Dad: [via e-mail] That article has caused quite a stir here. Lots of back tracking and claims of being misquoted. The Courier called it a hatchet job.

Against my better judgement I’ve been reading the Letters to the Editor section (and on-line comments) of Hometown Ohio/Flag City/Findlay’s paper since the Washington Post Article. I e-mailed Mom to let her know I’d written and submitted my own Letter to the Editor (something I’ve never done before).

Mom: [via e-mail] Should I pack my bags and be ready to leave once it hits print?!?!?

It hit print today. Here’s what I wrote:

“I read the (June 30) Washington Post article that used Findlay as a microcosm of an issue that is affecting the whole nation. I can see how some would be upset. Findlay does come off looking uninformed and quick to believe the worst of people who don't live the same lives they do.

“I was curious to see if responses from the people of Findlay would rise to the challenge of giving a better view of the town. While there have been level-headed responses on both sides, sadly, most of what I read made Findlay look just as bad as anything in the original article. (To be fair, some of this was on the Internet, which brings out the worst in people).

“For me, the subtlety of the problem is best illustrated by Scott Rothey's letter to the editor. He complains about ‘out-of-towners’ chastising Findlay, taking umbrage at them making false assumptions about his town. Then he writes, ‘These letters simply reflect the attitudes of angry, educated but benighted Americans who cling to their chardonnay and brie, read their Marx and Hegel, but don't particularly like people who don't think or act like them.’ Hmm. So, basically he's making sweeping generalizations about out-of-towners that are as cartoonishly ridiculous as the Larry the Cable Guy image he worries the rest of the country is placing on him.

“And that's, unfortunately, where we are right now in this country. One side calling the other ‘backwards.’ The other side yelling back ‘elitist.’ And both are equally wrong (or is it equally right?).

“Politics aside, inviting Obama to speak is the right gesture to show the world that Findlay is willing to listen and not just shake its head and scream, ‘Nuh-uh!’”

[A quick aside… a few Findlay residents, along with the mayor, drafted a letter formally inviting Senator Obama to visit Findlay. Now back to what I wrote…]

“Rothey ends his letter by responding to the question, ‘Are the people of Findlay this stupid?’ He answers, ‘No.’ My answer would be the same as my answer for any town or city. Only some of us are stupid. And some of us are working on it.

“By the way, I skimmed Marx and Hegel in college, prefer beer to chardonnay and I don't have brie that often but greatly enjoy it when I do. Seriously, it's delicious. Try some brie.”

Mom: [via e-mail] Dad thought that your Letter to the Editor was good. Sherry & Julie don't know why you wrote it. I haven't heard from Allie. I thought it was funny. I went to mass at Carey and even though I shouldn't have, I thought about your letter and how people like [list of some of my old teachers] probably really enjoyed it. I also thought about how Grandma Dottie would have liked it, and how grateful I am that you are like her. . . open-minded, willing to give your opinion even if others may disagree. I thanked God for a son that is intelligent and has made my life interesting and that has a great sense of humor and is an independent thinker.

Mom was kind enough to take this picture of Dad reading the letter in today’s Courier.

Mom: Dad thought that it would be funny to act shocked for a couple of photos. I said wait until one of those are on the blog.

I've been hearing good things about Wii Fit, the exercise peripheral for the Nintendo Wii.

Allard at work claims to have lost 20 pounds using it, although I think that probably has more to do with his new aggressive diet.

Stonelake: I love mine. But I moved the board from the carpet to the floor and it made me gain a pound.

So I bought one. Now video games will make me fit!

As I've mentioned before, according to the BMI I'm officially obese. And Wii Fit agrees. My Mii (the little character that looks like you) was immediately turned into a little fat guy.

The game measured my (totally unscientific) Wii Fit Age and said I have the physical fitness of a man of... 73. Yikes! Then I realized I'd done the balance test wrong. I redid it and my "real" Wii Fit Age was 34. Only two years older than I am. Not bad. The next day I tried again, and my age was 30. I'm getting younger! At this rate I'll be a teenager soon.

My weight has been going down too. But here's the thing... I haven't done much of anything. I've used Wii Fit every day for the last few days but not for very long and not particularly aggressively. I set my weight loss goal to 5 pounds in two weeks and somehow lost that in three days. But... I don't really... buy it.

I'm not conspiracy minded, but if the makers of the game programmed it to register steady weight loss no matter what... well... they'd sell like hotcakes. Which is to say, they'd sell to a lot of fat people.

Tonight I went with Sarah to the ComedySportz Award Banquet. Free food. Free booze. Lots of dressed up improvisers.

My favorite part of the evening was the slide show/power point presentation hosted by Prouty, Tara and Joey. Since I'm not a ComedySportz performer, I honestly only got about half the jokes, but the multi-media-ness was well done and those three always make me laugh.

I especially liked this (paraphrased) joke about the most popular beer at the ComedySportz bar, Fosters. "They say Fosters is Australian for beer, but I think it's Australian for I Just Did An 8 O'Clock Show And I'm Thinking About Missing My 10 O'Clock Playground Show To Sit Here And Use My Performer Discount To Drink These $3 Oil Drums Of Beer."

Writing trivia questions all day, I have to come up with a lot of names, some real, some made up. Occasionally, for my own amusement, I'll slip in names of people or places I know.

If you were to play the educational project I was working on before You Don't Know Jack, you might stumble across a children's story with a mention of a Mr. Hansen or a Mr. Meador.

