Congratulations!
According to Time Magazine, due out at newsstands today, you have been selected as their "Person Of The Year." Not sure if I'm serious? Can't believe you are finally being recognized for all you do? Check it out.
Over the years, this coveted honor has been bestowed upon some of the most influential people in the world. Last year, I believe it was shared by Bill and Melinda Gates, and Bono. But now it's your turn. And you've earned it. Oh, how you have earned it!
Just imagine the pride I feel knowing that Time's Person Of The Year reads my blog!* Thank you for spending a few of your very important moments here with me, congratulations again, and good luck on continuing to impact the world around you in a very meaningful way!
*Time's Person Of The Year also writes my blog! Where does he find the time?
Monday, December 18, 2006
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Myria-Madness
The ZiggyBackRide is approaching the fourth power! We are within days, maybe hours, of our 10,000th visitor and the whole team here (me) couldn't be more excited!
In honor of this approaching milestone, our staff (still me) did a little research into the number 10,000 and found out that the corresponding metric prefix is myria. Kilo is 1,000. Mega is 1,000,000. Hectokilo is 100,000. Evidently, in the scientific world, myria and hectokilo are considered obsolete - several sites did not even list these two.
Some so-called scientists may consider myria (or 10 to the 4th power) inconsequential, but I assure you that within ZiggyBackRide's science department, of which I am the chair, there is no less than 100% agreement that myria is as pertinent now as it ever was.
As always, we'll want to know who the milestone visitor is, so if the visitor counter says 10,000, leave a comment and stake your claim to the fame and valuable prizes* that will most surely accompany that accomplishment. Thank you for your continued presence here on "the Ride" and good luck!
*I have often promised prizes to our milestone visitors, and sometimes I have delivered. This is 10,000 though! So I'm really, really promising and really, really might deliver!
In honor of this approaching milestone, our staff (still me) did a little research into the number 10,000 and found out that the corresponding metric prefix is myria. Kilo is 1,000. Mega is 1,000,000. Hectokilo is 100,000. Evidently, in the scientific world, myria and hectokilo are considered obsolete - several sites did not even list these two.
Some so-called scientists may consider myria (or 10 to the 4th power) inconsequential, but I assure you that within ZiggyBackRide's science department, of which I am the chair, there is no less than 100% agreement that myria is as pertinent now as it ever was.
As always, we'll want to know who the milestone visitor is, so if the visitor counter says 10,000, leave a comment and stake your claim to the fame and valuable prizes* that will most surely accompany that accomplishment. Thank you for your continued presence here on "the Ride" and good luck!
*I have often promised prizes to our milestone visitors, and sometimes I have delivered. This is 10,000 though! So I'm really, really promising and really, really might deliver!
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
The Purple Rose
I'm back. It occurs to me that you may not know I left. I did. And I'm back.
I left this morning, found myself in four different states, gave a comedy performance, and am back home. This marks the first time I have ever been in four states in one day while ending up in the same place I started. Epic. Kind of.
My show was in Cairo, IL (pronounced kayroh ilinoy - that was more for the Cairo part than the IL part!) at the Elks Lodge over lunch for the Municipal Gas Workers Safety Association Number 3. I know, right! How ever did I land such a sweet gig?!? Just luck, I guess. I should probably buy lottery tickets.
Cairo is a small town. Very small. I knew of it from Huck Finn - I'm pretty sure it was one of the stops during Huck's and Jim's big river trip (which I have always dreamed of recreating, but that's for another time). When I got to the town, an hour or so before my show, I began to worry that I was not going to be well-received (I even worried a little that I wouldn't make it out alive, but really only a little bit). I'm a city boy with city humor and I have been rebuffed by small-town comedy crowds before. In the end, though, the show went fine and the very hard workers for whom I performed at their association's Christmas luncheon were very nice and receptive. I enjoyed being with them.
I saw a number of interesting (I tend to throw that term around rather loosely!) things over the course of my journey. I passed a town called Cooter, MO. That's all. I just liked that there's a town with that name. Its residents live in Cooter. I passed through New Madrid, MO. That town shares its name with the tectonic fault along which it lies and is likely to be very near the epicenter for "the big one" - the big ol' earthquake that seems to be an eventual certainty for the Memphis area. The fault was the source of an earthquake in 1811 that is said to have caused the Mississippi River to flow backward and church bells to ring as far away as Philadelphia, PA. (Ben, that could be a reason not to move to Memphis, but do not let our mayor's boxing match against retired champ Joe Frazier dissuade you!)
