The Sun Office

On last week's episode of The Office, we learned that Andy Bernard was an opinion columnist at The Cornell Daily Sun. This was at Cornell.



I was also an opinion columnist for The Sun when I was in college. Additionally, for a few short months I was put in charge of the opinion section, even though I could barely read and write. Part of my job as an editor was to occasionally stop drinking so that I could hire columnists and assign them to a schedule.

I must admit that a column titled "Bernard's Regards" would earn strong consideration based solely on its outstanding command of the virtually compulsory "Use Your Name as a Pun" rule for choosing your college newspaper column's moniker.

However, assigning a daily column to anyone -- especially a freshman -- would be out of the question. This would be a colossal mistake, on par with past mistakes such as hammer fights near the new computers and installing a basketball hoop that overlooked the parking lot where cars with windshields were supposed to park.

As to the Nard Dog's decision to squander an opportunity at a Sun editorship in favor of a spot on an all-male a capella group, I can only say the following: Yes, a capella singers probably got laid more. But they are a direct cause of the inexplicable popularity of the awful show Glee, and that is an unmitigated evil that cannot be overlooked, much less forgiven. May God have mercy on your soul.

Charlie from Ohio, Esq.

I'd like to inform all concerned parties that I can now officially represent myself in court.

If you need a lawyer, feel free to give me a call. Chances are I'll refer you to a more adequate and competent lawyer. But if you could tell that lawyer to hire me, I would be very grateful.

Now that I have passed the Massachusetts bar exam, I can now append "Esquire" to my name. Reports that this was the only reason that I became a lawyer are exaggerated. I also get to begin sentences with the words, "As your attorney," which is all kinds of awesome. Turn-ons also include being called "counselor." As in, "You better take off those pants, counselor."

This is decidedly good news, but they also come with a bit of trepidation. I feel like I was just told, "Congrats! Come in!" And I'm walking into the party, and I'm adjusting my cuffs as I take a look around. And what I see sends me straight to the bar, where I order a double. No. A triple. You know what? How much for the bottle? OK, give me two.

Terrific news. I'm going to go have a scotch, right after I put on a shirt.

When a Man Loves a Wingwoman

As I stumbled through the internets today, I came across this:

http://www.hireabostonwingwoman.com/

Yes, that's a thing.

On the surface, it seems like a good idea. I have long advocated for the use of women as wingmen, notably in this post, which I excerpt now:

Once the presence of a woman who -- in the target's eyes -- finds the male attractive has validated the target's own notions of whether the male is attractive or not, the target's natural competitive instinct will kick in. The target will then proceed to actively (and, God willing, literally) fight the female wingman for the male. The male, would of course prefer to remind everyone that Sharing is Caring. Unfortunately, this is not Cinemax.

Anyone who doesn't believe women are ultracompetitive about men would do well by watching the ceremonial tossing of the bouquet at any wedding where the ratio of single women to women in a serious relationships exceeds 1:1. This is adjusted depending on the bride's age -- you subtract the single women's side of the equation by 0.1 for every year the bride is over 25. This is what is known as the "Always a Bridesmaid Rule." It is science.

So it seems that some entrepreneur has decided to take the wingwoman idea and monetize it. How does it work? Exactly as you would expect:

Our WingWomen are attractive, confident, relaxed, and sociable. When you are out in a public area with one of these women, you convey the message that this is the company you keep. Through your interaction with the WingWoman and her interaction with a lady of your interest, the social boundaries break down and this makes a smooth transition to meeting someone.

Exactly. Exactly right. You know, this isn't a terrible idea. And how much does this cost?

Our services are offered on an hourly basis at $65/hour, with a 2 hour minimum, and $30 every 1/2 hour thereafter. After providing the following information, you will be lead to a payment section, where you can specify the intended length of time you would like.

Holy crap! The more I look at this, the more this looks like your regular, run-of-the-mill "rent-a-friend" service. At this point in our culture, about the only acceptable services with hourly rates are Zipcars and dog-walkers. Maybe spas. Probably not spas.

And why would they say "length of time" in the payment section, as opposed to "amount of time?" My this-is-a-euphemism-for-something-but-I'm-not-sure-what meter is buzzing off the charts on this one.

I wonder what would happen if the night turned out to be bust. Would they offer your money back, or would they guarantee your satisfaction? And what happens if you try to pull an Al Gore with the masseuse play?

At that point, prudence might dictate that you're better off with the company of a hooker, who would naturally give you more bang for your buck.

What's my Age Again?

I walked into the Sun office last night. Besides dating myself with comments like, "We didn't have Twitter or iPhones when I was in college," nothing made me feel older than the following conversation.

Me: Do you guys still get like, a thousand CDs to review that no one wants?
Them: What?
Me: For the Arts section, don't you get free CDs sent here to review and they suck and no one wants any of them?
Them: . . . No . . .
Me: Oh.
Them: What's a CD?

