in the front row

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

well, not the exact front row, but damn close. at the mets game last night.

kirk and i buy tickets for a lot of mets games. usually we end up going to at least 5 or 6 games, sometimes more. and when we buy tickets we always get the upper deck. not because we are cheap.

but because i am cheap.

and we also, truly, like the view. i like the upper deck directly behind home plate. you get the best view of the game there. you can see it all, all at one time, and in the proper perspective.

but now and then i get free mets tickets from vendors through work. and the vendors of course have box seats in the best locations, and they give them all out to their clients, and they filter down to me because in new york, everyone wants yankees tickets, and i am one of the few mets fans around.

so last night we had field box seats, section 30, which is directly behind the visitors’ on-deck circle, about five rows back. i could have spit on ken griffey if i had wanted to. the mets were playing the reds, you know. but i like ken griffey just fine, so i didn’t. all the best people don’t spit on other people at baseball games. it’s just not done.

anyway, it was a rare treat. and there was actual waiter service at your seat, and a menu of better ballpark food from which to choose, and so kirk and i got our mama’s of corona’s sub and smoked chicken wrap and nathan’s french fries and diet coke and root beer delivered to our seats.

at great expense, but sometimes in life you splurge.

and we were there with my friend from work, and her daughter. and her daughter got a baseball that the guy next to her caught, which was a total thrill for her. and she got to see david wright up close and personal–she has a big crush on him. good taste, that girl has. can’t argue with her logic there.

but, try as i might, it was hard to concentrate on the game. there are too many places to look at one time, and it was hard to keep track of everything that was going on. in the upper deck, you can see the shifts the defense puts on, and you can tell if a ball is a home run or not, and your eye can follow the ball around the field much better.

it’s fun to live the high life on field level every now and then, but i’m basically an upper deck guy.

not going to find it here

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this site is registered at google.com, so i can get lots of info about my site there. one of the most interesting pages is a list of the top search queries for my site, and where my site ranks in that query. when i need a laugh, i go look at the list. it amazes me what people search for.

here are some of the top search queries for my site. the link for each will click through to the google search.

» paolo nutini lyrics and its corollary, lyrics paolo nutini. there are no paolo nutini lyrics on my site. sorry. i saw him at the new york pops benefit, and i barely even remember what he looked like, let alone what he sang. i remember liking him, though. it’s odd to me that this is far and away the number one search result on my site. it’s even scarier that it’s the number one clickthrough as well. what must his fans think upon arriving at this particular little outpost?

» jamie’s lemon tart. i’m sorry. i don’t have a lemon tart. i must have eaten one and written about it, or at least mentioned “lemon” and “tart” in close proximity. but no recipes around here.

» jamie’s scottish evening. ooooooh la la. i’ll never divulge the secrets of my scottish evening, especially on the internets. seriously, i’ve never been to scotland, though kirk is dying to get me to edinburgh.

» jamie far. poor guy from m.a.s.h. nobody knows how to spell his last name. here’s a link, for you spelling-crippled queerspace arrivistes: jamie farr.

» jamie’s palm beach. this one confuses me a bit. is there a jamie somewhere who owns a beach laden with palms? is there a bar somewhere named “jamie’s palm beach”? is there a side to the city of palm beach that only a certain jamie is aware of?

» who sang da do ron ron recently? darlene love, according to my blog about the pops benefit. but i think she sang it originally, so that’s a bit misleading if you want to know anyone who sang it in the intervening 45 years. i should blog more about the new york pops, evidently.

you get the idea. i guess if i provided actual content instead of insane ramblings, my results would be better.

pd, useless no more

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pd is my cat. actually she was kirk’s cat, and now she’s our cat. and actually i have two cats, pd and morgan. but pd (the black and white cat in the sidebar picture) is today’s subject.

pd is useless no more.

i wrote about pd previously, and it was very facetious. let me stress that pd is lovable, and cuddly, and affectionate, and doesn’t scratch anywhere except the scratching post, and can’t meow more than a peep so makes no noise, and eats very little and is in perfect health.

the perfect pet. unlike morgan, who is a bulemic pain in the ass, though lovably so.

so pd has always been useful in the sense that she does what a cat is supposed to do in the affection department. but she has (i thought) always been useless in the mouse department.

