November 2005 Archives

One of the best episodes of any TV show ever was an episode of the otherwise pedestrian Just Shoot Me. I hope you saw it. It guest starred David Cross as, Donnie, the brother of the lecherous photographer guy. Apparently he had fallen out of a tree and hit his head, rendering him "slow". Supposedly. Turns out, he had been faking it for the last fifteen years. He reveals this to Laura San Giacomo in an effort to hit on her, and hillarity ensues.

A quote, from memory:

DONNIE'S MOM: Sometimes you get a glimmer. He can spend hours playing the most complicated video game, but when you ask him to take out the trash... nothing.

Anyway, if you missed it, too bad. If you saw it, you might have some idea of how I'm starting to feel about my dog. She seems so stupid most of the time, but then she does something that's just brilliant. I wonder if, all those times she looks at me with those dead and empty eyes, she's laughing inside.

"The fool! I have him convinced! He has no idea!"

Take the electric fence thingy that I installed at great effort and expense. Well, Charlie has figured out a way past it. I come home one day, and there she is, in the next door neighbor's yard, wagging her tail and barking merrily.

I was puzzled. The collar has these two electrodes, both of which would have to be making contact with the dog to work. I thought maybe I didn't have the collar tight enough, and so one of them was losing contact. Or maybe I didn't have one of the electrodes screwed in tight enough. Which might, coincidentally, be true, but wasn't the problem.

Then I noticed the dog sneaking up on the fence, right at the part where she can squeeze under. Very, very slowly. Like the fence was a helpless bunny rabbit that Charlie was going to do a number on. I suspected right away that she was up to something, so I yelled at her, and she ran off and found a stick to destroy.

I've since read over the manual a second time. Turns out, the collar has a timer on it, so that, if you're within proximity of the signal wire for more than 15 seconds, it turns itself off. Which is, I'd imagine, a safeguard, in case there's some malfunction on its part or my part, so the dog doesn't get electricuted for hours on end.

So it would seem that what Charlie was doing was sneaking up on it, listening for the proximity warning, then listening for it to turn off, and making a run for it.

How the hell did she figure that out? How did something so apparently dumb discover something so clever?

And what am I going to do about keeping her in the back yard now? Well, it's too cold to keep her outside for too long. And, while I haven't left her outside for hours at a stretch, she hasn't gotten next door in the past few days. I'm hoping that she's either forgotten about her trick or she's screwed it up enough times that she doesn't think it's worth trying.

I'm fascinated by pop culture, but more on a macro level. Like how do trends happen, how are people living their lives these days, how do two kinds of music collide to make a third kind of music, how does slang evolve. Crap like that.

As far as actual pop culture, like the Us Weekly stuff, I'm almost completely uninterested. I might be curious as to why people really care who Angelina Jolie is seeing this week, but I'm not personally one of those people who care.

Anyway, when I came across this blog, WWTDD, I was suspicious, since it seems to be entirely devoted to celebrities and what bit of wackiness they're up to lately. But really, this guy is an incredible writer, and the celebrity nonsense is just the vehicle he happens to choose.

Here's a sample:

Usher is in love: RnB superstar Usher is said to be so smitten with Rachel McAdams after seeing her in the Notebook, he is saying he would love to work with her, and even has a project in mind.

"She has such great energy on camera, it's ridiculous - it just pops off the screen. I'd love to do a period piece with her."

I'm not positive Usher has really thought this all the way through. A period piece about an interracial couple might not end the way he's hoping. For him. Unless he means a future period, where the world has healed its racial divide and theres one global government and we all wear jumpsuits and none of the doors have hinges.

He also did an interview with someone called April Scott which was wildly entertaining.

And if you dig around, he has naked movies of the actress who played Fleur Delacour in the latest Harry Potter installment. I don't believe in pornography, myself, so of course I didn't actually watch them. But they're in there somewhere, if any of you disgusting perverts want to sully yourselves finding them.

Well, thank God that's over.

