Adam and Read Got Married

Three Differences Between My New Cell Phone And The Phone It Replaced And What They Would Mean If The Phone Were A Character In A Novel About The Existential Suffering Of Baby Boomers

2012-01-18T11:45:00.000-05:00

Difference #1:
When Read calls me, her facebook picture still shows up on the caller ID, but now it's a little bit blurry for some reason.

Symbolism:
My wife is no longer the woman I once knew. The changes are subtle but once I noticed them, they were all I could focus on. For too long I've been deluding myself, not interacting with her as she is, but interacting instead with a simulacrum: my own false image of the way she used to be. Maybe I'm the one changing, while everyone else stays the same.

Sample excerpt:
I looked in the mirror to make sure I could still recognize my own face. Creases. People called them "laugh lines" or "crows feet" to spare my feelings. I traced one with my finger but it ended abruptly, like an old rutted drive leading to an abandoned cabin. My cabin, my road, my rutted drive. My face was a road map for a town that no longer existed.

Difference #2:
The new phone has a larger memory card.

Symbolism:
He cannot escape his past. He went through life, meeting new people, seeing new places, but that only added new chapters to his story. The earliest chapters, the earliest moments, are still there. The smells. Daddy still liked to drink. The sounds. Daddy still walked out on him and on mommy. The pain. Daddy was still an empty chair at his high school graduation.

Sample excerpt:
I sat next to Barbara and began to drown in contentedness. Her Jack Russel Terrier, which she had named Jack in either total earnestness or total irony, ran in tight circles next to the sofa. I smiled. Barbara always teased me and said that I liked Jack more than I liked her. It happened in slow motion. Jack bumped the end table and the Tiffany lamp atop it lurched and swayed until its center of balance succumbed to gravity. Eight pounds of ceramics and glass and filaments accelerated towards Jack. I screamed, and Jack scurried away before the lamp came crashing down.
"Who's Duke?" Barbara asked.
"Duke?" I hadn't heard that name in a long time.
"That's what you screamed: 'Duke.'"
My ears were hot. "That's weird." I waited for Barbara to go back to reading her book, and then slowly turned my head towards our closet. The door was ajar, and a thin beam of light fell on an ancient baseball glove. It was covered in bite marks.

Difference # 3:
I always use vibrate instead of a ringer and the new phone vibrates at a slightly lower frequency and slightly more weakly than the old one

Symbolism:
In the end, pragmatism won out over idealism. And is accomplishing your goals efficiently, providing light without providing excess heat, really so humble an ideal? I used to need attention. Now I take attention.

Sample excerpt:
The young man in the scarf was still loading his suitcase into an overhead bin as the train began to move. He took a small step backwards to avoid falling.
"I guess Newton is still good for something," I said to the pretty young lady to my right as the scarfed man sat down across the aisle. There was no response; she had a book open on her lap and was fiddling with an iPod. I abandoned all hope of engaging with my engrossed seatmate. As I looked up at the middle aged woman sitting across from me, I began to roll my eyes at the absurdity of it all, knowing she must have heard my aborted conversation. But instead of meeting her soul, I got a good look at her left ear--she was looking out the window. I followed her lead.
The world flew by in a wave from left to right. I heard a sneeze radiate from the direction of the scarf-clad momentum-conservationist.
"God bless you," said the pretty young lady to my right, seemingly unaware of his earlier foible.
"Thanks," he said, and, obviously flustered by the girl's beauty, which I had noticed first, he dropped his laptop.
"I guess Newton is still good for something," I said to the pretty young lady. She glanced back at me and then moved across the aisle to sit in the empty seat next to the scarven-necked gravitational young Turk.
Surely, this commotion had caught the attention of the woman across from me. I tensed my eyeballs. They were locked and loaded in their sockets, ready to roll with all the wistful dismissiveness I had earned. But she was still looking out the window. I joined her, and the world flew by from left to right.

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other

2012-01-04T10:21:00.001-05:00

I promised more games on this blog so here's a quick one. I've taken two cabs over the past week, and while neither driver affirmatively declared his allegiance to Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics, I have my suspicions. In any event, below there are three statements. Two of them were said to me by one of the aforementioned cabbies. One was not. Can you guess which statement WAS NOT said to me by a cabbie?

1. I don't like black people.
2. Well, at least you're not Irish.
3. Of course you can pay with a credit card. I am required by law to accept such payments and always do so willingly.

Answers in the comments!

