The return of my big pen

Every so often I like to check in with my friends at yournovel.com, to see what new offerings they have in terms of personalized romance and detective novels. As you may recall, back in 2008 they put me and my wife Theresa in one, and I haven't been able to stop referring to my "baton" and my "big pen" ever since. Referring of course to ... a baton and a big pen. What? Oh, get your mind out of the gutter.

Anyway, they've got their usual interesting options in their ever-expanding repertoire, including:

• Vampire Rhapsody: "Humans unexpectedly encounter vampires." Isn't that always just how it happens?
• Paris Short Stories: "Ooh La La - 2 Short Stories set in Paris." And if there's not at least one reference to the main character's "Eiffel Tower," you can ask for your money back.
• Sandhills Fore-Play: "A golf-fantasy book." Why should Tiger have all the fun? Although if you're a true golfer, your fantasy will probably involve shooting six under par.

There's also a sequel to the detective novel I appeared in last time, and they were nice enough to send me my own personalized version. This one is called A Reunion to Die For, in which my wife (and fellow private detective) and I get snowed in at a hotel holding a class reunion, and there are crimes committed, and there are lots of scenes in hotel rooms with talk of stick shifts and tent pitching. In fact, bad double entendres must be the first thing they teach you in detective school.

I won't go into detail (a good detective doesn't kiss and tell, or any of the other things they describe me doing in this book and tell), but I will admit it's a kick. And in a detective novel, unlike in real life, like Frank Drebin I can shoot people without getting arrested.

COLUMN: Google is making us even more stupider

My son, who’s 8, recently asked me, “Dad, how does Google know everything?” I took this to mean that I’ve been entirely too transparent about the source of my vast fatherly knowledge.

At first I thought about responding the same way I do when my kids ask me where babies come from (“Do I look like a doctor?”), but instead I decided to try to explain about how Google’s advanced system of algorithms crawls a vast worldwide network of computer databases. Not that I knew that — I had to Google it.

The fact of that matter is, to the benefit of any parent ever asked by a child why the sky was blue (“Do I look like a meteorologist?”), we now live in an age where no question need remain unanswered. Remember back before the Internet, when you walked around for days trying to remember who sang that song about Oz never giving nothing to the Tin Man? How did we survive those dark times?

So you can imagine my surprise when I read recently that there are those who insist that Google, despite being an unfettered source for infinite information, is actually making us all stupid. This would explain A LOT.

According to analyst Nicholas Carr in the Atlantic Monthly, using Google-found tidbits to skim the Web is keeping us from the type of “focused reading” that sets off “intellectual vibrations,” essentially making us stupider. Of course, his theory seems predicated on a dubious premise, namely that before Google, we all used to read the Atlantic Monthly from cover to cover in order to cleanse our palates between massive Proust marathons.

Of course, if you think back to pre-Web days, you’ll recall that what we were actually doing was watching “Married With Children.” Then, when the Internet came around, we took to the “Married With Children” message boards so we could call each other wankers.

But not everyone agrees with Mr. Carr. Jamais Cascio, also writing for Atlantic Monthly, said the Google method really helps us hone our ability to find “meaning in confusion.” For instance, if you Google “Lady Gaga,” you’ll get 75 million results; rather than become paralyzed by this overload of information, you will likely learn to focus your search to, say, “pictures of Lady Gaga wearing doilies.”

By contrast, if this were 1984 and you wanted to hone in on Madonna, you’d have to sit on the edge of your bed staring at the cover of “Like a Virgin” for hours on end. Er, not me. Other people.

The controversy is part of a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which surveyed hundreds of “technology stakeholders,” according to PC World. (I can only presume these are the people with bigger, more expensive TVs than I have, which is everybody.) The stakeholders said that Google is probably not making us stupid, although I think we should take into account the possibility that it already has, and that when they’re not taking surveys, the stakeholders mostly just sit around going “Pew … Heh, that’s a funny word.”

