It Might Have Been

One of the extracurricular projects that has occupied much of my free time for the past year or so has been the writing of a "real" novel (i.e., not an exercise in unfettered silliness like Virus!, which I still like and find very funny, but, well, it is pretty silly and, hey, is now available for the Kindle or the iPhone Kindle app). It has gone by various titles (including Mass Medea and Irrational Exuberance), but for the nonce has become It Might Have Been. It is nearly "done" (only a few more chapters to go), and I am generally happy with most of it--to the extent that I can ever be completely happy with anything that I write, and the tweaking of older chapters is pretty constant (who was it who said that writing is never finished, just abandoned?).

The novel is basically the story of the staff of a popular computer magazine during the height of the dot-com boom years (1999-2000). It's largely a social satire of those years (my year of reading the collected works of Charles Dickens helped immensely in developing a narrative voice), but at the same time is a David vs. Goliath story of the publishing industry (easily translatable to any other industry you care to name). No, it's not a memoir of my Digital Imaging/Micro Publishing News years--1997-2001--by any stretch of the imagination; in fact, it's pretty much just a stretch of the imagination).

Anyway, one of the things I have taken away from various writing workshops I have attended in the past few years is that one strategy that successful authors have started using is "workshopping" books-in-progress online, and that by driving substantial site traffic and gleaning comments, authors can demonstrate to potential agents/publishers that there is actually a market for what they are writing. So, when in Rome...

Ergo, I have set up another blog over at http://massmedea.wordpress.com* (yes, I had not come up with the new title until after I had set up my user account). So, please, go visit, leave a comment, pass the link along, etc. Let's get those numbers up! Let's make this Web 2.0 thing work.

I will be posting a new chapter every Friday. Chapters 1 and 2 (a special "two-hour world premiere") are up already.


* There are three reasons I like WordPress vs. Blogger or Typepad. The first is that it makes it pretty easy to track traffic and other site stats. The second is that WordPress lets me paste text from MS Word and preserve formatting like italics and bold--something Blogger does not do (that I am aware of)--which keeps me from having to go through a post again and re-add formatting, which is a pain in the tuchis. The third reason--there are three reasons I like WordPress (nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!)--is that WordPress also allows me to add my own header illustration.

Incommunicado--Sort Of

It's funny how dependent we become on these things.

On Saturday afternoon, the hamsters that power my Web host's servers finally collapsed with exhaustion, and I discovered Saturday afternoon that I was unable to retrieve e-mail from my richtextandgraphics.com account. Nor was my Web site up, and I could not access my site's control panel application. It was Saturday afternoon, so no big deal, and I figured it was something temporary and that it would be back before long.

24 hours later, it was still out, so I dropped them a note from my Roadrunner account, and they told me everything was down and they were working "around the clock" to get everything restored. I pestered them again Monday morning, so now it was starting to get kind of urgent. Although my Web site is back up, e-mail and control panel are still down. The specific time when things will be restored has now become a moving target, and as I write this on Tuesday morning, it's still down, which has really become rather intolerable. It's like having one's phone service out--worse, actually.

I will pester them one more time and give them "24 hours" (like a Star Trek villain--"You have 24 hours to beam down the Enterprise crew or your ship will be destroyed! Bwa-ha-ha!") but after that I will be forced to move my domain to a new host (the folks who host my Movie Mis-Treatments site seem more on the ball than my RTG site hosts).

The point is that if anyone reading this has been trying unsuccessfully to get in touch with me via e-mail, I am not being antisocial (well, at least not via e-mail; Instant Messaging is another story...). If it's urgent, try my alternate address.

iKindle

I read a review this morning of the Amazon Kindle app for the Apple iPhone. Basically, the application lets you buy, download, and read Kindle books on the iPhone. So if you don't want to shell out $359 for the Kindle itself, you can still read Kindle-formatted e-books.

What that means is that, since the iPhone does not use the E Ink e-paper display, you don't get the e-paper experience. But that's okay, because a) the iPhone Kindle app is free and b) the iPhone display is actually pretty readable as it is. So I downloaded the app and bought an e-book (Charles Dickens' Sketches by Boz, which I don't have in print) and it's actually not a bad experience. I have mixed feelings about e-books (see below), but if one were to start reading e-books, the Kindle app might very well be the way to go. It's not perfect, but of all the e-book applications I have seen over the years, it's perhaps one of the best.

