Are You Smarter Than an Eighth Grader?

Before law school beat the living snot out of me, I considered myself a pretty excellent student. My report cards throughout K-12 were almost exclusively populated by A's. The random B occasionally made an appearance. And once, during a sunny February in the 9th grade, I got a once-in-a-lifetime C. This was because -- and, yes, really, I am not kidding -- I made the worst pinata in the class.

Somehow, I always grasped enough arithmetic, spelling, history, biology, and whathaveyou to sail through tests. I remembered the facts, wrote them down on a piece of paper, and happily reaped an avalanche of A's and a reputation as a know-it-all.

Of course, 90 percent of that knowledge now lies forgotten somewhere deep in the caverns of my memory. I once knew what ribosomes were supposed to do in a cell. Or how alkanes and alkenes were different from each other. Or how to solve a equations both quadratic and with three or more variables. But now, those facts only ring the faintest of bells -- those reserved for things you used to know but now you don't.

But then my world came crashing down.

I recently saw this reprint of an exam given to eighth graders in 1895. It is one of the most difficult things I have ever seen. If I got this exam today I would just stare at it, turn in an mostly blank page, and then go out and sit on the stairs and cry.

Two mitigating factors exist. Kind of.

1. While I am aware that I have mostly forgotten a lot of this information, I can't help but feel that I have never even heard of half the things they ask. It is never good when a word makes its debut in your vocabulary during a test. And it is especially bad when the question is something like, define a Trigraph.

2. Back in 1895, only the best and brightest made it to the 8th grade. Making it there was like receiving a Rhodes Scholarship today. Every other kid in America was either prepping the fields for harvest or functioning as a canary in a coal mine.

So those make me feel a little bit better. Not a lot. But enough that I don't want to cry and run to the teacher for an extra credit assignment. Still, look at this. Let me show you some of the questions in case you didn't click through to the full test. The questions are in bold letters, my answers in italics, and my thinking in non-bold, non-italic font.

1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.

Proper Nouns. That's one. Beginning of a sentence. Two. Acronyms. That's three, right there. Names of Movies. Four. Initials. That's five! I might make it! If you're German, to begin every Noun. Six. EMPHASIS. Seven! Pretending you're YELLING at someone in an email. Eight! Letter Grades. And nine! That last one was an easy one, all I had to do was picture the F I'm going to get.

2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?

Wait. What? A bushel of wheat is a standard unit of measurement? Surely not. This must be a trick question.

One bushel of wheat that is the size of that box.

(Smiles Proudly).

4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?

I understood about half the words in that sentence. It was also my understanding that there would be no math. If you, however, would like me to tell you how many years passed between the end of Chevy Chase's run on Saturday Night Live and the beginning of Tracy Morgan's, I can do that kind of arithmetic. Maybe.

10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.

This is a bar exam question. As such, I refuse to answer it until such time when I actually want to become a barrister. Thank you for understanding.

5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.

All I know about Kansas is that, when I play that game where I'm supposed to name all 50 states, I only get to 49, and Kansas doesn't come to me until the middle of the night three days after that.

Dorothy wants to go to there.

1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic orthography, etymology, syllabication?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u'.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: Card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.

(Stares in horror. Considers faking a seizure. Considers writing a desperate apology. Consider making an excuse like, "I was home sick with the plague," in order to explain away why I've never even seen these words before. Considers running away and joining the circus. Slowly lowers head to arms and weeps.)

9. Use the following correctly in sentences, Cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.

OK. Here's my shot. If I use all of those words in just one super-mega-awesome sentence, maybe I can get extra credit. Here goes:

As the rays of the west sped out of sight behind me, in a sunset dash of color that bled out like an emptying vein, it was in vain that I considered whether to feign razing the weather vane, right after Jebediah, citing the old prophesy, had raised it on the site where the old fane used to be, asking us all, "What in tarnation does 'fain' mean?"

WHODAMAN! Maybe I can pull this off! If I can get the next one, I'm golden!

7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.

Crap!

Good Lord. What a spectacular failure. Thank God the Bar Exam was easier than this. Otherwise, I'd be stuck making pinatas.

