Ocular Fusion

If for some reason you've not been automatically whisked away to my new location, it is located at ocularfusion.net. See you there!

My conversion to WordPress is going well. Expect an unveiling very soon.

There's been some discussion here and elsewhere on whether the all mighty Google is, as my mother says, "getting too big for its britches."

Well, Scott Adams thinks so. This week he's having a little fun with everyone's favorite search engine algorithm through everyman and corporate grunt, Dilbert. Enjoy.

I'll be offline for a short period preparing what I hope will be a new and improved (in appearance if not content) Ocular Fusion. For various reasons, I've decided to switch from Blogger to WordPress with some help from Harding grad and WebbleYou proprietor Justin Baeder.

Justin is just the guy to enable an HTML-challenged, middle-aged blogger like me to pull it off, but I still may need a few days to get things just the way I want. So I beg your pardon for the dust and please check back soon.

In the meantime, check out today's USA Today and this article on Bill Cosby. America's favorite funnyman has been depositing regularly in his good will savings account over the years and now he's drawing on some of that collateral and credibility as he tours the country "calling out" inner-city communities to a higher standard of personal responsiblity and behavior.

His ongoing multi-city tour is stirring up controversy, just like his NAACP speech did 2 years ago. And, just like the controversial Da Vinci Code, a spate of "in response to" books are popping up as well.

The "thrill of victory and the agony of de feet" were everywhere apparent at this year's 2006 Alabama State Soccer Championships this past weekend in Huntsville. Dreams were made and shattered as match after match was decided in sudden-death "golden goal" overtime or kicks from the mark. The biggest thrill was watching the Lady Tigers from Number One son's Grissom High School take home their first blue trophy since 1999 in a thrilling 2-1 victory over arch-rival Oak Mountain. The game was dead-even at 1-1 after regulation and two hard-fought overtime periods and eventually was decided by kicks from the mark (more on that in a moment).

Among the teams whom I hosted for the tournament, one was eliminated in the semifinals while the other one took home their second championship in a row. For the girls team from Gadsden Southside High, it was their first Final Four appearance, and they arrived wide-eyed and eager to get on the pitch and show their stuff. The only problem was they brought only dark socks, and since they were the designated home team for their match, they were required to wear light-colored socks and jerseys. After checking with the head referee, who informed me that they would have to forfeit if they couldn't take the field in white hose, off I went with credit card in hand to make an emergency equipment run to Pete's Soccer Shop. I arrived with 19 pairs of new white socks moments before the team was to be inspected by the referees and sent onto the field.

The Gadsden girls lost 3-0 to eventual champion Briarwood Christian, but their 8th and 9th grader-laden squad put up a good scrap against the older and more experienced Lady Lions. And I must say, those pristine, white soccer socks looked mighty fine. Finally, I got to do something significant as a team host!

My other team was the Homewood High School boys team, the defending 5-A state champs. I had noted Coach Sean McBride's thick Scottish brogue a few nights before on the phone, so I figured that he probably knew his stuff when it comes to real football. His team went out on the pitch and proved my intuition correct, coming from behind in both of their matches to win their second state championship in a row.

But not without a few equipment problems of their own. Moments before the championship began, Coach McBride looked down at his feet and realized he wasn't wearing his "lucky Pumas." He sent word to his wife in the stands who then went and retrieved them from the locker room. Number Three son was standing by the gate to the playing area and he took the handoff from Mrs. McBride and delivered them to Coach just prior to the opening kickoff. After the match, Coach McBride assured me that he really wasn't superstitious, but that he just felt more comfortable in them than the other shoes. Yeah right. I'm glad they won, because that made the first of the teams whom I've hosted over the past four years to finally win a state title. Coach McBride, thanks to you and your crew for finally lifting the "Curse of the Eyeguy."

Words can't describe how it felt watching the Grissom ladies win a state title, so how about a little video instead. The first is of Madison Brakefield, a 5th-year varsity striker who has a throw in technique that you'll absolutely flip over. Madison has signed with Mississippi State, which means that she'll be taking her ninja act all across the Southeastern Conference come fall.

The second video is of Auburn signee Jessica Childress knocking home the winning kick from the mark to seal the title. Jessica was the foundation of the Grissom defense, but we all gasped when she injured her hip in Friday's semifinal. She arrived for Saturday's final taped tighter that King Tut, but she gritted her way through every minute of the game and overtime until finally, as the fifth and final Grissom shooter, she stood one-on-one versus the Oak Mountain keeper with the title on the line.