Hammer Time

Usually, I enjoy procrastinating, and Halloween is no exception. Come the 31t of October, you can usually find me standing in my closet after dinner, scanning my clothes and figuring out which combination thereof would serve as an adequate costume.

Of course, I could go out and be creative and buy things and make things and fashion a good costume. But that involves a lot of work. And I don't mean to be lazy, but it's too much work to not be lazy.

And then I learned that the first Halloween would be this weekend. As in tonight, a full 9 days before the actual date. This cut my procrastinating time significantly. It was quite the pickle.

So I sat down, rubbed my chin pensively, and commenced to think. What would be a good costume?

The first idea was to go as Don Draper. This would be a terrific costume, except the materials involved in its making are already ones that I use on an everyday basis. I'm already the guy in the suit with a glass of Scotch in his hand when I go out to bars. This would only be a costume if hanging out around other people in costumes were considered a costume. I suppose I could take up smoking, except people would say, "you didn't dress up for my Halloween party and now you're smoking in my house?" Also, I'd rather not get cancer.

Similar concerns nixed Barney Stinson, costume idea number two.

Other costumes seemed played out. Everyone and their mother will dress up as Chilean miners. This is the first Halloween where the Jersey Shore has existed, so expect a lot of that. What about Lady Gaga, or someone from Glee? Please. I'd rather stay sober during Halloween.

And then it struck me. I had a difficult time thinking of someone who is awesome but does not wear a suit. A main character in an old but awesome, Emmy-award winning, terrifying musical blog.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Captain Hammer, of the excellent Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.



Superficial, in love with himself, and boasting a self-esteem that outkicks its coverage? I'm not even going to have to act. In fact, I'm going to have trouble refraining from speaking in a superhero voice for a couple of weeks, so fair warning.

It's perfect, it's easy, and I have assembled a costume that looks like it was stolen from the show. I've already recruited a Dr. Horrible, and, with a little luck, a Moist.

So fear no more, America. Captain Hammer is here.

Random Video of the Day LXXVII

I don't know if Tracy Morgan singing Scarborough Fair is the stuff of nightmares. Ask me tomorrow morning.

Hulu Confidential

Incidentally, Hulu just made available, for our pleasure, the entire run of Kitchen Confidential on its website.

This is a show that premiered five years ago and made only thirteen episodes. Of those thirteen, only four were ever broadcast.

Yet it is excellent, and remains a charter member of the great-but-canceled club. It is loosely based on Anthony Bourdain's book of the same name and stars Bradley Cooper in his pre-Hangover days, but already in full asshole-at-the-party mode. You also need to overlook the fact that the show is set in a NYC kitchen that is staffed with maybe 10 percent Mexicans. Anyone who has ever eaten in a NYC restaurant will know that the number needs to be at least 99 percent.

Regardless, I heartily recommend it.

Visitation Rights

I live roughly 3,500 miles away from my parents.

While I of course miss them, the vast distance is largely accidental. I am a big fan of the Northeast, and if you want to blame anyone for how far away that is from Central Mexico, I would point the finger at tectonic plates.

That said, the amount of time it takes to travel between Boston and Queretaro is not without its strategic advantages.

Take, as an example, my little brother. He is a resident of the state of Texas, which sits a mere 1,200 miles from our hometown. Occasionally, he will receive a phone call from my Dad's cell phone, who would him that they were out for a Sunday drive, decided why not, and now found themselves at the border, on their way to visit him, and would be arriving in a couple of hours.

Panic would naturally ensue.

Because I live so far away, I believed myself exempt from these surprise visits from the parental regime. Such a long trip would require time and planning. My parents would have no choice but to give me plenty of notice -- I imagined this would, at the very least, be a week.

Conveniently, Operation: Obliterate All Signs of Being a Twenty-Something Living in a 21st Century American City has a timetable of one week, carefully calculated by the best engineers and scientists America has to offer. It is fool-proof. A week is just enough time to mop, vacuum, dust, scrub, clean, and get rid of the bodies. Just enough.

Except when my parents call me and tell me they'll be here in a couple of days.

I received their call on Sunday. They should be here juuuuuust about any minute now.

I did what I could under the new time frame. I believe the Operation, although hastily executed, has been largely successful. Now I know that I really should have gotten rid of the bodies first, because I had to do all the other things again. I would love to double-check but I don't have time.

Unfortunately, nothing could be done about what's in the closet, behind the suits. I pray they never go in there.

If they do, avenge me.

Blogging Duty

It's no secret that computers make everything better. This is especially true if that thing is boring, like law school.

Another truism is that bloggers love to blog about boring things. In fact, the more boring the thing, the more bloggers love to blog about it in their blog. As evidence, I present every post that has preceded this one.

