Animals need love, too

If you hadn't heard, I volunteer at the local animal shelter. Something to do, gets me out of the house, etc, etc.

That handsome devil at left is named Foster, and he is the current champion of reaching through the bars and scratching your nose if you are not paying attention when you read his chart. He's a big, athletic cat, and he's got exceptional reach.

I don't know much about animal care. Just the basics. I know a lot about sweeping, mopping, and doing laundry, which, as it happens, is a big part of volunteering at the local shelter. One drawback to doing the laundry is the unpleasant smell. There's really no way around it. The cats make some mess, but the smelliest animals of all (aside from the baby ducks- who knew?) are the puppies. They weedle everywhere. And weedle stinks like I can't even tell you. Puppies are cute but overrated. Even kittens use the litterbox. Score one for the the cats.

Some other shelter points of interest:
- you get to play with cats, dogs and kittens but they don't wreck shop in your house. puppies, not so much. they're fun for a few seconds but they lose interest. kittens and dogs are a lot more fun. cats are hit or miss. it's their nature.

- unlimited pussy jokes when you're working with the cats. not my taste in humor, but some of my friends think it's hilarious. they also loooooove dick jokes.

- you can go to the shelter when it's closed to the general public and feed the goat (they let him out of his pen and give him the run of the grassy areas on closed days)

- random animals come in for care, like tortoises, a pigeon (why?), guinea pigs, turtles, 3 potbellied pigs (friends w/ the goat), cockatiels, and rabbits. i'm waiting for when they bring a wounded hawk in and they feed him the rabbits. (this is not a popular view around the shelter, but I'm pumped for it)

- I'm a huge hit with the girls at the shelter, and by "girls" i mean "grandmothers". and there are many. if they were only 3 or 4 decades younger...

that's it for now. please have all your pets spayed or neutered. i mean it. and adopt from a shelter. ;)

Brady, welcome to camp!

Ahh, Brady Quinn ended his holdout. That's big news if you care about Browns football. That doesn't describe me in any way, so let's move on.

The graphic comes courtesy Kissing Suzy Kolber (the original) and then the genius 289 at withleather made a brilliant modification. I added the (redundant) "To Douchebaggery" text. Because Quinn, who I don't know and will never meet, seems like a douchebag. I hate to be a judgmental dick about it, but there it is.

And lastly, for the Steelers fans: Steely McBeam? Your new mascot is named Steely McBeam? Was Chest Rockwell already taken? for f's sake.

when your commitment to nerd knows no bounds...

tattoos are just skin pictures. unless it's a (the?) bluescreen of death windows crash message.

i feel like this is a bit much.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/28/man-gets-bsod-message-tattooed-on-his-arm/


and check this link for the guy that got not one, but two tattoos related to the zune music player. guess there's not much going on in his life, either.

he needs a blog.

i am a very lucky idiot

recovery from the impressive (though relatively harmless) crash continues. rumor has it i would be an internet sensation already if I had captured it on video. a ha.

here's how it went down:
speeding around a corner to keep up with my friends (who had slowed - as it happens, a wise choice), i hit a patch of sandy rocks.

turning the wheel has no effect. brakes had no effect. tried to get the rear end to spin around. that didn't work. i'm in trouble, and I've got 3 options (as shown in my brilliant diagram):
1. Make the turn
2. run into the end of a wooden fence, and very probably break myself or the bike. or both.
3. Careen into the drainage ditch.

Bike goes w/ option 2. I take option 3: launch off bike, front flip over handlebars, land in ditch/bushes. instead of disaster, i've got only some scrapes and bruises. i missed the fence entirely, and the bushes helped cushion my fall. I traded some scratches for a hard landing. it was worth it. I also had a helmet and gloves on, so that helped. and i'm an idiot. which did not help.

love you.

