Back in August I mentioned a zany review on Epinions.com titled "Mi Amor; Or Death by Water Pik." Now fellow Internet marketing consultant Bill McCloskey spots this as a trend with a whole novel written in the form on Amazon book reviews:

Tonight, while looking up a book on Amazon, I came across a reviewer (listed as a top 100 reviewer by Amazon). For some reason, I clicked on the link that allowed me to read all of this person’s reviews. What it uncovered was the funniest thing I have read in a long time. Basically, this guy has written one of the funniest, post –modern novels, totally though his book reviews.

To see what I mean, look up Henry Raddick as a reviewer.

Just some of the gems we learn:

1. His recent public disgrace
2. His uncle’s battle with prison authorities to get the “cosmetic surgery” he needs.
3. Battles with his wife, Majorie and his past indiscretions.
4. His “part-time” ministry.
5. His obesity support group.

It goes on and on.

There is something here for today’s marketer. I just don’ t know what it is.

Bill McCloskey, CEO, Emerging Interest

Sounds to me like a poor man's weblog, but one with a built-in marketing platform and affiliate network... I'd love to see this take off as sport.

Speaking of blogs, Bill agrees with me that he needs one (I've already posted several of his comments to ExecutiveSummary.com). Stay tuned...

Coming in under the shadow of Giuliani's magnificent final months, Mayor Bloomberg shied away from publicity stunts and pointless press conferences for the first year of his administration. He seems to be enough in the groove of things at this point, however, that he's starting to ham it up a bit for the press of late. Christmas was a case in point. I'm just assuming from the name that he's Jewish, which makes it just that much sillier that he delivered cookies to firemen and policemen yesterday, along with his unused "strike bike" (which he bought when transit workers were threatening an averted walk-off) to a kid in Brooklyn with diabetes (NY Daily News). Isn't that sweet? The Daily News headline, however, should have read "Mike Gives Strike Bike to Tyke."

Tell you what I'd love to see: some smartass Flash animator sit down and put out an underground animation of the M&M characters rapping to an Eminem song.

So, we've had a white Christmas here in NYC after all. It's really dumping down now as I type this just after 7pm.

Hope it was a merry one for you. Was for us.

This seems like an outstanding idea: a stun gun disguised as a cell phone. Terrorists could probably easily smuggle them onto airplanes, and stupid people will electrocute themselves in the head trying to answer their real cell phones. (Via Mark.)

I don't make a habit of watching the generally stupid new hospital comedy Scrubs on NCB, but I caught it last week, and one scene has stuck with me. Flunky young resident J.D. is assigned to videotape the birth of friends of the mean Dr. Cox. J.D. tells the audience that people have romanticized the whole experience of birth tremendously, and if they really had any idea what it was really like, they'd have serious second thoughts. The scene switches to an imagined 1950s educational film where Dr. J.D. cheerfully explains to a wholesome '50s couple of expectant parents: "You will fart, poop and pee in front of a room full of strangers staring at your vagina, which, in 80% of cases, will tear during birth."

No wonder cesarean sections are more popular then ever (nearly 25% of all births in the U.S.).

UPDATE:
This could not have been more perfect: Mark just happened to send me this hilarious video clip (1.4 MB MPEG) of a Japanese ad for Fuji film set in a hospital delivery room.

I'm very pleased to read on Gawker that Mayor Bloomberg has endorsed plans to turn a mile and a half of abandoned railway line on the West Side of Manhattan (from Gansevoort to 34th Streets next to 10th Ave) will be turned into a park area. The effort, which got the kibosh from Giuliani, is largely the labor of love by Robert Hammond, who founded Friends of the High Line (nice web site) to support the initiative. Further details from the NY Times.

Caught this on tonight's edition of All Things Considered (archive page | Real Audio file). Los Angeles's Beverly Mall is lucky to be visited for the next few evenings by Hunky Santa, who is the real Santa's son, St. Rick. He'll listen to your gift requests and pass them along to his dad, although from the sound of it, many of the adults who are flocking to see him are expressing holiday wishes that should probably land them in the naughty column.

More news of the weird from the excellent NPR new quiz show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me:

• J. Lo is already threatening to call off the wedding to Ben Afflack unless he dumps best friend Matt Damon, who is apparently counseling Afflack against the union.
• The Senate's internal TV network broadcast porn earlier this week as an A/V technician accidentally hit the wrong button while dubbing a smut tape for his personal collection.
• China's state auto manufacturer will release a car next spring equiped with a karaoke machine.

