I'm sure it's a glitch. It has to be.

I have just now navigated over to a page at Yahoo Sports, where I play Fantasy Football every year, that purports to describe in detail tomorrow's Packers-Lions game.

Besides my ongoing series of decisions to remain a professional artist I am not what you would call a gambler. So I'm not going to use this information to place all of my money with a sports bookie. I doubt the veracity of the information. A glitch.

It has to be.

ETA: It is. hannibalv pointed out to me that this is the box score from the October 18 Packers-Lions game. I'm happy to know this, because Green Bay running back Ryan Grant is on my Fantasy Team and I'd like more out of him than 90 rushing yards.

If you're interested in what the Future's Internet has to say about this game, Box Score posted behind the cut. If it does indeed turn out exactly as shown, I'm going to feel like a real jackass, and we may need to ask ourselves if professional football and professional wrestling have more in common than the feature of large sweaty men throwing themselves bodily at each other.

( Spoilers? )

mood: curious music: Everything But The Girl, Temperamental tags: football

Note: Below is a post I put up at the Neo-Futurists' blog, regarding a play I wrote and performed for Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind during the month of October. I'm cross-posting it here because I feel it here as well as there.

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This is not a post on behalf of the Neo-Futurists Theater Company. This is just a post from me, Bilal Dardai, an ensemble member of the Neo-Futurists Theater Company.

Hello. I owe many members of our audience and our ensemble an apology and a retraction.

About a month and a half ago, I wrote a play titled No Shit, Sherlock, which made it into the menu and lasted about three or four weeks before getting kicked off the menu. The play utilized a standard British mystery trope--the drawing room scene--to discuss the recent death of a man named Bill Sparkman, a 51 year-old census worker and substitute science teacher, who was found hanging from a tree in Kentucky with the word "Fed" scrawled on his chest in black marker.

The play made several strong statements to the effect that I believed Sparkman's death to be a murder, and that a recent spate of anti-government rhetoric from right-wing politicians and political groups was in part to blame.

Today, the Kentucky State Police and a host of other investigative bodies including the FBI ruled that Sparkman's death was a suicide staged to look like a homicide.

Now, there are still going to be people who claim that there is no way this could be a suicide. I'm not one of these people. This was a high-profile case and there were a lot of people on it. I trust the ruling.

As such, I personally feel it is important to retract significant sections of my own play. I jumped to some conclusions and those conclusions were determined to be incorrect. So I'm sorry about No Shit, Sherlock.

That said: although I apologize for throwing out a lot of falsehoods about the Bill Sparkman case on our truth-based stage, I do stand by the core argument of my play... there is a lot of hateful and dangerous rhetoric clogging the airwaves right now by people opposed to the Obama administration and the consequences of that rhetoric are not small. I do want people to remember that the Rwandan genocide occurred due in no small part to the hate-mongering of Hutu Power Media.

I believe most of can agree that there is no room in the health care debate, or any other differences of opinion with the Obama administration, for violent, hateful, eliminationist speech. I think most of us are reasonable enough not to create Facebook polls about Obama's assassination or sell T-shirts that obliquely use Biblical scripture wishing him to die. I think most of us rightly understand that actions such as burning Nancy Pelosi in effigy or erecting a billboard in Missouri telling people to Prepare For War cross all lines of civilized American behavior.

And so on that front, I do not apologize. I do not retract.

It was important to me that I answer for mistakes I made on behalf of the art I produce for this company. That I got something wrong, however, does not make other wrong things less wrong.

mood: sober music: God Lives Underwater, "From Your Mouth" tags: neo-futurists, obama, politics, theatre, tmlmtbgb

I may have mentioned my dog Oracle once or twice before. Once or twice.

This is her. She's a retired racing greyhound and one of the sweetest living beings I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. She turned seven last Saturday. We celebrated by doing nothing out of the ordinary. She spent the day either sleeping, eating, trotting around the dog park, or having her hair stroked; and this was all just fine with her.

Although--obviously and without room for debate--Oracle is the single most awesome member of her species, I have found greyhounds in general to be wonderful dogs, and I would recommend a greyhound as a pet to almost any loving, responsible human being I know.

I bring this up because very shortly there are about to be a couple hundred of these magnificent beasts in need of a loving, responsible human being to take care of them.

No. Dana did not happen to find a few hundred stray greyhounds near the corner of Irving Park and California. This is a different situation. I received the following missive from one of the myriad dog-owner newsletters I may or may not have consciously signed up to receive:

We are writing to solicit your help with the rescue of a large group of dogs. The Dairyland Greyhound Park in Kenosha, WI, will be closing its gates forever on December 31, 2009. There will be about 500 Dairyland dogs needing homes, of which, unfortunately, Greyhounds Only will be able to place a small number. In addition to the dogs we will already have as of that date, we hope to bring in at least 75 Dairyland dogs.

Typically, Greyhounds Only boards its rescue dogs at Emerald Kennels in Burlington, WI. Making room at the kennels for the influx of Dairyland dogs will necessitate that the dogs already in our program be moved into foster homes until they are adopted which may take anywhere from two weeks to a couple of months. This plan allows foster families to take in dogs that have already been treated for fleas, been de-wormed, spayed/neutered, and are up to-date on shots.

Why are we telling you this? We need your help with one or more of the following:

• Fostering a dog: Even if you've never fostered a dog before, we can give you the necessary information and support to take a dog into your home until it finds its own.
• Temporary boarding facilities: In the event we cannot find enough foster families, we welcome any leads you have on facilities possibly willing to donate boarding.
• Money: The extra dogs we take in will require extra expenditures for medications, vet work, boarding and so on. Any donations are appreciated. Also, please check with your employer to see if they provide matching gifts so your contributions can be doubled or tripled.
• Large bags of Pro Plan dog food are needed for the extra dogs in foster care.
• Unused crates: Any crate you're not currently using would be appreciated for fostering.
• Getting the word out about adopting a greyhound.
• Fundraising
• Transporting Dogs both local and long distance GURs to move dogs within the Midwest.
• Gently used coats, collars, Frontline, Heartguard or Inteceptor

The timing of this track closure could scarcely be worse, coming, as it does, in the dead of winter and in a challenging economy when so many of us are already extended ourselves. We hope you will find it in your heart (and your pocketbook) to be able to extend yourselves yet again so that innocent animal lives aren't lost.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration and thank you in advance for the greyhounds that will benefit from your generosity. If you are interested in fostering or donating food or crates, please call Greyhounds Only at either (847) 421-9828 or (773) 297-4739 or Sue Purdom at (815) 501-3533. You may fill out the attached form and fax it back to us at (773) 453-3179, or send it along with your donation to Greyhounds Only, 335 E. Geneva Rd. #173, Carol Stream, IL 60188.

Dana and I first met Oracle at Emerald Kennels; she was born and raised there. Her original racing name was "Emerald Oracle."

I'm no fan of the practice of greyhound racing, so on one level I'm happy to see one of the arenas forced to shut down. But on the other, more immediate level...these dogs that are no longer of use to their race-masters are either going to be sent to live with people who will care for them or they will end up destroyed.

So I offer you that to consider.

Seriously. Great dogs. You should have one or two.

mood: optimistic music: eels, Daisies of the Galaxy tags: dog