What Have They Done To The Muppets?

I was entirely unaware that The Shining featured dead pirates building the pyramids of Egypt at the behest of an imprisoned Jack Torrance.

Click through for a collection of foreign movie posters for American films. As the guy says at the end of the presentation, you'll feel like you've gone insane. What they do to The Muppet Movie is nothing short of Nightmare Fuel. And I would have featured the poster for Harvey Keitel's Bad Lieutenant, but I want this blog to avoid running afoul of decency filters and remain available in public libraries.

Why Can't We Be Friends

All my life I was raised to believe that defriending a person on Facebook was about the worst thing you could do to someone. Forget the good old days when a duel at High Noon was the way you got closure. Now, according to The New York Times, passive-aggressively (passively-aggressively?) removing someone from your friends list is the kiss of death.

I must admit that the day when I opened Facebook and saw that my friend count had gone down was among -- if not the -- most devastating of my life. What did I do? I agonized. Who did I do it to? I aged decades with worry. I spent hours staring at the bathroom mirror, confused and puzzled and hurt and scared, wondering who I wronged and how.

Now, the scars are bursting open again. Oh God. I can't go on.

False.

There is nothing wrong with a good defriending. Just like periodically eliminating people on your phone is a necessity in this day and age (although who the eff "Bartlebly" was still haunts me), so is trimming the Facebook.

It's nothing personal. It's just, I don't really care about some of these people. And I'd be incredibly surprised to find out that they care about me. The fact that some rando from high school updates his status every fifteen minutes really makes me want to not see them again. And there's nothing good about status posts like:

"[Name Witheld For Obvious Reasons] is THE RASH IS FINALLY GONE! OH THANK GOD!!!111!1!!"

And I'll admit it. Last summer, I woke up one Sunday morning afternoon to see that I had been friended by four or five high school seniors out in Lexington. It's fun -- and possibly legally necessary -- to speculate about just what the bleep happened that led to this. But today, I wouldn't know them if they sat across from me in a cafe. And it makes me feel damned old to read their status updates about finally settling on a senior prom theme.

Besides, does anyone even use Facebook anymore? Beyond scrabble, or scrobble, or scrabbapple, or whatever it's called. At this point, I think Facebook is good for very few things: learning who is engaged, getting invited to birthday parties, and checking to see who else has a birthday on the same day you do so you can preempt their event. OK, and pimping this blog. That's about it.

So I'm sorry, but I'm going to start trimming the hedges, as it were. If you get defriended, it's nothing personal.

...

OK. It is the very definition of personal. But I'll be brutally honest. I don't care and I don't think you will either. In fact, we both probably don't remember each other. And if you do, friend me again, and I'll apologize and we'll get a beer and the first round will be on me. How's that?

Watch me be mass defriended now.

And no. Two years later, I still have not accepted my mom's friend request.

I'm a bad person.

Ashes To Ashes

Screw the Boston Globe.

There's nothing worse than eating it when you're out walking on ice. Nothing. From the indignity of shuffling along like an 80-year old who is either drunk or just had a stroke or both, to the moment when you're airborne and your feet are at a higher elevation than your ass, to trying to pick yourself up and failing because the sidewalk is a sheet of ice and we all have to pretend to be Ernest Shackleton, there is nothing worse than eating it.

So of course the Globe publishes a progression of photos of some poor bastard taking a spill. Hey, everyone who reads the Boston paper! Let's point and laugh at this guy! Hahahaha.

Actually, it really is pretty frickin funny.

OK, Globe, you're forgiven. But please don't tease us with this. Photos of spring! Look at what you can't have for another three or four months! It's like putting a photo of Sam Summer Ale in a bar when all there is to drink is Natty Ice. Bastards.

I Knew Things Were Weird This Morning!

But which way do we run?? And how do we defeat them??



Oh. Thanks.

Random Video of the Day XLVI

Thanks to Cooper for this one. It's like watching one of the three stooges in a suit with a flag pin.

Fight!

Hey, Cornellians! Guess who is fighting on professional ice?



That's right! He's been up for a few games and his first fight comes against a goon who, with this one, has racked up 200 fights.

You can watch the tale of the tape, get his reaction, and vote for who won here.

Rabbit at Rest

Back in college, the debate about the greatest American author centered around Philip Roth and John Updike, with Cormac McCarthy inexplicably left out.

I always fell on the Philip Roth side of the debate. While Updike's prose might have been more elegant, his books tended to focus almost solely on the yearnings of those who live in suburbia. Comfortable in this area of his expertise, Updike rarely ventured far away from the cozy suburbs.

Roth, on the other hand, was ambitious as hell. While Updike was content with ground rule doubles, Roth would go for the home run almost every time, missing sometimes, but often producing works like The Plot Against America or American Pastoral. These are two wildly diverging books about two very different subject that find common ground only in their author and their fate as everlasting American classics.

For this reason-- the ambition-- I always picked Roth.

But Updike is a close second (or third, if you count Cormac McCarthy), and that's not bad at all. Yes, he never ventured out of suburbia, and, when he did, it was a disaster (see Terrorist, where he tries to get into the head of a teenage half-American terrorist).

But when he wrote about suburbia, he was masterful. Updike would often forget periods existed. His sentences would sprawl, with modifier following modifier, until you got a sentence that looked something like Manet's impressionist paintings -- strangely diffuse yet clear as day.