Just before leaving Missouri for Illinois, I passed signs for Fish Lake. I don't know if that's a clever nickname or if this body of water's most unique feature is that it contains fish. A few miles later, just off the interstate a few miles outside of Cairo, I passed a sign that said "Future City." I didn't get a chance to ask anyone in Cairo whether that is the name of the town or if it is marking the site of a city-to-be. I am inclined to think that it's the name of a town, but I can assure you that it did not even look like a present city, let alone what I picture as a Future City. If that's the future, I wouldn't feel any need to hang around.
That's it for Michael Ziggy Danziger's Bluff City to the Tiny Town Stand-Up Comedy Extravaganza 2006, or the MZDBCTTSUCE06, as I like to call it. It was a hell of a day!
I left this morning, found myself in four different states, gave a comedy performance, and am back home. This marks the first time I have ever been in four states in one day while ending up in the same place I started. Epic. Kind of.
My show was in Cairo, IL (pronounced kayroh ilinoy - that was more for the Cairo part than the IL part!) at the Elks Lodge over lunch for the Municipal Gas Workers Safety Association Number 3. I know, right! How ever did I land such a sweet gig?!? Just luck, I guess. I should probably buy lottery tickets.
Cairo is a small town. Very small. I knew of it from Huck Finn - I'm pretty sure it was one of the stops during Huck's and Jim's big river trip (which I have always dreamed of recreating, but that's for another time). When I got to the town, an hour or so before my show, I began to worry that I was not going to be well-received (I even worried a little that I wouldn't make it out alive, but really only a little bit). I'm a city boy with city humor and I have been rebuffed by small-town comedy crowds before. In the end, though, the show went fine and the very hard workers for whom I performed at their association's Christmas luncheon were very nice and receptive. I enjoyed being with them.
I saw a number of interesting (I tend to throw that term around rather loosely!) things over the course of my journey. I passed a town called Cooter, MO. That's all. I just liked that there's a town with that name. Its residents live in Cooter. I passed through New Madrid, MO. That town shares its name with the tectonic fault along which it lies and is likely to be very near the epicenter for "the big one" - the big ol' earthquake that seems to be an eventual certainty for the Memphis area. The fault was the source of an earthquake in 1811 that is said to have caused the Mississippi River to flow backward and church bells to ring as far away as Philadelphia, PA. (Ben, that could be a reason not to move to Memphis, but do not let our mayor's boxing match against retired champ Joe Frazier dissuade you!)
Just before leaving Missouri for Illinois, I passed signs for Fish Lake. I don't know if that's a clever nickname or if this body of water's most unique feature is that it contains fish. A few miles later, just off the interstate a few miles outside of Cairo, I passed a sign that said "Future City." I didn't get a chance to ask anyone in Cairo whether that is the name of the town or if it is marking the site of a city-to-be. I am inclined to think that it's the name of a town, but I can assure you that it did not even look like a present city, let alone what I picture as a Future City. If that's the future, I wouldn't feel any need to hang around.
That's it for Michael Ziggy Danziger's Bluff City to the Tiny Town Stand-Up Comedy Extravaganza 2006, or the MZDBCTTSUCE06, as I like to call it. It was a hell of a day!
Monday, November 27, 2006
Tirades and Turkeys
Happy belated Thanksgiving to you! I hope your day and weekend were wonderful, and that the coming days and months will be filled with blessings for which you can be grateful everyday. As for me, I am thankful for you!
In other news, I'm a Seinfeld fan and a stand-up comic. That combination has inspired people to make numerous comments - too many to count - to me about Michael Richards's racial tirade in a recent stand-up performance. Everyone thinks it's clever to ask if I ever do that (and if you read this blog, it is clever. Very clever!). I don't. I won't. It's not comedy and it's not okay.
I feared, in the aftermath of Kramer's naughty night, that Seinfeld would be tainted; that the show I so love would have been knocked down a couple of rungs into the realm of mortal television programming. Now I know, those fears are unfounded.
As I write, I am watching "The Puffy Shirt." It's the episode in which Kramer's "low-talking" girlfriend gets Jerry to wear her new puffy style shirt on the Today show. It is as hilarious as ever and makes me proud of the picture of the shirt - taken by me at the Smithsonian Museum of American History - that appears, along with a quote from the show, on my comedy website www.laughwithziggy.com.
