Does Stephen King make good bedtime reading? Just wondering.
~ E

Looks like GM will file for bankruptcy Monday. Know any companies that came out of that in good shape?
~ E

What makes a good weekend?

If you're like most folks, today was the first day back to work from a long weekend. I know it was that way for me, too.

The hallmark of a good weekend is your ability to put the madness of work out of your mind.

OK. So here's the deal:

If you did not need intensive retraining after the weekend, forget it. You're married to the job. There's no help for you.

Recession survival: Grilling on a budget

(Special thanks to my deranged supervisor Elaine for sending this along!)

As everyone knows, now that spring is here it is time to get ready for that all-important cooking technique of the south (and the west too) --- outdoor grilling!

I have just found out there are many stores (not just in the South) where you can get a FREE Bar-B-Q grill! In these tough times free useful items are very welcome. You can get a free BBQ grill from any of the following stores:

A&P, Albertsons, Costco, Dan's, Food Lion, Fry's, Home Depot, Big Lots, Brookshire's, Lowes, Publix, Safeway, Sam's Club, Tesco, Target, Tops, Vons, Trader Joe's, Wal-Mart, Wegmanns, Winn-Dixie, and Smith's.

I especially like the higher rack -- which can be used for keeping things warm!
Just make sure to get a metal one... the plastic ones don't work so good.

Note, remember to take the tires off!

Ya'll enjoy now!

Recession redux: What's hot, part II

Here's a bit more on what people are spending their hard-earned recessionary bucks on.

Chocolate is very popular now, as is Spam and Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. And cheap wine holds up well, along with running shoes.

Here's more, courtesy of Google News:

(You'll know things are getting really ugly when the top-selling items are gold, guns, and concentrated food.)

Discount stores and home surgery: What's hot?

While the economy is in the tank, companies are downsizing, and your investment portfolio shows you may be qable to retire when you're 108, some companies are going the other way.

Growth is happening at Walgreens. Gamestop, a company I've never heard of, is doing well. And your discount stores are doing great.

This is according to CoStar Group, a real estate information provider that tracks which companies are growing and which ones are shrinking. CoStar's methodology is fairly simple -- which retail chains plan to add new stores?

According to CoStar, the 250 major retilers it tracks plan to open 4,000 new stores this year and close about 3,600. But even these numbers don't look all that hot. If all 4,000 stores really open this year, that number is still down 39 percent from store-opening activity two years ago.

What's interesting is the list of retailers that are still growing at this point:

1 - Walgreens, with 540 new stores planned.
2 - Dollar General, 450 new stores.
3 - CVS, with 275.
4 - Gamestop, with 250 new stores on the drawing board.
5 - Dollar Tree, with 235.
6 - Family Dollar, with 200.
7 - WalMart Supercenter, with 125. World domination is a tough business.
8 - Aldi, with 80.
9 - Target, with 75.
10 - Tractor Supply Co., with 75 new stores.

Dollar General and Family Dollar are both deep-discount stores, where you can get just about anything for little bit of nothing. I'd never heard of either company until I moved east of the Mississippi, so there's probably some virgin territory for those two companies. They're nearly interchangeable; I sometimes refer to the Family Dollar General store if I can't remember which one is nearby. Doesn't take genius to figure out why these stores are doing so well.

Same with the Dollar Tree. This company is a little different from the Family Dollar General in that just about everything in the store costs ... a dollar. Cheaply-made goods, but for a buck I'm not going to complain.

I'm not real familiar with Aldi. I saw one in North Carolina, and I understand it's one of those ultra-cheap grocery stores where you bring your own bags. Kind of like the Sav-A-Lot I used to shop at in Tennessee. Great for staples, packaged food, beans, rice, soft drinks, and anything that comes in a can or box. The meat department at Sav-A-Lot scared me; there were always some funny smells coming from back there.

It's easy to see Walmart and Target in this list; any kind of discount is a good thing these days. And drugstores? People still get sick, and it wouldn't surprise me any if the over-the-counter drugs section is what's carrying the ball here. What with the economy being so squirrelly there may be more of a do-it-yourself aspect in health care. Now, if folks start buying up medical equipment for home surgery, that wouldn't shock me either.

OK. Which retailers are losing their shirts?

