February 2007 Archives

* There are 17 people in the U.S. named Stefanie Fox.
* There are 25 people in the U.S. named Geoffrey Fox.
* There is 1 person in the U.S. named Helaine Fox.

Wow - worthless, though interesting stats from a site called How Many of Me?

It's no surprise I've never been able to go into a Times Square souvenir store and find a pencil or decorative license plate with my name on it.

* There are 47,995 people in the U.S. with the first name Geoffrey.
* Statistically the 800th most popular first name. (tied with 18 other first names)
* More than 99.9 percent of people with the first name Geoffrey are male.
* Names similar to Geoffrey:
o Jeff
o Jefferson
o Jeffrey

800th most popular name. I wonder which is in 799th?

My dad is one of 296 Harold Fox's. 99.73 percent of people with the first name Harold are male. That means, of the 158,983 people named Harold, 429.25 are women.

I won't try to explain that 1/4 woman hanging out somewhere in America.

There are 529 people in the U.S. named Betty Fox. That's my mom's name. She's not an Elizabeth as so many Betty's are. Though, wouldn't you think they'd more likely be called Liz or Beth, not Betty?

Her first name, "Betty," is the 37th most popular first name. I'm surprised at that statistic and I'm sure my mom will be surprised by that too.

There is no one in the U.S. with the last name Hitler.

Nine of the top ten first names are primarily used by men. Women's names must be more creative... or creatively spelled.

Most Common Last Names
1. Smith
2. Johnson
3. Williams
4. Jones (tie)
4. Brown (tie)
6. Davis
7. Miller
8. Wilson
9. Moore
10. Taylor (tie)
10. Anderson (tie)
10. Thomas (tie)

Most Common First Names
1. James
2. John
3. Robert
4. Michael
5. Mary
6. William
7. David
8. Richard
9. Charles
10. Joseph

I don't have the whole list before me, but I do know some names go in and out of style. There aren't too many Beatrice's or Norma's nowadays. When was the last time you met an Ichabod, Horace or Stanley?

I have three Harold's programmed into my cellphone. How unusual is that?

I am so excited. For Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa, Helaine gave me tickets to see Lewis Black at what was the Oakdale, and is now the Chevrolet Theater.

When I tell people we're going to see Lewis Black there are two reactions:

1) I love him. He's so funny.
2) Who?

Helaine is in the twos. I'm with the ones. Hopefully she'll be converted Saturday night.

Lewis is a writer/comedian who's been around for years. Hell, he's even older than me!

His weekly appearances on The Daily Show have greatly increased his visibility. On top of that, Jon Stewart treats him with total deference... treatment befitting a comedy god, if you will.

I'm trying to think of a way to describe him for you 'group two's' reading this. He's witty. He's biting. He is manic in his movement and speech. He does a lot of finger pointing and thrusting. He sees the absurdity in most of life.

He's also a little tough on meteorologists. That includes one rant that had me on the floor laughing.

The thought crossed my mind - I'm TVboy. I know people at The Chevy. Maybe Lewis is having a meet and greet and I could wangle an invite?

No such luck. No one will be met.

Now that I've thought it through, a meet and greet would be totally contrary to Lewis' persona. I'm strangely happier he won't be having one! Anyway, my friend Howard, a successful Hollywood talent manager, says you should never meet those you admire. They're always a disappointment.

I look forward to seeing Lewis from the audience, where I belong.

I was getting ready for bed when I looked outside. We've had some snow and mixed precipitation this evening. Now the temperature is plunging.

I've never seen this before. It's ice, forming in tiny patches on the driveway. It looks brittle, as if there are air pockets below.

I'm glad I'm home and not driving right now.

As already established, Santa got us two tickets for Lewis Black. Last night was date night.

We went to a local 'roadhouse' for a quick dinner. What we didn't realize is, it's Alumni Weekend at Quinnipiac University, the rapidly expanding school in our little town.

The restaurant was jammed. The music (Sirius Channel 21) was very loud. I'm really not that old - it was that loud! Dinner took much too long to arrive.

Luckily, Oakdale¹ is only a few minutes away. Though the theater seats a few thousand, the vast majority come via the Wilbur Cross Parkway (CT Route 15). We come the back way, through neighborhoods in Hamden, Cheshire and Wallingford, and breeze in without traffic.

Helaine Santa ordered our tickets the moment they went on sale. We were in the 4th row, on the aisle. We sat behind some people who were seemingly show biz connected and in front of a couple who actually bought their seats on a whim, ten minutes before show time.

I was surprised to see an opening act, and not Lewis Black, pop on stage at 8:15. I'd never heard of John Bowman.

He is short, thin, middle aged and had one button too many buttoned on his sport coat. He took quick, small sips of his bottle of water, rapidly replacing and re-screwing the top.

He said he was a friend of Lewis' and had spent the last three years traveling with him by bus². And then he enumerated how stressfully difficult and emotionally trying, that was.

Within the first few seconds, a heckler from the back yelled something out. John took him on with a riff showing the the idiocy of trying to be funny when you've paid to see a professional comedian.

The audience was won over. From there on, Bowman could do no wrong.

It is tougher for an opening act to succeed. Everyone paid to see the headliner. The opening act is in the way.

As with Lewis Black who would follow, John Bowman is an observational comic. They weren't jokes as much as they were observations - and they were very funny.

Bowman ended by bringing his dog on stage - a sure way to win over Helaine. Does Rita Rudner get a royalty?

After a fifteen minute intermission Lewis Black came on. His hair is lighter colored than it seems on TV. His paunch is more pronounced than would be implied as he sits at the desk on The Daily Show. He was more mellow, generally.

Maybe that's a misstatement. TV is a close-up medium. When you're bigger on screen than real life, everything else is exaggerated as well. That certainly includes emotional intensity.

The fact that Lewis seemed so laid back just added to the effect when he did ramp up his intensity. And he did!

He would bend his elbows and thrust his fingers as his eyes seemingly popped from his head. I'm not sure if he turned beet red, but that wouldn't have been out of character.

Lewis Black goes through life looking at everything and wondering why. Why it's done? Why we take it? Why individuals are looked upon as idiots from those who manage or rule?