I wish I could reprint this whole passage from Rabbit is Rich, his best book. But it is over two pages long. In this passage, "Rabbit" Angstrom is running, and at the end of two pages of magnificent imagery, Updike concludes thus:

"The meadow ends and Harry enters a tunnel, getting dark now, the needles a carpet, he makes no sound, Indians moved without sound through trees without end where a single twig snapping meant death, his legs in his fatigue cannot be exactly controlled but flail against the cushioned path like arms of a loose machine whose gears and joints have been bevelled by wear. Becky, a mere seed laid to rest, and Jill, a pale seedling held from the sun, hang in the Earth, he imagines, like stars, and beyond them there are myriads, whole races like the Cambodians, that have drifted into death. He is treading on them all, they are resilient, they are cheering him on, his lungs are burning, his heart hurts, he is a membrane removed from the hosts below, their filaments caress his ankles, he loves the earth, he will never make their mistake and die."

Ain't that amazing? "He will never make their mistake and die." Wow. The whole Rabbit series is like that, four books chronicling the life and death of an American Everyman, perfect lyrical epics that will be presented with reverence when people in two hundred years ask what life was like in the latter half of the American Century.

And it wasn't just novels. His essays were magnificent. A few months ago, I pointed to a piece about Ted Williams that Updike wrote for the New Yorker. Immortal lines like this one come every paragraph, where Updike recounts Williams' last home run:

"Like a feather caught in a vortex, Williams ran around the square of bases at the center of our beseeching screaming. He ran as he always ran out home runs -- hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were a storm of rain to get out of. He didn't tip his cap. Though we thumped, wept, and chanted 'We want Ted' for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back. Our noise for some seconds passed beyond excitement into a kind of immense open anguish, a wailing, a cry to be saved. But immortality is nontransferable. The papers said that the other players, and even the umpires on the field, begged him to come out and acknowledge us in some way, but he refused. Gods do not answer letters."

And his short stories are nothing short of amazing. Go back an re-read A&P, his classic account of a checkout clerk in a supermarket falling in love with a beauty and executing a futile and inevitable act of pure heroism. Bruce, this is how you write about love in a supermarket.

But death has come and the fountain pen is dry and the tributes are pouring in, from the NYT to the New Yorker to every other publication in America that is still trying to wrap its mind around the unfortunate reality that, except for one or two surprises, we are done getting new books from John Updike.

Workin' on a Dream

Springsteen's newest album dropped today. I have to listen to it a few more dozen times before I feel prepared to render a verdict of whether we can put it in the canon or whether we treat it like Human Touch and pretend it never happened.

There are several good songs, including the inexplicably un-nominated-for-an-Oscar "The Wrestler." "My Lucky Day" is terrific, and "A Night With the Jersey Devil" is going to be played during Halloween for hundreds of thousands of years.

The best one, however, has to be "Outlaw Pete," a sprawling western folk song in the best tradition of Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, set to an epic arrangement in the tradition of Springsteen's operatics of yore like "Backstreets" or "Jungleland." Here you can find both the lyrics and a link to a streaming audio version. If you aren't going to splurge for the album, this song is well worth the dollar on iTunes. It's going to be amazing when played live.



Philip Roth is the best author of our times (with apologies to Mr. Updike, who will receive a post shortly). A vast majority of his books are masterpieces, and a couple are merely fantastic. Still, in his immense talent, Roth occasionally put out a clunker. Roth's worst book is something called The Breast -- a "parody" of Kafka's Metamorphosis -- in which an old Jewish man wakes up one day to find himself transformed into a giant female breast. It is actually -- incredibly, really -- worse than it sounds.

Why this digression? Well, folks, Bruce went and put a song on this album that is destined to be for him what The Breast is for Roth. Marc's hatred and disdain for this song, since he illegally downloaded it two weeks ago, has reached almost religious proportions. And everyone agrees. With good reason

"Queen of the Supermarket" is a great song for people who don't speak English. As one critic put it, "At the 3:00 mark, it accidentally turns into a Meat Loaf song." Now, Meatloaf is terrific. But I see what the critic is driving at. The lyrics are terrible. So bad. I can't help but suspect that Bruce lost a bet and was forced to include this song in the album-- his version of a shaved head or a tattoo of the other team.

Congratulations, "Mary, Queen of Arkansas." You are no longer the worst Bruce Springsteen song. May you be the last song to lose its spot on that throne.

The Voo Doo Dolls

I was watching a Mexican soccer game last weekend while talking to my brother on the phone. And I noticed that the goalie for his favorite team was wearing number 125. What an odd number, I though, especially for a twenty year veteran. So I asked my brother why the guy is wearing that number.

"Oh, the bank that sponsors them is 125 years old this year, so they're making him wear #125 all year."

Two hours ago, I was convinced that Mexican soccer could not get any worse.

And then, as they say, the show has reached a new low.

Voodoo Dolls. To beat the gringos at soccer.

I know it's supposed to be a joke. But really? Where's the dignity? Chopping the feet off dolls is supposed to help us win when we haven't done so in years? The last time I chopped off a doll's foot was an Elmo that annoyed me. And it wouldn't. Stop. Laughing.

Voodoo dolls. Jee-zus.

