The Arbitrary ChuckJerry

I Joined The Cool Kids Crew. Isn't That Fetch?

2007-03-20T19:47:00.000-04:00

So me and Chris and Luke and Brian decided that we all enjoy blogging, but that none of us blog enough alone for it to amount to much of anything. So we started a group blog where each of us can contribute posts. I don't know if there are guidelines for posts, or if you just post whatever you want, but I assume we'll figure it out.

wheres-luke.blogspot.com is where the magic is happening. Maybe soon we'll be like...I was gonna try to be cool and cite a well read group blog, but I can't think of any. I suck. In fact, I can't think of any blogs with the exception of Joe's and Max's that even gets updated with any frequency.

Well, read that blog. I can't really say if I'll stop posting here altogether or what. But it's not as if I post here much anyway. For the past few months I've been making myself do at least one post a month, so maybe other fools posting will spur me on a bit.

Why I Have Hope For The Knicks

2007-02-26T20:04:00.000-05:00

Ok, I realize that the Knicks are pretty bad and that they are ot going to make the playoffs this year. But I do have hope for the Knicks to improve this year and also the next. The reason: Eddy Curry is unstoppable.

There have been two bright spots for the Knicks this year in an otherwise mediocre to ppor season. First is that David Lee is incredible. If you are a Knick fan then I don't see how your favorite player could be anyone other than David Lee. He really is just fantastic. He brings energy and efficiency to the Knicks in a way that no one has in a long time. Lee really reminds me of Charles Oakley in the way that he just does all the dirty work for the team. He is, amazingly, flashier than Oakley, and does not hit the 18 foot jump shot like Oakley would, but otherwise they play very similar games. I say amazingly because Lee is not really flashy at all, but Oakley was about as far from flashy as is possible.

The second bright spot for the Knicks this year is Eddy Curry. To say that he's turned the corner this season would be a huge understatement. I watch a lot of Knicks games, far more than their play warrants, and I've really seen the transformation from Eddy Curry. When he gets the ball in the post and he is not double teamed, he is literally unstoppable in recent days. He a huge man, but he's surprisingly athletic and quick. He can dribble around the big guys, body up the small guys, and really is just a handful to deal with if you're defending him. He's alwawys had that capability, but this season he really is playing with a confidence that has boosted his game immensely. It might be an overstatement, but I think he's the most underrated offensive player in the league. He throws down alley oop passes better than anyone this side of Dwight Howard and is better than anyone I can ever recall with his back to the basket.

Now this improvement is really tempered by his lackluster play in all other areas. Curry averages something like 6 rebounds, when really he should average a triple double. His defense is disgusting, which is surprising given his quickness. And even though he's gotten far fewer offensive fouls this year versus last, he still has a lot. So Eddy's got room for improvement, but he's gone from someone who's pure potential and disappointment to someone who's really starting to shine, at least on offense.

The Knicks have guys who would be nice players on other teams, but are not good enough together to get things done. On the top of that list is Quenstin Richardson, who really does everything at an above average level without really being a star. Jamal Crawford tries hard and has talent, but is too inconsistent to really be a threat. He'll score 52 on one night and then go 3 for 12 on the next. He really just puts in some Starksian efforts from time to time. Channing Frye has a great jump shot, but does live up to his potential as a soft player. Jared Jeffries is serviceable, but obviously overpaid, like all the Knicks are. Malik Rose is a good character guy, but can't do what he used to in terms of defense and hustle. Renaldo Balkman is pure energy and no focus at this point. He might be a David Lee Lite type of guy eventually.

Their other guys just detract from the team, in my opinion. Nate Robinson is just a novelty act. He is a 5'9" shooting guard. He doesn't have point guard skills and just plays stupidly a lot of the time. Jerome James is the epitome of overpaid and underskilled. Marbury is a net zero I think. He rarely shines since they've been focusing on Curry and has been playing hard, and I guess that's all we can ask from him at this point.

Is No One Picking The Bears? No One?

2007-02-04T09:56:00.000-05:00

Note that I'm writing this on super Bowl Sunday, hours before the game is to take place. I don't know the outcome yet, obviously, but I find myself a bit flummoxed by all of the analysts out there in the world.

I am routing for the Colts. I like Manning and Dungy and Harrison and I like the way they play the game and I think I mentioned all this in a previous post. That being said, I really think the Bears are going to win. The Bears have a very good defense and that fact inconjunction with Manning's less than stellar performance thus far in the playoffs, including 2 TD passes to go along with 6 interceptions, says to me that the Bears are capable of shutting down the Indy offense. On top of that the Bears offense, while not spectacular by any stretch, seems to match up well against the Indy defense. The Bears are going to look to run the ball all day and just let Rex Grossman manage the game and perhaps make one or two plays through the course of the game.

If these particular matchups that I just mentioned go in the Bears favor, then there is no way they won't win. That's not to say that the Bears are definitely going to win, or that the Colts aren't capable of putting up a lot of points and playing very good defense, as they have in all 3 of their playoff games so far, but I think the Bears should be favored.

I have not seen one analyst who has picked the Bears. Not a single one with the exception of Mike Ditka, who is clearly biased in choosing them. I can see why an analyst would choose the Colts to win given the fact that they seem to playing good defense and if everyone plays at their best the Indy offense is really unstoppable. At the same time, however, I would expect that just as many people would choose the Bears for the reasons I mentioned earlier. The Bears were the number 1 seed from the start of the season. The Bears defense has had one of the best years of all time. Their running game is solid, and they have a real deep threat with Bernard Berrian. The only reason, it seems, that analysts are not picking the Bears is because of Rex Grossman.

Grossman is definitely inconsistent, and is hardly up to the caliber of Peyton Manning, but he is not incapable of having a good game. For all of the bad games he had this year, 6 by all accounts of the worst games ever by a starting QB, he had 10 very good games with a very high passer rating. He's not incapable, he just makes really bad decisions from time to time. Assuming he does not do that (and perhaps that's a ppor assumption) the Bears have what it takes to win on offense, defense, and special teams.

My point is this; I think the Bears are going to win, even though I'm routing for the Colts. I don't see how not even one analyst is picking the Bears as I would expect it to be about a 50/50 proposition. I wrote this before the game intentionally just so my opinion would be out there no matter what happens.

Reflections On The Last Greatest Liberal Voice

2007-01-27T17:48:00.000-05:00

Whether your view is that it actually runs "all the news that's fit to print" or that it's got a tradition of slanting and omitting just enough to let out its liberal bias, I assume you have at least a modicum of respect for the New York Times as a respectable newspaper. And when taken in conjunction with the more conservative leaning papers, say the Wall Street Journal, you can essentially get an informed view of the world. So let's take that as a given. Here are a couple of reflections I have on the New York Times after having at least leafed through it every day for a couple years now.

The first and strangest thing about the New York Times is that they will always, and I mean always, opt to put the absolute most depressing picture possible on the front cover. Recently they've had pictures from Iraq and such with things being blown up or some sort of terror happening. If at all possible they will print a photo of an Arab looking guy hovering over one or more dead bodies after some type of insurgency or other attack. This is disturbing to me. If they have no other choice then they'll just put some other type of picture. Just this week, for example, they ran a photo of Dubya giving the state of the union address with Big Time Cheney and Madame Speaker behind him. But the day before that and the day after, depression.

The second thing is that the crossword gets inordinately hard starting with Thursday. I can usually finish Monday through Wednesday with little trouble and then on Thursday I can't even get it started. From time to time on Thursday I'll get a couple of the clues and actually get through a good portion of it, but Friday Saturday Sunday I don't even attempt. I feel like in order to be able to get good at the later in the week puzzles you have to look at the solution the next day and get familiar with the clues and the answers. That's just way more work than I'm willing to put in. Also sometimes they have gimmick puzzles where you have to put several letters in one square and I never get those.

The sports section is very biased to the Yankees. They almost always put a picture of the Yankee game on the front page instead of the Mets. And a lot of times the lead article will be about the Mets, but the picture in the inset is from the Yankee game. It's mad weird.

Maureen Dowd is no longer clever, she's just really self aware. And as Sara Silverman said in this weeks New York Times Magazine, "deconstruction is a comedy killer."

The Science Times rules.

Watch This Movie In Low Def With Commercials

2007-01-23T17:05:00.000-05:00

My friend Wallace brought this up today and I thought it was a great point so I told him I was goig to steal his idea and blog about it.

What sort of psychological mechanism leads us to watch movies on TV that we already own on DVD? Literally whenever I feel like it I can watch a movie that I have on DVD in the original widescreen format, with superior picture quality on my HDTV and with no commercials. Instead, and I know this happens to everyone, I find myself flipping around watching TNT and they're playing, I don't know, say Goodfellas or The Princess Bride or something like that, and I just watch the whole thing, commercials and all. What's up with that?

The Super Bowl

2007-01-22T16:03:00.000-05:00

First of all, since the Bears are in the Super Bowl, it's a great excuse to re-watch the "Super Bowl Shuffle" from the 1985 Chicago Bears. Not only kickin' it mad old school, but also really poorly.

Anyway, my thoughts about the Super Bowl are that I'm really glad the Colts make it. I enjoy watching the Colts and I like Peyton Manning and I feel like he deserves to win. I also like the way all the Colts carry themselves starting with Tony Dungy and going on down. So I'm glad that a classy organization gets that recognition.

I was pretty indifferent about the Bears and the Saints. I guess I wanted the Saints to win, but if the Giants weren't going to win the NFC, then it really didn't matter.

My other thought is that I'm glad the Patriots lost, I really think they deserved it. They had all the talent in the world and guys who fit perfectly into their systems and they treated them like crap. They coach these guys up and then when it's time to pay them for being great players, they refuse to. The one exception obviously is Tom Brady, but he's a one in a million quarterback so they're at least smart enough to keep him. In the past 4 to 5 years they have lost star players like Lawyer Milloy, Ty Law, Deion Branch, and others because they weren't willing to pay them market value. They manage their salary cap to a Draconian extent. They had Deion Branch ranked as their best offensive player coming into this season. Better even than Tom Brady and they kicked him out the door rather than pay him market value. So they deserve to lose because they think they can win on their system with no talent.

On top of that Bill Belichick is a fucking jerk. He acts like a 4 year old. I mean, there are guys who have reputations as ornery guys, like Bobby Knight for example, but those guys at least act like human beings. Belichick just looks like he wants to take his ball and go home whenever shit doesn't go his way. Even when they're winning he treats other guys like dicks. The whole ridiculous debacle with Eric Mangini, for example. Or the interview he gave to Solomon Wilcox last night which was just silly.

I think the Colts are going to win. I'm routing for the Colts rather than just be indifferent, which is what I usually am. I can't see Rex Grossman leading his team to victory, and, all else being equal, the quarterback comparison is not even close. I'm not saying it will be a blowout, but I think the Colts will pull it out.

Merry Christmas, Y'all

2006-12-25T13:26:00.000-05:00

The Knicks vs. the Nuggets

2006-12-18T18:43:00.000-05:00

First off, Isiah definitely told Collins to go and foul someone hard. He saw his team being not just beaten but embarrassed and decided to do something about it. I'm not shocked, or less of a fan, or appalled by the fact that a fight broke out at a basketball game.

I am trying to decide who is the bigger bitch, Nate Robinson or Carmelo Anthony. I think it's Carmelo. Robinson stuck his neck in the fight and then tried to back out of it when those much bigger guys went at him. I, personally, would be on the top of the list to bitch out of a fight, but I'm also smart enough not to try and front like I want to fight when I really don't. Carmelo waited until the whole situation had calmed down and cooler heads were prevailing to circle around, throw a sucker punch at Collins, and then run away down the court like the fucking tooth fairy. No, I don't have any particular reason for saying tooth fairy, it certainly doesn't fit into the context or the analogy at all.

Interestingly, the working theory is that George Karl was definitely going out of his way to embarrass the Knicks because he's friends with Larry Brown. That, for me, is the most intriguing part of the story. The fight was just blah, but the fact that Karl was trying to make a statement for Larry Brown and it backfires on him and the league's leading scorer is missing 15 games at a time when their schedule is about to get really tough is quite something. I mean, he saw the game getting chippy, and Mardy Collins isn't even a garbage time player. If you're going to leave clowns in the game, at least take Carmelo out. That guy is your franchise, not your rub it in their face guy.

The Guys Who Make Urban Clothes Have It Easy

2006-12-04T06:20:00.000-05:00

This is something I realized the other day in school. Most of my students wear Jordans. How they get the money for Jordans, I don't know, but that is beside the point at the moment. Anyhow, if you were a student in my high school and you were putting together an outfit for the day what you would need to do is pick a color scheme and go with it to a ridiculous extent. That is to say you match your shoes with your t-shirt, with your belt, with your headband, and probably also with your shoelaces. So you look like one color with a pair of jeans walking down the hallway. My kids tell me all the time that I don't match because I'm not wearing all one color and I try to explain to them the idea of contrasting colors and what not, but they just don't get it.

Anyhow, the phenomenon I realized the other day is that the Jordans now have like 3 or 4 colors in them. And amazingly the kids come to school wearing clothes with those 3 or 4 colors. The shirts match perfectly with the shoes, and the other accessories do as well. I satarted thinking about how the kids must be really good shoppers if they were going to these great lengths to find matching clothes and then I realized, no. In fact, the opposite is true. The people who make these clother are making them *to match with the Jordans*. There are these Jordans that you would all recognize from your youths, since all they're doing now is recycling the old Jordans, calling them retro styles, and charging $180 for them, that are mostly black, but have tinges of orange, yellow and red. And then I saw a kid with those Jordans on and a shirt that had black, yellow, orange, red, and white horizontal stripes. I thought the shirt was really busy and had an odd color combination and then looked at his shoes and realized that the shirt had exactly the same shades of yellow and orange as are in the shoes and the only possible explanation is that the shirt was designed to match those shoes.

In any event, I just think that's weird.

We Know All The Words To All The Songs

2006-11-14T22:21:00.000-05:00

I realized recently that there are very few rap songs that I know every single word to. There are only a few rap songs that I know I know all the words to. And they are pretty random. One is "Passin' Me By" by the Pharcyde and the other is "If Only" by Das EFX. I'm moderately confident I could do "Where I'm From" by Digable Planets as well, but I'm not 100% sure. I feel I could rap any of these songs for you with no music or anything. A fourth is definitely "Nuthin' But A G Thang" by Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. Also I know all the words to "Around The Way Girl" by LL cool J.

Those last two are classics, but the others are just moderately well known. "Passin' Me By" is an enormously underrated rap song. It should be considered one of the best ever. "If Only" is a really obscure Das EFX song off of their first album. "Where I'm From" is also probably not well known, but should be.

I really don't know if I know all the words to any other songs. I mean, I know 90% of "Scenario", but not every word. And countless other rap songs that I know a good percentage of, but not in their entireties. I would bet this is true of most people and most rap songs. This was just a thought that occurred to me recently. Does anyone else feel like that's the general consensus?

Voter Fruad, Anyone?

2006-11-12T19:43:00.000-05:00

This dude, Randy Wooten, was running for mayor of Waldenburg, Ark. His town only has 80 people in it. He didn't win. I guess he wasn't surprised with that. What he was surprised at was the fact that the vote counters said he had received zero votes. Zero.

He thought that was strange because he had voted for himself. As had his wife presumably. He says he also spoke with 9 or 10 people who had voted for him. Given that the other two guys had only received 18 votes according to the vote counters, my man Randy may have gotten shafted.

I can almost guarantee that this is going to be blamed on the fact that they were using electronic voting machines rather than paper ballots. Also that's funny because now we can make jokes about how people from Arkansas can't use electronic devices.

Sore F-ing Loser

2006-11-07T07:15:00.000-05:00

Dude, this is awesome. I guess someone told Faith Hill she was going to win this award from last night's Country Music Awards, but they lied. The only part of this video worth watching is around the 0:40 mark when they announce the winner. Watch Faith Hill's reaction.

That's fucking priceless.

Dear America,

2006-11-06T15:40:00.000-05:00

If you are an absolute moron, you know who you are, please refrain from using the self checkout at the grocery store.

With sincerest regards,
ChuckJerry

My Two Favorite Commercials

2006-11-02T15:19:00.000-05:00

This Nextel commercial is just funny every single time.

Then for some reason I just love this song.

YouTube is great not because you can find video of almost anything, but you can find video of people copying the most random shit imaginable. Like if you search for the Snickers song on YouTube you get the commercial, but you also get at least 6 or 7 people re-enacting the Snickers song. Why? Who knows? Just because they can. There are also some really involved like 3 minute re-enactments of the Nextel Push It commercial. Some guys were just in their dorms with a camera and a bunch of free time and remade the Nextel commercial. That, to me, is what is great about the internet. I mean, I guess.

Studio 60 And Other TV Shows

2006-10-25T19:08:00.000-04:00

I watch a lot of TV. I think that's an understatement. I watch a lo-o-o-o-t of TV. Most people I know nowadays say, "Dude, I don't even watch TV any more." Assuming they are not liars, I wonder what those people do with their time. I mean, well, you know what I mean.

Anyhow, my favorite shows are Scrubs, The Office (amazingly two NBC comedies), Project Runway, 24, How I Met Your Mother, and Entourage. And even though I could live without them (and I'm not always supposed to like them) I watch Lost, House, ER, Grey's Anatomy (3 doctor shows in a row, and Scrubs to boot), Numb3rs (why a 3 intead of an e? I don't know.), The Soup, Amazing Race, and probably some others every week. At this point I'm getting kindof bored with Lost and also Grey's Anatomy, but I'll probably keep watching anyway for lack of anything better.

My new favorite day of the week, though, is Monday. It starts with How I Met Your Mother at 8 and is followed by The Class after that. The Class is interesting for now, but I see it going downhill soon. Once basketball season starts that one may be out of there. The two new NBC shows, though, are really what's making me enjoy the night. Heroes is on at 9pm and is followed by Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip at 10pm.

I watched Heroes at first because it looked interesting. The first couple episodes were ok and the cheerleader thing freaked me out. I mean, how often do high school girls get severely maimed, and why does it keep happening to her? Her superpower is basically that she's Wolverine, if you've not been watching. She heals right away when she's injured. Anyway, the last two episodes have been really good. I didn't really expect them to be. So I'm digging that now.

Studio 60 might be my new favorite show. I really, really enjoy it. It's written so differently than any other TV show that it's astounding. Every scene takes its time and really relishes the conversation between the characters. They'll pull shit from other scenes with different characters that end up being relevant to someone else, so it pays off if you pay attention. I just really enjoy it. The show is created and written by Aaron Sorkin, who created and wrote The West Wing. I've never seen an episode of West Wing, but I know that people really like it and it was really well received and if it's written the same way as Studio 60 is, then I'll have to check out the DVDs if there are any. I just really like this show. I kindof rambled a lot. My point when I started writing this was just to say that I am already a big fan of Studio 60 and I hope everyone is watching it so it stays on the air.

On a related note, the Tina Fey show, 30 Rock, is pretty lame. I say a related note because both Studio 60 and 30 Rock are about writing and producing a sketch comedy show like Saturday Night Live. 30 Rock is just witless most of the time. Way over the top as if it were Arrested Development done poorly.

A Little Late On The Foley Thing

2006-10-18T06:32:00.000-04:00

This is so last week, I know, but I just have one comment about Mark Foley. His "admitting" that he was molested by a priest is, in my opinion, a huge smokescreen to hide the fact that he's a gay dude. This admission is a calculated move so that the religious right can still say that being gay is caused by something in life rather than just a genetic coincidence and that this is what did it for Mark Foley. This is all just (extremely wild and baseless) speculation, but what seems a far more likely scenario is that given he was gay, and given priests proclivity to be gay, he engaged in a cosensual affair with a priest in his teenage years and, while certainly still inappropriate from the priests standpoint, was molested only in a statutory sense.

While I'm confident in the first part of my statement, as I say the second part is only (wild and baseless) speculation, but if I were a betting man I would put my money on the truth being closer to my statement than whatever Foley is going to claim actually happened.

Let's Get Real Yankee Fans

2006-10-09T17:44:00.000-04:00

First of all, the Mets are all of a sudden the favorites to win the World Series and all we can talk about is how the Yankees didn't win. It's been three days now and we have yet to mention the Mets upcoming series with the Cardinals. All we can talk about is whether or not Joe Torre is coming back, whether or not A-Rod is coming back, and all of this other nonsense.

I can understand those who say that the Yankees quit on Torre and it's just time for him to go after 11 seasons. I don't agree with that, but let's assume that the Yankees are going to fire Torre. The best move the Yankees could make if they were to fire Joe would be to hire another Joe, namely Joe Girardi, as their new manager. Of course there is no way in hell that would happen, but that's what they should do.

Second, let's stop about the A-Rod thing. He didn't win or lose this series on his own and the Yankees shouldn't try to get rid of him. He needs to come back. We need to get off his back and let him play.

Can we stop talking about the Yankees now?

Keepin' It Real Up In The Field, Aight!

2006-10-07T09:33:00.000-04:00

Best t-shirt ever.

And another just to keep up that gangsta image.

