Plenty of Weirdos

Yesterday night Maureen and I had dinner with a couple friends in downtown Detroit yesterday. Every trip downtown is an experience in its own right. and while nothing particularly exciting happened during yesterday's voyage aside from some nice dinner conversation, I was reminded of the kind of city that Detroit can occasionally be. In particular, Detroit can have that elusive characteristic that the biggest and best cities have - the ability to attract weirdos. Every big city has them, some more than others, but weirdos are the lifeblood of an interesting place.

The weirdos this weekend are being again pulled like moths to the flame downtown because of the Movement Electronic Music Festival (formerly Detroit Electronic Music Festival or DEMF). I've tried but do not understand the allure of electronic music to some normal people and weirdos. Repetitive things (snoring, dripping, dogs barking, that song "If We Ever Meet Again" by Timbaland, etc.) bore into my skull until I inevitably attempt to seek out the source of the repetition and destroy it. To me (and my myopic point of view), electronic music is the pure, filtered embodiment of repetitiveness with the primary intent of slowly evolving one's insanity. But people love it so who am I to judge.

Despite my opinion, the Movement Festival brings people to downtown Detroit who would never, ever find themselves in the city, and that is fantastic. Friday afternoon I was in the lobby of the Guardian Building and there were people who were definitely not speaking English taking pictures of the ornate lobby. I bet you one million billion dollars those people were in Detroit for the music festival. Yesterday at dinner, weirdos who were also not speaking English were walking through the lobby of the Book Cadillac wearing towels and others wearing freaky Euro outfits and I bet you one million billion dollars those people were also in Detroit for the music festival.

It is a culture and music that I don't understand with artists who have names that sound like a word you know but spelled differently than that word you know, but I will embrace it for making Memorial Day Weekend in Detroit a truly international event. As long as you don't try any of your freaky stuff directly on me, weirdos, welcome to Michigan and Detroit.

Why Wouldn't You?

It seems likely that people will have funnier jokes about this tomorrow, but Maureen and I were watching the results show of American Idol tonight (slightly odd as I haven't watched most of the last several weeks of the show per my typical AI pattern) and Crystal Bowersox was performing You Oughta Know alongside Alanis Morissette. That song has some naughty parts, so I was very much wondering what they were going to do on a show as family friendly as Idol without ruining the song. There is one part in particular of the song that most everyone has to know and they were getting closer, and closer, and closer and then...

"Will she go down with you to the theater"

I could not help but boisterously laugh. That has to be one of the greatest song alterations of all time. It pretty much completely changes the meaning of a key point of the song to something that doesn't make any sense. What kind of girlfriend wouldn't go down to the theater with her boyfriend? A terrible girlfriend, that's who. I don't know what kind of idiot guy would leave a girl who did the original thing in the song for a girl who wouldn't even go to the theater with him. That guy deserves a life of unhappiness for such a terrible decision. Terrible, terrible decision.

On a completely unrelated note, the sandwich shop Potbelly's may have lost me as a customer forever. Today I ordered the larger size of their signature "A Wreck" sandwich (technically called a "Big 'A Wreck'" which sounds kind of funny when you say it like that). When it got to the part where you tell them what you want on your sandwich, the girl said "do you want hot peppers". I said "definitely no hot peppers". She said "do you want mayo", I said "definitely no mayo".

"Mustard?"
"Yes, mustard please and everything else except mayo and hot peppers."
"OK so everything but hot peppers and mayo."
"You got it, thanks."

I ran to my car to eat the sandwich while driving between meetings, and took a bite. Holy crap that sandwich had some spicy mustard. I kept eating because with such a clear and concise communication with the worker, surely the mustard was the only thing that could be spicy on the sub. After several more bites, I was pretty sure that no mustard on earth was as hot as my mouth felt. I investigated further and was heartbroken to find not just some hot peppers, but a whole layer of mouth-burning goodness distributed throughout the bread. I tried to pick off the peppers while driving, but I'll tell you picking things like hot peppers and olives out of sandwiches is never easy, particularly while driving. Even if you do get most of them out (impossible), the pepper oil is all over the innards and your fingers and everything just tastes hot. I considered calling Potbelly's to explain my disappointment, but that wouldn't have served anyone any good. Because I appreciate food and I didn't want to feel like I wasted $5.50, I ate the whole terrible sandwich with my eyes watering, angry and sad that Potbelly's had put me in such a catch 22.

The thing is, if you're going to put hot peppers all over my food, you should probably just fill out the rest of the bread with cat food or vomit (whichever is cheaper), because it will make absolutely no difference to me. They should offer a "hot pepper plus miscellaneous filler" sub because I can't imagine that anyone can distinguish among the other meats, cheeses, or vegetables that may be between the bread. Sawdust? If there are hot peppers, it makes no difference to me. This is partly because of my pansy-like palate, but also partly because I thoroughly enjoy tasting my food. Call me crazy, but that's just the way it should be.

28 and Counting

8 more minutes left in my 28th birthday. Does anyone else find it weird that a 28th birthday actually marks the end of one's 28th year and the beginning of the 29th? It feels like being cheated out of a year. I propose the world goes through a temporary, though immensely painful, rescaling issue where we all acknowledge that we are one year older than currently and move forward with our lives. When you pop out of your momma, it should be your first birthday, not your zero-eth birthday. That just makes no sense. It may be no fun to think of yourself as one year older, but nothing has really changed. You're still the same person who is the same age as before the shift, just with more accuracy.

Now that this bit of semantics is out of the way, it's time for me to step back and look back at the last 28 years of life. Years 0-3 (now officially 1-4) are pretty much a blank, but aside from these 3 years, today I came up with one pretty big conclusion. I complain a lot. For those who know me, this self-assessment is probably not much of a surprise. What is more interesting to me is not so much the fact that I have always been a whiny little girl, but rather that almost all of the complaining has really had one underlying symptom, and I wonder if this is true for others as well: life is pretty great.

The last several extremely busy months and corresponding anxiety have really solidified my feelings about this; we're remodeling a house, professional work is high gear, I have no time to run or otherwise exercise or see friends, my brother and sister are farther away than I would like, we're going to have to move all of our stuff again in a few weeks, and a few more, Michigan remains economically stagnant, etc. All of these things are annoying or somehow stressful, but what is way more interesting to me is when I actually think about the root causes of each of these issues.

1) Maureen and I are lucky enough to afford a house
2) Having a job is never a bad thing
3) I can't run, but if I was unhealthy, I wouldn't ever have the opportunity to run
4) There are some people who haven't yet rejected me as a human being
5) I love my siblings and being away from them isn't how I'd like things to be
6) Michigan is important to me because it is a truly wonderful place
7) and so on.....

I've actually never had this realization before, and it's kind of weird. There are a few major complaints that definitely don't fit this pattern - one that immediately springs to mind is unemployment. There is typically nothing happy underlying unemployment frustration except for maybe additional free time to enjoy 20 seasons of Law & Order. Another of these examples is health issues (though you could argue that sadness regarding health issues is a reflection on how good things can be without them or the basic value of life). I guess the more I think about it, there are some legitimate complaints that are generally more thrust upon an individual, and I don't want to dismiss these or insult people experiencing true hardship.

I think my primary point and self-realization is that I'm finally old enough to start to understand the difference between petty, often self-inflicted annoyances and frustrations, and real, painful issues. It only took 28 years. The key for me moving forward is to do a better job to differentiate between the two, and to do a better job to avoid complaining when these complaints are really just a reflection of how good things really are or can be.

In the West

As is periodically the case throughout the year, I'm in California right now. I've been here since yesterday and will be here through part of Friday. It's not particularly exciting to visit - the days are pretty filled with meetings but I do get the chance to visit my brother while out here. That's not half bad.

The only bad thing about the travel is that the schedule sometimes robs you of quality me time. I understand your sadness. It's how I feel when I'm asleep and I don't get to consciously enjoy my own thoughts.

So anyway I'll be back home pretty soon and can turn my attention to the subject that is the focus of much of our attention these days: the upcoming release of the next Shrek movie - Shrek 4, Why Does This Movie Exist?

The Sounds of Michigan Summer

It's that wonderful time of year again where the grass is just about ready for the Slip 'N Slide, the trees are looking healthy enough for climbing, and the sun doesn't set until 8:30 or later. All of these factors, and others, combine for an insane quantity of children playing the weekend and weekday nights away with all the other children of the neighborhoods. The sounds of this playful spirit drift high among the roofs branches and across the neighborhoods, leading every adult to wistfully wonder - "Why the hell does it sound like the children are being murdered or otherwise brutalized?"