Soon The Government Will be Forced To Buy Every American His Or Her Own Box Turtle

2011-12-29T13:43:00.002-05:00

Senator and person-who-probably-refers-to-Sofia-Vergara-as-"that-Spanish-lady" Tom Coburn (R-Texas' Hat) is shocked and appalled that the government granted $113,277 (a.k.a. 0.000003%, or three one-hundred-millionths, of the federal budget, a.k.a. 0.03 cents from each and every American) to a museum curation project*. I'm sure his outrage has nothing to do with the fact that this particular museum is devoted to subject matter to which old people say phooey. Indeed, Sen. Coburn's concen about profligate government spending is sincere and well-considered and not based on cynical political calculations or complete economic ignorance. And that's trouble for me, because $113,277 is uncomfortably close to the amount that the federal government spends on its give-Adam-a-yearly-salary-and-benefits-in-exchange-for-legal-services program.

Personally, I think my work is less important, and far more fungible, than preserving cultrural artifacts. So to avoid the chopping block I pored over the federal budget, item by item. To save my own skin, I needed to find an even more wasteful and less producitve program to cut. After a long search, I found something. Apparently, there is an obscure program called "congress," which I'm guessing has something to do with porn because I've heard the phrase "sexual congress" before, and I'm too lazy to do any further thinking on the matter.

This "congress" is a group of 535 government employees that collectively earns about $93 Million a year or $1,790,000 per week. That's just salary too; the federal government pays cogress all kinds retirement and health care benefits too. (LOL health care benefits from the federal government?! That'll never work.) Now, that's not necessarily a problem, especially if congress were performing some sort of vital function that was essential to our nation's operations. But, honestly, I can't really figure out congress' function. One prominent congressarian said that congress' "single most important goal" is to prevent the current president from being re-elected. Now I'm not sure what you guys think about Obama, but that seems like a weird thing for the government to spend 1,790,000 of your TAX PAYER DOLLARS on PER WEEK! (Especially with all these problems in the world today. Do they really need to spend time on this?) I did a little more digging, and it turns out that congress was originally intended to "pass laws." And, well, I guess they used to do that, but they don't really bother anymore.

But it gets even worse! "Congress" gets paid that salary whether they're actually working or just on vacation! (No wonder they don't bother passing any laws. This is more evidence that government handouts to lazy people discourage those people from working.) And "congress" is on vacation RIGHT NOW! A two week vaction that costs American tax payers almost $3.6 Million! And they took off the whole month of August, at a cost of almost $8 Million!

Truly, America cannot survive if forced to expend precious federal monies on this boondoggle. I promise you I will work ceaselessly to ensure that congress is abolished, or, at the very least, that they take less than $10 Million worth of vacations per year. I'm sure I can count on anti-spending stalwart Sen. Coburn to support me in this matter.

*Link courtesy of Alyssa Rosenberg, one of my two favorite bloggers on the planet.

E.P.S.A.D.A.M.

2011-12-28T13:15:00.000-05:00

Back in the carefree early days of this blog, we played games, and had contests (still accepting drink-name submissions!), and had a grand old time. Since then the blog has become a long string of cynical posts about books and institutional failures, broken only by Read's annual post about something she had recently eaten. Well forget that, it's time for MORE GAMES!!!!

Many of you know that I work a large government institution that is sometimes called a ponzi scheme by people who are too stupid to know what a ponzi scheme is. The thing about working at this place is that we use a lot of crazy acronyms and abbreviations and for things (That's government for you. Am I right, people?). In fact, we use so many acronyms, that I often feel like I work on a spaceship in some sort of weird science fiction story. Specifically the weird science fiction story Xenosaga, in which, five thousand years in the future, Space Jesus helps Space-Robot Mary Magdaline stop a wayward agent of Space God from destroying the Universe. No really, that's the plot!

Now for the game! Below, there are four pairs of terms and acronyms. Each pair includes one term from Xenosaga and one term used by my government institution, which, for google-veil purposes, will be called Entitlement Program Shark Attack Destroy All Monsters in honor of another great acronym and the greatest name of anything ever. It's up to you to guess which term belongs with which sprawling and convoluted entity! Answers at the bottom of the post.

1. KOS-MOS :: ARC-MOS
2. U-DO :: ODAR
3. P.R.T.F. :: U.R.T.V.
4. TESTAMENT :: NUMIDENT

Happy Guessing!

Solutions:
1. KOS-MOS, or Kosmos Obey Strategical Multiple Operation Systems (hooray recursive acronyms) is the aforementioned Space-Robot Mary Magdaline and is a main character in Xenosaga. She is a cutting edge weapons platform designed to fight ghosts, has blue hair, and talks exactly like January Jones. Meanwhile, ARC-MOS stands for Assistant Regional Commissioner for Management and Operations Support and is a relatively senior position within E.P.S.A.D.A.M. I don't really know what this person does, but a recent e-mail annoucing our newly appointed ARC-MOS suggests that a "strong working knowledge of FO, PSC and TSC Operations" and a "'can do' positive attitude" are the hallmarks of an effective candidate.

