Kevin->Write(thoughts, browser, time)

Beginning of a business meeting between a late-30's female and mid-50s male, who are obviously just meeting for the first time. Female to Male:

"So, do you like froofy coffee, or man coffee?"

The year-end issue of Time Magazine (the one in which "you" are the person of the year) includes obituaries for famous people who have died in 2006, written by other people. I have evaluated the likelihood that the people who have written the obituaries will themselves be included in the Time end-of-year obit section when they die.

Format:

Time Obit Predicted Status
Obit Writer: Info on Obit Writer If You Otherwise Wouldn't Know Who They Were (Person Eulogized)

For Sure
Maya Angelou (Coretta Scott King)
Larry Bird (Red Auerbach)
Amartya Sen (John Kenneth Galbraith)
Joan Collins (Aaron Spelling)
Hillary Clinton (Ann Richards)
Aretha Franklin (Lou Rawls)
Naomi Wolff (Betty Friedan)
Colin Powell (Caspar Weinberger)
Elmore Leonard (Mickey Spillane)
Dan Rather (Ed Bradley)
Jay Leno (Steve Irwin)

Most Likely, But Depends On Who Else Died
Roseanne Barr (Shelley Winters)
Warren Beatty (Maureen Stapleton)
E.L. Doctorow (William Styron)
Phil Mickelson (Byron Nelson)
Lily Tomlin (Robert Altman)

No Chance
Avery Brooks: Sisco on Star Trek Deep Space Nine (Gordon Parks)
Sherron Watkins: Enron whistleblower (Ken Lay)
Bert Sugar: boxing historian (Floyd Patterson)
Thomas O'Connell: Assistant Defense Secretary (Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi)

?
Lawrence Summers (Milton Friedman) I've heard of him...barely. Is he in this league? Not sure.
Carla del Ponte: UN prosecutor (Slobodan Milosevic) If she gets in, it's on Slobo's coattails.

I think the lesson here is that if you are invited to give a Time obit, you can be fairly sure that your own obit will one day appear in its pages.

Record: 12-8 (5-5 last ten), 2nd in Central Division, 3rd in Eastern Conference

Last Ten Games (* means games that I saw all or part of)
W-Memphis(*)
L-@Toronto
L-@Indiana(*)
W-Philadelphia
L-New York(*)
W-@Atlanta(*)
L-@Houston
W-Toronto(*)
W-Indiana
L-@NO/Okla City

Big Ups: Daniel Gibson looks like he'll be a solid rotation player in the League. Damon Jones continues his run of adequacy. Larry is back, if ineffective so far.
Big Downs: People keep tripping over Z's rotten corpse. Donyell Marshall can't find his shot. Shannon Brown couldn't cut it replacing Hughes. Neither (Surprise!) could Pavlovic. Even LeBron looks pretty average when he has to fight through triple teams every night. Doc is hurt.

This is probably the easiest ten game schedule of the year, and to go 5-5 on it is borderline criminal. When I say that the Cavs have played an easy schedule so far, here's what I mean: There are 13 NBA teams currently at .500 or above-a reasonable basic standard for a decent team. The Cavs are 3-2 in those games-wins over San Antonio, Chicago, and Minnesota, and losses to Houston and NO/Okla City. That means that fifteen of the Cavs first twenty games have been played against teams under .500, and they've gone only 9-6 in those games. This is a bad sign. The Cavs have played 0 games against the Suns, the Mavericks, Utah, the Lakers, Detroit, Orlando, the Clippers, and Denver. Those teams are, respectively, #1, #3, #4, #5, #6, #11, and #13 in ESPN's NBA power rankings right now. Not to mention, the Cavs have played 0 games against the defending champion Heat-lurking at 9-11, and 0 games against the perennially contending (yet lately schizophrenic) Nets, currently leading the worst division in the history of sport at 8-12.

We're about to find out how good the Cavs are-in the next ten games they get Orlando twice, the Pistons, the Nets, and the Spurs and Bulls again. In the ten games after that, they head west for a seven game road trip. Don't be surprised to see them struggling a game or two under .500 by February-there are enough bad teams in the East that it can't get worse than that. Unless LeBron gets hurt.

When Ben Folds Five re-released Whatever and Ever Amen in 2005, they included several previously unreleased bonus tracks, including "Mitchell Lane," which I immediately liked for its slow steady driving beat and simple yet beautiful melody. But, turns out I've been hearing the lyrics seriously wrong. Where I hear this:

Heaven is a bliss
Sunshine is a myth
Happy when you're cold
Wanna be alone

He's a lot of steam
She's a lot of bread
Takes a lot to see
Takes a lot to beg
...

The lyrics are actually:

Habit isn't bliss
Sunshine isn't missed
Happy when you're cold
Wanna be alone

He's a lot of steam
She's a lot of breath
Takes a lot to see
Takes a lot to beg
...

This is way, way, way better. Ben Folds, I salute you again.

Overheard today in Cup O' Overpriced Smoothies That I Can't Resist Ordering: A Toledo Blade reporter consulting with his editor over the telephone over the proper way to spell Jennifer Lopez's ubiquitous hyphenated nickname. They decided, after much discussion, on "J-Lo."