And what happens when you put both of the above premises together?

You got it!

Bloggers blogging about jury duty!

Can you feel the electricity in the air?

At first blush, it seems like a terrific idea. After all, the juror is more likely to pay attention in order to harvest blog fodder. If he doesn't remember a detail, looking at his blog might refresh his memory. And by not using names, specifics, or any other identifying characteristics, everyone's privacy is preserved, nobody talks about the case, and the integrity of the system is preserved, correct? All that and not being bored to tears while the state psychologist goes on and on about her post-graduate degrees and record of publications? Why, that's as terrific as sliced bread!

What could possibly go wrong?

To Professor Clark, Mr. Slutsky’s blog posts clearly “crossed the line.” Jurors are not allowed to talk to one another about the case, “much less go on the World Wide Web and discuss it with everybody,” he said.

OK. That's a fair point. We don't want to open up a message board where people fight about who goes first and whether or not the assault victim got "Pwned!" But if you actually think that jurors don't talk to one another about the case, you are only lying to yourself, you liar.

(Also, yes, that's actually the guy's name. Let's just get this over with. (Giggles for ten minutes))

However, if you actually read the posts involved in this story, you'll find that they only barely touch on the case at hand, mention no specifics, and refer almost exclusively to how boring being on a jury is. Which is absolutely true, despite what John Grisham would have you believe. So what irked off the professor?

Professor Clark pointed to one entry in particular that he said went too far. On Oct. 6, his ninth day of jury duty, Mr. Slutsky wrote about the plaintiff’s taking the stand for the second day. “It was really annoying when the witness got the same question over and over,” he wrote. “This is very annoying.” He added that much of the evidence “is not relevant to the jury’s ultimate decision of liability.”

This entry could have been especially problematic had the lawyers discovered the blog and tracked it, Professor Clark said. “If you’re an attorney and you’re reading this, you may go try to recover from that,” he said. “You may try to go back the next day to try to clear up something.”

Of course the lawyer would read a post about how annoying repetitive questioning was to everyone who hears it and would immediately make a motion to recall the witness, wait for him to come back, put him on the stand again, and ask him more questions. Because if they teach you anything in trial advocacy, it's that the more you ask the witness the same questions, the clearer his answers will be.

In judging the evidence, Mr. Slutsky may have been breaking the judge’s instructions to keep an open mind, Professor Clark said. “He’s actually kind of telling what he’s thinking, and the jury hasn’t even begun deliberating yet,” he said.

Oh, come on. Really? What do you think jurors are? Blank slates who only absorb information during the actual trial, collecting it in their subconscious, and hold off on flipping the mental switch to "Analyze" after the judge sequesters them for deliberation? You don't think they are prejudiced from the start based mostly on first impressions the instant the plaintiff and defendant show up with their body language and choice of clothes? You really think jurors don't judge every single thing during every moment of the trial where they actually pay attention? Are you actually a law professor?

“Maybe the law needs to be amended to accommodate blogs,” Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor, wrote in an e-mail. “No doubt this sort of thing happened and happens a lot on a smaller scale (juror to friend, relative over dinner), and no one learns of it.” The instructions say not to discuss the case, but do not mention writing about the case.

Of course it happens on a smaller scale. Jurors talk about the case they're on all the time. Always have, always will. Everybody knows about it, but nobody cares because 99 percent of those conversations are exactly like this:

Mike: Yeah, so I had jury duty today.
Ike: Ugh.
Mike: I know.
Ike: That sucks
Mike: I know.
Ike: At least you got to skip work.
Mike: Yeah, that was nice.
Ike: Yup.
Mike: Yup.

And of course we end on the oldest lawyer trick in the book. "The instructions only said discuss. They never said anything about writing. Duh." Hey, I know copying on the test is forbidden, but I was just making sure we both had the same answers, Ms. Krabapple! What am I, on trial here?

Transcending Transition

As I sat in my cave today, contemplating how I'm going to take over the world, I happened to glance at my Google Reader and noticed that my name was on someone else's blog post.

I stared at it for a little bit. Then I rubbed my eyes, not believing them. Then I stared at it again for a bit. Then I took out my English-Spanish dictionary and consulted it.

Yep, there it was. My name and story on someone else's blog post.

Somewhere in the distance, I could almost hear a clock start ticking on my 15 minutes of fame.

This is the aforementioned piece. Metaezra, a Cornell alumni blog, has developed this feature wherein they interview recent graduates about how they transitioned from college to the real world. And they asked me a few questions about my own transition experience.

Why me? I don't really know. While I am, in my own mind if nowhere else, devastatingly handsome, charming, and witty, they are really stretching the definitions of "recent" graduate and "real world" by picking a guy who graduated over three years ago to do something as far removed from reality as law school.