The Kindle app uses the same font as the proper Kindle. You can adjust the size of the type to one of five presets, and the text is dynamically reflowed, although the justification sometimes causes weird gaps between words. If the Kindle format ever incorporates a sophisticated H&J feature, this will look a lot better, but I don't know that that is even possible. They could also make the text ragged right, which might end up looking better, but I guess they really want to ape the typographic conventions of a printed book. (I can't speak to how the Kindle app handles images, but the review I linked to earlier says it handles most images fairly well.)

A page fills the iPhone screen, and tapping the screen once brings up the limited menu with which you can add a bookmark, access the ToC and all your bookmarks, change the type size, and scroll through the book. The page is turned by dragging your finger across the touch screen, and you can go forward or backward. Pages turn pretty quickly; once in a while it takes a couple seconds, but usually only when quickly flipping pages.

There are some iPhone-centric features I wish the Kindle app supported, such as squeezing the screen to resize the page, turning the display 90 degrees, etc., but those are fairly small points. The display is very crisp and while I have not read anything at great length on an E Ink display, this app seems remarkably comparable. (I have read many many things on the iPhone screen and have no problem with the display.) Interestingly, the iPhone display is color, while the Kindle itself is black-and-white only. While that is likely to change probably a few years hence, it does make a compelling case for bypassing the Kindle hardware reader and going straight to the iPhone.

Buying books is pretty easy; you buy them from Amazon either by computer or via Safari on the iPhone, although Amazon's idea of "1-click checkout" is a bit of a misnomer, since it takes about as many clicks as buying anything from any e-commerce site. Happily, you can register the Kindle app with a preexisting Amazon account, so you don't need to set up anything new. Kindle titles range in price from $0.99 up to $9.99 (or more), with $9.99 the going rate for new releases--not bad when you consider that most new hardcovers go for $25.99 and up. (Sketches by Boz was $1.99, even though it is in the public domain, but I guess someone had to take the trouble to convert it. But then while many classics are in the public domain, things like specific translations, annotations, introductions, and other supplementary materials are not.) You can also download free sample chapters of e-books before you commit to anything.

Once a Kindle book is purchased, it is automatically downloaded to the iPhone the next time the Kindle app is launched. Sketches by Boz downloaded in less than 15 seconds over my WiFi network. I wonder, though, if I ever do get a proper Kindle, will I be able to transfer books I have bought for the iPhone app to it? It would not surprise me if they made me buy it again. Not that I will, of course.

I will still always prefer printed books; they will always work, they don't need batteries, and they don't have annoying DRM technologies. I can drop a printed book (because I am a klutz) and it will still be readable. But the Kindle iPhone app is a good way to experience e-books. I can see using it when I travel and want to read books on planes, trains, buses, etc., but don't necessarily want to lug a printed book around. (I bought the new novel Drood in Florida to read on the flight home, and it's an 800-page hardcover. Lugging it around airports is good for building upper body strength, though.)

Here's what I would love, but you know it will never happen: buying a "book" will not only give me the print edition--so I can read it at leisure at home--but also the electronic version (at no extra cost), so I can take it with me elsewhere. That is staggeringly unlikely, just as a print/audio book "bundle" will never happen.

I do have certain reservations about buying e-books in general, and they're the same ones I have about buying iTunes vs. actual CDs: digital data can be far too ephemeral. Some years ago, I had a Handspring Visor PDA (it ran the Palm OS) and, since I have always been interested in e-book technologies, I had purchased several e-books designed to be read on it. When the Visor died a couple years later, my e-books were gone. Are Kindle books likely to suffer from the same problem? After all, hardware changes, I will likely get a new iPhone (or something) in a few years, and file formats change, god knows. Will the Sketches by Boz e-book I bought today still be readable on anything I am likely to own (or anything at all anywhere) in five years? 10 years?

Say what you will about print, it endures. That's why Sketches by Boz can still be read 173 years after it was written.

Laying Cable

Via The Big Picture. I have always been glad that I don't get CNBC. However, I do wish I got Comedy Central, to' only for one show (maybe two). Jon Stewart's bit on the incompetence of CNBC's financial reporting is quite funny.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

TOR-CHA!

