raffertyesque

☞ Man Cannot Live On Chunky Strawberry Toppers Alone.

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 16:50:56 -0400

It occurred to me earlier today that while I don’t consume a lot of meat, I do consume a lot of living organisms.

Like, a lot.

Like, billions.

A day.

If you’ll look here at the Rafferty Food Pyramid, you’ll see that it has a sturdy base consisting entirely of yogurt and bread. Above that, you’ll see the middle is made up of kefir and Jamba Juice, and the very top is a mix of kombucha, bacon, cheese, and frozen kefir (for dessert).

Apart from the cheese and bacon, the entire Rafferty Food Pyramid is made up of stuff containing (or made from) billions of microscopic organisms. “Bacteria,” if you want to get scientific. “Cultures,” if you’re trying to sound cultural.

Working our way down the Pyramid, kombucha is up on top. Which is to say, I don’t drink that much of it. I’ve talked about the origins of kombucha before (short version: some guy threw up in a bathtub), but what I didn’t mention were the ingredients. It’s quite frightening. I don’t want to ruin the surprise for you, though. Why don’t you hit up your local hippie grocery store, Whole Foods, or New Seasons, or Tom’s “Everything Is Sold Out Of Wooden Barrels” Fresh Market. I’ll wait. Now find the kombucha. Yeah, it’s over with the soy milk. Yeah, past the make your own peanut butter machine. You’re at the fromagerie? Yeah, you’ve gone too far. No, past the wooden barrel of pickles. Okay, you there? Pick up a bottle. Look at ingredients:

Bacillus coagulans GBI-30 6086: 1 billion, S. Boulardii: 1 billion.

So yeah. That’s a fancy way of saying you’re drinking a bunch of tiny little fellas mixed in with some sweat tea. Two billion little fellas, actually. Per bottle. Yeah. It’s kind of intense. And kind of gross.

The secret to kombucha is the kombucha “mother.” The mother is this sort of gelatinous blob that floats on top of the kombucha as it ferments. (People have made “kombucha leather” out of old dried up mothers, if that gives you a better idea of the mother’s consistency.) This mother gives birth to these billions of little fellas that then get mixed in with a tea of sorts (the sugar helps the fermentation process), bottled up and sold in stores. Or sold on craigslist. No, seriously, go on craigslist right now, and you’ll find people selling kombucha and kombucha mothers. It’s a thing.

(DISCLAIMER: raffertyesque.com claims no responsibility for kombucha mothers obtained in this fashion. If you insist on buying a kombucha mother off craigslist though, please do not go to the hippie’s house to buy it. Meet them in a public area during daytime and please use the buddy system.)

I have a love/hate relationship with kombucha. On the one hand, I drink it because it has to be extremely healthy for you. It’s in the “this must be the healthiest thing on Earth since it tastes so terrible” category of drinks. On the other hand, it tastes terrible, so I don’t drink it very often.

Kefir, kefir on the other hand, I could drink kefir all day. Sometimes I do.

Kefir is kind of fascinating. It’s another culture of sorts, but it’s far less gross than kombucha. It’s like a milky, drinkable yogurt, usually flavored with a berry of some sort. Unlike kombucha, there’s no “mother” involved in kefir production. Instead it’s all about the kefir grains. Available at your nearest craigslist.

(DISCLAIMER: Please do not buy kefir grains on craigslist.)

To make kefir, simply take some kefir grains, drop them in some milk in a glass jar, add some flavor (I like raspberries), and place a piece of cloth over the lid of the jar. Then wait like a day.

Yeah, so kefir is basically spoiled milk.

It’s really good though, I swear.

After 24 hours, your spoiled milk (“kefir”) is fermented and ready to drink. Just strain the grains with a colander, throw them in some fresh milk to curdle up some more kefir and drink the remaining deliciousness. You goddamn hippie.

What’s fascinating about kefir is that no one seems to know how the original kefir grains came into being. The grains themselves grow in size during the fermentation process so that’s where grains come from now, but you can’t make kefir grains yourself. But someone had to make them at some point, right? Someone or something?

This is some serious chicken and egg type shit right here.

Finally, at the base of the Rafferty Food Pyramid, we have yogurt. Or, if you prefer, “yoghurt” (or “yogourt”) (or “jogourt”) (or “jägerbomb”) (or “yaghourt”) (or “yoghurd”) (or “joghourt”). Sure, it’s not as esoteric as kefir or kombucha, but it’s no less cultured. Different cultures, though, obviously. More yogurty ones.

My main source of yogurt is Jamba Juice, which is an ever-shrinking chain of smoothie shops here in New York. My Jamba of choice is the Chunky Strawberry Topper, which is a yogurt/granola/strawberry/peanut butter/banana concoction the Jamba Geniuses came up with a few years back. It’s hearty. You need a spoon. And a Jamba Juice where they don’t judge you for ordering multiple Chunky Strawberry Toppers a week. I recommend the one at Houston & Mercer in SoHo.