I suppose that my transition experience -- a phrase which, in a rather hideously apt way, recalls the final church scene from Lost -- is fairly interesting. You'll recall that three friends and I took a jaunt across America following college. This is, of course, the celebrated Three Jews and a Mexican Road Trip of '07, which has been extensively chronicled here.

The trip has since begot a sequel, Three Jews and a Mexican II: Three Jews and One Hundred Million Mexicans. A final chapter in the trilogy is in the works, although I am still discussing with the other producers about whether renaming it Three Lawyers and an Engineer would take the franchise in an exciting an litigious new direction.

And now, our humble little trip is the subject of an interview about cool things kids can do after completing college forces them to leave it. I could not be prouder.

Now that I'm more famous than a Chilean miner, I should warn you: Expect erratic behavior, a dalliance with Lindsay Lohan, a reality show, and a brief stay at the Betty Ford Center, not necessarily in that order. It's a Hollywood thing.

And if you need to get in touch with me, have your people call my people. Oh, and paparazzi, I'll be at Spago. I'll make sure to get a table on the patio with minimal sight line obstructions.

...

What do you mean I'm not on the list?

The Calls of the Century

Today, Joe Posnanski, perhaps the best baseball writer working today, unveiled a list of the 32 Greatest Broadcast Calls in Sports History.

It's a terrific list, extremely fun to go through, and hard to quibble with.

If you'll allow me one indulgence, however, I'm going to say that Skip Caray's call of the 7th game of the NLCS is missing. While I won't contend that it deserves to make the list over any of the other inclusions, I will say that it is hands down my favorite call.

Of course I'm biased. Even Fox News isn't this shameless.

But look at the situation. 7th and deciding game of the NLCS. Bottom of the ninth. Braves are down 2-1, but they have runners on 2nd and 3rd. However, they also have two outs and the man they're sending to the plate is Francisco Cabrera, who totaled 12 plate appearances that season on his way to a career batting average of .254. And then this happened.



For you non-Braves fans, you can also see a pre-steroids Barry Bonds fail to throw out Sid "Wheels" Bream and his fantastic mustache. There's just something for everyone there.

Statler State of Mind

Of the 161 Things to do at Cornell, I'd say that "making fun of hotelies" is a rather large oversight on the list. I'd venture a guess that people are more likely to make fun of hotelies than, say, "milk a cow."

But nothing could be more removed from reality.

With the benefit of hindsight and maturity, I'd say that hotelies had the best go of it at Cornell, bar none.

This is true especially if you subscribe to the notion that the most important part of college are the academics.

Sure, architecture is pretty essential and engineering is something nice to know if you're going to rescue 33 trapped miners. But let's leave the actually practical and useful majors and schools out of this, since they are inconvenient to my analysis.

I'd be lying if those classes at the hotel school don't sound awesome. In order to be able to take the spirits class, you had to take the beers class. And in order to take beers, you had to go through wines.

Then they have the new viticulture and enology major. Or "Introduction to Casino Operations." Or the meat class, where the final exam is in the slaughterhouse and involves butchering a newly dead cow, followed by a cook-out where you can grill the Prime Rib that you just harvested with your own, bloody hands.

These are useful classes. And they're fun. And they're complemented by less fun but probably more useful classes like Corporate Finance and Business Law.

Meanwhile, I was an English major, sitting in a dark classroom listening to Victor drone on about how Lady Mary Wroth's poems are more representative of the Elizabethan tropes of phallocentrism and temporal displacement than John Donne's sonnets. Then we'd adjourn and go to Stella's, where the women would wear turtlenecks and the men would cross their legs at the knees and everybody would make fun of Hemingway. Later, we'd go home and work on our 20-page papers about how gendering and post-capitalistic hegemony neuterized the Bronte sisters.

And I had the gall to mock hotelies.

Look, I love the liberal arts. I'm not going to sit here and say that my college education wasn't useful.

But I will sit here and say that classes like "Super Smash Brothers Melee Theory and Practice" are really, really, really useless. That's an actual class at Oberlin. If you click through to that link, you'll find equally useless classes at similar liberal arts colleges. "Philosophy and Star Trek," anyone?

The trick is blending practical education with a liberal arts education in a balanced way. Spectacular insight, right? You think it would be easy. Why can't we combine the two in a way that gives you a basic humanistic foundation upon which you can build a practical, tangible skill set?

Cornell, show me what you got.

"How about HADM 5590: Derrida and the Philosophy of Hospitality?"

Sigh.

The End of an Era

I guess it wasn't meant to be.

Much has been made of how this was Bobby Cox's last season, and with good reason. He managed the Braves for 25 years, 15 of which were the most storied in the history of the franchise. During that, he compiled the fourth most wins in baseball history. It's a tremendous career and it is very difficult to see him go. If nothing else, at least the Braves' early playoff exit will spare us all the countless Tim McCarver and Joe Buck hagiographies in which they beat the legendary man into the ground.

