The New York Times reports that a North Carolina company is devising software that will turn stats into stories without any input from the annoying meatware, which is always getting in the way with its whiskey, cigarettes and endless trips to the toilet.
Says StatSheet founder Robbie Allen: “My goal was that 80 percent of readers wouldn’t question that the content was written by a human, and now that we’ve launched, I think the percentage is higher.”
No surprises there, Robbie old scout. Most “readers” can’t tell fact from fiction, as the recent midterm elections made all too apparent. And having been an editor since 1980, I can assure you that a sizable percentage of human-generated journalism — especially sportswriting — could be replaced by a TRS-80 crosswired to a Hoover canister model with a direct pipeline to a ConAgra feedlot.
But still, damn. Do I need to buy a paper hat and add a masters in Fryolator to my B.A. in journalism? At my age?
No, Herself did not just win the Kentucky Derby astride a midget horse. We paid for the wreath and got the photo op' for nothin'.
OK, so we finally surrendered to the Dark Side, taking a huge gulp of the Konsumerist Kool-Aid intoxicating millions of our fellow citizens as chronicled by The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Californian Derrick Love was clearly under the influence of something. He and lifelong pal David Martinez spent nearly two days camped outside an Oakland Best Buy so he could get a $600 Toshiba laptop for $349.
“We’re on a huge adventure,” Mr. Love told The Times. “One day I’m going to tell my grandkids about this, how we were the first.”
Ai, Chihuahua. If only John Steinbeck were still alive to chronicle this epic tale. Call it, “Toshiba Flat.”
Alas, we proved no more resistant to the siren song of shopping. At the crack of noon Herself and I ventured out to a local nursery, where we ordered up a Canadian red cherry tree to replace the defunct apple trees in our now-treeless back yard. In an orgy of extravagance we added a holiday wreath to the tab. Then Herself posed for a photo with a horse that someone had apparently washed and then popped into an overly hot dryer for an alarming period of time.
We overextended ourselves further by purchasing a couple sandwiches from a downtown eatery and taking them home for a gourmet lunch, after which Herself toddled off to the Humane Society to help a few fuzzy little faces find new homes for the holidays.
As for me, I Vespa’d down to the grog shop for a couple jugs of brain eraser and then spent the afternoon plinking away at the keyboard, composing a hymn to capitalism, American style. Dirty work, but someone has to do it.
My sister's dogs, Maggie and Riley. Hey, we can't have cats on the site all the time, y'know. The joint's called Mad Dog Media, after all.
I camped out all night in my bed and when I arose this morning there was free coffee in the kitchen. Talk about your Black Friday bargains!
There was toast, too, but I had to make that myself. Ditto the eggs. And come to think of it, I had to pay for the eggs, bread and the coffee. Full retail, too, as I recall.
Damn. I think I’ve been screwed by The Man yet again. And without so much as a good-morning kiss.
Herself and I drove to Fort Fun and back for Turkey Day, served up by my sis’ and bro’-in-law, and a delicious meal it was, too. Turkey with all the usual suspects, including Brussels sprouts with bacon and a glass of one of my favorite rosés, Mas de la Dames Rosé du Mas 2009.
En route we missed “Alice’s Restaurant” on KRCC, but caught up with Arlo on KUNC out of Greeley, then followed that up with some “Sam Kinison: Live From Hell” (yeah, we have some odd holiday traditions).
As is traditional, the trip also served up a few contenders for the annual Darwin Awards, including an eight-car smashup near Larkspur, in broad daylight and on dry roads; a pickup driver with his lights off after sunset; and my personal fave, some dipshit fool in dark clothing astride a motorcycle sans taillight speeding in the left lane through Bibleburg as we approached Chez Dog at dark-thirty.
Ride on, brother. Hell ain’t half full, and I hear Sammy throws a swell party.
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant (excepting Alice).
“And friends, somewhere in Washington, enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I’m singing you this song now is ’cause you may know somebody in a similar situation — or you may be in a similar situation — and if you’re in a situation like that there’s only one thing you can do.
“Walk into the shrink, wherever you are, just walk in and say, “Shrink, you can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.” And walk out.
“You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and they won’t take him. And if two people, two people do it — in harmony — they may think they’re both faggots and they won’t take either of them. And three people do it, three — can you imagine, three people walking in singing a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out? They may think it’s an organization. And can you, can you imagine 50 people a day, I said 50 people a day walking in singing a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out? And friends, they may think it’s a movement.
“And that’s just what it is — the Alice’s Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement — and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar! With feeling.”
So sing it, y’all. I’ll be singing right along with you. See you after dinner.
With the holidays bearing down upon us like a doped-up masters racer, a cat’s life is simply overflowing with anticipation.
“When will Jesus bring the pork chops?” wonders Turkish, a.k.a. Turkenstein, The Turkinator, Mighty Whitey the Blue-Eyed Bully of Bibleburg, Big Pussy, et al. He suspects that something wondrous is taking place on the other side of that door and has asked Santa to bring him a pair of opposable thumbs so he can work the knob.
He’s actually pretty damn’ close to getting the door open without thumbs — he certainly doesn’t have any trouble grasping the knob, which sits 36 inches off the ground. Wrap it with something he could sink his claws into and he’d come and go as he pleased.
Miss Mia Sopaipilla, on the other hand, wants nothing more than to see an unwary Turk’ ambling past her grocery-sack spider hole en route to the feed zone so she can whip an ambush on his big white ass. A half hour ago she was merrily flogging him around the house — through the living room and into the bedroom, then through the kitchen and down to the basement. Repeat until naptime, which has just arrived.
Herself is making banking noises out there in the living room, moving money around from one account to another to balance my extravagance as I await delivery of my new Voodoo Nakisi frameset. I’ve found most of what I need to build it up gathering dust in the garage, so naturally the purchase is justified by the crisp sense of order its assembly will bring to a presently cluttered space.
It will use Salsa bars (either flared Bell Laps, Pro Road or Moto Ace); some unlabeled off-brand stem; nine-speed Shimano drivetrain (bar-end shifters, Ultegra derailleurs, XT triple crankset, 11-28 cassette); a pair of moderately scarred Shimano 600 aero brake levers, plus cantis and top-mounted brake levers from Cane Creek; a Thomson seatpost and maybe the old Avenir saddle that came stock on my Nineties road bike.
Miss Mia knows that sooner or later someone will be passing by ... and she's gonna get ’em.
I don’t have an actual 29er wheelset, however, so I’m gonna make do by pulling a pair of wheels off one of the ’cross bikes and slapping some 700×45 Panaracer Fire Cross tires on ’em. That should be burly enough for my mild purposes until I can get Jerry down at Old Town to build me up a set of righteous hoops using a leftover pair of Hügi hubs and maybe some Alex Adventurer rims, which come recommended by tech editor Matt Wiebe of Bicycle Retailer & Industry News. Matt is the generous gent who is ferrying the frameset from BTI in Santa Fe to Your Humble Narrator in Bibleburg en route to Turkey Day festivities in Denver.
So, yeah. Christmas beats Thanksgiving to the DogHaus this year. But then we were never traditionalists. And if you’re hanging around here, you probably aren’t either. So I’ll leave you with the words of Robert Downey Jr., from “Home for the Holidays”: “That was absurd, let’s eat dead bird.”