Point is, I’m a omnivore. Fruits and vegetables, meats and bacterias. Moderation is the key. A little bit of everything and not too much of anything.

Plants, animals, and little fellas. All part of a balanced Rafferty Food Pyramid.

Reggie Watts at TED.

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 09:14:48 -0400

Reggie Watts at TED.:

Reggie Watts performs at slash makes fun of TED. This is the best video I’ve seen that captures the feeling of seeing him live. I imagine it’s also what it feels like to have a stroke. [via]

Game Of Thrones theme song, with lyrics.

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 02:32:07 -0400

Game Of Thrones theme song, with lyrics.:

In my continuing coverage of a show I do not watch, I offer you Anamanaguchi’s take on the Game Of Thrones theme song. (If you care about the show, I would advise not watching this video, since it will forever ruin the opening credits for you.) Inexplicably (and, seemingly independently), someone else created essentially the same video back in November. This is better, however. [via] (That’s a lot of links.)

☞ Sir, Do You Know How Slow You Were Walking?

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:25:02 -0400

I have long maintained that I should not have a driver’s license. I am not a good driver. I have a lead foot. I often change lanes in intersections. I was texting while driving before it was not cool. I once ran over a guy just to watch him bleed.

What’s the statute of limitations on running over a guy?

There isn’t one?

Innnnteresting.

Moving on.

Point is, I should not have my driver’s license. Here’s the thing though, neither should a lot of other people. Most other people, in fact. Generally speaking, people are terrible drivers. They drive like me only they don’t realize they drive like me. This doesn’t make them better or worse than me, but it does make them more dangerous. Minus the intentionally running over guys part.

Per usual*, Germany has the right idea. (*”Per usual” only valid post-1945.) In Germany, a driver’s license costs thousands of Euros and requires dozens of hours of test taking and professional instruction. As a result, Germans are extremely good drivers, they don’t talk or text while driving or eat or drink or tell jokes. (Germans don’t tell jokes ever, though.)

If getting a driver’s license was more difficult here, we’d all be better off. There would be fewer cars on the road, fewer car accidents, and better public transit. Sure, we’d be consuming less gasoline and become less dependent on foreign oil but— wait, that’s a good thing too.

Uh, the car washing industry would take a hit? I’m really having a hard time coming up with downsides here.

But let’s be honest, we’re not about to take another country’s good idea and use it here. That’s not how we operate. This is America, dammit. Besides, we’re all entitled here. On your 16th birthday, it’s your god-given right to get your license. Because why shouldn’t a 16 year-old get behind four wheels sitting on top of a ton of steel and take it barreling down an interstate at 70 miles per hour? What could possibly go wrong? They’ll learn physics in science class next year, assuming they live that long.

So in lieu of the German model, I’d like to make a different proposal. Indeed, in part 31 of my on-going series “If Pat Ran Things” I am proposing “More Types of Driver’s Licenses.”

Right now the DMV issues a few types of licenses. Most of us have the standard “D” type. Motorcyclists have a class “M” license. Truck drivers, a class “A” license. You get the idea. I am proposing even more licenses, though. Let’s fill up this alphabet.

Ever get stuck behind someone driving too slowly on the interstate? That person should not be allowed to drive on the interstate. They need a class “I” license.

Ever see some idiot spinning their tires hopelessly in the snow? That person should not be allowed to drive in the snow, they’re a danger to everyone. They need a class “S” license.

And so on.

Sure, people will be pissed, but I think we can sneak up on the population at large without them noticing, one license at a time. The easiest one to sneak in is actually the one most relevant to me, and the one that got me thinking about this in the first place: The “New York City” driver’s license.

I’ve compared walking in New York to driving before. It’s an apt analogy. The sidewalks are no different than the streets, they’re full of people moving quickly, and any unpredictable movements throws everything off. If only the NYPD could ticket people for walking too slowly, then we’d really be onto something.

The analogy doesn’t work the other way around, though. Driving in New York is not like walking. It’s also not like driving. Driving in New York City is its own beast.

A few weeks ago I took a Zipcar up to Albany with a friend. She drove us out of Manhattan, and while she was driving, it occurred to me that she was driving the car like a pedestrian walks. She was letting other cars go, slowing down for yellow lights, not running over guys just to watch them bleed.

Even though she was driving “safer” than the typical New York driver, the fact that she was driving differently than everyone else made it less safe.

You run into this a fair amount as a pedestrian. Cars that inexplicably follow the letter of the law rather than the rule of the road. Yeah, everyone knows you’re not supposed to turn right on red, but when you don’t, it throws everyone off, pedestrians and other drivers alike.