Your Food Sucks, Richard Branson

I came across this letter to the customer service people at Virgin Airlines, addressed directly to Sir Richard Branson. It might be the funniest thing I've read in weeks. (Sic) all over the place, but here is the part where the customer describes opening the food containers:

Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat their with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about. Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this.

And there's pictures of some "food-like substances." It's terrific. I've had better food in jail.

All I've Got Is A Photograph

Credit to Cooper for finding this extraordinary collection of photos taken from last week's inauguration. They're certainly worth a scroll down photography lane. Like Cooper, I had trouble picking just one as a cover for this post. My initial reaction was to post the one of the Bidens, since Mrs. Biden, well, she's a good looking woman. But cooler heads prevailed, and I went with this one. It's like America scored a touchdown:

Quote of the Day XLIV

"[December 9] unfolded and I had a whole bunch of thoughts, of course my children, and my wife. And then I thought about Mandela, Dr. King, Ghandi, and trying to put some perspective in all of this."

-- Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich

Los Nueva York Times

It is a great day in the old country. A Mexican superhero has stepped in, put his shoulder down, and stopped dead the train that was about to squash that poor gray lady in distress that is the New York Times.

Way back when, when I was but a wee mite in college, running around in confused inebriation, I occasionally sobered up enough to help put out the daily newspaper. In a stunning lack of good judgment, the good people of the Sun had entrusted me with a position fairly high up in the ranks of middle management. Despite the high potential for disaster, we somehow succeeded in avoiding what every Sun editorial board fears most: being the first Sun board to fail to put out a newspaper on any given day.

There were some close calls. Hammer fights, two-for-one margarita specials at Chili's, and an unwarranted sense of immortality were among the things that conspired to make the feared "A Day Without a Newspaper" a reality.

Thankfully, these weren't enough to stop the machine, and we did put out a newspaper every day. Less legible and coherent on Fridays, that's true. But at least Cornell had its news.

Why this long digression? Simple. The bailout of the NYT by Carlos Slim has reminded me of another of these things that would have stopped the presses for the wrong reasons.

When I was elected, I had an ambitious project in mind. In retrospect, it was a terrible idea, and thank God for the good judgment and relative sanity of the powers that be. If not for their repeated Nos and exhortations to drink more water, my plan for the newspaper might have become a reality, and would have shuttered and destroyed a 129 year-old entity.

What I wanted to do was turn The Cornell Daily Sun into El Cornell Daily Sol.

Somewhere, Pat Buchanan just sat bold upright and screamed, "I knew it!"

In fact, I have managed to dig through my files and find parts of a speech I gave advocating for the Mexicanization of the newspaper:

We will be making some changes to the Cornell Daily Sun. Or, as it will henceforth be called, El Cornell Daily Sol. For starters, we will be switching languages.

The paper will now be entirely in Spanish. If you don’t know it, learn it. Nouns now have genders. Everything now ends with an “o”-- as in el desk-o, or la stairs-o. New Sun Style, people. Do not break these rules or I’ll have to go Castro on all your asses.

In the opinion section, we will devoting things entirely to issues having to do with Mexican culture. As you all know, latinos are dashing, romantic creatures. So we’re taking the paper in that direction. I don’t know how many of you have heard, but Doc Skorton, Cornell’s next president, will be a regular columnist starting next year. I’m thinking that it would be great if he were the next sex columnist. “Ay, si, doctor” seems to me an appropriate moniker.

Other sections have to fall in rank too. Sports. You will be overhauled. You will only follow three sports. 1. soccer. 2. bullfighting. 3. cockfighting. Start your research. Arts. Only telenovelas are to be followed. Mariachi music. If you think of a celebrity to follow, think no more of Tom Cruise, but of Bumblebee Man. This is the focus we seek.

See? I had gone completely insane. I sounded like Hugo Chavez on Percocet. The paper would have become a complete disaster, notable only for its tequila reviews and general sense of anarchy.

This is what I fear may happen to the New York Times. Mexicanizing the rest of the newspaper may create some trouble. Do we really need a sports section that focuses entirely on Eduardo Najera and Vinny Castilla? Sunday Styles dedicated solely to sarapes? And does Maureen Dowd really need another margarita?

On the other hand, this means more coverage of Salma Hayek.

Hmmm.

Viva Tequila!

Random Video of the Day XLV

Werewolf point guard, what's the call?

The Noscars

This is scandalous. The Oscars are a joke. No Batman? No Springsteen? Despite the nomination of a dude playin' a dude, disguised as another dude, who even cares about this anymore? What a sham.

I'm going to go stand in front of the Academy in a Batman suit and sing "No Surrender." Who's with me?

A Self-Evident Truth

Last night I had a really weird dream. I was in the Overlook Hotel, minding my own business. Then, next thing I know, I'm being chased by Chucky, who was brandishing a knife and cackling madly. I ran like hell down the hallways of the Overlook but could not shake him. And then, finally, when all hope seemed lost, I saw a door and I ran in and there was Halle Berry, and she kicked Chucky back to his box, and then she was pouring champagne and smiling. And that is where the camera panned to the window.

Ok. Perhaps my metaphor is a bit contrived, but it works, dammit.

There were some fun moments. Yes, Chief Justice Roberts made as awkward as a breakfast after a bad decision. Somehow, incredibly, in the true WTF moment of the day, Don King was there. And Bush the Lesser, when acknowledged by Obama in his speech, received the same tepid, quasi-sarcastic applause that had been reserved for Junior High School Vice-Principals and Abstinence Promoters given equal time at High School Health Days.

