Fark provides a link to this story about the FBI's real-life X Files. As you might imagine, they're filled with all kinds of fun stuff. My favorite: One letter-writer informed Hoover's Boys of the following:

People such as Steven Spielberg, Kate Capshaw, Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Harry Anderson, Richard Starkey, Rod Stewart, Rachel Hunter, Tom Petty, George Lucas, Jack Nicholson, Natalie Merchant, Sting, Sheryl Crow, Michael Eisner, Amy Grant, Will Clark, Troy Aikman, Zack, Patrick Swayze and wife, Bob Dylan, Woody Harrelson, Al Franken, Rosie O'Donnell, Ivana Trump, some members of the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd . . . have watched me in the privacy of my own home off and on for several years

When you're being tracked by Harry Anderson, you know things can't be going well.

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So the study was too cramped and the cat kept bothering me. So I moved to the next room. I took my laptop with me. And I stayed connected to the 'Net the whole time.

Tee hee. Tee hee hee hee.

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I wrote this, and I'm posting this, off Mandingo, my new laptop. It's soooo pretty and sexy. I will keep it close. I will nurse it on long nights. And if it's ever kidnapped from me, I will offer my wife in exchange.

Where, exactly, am I? Glad you asked. I'm in SoHo, working off someone's wireless network. In a second, I'm going to check my work e-mail to make sure my boss isn't looking for me. Cuz, see, I'm not at work.

Sweet.

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May your body expel the half-digested turkey before the salmonella kicks in.

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Pardon the shifting comment links. I'm tinkering with the design. Why? I'm fucking bored. Is anybody at work today?

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I have to apologize for the Jayhawks playing poorly at the end of the first and second halves yesterday. It all had to do with my proximity to the television. When I was 20+ feet away, the Jayhawks were running and gunning, but once I moved within 20 feet, they started turning the ball over and let MSU go on runs. My thoughts on the game:

• OK, we will never again hear that the Jayhawks are "soft."
  
• Outside shooting looks suspect right now, but I'll let this team find its rhythm before I start worrying about it.
  
• Whoa, the D looks intense.
  
• Wayne Simien is f'in great.
  
• The most impressive part about this win? The fact that it's pretty obvious that Self and the team are still working on their chemistry. Here's what we know: Simiem, Miles and Langford will play a lot of minutes. What we don't know (and what Self and the team don't know, either) is exactly how the other players will fit in around those three. Once roles, game tempo and substitution patterns are established, this team will be even more impressive.

OK, I am super pumped.

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We're a pretty anti-gun household over here at Norlos.com. I don't know why anyone would want a handgun in his home. If I had kids, I wouldn't let them play at homes where people own handguns. Then again, I'd likely keep my kids chained in the backyard all day, so maybe I'm a bad example.

Still, I understand that some people have guns for legitimate uses. Hunting, for example. Hunting helps keep thin the population of critters that would otherwise take over because we've killed off all their natural predators. And we grow lots of tasty grass and throw away yummy food, both of which feed the populations. I'm also sympathetic to people who live way out in the country with no police protection. I lived like that myself as a kid. The nearest law enforcement was half an hour down the highway to the sheriff's outpost office. We also didn't have a phone. If trouble broke out, we were on our own. Nothing ever happened, of course, but I think my dad rested easy with the fact that his cheap Montgomery Ward-band 12 gauge was around, even if it was buried underneath a closet's forgotten detritus.

The back and forth over Geuda Springs reminded me of My Most Excellent Gun Plan. I think it's the wisest, sanest answer to the both the problem of guns and to legitimate fears that an all-out prohibition wouldn't be in everybody's best interest. It course has fuck's chance of ever becoming law. Still, a man can dream.

Outlaw handguns -- Simple enough. Posession, sale or manufacture of any firearm that isn't a rifle or shotgun would become illegal. Why? Rifles and shotguns have purposes other than that of killing people. Handguns don't. While I'm perfectly aware that some people do hunt with handguns, they're a very small group. Handguns are responsible for multiple times more deaths than other firearms, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. It makes sense it me. It's hard to look incognito and harmless when you're toting a 30-30 down Broadway. But nobody can see your 9mm Glock.

I can already hear the argument -- "But Carlos, you'll never get the guns off the street, even if you outlaw them!" To which I reply:

Outlaw handgun-caliber ammunition -- The manufacturing, posession or sale of handgun-caliber ammo would become illegal. Guns are forever. Ammo ain't. In fact, this second tenant of My Most Excellent Gun Plan is probably the most important.