He claims he used to do a full hour on weather, but now there are a lot of politics. It's not just Bush bashing.

Again, as with John Bowman, these weren't jokes but observations. And they were hysterical.

I can't remember laughing so much at two comedians - individually and collectively.

Lewis Black is in his late fifties. He's always made money, but now he's achieved incredible success. I wonder if there was ever a time he pondered giving up what is often a young man's game?

I hope his success is satisfying - even though he'd never let on that it is.

¹ - Though officially known as the Chevrolet Theater, everyone I know still refers to it as The Oakdale. After all, it had that name for over 50 years.

Just as New Yorkers still call "Avenue of the Americas" by its old name, "6th Avenue," this is not done to be disrespectful. These historical names just help establish our bona fides as locals.

² - Sure enough, when we left, there was a tour bus outside the stage door. It seems odd that two guys on tour would travel this way, but they do.

A week or so ago, one of our photographers at work came by with a sheet of paper and fistful of cash. It was time to pick boxes for the Super Bowl pool.

In case you're not a football or pool fan, here's how it works. A grid of boxes, 10x10, is drawn. You pick a box and hand over your cash. In this pool it's $5 per square or $500 total.

Once all the boxes are chosen, digits are assigned to each row and column. So, the third row might be "8" and the sixth column... well it could be "8" too, or any other number! Then the rows and columns are assigned to the two teams.

When all was said and done, I was assigned 6 for the Bears and 6 for the Colts. If any quarter ends with both teams scores ending with a "6" (like 16 to 6 or 46 to 26), I win some cash.

The payoffs get progressively bigger as the game goes on. The winner of the 4th quarter (final score) gets $250.

I figured "6" has to be about the least likely number possible. Even worse, since games can't end tied, 6 and 6 becomes less likely to show in the 4th quarter.

Are there stats for this? Hey - this is the Internet era. Of course there are stats!

Of all the quarters played in all the games this season, 6 and 6 showed up twice.

I thought I made a bet. I actually made a donation.

Here's something I never thought I'd say: "It was a bad year for commercials." It was. There were few to like in the Super Bowl (though the game itself was unusually entertaining).

I have two favorites - and one isn't really a commercial. It was a very short CBS promo featuring David Letterman and Oprah Winfrey. If you blinked, it was gone.

It was totally nuance. You had to concentrate. Did you recognize Oprah? Did you think about their back story? Did you realize he was from Indianapolis, she lives in Chicago?

Unless you connected all these on a visceral level, it was gone before you could think about it.

My other favorite was more in your face... and animated. It was the Blockbuster commercial featuring a mouse portraying a mouse. It was clever and really well animated.

Unfortunately, when I went to type this blog entry, I wasn't able to remember who paid for it!

Among my other favorites were the Budweiser faux dalmatian (including animated blink) and the T-Mobile spot with Dwayne Wade and Charles Barkley.

So, to summarize. It was a good year for the game and a bad year for what came in between the plays.

Here's how aol.com visitors rated the first quarter (where the Blockbuster ad first ran).

Blockbuster: Mouse.............46%
Bud Light: Faceoff...............15%
Snickers: Mechanic.............11%
Doritos: Crash.....................9%
Bud Light: Wedding..............7%
Chevrolet: Singers...............5%
Sierra Mist: Combover.........3%
FedEx: Moon Office..............2%
Toyota: Tundra...................1%
Sierra Mist: Karate..............1%
Schick: Quattro...................0%
Salesgenie.com...................0%
Total Votes: 67,823

How would you like being the creative head for an ad agency that produced anything lower than Chevy? Must have been tough to come in to work this morning. Ouch!

Helaine and I attempted to do our taxes yesterday. We're about 95% of the way through the process. Part of what's keeping us from completion is Google.

One of the tinier parts of my tax return relates to this site, geofffox.com! See those ads on the right side of the screen? I get money as people click them.

DON'T click them just to get me money. Please, don't. Legitimate clicks are fine. I have no need or desire to scam the system.

Since I received cash, Google must send documentation to me and the IRS in the form of a 1099-misc. They did - twice!

With two 1099's, the IRS thinks I earned twice as much as I did, which means twice the taxes (which I must pay, even on this income).

Google printed a phone number on the Form 1099-misc which I dialed. It's not in service. They only printed the 1099-misc last week.

I tried again. Same thing.

The 'not in service' voice invited me to press "0" if I needed to speak to the Google operator. I did, and then spent four quality minutes as she decided she had no clue who to send my call to.

Finally, she conjured up a name. My message to his voice mail politely asked him to call me, even if he isn't the right person. Then I could at least know if anything was being done.

That was around seven hours ago.

You would think, with a problem like this, I should be able to use Google.com itself for the answer... you would think... incorrectly.

This evening, I found a place on Google's AdSense site with an email link. I sent a note and immediately got a response that showed no one had looked at my question. Again, Google seems to be the place where this shouldn't happen. Their machine intelligence should understand my query... you would think.

I've now replied and am waiting. In the end, they very well may help me. I can't imagine under what conditions they'll be happy to do it.

Last Thursday I started feeling some tenderness when I bit down on my farthest back lower molar on the left side. It's probably not the same molar you have back there, because I'm not fully 'toothed' anymore.

Since the problem could be intensified on the gum line, I left a message with the periodontist I see. The next morning they called and by Friday afternoon I was in the chair and soon out of pain.

They hadn't fixed what was wrong, but had freed me for the short term. I returned this morning at 9:30 AM.

Going for dental work under these circumstances is a great leap of faith. I was in no pain when I got there. I would certainly leave in pain. I knew that going in.

I sat in the chair as the dentist fired up the gas. Nitrous oxide at the dentist's office is as close as you can get to a 60s simulator! It almost makes the dentistry worthwhile... almost.

I'm not sure what he did after the gas took effect, except I do know I was injected a few times with Novocaine (which really isn't Novocaine, but some modern day offshoot).

When it was all over, I felt thread near my gums, so I know I've been stitched. I've got a little discomfort right now and I'm taking the horse pill sized Motrin.