Over at Movie Mis-Treatments, the latest movie to be abused is the 1959 giant lobster flick Teenagers from Outer Space. A character who vaguely looks like alt-rock icon Morrissey
is my lame excuse for interjecting a bunch of Smiths' lyrics. (Morrissey actually has a new album that just came out, and it's not bad...)

“David Love” is the star of Teenagers from Outer Space. Well, he’s on screen most of the time. Whether that means he’s the “star” is open to debate. It also stars Harvey B. Dunn, which is what they used to announce at the end of stage productions of Harvey. It also co-stars Tom Lockyear. A “lockyear” is an official form of measurement defined as “the length of time it takes to break into a really high-quality lock.” Actually Tom Lockyear is a pseudonym for the director, Tom Graeff. The production associate was C.R. Kaltenthaler (not H.R. Pufnstuff) which, according to the Internet Movie Database, was the real name of star David Love. And, of course, written, produced, and directed by Tom Graeff (aka Tom Lockyear). So basically there were at most five people involved in making this movie. Good graeff...

Hearst so Good

Six months after publishing their Esquire magazine E Ink cover (which is still blinking away in the basement), Hearst is apparently developing their own e-paper-based reader. Says Gizmodo:

While Hearst has been silent regarding exact product specifications, we do know that the device will feature a 8.5x11ish screen to appease publishers used to large page layouts, and Hearst will allow the device's "underlying technology" to be adopted by other publishers (we're assuming that means without licensing fees).

According to Fortune, we're likely to see the device this year. And with Sony giving up their early lead in the e-reader world, it's none too soon that the Kindle will get some friendly marketplace competition—even if Hearst isn't openly chasing after the book market.

In some ways, a magazine-based e-reader makes sense; with your subscription, you get the reader and issues are electronically beamed to it. Mind you, I don't know that that is what Hearst is planning, but if I were creating an e-reader for magazines, it's what I would do.
I would also strive for color, although E Ink's e-paper technology isn't there yet (if Hearst is going with an E Ink display).

Still, I remain dubious of dedicated e-readers. I think they will only take off when they are incorporated into devices that do other things. Why are the iPhone and the BlackBerry so popular? Because they are single devices that can do a variety of different things. Merge a Kindle with an iPhone with an E Ink display and you're more than half the way there.

MacGyver was a Mollusk

From the L.A. Times:

The guest of honor in the aquarium's Kids' Corner octopus tank had swum to the top of the enclosure and disassembled the recycling system's valve, flooding the place with some 200 gallons of seawater.

"It had grabbed the tube that pulls out the water and caused it to spray outside the tank," said aquarium education specialist Nick Fash. Judging by the size of the flood, Fash estimated that the water flowed for about 10 hours before the first staff member, Aaron Kind, showed up for work.
...
The tiny octopus, which is about the size of a human forearm when its appendages are extended, floated lazily in the water that remained in its tank.

It watched intently through glass walls and portholes as workers struggled to dry the place out in time for the day's first busload of schoolchildren to arrive on a 9:30 a.m. field trip.
...
The incident was reminiscent of a 1994 incident at San Pedro's Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in which an octopus named Octavia pulled a plastic pipe loose.

That giant Pacific octopus died when all of the water in her tank drained out.

Since octopuses are considered by many to be the most intelligent invertebrate -- and to have good memories -- Fash said he jury-rigged his octopus tank piping with clamps and tape in hopes of thwarting any further mischief by its occupant. "She would need tools," he said of his octopus, which until now had no name.

"Some people are suggesting we call her 'Flo,' " he said.

Fare Weather

I had never heard of RyanAir before last Friday, when I came across the news story that they had planned to charge passengers to use the rest room. The clever folks on the Internet were quick at coming up with the card below, suggesting some other ideas for penny-pinching airlines the world over (via Boing Boing).
All I can say is: don't give them any ideas!