as we live in an old new york apartment building directly on the park, we get the occasional mouse. little tiny field mice, once or twice a year, find their way in. the last one lived under the fridge until he/she wandered into the hav-a-heart trap to eat peanut butter, and was subsequently relocated from under the fridge to the nearby park.

but the cats, other than staring at the fridge, really did nothing. one time (years ago) we came home to find a dead mouse in the middle of the floor. untouched and immaculate. the cats (three at the time) were seated around it, staring at it.

i swear that mouse died of natural causes in our living room. i guess we’ll never know.

you’d think that the presence of cats would at least be a deterrent. it didn’t seem to be the case, though.

but last night, we heard unusual cat movements, and kirk got up to go to the bathroom, and then yelled “gross!” i got up, and there was pd.

and a mouse.

a dying mouse that she had caught and was torturing slowly.

now this was the smallest mouse imaginable. not including the tail, i don’t think it was even an inch and a half long. i wrapped it in paper towels and flushed it.

and praised pd repeatedly.

i have newfound respect for pd. go pd, you mouse-catching tyro.

bbq block party pt. 2

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we went back yesterday for day two of the bbq block party–we had nearly $90 left on our stored value card so getting more bbq was not a problem.

except for my stomach, of course.

we had ubon’s bbq from yazoo, mississippi. it was a shredded pork sandwich in large chunks. the end bits were burned and crispy and tasty, but the taste got a bit lost for me in the long striated strips of meat at the other end. it might have been better chopped up more finely…just a personal preference for me.

we had brisket and sausage from the salt lick bbq in driftwood, texas. going head to head with brisket and sausage from southside market in elgin is risky business for me, but it held up surprisingly well. a nice smoke line on the brisket, and the sausage was juicy and delicious. still, second place behind elgin for me.

i of course made a return trip for more southside market brisket and sausage, just to make sure. as i suspected, my memory hadn’t failed me. it’s still my favorite bbq of the weekend. kirk may have liked the 17th street ribs a bit better, and we would have tried more of that, but they were sold out by the time we got there in mid-afternoon.

we finished up with more smoki o’s rib tips and, god bless that woman, they still had some pig snoot in reserve so i got more of that. and it was still just as good as it was on the previous day. just the best version of pork rinds you’ve ever had.

we never did bother with dinosaur or with blue smoke. not that they aren’t good–they are–but they are in new york so why bother. we still had $30 on our card after all that, and our stomachs were crying uncle, so we got two $15 t-shirts and called it a day.

if you look for me at the gym, i’ll be the one in the black smoki o’s t-shirt.

if you didn’t go this year, you had better get there next year. it’s my favorite weekend of the whole year. love it love it love it.

bbq block party 2006

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southside bbq from elgin, tx
perfect brisket

smokios bbq from kansas city
smokios goodness

my favorite day of the year is bbq block party weekend. which is, of course two days. i can’t decide if the first day or the second day is my favorite day, so i’ll just call it a draw.

the first picture above is the brisket from southside market in elgin, texas. oh. my. goodness. the picture doesn’t do it justice. there’s the clearly defined smoke ring, the succulent juicy meat, and the generous layer of fat at the bottom. you can’t even begin to imagine how good this was. and it came with a sausage link that puts any sausage you’ve ever had to shame. and very good coleslaw, and potato bread to mop it up. there were two sauces, one hot and vinagery and one mild and more tomatoey, but you really didn’t need them.

and, to whom it may concern, you know who you are, mr. show-off cut the line with my media pass foodie expert, elgin is pronounced with a hard “g”, not like the watch company.

definitely going back here today for more.

my other favorite stop (and my first stop, first in line yesterday) was smoki o’s bbq from kansas city. every year she has pig snoot. that’s right, snoot. the nose. and it is so good. this year they had rib tips and told her not to bring snoot, but she brought a little bit anyway and i got some. it was even better than before–it’s like pork rinds only this time fresher and better. and the rib tips were great too–some crunchy and some tender and all marvelous. and good baked beans too.

we sampled rub bbq, which has an outpost in new york now. it was brisket–ice cold with the worst cole slaw (basically just shredded cabbage) you have ever had. and their new york bbq restaurant is the most expensive bbq place you will ever see. the brisket might have been decent when hot, but no way would it rise to the level of the elgin southside market bbq. if i ever had any thoughts of paying upwards of $100 for a bbq dinner at this place, which i really didn’t anyway, there’s no way i’d do it now.