2. U-DO is from Xenosaga and, technically, is an abbreviation for Unus-Mundus Drive Operation system, but it's really a "collective unconscious with a single mind" that resides in the upper domain (get it, Upper DOmain?) and is the name of Xenosaga's Space God. It is also a "wave existence," which means, as any quantum physicist will tell you, it is also a particle existence. ODAR is the department of E.P.S.A.D.A.M. that manages judges.

3. P.R.T.F. stands for Psychiatric Review Technique Form, which is the a form that E.P.S.A.D.A.M. uses when evaluating the extent to which a person's mental illnesses and impairments affect their functioning. U.R.T.V. stands for U-do ReTroVirus (I don't know why they use periods either). These are robots who use their life force anti-waves to fight Space God (i.e., U-DO). There are 669 URTV units, all clones of their creator Dmitri Yuriev, who discovered U-DO, got confused about what it was, and then lied about it, and then tried to kill it (again, it being Space God) hastening the end of the Universe and the destruction of Planet Miltia (That's scientists for you. Am I right, people?).

4. Testaments are from Xenosaga and are the Space Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse...or something? There's definitely four of them, and they all have a tight relationship with Space God's fallen Space Angel. One of the Testaments built KOS-MOS, another is one of those God-killing Roboclones, one killed a main character's family, and then there's one who had an affair with a main character's nanny and maybe something more important than that, I forget. They all drive big Gundam style mechs that are named after the twelve tribes of Israel. NUMIDENT is our internal nomenclature for what everyone in the real world calls an Entitlement Program Shark Attack Destroy All Monsters Number. Why we cal it NUMIDENT, instead of the more straightforward Entitlement Program Shark Attack Destroy All Monsters Number, is unclear.

Hope you guessed well, and remember, this post was written in my personal capacity as a private citizen and none of the material contained within this post represents any official or unofficial position that E.P.S.A.D.A.M. has taken regarding Xenosaga or acronyms. Happy New Year!

Brisket aka Sunday Dinner vol.I 1

2011-11-10T14:17:00.000-05:00

Most years for my birthday I would request brisket. Maybe this is a strange birthday food for a kid to request, but my braised brisket and mashed potatoes is my all-time favorite comfort food. My mom's recipe (which I actually think it her aunt's) involves one onion, a bottle of Cross & Blackwell chili sauce and a slow cooker. For as long as I can remember, C&B has been unavailable to us (I check every time I go to Wegmans, no dice) so she used Heinz.

I am enamored with the idea of Sunday dinner. I'm not sure how this came to be- it wasn't really a tradition in our house growing up- but I'm hoping to integrate the big Sunday dinner into my life. My first attempt at this was to make a brisket. I had a recipe that I am adapting from the newly re-edited NY Times cookbook. By adapting, I mean I took a photo of the recipe with my smart phone at the campus book store and have some (aka half), but not all of the ingredients, leading to rampant substitution. Only after making the sauce did I realize that it is for 6 lbs of brisket whereas mine was only 2 lbs. I used about half of the sauce. Those of you smarter than me should simply half the recipe for non-holiday use. My version below.

Onions from Milk and Honey

Sauce:
1 C ketchup
1/2 C spicy brown mustard
1/4 C honey
1/4 C olive oil
1/4 C red-wine vinegar
1 tbs soy sauce (I had tamari)
1 tbs chili-garlic sauce (you know, the kind with the rooster)
1 Tbs ground black pepper
2 small white onions- 1/2 cut into wide rings, 1 1/2 rough chop
2 small gala apples, cored, peeled, rough chop
6 cloves garlic, halved

6 lb brisket
salt
pepper

Best wedding favor ever: honey from Charlottesville, VA

Pre-heat oven to 325 F. Reserve the half-onions worth of rings and place in bottom of baking dish (I used a lidded 4 qt dutch oven). Salt and pepper both sides of the brisket and let sit while making sauce.
For the sauce. Put the remaining ingredients into a food processor. Place the brisket on top of the onion bed, over with sauce. Bake for 3-ish hrs. Remove brisket (scrape off sauce) and slice against the grain. Thicken sauce on stove-top to desired consistency, season with salt and pepper. Dress the brisket with delicious sauce.

