What happens when a Fox affiliate news program reports on the obviously brand new blogging craze?

Let’s just say there are hilarious consequences. See for yourself. (Thanks to Liza for the pointer.)

I received this e-mail spam a couple of weeks ago, and I just have to share it:

Divine Card Designs: Free Online Picturesque Biz Card Design Center…..no more androids in the world of business!

IN recollection of myself once having been a young fawn frolicking among the sweet zephyr fields of youth, I most remember my euphoric dream of acquiring interior wings. As I ponder back through the child-like yesteryears, I ask myself. ….Why? Where would I have flown if by some phenomenon, I really were granted wings? I realize it is not where we fly, but what extracts out of the flesh while flying.

And the determinant of our destination is based on our internal vision of ourselves. Far more are we then just masked, mundane tissues of flesh. We are emotional creatures with an astounding potential for heartfelt expression, intensity and passion, however we are also quite stifled by man’s arena of pretentious ethics of professionalism and the chaotic civilization of business.

We do not need anymore-unfeeling, conditioned androids in the world of business, we need the true individuals beneath society’s conditioned mask of monotonous flesh, blood and guts…….we are far more than you know! Sashay further out of your current celled atmosphere and feel the aura of power that sheepishly awaits to be awoken~ like an evolving, florid seed beseeching to blossom with adventurous & harmonious enlightenment .

Out of all the things people remember, they remember most, the things that somehow stroke their hearts! Everything else just gets subconsciously garaged into that diminutive chamber of the cerebral canal that lays dormant in the short-term memory.

Your biz and/or personal card is an illumination of YOU, the unique individual beneath the flesh and who YOU are is quite picturesque…a creative, expressional winged creature that can soar and TOUCH Others, making them never forget your name. Never underestimate the invincible power of EMOTION and it’s dynamic ability to make anything happen, even in the world of business. Truly, the mountain-moving force is in the heart! Things happen when one grants themselves wings while revealing what exists beneath the earthy tissue. The magic is the honest force of ignited emotion!

AutumnFlower writes, ” A wonderful thing is a picturesque business card, capable of conveying across the miles, a warm, friendly handclasp in your own unique way. A clasp that is seldom ever forgotten!

Let’s face it, we need to intertwine the art of the human spirit with the art of business, balance of the two undeniably produces triumphed victories, in both internal and external world.

The real empowerment of everything upon this sphere is the infallible tool of your heart! There is nothing more invincible then the potent force of illustrated human feeling. The human heart and it’s pictorial sentiments is like a magnet ~ a never-ending authority which mysteriously gravitates others to remember you long after the ashen masks have faded.

When the closing stages of my road is approaching, I shall not count the quantity of business cards I was able to bizarrely sale, I shall evaluate my worth by the amount of people I touched along the way. After all, “in the end, that is all that will count for anything of important measure.

Wishing you success in all your business endeavors, but more so, wishing you complete victory in acquiring those interior, magic wings that somehow just soars above it all ~ winning in everything! Trust me on this…………………………..uncanny but true.

Website: http://divinecarddesign.ecardbuilder.com Autumflower@aol.com

Oh how I wish I had those interior, magic wings.

She didn’t actually tell me; she just never discouraged my Cubs habit.

It is, however, days like this that make me wonder whether (1) signing Maddux wasn’t a terrible mistake and (2) whether the Cubs will even win more games than they lose this season.

UPDATE: After walking Sport for the second time today in the fierce, chilly Chicago winds, I’ve decided to write the entire day off to the bad weather. Maddux and the rest, therefore, get a wind check for this game, so to speak. I realize, by the way, that this isn’t very logical since the Pirates both hit and pitched just fine under the exact same weather condition, but please don’t bother me with the fact once I’ve made up my mind. Thank you.

You might as well write it in the book right now, judging from this Mike Kiley story in today’s Sun-Times:

Mark Prior declared he isn’t ready to get on the mound, even though the team had said he might throw off the mound Sunday or today.

Prior has stopped even thinking about a possible return date — that’s how uncertain his return is. But he pointed out that he usually takes six weeks of throwing time to prepare for the start of spring training, and he is not even at that stage.

Based on that schedule, it now seems possible Prior might not be recovered from his bouts with right Achilles tendinitis and an inflamed right elbow until late May or June.