One of the show's panelists, wag Charlie Pierce quipped that after Trent Lott's apology last week on Black Entertainment Television, BET had offered him is own regular show. "I'ts going to be called 'Trent Lott in the Hood.' They're just debating whether or not to use an apostrophe."

I think it's simply marvelous that Marvel has come out (so to speak) with a gay comic book hero, but did they really have to put him in a cowboy suit and call him the Rawhide Kid? I mean, isn't that a bit...campy?

"Bang! Bang! Don't worry, pardner, I got your back."

The new Rawhide Kid, based on the same character from the '50s, is to be released this February and is presently promoted on Marvel.com as "Hot This Month!" (I'll say.)

Rumor is Marvel is considering changing the name of the Incredible Hulk to the Incredible Hunk.

This is a bizarre little story in the present issue of the New Yorker, more along the lines of the Bush administration trying to woo the rest of the world with questionable information strategies. In this case, the State Department has enlisted the help of the DC rap group Native Deen -- a group of African American Muslims whose hits include "M-U-S-L-I-M," "I Only Fear Allah," and "Drug Free" -- to spread the message of America's diversity and tollerance by sponsoring their international exposure. So, while selling out to the U.S. government appears not to trouble them, of Eminem two of the band members say:

He has skills. Anybody in the rap world knows that he's a very good lyricist.

He's definitely taking the rap world by storm. But what we have a problem with is the subject matter, the content, the image, you know.

Forester Whitaker is a good actor, most memorably in The Crying Game, but I'm sorry, Rod Serling he's not. Yet meet UPN's host of the new Twilight Zone. This is a perfect example of Hollywood not knowing when to leave well enough alone. What's next, the "I Love Lucy" movie starring Antonio Banderas and Nicole Kidman?

UPDATE:
I am quite an idiot, apparently (no surprise to many of you). This is apparently the second season. I don't watch a lot a UPN.

So, the judge in the infamous "Central Park Jogger" case freed the five men who, as boys, were sentenced apparently erroneously for raping and viciously beating a female jogger 13 years ago. I was living in NYC at the time of the case. It was the biggest crime story of the decade, summing up all the fears people had about living it what was then a very dangerous city.

The whole thing is hard to fathom now. So they were innocent? Seems like the police and DA aren't willing to precisely say that (even though another unrelated guy has confessed, whose DNA also happens to match crime-scene evidence). As far as I can tell, the court has just annulled the convictions, they're free, no questions, no apologies, whatever. The judge did wish them a Merry Christmas, I saw on a TV news clilp.

And what about that terrible word "wilding" that entered our vocabulary (sort of) as a result of this case, which the teenagers alledgedly used (during their "confessions") to jauntily describe their seemingly horrific crime spree. What was the word? Nothing more than a hoax perpetuated by the cops to make them look like monsters? Something the kids said which the cops misunderstood and fed to the media, which delightedly ran with? I remember back at the time people in the black community suggested that the police had made up the word, as no one had ever heard it used before or since in any other context. But back in 1989, we were told that "wilding" was the latest urban fad, a la Clockwork Orange. Certainly made for such tantilizing headlines. The media had a field day with it. Now, I suppose we'll never know. Or, on second thought, we probably will as soon as the now free young men write their books on the whole ordeal.

All I can say is NYC is a different city today in so many ways, almost all for the better (save, obviously, the whole Sept. 11 thing).

Picking up the Big Brother theme I've been blogging about in recent days, I caught over the weekend on NRP's On the Media an interview (transcript and Real Audio file) with host Brooke Gladstone and LA Times writer William Arkin on his recent article about the military's continued dirty tricks vis-a-vis international disinformation policies. Both the interview and original article highly recommended. Here's Gladstone's intro from the interview:

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was roundly condemned last year when he unveiled the Pentagon's new Office of Strategic Influence to feed disinformation to the foreign media. He claimed it was all a misunderstanding and supposedly scrapped the idea, but recently in the L.A. Times, military analyst and critic Bill Arkin explained that the Office of Strategic Influence is not dead but thriving under different names throughout the Pentagon. Arkin has obtained dozens of Pentagon documents that describe in detail how the military has restructured itself top to bottom to fight a global information war that could blow back into the United States.