Delicious dinner

We ate it for dinner with mashed potatoes and roasted brussels sprouts. It was delicious, but things can always be better. My sauce, while tasty, was strange. It was a little apple-saucy (that's what you get when you puree whole apples). Next time I will use apple cider. Or maybe use Coke like the original recipe said but I refused to do (I'm sure you know my opinion about soda).

Shout out to Ali, another master brisket maker for passing on this bit of additional info: Michael Solomonov's coffee-braised brisket recipe. She mentioned using pomegranate juice in lieu of veal stock...

We Are...

2011-11-09T13:16:00.002-05:00

*phone rings*

Hello, Marvel Comics Publishing Division, how can I help you?...Oh Hi Stan!...No we'd love to hear your story idea, I always said you had more great comic books left in you!...oh, new group of villains, exciting...uh huh...uh huh...So sort of like Hellfire Club but at a University? Maybe we could have Curt Conners...oh, ok...oh, a big reveal, you start off thinking the villains are heroes, I like it!...uh huh...uh huh...so he's in the locker room...What's in the locker room? Does he kill someone?...HE WHAT?!?!...Stan, I'm not sure anyone wants to read that...ok...ok...oh, so someone sees what happened, that guy ends up being the hero, the main protagonist, right?...HE JOINS THE VILLAINS?!?!...Wait so who is the hero?...Everyone has been in on it the whole time?!?! EVERYONE?!?!...FOR FIFTEEN YEARS?!?! Stan, listen, I don't know what to say. I just think...ok, ok, tell me the last twist...THAT'S WHAT HE USES THE CHARITY FOR?!?!...Sorry Stan, we're going to have to pass. Galactus, Red Skull, Apocalypse, that's one thing. But these guys are just too evil. Even for comic books. See you later Stan.

*click*

The Bork Is A Lie

2011-11-03T11:55:00.001-04:00

It sure is weird how every group of top-secret-super-double-important-mega-bellweather voters that the media touts, be they "NASCAR dads," "security moms," or the newly minted "Wal*Mart moms" (not to be confused with "get-paid-20%-less-by-Wal*Mart-than-dads-do moms") ends up being some variety of conservative voter who has vague, but deeply held concerns about Democratic Candidate X, but gosh maybe would vote for him if only the Democrats didn't hate America so much. Seems like an odd strategy for our unabashedly liberal media to employ. Must be some kind of dirty commie librul trick like passing the 19th amendment, or accurately describing the published views of a federal judge.

I Can't Wait For the GOP To Accidentally Nominate Herman Cain

2011-10-26T12:05:00.002-04:00

Because we have a black president, racism is a totally fake thing that no longer exists in America. Just ask Representative Lamar Smith (R-the state that begged and pleaded to join the United States because it was unable to protect itself). But anyway, these are false and inflammatory charges that were brought by the DOJ and its reverse-racist leader, Eric Holder. Also, who cares both sides do redistricting shenanigans so this is actually not a big deal. In any event, to the extent this is a problem, it can be solved by cutting taxes and eliminating teachers' unions.

What A Dick

2011-10-13T19:40:00.001-04:00

Don Draper is a brooding cipher and a creative genius. He has an unparallelled mind for advertising and can sell any product. He's a man's man who smokes and drinks and womanizes and seethes at the world. His dark past infects every decision he makes and every relationship he has. He can bring hardened Kodak executives and his own copywriters to tears by talking about a slide projector. He is responsible for sophisticated campaigns for any number of products, none more successful than the one for Don Draper himself. That's why it makes perfect sense that, according to Mad Men's fiction, Don Draper is directly responsible for this:

Yeah, I know. I'm also the guy who constantly thinks about how Wolverine is precisely as fast and agile when his entire skeleton is encased in metal as he is when it is not.

When You're Able To Make James Inhofe "The Smart One"...

2011-10-12T09:30:00.000-04:00

For various intricate and confidential work-related reasons, my chances of speaking to Senator/Ricky Ricardo fan club president Tom Coburn have increased one-thousand fold. If that happens, I promise to mention box turtles, no matter the consequences. Luckily, on the advice of learned counsel (and possible holder of ambiguous views on the ethics of double-rape) John Grisham, I declared this blog attorney work product, so this entry will not be admissible in my eventual wrongful termination suit.

The Fire-Bombing Of Dresden By Those Dastardly Capulets

2011-10-07T10:30:00.000-04:00

Missed Connections:

You: The recent college graduate who was on the 9/30/2011, 6:50 pm flight from Philadelphia to Providence and who hit on his engaged seat mate by telling her a story about the Holocaust.

Me: Guy seated a row in front of you who (1) wonders how hard you two hooked up after I heard you exchange facebook information at the end of the flight and heard your engaged seat mate instruct that if other facebook users shared her name, she would be identifiable as "the hot blonde one" and who (2) wonders what role, if any, the Holocaust plays in your physical love-making techniques.