Wiki Leakage

Now that everybody in the U.S. State Department is screaming and turning cartwheels over the Wikileaks, I'd like to come in with my 26-years of wisdom and knowledge to offer some perspective.

(Adjusts tie)

Look. We all understand why you're upset. Nobody likes to have their skidmarked underwear flapping proudly in the breeze. And while the unmasking of sources and diplomats in a way that endangers them is a legitimate concern, let's remember the following: If there's anyone in the world who loves to listen to others who think they're speaking privately, it's the U.S. government.

Also, the feds would do well to heed its own aphorism, which I believe was that, "If you've done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about." And then they put on the plastic gloves, but we'll ignore that.

Here's the thing. I've gone through a lot of these leaked documents (yay, underemployment) and there's nothing blindingly awful in them. If they unearthed a memo about how to bomb Canada (and we know that there's a memo like that somewhere), we might have legitimate cause for concern.

But most of these are badly kept secrets. Trading Guantanamo prisoners for Obama visits? Saying that Israel and Iran have considered bombing the crap out of each other? That those super advanced bombs aren't actually from Yemen? That things in North Korea are really, really odd and we have no idea who's head rooster up there? That Sarkozy is thin-skinned? That Berlusconi is vain? That the two are, obviously, boys?

All old news. If these leaks did anything is that they exposed the undiplomatic side of diplomats. They showed how things get done in the international arena. They confirmed what we all already knew -- that international politics functions in much the same way as a high school cafeteria.

And this is a cafeteria where the slam book just got distributed to all the slamees. If you read the leaked memos, they're mostly gossip. It's what US Weekly would look like if they suddenly refocused their efforts on scoping out obscure African dignitaries. (And I know others came up with this analogy first, but I swear I came up with this incredibly obvious analogy independently).

Reading these is almost like what it would be like if you became privy to all the gchats and emails that were sent during 1L year, where everybody is talking about who is hot and who is crazy and who is hot and crazy and who they would and would not sleep with and who slept with who and who would never sleep with who and who should sleep with who and who should never sleep with who because, honestly, that would be an absolute disaster.

And to the extent where the wikileaks discuss policy and strategy, it is also mentioned on such a broad and general level as to defeat any concerns.

To go back to the 1L classroom gchat analogy, it's basically like reading the following IM:

yo, im going to go to the bathroom and when i do im going to walk past Regina and when i do im going to pretend to trip and on my way down im going to grab her boobs to catch myself lolz

Bad? Yes. The opposite of classy? Of course. Absolutely transparent? No doubt.

Like the bouncer said, it is what it is. This is what happens and everyone who pretends otherwise is living in a fantasy world of unicorns and rainbow cake. It's embarrassing to have everything out there, to be sure. But, please, everybody, drop the self-righteous outrage and stop calling the leaked gossip "worse than a military attack" by "a foreign terrorist organization."

Sooner or later, Medvedev will get over the fact that someone called him the Robin to Putin's Batman and will go back to drafting nuclear treaties that our Congress will conveniently ignore. And everyone will follow suit.

Like the wise man who will be missed said:

"The truth hurts. Maybe not as much as jumping on a bicycle with a seat missing, but it hurts."

Elbows Off the President

I don't know about you, but if I made the President of the United States bleed his own blood, I'd be absolutely terrified.

Obama took an elbow to the face this weekend during a "friendly" basketball game. This provoked massive bleeding, and required no less than a dozen stitches to fix.

While I am a firm advocate of the "No blood, no foul," rule, I have to admit it has its limits. And one of those limits should absolutely be when you're playing the leader of the free world.

For one, now our enemies know that Obama can bleed. Ergo, he is human. While the sight of his blood must no doubt disappoint those in the religious right who were sure he was the Antichrist --from whose wounds only a dark ichor can flow -- what this means for national security is a disaster. If Brobama can bleed, then we can fall. A massive vulnerability has been exposed.