It was a good trip, I suppose. The drive there flew by. I had never gotten one of those books on tape, but decided to give it a try. I got the first Harry Potter book as read by some English baritone. You can pick it up at a very reasonable price from iTunes. (You can also get it at an even more reasonable price if you pirate it, but of course, I would never do that.) That last stretch between Joplin and Tulsa is usually a bear, but this time, I was so wrapped up in hearing about a Quiddich game that Tulsa managed to sneak up on me before I knew it.

My only regret was not picking up book 2, since I had to do the drive home by myself, and there was only enough book left to get me to Tulsa. Then it was back to music, which was okay, but not quite as likely to put me into a time warp.

I spent the night in Tulsa with my older brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew. My neice, Grace, thinks The Cub is the coolest person she's ever met. Jacob decided to get into an argument with her as to whether the Beast from Beauty and the Beast really turned good, or if he was faking it the whole time. Grace was getting heated, and would have put in the DVD, had I not figured out a way to steer the conversation around, so we could get back on the road.

The weather in Oklahoma was awesome, hitting a record high of 79 on Wednesday, and didn't drop below 55 or so the entire time.

The grub on the Big Day did not disappoint. There seem to be about six more kids each time I go. The Cub is the oldest of that third generation. In years past, he would direct the energy of all those kids from utter chaos into a well-discipined machine of destruction. This year, he didn't seem too interested in organizing, and wandered off with his closest cousin, leaving pandemonium behind. Thus there were kids everywhere, and there was no focal point of their activity that one could easily sidestep.

Friday I got to see the DDC live at the Conservatory, where they had the last show. The Conservatory is reputed to be the cheapest venue in the city to book. It shows. It's one of those "try not to sit anywhere" places. I'd say this place's bathroom was the inspiration for the one in Trainspotting, but it couldn't have been. The one in Trainspotting had walls around the toilet.

The service was excellent, being as it was in the capable hands of Aubrey the bartender/enforcer, who delighted in tossing out I believe five underage drinkers.

The opening act, Power Raymond were good. Or should I say, it was good rap for a pair of white drama students. Although, being drama students, they had good showmanship. Real nice guys.

The band show itself was, well, it was something. Unlike the last time, I was a mere spectator, rather than a participant. Which was fine. I have no stage presence. It's quite a show. What with the two girls making out on the stage in the middle of Thug Love, and the pro-style wrestling to open the show. There's a lot going on, but they manage not to overegg the pudding.

After the show, my brother decided to have an afterparty at his house. Since he's the only one in the band who doesn't live with his parents or grandparents, he's the obvious choice. By that point, my ancient body had had enough and I was more than ready to hit the sack.

The next day, I got a jump on the day, was on the road by 9:30, and managed to make it back at about 5, right as the sun had set but before it was pitch dark. Home again, at last!

It was a pretty good weekend. Entertaining, fattening, and delightful weather. I'll give it 3 and half Charlie heads. If it were a three hour drive instead of an eight hour drive, it'd get 4 Charlie heads, but it's not.

Finally, here are some random thoughts from last week.

• Once again, I was struck by the fact that Okies are some of the most interesting people you'll ever meet. Well, that's not true. The interesting Okies are the most interesting people you'll ever meet. There's just something about that state.
• The boring Okies are still pretty interesting, though considerably less so.
• It's easy to miss it when you're living there, but once you move away and come back, you realize how poor Oklahoma City is. I drove through neighborhoods that were perhaps exactly like Shrewsbury in 1950, but everything had become really shabby and blighted. The rusted out car, the window air conditioner unit in the back yard with weeds growing around it. I'll always be a big cheerleader for the place, since I'm a big fan of the people there, but they have a long way to go.
• Trav describes the other guy in the band, Daniel, AKA Cornelius Cravecock as being "the sociopath of the band". I had a deep belly laugh when I heard that one. If Trav isn't the sociopath in the group then God help us all.
• It was really disturbing the number of ostensibly straight women knew all the words to their songs. Trav insists that's their number one demographic. I thought at first that it might be gay men, but I think they A) get the joke, and 2) realize it's on them. If not them, then straight men. No, the real wild-eyed fans are all girls. Crazy stuff.