LOL

2011-09-29T00:30:00.000-04:00

Fifteen years from now, when Carl Crawford hits his his 763rd home run, (go to 2:02) you'll all be sorry. Seriously though, this month was the Red Sox pitchers' fault, and ESPN.com only hires [snicker] experts who [chuckle] really understand baseball. That's why [guffaw] it would be impossible for all 45 of them to pick [tee hee] the Red Sox as AL East [giggle] champions. I mean everyone knew that team had no chance to even make [wakka wakka] the playoffs. Well, almost everybody.

GOP Debate Watcher Bucket List

2011-09-23T10:13:00.000-04:00

1. ~~Cheer for the concept of executing people~~. CHECK!
2. ~~Cheer for the idea that people without health insurance should die~~* CHECK!!
3. ~~Boo soldier serving in Iraq~~. CHECK!!!
4. Find just the right moment to chant "Show Your Tits!" at Michele Bachman
5. Pounce the moment that Herman Cain finally reveals that he loves the hippity-hop.
6. Initiate standing ovation for Rick Perry's "A chicken in every pot, a puppy on every rape stand" campaign promise.
7. Nathan Bedford Forrest cosplay.

*and decrease the surplus population. Bah Humbug!

God Bless You Michael Pemulis

2011-08-22T20:19:00.003-04:00

Future biographers undoubtedly will make note of my love of Infinite Jest, my Michael Schur fanboy-ism, and my barely-closeted hipster tendencies. As such, I enjoyed this video a great deal. I also enjoyed the several commenters who said that they will now read an 1100-page book about drug addiction because of this three-minute music video, which, I hope you do Jessicakes-with-the-cat-photo-avatar because it is my Favorite Book Of All Time (F.B.O.A.T.) * but it's a pretty mismatched pair as far as effort goes. Also, special recognition for MichaelRoney, who received the Chuck Klosterman Memorial Golden Sneer Award for "Outstanding" "Achievement" in the "Field" of "Excellence" for his comment that this video depicting several 12-to-14-year-olds playing a tennis-and-game-theory-based nuclear apocalypse quasi-LARP was "cliche."

* In this obligatory end note ** I will disclose that Read has pajamas that she has named in reference to Infinite Jest. ***
** Is it and end note or a footnote? There aren't any pages on this internet weblog, so both terms are probably both incorrect and correct.
*** I started reading The Pale King, by the way. It's hard to know what to think about a book that probably isn't finished but was written with the stated intention of not resolving most things.

I'm Cool Enough to Be Married

2011-08-15T10:00:00.001-04:00

So, hypothetically. Imagine I'm watching/listening to a youtube video called Megaman 2 soundtrack. * Assuming that fact as true, which is the saddest associated fact?

1. I desperately want the order the level songs are played to match the order that my eight-year-old determined was "the best" way to conquer the levels. **

2. I know that my preferred order is relatively idiosyncratic and, therefore, I was able to determine 5 notes into the first level song that "my" order was very likely the order that would be followed for this soundtrack.

3. I was pissed that they fucked up the order and put Heat Man before Bubble Man.

Unrelated fact that does not properly fit into the enumerated list above: Metal Man, Quick Man, or Dr. Wily I are 3 of the best Video Game music tracks of all time.

* Part 2 here.
**Air Man--Crash Man--Metal Man--Bubble Man--Heat Man--Wood Man--Flash Man--Quick Man. ***
***Since then, I've realized that Crash Man at 3 and Metal Man at 2 is a more optimized order.

Whimsy

2011-08-08T19:36:00.000-04:00

The summer is winding down; our most recent high school graduates are buying new laptops, extra-long sheets, and aspirational boxes of condoms; Joe Paterno's bones are shattering while sportswriters wonder euphemistically whether this is the year that he finally dies on the field. It must almost be time for college football...

Better Than A Porsche

2011-07-31T22:22:00.000-04:00

Longtime readers may remember that I plan on dying at the age of 86. That means, as a 29-year-old, I've already entered the middle third of my life. And that means it is totally reasonable for me to be having a midlife crisis.

A good midlife crisis has at least two components. First, you try to regain your lost youth. My primary method for accomplishing that is reading a lot of comic books. But I also make sure to really dwell on the nostalgia I feel when I hear the Baseball Tonight theme music. The second component of the crisis is sending out highly visible signals that you a still vital person who can totally awesome things. I've taken care of this in two ways: (1) I started doing improv comedy. I even joined a team called The Hendersons that performs around Philly and that has a facebook page that you can like if you want to be our friends! (2) I signed up to do this on November 11. Now, is it crazy to run 12 miles through mud, fire, and electrified wires? Maybe. But don't worry guys, I've been doing pushups!

