A Brief Holiday

By the by, I am in Mexico right now, enjoying doing little but eating, and lying out in the sun reading all day. This blog should resume normal business hours in the New Year, provided, of course, that immigration authorities allow me a safe and speedy returns to the American Land.

Happy Christmas, Merry Hanukkah, or Enjoyable Non-denominational-holiday-festivity-of-your-choosing.

The Phour Horsemen

Last night, I had a nightmare that Cliff Lee signed with the Phillies. And he and Oswalt and Hamels and Halladay turned into manbearpigs and chased me down and then my shotgun jammed and they stood there laughing and dismembering me and when I woke up I wiped my hand across my forehead and thanked God it was only a dream.

And then I turned on the internets. And my top stopped spinning.

So there you have it. The Philadelphia Phillies have assembled what they like to call the Phantastic Phour, but should more properly be referred to as the Phour Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Next year, the Braves get to face them through the course of 19 head-to-head matchups. Yes, of course on occasion we'll draw whatever piece of flotsam they toss in to complete the rotation, but even the 2 or 3 games we have against this fifth Beatle will not be enough to counteract the absolute maelstrom that will be battling through their pitching staff.

On paper this team looks like it has a chance to win 120 games. Heck, the Phillies could throw out an outfield of Francouer, Melky, and the present-day Canseco and they'd still win the division by at least 15 games.

But let's not anoint them as champs just yet. The '97 Braves fielded a rotation where Denny Neagle had the worst ERA+ that year, which should be expected, but it was 144, which should not. The '98 Braves had 5 members of their rotation with at least 15 wins each. If you're keeping count, that's all of them. That rotation averaged a 144 ERA+. These are absurd, historical numbers. And, sadly, they weren't enough to win the Series.

That was three hall-of-famers in their absolute prime. The Phillies' starters are terrific, yes. But half of them aren't in their prime and the other half are not hall-of-famers.

Also, this is baseball. Sometimes you run into blind men like Eric Gregg, who misread the rules and thought the strike zone covered the plate and both batters' boxes. Or you run into a lightning-in-a-bottle team like the Giants. You just never know.

Don't get me wrong. The Phillies had an outstanding rotation yesterday. And then they went and signed the best free agent pitcher in the game. Without understating the metaphor in the slightest bit, imagine that Hitler had somehow gotten his hands on a nuclear weapon. This is exactly like that. It's really bad news for everybody else in baseball.

But this is baseball. That's why we play the games. And we shall never surrender.

(Storms the beach at Penn's Landing).

Bad News Bears

Long before Stephen Colbert took up the cause on his show, I have maintained that bears are the biggest threat mankind has ever faced. For years I have been running around America, shaking people and screaming in their face until they listen to my warnings. I hate to be quite so pushy about the whole thing, but unless we stop the bears now, it will be too late.

Make no mistakes, bears are vile, evil creatures who will stop at nothing until they have eaten both you and your family alive. Bears, as a group, would like nothing more than to dine on each and every single one of us. Black bears, grizzly bears, brown bears, care bears, it doesn't matter what kind of bear. They want to see us burn. On a spit. And then served with a delicate but tasty garnish.

Sure, they may seem cute and cuddly. To that end, they have co-opted our popular culture and masquerade as children's guardians. Smokey the Bear, the Berenstain Bears, Winnie the Pooh and that asshole Teddy Ruxpin will smile and pretend to be cute and cuddly and then in the sark of night would generously season those children with salt and pepper and then toss them in the oven.

Their plan is the utter destruction of the human race, and for that they should all be destroyed.

If we are lucky and quick of mind, however, we may be able to trick them into destroying themselves. Witness the following clip, which I affectionally call "The Assassination of Yogi Bear by the Coward Booboo Bear."

I cannot wait for this movie to come out. Maybe then the endless commercials will stop. But if nothing else, it was all worth it for the cut scene right before the credits roll in the above clip. That's just priceless.