Some kinds of ammo fit in both. Well, tough luck, .22 rifle owners. But you have plenty of alternatives.

Outlaw shortening of barrels -- Think you're clever in getting around the law by totin' the ol' sawed-off to your next liquor-store bust? Forget it, pal. Sale, posession, you know the drill.

Ownership of non-covered weapons would be perfectly legal -- This, to my mind, eliminates the "home invasion" argument. It's one of my favorites. According to the gun lobby, millions of Americans each year deter nefarious criminals breaking into their homes to take their PlayStations and rape their wives. The numbers are suspect, but hey! Let's take them at face value. Under My Most Excellent Gun Plan, there's still a very good chance that the average home as a gun in it. It might be a shotgun or a rifle, but you know what? Either will do in a pinch if you need to blow someone's head off. In the privacy of a home concealability isn't a necessity. What makes handguns so terrible is the ease in which people can take them surreptitiously from place to place. In a home, it's much less of a factor.

Would people still get killed by guns? Yes, they would. Gun-law opponents always raise the point that people will still get killed. And they're right. Under My Most Excellent Gun Plan, enough rifles and shotguns will still be in the mix to make firearms a leading killer of fellow Americans. Plus, people will still defy the law.

The point is not to eliminate deaths. The point is to reduce them. And at an annual average of more than 10,000 people killed by handguns in the 1990s, again according to our friends at BJS (PDF file), there plenty of room for improvement.

And for you self-defensers out there, this likely means the 0.7% of crime victims who say they used a gun in self defense will fall. But since rifles and shotguns are still out there, it won't fall much. I argue that the payoff in dropped handguns deaths would outweigh the fall in self-defense claims.

And for those of you who believe more innocent people will die, because only criminals will have handguns? See the aforementioned ammo provision -- it would be a rich criminal who could afford to buy six .44 rounds on the black market. I'm sure they'll be out there, but they'll have a tougher time getting it done.

There. I've said my piece, no pun intended. Why? I dunno. Somebody will wave the flag and call me a Communist and people will retreat into their basements and caress their guns and I'll be voted out of office and My Most Excellent Gun Plan will die a quick death. Of course, the whole blowjob scandal will have long since dethroned President Carlos.

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• When I saw this AP photo of Nino Burdzhanadze, I thought at first the new leader of Georgia might be a transvestite. It appears that she is a woman, however.
• With one letter for each sound and one sound for each letter, the Georgian alphabet is one of the few alphabets in the world to be considered phonemically perfect.
• In November of 2000, Robert D. Kaplan had an interesting article in The Atlantic Monthly about Georgia titled "Where Europe Vanishes".

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Apparently, the tiny town of Geuda Springs has adopted a new law requiring itís residence to own a firearm and ammunition. You can easily find some common statistics of Geuda Springs (pop. 212).
This is an interesting one:
RACE AND ETHNICITY
Number Pct Pct
White 209 98.6
Black or African American 0 0.0
Indian and Alaska native 1 0.5
Asian 0 0.0
Pacific islander 0 0.0
Some other race 0 0.0
Two or more races 2 0.9
Hispanic or Latino 4 1.9

Do you believe John Brewer, the city council member Geuda Springs, who says it is necessary for the protection of the citizens, or do you believe as I, who think it is due to the encroaching Hispanic and Latino population--or are they the same thing?
Geuda Springs is ìIndianî for healing waters.

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• Why's the raised by wolves meme so popular in commercials right now? (scroll down)

• I like this guy. Lots of people are noticing him. See him in a Castrol commercial here.

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Gordon Parks, the first African-American to work as a photographer for the Office of War Information and the Farm Security Administration, was born in Fort Scott, KS. In addition to his work as a photographer, Parks is also the author of twelve books and the composer of symphonies, sonatas, concertos and a ballet of based on the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Don't confuse Gordon Parks with the director of Superfly, Gordon Parks, Jr., however. Gordon Parks, Jr. is his son. The senior Gordon Parks only wrote, directed and composed the score for movies like Shaft and Shaft's Big Score!.

Troma girl Lisa Gaye is a a fan of Gordon, too.

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Previously, the New York Post noted that my local ice cream guy is a terrorist. But hold the phone, Mabel. Turns out the place changed hands relatively recently. Now it's owned by a guy named Tom, who hasn't enjoyed the sudden attention (PDF file). Think I should go buy a scoop of Rocky Road in sympathy?

