Molli

Closeups of dogs with low depth of field gives weird results.

Six Years (Three GOOD ones!)

Help me celebrate my Six Year Anniversary of this blog by going to Lulu.com and buying Lost Vegas: The Redneck Riviera, Existentialist Conversations with Strippers, and the World Series of Poker by my friend Paul McGuire. It comes with my highest recommendation.



Congrats to Dr. Pauly!

You Steer With Your Butt

The scooter is working out great so far. It makes the drive to work so much more enjoyable. And since it's getting about 55mpg I'm saving some on gas too. It's kind of nice to pay $8 for a fill up.

I've seen all kinds of stuff on the side streets that I drive on. There's a emu living among a bunch of horses on a ranch, farms with miniature horses and donkeys, lots of cattle and tons and tons of corn.

Owning any kind of bike sparks one thing: the never-ending search for the perfect helmet/headphone combination. I got a new helmet that I like a lot, bringing my total to four. Now to find the perfect set of headphones to go with them.

Back when I used to ride (motorcycles) there weren't MP3 players. (I'm old.) There were walkmans for cassettes and portable CD players, but most motorcycles didn't have them. Nobody I knew that rode a bike listened to music. Now everyone I know does, except one guy who thinks it's too dangerous. Well, he hasn't actually ridden his motorcycle yet. He has his license and has a bike, but he hasn't ridden it outside of the class he took to get his license. I'm sure he will actually get the bike on the street one day.

I've never really liked the "sound isolation" inside-your-ear type headphones, but those are really the only kind that you can hear well while riding. They always make me feel like my ears are full of water for some reason. If I toughed it out I'm sure I could adjust, I just haven't put in the time.

The ipod type that sit against your ear aren't quite loud enough with wind noise, and they are sometimes hard to keep in the right place too. I have some that loop over your ear that are better, but still not quite right.

Right now I'm experimenting with a helmet speaker system. The speakers velcro into a holder that sticks in the ear holes of the helmet. They're also not quite loud enough, but I got an amplifier along with the speakers that helps. Every ride is another experiment. I could probably permanently affect my hearing with this system.

A coworker asked me why I didn't just buy a motorcycle since the cost is basically the same, maybe even less. I'm not really sure why I got set on a scooter instead of a big boy bike. When I began looking I didn't even know they made scooters with bigger than 250cc engines. When I found out about "maxi-scooters" I was fascinated. The difference between motorcycle and scooter gets pretty blurry at that point.

Motorcycles have clutches and manual transmissions you have to shift with your foot. Scooters usually have a CVT (constant variable transmission.) Other than bigger wheels there's not much other difference. Scooters have much more built in storage and attaching extra storage is much easier. My scooter has a trunk under the seat that can hold 2 full face helmets. When I had a motorcycle I was pretty much limited to what I could carry in my backpack, and my back always got sweaty while wearing it. Now everything goes under the seat and the ride is much more comfortable.

Even when I rode motorcycles it wasn't really about speed. You don't have to drive really fast to have fun on a bike. The more curves the better. With a bike you kind of steer with your knees against the gas tank. On the scooter there's no gas tank between your knees, but you still maneuver in the same way. So instead of steering with your knees, you steer with your butt.

Almost every time I stop somewhere someone asks me about the scooter. They want to know how fast it goes or if it can get up to the 120mph that the speedometer dial reads. When I tell them how fast it is they almost always say "wow." When they ask if I like it I tell them "It's so much fun I'm surprised it's not illegal."

Tweet

With my new job, I keep Twitter up all day. I follow a few interesting people who generally have interesting things to say. It doesn't take any significant time to keep up with but it makes the day just slightly more entertaining, which is nice.

It's especially nice if you have a general question that smart people might be able to answer. It helps if smart people follow you, of course. I needed help with a Linux installation I was trying out and shot the question out on Twitter and got 3 separate and helpful answers within minutes. Very cool.

Of course people post pointless crap on there. Pointlessness is kind of the point. It's paradoxical. People don't post their bathroom habits as much as the media would have you believe. People do post their food a lot, which I enjoy. Who doesn't like to see a good looking lunch? It's always cheesy, saucy, greasy and delicious looking. And bacon. There's always bacon.