In the middle of the summer, the Atlanta Braves looked like a genuine World Series contender, boasting the best record in the National League. This was before Oswalt became the third head of Cerberus in Philadelphia, before Cliff Lee joined Texas, and before the Rays and the Yankees started winning every game except the ones where they played each other.

But then baseball happened. Within weeks, the Braves lost Chipper, Martin Prado, Jair Jurrjens, and Kris Medlen. All of a sudden one of the deepest benches in baseball became one of the weakest lineups in playoff history. I'll admit to crippling bouts of homerism on more occasions that is appropriate. But even I had to recognize that a team that is pinch-hitting with Diory Hernandez -- proud owner of a .424 OPS in the major leagues -- with their season on the line is a team that is going home.

The lineup was not overwhelming even with Chipper and Prado, but it was solid. Their loss, however, was devastating. Filled with hitters who are, to put it politely, not-quite-ready-for-primetime, it was only a matter of time. At least bowing out to the Giants saved the Braves from the privilege of being the first team ever to be on the wrong end of three back-to-back-to-back perfect games in the NLCS. Over the last month of the season, I can think of no better analogue for the Braves than this:



If there is one silver lining to the Braves' elimination last night, and if you will permit me a bit of a rant, it is that we will never have to endure the presence of Melky Cabrera in a Braves uniform again. At this point, I am not sure who is a more awful ballplayer, Melky or Jeff Francouer. By every statistical measure, Melky was the worst outfielder in baseball this season. He had a -1.2 WAR. You could plug in Ryan Klesko's 40-year old legs in left field and he'd do better. Melky can't run, he can't hit, he can't field, he can't throw. He's the quintessential no-tools baseball player. To those who haven't had the opportunity to watch him play baseball, I say: Picture a turd who grew legs but doesn't quite know what to do with them. Nothing could switch my mood from mild to enraged faster than a one-pitch Melky at-bat, or a routine ground ball to left field that suddenly turned into a triple. The man is an abomination, and I am actually turning cartwheels at the realization that I never have to see him befoul Turner Field again. Good riddance, and may we see you in hell before we see you in Atlanta again.

(Deep breath)

Sorry. I needed that.

There were great things about the year, don't get me wrong. Tim Hudson's comeback player of the year season. Tommy Hanson's ascendancy. Derek Lowe's late season re-birth. A bullpen that is beyond outstanding -- even with the lost of Billy Wagner, who had a final season for the ages, the emergence of Jonny Venters and Craig Kimbrel is a tremendous boon for Atlanta. Brian McCann continues to put up numbers as good as Joe Mauer's, with a fraction of the press. And, of course, Jason Heyward, who posted an OBP of over .390 at age 20, who runs the bases better than anybody I've ever seen, who will have a great season next year and a beast of a season the year afterward, the first of many in what will be a historic career. Believe the hype. It's real.

And so ends another baseball season. It's a shame that the Braves couldn't see their manager to a championship on his last tour. Still, it was a better season than anyone expected, particularly when you take the injuries into account. Nothing beats fighting for the playoff spot on the last day of the season, unless you are suffering through a division series where all the games were decided by one run. This was a memorable, unforgettable season, fielding perhaps the most exciting team since that lone World Series 15 years ago.

And now it is over. The idea of anyone but Bobby Cox in the Braves dugout is sad and bewildering. It wasn't a World Series, but at least there was playoff baseball in Atlanta once again. It was the very least that the man deserved. Thanks, Bobby.

Random Video of the Day LXXVI

Last night's Simpsons intro was one of the bleakest, most awesome things the show has done in ten years. Wait 'til you see how they seal the boxes.

The Essential Mario Vargas Llosa

Many people were complaining yesterday that Philip Roth, once again, was passed over for the Nobel Prize in Literature. And I sympathize. Believe me, I do. I'm a huge fan of Roth. I have even read The Breast -- an awful, awful, awful take on Kafka's metamorphosis where the main character finds himself turned into not a cockroach, but a giant female breast.

But The Plot Against America is excellent, as is I Married a Communist, and Roth should really win the Nobel even if the only book he ever wrote was the extraordinary American Pastoral. His Nobel is long overdue.

That said, you really ought to read Mario Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat. The follow that up with The Time of the Hero and then with The War at the End of the World. These are all epic, valuable novels. I can't think of another author who, when I finish the last page, leaves me both simultaneously stunned and wanting to set things on fire. Maybe Cormac McCarthy.

Anyway, I know Garcia Marquez and Borges usually get most of the platitudes when Latin American writers are brought into the mix. But Vargas Llosa really is an astonishing writer. Sometime soon, Roth will have his day. In the meantime, try Vargas Llosa. He won't disappoint.