“My arm is not in shape yet, not enough to get on the mound,” Prior said Sunday. “I want to get on the mound, but I know long toss is better to get my arm in shape right now. It’s more of a gut thing. I just know it’s not strong enough. It’s not as easy to throw long toss as it usually is.”

Prior again played catch Sunday on flat ground and used a towel to simulate his delivery off the mound. How many more workouts like this before he can get on the mound and actually throw pitches?

“Hopefully, no more than two or three more times,” he replied. “It’s just getting stretched out. I throw from the first week of January to the start of spring training [to get ready to pitch]. That’s how long it usually takes. Hopefully, it doesn’t take that long this time.”

Just getting stretched out? Come on, Mark. We’re not that stupid. The elbow problem is obviously the holdup now, and the rumors swirling are that Prior will need Tommy John surgery.

“When players notice discomfort and changes in their pitching ability,” Jennifer Dawkins of drkoop.com writes, “it is not immediately apparent that something is seriously wrong. Ruptures are detected through a magnetic resonance imaging test, or MRI, sometimes after days or weeks of mild pain.”

Sounds a lot like Prior’s own reports about his elbow stiffness at the end of March:

They said it was like shin splints as far as an injury. They didn’t have any more specific answers except that it was inflammation around the bone. We didn’t know if it was pain getting referred over there and it was pain where I was having discomfort and stiffness and achiness.

Prior will keep long tossing until the elbow magically feels better, which seems unlikely, or an MRI confirms what everyone fears — a torn ligament.

So all bets are off now. This team will still compete, but there’s not much reason to hope for a World Series appearance, much less a championship. And with a minimum of a year from surgery-to-pitching and more like two years before Prior is really “back,” the outlook is decidely dimmer.

The Cubs can still be very competitive in the meantime. After all, they’ve still got Wood and Zambrano, along with some very promising minor-league pitching prospects. Sosa will still be here for a couple of years, Lee has been signed for three years and in the early going Ramirez appears to be showing that he has the stuff to become a long-term solution at third base.

Meanwhile, the end of Moises Alou’s and Alex Gonzalez’s contracts will free up millions to spend in the free-agent market to get much better players.

And if anyone can pitch productively into his early 40s, it’s Greg Maddux.

But the Prior equation is simply this: with him, the Cubs are a powerhouse; without him, they are just “a contender.”

Check it out.

Why should I deal with all the nausea, anxiety and misery that comes with being a Cubs fan? Life is short enough, you know.

I think it’s time I joined up with a winner. That’s why I’ve decided to start rooting for the evil, evil lovely, lovely New York Yankees. Hopefully this will be the year they finally overcome all the odds to win it all.

Did you know they’ve only won one World Series this millennium? And to think that I wasn’t on the bandwagon back then. Well, I’m riding it hard now baby. If A-Rod can defer millions in salary to go join the dark side mystique-and-aura filled Yankees tradition, why can’t I give up the misery of Cubs fandom to do the same thing?

That’s why as of today, April 1, I am officially switching my allegiance from the Chicago Cubs (and the Boston Red Sox) to the New York Yankees.

Help me, Jeebus!:

Mark Prior probably won’t pitch until May because of inflammation in his right Achilles tendon and a stiff elbow.

“I’d say May 1 or the first week of May is optimistic,” Chicago Cubs general manager Jim Hendry said Tuesday. “He’s a guy that I don’t think needs more than three or four weeks to get ready.”

The Cubs were hoping for a good outing Tuesday from Sergio Mitre, who will replace Prior in the starting rotation.

But Chicago gave up 19 hits in a 16-4 loss to the Seattle Mariners. Mitre allowed eight hits and five runs in four innings.

A stiff elbow? What?! And Mitre is far from a solid replacement, even for just a month. Nineteen hits? I just hope he was working on a new pitch or something.

I spoke in my last post about Prior’s long-term importance to the franchise, but he’s obviously crucial in the short-term as well. If May 1 is an optimistic return date, let’s write him off until May 15. That’s 40 games into the season, about eight missed starts.

Prior had a .750 winning percentage last season, and that’s not counting how the Cubs did in his games when he didn’t get a decision. So the Cubs, just based on the probabilities, would win six of those eight Prior starts.

No guy who gives up 19 hits in a spring training game is going to win six of eight starts. The Cubs will be very fortunate to win half of those games, and are likely to be sub-.500 in those starts. That’s three to four losses right there, assuming Prior comes back May 15 and is as good as new.