Professor X is a Jerk, And If You Know Him Your Life Is Likely Filled With Unfathomable Sadness

2011-06-09T09:30:00.002-04:00

This was unduly funny.

To further corroborate, here's a "light-hearted" scene from one of the less emo X-books:

T: "Now, who wants coffee?"
N: "Oh yeah, I'd kill for some!"
B: "What's 'coffee'?"
N: "You don't know what coffee is?"
B: "I spent my life in a war zone. I haven't had real toilet paper since I was in prison."
Exiles #1, Oct. 2001

Oh well. At least it wasn't a Chinese Prison like ~~Xorn~~ ~~Magneto~~ ~~Xorn~~ ~~Magneto~~ ~~Xorn~~ ~~Magneto~~ ~~Xorn~~ ~~Magneto~~ ~~Xorn~~ ~~Magneto~~ ~~Xorn~~ ~~Magneto~~ Deus Ex Superior had to live in.

Relative Excitement In Various Life Activities Summarized By Two Text Messages: A Case Study

2011-05-13T14:06:00.000-04:00

If you'll allow me a brief communion with the blithering masses,

Text message received from Jen at 8:57am:
Lucas Neff from Raising Hope is in improv class with Shannon and me. It's crazy that a tv star is in our class!

Text message sent to Read at 9:06am:
At work, just needed to tell you about the dishwasher.

Filadefia Flyer Fanatic!

2011-04-27T19:07:00.000-04:00

Hey, do any Philly people mind if I start liking the Flyers? Caring about one local team would be fun, I think, and they're the best candidate. In fact, hockey was popular enough when I was in high school that I started liking it through peer pressure. But, because I ~~was~~ am a contrarian ass, I decided I didn't want to root for the Rangers or the Islanders like my friends and chose...the Flyers. This was circa young-phenom-Brian-Boucher-as-Flyers'-great-goaltender-of-the-future. I truly committed to the role and, eventually, owned a Rod Brind'amour jersey (I wanted a LeClair jersey, but Flyers gear was tough to come by on Long Island). So, really, do any Philly people mind if I start liking the Flyers again?

Even without that history, the Flyers would be my only reasonable local rooting interest. I'm a Knicks and Giants fan, so the Sixers and Eagles are out. My baseball team is in the AL so I guess I could cheer for the Phils, but I don't know. It bothers me that the big-market Phillies are trying to buy championships with their high-priced pitching staff. That sort of thing is ruining baseball.

Go Flyers!!!

Nothing Comes For Free/Preemptive Nostalgia IV

2011-04-26T19:41:00.001-04:00

After going on stage as a hunchback who loved brooms (that was scripted by the way), I realized I was happier than I'd been in a while. The cabbie who drove me home was listening to an interview with a lawyer who specialized in the legal ramifications of deposing dictators. Amnesty, asset seizure, that sort of thing. The lawyer was very pleasant and discussed some very interesting situations and made me feel like there is a lot I don't know. That was nice. Not knowing stuff is a luxury I don't often get to indulge in.

It's my job to provide answers on demand. I'm usually limited to one of three answers: 1. That guy is lying, he's not really sick; 2. That guy is sick, but not sick enough for us to help; 3. Someone in our agency did his job poorly in this instance, so we have to make him try again. None of those are happy scenarios--fraud, decrepitude, mistakes--but what actually bothers me is the absolutism. Because, let's face it, there's usually some ambiguity in these cases. Nevertheless, I have a legal and ethical duty to craft a narrative that can tolerate only one logical answer. I have to behave as though I am certain that my answer is the correct one. I have to be creative and compelling while asserting that, in fact, this whole narrative is boring and mundane because, as everyone knows, this question was answered long ago by the very answer I'm now proposing. I'm pretty good at it.

I know a lot of stuff. I know that the sky is blue because of scatter. I know my own birthday, but only because someone else told me. I know that Cyclops and the evil clone of Jean Grey had a son named Nathan Summers, who goes by Cable, has his own evil clone named Stryfe, and, technically, is not related to Nathan Grey, who is Cyclops and Jean Grey's son from another universe. There are other examples. Knowing stuff doesn't bring me any real joy. Pretending to know stuff brings even less. Learning about stuff usually makes me happy, though. Learning about Cable certainly did.

