Not wanting to jinx anything, but I am finding support for regular folks against Bush in lots of encouraging places.

My barber is an Old-School Italian-American barber. He went off for five minutes today about how bad Bush is – calling him the worst president we’ve had since he arrived in America – 1958.

There is momentum. Let’s keep it going for another couple months folks.

When I read that NJ Gov McGreevey was resigning with “I am a gay American” with his wife by his side I just had to see the video so I could catch a glimpse of her reaction during.

The reality is so much better than I had imagined. The look on her face when he talks about having an affair with another man is p-r-i-c-e-l-e-s-s.

Video on msnvideo.msn.com

We had an informal company softball game yesterday in Central Park.

Helpful hints for your next game:

1. Go to the batting cages a few days before the event. I didn’t get to go this year and suffered for it.
2. The best spot on the field for looking like you want to field balls but really don’t is shallow right field. In slow-pitch almost all right handed hitters will pull the ball to left.
3. There is not enough time to get a hot dog and go to the bathroom between innings. It has to be one or the other.
4. If you are running like mad for second base and there is someone about to make a force play at second base consider the relative rank of that player. I have a minor shiner today from plowing into the most senior executive at the game.

I just figured out Silvio from the Sopranos is Little Steven from the E-Street band. The only acting job he’s ever had.

From IMDB’s Sopranos page: Steve Van Zandt …. Silvio Dante (as Steven Van Zandt)

 

Nick Schulz writes a blog about the nexus of sports and technology. He wrote a post about how the various sporting bodies were redefining the rules for javelin to keep the distances reasonable. I’m sure there is a logistical concern about keeping them on the field and away from other athletes. But still, couldn’t it be a lot more interesting …

Responding to an earlier post on how javelins were modified to make them harder to throw far, a reader named Mark says maybe track and field officials should think in the other direction. He says that javelin doesn’t have a huge following world-wide and that’s certainly true. But maybe if you harnessed technology and developed javelins that could fly unheard of distances, that might increase interest in the sport.

Maybe he’s right. When most people are confronted with a problem, their instinct is to impose limits, get the problem under some kind of control.

… Maybe javelins that fly the distance of 16 football fields would make for a cooler sport than the one today.

The FIA, Formula One’s governing body, is going through a similar discussion now. These days the concern is equal parts safety and cost. The teams are moaning about development costs and are asking the FIA to impose regulations which will slow the cars down. There are a host of changes including a single tire manufacturer, harder tires, moving to 2.4 liter V8’s instead of the 3.0 V10’s of today, eliminating traction control, etc.

Of course the entertainment is in the natural sporting aspect of it – who will win this week, but it cannot be denied that part of the lure is the absolutely insane feats the cars are able to achieve as well as the technical backgrounder pieces where the teams talk about the various technologies involved. Exotic materials (carbon fiber, titanium), incredible machine precision, computerized componentry all make up what F1 is about. If not for all this, why not just watch NASCAR?

I have a five year old Diamond Rio PMP 500 MP3 player that I use exclusively while exercising. It simply will not die no matter how badly I mistreat it.

The screws on the back are rusted. I’ve run many times in the rain with it. The screen doesn’t work half the time. If you push on it the wrong way you get a 5x volume jolt. The battery cover is broken. I have to take the battery out whenever I don’t use it or it will discharge prematurely.

But alas, I’m much more frugal gadget-wise than I used to be (thanks dotcom crash) and simply refuse to buy a new one until it stops working entirely.

Reminds me of this gem from The Onion:

VOLUME 38 ISSUE 32 — 4 SEPTEMBER 2002
Area Man Hoping Cell Phone Breaks So He Can Get Better One [broken link is their fault]
CHULA VISTA, CA–Dave Sychak, a San Diego-area project manager and self-described “gadget freak,” has been increasingly careless with his 10-month-old cell phone in the h…

Two posts from people I greatly admire on the same topic:

Seth Godin – “When I think about every successful project (whether it’s a book or a business or a website) the people I trust have always given me exceedingly bad advice. And more often than not, that advice is about being conservative. Or it involves focusing on things that will require a lot of work, rather than things that will make it remarkable.”

“The incentive plan here is pretty clear. If someone dissuades you from trying, you can hardly blame them for the failure that doesn’t happen, right? If, on the other hand, they egg you on and you crash, that really puts a crimp in the relationship…”

Gaping Void – “Good ideas alter the power balance in relationships, that is why good ideas are always initially resisted […] Good ideas come with a heavy burden. Which is why so few people have them. So few people can handle it.”

Without a doubt the best thing about the CN tower in Toronto is the glass floor. I guess they only added it in 1994, so if you haven’t been since you are missing out.

Walking out of my apartment yesterday I was closely following a young Latin woman in a two piece pink velour outfit. There on her lower back, in cursive, was the phrase “Lucky You“.

Check out this video hosted by ebaumsworld. [WMV link] Trust me and watch for more than five seconds – I know my audience has the attention span of a hyperactive gnat.

Folks on MetaFilter did some research and it looks like it is an old Aristocrats type joke done by engineers. The question is who was so motivated to hire an actor to pull it off?