tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73759452024-03-12T20:54:22.778-04:00The Parallel CampaignThe blog of Michael K.Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.comBlogger195125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-80596445747075215872009-03-12T00:12:00.002-04:002009-03-12T00:15:57.417-04:00It does exactly what it says in the URL<a href="http://badpaintingsofbarackobama.com">BadPaintingsofBarackObama.com</a>. I don't need to elaborate. Enjoy.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxRCv4odQAjhTjRx86Dgv-mjMG6bOMXnGrb9iSdFx1D9FcrLWOIojnBDgYSQZGbsdAAv5kd6kMzj_zGvVsHScm4D2F7Yl9SyBqspuenZ4S8r03hVYGD3ihF6XFF7KC9OnvhOJVdA/s1600-h/OMGbarack.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 237px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxRCv4odQAjhTjRx86Dgv-mjMG6bOMXnGrb9iSdFx1D9FcrLWOIojnBDgYSQZGbsdAAv5kd6kMzj_zGvVsHScm4D2F7Yl9SyBqspuenZ4S8r03hVYGD3ihF6XFF7KC9OnvhOJVdA/s320/OMGbarack.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312149859931756386" /></a>Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-36325003566693372212009-03-07T09:14:00.003-05:002009-03-07T09:28:53.555-05:00Russian guy gives US a yearJust to temper all the boundless optimism and exuberance around these parts lately, Russian academic Igor Panarin estimates that we here in the US have less than a year before we descend into civil war, fragment into six region-states, and - lest you think there's no upside to all this - give Sarah Palin to Russia. Alaska would have to go along with her, but that's a small price to pay, isn't it? <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html">The WSJ has the story</a>.<br /><br />"There's a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur," he says. "One could rejoice in that process," he adds, poker-faced. "But if we're talking reasonably, it's not the best scenario -- for Russia." Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S."<br /><br />Yes, yes, obviously, Professor Panarin. What we really want to know is, what kind of leader is Kris Kristofferson going to be for Heartland?<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/og4UHIACEN0&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/og4UHIACEN0&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-23327608988817131852009-02-19T12:48:00.005-05:002009-02-19T12:57:04.109-05:00Marking one year of Ebbsfleet United - MYFC<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0XfBqHbm0_bz4voiBVhNljPozYyVxrQDsqDtEQjSQHxDTAWHF5FAAGIRibQSybEWY-3ACYEdzFmDacXV2HDBUjOqb61YcPDus6qCHr3tOFw1YUPFuyoaIep5UeI7PCU6rhAPuhQ/s1600-h/StonebridgeRoad.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0XfBqHbm0_bz4voiBVhNljPozYyVxrQDsqDtEQjSQHxDTAWHF5FAAGIRibQSybEWY-3ACYEdzFmDacXV2HDBUjOqb61YcPDus6qCHr3tOFw1YUPFuyoaIep5UeI7PCU6rhAPuhQ/s320/StonebridgeRoad.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5304568600965669410" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Today marks one year since the <a href="http://myfootballclub.co.uk">MyFootballclub.co.uk</a> takeover of <a href="http://www.ebbsfleetunited.co.uk/">Ebbsfleet United FC</a>.<br /><br />And overall, it's been a decent year in my eyes (though my own involvement has been pretty limited at times). A trip to Wembley, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=HVIQ6JZzIeU&feature=related">a WIN at Wembley</a>, t<a href="http://www.ebbsfleetunited.co.uk/eufc/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=666&Itemid=100">he 3700+ attendance for the free cup match</a> recently, holding a spot somewhere around mid-table, wholesale creation of a new culture - part local and part global, part net-based and part community-based...all seem to be very bright spots.<br /><br />It hasn't all been ideal, of course, but you had to be awfully optimistic (or delusional) to think that there wouldn't be any bumps in the road. We're still lingering too close to the drop, for one. "Pick The Team" is still a dream deferred, and while that's pissed off <a href="http://freemyfc.com/">some</a> (hard to ascertain just how major or minor the vocal contingent on that is) it hasn't really ruffled others - including me. PTT would be fun, interesting even, and maybe will come into play if Daish totally loses the plot on us, but that isn't the case right now. There's lots I'd like to see done yet on a number of fronts. Certainly this is a work in progress.<br /><br />Most importantly, with renewals sure to come in well under the original 30k mark, there's gonna be a shakeout and everyone knows it. That's gonna pose a major financial challenge, especially in the thick of the global economic shitstorm. But if there's a silver lining to be seen, it's the sense that those who remain (those who weren't so naive as to think MYFC would be buying Leeds or something) stand to have a more cohesive vision of What It's All About as we go forward.<br /><br />What is it all about, then? For me, the reason why I renewed (for 30 bucks less than it cost last year - thank YOU, strengthening dollar!) is that, despite whatever squabbling goes on, despite whatever ways EUFC-MYFC falls short of being the perfect open-source club, it's still the most interesting and engaging way to support local club football on a week to week basis that I know of. Because I for one am so damn sick of creepy gazilionnaire arms dealers, oligarchs and private equity cowboys profiteering off the game at its highest level, while MLMers and soda-pushing slimeballs contrive an ersatz "soccer experience" in my own country. <br /><br />My mantra on this has become - Support local clubs, though it doesn't matter so much whose "local" it is.<br /><br />Better my money, attention, and affection goes to a real team and club down the ladder somewhere else. Better we try and build something different, if we can. Happy first year, MyFCers.Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-82160230402144909682009-01-07T12:36:00.004-05:002009-01-07T12:40:26.353-05:00Look out, Gray's PapayaFrom <a href="http://www.banterist.com/archivefiles/000611.html">Banterist</a>.