Not that they don’t have concerns. As stakeholder and University of Pennsylvania Prof. Oscar Gandy told PC World, “the kind of Googled future that I am concerned about is the one in which my every desire is anticipated, and my every fear avoided by my guardian Google.” Which I agree would be terrible, in the same way that having a robot butler would be terrible — you know, that awesome kind of way.

Carr, for his part, is sticking to his guns. “The price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking,” he insists in the PC World article, and I’m assuming in his original Atlantic story as well. Although I can’t be positive, because I didn’t actually read it — I Googled it, but, well, I never clicked any of the links. I can point you to several hundred thousand fascinating pictures of Lady Gaga, though.

Gaga … Heh, that’s a funny word.

This column appeared originally in North Shore Sunday. Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca. To receive At Large by e-mail, write to info@chianca-at-large.com, with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE.”

By 2014 I should be ready for the Winter Olympics

Got the winter blahs? I highly recommend going down a mountain at a high rate of speed on your rear end. It's like skiing for people without balance or coordination. We know who we are.



Yes, those are my feet.

AT LARGE Fake News Monday: Palin Slams Down Syndrome Portrayal In 'Life Goes On'

NEW YORK (CAP) - Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is blasting the 1989-1993 ABC series Life Goes On, featuring a character, "Corky," with Down syndrome, calling its creators "heartless jerks."

"The world is full of cruel, cold-hearted people who would do such a thing," Palin said in an appearance on Fox News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor. "To show a likeable, well-adjusted character with Down syndrome on TV ... That's just wrong."

She also said she took the show as a personal affront to her and her family when she saw a rerun recently on ABC Family.

"The America I know and love is not one in which my family would have to see a show like that, which was clearly meant at a swipe at my retarded baby, Trig," she said. "Um ... and when I say retarded, like Rush Limbaugh I mean that in a satiric kinda way."

When O'Reilly asked her how she would define the term "satiric," she paused for about 30 seconds and then said, "All of 'em."

Palin's complaint comes after she and her family made an uproar over the Fox TV series Family Guy, which featured a similarly well-adjusted character with Down syndrome, voiced by an actress with the condition.

"Dude, I can't believe that's the one they decided to get worked up about," said Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, who noted that in one episode during the campaign, Palin and her entire family were portrayed as "back-woods troglodytic mouth-breathers."

"One episode of 60 Minutes, I mean," he clarified, cracking himself up and high-fiving the members of his writing staff, who were gathered to work on an upcoming episode entitled Stewie Says Something Inappropriate.

"And you didn't hear Democrats complaining when we did that episode where Glen Quagmire accidentally has sex with Bill Clinton," MacFarlane noted.

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

'Oh my! What seems to have happened to my bikini top?'

That's what I love about the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition -- the poses are so natural.

COLUMN: Be prepared to panic, weather or not

Some years back I spent an entire Saturday running around my in-laws’ backyard chasing chickens, and not for any of the usual reasons. The forecast was for a foot of snow, and we, being humanitarians, didn’t want to spend the next day running over frozen chickens with the snowblower. Take that, Frank Perdue!

So you can imagine how I felt when we woke up to find just a razor-thin sheen of sleet on the ground. The forecast was a complete bust, even though the meteorologists had looked so sure of themselves when gesticulating wildly in front of their green screens. I guess it’s important to remember that these are very sophisticated and unpredictable weather patterns they’re interpreting, and also, their forecasts are mostly made up, like horoscopes and cattle futures.

I didn’t have any poultry to deal with last week, but I still looked fairly silly wearing my boots to work, my fists clenched tight around the barrel of my handy travel shovel, only to find a parking lot covered with a four to six inches of nothing. This, after hundreds of schools had canceled classes — you probably saw all the children out on their front lawns, throwing airballs at each other.

But even though last week’s storm didn’t materialize, it did get me thinking: Would I have been truly prepared if it had? Lord knows that as far as weather goes, Massachusetts residents seem to have convinced themselves that they’re actually in Florida and have to be concerned, at most, with a possible gecko pileup. If we don’t react to snowflakes like John Cusack reacted to Los Angeles disintegrating in “2012,” we’re not doing our jobs.