One thing I don't like is when people post the music they're listening to. I'm cool if they're listening to music and happen to bust out a lyric or something that inspired them. Inspiration is always good. I just hate it when they say "this morning I listened to xxx band." Mostly because "xxx band" is inevitably something pretentious. Nobody ever says "I listened to the Carpenters and ABBA all morning!" It's always some underground bullshit music that they want you to think they listen to because they think it makes them look cool and original. Listening to other people be creative doesn't make you any more original!

As I write this Twitter appears to be down. It's not exactly the most robust application, it crashes fairly frequently. Hopefully nobody counts on it for anything important.

If you want to follow me it's cool. @DuggleBogey. I don't automatically follow everyone who follows me so don't be offended if I don't. So don't try following me just to bump up your follow numbers. It won't work and you're a moron. Anytime you can count something people get competitive about it. But in this case quality beats quantity every time.

My New Baby

 

Some stats:
Model: FSC600
Engine Type: 582cc liquid-cooled four-stroke parallel twin
Bore and Stroke: 72mm x 71.5mm
Compression Ratio: 10.2:1
Valve Train: DOHC four valves per cylinder
Carburetion: PGM-FI with automatic enricher circuit
Ignition: Computer-controlled fully transistorized with electronic advance
Transmission: Automatic V-Matic belt drive
Suspension Front: 41mm hydraulic fork; 4.7 inches travel
Suspension Rear: Swingarm with dual hydraulic shocks with five-position spring preload adjustability; 4.7 inches travel
Brakes Front: Single 256mm disc with CBS three-piston caliper
Brakes Rear: Single 240mm disc with CBS twin-piston caliper
Tires Front: 120/80-14
Tires Rear: 150/70-13
Wheelbase: 62.8 inches
Seat Height: 29.1 inches
Dry Weight: 476 pounds
Fuel Capacity: 4.2 gallons, including 0.9-gallon reserve

Yes, it's exactly what you're thinking. It's a scooter that goes over 100mph.

This Means Nothing Unless You Play WoW

My main is a healer named Grither. The nice part about playing a druid is they are probably the most versatile class, and my guild uses my offspec when don't need three healers. There are two reasons they'd pick one particular person for that. One reason could be that they are the weakest healer so they'd be missed the least. But I don't think that's the reason my guild uses me.

This is the reason:



Not bad for an offspec.

Poker Comic #184

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It's Getting Better

It started going bad last summer. The news was bad, but at least it came from the President of the United States. Obama announced that General Motors would be closing plants as part of its bankruptcy. Everyone in the room knew he was talking about us. Within a few days, or was it a few hours, what we all feared was confirmed, our plant was closing and our product was being transferred to Lansing Michigan.

Even though the plant would no longer be producing the Chevrolet Traverse, it would not shut down completely. There's still a part that assembles engines and another that presses metal parts. Some of the plastic extrusion production would still continue for a little while too. Those of us in IT suspected that we might be able to hold on to our jobs. You could feel the desperation in the air. Some people had already been notified of their last days at work.

I spoke to one of those people as I drove her to Bowling Green Kentucky to the Corvette plant on an emergency run to get some parts we needed in Spring Hill. She was near tears. I felt bad for her but I had confidence that I was one of the safe ones. My skills would protect me. The sacrifices I had made for the company would pay off now.

What sacrifices? I moved from Albany New York to work for the company in Kansas City. When someone died in Oklahoma City I picked up and moved there to pick up his job. When that plant closed I had relocated again, this time to Tennessee. Again, someone was leaving and they were desperate for someone with my experience. I had a resume they could show to the customer that would satisfy any requirements. Even within the locations I was the man when someone was needed in an emergency. Someone is needed in Kansas City, Ohio, even Mexico, I was on a plane the next day.

Still, we planned for the worst. Even if I could hang on at the plant, how long would it last? General Motors while still holding on to the largest market share in the US seemed to be circling the drain. Especially in Tennessee. The Volunteer State is a "right to work" state and the Michigan union folks were always resentful of that. If they had any say in it, Tennessee would be the first plant to be closed, forever.

