local radio station, circumvented whatever "password" requirements they had at the time, and got them to broadcast that the college was closed.

Congratulations to Luke Baker of metropolitan Kansas City, MO, who received his BSA Second Class award last night, exactly 100 years to the day after the organization was founded. You have to admire that kind of precision in family planning.

And while that award is certainly an accomplishment worthy of celebration, what's more amazing is that when his mom, the irrepressible Michelle Davis Baker, called me to tell me the news and to have me congratulate Luke, the entire conversation with her was over in 10 minutes.

Believe it or don't--I mean, Michelle is known to talk longer when she dials a wrong number--but I have a witness.

In what I make out to be a blatant attempt to boost newsstand sales, the folks at USA Today (slogan: "America's High School Newspaper") have banished Dan's quote on the current weather craziness in Washington, DC from the online version of the paper.

Thanks to Eric, it's now online here. Enjoy. (Click on the image for the Dan-free online version.)

This entry comes prefixed with my standard disclaimer: there is no less socially redeeming profession that gets more honors than acting.* (Opinion extracted from here, an article from 02001 that makes some excellent points.)

1. Grammy aftermath: If one artist can pull in as many as 6 awards in one year (which is by no means the record), that should suggest to someone in control that there are too many categories.

2. Oscar speculation: What I'd really like to see tomorrow when the Academy Awards nominations are released is Avatar missing out on "Best Picture" but receiving a nomination for "Best Animated Feature". I have yet to see a coherent argument why it shouldn't be considered in the latter category.

Of course, one new development this year will be the game of "Which 5 movies wouldn't have been nominated for Best Picture if the Academy was still sticking with 5 nominees?". Could be fun to watch--not that that makes it matter. It would be great fun (to me, at least) if The Hangover were able to parlay its recent Best Comedy or Musical award from the Golden Globes into a nomination here--the reaction from the far-too-serious film fans would be most amusing (to me, at least).

In news unrelated to show business awards, the Large Hadron Collider is up and running in Europe--and the planet is still here.

*--John Larroquette had it right one year at the (late and unlamented) American Comedy Awards: Every profession should be eligible for its own award, and then at the end of the season, there should be an awards playoff. Someone with an Oscar goes up against, say, the winner of the "Welders of America" award. Show a clip from the actor's film, and show a few seconds of the welder slapping together a battleship. The judges decide. The welder wins--his job is really important. He then goes on and faces the award-winning dentist, and so on...until you eventually have the winner of the "Best Human Being" award.

Today's entry is entirely on sports. In the words of Allan Sherman, "Those of you who are not interested in that* may leave." You won't miss much.

1. Super Bowl thoughts: I was pleased to see the New York Jets finally lose, because there seemed to be something not-quite-right about their playoff run. Almost like the NFL had put the word out that a New York team in the Super Bowl would be a big plus for the league (which it would) and that any action that would make that happen was also good--as long as no one knew about it. There were a couple of iffy calls in the Jets-Bengals game, for example, and while the fact that the Jets' last two regular season opponents had clinched playoff berths and were resting their starters probably couldn't have been planned out at NFL HQ, it certainly didn't hurt that their two "must-win" games were effectively against their opponents' B-squads.

And as the sports world gears up for the inevitable Katrina flashback overload that will accompany the Saints' advance to the NFL finals, we note that the only current NFL city that has never played in nor hosted the Super Bowl is...Cleveland. Putting it that way makes the Lions' plight seem a bit less depressing. Since I don't see the league honchos awarding a Super Bowl to Cleveland anytime soon, that distinction may continue to be theirs for quite some time to come.

I'll be rooting for Indianapolis. Southern teams that play in domed stadiums get very little respect from me.

2. More on league offices: Speaking of Cleveland: By contrast to my statement above about the NFL, there are frequently times when I believe that the NBA has its haves and have-nots, and that some player transactions are designed to help out the haves while not even giving the illusion of fair value to the have-nots. Examples include the Pau Gasol from Memphis to the Lakers deal, Kevin Garnett's trade from Minnesota to Boston, and Shaquille O'Neal's recent move from Phoenix to Cleveland.

It must have been a surprise to Suns fans to hear how far they've fallen in the NBA hierarchy.

3. This may make things worse...: As long as I'm musing about the NBA, let me offer them credit for one thing they do well: The NBA has elevated a number of US cities to "major league" status simply by virtue of being the only game in town. San Antonio, Salt Lake City, Orlando, Portland, Sacramento, Memphis, and Oklahoma City qualify for an upgrade simply by virtue of being in the crawl on ESPN during the indoor sports months, and it's entirely because of their NBA teams.

I think there's some merit in running with that idea. So in the next round of NBA expansion, I'm advocating for six new teams--one per division--with all but one to be in cities currently lacking a major league sports presence.

