Diskage:
DVD • Plymptoons
CD-ROM • D2X
CD Player
• Audioslave - Audioslave
• Metallica -  S&M
• Tool - Salival
• Faster Pussycat - Whipped
• Tool - Undertow

Books Lying Open
• A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan

Soul-Devouring Worry
• Photo IDs.

When I Grow Up:
• I will not let them slip through my fingers.

Curse of the Day:
• May your job depress you.

I didn't see the NY Jets play all year, other than early on, when they were not very good.  I heard they were great down the stretch though, winning all of their late games to get into the playoffs, and then destroying Indy in the first round.  I turned the game on yesterday in the early 3rd quarter when it was 10 all, and all I saw from that point on were the Raiders kicking the crap out of them.  Throwing for about 20 yards per play, running at will, and when the Jets had the ball it wasn't clear which team Pennington was actually throwing it to.  The Raiders in coverage appeared to be more the intended targets than his own receivers.  Playoff pressure got to him, or something.

Tampa Bay looked really good, though how much of that was due to SF's total lack of a defense is open to debate. Hopefully they'll bring that offense next week though, so their game with Philly won't be a 6-9 yawner.

I have to go down to the stadium today and get registered and an ID badge and other such crap for the Superbowl.  It's become a huge security event, and they aren't allowing anyone to park in the stadium lot whatsoever, the day of the event.  Because um, terrorists hate football.

The trolley stop in the parking lot is even going to have cops at it, and they won't let anyone off there who doesn't have a game ticket, or approved ID. I have no idea what I'll be doing at the event.  I would like to sell programs or souvenirs, either of which is far more profitable (at special events, especially the SuperBowl) than vending food, as I usually do.  Ordinarily you can't switch around between departments.  You have to stay doing the same thing, or you change and lose all of your seniority.  However since they are hiring hundreds of brand new people to fill out every department, it seems stupid that I, with over ten years of seniority, couldn't sell programs for one game.  When it's a special event, and we're all getting paid different (higher) amounts than usual, there are hundreds of new employees, etc.

Obviously the thing to sell is anything collectible.  Programs do an unbelievable business, but so do souvenirs, since virtually everyone there takes home a t-shirt or cap or something to commemorate the event.  The souvenir guys in general make a fortune at football games, but not so much at baseball or other events, and they have to work about 3 hours longer (get there earlier, leave much later) than I do selling food, which is why I don't do that all the time.

When the All Star game was here in 1994, the programs were going for I believe $7, and apparently all of the program sellers put their sales into a pool, from which they earn commission back based on the total sales.  They all took home around $650 that day, I heard.  And that was years ago, with lower commission, and I'm sure SuperBowl programs will cost over $10.

I'm not really looking forward to it, despite the fact that scalpers routinely charge thousands of dollars for a ticket.  Just another noisy, crowded football game, IMHO.  I'd watch it on TV if I were home, but being there isn't any different than a normal game, other than the fans being much richer and less interested in who wins, and much more ready to chop off your head if you happen to block their view of a play, given what they paid for their seats.

The minor "hits from Jenny Hyun" mystery has been solved.  And like many mysteries, the solution is pretty boring.  The forums there allow image loading, and someone threw a couple of images from here into a post there.  So every time someone views that thread, the images are shown.  You can see the thread here, but you'll have to log in there first, and it's not really worth the trouble, since I can just tell you that the images are the two of Paris Hilton that you'll see on this page.  Oddly enough, no one has pasted in the two images of Anna Nicole Smith on that page.  She's a much bigger star, so I can't imagine why not? A fresh-baked CCC goes to Lanth for hunting up the correct forum post.

Some news.

• Funny news item about Al Goldstein, publisher of Screw magazine.  He's going through security in the airport, makes a couple of off color jokes to a female baggage screener, and causes an uproar.

Goldstein looked at her Wednesday and asked, ``Are you a real blonde?''