<br /><br />I don't think I've ever used this phrase before, and I don't anticipate using it again any time soon, but....EPIC FAIL.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30VrdFt0gIcC05l-MHFysBTkIgTKctLJ9KbmIqi-uoEC11Ab3YILaBLo-9iSOYdX6TrHjcMKWLz4XI7y7_zVgo0_4MD9qah4WFik4soQOHn_Zd6IKLe3YMmTAypG-jbSBlc9ZuQ/s1600-h/death+to+juice.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30VrdFt0gIcC05l-MHFysBTkIgTKctLJ9KbmIqi-uoEC11Ab3YILaBLo-9iSOYdX6TrHjcMKWLz4XI7y7_zVgo0_4MD9qah4WFik4soQOHn_Zd6IKLe3YMmTAypG-jbSBlc9ZuQ/s320/death+to+juice.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288607296902221666" /></a>Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-59961036796909002862008-12-10T11:39:00.001-05:002008-12-10T12:08:37.079-05:00Like Lincoln once said..."You can urinate upon some of the people some of the time, but you can't urinate on all of the people all of the time."<br /><br />At least I think it was something like that.<br /><br />I simply must link to <a href="http://www.bthesite.com/archives/2008/12/an-interview-with-barry-glazer-baltimores-advocate-for-the-urinated-upon/">b online's interview with crusading Baltimore personal injury lawyer Barry Glazer</a>, if only for this video compilation of local TV spots.<br /><br /><br /><embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i92.photobucket.com/flash/player.swf?file=http://vid92.photobucket.com/albums/l21/Alorwebdesign/GLAZER_URINATE.flv"></embed><br /><br />(the embedded video is working only sporadically for me here - go give b a hit and watch it over there.)Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-7573805704067743112008-12-08T21:57:00.000-05:002008-12-08T22:56:48.885-05:00The Inauguration effect, or object lesson in supply and demandHeard about how the whole world is descending on DC for Obama's upcoming inauguration?<br /><br />I've been looking at Amtrak fares for next month, because I've got to come down the Northeast Corridor, from Connecticut to Baltimore, sometime between the 18th and the 20th. If you're not familiar with Amtrak's bucket pricing system, just know that the baseline fare for this trip is about $60, and that the highest "bucket" or fare for an regular-class ticket is around $130 or $140 (I believe). <br /><br />Now take a look at this series of screenshots I've made from my searches of those days.<br /><br />You figure it out. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9NSgGMGNKIFkjIFJbEKnuZQXPpDRyloN70V93LlWzUD7_hBp2fhzj6Pa1ej5BRWXMBLsxcsolz8BVz2KZ6bS9xaa2oyL27pFNSuNidXZ1JsCEseBKPzzK70idK7SrFf3MsL2Luw/s1600-h/ScreenHunter_05+Dec.+08+21.50.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 194px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9NSgGMGNKIFkjIFJbEKnuZQXPpDRyloN70V93LlWzUD7_hBp2fhzj6Pa1ej5BRWXMBLsxcsolz8BVz2KZ6bS9xaa2oyL27pFNSuNidXZ1JsCEseBKPzzK70idK7SrFf3MsL2Luw/s320/ScreenHunter_05+Dec.+08+21.50.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5277619243751699410" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHTYPaOQ5r5Y5PssH-E69uyWEBEQOsmLIcU7nYuUndvOCBHNPFbZ2IcvPYhiQtU38mT3U00Rw83dC1UJOGNTvogsrjWw0aBrTUAe3x_-Lr7ogeZYk3VvahjdlANQEagQcD-N7VVg/s1600-h/ScreenHunter_06+Dec.+08+21.53.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 190px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHTYPaOQ5r5Y5PssH-E69uyWEBEQOsmLIcU7nYuUndvOCBHNPFbZ2IcvPYhiQtU38mT3U00Rw83dC1UJOGNTvogsrjWw0aBrTUAe3x_-Lr7ogeZYk3VvahjdlANQEagQcD-N7VVg/s320/ScreenHunter_06+Dec.+08+21.53.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5277619534638445250" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibPd5YBQY6glF3sIvK0TA6n-EGgJj7DFdkvcxEKQAUyABZGiXThf22HhksREauretmevrvWaq-X8YDh0NiRoXE6tuM0OVXSQICir3fjzL6uiX0QKenha6eTEiQ5PYlVCTQtnJfXg/s1600-h/ScreenHunter_07+Dec.+08+21.54.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 198px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibPd5YBQY6glF3sIvK0TA6n-EGgJj7DFdkvcxEKQAUyABZGiXThf22HhksREauretmevrvWaq-X8YDh0NiRoXE6tuM0OVXSQICir3fjzL6uiX0QKenha6eTEiQ5PYlVCTQtnJfXg/s320/ScreenHunter_07+Dec.+08+21.54.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5277620032694011650" /></a>Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-49071010298230315862008-12-02T15:15:00.002-05:002008-12-03T12:41:55.583-05:00Some Baltimore links and more pretty pictures<a href="http://status.blogrolling.com/">Blogrolling </a> is what I use to serve up links to other blogs and sites. It is for the moment, anyway, but we'll see how long that lasts if they don't get themselves straightened out soon.<br />With them having been down for weeks now, I can't update or freshen up my blogroll. That's something I'd like to do, since I've got a bunch of new sites I'd like to add. Like these.<br /><br />Since I'm living in the Baltimore area now, and I'm deeply interested in issues of urban space, culture planning, transportation, redevelopment and history, of how to adapt old cities to modern needs, how come I haven't been reading <a href="http://www.rapha.cc/index.php">Baltimore Inner Space</a> all along? How come you haven't been? <br /><br />I've been on the lookout for some <a href="http://www.slowfoodusa.org/">Slow Food </a>type eateries in Baltimore, as well as some other eco-friendly services, sites and organizations around here. That's why I've started perusing <a href="http://www.baltogreenmap.org/">the Baltimore Green Map</a>.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQfP3Jj-gMK0pm9xPFhrH4zPOejbIEReI1DWXXDdAU2yuKAxLWJ7noQJO_KvdUAWk9MNVBqbRQhs6g49bUhXO_C6TXLsiw2OcfEabVzTCsK7nBysrsB_p-zz0jjATFCnIC4Rjg3w/s1600-h/swissalps_1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 212px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQfP3Jj-gMK0pm9xPFhrH4zPOejbIEReI1DWXXDdAU2yuKAxLWJ7noQJO_KvdUAWk9MNVBqbRQhs6g49bUhXO_C6TXLsiw2OcfEabVzTCsK7nBysrsB_p-zz0jjATFCnIC4Rjg3w/s320/swissalps_1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275619780653026034" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://rapha.cc/">Rapha cycling clothes</a> are not only stylish in a classic continental way, less Lycra and more merino wool and tweed (I'd probably fit in a medium, if you're shopping), but the photo-essays on their site (by <a href="http://www.beningham.net/">Ben Ingham</a>, available also as <a href="http://rapha.cc/index.php?page=580">prints</a>) verge on the breathtaking. Maybe it's just because I'm a sucker for both the Alps and bicycles - within a year or three I'm hoping to <a href="http://www.alpetriathlon.com/spip/?lang=en">take part in this</a>, but I can't get enough. Say hello to my new desktop backgrounds.