(It should be noted that there is a third party at play during all of this: bicyclists. They are insane though— anarchists, essentially— there’s no governing them, they eat their own young. Therefore we are not factoring them into this discussion.)

To get a class “NYC” driver’s license, you’d need to pass the DMV’s NYC test. The test is fairly simple. Primarily, it consists of driving around Manhattan for five hours straight without killing anyone or going insane.

During those five hours, you also need to demonstrate:

A willingness to stop in the middle of intersections, obstructing traffic.
That you are not scared of running over pigeons and/or rats.
The ability to avoid eye contact with pedestrians while blocking their crosswalk.
A liberal use of the horn, frequently just for the sake of honking.

The final part of the exam is parallel parking. A lot of people think parallel parking shouldn’t be part of the DMV’s normal exam since it’s not very applicable outside of urban environments. Obviously it is applicable here, however the true New Yorker will simply double park and roll down their window to wave other cars around them. Bam. Kobayashi Maru’d.

I maintain that I should not have a driver’s license. I do think I should have a New York City driver’s license, though. Sure, I drive a little dangerously, but in a town of dangerous drivers, that’s just what the DMV ordered.

Measuring the Universe

Fri, 25 May 2012 13:33:00 -0400

Measuring the Universe:

Another educational video. This is great. Science. It works, bitches. [via]

You're vs. Your by Mac Lethal

Fri, 25 May 2012 12:49:31 -0400

You're vs. Your by Mac Lethal:

Maybe the kids would have better grammar if it was all taught via rap. I mean, probably not, but maybe. [via g]

☞ I Would Totally Buy Kinect Bocce.

Fri, 18 May 2012 16:51:30 -0400

Show of hands, who made a baking soda volcano for a grade school science fair at some point growing up? Uh huh. Okay, how about the ol’ potato with toothpicks growing roots down into a mason jar? All right, okay. Now what about programming a software application for editing video using artificial intelligence? No? Notsomuch? Huh. What about the player piano that makes different mixed drinks depending on what song it’s playing? Nothing? Surely one of you has designed a series of butt plugs based on the 2012 GOP primary poll numbers, though. Right? Anybody?

Oh, wow. You know what, I just realized the problem here. I’m confusing grade school science fairs with New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. Wow. This is embarrassing.

Perhaps not as embarrassing as the Michele Bachman butt plug, though. That little fella is just sad.

New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program— better known as ITP— is part of the Tisch School of the Arts. It was founded in 1979 by dude and a chick, George Stoney and Red Burns (who just stepped down as Chair of ITP last year) (go Red), with the goal of fostering creative growth the budding field of telecommunications. George and Red lobbied Congress to create public access television years earlier, so you can thank them for Mystery Science Theater 3000… and, well, many many other terrible terrible things. Things.

In 1979, ITP was mostly about video production; it’s difficult to describe exactly what it is today, though. Sure, it’s a two year NYU graduate program with about 230 students enrolled, but that’s not doing it justice. I think “MIT by way of New York City” isn’t a bad descriptor. Red, I hope you’re cool with that.

You see, whereas MIT students use their smarts to create robots and invent new types of fuel cells and develop algorithms to predict food shortages, ITP students use their smarts to design Kinect-powered interactive sandboxes, pianos that mix cocktails and, well, butt plugs.

In short, ITP is really smart people using their smarts not for smart people things, but for art.

The reason I know any of this is that twice a year ITP opens its doors and shows off what its students have been working on for the past few months. It’s a science fair for smartypantseses.

I try to attend the show at least one semester a year, if not both. The Spring 2012 show was this past week and it was as crazy as ever.

As is typically the case, it was about a 50/50 split between “art” booths and, well, I’m not sure what to call the other booths. Let’s just call them “other” booths.

The art booths are things like the girl who makes music out of speaker feedback (“I wanted to make something beautiful out of something ugly”) or the guy who made the tiny hall of mirrors out of a LCD display (“it kind of smells funny”).

The “other” booths are usually still artistic, but usually do something functional as well. Like the skateboard with self-illuminating LEDs (“skate safe, brah”), or the human-powered Google search engine (“ask it anything, maybe you’ll get a response in a week or two”).

Well, I suppose there’s also a third category of booth. I would describe these as the “wasting their parents’ money” booths. They are the proverbial Pat Raffertys of the ITP program. Clearly they put off their booth until the last minute and they’re not hiding it well.

These are the kids who bought a Microsoft Kinect the night before, plugged it into their MacBook and turned on the screensaver, pitching it as an “fully-immersive motion-tracking augmented-reality” hoping no one would notice.

For every Slack Rafferty monkeying with a Kinect, though, there are some pretty neat Kinect hacks. The past few ITP shows have essentially turned into “let’s do weird shit with the Microsoft Kinect” shows.