But Aretha Franklin was phenomenal. I mean, look:



And, of course, the speech itself, which I thought was phenomenal. Perhaps we've been listening too long to country-isms and inappropriate abbreviations. Bush used to call his half-Mexican nephews "Brownies." The standard was low.

But then you get a guy who can turn a phrase like no one else. Here it is, and it deserves a second, third, and umpteenth hearing.



The transcript of the speech reads almost like a poem. The sharp digs to the Bush Doctrine ("As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.") were terrific. I believe this encapsulates it:

"And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: Know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more."

And then we have this part, which is just majestic:

"In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less.

"It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame.

"Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

"For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West, endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

"For us, they fought and died in places Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

"Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction."

See what I mean? The litany just works. And it is timeless, like a good speech should be, and can be recited no matter the time, place or context and still make sense.

And the end is just. Wow. Let's leave it at that.

"So let us mark this day in remembrance of who we are and how far we have traveled.

"In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by nine campfires on the shores of an icy river.

"The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood.

"At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"'Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it.'

"America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words; with hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come; let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations."

I am fully aware that this turned more or less into a reprint of Obama's speech. But his words are so powerful that anything that I add is superfluous. All I know is, after today, we have a new, self-evident truth.

There is good reason to hope.

Na Na Na Na Hey He-ey Goodbye

From Sea to Shining Sea

What's going on? Why is everybody so happy today? Why am I high-fiving strangers?

Oh. Right. We're getting a new coach.

Happy Obama Day, everybody.

You People Are All Insane

I will get to the bus story shortly, but first I'd like to address the matter of what a Mexican thinks when he walks into a ski resort. Like I said yesterday, this is an event very much akin to walking on the moon for the first time, and getting to meet all the crazy people there. This brings me to my one recurring thought about the weekend.

You people are all insane.

Seriously. What the hell is wrong with you? The temperature gauge on top of the mountain actually read -30, and the wind was making -60 degrees. These temperatures are such that the difference between Celsius and Fahrenheit is rendered moot. And there you are, willfully getting up at the crack of dawn to go hurl yourself down a mountain onto frozen water at literally thousands of miles an hour.

You people are all insane.

At some point, Green walks in, looking like Frosty the Snowman. He takes off his astronaut helmet and goes, "This is awesome, I can't close my eyelids." Right. This isn't awesome, you whacko. You need medical attention.

In fact, everyone at the ski resort needs some sort of Valium. Skiers. Any activity that requires that much preparation, this much equipment, and that much of a hassle can't possibly be natural. I mean, astronauts don't need nearly as much preparation to get into their suits. Meanwhile, I'm sitting there in my Banana Republic overcoat and jeans, bewildered and scared, looking like Osama bin Laden in a McDonald's.

Thankfully, no one crashed into a tree, or drunkenly wandered up into the mountain, or crashed through a glass door (thanks, flying kegstands!). The ski trip, therefore, was an unqualified success.

But, like I said all weekend, and believe ever more strongly now -- you people are all insane.

Alive!

I know. There's irony in the title. This weekend involved being far too close to the Canadian border, more snow than I have ever seen, more refreshments than were probably appropriate, the introduction of something called a flying kegstand, rumors of -50 wind chills at the top of the mountain, our bus fishtailing, our bus almost falling off a bridge, sitting behind an accident for over an hour, and burning so much rubber in the snow that smoke saturated our bus, creating a near panic. I'm kind of beat. More tomorrow, including a reaction to visiting a ski lodge, which, for a Mexican, is almost like stepping on the moon.

Quote of the Day XLIII

David, here it is, my philosophy is basically this, and this is something that I live by, and I always have and I always will: Don’t ever, for any reason, do anything to anybody, for any reason, ever, no matter what, no matter where, or who, or who you are with, or where you are going, or where you’ve been. Ever. For any reason, whatsoever.

-- Michael Scott

The Cremation of Charlie McOhio

When I used to play Mario 3 way back when, I always used to hate World 6, the Ice Level. True, this level gave us hammer Mario, which was awesome, because, for once, Mario got to be one of the Hammer Brothers. This, however, was outweighed by the fact that the rest of the level sucked. Mario couldn't get any traction because there was ice everywhere, so he kept sliding into those inexplicable bottomless pits. There were frozen goombas standing around like they were on display in some sketchy grocery store's freezer. And Mario always looked so pissed off because you were always frickin' dying. And it was freezing out.

In a stunning display of poor judgment, I seem to have put these memories behind me and look to be determined to join Mario in his frozen grave. This weekend, I will be trekking up to something called Sugarloaf (this sounds like something the Pillsbury Doughboy does in the bathroom), for a law school ski trip up in sunny, scenic, frozen hellscape Maine.

And this ain't the southern part of Maine, the part that's conveniently located a couple of hours from Boston. No, we're going to get to Maine and keep driving North, until we're way the eff up near the Canadian goddamned border. We're going to be close enough that we can look over and see some asshat policeman on a horse, waving and grinning, "cold out, eh?"

And boy did we pick the right weekend to do this. Look at the weather Friday:


Minus forty? Negative fucking forty? Can you even breathe in that? Don't your lungs turn into icepacks at that temperature? Don't you start turning blue and then black and fall off in little pieces? Isn't this what happens to you?