In one of the recent You Don't Know Jack episodes, the audio for one of the wrong answers includes a long bit about the host, Cookie, trying to sell his dog on eBay. I named the dog Gatsby, after a dalmatian my family had (briefly) when I was younger.

And this question... I probably could have included a more widely known chain like, say, Chilli's, but I included Cheddar's because my dad likes that place so much.

I couldn't talk anyone into seeing 'Wanted' with me, so Sarah finally felt sorry enough for me to agree to go (compromise: we had to see 'Sex and the City' afterward).

Meador said he'd maybe go, but maybe usually means no.

I left him a voicemail this morning saying, "Meador. You've led an ordinary life up until this point, but I'm calling to tell you that you are really part of a secret society of assassins. It is up to you to decide whether to embrace this life or stay with the empty life you have. Your orientation film will be showing at the Evanston theater at 1:20."

Meador: Dammit, Arnie! I wasn't going to go, I have too much homework, but your voicemail got me. I think the fact that you called it an orientation film clinched it. Was that your Morgan Freeman voice?
Me: What? No.

The movie was good stupid fun.

Me: Meador, what if you got orders right now to kill Sarah and I?
Meador: I'd feel terrible about it, but I'd have to do it. The code is the code.
Sarah: Oh no.

We couldn't talk Meador into see 'Sex and the City' with us too. That movie was equally stupid and equally fun.

Before the Diplomat Motel show we were talking about googling our own names and what, if anything, we find.

Tristan: I was in some short comedy videos other people did and I was looking for them on YouTube so I searched for my name. The first thing that came up was a video about a guy in England I think who has the same name as me. The camera was pointed at a couch, you don't see anyone, but this voice, a woman or maybe a kid keeps saying, "Beware of Tristan ______. Tristan ______ is a pee-do-phile! Stay away from Tristan ______. Tristan ______ is a pee-do-phile!"
Me: Yikes.

Went to a barbecue on Megan and Alex's roof last night. The plan was to see the downtown fireworks from there, but sadly they were mostly obscured by buildings. We could see the top right corner of some of the explosions. And the reflections of lights off the clouds. And drifting firework smoke.

I didn't mind. The beers and burgers were entertainment enough.

And later we saw another rooftop party across the street that set off their own fairly impressive little fireworks show.

Young: The curse is broken.

Young's car didn't break down last night at the Navy Pier, hopefully signaling the end of the Road Show Car Curse.

Because it broke down last week at the Beverly Arts Center he wasn't able to go to the Wizard World Comic Book Convention (I ended up not going either). So, sadly, no new pictures of Young high fiving comic book characters.

Instead, enjoy this picture of him high fiving Brady in the Beverly Arts Center dressing room.

Brady: [via e-mail] I made the blog again! For a while, I thought, "If I ever make Arnie's blog, it'll be for cutting that dog's head off - Arnie loves that story!" Just to reiterate, I had nothing to do with the actual removal of the head.

Whirled News did a lucrative corporate show in a gigantic ballroom on the Navy Pier tonight. Supposedly an audience of about 700.

Sometimes you find yourself thinking, "These are the kind of shows we want to be doing. 700 people! This signifies success!"

The reality is, though, that intimate is always better. Especially since... there are always sound problems. Everywhere. It kind of boggles my mind. Maybe six wireless mics is beyond modern technology. It's hard enough to make a show work when there's a massive dance floor between you and the audience, but when the sound swings back and forth between startling feedback and so soft no one can hear... that makes it tough to put on a good show.

But we did some solid funny scenes, and when the audio was working the audience seemed into it. (According to Brady, my mic was the only one working 100% the whole time, so you know they got their money's worth)

Before the show we were told that the audience was unhappy that the charter bus had dropped them off too far away and they had to walk the entire length of the pier to get to the ballroom. "Maybe you can use that in the show."

Me: [whispering, about to go on stage] Should we place bets on who will be the first person to do a bus joke in the show?
Young: It's not going to be me. I know that.

Ten minutes into the show, Young charges into a scene proclaiming, "Mom, Dad, I was framed! There's no way I would drive a bus full of people to the Navy Pier but then drop them off too early and make them walk a mile to their ballroom event. I wouldn't do that!"

Huge roar of laughter. Massive.

My workweek started yesterday with an IM from Tom (who sits back to back with me in the office) with a link to a front page article from the Washington Post about Hometown, Ohio, where we both grew up.

I've always called it Hometown, Ohio in these blogs, but it has another more official nickname, Flag City USA. And I might as well just come out and give you its real name, Findlay.

The article, titled, 'In Flag City USA, False Obama Rumors Are Flying' focuses on one street in Findlay, and the various (admittedly older) residents who are quick to believe all the ridiculous rumors about Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama (that he's a Muslim for instance). Ohio is an important electoral state, and the name Flag City has a certain thematic resonance, so it's kind of a no-brainer to use it as a microcosm to address the national trend.

Speaking of no-brainers, the article is full of depressingly funny quotations like this one. "'I think Obama would be a disaster, and there's a lot of reasons,' said Pollard, explaining the rumors he had heard about the candidate from friends he goes camping with. 'I understand he's from Africa, and that the first thing he's going to do if he gets into office is bring his family over here, illegally. He's got that racist [pastor] who practically raised him, and then there's the Muslim thing. He's just not presidential material, if you ask me'."

If you haven't read the article already you can check it out here.

Me: I know it's a horrible idea, but I'm kind of tempted to write a letter to the editor of the Findlay Courier.
Tom: Yeah. I get that impulse sometimes, but then I think better of it. It's like getting into a debate with a bunch of fifth graders.