Maybe it's the fact that Maureen and I now "live" (in quotes because the entirety of our time there is still spent cleaning and painting) in a 'hood that is stuffed full of children who seem to have a good time together, maybe it's that I'm slowly becoming a crotchety old man, but I can not believe the sounds emanating from the local kids having "fun" together. The sounds the young boys make are the sounds I would make if both of my arms were ripped off, and the sounds the young girls make are like the arms that were ripped off the boys are being used to beat the girls. It's insane. I really have no idea why their parents aren't like "hey, kids, would you mind not sounding like you're being killed every time that you play with each other?"

For this point I'm looking for a little knowledge from the older generation that have had the pleasure to watch multiple sets of children grow into adulthood - has this always been the case? I remember making lots of noise when I was younger (and, yes, I still make a lot of noise today), but I have no recollection of any sounds coming from me or my male or female friends containing so many elements of sheer horror and pain. It might certainly be that I'm not remembering correctly, but I have the feeling that this trend is growing progressively bothersome and weird.

Even Facebook

I refuse at this time to have a Twitter account, and this would really work better as a Tweet:

How cool is it that my captcha for a Facebook entry tonight was "emulate Ken". Seriously. Taking over the world, bitches.

Not Like This, not like this

This year, I've been a little on Law & Order's case. Sure, parts of the show were annoying at times, but what in life isn't? Just talking to people who I consider friends is annoying, so even enjoyable TV will have extended moments of imperfection (except for Modern Family thus far in the season. Even the iPad episode was funny if you can get over the iPad thing. Modern Family is the best sitcom since Arrested Development, and if you're not watching it now, I DO NOT want you to tell me how good it is 5 years from now after watching it on Blu-Ray or DVD). Despite some of these problems, L&O remains one of the best 42 minute segments of my week, if not for any other reason than the familiarity of 20 seasons worth of episodes.

I guess I again underestimated the power of my words and my website, since reports today assert that NBC has canceled my show, my old friend. It's too soon to say if the show is really dead in the ground because it may be moved to cable or some other random mid-season pickup, but we must curb our optimism and probably begin the long mourning process.

What sucks the most about this is everything about NBC. I picture the executives at NBC as a room full of literal giant turds wearing spectacles and ties (but no shirts or pants, just glasses and ties). Can you imagine a worse run network? Probably not if you have the same image of turds in glasses and ties. Thursday night makes for some good NBC comedy, but everything else on the network aspires to and dreams of one day achieving turd-dom.

The lesson from all of this is that I need to be careful. If I'm unhappy about anything, I must temper my emotions lest I speak out, and because of this, lose other things that are valuable to me.

Chong Chong.

Update: who knows?

Why Ernie Harwell Was Magic To Me

As everyone in Michigan who appreciates summer and is older than 10 knows, Ernie Harwell died. The tributes are everywhere and in all forms of media, and they're great.

I don't have too much to add to all these remembrances, except for that the voice of Ernie Harwell defined the happiest non-family parts of growing up in Michigan for me. I was the standard little boy who loved baseball. As a little boy who loved baseball and also had a reasonable bedtime, normal operating procedure wouldn't allow me to be up for the latter part of my Tigers' baseball games. I had a blue Realistic transistor radio about the size of a deck of cards that I would put under my pillow over the summer to listen to the games until I fell asleep. For the most part, my parents knew that I was breaking the rules, but for reasons of love, they let me get away with this small rule break and listen to Ernie Harwell and the Tigers.

This story isn't all that unique, or remotely funny, or insightful, but just thinking about how happy it made me to listen to Ernie Harwell recount the Tigers' game on my blue radio late on warm summer nights in my house with my family does bring tears to my eyes. Something about the thought of his voice wraps me back up in the warm humidity of an un-air conditioned home, loving every second of summer break and the thought of the Slip 'N Slide tomorrow. It really was perfect, and the memory of this joy will stick with me forever. I've heard it a million times but never really FELT it myself until now - "thanks for the memories."

Riddle-iculous

Ha! my first pun-based title. I think. This is a significant milestone, and it only took almost three years for me to come up with a pun. Holy crap has it really been almost three years? Holy crap. Who knew when this all started, readership would skyrocket from 10 readers/day to 10 readers/day. That is the kind of growth Wall Street can get behind.

Sam Riddle is a former "political consultant" and buddy of crazy woman Monica Conyers. He's in trouble for all kinds of things right now including federal bribery charges, but before he gets in more trouble for that, today he was convicted of felonious assault and possession of a firearm during a felony. If you agree that "I was drunk" is a reasonable defense, then you should be outraged by this conviction. In fact, there's a decent chance that Sam Riddle is drunk and waving a shotgun around in front of your house right now.

This part of the story is pretty cut and dry, but Fox 2 news did their usual fantastic professional news casting tonight. Fox 2 and their quality news are personified by Deena Centofanti on Fox 2 Saturday morning news. Most of the time I'm pretty sure she's drunk or, at least, is partially illiterate (as a humorous aside, it took me like 3 minutes to come up with the word illiterate). Anyway back to Fox 2"news", Sam Riddle was talking drunkenly about something after the verdict and Fox 2 had as the tag line under him "Sam Riddle: Convicted Felon". That is great, because it's both informational and true. This is why under Deena Centofanti on Saturday mornings they should write "Deena Centofanti: Drunken Illiterate". If you can't be described by two words, you need an image consultant.

Was it Encyclopedia Brown who solved mysteries with his photographic memory? I think he was the kid who would look at things and say "click" and then he would have a perfect memory of that instant. I've been trying to get this to work for the last 20 years, still with nothing approach success. I would have loved to stick the image of "Sam Riddle: Convicted Felon" in my mind in a perfect photographic way, and then I could work on inventing the technology to take this memory and transfer it to the computer for your appreciation.

"And They're Probably Having Sex Right Now"

The title of this post has nothing to do with the actual post. I'm more than a week behind on Days of Our Lives right now because I'm currently without any time to do anything (you know the schedule is filled when Days starts slipping down the priority list). During the episode I watched during my workout today, there was this scene where Chloe thought her fiancee Daniel was at a no-tell motel with another woman named Carly (they weren't together) and she was expressing her discontent to this guy Philip and she said "...And They're Probably Having Sex Right Now." At the time, I thought this was the best line I had ever heard on television, but I wanted to make sure that after reflecting on it a little more, it was still an excellent line. It has passed the test of time and seemed at least worthy of a blog call out. Keep up the good dialogue work, writers.

The other title I was considering for this post was "Yeah, Because of ME" but I liked the sex one more. However, the losing title would have been far more pertinent to the actual subject matter. This morning The Detroit News had an article about people who are, for personal/emotional reasons, returning to Michigan to launch entrepreneurial careers. It's kind of a feel good article (at least as good a feel good article as one can currently write about entrepreneurship/employment in Michigan), but there are some pretty good points in there. To my eyes, chief among the points is the subtle and intelligent way the author weaves in my direct influence on all of the individuals mentioned in the article without actually mentioning my website or any of the people having heard about it. That is great work.

Some of the main points in the piece are those echoed by various people championing the eventual triumphant return of Michigan - low house prices, vacant commercial real estate, a big pool of unemployed (low-priced) workers, and those who have lived here in the past generally knowing that it's a pretty kick ass place to be. On top of that, launching a business is hard work and it helps to have a stable support system of friends and family around. Just because these aren't originally sentiments, it doesn't make them any less true. At this point I know a whole bunch of people who are from Michigan and are employed in other parts of the country, but would relish the eventual opportunity to return to the greatest state of all (North Dakota, but they would only be driving through North Dakota on the way to the second best state of all - Michigan). It might just be me (probably), but some days it really seems like this whole "let's give Michigan another chance" thing is really starting to find some roots. As the singular and most influential leader of the anti brain-drain movement, you're welcome people of Michigan. It will take awhile, but we'll get there.

Bummer of the Week

The bummer of the week this week is most definitely not that YouTube video I posted a couple days ago of that girl trying the high jump. It's one of those things where every time I watch it, I have a reaction that includes laughing. Maureen accused me of laughing so hard about it with my family the other night that I peed in my pants a little bit. I vigorously deny peeing in my pants while laughing about that video, so that is also not the bummer of the week. If I did pee in my pants from laughing too hard, this would have easily been elevated to the bummer of the week.