Monster Mashup

Maybe it's because I never really cared for Jane Austen, but I find this rather funny. From the New York Times:

Quirk Books announced the publication of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” an edition of Austen’s classic juiced up with “all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem” by a Los Angeles television writer named Seth Grahame-Smith. (First line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”)

But wait, there's more:

Elton John’s Rocket Pictures was developing a project called “Pride and Predator,” in which the giant alien from the 1987 cult classic pays a call on the Bennet family.
...
To some scholars, however, it’s a short leap from verbal sparring to real swordplay. “It makes sense to give Lizzie a grander scope for her action,” said Deidre Lynch, an associate professor of English at the University of Toronto and editor of “Janeites,” a collection of scholarly essays about Austen devotees. “It goes with the muddy petticoats and the rambling across the countryside in this unladylike way. The next step is ninja training.”

And there is no sign that it will stop there:

Next year, Ballantine Books will publish Michael Thomas Ford’s novel “Jane Bites Back,” in which Austen turns into a vampire, fakes her own death and lives quietly as a bookstore owner before finally driving a stake through the heart of everyone who has been making money off her for the last two centuries.

Then again, I did just start reading Drood, a fictional account of the "events" that led up to the writing of his last, uncompleted novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. From the flap copy:

On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret mistress, 53-year-old Charles Dickens--at the height of his powers and popularity, the most famous and successful novelist in the world and perhaps in the history of the world--hurtled into a disaster that changed his life forever.

Did Dickens begin living a dark double life after the accident? Were his nightly forays into the worst slums of London and his deepening obsession with corpses, crypts, murder, opium dens, the use of lime pits to dissolve bodies, and a hidden subterranean London mere research . . . or something more terrifying?

Although I'm only 50 pages into it, it's not bad, being narrated by the character of Dickens' friend and author in his own right, Wilkie Collins, so it has that Victorian tone to it. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully no zombies will show up.

Tunes for Our Times

Times change, but not very much.

Beach Reading

The NY Times Book Review arrived in my inbox moments ago and the lead review, by Carl Hiaasen, couldn't be more timely. As I head down to Miami Beach for Graphics of the Americas on Sunday, I think I've found my airplane reading:

FOOL’S PARADISE
Players, Poseurs, and the Culture of Excess in South Beach
By Steven Gaines

Most people don’t go there for intellectual enrichment; they go for the sex, dope and parties. [Not printing presses? How odd. --RR]

That wasn’t exactly the original idea. Back when the mangroves were razed and the sand was dredged from the ocean bottom — yes, even the beach is fake — the developer Carl Fisher envisioned the place as a respectable winter getaway for well-to-do Northerners, an American Riviera.

As it turned out, gangsters also prefer sunny climates over snow. By 1928, Al Capone and other thugs had discovered Miami Beach, and organized crime was taking over the town.

The GoA Gala is being held at the Fontainbleu Hotel, which apparently has a bit of a checkered history (I confess I know very little about Miami Beach other than what I remember from The Godfather Part II):

Gaines sees symptoms of social dysfunction in architecture, like the garishly emblematic Fontainebleau Hotel on Collins Avenue. It was the product of a tumultuous collaboration between an obstinant developer named Ben Novack and the architect Morris Lapidus. The two couldn’t stand each other, and went to their respective deathbeds claiming sole credit for the design of the massive, weirdly curved structure, which was built in less than a year.

Maligned by critics, the Fontainebleau instantly became a lively hangout for card sharks, mobsters and movie idols.

And what do you know: I also got a 40% off coupon from Borders today, too. What are the odds they'll actually have it?

Kindling

Just spent a good four hours formatting my old (mis)adventure in self-publishing—Virus!—for publication on the Amazon Kindle e-book reader. (It was really just an experiment in learning how to format books for the Kindle. And if I somehow sell a few, great.)

I was finally successful, and it will be available for sale--for all (or both, if even that many) of you Kindle owners out there—in 12 hours or so for the extortionate price of $8.99. I figure at that price point--which is one I actually have control over--no one is likely to question my sincerity.

Anyway, a couple of observations about the process:

• Amazon strongly encourages that e-book titles be in HTML format, as it claims that is the only format that will convert reliably, even though it says it supports .pdf, .doc, .mobi, and a smattering of others.

• I had produced the book in Adobe InDesign and the Kindle conversion utility doesn't handle native InDesign files (big surprise).

• Getting decent HTML out of InDesign is not easy, especially if (like me) you had a bunch of different document threads and a few illustrations here and there. The Exoport to Dreamweaver command is pretty hit or miss. Perhaps I just need to spend some time playing with it, but I've rarely had luck with it.
  