November I got the news, my last day would be February 1 unless I could find a job in the company. I made a few phone calls and it was quickly obvious that there was no money for relocation. Having purchased a house twice in the last six years meant I wasn't exactly in the position to move myself. We had been saving as much money as possible, but it was much more difficult after a 5% pay cut in February, a 10% pay cut in April and a 20% pay cut in September. More pay cuts were scheduled. The only thing that kept them from cutting sooner was the law.

Through pure luck I picked up another job from a local manager who I knew only through my fantasy football league. The work was good, much more interesting and challenging than the customer maintenance type jobs I had been doing for the last six years. It was actual software programming. I was on a team of two and we worked for a remote team out of Michigan. We still went to the Spring Hill office so we could collaborate, but we didn't work for our local manager. This was big, because the local manager is a complete weasel.

The problem with this job was that the light at the end of the tunnel was a train. There is a team responsible for this software development, but they cannot handle all the work so some of it trickled down to the dregs. There seemed like plenty of work to go around, but at some point the main team would start to get paranoid that we were doing better work than they were, get off their asses and do their jobs. Then I'm out of luck again. My guess was that by August I would be out of a job, although my manager said we were set for the rest of the year.

One of the "lucky ones" who got to keep his job at the plant told me in confidence that he had found another job. I congratulated him but selfishly thought how much I would miss him. "Lucky ones" is in quotation marks there because his job responsibilities had increased three to four times, and his pay had been cut as severely as mine. He was my closest friend in Tennessee but I knew that relationship would begin to fade when we didn't see each other every weekday at work.

When he gave his notice it sent the local weasel into a panic. Finally to fill the local position they took away my teammate. On the bad side I didn't have anyone to bounce ideas off and I would have to do all the work myself. On the good side I no longer needed to go to the Spring Hill plant to work with him side-by-side. I talked to my new manager and he had no problems with me working from home. I didn't think he would, since he works from home about 30 miles away from me. With laptop in hand I gave working at home a try, and I really liked it. All the while, that light got closer as the train plowed forward.

But as the "lucky one" was serving his last two weeks, he approached me and asked me if I was interested in joining him at his new place. His new boss told him he wanted to expand his team and if he knew anyone else from Spring Hill that was qualified and interested, let him know. I was more than just interested.

What made me feel really good was that my coworker did not hesitate to recommend me. He told me he gave them his highest recommendation. Prior to this my confidence was very low. My reputation and my skills had been crapped on for the last six months. I was certainly depressed and I was beginning to feel that what I had been hearing from management was true. I felt worthless and my co-worker, a person who knew exactly how I worked because he sat next to me and worked side-by-side with me on projects for four years staked his reputation at his new company on me and my skills.

This display of encouragement from an unexpected place really inspired me. I charged into the extensive interview process at new company and was sincerely interested in the position. I like that type of work, I like the industry and I like the environment. I like the company attitude and so far I like my coworkers and my boss. While the drive is about 20 minutes farther each day, it's easier driving 20 minutes farther to a job I like than it was driving 40 minutes to a place I hated.

Ironically I would have done better financially if I had gotten laid off in February. I'd have received a lump sum severance for more money overall than I made working that time. It may have been nearly even if I had gotten paid for vacation I didn't take (as per company policy) but my last check reported that all my vacation time for the year had been used. I don't remember taking any vacation time, but I guess my memory is poor.

Speaking of vacation I received as part of my offer from the new company that I was considered a "mid-career hire" and that I receive benefits as though I had been working here for years, like three weeks of vacation immediately. A nice start.

I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. There's a lot to learn and a lot of work to do at the new place, but it feels like I am working toward something in the future, not trying to prevent the inevitable.

The difference is beyond belief.

Tennessee Man Guilty of Proving Palin a Moron

A Tennessee student has been found guilty of the felony crime of proving that former Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin is a fucking moron.

News

Some student guessed at Sarah Palin's password answers on her Yahoo account and gets convicted of a Felony that could land him in prison for 20 years.

Palin, proving again that she's a moron, is pleased with the verdict. Yes idiot, week long news snippets that demonstrate that you don't know shit is something you should be pleased about.

I'll remind you that there's a significant portion of the population of this country that wants this person to be the President.

Kill me now.