Have I mentioned, Helaine has had one cavity in her life - one! And we're pretty much convinced that decades ago, her dentist needed to pay for a vacation or an unforeseen car repair and... well, the rest is history.

I'm sure my dental hygiene as a child enters into this. I'm also afraid I inherited my dental problems from my mom. I have a lifetime of memories of my mom dealing with dental surgery.

So far, when given half a chance, Steffie has inherited some of my worst traits. Maybe she can inherit her mother's teeth?

I got an email from Chris yesterday -

I have examined this with a few people and spoke to Chris on the phone. Everything leads me to believe the photo is legit. There are no signs of manipulation (other than my ramping the contrast a little).

Those are real tire tracks!

It would seem Chris pulled straight in. Then, when she went to back up to leave, cocked the wheel, so the car would turn parallel to the road.

The bottom of the heart is made by her front tires. The 'crease' on the heart's top is her back tires.

I don't think you could have planned this and had it come out so perfectly. This is very cool.

Anna Nicole Smith died this afternoon. Death, especially early death, is tragic. I don't wish to make light of that.

When I heard the news I had two immediate reactions.

• Wow - what a surprise
• I'm not surprised

Is it possible to be surprised and not surprised at the same time? I spoke with a co-worker over the phone and when I mentioned it, he said he had the very same reaction.

In any case, a tragic end to a tragic life.

Tonight is no colder a night than a zillion others I've been out in, but it feels colder. It just cut through me as I walked on New Haven's Broadway, nestled alongside Yale, on my way back from dinner.

Could it be because we've been getting this blast night-after-night-after-night? Cold shouldn't be cumulative, but it seems that it is!

If given the choice of too hot or too cold, I vote for too hot.

I'm not an outdoors person. If I snowmobiled or sledded or skied, there would be an upside. But I don't - so there isn't.

People keep asking me when it's going to get better? Surely it will, but right now, I see no light at the end of this tunnel. None.

What's the biggest Internet success story? Google, right? And everyone, until recently myself included, thinks it's because Google is so good at performing searches.

Tonight, I've changed my mind.

Before Google, there were some very good search engines. There were AltaVista and Metacrawler and others whose names are now lost to me. Yahoo!¹ was more a directory than a search engine.

As a power Internet user in the late 90s, I was not unhappy. I was able to search and get the results I wanted with little trouble.

So why is Google such a big deal? It's not the search as much as it's, their search seems benevolent.

Google was very smart. They cleaned up the home page.

All the other site where you could find stuff were gravitating toward being portals. Their home pages were full of news and tips and links and they included display ads. It was obvious to their users, they were sales machines. Please click. Please buy.

Google was basically a box where you entered text and not much more. No ads.

But searching is not a one web page affair. The search page leads to the results page. No search ends on the home page. Google was satisfied making their money on that landing page.

After the home page, every subsequent page on Google does contain ads. And, they are contextually tied to what's on that page. If it's possible to say, they are good ads.

It's genius. But I don't think it would have worked had Google not been willing to treat their home page as a loss leader. No ads!

As time went on Google has been able to extend their brand. They have contextual ads on webpages, like this one (look to the right). The have a mail service, also with contextual ads. They have other services too, but the payoff (to them) is always the same, and you never see any sign of commerce when you begin to do what you want to do.

Even better, since each 'lead' is prequalified, they can charge a higher CPM.

It's not like a movie on TBS, where the first block is 45 minutes long and by the end you're stopping for spots every 120 seconds. Google works so well because they run commercials and no one minds!

In this TiVo world, where the publisher of the New York Times worries he won't have a paper based paper in five years and where CBS has just announced they're selling a handful of TV stations for a few million more than they paid for just one of them, Google has succeeded in making us forget they are running commercials.

It is the genius of what they do, and any other elegance in the performance of search is no more than an interesting footnote.

I doubt, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin were testing Google at Stanford, they had a clue what their success could be. They were lucky wise to give away the product they had worked so hard to develop.

Business is always better when you don't worry if people will buy what you're selling, but instead try to sell what they are dying to buy.

¹ - I have been on the Internet long enough to have sent a comment to Yahoo! and gotten a personally written response that referred to "Jerry's reaction" to what I'd suggested. "Jerry" was Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang. That ain't happening today.

Cousin Michael and I traded emails about Anna Nicole Smith last night. Michael, not as attuned to pop culture, wondered what makes this such a big story?

I offered, she was this generation's Marilyn Monroe, though Michael answered:

Without going through our whole philosophical discussion, Michael left me with this quote, from Karl Marx. Marx wouldn't normally be my 'go to' guy for attribution, but this really is timeless and amazingly insightful.

Ain't it the truth.

Matt Scott, from the TV station, asked if I'd take some photos of his daughter, Cameron.

All I can think about is the wedding pictures my parents had taken, but never got! A friend - not a pro was the photographer. You can fill in the blanks.

Nearly sixty years later, they haven't forgotten.

I have a new flash that I am just learning and techniques to be tested. I'm unhappy with most of the shots. The color is off. The light level seems off too. That's the bad news.

The good news is, with digital photograph, nearly all the flaws are fixable.

Later tonight I'll go searching for advice on using my Speedlight. right now, all I know is, attach it to the top of the camera and hope for the best. That's not good enough.

I have been going through today's photos again. I continue to be unhappy with my work.

On the other hand, I wanted to post this photo, because it's similar to the one I posted yesterday, but more pleasing. I think lots of pictures can be improved by technique when it's too late for artistry.

This shot was desaturated (turned black and white), sharpened and cropped. I think the tighter composition creates more interest. In the desaturation process I was able to soften the effect of the blinds in the background. B&W also adds to the mood of the shot.

I'm not quite sure why going 'old school' often makes a photo look more 'documentary,' but it does. In this case, the monochrome image (to me) beats the color.

Why? I have no clue.

"What do you do with your photos," I've been asked? Considering I've taken around 25,000 shots with my Canon, it's a reasonable question.

For a while, I did nothing. Then, this fall and again a few weeks ago, I had picture books made. I've also had some shots printed. I was well over 10,000 shots taken before that began.