Second, I'd be terrified because I'd be forever marked as the man who made the president bleed. Remember in elementary school, when the guy who took down the bully instantly became the top dog? And then others would circle the wagons, eager to take him down and assume the position of King Kong of Badass Mountain?

Well, this guy took down a president. Because of the unassailable logic of the transitive property, taking down the man who took down the president has become the most coveted act of the holiday season. Now everywhere he goes, anyone with a working elbow and delusions of grandeur will stalk him, eager for the opportunity to strike hard to the face and watch him fall.

And we all know what will happen next. That person will become marked, and the tango will begin again. And someone will take him down, and then someone else will take that person down, and so on and so on ad infinitum until every alpha male in America has enjoyed their fleeting reign as the Deadliest Elbow this side of the Potomac.

So now we face dual threats, both from outside and within our borders. It is the beginning of the end, and all because someone refused to be the Washington Generals to the Executive Globetrotters.

Random Video of the Day LXXX

My brother made this commercial, coming soon to a television near you. The best part of it is the kid, who looks like Jonathan Lipnicki on crack.

Your Test is Wrong

A buddy of mine will be taking the GREs in the near future. As part of his training, he has to endure practice questions during his study. While doing so, he came across the following gem, which he kindly passed on:

4. LAWYER : COURTROOM ::

a. participant : team
b. commuter : train
c. gladiator : arena
d. senator : caucus
e. patient : ward

Of course, my first instinct was to go with E. Remember that ward is just a nice way of saying loony bin. If there is anything in the world that accurately describes our legal system, it is the image of crazy people flapping their arms and squawking endlessly inside a nuthouse.

Unfortunately, I would have been wrong. The correct answer, I was informed, is actually C. This means that the makers of the GRE, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that there is a more sound logical leap from lawyer to gladiator than there is from lawyer to schizo.

To even group someone like me in the same category as someone who killed tigers with a spiked mace is to spit in the face of reason, logic, and the power of human observation. My analogizing of the end of college to a dead girlfriend was infinitely less tortured than what the testmakers are asking you to do here.

If I came across this question in the GRE and was told that Lionel Hutz has more in common with Maximus than he does with Charlie Kelly, I would immediately leap from my chair and raise hell until someone at the GRE Board was relieved of their duties.

Some would say that I picked the right profession. I would say that I have just proved my point.

The Oprahcalypse

At the gym, we have a limited selection of channels -- basically the networks and PBS.

So I was at the gym this afternoon and Family Feud ended, which is fine, because that show lost all its dignity and gravitas upon the departure of J. Peterman.

And then another show came on. And I swear that, when I saw what was happening on the screen (there is no sound, just closed captioning), I thought that it was a news report about how a joint convention of spastics and epileptics was crashed by a supervillain who forced them to watch Japanese anime until they all collapsed in a twitching, screaming heap.

Of course that couldn't be it. And then I saw her and it all made sense.

Oprah's favorite things show.

Dear Sweet Lord in Heaven. All these women were crying and shrieking and fainting and waving their hands and jumping up and down and generally carrying on like ... well ... nothing I've ever seen before.

In fact, let me present a list that I like to call "Groups of people who can handle their shit better than the Oprah audience." Presented in descending order of keeping it together-ness.

1. Nerds when they see George Lucas

2. Followers of Steve Jobs.

3. Twi-hards and Gleeks and whatever the followers of Bieber call themselves.

4. Children when Barney walks into a party.

5. Children whose $250M-net worth dad dies on a non-estate tax year.

6. Baseball bloggers when a 13-12 pitcher deservedly wins the Cy Young.

7. Beatle-mania.

8. Drunks when the pizza guy shows up.

9. People at a bachelor party when the stripper shows up.

10. Drunks at a bachelor party when the stripper shows up with pizza.

And yes, I know Oprah's favorite things overreaction spectacular has been spoofed before, but it's difficult to make a parody when you're underselling the original.

Update: Holy crap, someone made a tumblr. This is going to replace the whale in my nightmares.

Furious Birds

It is kind of disconcerting that what is, by far, the most popular and addicting game for the iPhone involves shooting what are, in essence, suicide bombers at buildings in order to make them collapse so that everyone in them is killed.