Here's the best paragraph of the LA Times piece:

Both the Air Force and the Navy now list deception as one of five missions for information warfare, along with electronic attack, electronic protection, psychological . attacks and public affairs. A September draft of a new Air Force policy describes information warfare's goals as "destruction, degradation, denial, disruption, deceit, and exploitation." These goals are referred to collectively as "D5E."

UPDATE:
Struggling with my Hungarian on Adi's blog just now, I found this related NYT article: "Pentagon Debates Propaganda Push in Allied Nations"

Now that's more like it. I heard much of the press conference announcing the new designs for rebuilding the World Trade Center, and, from the sound of them (and this NYT article with a short multimedia slideshow), the new plans are much more impressive than the first stinkeroo round. I'll look forward to buying the Times tomorrow and seeing them in more detail.

Pictured here is British architect Foster and Partners' 'Twinned Towers' design, which proposes once more building the tallest sky scraper in the world. I say hell yeah. Haven't studied any of these at length yet, but so far this one gets my vote for sheer NYC-style in-your-face audacity. You think you can knock down our buildings? Well let's see you try it again, mother fuckers!

Too bad the web site for the new project, RenewNYC.org/.com, stinks and can't deal with the traffic it's getting.

See Google News for more on the subject.

UPDATE:
I've had a chance now to scan through all of the online presentations. Traffic to RenewNYC.org has finally slowed down enough. One thing is clear: almost all of the designs show real stunning vision. They're all incredibilty cool looking buildings. here are some others I particularly like:

Notice the fire exit plan for the "Memorial Square" plan on the right.

By the time you read this, Gawker.com should be live. I've been reading the beta version for more than a week. I'm special.

It's yummy. NYC served snarky, just the way I like it.

Odd that the new Lord of the Rings movie, subtitled The Two Towers, is being released the same day as the new plans for the WTC (i.e., the former "Twin Towers").

I feel it is part of my duty as a WNYC/NPR junkie to blog news I hear on the radio that may go unreported otherwise in the blogosphere. Part of the trick is that WNYC's local news department is so good at local scoops that I often have trouble validating them online elsewhere until the rest of the pack catches up. Case in point: while lots of news sources are reporting (as of 11:15am EST today) the release of the FBI's latest 6-month national crime trends report, no one else yet has picked up WNYC's point that New York City has the lowest crime rate among the biggest 25 cities in the nation.

I tried to find the same point in the FBI's report, but it's not teased out clearly. Someone, either at WNYC or their source, must have gone thru the FBI's list of some 200 cities and identified the biggest 25 and done the math themselves, which I didn't take time to do. I'm just assuming that they got it right, in which case you'll probably soon see it picked up elsewhere in the NY media. Till then, you saw it here first.

Go NYC, you rock!

Also, a bonus dividend of looking into this: I found the FBI's Page 2, a web news page with its own slogan, "Beyond the headlines." If I didn't know better, I'd say it looks like the FBI's blog.

UPDATE:
Cool. I scooped the mayor, who, in the afternoon, told a press conference:

“New York City now ranks 197 out of the 216 cities with at least 100,000 residents. To put that in context, we’re right between Provo, Utah, and Rancho Cucomonga, California. I don’t mean to disparage those towns; their crime rate is impressive as well. But when you want to be safe, you come to New York City."

I could never understand why CDs were supposed to be worth $15 back when LPs used to sell for $7. Well, seems I'm not alone. Mark writes:

Remember when the music industry was convicted of price-fixing? Well, everyone who bought a CD between 1995 and 2000 in the US is eligible for a piece of the settlement -- between $5 and $20. If enough people sign up, the money goes to charities that are working to reform the music industry. Pass it along.

A friend of mine living in Budapest just received the email below, for real. This strikes me, for one, as creepy:

From: ACS Warden Warden.Budapest@state.gov
Subject: Warden (District X)
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Greetings from the American Embassy, American Citizen Services Section.

We are presently searching for a Warden in your district and are writing to see if you have an interest in volunteering in this capacity.

As a Warden you would:

1. Maintain a current list of names, addresses and phone numbers of Americans that fall within your jurisdiction, in coordination with the embassy's Consular section (we provide you this list but you can help us keep it current as you become aware of people moving in and out of your area).

2. In time of crisis or emergency...

-Be available to receive instructions.
-Distribute messages regarding the crisis to Americans in your area.
-Ensure all the Americans within your jurisdiction get the messages.
-Keep coordinator updated on developments, especially unsubstantiated rumors in times of crisis.