I started with 5x7s and 8x10s. They seemed reasonably large. After all, a 'regular' photo print is 4x6 and 8x10 is four times larger than that!

Then I visited my friend Peter in Ventnor City, NJ.

Peter has a few immense prints on his wall and they look great. Some he took at the Jersey Shore. Other shots came from Hawaii.

I stood and stared and, quite honestly, was envious. They really did look great.

Today, I drove to Ikea in New Haven to find some frames, so I could hang my soon-to-arrive larger sized prints.

Ikea is a chain of large warehouse-like home furnishings stores. The home office is in Sweden, the stores are found worldwide and most of the merchandise is made in China.

The secret to Ikea's success is very clean, simply styled, inexpensive stuff for your home or apartment. It's mostly unassembled, so you can carry it home in your car. With Ikea, there's no longer a need to have that brick and board bookshelf!

Though the store is a warehouse, it's very inviting. Picture frames are hung. Fixtures are lit. Furniture is displayed in partitioned off home and apartment sized rooms.

I got off I-95, turned into the parking lot and gasped. It was Sunday afternoon at 4:00 PM and Ikea's lot looked like the mall on the last shopping day before Christmas!

I may be a guy, but I do ask directions. I might still be wandering around if I hadn't.

I was disappointed they didn't have everything I wanted. All my frames are simple and black. I wanted more of the same.

I bought a few 16x20s and a 5-photo frame which displays 5x7s. I wanted some 12x16s and more 8x10 frames, but there were none to be found in black. I can go back or try them online.

On my way back I stopped at Michael's to get a matte cut. One photo from my last batch was oddly sized.

I uploaded and ordered more prints tonight. I'm now ready to attack the two walls set aside as my gallery. It's pretty exciting and a lot of fun.

And, on top of that, I hit Ikea and Michael's in one afternoon! How many guys will admit to that?

Finally a big storm heading toward the Northeast. I don't think it's going to be big in the classical sense of the word... the Oswego County, NY sense of the word. But it still looks like a pain.

When I woke up Saturday, I told Helaine early indications were for a foot or two of snow! That's something I can say to her, but would have never said on-the-air. The info was just too sparse and the guidance had shifted the track radically since early Friday.

On the Internet, Drudge had picked up on AccuWeather's fearless call. Henry Margusity, AccuWeather.com's Sr. Meteorologist and Severe Weather Expert, saw what I saw and believed it would be all snow - and a lot of it.

It's funny that with all our computers and guidance, at some point it comes down to a matter of opinion. Margusity thought the cold air's effect was underdone by the models, I did not. We'll see.

I'm certainly not here claiming victory for a forecast I've never publicly delivered and which might change after I get out of the pajamas I'm wearing and into a suit.

To me, it looks like a sloppy mess with rain, sleet and freezing rain. It could actually end up being more dangerous than a straight, large snowstorm!

It's unlikely anything will fall until Tuesday evening. Still, today will be a day filled with viewer anticipation and forecaster angst.

All I want is for whatever I finally say publicly to come true... and for Helaine to tell no one I pondered calling for two feet.

I often listen to NPR while taking my shower. Today, on Talk of the Nation, Neil Conan spoke with Tom Wheeler who had an op-ed piece in this morning's Washington Post and who also wrote the book, "Mr. Lincoln's T-Mails: The Untold Story of How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War."

Are you kidding? Lincoln was our first president to communicate electronically. I guess he really was the Great Communicator.

This made Abraham Lincoln our first president with instant access to information. Imagine how that benefited him as he formulated our political and military strategy during the Civil War?

You owe it to yourself to read the op-ed column.

Oh, and Happy Birthday Abe.

I faced an interesting dilemma today with the forecast. It is too complex... really.

This is going to be one of those times when the weather will be tough to describe after it's over! The forecast has snow, sleet, freezing rain, rain more sleet and more snow. And, every place in the state will see different things at different times!

Even though the more demanding weather might occur late Wednesday (heavy snow over frozen 'stuff'), with its impact felt into Thursday morning, I mostly concentrated on late Tuesday into Wednesday. My thought was, the viewer's greatest concern goes to the first impact.

It's tough to know if I made the right call. Explaining everything relative to its severity would have given little time to Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. In fact there would have been little time to give a detailed explanation of anything.

I'm sure I'm not alone. Forecasters all over the Northeast had to be pondering the same things.

It's really not important for viewers to consider my thought process. It's my own personal hell.

I have terrible angst and misgivings as I await tonight's storm.

I wish it was snowing. I wish it was over. I wish it would only do what I said.

My stomach is churning.

This is just too easy. From Drudge:

As of tonight, I believe I am the only man in North America who never slept with Anna Nicole Smith. Could this story get any weirder?

Back sometime in the late 80s, I flew to Ottawa, Canada to spend some time with my friend Howard. We were late on the way back to the airport and Howard gunned it through the snowy Canadian capitol.

I was white knuckling it, though Howard claimed he was in control.

Nearly 30 years have elapsed since that day. I guarantee Howard, now safely ensconced in Encino, California, doesn't drive that way on his frequent business trips to the Great White North!

I thought about this as I drove to work today. I lived in Buffalo. I lived in Boston. I lived in Cleveland. I have lived in Connecticut over 20 years. I have lots of winter driving experience.

On I-91, everyone was passing me. I was driving with lots of caution. There was concern as I crossed over a large expanse of sleet to get off at Exit 4.

Where was my winter driving bravado? Aren't I the guy who used to fishtail just a little in snow, because it was fun?

Maybe it was because of how slippery my driveway was as I pulled out of the garage? Maybe it was the ineffectiveness of the salt/sand that had been applied to the street around my house and even the main roads? Whatever it was, those days of sliding through turns to get to the airport are over.

How long until I worry about breaking a hip?

Wednesday's storm is over. Not as much snow as I thought, but sleet/freezing rain took center stage. I'd played that up on the air, so there's some relief deep inside the inner Geoff.

Yes, I'd like to get snow totals right, but in this case the slickness of the precipitation trumped everything else.