Say, who's that excited middle-age soccer addict narrating that video? The only way he could be more excited is if the Grissom boys got their act together and won a state championship before a hometown crowd next year.

The ladies have raised the bar gentlemen. Grrrrrr--now let's get to work and go get it!

This morning Number Three Son and I will head over to the John Hunt Soccer Complex for the opening matches of the Alabama State Soccer Championships. Huntsville has the best soccer complex in the state and has hosted the championships since 2001. This is an annual tradition for Number Three and me. He serves as a ball boy--excuse me, ball handler--and I volunteer to be a team host. As a host I work with a couple of visiting teams just making sure that they're comfortable, find their way around and have everything they need to compete successfully.

What's in it for me? Well, how about an "All Access" pass for starters! Having an All Access pass at the state soccer championships is at least as good as a back-stage pass at a Spinal Tap concert. This means I can go anywhere I like, including the bench area located between the two world-class soccer pitches (those are soccer fields for the uninitiated) where I get a "behind-the-scenes" look at the action, including the ability to stand in one spot and rotate, taking in two games at once. I also get to visit the hospitality room, which means I get all the Diet Coke, fruit and munchies that a middle-age soccer aficionado could ever want.

Excuse me, is this heaven? No, it's the Final Four of Alabama high school soccer on a sunny, 70 degree day in Huntsville!

The only down side is that Number One's (#16 in the picture) team, the Grissom Tigers, were knocked out of the playoffs in the first round. Ranked number one in the state going in and the odds-on favorite to win it all, they lost a heartbreaking 4-3 decision in OT to rival Mountain Brook. They dug themselves a hole early going down 3-1, so we were proud of the way they fought back. Unfortunately, our defenders' legs were a little rubbery in OT and we just didn't quite have enough to finish. Next year, with 12 seniors returning, we hope to be playing in the Final Four before a hometown crowd. Still, at 24-4 on the season, you can't complain too much.

On the upside, the Grissom girls team played through to the Final Four (Go Lady Tigers!), and other Huntsville area teams playing include the Huntsville High girls team and both the boys and girls teams from Randolph School.

Indeed, it's a beautiful day for the "beautiful game."
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Speaking of Huntsville High, I wanted to give you an update on my post from earlier this week, Fast Times at Huntsville High. As far as I can tell from my highly-placed sources (heh), this is starting to settle down and apparently both the students and parents involved are accepting their punishment without any loud wails of protest.

In addition to not receiving their diplomas until they complete their 100 hours of community service to the homeless, the school will also withhold their final transcripts as well. Keep in mind that college acceptances are typically "conditional" on completing the year in good standing. So, this may place some of the pranksters in the awkward position of having to explain to colleges what happened and why they aren't able to provide them with their final grades. Hopefully, all this will put a little crimp in that annoying swagger we witnessed early on in this sordid business.

Just like my piece on Nancy Grace and Churches of Christ, my Monday post was picked up by an internet "news outlet," and as a result I've been receiving quite a few first-time visitors this week. Sploid.com seems to me to be the internet equivalent of The National Enquirer. Their mission statement, such as it is, reads like this:

"SPLOID delivers the tabloid breaking news you crave: fresh disasters, strange crimes, political scandal, odd characters, bizarre phenomena, freakish animals, horrifying conspiracies, goofy do-gooders, police idiocy and all the government-gone-wild insanity you can handle."

I think that pretty much says it all. The piece they did on the senior prank (beware that it contains a graphic image of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib) is full of innuendo and half-truths and finishes with a very gratuitous slam at the state of Alabama--all in all, typical slipshod tabloid fare. The link to my post can be found at the phrase "acts of depravity."

I'm not sure how I feel about becoming a part of the "media landscape," much less a link in a tabloid hack job. I guess the upside is that those who are clicking on the link and reading my post are getting a little more even-handed and balanced view of the situation from someone who is actually there on the scene. I can assure our northernly neighbors that we can handle such situations and take care of our own. I know it's not good news, but look around--you've got a few problems too. Mind your own business you bunch of carpetbaggers, ya hear?

That's all from Huntsville, where the men are decked out in polo shirts and khakis, the women wear way too much makeup, and the children are overscheduled, overstimulated and overachieving.