I'm talking, of course, about Angry Birds, a simple game where you launch birds from slingshots in order to defeat the evil pigs who have stolen the birds' eggs.

It is that stupid and frighteningly addicting -- I have recently "unlocked" the Angry Birds Addict "achievement," on account of having played this game for more than 15 hours. The fact that I have played this game for that amount of time is more than a little sad. I mean, even watching TV is more productive. Unless, of course, you're watching Glee.

But, in that time, I have managed to get three stars in every level, which requires a modicum of dexterity and dedication to a single cause. I am strangely proud of this achievement even though I recognize that my bragging rights are commensurate with those of someone who is pretty good at tic-tac-toe.

Of course, I am most bewildered by the random feelings that crop up when I'm playing the game. I can spend hours (yes, hours) trying to get that damned third star in a particularly frustrating level. And when I finally get it, I pump my fist and yell and would absolutely chest bump someone if I didn't live alone. And, frankly, this reaction kind of makes sense. Now that there's no one to play beer pong with, Angry Birds has become the only outlet for competitive achievement in the field of "sports."

That might be the saddest thing ever written on this blog.

Except it might be topped by this one -- when I fail to kill all the pigs, and they break into their hideous, smirking, leering smiles, I feel a level of rage and revulsion that used to be reserved only for the Urkels and Napoleon Dynamites of the world. I find myself wishing to visit an inordinate and irrational amount of violence on what are, at heart, nothing more than pixels in a video game made for cellular phones. I feel angrier than the actual angry birds. The fact that I can feel this much hate concerns me. Maybe I need to go for a run or something.

Now that I've managed to make you all concerned for my mental well-being, I finally get to the point of this post, which is to post this video. It's called "Angry Birds Peace Treaty," and it is terrific.

Say what?

Random Video of the Day LXXIX

I often want to set Jimmy Fallon on fire. However, on his show yesterday, "Neil Young" and 70's Bruce Springsteen covered "Whip my Hair." And that's all kinds of awesome.

Steve Jobs Truffle

I'll never forget where I was the day I could finally, finally, listen to The Beatles on my computer.

Perhaps the best part of this is I can finally stop using my Discman, which was, until today, the only way to have "A Day in the Life" be a portable song that goes where I go. And it's about time too -- those spongy black things around the earbuds on the headphones were really starting to chafe.

Best of all, now that I don't have to use my old cassette tapes, I can easily skip "Revolution #9" without wearing myself out on the Fast Forward button.

And it's a real nice "screw you" to lawyers and their 30-year lawsuits. Lawyers, as always, ruin everything.

So thank you, thank you, thank you, Steve Jobs, for making it possible for me to finally hear "Hey Jude," the way it was meant to be heard -- coming out of my computer speakers.

Na na nara na naaaa.

Yawn of a New Age

Ten years ago, I was in high school. Being in high school often involves sitting for long periods of time and pretending to listen to somebody tell you things that you really don't care about. Remember the Golgi Apparatus? Or Cosines? Alkenes? No? Exactly.

Couple this with 7 a.m. start times, and it is no wonder half of us spent half our time trying to not fall asleep. The other half was spent asleep. Or at least, trying to stay asleep.

See, there was one kid in the class who enjoyed to mess with other people. He'd sit there and not bother anyone. But then he'd see someone start to fall asleep. As soon as he saw someone start nodding off, he'd mark them. They'd have his undivided attention. And he'd wait, like a velociraptor stalking his prey. And the person would keep nodding off, until, finally, he actually went to sleep. As soon as that happened -- and I mean, immediately -- the kid would be up in a flash and quietly walk up to the sleeper. And then he would grab the guy by the shoulders, shake him violently, and scream in his face, "WATCH OUT, YOU'RE FALLING ASLEEP!"

It was very entertaining.

The teachers, of course, condoned and even encouraged his behavior. It's understandable. Have you ever put someone to sleep? It's a sad realization when you think, Boy, I love what I'm talking about but I just bored the ever-sleeping crap out of him.