I've never been so scared in my life.

Some people lunatics will attempt to go skiing. I will never understand the Americans' need to hurl themselves down frozen water at literally hundreds of miles an hour. I can think of nothing more absurd than standing at the top of a mountain in weather cold enough to turn penises into vaginas in order to jump down it.

So why am I going, if, as a Mexican, I'm terrified of skiing and snow and will refuse to leave the cabin all weekend?

Well, apparently the drinking is really good. So I'll be drinking, crying, and hiding from the cold. Probably not in that order, but more likely, all at once.

Actually, my one fear is that it will be so cold that nobody will want to leave their cabin. And we'll all be stuck there for hours, like in the brilliant Simpsons episode "Mountain of Madness," trying to stave off the overwhelming urge to cannibalize each other and set fire to the cabin for a precious last few seconds of warmth before we succumb to the frigid smile of old man winter.

And then, perhaps when Al Gore is vindicated and Maine is a tropical paradise, lost tourists will stumble upon a cluster of cabins out in the woods, where they will find all that is left of us: a frozen block of ice where law students, like the poor people of Pompeii, will be trapped forever in their final, dying pose, one hand throwing a frozen pong ball, the other clutching the remnants of that last, tragically unfinished beer.

Avenge me.

And That's Why You Never Trust a Crackhead

From the brilliant Jamboroo over at Deadspin:

Now, if this is the last time we end up seeing the Buzzsaw this season, it warrants mentioning before they depart that Edgerrin James pays crackheads $20 to spot him in the weight room during the offseason. It’s an old story, but really, does a story about crackheads EVER get old? From Michael Silver:

"I know it doesn't sound like much," James says jokingly, "but for crackheads, that's two hits and a solid meal."

The way the night owl James saw it, to regain the form that enabled him to lead the NFL in rushing in each of his first two seasons, 1999 and 2000, it was imperative that he work out on his own schedule, peculiar as it might have seemed. So James created Alligator Alley's answer to a 24-hour fitness center. As for his spotters and running partners, he didn't have a lot of options. "At that time of night the crackheads are the only ones awake," James says. "I'd roll down Second Street, find a dude stumbling around and say, 'Yo, come rack my weights.' Other times I'd pay one to run with me."

This man is the ballsiest man in history.

Edge: Hey, crackie! Could you stand by and make sure a rich fellow like me doesn’t get crushed by the 400 lb. barbell he’s trying to bench press?

Crackhead: What’s in it for me?

Edge: Breakfast. And more crack! A crack brunch!

There are about 800 things that can happen if you ask a crackhead to help you lift weights. One of them is not horrible. The rest involve a 25-lb. plate being implanted in your skull and your body being set on fire. Although RUNNING with a crackhead isn’t such a bad idea. All crackheads run a 2.8 forty time when blazed.

I agree. Not enough bad things happen at weight rooms that you can't make worse by getting a crackhead involved.

Quote of the Day XLII

The transcript of Marcus Schrenker's mayday communication that was obtained by The Daily Show is as brilliant as always.

Schrenker: Mayday! Mayday!
Air Traffic: Okay, Piper 250, we hear your transmission. What is the problem?
Schrenker: My plane is, um, having flying problems! With the wings!
Air Traffic: Roger. Could you be more specific?
Schrenker: Uh... I'm under attack!
Air Traffic: Okay. Who is attacking you?
Schrenker: Bees! Bzzz! Bees!
Air Traffic: Uh-huh.
Schrenker: Oh no! The door's open! The wind's getting in! Woooosh! Wooosh! And a lion! Roaaaar! And uh ... oh no! It's the ghost of Redd Fox! "I'm coming, Elizabeth!" I'm, uh, crashing! Crash!
Air Traffic: Piper 250, are you OK?
Schrenker: No. I'm badly dead. Don't investigate. Over.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Marcus Schrenker Gets Caught

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

I've Corrected the Huge Mistake

I'd like to inform all concerned parties that I am no longer enrolled in the 8:30 a.m. class with Wally Miller. Bankruptcy is an important subject. However, at this point in my life, I do not feel that I am ready to make a commitment to anything that begins before nine in the morning. Perhaps in the future I will be mature enough to embrace such an arrangement. For now, however, I will remain a lazy bastard.

That pretty much finalizes my schedule. There are, as always, hiccups.

Fleming, who will attempt to teach Marc and me the various theories of constitutional interpretation, is, in Marc's words, "the anti-Farnsworth." I liken him more to Buzz Killington. He's an incredibly nice man, but Fleming could bring Hunter S. Thompson back from the edge and lulled into submission within three minutes. If HST was not, you know, dead.

In education law, there are about 30 women, 3 gay guys, and 2 of us straight guys. It's never a good sign when the professor makes everyone go around the room and introduce themselves, saying that she wants us to say why we're in this class, "perhaps because you have a background in education, have been a teacher, or maybe have had kids who go to school now."

In Admin, in a class of about 50, I counted 29 people I know. Or, as they're soon to be known, "the people I cry with before and -- especially -- after the final." After last semester's calculator-requiring, finance-involving, spirit-breaking M&A fiasco, imagine my distress and consternation upon walking in and seeing a graph on the board.