we had 17th street bar and grill baby back ribs–it’s memphis bbq. best ribs i’ve had in a long time. chewy and tender and flavorful and crusty and fatty all at once. and they win, once again, for best baked beans. it’s a mixture of several different types of bean in a perfectly balanced tangy sauce. not too sweet. i’d go to memphis just for the beans. and the perfect ribs are just a bonus.

we had pulled pork shoulder from big bob gibson in decatur, alabama. i love coming to this stand every year, because he brings his genial neighbor who pours the sauce on your sandwich at the end, and he’s a very typical southern gentleman who i really like a lot. we always have a little conversation and he’s a great guy. i’d like to buy him a beer sometime. the sauces were mild and hot, and i liked both. good coleslaw too, but a little too vinagery for kirk.

as good as the pulled pork shoulder sandwich is here, my favorite is still the whole hog from mitchell’s bbq in wilson, north carolina. no you don’t get the entire hog, just a portion of it. but your sandwich is filled with meat from everywhere in the hog, so you get a wonderful mixture of different types and textures of meat on your bun, which is so so yummy. and their “sauce” is basically vinegar with spices, which to me is the best sauce in the place. it perfectly complements the meat and makes for the best bbq sandwich you’ve ever had. and i have a sneaking suspicion that ed mitchell is a cool guy, because he cooks his whole hog and when it’s gone for the day, it’s gone and there’s no more bbq. he’s not bringing out the backup tupperware full of meat from home. so you have to get there early if you want it. good for him. don’t compromise your bbq integrity for these demanding new yorkers.

and his coleslaw was the best. just enough yellow mustard, but not too much.

we skipped blue smoke and dinosaur. it’s great bbq, but they are from new york and i can get it anytime, so why wait on the lines, even if they are much shorter than the others. today we’re going back to get salt lick brisket and sausage, which isn’t usually as good as southside market for me but is still much, much better than you’ll get at, say, virgil’s or dallas bbq in the city. and we’ll get ubon’s pulled pork shoulder, which if i remember correctly is very good as well.

we bought the bubba fast pass again, which is basically a stored value card that lets you skip the main lines and get in what are supposed to be shorter “vip” lines. last year they sold far fewer of them i think, because i don’t remember any lines at all, or at least very short ones. this year the avereage wait in the vip lines was about 45 minutes, which i’m betting is still much quicker than the main lines. and half the time the registers don’t work, so they just give you bbq. with all the “free” bbq, for two servings of most of the bbq listed above, we paid a total of about $35, which is i think what rub bbq charges for their iced tea.

i could almost forget i was in new york, except for the whiny man and his limousine liberal girlfriend/wife behind us for 45 minutes in the mitchell’s line. god were they annoying. and the woman who stormed to the front of the line and screamed at the 17th street bbq people because her “fast pass” wasn’t fast enough. the 17th street bbq people are the most laid-back people you can imagine, and their shirts all say “peace, love and barbecue”. this woman clearly didn’t get the concept. but otherwise, everyone was very laid back. we’d get food from one place and eat it in line for the next place, and everyone asked you about your food and where you got it and how did you like it and such. it was a lot of fun.

and we ran into our friend suzanne who was, of course, waiting to ask about pig snoot at the start of the whole thing, just like we were. we’re very predictable people that way. great sharing snoot with you again, suzanne!

we’re gonna end up having tons of stored value left on our card, and we’ll probably get more merchandise to burn off the value just like we did last year. which is fine…i like having a stack of t-shirts around and the various bbq joints have pretty cool ones.

all the money goes to the parks conservancy or something, so it’s good for the karma as well.

or at least as good for the karma as eating pounds of meat can be.

bigots? in congress? nah.

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

the senate is preparing to vote, yet again, to write discrimination into the constitution. will it happen? not a chance. but the republicans see it as a sop to their religious faithful (people whom, to my mind, are actually neither).

from an ap news article on the subject:

“The Republican leadership is asking us to spend time writing bigotry into the Constitution,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) of Massachusetts, whose state legalized gay marriage in 2003. “A vote for it is a vote against civil unions, against domestic partnership, against all other efforts for states to treat gays and lesbians fairly under the law.”