Northwest Division: Here's the exception. Replace the Seattle SuperSonics with a new team. The old team seems to be settling in nicely in Oklahoma City, so we can count that as a net gain for this scheme. Backup choice? Anchorage, if they can upgrade their arena.

Pacific Division: Las Vegas. Of the four major leagues, the NBA seems least concerned about the whole gambling issue.

Southwest Division: Albuquerque--preferably under the name and colors of the D-League's Albuquerque Thunderbirds, about whom I'm written before.

Southeast Division: Louisville--they narrowly lost out to Memphis in the chase for the relocating Vancouver Grizzlies, and have the name "Louisville Colonels" on the shelf and ready to go.

Central Division: Grand Rapids. GR was #7 in an old list of candidate cities for new major league teams. If the unlikely happens and the Detroit Pistons are sold and moved to Pittsburgh or Kansas City, this looks even better.

Atlantic Division: This one's trickier. Two obvious choices in that part of North America are Hartford and Providence--but both are so firmly in Boston Celtics country that I don't see an expansion team in either of those cities succeeding. Norfolk might be a possibility, but the state of Virginia is pretty solidly in Southeast Division territory. If the league is serious about European expansion, here's an opportunity: Put a team in London, and let's see what happens.

In non-sports news, the Large Hadron Collider is up and running in Europe--and the planet is still here.

So today there's a lot of chatter in the e-world about the one-year anniversary of President Obama's inauguration and what the year since then has meant.

I prefer to take a slightly longer view, to wit: It's been nine years since we had any real leadership in this country.

Not that President Clinton wasn't without flaws, of course, but because the nine years since he left office--all but 19 days of the millennium so far--have been a textbook example of what former comedian Dennis Miller called "the fascism of absolute freedom", where "everybody has an opinion, and everybody's completely unbending on that opinion".

It was funny when he was a liberal and said that (in the late 01980's, on The Off-White Album). It's less funny now. The fact that Miller is now a conservative is only relevant as a diversion--the fact is that the "giant sucking sound" quip for which Ross Perot is remembered now seems to me to refer to the vacuum of leadership in America these days.

The fallout from yesterday's Senate election in Massachusetts merely underscores my feeling on all of this. If the Democrats in DC were really leading, they would today be looking for the proverbial bus under which to throw Joe Lieberman (I*-CT). But to be honest, if they'd really been leading throughout 02009, something meaningful might have been accomplished on--well, pick your favorite from among their agenda items. Instead, we get the morass that passes for government these days--and while it may be rightly argued that we get what we deserve, I can't help but think that a random draft of citizens to legislative service would produce better results than we have now.

A year ago, in this space, I commented that President Obama could get to work on "disappointing those on the far left wing who have held him up as the Messiah for over a year now". I'm pretty sure that's happened, and, despite all of my incorrect predictions over the years on The Markives**, I'm not happy that this one has panned out. While I'm not usually a fan of the far left, trending generally toward the moderate side of the left wing***, I agree with more of their disappointment than I disagree with. I don't share it, in part because I expected this, but I stand with them more often than not these days.

In other news, the Large Hadron Collider is up and running in Europe--and the planet is still here.

**--And a bunch that I've kept off this site. Trust me, my record as a prognosticator would look a lot more feeble if those were released.

Some leftover commentary from 02009, this: I recently heard two things on the radio that just don't work in that medium:

1. Ventriloquists performing. A lot of Jeff Dunham's act is visual. A lot of radio isn't.

2. The much-derided Yule log holiday special. I cannot stretch my mind far enough to determine what's gained by listening to a fire. On some level, though it's not for me, I can appreciate the appeal of televised fire, but this one escapes me. It may well have just been a promotional thing, but I was not impressed.

Also on this list, from much earlier in my life: Tug-of-wars. I listened to one once while teaching at Hope (where The Pull is an annual campus tradition), more for the novelty of it all than out of any serious interest in rope sports.

In other news, the Large Hadron Collider is up and running in Europe--and the planet is still here.

In other other news, one of the things I only learned about after moving out of metro Detroit was the notion of a "two-hour delay" that affected schools in bad weather. Amusing, and reasonable, but not exactly vital to my current line of work, or one would think. Well, Albion has just (4:07 PM EST) declared a two-hour delay for tomorrow, and this is eleven days before classes start. Odd. While their concern for their employees' safety is commendable, this strikes me as a bit of overreaction. Not unlike the announcement from the National Weather Service yesterday afternoon that Calhoun County was under a winter weather advisory from yesterday afternoon until 4 AM Friday.

Given the weak status that "advisory" carries with it, this was pretty meaningless. It's January in Michigan--we expect (or should expect) "winter weather" all of the time.

The opinions expressed in this page/section are strictly those of the page's author. The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by Albion College.