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBuiZB4wLrxB13lymtOVYY-BXzrYkXovwSSepM9IutZSf9pranwdXRu73qku0LsT43K0XPfKpue2G1lfJpe9LvN8RwaY4OjmR8AIfDvp1Tjtqh4pOqREhN8WX-HjqDw5kGoJuYEw/s1600-h/rapha1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBuiZB4wLrxB13lymtOVYY-BXzrYkXovwSSepM9IutZSf9pranwdXRu73qku0LsT43K0XPfKpue2G1lfJpe9LvN8RwaY4OjmR8AIfDvp1Tjtqh4pOqREhN8WX-HjqDw5kGoJuYEw/s320/rapha1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275618010014343234" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8X41nLsoi-QVDdswih_QwbvjTc6UQxn1BqQ_w_vhr-N1alIhr1kkt8H0kMCbPd2YewMcnc2UPUoRtJCFN7JMRoou_9Ysz9m6eDQyX1IuPA8axFSPqNcjSQKu7eIJasZ4ZCYkeHQ/s1600-h/rapha2.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8X41nLsoi-QVDdswih_QwbvjTc6UQxn1BqQ_w_vhr-N1alIhr1kkt8H0kMCbPd2YewMcnc2UPUoRtJCFN7JMRoou_9Ysz9m6eDQyX1IuPA8axFSPqNcjSQKu7eIJasZ4ZCYkeHQ/s320/rapha2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275618117745703026" /></a>Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-88934934514860666622008-11-26T21:04:00.006-05:002008-11-30T15:30:20.786-05:00Here I am! Blog you like a hurricane!Announcing the conversion of The Parallel Campaign into a full-fledged Scorpions fan site!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfehZu0pkRliiFJUR1gf7AwygnShw9FBddFYNhTsY3Xm1NlKqgzVNd0ONQ_zBWSrghMWxeUjIJkrMD2ix92KMi9cGHKxNe1B1ZU0xG6WdF76xM79lylZrgjCCDzmJ5fgQrZ59k8Q/s1600-h/the_scorpions_1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfehZu0pkRliiFJUR1gf7AwygnShw9FBddFYNhTsY3Xm1NlKqgzVNd0ONQ_zBWSrghMWxeUjIJkrMD2ix92KMi9cGHKxNe1B1ZU0xG6WdF76xM79lylZrgjCCDzmJ5fgQrZ59k8Q/s320/the_scorpions_1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274541068729873426" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Ah, I'm just kidding.<br />But really people, if only you could see my blog stats. (You could, actually, if I wanted to you to. But I don't want you to.)<br />On an average day, this site gets somewhere between one handful and two handfuls of hits. Most finding their way here through the Google, naturally.<br />And what are these people, those web-seekers, these Googlists from Poland and Turkey and Iran and Ontario looking for? <br /><br />They're drifting along on the Wind Of Change.<br /><br />It all goes back to <a href="http://theparallelcampaign.blogspot.com/2005/01/take-me-to-magic-of-moment-on-glory.html">this three-year-old, throwaway, hardly-even-worth-a-twitter post</a>.<br /><br />(Speaking of which, I'm twittering a bit more these days - look right)<br /><br />"Take me to the magic of the moment" is the search term that brings all the web to my yard, and it's not even close. Stuff like this makes me appreciate the total unpredictability of the internet. Of all the stupid, and slightly less stupid things I've written here over the years, this is the one thing people seem to care about. Well, this is for them. And for all of us - east and west, Teutonic-leathered and unleathered. Vacation-video MIDI-quality home karaoke at its most stirring. Blow winds, blow! Mr. Meine, sing down that wall. <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7jrIw55t4F8&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7jrIw55t4F8&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-88055343989325169432008-11-23T10:11:00.002-05:002008-11-23T12:13:27.648-05:00Happy MLS Cup Final day<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bnXH8ryHF4g&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bnXH8ryHF4g&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Just for old times' sake, <a href="http://themetrologist.blogspot.com/2008/11/come-on-metro.html">The Metrologist pops up for a moment</a> with a word or two.Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-29804847889344348242008-11-23T02:54:00.001-05:002008-11-23T02:56:25.034-05:00Bullock and Stilgoe<a href="http://boingboing.net">BoingBoing</a> recently sent me over to the site of LA-based photographer <a href="http://davebullock.com/">Dave Bullock</a> and his stunning photos of contemporary industrial landscapes. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0NTzhoZVdIk0-6fUmFYYzZOQS1xKvZV_0vUXiiMLmuDQfExMlHsQK4ykUoRwI9cU-bdOSQiHMyM04ZrgKJpGj4zbEl7iYt2NLZpEfXf9i1bJgmdwOHJofrEwYYSq_lhDviTHYKw/s1600-h/bullock2.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0NTzhoZVdIk0-6fUmFYYzZOQS1xKvZV_0vUXiiMLmuDQfExMlHsQK4ykUoRwI9cU-bdOSQiHMyM04ZrgKJpGj4zbEl7iYt2NLZpEfXf9i1bJgmdwOHJofrEwYYSq_lhDviTHYKw/s320/bullock2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5262410038492923762" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU1n9Fcudju0odIvFwC9b8D9V7ypiF95RYhvNcl0wRAY6IMStbNpzWA6rMPiAPMNbSPboY-iV3upkBELAN29FQLKIUyiacJFV0IgE_aDw9G6JHp7xnD86EVQARJXkCGx4ETtff_w/s1600-h/bullock1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU1n9Fcudju0odIvFwC9b8D9V7ypiF95RYhvNcl0wRAY6IMStbNpzWA6rMPiAPMNbSPboY-iV3upkBELAN29FQLKIUyiacJFV0IgE_aDw9G6JHp7xnD86EVQARJXkCGx4ETtff_w/s320/bullock1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5262410252776102546" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"I find beauty in odd places. Chemical plants, factories, railroads, bridges and various forms of industrial structures have always fascinated me." - Dave Bullock</span><br /><br />Me too. Maybe that stems from growing up, as I did, just outside <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5775119">Bridgeport, CT</a>, one of those old northeastern industrial cities with plenty of views like this, albeit on a smaller scale, especially from the ribbons of highway