And then, of course, criminal procedure. Or, as I like to call it, intelligence gathering about the enemy's mode of operation. It will also be a relief to be able to pinpoint the technical term for what happened to me back during the Guitar Hero incident. And, of course, the first question the professor polled us on (anonymously, at least), was whether we'd had any experience with the criminal justice system. I am happy to announce that there is more than one person who has been a defendant. Suddenly, the world does not seem so lonely.

Random Video of the Day XLIV

Don't you love it when Congress sings?

How Lowe Can You Go?

We just signed Derek Lowe, a week after losing John Smoltz.

Allow me to make an analogy.

It's like I was married to Elizabeth Hurley for 20-some years. And, true, she was old, but she could still bring it, and there are still days when she is the hottest woman on the planet. And then she goes and leaves me for Brad Pitt. And I can't really blame her.

So, in an explosion of self pity, I go out to some cougar bar in Reno and get drunk and spend way too much money buying this woman drinks, even though it's clear that she doesn't need that much to drink to put out.

Then I wake up and there's a ring on my finger and Helen Hunt is in bed next to me. And yeah, she'll do. Sometimes. And in a certain light. But my heart's not really in it, and well, Elizabeth Hurley is not coming back.

Big sigh.

Also, Smoltz in a Sox cap is just wrong. It's like seeing Jesus in a Nazi uniform.

I've Made a Huge Mistake

The hour is eight thirty. In the morning. No reasonable person should be taking class at this hour.

And yet here I am, sitting in bankruptcy, as Wally drones on and on. It’s a useful class, unfortunately, and so I’ll probably end up taking it.

But my God, I swear that, this morning, there was dew on my computer.

Man of Steal

Rickey. Hall of Famer. Also insane.

OMG R U 4 RE-L? :-o

Thanks to Marc for sending me this story about a girl who sent almost 15,000 text messages in one month.

A California father says he discovered his 13-year-old daughter sent 484 text messages per day last month -- one message every 2 minutes of every waking hour. Greg Hardesty of Silverado Canyon, Calif., told the New York Post his 440-page cell phone bill revealed his daughter Reina had sent an astonishing 14,528 text messages.

Honestly, I don't know that there's that much to say that you need to text like that. At some point, you're probably just repeating words. At some point, you're probably just repeating words.

More importantly, that cannot possibly be good for the cell phone. Nothing can weather that kind of use and keep going. Just ask Amy Winehouse. I'm surprised that the cell phone, after the 1,000 text in two days, didn't just scream, "I GIVE UP!" and spontaneously combust.

Cleaning the Fridge

These are random thoughts I had while cleaning out my kitchen:

What is that smell?

Is that supposed to look like that?

How many months ago was October?

This is worse than the time the raccoon got caught in the copier.

Man, I must really like cheese.

What is that smell?

When the heck did I buy jam?

That potato looks like Nixon. And that one looks like Frost.

Besides OJ and milk, it appears I only drink Coke, Diet Coke, Tonic, Cranberry Juice, Grenadine, and Jose Cuervo's Margarita Mix. Except they're all mostly full. In fact, it appears that I have gallons and gallons of mixers but barely any liquor left. Good for us.

What is that smell?

Ooooooh, this cheese is still good.

Nom nom nom.

I immediately regret this decision.

Things in the freezer don't expire.

Do they?

Attaaaack of the Killer Tomaaaatoes. Ataaaaaaaaack ...

What is that smell?

Those carrots look like they're going to come alive and attack any second.

Milk was a bad choice.

I have to stop watching Will Ferrell movies.

There's still beer in this.

I have more tortillas than a Mexican stereotype.

I've never seen that shade of green before.

What is that smell?

Simmons on the Springsteen Super Bowl

Bill Simmons wrote this about Bruce Springsteen performing during the Super Bowl. It's hysterical because it's true:

As a lifelong Bruce Springsteen fan, the Super Bowl ads for his performance next month never stop flooring me. Don't they know how the man is wired? He can't bang out three songs without sprinkling one autobiographical story in there, and he certainly can't just go away without returning for an encore, right? (Note to the NFL: After Bruce finishes his set, hog-tie him to one of the uprights or else he's coming back out for three more songs. Just trust me. You don't want Bruce wandering back onto the field with his guitar like Shooter in "Hoosiers" and getting bowled over by a safety.) Look, Bruce might be telling the NFL, "Don't worry, I won't tell a story. I'll just sing my three songs and get out of there." But he won't be able to do it. You watch. We're gonna get a moment like this after the second song.

"Tampa Baaaaaaaay! (Crowd cheers.) Is anyone alive tonight??? (Crowd goes crazy.) Super Bowl Forty-Threeeeeee!!! (Crowd goes crazy as Bruce turns somber.) You know, when I was growing up, the only thing my dad hated more than me was my guitar. (Crowd hushes.) He was always saying, 'Bruce, I wish you never got that danged guitar.' So one day I was playing it in my room, my dad was watching Super Bowl Three between the Jets and … uh … uh … I think it was the Colts. Big man, was it the Colts? (Clarence says, 'Yeah, boss. The Colts.') Well, turns out my dad had a ton of money on the Colts … and they lost. But I didn't care. I was just up in my room strummin' my guitar. Then Dad came upstairs, and I remember asking, "Hey, Pop, who won the game? And Dad got mad and broke my guitar over my head. He busted me up pretty bad, I needed 589 stitches to close the wound. From then on, I knew I needed to start watching football. And so I did. (Dramatic pause.) This is 'Darlington County.'"