Inspiration

Yesterday in Nashville a man was driving with his 10-year old daughter in the car and a crazy man rammed their car. When the father stopped the car the crazy man kept ramming him, pushing his car against the curb. What had the father done to inspire such a violent response? He had a Obama/Biden sticker on his bumper. The crazy man was so enraged over the recent health care legislation that seeing the sticker pushed him over the edge and he decided he must endanger the lives of a man and his 10-year old daughter.

Look, I'm not crazy about the health care legislation. I think something needed to be done. Health care quality has been going down and the costs have been rising, while an insurance company CEO just retired after making a billion dollars over 10 years (yes that's ONE MAN and thats BILLION with a "B".) That's a situation that needs to be dealt with. Is this the solution? Probably not. But it's something.

The worst possible downside people are predicting to this legislation is that it will cost more money and health care quality could suffer. That's already happening. It could be worse. Okay.

But the violent responses to this are insanely out of hand. People tried to blow up a congressman's house. People are throwing bricks through windows and shouting "baby killer" and racial epithets. This is in response to a bill that, at it's base, intends to get medical help to people who might need it. People are having a violent reaction to THAT.

Why is the response so disproportionate to the consequences of the legislation? It's the fault of the opponents of the legislation. Their incredible overreaction is spilling over to their constituents. When leadership screams "baby killer" it doesn't matter how much they backtrack later, they're inspiring hatred. When your media advocates say "We have to get these bastards!" on the air, you're inciting violence. When your candidates put out litearature with crosshairs over people's locations, you're asking people to react violently.

No, those people are not legally culpable for the results of their inspirations. There is no law preventing them from doing it, and there shouldn't be. They know the line of criminality and they're dancing on it.

But make no mistake, they are responsible for it. Not 100% responsible, but they have some liability.

What's the solution? Amazingly, this is a problem that will go away if people ignore it. If people simply stop paying attention to these blowhards and imbeciles, it will be gone. If they're a politician don't vote for them. If they're in the media don't watch them. Have a personal zero-tolerance policy against people who advocate violence or seem to. If they seem like could be inspiring violence among their fringe followers, cut them out completely.

Bumper Sticker Violence.

Good PSO Freeroll coming up

This looks like a great freeroll opportunity for people who signed up for Poker Source Online and are working on the bonus this month.

PokerSource and Full Tilt Poker are excited to announce a $2,500 No Limit Freeroll tournament. This freeroll is open to all customers who have created their Full Tilt Poker accounts through PokerSource and generate 100 FTPs between March 1st and March 31st.

Prize Pool: $2,500 No Limit Freeroll
Where: Full Tilt Poker
When: April 10th at 3:00pm ET / 12:00pm PT
How to qualify: Players must sign up a Full Tilt Poker account through PokerSource and generate 100 FTPs between March 1st and March 31st. Existing players with Full Tilt Poker accounts created through PSO may earn 100 FTPs during the month of March to qualify.

Good luck and thanks again for being part of our Poker Source family of satisfied customers.

100 FTP Points is simple to get, and if you are working on the latest free bonus you will be getting the points anyway.

American Justice

Jayson Williams got sentenced to prison today. Justice has been served.

Ex-NBA star Jayson Williams shot a man to death with a shotgun. That's the only fact that's not in question. He has a bullshit excuse about it being an accident, but fortunately for him the only person who could testify against him is dead from a shotgun wound to the chest.

Williams plead guilty, but wanted to spend some time with his daughters in his last few hours before serving his time. His daughters are seven and five. He killed Costas Christofi Feb 14 2002. Happy Valentine's day.

Williams has been a free man for eight long years while the criminal system worked it's magic and generated the "justice" that is fair to everyone. Now he begins serving his 18-month sentence, after having eight years of freedom to start a family. He apparently has been having a pretty good time, if you can judge by the fact that he crashed a car while drunk in January. Maybe in a decade or so the system will put him back in prison for that crime.

American Justice system, is there any problem you cannot solve?

Manifesto

When I started reading the news about the guy who flew his plane into a government building in Austin Texas, things started seeming creepy.

The guy was frustrated with his government. He was an IT professional. He worked with factory automation. I actually checked his background a little to see if I might have worked with him in the past. It's not impossible that we might have crossed paths on some project somewhere.