Throw your arms in the air to conduct a Kinect orchestra. Throw your arms in the air to make the Kinect generate a fireworks display based on your movements and voice. Throw a ball in the air and have the Kinect judge your bocce skills. Throw your pants on the ground and have the Kinect make a butt plug designed just for you.

I made that last one up.

Generally I tend to prefer the “other” booths. Sort of arty, but more functional, sometimes even educational. Some of the highlights from this semester’s show included:

The camera that didn’t take pictures, but took descriptions, printing out a text description of whatever you shot moments after the picture was taken, like a Polaroid by way of Satan.
The robot that scraped your company’s email list and turned it into a fantasy sport. Try not to tell your boss, because you can’t win if he fires you.
The futuristic bathroom stall graffiti booth (located in the bathroom).
And of course, this being an election year, and this being New York City, there were a fair number of left-leaning political booths. There were two separate booths about women’s reproductive rights, a diorama (because it wouldn’t be a science fair without at least one diorama) about the 1%, and a booth about the GOP primary candidates and their, well, you know.

When they created ITP, George and Red did a good thing for the world. Sure, the MIT kids might be the ones who ultimately save the us with their highfalutin book learnin’, but it’s the ITP kids who are going to distract us in the mean time with their fully-immersive motion-tracking augmented-realities.

Waitaminute, this is just a Kinect that you plugged into your MacBook!

That is a really nice screen saver, though.

Abed's "Cool" Supercut

Fri, 18 May 2012 13:49:48 -0400

Abed's "Cool" Supercut:

In honor of Community’s finale/renewal. Although after last night’s triple episode assault, this video could use some updating.

Fast & Furious - Just The Gear Shifting

Fri, 18 May 2012 09:37:48 -0400

Fast & Furious - Just The Gear Shifting:

This is the closest I’ll probably ever come to linking to pornography. [via]

☞ Boffo Box Office Blowout Bows to Big Business Blah Blah Blah...

Fri, 11 May 2012 16:35:26 -0400

Last weekend The Avengers broke all sorts of box office records. Biggest opening weekend ever, fastest film to hit $250 million, most gratuitous Scarlett Johansson booty shots (sorry, Horse Whisperer), and a ton more.

Point is, summer movie season is officially upon us. So you know what that means, it’s time for another installment of The Raffertyesque Guide To The Movies: Summer Edition.

Because really, what better way is there to enjoy this nice weather than to pay $13 to voluntarily sit in a dark theater with a bunch of strangers talking on their cell phones while they ignore their children?

So, on with the show!

Coming soon to a theater new you, assuming there is a theater near you:

May 11th: Dark Shadows. Based on the gothic soap opera from the 1960s of the same name, Dark Shadows is directed by Spookmaster General Tim Burton and stars, get this, Johnny Depp. Yeah, from 21 Jump Street! That Johnny Depp. I think it’s about time these two collaborated on something.

Also opening May 11th: God Bless America. A dark comedy starring Bill Murray’s younger brother, Joel Murray? Sold!

May 18th: Battleship. This looks terrible. But after the success of movies based on comic books and action figures, board games were an inevitability. The board game nerd in me secretly hopes this is a huge success and goes on to spawn more movies based on far nerdier board games like Blood Bowl and Twilight Imperium (preferably based on the 3rd edition ruleset). However, the board game nerd in me secretly realizes we’d see a Hungry Hungry Hippos and Jenga movie before that ever happened. Unsold!

May 25th: Moonrise Kingdom. The penultimate film in the Wes Anderson Octology. Little known fact: as foretold in legend (the commentary track on the Bottle Rocket DVD), Wes Anderson will ascend to the astral plane after completing his eighth film, so enjoy this one while it lasts. Judging from the trailer, Moonrise Kingdom seems to be about a neurotic hipster Boy Scout in the 1960s who gets hit by lightning. So it looks terrible, basically. Bill Murray is in it though, so, sold.

June 1st: Piranha 3DD. Perhaps it’s the old man in me peeking through, but I cannot stand 3D movies. Until we can pull off glasses-free 3D, I’ll only see a 3D movie if the 3D aids in the storytelling in a compelling way. Or, in the case of Piranha 3DD, Christopher Lloyd portrays a crazy scientist. Sold.

Also opening June 1st: Snow White and The Huntsman. Spoiler: During the opening credits Snow White kills six of the Seven Dwarves. She makes Sneezy watch while she eats the rest. He does not handle it well.

June 8: Prometheus. Ridley Scott returns to direct a prequel to an excellent science fiction series he started 20 years ago. Historically speaking this does not go well. George Lucas pooped out three scifi prequels to his old franchise a few years back and they were atrocious. They also made George Lucas billions of dollars. I suspect Ridley Scott’s film will be approximately infinity times better. So, he might break even after taxes.