Frank came and plowed the inch or two in our driveway. Helaine told me. It was hard to tell by the time I got home at midnight. This is his first plow of the season. He's got to be hurting.

A truck from the town finished plowing my street a few minutes ago. He painstakingly traced the edge of the circle at the end of our cul de sac. A quality job.

Does the time of day and his current hourly rate enter into his desire to be thorough? I'm not complaining.

Every storm is different. This one will be exceptionally difficult to treat. It's very cold outside - that certainly enters into it. I also suspect, the less porous ice isn't absorbing the salt/sand as deeply as snow would.

In any event, it's very slippery out. Many schools will start late, or won't start at all, in the morning. I will be the student's friend.

On to the next storm.

My friend Bob, down in Florida, might be the smartest guy I know. Certainly, as far as math is concerned he is.

Bob is a professor at Florida State with a PhD from Penn State. He is also the proprietor of www.CoolWX.com. In meteorological parlance, WX is weather.

Last night Bob hit me on IM to look at an addition to his site: www.CoolWX.com/extreme.

I'm not sure how, but four times an hour he parses every station in the world that's delivering weather data and then picks out the most extreme of the lot. Where is it hottest or coldest or windiest - right now!

I have been surprised at how few stations actually do report extreme weather, like heavy rain or blizzard conditions. And, I'm sure over time, there will be repeat observations from sites located in inhospitable spots, like Mt. Washington.

The site is still in development, but worth taking a look.

I just watched a video showing a confrontation between Joe Rogan (NewsRadio, Fear Factor) and Carlos Mencia (Mind of Mencia, Bud Lite Super Bowl commercial) at The Comedy Store, a Los Angeles comedy club.

It's pretty spicy language, and though I wasn't personally offended by what I heard, I don't feel comfortable passing the link. Lots of "F" bombs.

On the video, Rogan accused Mencia of being a serial joke thief, and then went into detail about what he meant. After numerous citations, he then accused Mencia of not being Mexican and actually really being named, "Ned."

You can't make this stuff up. It's all pretty amazing to see, and another way portable video and still cameras will change us forever.

Is everything documented? No. But it's getting to be where everything interesting is!

Let's see if this story has legs?

Helaine and I have been married 23 years. I'm a lucky guy. I won the marriage lottery.

There was a time when marriage didn't seem that appealing. I had been burned in relationships. I was a guy. Guys don't commit!

Helaine set out to convince me she wouldn't be deleterious to my mental health. She did that through baking.

Damn you Helaine, that's not fighting fair!

When you cook your ravioli in the Chef Boyardee can because all the pots are otherwise filthy, homemade food of any kind is appealing. So, Helaine seduced me with her acumen in the kitchen. She is a great cook and a better baker.

The were cakes and torts and kugel¹, but the clincher was the butter cookies.

Oh my god!

It is impossible to convey the powers of these cookies. They are light and crisp and flaky and oh so buttery. They might be the perfect food (as long as nutrition is removed from the calculation).

Twenty three years later, we're still together... but no more butter cookies. It's not that she doesn't love me. It's that butter cookies (and everything else) have taken their toll on my once boyish physique.

Helaine has gone away for a few days. I'll write more about that later. But, as a going away/Valentine gift, she left a plate of my old friends.

The attached photo was taken a few evenings ago. There's nothing left to shoot.

¹ - From Wikipedia: Kugel (Yiddish: קוגל kugl or קוגעל, pronounced koogel or kigel {being that the "u" takes on an "i" sound in eastern european Yiddish}, also often referred to in the diminutive kugele, kigele) is any one of a wide variety of traditional baked Jewish side dishes or desserts. It is sometimes translated as "pudding" or "casserole".

Helaine just called from Atlantic City. It was as if a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. For the first time in over a week she was calm, collected, smiling.

Here's the back story. Helaine and Steffie are big fans of Rick Springfield. You remember Rick Springfield: Jessie's Girl, Don't Talk To Strangers, Dr. Noah Drake from General Hospital.

With a huge dollop of help from the Internet, Springfield is able to tour the country, mostly on weekends, filling nice sized venues. A significant percentage of each show is filled with his most rabid fans. These are people who can sing the songs and have probably memorized the set list.

Stef and Helaine try and catch his shows whenever they can, usually a half dozen or more times a year.

Though Helaine is active in his 'fan world¹', she isn't an officer or board member of anything official. She's just a fan... an active fan.

As a fan, Helaine knows about Sahara, who with her mother are also fans from Cape Girardeau, MO. Sahara has cancer of the brain stem.

No explanation is necessary. It's as horrible as it sounds... and Sahara has not quite entered her teens.

Helaine thought it might be a nice idea to help the family by throwing a fundraiser... and that's what she did, just a few hours ago at Harrah's in Atlantic City.

It's not easy organizing a luncheon for 125 woman when you're three or four hours from the luncheon site. Helaine rounded up items to be auctioned (you have no idea how much Rick Springfield stuff is available on EBay)², arranged for the room and its fixings, dispensed the luncheon tickets and got a commitment from Rick Springfield to show as a special, unannounced but hinted at, guest.

One afternoon, she sat me down with Photoshop to design a "Love for Sahara" logo, which was then printed on buttons. Gotta love the Internet!

As the luncheon got closer, Helaine got a little more antsy. Had she remembered everything? Would Harrah's provide what she'd requested? What would go wrong?

Let me answer that last part first: Nothing! It all worked perfectly.

Helaine and Steffie, along with Stef's sorority "Big Sister" and a few other friends, executed Helaine's wonderful plan. The food was great. The venue perfectly set. The auction a total success.

The numbers aren't finalized, but when all is said and done, somewhere around $11,000 will find its way to Sahara's family. I'm sure, with everything that's going on, the money will help.

I never had any doubt Helaine could pull this off. She very organized and very smart. More importantly, I'm proud of her big heart and compassion.

A room service sandwich is on its way to her hotel room. She threw a luncheon and never had time to eat.

Right now she's feeling relief... and pride.

¹- I refer to Rick Springfield's fan base as the "Rickdom," which upsets Helaine to no end.