No, the bummer of the week comes out of the downtown Detroit restaurant scene. Over the past several years, restaurateur Frank Taylor has been developing and running a series of relatively swanky restaurants downtown. These restaurants were a part of his Southern Hospitality mini-empire, and included some pretty prominent locations. Among these locations - Seldom Blues in the RenCen (formerly the Freep's restaurant of the year), Sweet Georgia Brown, The Detroit Breakfast House and Grill, The Detroit Fish Market, Magnolia, and maybe another one or two that I can't remember. Most of these places were some variation of downtown Detroit fine dining, with either a unique concept or upscale service, location, and/or food. As each of these restaurants opened through the years, I thought to myself "who is this Frank Taylor guy, and why is he so cool opening so many nice restaurants in downtown Detroit?" Each of the restaurants was greeted by pretty strong reviews and was considered "the place to be seen" when they opened (particularly Sweet Georgia Brown in Greektown). At one point or another I tried to make it a point to get downtown and go dine at these establishments to enjoy a nice evening, but more importantly, to support the downtown dining scene. With each new place under Frank Taylor's umbrella opened, I had a growing admiration in my heart for the guy as it seemed like he was legitimately trying to raise the level of dining options in downtown Detroit through good food and a little style. The restaurants were not cheap and at least some were probably overpriced (Seldom Blues in the RenCen, for example, was pretty expensive, but the view could not be beat and the live music was unique touch for Detroit), but sometimes you're willing to overpay for the city experience.

Earlier this week, I was quite saddened to read about the likely demise of the entire restaurant empire. Without knowing who is right or any of the details beyond what is reported in the news, Frank Taylor and Co. seem to be in the process of being sued out of existence. The specific claim is that revenues from The Detroit Fish Market are being funneled to his other property's to pay the bills. Because of this, the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. is claiming that he owes them money because the rent he owes them is based on his revenue at this establishment. Essentially, he's accused of playing the shell game with his cash to keep his expenses artificially low.

The downfall has been slow but consistent. A few years ago Sweet Georgia Brown went through some financial and legal difficulties and declared bankruptcy. Last year, Seldom Blues declared bankruptcy and shut down. This year, the wheels appear to have come off and complete game over can't be that far away. This is sad for a couple reasons, but the real reason for the failure isn't completely clear. Was there some fishy business going on here? We'll probably never have definitive evidence. If there was, well then it's less sad - somebody didn't follow the rules and got in trouble. Either way, it'll go down in the books as more proof that downtown Detroit isn't friendly for business and, especially, fine dining restaurants. That is a shame, and as usual Detroit comes out looking bad.

I guess all that anyone can do or recommend is to support your Detroit (or otherwise local) businesses. Consider heading downtown, and if you don't feel too safe doing that, consider lingering before or after a sporting event or concert when there are way more people down that way. Otherwise, there will always be a bummer of the week.

You Suck at Soccer

Oh this is great. I try not to use this website as a clearinghouse for various pieces of garbage that float around the internet, but something about the simplicity and cuteness of this made me smile even after a few re-watches. I was directed to this video from an inappropriate website to an appropriate website, which made the cuteness of it even more surprising and funny. Maureen is a big fan of failblog.org, so this video is also in the spirit of "things my wife likes." Enjoy. or don't - what do I care.



Update: Well, now I'm just in a goofy mood. I saw the above video before I saw the below video, and the below clip made me laugh again and again and again. There are more of these, but this is probably enough for now.

Fans

As I sit here and watch my first hockey game of the season (I like the intensity of playoff hockey but don't particularly love the game in the regular season) and flip back and forth to the Tigers' game, the thing that stands out the most is the fans. The Wings are playing in Phoenix and the Tigers are playing in Texas, and yet despite the fact that both locations are more than a days' drive from Michigan, there is a considerable contingent of Detroit fans at both venues. At the hockey game in particular, there seems to be almost as many Wings fans as Coyotes fans. Over the past few years (based on general assessment of television audio), this has been a growing and increasingly noticeable trend.

On the one hand it's pretty cool that there are so many Detroit sports fans around this fine country of ours. There are only a few truly great sports towns out there, and Detroit is one of those places that is generally acknowledged as one such great sport town. It is weird to hear as many cheers as boos when the Wings score in a foreign city, or the standard "Let's Go Tigers" chant in Baltimore. Unarguably we love our teams, and often the place (or the memory of the place) those teams represent.

On the other hand, it is also a bummer that there are so many Detroit fans out there. They're not fans because even though they were born in Seattle, they just really liked Jack Morris or thought that Vinnie Johnson had the best nickname in sports. This may be the case in some rare instances, but it's almost certainly more a matter of Michigan ex-patriots who have either chosen or been forced to leave. For those who chose to leave and never looked back, does it feel weird to go to the Tigers, Wings, or Pistons (Lions are excluded from this list until they manage a 4 win season) when they swing into town and cheer your heart out for your"home" team? Does it make you want to consider trying to get back home? Many people have little choice when they're forced to leave for work or other considerations, but I hope that when they do go to a game wearing their Michigan State t-shirts, it makes them at least briefly consider trying to find a way back to the Great Lakes State. You can always go home, and when you do, you can watch your favored Detroit team year-round.

Working On It

As far as shortcomings go, I am not in short supply. I am so rich in this area of my life, it is surprising that anyone would be willing to spend any time with me. Of all these shortcomings, the one that probably troubles me the most is my inflexibility. It is bothersome because it is a totally self-induced and unnecessary neurosis. I make plans, I follow those plans, and if events deviate from those plans, I get pretty broken up about it. This inflexibility takes many forms, including obsession with timeliness (mine and others), emphasis on routine, and aversion to change. It's nowhere near an actual disease like OCD, but that makes this area of life even more frustrating because I should have the ability to loosen up a little bit.

Over the past few weeks, some pretty major things have gone not according to plan. However, yesterday I was feeling pretty good about myself, because with some of these unexpected occurrences and changes, I was bending and flexing with relative ease and taking the events of life as they came. It felt like a major milestone and possibly a turning point in me sucking less in this one area. For example, despite the flooding issue we had on Saturday and subsequent annoyances, I'm not all that put off that my normal life routine is severely interrupted. Here are a couple of photos of our place that reflect some of these subsequent annoyances.


You may be thinking "Hey, there shouldn't be a million holes in your drywall" or "why are the washer and dryer perpendicular to each other sitting in the living room with a closet door on them?" and those are good questions. Another good question is "Does it really need to be 87 degrees in the condo to assist with drying out the flooded areas?" I guess this is the way it needs to be, because this is what the professionals say. It's imperfect, but these things happen in life.

Yesterday I was feeling proud of embracing flexibility and not being frustrated by the littlest things, but today I was reminded by some greater power to not get too proud of some version of personal "progress" - there's still a lot of work to do. Here's the story:

My car is a pretty good workhorse. The only thing that absolutely sucks about it is that the tires are incapable of holding air for an extended period of time. It must have something to do with poor construction of the rims, or a poor rim/tire interface design. Regardless, I have to refill the tires all the time. One downside to this is that sometime the tires get so low, the 50 cents paid at a gas station will actually not provide enough air to fill up all (or sometimes even one or two) of the tires, and it is difficult to get an accurate pressure reading from the tire gauge, so I'm left either feeling cheated of air or uncertain of the tire air pressure correctness. For these reasons, today I decided to take my car in to the mechanic to fill up the tires (and replace a missing tire cap), and while there (because a tire fill up is not reason enough to go to the mechanic) change my oil and take a look at an alignment problem. I emphasized "please fill up the tires, give me a new tire cap, and change the oil."

They changed my oil and when they took a look at the alignment, they said I had a big problem with my control arm, and this should be immediately replaced. I have no idea what a control arm does or why it exists, but I'm pretty sure this wasn't a scam because a mechanic told me a few months ago he saw a budding problem with the control arm and it would need to be fixed at some point in the near future. Today was the near future. I told them to go ahead and make the fix and then to complete the alignment. Three hours later, the car was ready to go, so I paid my $550 and took off to do some painting in Northville.

When I got out of the car in Northville, I noticed that the tire with the missing cap was...still missing the cap. Slightly bummed out, I checked the tire pressure and it came in well below where it should be. I called the mechanic to ask if they filled the tires and I was getting a bum reading, or maybe there was some other problem going on. Somewhat apologetic, he said they must have forgotten to fill up the tires and give me a new cap. Of course, the whole car process started because I wanted about $2 worth of air, a new tire cap, and the assurance that the tires were filled to the right pressure, and it ended with none of those things and approximately $600 in unexpected repairs.