Jim Harbaugh tells truth, is insulted

ahh, it didn't take any time at all to find something awesome. I barely know who Jim Harbaugh is. Apparently he played football at Michigan. And, as crazy as it might sound, the academic program for the athletes there was/is not very rigorous. According to si.com:

Harbaugh in May told the San Francisco Examiner that Michigan admitted athletes who were borderline academically, then steered them into less-challenging courses to keep them eligible.

Can you imagine such a thing? How could he even suggest it? The current Michigan coach called his comments "elitist" and "arrogant". I didn't go to Michigan, so I didn't know that "elitist" meant the same thing as "true", and "arrogant" also means "accurate".

The Stanford AD said that there will be no more comments from Harbaugh. That'll teach him.

it's been a crazy, busy week

They're cracking down over at the Fremulon offices, so I haven't had a chance to do any blog posting. I'm important. It happens.

But I'm back now and lots has happened. Bill Walsh died, and that wasn't funny. He was a cerebral, intelligent football coach, some say the first of that type. I think that's overstating things a little, but there's no doubt he was a smart guy, with a fair eye for talent, and a master motivator. He wasn't one to let emotion cloud his judgement, as when he let Joe Montana leave for the Kansas City Chiefs. (That was a turning point in my sport fandom, when I realized that rooting for a particular team was what Seinfeld called "cheering for laundry, one jersey over another.")

In any case, Bill Walsh knew he had another pretty good quarterback that was ready to enter the prime of his career. Thus Steve Young began winning football games for the 49ers. Voila, or, as i've seen it spelled recently "wa-la!"

More posts soon. I went mountain bike riding and crashed. No harm done, but i did a front flip over the handlebars into a ditch. And Barry Bonds should hit his record-breaking home run soon, which will prompt much hand-wringing and self-righteous blather from the scribes, which I will then lampoon in my inimitable style. Get excited. and maybe something about what an idiot Dick Vitale is, just for kicks.
thanks for reading.


ps. i suck at guitar. a lot. so I will post about that, too.

if you ain't cheatin, you ain't tryin'

ahh, the magic of sport. On the one hand, you've got guys like Barry Bonds. He probably took steroids. I don't much care. It wasn't against the rules when he did it, and there's a long and inglorious history of cheating in baseball. You can say Aaron didn't use illegal drugs, but you have to admit that he may have been popping greenies like tic tacs. So what?

And then there's cycling. lordy lordy lordy. Cyclists are the East German swim team from 1976. I have a friend in France (oui!) that rides with some amateur cyclists on the weekends. He told me a couple years ago that even the amateur riders, the weekend warriors riding for club teams, have to deal with doping at every competition. He says it's just the done thing; if you're not enhancing w/ drugs, you're not going to even compete. I confess that I doubted him then, but not now.

The rider in the photo above (from Joel Saget/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; please don't send me litigious correspondence) was the race leader until he got booted for skipping scheduled drug tests before the race started. How did he get through almost the whole race without someone noticing that he had been booted from his own national team for suspicion of using drugs? That's the kind of oversight you only expect from the federal government.

cellphone service: inferior / advertisements: superior

maybe you caught the new sprint ad campaign on television. They leave the shutters on their camera open for extended periods, and draw with lights to create shapes, scenes, etc. I liked it. It's a lot better than the Verizon guy. Can you hear me now? What about now? aaaaaaaand, now?

also good: the new Harry Potter book.

I keep promising something funny but I don't deliver. You're used to it already.
I'm working on it.

brief update

i've been busy. I did some cultural anthropology over at Starz (friend's bachelor party), volunteered at the local animal shelter, and watched the MLS all-star game / Beckham promotional extravaganza. Here's what I learned:

• new language. My favorite phrase from my night out w/ the guys was "he was hard on 'em". the phrase refers to a guy being good with the girls, without remorse. As an example, my friend told the following story (roughly verbatim): That Sean, he was hard on 'em. One time, we were living together, and I was trying to get with this girl, taking her out, you know? But behind my back, Sean was hitting it. When I talked to him about it he said, "hey, when your game is tight, it's tight." Hard on 'em.
  