1 - Circuit City, with 567 store closures planned this year. Is that all of them?
2 - Ritz Camera, with 400 closures. Not difficult to see. How many people still use cameras requiring film?
3 - Goody's, with 287.
4 - Steve & Barry's, with 252.
5 - Jones Apparel, with 225 closures planned over the next two years.
6 - Blockbuster, with 150.
7 - Office Depot, with 118.
8 - RiteAid, with 117. They're a drugstore chain. What's up with that?
9 - Zales, with 115. Maybe more folks are buying their jewelry from some dude selling out of a car trunk?
10 - Gap, and Charming Shoppes, with 100 closures each.

1996 GOP VP nominee Jack Kemp dies over the weekend.

Financial spin, explained:

The White House take on Chrysler's impending bankruptcy could well become a classic in the art of manufacturing BS.

Now this "surgical bankruptcy" ... is that another name for being taken apart?

Here's a conundrum: Is 'felony stupidity' illegal?

'Cause if it is, our entire executive branch of government should be indicted, along with our legislative branch ...

... and all of the public sector ...

... and much of the private sector ...

Well, you can make up your own list as well.

(Here's the news story that raised this question.)

GM to cut 20,000 jobs and shut down Pontiac. Are we in a depression yet?
~ E

'Miss Principled' title trumps Miss USA any time

You've probably figured by now that the Miss USA Pageant just isn't the forum for saying anything controversial or halfway intelligent. At least, that's what Miss California, Carrie Prejean, is figuring out.

Prejean believes her comments on gay marriage probably cost her the Miss USA crown, but to her credit she's taking nothing back. She's standing by her statements, much to her credit.

During last Sunday's pageant, celebrity gossip blogger and Miss USA judge Perez Hilton, asked Prejean about her views on gay marriage. Now, keep in mind the pageant is a pure Hollywood thing, and she is representing an extremely liberal state. But here's Prejean's answer:

"I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."

Whoops. Wrong audience. Not the most prudent thing to say, especially to a question posed by Hilton, who is (as the PC crowd would say) upfront about his own homosexuality. Like, he describes himself as "the gossip queen." And Hilton has since led the attack on Prejean, ripping her in his blog.

So far, Prejean is taking these attacks in stride. "I have to laugh it off, she says. "It's so funny."

Prejean came in first runner-up to Miss North Carolina, and probably didn't get much consideration for Miss Congeniality. But she scored big on some things our society used to value.

"It did cost me my crown," Prejean says. "It is a very touchy subject and [Hilton] is a homosexual, and I see where he was coming from and I see the audience would've wanted me to be more politically correct. But I was raised in a way that you can never compromise your beliefs and your opinions for anything."

Now, that's huge. Too bad there's no such thing as Miss Principled in that pageant, or anywhere else for that matter. I guess following your heart, sticking by your beliefs, or having actual convictions doesn't "sell" anymore.

Is there a problem with making sure you don't offend the other person? You'd better believe there's a problem. Playing this trend to its ultimate, what you'll have is a bunch of people who look the same, act the same, have no opinions of their own, and have no personalities of their own. Which is a good thing, I reckon, if you want an absolutely ordered (read: dead) society that will do the bidding of whoever jumps to the front of the herd.

Standing out just isn't popular. Or easy. It takes a heaping helping of guts to do this, especially when the majority is quite content to be sheep.

I like how CNN columnist Roland S. Martin put it: "The day we condemn folks for speaking honestly is the day we become a bland society."

What scares me is that maybe we're already there.

Obammunism 101, explained by The Post

OK. So what's Obama up to now?

Here's an analysis by Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer.

Don't worry. None of us will be alive when the bill for all this stuff comes up anyway.

Sort of like counting jelly beans in a jar?

This footage was shot in Phoenix, Arizona, no surprise there. And I lost count after 24.

Freddie Mac's woes continue

This will bring out the conspiracy theorists, guaranteed:

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The acting chief financial officer of Freddie Mac was found dead at his home Wednesday morning in an apparent suicide. David Kellermann, acting chief financial officer at the government-controlled mortgage company, was found dead at his home in Fairfax County, Va ...

(The news story was from marketwatch.com.)

Going mobile with submini laptop

OK, I've gone portable, kinda sorta. Here's my take on subminiature laptops (known in the trade as netbooks) in general, and the Acer Aspire One in particular.

Are netbooks hip, or are they just hype? Read about it in The Workbench, Reloaded ...

