Chicks, man

Editor's note: Oh, I only pray that you can actually see this news brief for yourself. I need proof, I tell ya, because it's just such an odd little item, it would be easy to understand if you thought I were making it up.

But I'm not. Fact is, I'm not that clever; I just dabble at it often enough that I come off as more than a rank amateur.

* * *

Dateline Pittsburgh, Pa.: Locally based retailer Dick's Sporting Goods has made a new foray into the California market with the acquisition of a West Coast-based sporting goods retailer. Please read for yourself this blurb that appeared today on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's website:

Business news briefs

Tuesday, November 27, 2007
From staff and wire reports

Dick's expanding in California

Dick's Sporting Goods Inc. said yesterday it had agreed to acquire Chick's Sporting Goods, a privately held company, for about $40 million in cash. Dick's also will assume about $31 million in Chick's debt. Chick's operates 15 specialty sporting goods stores in Southern California and had sales of more than $120 million for the fiscal year ended June 30. Two additional store leases have been signed and those stores will open as Dick's stores in 2008 and 2009. Dick's said it expected the deal to be "marginally" helpful to earnings in fiscal 2008.

There is just so much wrong--and so much so right--with this news brief.

Firstly, of course, the headline. Perhaps it's a bit of a reach on my part, or maybe I'm officially a total perv, but is anyone else struck, mmm, curious by that headline--"Dick's expanding in California"? It seems like a subliminal attempt to make an otherwise unsexy news item appear a bit more hubba-hubba.

Still, I guess the writer could've gone for broke with something more suggestive. Such as . . .

"Dick's bones up on California market"

Or even the simpler,

"Dick's erects new business out West"

Which has the charm of being both beautiful and true.

But is this really that unsexy of a blurb? After all, if you read deeper, you will see that this little news gem offers up a treasure trove of potentially blue diamond-value headlines.

Because the second thing you need to pay attention to is which chain Dick californicated with: a retail operation called Chick's.

Thus, we have the potentiality of an eye-popping, attention-grabbing headline like so:

"Chick's with Dick's"

Too true, it's the perfect sales pitch to the trannie jogger among us, but otherwise, perhaps not quite the niche marketing catchphrase ol' Dick was hankering for.

And now we all understand fully why my career as a cub reporter fresh out of college was kept to a mercifully brief six months.

You're welcome, Mr. Pulitzer.

But(t) officer . . .

Don't tease me, bro, especially with this sort of "Things that Make You Go Hmmmm" piece of tale--

Quebec police look into rookie butt-slapping ritual: Police union concerned investigation over "childish" tradition will tarnish force

Last Updated: Friday, November 23, 2007 4:20 PM ET

CBC News

A "juvenile" but time-honoured Quebec police rookie initiation rite that starts with booze and ends with a firm slap on the derrière is the focus of a criminal investigation following hazing complaints.

Montreal police have been asked to investigate allegations of wrongdoing in an initiation tradition practised within the Quebec city force for more than half a century.

The ritual starts with rounds of beer, then moves to a "weigh-in" involving older officers holding new recruits down on their backs, while others bet on their weight. The game ends with a slap on the behind.

"It's childish, it's juvenile, but it's a tradition," explained Sébastien Talbot, a spokesman for the Quebec City police brotherhood. "It's always strange when you, out of context, have to explain an initiation to somebody."

I'll say. But even in context the story is still mighty strange.

I mean, honestly, imagine for a moment that you are a police officer, a male member of one of the toughest and most virile of professions a man could choose. You come home late one evening from work, exhausted, a little tipsy, your hands chapped and callused. The missus clucks sympathetically, puts her arm around you and draws you into an embrace. "How was your day, dear?" she asks comfortingly.

And the best you can say by way of explanation is . . .

"Well, we broke in some new recruits. Honey, you can't fathom how many men I laid down on top of today. Had to wrestle each and everyone of 'em to the ground, straddle 'em, pin them to the floor, all the while the other guys stood around watching and yelling out catcalls and bets. I felt like I was in the middle of a cockfight. And then when that was over, we lined up all the newbies, made 'em drop trou', bend over, and then each took turns slapping them firmly but lovingly on their bare, young, nubile asses. 'Thank you, sir, may I have another?!' Ha! I tell ya, it was brutal! But I'll be back in the thick of it again tomorrow. 'Cause that's just the kind of dedicated cop I am. Always up for cracking a case, even when the crack belongs to one of my fellow officers."

At this point, I think your wife might suggest that your career has finally hit bottom. (Bare bottom or rock bottom, you decide.) I also think she might recommend you get yourself down to the local queer bar for some advice and comfort, while she sits down to watch a very special episode of Oprah entitled "The Thin Blue Vertical Line: The Lowdown on Police Officers on the Downlow."

Starring you, of course.

* * *

For posterior's sake, the full story is archived here.

Coffee, tea, or a millenary event so devastating in its impact that no lifeforms and no Starbucks remain

I should have known I was in for a significant head cold this week. That funny feeling I got mid-day on Monday was my first clue--that weird somethin'-somethin' in my head and my sinuses that tells me things are not quite right, that something in my system is amiss and awry.

So I acted accordingly, heading to the local Giant Eagle after work. (Such a charming, comforting name for a supermarket. Whenever I think about paying a visit to Pittsburgh's sole major grocery store chain, I am haunted by the image of a enormous bird pursuing me as I make my way across the parking lot with my purchases, swooping down and picking off bags of groceries from my cart, just because he can, bad-ass eagle that he is.) There I stocked up on life's cold and flu necessities--soup, soda crackers, and juice, along with matzo meal, chicken stock, risotto, fresh-cut pineapple, and the latest issues of Star, The Weekly World News, and The National Inquirer. I believe it's important to keep up one's mental strength, as well as physical strength, during a time of illness and convalescence.