Also opening June 8th: Bel Ami. Edward Cullen from the Twilight movies wears a top hat and has sex with Christina Ricci and Uma Thurman in Paris in 1885. In a surprise twist he then gay marries Chief O’Brien from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Obama wins again.

June 22: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Judging from the trailer this looks like… bah, forget the trailer. Judging from the title, I think you pretty much know what you’re in for. I do want to see this, but I feel like any ticket proceeds tacitly endorse a George Bush/Dick Cheney superhero holofilm in 2197, and I don’t want that. Still, any movie where the big “money shot” at the end of the trailer is a Abraham Lincoln chopping down a tree has got to be good. Sold.

June 29th: Magic Mike. From director Steven Soderbergh, the man who brought us Contagion the gripping story of a fast-paced epidemic that kills millions, and the mind-bending science fiction film Solaris, comes a movie about… male strippers in Miami? What? Starring Channing “C-Tates” Tatum in, like, his 47th movie of 2012? I, uh… sold? I guess?

Also opening June 29th: G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Starring Channing Tatum! I am not making this up!

July 3: The Amazing Spider-Man. The only thing more popular than comic book movies right now are reboots of comic book movies. I know that doesn’t seem possible, but it’s true. In this reboot, Spider-Man is played by a British guy, his nemesis is Welsh and his blonde girlfriend is a played by a redhead. Guys, I think we need to re-reboot Spider-Man. Unsold.

July 6th: Savages. Starring one of the girls who had sex with the guy from Twilight in France in 1885, and that other guy who saved us from those hungry hippos in Battleship, comes a film directed by that guy who shot JFK. Back and to the… meh. I’m going to take a nap.

July 20: The Dark Knight Rises. What better way to wind down the summer than with Christopher Nolan’s final film in the rebooted Batman trilogy. Just in time for another Batman reboot. I’m thinking maybe this time Batman could be Swedish, The Joker could be portrayed by Gallagher, and Batman could drive a Segway. Let’s get the Amazing Spider-Man crew in on this.

July 27: Step Up Revolution. The fourth film in the Step Up teen/dance/comedy/romance/drama film franchise. I think it’s safe to assume Channing Tatum will make an appearance, even though he sat out for the third film.

2012 is the year of the C-Tates, after all.

Prochronisms

Fri, 11 May 2012 15:00:00 -0400

Prochronisms:

An excellent site dedicated to finding linguistic anachronisms in television. Very Mad Men-centric. I’m a sucker for anachronisms in general, throw in some charts though, and add some etymological seasoning and you’ve got yourself a nice little stew. Don’t you agree, lamb? [via]

Old People Icons

Fri, 11 May 2012 11:20:51 -0400

Old People Icons:

There’s some good stuff in here. I find the voicemail reel-to-reel particularly egregious. [via]

☞ Free Vince Lombardi Mousepads!

Fri, 04 May 2012 17:25:58 -0400

This time last week, I wasn’t sure where NFL players came from. I just assumed that they’re genetically engineered… grown in a lab, adjacent to the cloned sheep and killer tomatoes. I mean, no normal human can run that fast or hit that hard or actually believe Jesus helped them catch a football, right?

The reason I wasn’t sure where NFL players came from was because it never occurred to me to find out. Sure, a quick Google search could tell me, but a quick Google search could also tell me where to find far more interesting things, like pancake recipes, Star Trek trivia, and boobies. A slightly more involved Google search would even find Star Trek boobies pancake recipes.

That sounds pretty delicious, actually.

All that said, I wasn’t opposed to learning more about the NFL. Generally speaking I am an inquisitive person. There are few things in this world that I am wholly disinterested in; I don’t care much for celebrity gossip, I find the fashion world boring, and, oh, right, now that you mention it, professional football is actually one of those things I am wholly disinterested in.

Well, shit.

So when an opportunity to attend the 2012 NFL Draft presented itself, I said: “Eh.” Then, when my friend said it took place in Radio City Music Hall I said: “Oh, architecture! I like architecture! Let’s go!”

The NFL Draft is quite the big to do. It’s a three day, seven round affair wherein 32 NFL teams choose from a pool of hundreds of potential players for the coming season. This all takes place in a beautiful art deco style theater, designed by Edward Durell Stone in 1932.

I am fairly certain I was the only one there for the architecture.

For those of you who don’t know how The NFL Draft works (me, seven days ago), basically the worst team in the league gets to recruit a player and then the second worst team gets the next pick and so on until the team that won the Super Bowl— which I’m told this year was from New York… so go New York!— gets the last choice. After all the teams choose, the process repeats itself six more times over the course of three days until everyone is bored to tears.

(Obviously it’s far more complicated than that… there are trades within trades, there are teams that trade their position in the draft this round for a better one next year, there are backdoor deals, frontdoor deals, pinky swears, truffle shuffles, red light green lights, truth or dares, ouija boards, pin the tail on the Tank Carders (actual player name), magic 8 balls, and spin the bottles, but you get the idea.)

