Coffee is not really the first thing (not even the first beverage) that springs to mind when someone says "Playboy".

But in the grand tradition of hard hitting business exposes like "The Women of 7 - 11" and "The Women of Enron", Playboy plans to follow up with "The Women of Starbucks". I know that lots of writers hang out there too, so maybe the editors could make it an all Starbucks issue. You know, some journalism and fiction for people who, um, read Playboy for the articles.

As my archives slowly accrete, the numbers of hits from search engines grow also. Some of the more common ones are:

SUV tax breaks

Goodyear blimp

National Geographic Swimsuit

Less common:

Trista Ryan Tahoe

Goodyear (and Goodrich) blimp

Luke Ford

And my favorite - Doritos ads

I hope at least some of you found your visit enjoyable.

Update: My wife, who considers herself a Liberal Democrat, scored 44%.

MUWAHAHAHAHAH


But wait, maybe the joke is on me.

Well, this clears up a few things.


How Republican Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

via Howard Owens

Beautiful drive in this morning, all 2.2 miles of it. Snow on the mountains, low clouds hugging the Hollywood Hills, diffuse gray light washing over all of it.

Alas I lack a
Digital camera now
No picture to share

I could not possibly offer better coverage of the blog event than these folks already did. (Round up here.)

Of course, I do have some random musings…

I really hate to be late, but there we were, late: Sara, Seliot, the wife and your humble correspondent. After some monumentally poor L.A. traffic decisions (let’s just take the 405 to the 101) on my part, we finally made it to the panel about 30 minutes after it started, but apparently hadn’t missed much.

The discussion had a very different feel from the Chinatown blogfest. For one thing, most of the bloggers were basically journalists, as opposed to the previous panel where the participants seemed to blog as a form of artistic self expression. Also, the acoustics of the two rooms couldn’t have been more different. The Chinatown space had a lively and boisterous feel (not many panel discussions are disrupted by the sounds of a noisy shower upstairs), and the AFI room seemed dead in comparison. Have you ever been in a room that just seems to suck the life out of audience? Think back to your last professional conference, the one where you fell asleep after lunch after the lights dimmed.

Also, kudos to Emmanuelle who kept the “panelists must discuss cam girls” theme going in tony’s absence

Highlights included:

Luke Ford’s hilarious logic chain “proving” that most bloggers should be right wing. Distilled to something like - most bloggers are well informed, most well informed people lean toward the right, therefore most bloggers should be right wing. I can’t possibly do justice to his rapid fire delivery or air of confidence.

Meeting Howard Owens

Having Eugene tell me “you might be right” after I contradicted him. (ever so slightly)

Meeting the Number One RiShawn on the internet.

The little salami things topped with a cherry tomato half and five dots of mustard, arranged in the same pattern as the five dots on a six sided die.

Seeing tony’s new, more aerodynamic hairstyle

OK, Seliot

It's not the car, it's the driver.

Huzzah for the SUV's!

That last guy does sound like a bit of a jerk though. :)

A few thoughts on Armed Liberal's post, and his question asking – “what you see as your safety.”

One reason his potential partner has more capital might be that he manages financial risks better than most, perhaps including A.L. I know a decent number of people who have been successful financially, and I wouldn’t consider any of them gamblers. Although our culture has an image of entrepreneurs as aggressive risk takers, the ones I know are not. Although many, if not most of them, are willing to put capital and their reputation on the line, they only do so when the odds are stacked heavily in their favor.

The Millionaire Mind (and to a lesser extent The Millionaire Next Door) explore some of the above issues thoroughly and are certainly worth reading. Rather than being get rich quick guides, these books study the habits of people with money and how they got it. In a sense, they are get rich slow guides

Also, a few of my safeties:

A prudent, supportive, but questioning wife (and family)

Arai helmet, Aerostitch jacket w/ armor, boots, gloves etc.

SIPDE Scan, Identify, Predict, Decide and Execute

Outstanding business partners (who hire the best employees we can find)

A willingness to walk away from potentially lucrative business when it just doesn’t smell right

Obligatory Bachelorette Post:

I watch about 7 minutes a week of these shows, usually when my wife calls me in saying “comehere comehere comehere hurry” for some romantic moment or another. I trudge in, watch the vignette, often make a snarky comment, and leave.

Until last night, I would have argued that many watched “those shows” not to see the romance, but to see, in the words of ABC, “who will leave broken hearted”. It’s the same sort of fascination (IMHO) that causes people to rubberneck while driving by accidents on the freeway.

Last night was different. After watching a cannily edited show that implied Charlie would be “The One”, Trista picked Ryan. The Nice Guy. Mr. Sensitive. A poetry writing, animal painting, toilet seat down putting (ok, I’m guessing here) nice guy. As a fellow nice guy, I just have to say

MUWAHAHAHAHHAAHAHA!


It is a pity all nice guys don’t have those pecs, but we work with the tools God gave us, no?

P.S. Did anyone, I mean anyone REALLY need to hear about Charlie clipping his chest hair? Egads

Resolved:

That I shall not, nay will not, eat the same sandwich (no matter how good) more than one time per week. Also, I will not purchase more than one bag of either acceptable Dorito color (orangey red and greenish blue) per week, instead I will opt for Trader Joe's potato chips. Yea, though they contain more fat than the aforementioned fried corn snack, they are so, so much cheaper and moreover, leave neither a lingering salty chemical taste in the mouth, nor an unsightly (though tasty) residue on the fingers.