If you have an interest in volunteering as a warden please respond to this email and include all your contact information (home and work phone numbers, cell phone number, address and email).

Thank you for your assistance,

Sincerely,

XXX XXXXXXX
Consular Associate
American Embassy in Budapest

Adrienne says she remembers when this sort of thing was common in Hungary. Namely, under communism.

I was lying in bed this morning listening to the NPR Sunday morning news and I heard a piece (Real Audio file) about a new book the State Department has commissioned and released titled 'Writers on America' (as featured on the State Department site) which features a number of prominent (e.g. Richard Ford) and not-so-prominent American writers (of various ethnic backgrounds) reflecting on what it means to be a writer in America. The book is meant to be distributed around the world to help students and other readers form a more balanced view of this country.

Nothing about the story really caught my attention till host Liane Hansen concluded the story with this note:

And a final word, Writers on America is not available in the United States. Domestic distrubiton of government information intended for foreign audiences is prohibited by law.

Does anyone besides me think that should have been the lead of this story?

I don't know who is behind this animation, but it is brilliant.

Props to Colin for the find.

UPDATE:
DubyaDubyaDubya.com speaks:

Rick,

Thanks for your kind comments — I’ve been receiving quite a few over the past couple of days. The unfinished Flash piece is simply a placeholder for a much larger site to come, The "site," as you may have noticed, consists of a single page, with no meta-tags or search engine information. It wasn’t meant for general public display yet. I’m as surprised as you are that’s it’s captured the attention it has. The weblogs from Friday showed about 91,000 page views.

I mentioned the piece was unfinished. On the final frame I’m inserting URL’s to issues raised in the movie. If you’re interested, I’ll provide them here:

• "Revoking aid to desperately poor Women and Children..."
• "Provoking wars to increase profits for oil companies..."
• "Denying benefits to disabled veteran's..."
• "Criminalizing dissent..."

You’ll notice that I’ve deliberately used only used mainstream and respected news outlets in compiling the references. It was my intention to use the same piece, but update the issues on a weekly basis. I feel uneasily “confident” that they’ll be a virtually unlimited supply up to the 2004 elections, in addition to what we’ve already seen.

Ian Bruce
New York & Los Angeles

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be ... The People cannot be safe without information. When the press is free, and every man is able to read, all is safe."
-- Thomas Jefferson

Unbelieveable. A new film "Divine Intervention," by Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman, which won the international critics' prize at Cannes and best foreign film at the European Film Awards, is ineligible for the American Academy Awards, apparently because Palestine is not a country.

There is a showing of the film in NYC on December 17 at 6:30pm at The New School's Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th St.

Friday the 13th was fun, even if it didn't work out quite the way I'd hoped. That is, another stereo snafu, so the music wasn't loud ever enough to get the dancing going, but it was a fun party, nonetheless. The usual mix of magyars, bloggers, gen expats, film makers, etc. And just as the Gregarious Vixen and E. stole half the party around 1am for the weekly Bulgar Dizsi ritual, reenforcements arrived and the party raged on for another few hours of polite conversation and drinking. And how often can you honestly say you spent half an hour chatting about TV and politics with Michael Jordan and Frankenstien in your own basement apartment in Harlem? (Actually, I have no recollection at all what we were talking about, other than Juila Childs.) Best part: lots of shrimp, booze and umbrellas left over.

Big huge apologies to one lovely blogger so recently transplated to NYC that I...what can I say, forgot. Really wish I'd read email yesterday afternoon, but you're always welcome.

I have to say, I'm a Bloomberg fan, even if I didn't vote for him. (And just to be a self-indulgent stickler, I was right about the inevitable bike photo opp. I'm still looking forward to Monday's shot, actually on the bike in traffic in winter rain, flanked by bike cops.)

Beyond the bike stunt, though, I was really impressed with his recently released plan for rebuilding lower Manhattan, which is better than virtually anything else I've heard on the subject to date.

My lip goes soft and trembly at not being able to attend this (from Chris Condon):

I hereby announce the First Budapest Week Reunion and Christmas Drink-up

Where: Picasso Point (yes, it's still there)

When: Friday, Dec 20, 9 pm

There will be a special drawing. Prizes will include pens once dropped by Rick Bruner (we have several), the Fred Flintstone computer, a lifetime subscriptions to Budapest Week, a date with Peter Hall, a free consultation on management techniques with Tim Randall, a bag of Bob Weed, a vile of Ken Kasriel's saliva and, the Grand Prize.......