• animal shelter training is fun. (really)
  
• The MLS all-star game was a long promotional tool for David Beckham. A first-tier star in a third-tier league, the nauseating announcers could not stop talking about him. remember, he's on the sidelines in a suit, but the following exchanges were common:
  [during a free kick] "This is the kind of situation that David Beckham loves." [shot of him in the stands, looking bored]
  [after a cross into box] "That's the kind of thing we can expect to see from Beckham when he makes his GALAXY DEBUT" -their emphasis, not mine [shot of Beckham in stands, staring at nothing]
  There's 22 guys working on the field, and announcers are fellating a player in the stands. thanks, guys. great work.
  
• steal a car and don't succeed? steal it again.
  

funny is back monday. sexy never left.

posh spice media whore tracker: update

If you haven't heard, there's new competition for the biggest non-event in American sports. The new contenders are:

1. The ESPYs
2. "Who's now?" on ESPN (an exercise in bloviating self-promotion on par with the espys)
3. The Beckham's arrival in LA.
   

I refuse to post any more pictures of that unsmiling dragon-headed media slut that is David Beckham's wife, but I can tell you that a google search for "posh spice media whore" now returns 103,000 hits. Good work, Posh. Talent will out, eh?

I'm sure the press will eat it up until they actually start playing some games. Then the national prostate tickle that is the media machine will run out of steam, and we can get back to watching baseball. And by "watching baseball" I mean waiting for the premier league to start.

ps. In a recent SI article, Landon Donovan was concerned about the disparity in player salaries, says that it would be nice if Becks came into the locker room and splashed some of his money around. Second-highest paid player on the team? Landon Donovan, at $900k/year. jackass. The same article describes donovan as the US team's best player. That's all you need to know about how much the US sucks at soccer. When your best player is Lando, you're not winning a damn thing. Hey, what's the record for the LA Galaxy, anyway? 12th in a 13 team league? Cool.

The countdown is on: 9 days to Beckham

The arrival of David Beckham in the US is a Big Deal. There are ad campaigns, and then there are ad campaigns cleverly disguised as magazine covers.

You can read all about what I think of Beckham and his impact on MLS here and also here. Short version: he won't have much impact on the crummy quality of play in MLS, and who cares if you "raise awareness" for a shitty product? It's still shit.

My latest point of interest is the storyboard from the advertising agency that is creating another ad campaign to announce His arrival. (See full storyboard on Slate.) They are contrasting how sad Madrid is (the Real half, not the Atletico half) about Beckham leaving, and how ABSOLUTELY PUMPED the Galaxy fans are.

They show an empty and "lifeless" Bernabeu stadium, and an "energetic and lively" Home Depot Center. That's funny because the Bernabeu averages 72,000 screaming, singing crazies during home games. The Galaxy averages a league-leading 22,500. I've never been to the Bernabeu, but I'm guessing that it was fairly engergetic and lively when they were winning the league for the 26th(?) time this year. Guessing. The Galaxy stadium is really nice, but let's make sure we compare apples to apples. Not that you care.

ps. A google for "posh spice media whore" turned up only 95,500 hits. She needs to work a lot harder.

nothing says indpendence day like a two-story beer bong, unless you're getting arrested for driving 100 MPH while baked out of your skull

I celebrated our nations independence by drinking a lot. And taking some sun. And watching the kids do beer bongs. Good times.

Photo evidence at left. Careful observers will note that I'm wearing my Brasil basketball jersey on independence day. Reprezenting, as it were. Not as festive as my friend's star-spangled short-shorts and headband, but still pretty good. It was a nice way to spend the day.

It wasn't as good as getting arrested for driving 100 MPH while stoned to the gills, but it was still fun. Kudos to Al Gore Junior Junior for a fresh spin on the fourth of July. ata kid.