that cut through and across them. Which is how we see them, much of the time. How many hundreds, thousands of trips have I taken down the 25-8 connector in my lifetime, turning up on to 95 northbound, over the bridge by the ferry dock and the UI plant and the East End, towards where the city melts into Stratford, by the tank farms and those gigantic old pylons over the parallel mainline? More often, we would take the split southbound towards Fairfield or New York, over and quickly beyond a zone of crumbling old factories and warehouses and sprawling projects. <br /><br />There is beauty in all this, oft neglected as quickly as we hurry through and over it. <br /><br />Bullock's concrete-edifice-in-raking-sun photos jibe with my growing fascination with industrial history and <a href="http://www.industrialarchaeology.net/sia.html">industrial archaelogy</a>, with my academic and personal interest in the built environment as palimpsest. Along those lines, they also bring to mind the work of landscape historian <a href="http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~stilgoe/">John Stilgoe</a>, whose books I went hurtling through over the summer. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Outside-Lies-Magic-Regaining-Awareness/dp/B001FA23MC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225253278&sr=8-1">Outside Lies Magic</a> is a rather poetic, sometimes precious meditation on everyday places and structures in our American lives - shopping centers, town centers, highway motels, rights-of-way for gas and powerlines, while <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Metropolitan-Corridor-Railroads-American-Scene/dp/0300034814/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226609133&sr=8-1">Metropolitan Corridor</a> is a more academic exploration of the role that railroads played in way American space was organized between the end of the 19th century and the first couple decades of the 20th.<br /><br />Some of the things that Stilgoe invokes in these earlier works (the Railway Post Offices sorting mail at speed, streamlined luxury trains blazing across the Plains, the aesthetics of the metropolitan corridor) also appear in his latest, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Train-Time-Railroads-Reshaping-Landscape/dp/0813926688/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226609185&sr=1-2">Train Time</a>. (<a href="http://www.loe.org/shows/shows.htm?programID=08-P13-00019">You can hear an interview with Stilgoe on TT, from the radio program Living On Earth, right here</a>). This time, instead of history or reverie it's in service of a thesis - one that's thrilling, important, improbable and infuriatingly incomplete. Stilgoe's back-to-the-future notion is that we're on the cusp of a new rail age based on the contours of the old one. <br /><br />It's an interesting read, full of history and detail and "hmph" moments. Yet somehow, it's just a little less than the sum of its parts. I wanted it to cohere more than it did upon first reading. (I'm working through it again, in part for a review which you may see somewhere else shortly.) Stilgoe's bases much on the "fact" that ultra-rich, ultra-smart venture-investment types have been speculatively buying up land around old rights-of-way and rail centers, seeing the future shape of the nation in the traces of the less automotive society of the past.<br /><br />Yet this evidence, as far as I could tell, is itself mostly hearsay and conjecture - in essence, "I've heard through the grapevine that old timetables are being bought up and studied by speculators...not to mention some of my earlier works..." Or as Stilgoe puts it explicitly, "along (the) tracks, events are unfolding rapidly, generally unnoticed except by rail experts and a cognoscenti attuned to imminent landscape and cultural change."<br /><br />"Imminent landscape and cultural change." That's increasingly the stuff of my academic and personal interests (I haven't expounded much here, but I shall). It's about what we're going to do when the price of gas doesn't come back down, when enough people figure out it makes no sense to transport freight 1500 miles over the road, or to transport people 200 miles in the air.<br /><br />While Stilgoe calls it "Train Time" ultimately it's not just about trains, or any one mode - the sudden leap in popularity of woefully neglected and mismanaged Amtrak, and the competing PR pushes of CSX and Norfolk Southern (can you go 15 minutes on CNN without seeing <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeCIruqe0FM">one</a> or the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKJCETkdPB0">other</a>) notwithstanding. The environmental situation demands we start doing something about our spaces and places and networks, how we get to and fro and how we live. The political shifts offer the faintest glimmers of hope that we could if we really wanted to. But the economic crisis puts it all in doubt. Or does it offer an opportunity? <br /><br />Speaking as someone who'll go home - a 300+ mile trip - this holiday without getting behind a wheel, who loves his car and uses it as little as possible, I want to believe Stilgoe is right, or at least (groan) on the right track.Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-67299316167968355052008-11-11T10:56:00.000-05:002008-11-11T10:59:31.517-05:00"Conscious strainings are letting loose subconscious allies behind the scenes"Thought for the day:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">What William James wrote about religious experience might well have been written about the antecedents of acts of expression. "A man's conscious wit and will are aiming at something only dimly and inaccurately imagined. Yet all the while the forces of mere organic ripening within him are going on to their own prefigured result, and his conscious strainings are letting loose subconscious allies behind the scenes which in their way work toward rearrangement, and the rearrangement toward which all these deeper forces tend is pretty surely definite, and definitely different from what he consciously conceives and determines. It may consequently be actually interfered with (jammed as it were) by his voluntary efforts slanting toward the true direction." Hence, as he adds, "When the new center of energy has been subconsciously incubated so long as to be just ready to burst into flower, 'hands off' is the only word for us; it must burst forth unaided."