........A signed promise by Peter Fried to resolve your back-pay.

This email is going only to those on my address list, which obviously doesn't include everyone who should know about this event. Please pass the word to anyone and everyone you know who ever had anything to do with Budapest Week and might actually show up (excluding scoundrels).

See you there.

Hmmm. I just heard a plug on NPR's Morning Edition for a new five-part radio "farce" they're running all next week titled I'd Rather Eat Pants. As regular readers know, I'm an NPR junkie. I also have always enjoyed radio plays, as much as I've known them having been born in the mid-'60s, most notably stuff on Priarie Home Companion and the slightly more obscure absurdists Fire Sign Theatre. I've often wished some smart young group would go retro and revive the art of radio drama, NRP being the obvious vehicle for it.

Gotta say, however, having heard the plug for next week's show, I don't think this is exactly going to spark the revival. It's billed as an "all-star" cast, which is pretty generous: Edward Asner, character acter Anne Meara, Derek Cecil ("star" of the ABC atrocity "Push, Nevada") and Dan Castellaneta (voice of Homer Simpson). Granted, it's billed as a "farce," in which case I'll cut it a bit more slack, as you probably have to get really caught up in it for the humor to work, but the clips they played on NPR (almost in the guise of a news story, which I thought was pretty tacky) all sounded really flat. From what I heard, the acting really sounded like line reading, and the script didn't really seem promising (the plot sketch I got was so silly I'll spare you; click above if you're curious), which is perhaps not surprising, considering the writer Peter Ackerman's only writing credit was the recent animated film Ice Age.

Besides, why part of Morning Edition? Who wants radio farce for breakfast? Just seems like an afternoon/evening kind of thing.

My father calls my attention this morning this depressing Op-Ed piece in today's times: "The Next Africa" whose lead begins, "While we're all focused on distant Iraq, our neighbor South America is quietly falling apart."

Remember the Gong Show? If you watched American TV in the '70s, you do. I just heard that George Clooney has his made his directing debut with a movie titled "Confesions of a Dangerous Mind" (IMDB | MRQE | Rotten Tomatoes) about the Gong Show's host, Chuck Barris, who apparently claims (still living) to have been a CIA assassin, responsible for more than 30 hits, including during his TV career. What a perfect Julia Roberts vehicle.

How stupid is this?

I happened to want to check out the Department of Homeland Security for a client. Found it on a subdirectory of White House's web domain. I thought they'd made it a full on federal department, i.e., on a cabinet level along with the Department of State, the Department of Education, etc. So they don't even get their own domain?

Anyway, what's stupid is the color scheme. Not the concept of the thing necessarily (tho that seems pretty stupid to me, too), but the actual execution of the design. First off, why are the color dots so small? They're barely bigger than pin pricks. They couldn't have doubled the size of those dots? But look at Yellow and Orange. Dont' they look almost the same? They do to me, and I'm not colorblind.

Most importantly, however, look at the "Current Threat Level" box. That color doesn't look at all like the Yellow in the color key above. It looks more like a pukey greenish-gold. Is that just me? Maybe it's an optical illusion. It certainly isn't a color that makes me feel any safer.

Everyone's favorite sitcom/police-drama plot just happened today: a baby was born at NYC's Union Square subway station with the help of beat cops. (Just heard it on WNYC radio, tho I don't see it reported online yet, but I'll link soon.) (As of this posting, 6:13pm EST, Bruner Blog has scooped Google News, NYTimes.com and Reuters.com on this story.)
:-)

Here now is the story on NY1.

Back in 1989 or so, I interned for a summer at WOR-TV's news department (Channel 9 in NY's market). A generally miserable experience, tho I did get to go out and cover a few stories (tho nothing of my contribution appeared on camera aside from my hand holding the mike). One story I covered was the same thing: healthy baby born on subway. Positively life affirming.

Very cool. NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg says he'll ride a bike to work if the transit workers go on strike. Personally, I work in my apartment, so I'm kind of immune to this pending strike, but I do love to bike in NYC and give the mayor his props for his attitude. I also love that he commutes to work on the subway normally.

Newsday reports:

“This time I will probably take a bicycle to work,” the mayor said, noting that he used car-pools during the 11-day 1980 transit strike. “I think that’s a practical way for me to get downtown early.”