But the one thing I forgot--OK, two things--are so essential to my survival that I feel as if I waterboarded myself into submission to the more powerful cold germs.

I didn't buy any coffee. And I didn't buy any creamer.

For some, forgetting coffee and creamer would be "inconvenience items," also-rans on the shopping list, an oh-I'll-get-it-next-time-I'm-at-the-store lapses. Take or leave. Give or take. Shrug shrug. La di dah.

But for others, such as myself, forgetting to buy coffee and creamer at the supermarket is akin to a jetsetting junkie leaving behind his moneyclip full of cash on a buying spree in the poppy markets of Afghanistan. It's like an alcoholic boarding a 14-hour trans-oceanic flight and only bothering to order Tab and Fresca when the beverage service comes around--and not even sneaking into the galley to drain all the miniature bottles of gin and vodka somewhere over Guam. It's like Larry Craig going to a men's room without a shopping bag.

In other words, it's a world gone totally, utterly cattywampus. Admittedly, the people who promulgated the treaties we now know as the Geneva Conventions might not call it torture (and most assuredly the White House wouldn't), but I suspect the folks behind the Gevalia Conventions would feel very differently.

I don't consider myself to be a person with an addictive personality. Obsessive, oh yes. Haven't I testified enough to that fact in these bits and bytes? But addictive, no, not really. Coffee, along with buying music online by obscure acts in countries other than the U.S., and playing The Sims (and now The Sims 2) until all hours of the night would be as Betty Ford as it gets for me. Nonetheless, the whimsy of this list aside, my forgetting to buy coffee should not be taken lightly. Coffee is serious business. It's a part of my morning routine, as innate as the first whiz of the day, brushing my teeth and dribbling toothpaste down the front of my shirt, and my being late for work. Coffee first thing in the morning is perhaps me at my Italian-roasted, espresso-ground, French-pressed essence.

The funny thing is, though, I did remember to buy coffee for my colleagues at work. Two bags of ground Peet's, French roast and Major Dickason's blend, which should get the three of us through the next week or so. (We've all got that coffee monkey on our backs where I now work.) Even stranger is the fact that I didn't really want to drink any coffee this week. It didn't taste right, and it smelled worse. All I craved this week was--e-freakin'-gad!--hot tea, and not even my usual favored, flavored rooibus or the hard-bitten, macho-man-of-the-Pampas maté, just a plain, simple, and throat-soothing lemon and ginger.

*Shiver*

What is to become of me now? Instead of my usual over-caffeinated, devil-may-care, brightly-colored-clothing, and laughing-too-loud-in-public personality, will I now be reduced to trolling the streets of Pittsburgh in Blackspot shoes and earth-toned hemp clothing, quietly asking for a soothing cup of green tea, no sugar, please? Will I drench myself in essential oils, don a puka-shell necklace, and be seen teaching a bandana-wearing golden retriever named Freedom how to play Ultimate Frisbee? Will I now always insist on unbleached and earth-friendly, fair-trade and gluten-free, organic and biodegradable, no matter what I'm ordering or purchasing? ("Do you have any options other than window or aisle seating? Maybe something in the lactose-, growth-hormone-, and cruelty-free section of the plane?")

I'm so afraid . . . so very, very afraid . . . .

Not to mention a little groggy, not the least bit jittery, and only slightly less angst-ridden than normal.

Quite rightly

It was bound to happen, and it finally did this week: My whirlwind, madcap existence on the highways and biways of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Bedford Springs, Harrisburg, State College, Harrisburg . . .) caught up with me and waylaid me with a "champeen" head cold.

I'll spare you the gories, which really weren't all that gory, but I do love to whine when I'm feeling low. Instead I'll share with you these "mellow yellow" photos I took from my living room while convalescing on my sofa, sniffling (and possibly sniveling) into Kleenexes, slurping chicken matzo ball soup (from an old Southern recipe, I can assure you), and counting the number of residents of Llanview who have suddenly ended up in Paris, Texas, for the reading of Asa Buchanan's will. (I'm channeling the universe of One Life to Live, just so you know. And, for the record, we're up to 18 residents so far--19 if you count Jessica's "alter" Tess and 21 if you count Viki's.)

No, mellow yellow isn't the color of the contents of my sinus passages, thankfully, nor my complexion from having become all jaundicy orange by chewing too many vitamin C tablets during my recent infirmity. Instead, the phrase captures my little corner of Pittsburgh right now, which seems to be experiencing a very late fall this year, with the leaves on my neighborhood's trees hanging onto their branches and their peak color. Even while the season's first flakes of snow fall around us.

I'd like to say I have enjoyed the fall, but I've barely been in town the last month or so, and I'm off again on Sunday, this time to Kansas for a Thanksgiving with family. But I didn't want to let the season slip by completely without capturing a little of the color on camera. Because the first steady rain or windy day will blow it all away in a snap. And then those of us in Cold Country will be left with nothing more than gritting through chattering teeth serious death threats in the direction of Punxsutawney Phil. He better not dare see his shadow on Groundhog Day, we'll mutter. No freakin' way he better promise us an additional six weeks of winter, we'll curse. 'Cause seasonal affective disorder payback is a mutha, Phil.

And, really, the season is just too splendid to mess it up by having groundhog blood on one's hands.