A business based on Oprah without the Oprah!

Melody Biringer, founded Crave Party in Seattle in 2000 with the idea of events that weave together shopping, bonding and professional networking. Each party has a theme; the women pay a small fee and gather in one location where there is food, shopping and services like manicures and massages. The company’s motto is “Everything you crave, under one roof.”
…
On a recent afternoon, Ms. Biringer offered a “Girls at Play” party at the Fisher Pavilion-Seattle Center. For $25 each, about 200 participants dined on Mexican salads, shopped and enjoyed activities like yoga, Pilates and dance boot-camp classes; makeup tips; and an active-wear show. They left with a gift bag of goodies.

The site late last week began purging copyrighted material from Comedy Central, including clips from YouTube stalwarts like “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” [and] “The Colbert Report” ….

There goes, for me at least, one of the primary reasons to visit Youtube.

I think almost everything is pretty self-explanatory if you read our “league rules” page, except I should clarify the “games limit” rule - you can only use each of the twelve roster positions 82 times over the course of the season. So, for example, if you activate Steve Nash in your PG spot for all 82 of his games, then you can’t play anyone else in your PG spot all year. The purpose of this restriction is to discourage players from making frequent roster adjustments to maximize the number of games counted.

Does anyone want to propose changing any of the rules? If so, speak up today.

Also, please post any questions about the rules.

I am.

Here’s the first salvo in what I anticipate to be a full season’s worth of fantastical trash-talking the likes which have never been conceived or realized before and quite possibly may never be executed again….

Alright guys and gals (who care), let me first say that I am feeling nearly ecstatic about my team. I didn’t feel like I wasted any picks. I feel like I drafted everybody where they should have been drafted and didn’t get anybody too early (with the exceptions of Collison and Milicic). I feel I’ve done a lot better job than last year, when I drafted big man duds Chander, Curry, and Stro Swift. I also got Maggette last year, who didn’t play most of the year and when he did, wasn’t all that. Now that I think about it, the draft was a big reason why I lost the thing at the end b/c while I made wily waiver pickups, I didn’t have enough intitial big-man firepower to topple Ninja Man.

This year, though, I feel I have some super quality big men in Randolph, Yao, Boozer, and Diaw. Randolph has been reaming people in preseason and is a definite 20/10 type performer (he was a couple of years ago). I also have potential sleepers in Collison, Wilcox, and Milicic. R. Swift is injured for the year so Collison/Wilcox will get plenty o’ burn for the Sonics. Wilcox hasn’t gotten out of the gates very quickly, but I remember him being a super waiver pickup for me last year with something around 15 ppg and 9rpg with great %’s when he was with Seattle. I’m planning on one and maybe two of my big men getting injured so hopefully I’ll have enough performers to absorb that.

I’m admittedly thin at shooting guard and small forward but I have Ray Allen, Shawn Marion, and Peja Stojakovic there. My other SF is Mr. Sharp Face from the Bay area. Crazy Don Nelson will run much of the O through Mike Dunleavy as point forward this year, so he’s a possible sleeper and then there’s Kevin Martin from Sac-Town who was a pleasant surprise for me off the waivers last year. They got rid of Bonzi Wells to open up playing time for the guy. He’s a very efficient player and quietly puts up fantasy points — another possible sleeper.

I’m loving my PGs — Mike Bibby should be solid again this year, and reports out of Utah have Deron Williams becoming a big-time PG who could be a surprise star this year ala Boris Diaw or David West from 05-06. Providing depth I have a couple of semi-projects in, firstly, Mo Williams, who devastated last year in small amounts of time. Milwaukee moved TJ Ford to open up the position for him. He has gotten injured every year of his career and I anticipate injury again this year. Finally, Marcus Williams — heir apparent to Jason Kidd — this Kid has been killing in summer league and preseason and looks to be a stud. He’ll be backing Kidd up but should get burn b/c they want to rest the hall of famer for the postseason. Plus, Kidd could always get injured and then he becomes a major steal.

Overall, I am pleased with every one of the choices. I anticipate a couple of duds/injuries in my PGs and big men but no more than that. I should be able to absorb up to 2. If Dunleavy is able to have his best season, and Peja nearly regains his form of a couple of years ago, it’s over.

Let the trash talking begin! Who thinks they have the stuff to topppppple me?

Using html form fields to compose blog posts is often much more convenient than opening up a word-processor or blog posting application, but html text-areas (unless you are using something fancy like gmail) lack nice features like spell check. There are, however, two or three things you can do that make composing in web pages as good as or better than an external program.