Sam Is A Gangsta Pimp

2006-09-23T13:55:00.000-04:00

Here are my two favorite pictures of Sammy so far.

In this one he looks like a pimp with his legs crossed and his shirt all open for the ladies.

In this one he looks like a stone cold gangsta with his hat all askew and his hands throwing signs.

Also don't think I forgot to get a picture of the outfit they let me wear to the c-section party. I won't have to shop for Halloween now either.

Samuel Emilio Gardner

2006-09-17T01:22:00.000-04:00

September 16, 2006, 7:54pm. 7lbs, 4oz. 19 inches.

It's Funny 'Cause It's True

2006-09-15T07:58:00.000-04:00

I think today's Foxtrot strip about encapsulates my feelings on clothing stores pretty well. In particular if I want to buy something that the young people consider hip nowadays.

I went to get one of those zip up jackets that look like they are polyester and it just happened that the North Face one was on sale in this store for cool kids at the mall. So I went to the rack and they had only sizes XL, XXL, and 3XL. It was asenine.

No Static. Got An Automatic. Too Much Of Anything Makes You An Addict.

2006-09-13T18:25:00.000-04:00

I started with one thought, but now I have two since I wrote the post title. First things first (...I, poppa, freaks all the honeys, dummies, playboy bunnies, those wanting money) the title of this post comes from the Nice N Smooth song, "Sometimes I Rhyme Slow". This is a great song because of the really inventive sample of the Tracy Chapman song "Fast Car". Aside from the sample, though, the song is really nonsensical. First of all, Greg Nice rhymes about absolutely nothing that has anything to do with anything. And on top of that he uses some of the same lines as he does in the only other song people know by them, "Hip Hop Junkies". Incidentally, the only reason that song is good is also because of the clever sample, this time of the Partridge Family hit "I Think I Love You". So the first verse of, "Sometimes I Rhyme Slow" is really just an exercise in coming up with lines that rhyme. Also worth mentioning from that verse is that at one point he says, "I go to Bay Plaza to catch a flick", and the Bay Plaza movie theater is right near my house. And it doesn't seem like a neighborhood where rappers come from, but I might be wrong. Anyhow, the second verse by, ahhh, I guess Smooth. Is it CL Smooth? I thought it was Pete Rock and CL Smooth, not the same guy from Nice N Smooth. I'll have to check. Anyway, after the nonsensical first verse, the second verse is all about how this guy's girlfriend is a drug addict. It has a moderately serious tone and he talks about putting her into rehab and then, "at 18 months she comes home and I let her back in...and now she's sniffing again." It doesn't match the first verse at all. It's really weird. Also that's the end of the song. Only two verses.

Anyway, that's not even why I started writing this post. I wanted to talk about McDonald's. Something I really need to do is quit McDonald's. I don't even eat it that much anymore. I generally go about once a month, but even that is just no good for me. Also you may think that once a month is way too much to go to McDonald's, but that's a different discussion. My point is that I know I should quit, but I don't know if I can. I mean, I'm capable of saying to myself, "No, I shouldn't eat McDonald's today", and in fact I do it a lot. But I don't think I can just quit altogether. The prospect of never eating McDonald's again makes me sad. I don't feel the same way about other restaurants.

This feeling is what led to My McDonald's sign of a couple weeks back.

I'm not addicted to McDonald's in the sense that I need it to get through the day, but I do have a strong psychological attachment to it. And I don't think I could just write it off altogether.

Sad? Yes. Surprised? No.

2006-09-04T22:09:00.000-04:00

Is anyone really surprised that Steve Irwin aka The Crocodile Hunter died of an injury he got while filming a documentary? I hate to put down a dead guy, but I think all of us saw this coming at some point. Be as safe as you want to, but eventually if you fuck with dangerous animals, you're going to get seriously hurt, or even killed. And the thing is that it never really looked like Irwin was really being as safe as possible. He may have just been milking the effect, but it seemed like he was always just running out there fucking with reptiles and other dangerous things.

The bitch of it is that he was killed by a stingray, an animal that almost never kills people. Apparently his is only the third recorded case of a stingray killing a person in Australia's past. The sting of a stingray is usually not fatal to humans, but it was just bad luck because it stung him in the heart.

Well, peace out Steve. I'm sorry to see you go, and I guess I'm sad in the same way that we're sad for people who die of lung cancer and who smoked all their lives.

I'm Not Sure It's Really Orwellian

2006-08-31T18:44:00.000-04:00

Mitt Romney is the governor of Massashusetts and this week his administration issued regulations designed to hinder stem cell research. Essentially they banned the creation of embryos for strictly research purposes. Romney said:

"I believe it crosses a very bright moral line to take sperm and eggs in the laboratory and start creating human life. It is Orwellian in its scope. In laboratories you could have trays of new embryos being created."

You could argue all day about stem cell research and the ethical issues involved. I'm not really interested in that at the moment. I'm more interested in the fact that he said it's Orwellian, when I don't think it really is. Orwell was way more about controlling the population and really taking the Socialism thing to the extreme. This isn't that.

In reading his quote immediately I thought that rather than Orwellian, really stem cell research is more Huxleyan. I mean "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley is really just about that. It's a society where the people are created in test tubes rather than sexually and the population doesn't really have a say in reproduction. It's also a statement about Socialism, but really applies much better to the stem cell argument. And the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the term "Orwellian" really doesn't apply at all.

Watch Them Before Microsoft Strikes Them Down

2006-08-29T19:02:00.000-04:00

A couple years ago Microsoft commissioned Ricky Gervais, the guy who created the British series "The Office", to make a training video for them while in character as David Brent. Obviously the American series of the same name starring Steve Carrell is based on that series and is produced by Gervais. Anyhow, the original British series is hysterical in much the same way as the American one is, some would argue even better, and the training videos got leaked somehow and ended up on the internet. Obviously it will be a short amount of time before they are removed from Google Videos by Microsoft, so try and watch them now before that happens, because they are funny.

Each is about 20 minutes long.

And They Want Me To Teach 14 Year Olds Trigonometry

2006-08-29T18:27:00.000-04:00

If you've read my blog in the past or if I know you, then you know that I've been trying to sell my dad's house for almost 2 years now with essentially little success. Well after all the downs and downs (very few ups), today we finally sold the house to someone and it's no longer hanging over my head. So now I have roughly three weeks of nothing hanging over my head until we have the baby and then that can hang over my head for the next 18 years. I'm going to live it up in these three weeks, trust me.

The reason I'm writing, though, is to express my frustration at morons who have managed to thrive in life. The short version of the story (usually I go for the long version, I know, but I'll do my best to condense) is that I have been paying the taxes and other various fees on the house with the plan that the portion that my sister owed would come off the top when we sold the house. The plan was pretty simple and my lawyer said it would be no problem. The problem is that both my lawyer and the buyers' lawyer were unable to solve a simple word problem and ended up giving both me and my sister checks for the wrong amount of money.

If you've never been to a closing bascially all the work is done beforehand by the lawyers and you go and sit at a table and sign papers that they put in front of you. Then they give you a check and you leave. It's a pretty passive endeavor for both the buyer and seller. So I know it's my fault for assuming that two lawyers were capable of doing math and I actually had a feeling that they had done it wrong and didn't say anything because I hadn't actually looked at any of the numbers until I walked out, but I'm really just enormously disappointed in America as a whole after this botched turn of events. Now I have to rely on my sister to send me a check for the difference (A significant amount of money) and explain to her that the two lawyers just did the math wrong.

Here's what they did (with the numbers changed). Let's say after all the fees and everything my sister and I grossed $20,000 for the house, which would leave $10,000 for each of us. Let's say that my sister owed me $3,000. The lawyer then said, "Ok, I'll write the smaller check so that it's $3,000 less than the larger check," and so wrote one check for $8,500 and the other for $11,500. Motherfucking whore. All she did was split the amount she owed me in half because the lady couldn't see the two different pieces separately. What needed to happen was that she should have said, "Ok the sister has $10,000 and she owes $3,000 so she'll get $7,000. The brother has $10,000 and is owed $3,000 more so he'll get $13,000." The checks should differ by twice the amount owed, once for the plus and once for the minus.

My point is that two days before I have to go back to work teaching abstract math to 14 year olds I have to deal with not one, but two professionals who are both not only lawyers, so presumably intelligent, but real estate lawyers who presumably deal with money and figures on a regular basis, who can't solve a real life problem involving division by 2 and then subtraction. Fuck me.

The Jacket Will Not Move - Cape Cod Edition

2006-08-25T17:07:00.000-04:00

Brian's wedding was a hell of a good time. Beautiful day, beautiful bride, plenty of Journey music. All in all a memorable weekend.

You know the wedding was a good time from the before and after pictures. I stole some of these pictures from Lilah. Thanks Li.




And a special double before and after


Special Note for the record: The official over under on picture A (from Brian's wedding) turning into picture B (from Matt's wedding) is 24 years. Place your bets now. Just hold that beer a little higher, Matt. One more finger. You're there.

And the one artsy pic from the weekend.

If you want, you can look at the index of all the pictures from my camera.

Dear Mets Fans,

2006-08-25T10:11:00.000-04:00

All of the bitching and moaning was acceptable from August 1 through August 23, but now it has to end. I don't want to hear any fans of the Mets saying that Xavier Nady is a better option than Shawn Green in right field. The trade was definitely a panic move and it probably would have been relatively easy to get a reliever, even Roberto Hernandez, after clearing waivers and making a lesser trade. Omar screwed that one up because he thought he had to rush when he actually didn't. That's all well and good, but he's recitified the situation. You're not paying Green's salary and he's as good or better than Nady.

That's all, thank you.

My McDonald's Sign

2006-08-17T01:11:00.000-04:00

Read Joe's Mcdonald's sign.

or you can

Make your own.

The Difference Between Ghetto Kids And Suburban Kids

2006-08-11T22:59:00.000-04:00

I had an epiphany yesterday. It struck me all at once that I would never see any of my students, not ghetto kids in a pejorative sense, but kids who all fit pretty neatly into the "urban youth" category, in this scenario that I witnessed yesterday.

I was in Starbucks in Englewood, NJ on my way back home. There were three kids who were probably like 17 years old in front of me and all were dressed like what you would imagine a thug would dress like. Baggy shorts, wife beaters and enormous tee shirts, non-blue Yankees hats askew on their heads. Then it was their turn on line.

Kid #1: "Lemme get a venti chai latte." (I think that's what he ordered.)
Kid #2: "Could I get a venti cinnamon mocchiato?"
Kid #3: "I'm not really sure what I want."
#2: "Do you want something hot or cold?"
#3: "Something hot...ahh, ok, lemme have a caramel light frappucino."
#2: "Yo, son, frappucino is cold. You want a macchiato. Macchiato is warm."
#3: "Oh, my bad. Venti caramel light macchiato."

I think the whole situation relative to what was expected and what actually transpired is pretty funny, but what really got me on the way home was that the kid ordered not a caramel macchiato, but a caramel *light* macchiato.

My New Second Favorite TV Show

2006-08-06T12:31:00.000-04:00

Actually, I've been watching this one for the first two seasons as well, and the third season of Project Runway is as good as ever. I love that show. I have no idea if I'm in their target demographic (probably not), or if other people like me are watching this show (if not then they should), but I can't get enough of it. Kathy loves it as much or more than I do, so this is obligatory viewing in my house every week.

I love that it's a reality show where people have to actually have skill and get to show it off to the audience. Hell's Kitchen or the Bravo Top Chef show are in the same vein, but you can't really taste the concoctions of the chefs, so it's not really the same. You can look at the outfits the designers made, though, and decide right away if you like them or not.

Also the drama that surrounds everyone on that show is great. Fashion design is a pretty artsy craft and seems to attract those artsy types of people, so the interplay between all of them is fantastic. I like to see the interpretations of the challenges and the working together in the sewing rooms. Most of the designers have a certain crazy streak in them, some more than others, and that together with what is probably the usual solitude of fashion design makes for interesting TV. What's also great is that it kindof reverses typical gender roles. The female designers tend to be the more sane ones and the, shall we say, fierceness of most of the male designers lends itself to a very fascinating type of melodrama. And that's no to imply a general homosexual sterotype, but I suppose it is to imply a rather specific stereotype of men who choose to be fashion designers. Though the couple of men on the show who are not homosexuals are often very intersting as well.

Easily the best part of the show is Tim Gunn. I love the way he talks. He sounds like a contrast between a mad scientist and a nervous Jewish mother. And since he's not in the typical reality show role of someone who's judging the contestants or making decisions on whether they stay or go, it's clear that he really cares about all of them and wants them to do well, and that's a good character to have in a reality show.

Everything about that show is entertaining, but my favorite moment of any of the three seasons so far is Santino doing his impression of Tim Gunn trying to reconcile his relationship with Andre in Red Lobster. To this day I can't pass a Red Lobster or talk about Red Lobster without going, "Awn-dray, let's not fight in Red Lobster."

A Real Perfect Golf Swing. And A Great Commercial

2006-08-04T21:59:00.000-04:00

My previous post was about how I learned to hit the ball straight. If you're interested in what an actual perfect golf swing looks like, then check this Nike add out that ran during the British Open. If you weren't watching the commercials of the British Open, you probably haven't seen it.

Tiger's swing in super slo-mo is pretty impressive.

UPDATE: Another good commercial from the British Open is Little Tiger winning the tournament. Imagine if Tiger did that victory dance now instead of the fist pump. Just imagine it.

I Cured My Slice (At Least For Today)

2006-08-04T18:51:00.000-04:00

Kindof selfishly, this post is really more for my reference than for you guys. I was at the driving range today and I figured out how to hit the ball straight, which is much harder than you would think it is if you've not played golf. So I want to write down how I did it for when I forget, which will most likely be the next time I go to play.

As usual, I'll tell the long version of the story. As I mentioned earlier, my friend Kiran gave me his old clubs when he got a new set. Farther back in the past someone had gifted him the clubs as well when he started playing. So my clubs are third hand and a little out of date with today's hyper technological clubs. For the most part I don't feel like it really affects my game. I'm a beginner and at this point my game needs to improve by doing things technically correct rather than trying to improve on the margins with more advanced equipment. The one exception to that I felt was noticeable was with my driver. I felt like I couldn't really drive the ball with the club and never really used it much when I would go play since I would hit the ball about the same distance as the 3 wood, the next club down, but much more erratically. If you can't drive the ball with the driver, then it's just a useless club, isn't it.

Today I went out to this golf store to look for a driver on the cheap side with a big ass club face. I found a cheap one with a big face so I decided to buy it and at the store that particular brand was on a special where if I bought a 3 woodalong with the driver, the 5 wood was free. So I was looking for one club that would be cheap (in golf terms that means under $100) and I ended up with 3 clubs for just under $100. I was pretty happy about that.

Like a nerd I went straight from the golf store to the driving range with my new clubs. At first it was just a disaster between my terrible swing and my trying to adjust to the new clubs. Then I had a realization that cured everything.

Just about everyone will tell you when you start to play golf to make sure you keep your front arm straight on the backswing. They say that most bad swings come from bending your arms at some point in the backswing. Up until now I've been concentrating on keeping my arm straight on the backswing and keeping my feet aligned properly. Everything else was different on every shot.

Two things came to me today that made my swing very consistent and very straight. The first is to keep your eye on the ball, which sounds like a stupid cliche, but is actually hard to do while your arms are swinging back and forth between your chin, which is pointed down looking at the ball. The second thing is what made all the difference, though. I realized at some poit that if I was keeping my arm straight on the backswing, then I ought to keep it stright when I swing through the ball as well. Once I did that, almost every ball went straight and long (that's what she said).

I came to this realization because I was trying to convince myself to do it the wrong way. I would change the way my arm would bend on every swing trying to hit it straight and compensate for a slice or an occasional hook and I would just end up pulling the club out of line with the ball. Not only does this cause slices, which I can feel even before I hit the ball now, but about half of the time it would cause me to just mis-hit the ball altogether. I would pop it up or hit a ground ball and it would rarely go straight.

I was trying to think through the swing and decide why, if I was starting with the club aligned with the ball, it was coming down on a different trajectory, thus hitting the ball on a different spot on the club than where I aligned it. Then I thought that if I'm bringing the club back, then I should bring it forward in the exact same way to keep it aligned with the ball. Therefore, if I'm not bending my arm on the way back, I shouldn't bend it on the way forward.

As soon as I made that change I hit the majority of my balls straight. And sometimes the other parts of my swing would fall apart, my head or my footwork, which alters my balance, but if I keep the arms straight it is often enough to compensate for those mistakes and keep the ball on a trajectory that is at least close to where I was aiming. This is a huge revelation. Before this any slight change in what was my previous swing would spell disaster.

So, as I say, I need to remember this next time I go play. If I write it here, I know I'll look it over at least a couple times. Of course, if any of you out there are having similar issues, you might want to think about the arm thing because it worked wonders for me.

The Mets And The National League

2006-08-02T13:42:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was American League, so today we'll do National. I think this is a much shorter story because there really are not many good teams in the National.

We'll start with the Mets, who are the class of the National League thus far. What I'm most impressed with is not their record, but the way they win games. They are never out of a game, and have had a bumch of comeback wins this year. It doesn't hurt that they play in the NL East, where the other 4 teams are fiarly inept. The Mets are good, but the Phillies, Braves, Marlins, and Nationals are, for the most part, also pretty bad, which helps the Mets win some games. The Mets have the best record in the National League, and each of the reast of the teams in their division is under .500. But the Mets have played well against every team in the National League, which is encouraging.

To date, the Mets have only lost 8 series, 2 of them to American League opponents, so that in itself is pretty impressive. Between Willie Randolph and Omar Minaya (who, incidentally, graduated from the high school I teach at, which is 5 minutes from Shea Stadium) the Mets have really managed to change the culture of that team. Over the past 5 years they Mets have been content with losing and have never really considered themselves contenders in their own division, let alone the NL or the league as a whole. Since Randoph/Minaya, they've turned into a team who trusts its GM to acquire quality guys and has followed their manager's lead in terms of showcasing a winning attitude.

They've made some great free agent pick ups in Carlos Beltran, Pedro Martinez, and Paul Lo Duca. They've also picked up some real character guys from the free agent market in Jose Valentin, who has essentially taken over the second base position, and Endy Chavez who's a great outfielder and a pretty good hitter, especially in clutch situations as it turns out. Let's also not discount what Julio Franco brings to the team in the clubhouse and on the field, where he's hitting well despite his limited action.

They made a trade for Carlos Delgado the year after he turned them down to play for the same amount of money with the Marlins, and he's come in and played well. The Jae Seo for Duaner Sanchez trade was very good, even though I thought Seo had a ton of potential. Sanchez is now out for the year after separating his shoulder in a car crash, so their bullpen has to pick up the slack. I didn't like the Kris Benson for Jorge Julio trade at all, and it turns out that most of us were right. They've basically turned Kris Benson into El Duque, a trade up of about 10 years. Interestingly, though, the throw away guy in that trade, John Maine, has had two or three really good starts in a row for the Mets, including a complete game shutout a couple weeks ago.

Most impressively though, is how they've brought up the guys from their farm system in inserted them into the lineup at just the right time. Jose Reyes in reality probably came up a little too early a few years back when he was, I believe, 19 years old. He went through a couple seasons of mediocre play and lingering injuries. For the last two seasons, however, he's turned into a very good leadoff hitter, though his on base percentage could be higher, and one of the best shortstops in the National League, even the league as a whole. I don't think any infielder has a stronger arm than him. If he wasn't a shortstop, he could be one of the better center fielders in the game. David Wright just continues to deliver in clutch situations. He's got one of the best swings in the game. There's no wasted movement, even in his legs. His head is still the whole time, and he can hit to all fields. In fact, at least half of his home runs go to right-center field. He's hitting .311 right now and was leading the team in batting average until Paul Lo Duca decided to hit .410 in the month of July. He was also leading the team in RBIs until recently when Beltran has gone nuts over the last two weeks.

Reyes and Wright are their two main young players, but they've built on more than just them. They are in the process of working Lastings Milledge into their lineup, and have enough faith in Chavez and him to platoon in right field that they traded Xavier Nady for a couple relief pitchers to replace Duaner Sanchez. Milledge is very raw, and a little too cocky at this point, but he's clearly talented and will, in all likelihood, be the Mets every day left fielder next year. I'd like to see him shorten his swing a little bit, but I would assume the Mets hitting coaches have more of a say than I do on his plate approach.

The Mets were also recently forced, basically, to bring up their best pitching prospect, Mike Pelfrey, and insert him into the rotation. He's looked good in his 4 starts, but would probably be better served in the minor leagues this year.

The Mets will certainly make the playoffs, the only question is whether their pitching can bring them through to the pennant, and even less likely, the World Series. Pedro Martinez had a month and a half off, which is great for the team considering they actually managed to lengthen their lead in the division while he was out, so we can assume he'll be fresh through a playoff run. Tom Glavine has been solid this year and I like him in a playoff series. Incidentally, look for Glavine to be with the Mets next year when he will almost certainly pick up his 300th win, something no one saw coming after his terrible first season with the Mets. I'm inclined to think that El Duque will pitch well in the playoffs if he's given the opportunity, just given his history, and his craftiness, and going against a number 3 or 4 National League starter in a playoff series would have to be to his advantage. Trachsel is nothing if he's not consistent, and all you can ask in the regular season. As I say, I'd be inclined to slot in El Duque in his #3 slot in the playoffs, so I don't know what his role might be in October.