• What some of the Amazon user forums recommended was copy the text in InDesign and paste into Word, and then you can save Word files out to HTML. You can pretty much imagine how that works out.
  

• I tried that approach, and required a great deal of tweaking styles to get everything looking decent, even by Word's low standards.

• I saved the Word file out to HTML, but Amazon's conversion utility kept choking on it. I toyed around with a few things but to no avail.

• Finally, I just uploaded the Word file itself to the conversion utility and it went through without a hitch. I was able to preview it to get an approximation of how it will look on a Kindle and it didn't look bad. One of the feratufres of the Kindle is the ability to adjust the size of the type, which means that text will inevitably reflow, which I guess is why they don't like PDFs, which are by their very nature a static page format.
  

• The process is not appreciably different from way back in 2000 when I used to experiment with converting files to be read on Palm-based e-book readers.

After doing all this, I just got in the mail the latest Design Tools Monthly newsletter which mentioned some third-party applications for getting HTML out of PDF files. I shall have to experiment further. Of course, I don't actually have a Kindle, but then my birthday is only six months away....

A-Twitter

Because I apparently don't have enough time toilets in my life, I am now on Twitter, for no adequately explored reason. I will experiment with livetweeting from today's SU-Georgetown game. I will either end up hooked on Twitter or I will never want to have anything more to do with it again ever. The world hangs in the balance. Follow along if you dare at http://twitter.com/rromano.

Bride of the Gorilla

Over at Movie Mis-Treatments, the latest is the 1951 Raymond Burr/Lon Chaney "thriller" Bride of the Gorilla.

I guess the first question would be: where is the bride of the gorilla registered? Banana Republic, of course.

Lunacy

The last couple of nights have featured a pretty dramatic full moon, and perhaps not entirely coincientally, Scientific American has a story up about an old chestnut, the so-called "lunar lunacy effect," the belief that the full moon has some kind of effect--usually a bad one--on human behavior.

One survey revealed that 45 percent of college students believe moonstruck humans are prone to unusual behaviors, and other surveys suggest that mental health professionals may be still more likely than laypeople to hold this conviction. In 2007 several police departments in the U.K. even added officers on full-moon nights in an effort to cope with presumed higher crime rates.

There have been serious attempts to study whether such a phenomenon exists, and actual evidence in support of the effect has not been forthcoming:

Florida International University psychologist James Rotton, Colorado State University astronomer Roger Culver and University of Saskatchewan psychologist Ivan W. Kelly have searched far and wide for any consistent behavioral effects of the full moon. In all cases, they have come up empty-handed. By combining the results of multiple studies and treating them as though they were one huge study—a statistical procedure called meta-analysis—they have found that full moons are entirely unrelated to a host of events, including crimes, suicides, psychiatric problems and crisis center calls. In their 1985 review of 37 studies entitled “Much Ado about the Full Moon,” which appeared in one of psychology’s premier journals, Psychological Bulletin, Rotton and Kelly humorously bid adieu to the full-moon effect and concluded that further research on it was unnecessary.

I guess the first question that always struck me when the lunar lunacy theory came up is, what would be the mechanism for it? That is, how can the moon affect behavior? Apparently, there have been attempts to ascribe the phenomenon to tidal forces, since the human body is mostly composed of water, but

First, the gravitational effects of the moon are far too minuscule to generate any meaningful effects on brain activity, let alone behavior. As the late astronomer George Abell of the University of California, Los Angeles, noted, a mosquito sitting on our arm exerts a more powerful gravitational pull on us than the moon does. Yet to the best of our knowledge, there have been no reports of a “mosquito lunacy effect.” Second, the moon’s gravitational force affects only open bodies of water, such as oceans and lakes, but not contained sources of water, such as the human brain. Third, the gravitational effect of the moon is just as potent during new moons—when the moon is invisible to us—as it is during full moons.

I read some time ago (can't remember where) that this theory may have originated in the very real phenemenon that, back before there were streetlights, on nights when the moon was full you had more people out at night, and more opportunities for mischief. The SciAm article also suggests one other source of the myth:

before the advent of outdoor lighting in modern times, the bright light of the full moon deprived people who were living outside—including many who had severe mental disorders—of sleep. Because sleep deprivation often triggers erratic behavior in people with certain psychological conditions, such as bipolar disorder (formerly called manic depression), the full moon may have been linked to a heightened rate of bizarre behaviors in long-bygone eras.