Hatch responded: “Does he really want to suggest that over half of the United States Senate is a crew of bigots?”

do i really need to respond to hatch? or is the answer to his supposedly rhetorical question self evident?

update: as expected, the proposal failed. with 48 senators voting for passage, hatch is technically correct. instead, just under half of the senate is a crew of bigots.

nothing worth defending?

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

the nimrod head of homeland security, michael chertoff, has basically announced that there are no monuments in new york city worth defending, and has disproportionately cut new york city’s homeland security funding.

actually, he’s not a nimrod. he’s an asshat. or an asstard, if you will.

anyway, new york’s senator hilary clinton has come up with the bright idea to send michael “asshat” chertoff postcards from the various monuments he’s not choosing to protect.

i think this is brilliant and witty and subversive in just the right way. i’m going to send a few postcards, and i think you should too.

text-transform: lowercase

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i learn something every day. today i learned a new css property.

css, for the uninitiated, is a way to control the way your site looks. you put all of your styles into a file, and then each page refers to that file. and so if you want to change the look of your site, you change one file, and the changes roll out to your pages.

so today i used “text-transform: lowercase” to permanently ban capital letters from this site. the whole capital letters ban is silly, i know, but i started my site that way back in 1998 and i’m stubborn that way.

lots of times, when i cut and paste quotes from other sources, i laboriously replace all the capital letters. or let it go, when i’m lazy. now i don’t have to worry about it. i can leave the capital letters in place, and my css file will tell your browser to remove them all. invisibly. in the background. with no work needed from me or you.

it’s a small thing. but it’s cool and it saves me some time occasionally. i can even type in all caps if i want, and you’ll never know i’m shouting.

a thank you/shout out to stex on the greymatter forums site, who mentioned this in a post there.

semi-useless tag cloud added

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anyway, if you ask me they are semi-useless. it’s my new tag cloud.

it’s in my sidebar, off to the right over there, right under my rss feed links. the tag cloud is a constantly updated alphabetical list of words and topics that appear frequently in my blog titles via my rss feed. and the more times something appears, the bigger the font. and you can click through and there’s a list of the links to the places that topic appeared on my blog.

and, of course, you get lots of associated google ad sense ads.

apparently, according to my tag cloud, piss is a hot topic on my blog. i don’t remember mentioning piss, but there you are. click on a word that interests you, even if it’s piss.

the thing is free to me, from the (i’m assuming) nice folks at zoomclouds.com, and it takes up space in my sidebar, and it certainly looks cool, and it graphically conveys the information it’s supposed to. and if you click through they make lots of money on the ads, i guess.

everyone tells me that, with the traffic this site gets, i’m a fool not to put google ad sense ads in my sidebar and collect the dough-re-mi every month. i guess i just think it’s a bit tacky, and i think more of you than that.

but the zoomclouds people have no such compunctions, so click away on my tag cloud if you wish.

bird flu awareness night

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

via gawker:

newark bears bird flu awareness night.

from the site:

Bird Flu Awareness Night featuting a pre-game chicken wing eating contest presented by Planet Wings and a Post-Game Fireworks Spectacular presented by Saint Barnabas Health Care System/Clara Maass Medical Center

bird flu awareness celebrated by a chicken-eating contest. this is pretty much the dictionary definition of irony, n’est-ce pas?

only in new jersey, says the manhattanite.

lunch hour at the new apple store

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apple opened their new nyc store at the top of 5th avenue last friday, with a lot of hoopla, press coverage, and red-hot hype. it was lousy weather and there were tons of people, so i didn’t bother going. although the first 2500 people got t-shirts and that would have been cool. anyway, i headed uptown on my lunch hour to check it out.

the distinctive design element is the much-discussed enormous glass cube at the entrance of the basement retail space on 58th and 5th. first impression of the cube–very, very cool. i was walking east across 58th st., which has a lot of construction and scaffolding and such right now. and when you reach 5th avenue, your view opens up and there’s the cube. there’s an island of space between you and the cube, and it’s still enormous and a very impressive sight. there’s glass elevator access, the glass stairway down, and i spotted an unobtrusive security guard standing off to the side. there may be more–the area is a popular hangout for tourists, so some crowd members may have had a more official capacity. being a new yorker, i worry about the glass cube. i ride the subway every day, and see the effects of etchall on glass windows. and pigeons, and whatnot.