On the other hand, these are teachers. I feel like the first thing they teach you in Teacher School is that, no matter how fascinating you find mitochondria, students will be bored and yawn and fall asleep. It's science.

Of course, some professors handle this science better than others. Witness this epic meltdown in Cornell's Hotel School:

"YAWN OUTSIDE!"

Yeah, it's a little rude, but come on. Lock it up, brother. You're a grown man. Comport yourself accordingly.

Of course, if this had been Dr. Maas's class, he would have used the student as an example and centered his lecture around him. And then he would have propositioned his T.A.'s. But that's a story for another day.

Captain Jetes and the Unholy Uproar

I have been asked to comment on the Derek Jeter winning a Gold Glove fiasco of yesterday. Of course, it is an atrocious choice. I have not been this fake outraged about something since Shakespeare in Love somehow beat out Saving Private Ryan for the Best Picture Oscar in 1998.

Look, the Gold Gloves are as legitimate as the Grammy Awards. If Homer Simpson can win a Grammy, then so can you. Anyone who follows baseball knows that Jeter is not an adequate shortstop -- he only had six errors because he could only get to about six ground balls -- and our minds won't change no matter how many Gold Gloves they throw at him.

The choice of Derek Jeter is indefensible. When I heard about it, I thought people were messing with me. Enough so that I had to check Baseball Reference, which published the full list with no additional comment except for an addendum right after Jeter's name stating (we can't believe it either). As someone else mentioned, there'd be less of an uproar if Jeter had won the Nobel Peace Prize.

I think Ken Tremendous, as usual, nailed it when he tweeted, "Oh, he shouldn’t be paid $25 million a year to play shortstop? Tell that to the GOLD GLOVE HE JUST WON!” Of course he's just being facetious, but that's how some people argue. Fortunately, those people have just gotten fired from ESPN. Eventually, they'll all be extinct, and we can all stop angrily tweeting about them.

The final word should, as usual, go to Joe Posnanski, who wrote his usual thoughtful and original comment about The Jeter Question. If you were a Yankee, would you trade Jeter for Hanley Ramirez? Read through the whole article. The end will blow your mind, guaranteed. It won't blow your mind as much as Jeter winning the Gold Glove, but close.

Fired Joe Morgan

Ring them bells!

Yesterday, the powers that be finally fired Joe Morgan and by doing so finally stopped his constant assault on progress and reason. This was tremendous news for baseball fans who like to watch baseball on Sunday nights without being subject to statements like, "I'd rather him have hit a double there, rather than a home run, because home runs kill rallies." Or this absolute abortion of an argument:

People are saying (Felix) Hernandez should win (the Cy Young award). I'm not saying he shouldn't. But how are you going to judge what he would have done if he was on the Yankees. It's tougher to pitch for the Yankees and win or the Twins than it is Seattle. All individual awards are team awards. My MVP awards were won because my team helped me. … I think the problem I have, though, with some statistics is we start to individualize the players. I don't want that. It's still a team game. ... When you start to individualize things like that, it takes away the team concept from the game.

Mr. Morgan, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul. (Emphasis mine).

Now, with Morgan gone and Dibble -- Oh my God, Rob Dibble -- banished, I hope the fine folks over at FJM reconvene to rid the world of the third Cerberus head, in a new incarnation of their blog named "Fire TimMcCarver."

Although, I have to say, I will miss Jon Miller and this, the greatest call of the worst play ever.

It was a Pleasure to Burn

I had a grand vision. Imagine, if you will, a newly harvested wheatfield. Only a handful of scattered grains remain, tossed about by the November wind. In the middle of this field, like an altar in the heart of the world, there is a circle of stones. All around it, dozens of people drink and dance, occasionally spitting mouthfuls of alcohol in the circle. At some predetermined point, everyone stops what they're doing. They reach into their pocket and each produces a matchbook. They light one match the conventional way. Then they take the match and use it to set the rest of the matchbook on fire. And then, at the same time, everyone softly tosses the incandescent torch into the circle. All of them land on the alcohol-soaked pile of papers, which instantly erupts into flames. And everyone, young and old alike, cheers and applauds and thrusts their fist in the air, as the "BarBri" logo on the green covers of those papers slowly disappears into the onslaught.