I don't know; that does seem like a bit of a reach. Anyway, I have to go turn into a werewolf now...

The One and Only

Once again, The Onion tells it like it is. This is the funniest, yet probaby truest, technology story I have seen in a while.

Warning! Many many bad words; probably not work safe, particularly if you work for Sony.

No Fly Zones

Speaking of arcane, useless knowledge, Friday night I was out with some friends and somehow the topic came up: "to keep flies away, hang clear plastic bags filled with water." Trying to think of some logical reason why this would work, I made a mental note to look into it. It's apparently a popular belief in Florida (so you know logic will have nothing to do with it), as well as in the Caribbean.

What's the verdict? According to some anecdotal reports, it works. According to others, well, not so much. According to this article in the Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star:

No one is sure where the idea came from, and researchers contend there's no scientific evidence to show that the bags do any good.
...
Some speculate that the sunlight reflecting through the water somehow scares or disorients flies. But Phil Kaufman, a University of Florida professor of veterinary entomology, said there is no scientific research to back up those claims.

"It's a pretty safe bet it doesn't work," he said.

On the other hand, the bags could very well worsen the fly problem, as was found in one experiment whose researcher I do not envy:

[A] North Carolina State University researcher spent 13 weeks looking at the effects of water bags on flies at an egg-packing plant. Mike Stringham, also a veterinary entomologist, meticulously counted droppings left by flies on white "spot cards."

The results were conclusive: The water bags attracted more flies.

"In the control room versus bags, the bags were consistently higher every time," he said.

The great site HowStuffWorks has a take on this, suggesting how the water bag idea might work:

The insect's head mostly consists of a pair of large complex eyes, each of which is composed of 3,000 to 6,000 simple eyes. These eyes can't move or focus on objects like human eyes, but they provide the fly with a mosaic view of the world around them. Each simple eye provides one small piece of the puzzle, much like the way a screen's pixel delivers one detail of the larger picture.

A housefly bases its sense of direction on the direction sunlight comes from. Some entomologists believe that when these complex, sensitive eyes experience refracted light, the insect becomes confused and flies away.

While some supporters claim water bags keep all kinds of flying insects away, most report success with complex-eyed insects, like houseflies.

Nice theory, but they are quick to stress that so-called evidence in favor of the water bags is more than likely a case of the "placebo effect":

In medical terms, this is when people who think they're being treated for a condition feel better, even if that treatment treats nothing at all. The same effect could occur for people who think they are treating a pest problem.

That is, some other factor might be keeping the flies away, and they correlate the lack of flies with the presence of the water bags, which may have nothing to do with it.

So for now, all we have to go on in support of this idea is anecdotal "evidence," which is rarely conclusive. (This is after all the most pressing issue in the world today, so we need this resolved ASAP.) This phenomenon was also cited on Boing Boing earlier this year, and the range of reader comments is indicative of the problem with anecdotal evidence: a few say it works, most say it doesn't. I'll stick with the scientists on this one until compelling evidence that it works is found--but then only if I move into the Amityville Horror house, since flies are the least of my problems.

"Exit, Pursued by a Bear"

That was one of Shakespeare's most famous stage directions, from The Winter's Tale (III.iii). It is unknown whether on stage they used a real bear or someone dressed as a bear; bear-baiting was a popular entertainment at the time, so they had them on hand.

I mention this because--although I am a week late--I recently came across something I did not know about Groundhog Day--in, of all places, a biography of Shakespeare: something very much like Groundhog Day dates back to the Middle Ages.

February 2 is not only the point halfway betwen the winter solstice and the spring equinox, but is also the traditional date for the Christian celebration of Candlemas, or the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin. In the Middle Ages, there arose the belief that on this day hibernating animals such as badgers and bears (it varied by country and indigenous hibernating mammal) woke up tentatively to appear on this day. If the day was sunny and the critter saw its shadow, six more weeks of winter remained. If instead the day was cloudy, the weather would turn mild, leading to an early spring. In England there are various references to the "Candlemas bear" and the rhyme "When the wind’s in the east on Candlemas Day/There it will stick till the second of May."