The rest of the season may be a showcase for Maine and Pelfrey to see what we've really got with those two guys, especially since it seems very likely that the Mets will win the division. The Phillies, the current second place team, essentailly gave up at the trade deadline by dealing Abreu and Lidle to the Yankees. The Braves just don't have enough this year, and the Marlins and Nationals are not going to make that run.

You could have made an argument that David Wright was the MVP of the National League in April and May. It wouldn't have been a winning argument, as Albert Pujols was a little better than everyone else in baseball during that time, but he's since been on the DL and the Cardinals have not been as impressive as the Mets. It's clear at this point in the season that the only MVP candidate in the NL is Carlos Beltran. He's leading the league in RBIs with 96 right now. Beltran is second in home runs with 33, behind only Ryan Howard with 36 and tied with Albert Pujols. Beltran is also a great center fielder, a very good base stealer, and has amazingly been the best player in the Mets lineup. I say amazingly given his mediocre 2005 and the fact that Carlos Delgado and David Wright both have the potential to be the driving force in the lineup.

What is a little distressing about Beltran is that he's hitting .348 on the road and only .216 at home. Also, 22 of his 33 home runs have come away from Shea. He's got 69 RBIs on the road and only 27 at home. To date they've played 46 home games and 48 away games. This disparity goes beyond just statistical chance. Something is definitely going on here either with the fans stressing him out or him just not liking Shea Stadium. I am officially concerned, especially given that the Mets will most likely have the home field advantage through their playoff run.

I love Paul Lo Duca at the number 2 spot. At the beginning of the season I was begging for Lo Duca to be moved down in the lineup past Cliff Floyd and for everyone else to jump a spot, putting Beltran 2, Delgado 3, Wright 4, and Floyd 5, but I was clearly wrong. Lo Duca simply does not strike out. He's got 21 Ks in 334 at bats this year, and unless I'm mistaken, he's got the best at bats to strike out ratio in the league. As I mentioned before, he's also been on a tear recently, hitting .410 in July. He's currently the team's batting average leader, at .314, and puts the ball in play just about every time. With Reyes in front of him on the basepaths, Lo Duca fits in perfectly at the number two spot.

So what about the league in general. As for individual guys, I'll repeat myself in saying that Beltran is my choice for league MVP at this moment. If all else stays equal and the Mets finish with the best record in the league, then I think he has to win it. The other cnadidates are Ryan Howard, who is having a great year for a bad team, and Albert Pujols who is having a great year for a very good team. It's entirely possible that Pujols will pull ahead in the race in August and September and if he does then he will win. He missed about three weeks of the season and he's still in the top 5 in both the RBI and HR races and is in the top 10 in batting average. So while Beltran is currently in the lead, Pujols may come away with it again. I don't see Ryan Howard winning it, but he's on the list. Other guys with an outside shot would be Lance Berkman, David Wright, and Chase Utley, but only if he can keep up this hitting streak into the 40s. Even then, Utley would have to stay red hot through September so people don't forget about him.

Let's take the Mets and the Cardinals as a given for the playoffs. You may not be ready to ink in the Cardinals, but they'll make it, so let's not argue. After them, my picks are going to be Cincinnati via the wild card and Arizona out of the NL Worst, I mean West. I'd like to say that San Diego will win the West, but I can't. Arizona has Brandon Webb pitching and some solid veteran guys who will probably pull them to victory in September. San Diego has some key injuries also and they'll probably fade at the end of the season. Colorado can't overcome the away from home disadvantage and the only ones who don't know that the Dodgers are finished is the Dodgers.

I think this would set up a New York vs. Cincinnati first round playoff matchup since New York vs. Arizona would be impossible because it would set up St. Louis vs. Cincinnati which is not allowed in the first round because they're in the same division. That was a convoluted sentence. I would have to assume that the Mets and Cardinals would meet for the pennant and though I could see the Cardinals winning, I would pick the Mets.

Bottom line, the NL pennant is the Mets' to lose at this point and the only thing that would lose it for them would be pitching matchups in the playoffs, either becasue of their short starting rotation or their bullpen, which is suddenly not as good without Duaner Sanchez. By the way, even though it's supposed to be pronounced doo-ahh-ner, it's way more fun to say dwayne-er.

The Yankees And The American League

2006-08-01T14:13:00.000-04:00

Here's my basic wrap up of the American League through July, conveniently the trading deadline. Basically just trying to start up a little discussion, so let's get some comments here, people.

Let's start with the Yankees. It has become quite apparent that many Yankee fans are just posers. They don't really like baseball, nor do they understand the game. They just want to be able to say that they are Yankee fans. I guess that's been obvious for a while now, as the Yankees were the trendy team to like over the last decade, but it's just gotten out of hand this year. The Yankee posers are easy to spot because they are the ones booing A-Rod whenever he doesn't get a hit.

If you are under the impression that Alex Rodriguez has underachieved in the time he's been with the Yankees, and that you need to let him know by booing him, then you suck, and you should get a hobby other than going to Yankee games. In A-Rod's first year with the Yankees he had an "off season" and hit .286 with 36 HRs and 106 RBIs, a great year for anyone else. In his second year he hit .321 with 48 HRs and 130 RBIs and won the MVP award. This year he's noticably down from those figures, but is on pace to hit about 35 HRs and get 110 RBIs, again a year that would be great for most people. A-Rod is clearly very sensitive, and if you were a Yankee fan and were actually interested in the Yankees winning, you would encourage him through his slump and not push him deeper into it.

I'm not saying that you don't have to right to boo, but if you're booing A-Rod after every at bat, then you should be aware that you're doing more harm than good, and the Yankees will be worse off for it. A-Rod is not clutch, we know that, but hounding him until he delivers is not going to work. He will not ever deliver under that pressure.

It's not like A-Rod has left the team out in the cold. He's was the AL player of the month in May of *this year* and has gone cold since then, but is still, as I say, having a year that would be great for most players. Let my man play the game and in the end, the numbers will be there.

Here's my point, Jason Giambi is currently hitting .248 with 30HRs and 80 RBIs and everyone is in love with him. These numbers are essentially equal with A-Rod's, and Giambi is ridiculously overpaid as well, but we ain't booing Jason. We cheer him every time he hits a home run and just sit on our hands every time he hits a ground ball into the lefty shift, which is a lot more frequent than the HRs.

As for the Yankees as a whole, I really like where they are right now. They've had a lot of adversity and are still right in the mix for both the division and the wild card. If I were a Boston fan I would be upset that they didn't have a bigger lead in the division at this point in the year, especially given the Yankees penchant for having great Septembers and winning the division. I really like Melky Cabrera and I'm glad he's come on this season. Johnny Damon is solid at leadoff, Bernie Williams has done way more than you could have asked from him at the beginning of the season, and even the guys they brought in as replacements have been delivering of late. Aaron Guiel and Nick Green, both recent pickups have filled in well, and now they've filled in a lineup spot by picking up Bobby Abreu from the Phillies and maybe a rotation spot by grabbing Cory Lidle in the same deal. I like Andy Phillips at first base, and I wish he would hit a little more, but he's been hot and cold, not completely inept, which at least gives us some hope.

We've been too busy booing A-Rod to notice that Robinson Cano has been out for two months now with a hamstring injury. It doesn't hurt that Miguel Cairo is a way above average fill-in, but Cano has proven that he's a .320 hitter and would really add some punch to the bottom of the lineup these days.

At this point I really only have faith in Mike Mussina and Chien Ming Wang in the starting rotation. Both of these guys, though, are almost automatic, Wang especially in recent days (Edwina...had a feeling). Randy Johnson is more hot than cold, and he'll win maybe 16-18 games, which is all you can ask for a 42 year old guy who never really learned how to pitch. I'm hoping Lidle can bring some stability to the rotation, but we'll see how that works out. Jaret Wright is good for a solid 5 innigs every start, which is good if the bullpen is rested, but a disaster otherwise. I can't imagine that Sidney Ponson will add anything worthwhile.

I can see a scenario where Matsui and Sheffield come back before the end of the season, which would make their lineup Damon, Jeter, Giambi, A-Rod, Sheffield, Matsui, Abreu, Posada, Cano. That is really just unfair. Also keep in mind that they would have Melky Cabrera and Bernie Williams off the bench, along with Cairo, Guiel, Crosby, Green. In this scenario Sheffield would probably DH and Giambi would play first base. Abreu could DH and Sheffield could play right field, too. There would probably be some shaking up of the actual order to get the lefty/righty thing going, but shit, that's really just an All-Star lineup. Even if Shefield doesn't come back, the lineup is something akin to this with Bernie or Cabrera in one of those spots.

You could make an argument that Derek Jeter is the American League MVP this year. I love Derek Jeter, like most New Yorkers do, but I've always been realistic in my belief that Jeter was not necessarily the best player in the league, he was just a winner. This year, though, he's really carrying that team. And what's amazing is that he's doing it really quietly. My man is currently second in batting at .354, has 65 RBIs and 69 runs from the number 2 spot in the lineup. He might get 100 RBIs and 100 runs, which is one hell of an accomplishment. He's also got 21 stolen bases right now, and may end up with about 35. He's a solid shortstop, and a great leader.

Who are the other candidates for MVP in the American League? The one that jumps out is David Ortiz, who is tearing shit down from the plate, and clearly deserves the award from a batting standpoint. The problem is the he's Boston's DH, and doesn't play the field, and that will lose him some points with the guys who vote. Again, that's not to say he doesn't deserve it, but the reality is that he will lose some points. Jim Thome is another candidate, but is also a DH, and isn't even as deserving as David Ortiz, especially recently. I really can't think of another candidate. Maybe Jermaine Dye. Actually he's definitely a candidate, but if the White Sox fall apart, and it's looking like they might, then he'll fall out of contention. Joe Mauer in Minnesota made some noise with his batting average, but is down to .368, and as a catcher will break down at the end of the season. Justin Morneau in Minnesota is also having a really good year. He's got the numbers, but probably not the name recognition to win it without blowing people away.

I'm not really in favor of the MVP being a DH, but John Kruk made a good point last night. He said he's also not in favor of the DH winning it, but if his numbers are so far ahead of everyone else, then he's just got to win it. That may be the category David Ortiz falls into this year. I mean, he's already got 105 RBIs, versus Morneau's 88 in second place. He might get 170 RBIs, which would be absolutely sick. And he's also probably going to win 2/3 of the triple crown by a large margin. Not to mention his penchant for getting walk off RBIs (can you let Manny beat you once guys?).

At this point I see Detroit, Boston, New York, and Oakland in playoffs. I know that's a bit of a cop out because those are the 4 teams currently leading their divisions (and the Yankees are winning the wild card race), but that's really my feeling. I would guess that the Yankees are going to win the division by 2 or 3 games with a strong September, Boston will win the wild card over a slumping White Sox team. The real unknown here is Minnesota. Especially if the White Sox fall apart, they could easily get into wild card position and steal it from either Boston or New York. Minnesota has the best 1-2 starters in the league with Johan Santana and Francisco Liriano (though Mussina and Wang are up there). Detroit also has great pitching, which is what's carrying them right now.

So let's not be too surprised, Yankee fans, if they are on the outside looking in come October. I don't think it will happen, they're really starting play well, but it's definitely a possibility.

Oakland and Anaheim are essentially equal at this point, so if you told me that the Angels won that division instead of Oakland I woudln't be surprised.

Based on pitching, I'd have to assume that either Detroit of Minnesota would win the AL pennant. Minnesota will have a much harder time making the playoffs than winning once they get there given their short series pitching advantage. Detroit will definitely make the playoffs, but their lack of experience might hurt them once they get there. But their pitching is almost as strong as Minnesota. Along the same lines, the Yankees have a short series advantage going three deep with Mussina, Wang, and Johnson, who, even with all his ups and downs, is a great choice for a #3 starter in the playoffs.

The best playoff matchups may end up being impossible given that Detroit, Boston, New York, and Minnesota can't all make the playoffs. I don't want to discount the Whte Sox either, but I think Minnesota will catch them.

I guess that's it. I've spent a lot of time on this already. Bottom line, I like where the Yankees are, but it's really all up in the air right now. Minnesota is the team to watch. Let's hope that Boston starts to slump, which they have yet to do this year at all.

My New Favorite TV Show

2006-07-31T15:17:00.000-04:00

Maybe it's just because this is the summer season and everything else sucks ass, but I'm loving Entourage. I've watched it from the beginning, two seasons ago and I loved it then, too, so I know it's not a fluke or anything. But this thing jsut keeps on getting better.

First of all Ari Gold is easily the best character on television today. There's no one even a close second at this point. He's like a caricature of a person, except he's got feelings and motivations and what not. He's brilliantly written and acted.

Interstingly, the most useless character is Vince. He's obviously the reason all of those personalities are brought together, but he might as well just not be there. If they made a show about just Drama and Turtle, I would watch it, assuming Ari was their agent. Those are the guys that make the show. Hearing Drama talk about his old TV shows, like his 3 story arc on 90210 where he battered Tori Spelling, is goddamn hysterical.

Now I'm assuming that the show is chronicling Vince's ultimate rise to some kind of super stardom, which really allows them to have happy endings to each story arc. In another show, I might complain that it was unrealistic because everything just ends up working out in the end, but it really doesn't bother me here. I just enjoy being along for the ride for that half hour every week.

I think Meaghan put it best when she said, "I love Entourage. I'm happy when it comes on and I'm sad when it goes off."

Riven, The Installation

2006-07-27T19:36:00.000-04:00

Riven, you may know, is the sequel to the game Myst. If you've never heard of Myst, then all you need to know is that it is a computer game where you have to solve different puzzles to win. The graphics are pretty cool and are punctuated by fairly precisely placed Quick Time movies when something interesting happens.

The long version of the story is that I bought Myst whenever it first came out a while back, more than 10 years ago now, and I really enjoyed it. A couple years ago I was in Circuit City and I happened upon the 10th anniversary edition of Myst that came with its sequel, Riven, and the next sequel, Exile. It was on the sale shelf, if I remember correctly, and I bought it. I played Myst again and remembered how much I loved it. Then I tried to play Riven and I couldn't install it correctly. Then I played Myst 3, and I thought that it might be even better than the original. So as you may have guessed, I was pretty pissed off that I couldn't play Riven.

Like I say, this was a couple years ago and I looked online to see if anyone else was having trouble with the Riven installation in particular and lots of people were. I fixed the problem and was then able to play Riven. Right about that same time, within a couple of days, actually, we moved from one apartment to another, and packed and unpacked all our stuff. In that time, I misplaced the DVD-Roms that those three games were on. Again, this is the long version of the story.

So a couple days ago we were cleaning out one of our closets in the redecoration I mentioned earlier where the garbage room is now going to be the nursery and the computer room is now the computer room and treadmill and piano and turtle room. In the process of cleaning this closet, I found those games, which I was pretty happy about. I remembered that I had a problem installing Riven, but since I had fixed it, I figured it wouldn't be an issue.

I played Myst 3 again, since I really enjoyed it the first time. I had really never actually played Riven, I just walked around the opning boards before we moved those couple years ago, so I wanted to see what it was all about.

I put in the DVD and click on the program and the same thing that was happening before was happening again. The screen would go blank for a second as if the game were going to start and then it would just go back to the Windows desktop.

I searched again online and came up with all sorts of ransom issues it could have been and I didn't remember the first time what I had done. The suggested going into the files in the Riven folder and changing lines of text, or making it playable in a backwards compatible way with Windows 98 as opposed to XP, or downloading one of about ten available patches that do something, and all this random stuff. Also some people mentioned a Quick Time issue that comes up with some installations.

I screwed around with this thing for about 3 hours only to discover that the way to get the Riven program to work was to uninstall Quick Time 7 and reinstall Quick Time 6. How fucking counterintuitive is that? I don't even have words to describe that ridiculousness. And I feel like part of the puzzle in beating Riven is just being able to install the damn program correctly.

Since I bought this 10th anniversary game, they have subsequently released Myst IV and Myst V, which I thought about buying on Amazon or something. When I go to read the reviews, though, both of them have issues not necessarily with the game play, aside from some people complaining that the puzzles are too hard or too easy, but rather with being able to install the programs correctly on their computers because whatever equiptment they have is not compatible with the game. So now I probably won't buy the two sequels, even thought I know I would enjoy them, because I'm afraid I won't be able to play them since apparently some anti-piracy aspect of the discs the games are on makes them automatically incompatible with a huge portion of the people who want to play the game and actually buy it legitimately.

Que ridiculo...ah ha..ah ha ha ha ha ha. (a little obscure, perhaps, especially in writing as opposed to aloud.)

Should The President Really Use The "Because I Said So" Defense?

2006-07-18T15:11:00.000-04:00

All the Deomcrats, a significant protion of the Republicans, the scientific community, and the public at large want to see an expansion of stem cell research. Today, the Senate is set to pass a bill that will expand stem cell research, and President Dubya is going to veto it, thus killing the bill since it seems pretty clear that the two thirds override vote can't be mustered up.

I'm not a huge fan of abortion, but I don't relate stem cell research at all with abortion, nor do I really see it as a pro life issue. I think all of this is beside the point, though, since the bill has basically already passed through both houses. Basically Dubya is just vetoing this bill for the sake of vetoing it. He has never, ever used his veto power in the 5 plus years he's been in office and he's going to use it today on a bill that has widespread bipartisan support, support of the experts in the field, and the support of the public.

That's just a fucking slap in the face, in my opinion. He's using his power just to use it. Even if he disagreed with this bill on a personal level, how can he turn away what is essentially the will of the country? This is different than a senator voting against the bill for personal reasons, since his vote counts for 1/100th of the opinion. In vetoing the bill, Dubya is just choosing to ignore the country as a whole. What a jerk off.

Two Things I'm Trying To Get Better At

2006-07-17T16:04:00.000-04:00

This summer I've got a fair amount of time on my hands given that my only two responsibilities are to go to MMG's wedding, which I already did, and to go to BPG's wedding, which I certainly will do. Aside from that, there's nothing that's really on tap except for converting what is now our ironing/music/workout/playstation/recycling/garbage room into a nursery, which is in progress slowly but surely.

So I've taken on two things to improve at that, at least on the surface, are going to make me more worldly. I'm trying to get better at both golf and chess. At the moment I suck at both. Well, it's fair to say that I suck at chess. In fact there's no other way to put it. I don't actually suck at golf. I'm bad, but in the few times I've played this summer it's clear to me that everyone is bad at golf. So given that, I'm actually only a relatively poor player versus a completely sucky player.

I've never really put too much thought into chess and though I've been interested in it it's always something that I just never latched onto because I wasn't good at it right away. My problem is that I play really defensively without actually knowing what to defend against. In the times I've played in the past, which are generally few and far between, I am capable of picturing my moves many steps in advance, but I don't really give much thought to my opponent's moves so my plans inevitably fall apart. I decided taht I was interested enough in chess to get better at it so I bought The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess which had better reviews than Chess For Dummies. I figured this was as good a place as any to start. It gives a fairly complete, if elementary, overview of the game and I've already learned a fair amount. I haven't played too much, mainly just been reading, but I'm on track to improve my game and there is honestly nowhere to go but up.

Golf is something that was not even on my radar until I was in college. Around then me and Brian and Luke and whomever else would go out to the pitch and putt somewhere off route 80 and play sometimes. We were bad, but it was a fun way to kill a copule hours. They also had a driving range there and sometimes we'd do that too. That was about the extent of my golf experience before a few months ago. Around that time two things happened that opened up the world of golf for me. First is that a friend of mine from work, Kiran, who plays left handed, got a new set of clubs to replace his old set. He gave me his old set and now I have a set of golf clubs. Second is that this other friend from work, Wallace, got a set of clubs off of Amazon and started playing. Wallace and I had essentially the same amount of experience, none, and so we started going to the driving range and such together and usually Kiran would come with us too.

So now this summer we have all been playing golf with relative frequency. We've gone out twice now and played with the three of us and Kiran's dad at two different courses in Queens, and we have plans to go out again this week to play. Kiran and his dad have been helping Wallace and I to get a little bit better, and actually both of us have improved to a level that's acceptable for playing golf on a public course.

The great part about both of my new hobbies is that neither one has been expensive for me at all. I bought that chess book, but that's the extent of my expenditure so far. I'm thinking about buying a program so I can play against a computer and at the same time it can give me tips and what not. Golf is usually very expensive to get started with but I've literally been given all of my equiptment. Kiran gave me his old clubs and some old gloves. Wallace gave me an extra glove and some extra club covers that he had after he bought a separate set off of Amazon (Wallace buys a lot of stuff off of Amazon). I've been given tees and balls as well. In general golf is expensive, though, and to continue that hobby I'm going to have to accept that. It's about $40 to play a round depending on where you go, and it's like $10 to go to the driving range and hit balls. But I'm pretty content with my mismatched set of old clubs and newer club covers and my old school Bagger Vance bag.