For months I had this vision. It sustained me on sunny June days, when the world was at play, ignoring me and my classmates as we sank under notecards and waited for the guy on the video screen to finish his awful joke so we could fill in the damn blanks.

In a way, my study arrangement was rather poetic. I kept my BarBri books on my windowsill, where they did a rather admirable job of serving as sandbags and pillories, shielding me from the world outside. When I sighed and looked out my window, there they were, thousands of pages strong, dozens of books deep, blocking my view, reminding me that I had to get through them if I ever wanted to join the people frolicking on the part outside.

So these books became the symbol of impotence and frustration. They represented the worst of that bleakest of summers. And what got me through the day was that initial vision. The image of that world to come when, after receiving our results and confirmation that we would indeed never have cause to use those books again, we would all congregate on a field and set them all on the fire that would return them to the hell from whence they came.

Given these unrestrained and borderline crazy romantic notions, by now you imagine that I would be back, missing hair on my knuckles and smelling like a bonfire, towing along happiness and a citation from the city of Boston for setting things on fire without a permit.

However, someone informed me that, in this summer's itemized list of the thousands of dollars of expenses that are required in order to turn children into lawyers, one of them is actually a deposit. Although the money we spent on classes and filing fees is gone forever, we can actually get some of it back. Provided, of course, that we return to BarBri the only tangible objects from that summer -- the books.

And it is here that we find ourselves. On the one hand, the soothing balm of catharsis via fire. On the other, money. Only one can remain.

But which one?

Sometimes You Eat the Bar

Chaos on the East Coast today, as the New York Board of Bar Examiners first released, then retracted, then re-released with a retraction, the results for the New York Bar exam of July 2010.

The internet first erupted sometime in the early afternoon, as anxiety-riddled, recent law graduates first caught the hint of something in the wind. That something was the work of a presumably now discharged person in charge of the NY Bar Exam website, who accidentally published to a live internet the results of the July examination.

Since the internet is where things go to become immortal, this was all it took. Despite unpublishing the list within the hour, people took screenshots of the lists and posted them to legal blogs, which promptly crashed under the weight of the collective neuroses of over 3,000 people.

Of course, no one would certify that this was the list. GChat exploded as thousands of confused and frightened neurotics asked each other the pertinent question: Is this the pass list? Is this the list of all the people who took the test? Or, worst of all, IS THIS THE FAIL LIST?

Analysis of the list quickly proved fruitless. Although it had been drilled to law students that virtually everyone passed the bar exam (with 2 or 3 exceptions in a class of 300), lawyers lead the league in worrying about shit they don't need to worry about, and most everybody was still worried sick. Seeing everyone they knew on the list should have confirmed what everyone, deep down, knew but could not grow to accept: Of course we all passed the goddamned bar exam.

And how would we know if someone was not on the list? Asking that question would be like stepping into a school bus and saying, raise your hand if you're not here. And then saying, alright, everybody is here. Let's go.

And then, of course, like a screener that is leaked to the internet before the movie is scheduled to premiere, the Bar Examiners decided to hell with it and released the official list. And a mighty sigh trembled across the land, as newly-minted lawyers raced to update their Facebook statuses in order to hoard well wishes and congratulations.

I myself was part of the chaos, and was glad to be able to break the happy news to a couple of people. I almost felt like I was calling them to inform them that they had just won the Nobel Prize, except instead of a million dollars and applause from the King of Sweden, you get condemned to a lifetime of ulcers and agita.

All cynicism aside, I, like many of you, was a ghost for the entire summer and am more than happy to see the fruit of my efforts rewarded. Although my elbow still occasionally clicks from writing all those notecards, I have finally arrived at the culmination of 20 years of formal education. We are now, and will always be, attorneys-at-law.

. . .

"Blessing or Curse" for $300, Alex.

Random Video of the Day LXXVIII

Say 'what' again. Say 'what' again, I dare you, I double dare you, motherfucker, say 'what' one more goddamn time!

