Saturday night reading: Why be an athlete when you can just buy an Olympic torch and pretend? Although, to be fair, most of the torchbearers this time around where stricken with one form of ailment or another (giving them automatic HERO status and therefore worthy of carrying the Olympic torch - something you'd think would be reserved for athletes - but I digress).

Dying Man Carries Olympic Torch:
The day before doctors predicted Louie Bonpua might die from leukemia, the 37-year-old carried the Olympic torch - and then returned to the hospital and lapsed into a coma from which he never awoke.

Local Teen Will Help Carry Olympic Torch:
A Shawnee Mission East senior will be one of 82 people who will help carry the torch. KMBC's Martin Augustine reported Victor Wyler is the manager of the Shawnee Mission East baseball team, and he is also a dwarf. Augustine reported that Wyler's mother and sister are dwarves, too. Wyler was adopted from India when he was 4 years old. "If I was in India, I would be just a person not doing anything," Wyler said. The 82 runners were selected from 335 essays written by friends nominating them. Wyler's high school librarian nominated him. "It makes me very excited, and I'm happy for it," Wyler told Augustine.

Of course, you could also be a "celebrity." (photos by the AP and Reuters) Mike Love of the Beach Boys, Erin Brockovich, Larry King, Lance Bass of N'Sync and Kevin Richardson of the Backstreet Boys.

Am I lucky or what? After 2 days of color-coordinated retail-by-email messages I get to end the week by completing the triad. Today I got an email from The Company Store which was white and blue (following yesterday's red). But that's not all folks. The humor continues (or begins) with their announcement (in the subject header) that both towels and kids are on sale! That's so awesome because as I was waking up this morning (after sleeping on a pillow from The Company Store, given to me as a gift) I was thinking to myself "boy, I could really use some new towels, and maybe a kid or two." And now they're both on sale! Could this day get any better?

This may be one of those personal blog entries that I alone find funny. Following up my retail-by-email entry on the color blue, here I am with another retail-by-email entry on the color red (as in RedEnvelope). They sent me an email with the subject line "Who knew you could be this romantic?" The content was a graphic (cropped and compressed below) with, if not incorrect, then simply unclear ad copy. "Show up with a Valentine's Day gift that'll sweep them off their feet." Hmmm.... so how many people am I giving gifts to? Well, you never know with a subject header like "Who knew you could be this romantic?" Talk about targeted/personalized blast email demography!

I'm a big fan of Banana Republic. I'm wearing my Banana slippers right now, in fact. But do you really want a wardrobe of only blue shirts? Seems a little weird to me. I wonder if they are emailing different customers different, personalized emails. Do you think they noticed I was sad the last time I walked into a store and are now sending me BLUE shirts to buy? Do you think they data-mined that I look good in blue? It's amazing what psychographic email marketing technologies can do!

Best of luck to young companies who try to create niches and serve that specific market. Today's entry to that category is a "qualified Business Card Feng Shui consultant." I wrote "create niches" instead of "identify niches" because I don't know many people who seek out such services. I am not trying to be sarcastic. I think it's awesome. And the woman behind it certainly has some solid marketing ideas: free evaluation, free tips, upcoming e-book, testimonials, etc. - definitely a voice. She could teach some much bigger companies a thing or two. Geez.... imagine Feng Shui as applied to Microsoft business practices?

Continuing the discussion on genius and generational greatness, I whole-heartedly recommend you check out The Edge. Their motto is "To arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves." Check out what the smart people are asking, and how they're answering...

This whole line of thinking, and associated content, is made possible by a very special friend of mine who, if we're lucky, will start a blog.

Update to previous entry: Today, Dennis Wilen posted something very poignant to the Web405 mailing list which I reprint here with his permission:

MLK, Jr. -- prophet of the web and open source?

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Today, as I recalled Martin Luther King's famous words, it struck me as a call for a democracy of ideas and ideals, where every person's web page could stand or fall on its merits, each piece of code was evaluated solely on its strength and elegance, and each post to an e-list or blog was evaluated on its contents and not its creator, because, on the Internet, no one knows you're a dog.

And I saw that it was good.

After my Conan blog of 1 am last night I spent over an hour clicking from blog to blog to blog with nothing to go on but people's names. I happened upon a blog by journalist Paul Andrews (tech writer for the Seattle Times). He posted something which caught my attention, something which I'd like to talk about today.

In his blog, Paul talks about the greatness of Martin Luther King, Jr. No argument there. The point of his blog, however, is to ask "Who are the iconoclasts of today?" He posits that "Perhaps our times simply discourage greatness." This is a refrain I have heard often, "I keep waiting for the next creative wave to hit, something akin to the Beatles or J D Salinger or Martin Luther King."

I have a different take on the topic which I will humbly put forward. Maybe I am just an idealist (which I am, sometimes). I believe that our times encourage and nurture a wholly different, and perhaps more special, form of greatness. You guessed it, I'm referring to technology, powerful economy (short-term shifts not withstanding), scientific knowledge and a myriad of other advancements, both outside of ourselves and within our own minds.

Mass problems still exist (world hunger, nuclear disarmament, de-mining). However, our time is marked by a more personal and small-scale mind set. Anyone can rise to greatness with nothing but idea in hand. Someone can be a genius to a group of 20 people and that's cool. They may not get monuments built or national holidays declared or solve the world's problems, but they can nevertheless have a major impact on a group of people. I think it comes down to semantics. Great people are great people, period. If we acknowledge them with mass adulation or just loyal blog patronage, does it matter?

It's very easy to say we live in a time without great genius. It's very easy to say "I keep waiting for the next creative wave..." I'd just like to say - open your eyes. Have we killed genius? No. But mass market broadcast of genius is no longer needed, or even welcomed - and shouldn't be relied upon. This allows us to recognize genius on much smaller scales and even, gasp, within ourselves. No need to sulkingly question "Who are the iconoclasts of today?... They really did change the world." Rather, it is us who can finally be the iconoclasts, even if only 3 other people listen. Because tomorrow those 3 may be 3 million. But ya gotta start somewhere - and that place is your world, not "the" world!

Conan O'Brien just declared that his drummer, Max, is wearing a "sherbert-colored tie." He pronounced 'sherbert' just way I wrote it. Sherbert. It's a fun word to say, I know. Isn't it really, phonetically, 'sherbet' and not 'sherbert' ???

Last night on the Golden-Globe-winning show, Alias, guest star Quentin Tarantino used the word "ironical." Is that a word? If it is, I think it's ironical that at 1am I am wondering whether or not ironical is a word instead of doing something more productive. Any suggestions?

Slow news day indicator: I have heard 7 times in the last 2 hours about Rush Limbaugh's new ear implants. If I hear one more time "everything sounds like chipmunks" I may have to gag myself.