(this is) durkin.org

Superfunny Paula Poundstone was at the Stardome Comedy Club last night. MR and I took some friends to the show and had a great time. It was my first time at the Stardome, and I thought it was kind of a dump, but that’s neither here nor there, as the show was great.

It was our first time to see her live, we’ve only ever seen her on Comedy Central. One of the great things about her show is the audience interaction - she talks to people and pretty much makes things funny on the fly. I tried to remember some particularly funny moments, but of course have forgotten them. You will have to see her yourself.

Which brings me to some sad news - there is no DVD or VHS of Paula. Other than compilations, I couldn’t find anything on video. Amazon does have some other stuff, though… Hell, she doesn’t even have her own web site.

I had hoped that she might recycle some old material that we loved (the Snickers routine, her cats and the shower, and the famous “we hate the people on the right side of the plane” bit) but no luck. She did use a few standards, but none of my favorites. In typical fashion, she was not afraid of any topic: we covered her arrest and addiction, as well as politics and gay marriage. Amazingly, even in conservative, W-voting Birmingham, she got laughs all the way through.

Odd place, the Stardome Comedy Theater. Apparently you get a free dinner on your birthday, so a number of the people who were there just wanted their free dinner and then left. Lots of crowd noise, too. Of course, this could be par for the course, and I wouldn’t know, as it was my first time in a comedy club of any kind.

Of Note: I did not know that she writes a column for Mother Jones.

I’m 78% Dixie, what are you?
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Overheard in a pool hall the other night. When you play by yourself, you can move your balls anywhere you want.

The tutorial that got this sideblog project underway.  UPDATE:  Yeah, not so much using this anymore.  Nowadays, its all about WordPress, K2 (more or less) and Matt’s Asides, yo.

My wife and I were the first of our group of close friends to have children. In many ways, this is a good thing, but it was also very scary. We didn’t have many friends to ask questions of - the stupid questions that you know are stupid but that you want to ask anyway but don’t want to look foolish because maybe they’ll report you and take the baby because you are too stupid to have a baby. Fortunately, we did each have a couple of people to turn to with questions or for advice, and we both did a great deal of reading and watching baby-related television.

Charlie, my best friend from high school and freshman college roommate, lives in Pittsburgh or something like that now, and has two children. When he found out that we were expecting, he sent me some very good advice. I have since added to and forwarded this advice to other fathers-to-be, in the hopes that it will assist them as much as it did me.

And I thought I’d share it with you, too.
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Yesterday was a big day for soccer fans as a number of friendly internatioal matches were played in preparation for Euro 2004.

While the US did not win their match vs Holland, they did play well. At least, that’s what I heard. Our firewall at work prevents me from actually following the live game coverage available at USSoccer.com, so I had to refresh the soccernet.com scoreboard every ten seconds. Oye.

Aside Number One: Hey DaMarcus Beasley, unfortunate photo my friend.

Aside Number Two: Not so sure about the new uni’s. But I think they will grow on me.

Holly Mullen says it much better than I have been able to:

[Same-Sex Marriage/Civil Union] will happen because recognizing gays and lesbians as full human beings, with a right to equal protection under the Constitution, is just and fair and decent. When a whole class of people is systematically denied the perks of marriage — inheritance rights and Social Security and military survivors benefits to name a few — simply because the majority finds its lifestyle abhorrent or something to fear, it’s high time for a makeover.

Makeovers are what this society does. This is a country strong enough to absorb change and to promote justice. If not, blacks would still be picking cotton. Wives would still be their husbands’ property.

Her point is well made throughout the article: this is not a religious issue we are talking about here - this is a basic civil and human rights issue. I don’t want to spend all day on the soapbox, or turn this into a rant, but I did want to say that it should be done, because its the right thing to do.

Related: Regarding the State of Unions

The fine and funny folks over at the Guardian are having a little contest - send in your favorite fake photo of a presidential candidate. They will select the best ones and put them on the site.

Women’s Soccer Qualifying Tourney starts February 25.

You’ve heard the question before, many times:

If you were stranded on a desert island, and could only have ten albums (cd’s) with you, which ten would you take? Of course you have your stereo there with you, and a power source, don’t be a jerk. No compilations or bootlegs, officially released material only, dude.