Someone -- I think it was George Burns, although it could have been George Castanza -- once said to think of something you'd do for free anyway and then figure out a way to get paid for it.

This always struck me as something better in principle than in practice, since, as best as I could tell, I didn't love to do anything but sleep, eat, and do things I can't talk about on a family web site. Which this isn't, exactly, but mind your own business anyway.

Anyway, writing here, I've found half of what I'm supposed to find for a job, i.e. something I'd do even if I wasn't getting paid for it. As it happens, I'm never going to get paid to do this, but that's all right. If I got paid, there'd be a whole lot of bullshit and bureaucracy attached to this, and frankly, I can do without that.

Anyway, the only reason I'm doing it is because of you people/person, my loyal readers/reader. Well, to be frank, my primary audience is this guy right here. The one typing. I write about stuff that I think is interesting and I like reading my stuff. I like the fact that I've presented the world phrases like "white-hot jets of diarrhea" or "hubcap-festooned boobies".

But however much I might like writing, the only reason I actually bother to do it is because I know that someone out there is reading it. I've tried keeping an actual journal, and I can never keep it going. For some reason, the idea that someone else will read it seems to make it worth doing.

Anyway, since you've done me a great service just being out there and reading this crap, and since this is the time of the year to do things like this, I'm unveiling what will possibly be the last ever Salivating Dog Reader Appreciation Program.

Here's how it works:

Sometime between now and December 9, you send me your address and mention something I've written that you liked, and I will send you a Christmas present.

The Salivating Dog Reader Appreciation Program FAQ

• Q: So, I give you my address, and mention something you wrote that I liked, and you send me a Christmas present?
• A: Yup.
• Q: Really?
• A: Really.
• Q: Are you going to set up us the bomb?
• A: If this is asking if I'm going to use your address for evil, and send you something awful, like a bomb, no.
• Q: Will I end up on a mailing address for multiracial midget porn?
• A: No, nobody will end up with your address but me, and I'll probably lose it shortly after I've sent you the appreciation gift.
• Q: So, if you aren't going to send me a bomb or junk mail about Asian amputee cheerleaders, what is it?
• A: It's a secret suprise! But I promise it's awesome.
• Q: What if I'm only just reading this on December 10? Can I still get my name in for the rad Christmas present?
• A: Nope. You're outta luck!
• Q: Where should I send you my address?
• A: To the email address over on the right. Which is salivatingdog thelittle"at"sign gmail.

Today was my lucky day.

Actually today was kind of crappy. I spent today cleaning doing laundry and fixing things in anticipation of the big trip to Oklahoma for Thanksgiving. And as I was doing, um, whatever it was I was doing, I kept finding out that I needed something from the store. So, I headed to the store, got the thing, and headed back home. Only to discover 20 minutes later, that I needed something else from another store.

I think I took one last trip to the store to buy one last thing seventeen times.

The garbage disposal was broken. I'm very proud of that "was" in the previous sentence, since I'm the cause of it not being broken. Every time I fix something around the house I feel like a two year old who did dooty all by himself. It feels like a heroic accomplishment to me at the time, but I know in my heart it's all stuff I should probably already know how to do.

Anyway, I tracked down instructions for how to fix a garbage disposal. I got to step 3, which said, "Insert a 1/4 inch Allen wrench in the bottom of the disposal and manually move the motor shaft to dislodge the jam". I don't have Allen wrenches. I don't have a whole lot of things, in fact. Basically what I do is when I need some tool, I'll go to Lowes and buy one. If I do that for the next five years, I should have a pretty well stocked toolbox, and have actually found a use for each tool in there. The Allen wrench thing has never come up.

First, though, I tried skipping to step 4, which was, "Wedge a broomstick or some such against the flywheel and turn the thing until it breaks loose." No dice on that.

So, it was off to Lowes for what actually ended up being my very last trip of the night. I couldn't remember if they said U.S. Allen wrenches or Metric Allen wrenches. But the gods of domestic repairs smiled upon me, since, through what was no doubt a horrible pricing mistake, the combination U.S. and Metric Allen Wrench set cost less than getting the one or the other by itself. Disco!