The picture stays and the show is hilarious. And still... I don't wanna be a pirate!
In other news, I'm a Seinfeld fan and a stand-up comic. That combination has inspired people to make numerous comments - too many to count - to me about Michael Richards's racial tirade in a recent stand-up performance. Everyone thinks it's clever to ask if I ever do that (and if you read this blog, it is clever. Very clever!). I don't. I won't. It's not comedy and it's not okay.
I feared, in the aftermath of Kramer's naughty night, that Seinfeld would be tainted; that the show I so love would have been knocked down a couple of rungs into the realm of mortal television programming. Now I know, those fears are unfounded.
As I write, I am watching "The Puffy Shirt." It's the episode in which Kramer's "low-talking" girlfriend gets Jerry to wear her new puffy style shirt on the Today show. It is as hilarious as ever and makes me proud of the picture of the shirt - taken by me at the Smithsonian Museum of American History - that appears, along with a quote from the show, on my comedy website www.laughwithziggy.com.
The picture stays and the show is hilarious. And still... I don't wanna be a pirate!
Monday, November 13, 2006
Stolen For The Common Good
This is reprinted from the blog (http://unshelvingbeth.blogspot.com) of a good friend and regular ZiggyBackRide visitor. I'm proud of her for writing it and proud to post it for you here....
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Darfur: Your Obligation
Yesterday I participated in a Fast for Darfur Awareness, then attended a break-the-fast meal, where a Stop Genocide activist showed us some film clips from the refugee camps in Chad and gave us an overview of the current situation. He told us of the choiceless choices refugee families face when they need to send someone to retrieve water or firewood: send your son, who might be killed, or your daughter, who will likely be raped. He told us that the number "400,000 dead" was the official calculation in 2004 - and there has been no updated calculation, so the number is probably far greater than that. He told us about the fact that when Bush first took office, Sudanese Arabs were killing Sudanese Christians in a North-South conflict, and the Christian Right leaned on Bush, who leaned on Sudan -- and those killings ceased. The United States does have the power to make a difference, and as its citizens, we are the ones who must call for action.
The speaker ended his presentation with some stark and challenging questions:"If you had all the information you currently possess about what happened during the Holocaust, and armed with that information you could go back to the early 1930s and have the opportunity to DO something... what would you do? If you had all the information we currently have about the horrors in Rwanda, and you could go back to the early 1990s, what would you do? We HAVE the information, NOW, about what's going on in Darfur. What are you going to do?"
It's so easy to do nothing... but it is also wrong. It doesn't matter that the Darfurians are far away. It doesn't matter that they speak another language. It doesn't matter that their lives seem so different from ours.DO SOMETHING.Having read this blog, you are now obligated to DO SOMETHING, RIGHT NOW. Put in a call to your senator (the Democratic takeover is a fantastic time of shake-down and transition as far as pushing forward an agenda item like this), send a postcard to George W. Bush or Kofi Annan, sign an email petition, make a donation to Doctors without Borders, re-post this call to action on your own blog, educate yourself about the issue - but do something. Here are some websites to get you started:
Stop Genocide Now
Save Darfur
Doctors Without Borders
AJWS-Darfur Action
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Darfur: Your Obligation
Yesterday I participated in a Fast for Darfur Awareness, then attended a break-the-fast meal, where a Stop Genocide activist showed us some film clips from the refugee camps in Chad and gave us an overview of the current situation. He told us of the choiceless choices refugee families face when they need to send someone to retrieve water or firewood: send your son, who might be killed, or your daughter, who will likely be raped. He told us that the number "400,000 dead" was the official calculation in 2004 - and there has been no updated calculation, so the number is probably far greater than that. He told us about the fact that when Bush first took office, Sudanese Arabs were killing Sudanese Christians in a North-South conflict, and the Christian Right leaned on Bush, who leaned on Sudan -- and those killings ceased. The United States does have the power to make a difference, and as its citizens, we are the ones who must call for action.
The speaker ended his presentation with some stark and challenging questions:"If you had all the information you currently possess about what happened during the Holocaust, and armed with that information you could go back to the early 1930s and have the opportunity to DO something... what would you do? If you had all the information we currently have about the horrors in Rwanda, and you could go back to the early 1990s, what would you do? We HAVE the information, NOW, about what's going on in Darfur. What are you going to do?"