And it's true. I can't imagine the NFL confining him to 15 minutes. They're going to need to use one of those hooks to pull him after they realize he's been playing for half an hour, and then there's going to be a riot.

Outbreak!

Thanks to Weitz for sending me this link to a map chronicling the growth of Wal-Mart. The easy thing to say is that it looks just like one of those disaster movies where they see the virus slowly spread out and consume the country. But to me, this also looks like a slide of an organism being consumed by a parasite.

The last Wal-Mart I went to was almost two years ago on the outskirts of San Antonio, near a town named (true story) Welfare, Texas. This was as a part of the infamous Three Jews and a Mexican road trip.

If my memory serves me correctly, we were at Wal-mart to return Weitz's sunglasses, which he had purchased at another Wal-Mart. The sunglasses met an untimely end when Weitz flung them across the room in disgust while pitching a hissy that was prompted by his dropping a Chick-Fil-A sandwich, which he had gotten for free with a coupon. He also did this while waiting for the car to be serviced in a Jiffy Lube, and scared the living beejesus out of a poor woman.

Random Video of the Day XLIII

Maybe you'd prefer this in the original English, but here it is anyway.

Say It Ain't So

I used this quote a couple of weeks ago, and now I have to use it again:

"It feels like somebody took my heart, and dropped it into a bucket of boiling tears. And at the same time, somebody else is hitting my soul in the crotch with a frozen sledgehammer. And then a third guy walks in and starts punching me in the grief bone. And I am crying. And nobody can hear me, because I am terribly, terribly... terribly alone."

I woke up this morning and this was the first thing I read. It looks like it's a done deal. Smoltz has been with the Braves almost as long as I've been alive, and now, because the Braves couldn't have given him an extra couple of million dollars (Since they've been so successful in giving them to anyone else), he's going to the Red Sox.

I literally feel like I was punched in the stomach. I'm going to go lie back down and stare at the ceiling for a couple of hours. Ugh.

I GOT BACK IN!

(Bells, whistles.)

I cleared customs!

(Little children wave flags.)

I made it through immigration!

(Parade. With elephants.)

Ok. Settle down everybody. I'm happy to announce that I don't need to get married yet.

(Millions of hearts break.)

But worry not, because I'll need to be married someday.

(Unbreaking of hearts.)

I am happy to be in America. I am currently in Houston, feeling triumphant, waiting for my plane to Boston, which is currently in the midst of yet another ice storm.

Thankfully, the Boston Globe has published a handy guide to the North, which should really be entitled "Surviving the Northeast for Eses," from the For Dummies Books' Southwest subsidiary.

I am off to wander the airport now, perhaps to improbably ensnare some flight attendant who looks like Catherine Zeta Jones. Back in Boston tonight. Maine Road Trip tomorrow.

No Alarms and No Surprises

This morning I will attempt to re-enter the United States of America after a two-week sabbatical.

Ideally, there will be no incidents with the fine folks over at immigration. I'd like to warn the pretty girls who read this that they might get an emergency phone call tomorrow morning by a desperate man pleading, "come marry me quick in the Houston airport." The pretty girls who don't read this ... well, I like to imagine that they'd be surprised. But honestly, after dozens of drunk midnight calls, the novelty has probably worn off.

If all goes well, I should be in Boston by 9 p.m. You've been warned.

There Goes the Neighborhood

In my brief absence from Boston, several things have happened within a block of where I live.

First, some numbnuts holds up the Starbucks next door.

Then, an entire city block, including some very good restaurants, goes up in flames. This includes El Pelon, a pretty good taco joint.

And, lastly but certainly not leastly, the liquor store, which I could see from my window and was the reason I lived where I live, has packed up shop and moved two blocks North. Granted, it only moved and is not shut down, and God knows I should at least carry a case two blocks before I set to the task of finishing it.

However, I can't help but feel a little betrayed, as if my parents had moved away while I was at camp. I mean, every time something you loved moves farther away, a little piece of you dies. What am I supposed to look at longingly on cold and lonely nights now?

The New York Times, Presented by New Coke

Not to flog a horse that, if not dead, is at this point in mortal danger of expiring. But yesterday, someone shot another bullet into the dying animal that is the newspaper.

It was not a fatal shot, but the accumulation of wounds must trouble even the most blindly optimistic of us. Moreover, this was a rather insulting shot, an embarrassing one, even, one that strikes at dignity itself.

To put it into other words, it is as if someone shot the New York Times in the balls.

Way back when, when I was college, I used to work at a newspaper, on the editorial side. And we often made fun of the business department -- also called the dark side -- for doing anything for a penny. The joke we repeated most often was that the business department would gladly sell full page ads on the front page.

Now it seems the joke is on us. It ain't a full page ad, true, but your heart has to break just a little.

Somewhere, The Sun's former business managers are doing a happy dance.

The only solace for the editorial side is that maybe, just maybe, the dark side will let us raise the thermostat one degree in celebration. Maybe we won't need to smuggle in ghetto space heaters. Maybe we'll be able to take our shirts off and not immediately regret the decision, instead waiting until the morning to regret the decision.

True, I no longer work there, but I know people who do. And I empathize with them. Now they won't have to wonder whether the beer will stay colder in the fridge or on the desk.

In any case, ads on the front page are an unfortunate trend, but we all must make compromises in order to survive. I mean, we all need steak on the table.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to report to my pimp.