Okay, finally we're getting to the good part of the story. As I walked out to the Car that Needs a Name, there, parked next to me, was a purple Saturn. As though that weren't offensive enough, on the back was the bumper sticker "I'd Rather Be at a John Mellencamp Concert".

My hand instinctively starting moving toward the car to key it. Well, okay, maybe I wasn't going to key it, but the thought did cross my mind how much he/she would deserve it. And that's when I noticed that the car already had been keyed!

So, the cosmos were already in balance, and I didn't have to put my neck out to get them that way.

And so, despite the fact that this was a fairly crappy day, it was also my lucky day.

Read here.

Here's a good one:

If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can't see Chuck Norris you may be only seconds away from death.

It finally happened. I'm getting a new monitor.

The previous monitor I had was already there when I got here, two and a half years ago, and they'd bought it used at one of those auctions, the kind Gordon Gekko was going to with Bluestar Airlines in Wall Street. It was a 21" job, and not bad for the price.

Imperceptably, the thing had started to get blurry. I didn't realize this as it was happening, but after the second guy in the last month stopped by to say "Man, how can you stand that thing?" I decided it's time for an upgrade. It's like how (or maybe I'm the only one this happens to) the car winshield will have a little streak on one side, and someone will say, "Hey, what's up with the streak", and then, despite not having noticed it all that time, it's suddenly all you can think about.

As I was loading it into the cart to take it out back for its Old Yeller moment, I noticed the label on the back that said it was manufactured Noveber 1997. Eight years is a a very good lifetime for a piece of computer equipment. She will be missed.

So, I'm borrowing a monitor that will one day be attached to an anal probe system, while my rad 19" monitor is on its way. I feel roughly like I did when I first got glasses. It's a "How was I living with myself like that?" feeling.

And I think that might be why I'd started working Crazy J Hours lately (three shifts, 9 to 11, off to lunch, 12 to 4, off to dinner and puttering around the house, 7 to whenever I'm done). After two or three hours, I was no longer able to focus on anything any more, and had to get away.

Or maybe not.

And that concludes the most dull, uninteresting thing I've ever posted.

QOTD, from the Simpsons:

DR. HIBBERT: The only cure is bedrest. Anything I give you would only be a placebo.

GENERIC MOB MEMBER #1: Where do we get these placebos?

GENERIC MOB MEMBER #2: Maybe there's some in this truck!

This quote came to mind as I was reading this ad for Panexa (Motto: "Panexa. Ask your doctor for a reason to take it.") After reading the jumbo fine print, I decided that I am experiencing several of the symptoms that this is supposedly good for: metabolism, binocular vision (if I have my glasses on), digestion (solid and liquid), circulation, cognition, osculation, and menstruation.

Wait, pretend you didn't hear about that last one.

Okay, I'd mentioned in my Nelly story that there was a third brush with greatness that I hadn't mentioned. Well, here it is:

I was at a bar in Addison, TX. It was one of those generic, soulless places that seems to infest that burg, the kind packed to the rafters with what appears to be the results of a J. Crew-funded cloning experiment. This was over OU/Texas weekend.

I was watching That Sport That's Now Dead to Me off in one corner of this place, when the phone rang. I checked the caller ID, it was my friend Rachael in Memphis.

As I picked up the phone to answer it, I noted that the background noise was deafening with the drunk Addison types were all trying to shout each other down.

So a conversation was out of the question. But then, I didn't fully appreciate this until I'd hit the talk button.

"Hello!" I shouted.

"J! I blah blah blah," whatever else she was saying drowned out completely.

I glaced at the quarter mile long phalanx of douchebags in striped shirts between me and the closest exit, where there was a band playing (poorly). It'd take me 10 minutes to get to where I could hear anything. So, I decided to pull the plug.

"I'm at a bar in Addison, Texas, and I can't hear anything! Talk to you later! Bye!" and then I hung up.

It wasn't until the next Monday that I heard what had happened right before and right after that conversation.

Rachael is a film student at U. of Memphis. They just finished filming a movie, Black Snake Moan in Memphis, and the University film school worked out a deal for some students to intern, one of whom was Rachael.