Someone please do a mashup of these.

The Little Giants

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the San Francisco Giants the least objectionable team in three years to win the World Series. I would also like to express my gratitude to both the Giants and the Rangers for knocking out both the Phillies and the Yankees, thus freeing me from the burden of praying for a meteor.

The Giants are a likable team, and I feel happy for their fans. If I have any regrets, it's that the Red Sox didn't make the Series to play against them. This would have undoubtedly fed the machine that is Red Sox Nation more hubris than anyone ever thought possible, let alone advisable. However, this would have been worth it, if only for the image of Tim Lincecum leaving a Fenway Park start and being ambushed by Ben Affleck and his town buddies on his way to the clubhouse. Then this would have happened.

Missed opportunities.

The Zombie Menace

On occasion, I have the following imaginary conversation with God:

Me: Hey, God. What up?
God: Hey, I have a proposition for you.
Me: Yeah?
God: Yeah. Here's the deal. 99.6% of the world's population -- including your friends and family -- will be dead.
Me: Oh. That kind of sucks.
God: Well, maybe dead is the wrong word. Dead-ish. In short, it'll be a zombie apocalypse.
Me: Oh, AWESOME.
God: I knew you'd like that. Here's your Ruger.
Me: Cooooool.

I have to admit that I wouldn't be too bummed out if the unthinkable happened and some Arrowhead Project created a virus that caused a zombie apocalypse. To escape the drudgery of cardio workouts, I usually picture myself on a motorcycle with a shotgun strung across my back, weaving in and out of ruined American roads on my way to the North Carolina coast, where I hear some of their islands have become safe havens for survivors.

I then ignore the voice (which some call reason) that says, "Bro, you don't know how to ride a motorcycle, you'd probably shoot yourself in the foot, and if zombies can swim -- because, let's face it, why couldn't they? -- you and all your friends on those islands are effed."

So I ignore that voice, as is my wont, and continue to imagine myself scavenging for food in an abandoned roadside diner. As I find pancake mix that my sense of smell tells me is still OK, I try to remember how the heck you make pancakes. Then I hear a noise. I think it's a zombie, but when I try to shoot, I find that the safety is on. Cursing, I switch it off, but then I see that it is not a zombie, but a hot chick who kind of looks like Blake Lively. She was here scavenging first, but hid because she heard me coming and doesn't have a gun. I say something to the effect of, I'm glad I didn't shoot you because I don't know how to make pancakes. And then she laughs and says something like, good, because I do. And then she holds up a bag of chocolate chips. Score.

Hey, laugh at the huge nerd all you want, but if given the choice between that and 40 years of reviewing purchase and sales agreements, everyone would choose the zombies. And Blake Lively. And the chocolate chip pancakes.

Sigh.

But that, as they say, is why we have fiction. There's the excellent Dawn of the Dead remake, Shaun of the Dead, and Danny Boyle's gorgeous 28 Days Later, where the zombies can actually sprint. Max Brooks' World War Z remains the best zombie novel ever. It is also the only good zombie novel ever, but it is incredibly enjoyable, and what happens to North Korea still haunts me to this day. Heck, even Community did an awesome zombie episode, with the great line by Troy: "OK, I been bit, I been bit y'all. Stop. Congratulations, you did what zombies do." And, of course, Zombieland, with what is perhaps the best cameo of all time.

Even with all of that, I cannot understate how good last night's outstanding premiere episode of AMC's The Walking Dead was. Sure, there's all sorts of awesome zombie action, but nearly every scene in the episode was spot on (mild spoilers), from the very opening scene in the gas station to Lennie James going upstairs to try and take care of something to that lush, beautiful scene in the park to the part where Rick Grimes rides into Atlanta on a deserted inbound lane next to abandoned cars leaving the city and all you can hear is the clip-clopping of the horse's hooves. The production values are incredible, and it gets extra double excellent points for incorporating Frank "I made The Shawshank Redemption" Darabont as the show-runner. I know zombies ain't for everybody, but there's so much more going on here. Trust me and give it a try.