The mayor’s disclosure led to a follow-up question. “Are you serious about riding a bike,” one reporter asked.

“Sure,” the mayor said. “I never say anything I don’t do. You should know that by now.”

However, before he dons biking tights, Bloomberg admitted that his current bike is “in pretty rotten shape.” He said he plans to buy a new one.

The reporter followed up again: “So you’d actually ride down with a police escort?”

With Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly nodding in the background, Bloomberg replied, “Oh I don’t know. I’m a little faster than most of those guys – I don’t know if they can keep up.”

That's going to be such a great photo if it comes to it (most likely next Monday): the mayor geared up on a bike (bearing in mind, Weather.com predicts that tomorrow morning around commute time it's going to be 27 F-degrees ("feels like 22")) surrounded by an escort of cops on bikes, all freezing their balls off for an obligatory photo opp. Priceless! "Practical" indeed. You go, boy!

For the rest of you, WNYC.org has a page with an overview and links to the city's Transit Strike Contingency Plan

Ugh. I need to figure out who else is chronicling this, but just when I thought Daypop was dead, it appears they're alive again (as of this posting, anyway).

And now, checking Blogdex, I noticed what appears to be a hybrid of Blogdex and Daypop (in branding at least): Popdex, yet another meme index based on blog links. I don't know that "the market" needs quite so many of these, all the more so given Daypop's dubious viability of late. Even labors of love require bandwidth and hosting fees, all the more so as they gain popularity.

A new trend would seem to be afoot. In the last week or so, three bloggers I often read -- Nick Denton, Elizabeth Spiers and Jeff Jarvis -- have all put new photos of themselves up on their blogs. What is most striking is how utterly unironic all the photos are. Sure, I have a couple of pictures of myself on this blog, but not ones you'd be likely to recognize me from. Nick says that readers want that connection, muttering something about it being the same thing as when newspapers run photos of their columnists. I dunno. Somehow seems to take the fun out of it. I mean, it's different with Raymi or Moxie, as the former's often naked and the latter at least occasionally in a bathing suit (note correction below).

(Note to Jeff and Nick: don't get any bright ideas.)

Is there no mystery left in the blogosphere? I'll really know it's more than just a passing fad if the ever-reclusive Peter Maass joins suit.

UPDATE:
Oops, apologies to Moxie for erroneously suggesting she posed in her underwear. As she pointed out in an email, it was naught but an innocent (if "expensive") bathing suit. Wishful thinking on my part. Peace.

Meant to mention this earlier, but forgot. Heard yet about the latest abomination of reality TV?

The executive producer and creator of the real-life dating drama The Bachelor has hatched a new reality series called The Will for ABC.

The show will revolve around a wealthy benefactor who will bequeath his family fortune to the winner of a game-show style, real-life contest between his relatives.

Meanwhile, Adi's new obsession is Allat Világ ("Animal World"), a new reality show in Hungary featuring nightly broadcasts from inside the home of a group of animal friends: a rabbit, a guinne pig, a chicken and a few others. Although they have names and professions, the joke seems to be that they're just cute animals in a room sitting around in an animally way. I say "seems," as it's broadcast in Hungary and we live in NY and they don't have it yet online, so we've only heard about it. Nothing cool like that ever comes to American TV....

New word on me. Just read it on bOing bOing. Upon further examination, I see it has something of a history. Me likey.

So very silly:

At one Illinois Burger King, authorities say, you could order a Whopper, fries and some coke. Not a soft drink but cocaine. Four people have been jailed on charges they sold cocaine from the drive-thru window at a Burger King in Mundelein.

Through the drive-thru window, no less. That's almost as good as the guys who deliver in NY.

I see the cat is out of the bag. New Yorkers, stay tuned for

God bless the Internet. Here's a guy who set up a site back in 1997 to let people turn the lights on and off in his house -- 9 webcams' worth -- and he's still at it. Just a geek who did it because he could. Says the lights going on and off really doesn't bother him. More power to him. I wonder what the chicks think.

Fark is like the Internet's perfect storm. Get lots of traffic from people with a twisted sense of humor and too much time on their hands and give them an assignment, like screwing around with Photoshop on the theme of 15th Century UFOs, and you get results like this.