<br /><br />It would be difficult to find or give a better description of the nature of spontaneous expression. Pressure precedes the gushing forth of juice from the wine press. New ideas come leisurely yet promptly to consciousness only when work has previously been done in forming the right doors by which they may gain entrance. Subconscious maturation precedes creative production in every line of human endeavor. The direct effort of "wit and will" of itself never gave birth to anything that is not mechanical; their function is necessary, but it is to let loose allies that exist outside their scope. At different times we brood over different things; we entertain purposes that, as far as consciousness is concerned, are independent, being each appropriate to its own occasion; we perform different acts, each with its own particular result. Yet as they all proceed from one living creature they are somehow bound together below the level of intention. They work together, and finally something is born almost in spite of conscious personality, and certainly not because of its deliberate will. When patience has done its perfect work, the man is taken possession of by the appropriate muse and speaks and sings as some god dictates."</span>Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-45265248329967671492008-10-29T16:19:00.003-04:002008-10-29T16:39:04.259-04:00Joe the Theorist“I love America. I hope it remains a democracy, not a socialist society. ... If you look at spreading the wealth, that’s honestly right out of Karl Marx’s mouth,” Wurzelbacher said.<br /><br />“No one can debate that. That’s not my opinion. That’s fact.”<br /><br /><a href="http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=12992">Of course..."Joe the Plumber is named Sam, isn’t actually a plumber, doesn’t have any plan to buy any business, makes nowhere near 250k a year, and would actually get a tax cut under Obama."</a> (Balloon Juice)<br /><br />Dear God, make it stop. Make it stop. Please, make it stop.<br /><br />Edit: here's another ordinary Joe. Thank God.<br /><br /><object width="464" height="388" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000"><param name="movie" value="http://www2.funnyordie.com/public/flash/fodplayer.swf" /><param name="flashvars" value="key=5d3271b670" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed width="464" height="388" flashvars="key=5d3271b670" allowfullscreen="true" quality="high" src="http://www2.funnyordie.com/public/flash/fodplayer.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object><div style="text-align:center;width: 464px;">See more <a href="http://www.funnyordie.com/thomashadenchurch">Thomas Haden Church</a> videos at Funny or Die</div>Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-90370080300631563382008-10-29T14:18:00.000-04:002008-10-29T14:20:10.002-04:00Now this is reassuringMake sure your touch-screen voting machine is properly calibrated, y'all.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0Q9NSVUu8nk&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0Q9NSVUu8nk&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-73621878401535321272008-10-25T18:43:00.000-04:002008-10-25T18:52:29.041-04:00Oh snap!<span style="font-weight:bold;">"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone...She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else."</span><br /><br />It's the dreaded, delightful D word! Coming out of the McCain camp!<br /><br />Oh NO you di'nt!<br /><br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081025/pl_afp/usvotemccainpalin_081025214702;_ylt=Ajb8Rt8RJCi1Sw5qj737_GHCw5R4">Oh yes they did.</a><br /><br />Tee hee.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLBxqOL5UI1nzKLXMZWCRfk1vwW5nKJ11enrzu_g1LsvjvdwMqjFp1_ZQDtgQCF5hfIeb2ShV1CjDes6xOeUUSnL3h5AhJ3S6WV6WAAohLY-KL6yEHIedLEpoFjt5v2quRr-CmbQ/s1600-h/WWE---Divas-.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 210px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLBxqOL5UI1nzKLXMZWCRfk1vwW5nKJ11enrzu_g1LsvjvdwMqjFp1_ZQDtgQCF5hfIeb2ShV1CjDes6xOeUUSnL3h5AhJ3S6WV6WAAohLY-KL6yEHIedLEpoFjt5v2quRr-CmbQ/s320/WWE---Divas-.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261227143405028162" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZCnVSzA2YF4uoEWdp8c82bpTVCHIi-9Dug9NjjSoK5tiwWzIVtXyfuPghOWx59gdw3VK8IwZjgDZ8zyRhvDAi0CvqK094XfKIX7Ek3lBEaDcOG673qutCVOC71MsCR0hqzw9sLA/s1600-h/callas12.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 221px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZCnVSzA2YF4uoEWdp8c82bpTVCHIi-9Dug9NjjSoK5tiwWzIVtXyfuPghOWx59gdw3VK8IwZjgDZ8zyRhvDAi0CvqK094XfKIX7Ek3lBEaDcOG673qutCVOC71MsCR0hqzw9sLA/s320/callas12.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261226971100333874" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX0gl9dvKYl3-oeRRNOebUmobzx30SFhgDInG-DjZxVZdNG7EHwFimsO77qaDndQYazsBh8PWilPgKJpTELy_kzWChb2YF3HI_0zaMU1sVCceieouv0tHOAf5Ept2pQ9WlIFke_Q/s1600-h/divas.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX0gl9dvKYl3-oeRRNOebUmobzx30SFhgDInG-DjZxVZdNG7EHwFimsO77qaDndQYazsBh8PWilPgKJpTELy_kzWChb2YF3HI_0zaMU1sVCceieouv0tHOAf5Ept2pQ9WlIFke_Q/s320/divas.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261226797465896786" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpBrZLlkKNCmJtfOqK5dqniTkD7J0rIRBe_bdr0R6gRCH4gDqLgkEXIlX3qvIDlL7DB9xQSKmCpZdD6iW0_vlbXqJMLvEbSxH2KGcTtnLTODeYC69ZDC-jhm21gB7oZsDtZVqQqw/s1600-h/sarah-palin.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 135px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpBrZLlkKNCmJtfOqK5dqniTkD7J0rIRBe_bdr0R6gRCH4gDqLgkEXIlX3qvIDlL7DB9xQSKmCpZdD6iW0_vlbXqJMLvEbSxH2KGcTtnLTODeYC69ZDC-jhm21gB7oZsDtZVqQqw/s320/sarah-palin.