Shexshy Shteve: bitchshlayer

Hellooooo, ladiesh...
Sexshy Shteve ish in the houshe. I'm here to drop some knowledge about the finesht NFL team the world hash ever known: the Detroit Lionsh. Jon Kitna is a touchdown ashashin and I am kryptonite to the bitchesh. I mean it.

Sho I made a video, in EXSHTREME closhe-up, of me being f*cking aweshome, showing you how it'sh done, because I'm f*cking EXSHTREME.

If any ladiesh out there need a man, a REAL MAN, a shexsh cannon, you can find me on the shtreetsh, shlaying shluts. Becaushe thatsh how a playa rollsh.

more video (don't get used to it)

new video of my recent favorite whipping boy David Beckham, clowning around with Reggie Bush for an Adidas commercial. It's kind of lame, since all you learn is that Beckham sucks at American football, and Reggie Bush sucks at soccer. There are some interesting parts, like when they have Reggie Bush try to kick a ball around a wall. Beckham tries it and makes it look laughably easy, but that's stupid because it's really hard. They also have Reggie defend some PKs, which historically is not Beckham's forte.

My favorite part is where Reggie runs a pattern and Beckham hits him on the numbers with a kicked ball. That's not easy, either.

It would have been more fun to see them play a sport at which neither one is world class. Swimming, ping pong, cricket, rugby (running and kicking elements there), etc.

5 seconds of magic

our first video here at GJAW. Stealing from another blog:
"this video is only 5 seconds long. I dare you not to watch it 40 times."

i-don't-care-any-more-phone

If you haven't heard, Apple is launching a new phone. Probably you have heard, because the media blitz and subsequent fawning from the press is out ouf control.

Apple is awesome at marketing. They have entire stores filled with product lines that no price-motivated computer user will buy. They have funny commercials. They cultivate an image that is both trendy and counter-culture, which is funny because Apple is at least as ruthless in their business as Dell or Gateway. They have to be, because their products cost more without doing more. That's where the marketing genius comes in. The ipod is neat, but the sound quality is mediocre and the gimmicky "accessories" all have one thing in common: they are expensive without being better.

If new features make you all hot and bothered, you can get a helio phone for a lot less money that does more. The iphone is nothing special. It's shiny and expensive and Cingular (sorry, AT&T) sucks so your service will be shite.* Cellphone features are evolving so rapidly that it won't be long before this minor innovation is out-done by some new device. Verizon passed on the iphone when Apple offered them a deal, so it's a safe bet they've got a supplier that's working on something even shinier and more costly.

For a more on this ridiculous gadget and the press coverage, see Slate.com.

*Before they rolled into ATT, Cingular had more customer complaints nationwide than all the other carriers combined. niiiiiiiice.

first day of summer (it's all downhill from here)

today is one of my favorite days on the calendar. It's the longest day of the year if you live in the northern hemisphere.

Photo is courtesy NASA. thanks, NASA.

Hooray, summer!

That is all. funny is back tomorrow.

Hyderabad? no way, it's HyderaGOOD!

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Not sure what this is. Two million views on youtube, so I'm a little late to the game. Is this what the tech support people in Bangalore are watching on their lunch breaks?

alexei lalas hits crack pipe, talks to guardian

that irrepressible idiot Alexei Lalas is at it again, talking out of his ass to major media outlets. I analyzed his unique genius once before, so we're not covering new territory here. but I appreciate it when he says stuff that is deliberately inflammatory and stupid and we can unpack it a little bit.

Lalas and his group did a nice job bringing D. Beckham to the soccer backwater that is the LA Galaxy, but the truth is that a) Beckham is an aging, faded star that was fired from his own national team until very recently, and b) he is moving here for "branding" opportunities, not because he always wanted to play in LA and the other famous soccer cities (salt lake, houston, etc.). but that's not how Lalas sees it. He thinks that MLS is great. They pay him, so he should. I have a television and also a computer that talks to other computers through a cable in the wall, so I know better. so do you. in any case, take it away, Lexi!