It's so easy to do nothing... but it is also wrong. It doesn't matter that the Darfurians are far away. It doesn't matter that they speak another language. It doesn't matter that their lives seem so different from ours.DO SOMETHING.Having read this blog, you are now obligated to DO SOMETHING, RIGHT NOW. Put in a call to your senator (the Democratic takeover is a fantastic time of shake-down and transition as far as pushing forward an agenda item like this), send a postcard to George W. Bush or Kofi Annan, sign an email petition, make a donation to Doctors without Borders, re-post this call to action on your own blog, educate yourself about the issue - but do something. Here are some websites to get you started:
Stop Genocide Now
Save Darfur
Doctors Without Borders
AJWS-Darfur Action
The ZiggyBackRide Jinx???
Oh dear Lord, what have I done?
On Saturday, I sang the praises of Colt McCoy, quarterback for The University of Texas Longhorns, showing a chart of statistics that compares him very favorably against the quarterbacks* of other top 10 teams. A few hours later, Colt McCoy was knocked out of the Texas game during the first quarter with an injury, and Texas lost to Kansas State. The Longhorns are no longer a top 10 team.
There has long been talk of the Sports Illustrated cover jinx, with athletes and teams that appear on the cover often following up the appearance with a slump, an off-week, a loss, etc. Does this site have the same power? Will people talk about ZBR jinx and hope not to be mentioned here? Only time will tell. For now, though, I will sure be careful about using names and you can rest assured, that if you see someone's name in a post, I don't give a damn what happens to them!
Have a nice day!
* My fear that I was the undoing of Colt and of the Longhorn season is allayed, somewhat, by the realization that the quarterback chart listed 9 other quarterbacks who, I believe, made it through the day uninjured, though several of their teams did lose. It's iffy, but with stitions as super as mine (see post from 10/22/06), you can't be too careful.
On Saturday, I sang the praises of Colt McCoy, quarterback for The University of Texas Longhorns, showing a chart of statistics that compares him very favorably against the quarterbacks* of other top 10 teams. A few hours later, Colt McCoy was knocked out of the Texas game during the first quarter with an injury, and Texas lost to Kansas State. The Longhorns are no longer a top 10 team.
There has long been talk of the Sports Illustrated cover jinx, with athletes and teams that appear on the cover often following up the appearance with a slump, an off-week, a loss, etc. Does this site have the same power? Will people talk about ZBR jinx and hope not to be mentioned here? Only time will tell. For now, though, I will sure be careful about using names and you can rest assured, that if you see someone's name in a post, I don't give a damn what happens to them!
Have a nice day!
* My fear that I was the undoing of Colt and of the Longhorn season is allayed, somewhat, by the realization that the quarterback chart listed 9 other quarterbacks who, I believe, made it through the day uninjured, though several of their teams did lose. It's iffy, but with stitions as super as mine (see post from 10/22/06), you can't be too careful.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Aw, Shucks...
Have you seen this?
"Cream Of The Crop"
Stats of the starting quarterbacks for the nation's Top-10 teams
Player Comp.% Yards TDs INTs
Colt McCoy, Texas 69.1 2,051 27 4
Pat White, WVU 68.1 1,044 6 5
Troy Smith, OSU 66.7 2,006 22 3
Nate Longshore, Cal 64.5 2,143 20 7
Brady Quinn, ND 63.9 2,579 25 4
Brandon Cox, Auburn 63.8 1,915 11 5
Brian Brohm, Lou.* 63.0 1,623 5 3
Chris Leak, Florida 62.8 1,903 17 10
John D. Booty, USC 62.6 1,966 19 5
Chad Henne, Mich. 61.2 1,773 16 6
* -- missed two games
Reprinted and reformatted without permission from CNNSI.com
"Cream Of The Crop"
Stats of the starting quarterbacks for the nation's Top-10 teams
Player Comp.% Yards TDs INTs
Colt McCoy, Texas 69.1 2,051 27 4
Pat White, WVU 68.1 1,044 6 5
Troy Smith, OSU 66.7 2,006 22 3
Nate Longshore, Cal 64.5 2,143 20 7
Brady Quinn, ND 63.9 2,579 25 4
Brandon Cox, Auburn 63.8 1,915 11 5
Brian Brohm, Lou.* 63.0 1,623 5 3
Chris Leak, Florida 62.8 1,903 17 10
John D. Booty, USC 62.6 1,966 19 5
Chad Henne, Mich. 61.2 1,773 16 6
* -- missed two games
Reprinted and reformatted without permission from CNNSI.com
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
An Electoral Reflectoral
Big times in American politics! A "thumpin'" was handed out by voters as the Democratic Party (or, as President Bush- likely recalling the same vocabulary lessons during which he learned the word nucular - calls it, the Democrat Party) took control of the U.S. House of Representatives and, evidently, the Senate. In general, the political team here at Ziggybackride is pleased with the outcome. The results in Tennessee, the 'ride's home state, leave a great deal to be desired, though.