Losing My Shirt

So I have this t-shirt that I really only wear to the gym. It's a Cornell Baseball t-shirt and I've had it for something like seven years now. And I really like this t-shirt. Mostly it's that it's so comfortable after seven years of use that it feels like it's made from angel feathers. I would gladly hunt angels if it meant I could wear shirts that were this comfortable. But also, there's the fit. I don't know how whoever made it cut it, but it somehow fits me snugly and makes it look like my torso is a V-shape. In reality, my torso is more of a capital I-shape, if the serifs at the top and bottom of the capital I were on some sort of steroid. But that's why I like this shirt, because it produces the illusion that I am cut.

And I know I only wear it to the gym, but sometimes there are females in the gym. And since I'm impressing nobody with my weight routine, I need the shirt to tell whichever woman looks at me some sort of story to cover up the inadequacy of the weights I use. For instance, maybe I am someone who was once, like, really in shape, but then got really sick, but it's OK, because now I'm OK and I'm back and I'm slowly getting back into it, which is why I'm using these weights instead of those huge ones. It's a story I can live with, and I feel that the shirt communicates that to people. If I wear any other kind of shirt, well, then, the truth is out there, and some people just can't handle the truth. No pun intended.

Anyway, the issue is that the shirt I am so fond of is, like I said, seven years old. And that is old for a shirt, especially when it's a shirt you take to the gym and drench with sweat. See, sweat is to shirts as asbestos is to humans. You can only be exposed to so much of it before you start decomposing. So the shirt is constantly drenched in sweat and I have to wash it all the time. But imagine that you took a person with asbestosis and then soaked him in boiling hot water and then spun him around at 1,000 RPMs. Yes, you might knock the asbestosis out of him for a little while, but that person, just like the shirt, can only take so much of that before it starts to fall apart.

So my shirt, having been beat up by sweat and the washing machine for seven years, is disintegrating. Small holes started appearing in random places, and then those holes became bigger holes, and now my shirt is kind of ripped. And most of those rips are concentrated in the chest area. Personally, I blame the chest hair. It must not be easy to be in constant friction with what is essentially my body's tropical rainforest. You know how some people who run the marathon, their nipples start to chafe? I think my chest hair has chafed my shirt.

In any case, there are holes all over my shirt and they used to be small and insignificant, so I didn't care. But now they're slightly less small and considerably less insignificant and some chest hair is starting to poke through, kind of like when you see old Mayan ruins being slowly reclaimed by vegetation. And it has quickly become a shirt that I really ought not to wear in public and I guess I really should throw it out and get myself another one. And I know it's cliche that guys hang on to their t-shirts far beyond the point of rationality, hygiene, and acceptable personal appearance, but goddamnit. I really like this shirt. It's comfortable. It fits. I refuse to throw it out.

And it's been like that for three weeks. And then today, when I put it on, I noticed something awful. One of the holes had embiggened itself to the point where -- you guessed it -- certain angles gave you a view of my right nipple. And that's just not going to cut it. While I occasionally take off my shirt in public, I only do that by request. People aren't going to get a free show just because the quantity of my shirt has declined to the point where its effectiveness is compromised. That and it's all or nothing. You don't get a sneak peek, or a teaser preview, or an excerpt of the first three chapters of the novel. With me, you get the Full Monty.

So that's where we stand now. I hate to say goodbye to this shirt, but its time has come. If I could put it on a boat and set the boat on fire, I would do that for this shirt. If I could find a small piece of iceberg, I'd gently place the shirt on it and then push the little piece of ice out to sea. If I could shoot it out of a cannon, I would. The shirt has served me well and I feel like it deserves some sort of rousing send-off.

In the end, I guess, I'm just going to take off the shirt -- of course I'm wearing the shirt now -- and throw it in the trashcan and never see it again. And then I really should put on another shirt, but the trashcan is over here and the dresser is over there and between them I have a couch.

So farewell, good shirt. Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. Whatever heaven there is for shirts, I'm sure you'll be there soon.

Random Video of the Day LXXV

Kermit is often used in music videos because he is perfect for lip-synching. For example, we have the LCD Soundsystem video, as well as his cover of of NIN's "Hurt," which Johnny Cash later would awesomely cover himself. (Warning: don't click on the Kermit cover unless you want to see Kermit do unspeakable things to Rowlf).

Anyway, both of those Kermit videos pale in comparison to this, where Kermit covers both David Bowie and Freddy Mercury's "Under Pressure." It is almost too awesome for words.

Don't Bring Your Guns to Town

I don't know about you, but I feel like we haven't had any stupid ideas in a while. America, hit me with your best shot.

