Diaper Dandy

LAKEWOOD RANCH, Fla. — The last time I visited Florida, Dick Vitale chided me for not dining at the Broken Egg. I didn't make that mistake this time.

While visiting the breakfast spot in 2007, KSR met Vitale and asked him to sign his book for me. Vitale wrote the following:

David, Sorry I missed you at the Broken Egg. Awesome baby, Dick Vitale

This time around, I wanted to meet Vitale for myself. After seeing no sign of him on Siesta Key, Marnie and Catherine drove with me to Manatee County to see if the legendary sportscaster was at a second Broken Egg outpost.

He was.

And he was awesome, baby!

Circle gets the square

SARASOTA, Fla. — The shops and restaurants at St. Armands Circle have banded together to promote commerce, using the slogan: "Get Out Of The box, Get Into The Circle."

The "Get Into The Circle" campaign is divided into quadrants.

I guess they like shapes here.

How to boost sunglasses sales

In order to reduce CO2 levels by 44 billion tons, we could remove all the cars in the world for 18 years.

Or we could paint roofs and pavement white.

Both actions would have the same effect, according to research from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

If we choose the mass painting option, Robert Rapier notes, look for a boom in sunglasses sales.

When Dick Bavetta retires, perhaps he'd like to enforce a new kind of three-second rule

A couple years ago, I implied that a Dallas-area high school was overly puritanical for banning cleavage. The school district in Arlington, Texas, had just approved a rule prohibiting girls from wearing shirts that show skin lower than 4 inches from the collarbone.

In the comment area of that entry, Joel and Eric questioned how the school enforced that law and whether the process entailed a faculty member identifying and confirming the existence of non-complying students.

By now, perhaps the folks in Texas have managed to work out a cleavage monitoring system that works and avoid lawsuits. But high schools now have another issue to deal with: fully clothed students who like to greet each other by hugging.

Some high schools have imposed a three-second rule on hugs. Others have banned the practice altogether, according to Sarah Kershaw's story in today's New York Times.

Will schools retrofit their hallways with three-second clocks, kind of like the NBA's 24-second clock?

Wines of color

SARASOTA, Fla. — Treviso Restaurant, the fine dining option at the Ringling Museum of Art, features wines of the world.

You can get a white wine with your meal, of course.

But some people prefer to choose from Treviso's selection of "wines of color."

Home of the black box

SARASOTA, Fla. — Nebraska is home to the good life and Arbor Day. What about Sarasota? Well, it turns out that Sarasota is the home of the black box.

They tried to make me go to Subway, but I said: No! No! No!

It seems like they could move the line faster at Subway by asking us questions in the order they prepare our sandwiches. For instance, the first thing the sandwich artists¹ reach for is the bread. So they should ask about the bread first. Instead, it goes like this:

Sandwich artist: What type of sandwich do you want?
Customer: I'll have a six-inch Tuscan chicken.
Sandwich artist: What kind of bread?
Customer: White.
Sandwich artist: [Takes out white bread. Cuts it. Prepares it.] Okay. What kind of sandwich, again?

This happens to me every time.

Meanwhile, I didn't have the HD Flip handy to watch someone yell at the sandwich artist for putting in the wrong ingredients, so I arranged for a reenactment later in the day.



¹ Yes, it's a silly term. But that's what they're called now, so it's about time you afford them the respect they deserve.

Notes from Gate 38

Three days ago, TSA enacted two new changes at National Airport:

1. You no longer show your boarding pass while walking through the x-ray machine. As you reach the initial check-in point and the TSA checks your ID and boarding pass, you can put both away for the rest of the security process.
2. All footwear must be placed directly on the x-ray conveyor belt, not in a bin.

I not crazy about the footwear rule because of what happened to me this morning: a sandal belonging to the woman in front of me got stuck in the machine. It took a few minutes for someone to rescue the sandal, which was spinning around in the area where one belt starts and the other stops.

Is ESPN planning to launch sports-related Wikipedia?

Reporter Erin Andrews appeared on the World's Greatest Sports Talk Show on WAUK-AM yesterday to talk about her upcoming role covering the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

While chatting with host Steve "The Homer" True, Andrews appeared to drop a bit of news:

Her company, ESPN, is evidently launching some sort of Wikipedia-like page for sports. Steve True did not press her for details, so we're left with the vague hints Andrews left us. (Listen for yourself here.)