With that in mind, I’ve prepared the following “New England Storm Panic Checklist” to make sure you’re ready for the next (possibly real) storm with just the right level of abject alarm. I recommend you tick off these items the next time New England is expected to experience an onslaught of weather unlike any it’s ever seen before, except for all those other times:

1) Do you have enough milk and bread? If you don’t, it’s too late, the stores are sold out — all that’s left in the supermarket are a few bruised kiwis strewn around the prone forms of trampled stockboys. Time to resign yourself to the fact that you are going to starve to death, unless you’re lucky and happen to freeze first.

2) Is your snowblower in good, working order? It is? Well, why don’t you just move to Wisconsin, winter boy? We don’t need your kind around here.

3) Do you remember how to drive? If you do, there is something wrong with you: It’s not winter in New England unless you find yourself bereft of anything but the most rudimentary conception of what a car even is, much less how to drive it. But don’t worry, the minute you get behind the wheel your mind will become a complete blank, and you can immediately commence upon swearing and maneuvering other drivers into snow banks.

4) Remember that time a few weeks back, when you said to yourself that you really should get your wiper blades replaced before the next snowstorm? Um … no, me neither.

5) Do you live by the ocean? If so, proceed immediately to the nearest seawall with your rain slicker and handy point-and-shoot camera. Otherwise it will be very difficult for you to be washed out to sea by a wave the size of a Range Rover. (That’s a type of vehicle — see No. 3.)

6) Is your weatherperson gesticulating wildly? Don’t worry, he probably just got a tip on cattle futures.

That should do it, and just in time, too. There’s imaginary snow in the whimsical forecast again this week, so I recommend you begin panicking now, in case it blows out to sea before you get a chance to work up any real, mouth-foaming anxiety. And no need to thank me.

Just send milk and bread. I may need it for the chickens.

This column appeared originally in North Shore Sunday. Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca. To receive At Large by e-mail, write to info@chianca-at-large.com, with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE.”

And yet, oddly, people have yet to start taking me seriously

In the toot-my-own-horn department: Last week I received a first-place award for "Serious Columnist" from the New England Newspaper & Press Association. This is of course a great affront to all the actual serious columnists toiling away weekly at their keyboards, veritably awash in seriousness. As for me, I occasionally pen an essay that's vaguely non-humorous, and that's what they chose to honor. I'm not complaining -- I've always said, you give me a plaque, I'll hang it up. I'm not picky.

Anyway, the columns they cited were one about my grandmother, who passed away in 2008, and one on my local hometown newspaper, which passed away in 2009. You can read them here and here.

AT LARGE Fake News Monday: John Mayer Sued For $3.1 Mil By John Mayer's Unit

LOS ANGELES (CAP) - John Mayer's penis, whom the singer compared to Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke and described as "sort of like a white supremacist" in his now-infamous Playboy interview, is suing Mayer for $3.1 million, claiming defamation and emotional distress.

"My client feels he was grossly mischaracterized by Mr. Mayer," said John Mayer's penis's attorney, Alan Schwartzbaum of Greenberg, Glusker and Associates of Los Angeles. "The reality of the situation is that my client doesn't have a racist bone in his, well, you know.

"Given the opportunity, my client says he would be more than happy to associate with women of color, an opportunity denied him by Mr. Mayer," said Schwartzbaum. "He'd particularly like to know if Halle Berry is available."

The suit filed by John Mayer's penis is only the latest blow to the singer, who has come under fire from all fronts in the wake of his "raw" remarks to Playboy. For instance, his comments on former girlfriend Jessica Simpson have drawn criticism from John Mayer's mother, Margaret Mayer.

"I did not raise my son to say things like, I want to quit my life and just (expletive) snort you, or If you charged me $10,000 to (expletive) you, I would start selling all my (expletive) just to keep (expletive) you," said Margaret Mayer, reading from a prepared statement at a press conference in Bridgeport, Conn. "He is in big trouble when he comes home for Purim."

"I also think he was very unfair to his penis," added Margaret Mayer.