We know when we're being patronised and I get so irritated when I hear the experts in England talk about David Beckham as if he's going into semi-retirement by leaving Real Madrid for Los Angeles.

I am an American, in your home market. Allow me to patronize you: Beckham is coming to semi-retirement so his wife can be in movies and tom cruise can try to convert them to scientology. She's skinny w/ obnoxious fake boobs. She was always meant for LA.

PS. Your team sucks and your product is crap.

That's ignorance of the first degree because almost every one of those critics has not even seen a single MLS [Major League Soccer] game. It's insulting to us and to our sport to say Beckham is on his way to Hollywood when he's coming to play in one of the most competitive leagues in the world.

I have watched about 5 minutes of one game and it sucked. I won't watch it again. Let me reiterate: I am in the LA Galaxy home market, and I refuse to watch it because it's shite. I do have the fox soccer channel, so I watch Premier League games. A lot.

There are a lot of stars in European football who would struggle over here. But Beckham has done his homework on this league, and his team-mates, and he recognises the merit of American soccer.

This is reductive and stupid. who cares how many 'stars' would struggle here? How many Americans are having any success in european football? (Aside from the goalies.) Three? Four? At middling or small clubs? And that's the best we can do. That's what I call merit. Man, we rule. America, f*ck yeah.

You know there's no accounting for bad taste. The fact that a segment of the world worships an inferior product in the Premiership is their business. In England our league is considered second-class but I honestly believe if you took a helicopter and grabbed a bunch of MLS players and took them to the perceived best league in the world they wouldn't miss a beat and the fans wouldn't notice any drop in quality.

You are an idiot. Anyone who has watched a soccer game in the states and compared it with the lowliest Watford v. Wigan game on the telly knows you are an idiot. Take your MLS team over there. You will get pummeled.

Lalas was really good at marketing himself. He had fun hair and a goatee and he was pretty good back in the day. Which is funny, because it's exactly what they will be saying about David Beckham when he gets here.

I'm not crying, I'm cutting onions, making lasagna for one

new series on HBO called Flight of the Conchordes. [thanks HBO for the photo] The guys are from New Zealand, in a band, trying to "make it" in New York. If you like Extras or The Office, I recommend it. The title of this post is a lyric from one of their ballads about crying. The show features the odd musical number, an agent that works out of the NZ consulate, and a rabid fan base of one. I think it's funnier than Curb Your Enthusiasm. Not a good example; I think paint drying is funnier than Curb Your Enthusiasm. Sundays @ 1030 PM. good times.

Another thing that doesn't suck: the new fantastic 4 movie. Really, it wasn't bad. It wasn't great, but for a summer pulp movie it was pretty good. maybe because the first one was atrocious, or because the other summer blockbusters are execrably bad (Pirates 3, Spider Man 3, Shrek3). The product tie-ins were really cheesy and forced, but whatever. It could have been worse.

speaking of tie-ins, I got to watch a commercial for Transformers and Chevy that included the line "Play the autobot game at chevy.com and help Chevy save the world!" typical understatement.

fookin 'ell

ahh, the Nurburgering. or is it Nurburgring? whatever. it's one of the world's most famous racetracks. they don't have formula 1 races there any more because it's too unsafe. it's also famous because you can drive on it in any car if you pay a fee. people ride around it in tour buses at the same time as ze germans are whipping around the track in their porsches. and then there's these guys. you have to watch it w/ the sound turned on to get the full effect. enjoy.

Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit...

The last episode of the Sopranos aired tonight. The series had lost much of it's intensity, especially in the beginning of this last half-season, when HBO decided to extend it by six episodes and didn't have enough plot to stretch. The show finished with a bang, though, and the last episode was one of those shows they'll be reviewing in film classes for years to come. Brilliant, compelling television.

I was especially fond of the music used to close the series: Tony listening to Don't Stop Believing by Journey. (Full disclosure: that makes the third time in three nights I heard the song, since they played it in the bars when I was out on Friday and Saturday, which says a lot about my taste in bars, but there you go).