Steve True: We were a little disappointed that there isn't much on your Wikipedia page. I'm a huge Wikipedia fan. I think it's vastly underrated. Do you ever go there for background information or information on people you interview?

Erin Andrews: No, because a lot of the times I think the things on the Wikipedia page aren't true. I mean, I've had people write stuff about me that aren't true. I will let you guys know this. I don't think many people know this yet. We're actually coming out with a Web site in a couple months.

Steve True: Tell us more.

Erin Andrews: You won't have to worry about the Wikipedia page.

The mystery of Spice Express Indian Bistro

In February, I tried a new lunch spot serving Indian food that opened up in the ground floor of my office building. My review went like this: "Huge portions of bland food. I don't need to go back."

Due to the fact that they serve terrible food and that the store marquee ("Spice Express"), its menu ("Cafe Spices Express") and its Web page ("Cafe Express") each refer to the restaurant by a different name, it never seemed like the type of place that would expand to other outposts.

And yet it has.

The Washington Post published a glowing review of the place today, including the news that it is actually called Spice Express Indian Bistro and has opened a new location five blocks away. In her first paragraph, food critic Jane Black reports that many customers come back three to five times per week... according to the restaurant's owner.

Who are those people? Don't they realize this is truly flavorless and uninteresting food? If they like Indian food, why aren't they going to Naan and Beyond — a far better lunch option?

To solve this mystery, I will pay more attention to other recommendations by Jane Black. Stay tuned.

What's in a name?

A couple years ago, I learned about the Longstreth Principle, which states that you will see something at every baseball game you attend that you hadn't seen before.

Broadcaster Keith Olbermann believes in this principle, but he knows it by another name. On his blog this weekend, the MSNBC anchor called it the "McCarver Theorem."

What happens in Dover stays in Dover

As expected, Delaware this week became the second state to legalize sports betting.

It is legal in Nevada too, of course. But not just any old state has the ability to legalize sports betting. Only Delaware, Montana, Nevada and Oregon are exempt from a 1992 federal ban.¹

Delaware may run into a little problem, though, since its state constitution does not permit anything other than lottery-style games in which chance, not skill, is the deciding factor.

The Delaware Supreme Court will hear arguments on this topic later this month, reports Steven Church of Bloomberg.


¹The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, introduced in the House by Rep. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.)

Predicting one game is skill, but two games is luck

Delaware Gov. Jack Markell (D) is expected to sign a bill this week to legalize sports gambling in his state. His hope is to have a betting system in place for the start of the NFL season.¹

However, the legislation could get held up in the Delaware Supreme Court. It seems there’s a feeling that the bill would be constitutional only if chance, not skill, is the dominant factor in who wins a bet.

If that's the case, USA Today reports, the court would limit the sports gambling to parlay bets. (These are wagers that link together multiple single bets. To win a parlay, you must correctly predict several outcomes at once.)

But as I see it, parlays are just like regular bets — only harder to win.

Therefore, if the courts determine that predicting one sports outcome requires skill, not chance, then predicting multiple outcomes requires an even higher skill level. Not chance.


¹According to the Wilmington News Journal, the NFL claims it opposes this bill.

Coffee of the future

Dippin' Dots has been the "ice cream of the future" since 1987.

Usually, they can be found at ballparks and summer festivals, but they also have at least one stand-alone retail store (I spotted one in Mississippi last fall) and the vending machine pictured above, which I came across in a Pittsburgh mall last week.

USA Today's Bruce Horovitz previews the company's new product in this morning's paper: Coffee Dots, which will be ready to launch next month.

(Also on the drawing board: a low-fat version of Dippin' Dots that could be sold at schools.)

Free WiFi

Yesterday's New York Times hit on something I've noticed recently: the nicer the hotel, the more likely it will charge a separate fee for Internet service.

As reporter Michelle Higgins points out, high-end hotels attract guests who don't seem to mind paying $15 per day for Internet.

But it still seems odd that a $300/night room at the Westin doesn't include Internet while a $89 room at the Hampton Inn does.

As for me, I can't wait to get a MiFi.