I was just listening to the Sunday afternoon rebroadcast of Prairie Home Companion, and in Garrison Keeler's Lake Woebegone monologue, he tells a hilarious tale (what else?) of a busload of 40 NY analysts back in the '60s getting stranded in Lake Woebegone during a winter blizzard. So the friendly Lake Woebegoneans take the analysts into their homes and, in an effort to fight the cabin-fever blues, the mayor's wife takes a carload of them out for a drive at night, and being a local, she's doing 65 mph on the snow-covered roads. The analysts are already terrified, when suddenly a deer jumps out in front of them. Without flinching, she drives straight through the deer, killing it, its body flying over the windshield and roof. The analysts are shocked. One shouts, "You killed it!" to which she replies (more or less):

"Yes, well better him than us. You never brake for deer. Don't swerve, maybe slow down a bit, but never brake. And better that he's dead than off in the woods with a broken leg waiting for the coyotes. It's just God's way of improving the species, thinning out the ones with poor judgement."

That's the kind of good country wisdom you just don't get from most pop culture or the NYC lifestyle. That vignette may save my life some snowy day, PETA hatemail notwithstanding.

Prairie Home is broadcasting for the last couple and next three (?) weeks from NYC's Town Hall, hence the NY theme. And I was supposed to attend, but I got screwed by the system! I've learned from previous experience that Garrison Keeler sells out venues faster than Madonna. This time I put it in my calendar ahead of time and went online to buy my tickets within hours of their having gone on sale, only to get a call from Prairie Home's Minnesota headquarter office weeks later saying that regrettably demand far surpassed their expectations (despite five shows here!) and they vastly oversold tickets and unfortunately, I was one of the losers. Grrrr.

I did see the show live once in San Francisco, after I bought tickets at the show from a woman whose husband was a no-show, in the furtherest back corner in the theater. But it was great. Every time he's come back to NY since I've been living here, I've tried again but to no avail. If anyone out there pulls strings at NPR and can get me a ticket...

Why am I such a Garrison Keeler groupie? (Better that than a Christopher Hitchens groupie, if you ask me.) Both of my parents immigrated to NJ from Minnesota. It's in the blood. If I can't be Jewish, it's the next-best thing I've got.

Edinburgh News reports:

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said: "The President of the United States and the Secretary of Defence would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it."

Remember when your mom used to explain, "Because I said so, that's why"?

The final irony of the whole Miss World fiasco? They award the title to a Muslim. Get it? Muhammad might really have chosen this one for a bride. That is, Miss Turkey won the competition: I'm simply assuming that therefore she is at least nominally Muslim (as well as a model and belly dancer), but I notice that the question of her religion conspiculously didn't come up in any of the press coverage I read on it, so I might be wrong.

For the new parents among you, the sacarin sweet Baby Opera (in Flash). Not recommended for normal mortals.

Adrienne admits she saw this Harper's Index note (nod to Elizabeth) that Hungarians are the third fattest nation (after the U.S. and U.K.) several weeks ago, but she neglected to mention it to me b/c she thought I'd make fun of her. Now why would she think something silly like that?

Via Nick's snow post (yes, it snowed a lot here today), I came across this personals ad on Craig's List for a guy who's planning a night of sitting on the couch, watching a video, eating ice cream and smoking weed, and is hoping some "attractive, intelligent and highly humorous girls 21-30" are interested in joining him. Dude, that sounds very much like a married date, not the ticket for landing a happening single NYC hottie.

CNN reports:

A coalition of religious and environmental groups is launching a "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign Wednesday, hoping to get people to switch to more fuel-efficient cars.

More fascinating philosophical questions from the same religion that brought you the unforgetable "How Many Angels Could Dance on the Head of a Pin?" campaign. (Via Snark Hunting.)

One thing we've had trouble getting used to in NY after four years in San Francisco is the so-called blue laws by which you can't buy liquor in NY on Sundays and you can only buy beer in supermarkets, not wine. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the state is now considering ending those restrictions to raise taxes.

Via Mark

Arrived home this evening around midnight and came into the building's entrance hallway in time to see the elevator rising up, so I had to wait. As it was coming down, I was wondering whether there would likely be someone in it or not, and guessed that there would. When it arrived, I looked through the little window, still unsure whether someone was in it or not. When the doors opened, the elevator was empty except for a black thong on the floor.

Heard we missed a great party last night. :-(

UPDATE: It has been confirmed by many that indeed, we missed a great party, none more vividly than Elizabeth.