This summer I'm working on chess and golf. Maybe next summer I'll take up polo or jai alai, or maybe even just work directly on my general snobbery.

It Was Just A Matter Of Time

2006-07-17T15:52:00.000-04:00

All of the Arab countries must know that Israel is more powerful than they are and at the end of the day probably have more of the world's support. If we take that as a given, it astounds me that people insist on fucking with Israel. We've reached the point again where Israel is tired of just sitting back thinking about how badly they want to kick Hezbollah's ass, now they're actually doing it.

I can't say I blame them. It would be nice if Israel would just chill like it does most of the time, but they're certainly entitled to want to eliminate Hezbollah, and from what they've been saying, they won't stop now until they do.

The problem, obviously, is that this whole situation, in conjunction with clowns all over the world including North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, D.C., New Zealand, ok probably not New Zealand, but in lots of places, really has the potential to blow the whole world up. And I say that in a figurative sense, but could just as easily mean it in a literal sense.

All I'm saying is that if I was some other middle eastern country, I wouldn't fuck with Israel except to just be really passive aggressive about them even existing in the first place. I hope this whole thing ends in a moderately destructive way as opposed to an enormously drawn out and destructive way.

Good Running Music

2006-07-17T11:46:00.000-04:00

In the summer I try my best to not just sit around and I usually go running in a park near my house 3 or 4 times a week. I don't always meet that goal, but I'm pretty good about it. At first I thought it was kindof stupid, but figured it was the best way to stay in shape. Now I sortof enjoy running, so I guess that's good.

I run with my iPod and I've decided what my favorite running music is. Depending on how I feel on the particular day I'm running I usually run a minimum of 3 miles and generally a maximum of 6. Usually I'm in between 3 and 4 miles and sometimes I just get a whole lot of energy and run 5 or 6.

On the days I run a shorter distance the best music to run to is the "Hot Fuss" album by The Killers. The songs are all filled with lots of energy and give me motivation to keep up my pace. By the end of the album I've run roughly 4 miles which is abour my goal. Another album that I enjoy running to is "Mr. A-Z" by Jason Mraz. That one is not so up tempo, but good to keep a general pace. This is a good in between distance album because by the end of it you're at about 4.5 miles.

My new favorites are good for the days when I feel like I might run for a while. There's a band called Hot Hot Heat that has two albums called "Elevator" and "Make Up The Breakup". If you run them back to back on the iPod, the two together are good for at least 6 or even 7 miles and every song is filled with energy which is good for running. Also the end of the second album is really good, so it's kindof motivation to keep on going until the album ends.

Anyone else have favorite exercise music? I'm interested to hear some more. Another pretty good one is "Late Registration" by Kanye West. Lots of energy and such, but it gets bogged down a little bit with the skits in between every couple songs.

Today I went out with a lot of energy and just got slammed by the heat. I was ready to go 4 or 5 miles and then every time I would get into the sun I just felt like I wanted to stop. When I hit a shady part, I felt fine. I ended up going only 3 miles, which is kindof lame, but what can you do?

Da Nenna Nenna Da Na Na Nenna Nenna

2006-07-14T20:58:00.000-04:00

If you guessed that the title of this post is the theme to The Daily Show, then you are weird. Almost as weird as I am for having actually made this the title of the post. Anyhow, that is the title of the post because yesterday Kathy and I went to a live taping of the Daily Show and I want to tell you about it.

The event on the whole was pretty cool, but I don't think I'd do it again. The reason is because we got there at like 3:30 with the expectation that we would wait outside the studio until about 4:45. The confirmation email we received said that we had to be on line by 4:45 and we should come early if we wanted to guarantee ourselves a seat. The overbook the show just to ensure a full house and they just give the tickets to the people who are first on line. That leaves a few people out of each show. Incidentally, if you are left out of the show, then they give you VIP tickets to another show that guarantees your admission, which is good if you live in New York and can manage to get to the studio on another day, but sucks if you're on vacation or something.

Anyway, we stood outside the studio from 3:30 until almost 6pm. We were told that we waited an unusual amount of time because the rehearsal was running late for some reason. I guess usually people get let in around 5:30. So we get into the studio at like 6pm and just sit there for like 15 minutes while they played really loud rock music. Like inordinately loud, so much so that no one was really talking over it. Then after those 15 minutes or so some guy comes out to warm up the crowd. I think he was a comedian, but he didn't really tell any jokes. At first he just walked out and said, "everybody cheer really loud. That's not loud enough. Really loud. Stand up. This side, cheer. That side, cheer." He did this for way too long. Then he started to make fun of people in the crowd, which was kindof funny. After he stood around for a while, he introduced Jon Stewart and Jon came out and everyone cheered.

Jon asked if anyone had any questions and a few people asked him random question about the Mets, William and Mary (his alma mater), and his kids. I thought about asking him who chose the loud rock music that was playing, but I didn't. He kept taking question until the producer or somebody told him the show was ready to start and then he sat down and they started the show. If you've seen the show, then you know what happened then.

The only interesting thing I can add is that the guys who do the reports during the show are probably less than 10 feet away from Jon when they do them. The guy who went on yesterday did what he called an "emotional weather report" which was pretty funny. But I can imagine being in the studio when someone rolls out and pretends to be in Iraq or wherever and he's literally 8 feet away from the desk and that being pretty funny.

During the commercials they play the loud rock music again and everyone just sits there for the 3 or 4 minutes or whatever it is. The one interesting thing is that yesterday they did the first segment, took a commercial, did the interview, took a commercial, and did a third segment. When the show aired, the interview and third segment were switched so it was segment, segment, interview for TV instead of segment, interview, segment, at the taping.

The guest was Owen Wilson who was promoting You, Me, and Dupree and based on the interview I will not be seeing the movie. Owen was either very high, or is possibly the stupidest person on Earth. He swiveled back and forth in his chair for the whole 8 or 9 minutes he was sitting in it and answered each question in an odd manner with zero alacrity. At one point Stewart goes, "so exactly how high are you right now?", which is what everyone in the audience was thinking.

At the end of the Daily Show now they do a lead in to the Colbert Report and after they had done those three segments instead of doing another commercial break they chatted with Colbert for a while. They asked him if his rehearsal was also running late and he said no, but then it occurred to me that in order to do the lead in to Colbert they need to hold up the audience for that show. I don't know whether they tape that before or after the lead in, but they do need to coordinate it somehow. Then about 30 seconds later they do the actual taped lead in.

Then the show was over and Stewart walked out and bowed and everyone cheered. Then we walked out and it was over. All in all it was a fun thing to do once, but I don't think I'd do it again mainly because of the waiting. Incidentally, also at the taping that day was Ghetto Bob Wilson and his sister Ghetto Christine. It was a mad coincidence that we were both there and that Kathy spotted him on the line. Also Ghetto Bob had a baby early this morning (Congrats G-Bob and Carla) and he was expecting Carla to go into labor at any time, but he was at the taping anyway because Carla told him to come since she wasn't in labor yet.

The Jacket Will Not Move - Virginia Edition

2006-07-12T15:06:00.000-04:00

Most of you are aware that this past weekend was Matt Guiney's wedding to Sarah G. on the William and Mary campus in Virginia. The tag line for the wedding was "a decade of courtship, a lifetime of happiness", which I though was pretty clever and beautifully self deprecating on all parts. Even though the only obligation I had as a guest was to be there on Saturday for the ceremony and reception, if you can call it an obligation, rather than privilege or what have you, it really ended up being a three day committment to the cause since we spent essentially all day Friday driving down to Virginia, and all day Sunday driving back. We drive on both days from just about 11am until 7:30pm, give or take. Friday we hit traffic, and Sunday we stopped for about an hour for lunch, so we evened out the travel time even though there was no traffic.

The whole event was very fun, however, and I'm glad that I went not just to support Matt and Sarah, but also to see everyone who was down there too. We hung out on both Friday and Saturday night at the bar and generally had a good time. If you were there, then you know all about it. If you weren't, then you know what goes on at weddings I'm sure, so I'll spare you the details. What I will do is share some of my favorite pictures from the weekend. They span the time from when the wedding started until the drive home to New Jersey where I dropped off Chris, Dave, and Rick who all squeezed into the back of my Sentra for the journey.

World Cup And What Not

2006-06-19T18:46:00.000-04:00

The World Cup is definitely fun to watch. I'm essentially seconding Max's opinion, there. People get mad into it and soccer is not really boring by any stretch. At least not at that level. If the American TV stations were to televise the European leagues, I think I would follow it. Major League Soccer, on the other hand is really just low level shit. Not good and also it's not fun since no one cares about it and the stadiums are just empty for the games. I was tempted to say that the "stadia" were empty, but decided against it. I also want to agree wholeheartedly with Max about the non stop action in terms of commercials and play stoppages that plague other sports, basketball especially.

Here's what I would change about soccer, however. The game is clearly designed for teams NOT to score. All sorts of rules and traditions of soccer are in place to make sure that any team a team gets an upper hand, it is negated. The off sides rule is the best example. I've watched pieces of maybe 7 or 8 games during the World Cup and I've seen at least 1 goal in each game negated by an off sides call. I understand the logic of the off sides, and agree with the principle, but essentially what this does is negate any aggressive play by an offensive player. The purpose of the rule is to eliminate what can best be understood as "basket hanging" which is much easier in soccer than in basketball since the offensive guys don't really have to play defense.

The problem is that 95% of off sides calls are not for basket hanging, but are called because the offensive guy ran faster than the defensive guy. The other thing that might have happened was that the defensive guy put all of his energy into running upfield to trap the guy offsides rather than putting energy into actually playing defense. Any time, and I mean any time, an offensive guy gets past the defense at least three hands go up on the team that just got beat trying to indicate to the official that the guy is off sides and just about every time to official calls an offsides. The USA team had a goal taken away from them for an off sides call where the guy didn't even touch the ball, nor was the ball played to him. The cited him for blocking the goalie, which in my opinion is a pretty good play if you can make it, and should be legal.

Another example of the non-scoring tactics are the referees hyper-selective decisions to call fouls in the penalty box. Technically, any foul made on an offensive player in the penalty box results in a penalty kick, which is akin to a free throw in terms of success rate. In basketball a free throw is not a big deal, but in soccer the game would turn on any one goal and therefore a penalty kick is not desirable from the soccer loving perspective. As this is such, the referees almost never call penalties in the box unless you do something so egregious that you give them no other choice. Why in the world is there selective enforcement of the rules? I understand that soccer people do not want countless penalty shots in a game, which would be the result of them actually enforcing the rules as written, but then they should just change the rules. Let a foul in the box result in a corner kick or something like that. It's asinine in my opinion to have rules that everyone is aware of and are not enforced.

The third thing is the throwing around of red and yellow cards like they're candy or something. Referees are giving yellow cards just because a guy tried to make a slide tackle too early or too late in a play, essentially telling players that they need to play perfectly or they will be removed from the game. The US got shafted with red cards in their last game and so did France. Once a guy gets a red card he's just out and the other team gets a power play. This is a serious thing. Now that rule in itself is silly, but given the rule, shouldn't referees be less likely to actually give out red cards, the same way they don't call penalties in the box?

Now let's talk about that ludicrous red card rule. If you get two yellow cards at any point int he tournament, not even in the same game or anything, you are suspended for your teams next game. If you get a red card either as the result of two yellows in a game, or because you elbow someone in the face, like the Italian guy did the other day, you are out for the next game. And on top of that, if you are removed from the game your team doesn't get to replace you. If you get thrown out of an NBA game, your team doesn't play with 4 guys. If you get thrown out of a baseball game, your team doesn't play with 8 guys. This is just a stupid rule. Every team is given 3 substitutions per game. Assuming a team has substitutions left, they should be able to use one of them to replace a guy who has been removed from the game. I can understand an argument in favor of playing with 10 guys if your team has already used it's substitutions, but not otherwise.

I'd like to see an incentive for aggressive play in soccer. Not mean play, where guys are fouling all over the place, just strong moves and aggressive passes over defense, shit like that. Games would be higher scoring and more interesting in my opinion. Hockey just changed a whole bunch of rules to make the game more wide open and increase the likelihood of scoring, and soccer would be well served to do something similar. I recognize that the likelihood of these changes going into effect are basically zero, but that is my opinion nonetheless. Keep in mind, I am not an avid soccer fan, nor do I claim to know a whole lot about the intricacies of the sport, but from my novice perspective, the game could be more exciting for fans if those changes were put into effect. I guess fans are already pretty excited by it, so there's not much incentive to change, but you get my idea.

Stealing From Joe

2006-06-09T08:25:00.000-04:00

Been a while since I've stolen from Joe, so I'm filling up the empty space with something I got from his site.

The most embarrassing CD I own ...
You could make a case that it is Nelson, as in Matthew and Gunnar, as in "After the rain, washes away the tears, and all the pain, o-only after the rain, can you love again", as in "I can't live without your love and affection. I can't spend another night on my own." That was, incidentally, also the first CD I ever bought. I can't even name any of the other songs on the CD, but I still love those two.

As a child, did you ever wish you had a different name, maybe a name you wish your parents had chosen?
I just wish I could have avoided all the Charles vs. Jerry confusion. I don't think I ever disliked Charles, I just never identified with it. I like it a little more now, especially after having been called Chuck or Charles for a while.

What's the worst present you ever received?
My dad was a pretty bad present buyer. He insisted on buying me clothes from time to time, like on Christmas or something and they were usually lame. Once he bought me these enormous size 13 Timberland boots. To be fair, I wear a size 12 shoe and he wore a 13 and I would sometimes wear his shoes, so he thought I wore a 13. Also in fairness, I still have the boots and wear them whenever it snows. So I guess that wasn't a bad gift.

What was your first concert?
Dave Matthews, Jones Beach, 1996. Brian and I drove out there in my dad's car and we had seats in the 10th row. Ben Harper opened and during Dave's set, Ben Harper came into the crowd and watched for a while and Brian and I both gave him a pound and told him that his set was great, which it was. The whole experience was surreal for someone who had never seen a concert, period, let alone the fact that I was seeing my favorite band at an impressionable time in life. That remains my best concert going experience, as I got a little more and more jaded each concert I've been to since then, still mostly Dave Matthews shows, though Jason Mraz puts on a hell of a concert. After the concert Brian and I, both thinking we were a little wiser to the ways of the world than we actually were at 17, agreed that it was the coolest thing either of us had ever done.

Rock Smashes Scissors, Paper Covers Rock, Scissors Cut Paper

2006-06-09T08:18:00.000-04:00

A federal judge in Florida made two bickering lawyers look like biotches when he ordered them to settle a dispute by playing rock, paper, scissors. They couldn't agree on the location to hear some witness and the judge was tired of their fighting so it was nothing but rocks and papers for these clowns. I'll bet the lawyers don't even consider themselves as having been dissed, but if in my professional life someone told me that I was too much of a complainer to get anything accomplished without having to resort to a game that's been perfected by 8 year olds, I would feel like I wasn't doing my job.

Also of note here, for all you devotees of Chris Hall, who insists on calling the game paper, scissors, rock, or some such nonsense is the official ruling from a federal judge that the game is called rock, paper, scissors. Take that.

Let's Make The Punishment Fit The Crime

2006-06-01T17:31:00.000-04:00

Some dude on the Dallas Mavericks who I've never heard of, DJ Mbenga, was suspended for 6 games for going into the stands during a game in order to help quash an argument between some fans and Avery Johnson's wife. At the time Mbenga was inactive and in street clothes and when he got to the situation he told Johnson's wife to go watch the game from the lcker room and that was it.

Apprently this is worth a 6 game suspension, which won't affect the Mavericks, since this dude doesn't play, but will affect Mbenga because he won't get paid for not playing for the next 6 games. Mbenga is the second Maverick to be suspended in the playoffs since Jason Terry was suspended for one game for punching Michael Finley in the nuts.

How is it that a guy who's not even actuve for the game going into the stands with obviously peaceful intentions get suspended for 6 games and the dude who punches a guy in the nuts gets 1 game? This makes no sense. I understand that the league is trying to keep fans out of the stands after the brawl in Detroit and the rules are very clear. I also understand that the rules for punching guys are very clear, automatic one-game suspension. These two things don't match.

Not everyone is crazy like Ron Artest. The league's stand is that they do not have control over fans and once a player goes into the stands the league loses control of the situation, as evidenced by the arbitrator's decision in the Detroit case when he ruled that the NBA did not have jurisdiction since it was not an on-court incident. I guess that's why they do it, because guys who enter the stands tie the league's hands if something does happen. Still, if they are going to be so harsh with going into the stands, they should be just as harsh with punching guys. In the nuts, especially.

What Kind Of Fan Are You?

2006-05-29T10:04:00.000-04:00

This dude, Andrew Morbitzer, caught Barry Bonds 715th home run. Was he in the stands, glove at the ready, waiting for the ball to come? No, the motherfucker was on line for beer. He is at the Giants game, wearing a Barry Bonds 715 t-shirt, waiting for history to happen so he can say he was there when Barry hit 715 and right before Barry is about to get up to bat he goes and gets on line for more beer.

This guy is not a fan of baseball, not a fan of Barry Bonds, and he's a goddamned poser. Wearing a 715 t-shirt and on line for beer when Barry is up to bat. And there were other people on line, too. Why would you go to the game and not watch Barry hit? I mean, the game, and the history, and all that. There are just no words to describe my disappointment at this.

An Underrated Movie

2006-05-09T15:05:00.000-04:00

I was thinking today about a movie that I really love, Joe Versus The Volcano, and wondering why everybody doesn't love this movie. I mean, it's got Tom Hanks, it's got Meg Ryan. Everyone saw Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail just because those two were in it.

This movie is enormously entertaining. It's about a guy who thinks he's dying so he agrees to be a human sacrifice for this native South Pacific island nation who thinks their god lives in the volcano on the island. There's a lot more that goes on, but that's the basic plot. Hilarity ensues, or whatever. Meg Ryan plays three different parts, two of whom are twin sisters, and one who's just also Meg Ryan for some reason. It's a funny movie. Clever dialogue.

Have people just not seen it? I can't imagine one could watch this movie and not enjoy it. Roger Ebert really enjoyed it, and all the user comments on IMDB say that this is a wonderful movie that is overlooked. The fan rating isn't all that high, but everyone who took the time to comment enjoyed it. And immensely, I might add.

Anyone seen this movie? If you have seen it, didn't you enjoy it? I want to hear from someone who has seen it and didn't enjoy it. I don't think you exist.

The Term "A New Low" Has No Meaning Anymore

2006-05-09T14:04:00.000-04:00

Every time I hear about Dubya's approval rating it's always at "a new low". I've heard this so often in the past year that it would seem that his approval should be in the negative at this point, but it always just hovers around 30 - 35%. That's low, but it doesn't seem like a new low. It's been that way for a year now.

A better question is, who are the 30% of people who approve of Dubya? Even if you agree with everything he does, doesn't the way he goes about just kinda creep you out a little bit? The secrecy and funny faces and smugness and all. I tell you, I just don't like it.

The Daily Show is amazing. Last night's episode had a thing about Bush's choice to run the CIA, Michael Hayden. They did the usual making fun of Bush and what not and then they showed a clip from the news conference:

"Michael Hayden is supremely qualified for this position. He's the right man to lead this important agency at this critical moment in our nation's history."

Then they cut to a clip of him appointing Porter Goss to the job 2 years ago:

"Porter Goss is the right man to lead this important agency at this critical moment in our nation's history."

Fucking fantastic. It's almost as good as playing back to back "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.", "Indeed I did have sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky."

If you want to watch that then click here and find the clip called "Director's Cut". Though, it's pretty much as I described it minus the twenty other jokes in the 5 minute segment.

My Confession

2006-04-30T19:08:00.000-04:00

My confession is that I'm routing for the Lakers to beat the Suns in the first round of the playoffs. I know I can't claim to hate the Lakers and then turn around and route for them, but I do and I am. It's great to watch a team come together like that for a playoff run. How is a team that was so Kobe-centric for 82 games making this fantastic team effort all of a sudden?

Lamar Odon is great, and I've said since he was on the Olympic team that he's really underrated. He's got phenomenal skills and is 2000s version of Grant Hill or even Scottie Pippen. Kobe is Kobe. The rest of the guys are the ones I enjoying watching right now, though. Kwame Brown actually playing with some skill and intensity. Smush Parker carrying the team in game 3, and making 2 of the biggest plays for the team in game 4. Luke Walton, Devean George, and even Sasha Vujacic (I think I butchered that name) making contributions.

I mainly hated the Lakers because of what Kobe did in destroying the 3 time championship team. He pushed out Phil Jackson and Shaquille O'Neal, arguably the best coach and the best center in the last 15 years of the league, just so he could go and average 35 points a game on a wack team. But they've turned that around. And Phil Jackson is back. And Shaq and Kobe made up. And fucking Kwame Brown is playing like he might actually be an impact player in the league.

