Big ups to the Green Lantern, who is tying the knot today … I want pics of some of those Voodoo Doughnuts as wedding rings!

FOR NOTHING

Earth a flower
A phlox on the steep
slopes of light
hanging over the vast
solid spaces
small rotten crystals;
salts.

Earth a flower
by a gulf where a raven
flaps by once
a glimmer, a color
forgotten as all
falls away.

A flower
for nothing;
an offer;
no taker;

Snow-trickle, feldspar, dirt.

  — Gary Snyder (b. 1930), American poet, originally and often associated with the Beat Generation, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. Winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

… to separate last night’s QOTD poem, and Poetry Friday except this little snippet. Deal with it.

Sausalito Trash Prayer

Sausalito,
            Little Willow,
Perfect Beach by the last Bay in the World,
            None more beautiful,

Today we kneel at thy feet
            And curse the men who have misused you.

  — Lew Welch (1926 - 1971[?]), American Beat poet who disappeared in May 1971, presumed to have committed suicide. His body was never found.

From cyclingnews.com comes word that “Cipollini and Ball’s relationship on the rocks”:

The relationship that was started last fall in a Las Vegas discotheque could come to an end if Mario Cipollini does not get his say in the management of Rock Racing. The Italian, who came out of retirement at the age of 40 to race in the Tour of California last week, and his lawyer met with the owner of the team, Mike Ball, yesterday to discuss the coming season.

“We need to sit at the table and make clear who is in command,” said Mario Cipollini in an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport’s Luigi Perna. The Italian from Lucca and lawyer Giuseppe Napoleone were scheduled to meet with Ball later in the day.

“The boss is Ball, but after him it is me. Therefore I want to manage the squad starting now. I can organise the participation in [Milano-] San Remo. To find men to race is not a problem. … If Ball does well it will continue, otherwise goodbye. I now understand that the name Cipollini still has value, in the United States and elsewhere.”

Cipollini was happy with his return, but not with the fiasco surrounding the team and Ball’s backing of Tyler Hamilton, Oscar Sevilla and Santiago Botero. The riders, all allegedly linked with Operación Puerto, were barred from racing by the organiser, but continued along daily by riding behind the race caravan and signing autographs for fans at the stage villages.

“For a week I had an infinite amount of patience … Maybe it was my great desire to return to racing with an important project. However, we can’t go forward like this. We are not able to continue to pull along this heavy weight that ruins our image, and now Ball also understands this. It is not enough to advertise and show off models.”

So, first Sevilla, Botero, and Hamilton are prevented from riding the Amgen Tour of California … and now, Cipo is threatening to bolt from the team unless he takes a more active role in how the team is run … somehow, I don’t see Michael Ball giving up any control of the team unless/until the team starts to disintegrate, and by that time it will be too late.

I’m still calling for an implosion before the end of the Tour of Georgia.

We’ll see.

From the Wall Street Journal (subscription required):

On the Web, Signs of a Click Recession
Google Feels Pinch As Ad Growth Slows; Sweeter Deal for Yahoo?
By KEVIN J. DELANEY
February 27, 2008

Internet advertising may be showing itself more vulnerable to a consumer slowdown than many in the industry had hoped, according to new search-ad data released this week.

The report from research firm comScore Inc. showing a decline in the number of consumer clicks on Google Inc. search ads in January amplified existing concerns about the effect of a broader economic slowdown on the Internet. Many online-ad experts have played down such worries, predicting any economic weakening will be offset by a continued shift in ad spending from traditional media to the Internet. Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said the company hadn’t seen any impact from macroeconomic softening when the Internet company reported earnings Jan. 31. But some investors and analysts have grown anxious in recent months that any pullbacks in consumer spending would hurt online ads.

From Online Spin » Blog Archive » Advertising Terminology 2.0, about Addictionary.org:

Some of the funnier ones that I came across on the site were terms like “wiitard,” which refers to a person who is incapable of holding a Nintendo Wii properly and even less capable of playing a game on the console (It might refer to me, but who’s telling). Another term that I found humorous was “adnausea,” which refers to a feeling of sickness or discomfort in the stomach prompted by excessive advertising. I sometimes have this feeling when visiting sites that still employ pop-ups and pop-under ads, both of which have served to give online advertising a bad name in recent years.

Thanks to Fastgrrrl for the heads-up.