So why would Quasimodo love brooms? I don't know. It was fun not to know. (Technically I do know: unrequited love. But the script did not cite any relevant law, regulation, or other authority to support this assertion.) It made me happy. And it made me happy in a way that was different from enjoying another performer's jokes about fish. I should probably spend significantly less of my time doing things I don't like.

Come to my improv show: Saturday May 7 at 5:30 at the Shubin Theater. Admission is free.

Great Moments In Gender Roles

2011-03-28T09:00:00.002-04:00

Man, so we went to war in Libya! That totally sucks for Q(G)(K)(h)ad(d)(h)af(f)i! I bet it also sheds some light on the respective essential characteristics of the male and female genders. I mean, this war has to be either totally manly or totally womanish!

So, it's pretty clear that our Libya strategy shows that Obama is totally womanish, right, The Daily Beast? After all, Obama is obviously castrating himself by listening to Hillary Clinton (woman), Susan Rice (woman), and Samantha Power (woman). Sure, all three of them are incredibly accomplished people who have demonstrated foreign policy expertise sufficient to warrant highly important government appointments. But, more importantly, they are women and, therefore, they like flowers and doilies and stuff. Has anyone ever simultaneously liked doilies and bombing the shit out of everything? Bill Kristol says no.

But our Libya strategy also proves that certain women are totally manish manly men, right, The National Review? I mean, Hillary Clinton (woman)? What a controlling, aggressive, manly, nagging bitch. It is impossible that Hillary Clinton (~~Secretary of State~~ woman) would have an reasonable opinion about a foreign country. She was probably all like "I heard that Libya didn't give Sex And The City II a wide release, that makes me get my period!" And then Obama was all like "Oh noes! I don't want ~~my Secretary of State~~ that woman to get her period, I best be bombing Libya!"

***

I'm not surprised that Warner Brothers decided that they would never green light a movie with a female lead.

I'm even less surprised that they made an exception when said female lead was a sexy, barely legal, blond girl with pig-tails who uses machine guns to fight dragons.

I Am Not A Robot

2011-02-18T17:48:00.001-05:00

In keeping with my general preference of waiting years, and sometimes decades, to begin watching critically acclaimed television shows that my friends say I'll like, Read and I recently began watching Battlestar Galactica. I like the show so far, and there's one thing about it that's particularly compelling. No, I'm not talking about how Colonel Tigh looks and sounds exactly like John McCain. I'm talking about how objectively awful the military command is at their jobs.

(Uh, spoilers I guess)

It's tempting to cut Commander Adama and Col. McCain some slack, what with the recent robot holocaust and all. But remember this. Commander Adama's job before the cylon attack was: commanding a fully crewed military vessel called the Battlestar Galactica. Commander Adama's job after the cylon attack is: commanding a somewhat less than fully crewed military vessel called the Battlestar Galactica. The military personnel on ship seems to have a lot of respect for Adama, but, man, a lot of shit goes wrong under his watch.

For example, a cylon blows himself up aboard the Galactica and kills a bunch of people. Now, cylons are tricky because they can look like humans and blend in. But each model always looks the same no matter how many duplicates there are. Once you identify a model, it should be relatively easy to identify and isolate any duplicates before one, say, becomes a suicide bomber and kills a bunch of people. You know, unless the Commander of the military, one of about 3 people in the universe who knows about the cylons' ability to take human forms and who had already met the cylon who became the suicide bomber never bothered to tell anyone about it.

Among Adama's other greatest hits are: giving a nuclear warhead to an obviously crazy person (he ended up not being a good WMD steward, who could have guessed!) and risking all of humanity and expending almost all of the fuel in the known universe to rescue a single pilot. There's also a prison riot, sabotage to the Galactica's water system, and numerous casualties due to shoddily stored missiles, but those are harder to pin directly on Adama.

Then there's Col. McCain. The first four of five episodes of season two are spent laying out, in excruciating detail, just how incompetent Col. McCain is, and how bad he is at making decisions. This builds on the episode from the first season where McCain gave the order "spend three hours fucking around with that inscrutable enemy warship hovering right outside our hull instead of shooting it down; I bet it won't suddenly attack us when we least expect it!" Nevertheless, Adama keeps McCain in place as second most important military officer in the universe, apparently because he knew McCain a long time ago

Why do I find this all interesting instead of distracting or show breaking? Find out next week, when "Book" Report "Monday" makes its long awaited return!

Hall of Well Crafted Blog Posts

2011-01-06T09:00:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar were announced as the 2011 inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame. This means that the month long period where baseball writers debate the merits of the various hall of fame candidates is over, and it will be a long time before I get to hear one of my favorite phrases: "[Player X] was a very good player, but it's the Hall of Fame not the Hall of Very Good." Baseball writers love to tell me that it isn't the Hall of Very Good. Sometimes they'll even tell me that it isn't the Hall of Very, Very Good.