Terre Haute, 'the armpit of America'

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — Before I came here, people warned me about the town's foul smell. Unfortunately, I didn't take it as seriously as I should have. The air here is the most vile-smelling on earth.

But most shocking of all is that not everyone I met seemed to notice.

By the way, the secret to being able to breathe freely in Terre Haute is to find the smokiest bar around (they do not have a smoking ban in these parts, evidently), which masks the smell.

Aside from the stench, here's what I found interesting about Terre Haute:

• It used to be on the border of Canada and Louisiana.
• It is the mailing address for Columbia House, the CD club.
• It is the home of the federal death row. Do they use the town's air as the lethal injection? (Ba-dum-bum.)

So long, Indiana — where South Bend is in the north, North Bend is in the south and French Lick isn't as fun as it sounds.

Air Wisconsin, more facts

Earlier this week, I flew from National Airport to Pittsburgh on a flight operated by Air Wisconsin.

The flight crew explained to me that it is based in D.C., which only further confused me.

Indeed, Air Wisconsin serves 69 cities — only one of which is in Wisconsin.

Lets go Caps!

PITTSBURGH — For years, I'd heard from my hockey-loving friends that Stanley Cup playoffs games in person are amazing. That is, being in the arena for a playoff game would win over people who were unimpressed by regular-season hockey.

Last night, I put it to the test at Game 3 of the second-round series between the Capitols and Penguins.

Some observations:

• Everyone advising me on Stanley Cup playoff games was right.
  
• Mellon Arena is my new favorite place to watch a game. What an atmosphere!
• Hockey, as everyone knows, is better in person than on TV. This is partly because TV zooms in too much. If they showed a wider shot, it would make for a better TV experience. I assume they keep the tight shots so we can see the puck. But still.
  
• When the teams took the ice before each period, they didn't practice passing, shooting or anything involving a puck. Instead, they just skated around. Imagine if soccer players took the field by running around in little circles and then starting the game. It seemed weird to me.

'Spicy mustard if you have it'

A full-page ad in this morning's USA Today brags that it No. 1 in daily print circulation.

• USA Today: 2,113,725
• Wall Street Journal: 1,698,900
• New York Times: 1,039,031

Okay. But here are my own numbers taken from today's paper. Below are the number of paragraphs of news dedicated to:

• President Obama's meeting today with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari: 1
• The District of Columbia City Council's vote to recognize same-sex marriages from other states: 2
• President Obama's lunch-time trip on Tuesday for a hamburger: 14

On the radio, uh-oh

PITTSBURGH — A radio station here in town claims to be America's first radio station. My visit to the KDKA studio exposed me to a steady stream of posters and plaques commemorating the station as the oldest radio station in the United States. Having grown up in the home area of WHA, which makes the same claim, I got defensive.

It turns out that there are several stations vying for the title of oldest station, including KCBS and WWV.

WHA was the only station permitted to continue operations continuously during World War I. So it can claim the title of the oldest continually operating station. So there.

Who needs the Kwik-E-Mart?

PITTSBURGH — Shame on Apu Nahasapeemapetilon (and Matt Groening and Fox) for not copywriting the name "Kwik-E-Mart." This one does not sell Duff or Squishees.

Supreme assets

When David Souter began serving on the Supreme Court in 1990, his reported assets were $627,010.

He is now worth between $6 million and $30 million, according to yesterday's paper.

Given his financial acumen, perhaps he'd like to manage my portfolio for a bit. You know, before he leaves town for good.

Cold New Hampshire

The first time I traveled to New Hampshire, it was for an outdoor summer wedding in 95-degree heat.

The memory of that sticky moment came back to me upon reading the reaction from Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on the news that David Souter will retire:

I am sure he will be happy back in his cold and beloved New Hampshire.

I'm certain it gets cold in New Hampshire. But Scalia himself is from New York, which gets plenty cold in the winter too.

Everyone's a comedian

Clay, Megan and Kacia decided yesterday would be a good time to do impressions of me. Here's what I've learned:

• I am displeased with the speed of people's work. Well, yes.
• I was rude to Kacia the other day. Yes, but I made up for it the next day!
• I frequently identify ideas as being terrible. Only the terrible ones.