I read his manifesto online. It's kind of sickening that the only reason I read it, like millions of other people, was because of what he did. The only possible way for this guy to get that kind of attention to his message was by committing a horrible act. He had to make himself infamous. His infamy will only last a small number of hours, but it was enough to generate the attention he desired.

The manifesto was fairly lucid, but not really compelling because of all the self pity. This guy honestly felt like he was being treated unfairly. He felt like there was some conspiracy within the government to treat him and people like him badly. It seems like he felt that it was impossible for him to get ahead.

And by "people like him" I mean me. I'm an IT professional, I work with factory automation. I'm frustrated with my government. Good thing I don't have a pilot's license.

But that's the thing. This guy DID have a pilots license. So the guy had the spare time and the resources to learn to fly. It's doable, but it certainly isn't easy and it definitely isn't inexpensive. And he had access to a plane. That doesn't exactly scream "extreme poverty."

He cries over and over in his manifesto that he's gone broke due to unfair persecution by the government or his industry or some force that is out of his control. But what does "broke" mean? The guy wasn't starving to death. He could afford a wife and an ex-wife. I've heard that ex-wives aren't a cheap luxury. But worth every penny.

So this guy's biggest problem was...he wasn't rich. He felt like he should've be rich by now. He thought he had worked hard all his life and he deserved to be rich.

I wonder what dollar amount would have made this guy happy? Well, happy was probably not possible, but how much would have kept him from flying his plane into a building full of mostly innocent people? Twenty grand? Fifty?

In the end this guy was just a lunatic that thought the world owed him something. Something like....tenure.

Dominos Pizza Thinks You're Stupid

Have you seen the Dominos Pizza media blitz lately? It's nauseating.

First it was a series of TV commercials that say "We realized our pizza sucks but we changed it." So they're saying that they made shit pizza for 30 or more years but suddenly are experts in determining good pizza? How can that be?

Now they have another series saying they sued Papa John's Pizza for saying their pizza was "better" in their ads. Nevermind the fact that they didn't say "better than Dominos," Dominos took it to court. And they won.

But waitasec... Dominos admitted that their pizza sucks. So they sued Papa Johns for implying something in their commercials that they themselves admitted recently?

Apparently Dominos thinks we're too stupid to remember their commercials from one series to the next. But if you've ever tasted their pizza, you already know they thought you were pretty dumb for buying it in the first place.

Recall!

I just got back from the store, did you know that Toyota also makes keyboaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Foiling the Hackers

Well my World of Warcraft account got restored after being hacked. It's happening so much lately that the WoW folks have a backlog of accounts to restore of more than a week.

All's well that ends well I guess. I got a much needed week off from the game, and my guild and I got all...well, most of our stuff back.

In the meantime, I got a mobile authenticator. It's a cool little dongle that generates a new code every 30 seconds that you must have to log in to my account. Hacker can keylog me all he wants, if he doesn't have the exact same mobile authentication code generated by the unique one associated with my account, he can't get in. It's not completely un-hackable, but it sure makes things difficult. And usually that's enough.

It's very cool, and I love using technology to thwart would-be evildoers. It made me think, I wish I had something like that on my poker accounts, since that's real money and all and I have had my account stolen before.

I checked at Full Tilt Poker and sho-nuff! They have mobile authenticators! Sweet! Waitasec, not so sweet. As far as I can tell the only way to get one is to buy one from their online store, which only takes Full Tilt Points. You need 5000 points to get an authenticator, and I only have 3200 or so after my latest jersey purchase late last year. At the baby stakes I play, 5000 points takes a long time to earn.

The WoW authenticator cost a MASSIVE Six dollars and fifty cents, including shipping. FTP wants 5000 Full Tilt Points? Are they in the poker business or the "ripping off our customers so they can be safe" business? You can get a T-shirt for 1500 points, but a $7 plastic authenticator costs 5000?

Not to mention that you have no choice but to play real money at risk until you earn enough points to order this security "option" which I don't consider very optional these days.

Maybe I'm just an idiot and I can't find the way to buy one of these for cash on their website. If anyone knows of a way to do it, please let me know in the comments.

If not, shame on you Full Tilt Poker.