Now to be clear, I went on the third and final day of the Draft. By Day 3, things are lower stakes. I’m trying to figure out what the nerd equivalent of Day 3 of the NFL draft is. I think it would be like going to see Star Wars on opening weekend but not on opening day. Sure, there are fewer people dressed up as Darth Vader, but it’s still sort of a big deal. In a way, only the real die hards are still in it by Day 3. If you’re sticking it out for all three days, you’re in it for real. You’re the guy dressed as Ponda Baba who gets his arm cut off by Obi-Wan in the Cantina.

Ponda Who, by Wan, in the Where?

Exactly.

All that said, Day 3 is still madness. Even though we arrived at Radio City an hour after the doors opened, the line was still almost a block long. Craziness. Once inside, it was no less crazy. Radio City was packed to gills with football fans in football jerseys clamoring for football merchandise.

To attendees, the Draft is almost secondary to the distractions surrounding it. Sure, there are 300lb behemoths being given multi-million dollar contracts on a stage around the corner, but outside in the lobby they’re giving away stickers! Oh, the Vince Lombardi Trophy! Ooooo… a free pen!

Once you get past all the distractions you can settle down and enjoy the actual Draft.

Well, “enjoy” might be putting it charitably. The Draft itself is actually pretty boring. Each team gets five minutes to make a decision, at which point they announce who they’ve selected, and then the next team gets five minutes to make their decision. This goes on until… seven rounds, 32 teams, carry the 2… until the heat death of the universe.

During the initial rounds of the Draft, the players being drafted are actually there… the team’s owner makes the announcement and the drafted player walks up on stage in their tailored suit and proudly holds up the jersey of the team that just nabbed him. Pictures are taken, the audience applauds. Next pick.

By Day 3, Draft picks are being inexplicably announced by old ladies to a smattering of applause and booing. It’s still a show, though. And goddamn that is some nice architecture.

All in all, whoever is running the NFL is a genius. They’ve taken a sport that has 32 teams who play 16 games a year and have somehow stretched it into a year-round event. It’s brilliant. It’s diabolical. It’s practically an art. They craft these narratives for the players, for the teams… they talk about “legacies” and “rivalries” between teams that haven’t played each other in literally years.

For decades the Draft was a private affair. It took place in a conference room in a hotel in Philadelphia. In 1980 they started televising it and haven’t looked back.

I do not think I’ll be looking back on the Draft either. I stayed for a round worth of picks. I got the gist. I got my picture taken with the Superbowl trophy, I got a button. I still don’t care about football, but at least now I know where NFL players come from.

(Well, I know where Tank Carder comes from, anyway.)

(He’s from Texas.)

(Yeah, that sounds about right.)

The Geek Shall Inherit The Earth: How Joss Whedon (Finally) Won

Fri, 04 May 2012 15:29:15 -0400

The Geek Shall Inherit The Earth: How Joss Whedon (Finally) Won:

Is it Avengers day, or is it just me? Alex Pappademas interviews Joss Whedon. The writers chart is quite excellent, as is Whedon’s take on Batman. Holy crap, I want to see his Batman.

Jonathan Coulton vs. The Avengers

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:28:00 -0400

Jonathan Coulton vs. The Avengers:

Like his new TV lineup predictions back in the fall, Jonathan Coulton attempts to figure out what the Avengers is about using limited means. I am amused.

☞ New York City Walking Tour #22: Hamilton Heights

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:28:53 -0400

Please proceed to the intersection of Convent Avenue and West 135th Street before beginning this walking tour. Press “Play” when ready. Mind the white people.

Hamilton Heights is a neighborhood within a neighborhood within a borough within a City. Within a country. On a continent. On a planet. We can keep pulling back here, but you get the idea.

Named after founding father Alexander Hamilton, Hamilton Heights is a relatively affluent neighborhood in northern Harlem. As Manhattan continues its slow transformation into a playground for wealthy white people, Hamilton Heights harkens back to an earlier time when rich people of all colors and creeds lived together, away from the commoners below them. (Below them both in the economic sense and the geographic sense.)

To begin the tour, we will walk north on Convent Avenue through City College campus.

Founded in 1847, City College was originally known as the “Free Academy of the City of New York.” Aptly named, the Free Academy was the first free public institution of higher education in the United States, intended to give children of immigrants and of the poor (and of the poor immigrants) access to higher education based solely on merit. Well, based on merit and on poorness.

The original campus was located downtown on 23rd Street until 1906 when it moved here to Hamilton Heights. As you can see, the new campus was designed in the Collegiate Gothic architecture, a subgenre of Gothic Revival architecture, itself inspired by neoclassical stylings meshed with medievalism and antiquarian ornamentational monarchism ism. Note the stone grotesque adorning the…

Hey, wake up. This is really important.

