marathon training (non) progress
i haven't been able to run or jog or even turn my head fast for about a week, since i pulled or strained a muscle in my neck pretty painfully, and i haven't been willing to risk aggravating it.

sitting on planes and in airports waiting for the idiots at SFO air traffic control to let my people go didn't help, either: after several days of basically feeling better, it felt as bad as ever when i arrived in Saccaminnow friday evening, six hours behind schedule.

moan, piss, moan.

i was writing this to the good senator:

ha! ha!
i LOVE it when you start out an email with:

> JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!

the reason itself was fairly uninteresting, but the lead in was a beauty.

tonight i meant to come over a couple of hours ago to the internet cafe where the free wifi regularly drops at the most critical moments and gobbles up my emails. but then the 2004 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions was on television, and so, of course, i HAD to watch it until the end.

a further complication arose when, playing a silly little free word scramble game on my laptop, i was running down the battery, and this cafe only has ONE working outlet for laptops, and only within reach of ONE table at that, so i was potentially SCREWED given that my mom's house DOESN'T HAVE POLARIZED (3 prong) outlets in most of the house. jesus christ, welcome to the late 1970's!

all is well, though, since i got the one good table, and not only that, got a free shot of decaf espresso in my decaf coffee, 'cause the really nice barista felt bad when the airpot of decaf killed at the "room for cream" stage.

oh shit. i think i need to post this whole piece of nonsense to my blog. hang on a second.

(by way of which attempt, i just noticed that blogger.com can be easily typo'd as booger.com. wonder where that resolves?) oh well: nowhere good.

marathon!

i've long been a recreational runner, but i've wanted to run a marathon for a long time. now, people's reasons for running marathons are varied: some want to do it to prove they can, some want to lose weight, some want to punish their bodies for the real or perceived sins of their brains. i guess i fall into the "just want to do it" category. here is a good article on "The Marathon Mystique": http://www.runningtimes.com/issues/01julaug/mystique.htm

we started training today, as J has decided to train for a half marathon. (which is the longest distance i've done myself up to this point.) the target is for a may marathon, perhaps San Diego's Rock 'n Roll Marathon on June 5, 2005; or Anchorage's Mayor's Midnight Sun Marathon on June 18, 2005.

if you want a good page with helpful comments about different marathons, here it is:
http://www.marathonguide.com/

and if you want a fantastic, free page with training programs for all lengths of races and all levels of runners, check out the amazingly helpful Hal Higdon .

gone, and forgotten

sadly, i had several posts in december that seem to have been eaten by the BloggerMonster. maybe i'll try to make up with sveeral posts in one day. yeah, that'll make up for my ongoing flakiness, won't it? here's a neat page linked to on that last blog i posted (Abandoned Bicycles of New York), which is at http://jschumacher.typepad.com/:

http://www.newyorkcitywalk.com/.

this guy walked every single street in manhattan. it's not (yet?) a very deeply developed web page, but it's pretty, and his effort deserves some advertising!

favorite new blog: Abandoned Bicycles of New York

what a GREAT page. great photography, pithy comments that avoid being obnoxious. check it out: http://jschumacher.typepad.com/photos/abandoned_bikes/index.html .

"we will shut them down"
at the SOAW legal collective office: very interesting operation, doing great work. their office is literally outside the front gate of Fort Benning, where the action will take place.

after so many years of knowing and hearing and reading about this event, it's super exciting to finally be here.

the flights to get to atlanta cheap were ridiculous: San Diego to LA to Las Vegas to Charlotte to Atlanta. but many frequent flyer miles were accrued, and all the flights were made. note to plane watchers: the exit rows on USAir 737-400s are great: regular tray tables on the seat in front of you, so normal seat widths, and armrests that pop up!

more soon. "staffing" the empty legal collective office now.

it's 5:12am, and i'm off to the SOA protests: see you next week!

rural border counties voting "blue"
while i still maintain that giving the republicans the color red is ironic at best, i'll use the pundit colors so as not to confuse this point: using the "purple america" maps,

http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/ ,

it looks like some counties in Arizona went heavily dem (Pima, Santa Cruz, and Coconino counties), while only one went heavily rep (Graham.) Pima and Santa Cruz together comprise, physically, a majority of the total border. now, Pima's population base is heavily centered in the relatively progressive university city of Tucson, and Santa Cruz County is tiny, but don't stop here: the other Arizona Counties, again excepting Graham (rural SE Arizona) are all varying shades of purple, meaning relatively close elections returns. so how then do we get AZ going red? how skewed do the population bases have to be for Maricopa County (Phoenix) to fuck it all up like that? well, they did. which is problematic when the "blues" can't win major urban regions. (you know, as goes Manhattan, so goes New York state; as goes LA, so goes California...) i mean, what is Washington just gave up on King County?