that glass cube is going to be a lot of work, i think.

the gm building basement has always been a dog of a retail space, even with its amazing location at the top of the 5th avenue. to mix a metaphor, apple has taken lemons and made lemonade. the cube draws you in, even if you have no idea what’s at the bottom of the stairs. and the suspended apple logo is classy and elegant.

i’ve never been to an apple store (i’m a tekserve kind of guy). but it’s an exciting retail environment, to be sure. there were hundreds of customers milling around an enormous open room, with stations of dozens and dozens of apple product to try. even with the crowds, there was so much product on display that i had no trouble at all trying the new macbook (unexpected love of that chiclets keyboard), a mac mini hooked up to a 23″ apple display (i may have to put my philips 23″ hdtv to better use), an ipod w/video and a nano (never used anything other than a shuffle), and other stuff as well.

this may be the place i’ll take my apple stuff if i need a genius bar experience. there are a lot of staff at it, and it seems to be a bit better organized than the tekserve “take a number” approach. plus i can go at 5:00 in the morning before work and avoid the crowds–the store is open 24/7.

interestingly, even with the enormous number of customers, i still had very pleasant apple salespeople approach on two separate occasions and offer help if i had questions. definitely an atypical nyc retail experience–i could wander around an empty best buy for hours without an offer of help. even the guy at the bottom of the stairs with the bottle of windex and a rag (there’s a lot of glass in that store!) smiled when i came in.

on 5th avenue, where the abercrombie and fitch store employs a shirtless chelsea boy at the store entrance, and the sirius store has a model dancing in the window with her headset on, it’s nice to see that apple can attract much bigger crowds with a simple, elegant, and cool presence.

update: photos of some of the celebrity attendees at the apple store opening. a couple of a-listers, some b+ listers.

grey gardens–best broadway musical of the season

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ben brantley, in a ny times roundup of the broadway musicals of this year, has called “grey gardens” the best musical of the season.

problem is, “grey gardens” wasn’t a broadway show–it was an off broadway show. as he acknowledges, while making his point about the dearth of good musicals this year.

still, he’s right, from what i’ve seen and read. i loved the show. congratulations to everyone involved with the show–it was my favorite theater experience this year. and it’s broadway bound, so go see it when it arrives.

hopefully by then they will have fixed the howard hughes “spruce goose” anachronism.

ipod shuffle shuffling off?

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there’s rumors on the internets that apple is killing the shuffle as soon as current inventories (supposedly high) are depleted.

i hope these rumors aren’t true. the shuffle is the only ipod i own, and i love it. it’s perfect for the gym, and the damn thing is indestructible. i have a feeling that i’m the exception, and that most ipod shuffles are owned by people who have another “big” ipod, which makes this a curious marketing decision by apple.

i hope this rumor isn’t true.

new macbooks from apple

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in the absence of having anything else more interesting to say, i’ll just mention that apple released their new entry-level notebooks today.

read all about them, for they are interesting, and buy one if you can afford it, for they are a good value.

except for the black one. you basically pay $150 just to get a black one, instead of the standard white. that’s quite a style premium.

henry ford, who would give you a model t in any color as long as it was black, must be spinning in his grave about now.

it’s a style premium that i’m sure a lot of people will be paying, though. apple is going to sell these new macbooks, black and white alike, by the truckload, or bushel, or whatever measure you prefer.

stealing my subway sub

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which, by the way, i didn’t do, but got accused of this morning.

i should explain.

i’m famous among those who know me for my even temper when dealing with customer service issues. i’m pretty good at getting what i want from customer service people, and the first rule of dealing with them is to never lose your temper. if you do, you give them an excuse to ignore you, hang up on you, or ask you to leave.

anyway, this morning i went on an errand to the post office, and took my subway stamps to get a free sub. it takes eight stamps to get a free sub, or what used to be a free sub but now they make you buy a drink for $1.25 which costs them next to nothing, so they probably break even on the sandwich. and they have stopped giving out stamps, but they are still honoring them.

and i had six stamps, and a card signed by an employee in the spaces where i would have had stamps, except that on that day they had run out of stamps, so they gave me that.

but as far as i was concerned, i had eight stamps.

just to be safe, i asked the counter person on the way in if they still took the stamps. yes, was the answer, but looking at what i brought in, the guy said, “we can’t take this, because it’s not all stamps.”

i explained that the store, this very store, was out of stamps that day, so this is what i got instead of stamps. he wouldn’t budge.

so i asked for the manager, and nicely reiterated my problem. her response?