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

What's scariest is that I think the principal was wearing the same jacket

My father just sent me an electronic photo album of old slides he had scanned into the computer, including this one, from my kindergarten graduation:



It raises all sorts of issues, such as: Why aren't any of the other kids dressed like a cross between a ringmaster and a tiny pimp? Even in 1974, was a burgundy sport coat with white piping and gold buttons and matching plaid pants and bow tie a good look for anybody? Was I secretly an Irish step dancer? Is it just sheer luck that I didn't grow up to be one of these guys? It's all very confusing.

Your offiical At Large snow-mageddon checklist

When Channel 5 here in Boston starts throwing around the phrase "snow-mageddon" on its Facebook page, you know we're in for it. Channel 5 doesn't make up words for just anything.

So with that in mind, please tick down this handy checklist to make sure you're prepared for the coming onslaught of weather unlike any New England has ever seen, except for all those other times:

1) Do you have enough milk and bread? If you don't, it's too late, all the stores are sold out -- all that's left in the supermarket is a few bruised kiwis strewn around the prone forms of trampled stockboys. Time to resign yourself to the fact that you are going to starve to death, unless you're lucky and happen to freeze first.

2) Do you remember how to drive? If you do, there is something wrong with you: It is not a storm in New England unless you find yourself bereft of anything other than the most rudimentary conception of what a car even is, much less how to drive it. But don't worry, the minute you get behind the wheel your mind will become a complete blank, and you can immediately commence upon maneuvering other drivers into snowbanks.

3) Is your snowblower in good, working order? It is? Well, why don't you just move to Wisconsin, winter boy. We don't need your kind around here.

4) Do you live by the shore? If so, proceed immediately to the nearest seawall with your camera. Otherwise it will be very difficult for you to be washed out to sea by a wave the size of a Range Rover. (That's a type of vehicle -- see No. 2.)

5.) Remember that time a few weeks back, when you said to yourself that you really should get your wiper blades replaced before the next snowstorm? Um ... no, me neither.

6.) Before you get washed out to sea, stuck in a snowbank or collapse from milk deprivation, please send your photos and videos to me at pchianca@cnc.com to post here and at at WickedLocal.com. Because if there's anything that's Wicked Local, it's a mid-day mid-week snowstorm -- at least around these parts.

AT LARGE Fake News Tuesday: Stern Gets Ellen, Kara DioGuardi To Kiss At Idol Audition

HOLLYWOOD (CAP) - Howard Stern got off to a good start during his audition to replace Simon Cowell on American Idol, convincing fellow judges Ellen DeGeneres and Kara DioGuardi to make out on camera.

"It was pretty hot," admitted fellow judge Randy Jackson.

The incident occurred during a screen test for the radio shock jock to see how he would interact with the other judges, during which Stern almost immediately began badgering DeGeneres and DioGuardi to make out.

"C'mon, just one kiss. I won't be able to concentrate on the contestants unless we get this out of the way," Stern can be seen saying on the audition tape, which was acquired by TMZ.com. "Make out for 30 seconds and we can all get on with our day."

"OK, now with tongues," he added when they finally acquiesced, prompting a three-minute kissing and fondling session.

"Excuse me, I'm trying to sing Pants on the Ground up here!" exhorted contestant General Larry Platt, who was brought back specifically for Stern's audition. But Platt could not get the judges' or crew's attention over all the hooting as DeGeneres and DioGuardi groped each other.

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

COLUMN: Buy an iPad, feed a journalist!

As my regular readers know, I have a long history of trying to get the Apple corporation to send me free electronic equipment in exchange for a mention in this column. I have been wholly unsuccessful at this from the very beginning, when I tried to get them to ship me an Apple II to review for my elementary school newspaper. I suspect Steve Jobs may have something against the mimeograph.

More recently, I’ve tried to get them to send me test models of the various iPods (40 GB, Touch, Shuffle, Nano with Pocketknife, etc.), but they continue to insist on sending them places like PC World and CNET — places that cover, you know, technology, rather than the things I write about, such as when we’re most likely to be overrun by killer zombies. This is of course ironic, since technology reporters will be among the first to go when the zombies finally do attack.