my main interest in this is actually that rural border counties seem to have gone "blue" in otherwise red states: Imperial County, CA (even though CA is blue, it's worth noting, especially since San Diego County went red, like it usually does. i can tell you, Imperial County is no bastion of progressive activism.) then Pima and Santa Cruz counties in AZ, then Doña Ana Co. in New Mexico. now get this: in President Dumbfuck's "home" state of Texas ("home" is in quotes since hereally grew up more at Kennebunk, but who's counting/), Presidio County went blue, and then practically all of southern Texas went blue! (Webb, Zapata, Jim Hogg, Starr, Hidalgo, Brooks, Kenedy, and Wilacy counties, it appears.) if you're wondering why Texas still did the stupid, ignorant thing overall, it's because, of these counties, only Hidalgo has a meaningful population base.

but my main question remains: what is happening in these border regions, traditionally thought of as bastions of conservativism and pro-shrub, bible belt crackers, that is casuing them to vote dem? what can be cultivated out there besides crops and cows?

Yet another interesting image of the voting results. This is not what democracy looks like...

ahhhhhhh, the taste of pickled jalapeños
this will be a super quick entry, since i literally have dinner cooking on the stove. but i had to engage in a bit of nostalgia: i just forked about half a jar of jalapeños into the pan (with already fried tofu, and red onions, to be put on Trader Ho's fresh handmade tortillas).

after the forking, i licked the fork, and was transported to Dooley Field, the little league field in Sacramento, where i first recall tasting the loveliness of pickled jalapeños. enter warm, fuzzy feelings here.

more election maps!
The Good Senator just pointed me to a fantastic set of election maps, including population cartograms, here: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/ . Good stuff.

paint the country red
The voting patterns maps going around are amusing (you know, with the "blue" states listed as Canada or the United States, and the "red" states listed as "Dumbfuckistan" or the like.)

I personally find the "Dumbfuckistan" designation offensive, especially from lefties who like to think themselves allied with people from oppressed and American-colonially occupied nations. (Which Afghanistan is, and that is apparently the reference.)

This image with two maps, however, I think illustrates the divisions well, and without resorting to the offensive invective which people can then use to ignore an otherwise valid point. Check them out:

and here is the other image i mentioned:

lazy day
Due to all of the kind shout-outs from all my loyal, devoted readers (all one of them!), I'm trying to keep this a little more consistent. We'll see how long that lasts.

Today my single largest accomplishment was cutting new(er) carpet for Petunia: she looks much brighter and happier in the back area with the grey-ish/whitish carpet from our old studio that she did with the brown crap that she came with.

And now I'm thinking about doing wedding thank you notes, but it's just not that attractive a prospect. More fun to play poker!

football, baseball, and the geography of hope
Monday Night Football is on. (those of you who know me well know that i don't much care for any major sports except baseball and soccer. for those of you who don't know me very well, i've now engaged in the necessary disclosure before you continue reading this entry.) speaking of which, who is lurking out there? i'd love to hear from you, since i know there are a few of you who i don't know, but who have noticed my blog, and have been reading it. email me: djg92167 at com dot yahoo.

i was struck yesterday, while watching the Philadelphia Eagles vs. Pittsburgh Steelers game, how different the geography of the NFL is, compared to MLB. here's the basic analysis:

look at how many dead-end, post-industrial, Rust-Belt (northeast) cities have football teams, particularly that locals of the city/state/region are feverently devoted to. and look how few football teams with dedicated, passionate fan bases exist in places with vibrant social cultures, vibrant economies, big futures ahead of them (i.e., things to be hopeful about other than sports.)

this idea comes in part out of trying to explain why san diego just doesn't seem to much care about its major sports teams: the long suffering Padres, and the Chargers, who everyone is just shocked by how well they are doing this season.

of course, my analysis is highly subjective, based on which cities i think are least, and most, troubled/sad/run-down. if you don't agree, you can email me at the above address, and/or you can also post it in your own blog, and direct me to it. but this is my blog, so:

loogit: the "North" divisions of the AFC and NFC practically read like a list of redevelopment enterprise zones:

AFC North
Pittsburgh
Baltimore
Cleveland
Cincinnati

NFC North
Minnesota
Green Bay
Detroit
Chicago

of the lot, only Chicago and Minneapolis have hopes outside of football. (okay, this is arguable and debatable, but i'm trying to make a point here, okay?) now compare this to baseball: the only similar division in baseball is the AL Central:

Minnesota
Chicago (White Sox)
Cleveland
Detroit
Kansas City

again, there are Minnesota and Chicago (who finished one and two, respectively, in the division), and then Cleveland, a mediocre baseball team to compliment the mediocre football team; Detroit: where people were ecstatic that the team didn't lose 100 games again; and Kansas City: where the baseball team finished 34 games out of first place, to go with a football team that, at present, is tied with a couple of others for the third worst record in the AFC.

now look at other sad, run-down football cities: Buffalo. Jacksonville. Indianapolis. Houston. Nashville. Philadelphia. Charlotte. Tampa. of these, only three also have baseball teams: Houston, Philadelphia, and Tampa.

now i'll list all the baseball cities which i consider similarly sad and/or run-down, but which do not also have a football team: Milwaukee.
(Arlington, Texas, home of baseball's Rangers, gets an honorable mention, but if i listed it, then i would also have to list Dallas for football.)

now look at the exciting, good, and/or up and coming cities that have football teams:
Denver? San Diego? i've lived i both in the last four years, and they have plenty to sell them besides football. Seattle? Phoenix? San Francisco? all decent places, but they also all have baseball teams, and plenty else to make them nice places to live in.

alright, it's not a perfect scientific analysis, but i think ti underscores my basic point: football teams largely sprang up, and stayed, in northeastern, rustbelt cities that have little else to offer today.

much like the west Texas cities profiled in the outstanding book Friday Night Lights, recently made into a movie of the same name with Billy Bob Thornton that i haven't yet seen, these cities seem to rally around football in an unusually passionate way, i would argue because they have little else to be excited about. on the other hand, western cities have lots else to rally around, and arguably much less passionate, devoted fan bases: Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix, Denver, etc. i've lived in or near three of these places, and the freakish love for the football teams, as evidenced by people painting their near naked bodies to stand out in sub-freezing weather, just isn't the same. (okay, so it rarely gets to sub-freezing in Phoenix, but you don't see people standing out in the sun for hours on end, mostly naked, without sunblock, to cheer on the Arizona Cardinals or Diamondbacks.)

'nuff for now. gotta cut new carpet for Petunia, our beloved and soon to be given up for adoption, 1985 VW camper van. (she is going to a better home, where they will take her fr more field trips, which she desperately wants, and can't have from parents like us, who don't like the environmental consequences of driving, and so are going to go car-less.)

book review: Back Roads: A Novel
author: Tawni O'Dell
SPOILERS follow!

overall: a decent, easy enough read, well developed characters, twisted plot line and concept.

end opinion: pretty fucked up, and sad, and troubling, and not necessarily in a good, challenging way.

fitness for a book club book*: 5/10... it would stimulate a lot of discussion, and has lots of hard, interesting things to talk about, but it's really not a very good book, and i'm glad i didn't pay for it (it was a library book).
(*why i have this rating: these book reviews are for a good friend who runs the best little bookshop in the country, probably the world, and to whom i am endeavoring to send reviews of books i read.)

how much i liked the book, i.e., am i glad i read it: 3/10. (and most of the 3 out of 10 is because it's good to read recent novels that get a lot of good press, so i know what people are talking about.)

i checked it out because O'Dell has a new book that was on the new releases shelf at my local library. the new, second book is riding on the coattails of the huge commercial success of this book, so i decided to read the one that launched her into the book world limelight before reading the sophomore offering. i'm glad i did: i won't bother with the second book now.

i think the reviewers, including Oprah's book club people, who feted this book, did so because (1) it's a rookie offering that is better than some (though arguably not a majority of) rookie offerings, (2) it has numerous challenging themes (see below), and (3) it's pretty easy to read. sort of. but actually not: it's really quite disturbing, and not in a good, powerful, disturbing-but-powerful way. just disturbing, and often quite gross.

the challenging themes include, but are not limited to: patricide, sibling murder, homicide, child incest, prison life, child abuse, commitment to forensic mental health facilities, adolescent alcoholism, some sort of compulsive sexuality DO, and profound, disabling mental health disorders of all flavors, just to name a few. basically, it's just chock full of fucked up people living in a fucked up place and doing fucked up things to one another, and a few high minded liberals trying to do the "right" thing.

