Can somebody out there explain The Drudge Report to me? For years, I’ve been dropping by from time to time, just to see what sludge is being sifted. But I can never find anything there written by Matt Drudge. It’s just a bunch of links to other stuff. There’s a link to “Matt Drudge,” but it’s just a link to the same page you’re looking at.

Presumably, Drudge actually has a keyboard and writes some content for his site. How do you find it?

We an all take a lesson from this one. I’ll give you the moral of the story at the top: You call the cops as the last resort.

Here is the story of a guy who took his kids to Chuck E Cheese and wound up getting Tasered by the cops for “loading his plate” at the salad bar.

I have mixed feelings about the power of the State to dispatch armed forces into a kiddie pizza joint in the first place. We all know that we need protection from crime, and we’re not going to hire Mr. Rogers to provide it; we need our guard dogs to keep us safe. But dammit, you don’t send the Dobermans in amongst the children to protect your chopped iceberg, garbanzos and ranch. Just to protect the people, nothing less.

So I can’t see any angle on this story that justifies what the Cheesy manager did, or what the cops did. It just doesn’t rise to that level. I’ve been in a Chuck E Cheese; they’re raking in dough in every direction, faster than they can count it. Some guy hits the salad and doesn’t pay, you just shrug it off. It’s a drop in a bucket. But now they’ve got traumatized kids and a lawsuit and bad publicity spreading through the blogosphere.

Check out this article in The Age, an Austrailian Paper, about UK writer David Mitchell. I love this guy’s take on the writing process.

Stories just pour out of him, it seems. Daring, astonishing stories told in
many voices. “I write what my curiosity tells me to. It speaks and I
obey.”

Well I guess metaphor has been pretty boring lately, huh? I pretend I can tell, because the comments fall from few to none. Plus I get these traffic reports from Sitemeter.com that tell me I’m getting fewer visits, and people are leaving in 30 seconds instead of 3 minutes. [Yawn] Sorry about that.

Thing is, I’ve been writing. Can’t help it, writers write. So I’ve had less mental energy for blogging.

Plus – and this is kind of dramatic – I went to the dentist today and learned I’ve got an infected root canal. Actually, if you get a root canal you can’t say root canal. You say woot canow. It’s not very painful. It’s just an infection in my head, near my brain. And this’ll hand you a laugh: I get to have a root canal treatment on the Ides of March! You can’t get much more literary than that, am I right? Mean time, I’m on antibiotics, which make me feel a little stupid.

Anyway, I admit it’s been a little boring; some of it’s boring to me. Like the orchid show post. But some of it is actionable, stuff people could comment on. Like my new web page for creative writing, or the new one for my novel. I really would like to know what you think, especially if you’re a Front Page user with constructive criticism.

Thanks for your support.

The very sick doggie I posted about very early this morning got his money all raised, thanks to some wonderful compassionate people. If you are one them, thank you. Now he can have his antibiotics and a chance to recover.

Next weekend is the 60th annual Santa Barbara International Orchid Show, just up the road a few miles from my condo del cielo. This show — if you were paying attention — was made nominally famous by the movie Adaptation, starring Nicholas Cage and Nicholas Cage. I liked that movie very much, except that I thought Meryl Streep was miscast. It was probably the most ill-fitting role for her since Bridges of Madison County. Anyway, the flowers will be here. You can come and search that strange building at the fairgrounds for your Ghost Orchid, mumbling “my precious.”

I posted this tonight about a really sick doggie. Perhaps you’d like to help him. We need to raise money quickly for antibiotics. Seriously. Thanks!

I’ve had a busy evening. Watched some TV. Friday night standup on the comedy channel. I also put up a new page on my web site for my creative writing. There you will find some of my poems, short stories, and my novel in process. Including the eagerly awaited second chapter draft. I mention it’s a draft because it really is. In posting it, I noticed a typo in the first paragraph of that chapter, but I’m too tired to fix it. I also think some of the rollover effects are a bit much — tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow….

I was just running through some of the pages on my Web site, to see how they look on a monitor set at a different resolution than the 1024×768 at which I’m building the site. (Actually, I try to keep in mind that some people still have 800×600, especially laptops, and keep the pages small.) I came upon this page, with a poem that I wrote in 1994.

I’m trying to remember 1994. I used to walk on the bluffs at Jellybowl sometimes, with Tasha. I worked at AGIA, in medical claims. I was in Abigail’s group of poets then. I was going to church a lot.

So I’m looking at the year, 1994 and something is troubling me. I don’t know what … It has a 19 in it. I was born in 1961. And I think about the number we use now when we write the date: 2005. I tried to get everybody around me to understand that the millennium didn’t begin until 01.01.2001. But that’s not what’s bugging me. I didn’t believe the computers would all crash when the 19 changed to 20, but that’s not the problem.

Oh, I get it. I just don’t believe in it, this business of a 21st century with no 19. I believe the Earth is round, that we sent men to the moon, and I’ll even concede Evolution in some limited sense. But I’m not buying this 2000+ business. It’s simply too weird. I’m am a child of the 19s. Now somebody needs to figure out what the number really is, and give me my century back.

OK, my nephew was born in 2001, so he can be a child of the new millennium, but I’m going back where I belong. See ya.

I share the concerns of my Roman Catholic neighbors for the health of the Pope. Notwithstanding certain old disagreements, I have the utmost admiration for his decades of unbelievable service to the Church. I consider him a great moral force in the world, and truly a man of peace. He is in my prayers.

I was surfing through the news sources on the Web and noticed that virtually every major site mentions the Pope … except AlJazeera. Interesting, yes? [Aljazeera.Net English – Home Page]

I was just thinking about the day we went bowling to celebrate my brother’s birthday. There was a little switch on the ball return that would make bumpers pop up, to keep your ball out of the gutter. Presumably, this is so the little kids can bowl.

click to enlarge

What I’m thinking about this is that I’m going to need this feature today, and for any number of days to come. Anybody know where I can get some bumpers for my life?