From a member of this blog: "I don't mean to be overdramatic, but if we lose this game I'm going to kill myself."

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Yesterday's high: 60 degrees and sunny

Right now: Wind chill of -3 and snowing

The National Weather Service tells the tale of the last 72 hours.

I know I should be used to this kind of thing by now, but it's still ridiculous.

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At the 14th Near-Annual Groundhog Party we'll be celebrating the start of the Year of the Rat and Mardi Gras, along with the coming of spring and the wonders of woodchucks.

Fun begins with jiao zi making at 6:30 Saturday at the home of Slug and Plantnerd.

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From the Associated Press:

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- The son of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is peddling a board game titled "Don’t Drop the Soap,” a prison-themed game he created as part of a class project at the Rhode Island School of Design.

John Sebelius, 23, has the backing of his mother and father, U.S. Magistrate Judge Gary Sebelius. The governor’s spokeswoman, Nicole Corcoran, said both parents “are very proud of their son John’s creativity and talent.”

John Sebelius is selling the game on his Internet site for $34.99, plus packaging, shipping and handling. The contact information on the Web site lists the address of the governor’s mansion. Corcoran said the address will change when John Sebelius moves.

The game also goes on sale starting Jan. 31 at a shop called Hobbs in the college town of Lawrence.

“Fight your way through 6 different exciting locations in hopes of being granted parole,” the site says. “Escape prison riots in The Yard, slip glass into a mob boss’ lasagna in the Cafeteria, steal painkillers from the nurse’s desk in the Infirmary.”

The game includes five tokens representing a bag of cocaine, a handgun and three characters: wheelchair-using ‘Wheelz,” muscle-flexing “Anferny” and business suit-clad “Sal ‘the Butcher.'"

Corcoran said John Sebelius sought legal advice to be sure he followed proper requirements, and he even took out a loan to pay for the production of his work.

“This game is intended for mature audiences -- not children -- and is simply intended for entertainment,” Corcoran said.

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The Atlantic from July/August has a little piece about how, even though we're destroying more coca and cocaine, prices for coacaine in the US have been falling. In 1999, global illicit drug market was estimated to be $13 billion at the production level and $94 billion at the wholesale level.

In 2003, the federal government spent $19 billion on the war on drugs and, so far this year, state and federal governments have spent this much. If we're not going to decriminalize drugs, why not use this money to buy coca and poppies to drive up prices for the raw products?

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Discovery has a little article about research being done on the quotative like, a bit of speech that I, like, totally love. The best part: one of the researchers is named Bambi Schiefflin. How appropriate!

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Content from The Atlantic no longer requires a subscription. I'm happy about that and the fact that after reading this review I no longer feel as badly about hating Dennis Johnson's Tree of Smoke.

I heartily recommend his collection of short stories Jesus' Son, though.

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When I saw the front page of the Post today, I had to laugh at the paper's gullibility. Given the fact that Belichick is an evil genius, does anyone truly think that Brady just happened to visit his girlfriend in New York wearing a walking boot?

My prediction for the Super Bowl: Brady stages a "miraculous" recovery and shocks the Giants for 500 yards on 45 of 49 passing.

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The NY Times has an evergreen story today about fat acceptance. A major focus of the story is the rise of a plus-size blogging community called the "fatosphere."

Now, I firmly believe that if people want to be fat pigs, then that is their right. However, they need to recognize that as a result of their lifestyle choice they should not expect to do certain things like fly commercial.

On my flight to Miami, I was seated next to a man who was so obese that his fat flowed over the armrest and into my space. I am somebody who actually finds airline seats rather comfortable, but for three and a half hours I was crunched into one corner of my seat by this guy. His obesity had a direct and negative effect on my quality of life. I can't smoke on airplanes because that would negatively affect other people; why can fat people fly?

I'm still pissed off at that guy.

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When I saw this written in chalk at the corner of 65th street and Amsterdam, I vowed I wouldn't see Cloverfield since I hate "viral" marketing like this. Just because you write an ad in chalk, doesn't mean it's a viral advertisement. Amazingly, though, the reviews aren't too bad. I might check it out in spite of the annoying marketing.

Even though that corner has relatively little foot traffic, I suppose it's no accident that that tag ended up there since it's a popular hangout for kids from LaGuardia High.

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I'm a man now: I got my wizzies out! When my dentist said I had the best "enamel and tooth structure he's ever seen" I believed him. But after he was done and said "you must have a high threshold for pain" I realized he was just telling me what I wanted to hear so I wouldn't faint.

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Sara Paretsky's latest novel is set near Lawrence and sounds like a modern retelling of the 1850s war.

She talks to the LJW, and takes credit for winning the Orange Bowl.

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Over lunch I strolled over to 43rd street to make dinner reservations at Sakagura, that you get to by walking through the lobby of a midtown office building and down some sketchy looking stairs.

As I was walking down 43rd street, I noticed this woman come out of an office building and make the sign of the cross. If it had been a church, I wouldn't have thought a thing about it, but an office building? When I reached the entrance that she had come out of, I had to laugh: it was 666 Third Avenue, aka the Chrysler Building East/Kent Building.

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I'm glad to learn that I'm totally unaware of new crypto-racist terms. Anybody, especially southern Norlosers, familiar with this?

Just let me say that I fucking hate racists...it's so much fun to laugh at Canadians, but now I'll have to worry about making it clear that I mean Canadian nationals.

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More when I get back from the road. Detroit in January -- catch the fever!

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Today I wanted some swingin' tunes to program by, so I surfed on over to The Retro Cocktail Hour homepage at Kansas Public Radio. Most of the shows at KPR offer weekly CD giveaways, so I checked the retro cocktail giveaway page and found an offering that made me think of the Norlos crowd:

Sabbath in the Suburbs, the lounge tribute to the songs of Ozzy Osbourne

So get out there and throw your name in the hat. While you're there, pour yourself a martini and check the archives.

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1. Priorities shall be (in order):
-Do not hurt Mrs. Soul
-Go for the interception

2. Mrs Soul's teeth hurt my nose, but not quite as much as Jebus' shoulder on the Stephenson basketball court, which could only be salved with hard liquor bought with scholarship funds.

3. I'll probably never have as cool a nickname as Joel "The Vanilla Gorilla" Przybilla.

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