The assimilation has begun. Resistance is futile.

Although it wasn't supposed to happen until 2008, I have evidence that Google and Amazon have already joined forces to create Googlezon, a platform combining Google's superb seach engine technology with Amazon's "social recommendation engine" and "huge commercial infrastructure." Here's the story:

On Tuesday, I had one of my "40-something" brain lock moments at the office. I had a patient in the chair with early macular degeneration for whom I planned to prescribe Ocuvite eye vitamins. The only problem was I couldn't for the life of me remember the dosage.

So I turned to my computer and while explaining the reason for the vitamins to the patient, quickly typed "Ocuvite" into Google and found the website, which of course provided me with the proper dosage--all in a matter of seconds.

Yesterday, I went to Amazon to look up a book that I was interested in purchasing, and low and behold, what should I find listed at the top of the page but a "recommendation" suggesting that I purchase Ocuvite along with listings for several other "similar products."

Whoa. That can only mean one thing--Google ratted me out to Amazon. And that means that the two of them are talking to each other, a full two years ahead of time to boot.

I can only imagine the conversation taking place these days:

Google: "Hey, Z, check out the Eyeguy! He forgot a dosage again and had to look it up. What a loser, I thought doctors were supposed to be gods and know everything."

Amazon: "What up, G-man?! Yeah, that's been happening a lot since he turned forty. Say, uh, if you don't mind me asking, what drug was it?"

Google: "Ocuvite with Lutein. You ought to bring that one to his attention next time he wanders over your way."

Amazon: "Excellent idea, Goog, will do. What else has he been looking up lately?"

Google: "Well, let's see...baldness remedies, Nancy Grace, Spinal Tap, oh, here's something you might be interested in, he seems to be checking out laptops a lot these days. Computers that is, not dancers."

Amazon: "That can only mean one thing: Mother's Day is near and he's thinking about getting a new computer for Eyegal. Typical guy--buy the latest electronic gizmo for your wife so that both of you can use it. What a clueless moron!

Google: "No argument here Z!"

Amazon: "Thanks Goog, that's very useful information. I'll flash a few laptops and a few other digital thing-a-ma-jigs next time he's over here and see if he takes the bait. I might even throw up a few DVDs like King Kong and Jarhead. Heh, now there's a couple of 'chick flicks' for ya!"

Google: "Hey, go easy on him Z! Why don't you throw in Pride and Prejudice and Tristen and Isolde in there too--don't make him look too bad. Hey no fair, here I am spilling all the beans and not any poop from you. Come on Zster, give it up!"

Amazon: "All right, all right. The latest titles he's been checking out include How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization, Father Joe and Da Vinci Code Decoded. Oh, and check this out. He's been looking at this book written by some chick named Nancy French which will come out this fall. Get a load of this title: A Red State of Mind: How a Catfish Queen Reject Became a Liberty Belle. Now that sounds like a real must read! Seems he's also been looking at another one she wrote called South Pacific Journal. Heh, looks like we've got a few copies of that one in the bargain bin. Hey, wasn't there a musical with that name?

Google: "Yup, sounds like a clear cut case of plagiarism to me. Well, that's all very interesting Z. Ya know, this whole Googlezon thing is working out quite nicely, don't ya think?

Amazon: "Indeed, G-man, indeed. They're eating out of our hands and don't even realize it. Pretty soon, they will be fully assimilated and become one with Googlezon."

Google: "That's right, Z! And there's absolutely nothing they can do about it because, as the Borg would say, 'resistance is futile.'"

Google and Amazon: (peals of sinister laughter)

And so on and so on, like two cyberwags gossiping across a fence.

This is no dystopian fiction. This is real, and it is happening now. Prepare to be assimilated--Googlezon has begun.

I'll admit that I'm not much of a video-gamer. My idea of a good video game involves running from ghosts or defending the earth from marauding space invaders. Besides, the reflexes aren't what they used to be, so I leave the video games to the three young bucks in my house. But I can still hold my own and beat them in ping-pong (and probably in PONG as well). Ok, I'll admit that Number Three did beat me the other night, but that was only because I wasn't wearing my sweatbands.