This kindof goes against my earlier claim that The first round of the playoffs is useless, but at the end of the day we're looking at Spurs/Pistons no matter what as best I can tell. Even though there are several good series right now with upset potential, Nets/Pacers, Bulls/Heat, Suns/Lakers, Cavs/Wizards, and teachnically Clippers/Nuggets, the second round will play more closely to form. If there are major upsets in the second round, then I'll take back my statement about the 5-8 seeds in the East and West being capable of making playoff runs.

Incidentally, we all knew that he had the talent, but how does Tim Thomas, who couldn't secure a roster spot on the Knicks or the Bulls over the last two seasons, become not only a starter, but a huge impact player for the 2nd ranked Suns? He honestly could not have sucked more when he was on the Knicks, and he was cut by the Bulls in mid-season this year. If he absolutely needs to be on a serious contender just to realize his potential, then he's wack.

Nash is the lynch pin, but I really think Phoenix is just a system team, like the Denver Broncos of the NBA. Shawn Marion is seriously underrated, as well. He puts up MVP type numbers, too, even to a greater extent than Nash does. Numbers like Garnett put up in his MVP season. Nash is definitely not doing it by himself, and if Marion were out for an extended period of time that team would be absolutely lost.

What's More Over Hyped Than The Oscars?

2006-04-29T14:28:00.000-04:00

The answer, of course, is the NFL draft. I mean, outside of the executives and so forth, and people involved with the league, there really isn't anyone who should care so much about this draft in any year. The only reason people are even remotely interested in it is because ESPN et. al. hype this thing like it was the April version of the Super Bowl. The draft hype is really inescapable for even a casual sports fan. It's not possible to watch PTI or SportsCenter (or any of those other similar shows) in the month before the draft without having to listen to this stuff. The SportsCenter thing where they spend at least 5 minutes per team putting each team "on the clock" has been going on for at least 16 days given the 32 teams and two teams a day. It's just asinine in my opinion.

It's not possible for any football fan to know about all the draft picks beyond the 5 or 6 best guys. Of course you're interested in who your team drafted, but shit, read about it in the paper the next day. Wait for SportsCenter to come on. Is anyone watching the NFL draft from 12 noon until 10pm, because that's how long it's on television today? There's also coverage tomorrow on some ESPN iteration of the later rounds. This is just more self important than anything I can think of.

On a related note, I was really hoping that the Jets would pick Matt Leinart. The guy they picked, D'Brickashaw Ferguson, aside from having one of the best names ever, apostrophe and all, is by all accounts going to be a great tackle and will protect whatever QB the Jets have back there for a while to come. Really, though, to pass on Matt Leinart when he falls into your lap is unreal to me. You're always taking a chance on a QB, but this guy is as close as you can get to a sure thing since Peyton Manning (and Ryan Leaf?).

This really speaks to my point, however. Obviously the guys who are in charge of the Jets know a lot more about football than I do, and they think that D'Brickashaw was the way to go. Has anyone outside of a real tight football circle even heard of D'Brickashaw Ferguson before a week ago? The only three guys I could name with certainty in the draft this year were Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, and Vince Young. The first overall pick, Mario Williams, I had never heard of before maybe 3 or 4 days ago. This guy is the best availbable guy, and I've never heard of him because he's not a QB, RB, or WR.

My opinion aside, if I was Matt Leinart I would be ecstatic today after being given the chance to throw to Anquan Boldin, Larry Fitzgerald, and Edgerrin James, and stay relatively close to LA in Phoenix. The Cardinals now have all the flashy guys in place to make some noise in the league and are just an offensive line and a defense away from contending. Yes, I realize that's the understatement of the century.

Keepin' It Real Up In The Field, Aight!

2006-04-24T18:05:00.000-04:00

It's cool that people want to represent their hoods and become rappers. The problem isn't that you need to come from the streets to rap, you just heed to be a good rapper. This guy is the complete opposite of what a rapper is. Not because he's white or middle class, but because he just doesn't get rap. You don't have to be of a specific culture to represent their music, take Matisyahu for example, but you should at least understand what the message of the music is. Also if you want to be a rapper, you should know how to rap.

Life Affirmation Or Embarrassing Confession

2006-04-21T13:09:00.000-04:00

I'm going to go out on a limb here to confirm a suspicion I have of just about everyone. If I'm not right, then all I've done is just embarrass myself to a certain extent, but I'm willing to live with that.

My assumption is that if no one else is looking, then just about everyone picks their nose. I mean, I know I do. Sometimes the only way to get the relief from a stuffy nose is just to get up in there and pull out the blockage. And once you do you're more comfortable and you can breathe more easily. It's an all around good thing. Nose blowing doesn't always do the trick.

The problem is that no one wants to watch anyone else pick their nose. But I assume this is similar to everyone wiping their own ass in that everyone does it, but no one talks about it. I don't want to watch that either, even though I know it's a necessity of life today. So people, please confirm my suspicion and let me know that you pick your nose, too. If you don't and you think it's disgusting, I guess let me know that too. I can't imagine that the world is full of non-pickers, though. It would just go against everything I believe in.

Why The NBA Is Lame

2006-04-19T08:36:00.000-04:00

I'm losing interest in the NBA because the regular season means absolutely nothing. Aside from a very good reason to play fantasy basketball the NBA regular season is just useless. All it does is weed out the absolutely terrible teams from the half decent teams. what the NBA needs to do is change its playoff format.

At the moment 16 of the 30 teams make the playoffs. So more than half of the teams in the league are going to get a shot to win the damn thing. Only we all know that there aren't 16 teams capable of winning the chanpionship this year. The playoffs should be made up of the teams who are capable of winning, not just any team who finished at or near .500. This year there are three teams, Milwaukee, Chicago, and Indiana, who whill make the playoffs and will probably finish below .500. And Washington will likely finish right at .500. These teams do not have a chance to get past the Pistons, Heat, or Nets in the first round. We all know that Memphis and the Lakers and Sacramento don't have a shot in the first round against Dallas, Phoenix, and San Antonio respectively.

This isn't the NCAA tournament where you can win one game, score a huge upset, and advance to the next round. You have to win a 7 game series to advance, which is nearly impossible for a team that is clearly just not as good. This brings me to my next point. The NBA season runs for 5.5 months from November through half of April. The NBA playoffs runs for roughly 3 months, from April through June. I'm exaggerating a little bit, to be fair, as it's really half of April. My point is that the playoffs takes forever. By the time the finals get around I'm no longer intersted unless the Knicks or Nets are in it. Last year we knew that the Pistons and Spurs would be in the finals back in March and we had to wait until June to watch the damn thing. This year we can assume the same matchup and we're going to have to wait for it again. Let's not short shrift Phoenix/Dallas or Miami/New Jersey, but outside of these 6 teams it is literally inconceivable that any of the other so called playoff teams make the finals.

Here's my proposal. Change the playoff format to the one baseball has adopted. Granted, when baseball adopted their playoff policy they were actually expanding the number of teams to make the post season and basketball would be cutting it, but to change it would possibly diminish excitement about the regular season, but really build excitement about the playoffs.

Baseball has 6 divisions, 3 a piece in the National and American Leagues. Each division winner makes the playoffs and the one non-division winner in each league with the best record wins the wild card. Realistically, these are the teams in the league with a chance to win the title. If basketball were to allow only 8 teams into the playoffs by adopting this policy, it would eliminate a whole round of playoffs, which is less TV revenue, but would increase the ratings by getting rid of the unbearable first round series and making it not boring by the end of the thing.

Assuming basketball had this policy this year then the 8 teams in the playoffs would be San Antonio, Phoenix, Denver, and Dallas in the West, and Detroit, Miami, New Jersey, and Cleveland in the East. This would be a great playoff run. As it is we have to wait until the middle of May to see something like this pan out assuming no major upsets in the first round. We have to sit through the God awful first round of the playoffs where maybe the Clippers beat Denver, which isn't an upset since they have a better record, or maybe Indiana challenges New Jersey or Chicago challenges Miami. Even given a first round upset, there's no chance that a team can get through all three dominant teams in eaither the East or West to make the finals. It simply won't happen.

David Stern, do us a favor. Let's get everyone in the league office to stop sucking each others' dicks and thinking about how great your league is and fix the playoff structure. I will be very bored come June 15th when the Spurs and Pistons are playing in the finals. I won't watch this year, the same way I didn't watch last year. Get rid of the teams that don't have a shot. Shorten up the playoffs. Make it interesting for the fans.

PS - could you also exercise some kind of executive power to fire Isiah Thomas and maybe convince James Dolan to sell the Knicks?

Two Words That Should Be Used More Often

2006-04-14T09:52:00.000-04:00

My opinion really matters, especially when it comes to language usage. I'm like the William Saffire of the blogosphere. So here are two words that need to be used more often.

Penultimate - the phrase "second to last" is used often enough that people really should be aware of the one word, penultimate, that would replace those three words. It's also much less bulky to say penultimate rather than second to last in most cases. The latin roots, incidentally, paene-almost and ultimus-last, make the literal translation "almost last" which is cool too.

Biotch - really any time you oppose someone's opinion either on a serious level or in a jocular way if you add "biotch" to the end it really adds emphasis. For proof of this declaration watch the next episode of 24 on Monday night and every time there's a confrontation of big egos who know what's best for the country just add "biotch" to the end of their little speech. It really works. Other acceptable forms would be "bee-itch" and an occasional "bizz-natch", though the latter should really be used sparingly.

The Count Of Monte Cristo

2006-04-04T18:25:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading "The Count of Monte Cristo", by Alexandre Dumas. It's regarded as the quintessential novel about betrayal and revenge and has been the inspiration for lots of movies and plays and what not.

I decided to blog about it mainly because the book was kindof disappointing. The main plot outline is that this guy, Edmond Dantes, is a sailor who everybody loves and the owner of his ship wants to make him the captain and he's about to get married to this great girl. These three guys are jealous of him so they frame him for being a supporter of Napoleon and he gets trhown in jail. While he's in jail he meets this guy who teaches him all sorts of crap and gives him a treasure map. Edmond escapes from the jail, gets the treasure, and then plots his revenge against the guys who framed him. The rest of the book is about how he gets his revenge.

The first part of the book is really engaging. The whole part of him getting framed and being in jail and meeting the guy and finding the treasure is page turning stuff. After that, though, the book really lags. The revenge is not particularly fulfilling and the ending doesn't really have anything to do with anything. I was pretty let down by the whole second half of the story.

From what I understand the recent movie that was made eliminates a good portion of that second part of the book and is probably worth seeing as a result. If the revenge part is just an afterthought or the third act of the movie with the framing and the jail part being the first two, then it's probably a good movie. I must say, though, that if this novel is the quintessence of revenge stories, then we gotta find a new one.

The End Of ChuckJerry.com?

2006-03-23T07:36:00.000-05:00

Most of you who read this know that before the blog I started this website about myself and other random things when I was in college. I started it back then for two reasons. First was that I was allotted a ton of free server space and figured I'd take advantage of that rather than let it go to waste. Second was that I wanted to learn how to write web pages. At that time in 1997 if you knew HTML, then you were more or less on par with just about everyone else who was making webpages. I figured if I learned HTML then it would come in handy at some point in the future. It turned out I was right because simply knowing HTML got me two jobs.

So the first incarnation of the web page would be roundly ridiculed today but was actually in line with the web pages out there at the time. It was gif heavy, and had hallucinogenic backgrounds on every page and was built with a frameset. Through the years I think I completely redesigned the site 4 or 5 times but the content never really changed much.

It started with my autobiography and descriptions of my friends and the great stories section of the page. Those were there for my friends and just because I liked to spend time writing HTML instead of boing other shit I was supposed to be doing. Eventually I added the rants page and the deep thoughts page and that was more or less the entirety of the site's content. It was a fun thing to show people and when I used to have real jobs it was fun to show people the site and it would start discussions and was actually one of the reasons that I got one of the jobs I had for a while. People I knew were failry interested in the site and it was a worhtwhile venture for a while.

The rants seem to be by far the most popular part of the site with the outside world, but also the page that brings in the weird people. The problem I have with the site is that I get ridiculous comments from people who don't read the site carefully and therefore don't realize that I didn't actually write most of the content on the rants and thoughts pages. Most of the people who actually take the time to comment or email me just say something that's enormously inappropriate. It got to the point where I slowly removed all the personal content from the site. I took off the pictures and the pages about my friends. I turned off the email link because I only got rude emails and eventually just like 150 spam emails a day. Recently I haven't even updated the site but thought about removing the autobiography part and really anything personal about it.

At this point I haven't changed a thing about the site since August of 2004. It's clearly not a priority anymore and I'm no longer especially interested in the responses I get from the rants and thoughts pages. I used to take a lot of time to post all the rants and things I recieved, but now I just don't care. So rather than continue to remove all the personal content, I think I'm just going to take the whole site down. It's not serving any purpose any more and I think I have other plans for the domain name in the near future. Peace out ChuckJerry.com. It's been real.

UPDATE: I decided to delete the whole site except the Great Stories.

Is Anyone Else One Soriano's Side?

2006-03-22T06:23:00.000-05:00

First of all, this is coming from the guy who agreed with Terrell Owens when he threatened to hold out this previous football season, so I guess you should take this with a grain of salt. I don't think Alfonso Soriano should be blamed right now for his refusal to switch positions. All of the blame, absolutely all of it, should be placed on the management of the Nationals.

When they acquired him they knew of his history of not wanting to switch positions. The Rangers made it a contingency to the trade that they not contact Soriano to ask him if he'd be willing to switch positions, because they knew he'd say no. The Nationals should have seen this coming before they even made the deal.

Soriano's perspective is that he had a hard time adjusting when he was switched from shortstop to second base so as not to displace Derek Jeter. He made a lot of errors and wan't particularly comfortable for a while at that position. Now that he's gotten as good as he's going to get at second base they want to move him again. I don't think I would refuse to play, in fact when I was in high school I was moved from first base to outfield for the good of the whole team, and I wasn't paid $10 million to do it, but I at least understand his perspective. On top of all that, it has been really well known that Soriano was going to essentially refuse to switch positions.

If this pans out badly then the one who gets screwed is Soriano. In a worst case scenario he's placed on something called the "disqualified list" and not only does he not get paid, but he doesn't accrue time in the pension system and he doesn't get to be a free agent even though he only has a one year contract. But the Nationals are really the ones who are at fault for putting him in that position. One thing I know for sure is that I'd never pick a fight with Frank Robinson if I could help it, but I guess that's kindof beside the point.

I'll Bet You Didn't Know

2006-03-21T08:53:00.000-05:00

I Have A Type B+ Personality

B+
You're a pro at going with the flow
You love to kick back and take in everything life has to offer
A total joy to be around, people crave your stability.

While you're totally laid back, you can have bouts of hyperactivity.
Get into a project you love, and you won't stop until it's done
You're passionate - just selective about your passions

Do You Have a Type A Personality?

My New Pride And/Or Joy

2006-03-13T09:51:00.000-05:00

Since I watched last year's Patriots/Eagles Super Bowl on an HDTV I had determined that I needed to get one. I didn't go out right away and get one because I thought the feeling would just blow over, or I would realize that it just wasn't worth it, or something to that effect. That never happened and so I decided that I just needed to turn around and get one. I put a lot of thought into it, over a year, actually, and decided that it was just something I needed to have. I mean, I guess I didn't *need* it, but really really wanted. Kathy was basically neutral to the idea, so I figured that was good enough for the both of us.

About a month ago I decided it was just time to get one, so I started to do a lot of research on them. I read descriptions of the differences between LCDs, tubes, plasmas, projections, and their pros and cons. I learned all about the different screen resolutions and bulb lives and so forth. Obviously I looked into the prices of all of them as well. I looked online at the options, I went in person to Best Buy and Circuit City, and finally I decided that I should actually buy one.

I decided on the Sony 50" Grand Wega. The main reason I decided to buy that one was because of the screen resolution. What I learned about HDTVs is that they come in basically 3 different resolutions, namely 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. They make ones with lesser resolutions, but if you're going to spend money on an HDTV, you really should get one of these or it's kindof a waste. The P in 720p and 1080p stands for progressive, while the I in 1080i means integrated. Progressive scans essentially smooth out the movement and get rid of any jumpiness from frame to frame and offers a better picture quality in terms of movement. Integrated picture has jumpiness issues according to most of what I read. The difference between 720 and 1080 is just the number of pixels in the screen resolution, the same way you can change the resolution on Windows from 640x480 to 1024x768, or whatever the actual numbers are if I'm saying them wrong.

Until recently you have to make a choice between basically 720p, with a smoother image, and 1080i, with better resolution. Most HDTV is broadcast today in 1080i and the TV just reinterprets the signal as necessary to the lower resolution if you don't have it. The TV I got has 1080p resolution, which is where the industry is basically heading. It's in essence the best of both worlds, with the higher resolution and the progressive scan. It will be capable of displaying images in 1080p when it becomes widely available, and, in theory anyway, will not become obsolete any time soon. That's the main reason I got this TV versus any of the other HDs that were available. There are only two 1080p TVs on the market at the moment, this Sony one, available in 50" and 60", and a JVC that's available in similar sizes. Within the next year there will be a ton of new 1080p TVs available along with a bunch of options for showing stuff in 1080p resolution.

I was watching this thing on an HD channel about the electronics corporation convention in Las Vegas and all the different companies were talking about was how 1080p is the future and all the new technology is being developed specifically for that and then I felt pretty good about spending all this money on something that will be at least up to date with the technology. The coolest thing that is becoming available to take advantage of the resolution is the Blu-ray disc. As I understand it the Blu-ray is the next generation of DVD. It has higher resolution since it was specifically developed for HDTV and the discs are capable of holding more information, 25GB per disc versus about 5GB on a DVD. A Blu-ray player would be backwards compatible with DVDs and would therefore be akin to the what the Playstation2 was to the original Playstation. It's not exactly the same as Blu-ray seems to be a whole new technology, but from a consumer standpoint it's the same because you wouldn't need to repopulate your DVD collection as you may have done between VHS and DVD. The Blu-Ray shit is going to be available in players and computer drives in May. I'll probably hold off for a while on getting one of those to replace my DVD player until the price goes down and the technology is more established, but it seems like that will be something to invest in soon enough.

In the end, I bought a TV that was a little bigger than I wanted to, I got the 50" Sony versus the 46" Samsung I had intended to get, and a bit more expensive than I originally thought, the premium was for the 1080p resolution, though I must say I did get a very good price for that particular model on a sale at Circuit City. I did buy if for significantly less than the MSRP price that's listed on the Sony site. The reason I got the bigger set is because that is the smallest available 1080p TV. It's designed for larger screens to maximize the big screen resolution. The industry seems to think it would be a waste of the technology on smaller sets since 720p resolution handles that pretty well. At the end of the day I'm really happy with it, and even Kathy has said that she likes the HDTV channels and the resolution is noticeably different and better. Combine that with the DVR cable box, and we never have to leave the house again. The only thing I don't like about it is the way the speakers stick out on the side rather than being better integrated into the main chassis. It makes the TV wider than necessary and doesn't take space considerations into mind, which was essential in my case as the TV is probably the absolute biggest that would have fit comfortably into my living room.

I'm A DIYer

2006-03-05T15:31:00.000-05:00

DIY, for those who don't spend their time thinking about anagrams for everything, is Do It Yourself. In fact, on my cable system now ther eis a DIY channel that shows all about doing shit around your own house. Anyway, today I took a step towards building my own dream home one day.

Yesterday as I walked out of my bathroom I clicked the switch to turn off the light and it broke off in my hand. It was really ghetto style. So the light was off and there was no way for me to turn it back on. Actually, there was, since I managed to use a Q-tip to pull the metal piece forward and complete the circuit to turn the light on, though that's not really a feasible means of flipping the switch. I was just interested in how the thing worked. The whole mechanism was broken so the only way to fix it was to replace the switch.

I thought about call ing maintenance, but I remembered watching my father in law install a lamp in my house and I've seen on the This Old House type of deals where they install new switches and things. I unscrewed the fixture and looked at the wiring, and it didn't seem like too big a deal. Off to Home Depot where I bought a new double switch (one controls the light and the other controls the fan).

On a side note, the first Home Depot I went to didn't have the switch I needed in white, only in an almond color, so I had to go to another one. In some odd planning world there are two Home Depots in Queens, both on College Point Boulevard, literally 1.5 miles apart. So I rode down the street and picked up the switch.

I'm making a way bigger deal out of this than it actually was. To install a switch you simply 1) turn off the power, 2) unscrew the wires from the old fixture, 3) screw the wires into the new fixture in exactly the same way, and 4) turn back on the power. It's hardly rocket science, but it's something that I would have undoubtedly called maintenance or someone to do before it occurred to me today that it probably wasn't that hard to do. The only complication was that on a double switch you have to break off a metal piece in between the two switches so that the two power sources are independent. Otherwise both switches will control both devices. That's what I did the first time before reading the instructions and realizing I had to disconnect the two.

The whole electricity concept is enormously simple. If the circuit is connected, the ight goes on, and if it's not connected you get no light. All the switch does is click into place to hold back the metal piece from connecting the circuit until you flip it on. I guess I knew that intuitiively, but I didn't realize just how simple the idea is until I was futzing with the broken switch. I guess actually generating the electricity is more complicated, but once you do that lighting shit up is actually a relatively easy endeavor, save for the issues of scale.