There was a time that I couldn’t get though a weekend without having this conversation, but now I can’t remember the last time I discussed it. It was a silly game to play, the real point was getting to the heart of the respondent’s musical tastes, and it was likely to inspire a good deal of debate over the merits of a particular album or performer. I see Catbirdseat’s list whenever I visit his site, and am always amazed that he lists Teenage Fanclub’s Bandwagonesque as one of the Top 10 Of Ever. I mean, I like it, but not that much. Different strokes, you know?

I was listening to an interview with a recording industry critic the other day on NPR who talked about the preeminence of the single: that popular music these days does not focus on the album, but on the single. He also pointed out that this dovetails perfectly with new online music stores where consumers pay per track.

Now, some industry analysts will say that the move to singles was prompted by downloading and online stores and whatnot. In my view, it has more to do with studios pushing crap on us. That said - some of the crap is fun to listen to, but I don’t want to pay $15.00 for it, so I’ll pay $.99 and just get the track I want. Whether the business model came before or after is really not the issue - it just is, and we can all get what we want.

Anyway - I started this post to pick my ten albums (as of right now, that is):
Graceland - Paul Simon
The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
Icky Mettle - The Archers of Loaf
Boylan Heights - The Connells
The Joshua Tree - U2
Debaser - The Pixies
Help! - The Beatles
Moondance - Van Morrison
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco
Document - REM

David is making his wife a Valentine’s Day Mix, and asked his readers what they would put on such a mix. Being a largehearted reader, I listed a couple of songs that came to mind. And I’m still thinking about it…
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The US Men’s team defeated Honduras yesterday to advance to the next round. Now all they have to do is beat Mexico to advance to the Olympics.

In other Olympic-qualifying news, much closer to home: this past weekend was the US Olympic Marathon Trial in Birmingham, Alabama. The Olympic hopefuls ran on Saturday, and everyone else had a chance to run on Sunday in the Mercedes Marathon.

I did not run, but I did partake of the free beer after the race. Cheering is thirsty business, after all. There were some issues with the wheelchair race, but otherwise the event went off very well.

The US beats Canada 2-0, and secures a spot in the semifinals of the CONCAF Cup. They are currently in first place in their Group, but have one match left to play, against number two in the Group - Honduras. Although I did not see the game, from all accounts it sounds like the US held up better in the second half and generally played better defense this time around.

In not-so-much-related news: last night while flipping channels, I caught the last six minutes of the Miracle on Ice hockey game on ESPN Classics. I missed the golden goal, but it was still fun to watch the closing minutes, and of course the post-game interviews. Hair, clothes, on-screen graphics; 1980 was whack, yo.

This is a test of the pullquote. If it works, that would be great. I got the code here, but the idea here.

This ought to be in a greyish box, with a black border. The font should look pretty much the same as it does over the rest of the page. A link would look like this. Oh - the box should resize according to the width of the page and all that.

Now, did it work?

Hi There
I’m John, this is Speedingmotorcycle. I live in Birmingham, Alabama with my beautiful wife and son, and our many pets. I work for a large corporation, and sometimes get a little sidework as well.

First, A Little About Me
I enjoy email. I don’t like it when people misplace punctuation when using quotes. I do not write nearly as much as I should. I would like to visit Europe. I would like to see a movie this weekend. I do not sound like a Southerner, but I am one. I wish I was a professional soccer player, or at least good enough to be one. I am working on an MBA, but not right now. I like music very much. I am learning to like football, especially Auburn Football. I used to really enjoy meeting new people, but I’m not sure I’m still good at it, and I don’t think I enjoy it as much as I used to, but I still like it. I graduated from Auburn. I liked it so much I went back and graduated from Auburn again. I am not a mechanic, but I wish that I was. I think we could all use a little more cowbell.