Maybe one day when I do finally get to the point of fully accepting life's flaws and unexpected events, the little negative things like not getting tires filled with air will pass by with nary a negative thought, but for today, I'm pissed.

If Only We Had a ShamWow

*Line courtesy of my lovely, smart, and funny wife.

Frustratingly, things don't always go as you hope and plan. Today, we had a wonderful day with my sister, brother-in-law, nephew, and parents before my sister's family head back to Minnesota tomorrow. We got to eat some lasagna, see Louis dance, and do all of the lovely things that make a day with family enjoyable. Maureen and I parted ways with them at around 9pm and made our way back to Livonia. We'd spend the next three hours watching TV (reveling in the end of day that included no refurbishment work on our house by plan) and then probably gently fall asleep on the big couch in front of the TV.

I parked the car, opened the garage, and walked toward the door into the condo. I was greeted by a (not very) gentle high pitched scream as soon as I opened the door and instantly started to freak out. What the hell was going on? The carpet area immediately around the basement house door was wet - very wet - and the ceiling around the fire sprinkler system in that area was also fairly soaked. First thought was that we must have had a fire in the house, and the fire extinguishing system kicked on to keep the whole place from burning down. I couldn't smell any smoke, so I ran upstairs to try to figure out what was going on before Maureen came inside. Every smoke detector in the house was also screaming, but there was no fire, sign of fire, or any visible water anywhere else in the house. We had no idea how to get the system to stop making noise, so we called the fire department (via 911) to come and help us work through whatever was going on in the condo. Before they arrived, Maureen (being far more everything-inclined than me) identified that the water heater had sprung a leak, and this had either tripped a water sensor or had some other adverse affect on the intertwined house alarm system and everything went haywire.

When the fire people showed up (why do they absolutely HAVE TO send an ambulance and fire truck when you clearly indicate on the phone that everything is cool and you just need assistance turning off an alarm) we showed them to the problem, and they did some electricity magic stuff to make the noise craziness stop. They took a little information, and we spent the next hour or so calling our landlady, talking to her insurance people, and then sopping up some of the flooded basement (no standing water, just tons of it in the carpet down there. It's not our responsibility to clean up the mess, but we'll be living here for a couple more months and we don't want the whole place to smell like mildew), and trying not to be too annoyed that the relaxing evening plans were exploded in a fiery ball of slowly dripping water.

All told, this was a fairly minor house emergency, but we'll now have to deal with the process of reconstruction on a property that isn't even ours all while we're spending all of our free time reconstructing the property that is ours. Regardless of who is at fault, I blame LandArc. Jerks.

News But Then Not

We are within 15 days of the happiest day of my life minus all the other days that were way happier for far better reasons. 15 days from now, you will not be able to smoke and eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner in any of the Michigan restaurants in which I will be eating breakfast, lunch, or dinner. If this is disappointing to you - haha you suck!

I think we're something like the 38th state to finally achieve such a ban, but this makes sense because Michigan people like to bowl, join unions, and kill deer. I'm not stereotyping, I'm just saying that most of the people who I know who like to bowl, join unions, and kill deer also have a thing for inhaling carcinogens in the form of a smoke stick. I will never know the joy of bearing my own child internally, but I have had an internal ticking clock in the form of "WHY HAVEN'T WE BANNED SMOKING YET?" We're only 15 days away.

Earlier today, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson made news when he said that he was going to sue to stop the ban. Without being a lawyer, his argument against the ban was just about the dumbest (and potentially most frustrating) thing I have ever heard. He said that because the law was passed without funding, he would not be able to pay the necessary resources to enforce this ban in Oakland County. That is [expletive deleted] crazy. When a law is passed in the state that promotes individual health and well-being, additional funding doesn't have to be allocated to support any such law. Do I have to pay separately (out of my taxes) to be defended from murder, manslaughter (they are different you know, watch Law & Order), extortion, assault, aggravated assault, dangerous drivers, jaywalking, counterfeit, and on and on? Absolutely [expletive deleted] not. That would be [expletive deleted] insane. A law is passed, and the good police people who protect the state citizens and the well-being of these citizens are then charged with enforcing this law.

After publicly declaring something so idiotic, L. Brooks Patterson said he received over 100 phone calls and emails within one hour of people kindly asking him to stop being such an idiot. Surprisingly, it worked! Patterson withdrew his lawsuit, and he will let the law come into effect. He does claim that the law will likely be largely/entirely enforced by bar and restaurant owners and their patrons so he still thinks it will be ineffective, but he better know he's [expletive deleted] right that I will shut down any smoking in my vicinity. Unless the person smoking is bigger or scarier than me.

*To enhance your pleasure of the post, every expletive deleted is the F-word (with "ing")

As Dumberer as Everer

For a period during my life, I was consumed with calorie count. I could account for every single calorie in a day excluding food that I accidentally ingested (happens more often than you would think). During this period I lost something like 50 total pounds and life was without joy and happiness. There is still some mental holdover from this time of life and I remember the calorie count of most commercially available food items. That is why I sometimes find myself at Wendy's when I'm looking for a fast and relatively healthy lunch or dinner. The Ultimate Chicken Grill meal swapping out a small chili for the french fries and a Diet Coke comes out to a total of only 560 calories (340 for the sandwich, 220 for the chili). For the health-conscious who also love fast food, this is a pretty amazing option. It feels only a little bit like you're restraining yourself from food happiness and the meal is decently filling for 560 calories.

For all these reasons, I found myself at Wendy's for lunch today. Waiting in line, a sign above the soda machine read something along the lines of "Due to the cold weather conditions in Florida, the quality and availability of tomatoes at Wendy's locations has suffered. Because of this, tomatoes will only be available UPON REQUEST." I read the sign, appreciated and understood the cause and effect, and felt bad for all those poor suckers who neglected to get tomatoes on their square hamburgers. Sandwiches are almost universally better with tomato. It's a fact of life and tomatoes.

I ordered my Ultimate Chicken Grill meal, grabbed a spoon for my chili, and sat down for sustenance. Unwrapping the foil around the sandwich, I pulled it open to add just a little salt (I said I was concerned about calories, not sodium. What are you, the salt police?). "Hey, where's my toma....oh crap." Despite having read the sign and eaten several hundred ultimate chicken grill sandwiches with tomatoes, I neglected to make the connection that my sandwich fell into the UPON REQUEST category clearly outlined by the sign. I haven't felt such indecision for weeks as I was torn between going up to the counter and asking for a rare, possibly low-quality tomato slice to manually add the tomato to my sandwich, or accept the shame and tomatolessness of my partial sandwich. In the end, I suffered through the results of my terrible thought process. Without suffering, there can be no progress.

Show Me

Jealous of my midnight Friday blogging? Probably. Wake up, work, jog, paint, eat a piece of pizza, go to bed. And so it continues.

Anyone who has taken a rudimentary class in forecasting or has ever talked to someone who has taken a rudimentary class in forecasting has heard the following statement: "The first rule of forecasting is that forecasts are always wrong." At this point in the class, some moron (probably me) says something that they truly believe to be original - "Then what's the point of this class." If I was the teacher, this is where I would say "Well, this is where the first rule of forecasting fails, because I was predicting that someone as dumb as you would be in my class this term." Yeah eat that fictional student that was probably me in fictional class that I probably took.

For the last 10 years, economists forecasting the Michigan economy and job growth have always said "this year will be bad, next year will level out, and the year after that we'll return to slow but steady job growth and economic improvement." The one exception to this was last year when economists were pretty much saying that nothing would ever be good again (until, in my humble opinion, the federal government saved our collective bacon. Thank you good people of the federal government). With all this background, then, I am both encouraged and cautious when I read another article that says that economists are predicting that job growth will return to Michigan next year. Nothing could make me happier, but there isn't much about which I could be more skeptical. Same tune, different year. If this forecast does, in fact, come true, this could be further legitimate evidence that we have come through a bottom and the future may finally be better than the past for the good people and businesses of our state.

I'm this close to throwing a scrapbooking party to celebrate. If I could have all the time back that I currently use trying to convince people that we don't suck, I could waste my time in other ways like writing more about television and working on that elusive karate brown belt. Hi-ya.