So Rachael is standing next to Justin Timberlake, making small talk in the ten minutes of standing around before he has to go on stage. Recalling my story about my near-brush with Cedric the Entertainer, she mentions that a friend of hers is a big fan. Anyway, he volunteers to actually sing a song. To me. No doubt the greatness that is "Rock Your Body".

So Rachael calls me up and I answer. I couldn't hear that she was saying "J! I'm going to give the phone to someone!"

And while Rachael is handing the phone to Mr. Timberlake, I give my exposition about being in Addison and unable to hear and then hang up right as the phone gets to Justin Timberlake's ear.

He handed the phone back to her, saying, "I don't think it's working." She said, "Oh, shit, it looks like he hung up." To which he said, matter of factly, "What a dick. Well, it's about time I went on." And that was the end of that.

Now, I feel terrible for Rachael, who was very kind to have thought of me, and I managed to cause terrible embarrassment for her. On the other hand, as far as I'm concerned, I don't know how much better this could have worked out. I'd much rather be The Guy Who Hung Up on Justin Timberlake than The Guy Who Was Serenaded by Justin Timerlake. But I'm too polite for my own good, so the only way that was going to happen would be exactly like it happened there.

And, bonus, he called me a dick! How awesome is that?

I think this qualifies as a near-brush with near-greatness. The near-brush part is obvious. But is he great, or near-great?

Well, he's clearly far from talentless. Is he a genius along the lines of Prince or David Bowie? Hell no.

But he's come out with some good songs. Unlike one of his erstwhile bandmates, he didn't appear in Rent, for which he gets my eternal gratitude. And he was kind enough to expose for the world one of Janet Jackson's hubcap-festooned boobies. Despite the FCC going mad with power after that, he ought to get at least near-greatness status for that.

Verdict: Near-brush with near-greatness.

P.S. If you're curious why I haven't shared this story until now, the interns weren't supposed to be fraternizing with the cast. While this rule was apparently disregarded all the time, it's still against the rules, and Rachael made me promise not to tell anyone about this while they were still filming, just in case one of you, my readers, (or should I say, "you, my reader") has a big mouth and word of the incident spread.

Obviously a silly concern, but in any case, they're done filming now.

Update: I finally got around to changing the poll, to see how you all would react in my position.

Feel free to leave a comment as well.

Here's another guy who's on the same page about the French riots. He suggests that the book that holds the real key to understanding the rioters is A Clockwork Orange. He makes a very good case.

Well, I just read some terrible news. And by "terrible news" I mean some really good news.

According to this guy, it would seem that this whole Avain Flue panic is totally overblown.

A quote:

"THE INDICATION IS THAT we will see a return of the 1918 flu virus that is the most virulent form of flu," warns America's top health official. "In 1918, half a million people died. The projections are that this virus will kill one million Americans . . . "

A quotation ripped from today's papers about an impending "bird flu" pandemic? No, the year was 1976 and the prediction of a deadly "swine flu" overshot the mark by 999,999 deaths (although dozens did die from the vaccine campaign).

This killjoy manages to dismantle everything I've been worried about. Crap. So now how am I going to keep myself grounded? How am I going to make sure I don't start suffering from some of Alan Greenspan's irrational exuberance about my life?

Well, winter is just around the corner, and it's supposed to be a doozy. I'm sure I'll have plenty to complain about.

So, it's that time again. The time when I finally get around to getting in shape.

I've been kicking around how I'm going to go about this for a while, trying to find the best way of maximizing my potential, for best bringing out the Greek statue that's hiding beneath these layers of disgusting flab.

But then I said, "Screw it". I decided, when you're as out of shape as I am, there's nothing I could do that wouldn't be an improvement. Kinda like how when Vietnam kicked out John Kerry's old pals the Khmer Rouge in 1979, and they kicked off ten years of double digit growth. Not because the Vietnamese have a clue how to run an economy, but because the Khmer Rouge were so horrible that anything would be better than what they're doing.

Not to compare killing fields to sitting around in front of a computer all day, but I'll end up just as dead if I keep on this road*. So, the course I decided on was jogging. I shelled out my money to the City of Shrewsbury and joined the rinky-dink gym they have. Not everything I could hope for, but everything I need to get started.