the narrator/main character/antagonist is called on the back cover "a wonderfully touching narrator", and while some reviewers make references to his Holden Caufield-esque qualities, i think he shows a young novelist trying hard to distinguish herself, yet unable to not act out some of her own apparent anger at her upbringing. not only is the 'antagonist' not likeable (even though we're supposed to feel for him, at least, and admire him, at best), he's actually totally despicable. he spends the entire book physically assaulting girls and women, and fantasizing about murdering and battering others, having fairly disgusting sexual fantasies which usually include battering the woman in addition to or instead of "fucking" her, feeling sorry for himself, drinking heavily, and wandering around.

it was an ugly read, actually, given all of the above. and there are numerous plot twists, each of them more audacious than the one before it, and after about the fourth or fifth plot twist, i'm left thinking that it's not surprising that it's a first novel: i feel like a more experienced novelist, and a novelist with an editor who is trying to not stomp on a promising new talent, would have cut out two, or maybe even three, of the zinging plot twists.

a pretty bad book, really. my advice: don't bother.

poker? i hardly even know 'er!
J asked me last night (while watching the World Series of Poker) why anyone would ever go all in. i tried to explain it, but could only find a few isolated scenarios where she agreed she would go all in (like a nut hand.) i finally said "it's hard to explain, but when you start playing, there are just some times when it makes sense to go all in..."

so today while playing at pokerroom, i went all in with a full boat, aces full of tens. i'm feeling pretty good about it, until i get my ass handed to me by the slowbie with four tens. guess J knows something i don't...

ConProt
damn! this ConProt (Consumer Protection) post would be so much cooler if i were smarter, and had taken a picture before doing the return:

last night, we were preparing a lovely dinner of deep fried tofu chunks, wrapped in organic basil leaves, and dipped in a delicious sauce made by J from soy sauce, hot sauce, onions, and spices...

while wrapping the abovementioned tofu chunks in the similarly abovementioned basil leaves, J noticed that one of the leaves had a tight pattern of small insect eggs laid on the front 1/3 of it. it was, in a word, repulsive. (see what i mean? wouldn't it be better if i had taken a picture to post here?)

so today i took the basil leaves (a little over half were left) back to Trader Bob's (name partially anonymized to protect the insect-egg dealers), and they took it back without question. in fact, the guy running the customer service desk didn't even care to see the problem: he just said: "return? no problem, i'm just gonna throw it away..."

i nevertheless showed him the eggs, and he was also somewhat grossed out by it, but then said "is it organic?" while gesturing at the basil. i said it was, and he said "yeah, that's just the risk you take when you buy organic." WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? you mean when i buy organic it's no longer quality checked to see if leaves are covered in alien-looking insect eggs?

nasty. just nasty.

go Mixed Up!
My team won our first intramural soccer game last night, 2-1. I was goalkeeper, and limped through the entire game, due to an open blister on my heel and a strained thigh muscle, but it was a delightful, drizzling night nonetheless.

The other team looked vastly more organized, with matching jerseys and attitude, but they couldn't deliver. Most of the game we directed play. My constant screaming fromt he goal got the amused attention of the sidelines refs, including when I asked for a penalty call against the other team for violating the clear intramural rule against using obscenities on the field.

my first [election] memory:
since i'm on something of a blogging roll today, and now that blogger.com has woken up from its long, dark winter, i thought i'd share a couple of stories:

first, the title track: my first election memory is actually a post election memory. i remember Reagan, the Great Dumbass who did more to ruin the Western Hemisphere than any President since Monroe, getting elected for the first time, and then bizarrely getting credit for "freeing" the hostages in Iran. i remember being confused by this, even as young as i was then.

and now, my second election memory: walking the streets with signs for Clinton-Gore '92 California, when i hadn't yet figured out that Clinton was a fucking conservative. (see, e.g., workfare; IIRAIRA; AEDPA; DOMA; NAFTA; GATT; telecommunications and financial services deregulation, etc.)
even the libertarian whackjobs at the Cato Institute say that Clinton was arguably more conservative than GWM: http://www.cato.org/dailys/07-31-03.html

and another not-so-fond election memory: in 1994, when i was in college, some people asked me, being from California, what the fuck was up with Prop 187. (footnote about San Diego's mayors: the alum ranks of the mayoralty include Pete Wilson, who was touted as a moderate when he was elected Mayor.) well, i laughed, and basically said to not worry about it, it would never pass, it was the nature of the citizen initiative process that sometimes fucked up nonsense got on the ballot. and then the good bigots of California passed the stupid thing with 59% in favor.

okay, memory lane is getting depressing.