Having fun with mobility and blogs

That last post was sent via cellphone and text message, which is something I'd been playing with for some time.

Now, it appears I've cracked the combination.

I guess this now means I'll need to find another use for my Twitter account -- like, maybe twitter?

==========

[You tell me! Now that I have that experiment out of the way and it appears to be a successful one, what should I do with my Twitter account? Use the Commets section for suggestions, but PLEASE keep it clean ...]

Turn Off Technology Week is allegedly coming. I wonder if there's a Web site for it?
~ E

What really counts among generations

Don't think I can add much to this here; and the older I get the more sense it makes. This was sent to me some time ago (can't remember who; must be my Ericheimer's kicking in).

Anyway, enjoy.

Fidrych had too much fun to fit in

In some ways, The Bird's coming-out party may have been the last great moment in baseball. The game just hasn't been the same since.
Let's flash back. It's 1976, and I'm finishing high school. My California Angels (OK, this is a real flashback; this was two name changes ago) are in for another lousy year. Things were so bad that their manager said they could stage batting practice in a hotel lobby without breaking anything.
Meanwhile, up in the Motor City there was this goofy-looking kid mowing down the American League's best hitters, and doing it with a sense of style and enjoyment that you just don't see anymore.
Mark Fidrych may be the answer to a trivia question now, but back then he was on a whole 'nother planet. Somehow he cracked the Detroit Tigers' starting rotation, and before long he became the talk of baseball.
It was on a nationally-televised Monday night game that The Bird pitched his best game, and this became his coming-out party. The Tigers beat the New York Yankees, 5-1, but that was secondary. Fidrych had his best stuff, and showed that being special had nothing to do with throwing the ball.
Kind of a goofy-looking guy; tall and gangly, with hair like Harpo Marx, he did look like some character from Sesame Street. He'd start each inning by getting down on his hands and knees, landscaping the pitcher's mound. Getting it just the way he liked it. Then he'd stand up, not much of a windup, rear back, and dial up a 90-something mph fastball. Of course he would lead cheers from the mound, bouncing around after every out. The Energizer Bunny had nothing on this guy.
He explained that his habit of fixing the mound was because each pitcher tended to dig his own hole from which he could push off for maximum effectiveness. The problem was, not all pitchers put that hole in the same place, and Fidrych said he didn't want to fall into some other pitcher's excavation. Which makes sense, by the way, but it was the way he did his landscaping that captured attention. And baqseball is really a conservative sport; anyone who does things just a little bit differently is a flake, especially if he enjoys being different. Fidrych brought enough naivete into the picture to become a real flake -- as if he didn't understand what all this brouhaha was about.
But there was more. Between pitches you'd see his lips move while he was holding the ball in front of him. Fidrych swore he was just vocalizing, reminding himself of what he needed to do next, but it sure looked like he was tallking to the baseball. Of course, with a zany-looking hyperactive guy like him, you're naturally going to believe he was really talking to the ball. In all, he was a refreshing character, an unspoiled kid playing a game while most of the other players acted like they were on the job or something.
After that great game on national TV, the fans called him back onto the field for a curtain call. Fidrych had already taken off his shoes but came back out anyway, in his stocking feet. The TV cameras gave baseball fans a panoramic view of his stockinged feet, adding to the legend of The Bird.
Here's Wikipedia's account of that game:
June 28: Fidrych was in the spotlight, as the Tigers faced the Yankees on Monday Night Baseball. In front of a crowd of 47,855 at Tiger Stadium and a national television audience, "The Bird" talked to the ball and groomed the mound, as the Tigers won, 5-1 in a game that lasted only 1 hour and 51 minutes. After the game, the crowd would not leave the park until Fidrych came out of the dugout to tip his cap. In his book "No Big Deal," Fidrych said: "Everyone picks out that game. Why? Why is that game -- just 'cause it's on national TV and I won? Say it was national TV and I lost. Right?"
Back then, teams used four starters instead of five, and they were expected to finish their games. In his rookie year he threw 24 complete games (with an earned-run average of 2.34) and 250 innings -- now, a pitcher with 200 innings in a season is considered a real horse, and Johan Santana, regarded as a real tough guy among today's pitchers, has thrown nine complete games in his entire career.
In spring training of 1977, he'd blown out his knee while shagging fly balls in his enthusiastic manner. Then later wrecked his shoulder. He stuck in The Show five years, all with the Tigers. His won-loss record in that first year was 19-9; the remaining four years he was able to scrape together another five wins and five losses.
During The Bird's heyday, there were rumblings about changes coming to The Game. The Supreme Court had already dealt a death blow to the reserve clause in the Curt Flood case, ruling that the Cardinals outfielder was free to sign with anyone. Other court decisions made pitchers Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith free agents, and Messersmith signed a scandalously huge contract to pitch for the hapless Atlanta Braves. Already that was high-dollar stuff compared to Fidrych's rookie salary of $16,500. (A man of simple tastes, Fidrych told sportswriters then that he owned three dishes -- a plate, a fork, and a knife.) But it wasn't until the end of 1976 that guys like Reggie Jackson, Joe Rudi, Don Baylor, and Wayne Garland became free agents and, eventually, millionaires. Garland, a young pitcher, built his free-agent case on the strength of one good year, and signed something like a 10-year contract just before blowing out his pitching arm. Prior to the 1980 season, Nolan Ryan signed baseball's first contract calling for $1 million a year, and the game had undergone some real sea changes.
After a few attemped comebacks, Fidrych left the game for good in 1983, taking his damaged shoulder and knee with him. He later owned a trucking business and worked his farm im Massachusetts.
His story wasn't that unique. Baseball lore is full of guys like Herb Score and Karl Spooner, players who were brilliant one minute and gone the next. And back then, pro ballplayers couldn't consider themselves set for life. Most players had some other work that kept the income flowing in the off-season. The Floods, Messersmiths, Jacksons, Baylors, and Ryans saw to it that off-season work became a thing of the past for major leaguers. But for his shoulder and knee miseries, Fidrych would have been at the top of some free agent class, commanding some highly improbable salary. But he wouldn't have fit into baseball's new jet set. He was enjoying himself too much to ever fit in.
Earlier this week, Mark Fidrych was killed in a farming accident in Massachusetts, at the age of 54. From news reports, he was found underneath a dump truck he was working on. Somehow, that seems to be a Bird thing. It's not a way you'd expect to see most spoiled gazillionaire ballplayers go out. I'm even having trouble picturing A-Rod crawling underneath a dump truck.