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261227242919782194" /></a>Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-38053615830236912552008-10-22T11:31:00.000-04:002008-10-22T11:36:48.618-04:00Breaking: The Nineties are dead<a href="http://money.canoe.ca/News/Other/2008/10/20/7146486-ap.html">What will high schoolers do now?</a><br /><br />This is right there with the <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5186113">extinction of the telegraph</a> two years ago in the "WTF? I thought that died out years ago" category.Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-60985235640787015032008-10-21T14:43:00.000-04:002008-10-21T14:47:22.186-04:00Feel like getting a headache this afternoon?<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AdTJdIiAJw" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="302" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br /><br />I don't know if this vox pop (shriex pop?) clip from a McCain rally is more hilarious, alarming or saddening. Probably all three.Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-1468439154006216512008-10-19T16:27:00.000-04:002008-10-19T16:28:57.915-04:00The Pain Train is comin! Wooo wooo! Wooo woo!<object width="425" height="349"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/07kO9TtHYzQ&border=1&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/07kO9TtHYzQ&border=1&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="349"></embed></object><br /><br />Oh my.Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-33171032324527842682008-10-17T11:37:00.002-04:002008-10-17T12:33:09.087-04:00Irony gives you wiiiiiiiiiiings!I've done little to hide my all-around enmity for Red Bull - the disgusting, unhealthy product meant for unhealthy living, the glib and obnoxious global branding done via the co-opting of sports and cultural enthusiasts, the shallow, nebulous "philosophy" which really isn't anything at all.<br /> <br />Of course, I despise what they did to my team - I think I've said that once or twice now. That may be a done issue, but I can't stop despising their creeping over the sports landscape as a whole, buying up third-rate teams in third-rate leagues, tagging them like subway cars in mid-80s Manhattan and piloting them into in a groove of mediocrity, while desperate, craven fans carry their water for them (because god knows, people on the inside probably know better than to drink that corrosive shit they purvey.)<br /> <br />It's brilliant! It's stomach-turning anti-culture. No doctrinaire anti-capitalist or anti-postmodernist am I, not by a long shot, but in this enterprise you have the worst extreme of postmodern capitalism, run amok; a company that makes billions by producing nothing, nothing but image. The drink is of no real consequence. They may as well be selling sand or peas or feathers in a can. The drink, you might say, doesn't even exist. (Get out of my head, Baudrillard.) <br /><br />I think we can all agree that what's bad for RB is good for fans of sports worldwide. I've said it before, and I'll say it again; I'd sooner have Halliburton owning my team. Sure, they might be responsible for the deaths of thousands, but when it comes right down to it, at least they <em>make</em> something. The same can't be said for our Austrian overlords. <br /> <br />Anyway, as much as I feel a twinge of sadness for Jeff Parke and Jon Conway (assuming, as we will right now, that their actions were unintentional) <a href="http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/two-red-bulls-players-suspended-for-failed-drug-tests/index.html">the news that they've both been banned for 10 MLS games for banned PEDs</a> infuses me with a sense of irony that truly vitalizes my body and mind.<br /><br />To use the old saw, you really can't make this stuff up.<br /><br />But who comes out of this sorry spectacle looking most like total idiots?<br /><br />On one level - that is, on the ethical level - the answer is easy. It's MLS. Because you really can't expect us to take the league seriously, when they say that over-the-counter performance enhancers of doubtful provenance and unknown, potentially dangerous consequences are BAD things that get you SUSPENDED!<br /><br />Except when over-the-counter performance enhancers of doubtful provenance and unknown, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-561711/Supermarket-worker-dies-heart-attack-drinking-cans-Red-Bull.html">occasionally deadly consequences </a>are GREAT things that the league wants to <a href="http://www.xango.com/lowbandwidth.html">work with</a>, <a href="http://herbalife.com/">take money from</a>, and promote. Then it's all good. Carry on. <br /><br />One feels that there is more to this episode than meets the eye, but I've yet to put my finger on what that is.Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-48393757421602391512008-10-16T11:06:00.000-04:002008-10-16T11:07:44.857-04:00Quote for the day<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/world/europe/16russia.html?_r=1&oref=slogin">“People do not put mercury in your car to improve your health.”</a><br /><br />Yes. Quite.Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-70340330890632278442008-10-15T13:56:00.002-04:002008-10-15T18:08:31.321-04:00And Now We Wait: Will MLS Soccer Return To The NY Area In 2011?I wait, not with breathless anticipation, but mild curiosity for the clock to strike five today. That will mark the supposed deadline for the supposed application process to become Major League Soccer's supposed 17th and 18th franchises (you need to be put a "supposed" before most things MLS does. A Keatsian enterprise, their rules are writ on water, and Dubuque or Waterbury could waltz in with a billionaire next week and waltz out with a team.)<br /><br />With Philly and Seattle already onboard for the next couple seasons, and up to <a href="http://www.soccerbyives.net/soccer_by_ives/2008/10/mls-expansion-h.html">8 cities vying for the next two spots</a>, <a href="http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=-1&f=35">expansion has become the MLS geek's white-hot topic</a>. <br />More Canadian teams!