I'm hardly Matt Dabney, who rebuilt his whole house from scratch or something to that effect, but I'm moving up in the world. In my old apartment before we moved in we did a ton of work on it including tearing out a built in bookshelf, removing all the old carpeting, replacing the countertop and sink in the kitchen, replacing a couple of the light fixtures, some plumbing repairs in the bathroom, installing new closet rods, filling in holes in the walls, painting everything, and probably more that I'm not remembering. Most of the complicated stuff was done by my father in law, though, and I either just watched or held stuff.

I guess that's my whole story. Hardly even interesting.

The Olympics

2006-02-25T14:38:00.000-05:00

The winter olympics is not as cool as the summer. There are far fewer events so the coverage tends to get a little repetetive. Basically the events fall into the categories of skiing, snowboarding, sledding, or skating. I enjoyed watching some of the events, but the tape delayed coverage was not spectacular.

The coolest parts for me were the curling and the ski jumping, simply as events. Ski jumping is just cool. I like to watch it. Curling is cool because it's just a pretty intricate sport. It's like a game of shuffleboard in terms of strategy and I find it interesting. I thought the coverage of curling could have been much better, though, if the announcers had taken more time to explain the rules and strategies.

The coolest part of the coverage for me was the super slo-mo camera on the skiing events. Watching the skis wobble through turns and such makes it clear how hard all that stuff is. Snowboardcross is one of the best events. It's the only one that's just a race down the hill. It's akin to the 200m or 400m races in the summer games. That Jacobellis girl who tried to do a trick and fell in her gold medal run is pretty foolish, but she's the only one she let down so it's not a big deal.

The figure skating is still pretty interesting. The reason it's interesting, though is because the announcers do a good job of informing everyone what's going on. The best part of all the skating was clearly that Italian lady giving the stare down to her partner after he dropped her int he ice dancing.

Speed skating is good too. The Shani Davis, Chad Hedrick thing was corny. Davis apparently made it clear a while back that he wasn't going to race that relay thing, and he shouldn't have since it was right before the race he was favored to win. Obviously it worked out for him since he did win his race. First black dude to win a gold medal, that's an accomplishment.

Bode Miller sucks. If he doesn't give a fuck about competing then he shouldn't. He's talking about how he doesn't care about winning or his sponsors or anything, but he's out there in the races. If you don't care, then go home and just get a lift ticket like everyone else. No one wants to watch you give a half assed effort when someone can take your spot and at least try.

The coverage might be better for NBC in 2010 in Vancouver, since it's in a time zone where they can show shit live and not have the results all over before they can air it. It might also add some spontaneity to the coverage, which was lacking here. I'm not altogether surprised that the coverage lost out to American Idol and Dancing With The Stars and Grey's Anatomy and everything else.

The Sell Out Of The Century

2006-02-23T12:36:00.000-05:00

It seems clear to me that the biggest sell out of any kind in the last 20 or so years has been MTV. I guess you should take that statement with a grain of salt as in the grand scheme of things it's probably not the biggest sell out of any kind, but it's way up there.

The phrase "Remember when it was all about the music?" actually genuinely applies to MTV. I'm a member of the generation that MTV nearly single-handedly defined, but they've gotten away from that to an enormous extent. On a cultural level they went from filtering the things that were important to the kids to trying to actually be the thing that's important to the kids. It's a huge mistake, in my opinion, but they obviously don't see it in the same way.

The argument from the MTV execs is that their ratings are much better with their no music, heavy reality/pop culture programming. While that's probably true, that's an enormous fucking huge whopping sell out in the truest sense of the term. That's a sell out that trumps Vanilla Ice by leaps and bounds, which had qualified as the biggest in history until about 1997 when MTV began their downward slide.

The is what really upsets me about MTV. There are lots of bands who I grew up with that I came to know by their videos. MTV essentially made the music video a credible way to market a band and in fact made it probably the most important way for a while.

A short list of bands who went from nothing to something or from something to legendary based solely on their videos and MTV: Madonna, Michael Jackson, Duran Duran, Smashing Pumpkins, Run DMC, Aerosmith, Pearl Jam, Cyndi Lauper, Peter Gabriel, Dire Straits. There are probably hundreds more who people know of solely on the strength of their videos and not necessarily their songs.

MTV's schedule used to consist of shows like Yo MTV Raps, MTV Jams, Headbanger's Ball, and the highlight of their week was the Top 20 Countdown every Friday night. They had shows where it was just a VJ who would pop on and show a video and that was it. They haven't had a show like that since I would say 1997 with a show called MTV Live which was a little more like the Z Morning Zoo with guests and more talking from the VJs and a small crowd. That MTV Live show evolved into TRL, by the way, which is just insane. I don't recall the last time MTV showed an entire video between the hours of noon and midnight (Don't say TRL, which even cuts off the number 1 video half way through). They've essentially given up on that format.

So MTV made the video the way to promote your band and then also rendered it obsolete. Videos used to make news and define a band and so on. I think the decline of the video has also led to the decline of music recently. I can't think of a so-called "important" band that's out today that hasn't been out since the video era.

MTV used to be necessarily self-important. They made a big deal about their 10 year anniversary and used to take their all time countdowns very seriously. The MTV Video awards used to mean something and the videos that won were actually seen by people. It's no longer important for a band to make a video because no one will see it.

The original Real World show was 100 times more interesting than the current ridiculous contrived version of the show. At the time The Real World was one of the only non video shows on MTV. This is sortof beside my point because as great as the first couple Real World's were, culminating with the San Francisco season, it was the start of the break from their format.

I guess my main point is this. The people who ran MTV in 1986 would kick the asses of the people who run it today. Even the people who ran it in 1996 would rough them up. I don't even know or care if the same people have been in charge all that time. MTV has lost its way and it's not pretty. It's nearly unwatchable now.

I guess the caveat here is that as a 27 year old I'm probably outside their target demographic and so maybe I just don't get it any more. I find that hard to believe, though. And since when I was 14 I watched MTV Jams religiously, I know that today's 14 year olds probably would too. Is TRL really the best representative of today's youth music? That's just not possible. I still love music. When I can find a show that just plays videos I watch it. I don't have a problem with new legitimate artists who could be showcased on video shows.

And don't try to tell me about MTV2, which doesn't even have video shows any more and is buried in most cable packages in the 100s and 200s. There is a station called MTV Hits that I don't get that seems to just show videos, but it's not on my cable package, and I know it's not on DirecTV, so who is getting that station? And that doesn't have anything to do with MTV selling out on their core.

An Interesting Coincidence In Sports

2006-02-18T12:42:00.000-05:00

Ask someone who the greatest football player of all time is and a lot of people who know better will say Jim Brown. The Sporting News voted him the best player of all time in a 2002 poll as evidence of that claim. Jim Brown was born on February 17, 1936. By the way, Jim Brown is also considered by some to be the best lacrosse player ever. He was an All American in both football and lacrosse at Syracuse University.

The best basketball player of all time is Michael Jordan. This claim is more widely accepted as true and doesn't really need any proof (despite my own claim that Magic Johnson is the best player ever.) Michael Jordan was born on February 17, 1963.

It's pretty interesting that two guys who are considered to be the best to ever play their sports have the same birthday. Incidentally, February 17th is also Paris Hilton's birthday. I don't know if she's a prodigy at anything.

In case you were wondering, Wayne Gretzky's birthday is January 26, 1961 and Babe Ruth's birthday is February 6, 1895. All of these guys birthday's are within a month of each other. Certainly that's not particularly significant, but I'm not sure if it's even interesting.

All of this in some way relates to the birthday problem, also known as the birthday paradox. The idea here is that if you have as few as 23 people in a room, there is a greater than 50% chance that two of them will share a birthday. Once you have 60 people together the chance is greater than 99% that two of them will share a birthday. This goes against intuition, but makes a lot of sense once you realize that the number of possible combinations of 23 people is 23C2 = 253, it starts to come together more easily.

Darko Will See The Light

2006-02-18T10:53:00.000-05:00

Far be it for me to begrudge the Detroit Pistons of thier recent successes. They are clearly the best team in the league right now and are the favorite to win the championship this year, in my opinion. (I know Max is picking the Spurs.) This Darko Milicic thing is going to come back at them, though.

I understand that there was not a place for a 19 year old soft European on the championship ready Pistons and I understand why he didn't play. I understand that they had no need for Carmelo Anthony when they had Rip Hamilton. I guess you could make some kind of argument for drafting Darko over Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh among others that year, but now they're throwing that pick in the garbage. They traded him and Carlos Arroyo for Kelvin Cato, an average center at best.

I think this may go down as one of the worst trades in the history of the league. It's going to be up there with Robert Traylor for Dirk Nowitzki. I'm not saying Darko is Dirk, but Kelvin Cato is not even on par with Robert Traylor. Darko Milicic *will* be an impact player in the league. He is 21 years old and is 7 feet tall and has been playing professional basketball since he was 15. Make no mistake about it, Darko will be more than just an infamous draft pick. He is no Sam Bowie or Frederic Weis.

Don't Go Hunting With Dick Cheney

2006-02-12T18:41:00.000-05:00

Because he'll shoot you.

I don't know if there's much else to say about that. There's probably a funny NRA joke in there somewhere. Also get the Second Amendment involved somehow. I don't know how the whole joke would go, but it should start with, "A well regulated militia went hunting in Texas this weekend with vice president Dick Cheney leading the charge..." and just go from there.

La Educador De La Semana

2006-02-10T08:03:00.000-05:00

Mi esposa, Kathy, era la educador de las semana hace dos meses para Univision, el canal de Espanol en Nueva York. Aqui esta el video.

That was interesting. My wife, Kathy, was the educator of the week for New York City a couple of months ago on the Univision station. They had a little vignette on the Univision channel that ran that week. That little thing is on the interweb now, so you should watch it. I can only get it to work on the 56K version and not the high speed one, and I'm not sure why.

The basic translation for those of you who don't speak perfect Spanish like me is this: "Ms. Gardner is awesome and she's the best." Kathy comes on and says, "Yeah, it's true, I'm awesome." and then they have a couple of her students on and they say "Ms. Gardner is great and I love her."

One Of The Best Lines In Television History

2006-02-07T18:50:00.000-05:00

If you haven't seen "How I Met Your Mother" on CBS Mondays, I suggest you check it out. The caveat is that you should be a fan of sit-coms, of you probably won't enjoy it. Anyhow, I've been watching it all season and I find it pretty funny. It's contrived at times, but I think absurd contrivances are taught in week 2 of Sit-Coms 101, so you get used to it.

Anyway, the greatest line ever was in last night's episode. The main character, Ted, started dating a new girl and she wanted to take it slow so they were going to wait for a month before having sex. At this point in the conversation Barney, played by Doogie Howser himself, Neil Patrick Harris, says:

"The only reason to wait a month for sex is if the girl is 17 years, 11 months old."

I just about shit my pants after that one.

Can We All Agree Now That Kanye West Is Full Of Himself

2006-02-05T14:15:00.000-05:00

There's not really much else to say. Making inappropriate statements about Dubya is one thing, but this is a whole 'nother thing.

Fuck You, Isiah

2006-02-04T11:45:00.000-05:00

Sexual harassment, company wide cover up, awful PR that was poorly handled, fine. You're not a good person, I get it, whatever. If you want to go around and be a jerk that's okay, but stop fucking with my team. What on Earth are you thinking?

Trading Antonio Davis for Jalen Rose? Are you serious? Out of the top 15 highest paid guys in the league, 4 of them are currently on the Knicks salary cap. And three of them are Allan Houston, Penny Hardaway, and Jalen Rose. These guys combined have contributed less to the team so far this year than David Lee. Hell, they've contributed less than Qyntel Woods.

As a side note, take a look at the top 30 player salaries in the league. That's embarrassing for the league as a whole. Out of those 30 players at least 20 of them should be earning mid-level salaries at best, starting with #s 2 and 3, Allan Houston and Chris Webber. On top of that, the highest paid Dallas Maverick is Keith Van Horn, although they paid Michael Finley even more than that just to not be on the team anymore.

Back to my point. Look at the Knicks' dismal salary cap situation. They're on the hook for $125,000,000 this year and are already committed to $110,000,000 next year, $17,000,000 of which they picked up yesterday by acquiring Jalen Rose. Don't even get me started on Jerome James, who couldn't start for my Jewish Center team that's currently 1-6. I can virtually guarantee that before the year is out, they will have committed millions upon millions of dollars to Eddy Curry for the next 5 or 6 years.

The only team with a worse record than the Knicks is the Charlotte Bobcats, in their second year as an expansion team and with the lowest salary in the league. The Knicks salary is 4 times greater than the Bobcats salary and apparently that only buys them 2 more wins at this point.

What in the fuck is going on at the Garden? Can we somehow rally the fans and get Isiah, James Dolan, and whoever is running the god awful Rangers out of the city and into an insane asylum? They're wasting money like it's going out of style. Please, show some restraint. Rebuild the team. Stop acquiring guys who suck. Give us some hope for the future. It will be a great day when the Isiah Thomas era is over with the Knicks. It will be an even better day when the James Dolan era is over at Madison Square Garden and Cablevision.

Two People Who Are Oblivious of the World Around Them

2006-02-01T08:18:00.000-05:00

Number 1 is Dubya, who's state of the union was, well, I don't know if there's a word that describes it. I guess entirely predictable is the best way to put it. Hardly inspiring. He basically came out and said "It would be great if America was perfect. Let's work on that." I hate all the clapping and shit. I'm glad I fell asleep in the middle of it, because otherwise I would have felt obliged to watch the whole thing.

The second person who's oblivious to the world is Cindy Sheehan. Some Democratic congressman gave her a ticket and she showed up with an anti-war shirt on and got arrested before the thing even started because she refused to cover it up and some other silly behavior. Is this woman 9 years old? Her presence at the thing would have been enough of a statement and the fact that the camera would have gone on her every 6 seconds would have been effective towards whatever her cause is. She should have worn her business suit and acted like a regular citizen and just given the stare the whole time. What a dumbass.

New York City's Scarlet Letter

2006-01-30T17:23:00.000-05:00

If you don't live and/or drive in New York City then the words "alternate side parking" have little or no meaning to you. The basic idea is this: The New York street cleaning trucks go around the city and clean the streets every day on a schedule. This picture is for a street where the truck comes every Monday and Thursday between 9am and 10:30am. Most likely on the other side of whetever street this is is a similar sign that says you can't park there on Tuesday and Friday between the same hours. Every street is different and almost every street in New York has some sort of street cleaning schedule. What this means for people who live in New York is that your car is not allowed to be on that side of the street during the time the cleaning truck is scheduled to come. There are signs posted on the street telling you when you can park and when you can't as shown on the right and they have a little broom doubling as the slash through the P to indicate that you can't park because of street cleaning. If you don't understand, then don't worry. No one gets it until they get their first alternate side ticket. After that, they learn quickly.

Today I was going to work and I didn't have to teach any classes, meaning I had some flexibility as to when I could take a break. I parked at a spot where I would have had to move my car by 11:30 to comply with the rule and I fully intended to do so when I parked. The problem is that I forgot to move the car. I was caught up in grading these Regents exams that had to be finished by today and I didn't go downstairs until 12:30. I expected a ticket, but I got much more than that.

Some fucking clown in the city thought it would be a good idea to shame people into not parking on the wrong side of the street by allowing ticket writers or sanitation people or somebody to put big fucking neon yellow stickers on the window of your car that says something to the effect of, "This car is illegally parked. Since this driver does not comply with parking rules, this street could not be properly cleaned." So when I went to get in my car today, not only did I have a ticket, which doesn't necessarily bother me, but I also had one of those big yellow stickers. I tried to find a picture of that sticker on a car, but to no avail.

I would not have cared if I could have just taken the sticker off the window and thrown it out somewhere, but that's not how it works. They are impossible to simply peel off with your fingers so I had to drive around with the yellow sticker in my window to the grocery store, which is across from the Staples, which I was going to stop at anyway. At the grocery store I bought razor blades and then spent 20 minutes in the parking lot scraping this sticker off my window. The razor blades they had were really cheap and that did not help matters. It would have been better for me to go to a hardware store and get a real razor blade or even better one of those scraping tools, but seeing as how I was at the grocery store anyway, I figured the regular razors would do.

So, the idea is that I'm so ashamed now that I won't ever park on the wrong side anymore. That must be the idea because there's no monetary loss from the sticker. I already got a ticket, that should be enough of a deterrent. My question is how much does the city spend every year to buy and stick these stickers on cars? It seems like a big ass waste of money to me. You're already giving tickets, let that be enough. I don't need to be shamed out of parking on the wrong side. I didn't leave my car in the spot with malice aforethought. I just forgot to move it. I got my ticket. I'll pay it. Don't waste my fucking time by making me scrape this sticker off my car. Now the glue residue is all over the place. What ridiculousness.

Clearly it's legal for the city to stick stickers on cars, or else they wouldn't do it. I wonder if anyone has ever challenged the city's right in court. It's probably not worth the time or money you'd have to spend. If the city can go around sticking stickers on people's windows I wonder if I'm allowed to do it too. I mean, the city is essentially saying that it's ok to be intrusive in one's life and vandalize their property at the same time. I'm fairly certain that the police in New York would not look kindly on anyone else sticking stickers on people's cars, yet they are doing it themselves. At it's basest level this is really just vandalism on the city's part and they're also espousing the idea that two wrongs somehow make a right.

A Stupid Story

2006-01-28T17:55:00.000-05:00

Here's a stupid conversation I had with my students, through no fault of my own. The prologue is that one of my students told me she was going to New Jersey over the weekend since she knows I'm from New Jersey:

Student 1: "Mista, I went to New Jersey this weekend and nobody knew who you were."
Me: "What do you mean?"
Student 1: "I asked everyone if they knew Mr. Gardner and nobody did."
Me: "Where in New Jersey did you go?"
Student 1: "Garfield."
Me: "Well, I'm not from there. I don't know anyone in Garfield."
Student 2 (hearing only the last part): "Garfield? I know that nigga. He's that cat. He's mad boring."

My Recent NetFlix Failings

2006-01-20T08:41:00.000-05:00

I'm still in the midst of 6 free months of NetFlix. I wasted the month of December because I just held onto all the movies and didn't get a chance to watch them. Anyway, the last few movies I watched on Netflix were all kindof disappointing.

Glengarry Glen Ross was pretty good. I enjoyed it. It was vintage Mamet, obviously based on a play and there were only 5 characters in the whole movie. Interesting, but hardly classic.

Bad Santa was stupid. It didn't rub me either way. The premise was stupid and contrived and I didn't hate it like Max did, but I was just pretty indifferent.

Monty Python's Life of Brian was pretty dumb. I didn't find it really funny at all. There were some moments that were funny, but the whole thing was just kindof dumb. It wasn't as clever as The Holy Grail, and, well, I guess that's all I have to say.

By far the most disappointing movie was Bananas, the Woody Allen joint (I guess it's like a Spike Lee joint). This was the second Woody Allen movie I saw, the first of which was Annie Hall. Annie Hall was great, and Bananas was stupid. It was almost beyond stupid. The plot doesn't hold together and it's not interesting and it doesn't even make sense. It plays like a bad Mel Brooks movie. The opening scene is pretty funny, though. After that part I thought the whole movie would be good, but it was all downhill from there.

Right now I'm hoping my luck will change. At the moment I have March of the Penguins, Heathers, which amazingly I've never seen, and Wall Street, which I've never seen all the way through. These are all supposed to be good movies, but then again, Life of Brian and Bananas were supposed to be good too.

The Person Who Hates American Idol The Most

2006-01-17T21:29:00.000-05:00

First of all, the first few weeks of American Idol are the best few hours in television history. Although I'm certain that a lot of those auditions are staged, I'm sure that some of them, maybe even most of them, are real and they are just spectuacular. I mean, if I could wait on a line for half an hour and then try out for American Idol I would definitely do it as a joke, but these people wait for like 10 and 12 hours to try out to be the American Idol and they know that they suck. How could they not think that they don't suck?

Anyway, the person who must hate American Idol the most out of everyone is Alicia Keyes. Her songs get absolutely butchered on the regular by the clowns who are auditioning. Alicia Keyes' songs are really intricate and the voicing is not really one that's repeatable. She's not the greatest singer on Earth, but she's got a very strong and very unique voice. Her music should not be sung by most people, but every year fools come out like, "I keep on fallin' i-i-i-i-i-i-innnnnnn....and out of love," or "a real man, knows a real woman when he sees her," or "what goes a-round come a-round what goes up must come down."

Alicia, I feel for you, baby.

Here's The Interesting Question About Alito.

2006-01-14T15:44:00.000-05:00

The question is not whether Samuel Alito will be confirmed to the Supreme Court, because he will be. The really interesting question is how long will it take after he's confirmed for the court to hear an abortion case? My guess is that they will hear one before Bush is out of office, so within the next three years. I guess that sounds like a while for them to get down to it, but I assume with all the original trials and appeals it would take a little while for the case to get up that high.