Edit: I just checked PokerStars. They want 4500 VIP points. Same deal, no way to pay cash for it as far as I can tell.

failbooking

see more funny facebook stuff!


see more funny facebook stuff!

Hacked? Try Rush

My WoW account got hacked this weekend. Totally my fault, I installed something I knew was questionable. Apparently they are so backed up with requests from people that got hacked that it will take a week to get my account restored. They should take security more seriously, mostly by making it hard on the people that make hacking accounts profitable. But then they would sell less of their "for profit" solution to security. Go free markets.

People are calling to comfort me with ideas on what to do in the meantime. It's just a video game people, it's not like my whole world revolves around it. Some time off will probably be good for me.

Of course when I can't play WoW, I play poker!

I tried out Rush Poker on Full Tilt. If you don't know what that is and you care, eleventy million bloggers have talked about it already.

I guess it's fun, it certainly makes single tabling a lot more action packed. I never really dug that multi-tabling thing. This is like infinite-tabling.

It's perfect for people who play the "oh shit if I had stayed in with my shit hand I would have won" game. Since you never see anything after you fold you never know what you would have had.

Once in a while I folded in a multi-way hand and wondered how it turned out, but I never got to see because I was "whooshed" away to another table before the final player acted. Kinda frustrating.

You get lots of big hands. Because you get LOTS of hands, the big hands come much faster. I flopped quad queens that paid nothing past the pre-flop raise.

It really makes you consider your starting hands very carefully. Since you are in fold-fold-fold-fold mode until you see something that interests you, there is a tendency to stretch out your requirements to start a hand, especially in position. And since opponents seem more likely to fold it tends to make you a bit more aggressive.

I fear that it will take away from the donkeys at the non-rush tables, since rush is apparently crack for donkeys. But I guess I can always go play at Poker Stars instead.

Late Night

I used to watch a lot of late night television. Before Dave moved to CBS, I was a die-hard Letterman fan. Late Night with David Letterman was the greatest late-night talk show of all time, bar none.

If you don't know the story, here's what happened. Johnny Carson was the undisputed king of late night. The other networks were so intimidated by his numbers they didn't dare program similar shows. They cross programmed, showing "Macmillan and Wife" and "Columbo" reruns. Johnny surprised the network by announcing his retirement live at an affiliates meeting. He had been working 3-4 day weeks for a while and had several "guest hosts" such as Bill Cosby and Joan Rivers, but lately the seat had been most often filled by Jay Leno.

David Letterman assumed he would get the Carson show when Johnny retired. The network had other ideas. Letterman got insane numbers for a show that started after midnight eastern. NBC was very greedy and didn't want to lose those numbers, so they gave the Tonight Show to Jay Leno.

Letterman was pissed, and chose to leave the network. There were some back-room deals where NBC would agree to give Letterman the show if Jay faltered, but Letterman decided his best deal was to take a show opposite the Tonight show on CBS.

Letterman regularly beat Jay Leno in that time slot for 3 years, but Leno steadily built his own audience and eventually took over first place in the ratings. "The Tonight Show" was "the show" for late night once more.

Letterman never did a show as good as "Late Night" again. He tempered his comedy for the older audiences that watch the earlier show. He changed his style, lost his edginess. "The Late Show" has always been a watered-down version of "Late Night."

Five and a half years ago Jay Leno announced he was going to retire in five years. NBC wanted to avoid the unpleasantness that occurred when Johnny retired, so they signed a deal to give Conan O'Brien, who had built a very solid show with good ratings and excellent demographics "The Tonight Show." Conan's viewers, much like David Letterman's original show, attracted YOUNG PEOPLE. People over a certain age LITERALLY DO NOT COUNT to advertisers. In other words, Jay Leno's audience.

Conan's deal was that he'd get "The Tonight Show" or NBC would pay him $40 Million. NBC figured it was no big deal to make the number crazy because Jay was going to retire and by then his show would have fallen in the ratings. Conan would continue to do a successful show for five years and then he would step in for the faltering Jay Leno with a younger more desirable demographic. What could go wrong?