Update: The End is Nigh! cry the not-so-distressed masses.

Don't Drink and Drive, You Might Spill Your Beer

It's really weird to drive again.

I mean, someone who lives in the great urban sprawl that is the northeastern United States can get away with not driving anywhere at all. I mean, you could, just like Brett Farve could throw the ball to his own teammates, but why bother? It's easier not to.

I mean, just parking in my building runs a couple hundred bucks a month. And a parking spot on the street? You get them by deed now, little pieces of property worth almost one hundred thousand dollars that are subject to repossession, liens, easements, the Rule In Shelley's Case, and all that happy stuff that we all forgot on our property final.

And then you have to deal with so many things. Repairs, for one. I remember last year, I was driving back from seeing some friends. And then, suddenly, the horn honked. For no reason. Needless to say, I was puzzled. I looked at it like one would look at a microwave oven that turned itself on completely of its own volition. Then it honked again. Pretty soon, it was honking merrily at random, like a duck having a stroke.

I'd rather not deal with the countless repairs. My car back here is a '92 Jetta, which puts it, incredibly, on the wrong side of fifteen. Back in high school, it was nicknamed the Lego, because you could easily take it apart and put it back together again. If you pulled just so, the gear shift would just come off in your hand, even while driving. I was never stupid enough to try this with the actual wheel.

And you have to deal with taxes, bipolar tax prices, and cops who can't be bribed. No, thank you. I'll stick to Planes, Trains, and, um, "Borrowed" Automobiles.

The Best of Ebert

On the interwebs I found this blog entry collecting some of Roger Ebert's best and most cutting lines from his movie reviews. And the man can write. A sample:

"Dear God is the kind of movie where you walk out repeating the title."

"That makes Hellbound: Hellraiser II an ideal movie for audiences with little taste and atrophied attention spans who want to glance at the screen occasionally and ascertain that something is still happening up there. If you fit that description, you have probably not read this far, but what the heck, we believe in full-service reviews around here."

"Eventually the secret of Those [in The Village] is revealed. To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes. It's a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It Was All a Dream. It's so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don't know the secret anymore. And then keep on rewinding, and rewinding, until we're back at the beginning, and can get up from our seats and walk backwards out of the theater and go down the up escalator and watch the money spring from the cash register into our pockets."

"Going to see Godzilla at the Palais of the Cannes Film Festival is like attending a satanic ritual in St. Peter's Basilica."

"On the first page of my notes [for Exit to Eden], I wrote "Starts slow." On the second page, I wrote "Boring." On the third page, I wrote "Endless!" On the fourth page, I wrote: "Bite-size shredded wheat, skim milk, cantaloupe, frozen peas, toilet paper, salad stuff, pick up laundry."

"The press notes [for Pootie Tang] say it comes 'from the comedy laboratory of HBO's Emmy Award-winning Chris Rock Show.'' It's like one of those lab experiments where the room smells like swamp gas and all the mice are dead."

And the best one:

"I didn't feel like a viewer during Frozen Assets. I felt like an eyewitness at a disaster. If I were more of a hero, I would spend the next couple of weeks breaking into theaters where this movie is being shown, and leading the audience to safety."

It must be nice to know your review is often more entertaining than the movie itself. There are several dozen more, so take fifteen minutes out of your life and click through. The whole thing is certainly worth a read.

The Question on Everyone's Mind

Some of you will notice that this weblog is in happy possession of a new name. It is certainly cliche to make a big change or start anew on the first day of the new year, but, dagnabbit, I'm nothing if not cliche.

The old title, while an apt description of the author of this here weblog, frankly, was not inspired enough. I always had the nagging concern that I should change it, and that a little thought and effort would render something better. I imagine this is how the folks at Saturday Night Live feel all the time.

Besides, the title could become outdated and inaccurate with frightening and easy speed. One can't really be an expat if he is enjoined from expatriating himself in the country in which he wants to be expatriated. With my legal studies halfway concluded, and no job, no wife, and no (legally recognized) child, my prospects of being an expat grow dimmer by the moment. And I didn't want to turn this into "Confessions of A Guy Standing On the Other Side of the Chainlink Fence, Sighing Wistfully."

It's been a long time coming, but today, because of what I've done during the past few years, in college, mostly, at this cliche moment, change has come to this weblog.

The new title is a timeless question, one you hope never to ask, but, once uttered, one you must always answer. Knowing the correct response is often imperative, and may or may not have a bearing on the length or severity or the inevitable prison sentence.

The beauty of the question lies in that it can be asked anywhere, of anyone, and can yield any answer. Maybe they just want a donut. Maybe everybody is covered in blood. And they Won't. Stop. Screaming. Maybe the visa expired. Maybe the Guitar Hero is a little too loud. Maybe they're here for their annuity. Maybe someone finally told them what's hidden in the closet behind the suits.

I find that I've asked myself the titular question more times than I've liked, and so it has passed from being an expression of comically unwarranted surprise and into something that is asked with resignation tempered by somewhat inappropriate annoyance.

Nevertheless, it remains an important question that begs an answer. By having this question constantly staring me in the face, reminding me to always watch my actions, reminding me that the walls have ears and the hills have eyes, reminding me, most importantly, that the police could always be just outside, I will be aided in my efforts to remain, today as always, an expat.