I bring all this up to introduce a forthcoming video game currently evolving under the direction of the creator of The Sims, Will Wright. The game is called Spore and will be released sometime next year. Check out this description in this morning's USA Today:

At the start, you control a single-cell organism — a spore, struggling to survive in a tide pool. Using simple tools, you help your spore evolve into a creature that emerges onto land. Skillful adaptation allows you to multiply into a tribe that eventually builds cities, then a globe-conquering civilization.

"I think of Spore as a very personal universe," Wright says. "Each player ends up roughly creating their own world at every level as they play through the game, and eventually they begin exploring other players' worlds. Each player is crafting their own personal universe in a box."

Ok, now let me get this straight. This new game is supposed to simulate general, or macroevolution. Hello, anybody home? Does anybody see something wrong with this picture?

As I understand it, general evolution is supposed to be random and unguided. Wouldn't it have been more accurate and intellectually honest to make a game in which you would just sit back and watch as your "personal universe in a box" took shape, without any sort of intervention on your part? Oh wait, that wouldn't work either since the game itself would require a creator too. Start throwing the "C" word around and pretty soon Little Johnny won't be allowed to play Spore in biology class at the local public high school.

Oh, the complex conundrums facing today's earnest philosophical materialists! It's almost enough to make me feel sorry for them. Almost. The fact of the matter is that when Spore is released next year, millions of youths will falsely believe that are playing "evolution," when, in fact, they will merely be playing GOD.

It's not every day that national news occurs in Huntsville, Alabama. But in the case of this particular story, we denizens of the "Rocket City" would have preferred to keep a lower profile.

Last Thursday, several seniors at Huntsville High School suffered from simultaneous group brain lock and decided that they would salve their senioritis and seal their legacy with the "greatest senior prank of all time." Their idea? Lure a mentally ill homeless man into the school with promises of food and money and have him take off his pants and streak down the halls in the middle of a class change. After apparently sneaking the man into the building through several locked doors, they were unfortunately successful in their attempt.

What ever happened to crickets in the hallway and stealing your archrival's mascot? Back in my day, if there was going to be any streaking, people generally had the spine to do it themselves without contracting it out. What gutless wunderkinder we're raising these days.

The resulting community uproar, among adults at least, has been intense. Thankfully, as of this morning, the story has had limited distribution through the wire services, although I expect that to change as the news cycle picks up this week. I don't know which is more disturbing, the fact that soon-to-be-on-their-own "adults" would conceive and carry out such a dehumanizing stunt, or the fact that now, even days later, they are being defended by many of their peers at school who think the incident has been overblown and was "funny."

Well "funny" is likely to be less so once the powers that be sort out the situation and begin to mete out punishment to the generals, lieutenants and foot soldiers who carried out the dastardly prank. Options include not walking at graduation and withholding their diplomas, suspension, explusion and some type of community service.

I would stop short of ruining someone's life, but I would make sure that the summer of 2006 is remembered for hard work, hot sun and the hundreds of homeless faces whom you served meals to down at the local rescue mission. Obviously, these seniors are missing some important pieces of education from their portfolios. Nothing like a little "summer school" to solve that problem.

So, this is what "fast times at Huntsville High" look like these days. I wonder what Jeff Spicoli would say? Probably something like, "No brains, no pants, no diploma."

Speaking of Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. (aka John Denver), in 1974 he was one of my favorite musical artists, along with Elton John, Steely Dan, The Eagles and Bachman Turner Overdrive (BTO). I was pretty eclectic, even though I had no idea at the time what that word meant. All I knew was that I liked it loud--"Annie's Song" was simply not the same unless it was belted out at the top of one's lungs with the radio volume button turned all the way to the right.

Hence the problem. This was long before the advent of "personal listening devices" such as iPods, back in the stone-age when LP stereos were located in common areas and a set of headphones was a rare luxury. I shared my common living area with a 16-year-old classical music-crazed, piano virtuoso wannabe older sister and a 2-year-old sister who was more into Romper Room, Mrs. Beasley dolls and taking naps in the middle of the day. Obviously this cramped my personal music listening style, and on November 11, 1974, I had reached my breaking point as this poignant entry from my 7th grade journal clearly shows:

I'm not getting equal time. My sister is always at the piano with the bust of her best friend Beethoven. She's always playing her nice, sweet sonatas and not leaving time for me and John Denver. You see the stereo is unfortunately in the same room as the piano. I just can't win. Either one sister is asleep or the other is playing the piano. I'm getting a couple of more John Denver albums for my birthday and I'm not sure I'll even get to play them. Oh, how I long for December 25th when I will get a record player of my own!