<br />No more Canadian teams!<br />------ is a Soccer City, which deserves a team above all others!<br />Etc.<br /> <br />It's a bit tiresome once you've heard the arguments the first thirty times, and completely, totally ineffectual on top of that. <a href="http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/blog.php?b=2200">As Bill Archer notes in the Bigsoccer blogs</a>. <br /><br />As for me, over the next couple hours I'll be waiting to see if pro club soccer - in its charmingly hinky MLS form - has a shot at returning to the NYC area after a five-year absence, likely in the form of a new club run by the NY Mets. <br /><br />I would like that.<br /><br />IF it's the picture of best-practices among MLS organizations; avoiding the missteps of teams past and present, taking full advantage of where it is - one of the greatest soccer areas in the world. <br />IF it's an organization with symbolism and integrity of its own, not just a means to cross-promote a baseball team, a foreign team, or some crappy product. <br />IF it aims to represent the city and the area in some meaningful, inclusive way.<br />And IF the soda ad in NJ hasn't already run its course by then.<br /><br />I've been an MLS fan, observer and critic to varying degrees over the past 13 years, a decade of that spent supporting the late, not-so-great Metros. It was a open-top bus tour of hell in a handbasket. Yet it was great fun, shared with some great people, and I cherish a lot of memories from that time. <br /><br />A few years back, I was anxious to seize some of the fame and fortune that comes with academically-inclined niche sports blogging. I was also enamored with how a team so dysfunctional, forgotten and pathetically misshapen could still be funny, galvanizing and occasionally meaningful. I started <a href="http://themetrologist.blogspot.com/">The Metrologist</a>. Impeccable sense of timing I had there. Within months the taurine takeover had occurred. With the hijacking of the name and identity, all the shaky, make-believe pretense of it being a "club" was obliterated. And then my little baby blog became the strangest of all creatures - a fan blog whose constant underlying assertion was that my team had to lose, had to fail, had to collapse for it to be saved. That was my stance.<br /><br />It still is. It just isn't very much fun to write about, not for very long, anyway.<br /> <br />Thus the Metrologist, sadly, has gone by the wayside. The lack of posts in a year should have told you that. I've got one more superbly self-indulgent yet useful and informative M'gist effort left in me, and I'll take care of that in the coming days.<br /><br />Also diminished, my appetite for dissertating on the message boards. Having said my piece too many times, having grown enough wisdom and lost the time to skirmish around and around and around with people speaking a fundamentally different language, I stay out of the mire now. Mostly. There isn't much else for me to say now besides this; RB out, or NYC2 in. Whichever comes first. That's where you'll find me. And here, of course. Where I find it hard to keep my mouth shut.<br /><br />So we wait, curious but not exactly hopeful. Because what happens next, and what happens in the years to come, is going to be mostly out of our hands. Why get agitated? Either we get a couple more months of waiting, wondering and reading the tea leaves before another deadline day, or we go back to our regularly scheduled program of not caring much what the hell happens in the world of MLS. Along with most of the area and most of the country. There isn't much in between. In the meantime we hold on to what money we're lucky to have now, spend it on teams and entities that, <a href="http://myfootballclub.co.uk/">however imperfect</a>, take seriously the idea that as soccer clubs they mean <span style="font-style:italic;">culture</span>, locality, membership and tradition.<br /><br />In the meantime, here's just a couple of my <a href="http://themetrologist.blogspot.com/2007/03/marking-one-year-of-being-joke.html">favorite</a> <a href="http://themetrologist.blogspot.com/2007/03/mathis-fans-notes.html">Metrologist</a> <a href="http://themetrologist.blogspot.com/2007/02/i-see-your-permatanned-lips-movin-but-i.html">posts</a>, and <a href="http://theparallelcampaign.blogspot.com/2006/03/1995-2006.html">my post here</a>, written shortly after MLS swapped the likes of its diehards for a joking experiment.Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-90610147572145838242008-10-13T12:46:00.000-04:002008-10-13T12:50:37.978-04:00I did this once, too......on <a href="http://dreamcast.ign.com/objects/013/013962.html">Virtua Striker 2</a>.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MO06BYfJtWU&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MO06BYfJtWU&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Via <a href="http://blog.washingtonpost.com/soccerinsider/">Steven Goff</a>, here's your goal of the weekend. I get dizzy just watching it.Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-75283495647298844852008-10-13T12:27:00.000-04:002008-10-13T12:43:05.267-04:00Sign o' the times, 10/13<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/12/AR2008101202255.html?nav%3Dhcmodule&sub=new">Desperate people are getting stupid, or stupid people are getting desperate.</a><br /><br />Should've listened to Suze Orman before picking out that land yacht with the $800 a month payments, I guess.Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-9121459554789280892008-10-10T12:45:00.005-04:002008-10-11T02:51:44.498-04:0010.11.2008: 140.6<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.beachweddingshawaii.com/ironman/start.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://www.beachweddingshawaii.com/ironman/start.