Jay Leno changed his mind. He didn't want to retire. His numbers were still fantastic, even better than five years ago. And Leno is a workaholic. Unlike Carson he never took nights off. He never stopped working on the show to make it more and more popular. He had taken Johnny's show and made it his own. He wasn't about to give it up.

So NBC was in a tough spot. They simply couldn't afford to give Conan forty mil, especially during a recession and with NBC last among networks, by far. There are literally no successful shows on the network after Heroes, The Office and 30 Rock. Nothing.

Someone at NBC came up with a brilliant idea. We'll give Conan "The Tonight Show" and avoid paying him $40 Million, and we'll replace all the failing 10pm dramas with Jay Leno. Yes, we will not get great ratings, but we aren't anyway and this show costs 10% of all those pricey one-hour dramas. Problem solved!

What they didn't count on was rebellion from the affiliates. While NBC didn't care whether Jay's 10pm show got ratings, the affiliates live and die off those 10pm dramas for their lead-in audience. See, it turns out nobody actually chooses to watch one local news program over another. I know, you think you have your favorite, but in reality Americans are too lazy to reach for the remote and change the channel. They watch whatever news program is on after the 10pm program they watched.

And Jay Leno's lousy ratings were killing the local news broadcasts. NBC can't have their affiliates upset with them, so they did the predictably chicken-shit move and gave Jay Leno his time slot back. How they are going to pull five hour-long dramas out of their ass to fill the spots is beyond me. They haven't successfully had one since ER, and they rode that pony for twenty years. Michael Crichton is dead. Now what, NBC?

And Conan has to hit the road. He will settle for something between 20 and 40 million dollars from NBC (Go General Electric stock!) so don't feel too bad for him, but he isn't likely to get another 11:30 talk show, not if he has to compete with Letterman AND Leno for an audience. Fox is crazy, but I'm not sure they're THAT crazy.

But who knows? Maybe an 11:00 Fox show will actually beat the shows delayed by the local news. I mean, the local news is really shit, right? I don't know anyone who likes it. Everyone says they hate it but they have to know the weather. NOAA.GOV anybody? Srsly.

And what do I watch? I only really enjoy one late night comedy show, the incredibly self-derisive Craig Ferguson vehicle "The Late Late Show." He even calls himself "the Scottish Conan guy." The thing I like about Ferguson is that he's funny. He's led an interesting life and when he talks about himself it's more interesting than anything else on the show. His experiences from being a musician, being on the Drew Carey show and his alcoholism are all interesting and very entertaining. He's very cynical about show business while enjoying the hell out of himself in his small part of it. He seems to have genuine joy in silliness that he surrounds himself with.

Screw Conan, Jay, Dave and both Jimmys (Had I known that Kimmel's show was directed by Bobcat Goldthwait I might have checked it out.) Check out Craig. He's an acquired taste, for certain. But he's genuine. I like genuine.

Edit:

It's true that Jay Leno never really wanted to retire in 2009. When NBC made the deal with Conan Jay agreed to step aside because that's how Jay is. He's always done whatever NBC wanted. That's how he got the job over Letterman. NBC/GE felt he was "more loyal." It might have had something to do with Letterman calling GE executives "pinheads" every night on their own network.

Jay was too nice too say in 2005 that he didn't want to give up "The Tonight Show," and when he got some leverage in 2009 he said as much. But, still being the NBC lackey, he agreed to this 10pm strategy as a consolation prize.

A Day

I almost didn't have a day today. I drove to work at the normal time and just before I arrived, 35 minutes into the trip, I realized that I had left everything I need for work at home. So I turned the car around and drove back home, then set off for work again.

I almost decided to just stay home and call in sick. A mental health day. It wouldn't be a lie because I knew I would be in a poor mental state after driving a hundred miles before going to work, arriving two hours late.

But I decided to tough it out and called in to say I would be late and probably retarded. They asked how being retarded would be different from any other day and said no problem.

When I got to work I got good news about a job opportunity I was interested in with another company. Then I got good news about a job opportunity to stay with the company I currently work for. Then I got good news that GM is considering re-opening the plant.

None of the news was conclusive. Just possibilities. But as bleak as things have been looking lately, possibilities are a vast improvement.

And to think I almost missed it for a "mental health day." Turns out going to work today was much better for my mental health.