NASHVILLE —Happy-hour beers were going for $5 at Past Perfect, a cavernous bar just off this city’s strip of honky-tonks and tourist shops when Adam Ringenberg walked in with a loaded 9-millimeter pistol in the front pocket of his gray slacks.

Honky-tonks? Guns? Gray slacks? I like where this is going, America. Bring it.

Also, beers are $5 now in Nashville? Yeesh. Nobody tell New York, or we'll have a new home for the $10 Bud Light.

Mr. Ringenberg, a technology consultant, is one of the state’s nearly 300,000 handgun permit holders who have recently seen their rights greatly expanded by a new law — one of the nation’s first — that allows them to carry loaded firearms into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.

I knew you could do it, America! Of all the stupid ideas, "We should allow guns in bars" has to be in the Top 5, right between "Sure, we'll take the group discount for the champagne room" and "Let's poke that bear with this stick."

“If someone’s sticking a gun in my face, I’m not relying on their charity to keep me alive,” said Mr. Ringenberg, 30, who said he carries the gun for personal protection when he is not at work.

OH SNAP. How long do you think Mr. Ringebenberg, technology consultant by day, gunslinger by night, has been waiting to unleash that line? It sounds like he's auditioning to write the next Vin Diesel movie. I'll bet you $100 that the Lone Ranger there immediately turned to the only woman in that bar and flashed her a grin.

Gun rights advocates like Mr. Ringenberg may applaud the new law, but many customers, waiters and restaurateurs here are dismayed by the decision.

“That’s not cool in my book,” Art Andersen, 44, said as he nursed a Coors Light at Sam’s Sports Bar and Grill near Vanderbilt University. “It opens the door to trouble. It’s giving you the right to be Wyatt Earp.”

The right to be Wyatt Earp, as most constitutional law scholars know, is derived from an amalgam of the First, Second, Ninth, and Twenty-First Amendments, and is located somewhere between the penumbra of the right to bear arms and the emanations of the right to get drunk.

Tennessee is one of four states, along with Arizona, Georgia and Virginia, that recently enacted laws explicitly allowing loaded guns in bars. (Eighteen other states allow weapons in restaurants that serve alcohol.) The new measures in Tennessee and the three other states come after two landmark Supreme Court rulings that citizens have an individual right — not just in connection with a well-regulated militia — to keep a loaded handgun for home defense.

Before they opened season on brown people, I would have said that one of these states was not like the others. What happened, Arizona? How did we go from Luis Gonzalez beating Rivera and ASU co'eds to Derek Anderson and whatever the heck has happened to John McCain?

Experts say these laws represent the latest wave in the country’s gun debate, as the gun lobby seeks, state by state, to expand the realm of guns in everyday life.

Experts also characterized the immigration laws as the latest wave in the country's immigration debate, as the obviousness lobby seeks, statement by statement, to expand the role of Duh in everyday life.

The rulings, which overturned handgun bans in Washington and Chicago, have strengthened the stance of gun rights advocates nationwide. More than 250 lawsuits now challenge various gun laws, and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, a Republican, called for guns to be made legal on campuses after a shooting last week at the University of Texas, Austin, arguing that armed bystanders might have stopped the gunman.

Armed bystanders might have also shot each other in the ensuing panic. Do we actually need to argue about this? It's like saying that we could have stopped that kid from throwing a ball inside the classroom by giving balls to every other kid there.

The new laws have also brought to light the status of 20 other states — New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts among them — that do not address the question, appearing by default to allow those with permits to carry guns into establishments that serve alcohol, according to the Legal Community Against Violence, a nonprofit group that promotes gun control and tracks state gun laws.

Default is just a fancy word for "unintended consequences." Are we really going to let guns be regulated under the same principle that sent Homer Simpson to space?

“A lot of states for a long time have not felt the need to say you could or couldn’t do it,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “There weren’t as many conceal-carry permits out there, so it wasn’t really an issue.” Now, he said, “the attitude from the gun lobby is that they should be able to take their guns wherever they want. In the last year, they’re starting to move toward needing no permit at all.”

Look. I don't mind guns for the most part. I think that, on occasion, they are a terrific idea, just because you never know. For example:

Imagine, if you will, that a zombie apocalypse breaks out. Now, you could either be that zombie's brunch, or you can retrieve your snub-nosed .45 from your conveniently stashed hiding place, tear through this country on a motorcycle, and hook up with Emma Stone at an amusement park in California where the electricity, somehow, is still on.

Within two minutes of the zombie apocalypse, that gun will be your best friend.

You just never know.

State Representative Curry Todd, a Republican who first introduced the guns-in-bars bill here, said that carrying a gun inside a tavern was never the law’s primary intention. Rather, he said, the law lets people defend themselves while walking to and from restaurants.