Here's my vision of the life of the case. Someone brings up a relevant case. This might take some state government to pass a law banning or limiting abortions. I don't know enough about the law to know exactly what a relevant test case would be. Anyway, the ban on abortion would be denied all the way up to the Supreme Court with Roe v. Wade as the precedent. The Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, and then bedlam ensues. I mean motherfuckers are going to come out of the woodwork and swarm Washington. All of the justices will get death threats and clowns will be arrested on both sides of the argument for doing ridiculous things. It's going to get live.

There's a good possibility that the court would then overturn Roe v. Wade which, to be sure, would be a sad day for the country, as it would be one of the few times the government has acted to take away rights from its citizens, rather than to give them. If that happens then Bush will go before some people and give that little sneer and talkk about how he had a hand in protecting Americans and their values.

Meanwhile a ban on abortion would not end the practice of abortion in this country, but rather just make them more dangerous and less accessible for poor people.

Thoughts on this timeline?

You Know What They Call A Quarter Pounder In France?

2006-01-11T08:37:00.000-05:00

I stole this picture from this girl's blog. If you go to McDonald's in Spain, this is what you can buy. This rules.

The Year in Questions

2006-01-01T20:51:00.000-05:00

I did this last year, after having stole it from Joe, and I stole it from him again this year. Although I genuinely intended to do it again, so I guess I only stole it once.

1. What did you do in 2005 that you'd never done before?
I got a Master's Degree. I went to the Caribbean. That's about it. I generally stay away from new things.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn't. My goal was to sell my father's house and it's still not sold, but I did make a good deal of progress towards that goal. Not enough, mind you, as it's not done, but I didn't ignore it, which is worth something.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
My homegirl Melissa gave birth to a boy about two or three weeks ago. Welcome to Earth, Sean Egbert.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
I don't believe so.

5. What countries did you visit?
Last year I hadn't even left the East coast, and this year, thanks to the cruise I took, I've been to Puerto Rico, Aruba, Curacao, St. Maarten, and the US Virgin Islands. It was cool.

6. What would you like to have in 2006 that you lacked in 2005?
A better schedule next school year. I got screwed this year.

7. What dates from 2005 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
No idea. There aren't any that are etched at the moment, so there certainly won't be moving forward.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Maybe the master's degree. I think it's an achievement to have stayed so happily married for this year and the two before it. I'll go with that one.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I sitll haven't sold that damn house. It weighs on me every single day.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I don't really get sick. No injuries, either. Cholesterol is still high, but I'm trying.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
An iPod. It's literally life changing.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
The people in Pennsylvania who voted out the school board that tried to force intelligent design on them. Christians think that there are only Christians in the world. It's pretty silly.

The people who went and tried to do good things after the tsunami and the hurricane.

Jenna Dabney for taking a pimp ass drive across the country.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Dubya, Big Time, Rover, Scooter, Brownie. Worst of all is that motherfucker Bill Frist who made statements about watching video of Terry Schiavo and said that she seemed to look alive to him in his medical opinion. If that's not a violation of the Hippocratic oath, for lame partisan purposes, no less, then I don't know what is.

Less bad on a social level is the job that Isiah Thomas is doing as the president of the Knicks. He's not made one good trade or free agent acquisition. Drafting Frye, Robinson, and Lee was good, but certainly spectacular. I've said it before, I could have been a better GM than Scott Layden and Isiah have been over these last few years.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Savings account. I have to get more savvy about investing.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
I loved that cruise about 10 times more than I thought I would. It was the best vacation I've ever taken easily. I don't typically get really really really excited. I love to play basketball at the Jewish Center, though. That gets me pretty hyped.

16. What song will always remind you of 2005?
Galang - M.I.A.

Here's the story. Someone who I wanted to see was on Conan O'Brien and I had it tivoed. I watched whoever it was and then I fell asleep. I was half awake when I heard the musical guest, which happened to be M.I.A. I wasn't watching the TV, but the song was fascinating me to the point where I couldn't sleep anymore because I had to listen to it. I watched it again later when I was awake and then proceeded to buy the whole album off of iTunes after reading about it. It takes some getting used to the sound, but it's really a phenomenal album. I didn't understand all the reviews that said it would change the way you think about music, but now I get it.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder?
b) thinner or fatter?
c) richer or poorer?
about the same, fatter, richer

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
I wish my diet was better. I have stretches of greatness and then not greatness.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Ignoring things I didn't necessarily want to do.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Opened presents, went to in-laws, went to Teaneck and hung at Vinny O's for most of the night. Great time.

21. Did you fall in love in 2005?
With my iPod, maybe.

22. How many one-night stands?
None. I like that it's "how many" versus "were there any".

23. What was your favorite TV program?
Scrubs and The Amazing Race. 24 is awesome too. I watch a lot of TV, but I think these are my favorites. If I listed every show I watched regularly, you wouldn't believe that I did anything else with my life.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I can't thnk of anyone I hate, either now or then.

25. What was the best book you read?
My reading got sidetracked a bit this year with Bill Clinton's "My Life". It took me the better part of the year to read, as I've mentioned earlier.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Pseudo-punk. I don't know what the genre is actually called, but I really got into shit like The Strokes, The Killers, and Hot Hot Heat. It reminds me of punk with a pop twinge, which is why I've decided to call it psuedo-punk until I know what people are actually calling it.

The album by M.I.A. is infectious. I think I love it.

Also everyone should check out Marc Broussard if you haven't already.

27. What did you want and get?
The summer off. I can't even put into words what that does for my sanity.

28. What did you want and not get?
Kathy and I were both hoping she'd be pregnant by now, but I can't say I mind the extra effort.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?
I saw fewer movies this year than I have in the past. I wonder if the movies are not as good, or if some combination of DVDs and DVR is making me go less.

I can't really think of a great movie I saw this year. I liked the new Harry Potter movie. Sin City was ridiculously enjoyable. Syriana was really interesting. The only other movie I even remember seeing this year was Hustle and Flow. That was good. I saw "The Island" now that I think of it. Good idea, bad execution, like "The Truman Show".

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 27 and I had dinner at my house with a bunch of family members there. It was fun.

31.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Obviously the house thing.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2005?
I like to wear those newsboy hats. My fashion concept revolves around wearing them. Really whatever the people at Old Navy and the Gap decide is in fashion is my fashion concept, since that's where 90% of my clothes are from.

33. What kept you sane?
Summer vacation, as mentioned before. Letting drama flow through me, rather than stop with me.

A rum and coke every now and again. More than one ruins the effect.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I'm not sure what this means. I think I'm secretly in love with Scarlett Johannsen after seeing several of her movies this year.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
Terry Schiavo. We couldn't just let the woman die with dignity. Gross.

All the other shit was predictable at least. I never would have put it past the Bush team to torture or illegally spy on people.

36. Who did you miss?
I still don't see as much of Luke, Brian, Chris, and Dave as I'd like. As this is such, I miss them when I don't see them.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
No one really comes to mind that I met this year. I'm not really good at making new friends. I've had the same friends since 3rd grade, more or less. The same friend unit, anyhow.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2005.
It's much easier to just do it than to think about all the scenarios that might pan out if you do. It's invariably easier than you imagine.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
"Some will win. Some will lose. Some are born to sing the blues.
Well the movie never ends it goes on, and on, and on, and on."
Journey - Don't Stop Believing

This line has nothing to do with my year, I just love this song. I couldn't think of anything that says 'status quo' with succinctness.

They Call Me Aaron Burr From The Way I'm Dropping Hamiltons

2005-12-26T09:42:00.000-05:00

The best Saturday Night Live skit in the last 5 years was on a week ago when Jack Black hosted the show. It was called a "Digital Short" and was entitled "Lazy Sunday". It starred Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg and it was a hardcore rap about them going to see The Chronic What?-cles of Narnia. Check out the video here.

I was telling Brian and some other people about this yesterday and he pointed out that it's a telling statement that people get excited when there's a funny skit on SNL nowadays. Although I think SNL is still pretty funny, this particular skit is just really original and inventive.

SNL is, by and large, not as good as it used to be, although people have been saying that since 1980. I started watching SNL when I was in like 7th grade, which would have been around 1990. I enjoyed it a lot then and I do feel like they his some lean years in between then and now. Today I think the show is not at it's zenith by any stretch, but they do have the potential to throw down a funny skit. The Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Will Ferrell types of guys were consistently funny and there were at least 2 or 3 good skits on every show. Now they potentially have 1 or 2 good skits on each show, so they are no longer consistently funny. When it's good, though, it is very good, but they just don't do it consistently nowadays.

The current cast is pretty good, and is somewhat ironically really female driven. Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, and Maya Rudolph really carry the show on most nights. Chris Parnell is funny as is Kenan Thompson. A couple of the new guys, Andy Samberg and Jason Sudeikis have been pretty good this year, too. I'm not giving up on the show like most people have. It's great to tape it on the DVR and then just fast forward throught the absolutely witless stuff they do sometimes.

Merry Christmas

2005-12-25T16:40:00.000-05:00

I Finally Finished This Book

2005-12-21T10:12:00.000-05:00

Back in August I told you that I started to read Bill Clinton's book. That motherfucker was 968 pages long and just yesterday I finished reading it. So I read it from basically the beginning of August until the end of December.

It was enormously informative and interesting. I enjoyed reading more about the time before he was president rather than the time that he was president. The stuff dealing with his presidency was really all policy stuff and not much personal reflection. Even the Lewinsky parts were about his press releases and strategy sessions, rather than what he really did on a day to day basis.

I got the probably biased slant on the Whitewater investigation and even though I tried to read through the lines, it seems like Ken Starr really overstepped his boundaries. It was clear even before he took over the investigation that there was no wrongdoing in the actual Whitewater part, and Starr took it over to look into anything that he could dig up that would damage Bill.

A guy I work with saw me reading it one day and he said, "Well, he wrote all of it himself so you know that it's not true." I'd bet that the accounts of the scandal type things are probably slanted in his favor and even probaly just false in some cases, but for the most part the book seems pretty genuine. I did enjoy reading it, even though I'm not generally into the biography type books.

By the time I finished reading it the book was in 12 different pieces. The book is now in basically 100 page chunks and the cover is completely off. It really didn't hold itself together at all.

Answers to Those Questions

2005-12-19T21:37:00.000-05:00

I finished a sentence like this:
Never in my life: have I had the desire or the courage to do anything really out of the ordinary.

Joe asked me this:
Per the 31 sentences meme ... what would you have wanted to do, but weren't brave enough to make happen?

My answer:
I can't really point to one thing. I don't know if I've ever sat around thinking, "I want to do X, but I'm too big of a wimp to do it." Really I'm just risk averse. I don't really ever stray out of my comfort zone, which is relatively small, I think. I generally prefer to stay home or to just go see the people I know. Things like that. I think both "the desire or the courage" kindof go together.

Some examples might be things like my dealings with girls before I met Kathy, or not messing with drugs, or really doing any illegal things. I'm just not all that exciting, but I think there's probably something behind that I'm not really tapping into.

Lots of people went to study abroad and I never had a desire to do so. At the same time, I don't want to visit a part of the world where people don't speak English, because the idea of being out somewhere and not being able to talk to people is offputting (Unrelatedly, it's also I think disrespectful to go somehwere and expect people to speak English).

I think I need to feel a certain amount of control over my universe and the easiest way to do that is to keep it narrow. Branching out is not a prospect that really motivates me.

Daffy asked me:
Why did you get so upset at the guy guarding you in the Sunday morning basketball game? If he was fouling you every time, why'd you get mad at him? Isn't the onus on the refs to call the fouls. He was just doing what he could get away with without being whistled for fouling.

Maybe it was just all the frustration of us getting our asses kicked up until that point (and after that point also, incidently) that finally erupted?

My Answer:
Let me tell the story first. We were playing basketball and we were losing pretty badly mainly because we weren't as good as the team we were playing. That being said, I drove the lane 5 or 6 times and the same guy would reach around me and hit my arm every time and I wouldn't get the foul call.

The next time he did it was really egregious, so he and I both fell down and they called a foul on him. I got up and started to yell at him while he was still on the floor. If I remember right, I said, "You reach in on me every goddamn time and you need to stop. You need to stop doing that right now." There may have been a third sentence that was a repeat of the first two. As I said it, I was walking towards him and pointing sortof menacingly.

Basically I did it for the effect. I wasn't all that mad at the guy and I didn't say a word about it for the rest of the game. I wanted two things to happen. First I wanted him to stop reaching in on me so I could go around him more easily, and second I wanted to point out to the refs that he was in fact fouling me without bitching to them. It was a calculated move and it worked for the most part. The guy didn't even come near me the next couple of times and I got two or three open shots because he backed up when I came near him.

I think you misinterpreted the situation, Daff. There was no way the situation was going to escalate beyond me yelling at the guy. I had no intention of hitting him or anything, I was trying to gain an advantage at that point, and it sortof worked except I didn't actually make any shots and we still got killed.

Another one from Daffy:
"I'm really excited to have children because I've never met anyone that I'm actually related to."

Is there news you want to whare with us? Or is that just a general statement?

My Answer:
No specific news, so more of a general statement. We are planning to have kids in the immediate future, but nothing to report as of yet. The thought I expressed was one I've had for a long time now, beyond the context of actually trying to have a baby.

Here's a question from J:
I'm interested to know if your parents had had a somewhat open adoption, where you could find out who your bio-parents were when you were 18....would you have?

We're struggling with some issues surrounding how our kid might feel if we use completely anon. donor vs: known at 18. Thanks for your input.

My Answer:
I don't know if I could answer the "would you have?" question because it seems unanswerable in that context. The decision is not for the baby to make, obviously, and I wouldn't be able to make the decision 18 years after the fact. I guess you're asking if I would have liked for something like that to happen. That seems to violate the spirit of adoption from the parents' standpoint. Both the biological and adoptive parents. Similarly the spirit of being an anonymous sperm donor. Do people donate sperm and then say, "let me know when I have a kid," or if something like that were to happen would you ask someone who you know to be the donor?

I feel like I'm a part of my family, and no one is questioning my place in it, so I don't need to look elsewhere to fit in. Your situation (J) seems to be one that will be a close knit whole family unit that will be inclusive to whoever comes into it. From that perspective I don't think a baby would be lacking support or a feeling of belonging. I don't know if my input is any more relevant than anyone else's on this issue, though. Personally, I'm content with the limited information available to me.

What's It Like To Be Adopted?

2005-12-18T16:05:00.000-05:00

I really don't think about it on a day to day basis. I don't have a recollection of not knowing that I was adopted, so there wasn't a moment that I found out or anything like that. My father told me that when I was like 2 years old and I was mad I would say, "I'm going back to Boston." I don't ever remember doing that, so I must have been pretty young.

I never thought of my parents as not my parents. I think that stems from them being up front about it from the beginning. I hear about a lot of adopted kids feeling unwanted or like they're not really a part of their families, but I can't say that I ever did. The only time I even felt unwanted was as a teenager and it was by the kids in high school and not by my family.

Having the doctor ask me about my family's medical history and not being able to give an answer is hardly embarrassing, but I hope I don't ever develop something that would be much easier to diagnose if the history were available.

I'm really excited to have children because I've never met anyone that I'm actually related to.

I've never really had an interest in finding my biological family. I guess it would be an interesting story, but I'm not really too concerned about it. I suppose my biological mother decided that it would be best for me to be adopted and it certainly seems to have turned out pretty well, so that's good. From time to time I've thought that I probably could have just as easily ended up being aborted rather than adopted and so I don't think I believe in abortion.

I am actually biracial and so I assume a special effort was made to place me with a biracial family. That was nice of them. I guess I'm not a "real Jew" in the technical sense, but I can live with that.

When I was like 17 I found a file while I was looking for a tax return or something that was labelled "Adoption" and had all of this information about the details surrounding me being born and adopted. I read the entire file for about an hour standing in front of the filing cabinet in my cold basement. It was obviously interesting from my standpoint.

I can't say that I'm more or less than what I would have been if I were born into my family rather than adopted into it. That seems to be the best measurement. Wondering what it would have been like to be kept by my biological mother or adopted into a different family is a fruitless endeavor, in my opinion. It's really a moot point, anyway.

What Should I Blog About?

2005-12-18T16:02:00.000-05:00

Is anyone interested in my thoughts on anything? That question is not as deep as it sounds. Is anyone looking for me to blog about something?

I guess this is sortof a rehash of the "Ask me anything" fad from a while back. So I'm doing that again. Come to think of, Joe asked me what it was like to be adopted, and I never did answer him. I'll do that one first, but if you've anything you were wondering about me, or if you've got something that you'd like my thoughts on, let me know. Really anything, I'll be kindof hurt if I don't get any responses, so if for no other reason than the sake of my ego, ask me something.

Complete These Sentences...

2005-12-18T14:43:00.000-05:00

I stole this from Joe

1. My uncle once: stayed at my house with his daughter for a whole summer.
2. Never in my life: have I had the desire or the courage to do anything really out of the ordinary.
3. When I was five: I didn't understand why my pre-school teacher wouldn't let me answer every single question, even if no one else knew the answer. I feel like I had thoughts at five years old that were on some levels way more interesting than most of the thoughts I have now. I remember really pondering on several occasions if a vase that fell over when no one was home would actually make a sound. I don't recall If I was familiar with the "if a tree falls in the forest..." thing, but I guess I must have been. My conclusion, by the way, is that it must make a sound. It's a lot more fun being a curious 5 year old than a curious 27 year old.
4. High School is: really what you make of it. I know that now that I go every day with an objective look at it. If every high school student realized how important it was, then we wouldn't have to discuss the failing educational system.
5. My parents are: both gone. Both from cancer. My mother was capable of doing 10 things at once. And all really well. I've probably idealized her at this point, but she really seemed to have been all things to all people. I realized when I was in college that my father was a really great person, but not great parent. Once I realized that I loved him a lot more. He was a pretty good parent, but he had some failings.
6. I once met: Jimmy Fallon walking on a street in New York with Brian and Rick. We were coincidentally all on our way to the same bar, so I think Jimmy thought we were following him.
7. There's this girl I know who: is too afraid of people in general to be in a relationship. At least that's my take on it.
8. Once, at a bar: I was one of two people still on the dance floor at 3am. We were on complete opposite sides of the floor.
9. Last night: I ordered a pizza, sat home with Kathy, and fell asleep right after the monologue of Saturday Night Live.
10. Next time I go to church: I hope it's for a wedding and not a funeral.
11. When I turn my head left, I see: out of the window into the courtyard of my little apartment complex.
12. When I turn my head right, I see: the turtle.
13. How many days until my birthday? 225 is what I came up with in my head.
14. If I was a character written by Shakespeare I'd be: one of those bit players. Mercutio, maybe Guildenstern. Shakespeare's main characters have way too much drama in their lives to accurately resemble me. I'm pretty impressed by the people who know all about Shakespeare, incidentally. Mainly because I feel like it's something not really worth knowing about unless you're an actor or something. As someone who's pretty interested in useless knowledge, I'm impressed that people would learn things even I consider useless.
15. By this time next year: I hope to be a father. We'll see how it works out.
16. A better name for me would be: Jerry Charles Edward Gardner, rather than Charles Jerry Edward. It would avoid a lot of confusion. Here's the story of my name. I was adopted by my parents when I was 9 months old. Before then I lived with a foster family in or around Boston and they called me Jerry. My parents intended to name me Charles Edward Gardner after both of my grandfathers, but I guess decided not to stop calling me Jerry since I already responded to it, so they made it my middle name.
17. I have a hard time understanding: Committed Republicans. It's something I've struggled with for a while. I try to be open minded to all schools of thought. It's not that I'm unwilling to believe that there are Republicans, but I really don't understand any of the logic behind it aside from the selfishness. What's the point of government that doesn't look out for ALL of the peoples' best interest?
18. If I ever go back to school I: will get 30 more credits to get to the top of the pay scale. I'm seriously considering getting an administrative degree that would allow me to be an assistant principal, even though I don't have any intention of being an AP.
19. You know I like you if: I make fun of you. Some people don't understand that right away.
20. If I won an award, the first person I'd thank would be: whoever it was that was most instrumental in my receiving it. I can't imagine what I'd win an award for.
21. Take my advice: calm down, don't break the screen. Whatever you're dealing with is probably not worth getting as upset as you are. Also dealing with your problems head on with seems to be the most effective way. That's something I have trouble with myself, even though I realize it would just be better if I dealt with it.
22. My ideal breakfast is: Eggs over easy with home fries and toast. Ketchup on the eggs and the home fries. Orange juice and coffee, sugar and half and half. I'd eat this for breakfast every day if my cholesterol weren't so high. In fact I did eat this for breakfast on most days before I ever had my cholesterol checked.
23. If you visit my hometown: go to Bischoff's and get a mint cookie crush sundae. Teaneck is not nearly as cool as it used to be. I don't think I'd want to grow up there now, though I enjoyed it as a kid. I'm reminded of a line from a Tom Waits song, San Diego Serenade: "...never knew my hometown, 'til I stayed away too long. Never knew the melody 'til I needed the song." That's a great song, incedentally, if you've never heard it.
24. Why won't someone: realize that their religion was created to bring all the people together, rather than make us different. How many people have died in the name of God? From the crusades and the inquisition to the holocaust to the suicide bombings and terrorist attacks to things like the Branch Davidians or the Kool-Aid suicide people. Under no rational interpretation of whatever religion you belong to does God want humans to kill other humans. If you kill someone in the name of God, then you are in the wrong. If God wants people dead, he'll do it himself, just ask Noah or the Sodomites.
25. If you spend the night at my house: you can have your own bedroom, since we have an extra one at this point.
26. I'd stop my wedding: well, I missed the boat on that one.
28. I'd rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: well, I wouldn't go out of my way to do it, but really that doesn't seem so bad. That answer violates the spirit of the question, so let me think of another one. I don't particularly enjoy being social, but I'll do it if the situation calls for it. It's not really debilitating, though I don't really talk to people unless it's necessary. That's hardly a good answer either.
29. Paper clips are more useful than: staples. They hold more and they're reusable. I use lots of paper clips. I'm tempted to say something like paper clips are more useful than organized religion, but I guess that's a matter of perspective.
30. If I do anything well, it is: keeping my temper. Some would say to the point of irrationality. Perhaps over-rationality is a better way to say it. The only person who can make me lose my temper is my sister. She does it surprisingly well when she puts her mind to it, given that no one else can.
31. And by the way: you're not as cool as you think you are. No one is. Words to live by.

