The sporting life of Sarah Palin

SEATTLE, Washington - Not only is Sarah Palin a better basketball player than Barack Obama, but she's also handy with a rifle.

Note to Joe Biden: wear a suit of an un-naturely color, like blue, to the Vice-Presidential debate (or better yet, an orange safety vest) so Palin does not mistake you for wildlife.

No disrespect to the Orientals, but it's football season!

SEATTLE, Washington - The pigskins are about to fly for the 2008 football season. Unfortunately, Bill Parcells is no longer coaching in the NFL so we won't get to hear him in a press conference making a reference to "Jap Plays" (mp3 here) anytime soon.

audio from The Jim Rome Show

Some people drop Big Oil into every conversation

SEATTLE, Washington - I was at a local bakery the other day, wearing schwag from a not-very-well-known tech company. An old timer in line started talking to me about the font on the shirt. He praised that it was a fairly unique font - said that he did some typesetting and printing as a hobby, and was distressed that so many companies choose to use the boring Helvetica font in their logo.

He rattled off some industries that he said use Helvetica too much (airlines, etc.)... then gave a bit of a dramatic pause, dropped his voice a bit, and hit me with:
"All the big oil companies use Helvetica."

Can this Islamic terror group change its name?

ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey - One of the groups that Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch regularly reports on is the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a group in the Philippines. Problem is, everyone but Robert Spencer has a whole other thing in mind when they see the acronym MILF. So when Robert posts headlines like "MILF linked to Al-Qaeda", it conjures up all sorts of images.

Even at the Olympics, women can't have sex for its own sake

ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey - As we all know from real life, women don't pursue men or have sex with men just for the sake of enjoyment. There's always an ancillary agenda.

This is true even at the Olympics. When the competitors are done sporting and get down to the business of using the 100,000 condoms that are distributed to the athletes, the men simply try to find a good-looking woman to have sex with (ignoring how a given sex partner did in the games), but the women fight it out to bag gold-medal winning guys:

The chaps who win gold medals - even those as geeky as Michael Phelps - are the principal objects of desire for many female athletes. There is something about sporting success that makes a certain type of woman go crazy - smiling, flirting and sometimes even grabbing at the chaps who have done the business in the pool or on the track. An Olympic gold medal is not merely a route to fame and fortune; it is also a surefire ticket to writhe.

But - and this is the thing - success does not work both ways. Gold-medal winning female athletes are not looked upon by male with any more desire than those who flunked out in the first round.

And they do this at the Olympics for the same reason they do it in the rest of life - to brag to their friends about the guy they managed to bag. There has to be a secondary reason - to brag to friends, to steal sperm, whatever.

If a woman really wants to set a world record, she should simply have sex for its own sake, even just once. She'd probably be the first woman ever to do so. I'd vote to have her put on a box of Wheaties.

IKEA - transforming more than just Renton

NEW YORK, New York - It was only a few short months ago that I blasted Red Hook, Brooklyn as being an isolated, dumpy neighborhood. Now, not only is it getting some West Coast coffee roasting love from Stumptown, but I can't talk to anyone at the office for five minutes without them mentioning the new Ikea in Red Hook.

It's not just that people want to buy Ikea stuff, but that Ikea has instantly made Red Hook un-isolated with a good, old-fashioned, almost libertarian private suite of transportation options:

Transportation options include free shuttles every 15 minutes from three Brooklyn subway stations — the Smith and Ninth stop on the F and G line, the Fourth and Ninth stop on the R, and Borough Hall — between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. daily... and a free water taxi from Pier 11 in Lower Manhattan, running every 40 minutes daily from 10 a.m. to 8:20 p.m.

It's good to see private transportation options like this (and, as another example, the private bus service Google operates for employees in the Bay Area) popping up.

Sirius launches Russo channel

NEW YORK, New York -

SIRIUS XM Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) announced today that it has signed renowned sports talk personality Chris "Mad Dog" Russo, the former star of the Mike and the Mad Dog show, to a five-year contract to headline a new sports talk channel exclusively available on SIRIUS and XM.

Seattle invades New York the only way it can - coffee beans

NEW YORK, New York - When I moved to New York three years ago, I was stunned at how hard it was to find A-list espresso; I assumed everything about urban life in New York was by definition better than urban life anywhere else. Greenwich Village coffee houses may have hosted groundbreaking intellectual conversation 40 or 50 years ago, but all they have now is poseurs and bad espresso.

Help is on the way from Seattle; the New York Times is reporting on the blossoming New York espresso roasting scene, including the migration to Brooklyn of Stumptown Coffee Roasters owner Duane Sorenson.

The article has the now-obligatory reference to roasting locally to leave a "less intrusive footprint."

One California cafe owner seems to have taken a swipe at the alleged "politics" of the coffee scene in other places, presumably Seattle?

Andrew Barnett, who owns Ecco Caffè in Sonoma County, California, was in New York recently, scouting real estate for a roastery and cafe he hopes to open in the next 12 months.