• First, if you haven’t already, upgrade to the latest version of Firefox. Firefox 2 has a built in spell checker that will have you wondering what you’ll do with those extra minutes each day you spent watching MS Word load up.
• The second feature you may be missing is easy saving. This one is a bit harder to replicate. There is an extension called scribe that saved form data as a local file through a right-click (or control click for those of you whom Steve Jobs has decided don’t need right clicking) menu or ctrl-s (which is great for those of us who have an itchy ctrl-s finger whenever we pause while typing). Unfortunately this extension doesn’t work with the newer versions of FF. Until a new version is made there is an extension called Form Saver that is simpler, and saves the form data in a bookmarklet, but doesn’t support ctrl-s. At the moment I am using the ctrl-a (select all) ctrl-c (copy to the clipboard) save as draft technique. This isn’t great, but it covers my ass for when the magic of technology fails to safely insert my carefully crafted prose into a database field somewhere.
• Now for the good part. the first two will get you what you liked about the word processor, minus the load time, etc. This last one is why I said “Turn Firefox into a blog editor” instead of “…into a word processor approximation.” The folks at lifehacker made a blogging hot key utility that makes formating text in html approximately one bazillion times easier. I won’t go into all the details of what it does, but basically it is a little program that sits in your system tray and works a little key replacement magic. for instance, when you type ‘em’ and then hit enter it replaces it with ‘<em></em>’ with the cursor placed in the middle. same for ‘ul’, ‘li’, ’str’, etc. etc. Even better: if you copy an internet address and type ‘hre’ and hit enter ‘<a href=”Your Pasted Address”></a>’ will appear with your cursor between the tags, ready for you to type the link text. ‘bk’ becomes ‘<blockquote>Your Pasted Text</blockquote>’, etc. This little app really encourages me to add links, images, lists, and other html goodness to blog posts.

Finally, for you mac folks, here are some builds of FF2 that are optimized for macs. I have no idea if they help, but if you are using Safari, and want to get in on some of this goodness (and the loads of other goodness Firefox has to offer), it might be worth a shot
Optimized Firefox 2.0 for G4, G5, and Intel Macs

Slate has an article entitled “Does YouTube Really Have Legal Problems?” that question’s the conventional wisdom that YouTube will be nothing but a legal quagmire for Google.

It discusses about how YouTube may have protection under the “Online Copyright Liability Limitation Act, which became Title II of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (§512 of the Copyright Code).” While Napster and Grokster were shown to be intentionally encouraging copyright violation, YouTube may only need to remove content when asked to do so by the copyright holder (something it has already shown a willingness to do).

The real saving grace may be that the copyright holders (i.e. hollywood studios) have reason to like this system more than massive, shut the whole thing down lawsuits:

What’s really interesting is that the content industry actually likes §512 more than anyone will admit. The notice-and-takedown system gives content owners the twin advantages of exposure and control. When stuff is on YouTube, the owners have an option. They can leave it posted there, if they want people to see it, and build buzz. But they can also snap their fingers and bring it all down. And for someone who is juggling her desire for publicity against her need for control, that’s ultimately a nice arrangement.

With mid-term election predictions looking grim, the usual suspects are engaging in some last ditch efforts to scare conservative leaning moderates into voting for them:

First up, on Monday Neil Cavuto had a segment asking whether Democrats will “crush the economy” if they win November’s elections. One of the guests, Jonathan Hoenig, said they would, because Democrats’ “overriding philosophy is socialism.”

Then, on Tuesday, Fox news teamed up with none other than Dick Cheney himself to keep that fear train rolling, by suggesting that with this new momentum shift , conservatives’ worst fears may come true: “Hillary Rodham Clinton could win the White House”

A funny side note: Cheney said that his decision not to run for the presidency is “firm, final, fixed, irrevocable”…. As if anyone except Hillary Clinton would ever want him to run.

Because the draft is tomorrow and I still had no sign of Cara and April’s friend, I changed the league size back down to 8 teams, which is better anyways since we will play each other three teams.

The draft starts tomorrow.

I told NBA.com to randomize draft order and I have the first pick. I wanted to re-randomize the draft order because it doesn’t seem right that I have the first pick, but I can’t figure out how to do it.

The NBA.com site isn’t working entirely right, and I can’t get into to the “pre rank my draft selections,” which is where I need to go to setup auto-draft. I’m going to a tournament this weekend and won’t be back until Sunday night. So, there’s a good chance that it will take 10 hours for me to make the first selection. Sorry. I’ll try to change this at the hotel tonight.

We only have about a week to draft 16 players each, so draft quickly.

How about some bold NBA predictions?

Here’s my first:

Fox Sports just released their NBA power rankings and they’ve got my Atlanta Hawks at 30th. I say the Hawks win 42 games and get the 8th seed in the East. Al Harrington and his lazy-bum inducing ways are finally gone. JJ is still getting better and it looks like he has found the 3-point stroke that he lost on his way from Phoenix to Atlanta. Marvin Williams finally has the confidence and the skills to whipe away all Chris-Paul-related regret. Josh Smith put on some more defensive muscle and fine-tuned that three-point shot that he gave us glimpses of in March and April. Then there’s the adddition of Speedy Claxton, a legit PG. He’ll be relieved by T. Lue, who was an integral part of many of the Hawks biggest wins last season. Zaza is a sufficient center and now has sufficient backups in Glyniadakis and Wright. Shelden Williams is already a veteran on defense and while he won’t be a goto guy on offense, he’ll get his share of garbage points. Proof that the Hawks have improved is that no one is talking about the young and improving Josh Childress, who shot 55% last year (including almost 50% from the land of three). The Hawks beat the Pistons, Heat, Cavs and Spurs last season and are showing serious determination and growth… I might actually have more to cheer for this season than just JJ’s occasional 40-10-10 and big blocks and dunks by Smith. … Oh, and they started the preseason by scoring 26 points in the first 6 minutes, and allowing only 4 from Memphis!