Family Commercial

I always loved my dumbphone. People could call me, I could call people, and every once in awhile I could talk to people at the same time. If someone had the gall to send me a non-plan text message I would take the next 10-20 minutes to peck my way through the 123456789 alphabet system to respond with something clever like "sounds good". If I was not at my computer, I could not receive an email from you, and I could also use that as an excuse for work - "Sorry I can't stay longer, I don't have internet access here." Friends and coworkers have had more advanced phones for years and years, always taking the time in the middle of our in-person conversations to ignore me and read an email or text message from someone else. I would continue on with what I was saying, knowing all the while that I would have to repeat whatever it was I just said when the person returned their attention to me from the phone. I'm a fairly technologically inclined person, so I'm not sure what kept me away from the smartphone. Part of it must have had something to do with being a person who enjoys gadgets and technology, yet for inexplicable reasons held on to a years-old phone with a missing battery cover. Even without the technology that everyone else seemed to enjoy so very much, I got along more than just fine.

Over the past several months, work has required me to be increasingly mobile. This mobility has required longer stays at various locations all around the southeast corner of Michigan, and at most of these locations I did not have access behind the corporate firewall. Without this access, I was going days without internet and this was actually starting to put a hamper into my productivity and usefulness.

This, and one other piece of information, finally gave me the push I needed to jump up to 2005. Last weekend, I purchased a Palm Pre Plus and added the necessary unlimited data plan. Why a Palm Pre Plus instead of an iPhone or Blackeberry, you most certainly are asking right at this very second? A few very good reasons.

First and most importantly, starting last week, Verizon starting offering free 3G tethering through the phone for up to 5 devices at a time. That is a pretty big deal. This means that if I have my phone with me, I can access the internet on my laptop pretty much anywhere in the country. I can stream internet radio, watch my Slingbox, send and receive sizable work emails, and any of the other sordid internet things about which you are currently thinking. It's free! Literally, free. The only downside is that I'm limited to 5GB a month without incurring additional fees, but 5 gigs is pretty generous for this type of internet usage. Second, I hate how many people would legally marry their iPhones if given the opportunity (maybe in Vermont), and I like to throw my support behind the down-and-out guy (see: my support and love of Michigan). Third, the operating system (webOS) is pretty phenomenal. It's not absolutely perfect, but it is possible for me to do two (and fifty) things at the same time on the phone. 2 > 1. Finally, a much beloved family member recently took a job at the fine company responsible for this software and hardware. If you can't get behind a family member, you should go and marry your iPhone in Vermont. Look out, world - I can send a text message in less than 3 minutes.

Opening Day

With only slight exaggeration, there is nothing better than your home baseball team's opening day. It is so important, it is called "Opening Day". Of all the sports popular in the United States, including cricket and backgammon, none of the professional leagues have anything resembling the magic of opening day. People get equally excited about the beginning of the season of their preferred sport, but it's just not the same. My biggest shame of the year to this point is that I actually did not realize today was the Tigers' opening day because I always had in my mind that Friday (their home opener) was their season opener, so I almost let the whole game slip by me. That would have been an unacceptable outcome and not deserving of forgiveness.

Opening Day is so important, it was the one thing for which my high school would actually excuse absence. That is huge.

The Tigers were victorious today in what will almost definitely be the first ever undefeated season in the history of modern baseball. Not only did the Tigers win, but they managed the win by slowly pushing Zack Greinke out of the game and then taking charge against the Royals' bullpen. I feel bad for the Royals, but it's hard to feel too bad because Kansas City has what I consider to be the best variety of barbecue in the country. Arthur Bryant's is there - what else needs to be said. My heaven consists of opening day and a pile of Arthur Bryant's pulled pork on a slice or two of Wonder Bread.

Opening Day marks the start of optimal Michigan weather, lazy summer weekend afternoons, and thinking about how much less stressful the new closer is than Fernando Rodney. Today marks the return of happiness and unicorns, the athleticism of Brandon Inge, and explaining to my foreign co-workers what the hell is going on in a baseball game. People who didn't grow up with the sport find it very confusing.

Welcome back, baseball. You were missed. Please don't let the Yankees win anything else.

New L&O Trend Data Point

Last week around this time, I wrote about how Law & Order is walking down a dangerous path this season. Mostly from this I learned that other people out there still watch the show and are in agreement with this concern.

This is why it is with regret that I must again formally request that L&O stop sucking so hard in the last 10 minutes of the show. This week after a whole convoluted and crazy crime plot in which no one was actually killed, Cutter again fooled the bad guy into admitting on the stand and under oath that, yes, he did it because he loves his daughter. For an instant, I thought the show was going to take it in the other direction and the baddie would successfully get away with it after standing up to the questioning. In fact, I was praying for this outcome just to deviate from the ever-establishing pattern of unthoughtful conclusions. What makes matters worse is that they had to drag Tony Hale (Buster from Arrested Development) into the whole "admit to everything" vortex of the show. Even Buster could have done a better job defending his innocence, and he was a complete nincompoop whose hand was eaten by a seal. Is this the future of Law & Order, and if it is, do I have the ability to make myself stop watching it? I'm going to monitor the situation closely and may just have to start a Facebook group about it.

A Little Crazy Goes a Long Way

Subtitle: Stop Making Us Look Like Dicks

I have a vague memory from many years ago of either my mom or dad (the memory is that vague - I can't gender distinguish) explaining to me the Michigan militia. At the time, the whole concept seemed ridiculous and I was only about 14 years old.

"Wait, people in Michigan are preparing for war against our own government and have huge stockpiles of weapons? That sounds crazy!"

14-year-old me was and is right, and it is a crying shame that so many people who are unarguably insane live and "train" in Michigan. This week, the FBI arrested and is charging nine people with plotting to kill police and "use weapons of mass destruction" - though no articles I've found indicate the specifics of these mass destruction weapons. If this whole story was just a little more over the top, it could be something right out of 24, and it is not easy to top 24. Whenever I feel the urge to stop the Antichrist embodied by the U.S. Government, I pause for a moment, remember that I'm not crazy, and move on with my life. Haven't these people ever heard of Lazer Tag? It's SO MUCH FUN! You can shoot people with lasers, check your score, and call it a day. If you want to shoot more, pay a few more dollars and go shoot some more people with lasers. It's a perfectly fun and danger-free way of shooting people.

Can anyone explain to me the relative stronghold and proliferation of the Michigan militia when compared to other states? I wouldn't think we necessarily have more crazy people than other states, but I guess it's a possibility and would explain most of it.

Unrelated to Anything

Courtesy of the aforementioned busy things going on right now, general TV watching has been way down. Despite this indescribably sad drop off in my life, I still try to make time for Days of Our Lives for an occasional workout.

I'm starting to think that I'm not in the prime expected demographic for the purposes of advertising for the show. The primary reason for this is the potty dance. What's the potty dance you ask? Thanks to the power of the internet, I would like to share the potty dance with you right now:



The potty dance is played over and over and over during the show, and Huggies must pay for the prime spot at the very beginning or end of the commercials in a somewhat feeble attempt to bust DVR watching. I guess in some ways they are succeeding toward this end because I find myself both wanting to do the potty dance and to buy diapers for someone - anyone. Unlike the embedded YouTube video, the commercial typically runs 30 seconds, whereas the full on version runs a full 2 minutes. I hope the guy who wrote and performed the potty dance made big dough for this. Huggies probably paid him was booze right upfront and demanded the final version of the potty dance in the next ten minutes.

A Disturbing L&O Trend

There isn't much better than the brilliant consistency of Law & Order. Not the sex one, not the one starring Lilith from Cheers that isn't on TV anymore, not the one with that guy from Full Metal Jacket, but the original L&O originally starring Michigan native (and graduate from my high school) Michael Moriarty. I think according to L&O lore he is actually hiking through the mountains in Nepal or something like that right now (and astute TV watchers know that he was returned to earth on the show The 4400 and was given the ability to make minor earthquakes). A few months ago I wrote about a developing personal plot line in the series regarding one of the characters (played by S. Epatha Merkerson who is ALSO a Michigan native) and her ficitional battle with cancer in the show. This still remains a troubling part of the series because the show is attempting to veer into the personal character interest side of things that they have typically glossed over in the past via occasional mention (McCoy slept with an assistant lawyer who he later married and then divorced, Detective Curtis cheated on his wife with Julia Roberts [see correction in the comments section on this point] and later his wife was diagnosed with MS , Detective Briscoe had a drug addict daughter who was killed by a drug dealer). This cancer component is still a regular component of the show and I mentally tune out when we're forced to watch Lieutenant Van Buren in the doctor's office. If I was a good blogger, I would place a link here to this original post, but I can't find the original post in my history so I'll leave it up to my rabid readership to hunt it down (which means no one will ever see it again). update: I found it

After watching the episode from this week, I've noticed an even more disturbing trend in the direction of the conclusion of the individual shows. Going back over the past 20 seasons of Law & Order, one of the tried and true approaches of the ADAs has been to trick the bad guy into saying something incriminating on the stand. Sometimes it is a subtle slip up from the defendant, sometimes it is catching the person in a lie, and every once in awhile the perpetrator gets worked up and says something stupid like "I DID IT BECAUSE HE DESERVED IT." This last occurrence is the absolute best because most of the time the defendant carefully crafted the crime, perpetrated the act, and then painstakingly concealed it, but despite this level of planning and intelligence, the New York ADA could fool the criminal into shouting out publicly on the stand in front of the jury and declaring personal guilt.

