Author of "100 Things to Do Before You Die" has died

Dave Freeman, an advertising agency executive who co-wrote "100 Things to Do Before You Die," has died after falling and hitting his head at his home in Venice.

He probably should have thought twice about putting "fall backwards onto concrete floor" at number 53.

More arrogant stupidity from ESPN

I've written before about the arrogance and stupidity of ESPN. This latest example combines both in equal measure.

Watching ESPN this morning, I noticed that their ticker listed the USA as top of the Olympics medal table, ahead of China. This surprised me, so I verified it on ESPN.com, and sure enough:



Yes, ESPN has the USA first based on total medal count, even though every other news and sports outlet outside the USA (yes, I did check them all) including the official site follows the long-standing convention that countries are ordered by number of Golds, then Silvers, then Bronzes.

Of course, listing the table correctly would require Americans to swallow their pride and acknowledge that China is actually leading the table, and on the list of things America is not very good at, accepting defeat gracefully and following international standards are pretty near the top. In fairness to ESPN, I should note that NBC and CBS are equally vain and stupid in their medal tables.

It would be extremely cynical of me, of course, to suggest that American coverage would suddenly see the merits of the international standard if the position were reversed and the USA had more Golds but fewer total medals...

Ecology

The teenager daughter of a friend of mine recently asked, quite reasonably, "How did your generation manage to make such a mess of the environment?"

I explained: Back in the '60s, we were all taught that "the Earth doesn't belong to us, we just borrow it from our children". Then the '80s came along, we got a good look at how our children were turning out, and said "screw this." The rest is pretty much self-explanatory.

DVR Addiction

The pychiatric profession tends to define a behavior or dependency, however obsessive, as a "disorder" only if it interferes with your everyday life on a frequent or extended basis. So for instance they have no problem with men who like to wear women's underwear under their clothes if it doesn't affect their outward behavior. Just to pick an example. Completely at random.

Anyhoo... I think I'm approaching the "disorder" threshold with my DVR. My dependency has followed the following trajectory:

Bad: I get frustrated at hotel TVs because I can't back up or pause a program

Worse: I go to pause the car radio when the cellphone rings, then remember I can't. Again.

Worst: I suddenly realize I zoned out the last 3 minutes of a conference call at work, and reach for the "backup" button

I'll know it's time to seek treatment if I reach the final stage: reaching for the "backup" button during a face-to-face conversation...

I Think I'm Doing It Wrong

I don't think I quite get this whole "social networking" thing yet. Whenever I log in to Facebook, it asks me "What are you doing right now?".

And I always answer, "Updating my Facebook page".

Surely that can't be right?

Golden seal?

I just discovered that my conditioner contains "golden seal extract". I'm really, really hoping that's a plant of some kind.