If the primary intention is to let people defend themselves as they walk to the restaurant, then why don't we just make them check their guns at the saloon door? That way, nobody brings a gun into a place where the primary intentions of the patrons are to get drunk, get the girl, and get into a fight. And gunfights are kept out on the streets, where they belong.

“Folks were being robbed, assaulted — it was becoming an issue of personal safety,” said Mr. Todd, who added that the National Rifle Association had aided his legislative efforts. “The police aren’t going to be able to protect you. They’re going to be checking out the crime scene after you and your family’s been shot or injured or assaulted or raped.”

Of course the NRA is giving money to this asshole, who really ought to be the keynote speaker at the Rally to Keep Fear Alive. I have a pretty vivid imagination, but I have a really difficult time picturing the circumstances under which your family was about to get raped at the local sports bar.

Also, way to undermine the police and turn them from crimestoppers to crime scene investigators. I bet you, Mr. Todd, that if you asked any policeman, they would tell you that guns make injuring, assaulting, raping, and, especially, shooting people a lot easier.

Under Tennessee’s new law, gun permit holders are not supposed to drink alcohol while carrying their weapons. Mr. Ringenberg washed down his steak sandwich with a Coke.

The good news? You can bring your gun to the bar! The bad news? You can't drink at the bar.

Have you ever been to a bar when you can't have a drink? Why would you even do that? I know. I know! But, imagine you're on antibiotics or whatever and can't have a drink and still go out to a bar. It's super boring and awkward. You never know what to do with your hands when that happens. So you'll get bored and fidgety and, when you finally reach that point where it's obvious to everyone that you are just pretending to text someone, you'll bring out your gun, because, again, there's nothing to do with your hands. And then Romeo behind you, who is trying to grind up on some girl who's really not into it, will get pushed back when his hand strays just a bit too far to the south. And he'll stumble backwards and his elbow will bump your elbow and . . . Yo, Nick, there's something on your shirt . . . Yo, Nick . . . Yo, Nick, you ok? . . . OHMYGOD SOMEONE JUST SHOT NICK. There is a shooter in this bar. Thank God all the people in this bar have guns.

EVERYONE START SHOOTING UNTIL WHOEVER WAS SHOOTING STOPS.

Back in October

Somehow, despite a rash of late-season injuries that gave us a lineup today that included only two opening day starters, despite nearly collapsing in the last weekend of the season, despite almost giving up a 6-run lead with 4 outs to go, giving me a near embolism in the process, and, most importantly, despite trotting out Melky "I might actually be worse than Jeff Francouer" Cabrera on an everyday basis, the Braves did this today:


BACK IN THE PLAYOFFS WHODAMAN.

In Bobby Cox's last season, the Braves are once again in the playoffs, after way too many years where my only rooting interest was whoever played the Yankees or Phillies.

Yes, we made it as the wild card, but there is no shame in that. Right, Charlie?



I will now be a complete and total nervous wreck for anywhere from a week to (do I dare dream?) a month. God hope it's the latter, but whatever it is, approach with caution.

Boston T Party

It seems modernity has finally arrived in Beantown!

Boston, long known for its aversion to common sense and practicality, boasts the nation's crappiest oldest subway system. The subway has been running in Boston since 1897. It was reluctantly updated in 1898, and remains the only functioning museum/essential-means-of-transportation in the country.

But today is a new day! Today, the fine folks over at the MBTA unveiled the latest in new technology -- a way for people to know where the trains are on the tracks!

The MBTA is to release real-time data today telling riders where subway trains are located and how long it will take for the next train to arrive.

This replaces the old TTHS (Tracking Through Hobos System), where hobos would be left to ramble inside the tunnels. Their cut-off scream of pain would be evaluated by people waiting at the stations, who would then guesstimate how far away the train was when it flattened the unfortunate vagabond.

We can put a man on the moon. We can put a human brain inside a mouse's head. We can literally infect an entire country with syphilis.

But we have no way of knowing where the trains are on a closed, six-mile track?

I, for one, am happy at this new advent in technology, and look forward to knowing whether I have time to go get a donut or if have to run down the stairs tossing old women and small children out of my way.

Because you know how the T is. If you miss the D train, you have to wait through a B, C, C, C, B, B, E, C, B, and E before you get another D. The tracking system won't change that, of course, but it'll be neat to see four Cs in a row stopped somewhere between Boylston and Arlington.

Wait. What?

For the subway data, the T had to find a way to convert underground train positions, as determined by electric signals on the tracks, into a similar data format that software developers could harness. Because the Green Line lacks the same tracking system, it was not included.

It's going to be another few years before the green line gets this technology? Isn't this the same line which, for over half its route, is outside and visible to the naked eye? You're telling me you can't track that one?

Screw this. Where can I buy a car?

Random Video of the Day LXXIV

Barney Stinson singing soul music? Barney Stinson singing soul music.