“This is a great place to run a small roastery,” he said. “I feel like there is a very strong barista community, without the politics and divisions of other places.”

You learn something new about Mongolia every day

SEATTLE, Washington - Did Madonna, Cher, and Seal draw professional inspiration from the Mongolians? A wrestler from Mongolia won a gold medal at the Olympics, and this fine nugget about the citizens of that country appears at the end of a story about the celebration:

"Right after the June 29 election, we were in central square protesting election results and throwing stones against policemen and interior troops. ... This time we are all here to cheer and support our athletes participating in Beijing Olympics," said Ganbaatar, 47, who like many Mongolians uses only one name.

"Alien Burrito" redux? Bigfoot allegedly bagged

SEATTLE, Washington - UFO buffs are probably familiar with the "Alien Burrito" story of Jonathan Reed and Robert Raith. Those two gentleman appeared on the Art Bell show on November 11, 1998 (I was listening live) and Reed (who claimed to have a PhD in Psychology) told a tale of having shot an alien while hiking in the Cascades.

To make a long story short, the alien photos were completely discredited, Raith was exposed as being a West Seattle gas station attendant, and Jonathan Reed was exposed as a longtime West Seattle resident and frequent 13 Coins diner with no academic credentials.

"Dr." Reed wrapped his "alien" up in a tarp and stored it in a freezer, giving rise to the "Alien Burrito" appellation.

We have a new beast in the freezer this week - some hunters in Georgia claim to have a Bigfoot body in their freezer and will be holding a press conference tommorrow (Friday), allegedly.

Very subtle penis, Mr Fassbinder

SEATTLE, Washington - I rented the 1982 movie Querelle knowing that it would be gay, and guessing it would be bad. It was bad, and it was gay - but even I wasn't expecting the blatant penis-shaped columns in the port city of Brest.

I'm assuming Brest does not actually have massive penis columns on the waterfront.

UPDATE: Twig AND berries!

My hair is just like Carrot Top's

SEATTLE, Washington - The color's not the same, of course, but in curl etc. it's a dead-ringer.

I'm not yoked like Carrot Top, but he's worked very hard at that.

Not all musicians are dullards

SEATTLE, Washington - One of the reasons that I have a zillion times more respect for books/authors than music/musicians is that good writing requires intelligence. If you read a really well-done novel, you know without fail that it was written by an intelligent person. There's just no way around it. I'm an intelligent person and I appreciate accomplishments that require smarts.

There's no such requirement for being a skilled or successful musician - you can see from interviews that many accomplished musicians are manifest idiots.

(And don't come at me with the "there's different kinds of intelligence" crap.)

But we have a Highly Intelligent Musician sighting! The PhD thesis of longtime Queen guitarist Brian May has just been published. This is not a thesis in basket-weaving, but instead is in Astrophysics. May started the research in the 1970s, took about 30 years off to play the music, and presumably spent a bit of time as the Weird Old Guy Sitting In The Front Row Of Class before wrapping up the thesis in 2007.

Does having sex degrade athletic performance?

SEATTLE, Washington - The Fox Sports series Sport Science decided to investigate whether having sex several hours before athletic competition degrades an athlete's performance. Boxer Chris Byrd (and, thank goodness, his wife) were brought in to assist with the investigation.

They performed test after test upon Byrd both before sex and 4 hours after sex, and concluded that having sex did not negatively impact athletic performance. Parts 1 and 2 of the show are below. The tedious opening credits take about 2 minutes, and the shot of a gushing oil rig was unnecessary.

What I want to know is, does this apply to masturbation? Because I'm thinking about going golfing this afternoon.

UPDATE: Masturbation is fine! I just shot a career best 17-over 87 at Jefferson!

Cupcake Royale revises chocolate cake

SEATTLE, Washington - Looks like Cupcake Royale is going to start playing a flavor-of-the-month strategy - this month it's Skagit Valley Strawberry frosting. This is available on vanilla or chocolate cake.

And for those of you complaining about the dryness of the chocolate cake, they have introduced a reworked chocolate cake. It was spongier in texture and yes I guess a bit less dry.

Life imitates The Godfather, as usual

SEATTLE, Washington -
Life:

Mohegan Sun officials said the casino's net income in the third quarter dropped 89 percent compared with the same period last year, and they're placing some of the blame on gamblers' extraordinary luck.

The Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority reported net income of $5 million Thursday for the three months ending June 30.

Mitchell Etess, Mohegan Sun's president and chief executive officer, said the casino had an extremely long streak of bad luck.

The Godfather:

Michael: The Corleone Family wants to buy you out.

Moe Greene: The Corleone Family wants to buy me out? No, I buy you out, you don't buy me out .

Michael: Your casino loses money. Maybe we can do better.

Moe Greene: You think I'm skimmin' off the top, Mike?

Michael: You're unlucky.