As we exit City College campus, we will take a brief detour one block east to 141st Street and Hamilton Terrace, where we find Alexander Hamilton’s old house, the “Hamilton Grange.” This was Alexander Hamilton’s home for the last two years of his life before taking a bullet in the liver from Big Bad Boy Burr.

While the Grange is where Hamilton lived, the Grange wasn’t located here in 1804. The Grange was originally about 900 feet northwest of here before it was moved… about 500 feet northwest of here? Yeah, it’s been moved twice. The first time because someone wanted to build a church, the second time just for funzies. Now it’s a museum with no admission charge. Mr. $10 Bill must be proud.

Heading back to Convent Avenue we continue north until we approach 336 Convent Avenue on the right side of West 144th. Nice place, right? You may recognize this as the house from the film Royal Tenenbaums. So, uh, yeah, that’s kind of cool. Moving on.

Continuing further north, at 145th Street we enter into “Sugar Hill.” Yes, this means that there is a neighborhood within a neighborhood within a neighborhood within a borough within a City within a… you know the rest. It’s turtles all the way down.

The neighborhood was dubbed “Sugar Hill” in the 1920s by the wealthy African Americans who were moving to this area. Harlem itself was well and good, and Hamilton Hill was swell, but Sugar Hill was the “sweet life.” That is, until white folks started mucking up the joint a century later.

The Sugarhill Gang named themselves after Sugar Hill. And if you don’t know who the Sugarhill Gang is, you should probably not be taking this walking tour.

As we head towards 155th Street, you may notice a faint wafting of poop vapors heading your way. They are coming from the west, from Riverbank State Park. Overlooking the Hudson River, the 28 acre Riverbank State Park is New York City’s only park that also doubles as a waste water treatment facility! Lovely.

The park boasts that it is the largest “green roof” in New York City since the park itself is technically the roof of the treatment facility. “Brown roof” might be a more apt descriptor as park goers will attest. It’s unknown what bet Hamilton Heights lost to get stuck with the waste water treatment center park, but whatever it was, it was not a good bet to lose. Fortunately, we are turning away from the park.

At 155th Street, we will turn east one block to Edgecomb Avenue and continue north alongside Highbridge Park.

Highbridge Park is named after “High Bridge,” a pedestrian bridge which begins in the park and crosses the Harlem River over to The Bronx. High Bridge was built in the mid 1800s as one of the final legs of the Old Croton Aqueduct (which was known simply as the Croton Aqueduct at the time) (before being replaced by the New Croton Aqueduct in 1890) (which itself was replaced by Guys, Seriously, No More Aqueducts, It’s 1962 For Christ’s Sake in 1962). Now closed to pedestrians, High Bridge is the oldest bridge of any kind in New York City.

At 160th Street, we turn left to approach our final point of interest, Jumel Terrace. Jumel Terrace is notable for two historic landmarks.

First is the Morris-Jumel Mansion. Built in 1765, the Morris-Jumel Mansion (or “MJM” as the kids call it) (no they don’t) is the oldest house in Manhattan. In the fall of 1776 George Washington used MJM as his headquarters during the American Revolution and it later housed that liver-shooting sonovabitch Aaron Burr in the 1830s.

Second, if you turn around you’ll notice Sylvan Terrace. As you can see, Sylvan Terrace is a cobblestone-paved block lined with 49 identical wooden rowhouses built in the late 1800s to early 1900s. Impressive. In 1882, the Morris family sold the land surrounding MJM to developers and Sylvan Terrace was born.

As we walk down the block, note the bracketed eves overhanging the entryways to the buildings. Their stylings are reminiscent of Queen Anne and English Baroque with Romanesque undertones which were popularized in the late 1880s after an influx of influence from the influenza infections in Indonesianism industrializationalismnambla. What’s particularly noteworthy…

Hey, wake up. This is really— oh, never mind, it’s not actually important at all.

Go Right

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:41:00 -0400

Go Right:

Mesmerizing. I’ve watched it half a dozen times already. Sure, as a nerd I am biased, but I dare say it’s probably almost just as mesmerizing to non-nerds.

That’s right. I dare it. [via]

RETRO BOBBY

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 11:36:52 -0400

RETRO BOBBY:

Is it a hair salon or is it a toyshop? I feel like that question is not asked frequently enough. Either way, Ruben & Bobby is the answer. Clearly need to hit this place up next time I’m in Copenhagen.

☞ Fu Manchu Was Never Even A Consideration.

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 19:47:14 -0400

Today, in Part 277 of my 1,001 Part series, Pat Rafferty Questions His Masculinity, we will explore a heretofore undiscussed topic: facial hair.

For the majority of my adult life I had a goatee. From senior year in high school until a couple years ago. It evolved over the years, gaining a mustache, losing a mustache, separating into a soul patch once in a while… sometimes with a shaved neck, sometimes not. It ran the gamut from Fred Durst to latter-day Vanilla Ice.