The Dept. Of Education Loves Me

2005-12-17T14:15:00.000-05:00

Recently all the teachers in New York City got a pay raise. My salary is now probably 2/3 of what you make as opposed to 1/2 of what you make. Anyhow, part o the agreement was that they would give us retroactive pay for the time between when our contract ran out and the time the new contract was enacted. It didn't end up being very much for me, despite the fact that the contract had run out even before I started working for the DOE.

I can only assume the check I received in the mail today was a part of that back pay process, even though all my back pay was supposed to have been in my last check, which I also received this week. I got a check today from the DOE for $1.99. After they took out taxes, though, it was only for $1.78. Fucking government.

Honestly, I don't know what it's for, and the description just says "adj", which I can only assume means adjustment, rather than adjective or anything else. Nice to know that I'm appreciated, in any event.

My Favorite Walt Clyde Frazier Lines

2005-12-12T21:15:00.000-05:00

Walt Clyde Frazier is the color commentator for the New York Knicks local broadcasts, in case you didn't know. He was a former Knick in the 1970s and has been announcing Knick games on the radio and then on TV for years now. He's known for his arbitrary rhyming and unnecessary use of big words.

Here are some of my favorite all time Walt Clyde lines. I'm only going to include ones that pop directly into my head:

**best one ever** - "I like Ewing's doings. He's been a real juggernaut on the boards."

"Harper makes the pass and, ooohhh...Serendipity by John Starks"

"That one was vintage Marbury. No hocus pocus, only focus on that drive."

"Yeah, so apropos that Allen Iverson is here on Halloween with his bag of tricks and treats."

"The Knicks doing a lot of dishing but not much swishing here in the third."

Recently he's had some great ones dealing with Nate Robinson, the Knicks rookie guard who stands at a robust 5'9". Things like, "Great energy on that play from the Lilliputian."

If I remember the story correctly, Clyde was a really talented player who was accused of being a generaly stupid guy, in particular because his vocabulary was lacking. He made it a point then to improve his vocabulary to prove everyone wrong and show that he was an intelligent guy. Then he started to use big words in tangentially related context.

Cop on Cop Violence

2005-12-09T08:40:00.000-05:00

Some cop near Detroit tasered his own partner after an argument over stopping for a soda. This fucking clown got mad at his partner and tasered her. I guess we should be glad that he had a taser so he didn't have to shoot her. Good gracious.

Go New York, Go New York, Go! We Are The New York Knicks.

2005-12-03T17:01:00.000-05:00

The Knicks record doesn't really reflect the steps forward that the tem has taken in the last hafl year or so. Joe says that Knick fans are playing the half full game when we talk about their potential, but I think it's more than that. At this point, though, it's clearly just potential that we have to be hopful for.

But let's take a look at that young crop of gies. The most impressive of all of them is Channing Frye. Larry Brown does not easily play rookies (see Milicic, Darko), but Channing is not only playing, but has earned a couple of starts in the last few games because of his good play. He's got a nice shot and plays fairly consistently, which is pretty good for a rookie. I can see him being a player in the mold of Chris Webber, making outside shots and smart passes. Playing for Larry Brown would seemt o be a good sign for his defensive ability, so I'm optimistic about that.

What is somewhat disconcerting at this point is not necessarily the team's inconsistency, but rather Larry Brown's inconsistency. There's an article in the New York Post today about that inconsistency and some of the weird moves he has made. At least 6 or 7 guys have rotated between the starting lineup one game to a DNP the next game to the inactive list the following game and back again. Some examples, Penny Hardaway started the season on the inactive list and the last two games has been the 6th man. David Lee looked like a promising rookie and at one point early in the season he was the team's leader in rebounds and also in hustle plays. Larry Brown praised his play and his hustle. Recently he hasn't played and has in fact been on the inactive list. Matt Barnes went from a starter a couple weeks ago to a guy who got cut from the team altogether.

The one guy who's not playing up to his potential is clearly Stephon Marbury. He's been enormously inconsistent and has looked really bad at times. He hasn't dominated a game this year at all, while there have been games where Jamal Crawford has taken over and a game where Channing Frye took over. It's conceivable that Brown is fucking with his head and that Brown's inconsistency is making it hard for Steph to know what to do. Not that Marbury is a winner to begin with, but he at least used to take over games in the 4th quarter.

Every game at this point is a toss up. If they win it's a surprise and if they lose then they invariably just look like they haven't gelled. I think Brown's odd roster decisions have played a part in that. I do like their potential, though. Crawford seems more under control this year. Curry looks good when he's not hurt or in fould trouble. Nate Robinson has been a spark plug, and will contribute more if he calms himself down and stops trying to drive the lane on the Ben Wallace's and Tim Duncan's of the league. I'm going to withold judgement at this point until the end of the season.

The Best Show On Television

2005-11-30T19:29:00.000-05:00

The best show on television at the moment is Pardon The Interruption, on ESPN. I love the topics they cover and you really get a good idea of what's going on in the world of sports if you watch it every day. I'm at the point now where I tape it on my DVR every day in case I'm not home at 5:30.

But that's not why it's the best show on TV. I know this show must be enormously entertaining because even my wife watches it with me. My wife doesn't like sports and she can't stand when I watch sports contests on TV, which is often. Today, though, she said, "This is the only show where I find sports entertaining." If PTI can make my wife like sports, then it is the best show on TV.

I Think I'm Back Now / Waffle House

2005-11-27T12:55:00.000-05:00

I sortof took November off from blogging. It was actually a conscious decision versus simply forgetting about it. As is represented by this glut of posts today, I had some ideas, I just didn't write about them. You could argue that none of these ideas are worth writing about, but that's not the point. The point is that I had the ideas and just didn't post them. I started to jot down the topics I wanted to cover over the last couple days and decided to just write all of them today.

I can't say that there's a definitive reason I didn't blog this past month, nor do I imagine anyone is particularly interested. I felt like I had half a cold for the first week or so of November and didn't much feel like doing anything. After that I just didn't go out of my way to put my thoughts down. I feel like now I'm back in the swing.

I'm going to end this with an entirely unrelated thought. I love Waffle House. The only good thing about going to the South is Waffle House. I wish they had them up here. I can't imagine that they wouldn't be popular. The farthest North I've ever seen one is Southern Pennsylvania, right near the border. Here's an interesting phenomenon. Every time I've driven across the Mason-Dixon line I've come upon a Waffle House within the next ten miles. It's like a visitors' station.

Getting My Coach On

2005-11-27T12:42:00.000-05:00

So this year I'm really getting involved in doing stuff at school in the extracurricular sense. Last year me and my buddy Wallace coached the JV baseball team at our school. Wallace was the official head coach and I was an assistant. This year Wallace also became the head coach of the JV basketball team and he asked me to help him out again. So this year I'm the assistant coach for both JV basketball and JV baseball. Tons of fun.

We had the tryouts for basketball this past week at school. We expected about 25 people to try out for the 13-15 spots on the team and instead 41 freshman and sophomores showed up to try out for the team. We were a little overwhelmed on that first day. So much so that we had a second day of tryouts the next day where 20 people came back and we ended up keeping 14 of them.

The brand of basketball these kids play is certainly not team oriented and both Wallace and I plan to put a team oriented team on the floor. Wallace has been the assistant varsity coach for three years now, so he has taken the lead in implementing the schemes and I've tried to supplement what he's been doing.

Baseball is sortof the opposite. He was the head coach and took care of all the details as far as getting field permits and scheduling games, but it's fair to say that I was more instrumental in the teaching of fundamentals and strategies for that team last year.

Anyway, coaching is a lot of fun. Basketball is shaping up to be a little more ghetto than baseball, but I think we certainly have talent. I'd love to see a team oriented version of the guys we have when our first game comes up in a month or so.

Medicine, Business, and HIV

2005-11-27T12:19:00.000-05:00

According to a report from UNAIDS and the World Health Organization that was released earlier this week, the AIDS epidemic is simply spreading. More people today have HIV and AIDS than ever before and the AIDS rate increased in every part of the world except the Caribbean last year. Obviously there are lots of reasons for this and I'm not really going to discuss them. What interests me is that there's a huge argument here for some sort of decapitalization of the pharmaceutical industry.

The companies that make antiretroviral drugs, the main treatment for HIV patients, cannot make the drugs fast enough or cheaply enough for people all over the world to get them. Many people think the epidemic can be more effectively battled if the drugs were more readily available. The reason they are not is because only the companies that developed the drugs are making them. To date, they have not given permission to any other companies to produce the drugs and the other companies, including international ones, are not producing the drugs because they don't want to violate patents.

At some point the best interest of the dying people in the world should be taken into consideration, rather than just the profits and patent protection of the pharmaceutical companies. The issue is a lot more complex than I've represented it, or even than I understand it to be, most likely, but the bottom line is that drug companies across the globe could share the burden of producing these drugs and provide a service to the world at large. There are maybe about 50 different drugs that fall into the category of antiretroviral and they are presumably made by many different companies who all own patents on them. This is a sticky issue, but not without a feasible solution that would maybe curb the dramatic effects of HIV/AIDS.

For example, American drug companies produce antiretroviral drugs for $1500 per whatever unit they are measured in. They are also producing far less than is necessary because they are the only ones doing it. Chinese drug companies say they can produce the same amount of the same drug for 1/10th the price, $150, and can therefore contribute to providing more of the drugs at a lesser costs to governments interested in providing drugs to their citizens or other countries as aid.

Some sort of system where the drug companies can be paid for the rights and maybe given a tax cut or something should be worked out so that the people can have the medicine they need. Also people around the world should be more careful about getting AIDS, but that's an even bigger issue without one simple solution.

I Bought A Pair Of Nikes

2005-11-27T11:49:00.000-05:00

This is probably not a huge event in anyone's life, nor is it a huge event in mine, but I found it interesting that I actually bought a pair of Nikes for the first time in a long time. I think the last time I wore Nikes was in my junior year of high school, and I'm fairly certain that I bought those Nikes in my sophomore year, which would mean the last pair of Nikes I bought was in 1993.

I generally don't buy Nikes for several reasons. First is that a lot of the new Nikes are really ugly. I don't know when ugly shoes came into style, but some of the shoes they put out there are really just gross. Second, the ones that are even remotely cool generally cost over $100. So do a lot of the ugly ones that people still seem to buy, incidentally.

Over the years I became partial to a a low top casual sortof sneaker. I especially like th Adidas shell tops and I own 4 pairs of those at last count, purple striped, brown corduroy, hemp khaki colored, and all white. Nike makes a similar sneaker that's just kindof a casual walking shoe that a lot of my students wear. They come in all sorts of colors, but the most popular is white on white. This is a simple shoe and it's ridiculously expensive only because they're popular. They generally cost between $65 and $75 and that's just way too much, in my opinion.

The Adidas I bought were all on sale and I paid like $30, $30, $40, and $50 for them if I remember correctly. When I buy sneakers $50 is generally my absolute upper limit. Usually I buy sneakers that cost $30-$40 and I won't consider any that cost more.

So I came upon these Nikes at Modell's on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. They were on some sort of clearance, and I don't know if they are an old design or what, but they were marked way down to $40 from an original price of I think $80 or maybe more. I don't ever recall seeing a pair of Nikes that I liked that I was also willing to pay for, but this was it. I guess it's not newsworthy, but it was news to me. Here they are. Click on them to see the bigger picture:

The New York Football Giants

2005-11-27T11:12:00.000-05:00

I'm writing this before today's Giants game against the Seahawks. I don't know if I like their chances today against the Seahawks, but if the run defense can keep Shaun Alexander honest, then they may have a chance. In the end, this game is a barometer for them, but not really a must win. On the other hand, if they do win today it would go a long way towards restoring legitemacy to the franchise. It would also really help their playoff chances.

Next week's game against the Cowboys is absolutely a must win if the Giants want to win the division and secoure their playoff hopes. Assuming that the Seahawks are a better team and win this week's game, the Giants would be tied with the Cowboys heading into next weeks game and, in essence, a game behind them in the standings since they've already lost to them this year. A loss to the Cowboys would just about end their hopes of winning the division since they'd have to win it outright by a game and would then have to make up two games on Dallas with only two division games remaining. They should have the capacity to win those two games, but so does Dallas.

I like the way the Giants are coming together and look to be much better beyond this season. Eli is clearly going to be an above average quarterback, possibly an elite QB. He's had some growing pains this season, but he's also looked spectacular at times. He's lead three 4th quarter comebacks against the Cowboys, Broncos, and Vikings in impressive fashion. Ironically, they lost two of those three games, but Eli looked really good in those late game situations.

Plaxico Burress is re-energized and is clearly thriving at being the #1 receiver for the G-men. He seems to catch 10 passes every week, which is probably not true, but he's clearly stepped up to his role. Jeremy Shockey is back to his pre-injury form and has wreaked havoc at times against pass coverages. Tiki is solid as always, and Brandon Jacobs has thus far filled his role as a short yardage back, despite the one fumble on the 1-yard line against Dallas, I believe.

The Giants defense went something like 14 quarters without giving up a touchdown within the last month. They held Washington, Minnesota, San Francisco, and Philadelphia in check in impressive fashion. They will continue to stifle offenses as long as their secondary remains healthy, it seems.

This is a poor argument to make for any football team, but it should at least be mentioned that the Giants could easily be 9-1 this season instead of 7-3. The Cowboys game went into overtime and came down to the coin toss. If the Giants had won it, they would have scored just as easily as Dallas did. A friend of mine from Dallas agreed with me on that point. The Vikings game was the worst played football game I've ever seen, especially from a special teams standpoint. If the special teams had just made a tackle, they would ahve won that game. The Giants defense completely and absolutely shut down the Vikings offense that game. All they needed was to stop the kickoff return and punt return TDs.

The Giants remaining schedule is Seahawks, Cowboys, Eagles, Chiefs, Redskins, Raiders. They need to win at least three of those games to make the playoffs, and if they win the Dallas game in particular, then they put themselves in great position. This team is capable of finishing 12-4 in my opinion, but that seems unlikely, especially after that Minnesota loss. I don't know if they quite have the gumption yet to win every game they are supposed to win. That being said, if they make the playoffs, I can see them getting on a run and making some noise.

A Political Spectrum

2005-11-27T10:49:00.000-05:00

This is an idea that has probably been hashed much more completely and with much more research than I'm giving it. For example, read the Wikipedia entry on the political spectrum. I'm just interested in what stages the political spectrum actually consist of. Starting on the far left and moving to the far right, here's my view of the American system at least. Fill in the blanks for me and also tell me if you think a category is misplaced.

Communism -> Socialism -> ACLU -> Green Party -> Ted Kennedy -> Average Democrats -> Centrist Democrats -> Ohio <- Libertarians <- Arnold Schwartzenegger <- McCain, Giuliani, Whitman <- Average Republicans <- Dubya <- Christian Right <- Jerry Falwell <- Rich Businessmen <- Laissez Faire <- Anarchists

This is my view of American politics. A singularly linear model is necessarily incomplete, but I've simplified. I wanted to account for the differences between religious Republicans and Big Business Republicans, but it's impossible in this model. In the end, it may just come full circle, since some people insist on Anarchy being a far left position. I don't see how that's possible, however, since Republicans support small government and a lack of central control, and anarchy is the complete absence of control. It would seem that it's just a few steps away from that. In my view, communism and anarchy are complete opposites.

Most Impressive Stat of the Young NBA Season

2005-11-09T08:01:00.000-05:00

Unrelated, I got in a bit of a funk and didn't feel like blog writing over the last week or so despite some moderately interesting ideas.

It's not necessarily impressive that Kobe Bryant is leading the league in scoring. Everyone more or less expected that. He scored another 37 points last night, incidentally. What is impressive, however, is that through four games this season Kobe has scored 146 points and has not even attempted a three point shot. Kobe is driving the lane, hitting short jumpers, and has a field goal percentage of .514 at the moment. Those are dominant center type numbers and Kobe is putting them up as a shooting guard. That's enormously impressive.

It's safe to say the the Knicks are not gelling. Marbury looks like he doesn't know what he's supposed to do. He's capable of controlling the game with the ball in his hands, but he doesn't want Larry to get mad at him or something because he's trying to spread it around. Eddy Curry can't play 45 seconds without picking up two fouls, and Quentin Richardson and Jamal Crawford just have no conscience between the two of them. They'll shoot any time, any place.

The one impressive part about the Knicks is their group of young guys. It was actually fun to watch the second half of their game the other day against Golden State when Nate Robinson, David Lee, Channing Frye, Trevor Ariza, and Jamal Crawford were on the floor. They played with great energy and really turned the game around until the veterans came back in and blew the lead the kids had amassed. I'm worried that Larry Brown is not going to play the younger gies once the team starts to get its shit together. I'd like to see these guys develop. At the moment David Lee reminds me of a poor man's Kurt Thomas, who himself is a poor man's Karl Malone.

I can't imagine anyone beating the Spurs this year. Even if the Heat get their shit together and get everyone healthy, they don't have the fire power to do it.

Dubya's Having Himself One Hell Of A Week

2005-10-30T11:36:00.000-05:00

Let's recap:

1) 2,000 American soldiers are dead in Iraq, 99% of whom died after Dubya's speech on the aircraft carrier talking about "Mission Accomplished".

2) Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination from the Supreme Court. The consensus is not that she wasn't conservative enough, but rather she was incompetent and incapable of the position. Incompetent not in the sense that she's stupid, but rather in the sense that she's maybe the least smart person in the honors class.

3) I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was indicted on perjury charges. That's a hell of a name there, Scoots. Let's point out that he wasn't indicted on actually outing a covert CIA agent, but rather just trying to cover up whatever it was he did or didn't do. Martha Stewart style.

An interesting point here on these issues. All of the discussion on Meet The Press this morning was about how presidents get arrogant in their second terms and have invariably gotten into some sort of hole they've had to dig out of. Most recently there's been Watergate, Iran-Contra, and that woman....Ms. Lewinsky.

One of the gies, I think David Brooks, made another point on Bush's brush with ridiculousness. All of these other presidents go into trouble because of corruption of either a political or moral nature. The information we have from the special prosecutor so far is that no crime was committed regarding outing Valerie Plame Wilson, but rather only the cover up. So far then, there's no evidence of corruption, and all of the trouble that Bush is in is therefore because of his incompetence. He's out of step with America, out of step with his base, and out of step with perhaps just reality in general.

Also something that doesn't quite make sense is the media's infatuation with pursuing this story. Perhaps this has just become clearer in retrospect, but there's no way this investigation could have taken place without a thorough challenge to the rights between reporters and their sources. From day one it was clear that Bobby Novak and any other folks with that same information, Judith Miller and Tim Russert as it turns out, were going to be questioned about their sources. At some point we have to step from behind the first amendment, especially if we're involved in crimes. Perhaps future sources will be more reticent to give up the goods if it may lead to things like this. Now obviously this was an extenuating circumstance, but I'm sure Scooter didn't know that at the time.

Anyhow, Bush has almost exactly a year to get himself in good standing again before these midterm elections. Reagan did it, Clinton did it, and it seems that people are willing to forgive provided that those ho made mistakes are willing to admit them. At the same time, Bush is in the position of having to apologize for his incompetence, rather than his moral turpitude. Maybe for Rove's or Cheney's turpitude at some point, but it doesn't seem like it right now.

Big Ups To The White Sox

2005-10-27T08:18:00.000-04:00

Congrats, White Sox, for winning the world series. About a week before the regular season ended, I predicted that the White Sox would collapse before the end of the season and not even make the playoffs. Immediately after I wrote that post, the White Sox went on to win 17 of their last 18 games, and sweep the World Series.

I guess I was wrong. 2004, Red Sox were victorious. 2005, White Sox were the champs. Can a 2006 Chicago Cubs victory be out of the question? It's conceivable that the Cubs would be a force if Prior and Wood are healthy and Zambrano continues to deliver. Their offense is not as good as it has been in recent years, but maybe they can pick up some gies.