I accept that sometimes the story writers have written themselves into a corner and there is no other way to cleverly reveal the defendant's guilt, so this is just one fallback solution in the bag of guilt-identification tricks. However, this season, the show is relying far too heavily on this crutch. It's kind of painful to watch 30 minutes of police investigation, 30 minutes of law process, and then Cutter says something to the criminal like "you can't control your girlfriend" and then the criminal says "that's not true, I made my girlfriend have SEX with that one member of the jury because I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT." I love you original Law & Order and I pray that you never leave this world, but endings like this make it easy to understand why it is so easy for some people to poke fun at the predictability and weaknesses in the show. You can do better.

Government Makes no Sense

I have absolutely no understanding about how my government actually functions. I swear that I took the mandatory social studies classes in grade school and in high school I excelled at AP U.S. government. Including college courses, that was probably the most insane class I ever had. The teacher required 3-4 one page essays 4-5 days a week, every week for the duration of the class. I exaggerate not, and any of my fellow classmates can corroborate this. This class is probably the one that taught me to type better and faster than all of the instant messaging on AIM that a high school person did during the true explosion of instant messaging. This class also taught me how, above all, to generate reams of content - even if I have nothing important to say. Astute readers and dumb readers alike can probably see this trend in almost every single post.

As I type right now and watch MSNBC, there is a larger window of C-SPAN with the big heading:

"On Motion to Recommit with Instructions" - Yea 192, Nay 227

What the hell is going on? The internet tells me that this is big news because the health care bill passed, but what is recommitting with instructions and how did the Nays beat the Yeas but yet the Yeas are really the people who won? And why was Representative Bart Stupak of Michigan so instrumental in the Nays beating the Yeas but in bizarro voting world? If I want pulled pork, I don't say "no thank you on everything but pulled pork", I say "Hellz Yea, give me that pulled pork." Furthermore, how did this bill actually pass? The Senate couldn't pass something but then they did because they sent it to the House and it went through something called Reconciliation and then it has to go back to the Senate for adjustments (even though it has already passed) - but then after all that I think the American voter can vote this bill down in the next major election despite everything else. This reminds me of absolutely nothing I learned in AP U.S. Government about 10 years ago. What does this have to do with the Hamilton letters?

Other things that have bothered and deeply confused me quite recently about the government - how was one person (Senator Jim Bunning) stop a bill extending unemployment benefits when every other person voting on this bill wanted it to pass? They didn't teach that in U.S. Government either. What statutory language regarding abortion and how is it relevant to an executive order regarding abortion? I feel like the concept of Executive Order was invented 10 years ago that gives the president the right to do whatever the hell he wants (prove me wrong, she's out there) without any checks or balances from the other branches of government (I guess that's the only thing I learned from U.S. Government).

The problem with government is I don't even know how to ask a question to get an explanation for things I don't understand, because I don't have the slightest idea where to start. No one has the time to make understanding government their full time hobby, and it seems like this is the only way to figure some of this stuff out. Let's take a vote!

Busy as a Busy Person

I see my mom, dad, and Maureen almost every day these days and they're pretty much the only people who read my writings, so this whole exercise is pretty pointless. Just in case someone accidentally stumbles upon the website, I felt obligated to just make a quick mention of the fact that right now I am extraordinarily busy and I have to split my free time between my loves of catching a few moments of recorded television and writing about Michigan. Every once in awhile, I attempt to combine these things and it never really goes that well. My current weekday goes like this: Wake up, perform analysis, go to meetings, try to get in a run, paint new house, fall asleep. My weekend goes like this: Wake up, check email, paint new house, sand new house, take a work call, do some work based on the call, return to painting house, go to sleep. This won't go on forever, it just so happens that work has greatly intensified at the same time as this whole home ownership thing. Whoever told me (no one) "there is no less work than owning a home" was totally full of it. In this instance, "it" means crap. Stick with me people.

I'm Not Irish

I love joviality, but I don't much care for St. Patrick's Day. Every year it reminds me just a little bit of everyone who was cooler than me in high school through college who had something fun to do on St. Pat's evening, and I was left to wonder why I could never reach their levels of cool. Because I remain uncool, the memories still sting and I don't know if I'll ever get over my aversion to this day. I did marry a girl who is largely Irish who is far cooler than me, but she doesn't have any special love for the day so I can get away with my dislike.

However, since it is the singular day to celebrate Irishness, it seems appropriate to write about something to do with Ireland. Yesterday my brother messaged me (if you're wondering he's still in California but we'll get to see him on a visit home soon) with a link to this website to which you should go immediately. It's a battle of the Irish bands thing and the winning band gets a free trip to Ireland. This is a good opportunity for me to promote Ireland, Michigan, and to test the awesome power of my pen because you should go and vote for the band called Finvarras Wren. In the past, I've mentioned a family named the Perkins clan that makes up a pretty great Irish band based out of Michigan (also, Mr. Jim Perkins performed at our wedding and was absolutely fantastic).

Unfortunately, you have to register for the contest to try to ensure no one places multiple votes, just make sure that you uncheck the one box that would allow them to send you a newsletter at some regular time interval. Mostly because of my influence, we were able to get Brandon Inge to the All-Star game last year, so let's see if we can get the Perkins to Ireland this year. If you vote for Finvarras Wren, I can guarantee a psychotic leprechaun will not not ruin your evening tonight. No promises about tomorrow.

Mis Represent

Some things are worth nitpicking and other things are not worth this level of attention. For example, if you have nits, it is totally worth your energy to go through the picking process. One thing that to me is worth this additional energy and makes me crazy is when Michigan is subtly slighted in forms of national press. There are plenty of things that don't require subtlety, so the perceived modest digs are all the more frustrating and unnecessary.

Despite our modest recent house purchase, the national housing market did not instantly bounce back as Maureen and I anticipated once word got out that we were in market for a home. Apparently, not even my influence stretches that far. These types of reports are coming out less frequently than mid-to-late last year, but a new report came out today that indicates that mortgage delinquencies/foreclosures are at a new all-time high. The situation in housing continues to worsen, but the pace of deterioration has slowed since last year (we still live in an interesting world where things getting bad slower is a victory). As usual, the write ups on the study are innocuous and boring, but there is one part in the CNN Money article that, while minor, is offensive to the image of Michigan. This part reads:

"The worst-hit areas are the usual suspects: the boom-and-bust states of Florida, Nevada, Arizona, California, plus the economically savaged areas of Michigan and Ohio. Also up there are Mississippi, Georgia, Indiana and Illinois. But few states are escaping the problem; it's just that the worst states are so, so bad it makes the others look relatively good."

I, as a potential outsider harshly judging Michigan, would take this sentence to indicate Michigan as the 5th worst state in the country in terms of mortgage delinquencies and/or foreclosures. The vague wording "also up there are..." would lead ignorant me to believe that the immediately following list of states has its share of problems, but nothing like the "economically savaged" state of Michigan. In fact, if you look at the table corresponding to this poor analysis, every one of those "Also up there states..." has a worst delinquency/foreclosure rate than Michigan, some several percentage points worse. My frustration with consistent poor Michigan reporting like this, I believe, justifies me actually stealing the chart from CNN and including it below.

Michigan reporting like this is nothing new, but it remains my responsibility (and you if you're not a terrible person) to point out inconsistency like this to others in the nonstop image battle in attracting residents, businesses, tourists, and whatever other types of creatures (excluding Komodo Dragons) want to live here.

Where in the World...?

If you finish those ellipses points with the name "Mitt Romney", then I can tell you.

For most of today, I was at the Westin Hotel in Southfield, MI for mysterious and secretive reasons (world-famous bloggers convention). Upon returning from lunch, a red Chrysler minivan was pulled in front of the main entrance of the hotel. A handsome man stepped out of the passenger's seat and his handsomeness struck a familiar chord with me. Awkwardly, I pointed directly at him and said to the person next to me "Hey Look! It's Mitt Romney!" Smooth as silk I am.