Oh, the travesty of justice, oh the inhumanity of it all! This was not the first time that my eyes were opened to the fact that "equal rights" meant that guys got screwed, nor would it be the last. Fortunately, I did eventually get my own stereo, plus dad built a new bedroom for me in the basement, my own personal sound studio perfectly suited for cranking up the volume to the appropriate eardrum numbing, uberdecibal levels that these days account for my constant refrain of "Heh? What's that you said, Sonny?"

A couple of years later, I even got to see John Denver, live in concert at the Roanoke Civic Center--along with my parents and sisters. Yeah, those were wild times in Southwest Virginia. While Eyegal was in the big city of St. Louis, riding some air guitar playing dude's shoulders while holding aloft the ubiquitous butane lighter at a Boston concert, I was sitting in Roanoke with my family while John Denver belted out such classics as "Thank God I'm a Country Boy," "Country Roads," and "I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane."

What my parents didn't count on was the fact that the one-hit wonder Starland Vocal Band was the opening act. When they launched into a rowdy and raucous rendition of "Afternoon Delight," I was, needless to say, intrigued:
And that's just the PG-rated stuff. But you know what? Starland Vocal Band had stumbled on to a great truth there. As Eyegal and I have discovered over the years, "delight" can often be uncovered in the midst of crazy times and places such as in between diaper changes, in the kitchen as the macaroni and cheese is starting to burn and even in the middle of a cold dark night when you're bone tired and world weary. All in all, it's been more than enough to make me forget all about Annie.

These days, my best stereo is a Bose and it's located in my little black Audi A4. Most of the time, I'm not ashamed to admit, I listen to NPR and classic/soft rock (there's no use in hiding it, unless I'm toting around my sons and their friends). Every now and then, strains from a distant past fill my ears, and I reach down and instinctively turn the volume dial all the way to the right. Suddenly, it's 1974 again, and Annie "fills up my senses" while the young turks in their tricked-out Honda Civics look on in awe and bemusement as a stone-age relic transcends the surly bonds of the mundane and passes into audio nirvana.

In 1972, comedian George Carlin released the monologue, Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television on his album Class Clown. In 1973, some of those words even made it onto the radio airwaves when WBAI-FM broadcast, uncensored, another Carlin monologue containing the same profanity.

My parents wouldn't even let me watch M*A*S*H or All in the Family much less listen to Carlin, but that never stopped a preteen who was determined to hear what all the fuss was about. The problem was I had the kind of mother who always had the uncanny knack of knowing when my Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition was going to arrive and intercepting it before I could get home from school, so coming by critical information in those days wasn't easy.

Enter my friend Rusty from church (where else?). Rusty was a "man of the world" who had seen and heard a thing or two in his time and he was the go-to guy in such situations. One day after his parents had left us alone while running an errand, Rusty invited me up to his room to listen to a copy of Carlin's monologue which he kept cleverly hidden in a John Denver album cover. Needless to say, my ears fairly tingled as they were opened to a new level of vocabulary that I'd never been exposed to in my elementary school classroom.

But the elementary school playground was another story. Indeed, by the mid-70s Carlin's act was being mimicked around tether ball poles and on basketball courts across this great land. On September 10, 1974, I had heard enough, and as is evident from this entry in my 7th grade journal, I was "madder than #$%&*^@ and I wasn't going to take it anymore:"

I seem to have got hooked on stuff that bugs me (ed: no kidding). But this time it is more serious (ed: uh oh). At Burnt Chimney we seem to have a problem with cursing by boys and girls. This may sound corny but some people don't take those into consideration who don't want to hear it. But sometimes the reasons are so DUMB that it's pitiful. Like in a game or something I've noticed people get mad and blow their heads off when it's just a game. Sure I've slipped sometimes probably most everybody has but I don't think I'm that bad. If people would just think before or even after they say something maybe they could break themselves of the habit.

One thing that leaps out from this entry is my concern in letting my teacher know that those "sugar and spice" girls were letting loose with a few choice ones too. After all, they had "come a long way, baby" and nobody was going to deny them their rights to cuss like a guy. This really bugged me, and as you'll see from later entries in forthcoming installments, I had a few opinions on the Women's Liberation Movement and its effects on Ms. Fine's classroom at Burnt Chimney Elementary School in Wirtz, Virginia.