More bold NBA predictions coming soon.

A noble calling for all gentlemen is the growth and maintenance of a manstache. My brother in arms, Jake Fleming, has written:
“as you all know, Stachetober runs concurrently with October, a period observed by ladies and little boys. As the women began October weeks ago, we’ve missed quite a chunk of Stachetober. That’s right, there’s not a moment to lose. I propose a modified calendar, running from now until Thanksgiving break, during which the gods-given hairs of our upper lips shall know no razor. They may know the scissors and styling comb, if they desire. All non-stache facial hair shall be removed for purposes of accentuation, excepting the eyebrows and eyelashes.”

This is my first foray into facial hair exhibitionism (excepting the ongoing exhibition that has been my “facial hair” for the past four years). Joel has bravely blazed this trail with half-beard and I seem to recall Mohsen having a moustache at some point (was this a dream?…or a nightmare?). In truth, the moustache above has been there for a long time now. It just needed to be liberated, freed from the shackles imposed by left chop, right chop, and chinbeard. This is the first Geography Department graduate student observance of Stachetober, and we encourage solidarity.

From Seinfeld:

(A newspaper blocks out view of George’s face. He lowers the paper to reveal… a moustache.)

GEORGE: What is Holland?

JERRY: (also wearing a moustache) What do you mean, ‘what is it?’ It’s a country right next to Belgium.

GEORGE: No, that’s the Netherlands.

JERRY: Holland *is* the Netherlands.

GEORGE: Then who are the Dutch?

JERRY: (picking at his moustache) You know I cannot stand this thing anymore.

GEORGE: I know, I hate it too. I feel like an out of work porn star.

JERRY: I told you, we should have taken some kind of vacation.

GEORGE: Well why didn’t we?

JERRY: Because you said this would be better. Remember? A vacation from ourselves. That’s what you said.

GEORGE: What if we grew muttonchops?

JERRY: No.

GEORGE: Buzz cuts? Parachute pants!

JERRY: Stop it, George. Stop it. I’m sorry, you’ve gotta get a job.

GEORGE: (resigned) Dammit.

I just came across a flash video/map thing entitled “Imperial History of the middle east”, which you should check out if you are interested in history, or the middle east, or cool graphics, or maps (i.e. If you read this blog, you should check it out).

In it, you can see how various empires from Asia, Africa, and Europe have originated from and/or rolled through the middle east on their way to failing at world domination. Pretty much everyone has had controll of the area at some time or another. In fact, Gengis Kahn’s dog briefly controlled much of modern day Kuwait and the U.A.E.

MSN ranks Fayetteville, Arkansas as one of its “8 Cheap Places You’d Want to Live.” Springdale did not make the list.

Who posted about myspace and similar networking sites? I really can’t remember, but here’s a Wiredarticle discussing some “tech-gens” who are going back to face-to-face communication.

It feels very Brave-New-Worldish to read this column. Not so much from the technological advancement standpoint, but more from the idea that things which are innate and natural (face-to-face communication) are becoming more of a choice instead of the natural revert.

Sure, people won’t start communicating with each other via gizmos entirely, but the idea that choosing a more basic mode of communication, or even that you are forcing yourself to do it, is interesting to me.

I hope you all have great weekends!

Here are some of the few details that are available.

Ok not really Reason, but their much less serious blog, Hit and Run links to a shocking revelation that Foley’s seemingly lewd IMing with a teenage boy was actually taken out of context, and totally G-rated:

Maf54 (7:37:27 PM): how my favorite young stud doing
Editorz (7:37:52 PM): he’s ok
Editorz (7:38:32 PM): just gave him some oats
Maf54 (7:39:32 PM): tahts good
Editorz (7:39:37 PM): thanks for letting me take care of your pony, btw
Editorz (7:39:44 PM): my apartment is small but he seem happy here
Maf54 (7:40:32 PM): you need a massage
Editorz (7:41:32 PM): I’m going to ride him around the kitchen again
Maf54 (7:42:27 PM): love to watch that
Maf54 (7:42:33 PM): those great legs running

It only gets better. Read the rest here.

I admire his principle, but this guy’s friends should really consider an intervention:

Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Guthrie said Saturday he will put his life’s savings — nearly $1.2 million — into his race against Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell and Republican Mike McGavick.

Story here.