Don't See"The Lorax"

 My son's martial arts studio (Z-Ultimate), which teaches shaolin kempo, used to be around the corner from our house in Dublin, CA.  They've recently relocated to San Ramon.

His instructor was looking to have the studio's website come up in response to a query for Martial Arts San Ramon.  It's not that he wants it to improve in the rankings...he wants it listed, at all.  I figured one link from my website might accomplish that.

But if you're looking for self-defense or martial arts instruction, I think they're pretty good, and can recommend them.

 I listen to the radio, a lot. And every once in a while, I'll hear a song in which the music is tolerable, or cute, or even nice to hear.  But the lyrics piss me off. And that's when I play a game...by changing only one or two phrases, or a title, make the lyrics work for me.

Here are a couple of examples:

1) Train has a new song called "Drive-By", which, in addition to being a tasteless use of gang warfare lingo to describe his romantic modus operandi, seems wrong at it's core.  The protagonist is trying to convince a woman to give him a chance at a long-term relationship, even though he's been a fleety guy with women, in the past.  He attempts to convince her:  "This is not a drive-by".  Baby, that one-night-stand we had?  That was some mind-blowing sex---so good that I didn't leave immediately afterwards.  Do you know how great that is?  Let me compare my love for you to a garbage-liner.  Convinced?  It's not like I'm going on a mobile killing spree!

You can see that this makes no sense.  It's unlikely to be persuasive.  But change the title (and chorus) from "Drive-By" to the (obviously untrue) "Drunk Dial".  Viola...it makes sense now, yes?

 As I was seeing that Leo and John did it again, I thought back to how many niches and specialties and facilitators there are serving e-commerce.

A little Internet searching, and I found that Wired Magazine had already had the same thought...

In the title games I again split straight up and the 1-1 mark left me 6-4 for the playoffs which hurts. However, I was perfect against Vegas for the second time in the playoffs. My 2-0 mark against the spread left me a wicked 9-1 and the 2-0 on the over/under put me at 8-2. On the total season I am now 175-84 straight up, 133-128-5 against the spread and 155-106-4 on the over/under. 

I maintain that, while I seem immune to the "babies are cute" bug, and while I used to cringe at the uselessness of being told my  kid's cute [I get it...he looks like his mother...], it is a scientifically-verifiable fact that, when sleeping, babies are cute.

(At the very least, when sleeping *on* someone, babies are adorable)

 I thought I published this, once before, but it appears to be lost...a listing of the 100 greatest English-language novels of the 20th century.

Below the fold, my record...  (I've bolded those that I've read..., and underlined those that I'd never even heard of)

 Last week I was pretty average, but because I built up a cushion in the wild card round my playoff totals should be pretty good. I was 2-2 straight up (5-3 in playoffs) and 3-1 against the spread (7-1) with a 2-2 mark against the over/under (6-2). Overall I'm not 174-83 straight up, 131-128-5 against the spread and 153-106-4 against the over/under. 

 Here at Small.to, some of us love a good conspiracy theory, so much so that we actively try to build them.

(Ok, maybe it's just me.)

That said, I have to tell you about one I spun, regarding the Giants/Packers game, before the game, that's seemed somewhat prescient.

I said, "hey, the betting is all awry on that game.  2/3 of the bets are being placed on the Giants, despite the fact that the Packers are favored by >7 points."

 It's nice to be perfect. Well, almost perfect. I was 3-1 straight up (172-81 overall) while going 4-0 against the spread (128-127-5 overall) and 4-0 on the over/under (151-104-4 overall). I don't recall ever going 8-0 versus Vegas in any playoff weekend so that was cool.