In Germany, the main meterological mammal was the badger and German immigrants to the United States carried the legend with them. In Pennsylvania, where many German settlers ended up, they used an indigenous groundhog (Marmota monax, or woodchuck) instead. Six of one, half dozen of another, really.

Punxsutawney, PA, has been ground zero for Groundhog Day since 1887. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, an examination of the weather and mammal-prediction records have put so-called Punxsutawney Phil's accuracy rate at less than 40%, which I would estimate as being still better than any Capital Region meteorologist. Imagine if the groundhog had Doppler radar. By the way, whether a groundhog does or does not emerge from its burrow is believed to be related to the amount of fat it was able to store before going into hibernation, although my guess is that Phil gets a wake-up call.

I should also point out that there is no Medieval tradition that the feast of Candlemas involved waking up to the same day over and over.

Set Me Free

You've heard of Wikinomics and Freakonomics. Now, I guess the latest is Kinkonomics.

Are you asking youself, "where have all the good times gone?" Are you on a low budget? Well, when work is over, give the people what they want--a little bit of abuse, all day and all of the night. According to those dedicated followers of fashion over at CNBC:

One of the kinkier trends to emerge from this recession is that many professional women are turning to dominatrix work to supplement their incomes...

Quan interviews some of the women who've turned to fetish work, including "Linda," who works as a editor by day and a dominatrix at night.

And "Jessica," who works as a web-site designer three days a week, and sees a few fetish clients a week.

Before you go passing judgment, check it out: You can make anywhere from $80 to $1,000 an hour in the dungeon.

Just as long as you're not like everybody else.

Stomach Abuse

Speaking of mistreatments, Men's Health magazine has its 20 Worst (i.e., unhealthiest) Foods
in America 2009. I don't claim to have the healthiest diet in the world, but just reading these descriptions is enough to make me never want eat anything again ever. Some examples:

2. Worst Pasta of 2009

Romano’s Macaroni Grill Spaghetti and Meatballs with Meat Sauce
2,430 calories
128 g fat
207 g carbs
5,290 mg sodium

With three times your recommended daily intake of saturated fat and two days’ worth of salt

Granted, I love a good pasta with meat sauce, but that's just ridiculous! Shame about the name.

8. Worst Burger of 2009

Chili’s Smokehouse Bacon Triple-The-Cheese Big Mouth Burger with Jalapeno Ranch Dressing
2,040 calories
150 g fat (53 g saturated)
110 g protein
4,900 mg sodium

You know this burger's in trouble when it takes more than 20 syllables just to identify it. If you think the name’s a mouthful, just wait until the burger hits the table. You’ll be face to face with two-and-a-half day’s worth of fat—a full third of which is saturated. To do that much damage with roasted sirloin, you’d have to eat about eight 6-ounce steaks. It’s nearly three days’ worth of saturated fat.

By the way, you can order a defibrillator on the side.

3. Worst Starter of 2009

Uno Chicago Grill Pizza Skins (full order)
2,400 calories
155 g fat (50 g saturated)
3,600 mg sodium

This appetizer is like eating a Large Domino’s Hand-Tossed Sausage Pizza! Would you ever think of saying to a waiter: “Why don’t you start us off with a large meat pizza?” If you’re ordering for a party of more than 5 it might be OK, but for smaller groups, it's tilting toward gluttony gone wild.

And let's not forget...

1. The Worst Food in America of 2009

Baskin Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake
2,600 calories
135 g fat (59 g saturated fat, 2.5 g trans fats)
263 g sugars
1,700 mg sodium

We didn't think anything could be worse than Baskin Robbins' 2008 bombshell, the Heath Bar Shake. After all, it had more sugar (266 grams) than 20 bowls of Froot Loops, more calories (2,310) than 11 actual Heath Bars, and more ingredients (73) than you'll find in most chemist labs.

Rather than coming to their senses and removing it from the menu, they did themselves one worse and introduced this caloric catastrophe. It's soiled with more than a day's worth of calories and three days worth of saturated fat, and, worst of all, usually takes less than 10 minutes to sip through a straw.

Remember, as Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development once said, "You want your belt to buckle, not your chair."