Even as the rest of the country saw shifts in voters' choices and, often, in the parties that hold various seats, my state refused to participate. We passed over a dynamic, capable, young political star, instead filling a vacant Senate seat with a man I fear will be a mediocre defendant of the status quo. I hope I am wrong, but it doesn't happen often.
Receiving much less press than the Senate race, but striking me as much more troubling and embarrassing was the state vote on an amendment to "defend marriage." I was surprised, going into election day, that I had not seen more of a campaign on both sides of this proposal to ban gay marriage here and to void any such marriage allowed by another state. As the numbers came back, it became clear why there had been no campaign. It was a landslide of disturbing proportions, as the amendment passed by about a 4 to 1 margin.
Imagine how excited I am to know that if I should choose to marry here one day, my marriage will be safe - nobly and ably defended by the Great State of Tennessee. I would hate to have entered into a holy union without full knowledge that the state would be a key player. Now I can rest easy!
Shame on my fellow citizens who voted in favor of this amendment, no matter the reason for their vote. Whether the reason was outright bigotry and homophobia, or a lack of faith in the institution of marriage (which, as I understand it, has been around since even before this state), or simply the misguided notion that state government is where such things are sanctified, the amendment and the support that it received are shameful. Shameful, too, is the fact that state legislators, working on my behalf, spent time, effort, and public resources to ensure that this prejudicial nonsense appeared on the ballot.
While all of the attention is on numbers of seats and the immediate future in a different political landscape, I believe (and fear) that the criteria by which we will be judged now and in the future, and with which we define our character as a society includes, far more prominently than numerical facts, the statements we make on issues like this one. I hope this is us at our lowest.
Election day is over, but our job is not done. We've hired our public servants for the coming years, but we must be diligent supervisors. We must be aware of what our employees in Washington are doing on our time and on our dime. We need them to be good and they need us to show them how. Get to work, America.
Even as the rest of the country saw shifts in voters' choices and, often, in the parties that hold various seats, my state refused to participate. We passed over a dynamic, capable, young political star, instead filling a vacant Senate seat with a man I fear will be a mediocre defendant of the status quo. I hope I am wrong, but it doesn't happen often.
Receiving much less press than the Senate race, but striking me as much more troubling and embarrassing was the state vote on an amendment to "defend marriage." I was surprised, going into election day, that I had not seen more of a campaign on both sides of this proposal to ban gay marriage here and to void any such marriage allowed by another state. As the numbers came back, it became clear why there had been no campaign. It was a landslide of disturbing proportions, as the amendment passed by about a 4 to 1 margin.
Imagine how excited I am to know that if I should choose to marry here one day, my marriage will be safe - nobly and ably defended by the Great State of Tennessee. I would hate to have entered into a holy union without full knowledge that the state would be a key player. Now I can rest easy!
Shame on my fellow citizens who voted in favor of this amendment, no matter the reason for their vote. Whether the reason was outright bigotry and homophobia, or a lack of faith in the institution of marriage (which, as I understand it, has been around since even before this state), or simply the misguided notion that state government is where such things are sanctified, the amendment and the support that it received are shameful. Shameful, too, is the fact that state legislators, working on my behalf, spent time, effort, and public resources to ensure that this prejudicial nonsense appeared on the ballot.
While all of the attention is on numbers of seats and the immediate future in a different political landscape, I believe (and fear) that the criteria by which we will be judged now and in the future, and with which we define our character as a society includes, far more prominently than numerical facts, the statements we make on issues like this one. I hope this is us at our lowest.
Election day is over, but our job is not done. We've hired our public servants for the coming years, but we must be diligent supervisors. We must be aware of what our employees in Washington are doing on our time and on our dime. We need them to be good and they need us to show them how. Get to work, America.
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