But now Apple has introduced the iPad (motto: Enough With The Feminine Hygiene References Already), its new tablet computer — which, beyond being the latest cool-looking electronic device that I can’t afford, has another, much more important designation: It might just save newspapers. Also, I’m pretty sure that in a pinch you could slice meat on it.

As you may have heard, we in the newspaper business have been looking for ways to turn around our struggling industry. So far we’ve come up with the following ideas:

1) After readers have viewed a certain number of stories on the Internet, charge them … one meeeelllion dollars!

2) Print only pictures of good-looking people. Oh, we’re already doing that? OK, good-looking naked people.

3) Tell people they really should subscribe if they ever want to see Fluffy alive again.

Our main problem, of course, is that people won’t pay to read news on their computer, seeing as how online news is self-generated for free from the dust that gathers in the joint fittings on the Internet tubes. But the iPad isn’t a computer — it’s a slick, slate-like device that does computing, yes, but whose underlying purpose is much more all-encompassing: namely, to make people feel more like Captain Picard. (You know who you are.)

With the iPad, you can take your local newspaper — along with the Web, videos, photos, the latest Lady Gaga single, etc. — into your Starship’s ready room, or anywhere else you want to go. (Well, except the bathtub … boy, did Steve Wozniak find that out the hard way.) And it’s better than a laptop, because you don’t have to unfold it — if we could harness the energy spent every day on folding and unfolding laptops, we could power … well, not an iPad, but probably one of those Itty Bitty Book Lights.

But why, if people won’t pay 75 cents for their newspaper, will they pay $829 plus $30 per month for a loaded iPad? Because it’s got an “i” in front of its name, that’s why! Sure, it sounds silly, but when the thing goes on sale, throngs of people will line up to get it, and CNN will air footage of the skinny, latte-addled hipster who claws his way to the front of the line to buy the first one. (His name is Hugo.)

And then, the part that will warm the hearts of newspaper people the world over: Thousands of consumers will fire it up and immediately use their credit cards to order exclusive iPad subscriptions to the New York Times. And when I say “New York Times” I of course mean, “one of the 50-plus available fart-noise apps.” Sure, that they’ll pay for.

Still, baby steps — we didn’t obliterate the publishing industry overnight, and we don’t expect the iPad to save it for at least three or four more weeks. In the meantime, Apple, I’ll be waiting. You can send me my free iPad in care of this newspaper.

Er, for the time being.

This column appeared originally in North Shore Sunday. Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca. To receive At Large by e-mail, write to info@chianca-at-large.com, with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE.”

AT LARGE Fake News Tuesday: Study - Women Blaming Husbands For John Edwards

WASHINGTON (CAP) - Women across America are dealing with their anger at former presidential candidate John Edwards, and showing their solidarity with his embattled wife, Elizabeth, by making their own husbands' lives miserable, according to a new study.

"It's fascinating, actually," said Dr. Francis Spitznagel of the Pew Research Center. "It wasn't their husbands who lied, cheated or fathered a baby out of wedlock, but they're the ones getting berated, denied sex and, in some cases, physically punished."

"My wife yelled Men are pigs! and hit me in the shoulder with The Politician," said Mark Fresnel, 44, of San Antonio, Texas, referring to one of several new books to portray Edwards' dysfunctional behavior. "Stupid John Edwards."

According to Dr. Spitznagel, women who participated in the study seemed to follow a similar thought pattern:

1) John Edwards is a disgusting pig.
2) John Edwards is a man.
3) My husband is a man.
4) My husband must be a disgusting pig.

"Then they hit the husband with one of the books," said Spitznagel.

"How could a man run around with some strange woman and get her pregnant, and make a SEX TAPE, while his wife has CANCER?" asked study participant Sally Johansen, 38, of New Brunswick, N.J., then turning to her cringing husband, Craig, 40, and yelling "ANSWER ME!"

"If I ever meet John Edwards, I'm going to punch him right in the face," murmured Craig Johansen as his wife continued to glare at him icily.

[Read the rest at CAP News.]