» - My personal thanks to Regis & Kelli and Rachael Ray. Working for an affiliate, I asked for and received tickets to both shows, which were then auctioned off.

Blogger's note: The original entry has been edited to correct Sahara's age, which is 12.

We just subscribed to Netflix. Helaine and I are not a huge DVD watching couple, but we thought this might be an interesting experiment. We're on the plan where you get one movie at a time, with a new one as often as you send the old one back.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated was at the top of our queue and came yesterday. With me currently alone, the timing was right. This film is a documentary and Helaine's not usually inclined to see docs.

I originally became aware of this film on my way home from October's trip to Maine. While I drove, and Bob tried to sleep, I listened to director Kirby Dick being interviewed on NPR.

The premise of the movie is, the MPAA movie ratings (The G, PG, R and NC17) are arbitrarily assigned, in a system which benefits big studios and penalizes independents. Dick also concludes homosexual sex is much more harshly treated than similar heterosexual sex acts.

The movie was shot after Dick had already come to a conclusion. That's not to say he was wrong. It just isn't an evenhanded presentation. He's looking to justify his conclusions, nothing more.

The board that assigns the ratings is secret. It's rules are secret. Everything about the system is secret. And, this secrecy is portrayed as a smarmy kind of underhanded cabal.

The movie goes out of its way to unmask the people involved, using private detectives. I understand the point and method, but I felt these people had their privacy unfairly invaded. Maybe I'm being overly sensitive here, but I felt uncomfortable watching the detective work in progress.

After all, Kirby Dick's problem is with the MPAA, not their employees.

A few quick notes before I end:

I found the interviews with directors, specifically John Waters¹, Matt Stone and Kevin Smith, fascinating. Forget wanting to meet your favorite stars. The interesting people in Hollywood direct.

Also, in a Q&A session from the SXSW Film Festival that's part of the "extras," I felt there was gratuitous closeup B-roll of Harry Knowles, proprietor of Aint It Cool News, a movie fan site. Harry never asked a question, nor was he identified. Why shows him... and show him again?

Before the film was released, but after the Q&A, Harry wrote:

Harry's words would mean so much more if he were a totally dispassionate bystander. Did they really have to kiss up to him and cast doubt on his imparitality?

Netflix asks you to rate the movie you have just seen (so they can better recommend other films). I gave this doc 4 of 5 stars. If there was a 3.5, I would have given it that instead.

Glad I got it.

¹ - Could he be any more weird... even if he tried?

Last week I wrote about Tom Wheeler's book "Mr. Lincoln's T-Mails." I'm watching Wheeler now on C-SPAN2. He's sharing the podium with Harold Holzer, author of "Lincoln At Cooper Union."

The more I hear, the more fascinating the story is. Lincoln is more a myth than a man to most of us. Mostly, we know history through platitudes and broad concepts. Now I'm listening to the minutiae of his public and private life.

This is the most amazing part of the story. Lincoln took advantage of the life changing technology available - the railroad, telegraph, telegrams and even photography.

In the mid-1800s, presidential candidates didn't campaign. Lincoln's photo was the representation seen by most voters.

How cool is it to know that when you look more deeply at Lincoln, he's remains as large a figure as he is from a fuzzy distance.

With Helaine gone, and me alone, it was the perfect night to have some friends over to play poker. They were scheduled to arrive at 7:00pm. I had six here by 6:45pm.

First, it's nice to entertain. When I lived in Philadelphia as a bachelor, I did everything humanly possible to keep friends from my place. I'm a little more prepared now. Helaine may be away, but her influence is here.

This was an eclectic group of ten. There were Jeff, Matt and Erik from work, Tim and Steve who went to high school with Erik, Woody, Rick, Dennis and Ashley who drove in from Boston.

Ashley actually writes about poker for a few magazines. In a good and just world, he won't write about my bad play... or bad hosting. If there are points to be made from what he experienced, he'll make them gently.

There was beer and soda and snacks and lots of good conversation. At its essence, poker at home is really about conversation. Card playing is secondary.

jetBlue is in the midst of a meltdown. They've scrubbed a boatload of flights tomorrow, the fifth consecutive day of cancellations following a Northeast ice storm. Passengers are up in arms.

There was a call for congressional hearings after a recent debacle by American Airlines in Austin, TX. Whether hearings accomplish anything or not, I see them as certain now.

I don't know much about the airline business, but I can tell you why jetBlue is having the problems they're having. To a large extent, it's because there is no jetBlue!

I look upon jetBlue as a virtual company. It doesn't own its planes. It doesn't do most of its maintenance (much of which is performed in El Salvador). Its telephone reservation system is based in Salt Lake City and mostly staffed by women working from home.

Is jetBlue the top priority of any of their contractors?

jetBlue is perfectly staffed... as long as nothing goes wrong. In real life, things go wrong.

Unfortunately, what has happened to jetBlue will happen in more and more places with more and more companies. Since passengers won't be locked in place for ten or twelve hours we won't hear as much about them.

Companies are cutting away as much cost as they can and that certainly extends to any protection against unusual failure. There is no profit in standby contingencies.

You see this all the time in stores, with fewer staff members or less competent staff. Here's what Floyd Norris of the Times said in his blog about the former chairman of Home Depot, Bob Nardelli.

In some ways, we bring this on ourselves. We're willing to shop entirely on price. I'm guilty myself, even though it's often bad in the long run.

Years ago, when most stores were closed on Sunday's, my father used to say, "If you don't want to work Sunday, don't shop Sunday." The same applies today. If you don't want to suffer bad service, don't shop where service is not a priority.

Easier said than done, I'm sure.

¹ - When he was drummed out, Nardelli received a king's ransom in severance. Norris added, "Perhaps Lowe’s will pay part of it. After all, it is they who should be grateful for his tenure."

Helaine will be the first to tell you - My all time favorite TV show was the O.J. Simpson trial! I couldn't get enough.

What a cast. There was Johnny Cochran, Marcia Clark, Judge Ito... I'm sure you know them all.

The civil trial with the Goldman and Brown families wasn't televised. Darn! I felt cheated.