Here's a Sports Illustrated piece on Fidrych, published in 1986 -- 10 years after his big league debut.

Duke Ellington in your pocket?

While some of my friends are collecting the whole set, I've been a little lukewarm about the states-of-the-union quarters set that's been in circulation for nearly a decade. I've paid attention when a new one came out, but that quarter would find itself in a vending machine or bus fare box eventually.

I did make sure to grab a few of the quarters and hang on to them: California, Arizona, Nevada, South Carolina, and Tennessee were my "keepers," as these were places where I've lived or worked, and places that hold a piece of my heart. The Hawaii quarter was a keeper, too -- I fell in love with the Big Island after spending a week there for a family reunion. Too bad I can't drive there with a U-Haul.

I was surprised to see that Washington, D.C. -- not a state, really -- has its own quarter. I received one in change a couple of days ago, and that went into a different pocket, separate from the bus change. That's because, instead of the Washington monument or something governmental on the back, it had a rendition of Duke Ellington, who hailed from D.C.

The Duke.

As far as I know, this makes Ellington the first jazz artist to be depicted on our money. About time. Jazz has been called the only purely American art form. We had a series of postage stamps with jazz performers in circulation a few years ago, but never on coins or currency.

There are some other viable candidates for such an honor. Louis Armstrong (who has an airport named after him). John Coltrane (who had a church in San Francisco named after him). Jelly Roll Morton (who claimed to have invented jazz in 1902). Dizzy Gillespie. Charles Mingus. Charlie Parker. Miles Davis. Art Tatum. Fats Waller. Even Duke's contemporary Count Basie would have been a good choice. But the Duke -- that man was what jazz is all about.

Duke wasn't the best piano player ever, or even the best of his time. In a one-on-one piano showdown with Basie at high noon, I'd have to give my vote to the Count, with his leaner, stripped-down attack and ability to "feed" chords to his band. And Count had the foresight to deploy Hershel Evans and Lester Young together on tenor sax, letting the contrast speak for itself. Evans was from the Texas tenor school, a brawling tone, all bluster and power, kind of a Coleman Hawkins on steroids. Young, who'd recorded some great stuff with Billie Holiday, was soft-focus, lyrical. He tried to whisper on tenor while everyone else was shouting on theirs.