Enough About Me, Let’s Talk About My Web Site
Speedingmotorcycle is powered by the fine Movable Type publishing system, version 2.66, and I highly recommend it. Speedingmotorcycle is hosted by Your-Site, and I have no complaints.* All of the content on Speedingmotorcycle is mine, unless otherwise noted**. Initially, I based the Movable Type templates on another person’s design, but I’ve moved away from that, so I’m not going to worry about citing that anymore. It’s pretty much an amalgam, loosely based on Movable Type Style templates. The term “speedingmotorcycle” does not really have anything to do with anything. It is the title of a song that I like (best when done by Yo La Tengo and Daniel Johnston), but I like lots of songs, and this one shouldn’t feel all that special about the name of this site. It just happened to work for me, that’s all. Speedingmotorcycle is one word, capitalization is optional. I hear that InterCAps are for losers, so I try to avoid that if possible. Speedingmotorcycle is not necessarily factual, true or anything else for that matter. I do hope it is interesting, and fun to read.

In Closing
For anyone who was interested, About Speedingmotorcycle.org V1.0 is gone, but V2.0 is here.

*UPDATE - 2005-04-21: Speedingmotorcycle was powered by Movable Type and hosted by Your-Site, but this site is not.
**Which reminds me, the motorcycle image at the top of these pages is not mine, but I don’t remember where I got it (other than that I went to Google Images and searched). So, if its yours, and you want it back, or don’t want me to use it, or whatever, just let me know and I’ll stop.

February 3, 2004 10:14 AM

The US Men’s U-23 Soccer Team starts their bid for the Olympics today. Of course, if you live in the US, you will likely not find the game on TV.

Instead, we will rely on the Internet to bring the games to us: US Men’s U-23 Team Coverage and US Women’s Team Coverage from the USSoccer.com site. There is even a MatchTracker service (powered by Philips), but I couldn’t find a way to link to it.

Thanks to The Sports Frog for reminding me.

UPDATE: The US won 4-3, but not without a second-half struggle.

Since before I was in high school, The Mill has been a fixture in my life. And now, without so much as a farewell weekend, the last one has closed its doors.

When I was younger, it was all about the good food. As I grew older, it became more a place for my friends and I to hang out. In high school, that was where all events began and ended. Often, The Mill was the evening. Later, in college, it was where everyone went during school breaks. There really was no better place in town to see old friends.

Now, some twenty years or so after they began, the last Mill has closed… Though the concept seemed like a sure thing, I would hear of one closing after another. Even the (original) one’s in my hometown didn’t make it. After reading the article, it sounds like poor managment to me, but what the hell do I know?

For some reason, someone in my office building has decided that he or she prefers that we all use the revolving doors to enter and exit the building. Never mind that there are two perfectly good regular doors beside each revolving door, one of which is an automatic-double-wide, even. There are signs posted: “Please Use Revolving Doors.”

As an aside, I cannot see the reasoning behind such a decision: there cannot be much of a money savings from utilities (and those fancy revolving doors are sure to cost more that regular old doors, even the automatic-double-wide ones), you are actually forcing people to be slower about getting to and from their destination (we could be quicker to our desk if we went into two doors instead of one).

Now, I have done a bit of research, and understand that there are reasons for using revolving doors, that they can cut down on cost and all that, depending on how they are set up. To my untrained eye, ours do not seem to be all that beneficial. But that’s really not the point.

One of the revolving doors is the setting: Back in December, I was leaving to go home for lunch, and dutifully made my way to the revolving door. The lobby is abuzz with noise, people coming and going and the buzzing of elevators and security systems.

Behind me I hear a man talking to one of the guards about a delivery at the same time I see a woman carrying flowers in through the automatic-double-wide door.

We smile.

My hand reaches out to push the revolving door, and I enter my door-pocket, leaving the building.

The door stops.

I bump against the door frame in front of me and begin to rebound.

A voice, the same one I heard moments ago talking to the security guard, speaks in my ear: “Uh, sorry. I took the wrong door.”

The wrong door. The silly man followed me into the same door pocket, instead of waiting for his own. Some people just can’t stand to be left behind. He shuffles his feet and the door moves forward.

Stepping out, I glance his way (he is smiling foolishly, I think at himself, and looks almost exactly like Will Farrell). That makes the situation even more comical.

Maybe we should post new signs: “Please Use Revolving Doors, One Person Per Pocket.”