Now it looks like there will be a new series of trials for me to follow... and it's a major surprise because I stumbled upon "Act 1" as I got out of the shower and turned the TV on.

It's just the first in a series of Anna Nicole Smith related court appearances. Be still my heart.

Today, live from Florida, the hearing attempted to decide Anna Nicole's final resting place. Let the games begin. These people will agree on nothing.

There was the boyfriend/attorney/possible father... the unfortunately named, Howard K. Stern. Also appearing was Anna Nicole's estranged mother, Virgie Arthur. There were attorneys of every shape and size. And, there was the judge, The Honorable Larry Seidlin.

Circuit Judge Seidlin is straight out of central casting. He is tan with an even tanner (is that a word?) bald head. Where Lance Ito was reserved and proper, Larry Seidlin is auditioning for his own courtroom show!

I don't mean to make light of Anna Nicole's death. However, her life was such a circus, it seems unlikely anything will be agreed to by all parties. That means guaranteed good TV watching for me.

Still to come, custody of the daughter and possible control of the fortune... if there is a fortune. That's to be decided too.

This is the mother's milk of the cable news networks daytime programming. Don't look for a whole lot of restraint on their part. The participants... they don't even know what restraint means!

I want to write to Bill Gates. This has nothing to do with Microsoft.

Recently, Gates was in Ottawa, Canada¹. As Reuters reports, He was asked about his children and their use of computers.

Bill Gates, you're so silly. Sure, you're the richest man in the world, but controlling your children... C'mon Bill, no one's got that much pull!

I am told, when Steffie was very small, I claimed I'd never say "no" to her. I'd find a way to discuss and explain. I don't remember saying that, though I don't deny it.

What was I smoking?

You see Bill, the problem is we teach them to speak. We teach them to reason. They hear us dispute others in our conversations. Somehow, they feel they should have a free mind and free will.

I know, it sounded awfully heavy handed to me too. Why should a 9 or 13 or 19 year old child have any input when I make a decision? And yet, over time, they wear you out. They push and push and push some more until, finally, you are powerless to stop them.

Bill, it's going to be tougher in your situation, because you're surrounded by an army of sycophants who only know yes. They will be outweighed by your children who will only know "no." Unfortunately, Children can't be fired or outsourced to Bangalore.

Here's my biggest revelation as a parent. You can't teach experience! Your child will have to do everything you know is wrong or foolish or against their own best interests, just the way you did. From time-to-time, you will just have to sit back and watch them screw up.

I know you're still a little naive. I've heard you talk about the incredible stability and security of the Windows platform. Fixing children is much more difficult. And this time, you've got to do it in "version 1.0".

¹ - When I first visited Ottawa in the late 70s, my friend Howard drove by the US Embassy and said, "That's where the landlord lives."

It's time to buy a new laptop. I don't want to spend a lot. I want everything. Are they necessarily mutually exclusive?

Let me throw this out now - your advice is solicited and will be appreciated. Where to buy? What to buy? Any tidbit!

I might not do what you suggest, but I can assure you, right now I don't know what to do!

Helaine and Stef both have Dell laptops, which they're happy with. I am using a very old (PII 300 128 mb RAM) Dell laptop which is built like a tank! I had a Sony and it always seemed fragile.

With all that experience, Dell seems logical. I'm willing to consider anything.

I want a small laptop with a high resolution screen. I've looked at the Dell Inspiron E1405 with a 14.1" screen and the WXGA+ upgrade (1440x900 pixels). Maybe a 12" screen would be OK too, though I'm not sure I want to give up the pixels (though I'd gladly give up the pounds).

Dell offers loads of choices for the CPU (the 'brains' in the package), but there's very little documentation to actually explain the difference between any two. What's the difference between a Core Duo, Core 2 Duo and Pentium dual core?

The same goes with the new four flavored Windows Vista. How 'deep' into their marketing must I plunge to know which is which? I think Vista Home Premium will be fine - though I'd just as soon use Windows XP (or Linux, if I could get away with it... which I can't).

Since I do a lot of photo editing, I suppose more memory is better - maybe 2Gb? I really don't know. I've heard varying things on how memory intensive and efficient Vista is.

I am extremely disappointed with Dell's website. No matter what I enter, I am unsure if I'm getting the best deal! There are always coupon codes listed on websites like FatWallet and Techbargains, but I've never seen them really bring the price down. If you add those online discounts, you lose Dell's seemingly automatic discounts. And, it would seem, no one really pays the posted price.

Also, Dell's site does a terrible job in explaining the differences in the CPUs that are available. The site has links that promise this info, but fall terribly short.

As a Dell stockholder (minor position in my retirement account) I am disappointed that their website makes the buying process more, not less, confusing! If it's baffling to me, a knowledgeable power user, how do neophytes know what they're looking at?

Anyway, advice is being sought. Let the games begin. Aloha.

Yesterday, I asked for laptop advice (which continues to come in). I appreciate it all. I have not made up my mind yet, so don't stop.

I do want to address one suggestion - Apple. There are two consistent comments I hear from Apple owners.

• I love my Mac
• Why don't they write this software for my Mac?

I am much more familiar with the Windows world, where I know how most things operate - even 'under the hood'. Mac's operating system is based on BSD (a Unix flavor), which I'm not quite as conversant in. So, yes, that lack of deep knowledge is also a problem.

But, again, it's the easy availability of software that's my main concern... and the price. A comparable Mac seems to be 40-50% more than its corresponding PC.

Steffie will gladly tell you how much prettier Macs are than PCs. I agree. That isn't entering into this decision.

I have looked at all the brands you have recommended. Believe it or not, at this time, Dell seems the best value. I have looked at a Dell laptop with Vista home premium (or whatever the second step on their ladder is called), 2Gb RAM, 120 Gb drive, 14.1" WXGA+ resolution (love them pixels), for under $1,000.

Software or OS tech support, the scourge of PC buyers, is less of a concern for me since I do most of my own IT work. We were very satisfied with Dell when it came to hardware support.

I also appreciate the two of you who wrote to explain the difference between Core Duo and Core 2 Duo (32 vs 64 bit processor). Why don't the laptop manufacturers reveal this on their configuration tools?