Tonight I ran 1.4 miles on the treadmill. Not bad for someone who, other than chasing the dog around the yard, has been utterly for the last year or three. Although I've started exercising almost as many times as I've quit smoking so I kind of know how it works. The first day, while miserable, is actually one of the better days. All your muscles are fresh and there's no strain or lactic acid anywhere. The second day is actually the worst. So tomorrow I'll be lucky to get in half a mile before my legs turn to Jello. But it's nothing but improvement from there.

* Yeah, yeah, I know, I'll end up dead eventually either way. But wouldn't it still be better to live out my life as something other than a wheezing fatbody?

Here's the scene:

I was leaving my coffee house in University City, right around the corner from the old place. I was heading back to the car, when two black youths passed by, one of them on bike. The pedestrian one said, "Excuse me."

Now, as my friend Ben can attest, very little good can possibly come of responding to someone who says "Excuse me", unless you actually know the guy. I tend to stick with that admonition, and when someone says "Excuse me", I just keep walking.

This time, though, I didn't do that. I stopped said, "Yeah".

He pointed to the guy on the bike. "Do you recognize this guy."

We were right at that gap between streetlights (another good reason to have kept on walking), so the light wasn't good. But I noticed a familiar big grin, showing more teeth than ought to be there, each of them covered with gold.

"Wait, is that Nelly?"

"Yes it is."

"Holy shit!" I said, in an "I won $5 in the lottery scracher" way. It had been a long day, and I was feeling especially nonchalant, but it was still a pleasant surprise.

And then I shook hands with the multi-platinum artist.

Some doubt crept into my head, so I threw out a question. "Do you know Nathan? The producer with Phat Buddha?"

And he said, "Yeah, Phat Buddha Records. Big guy." Holding his arms out to the side, to disambiguate the word "big" and indicate that Nathan needs to drop a few pounds. "Yeah, he's good."

"Indeed. Good friend of mine." Not exactly the truth, but I didn't think it'd work as well if I'd said "He's a friendly acquaintance of mine."

Then he asked if I knew someone, and I missed the name, and suspected I didn't, but I said I did anyway.

The pedestrian said, "We decided to hit the old neighborhood [Nelly's from right up the street from where we were talking] and we're in disguise." Nelly tugged at the hood over his head for emphasis. "I'm the only body guard he's got." Which might have been a joke, since it looked kind of like I could have taken him*. "You're the only one we've pointed him out to. So you're the only one who has any idea.'

I said, "Yeah, it worked. If you hadn't pointed him out, I'd have have had no idea." Which was true. I'd passed them on the way to the coffee place, and missed who it was.

Anyway, under the assumption that big-time celebrities have better things to do with themselves than jawbone with the likes of me, I drew the conversation to a close and said, "Well, I'll let you guys get to it. Have fun, and it was nice meeting you."

And then I went home.

So, I've had two near-brushes with near-greatness. Billy Pumpkins and Cedric the Entertainer. Actually, three of them, but I haven't told that third story yet. I'll do that some other day.

This one might be my first an actual brush with real greatness. Depending on how expansive you want define the term "greatness". Well, I'll call him great. "Hot in Herre" has one of the greatest hooks to come out of pop music in the last 20 years, and that's no mean feat. And I got to shake the hand that wrote those words tonight.

And that's my story for the day.

* I couldn't actually have taken him, but still.

Watching this, I'm torn. On the one hand, it's pretty cold blooded, since the guy can't help himself. On the other hand, it's really, really funny.

In gonorrhea, at least.

Although, in our defense, that's St. Louis city, not the whole metro area.

As everyone now knows, France is awash in civil unrest. And of course this is a terrible thing. But... the French just need to understand that this is the price they must expect to pay for their support of Israel*.

Wait, no, that's not it. Hang on...

Got it! This unrest is a terrible thing, but... how else should their disaffected Arab yoots react to France's support for America's imperialist war in Iraq?

Um, hang on. That's not it either.