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On Saturday mornings, when I've had too much to drink the night before but my body insists I get up at 6 a.m. as usual, I go back to the blog and restore the names to all the posts. Hellx noticed the other day all posts before the date of my Web provider switch now are attributed to me. In the eternal guts of the blog software, your posts have "none" in the name field. Why it lists my name, I dunno.

So I'm back in March and I come across this post. I can't remember who posted it. But whoever you are, you have to have a sense of humor about it.

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Does anybody out there use an RSS reader? I don't offer a feed, but I would if you folks cared.

How large was David Padgett last night? Eat some more red meat and potatoes, kid, and you're going places.

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I want to ask the Norlos crowd for a little advice. I've been using espn.com as my main source for sports news and info for years now. It was my site of choice since back when it was the only choice out there, back when there was a "Letters to the Editor" section that people actually read. Now, however, it's all Disney-fied, with Shockwave Flash, popup ads, and so much animated crap and fancy HTML that about half the time I can't even read the articles any more because I'm either too distracted or they're just plain broken in my web browser. Every time I go to the site and see, in the bottom status bar, "Redline Networks Densitron active", I cringe. Then I check the URL at the top and my original URL (espn.go.com), which was already a bad change from the old www.espn.com because go.com is a Disney-owned web... thingamajig (no idea what it's for, some kind of portal/hosting/whatsit), has now become http://msn.espn.go.com/. Just when I had thought it couldn't get any worse, it now says "msn" at the front of it. (sigh)

So my question is: What site should I be using instead? I'm ready for a change. I'm hoping for a site that has more sports than it has crap. I want a site where I can follow KU basketball - I read the local paper for all the exhaustive news coverage on every game, but I like to know what the national press thinks of us Kansans too. I like to keep an occasional eye on the former KU players who've gone pro (long as they aren't injured - is it a curse, or what?). God help me, I even like to watch NFL football. Aside from that, I like to stay up to date on the big, general sports news. Knowing that they're gonna start testing for steroids in the major leagues next year. Whatever miscellaneous stories are making the sports headlines this week. That stuff.

Anyone have any recommendations? Is there a decent one-stop-shopping site for all this that isn't owned by Disney, in bed with Microsoft, and overloaded with pointless multimedia crapola?

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From today's Journal World:

"Good news: Fans around the country received good news Thursday when ESPN announced it would carry all of the Jayhawk Network games as part of its Full Court package.

The pay-per-view package includes tonight's season opener and 12 other games, including KU's Dec. 6 meeting with Stanford in the Wooden Classic, and both of KU's games in the Wolfpack Classic Dec. 20-21 in Reno, Nev."

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It's important that I say this.

• I don't care about Paris Hilton
• I don't care about Tina Brown
• I don't care about Ben Affleck

I do, strangely, care about Michael Jackson.

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Otherwise, I'd have to spend time on real time wasters.

I'm on Level 20. I've solved each on in a few minutes at most, but Level 18 blew my mind. Had to Google a solution, and I now realize I'm a fucking idiot for not seeing it the first time.

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There's a thread over at Phog.net about when KU fans started doing the Rock Chalk Chant at the end of games. My belief is that we started doing the chant at the end of games at somepoint during the early to mid nineties. Others claim that we've always done it at the end of games. What do you all think?

Here's cool footage of the chant and the alma mater at Late Night.

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I don't think this (scroll to the bottom) says anything grand or encompassing about the news business. Classify it as One Of Those Weird Things.

Memo to all you guys: As good friends as we are, if you lose a gonad, I ain't giving one up in sympathy. Forget it.

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Exhibit A in my explanation for why young people don't read newspapers.

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The city slogan for Henry, Ill, population 2,591, is "The Best Town in Illinois by a Dam Site".

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NPR ran a segment on this article in Foreign Affairs Magazine today. I think the article is worth reading.

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I found this to be an interesting follow up to a previous Norlos thread. I'm not sure I can explain it, but this seemed like an interesting adjunct. Maybe it is a different reflection on how the concept of powerlessness in psychology and human behavior is paradoxical, but can be valuable to understanding responsibility.

For NYT article, user and password = norlos

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The ever-reliable New York Post, my favorite newspaper in the world after the Concordia Blade-Empire, reports that terrorists sell ice cream in my neighborhood. To think the only fear I had of the place before was that it would make my ass fat.

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I had always assumed that the classic Milwaukee Brewers logo was a baseball in a mitt. It was only recently that somebody pointed out to me that the mitt doesn't have the right number of fingers. The logo is actually a stylized "M" and "b." It's a brilliant design and one that I think the Brewers should go back to.

