New Poll

So I got this book from paperbackswap.com called The Crown Crime Companion : The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time and truth be told it's pretty lame but I'm a sucker for lists and I thought I'd go through the book and find some classic mysteries I haven't read yet. I've read the top three (Complete Sherlock Holmes, The Maltese Falcon and Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination) and ordered number four (Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, a book I'd never even heard of) but number five is Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow and after you say to yourself, how the fuck is a Scott Turow book the number five mystery of all-time I have a question. I saw the movie of Presumed Innocent when it came out, it's the one where Harrison Ford has that terrible haircut, and I'm pretty sure, but not certain, I remember who did it. So, should I read the book? One one hand it might be interesting reading it knowing (I think) who the killer is. On the other hand it might just be a waste of time. The poll is up, you decide!

My last poll, about whose t-shirt to buy, was deadlocked 1-1-1 between Lidstrom, Hasek and Backstrom so I decided on Backstrom because he was the most obscure of the bunch. I think the odds are pretty low I'll see another Minnesota Wild t-shirt on the streets of Brooklyn, much less a Niklas Backstrom one. My NHL t-shirts were a jinx anyway, the Wild lost in the first round of the playoffs and every time I wore my Sidney Crosby shirt the Penguins lost. So, by not buying the Red Wings t-shirts I un-jinxed them to the Stanley Cup, I mean it makes perfect sense.

Though, if I had to do it over I would have gotten a Henrik Zetterberg shirt.

Election Update

The Fuselage is a sad place this morning after the passing of George Carlin so let's discuss something happier, namely presidential politics.

First off, the Caroline Kennedy thing is getting some serious traction as we can see by my man, Ken Rudin's latest Political Junkie column as well as this dodgy blog.

Next, here's some great news about the election, John McCain and Barack Obama are both left-handed and both write with a claw! Our next president will definitely be left-handed (unless you think Bob Barr will win. Vote for him, I dare you!) and as this list I just read* shows, America's greatest presidents have all been left-handed.

1. Harry Truman
2. Bill Clinton
3. Ronald Reagan
4. Gerald Ford
5. George H.W. Bush
6. James Garfield
7. Franklin D. Roosevelt
8. George Washington
9. Abraham Lincoln
10. All other presidents

Amazingly, six of the top ten U.S. Presidents have been left-handed and not only that, the top six!

You may remember recently when Barack Obama said electing John McCain would be the same as giving George W. Bush a third term, well John McCain countered that Obama seemed to be running for Jimmy Carter's second term. This was actually Obama and McCain telling their left-handed loyalists and co-conspirators that an unpopular president was going to be replaced by a better, more left-handed one.

Don't worry righties even if you can't be president there are plenty of catching and utility infield jobs for you.

*I typed it and then I read it.

Morning Run

As you can see above I made a major miscalculation when planning my route for this morning. I finished my intervals at Sixth Avenue a mile away from my apartment. Yeesh! I walk/ran the rest of the way but it was quite a trip. At least I have a new goal to shoot for, running around Prospect Park and making it home.

On the way back I tried to listen to Jonathan Katz's excellent podcast, Hey, We're Back but I kept running into street noise or large construction crews setting up for the day so I couldn't hear Katz, whose voice is subtle even under the best of conditions. If you're somewhere quiet you should check it out.

Recipe Page

I was listening to an episode of the Jack Benny Program (sponsored by Jell-O) from 1937 and there was a recipe at the end. I thought I'd share it with you since I never have recipes in the blog:

Salad Supreme
Dissolve a package of lime Jell-O in one pint of hot water and chill until slightly thickened. Add one cup of diced tart apples, one cup of chopped cabbage and four finely-chopped stuffed olives. Mold this "grand combination" and serve on crisp lettuce with real mayonnaise.

Go for it, America!

Everything I Consume: Father's Day Edition

Because of the whole Father's Day thing The Wife let me choose the movies for the weekend and I blew it, blew it when it should have been so easy like the Celtics in Game 5 or the Red Wings in Game 5. But it's OK, just like those teams I won in the end.

I can't believe I let my extended metaphor take over my post.

First up, was The Bigamist which I have to say gives away a crucial plot point in the title. As anyone who's seen D.O.A. knows when Edmond O'Brien is away from the wife (not The Wife, who never met Edmond O'Brien to the best of my knowledge) bad things happen. In this movie he hooks up with waitress Ida Lupino, doesn't tell her he's married, and has a baby with her (Edmond's wife can't get pregnant). Apparently his motivation was that his wife becoming too important in their business and this threatened him. So, woman who help their husbands succeed while jumping through hoops to adopt a child heed this movie as a warning! Or better yet take a night off and see Sex & The City or something.

Charlie Chan in Shanghai was below par for the series and most of its plot twists were easy to see coming. Anyway, it was a good Father's Day movie since the Chans are a great father-son team. Oddly, I kept having the feeling I'd seen this movie before but I'm pretty sure I hadn't. Weird.