“this isn’t an employee’s initials–you must have done this yourself.”

now, i’ve been accused of doing many things i didn’t do. and i’ve done tons of things i’m not proud of. but i guarantee you that i’m not going to forge a set of initials on a subway card to fraudently obtain a $5 sandwich i can afford any day of the week. and something about being accused of that, by an obviously idiotic store manager, just triggered a reaction.

i asked her, rather loudly i admit, if she was accusing me of trying to steal a $5 sandwich. she said nothing.

so, after a few awkward moments of silence, i let her have it. man did i really let her have it. it was about ten in the morning, so there were only a couple of employees. but they both stopped serving their customers to watch this guy tear their boss a new asshole.

and i did. i’m not especially proud of it.

who am i kidding? i’m damn proud of it. who does she think she is? suffice it to say she got a lecture on the proper way to deal with a customer, and a run down of all the dining options i had in the rock center concourse, and a detailed description of my recent visits and the sandwiches i had purchased, and the members of my family who were former subway employees (that would be my ex, caitlin), and other choice details too numerous to list. i didn’t curse, though. i know better.

it took me about two minutes, i’d guess. the guys behind the counter had smiles on their faces, so i’m guessing they can’t stand her either. i’m happy to have given them a couple of minutes of vicarious enjoyment.

my final question to her was, “do i get my sandwich or not?” knowing i wouldn’t–i know enough about customer service issues to know that i’d passed that point long ago. i got my no, and i walked out, leaving her with my six stamps and the signed card.

will i patronize subway in general again? of course–it’s a fine company and i like their sandwiches. they are a somewhat healthier alternative to crappy fast food. and each subway is franchisee-owned, so the problem i had here doesn’t carry over to other locations.

will i go to that particular subway franchise again?

what do you think? my high dudgeon will last quite a while.

amazing street art

~ jamie ~ 2 Comments

virtual street reality.

follow the link above to see some amazing street art. here’s a description of it, from the site:

Julian Beever is an English artist who is famous for his art on the pavements of England, France, Germany, USA, Australia and Belgium. Its peculiarity? Beever gives his drawings an anamorphosis view, his images are drawn in such a way which gives them three dimensionality when viewing from the correct angle.

coolest thing i’ve seen on the internets in quite a while.

back to number one

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i’m back to the number one position on google for jamie howard, ahead of jamie howard the professional wrestler, and jamie howard the swimming machine, and jamie howard the alderman in davenport iowa, and jamie howard the former ceo of excite, and all the rest.

it’s about damn time. enough of this number two and number three nonsense.

in an effort to figure out google and how it works, i signed up for google sitemaps. you can then get a plethora of info about how google sees your site, and all that.

for instance, i learned that the number one topic i have blogged about is kristin hall. if i just turned this site into a series of blogs about kristen hall, i might get some action around here. and certainly she is an interesting topic.

but i wouldn’t subject her to the vagaries of my attention. she deserves better.

the second hottest topic? peeps pie. come on people. that wasn’t even a blog. it was just a picture, with no words involved.

of course, as i’ve mentioned elsewhere, the number of people subscribing to my rss feed rises with each day that passes that i haven’t blogged. howard’s law, i suppose.

which tells me that you all just want me to shut up, or just talk about peeps pie or kristen hall incessantly.

i get the message.

and on a completely unrelated topic, i found my post containing my american idol prediction. back in early march, i predicted elliot would go all the way.

i think i’m sticking to that. before last night, i thought he was gone. but after last night, he’s around for one more week anyhow. he may be a dark horse, behind chris and taylor, but i think he’s the only performer left who has actually improving somewhat, if only marginally. and i think people are going to notice that, and reward it.

update: all those google hits for kristin hall? i was spelling her name wrong. it’s kristen hall. here’s my mea culpa on the matter.