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The Kansas soccer team beat Missouri to advance to the Sweet 16 yesterday. The Kansas player in the photo is Maggie Mason, a senior defender who's majoring in communication studies. My mom's a big fan of Maggie.

Mark Francis has turned KU into a force to be reckoned with in Big 12 soccer. Maybe he's read Leading at the Edge: Leadership Lessons from the Extraordinary Saga of Shackleton's Antarctic Expedition. Leading at the Edge uses examples from Ernest Shackleton's trans-antarctic expedition to "reveal a powerful set of strategies for corporate leaders." While Shackleton and his men were stranded in the frozen sea for nearly two years, they endured extreme temperatures, hazardous ice, dwindling food, complete isolation, and perpetual blackness. We're basically talking about your average workday. Well, your average workday if you happen to be an orphan in a Dickens novel.

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Brass band porn.

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A few of things to watch for in Gus Van Sant's new movie.

• We see a scene early on involving three characters. We see it from the perspective of one character. Later in the movie, we see it again, from another character's perspective. Then, even later, we see it again from the perspective of the third. This scene isn't necessary for the plot even the first time. It represents something a bit different: Each one of these people was a life that crossed another's, however briefly and randomly.
• Music flows in and out. Eli, the photographer, walks through the school with jazz playing in his head. It cuts out when he greets a friend. Then it's back on, keeping him from the rest of the students flowing around him.
• Near the end, as Eric hears a noise down the hall and walks into the camera's focus, he looks at first like one of the black, anonymous videogame figures his accomplice Alex kills on a laptop. As he comes into focus, we hear birds.
• Most of the characters carry the first names of the actors who play them.
• This movie feels a lot more violent than anything else I've seen in a while. And a few weeks ago, I saw "Kill Bill." It helps -- if that's the word -- when you know the characters.

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This long post over at one of my favorite weblogs, Fuck That Job, is worth the read. No phrase in the English language gives the shivers like "affiliate sales."

Well, maybe "explosive dysentery."

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My turn to stoke the fire:

Whom are you Democrats going to elect in the primary who can defeat the current administration? Please, please, tell me you've got this figured out, because it looks rather bleak from the Independant peanut gallery. Kerry and Gephardt are lagging, and Dean has gone far enough left to get ahead that he may have alienated the middle. Can CNN and the Clintons carry Clarke all the way to the White House?

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Check out the Safety Sign Builder over at St. Claire Inc.

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One in an extremely occasional series of reviews of books I get free from work. Some I skim. Sort of. And some, frankly, I don't. Like this one. I barely cracked this puppy.

God Save My Queen: A Tribute
by Daniel Nester

An unabashedly positive review for this modest little tome. Yes, little. No condescension intended. It measures four inches by four. You can take it anywhere. On a plane! On a train! Just be sure to show it to the fellow in the neighboring seat.

God Save My Queen gives a bit of prose for each song on each album made by hard rock wonders Queen. For example, this description of arranging his Queen vinyl on his bedroom carpet accompanies Bohemian Rhapsody:

I would then stand in front of this, drinking a wine cooler, as if I were Noah in the Ten Commandments movie, congratulating myself, clasping my arms behind my back, as if this was my ark, my own creation: that I had, as if my sheer accumulation and arrangement of these objects, some part in creating them.

Powerful stuff.

Then this, to Execution of Flash/The Kiss (Aura Resurrects Flash), from the Flash Gordon soundtrack:

Slid down a triad, a feeling, a husk, an actual emphatic moment -- a voice in the end, a voice, a voice in the uppers. Someone must die. The voices know that. We feel sadder than we're supposed to. And this confirmation lies where?

Check out more of Nester's work at Unpleasant Event Schedule, plus check out his blog. If it's anything like this book, I'm a devoted fan.

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No, we're not giving birth. We're looking over our original discussion of the invasion of Iraq. Norlos.com is a poor substitute for the Stephenson living room, but it does give us the benefit at looking back at our words. Anybody's opinions changed? Different? How?

Oh, and who posted this originally? I vote DoubleOh. It reads like him and doesn't have enough links to be Hellx or ThinMan. Its spelling looks largely up to snuff, and that rules out Jebus.

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Somebody recently visited Norlos.com after Googling the following:

Hinrich fucks Miles in the ass.

I don't think the searcher got what he/she came for, since ThinMan took what I suspect was the sought-after photo off his server.