In other words, the goatee was mostly terrible.

My goatee never quite achieved Evil Spock, which is possibly what I was going for the whole time without even realizing it. Either that, or Abraham Lincoln circa 1865, which it arguably came close to in college, but never totally filled in. Which is really the crux of the issue.

I remember when I first grew the goatee in high school. It was a few months before graduation, I had just turned 18, and I said “screw it, I’m not shaving anymore. Let’s Watch What Happens™.”

What happened was a scraggly collection of facial hair manifested itself on my chin. Less so my upper-lip, and not really at all anywhere else. So I kept the goatee proper and shaved the excess. This went on for many years. Too many years, one might argue.

Years later, after college, I somehow gained the ability to grow a mustache (worst mutant power ever), so I grew that out. Think Guy Fieri without the backwards sunglasses. Or Pat Morita, only less Asian. Or Jon Stewart in July 2010, only less Jewish (and less everything, really).

Finally, I decided the facial hair thing just wasn’t working, so I gave up entirely and shaved everything off. (And yes, obviously I shaved it off in parts so I could test out various iconic facial hair configurations… most notably the “Burt Reynolds” the “Val Kilmer in Tombstone” and, of course, the “Hitler.”) (Guys, come on, admit it, we’ve all sported the Hitler while shaving, if only for a few seconds.) (Right, guys?) (Guys?) (No really, guys?) (Guys?) (Well shit, now I’m the asshole.)

Nowadays, I only grow facial hair when I grow lazy. Which I’ll grant you, is fairly often. But even then it’s only a five o’clock shadow. Or, in my case, a five day shadow. Which brings us back again to the crux.

The crux here is that my ability to grow facial hair is sub-par. It’s slow to grow, and kind of patchy when it does arrive. On one hand this is nice, because I bought a bunch of razor blades in 2003 and haven’t bought any since (true story), but it’s less nice, because, uh, I wish I had more facial hair options.

Sure, I can do a decent Frank Zappa, and my Ezra Pound is off the charts… but a full-on Patbeard is not an option. Hell, I can’t even connect my upper-lip with my lower-lip. There go my Big Lebowski cosplay dreams.

Now sure, I do have a full head of hair, which is lovely, so at least there’s that. “I’ve got it where it counts,” to quote Han Solo. (Man, Chewbacca, now there’s a guy with a hormone problem.) And overall I am not a terribly hairy dude, which I’m pretty okay with, and I’m sure my shower drain is pretty okay with.

But the grass is always greener on the other side. The faces, always pubeier.

I would think I’d be genetically predisposed to grow a beard. I am of beard-growing stock. The two generations of Rafferty men before me have or have had full, lush beards. And while I’ve never seen Pomp in person with a beard, he probably shaves just so he doesn’t show his sons and his grandson up with whatever superduperüberelderbeard he would no doubt grow.

Maybe it’s just a matter of time, though. Patience, young Patawan. I wasn’t always able to grow a mustache, and now I can, so I suppose it’s plausible that a beard is in store for me in the twilight of my years. (Probably right as I’m starting to go bald… something I am definitely genetically predisposed to do, thanks, Pomp.)

Point is, we always want that which is just out of reach. And once we grab it, it becomes less desirable. Sad but true.

I want to be able to grow a beard, but if I could, would I? I don’t know, maybe? Are they in style? Then probably not. Besides, those things look scratchy, man. That, and I’d have to start wearing suspenders and flannel shirts. Not my scene. Again, especially if it’s in style.

The only two scenarios I can see a beard happening are:

1) My razor blade supply from 2003 finally runs dry, and I soon realize in the intervening years (decades?) since my last razor blade purchase, blade prices have skyrocketed, exceeding that of flannel shirts and suspenders. After modeling out the long-term cost of a beard or non-bearded lifestyle, I make the switch.

Or:

2) Humanity’s days are numbered as World War III breaks out (possibly on account of the rising razor blade prices from Scenario #1). In the nuclear winter that follows armageddon, as mankind slowly withers away not with a bang, but rather a whimper, it gets pretty chilly in the complex system of underground caves in which the remnants of civilization have taken refuge. After weighing scratchiness against freezing to death, I decide that a beard would come in handy. You know, for warmth.

This is the way my brain works.

Which brings us to Part 278 of my 1,001 Part series, Pat Rafferty Questions His Masculinity, when we discuss Pat attempting to man it up and survive in the post-apocalypse.

(Spoiler: It does not end well for Pat.) (Or his beard.)

ping pong - a sports movie about old age

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:00:00 -0400

ping pong - a sports movie about old age:

Excellent trailer. Old people and ping pong. Done. I don’t see any way that I could not love this movie. [via]