A few hours later, there was a Fox2 news van pulled into the parking lot of the hotel, so they must have read my post before I even wrote it and tried to hunt Mitt down at the hotel because of my breaking news.

This is simply more evidence that famous people can't help but be pulled toward my natural gravitational force. I guess putting on the extra pounds since Christmas has had some benefit.

Bottoms

Calling a bottom to most anything (excluding roller coasters and limbo contests) is an extremely tough thing to do. It always seems like there is at least a little farther to fall. This is why I'm not about to call a bottom for Michigan, but rather consider the implications of what it means if we have passed our low point. Michigan continues to lead the country in unemployment, but the state notched another decrease in unemployment to 14.3% in January. That is a lot of unemployed people, but since last year when unemployment in the state was about 15%, there has been a steady decline in this painful metric for the last several months.

On top of this, the automobile industry (in terms of U.S. sales volumes) shows maintained signs of picking up (with Ford seriously picking up in volume) and the rate of decline in home prices is declining (the overall prices are also declining, but the pace is slowing. It's like at the bottom of the sledding hill when you're still going down but slower).

Michigan faces continued massive budget gaps but considering the events of the last year, this budget gap is considerably smaller than several states with better unemployment and housing numbers. Kwame Kilpatrick may actually end up in jail and spring is within reach. The Red Wings are back in the playoff hunt and there is a chance that Dontrelle Willis will land a regular spot in the Tigers' pitching rotation this year. If we have experienced the Michiganocalypse, is the future guaranteed to be bleak? Maybe, but maybe not.

It often takes years for the full effects of massive job loss and reduced tax base to hit a state and its inhabitants. Public services over time degrade and eventually cease, and simple things that are annoying but we take for granted like road repairs become more infrequent and untended. Without knowing what might happen in some future years because of the difficult past couple years, I very much look to the future with hope. This hope is primarily based on the knowledge that despite a year (starting almost a year ago today) in which everything went wrong for the state, we're still here. This is a message that I, and others, have fallen back on before, but that does not make it any less significant to me. People still go out to eat in restaurants and Best Buy is still filled with people buying things that they should be buying from Amazon. Traffic isn't half as bad as many major metropolitan areas, but the roads are anything but abandoned. Just the other day I saw the new sign for the battery manufacturer A123 systems go up on a building off of I-275, and Dow keeps plugging away in Midland creating jobs in the state. Quicken Loans, while smaller than when it was at its peak, is maintaining its commitment to move it's headquarters into the Compuware Building downtown. The city of Detroit is considering a crazy but awesome Hail Mary of shrinking the city to match the reach of city services to the actual population (I know this will likely never happen but it's never been so clearly discussed by anyone in Detroit leadership as Mayor Bing). Houses may not be selling for as much as the sellers would like, but "Sold" signs are popping up at this time of the year all over the place.

When I imagine the worst specific things that could happen to the state and people of Michigan, most of them have happened in the past 1-2 years. Things will remain tough for some time, but we're a tough group (well, most people except me. My girlish hands are all kinds of scratched and bruised from home repairs). Things can always be better, but I'm thinking that just maybe we've seen the worst. That is the kind of statement that drives my mom absolutely crazy because you're asking for trouble. Screw you, trouble. We've proven we can take you.

spring but then winter but then really spring

As has been the case since at least 1982, it is again clear that winter will break and be replaced with good things like leaves and birds and increased warmth. This is a spectacular thing and can only be legitimately appreciated by those who have have temperatures that vary by 100 degrees over the course of the year. Kids are out riding their bikes and people who haven't walked their dogs for the past 4 months are increasingly in my way on my runs. Before you know it, I'll be complaining about losing to some softball team that brought in ringers during the playoffs. Stupid ringers.

As has also been the case since at least 1982, Michigan weather is inconsistent. It gets warm, it gets cold, it gets really warm, and then it snows before it hits 75 that same week. This is obvious, and while we all talk about "how surprising it is that it's snowing in April," it's really not that surprising, it's just something to talk about with people with whom you otherwise have nothing about which to talk. This is all fine and good and part of working with people in offices, so we continue on with the farce of surprise. Plus, no one likes the guy who challenges the social norm and says things like "it snowed in April the last three years." Just go with it, that guy.

Today The Detroit News wrote up a quick article on the current warm weather. They mention that it is going to stay at or near 50 all this week, which is pretty great, but the best part of the article is the last sentence, where it says "Though spring officially arrives March 20, meteorologists warn that past years suggest it may be too early to rule out another snowfall." Is that what meteorologists warn from their years of specific training to deliver the weather to us? Geologists warn that California may be prone to earthquakes due to recently experienced earthquakes. At the very least, I'm happy to know that meteorologists are no dumber than the rest of us in using past experiences to vaguely predict the future. If it was anyone but meteorologists, I would probably call whoever it was making this prediction a bunch of idiots, but now they have legitimacy.

Every year I forget how boring the Oscars are until I try to watch them. What is it about optimism that causes me to give something so bad another shot year after year?

Vigilant of the Vigilant

Just a fair warning to the Michigan residents trying to make their way to or from work or the grocery store these days - I'm not sure what is going on but it appears as though cops are EVERYWHERE right now. Is anyone else observing the same thing over the past week (Maureen just said that she totally agrees so that's two people)? I know there are certain weeks or weekends when cops around the state perform some variation of a sting operations where they are particularly focused on speeding tickets or other moving violations so they hit the streets in force with the intent of generating as much revenue and ruining as many people's driving records and auto insurance bills as possible, and maybe this is one of those weeks. In particular, I can speak primarily to the Ann Arbor to Royal Oak stretch of freeway and side streets thereabouts, but there have been cops all over the place and lots of poor folks waiting anxiously to figure out what kind of ticket(s) they're about to be stuck with.

What really sucks about this to someone like me is that I'm not much of a speeder, but I do kind of regularly hover about the 74/75 mph range to help me to get to places a little faster. This is typically easily slow enough to keep away from speeding troubles, but when the cops are out in force like right now, they'll pull you over for just about any speed over the posted limits.

So, friends, stay vigilant and try to make it through this crackdown without any new infractions. Don't break any laws, but if you do mildly break some laws, keep your eyes open.

Something for Everyone

Revel in the development of a human who is much like a regular person, only way smaller and unable to make words and memories. One day when he's an anorexic neurosurgeon, we'll reflect back on his dexterity at 14 months, as well as his strong interest in preferring his food on the ground as opposed to his tummy. I dare you not to smile, and if you win this dare, you are a joyless person.

Dummies, We

Normally my ridicule of others is intended to throw you off the scent of my wide and deep swath of personal insecurities. It's standard grade school bully stuff, and it works even better on the internet when people a) have no idea who you are and b) don't care enough about you or even know you exist to fight back. Through a carefully crafted plan and messaging over the past approaching two years, I have undoubtedly convinced you that I have my shiz together and I am the gold source for all of your opinions about pretty much everything.

I am pained, then, to pull back the curtain on the absurdly exciting details of my life to reveal that I am as big a dummy as most of the dummies that regularly bother me.

For at least the past 3 or 4 days, maybe ranging up to a week, I have been absolutely freezing. It had all the preliminary trappings of one of the rare instances in which I get sick - I get so cold it is impossible to get warm and this transitions into a fever with the possibility of vomiting or butt vomiting. Yup, butt vomiting. The weird thing about it was that every day I was freezing, but no other symptoms were forthcoming. It was odd enough that I mentioned exactly this to Maureen when I was showering last night prior to inadvertently giving myself a nosebleed. By the way, giving yourself a nosebleed while in the shower may be the worst time to get a nosebleed. You'd think it might be optimal, but there are several reasons why it's not so great. Contact me directly for additional naked shower nosebleed information.

The solution to all this is obvious. The heat in our condo went out at some unknown point in the past (surprise, surprise). We called the repair service, some talkative guy came out tonight, and bam, not so freezing anymore.

My dummyness comes through in a few different ways in this situation. First, it took me like 2 or 3 days to check the thermostat temperature after I first realized I was freezing. At that time, there was a 7 or 8 degree variance between the temperature setting and the internal temperature. Did this strike me as odd? No. I turned up the setting and called it a day, happy to have diagnosed the disconnect, and content that the problem was solved. Second, on following days, I remained freezing but not once did I check to see if the thermostat setting and internal temperature were out of whack even though I WAS ALREADY AWARE THIS WAS A PROBLEM. Third, a tiny part of me thought that Maureen was trying to cleverly and subtly kill me by freezing me to death. I accused her of this a couple days ago. Finally and simply, at no point prior to tonight did it even enter my mind that being freezing for multiple consecutive days in the middle of winter may have anything to do with a broken furnace.