Meanwhile, stay safe, keep vigilant, and remember, Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you.

Now, if you'll excuse, I must return to my screenplay for the Snakes on a Plane sequel. It's called Bears on a Boat, and it will scare the living crap out of you.

Random Video of the Day LXXXII

For those of you who go around singing "Let it Snow" and "White Christmas" and otherwise subscribe to the notion that snow is an essential part of any winter wonderland and upon seeing that first snowflake of the season immediately run outside and jump up and down and start making snow angles, I present Exhibit A in the case of Charlie v. Snow.



SNOW KILLED THE METRODOME.

To see that video and continue to deny that snow is an evil substance that should be shunned, reviled, and abhorred is irrational. It flies in the face of logic, reason, and the powers of human observation. Snow is bad. It is more that bad. Snow is the worst.

Somehow, it hasn't snowed in Boston yet. But rest assured, dear reader, that upon the first snowfall of the season, I will be out there, with a hair dryer and a portable generator, doing my best to destroy the snow before the snow destroys us.

Awesome like Ron Swanson

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness.

It's refreshing to know that Ron F---ing Swanson and I share many of the same values. "Body Grooming: Only women shave below the neck." "Stillness: Don't waste energy moving unless it's absolutely necessary." And, of course, "Rage: One rage every three months is permitted. Try not to hurt anyone who doesn't deserve it."

Out to Lunch

You know what we haven't seen lately? Law students wildly overreacting. Let's try and find one; it shouldn't be difficult.

Bingo!

A note appeared at a BU Law bulletin board setting forth the following terms (sic):

"To the asshole who stole my food this Friday ... Go to hell! ... You will die soon! ... When you eating food you will get choked and die immediately! When you sleeping, you will get burned and die immediately!"

Because it is law school, it seems that stealing someone's food is grounds for homicide. This is, of course, an excellent example of an overreaction.

Perhaps it is fitting that this occurred at the school that gave us the textbook definition of overreaction, where a student government election led to the bloodiest comment war Facebook has ever seen, the defriending of dozens, and a self-imposed exile.

So it should be no surprise that this has happened here.

The note shows a marginal command of the English language, a poor grasp of syntax, and an inexplicable aversion to complete sentences. This, of course, means the author is an LLM. So we shouldn't be surprised that he doesn't realize that the fridges get cleaned out on Fridays. On the other hand, we should really commend him for assimilating that part of U.S. Culture that thinks that all problems should be solved via the leaving of anonymous notes.

But to be fair, I can understand this guy's pain. His lunch got taken. This means he now has to go to the abominable GSU, fight his way through the hordes of freshman who just stay in one place and spin around in slow circles, and wait twenty minutes so the only place that's open will give him the wrong sandwich. If I'm already stuck in the law tower, which is awful, and have to go to the GSU, which is worse, because of a thief, I'd be pretty upset too.

And look, I shouldn't really be the one to talk. If you try to steal one of my fries, I will pin your hand to the table using my fork. I'm trying to picture what I would do if you tried to steal my whole lunch, but all I can see is a red haze.

So I understand. Unless it is funny, violence is not cool. But you mess with a man's food, you deal with the consequences. To paraphrase the immortal words of Chris Rock, I'm not saying he should have left the note, but I understand.

Bonfire of the Legalties

Today I returned my Barbri books to the hell from whence they came.

If you'll remember, I had a brief existential crisis about whether I should return the books to regain a significant deposit or if I should instead burn them all in one wonderful moment of catharsis.

Sadly, the part of me that enjoys going "let's throw this hatchet into that tree" lost out to the part of me that went to law school and is now blind to every consideration that isn't money.

So the books went back and, for once, I have more money in my wallet now than I had before the weekend. Because my hoard of Scotch is dwindling (I'm down to only two bottles) I'm confident that this was the right choice.