Given how close the Central race is likely to be, these games could very well make the difference between the Cubs and the Astros. Now, Dusty, does it still seem like it was a great idea to overuse Mark Prior last year?

But I just can’t help it.

According to FootSmart (yeah, I know, great medical resource), the Achilles’ tendon in extreme cases could require surgery.

Achilles’ tendon pain is caused by such things as running and excessive walking. Excessive walking?! Jeebus, this could be a chronic problem plaguing Mark Prior’s entire career. I sure hope not, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility.

Prior is the future of this team. Period. How important is Prior to the franchise? The Cubs can contend without Prior making 35 starts or perhaps starting at less than full strength when he does return. They can win. They can win it all. This team has that much talent, and pitching is that important in the post-season.

But the Cubs want — and Cubs fans deserve — more than just a year of success, even if it brings a World Series (knock on Wood — and Prior!). They deserve to have a contender for a decade. They deserve, for Jeebus’ sake, the first back-to-back winning seasons since 1971-72! And Prior is more important than any other single player in helping to make that happen.

I hope, but I don’t expect, the Cubs to make it to the Series this year. I hope, but I don’t expect, that they’ll even make the playoffs. But I’ll be crushed if this injury to Prior continues to nag or turns out to be something much graver. And I just hope that the Cubs finish above .500.

You see, I’ve learned my lesson well. Comes from a lifetime of Cubs fandom. Set the bar low, and you’re bound to be pleased by the results.

I’ll take this opportunity to throw a few Bob Dylan-related program activities into one post.

It’s alright, ma (I’m just disappointed): I bought the “Masked and Anonymous” DVD and had the chance to watch the movie again the regular way, watch about a half dozen deleted scenes, and then watch the entire movie again with director Larry Charles’ commentary.

I’d already seen the movie twice in the theaters, so I can’t say that I really gleaned anything new from the third viewing. It was less impressive than it was on the big screen, and the overall suckiness of the project came through. I did enjoy being able to freeze frame the various scenes with lists of Dylan-related in-jokes, though even these were surprisingly pedestrian.

Having read the original script, I thought there might be a director’s cut of some kind because I was under the impression that the entire script had been shot. Instead, there are a handful of inconsequential and low-quality deleted scenes included. As for Charles’ commentary, it is entertaining, insightful and at times self-delusional.

He spends a good portion of it lamely attempting to defend the picture against the critical savaging it received. “They just didn’t get it,” he says.

I think there’s a lot to appreciate about the movie, especially for a Dylan fan, but I wouldn’t dare defend the proposition that it’s actually a good movie. The plot is a thin excuse to hold up a series of unconnected vignettes. The problem is that the vignettes aren’t very compelling on their own. The acting is pretty good across the board with the exception of Dylan, who for the most part is asked only to look moody and doesn’t even do that very convincingly.

But the lines the actors are required to perform make their job difficult. “M&A” is the equivalent of one of Bob’s mid-’80s albums: brilliant in spots, but a disappointment overall. The biggest disappointment I have about the DVD, however, is that it did not include any bonus performance footage. The most compelling portions of the film, naturally, are when Dylan performs with his band.

The band crowds close around Dylan so that they could all be squeezed into the same shot. No cutting, no panning, no nothing. The camera just watches the band play. It’s really awesome stuff. According to Charles, Dylan and his band wer filmed performing 22 songs over the course of two days. Great!

Where are those 22 songs? Except for a small clip of “Standing in the Doorway” in one of the deleted scenes, there’s no extra music anywhere on the DVD. The soundtrack includes complete versions of the songs that appeared in the movie — “Down in the Flood,” “Diamond Joe,” “Dixie” and “Cold Irons Bound” — and those performances are oustanding. An extra disc with just straight up unedited footage of those 22 songs would have made this DVD an absolute must-have. It’s really a missed opportunity.

Sometimes I wanna take to the road and plunder: My dad and I recently saw Dylan five times in three cities in less than two weeks, starting on March 1 in St. Louis and finishing up March 12 in Milwaukee.

All in all, the shows were good but not great. It appears a health problem is limiting Dylan to the piano, and he’s not a very good piano player. But it keeps him engaged with the music. There were some great performances and some not so great ones. With Dylan it’s always hit and miss. The best show was probably Sunday, March 7, at the Vic Theatre in Chicago.

Each venue was relatively small — none was larger than 3,000 capacity, I think — and it made for an unforgettable set of pretty intimate concerts. Now if he’ll only play Old Town!