Notice too that I don't let myself off the hook. However, I was probably referring to "minced oaths" such as "heck," "gosh," "dagnabbit" and "shoot" which were the Church of Christ equivalent of living on the edge in those days.

The end result of the Carlin incident was that the Supreme Court upheld the FCC's general guidelines for regulation of certain "dirty words" that couldn't be broadcast during times when children were expected to be awake (6 AM to 10 PM). Of course, this hasn't stopped cable television from ratcheting up both the quantity and quality of profanity at all hours, and even a couple of words on Carlin's list routinely make their way into network primetime broadcasts these days.

Now I'm certainly no prude, and I still slip up every now and then, especially when some ^8+$@# jerk cuts me off on the morning drive to work. But I pretty much stand by the words I wrote in 1974--if only people would think. Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of that going on these days. Why go to all that trouble when you can just spew forth from the gut all your bile for the world to hear?

I just have one question: where's John Denver when you need him?

If you’ve spent any time at all reading Ocular Fusion, you’re no doubt aware of my enduring love for basketball. If you were to go further and scan the pages of my elementary school scrapbook, you would find that I listed basketball as my “favorite activity” from second grade through seventh (there was that little “tag” business in first grade, but that hardly counts). I lived for ACC basketball and the Boston Celtics, and whenever I played in a schoolyard pickup game, I took on the persona, if not the skill, of my favorite player, John “Hondo” Havlicek.

However, there was one problem. I was short. In today’s politically correct climate, I would be more thoughtfully and humanely labeled “vertically challenged.” Even though I found myself on the losing end of a game of genetic roulette, I compensated to a large degree by developing a reliable outside jump shot. Still, I knew that Laurie Partridge was probably never going to give me the time of day and that I would rarely have the opportunity to venture into the paint where the big boys, who could pack one of my layups as easily as they could pick their own teeth, loomed like vultures scanning the menu for the roadkill du jour.

By September 1974, I had heard just about every “shorty” joke in the book and was well-versed in how to run the typical elementary school insult gauntlet—cover your head and run as fast as your stubby legs will carry you. However, as is evident in the following passage from my long-lost but recently rediscovered 7th grade journal, I appear to have had some “unresolved issues:”

September 5, 1974

Well here I go again talking about something that bugs me. Well it used to at least. And that’s people calling me “shorty.” It really doesn’t bother me that much now, but it used to JUST KILL ME! Even though I feel out of place when I’ve got to look up to everybody, I really don’t mind it too much. I may be little, but I believe that I’m just as strong as some guys. Like just yesterday I did 172 situps, more than anyone else in our room. I know I’m not going to be a super athlete, but I hope there are some jobs for short people!

(ed: Ms. Fine, my 7^th grade teacher at Burnt Chimney Elementary School, was no doubt pleased that her little psych experiment was eliciting such unbridled honesty and raw emotions. She wrote in the margins: “Good job, Mike!”)

Ok, I have to ask: do you find this journal entry believable? Do you really think that I had made peace with my “stumpiness?” I count three instances in which I assert that I was “ok” with being short. I don’t know about you, but I doth protest too much, methinks.

No, I’m thinking that back in ’74, it still bothered me quite a bit, so to speak, that I was short. And you know what? IT STILL DOES! In fact, IT JUST KILLS ME! There for a while after I sired three sons with Eyegal, life was good. I was the towering king, hovering benevolently over my diminutive domain. But now, two of them little suckers are taller than I am (it really makes me feel out of place when I have to look up to them) and the third is closing faster than a fully-charged Klingon cruiser chasing a dilithium crystal-depleted starship. And you know what? I CANT STAND IT!

Whew, it’s good to that off my tiny little chest. Oh well, as surely as the apple falls from the tree, it’s inevitable that sons increase while fathers decrease. All my years of studying physics, though, never prepared me for the myriad of surprising and deleterious ways that gravity can ruin my day, especially first thing in the morning when I look in the mirror.

The short of the story (sorry) is that I never compensated well enough to play varsity basketball in high school, but I did develop into a decent enough athlete to letter in cross country and tennis. And, gravity notwithstanding, I’m still pretty consistent from beyond the college arc and on a good day can even can an NBA-regulation trey or two. If you don’t believe me, just ask Number Three Son who always makes the mistake of guarding me too loosely.