And I am also heartened by the following. Check this out:

Those are my notes from the summer. An entire goddamned box of notecards and outlines and sadness.

Those I can't return.

But they sure look flammable to me.

So if you, like me, have procrastinated and find yourself with a collection of those fun, fun papers we spent all summer poring over, maybe you'd like to join me. I'll get the lighter fluid. You bring the beer. We bring the noise. And we laugh and laugh and laugh.

and laugh.

And yes, I am entirely serious.

Sunday Links

Just a bit of light, Sunday night reading.

First off, the Boston Globe today had a terrific piece on the pending lawsuits between The Upper Crust and the illegal immigrants who claim to have been exploited by the chain. It is an excellent piece of investigative reporting, detailed and thorough. I wish it also gave us a clearer picture of the pizzeria's side of the story -- but that task is impossible, given a defendant's understandable desire to keep the record quiet in face of impending litigation. Regardless, this piece raises many significant questions, if only for the detail that an entire Brazilian town was conscripted to work at a single restaurant chain.

I know I make a lot of fun of the New York Times on this blog, particularly for their "lifestyle" pieces where they try to create a trend where there isn't one. But every once in a while, they come through with something like the following piece on Laptopistan, exposing the subculture of people who spend all day in a coffee shop working alone. These people always struck me as a bit of a paradox, and the article does a great job explaining how they are wired. It's very nicely written ("Throughout the week I will see only a handful of PCs, each looking sadly out of place, like they have arrived at a black-tie affair in a corduroy blazer."), and certainly worth a read.

Lastly, the excellent Chuck Klosterman piece from the NYT on zombies. I love it when an author I enjoy writes about stuff I enjoy. That in itself is a decent enough hook, but the piece is also great. The premise? "A lot of modern life is exactly like slaughtering zombies." His point, largely, is that in our everyday lives we encounter dozens of "wars of attrition," where, no matter what we do, the hits just keep on coming. Think of the never-ending battle to keep a clean inbox. Zombies, he argues, are just like that. "As long we keep deleting whatever’s directly in front of us, we survive. We live to eliminate the zombies of tomorrow. We are able to remain human, at least for the time being. Our enemy is relentless and colossal, but also uncreative and stupid. Battling zombies is like battling anything ... or everything."

Random Video of the Day LXXXI

Watch this. Trust me. And then we'll discuss.



Have you watched it? Good.

In modern times, it seems the sixth circle of Hell is populated by the likes of Carlton, Costanza, and the Hulk. Along with a vaguely recognizable cast of thousands of members of the F-list, they lip synch (poorly) to "Let it Be." And why? To appear on a Norweigan television show.

I wish I was making it up. But there you have it. Heck, they even convinced the surviving member of Milli Vanilli to lip synch. Milli Vanilli! Remember how that ended up? Yeesh.

God bless the internets.

Joga Corropto

For those of you keeping track, the next few World Cups will be held in a rainforest, the tundra, and a desert.

In fact, a friend of mine came up with a fairly accurate visual representation of this phenomenon.

I was unaware that FIFA was tasked with assisting NASA in the search of places that can plausibly support life. Since we now know that there are organic entities that can subsist on arsenic, it's worth exploring whether exposure to high heat will allow for the survival of creatures subsisting of petro-dollar kickbacks and benzene.

For the record, the temperature in Qatar in July averages 115 degrees.

Also for the record, if you picked up the bustling hamlet of Elmira, New York thousands of miles east (or west, because at that distance it doesn't really matter) and set it down outside Doha, it would immediately become the third largest city in Qatar.

Look, I'm all for FIFA spreading the love and trying to jam its product into every unoccupied cranny of the world. I get it. Diversify and expand and whatnot.

But that's like saying, Hey, we've been drinking in the East Village way too long. Let's have our next bar crawl up in Spanish Harlem. It's dangerous, inconvenient, far away, and God knows if there are bars up there, but what the hell! Wild Card, bitches! Yee-hawwww!