I love how much nonsense is contained within that one sentence. "Fame" isn't really a point on the good-bad continuum. I've never gotten a comment card, for example, that asked me to rate my server's performance as either poor, fair, good, very good, or fame. Not in America anyway, I can kind of see it as a British slang term. "Listen Charles, Champagne Supernova is a good song, but Wonderwall is bloody fame!" So, if this argument means anything (*SPOILER* it doesn't *END SPOILER*) it must mean that we should grant a special premium to especially famous ballplayers. That's why the guy who famously held the single season home run record for thirty-seven years in the Hall of Fame, right? Oh. Well the guy who famously threw back-to-back no hitters is in the Hall of Fame, right? Really? What about the guy who famously threw a perfect game in the World Series? No? The midget who famously drew a walk while wearing "1/8" as a uniform number as a publicity stunt? Come on, seriously? They must have at least put in the baseball player who famously won six NBA championships. Weird. It's almost like the Hall of Fame is reserved for Very Good ballplayers, no matter how much Fame they've accrued.

So, "it's the Hall of Fame not the Hall of Very Good" is stupid. But I still want to offer several condemnations following the same structure.

It's the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Appearing In Mediocre Sketches For Eight Years And Then Blocking A Fellow Cast Member From Exhibiting His Amazing Obama Impression, Fred Armisen.

It's the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Making Movies With So Many Explosions That I Think They're Awesome, But Then I Remember That All Of The Parts Of The Movie Without Explosions Kind Of Suck, Michael Bay.

It's the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Constantly Releasing Terrible, Terrible Songs, Black Eyed Peas.

The Hundred Years' War

2010-12-29T19:38:00.002-05:00

The 20th Century was the most amazing 100 year stretch in human history. When the century began, filing cabinets were less than three years old, and when it ended the Internet was streaming illegally-copied Metallica tracks and photo-shopped Brittany Spears nude pictures into millions of households worldwide. But could the 21st Century end up being even more important? It's still early, but we're certainly starting off strong. It took almost thirty years for the 20th Century to give us its first worldwide economic collapse, but the 21st Century gave us one in year seven!

Which will end up superior, the 20th Century or the 21st? I will answer this question scientifically: With a Tale of the Tape! Today, as part one of an planned ten-part series*, we compare 1901-1910 with 2001-2010:

Religion:
1900s: In 1910, Pope Pius X requires all Catholic priests and bishops to take and Oath against Modernism. Lest you think this is just a hilarious name for something reasonable, "modernism" basically meant that a person alive in in 1904 might have a different moral code than a person alive in 4. To show how serious he was, after drafting the oath, Pius stoned a dozen harlots and excommunicated an entire parish that had accidentally let a blind person attend mass.**

2000s: In 2010, Pope Bennedict XVI declares that using a condom is not as sinful as giving all of your sexual partners AIDS, reversing long held church dogma. While much of the world applauded this decree, one can only imagine how Pius X would have felt about such blatant modernism.

Advantage: 2000s

Government:

1900s: In 1901, Leon Czolgosz, an unemployed factory worker, assassinated President William McKinley. Czolgosz said he had been inspired to assassinate McKinley by Emma Goldman, an ideological firebrand who believed herself to be a populist and leveraged an economic crisis to inspire fear and hatred of vague and shadowy elites. While there is no evidence that Goldman had a direct role in the assassination, she offered rhetorical support for Czolgosz and never refudiated his actions

2000s: No presidential assassinations! Besides, its almost impossible to imagine that exact chain of events ever happening again!

Advantage: 2000s

Science:

1900s: In 1905, Einstein publishes "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," in which he describes his theory of special relativity.

2000s: In 2006, Scientists finally decide to look at Pluto and they realize that it isn't a planet.

Advantage 1900s

Reality Is Such That One Can, With Little Effort, Send Pictures Of One's Cock Through Space To One's Unwitting And Disgusted Coworkers:
1900s: No.

2000s: Yes.

Advantage: 1900s

Adam Quotient:

1900s: Not alive.

2000s: Alive ten out of ten years.

Advantage 2000s

So there you have it, the 21st Century pulls out a close one 3-2. The Fightin' 21st may have jumped out to an early lead, but can they keep it up? Check back in December 2020 to find out!

*Series to conclude in December 2100 with a comparison of 1991-2000 to 2091-2100. You have a lot of work to do 2090s if you expect to beat a decade that gave us both the collapse of the USSR and that really sweet Jamiroquai video.

**Leviticus 21:17-23.