Okay, I'm stumped. I'm not sure what the deal is, and frankly, nobody else does either. But then I read this post by Jane Galt, and it really seemed to get to the heart of what's going on. While there may be some religious overtones to the embroglio, this doesn't seem so much to be about making demands or venting frustration as it is about breaking shit. A quote:

Is it because Arabs/Muslims are a roiling repository of violent, seething hatred, ever threatening to bubble over onto unsuspecting victims in their path? Because the French are so damn mean?

Let me suggest another possibility: Muslim youth are rioting in France because breaking windows and setting cars on fire is fun.

Everyone who has ever taken their .22 out to the back forty and shot up a line of old bug spray cans knows this. Seeing things break, disintegrate, or explode, at absolutely no personal risk to yourself, lights up some primitive reptilian part of our brain with searing glee.

I'll side with the hairy legged Women's Studies majors when they say that most of the problems in the world are caused by men. Although to be more specific, fired-up young men. That's what wars are. Two or more groups of fired-up young men with guns shooting at each other. And they don't stop until one side runs out of guns or young men or fired-up.

The whole point of civilization -- well, maybe not the whole point but the main reason it's so important -- is to take these impulses and turn them into something constructive. Or at least benign.

Like football or Heavy Metal.

As the above posting goes on to point out, if you're an 18 year old, and you don't have a job you need to be waking up the next morning for, and you're pretty sure you won't get caught, since everyone else is doing it and they can't catch everyone, why not torch some cars?

So someone needs to figure out how to break that equation. Like making sure they have a job to wake up in the morning for or increasing the cost of torching cars by arresting and/or shooting at the people doing it. Well, you can't do the last one, since that would perpetuate the "cycle of violence", and God help us all if they do that.

On the other hand, if they had any idea how to make sure people all got jobs, they'd have done it by now. They tried getting the government involved in finding people jobs and that didn't work. So they tried get the government even further involved and that didn't work either. Right now we're at 10% unemployment, with young people in the suburbs closer to 50%.

So, apparently they're going to eliminate the middle man and just have the government hire the people directly. Which might work for a while, but eventually someone actually has to be doing something, you know, productive, to make sure the bills all get paid. Unless they've invented some kind of government perpetual motion machine where everyone works for the government, but no money anywhere ever gets wasted.

In all seriousness, though, that's the plan. They're going to coopt the rioters by giving them all government jobs. And they're going to put the screws even further into what little private industry is left to make sure they aren't doing anything discriminatory. (French private industry isn't even hiring any French people, let alone Arabs. So I don't that will be a problem.) I'm not saying they've decided to give appeasement a chance, but it sure sounds like it.

And if this new initiative doesn't work, if the 20,000 or so people are hired and find out that government jobs are way more boring than torching cars, I suppose they'll just riot again.

* Remember that one?

Speaking of people who will probably always be miserable, there's this woman. Am I the only one who's ever met her?

I've been thinking a lot about happiness lately. Which makes sense, because I'm American and Americans in general are obsessed with happiness. Fairly early on, Americans decided that we want to be the happiest people on the planet. Not the most pious, not the hardest working, not even the richest, except in the belief that money actually can buy happiness. It's written in our "Screw You" letter to King George ("Life, Libery, and the Pursuit of Happiness", and all that) More recenlty, we've decided that being happy is the default state of existence, and anything else is abnormal.

But I've also been thinking a lot also happiness because there's this a new blog that's about happiness, happiness research, and what, if anything, we ought to do with this research.

Anyway, after reading this guy, and after thinking about it a bit myself, here's my personal belief on how to be happy. I have no numbers to back most of this stuff up, so take it all with a grain of salt. Seriously. If you're expecting to find out how to be happy reading a blog, you've got issues.

• First off, your grandmother was right. Money can't buy happiness. There are plenty of really happy poor people and plenty of utterly miserable rich people. It's the person, not the amount of money. If you're unhappy and poor, and you work hard and invest your money, you'll retire unhappy and wealthy. If you're unhappy and poor and you win the lottery, you'll become unhappy and rich overnight.

