Designer Blog

As you all well know, I think of witty things to say. The problem is that oftentimes someone else thinks of them first. That makes me a day late and a dollar short or a plagiarist. Last night I had a flash of genius and decided that my alter ego in the blogosphere would be fashionista Karl Bloggerfeld. I google it and come up with three pages of hits. Nuff said.

I just took a look at my blog and realized the majority of my recent posts have been about my everyday life. You people must be bored as hell. That said, I will return to celebrity reporting for the remainder of this post. There should be plenty of material to draw from as the media do their 2006 retrospectives. I promise to stay off the topic of young celebs who forgot their underwear.

I read a while back that George Clooney’s pet pig bought the farm. I was going to make some crude jokes about pork chops and bacon but thought the better of it. When my pet porcupine croaks, I don’t want anybody cracking wise about acupuncture. Another recent piece of news was that Tori Spelling is writing her memoir. That’s going to be a study in humility.

This just in. The fourth Indiana Jones movie will begin filming in 2007. This will have a day in the life format of Harrison Ford’s character, starting off with a visit to the social security office, through three doctor appointments, and ending with an early bird dinner at his favorite restaurant. Elizabeth Taylor is coming out of retirement to play his love interest.

Happy Festivus

Now for the airing of the grievances:

I’ll start with 4M and The Wolverine. Back in January…. Strike that. I don’t have all day.

Remember when the SF Examiner used to be a real newspaper? I’d invest 50 cents of my hard earned money daily for the ride home on the Samtrans express bus. Now I get free home delivery and it goes straight into the recycling bin. Since it’s the holiday, I get the obligatory Happy Holidays card from my carrier. I sent the Chronicle guy a Jackson. This ensures he wraps it in plastic on rainy days. I’m thinking of sending one to the Examiner carrier as well, with the caveat that he doesn’t chuck another one in my driveway until next year this time

Ever look at Cosmo magazine? I’m subjected to it in the Safeway checkout lane. What a piece of junk! The latest one trumpets “Sex Uncensored”. I need to write the editors and tell them the cat is out of the bag. There haven’t been any new discoveries in this arena since prior to the 11th century.

Maybe I need to stop reading the little bit that I do. They’re trashing the language left and right. Corporations aren’t helping any. They have more jargon than anybody. Sometimes I can’t tell if they’re speaking in code or speaking in tongues. One of my favorite phrases is “thought leadership”. This apparently causes “people-driven actions”. What? What comes to my mind when I hear this? Zombies and mind control! In the same vein, I’m getting really tired of the phrase “x is the new y”, as in “green is the new black”, “funny is the new sexy”, “eating out is the new eating in” and so on. Where do they come up with this crap? Here’s my addition to the genre: “Horseshit is the new factuality”

Who wants to wrestle?

Every Dog Has His Day

I want you all to know that I am very grateful and deeply humbled by my recent acclaim. It may ring hollow to some, but I really didn’t deserve it. I never in my wildest dreams expected to be named Time’s Person of the Year. I’d like to thank everyone, especially all the little people, like Tom Cruise and The Exec.

DJ Blog Consultancy

I’ve figured out my next career. I’ll be a blog consultant. Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated that a blog is created every second. I think Olbermann said that the average blog has one reader. That adds up to a lot of opportunity.

A potential customer would be that selfless public servant, Tom DeLay. My first advice to him would be to turn on the comment moderation feature. Secondly, it’s best that you write your own blog. Tommy got Hammered in his first 75 minutes in the blogosphere and had to shut it down temporarily because a few folks exercised their right to free speech. He cleaned it up when he brought it back on line but you can read the choice comments at:

http://tomdelaydotcom.blogspot.com/

There is some vulgarity, which for the cognoscenti, is anathema to me. But the thing that upset me the most is the following comment:

“Everybody already assumes bloggers are unemployed losers… thanks for reinforcing that stereotype…”

Now that may apply to DeLay, but I have a job. Yes, yes, I work at home occasionally, but I’m working. Really!

Pony Up

I hit Bay Meadows with 4M and the old man this past Friday. No, I wasn’t telecommuting. I took the day off and went up to SF to pick up my father. We met up with 4M in the clubhouse. They closed the Turf Club for the day, either for a private party or because they saw us coming. As long as we weren’t in the grandstands with the hoi polloi, we were happy. We are snobbish handicappers.