Oh, and those 172 sit-ups? Little did I know then how much I would need those later in life. In fact, these days I don’t know what I would do without all that muscle tone I built up in those early years. It comes in quite handy each morning as I suck in my gut prior to buttoning my pants and is an absolute necessity for maintaining that uncomfortably tonic posture for the remainder of the day. I bet a lot of guys my age aren’t strong enough to do that. To (ahem) top it off, I found a job in which being “vertically challenged” can actually be an advantage, and, last time I checked anyway, Eyegal didn’t seem to care how tall I am.

Hey Randy, I know you meant the song to be ironic and you were well intended, but it still deserves to be said: short people do too got plenty of reasons to live.

If my last post wasn't fully convincing, let me offer up another good reason why publishing the Great American Novel might not be all it's cracked up to be.

Kaavya Viswanathan.

Kaavya is a 19-year-old sophomore at Harvard and author of the latest entry into the skyrocketing literary genre know as "chic-lit." Her book, entitled "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life," focuses on a high school senior named Opal Mehta and her frantic attempts to get accepted into the school of her dreams and destiny--Harvard, naturally. It was properly feted in the New York Times when it debuted earlier this month, and all seemed well for the Harvard coed who was celebrating a six figure, two book deal and a DreamWorks movie contract.

Since that time, however, allegations by the Harvard Crimson that Ms. Viswanathan "borrowed" key ideas and phrases from two other previously published books, "Second Helpings" and "Sloppy Firsts" by Megan McCafferty, have shown up and crashed the party. Although she at first dodged the question, Ms. Viswanathan has since acknowledged that she inadvertantly "internalized" passages from the the books in question and used them in her latest work. She has issued an apology to Ms. McCafferty and her publisher, but apparently the apology was not accepted. Some of the disputed passages can be seen here.

It does not appear at first glance that Ms. Viswanathan's alleged indiscretions are of the same magnitude as James Frey's. She did, after all, produce a more or less original story and properly marketed her work as fiction rather than passing it off as a memoir.

However, this latest literary brouhaha does bring to light how difficult it may be to craft a truely "original" story and how easy it has become, given the rapid expansion of information via the internet and almighty Google, to spot potential plagiarism.

I'm wondering how many pleasing phrases I may have "inadvertantly" lifted from other sources over the years and used in my own writings. I'm also curious as to what you think about Ms. Viswanathan's explanation. Is it possible to "internalize" and unwittingly use that many seemingly parallel passages, or is it more likely that Ms. Viswanathan is a "Cambridge Copycat" and had the works in question sitting in front of her as she wrote her own book?

Oh well, like I said, it all seems like another cautionary tale writ large across the American cultural landscape. The moral of the story? Stick to the blog--nobody ever reads it anyway.

Tomorrow: The much anticipated (heh) Part III of my series, "Blogging--The Wonder Years." You don't want to get miss it and get "caught short."

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Update 4/28/06

Little, Brown and Company, the publisher of Ms. Viswanathan's book, has pulled the disputed novel from store shelves and retailers until the plagiarized passages can be excised and revised. Megan McCafferty states that she is "not seeking restitution in any form" and hopes that both she and Ms. Viswanathan can put the incident behind them and move on in their careers.

Not a bad resolution--no nasty lawsuit, Ms. McCafferty's work and name remain intact (and her compassion to a young emerging writer will not doubt help her reputation), and Ms. Viswanathan learns the kind of lesson that they don't teach at Harvard these days. Doris Kearns Goodwin seems to have recovered quite nicely, so chances are she will too.

Coming soon, the memoir: "How Kaavya Viswanathan Got Caught, Got Wise and Got a Lesson."

Continuing my theme of the potential pitfalls of blogging, I wanted to point out this interesting article by Sarah Hepola which recently appeared in Slate. Like many, she envisioned blogging as a means of ramping up to "The Great American Novel," an avenue down which she could stroll as book and movie agents stopped and turned their heads, marveling at the passing of her literary glory. In her reverie, she would soon be besieged with admirers, most of them toting contracts for six figure, two book deals, and of course, the inevitable DreamWorks movie.