Medium cokes will continue to be ok.

Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Come on, you know you've got one. Some grandiose prediction or another that you might pontificate on after knocking back a few cold ones.

Maybe you've been known to wax eloquent on the "inevitable" ban on fossil fuels, or speak long and loud about Europe's need to abandon the social welfare state as its population ages. Whatever your particular hobbyhorse, now is your chance to back up all that talk - and it's all in the name of charity.

Hop on over to Long Bets and check it out.

Ok, so that was pretty cool. I went to the live from the blogosphere event last night, and had a great time.

I met Tony, Armed Liberal and Tenacious G., Kitty, and Ev. My friend Seliot and I had great seats right behind some guy blogging the event with his mobile phone.

Some impressions:

Tony - funny, and seems to be a heck of a nice guy (I even took his picture with Ev)

Ev - very thoughtful, and had the night's coolest announcements

Armed Liberal - Interesting in person, as expected, but also more intense than I anticipated. Not intense as in scary, but intense as "he seems to know and care an awful lot about the things he discusses"

Kitty - got a ton of applause when she introduced herself, and handled herself fine in front of the crowd (better, I think, than she imagines)

I'll probably blog more on the event later, but it was an excellent evening. Good dinner (eat the fried eel Tony!), good companionship, a rather interesting panel discussion capped off by a little blogger networking.

By the way, did I mention Google is acquiring Blogger? Wow!

So I heard the Syrian Grand Poo Bah speak this morning. (At least I think he was Syrian, he spoke right before the Frenchman)

Blah blah Israel, blah double standard, blah blah blah.

It reminded me of nothing so much as Eric "Otter" Stratton's speech in Animal House.

"The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female party guests — we did. [winks at Dean Wormer] But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg — isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America!"

I'll let you make the necessary word substitutions on your own.

Postapolooza!

I had all these weird ideas in my head today while updating my computer OS. While shaking my head ruefully at the process, a few of them spilled out and managed to sneak onto blogger.

I'll try to stay in the upright and locked position from here on out, at least when I'm near the keyboard.

Bruce Bair of Santa Monica Yoga!

You are now on Google, congratulations!

Did you know that when trying to unlock a car door with your remote it doesn't matter:

-how long you push the button (although on some models this sets the alarm off)
-how hard you push the button
-what angle you hold the remote
-what side of the car you are on, or
-whether the batteries are fresh?

If that car is not yours. Regardless of how much it looks like your car, it just won't open - no matter what.

In case you're wondering about the context for the following post, you can check the comments on Moxie.nu for 1/31/2003.

But you're probably not.

Although people usually tell me that I'm a smart guy, I'm feeling rather stupid at the moment. Because for the life of me, I can't figure out who Ann thinks she is and why she is yammering on ad infinitum about the content of someone else's blog. I mean, if Ann was the subject of the post I could understand her bitterness. Maybe I could also understand it if Ann was a friend of the subject's. (Ok, you are, so you got me there)

In other words, grrl, if it bothers you to read seliot's comments, don't. If you don't like the idea of reading public comments on your friend's blog, tell her to delete the comments! Or don't read them! I don't really think it's your business to tell her what seliot can and can't comment about.

Which is all just a long-winded and possibly belated way of saying, "Shut up."

Maybe if you met seliot, you'd like him (and Moxie might too), he happens to be a damn good guy. And remember, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So chill, ok?

They never had anything THIS interesting when I was a kid.

National Geographic Swimsuit Issue! Yeah, you read that right.

Oh come on now, I know I wasn't the only adolescent who paged through old issues to look at bare breasts from cultures around the world.

Was I?

Hopefully the last SUV thoughts (for a while)


Seliot's a bit upset, and I suppose I can understand why. To some extent, I think I addressed most of his concerns in my previous points, but a bit more clarification is in order.

I don't deny that people should be able to choose their own car (though I wouldn't say car choice rises to the level of a RIGHT), and I'm not asking to outlaw SUVs. As far as I'm concerned, it's irrelevant how safe (with respect to it's occupants) any car is. I don't really care if you have spikes on the inside of your car, or load your airbag with gunpowder - as long as it doesn't hurt someone else.

What ticks me off are people whom, when confronted by evidence that their 3 ton vehicle is a serious threat to others, don't seem to care. Or worse, respond by saying "everyone else should get a bigger car". The point is that SUVs don't conform to "normal" auto safety standards. They are considered "light trucks" and no one ever imagined (I imagine) that that car category would one day make up about half of new car sales. I can understand that having some small percentage of vehicles that don't conform to ordinary standards would be ok. Perhaps regulators thought they wouldn't be driven as many miles, or that their drivers would be professionally trained, or any of a thousand other things that might make such a category an acceptable risk. Everyone else shouldn't get a bigger car because no one intended for there to be so damn many of these things on the road! All I ask is that those vehicles be treated like what they are - one of the most common members of our automotive fleet, and therefore regulated like other passenger vehicles.

If someone can honestly tell me they don't care that they drive a vehicle that is significantly more dangerous to people around them, and are unwilling to have SUVs designed like other cars on the road, screw 'em. I do hope they roll over, because I care less about such a self centered jackass than I do about their unsuspecting victims.