I used to goof around with some of my former co-workers about going to the track on the days I work from home. One of the guys, whom we’ll call Shawn, since that’s his name, was the guy who gave me the most grief. So running in the first race was a horse called “Don’t Tell Shawn”. I couldn’t resist and put a ten spot on his nose to win. He did and paid out $33. I also picked the right horse to show in the 6th race, which netted me $48. That paid for all my other losing bets.

My dad scoured the Daily Racing Form, much as he did when I was a young man in need of guidance. 4M used another method, based on the opening odds vs. the odds before post time. I studied their methods closely and worked to come up with a winning synthesis. By the 7th race, we were of one mind and all put our money on the 5 horse. Right out of the gate, the 5 horse’s jockey got thrown. The jockey was OK and the 5 came in first, but gosh darn it, it doesn’t count if there’s no rider.

Et tu, JB?

Your friends, or those that you thought were friends, can be your harshest critics. I’m basing this on the comment on my 11/27 post. I think it came from my lawyer chum JB, but I’m not sure because it came in as anonymous. Can you imagine that, publishing a comment on such a widely read forum and not identifying yourself? JB has always been a wallflower. I tried to give her a call but I couldn’t reach her at home. She’s probably out shopping for down parkas and Manolo Blahnik snowshoes for the upcoming upstate winter. Say goodbye to beautiful shades of crimson foliage and hello to sleet, salt and gravel encrusted snow banks.

She may take exception to my response but that’s OK. I’ll use my blog’s “comment moderation” tool. If things get really out of hand, I’ll be soliciting donations to the DJ Defense Fund. As far as JB’s 11/29 philippic, it happens to be full of holes. I got my license at 16 while I was still a high school student. And I was a nervous passenger, but only in her ancient Chevy. That was with good reason. Such as the long, strange trip down to the Grand Funk concert in The Garden. JB was behind the wheel and I was riding shotgun. The Floyd brothers, Pretty Boy and Pink, were along for grins. I became concerned when we were in the middle of the Lincoln Tunnel and she was getting flak from the Floyds. She casually mentioned stopping the vehicle in the tunnel. This gave me pause. The back seat boys were of no help, cackling and goading her on. Fortunately prudence won out and we made it to the show without incident.

There was also that chilly midnight’s drive on the lawn of a rival high school. The shriek of reason had no effect on JB that night. The local PD was not far away but were luckily otherwise engaged, ensconced at the Dunkin Donuts on the miracle mile. We waved as we passed, on our way to 17. The miracle mile, as all roads, leads to 17.

I Suffer Fools Gladly

My pager came through for me again today. As I was eating breakfast, the entertainment section informed me that Gwyneth Paltrow said that the Brits have more interesting dinner conversation than the Americans. She later released a statement the same way I always do, through People magazine. She was apparently misquoted. That’s what happens when you speak Spanish to the Portuguese. I’m not sure why everyone is jumping all over her. She’s probably right. The dinner chat at my house, as you can imagine, is quite lame. Meanwhile the Brits liven things up with comments like, “This meat is scrumptious. How long did you boil it?” and “Which fruit do you think makes the best baby name?”

Speaking of food, I’m a guy who likes his chow. Some may even think of me as a foodie, among other things. I like to watch a little Food TV now and again but I can only take so much. When I see Rachel Ray come on, I have to change the channel. I know they have whole web sites dedicated to bashing her. Those folks need to get a life, but she is annoying. And completely overexposed. She made the cover of People and Redbook this week and she actually has a talk show, which I’m proud to say I’ve never seen. I’m walking down the aisle at Safeway and I see her advertising Triscuits. I’ve never liked Triscuits and her mug on the box isn’t going to change things. Then you have Emeril Lagasse. I used to watch him in the old days. He was very interesting. Once he got in front of a live audience, he became Emeril the Gassy

Our next culinary adventure will be with The Exec and #1 and the wives. We’re going to a place in SF called Chapeau. My wife refers to it as Shampoo. I was the one that took a year of high school French, not her. We were going to go this past weekend but we put it off a couple weeks. We didn’t feel right about going so shortly after the Kid Rock/Pam Anderson break-up.