But Duke was absolutely the best at working a whole band. He'd had falling-outs with his personnel, but it seemed they always came back to work with him. Nobody could arrange music to his players' strengths as Duke could. And few had the kind of influence on jazz that Duke Ellington had.

Even Mingus -- a maverick bassist whom Duke once fired -- went through his Ellington period. On the album "Oh Yeah," Mingus played piano, put Doug Watkins on bass, and put trombonist Jimmie Knepper to work, playing lines that reminded me of Lawrence Brown. If you listen to the song "Invisible Lady" from that album, you can hear how it was influenced by "Satin Doll."

My parents and I are in general agreement about jazz, though our approaches are different. They love to dance to it, while I love to listen to it. And we all consider Duke's "Take The A Train" as one of the best songs ever recorded. But then, nothing wrong with "Satin Doll" or "Black And Tan Fantasy" either.

I was fortunate to come across a recording of Duke's band at the 1956 Newport Festival. Not the strongest rhythm section he'd fielded, but all of his best players were there. Johnny Hodges, who has one of the most recognizable sounds on alto sax. Lawrence Brown, who redefined trombone as a lead instrument. Cat Anderson, who learned trumpet at Charleston's Jenkins Orphanage. And a tenor sax player named Paul Gonsalves.

Duke's show at Newport didn't start off well. The weather was crappy. People were leaving. Duke had trouble finding all his musicians. The band wasn't at its best. Duke was losing relevance. Until he called for one of the oldest songs in his book, "Diminuendo And Crescendo In Blue."

That piece, Duke told the audience, was actually two songs, with a sax interlude tying them together. His band first performed it in 1938.

Not quite four minutes into the piece Gonsalves stepped up to the microphone -- the wrong one, it turned out -- for his solo during the interlude. And blew.

And blew.

And blew.

For six and a half minutes, over 27 choruses, Gonsalves blew. Swung like mad. And the solo built on itself. Since he was on the wrong mic, his solo sounds kind of muted. But you can hear every nuance of what he's doing. You can hear Duke shouting encouragement. Three minutes into the solo you can hear some real audience response. They're clapping, cheering, and getting louder.

It's one of those moments that every human being should experience. It's crunch time, and you're called to perform at something -- a job, dealing with family, facing the outside world. And you're performing at a level that you didn't know you had and you don't remember how you did it. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar described one of those moments during the closing seconds of a playoff game when he was at the baseline, in the corner, those seconds ticking away. Abdul-Jabbar said time just slowed down for him, kind of like you're watching the world in slow motion. A teammate got him the ball, Kareem put up the hook shot, it went right in, and immediately the world went back to real time. I'm sure it was that kind of moment for Duke Ellington and his band.

I've studied Gonsalves' solo (and of course I'm listening to it as I write this), and there was nothing really outlandish about it. It didn't challenge the boundaries of time or harmony as many jazz players have been able to pull off so successfully. You won't confuse it with Coltrane. It wasn't particularly forceful; it wasn't the kind of fiery solo that would blow the bell off that sax. It wasn't radar-gun fast like Charlie Parker. But it was so brilliantly executed, building, building. And it swung throughout. Musicians who don't know how to describe "swing" or even have an idea what it is, should sit in a room and listen to that solo until they get it figured out.

Funny thing, the band sounded a little out of it during much of the concert and in the first few minutes of the Diminuendo/Crescendo. After Gonsalves' solo, it's like they were all breathing fire, and they were suddenly all young men. Live music is like that. One person can put on a stellar performance and energize the rest of the band. But then, you can see that same phenomenon in "real" life, too.

The audience? They almost started a riot. They were so hyped up by what they'd heard that Duke spent the rest of the concert trying to get them to cool it. Finally, he closed out with "Skin Deep," a percussion-driven song with Sam Woodyard taking a long drum solo. Good call; let 'em blow it out of their systems.

Really, this moment of magic extended Duke's career. He was relevant again. From that post-Newport period came two of my favorite Ellington albums -- Far East Suite and Money Jungle. The latter album has Duke in a trio setting with his former bassist Mingus and Max Roach on drums, playing the edgiest stuff I've ever heard from The Duke.

It's good to see The Duke on our latest 25-cent piece, and you might just see me hoarding them as they show up in my change. And I'm still holding out for the Miles Davis $5 bill.