I'm going to be a fantastic homeowner.

Who Wouldn't Want Increased Mileage

Wait, millage? Hold on....

OK thanks to the internet, I now have a better understanding of why some people may confusingly be pro-mileage but anti-millage. I mean, it's almost worse than a regular tax because it's hiding a tax under a fancy word that combines machining solid materials and growing old. I'm not sure how putting milling and aging together means taxes, but that is the crazy world of 2010 in which we live. Whenever it snows more in North Carolina than Michigan for a season you know things have gone freaking bananas. B - a -n -a -n -a - s. And that, my friends, is what we call filler.

Earlier this week was one of those election days that you don't even know is going on if you don't live in a city with an election and you only watch television via a TiVo. The biggest elections seem to have been in Troy and Bloomfield Township where there were millage proposals on the ballot. Pro-millage people said that without this new tax, police would need to be cut, libraries closed, and no more free hot dogs on Fridays. Neither place currently offers free hot dog Fridays, but they could guarantee that there definitely wouldn't be free hot dogs if the millage proposals didn't pass. Anti-millage people, channeling the brilliant Glenn Beck (who Jon Stewart hilariously pointed out claimed that he learned from "free" books from libraries which are ironically paid for by the taxes that he was arguing against in the speech that he praised free library books) argued that all of life's problems can be solved by "slashing budgets", "stopping services", and "removing free hot dog Fridays."

So the big question, then, is with the defeat of the millage in Troy, what happens next? Troy city leaders said that if this measure did not pass, the police force would need to be drastically cut. Who is going to protect your new Gucci bag as you're walking out of Somerset, you ask? Not the mall cops once you're out of the mall. Unfortunately, I don't think city leaders have any option but to carry through with their threats to send the appropriate message to cities across the state - if we say there will be a consequence, there will be a consequence. It's not a punishment, just the realization of the choice specifically and clearly made by the people of the city. If A, then B. Opponents said "the city must now cut costs, hooray we win." Perhaps you do citizens, but who is going to stop me from peeing on various city buildings? I've been drinking water all night.

Slow Down

This is officially my first mention of the whole "out of control Toyota" thing going on right now. I refuse to provide a link to any specific article about this vehicular issue because if you do not know to what I refer, you are a disconnected person and there is no redeeming you. It is OK to be disconnected, but you should really take a look at your life and figure out how to get better connected to the world (hint: keep reading my blog). It's not that events, pop culture, or other current goings-on are necessarily that critical to your life, but if you are aware of almost nothing, how is anyone ever supposed to engage you in conversation at the bar or elsewhere. No one cares about whatever weird hobbies you have, they just want to talk about this week's LOST and that Vonn girl from the Olympics.

Point being, I haven't touched on this big issue that has the possibility to shake up the global automotive industry and have a long-term profound impact on Michigan. It's not that I have a problem with kicking someone when they're down. That's the best time to kick someone because you can take your biggest and best shot at that moment. It's the ideal moment to unleash all that kick training in which you've engaged over the course of your life because there is nothing to stop your leg flow except a squishy pile of human to cushion the slowdown of your foot. I've just been trying to avoid sounding like a Big 3 apologist despite my strong apologist tendencies. Without specifically addressing the issue of unstoppable Toyotas flying through the streets, there are a few things about this constantly unfolding story that are of particular note to me:

1) I will never understand why Toyota owners are so unfailingly loyal to their Toyotas. "Because they're dependable and great cars." Well, it appears as though there is some small degree of contrary evidence in the form of 8+ million vehicles that may or may not be able to stop. "But that's only one part of a car and my car has never given me a problem." With all respect to the newly associated tragedies out there, it only takes one of these kinds of problems. Yeah absolutely other manufacturers have had various safety and dependability issues through the years, but for some reason people fled from these issues and never looked back. With many Toyota owners, it very much seems like the other guys remain evil, and these owners would far rather defend their speedmobiles than consider an option they abandoned years ago. The is indefensible. That's a challenge. Defend yourself.

2) In the same vein as (1), why is it cool and praised for Toyota to throw up the "we suck, sorry" commercial all over the place on TV and when the Big 3 went that route back during bankruptcy times, people responded with "yeah you suck, and you shouldn't have spent money on that commercial."

3) I can't get off of point number 1. Sometimes I think we live in bizarro world. Here's a quote from the CEO of AutoNation - "What's fascinating about the American people is that if they see a company that's done it right for decades, but has a bad moment and makes a mistake and owns up to it and commits to change and does everything possible to make it right, the American people will understand and forgive." That thought is inherently flawed. If I've been doing something wrong for the last ten years and someone only caught me doing the wrong thing this year, did the last ten years never happen? Because that's what this guy seems to be saying. This statement becomes even more bizarro when one realizes that there is evidence that they may have been aware of potential problems and dismissed these problems during that ten years.

Alright so maybe that is one point repeated three times. It's kind of fun for once to have a shield.

From the Department of Forbes' Douches

For the third year in a row, Forbes publishes its list of "10 Most Miserable Cities in America". First let's get the first Forbes bashing out of the way and say that in two years' time Forbes will be entirely irrelevant as it will have declared liquidation-style bankruptcy as print media continues its march into irrelevance and struggles to find profit in the transition to web-based news and media. To try to cling to some small corner of the public consciousness, they go about a few times a year inventing lists that help them ignore their own failings by highlighting the flaws of other places. The quality of their lists and metrics can be shown to be false nearly quantitatively, as I will address shortly. So for the second year in a row, I say screw you Forbes.

In the first year, Detroit ranked number one on the miserableness scale. Last year, Detroit was number 7, and this year we've fought our way back up the list to number 4 - trailing Cleveland, Stockton, and Memphis (and while we're not number one, this doesn't stop some websites from showing a picture of downtown Detroit as an introduction to their slideshow). Screw you as well, MSN.com.

This year I want to take issue with one particular element of the list to which a writer for The Detroit News drew my attention and automatically throws into question the validity of every single measure that forms the miserable index. Detroit (the metro area) ranked as having the 2nd worst commute in the entire country. Are you kidding me? How the hell can anyone get off saying that we have worse traffic than Chicago or LA? You can't drive through Chicago anytime from 12:01 AM Sunday morning through 11:59 PM Saturday night without being caught in an hours-long traffic jam. There isn't even an argument here, so it's obvious to say that Forbes is wrong at least on this point, and if you disagree, you are a moron. Yes, you.

My favorite line from The News' article is from some guy named Dennis Zitny. He couldn't have put it more clearly or concisely:

"'I find that study not to be relevant to my lifestyle and most of the people in the state, so I reject it.'"

It's not possible to say it better, except maybe if at the end he added "...and the people at Forbes are a bunch of douchebags. Screw you Forbes."

Crime Always Pays

Today is a magical, but falsely so, day for this endeavoring and endearing blogologist. On February 25th, 2009 (the last Heavy Tuesday) I wrote a dumb piece highlighting why I thought it made sense for America to move to a Paczki-based currency system. I'm still behind the general concept of baked goods backing our currency and Paczki as this baked good makes as much sense as any other baked good (they all make no sense), so I have no reason to update my thoughts from this time last year.

Where this is most interesting is that earlier today, friend and all around good person Katie, emailed me that when she did a search for "paczki" in Google Images, an image that popped up near the top of her search was the photo I stole for my currency article linking to this article. That seemed pretty interesting, but I assumed it was an anomaly. However, at the time of this writing, I have just under 200 unique website visitors on the day - easily an all-time high. This is a spike of approximately 199 visitors on a per day basis (and I come almost every day), and this spike must certainly be entirely driven by the photo I borrowed from the internet. I know this because, ironically, no one cares about the Michigan governor race (see yesterday). This day has taught me a few valuable lessons:

1) I'm not sure if a picture of a doughnut constitutes "intellectual property", but if it does, stealing intellectual property is a great idea.

2) The key to generating website traffic is to focus on a topic that no one cares about 1/364th of the year, but that one day of interest can really make a difference.

3) I am incredibly heartsick that a paczek (singular for paczki) did not find its way into my tummy this Lardo Tuesday. This is an insult to my Polish heritage and I will focus for the rest of the year to eat as many donuts as possible in an attempt to approach the number of calories I would have otherwise consumed in the form of a paczek.