As a guy, by law, I have difficulty committing. Hopefully, tonight or tomorrow I'll make up my mind and pull the trigger.

In bed and bleary eyed, I turned on the TV. The luster is already off the Anna Nicole hearing, so I grazed the channels, stopping at NECN (New England Cable News).

I think it was a press photographer... a still camera guy... speaking off camera, as they went from photo to photo to photo. He explained technique and cited the very talented shooters who had snapped these photos in the course of their daily work.

While a photo of two kids in the snow was on the screen, he said something I will never forget. It was a quote from his father (Actually, this being a channel from Boston, he quoted his fahthah).

As you were.

We just electronically filed our state and federal income tax. Can I run out to the mailbox yet?

Actually, we completed the process on February 4th. TurboTax.com , where we've done our taxes online for the past few years, was nice enough to wait until we were totally finished to tell us they were missing two Connecticut forms.

I could complain to them, but there's greater satisfaction telling you. I'll also get more sympathy from you.

Adding insult to injury, they wouldn't let us file the Federal form until they had the Connecticut forms complete. Of course one had nothing to do with the other.

An email to them questioning that move was answered with a request to call them. Their web page then informed me of higher than normal call volume and wait time. I should have called, just so I could hear how important my call was.

Every year I adjust my withholding to guarantee we'll get a refund. I know it's foolish. I am giving my money to the government interest free. Getting that one lump sum check, illusory as it is, is worthwhile. It was when I was 16 and working at Sears. It still is today.

Our printout of forms came to 20 pages. This is crazy. Does our financial life really rate 20 pages? And we are 'simple' filers. The whole process is crazy.

You'll be glad to know, as an employee with a good income, I pay a higher percentage of my income than nearly everyone else! When you want to think of the sap who's getting hit by the system, please think of me.

When I had an agent, bringing us over the exclusion for employee related business expenses, we took deductions for postage stamps and telephone calls! Now, our only real deduction is this house, which becomes less and less deductible as we pay off more and more of the mortgage.

I'm not complaining about that - believe me. We can actually see it being paid off within a few years. That's an eventuality I never even considered.

Doing our own taxes gives us a little feel for the system. TurboTax asks about so many possible deductions, it's mind boggling. Who qualifies for this stuff?

Did I marry a child care provider while out of the country in a tax free swap? Let me check.

I am all for simplifying the tax code. Call me suspicious that any exclusion or option in the tax code was put in place to benefit one party at the expense of everyone else (aka - me). It's not the taxes that are unfair. It's the ways to get out of them!

Our refund will not be direct deposited, but will come in the form of a check so we may ogle at it. I might as well get some satisfaction from the process.

I just watched a promo for a new VH-1 show.

Is Acceptable.TV the future? It might be!

It allows 'amateurs' to submit video content for a TV show - an idea (OK, a cheap idea) which is getting traction. It also combines TV and the Internet.

As Cory Bergman said on LostRemote:

Having Jack Black as your front man undoubtedly helps. He is hip and edgy and screams anti-establishment... though the show is owned by Viacom.

Back in radio... back in the old days... we used to have the "Battle of the Hits," where phone calls decided which song would prevail in competition and be played next. There's a lot of "Battle of the Hits" in Acceptable.TV.

Am I the last to see this? There was a teaser trailer, with cute bunnies, for the new Simpsons Movie a few months back. Now there is a full fledged Simpsons Movie trailer.

I've linked to the one that fits on my screen, but high definition wide screen versions are also offered. They are larger than my 19" LCD screen can handle natively!

I don't watch The Simpsons all the time, but when I do, I enjoy it. It might be the most well defined comedy on TV. It certainly has the largest identifiable cast.

Think about it. I can name more characters on the Simpsons than any other show that's ever been on television! You can probably do that too.

The trailer knocks me out! It is the cheesy animation style I've grown to love, now in movie form. What I mean is, it's still rough hewn, but with more detail, especially the backgrounds.

No - check that. The increased detail is totally in the backgrounds. The characters are just the same as they are on TV.

Did I mention the voice of Don LaFontaine?

Though one day late for my birthday, I look forward to July 27 and pray for cinematic magic. This move has the potential to be so good... or bad.

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know I really enjoy photography. As of tonight, "Clicky" has taken 24,123 shots. Obviously, I try and take pictures any time I can.

Tonight, I had my chance to shoot a basketball game. Yale was playing Columbia and I got a pass to sit on the baseline at the John J. Lee Amphitheater on the Yale Campus in New Haven.

It was Senior Night, which is nice. It was also the night of the Jones Brothers. Yale is coached by James Jones. Columbia is coached by his brother Joe.

I haven't really shot a lot of sports. I've been to some Major League Baseball games, shooting from the stands, and stood on the sideline at the UCONN vs Army game a few years ago at Rentschler Field in Hartford. This was my first attempt at hoops. I am humbled.

Shooting basketball is much more difficult than I had imagined. it took about sixty seconds to come to that conclusion!

First, an observation I made after shooting the UCONN football game. Still photographers can get great shots, but they seldom get 'the big play' the way TV cameras do. Still photography doesn't cover the field the same way. You often have to aim and wait for the play to get to you.

Basketball poses even more problems. It moves very quickly and is played in a relatively dimly lit gym. My lenses, fine lenses for an amateur like me, are just too 'slow¹'.

There were a few professional shooters at the game as well. I needed four to eight times as much light for the same shot!

I wanted to keep my shutter speed as fast as possible, so I compensated in other ways, which is why all the shots are very, very grainy. It might look like a nice artistic touch, but it wouldn't be there if I had any choice.

In this game, Yale was blown out. Columbia was red hot. I haven't seen the stats, but it seemed they just couldn't miss a shot!

There was a a lot going on off the court. As with most colleges, Yale has a cheer squad They also have an unusual pep band, the Yale Precision Marching Band.

I didn't see them march, though after the game they did play while crawling on their knees!

The YPMB also featured one guy wearing a "Harvard Sucks" t-shirt. At Yale, that sentiment is not an idle boast.

I felt very comfortable in these surroundings. It's a shame I was