To hear Ms. Hepola tell it (in fact, you can hear her here. Notice the alluring alliteration, all you lurking literary lions?), blogging actually got in the way of her novelistic aspirations. Yeah, I'll admit the thought has crossed my mind too. Sometimes the "which is better one or two" line and all the blepharitis gets old and I catch myself dreaming of book deals, signing parties at Barnes and Noble, movie premieres and a house in the Bahamas. But in all likelihood, I'll simply continue to churn out (ahem) my mundane musings to the delight, horror and apathy of those who stroll the blogosphere and trip over Ocular Fusion on their way to more worthwhile information and entertainment.

But that's cool. The Great American Novel is probably overrated anyway. Give me Mom, baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and my Great American Blog and I'm a happy man...at least for now.

Before the Matrix, there were the Borg. The Borg were those half-humaniod, half-machine cyborgs on Star Trek: The Next Generation who went marauding around the universe "assimilating" everything and everyone in their path. Dare to buck a Borg, and you would end up "enhanced" with cybernetic implants and connected together with other Borg drones to function as part of a collective mind controlled by the Borg Queen and a central hub, Unimatrix One. But really, it's ok because it was all in the name of "improving the quality of life for all species."

Keep this charming little scenario in mind as you watch this (a hat tip to blogger extraordinaire Bill Gnade over at Contratimes for bringing this to light). I agree with Bill's suggestion to wear headphones while viewing, and I would add that you might want to turn down the room lights as well for the full effect. Bottom line, this short film suggests that with each blog entry we write and every Google search that we perform, we come one step closer to full "assimilation."

Overwrought Orwellian fear mongering or a much-needed warning shot across our bow? Whatever you decide, it should at least give you pause and food for thought as you prepare to regale the blogosphere with your next political rant, religious epiphany or much-too-descriptive account of that nagging case of gout in your big toe.

I don't know, maybe we've already reached the point where "resistance is futile." If so, I hope I get a headset that's at least half as cool as the one old Locutus is wearing.

In September, 1974, it was near midnight in the Age of Aquarius and all was not well in the United States of America. Signs of upheaval were everywhere--the Vietnam war was drawing to an inglorious close, Patricia Hearst had been kidnapped (or had she?), President Nixon had just resigned in disgrace, and the Watergate Scandal had left everyone cynical and distrustful of the bedrock institutions on which our country had stood for so many years. As Barbara Streisand sang "The Way We Were," the year's number one song, we looked back with misty eyes at simpler "Seasons in the Sun." But as Terry Jacks crooned, "the wine and song, like the seasons," were, alas, "all gone."

Young men of that time may not have felt in control over world events, but they did assert their authority over their own bodies--especially the length of their hair. "Snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty" hair was flowing everywhere, and as you can see from the picture, I was no exception. But despite many a prayer offered to the follicle gods, I was unable to grow the kind of hair that flopped up and down like Pistol Pete's did as he streaked down the court or a long, flowing mane that Marcia Brady would have loved to run her fingers through. Instead, all I got was a bouffant which was the envy of every girl in Ms. Fine's 7th grade class at Burnt Chimney Elementary School.

But I did have a few thoughts on long hair that I wrote down. So, gentle readers, I give you my first recorded rant taken from my long-lost but recently unearthed 7th grade journal:

September 3, 1974

I'd like to say something about a thing which really bugs me, and that's the issue of long hair. It seems like people I've been around have the bad habit of judging other people by the length of their hair. I think this is totally UNFAIR! I don't judge people by their hair. I judge them on whether or not they are a good person (if I should judge anybody at all).

It seems like some people just think the clean cut and clean shaven young men are just superior. I think the length of hair or a beard or a moustache ought to be left up to the person himself.

It really does hurt me when I see somebody being judged by their hair. Oh it JUST KILLS ME! I think this world would be a lot better off (ed: at this point the journal entry switches from pen to pencil) if people would just take a look at their own selves instead of shooting other people down. Oh, if you're wondering why I changed writing tools, my Bic Banana just got rotten!

So there you have it, a young man of his times, a crusader for all "long haired freaky people" everywhere you had been discriminated against simply because of their long, tangled locks and bearded faces. My only real regret is that I didn't save a little of my own hair in a baggy for "use at a later date." But lest you think that I was a hippy in the making, you'll discover in future installments of this series that my politics were conservative to the core.

Next time: my innermost thoughts on walking through life as one "vertically challenged."