  The things that do have to do with money are obvious things like not getting enough to eat, persistent health problems, living in a war zone. The research suggests that once you get to a certain level of income, the relationship to income and happiness drops to insignificance. That income? $10,000 a year.

  And then there's all the things that have nothing to do with money. If you make $500,000 a year and you think your wife's cheating on you, you might well be better off making $20,000 a year in a happy marriage. Just the random events in life -- your son dying in a car accident, getting cancer, being born a Texan and having to face yourself in the mirror -- all these things that have nothing to do with how much money can utterly swamp whatever positive effects you might get from being loaded.

• Well, as much as more money can't make you happy, I think there's something to be said for the contrapositive: less money can make you less happy. My personal experience is the quickest way to become unhappy is to spend more money than you make.

  So, quite simply, just make sure you don't spend more than you make. If you make $1000 a week, don't spend more than $1000 a week. If you make $100 a week, don't spend more than $100. Granted, it's easier to not spend $1000 a week than to not spend $100 a week. But then, what percentage of the earth's population gets by on less than $100 a year? It can be done! And if it can't, get a second job!

• One way to be happy (or happier, in any case) is to go to church. Starting to attend church gives you a happiness boost equivalent to moving from the bottom quartile of income to the top quartile. As pointed out above, that doesn't mean as much as you think it does, but it's greater than zero.
• I suspect that your grandmother never told you to dream as big as you can, and if you do, all your dreams can come true. Well, if she did, she was full of crap. Not only was she full of crap, that's the quick route to misery.

  The real secret to being happy is to dream small. The research backs this up, too. Constant disappointment is the quick route to unhappiness. Way quicker than being broke. And constant success is the quick route to happiness.

  So don't set yourself up to fail. This isn't exactly the same as Famous J's Rule to Life #2*. But it's in the ballpark. Don't set your sights on dating a supermodel. Set your sights on getting a date with anyone, and then work your way up, maybe. Or set your sights on getting a date and learning to live with who you ended up with. Don't decide you're going to be the company president. Decide you're going to get a promotion and see how things look from there. Break your dreams into manageable chunks.

  Bill Watterson put it very well here.

• In the end, though, I believe that happiness is just something you have to be born with. Take me for instance. I'm one of the happiest guys I know. But I know that most of that is just my outlook. I find things I like about whatever situation I'm in to be pleased with. Furthermore, I don't really need too much out of life. A job, a place of my own, ideally with nobody else there but a dog. I take disappointment easily. I've been blessed, to be sure, but I've also been satisfied with less than I have now.

  But even outlook isn't everything. Some people have a good outlook but something in their id seems to bring misfortune and ruin upon themselves at every turn. Some people have a fatal character flaw, like the women who go from one abusive relationship to the next, but then find the non-abusive relationships too "boring".

I guess, in the end, unless you're younger than, say, 25, you're probably about as happy as you're ever going to be. Once you're done with teen angst and the early 20's doldrums, that's it. That's about who you are, and you're stuck with it.

Which, depending on how things look now is either good news or bad news.

* Famous J's Rules to Life #2: "If you ignore your problems, most of the time, they'll either go away or solve themselves."

This place seems like it's worth checking out. Quite possibly the most eerie place in the world.

I'm sure there are places like this all over the world. I just need to get out more and see some of them.

If you live in New York City, plan on voting in the mayoral race, and don't give a crap about flapdoodle like "issues" and "positions", this is the voting guide for you.

Congratulations are in order for one Charlemagne T. Dog, who has just graduated from beginner-level obedience school. This obedience training was probably the best money I've spent all year. It totally changed the dynamics of our relationship.

Dogs, and especially hunting dogs like Charlie, want to work. They've been bred to do things for people, and get a reward. So now, instead of marching up to me and demanding affection (which worked okay, I suppose), she marches up to me and demands orders. And I give her those orders and she performs whatever it was she was supposed to perform. Simple stuff like sitting down, staying there, and playing dead, the latter of which is about the most adorable thing you've ever seen.

But however simple it is, it's a real sense of accomplishment for her, and she takes real pride in her work and in doing a good job and getting rewarded.

So, three cheers for the puppy dog!