Father's Day itself was a lot of fun. I got to sleep in, got some nice cards, from both kids for a change! Gwendolyn got me a remote controlled triceratops. She has decided the triceratops is my favorite dinosaur and is always pointing them out to me. My other present was an awesome GPS watch so I can now use satellites to tell me how far I've been running. Thank you, NASA. I've been playing with the mapping websites all week so expect to see more of these soon.

79 Days Until Football Season

I've been filling what little sports time I've had this spring watching the Stanley Cup playoffs, listening to the Melrose Line, following European Cup soccer and even watching webcasts of the U.S. Open playoff but today I realized what I've really been doing is avoiding the Mets. All these things are poor substitutes for the one I really love. Reading about Willie Randolph's firing got me to admit what deep inside I already knew, that the Amazins are a franchise is disarray and 2006 was their last chance for a championship in long, long time.

Well, at least they're not owned by this guy.

Morning Run

My latest obsession is MapMyRun.com. I think the name is self-explanatory but it uses Google Maps to save and plan out runs, bike trips, walks, what have you. The map above is the run I did this morning over the Brooklyn Bridge and back. The view was spectacular even if the car noise made it hard to hear the interval cues on my podcast. I was surprised how many people were out before 6 AM including one drunken tourist I saw who was lying down on a bridge bench on my way to Manhattan and was stumbling around the running path (after vomiting on said bench) on the way back.

When I started running I was just going to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and back but as I've stretched it out I had to keep lapping the Promenade to fill up the run (my interval walk and run is now 58 minutes total with 44 minutes of running). The route is a little confusing if you don't zoom in but I went up Henry Street to Clark Street, crossed over to Cadman Plaza with its knee-saving running path up to the Brooklyn Bridge and back again through the park and down Clark Street to the Promenade north to the end then all the way back down to the southern end at Remsen Street, down Hoyt Street then Cheever Place and back to Henry Street.

"Sounds Great" is Dead

On Monday when I was out of the office religiously observing Shavuot with Gwendolyn one of my projects was worked on by someone else. When I checked up on the status of the project Tuesday morning, Henry the Delivery Manager gave a detailed response saying how everything had been taken care of. I was going to write back "Sounds great!" but that seemed sarcastic so I ramped it down to "Sounds good!" And that seems like a shame because I couldn't properly express my thanks and admiration for Henry's work. "Sounds great" has become a sarcastic comment instead of an honest reaction. It's like telling a happy, upbeat co-worker, "you are so gay!" Regardless, something has been lost.

Everything I Consume: I'm Not There

My very wise high school video teacher Maureen Schaeffler once told me that art should never be explained first, it should just be presented. That was one of the smartest things anyone ever told me. So, the fact that the DVD of Todd Haynes' film I'm Not There comes with a whole section called "Intro to the Film" is a warning sign that what we are going to see is going to be very confusing and won't hold up on it's own. Another warning sign is a character is watching the Vietnam War on television with loud music playing. Anyway, the DVD has four articles explaining we'll be seeing multiple actors playing different personas of Bob Dylan (who played Warsaw last night) all with different names. And the facts will be a little bit off from the truth but sometimes they won't be. Anyway, The Wife and I gave this an hour or so before fast forwarding to the end. At least there's a lot of original Dylan music and that's always great.

What is it about Bob Dylan that makes us all try to explain him? Magazines, books, websites, movies, what is it about him that we can't get out of our heads? That would have made a good movie.

Obama's Vice-President

There has been a lot of speculation in the news about who Barack Obama will choose to be the vice president on the Democratic ticket. Well, you'll be glad to know I've figured it out. Even Obama may not realize it yet but there is only one person he can and will pick.

Most of the speculation has revolved around Hillary Clinton but Obama can't pick her because of personal enmity, suspicion that she will be the tail wagging the dog, and the X-factor of all X- factors, her husband. So she's out.

But this is an even larger problem because Hillary Clinton is the most famous woman in the world and almost everyone else will pale by comparison. Is there anyone else who won't look like a second choice to Hillary yet won't overshadow Obama? Al Gore is a thought but he's out of politics and guest starring on 30 Rock. Who else? John Kerry? John Edwards? Bill Bradley? Not a chance.

There is another name, one that's bigger than Gore or Clinton or even Bush in American politics. And that's Kennedy. And there's one Kennedy that won't overshadow Obama, and even better, she's a woman.

Caroline Kennedy.

Kennedy the perfect combination of old-style Democratic politics and out of the box thinking. I thought this was a little out there until I saw that she's on Obama's search committee! That's exactly how Dick Cheney became vice president. And between Ted's brain tumor and the anniversary of Robert Kennedy's death the public is more favorably disposed to the Kennedys than any time in years. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if these events haven't been manipulated by the Kennedys themselves. They'll do anything. When it comes to ambition they make the Clintons look like the Gores!

What about Caroline herself? She's spent years out of the public eye, never running for public office, avoiding scandals, writing books and raising her children. The perfect cover!

This isn't like the Sharks winning the Stanley Cup, people. Take it to the bank.