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />It's <a href="http://ironman.com/">Ironman World Championships weekend</a> in Kona, Hawaii, or "The Ironman," as a lot of people seem to think of it. That's not quite right, of course; the Hawaii race is only the last of the 20+ Ironman-branded long-distance races that go on around the world each year, the championship event, that you (mostly) don't buy, but qualify your way into. Nevertheless it is the most celebrated, the most arduous (or so I'm given to believe), and the most dramatic. It's the Super Bowl of our sport, except that anyone has a shot at getting on the field. <br /><br />I've been doing triathlons for a little over two years now, beginning with sprints, moving into Olympic distance, and finishing off this summer with a <a href="http://timbermantri.com/timberman.html">70.3 half-iron</a> (more to come on that in the next couple days.) <br />In fact, I even started <a href="http://mikes-tri-training.blogspot.com/">a blog about my endeavors</a> way back when, but never really kept that up, so I'm rolling that effort into this one. Within a lot less than two years I've become a real bore about it, too, going on to any poor soul who'll listen about all the little ways triathlon has changed my life for the better. How it's a matter of consistency and discipline, not the test of pain tolerance and superhuman athleticism people think it is. And other such things that probably make others want to slap me silly.<br /><br />I'll be checking in on the race from time to time tomorrow, via the live feed at the <a href="http://ironman.com/">official website</a>. That's your sign that I'm a full-blown geek now; I'm planning to spend some - even a little bit - of a beautiful autumn Saturday watching people swim. And bike...and bike...and bike..for 112 miles. And then run on for another 26. Unless you're a triathlete or are attached to someone who is, tri can be a pretty lackluster spectator sport. That's just my personal opinion, one that might not be shared by the <a href="http://www.slowtwitch.com/Opinion/Ironman_Is_it_all_about_Pipe__526.html">private equity types that just bought Ironman's parent company</a>. Still, it's very cool that you can tune into the race in real-time for free.<br /><br />Alternatively, wait a month or so and you've got NBC's soft-focus, lachrymose, triumphant presentation that annually grabs a few Emmys. It's hard for me not to tear up while watching it. Even harder to fight the feeling that, against all reason, against even my desire (to do IM, I have none right now), I'll be pushing to get to Kona <span style="font-style:italic;">someday</span>. <br /><br />Earlier this week, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122331449138808261.html">the WSJ profiled A.C. Morgan </a> a plane crash survivor who'll be competing in Kona for the first time, some years after his body was burnt and broken in a plane crash. There's a zillion stories like this every year, and they seldom fail to impress. You know what else impresses, almost as much as it disturbs me? That amateurs find ways to squeeze 20-30 hours of training in on top of a full time job (and I doubt very much that co-managing U.S. equity sales trading is a 9-5, 40 hour per week job).<br /> <br />Trigeeks (and I use the term affectionately) like the folks at <a href="http://slowtwitch.com/">Slowtwitch</a> will bristle because he was handed a sponsor spot, rather than having to qualify (the primary route to Kona) or even winning a lottery spot. And I'm a little put off by the fact that a i-bank executive scored a free Trek - I don't think he would have missed the three grand, personally. Then you remember the guy survived getting mangled in a freakin' plane crash, and I suppose a free bike for Kona is fair enough.<br /><br />So who to cheer for?<br />Just about anyone, I say. Most of these pro guys and girls seem to be remarkably cool and decent, if intense people. Unlike the real hardcore, who back an athlete based on home country or bike brand or that they know someone who knows someone who trains with him, I haven't got a favorite here.<br /><br />That said, like just about any weekend warrior who caught last year's NBC show, I've got nothing but love - and a cheer - for Belgian pro <a href="http://www.rutgerbeke.com/en/default.asp">Rutger Beke</a> in tomorrow's race. Hobbled by an injury partway through the 2007 race, Beke gamely walked the marathon and finished around 900th place rather than taking the incomplete (which many a pro would have done.) The cameras caught him shuffling slowly alongside the age-groupers, and he explained that none of the people who paid their own way were thinking of giving up, that it was only in the spirit of the race that he finish.<br /><br />Total class there. You go Rutger. <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/uqDT64qK_m8&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/uqDT64qK_m8&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><br />For my money, the mass (1800-strong) swim starts at Ironman races, just as the sun rises over the water are among the most <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8nYY1nlhqQ">stirring</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ishM8GYV9Hk">beautiful</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTmT2gkWUgk">wild</a> images in all of sports.Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-64493382462522836632008-10-09T15:17:00.001-04:002008-10-09T15:19:45.882-04:00Sublime<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/x8GJP2Ipkog&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/x8GJP2Ipkog&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><br />And ridiculous.<br />Both words fit Zlatan.Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7375945.post-78999092107668786212008-10-08T12:39:00.000-04:002008-10-08T12:41:38.640-04:00Flying cars! Robot butlers! Cubs win the World Series!Just a few of the things The Economist doesn't foresee coming during our next spin around the sun. At its new blog, <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/theworldin2009/">The World In 2009</a>.Michael K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/09047299632293645110noreply@blogger.com0