Goldstein also said, "If you and me were to have sex, I would want you to keep your uniform on," according to a police report. Other screeners also heard the remarks.

Nobles told police she felt "really uncomfortable and began to cry."

She, of course, reported his comments to someone or other, and they pulled him off of his flight and interrogated him.  Because um... well I can't even begin to answer that. Because airport security people aren't real bright, and love having some power over harried travelers?  I mean it's rude and in poor taste, but how does it in any way violate security?  I don't think they even pretended it did, it's just that he annoyed one of them, so they got back at him.  He was put on a later flight and upgraded to first class, but they got to inconvenience him for a few hours, and that's all that counts.

• Just what the world's media needs; another excuse to stare at Kournikova's ass.  Rumors have been running wild about what she got tattooed on the small of her back, since she's been seen with a patch there, apparently hiding a new tattoo.  Playing at the Australian Open this week, she's commented on speculation.

But laughing at reports the plaster was to cover up the name of a boyfriend or some body art, the blonde Russian said: "I don't think I have anything on my body, no.

"It is a heat patch ... I have had chronic back pain and it is a heat patch I have worn for some years.

"My skirt is a little lower this year which is why you can now see it."

She may be telling the truth, since as you can see in some of the photos, her skirt is rather low on the waist.  Several inches below her belly button, while women generally wear them over or above the navel.  Tennis skirts, at least.  Before Anna's official explanation, ESPN.com had some fun.

The reasons are clear enough: in an attention economy, the key is to capture customers and keep them focused. The dojinshi market does exactly that. Fans obsess; obsessions work to the benefit of the original artist. Thus, were the law to ban dojinshi, lawyers may sleep better, but the market for comics generally would be hurt. Manga publishers in Japan recognize this. They understand how "theft" can benefit the "victim," even if lawyers are trained to make the thought inconceivable.

There apparently isn't any prosecution of the Dojinshi, since it's adding value to the original stuff.  I'd think there would be lawsuits demanding royalties at the very least, but it's not mentioned.  They do have an interesting example of how lawyers don't think outside the box in other cases.

Lawyers (save those from Chicago) are not typically trained to think about the business consequence of their legal advice. To many, business is beneath the law. When a Sony lawyer threatened a fan of the company's Aibo robotic dog, who had posted a hack online to teach the dog to dance to jazz, he or she no doubt never thought to ask exactly how making the Aibo dog more valuable to customers could possibly harm Sony. Harm was not the issue, a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was: consumers should be banned from hacking Sony dogs, whether or not it was to Sony's benefit.

This is similar to a lot of authors and companies who try and persecute fan fiction, or fan sites that use some images from the TV show or movie or whatever.  It's an ignorant blind adherence to the letter of the law, without any common sense thrown in to see that fan sites and fan fiction are boosting interest in the original work.  Now obviously if the fan sites are posting major chunks of the original material, that's a rip off and people might not buy it if they can get it for free. But the vast majority of the time it's a benefit to the original material.  Free advertising, of a sort.  FOX lawyers were engaged in a huge online war against Simpson's sites a couple of years ago, trying to get every site that used any show artwork shut down, or at least force them to remove the artwork.

As if you could have a decent Simpson's fan site that didn't have images from the show, and as if such sites were doing anything but boosting the show's popularity.

Lawyers and other corporate weasels never seemed to stop and think about it intelligently, in terms of what good vs. harm the fan sites were doing for their product.  Are people who view a fan site with images more or less likely to watch the show on TV?  It seems pretty obviously to me; and it's ridiculous to think that because they see some still images of Bart or Lisa they're going to have their fill of Simpson's and no longer watch the show.

I think the issue with fan fiction is much the same, but in that case it's often about the author's vanity.  It's their creation, their baby, and they don't want anyone else writing it, no matter that most fan fic is so awful it can't do anything but make people crave the original.

Niplple scarves.  They would keep your neck warm, I suppose.  And you could tuck them under your sweater if you wanted to get more male attention.

And if you think those are funny... you should see the belts.

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