That would never happen. Except here, Qatar -- playing above by Spanish Harlem -- has billions of dollars and enough know-how to misdirect the Corruption Police. Or, as he otherwise does business, the notary public of Zurich.

The good news is, in 2022, we'll all probably be dead. And if we're not, then I'll be pushing 40 and married with children, so I'll only be dead inside.

Lots of stuff to look forward to!

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

In light of the most recent editorial by The Cornell Daily Sun, it seems like this push to establish a pub on Cornell's campus is actually a legitimate movement, and not just some crazy person's delusions at an assembly meeting.

For years, I have been that crazy person. Seeing others take up the cause is enabling encouraging indeed.

My idea for a campus pub was born on an icy, snowy day in late April of 2006. For reasons unknown, campus maintenance constantly declined to salt Ho Plaza, otherwise known as the busiest pedestrian area on campus. Thus, every trip from the libraries to points South -- which included the food in Willard Straight and the drinks in Collegetown -- became an exercise in becoming involuntarily airborne en route to eating it.

As I was sitting on the ice that day, rubbing my bruised ass, I thought to myself, "Boy, I need a drink." And then, as it happened every time, I heard the siren call of Rulloff's, beckoning with its $2.50 XX and $5 pitchers of Rock specials.

So I would look South, to Collegetown, and resolve to get up and go get a drink forthwith. Unfortunately, this meant walking in Ithaca. And between me and the sweet release of alcohol lay hundreds of feet of treacherous icy tundra.

For a moment, I contemplated the idea of a flask. I quickly dismissed that notion, as having constant access to whiskey would be act of final submission to alcoholism.

And then it hit me, like a ton of pumpkins dropped from the clocktower.

A campus pub!

Why on Earth did I have to walk to Collegetown to get a drink? I should be able to get a drink right here! After all, this is America, where I can always get what I want!

Campus options were meager. Sure, there was the Statler Hotel, but that was expensive. And the two cheaper options -- Helen Newman and the Big Red Barn -- were fraught with the two creatures upperclassmen dread the most: freshmen and graduate students.

And so was born this vision. A pub, on campus, entirely for us, the greeks and near-greeks that frequented Olin and Uris libraries. Something of a cross between Rulloff's and Olin cafe, located within easy shouting distance of the Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches at the Ivy Room.

(Don Draper voice)

Picture this, if you will.

Two students are sitting at a library, studying, poring over dozens of notecards and page after page of handwritten notes. The boy sighs. He has had it. That's enough. He slams his book shut, and looks up at the girl. She returns his gaze and nods. They get up and throw on their coats and walk towards the door. When they walk outside, they walk slowly, savoring the crisp air. But then you see them, ever so subtly, speed up. And they start walking faster. And then they reach Willard Straight and walk down a hall and then down a flight of stairs and they throw the door open. And that's where we stop following them. We see them walk into a pub. The two advance towards the bar, stopping every few feet to greet a friend and shake their hand. And then, just before the door closes on us, leaving us in darkness, someone shouts something indistinct, general laughter fills the room, and the last thing we hear is the clinking of glass on glass.

It's perfect. It's simple. It's timeless. And it's on campus.

On that day, I swore to myself that I would not rest until my dream of an actual campus pub became a reality. I told myself that, when I finally win the lottery and become a millionaire, my first substantial bequest to Cornell will not be earmarked towards financial aid or cancer research or any such other useful endeavor.

No, my gift will go towards a more noble effort. A pub on campus, open every day, ladies free from 7-9. A pub where, when you order 6 shots, you get 1 free, so you can make a new friend. A pub where the kitchen staff occasionally surprises a table with a tray of appetizers, because why not. A pub where the 100th person to walk in every night after 9 gets a bracelet, and they get to drink on the house all night.

A place where any person can find libation in their break from study.

A wonderful place.

A magical place.

A campus pub.