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Cherry Cayabyab of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum is unhappy that the Bonzai Asian Pub and Bistro is serving sushi on half-naked women. Two thoughts:

• Does anybody else think that the length of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum's name borders on the farcical?

• An anagram for Cherry Cayabyab is "Achy Ear Crybaby."

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Hey! my lil' latino friend. Sorry about your fortune in the jury. I would give you some law advice but we just started talking about venue today which means I haven't even entered a courtroom yet. - in other words I'm still a moron.

Anyway, I would suggest you watch the new Quentin Tarantino movie about 12 jury members who have the name carlos and they're really angry. I think it is called, "Twelve Angry Carloses," (check plural on Carlos) or "Carlos, Carlos, Carlos, Carlos, Carlos, Six Other Carloses, and Mr. Tejada: All a little mad and all a big deal hairy!!!" It has lots of kung-fu or "Tejada-fu" as I call it and I have a brief role as the heartwarming "Mr. Crabapple." The movie is 34 minutes long with a director's version of 458 hours to capture all of the character development between a little boy and his red ballon and a sub plot involving Clay and his sled "rosebud." Buddy Hackett does a grest job in this movie! I am not kidding!
Let me know when you are in Omaha so you can tell me about your adventure over beers.

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At home games in Ericsson Stadium, the Panthers PR staff choose one person to be the "Fan of the Game." Last Sunday, Panthers officials chose the Carolina Prowler. Everything was fine and dandy, until they gave the Prowler the microphone and he proceeded to taunt Simeon Rice and Warren Sapp.

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Two cool things about this release. One, the existence of Wildland Firefighter Magazine. Two, the existence of Firebomber Publications, quenching that unslakable thirst for firefighter fiction.

Novel Depicts New High-Tech Wildland Firefighting Force

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Firebomber Publications ( www.firebomberpublications.com ) today announced an exciting firefighting novel, "Firebombers Incorporated," by author Michael Archer. Firebombers Incorporated depicts spectacular wildland and suburban firefighting by a large, privately-owned, firefighting organization climaxing with a massive brushfire that threatens to destroy a foothill community east of Los Angeles.

ìFirebombers Incorporated keeps the reader in anticipation of what is to come,î declares The Nashville News. ìThe book is action packed and maintains a substantial level of suspense that keeps the reader glued to each page with anticipation of what is to come," states Wildland Firefighter Magazine.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Firebombers Incorporated depicts spectacular wildland and suburban firefighting by a large, privately-owned, firefighting organization. Ground forces include bulldozers, engine companies, and smokejumpers. The air wing consists of transport aircraft and air-tankers that use leading-edge electronics and computers to perform pinpoint air strikes, day or night. Founded by a diverse and dedicated group of firefighters, business leaders, engineers, and ex-military personnel, it becomes the most advanced organization of its kind anywhere in the world. By melding together proven firefighting techniques with the latest in electronics, computers, and space- age materials, an elite, hard-hitting force is created that can fly all of its personnel and equipment to a fire anywhere in the Western U.S. within a matter of hours. The story reaches its climax with a massive brushfire that threatens to destroy a foothill community east of Los Angeles and the residents trapped inside...

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Firebomber Publications is a small press dedicated to providing exciting firefighting fiction to the general public. More information: http://www.firebomberpublications.com

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A common statement regarding public sector jobs is that while the salary may not be the best, the fringe benefits are great. It's true. Nearly every morning when I cram myself into an elevator with my fellow public servants, I can say to myself, "I am indisputably the most attractive and stylish person on this elevator." It's a great ego boost.

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Can the collective knowledge of the public predict future events? I'm starting to question the idea because of ESPN's Pigskin Pick'em. The goal of the game is simple: pick the winner of each NFL game for the week. ESPN's game has a pretty large sample size with 220,000, but as the season has progressed, the ability of the group to pick the winners correctly has declined. Here is the average number of correct picks to date: 8.5, 9.1, 8.8, 8.9, 8.0, 9.3, 7.2, 8.7, 6.9 and 6.7. I find it very interesting that, as people have gotten more information about how teams play, the ability of the public to choose winners correctly has decreased.

How am I doing? In the second week, when the average number of correct picks was 9.1, I picked just six winners correctly because the results of the first weekend imperfectly informed my picks. Since that time, when my ranking dropped into the 100,000+ range, I have slowly improved. Last week, I broke into the top five percent and this week I've moved into the top 10,000.

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