I'm proud to say that I have a copy of the power-ballad classic on CD, and I defy you to resist it's awesome strenf. The song was Track 1 on a mix-tape a friend made me a couple years ago, before she moved back home. To north jersey. A funny coincidence. Nothing says north Jersey like a power-ballad, I guess.

thanks for reading.

ps. when are skin-tight jeans up to your armpits going to come back? that look is hot! you don't believe me, watch the video in the Journey link above. or go here.

so that's what $800,000 buys you

turns out that the London 2012 olympic logo cost $800,000 to "develop".
really.

have you seen it? yikes. they're going to use the same basic shape and change the color at random, or according to some pattern only they know. sort of like MTV in the early days. told you the 80's were coming back.

the head of the firm isn't talking, so we can't get any feedback on his vision. is it weird if a PR firm doesn't talk to the media? guess not.

Logo looks great, let's go back to working on new Coke

The new logo for the London olympic games has debuted. It's terrible. I guess it doesn't much matter, except that they spent a ton of money on it and it's their big shining example to the world and they came up with something that sucked. Great that you can "create your own" on their web page. Good luck with that.

I'd have loved to be in the room when they were doing the mock-ups. Here's example dialog of the conference room where all the comm and marketing majors got together to make some magic:

Comm major #1: We need a new logo for our london 2012 campaign, for the summer olympics. For starters, the candidate logo we made actually looks pretty good.

Overpaid Marketing Guy #3: F*ck that sh*t! Let's go the other direction. [Aggressively stubs out marlboro red cigarette into ashtray, because he's edgy and into marketing and edgy.]

Leggy Marketing Girl #7: huh?

Creative Guy [dressed in black pants, black turtleneck, IM Pei glasses]: Legible, colorful design will be so passe by the time 2012 rolls around. Let's do something edgy and cool for 1983, so that it'll be cool again by 2012.

Comm Major: yeah, that's awesome.

Legal guy [knows nothing about marketing or communications]: umm, but it might not work, because, ahh, if it's too edgy, it will look unprofessional and tasteless and inelegant and... ahhh... ugly?

Overpaid Marketing Guy #3: F*ck that sh*t! it's gonna' be awesome! [lights another cig]

All: Yeah!

[exeunt]

Sportswriters are bitter because they're ugly and the pay sucks*

Barry Bonds is a polarizing figure. He's also, by all accounts, a titanic jerk. At least, that's the way he's portrayed in the press. I don't know, because I've never met him. I do know that you can't take the full account of a person from what you read or hear. People have written exhaustive books about it, though. So you can decide for yourself.

One certainty is that Jon Heyman, in his most self-righteous and sanctimonious tone, will defend the magic and truth of baseball to his dying breath. Thank God for that.

Hank Aaron is the smart one in baseball's sad spectacle. He isn't coming to Barry Bonds' unhappy party, and he isn't really saying why.

Perfect.

Jon, why is that perfect?

Aaron has told people I know that he has no interest in honoring Bonds. But by now that should be obvious. And no one should blame him for that. Many of us feel that way, too, and Bonds -- who's now only nine home runs shy of Aaron's record 755 -- hasn't stolen one thing from us.

I sense some anger here, Jon. And, who said anything about stealing? Are you taking this personally? Was Barry Bonds rude to you at some point? If BB passes Hammerin' Hank, will you hold onto the old home run record because it has more truthiness? More superbosity?

Besides, why should Aaron want to participate in a sad spectacle that's getting sadder by the day? The latest bit of negativity came via Bonds, who is now saying he won't hand over his record-breaking artifacts to Cooperstown because he cares only about himself.

I fell compelled to point out here that the latest bit of negativity comes via J. Heyman, writer at Sports Illustrated. It could be that Bonds won't hand over any of his artifacts to Cooperstown because Bud Selig is a douchebag, or because he's a nutcase who (some speculate) was driven to start using steroids because he was jealous of all the attention other steroid users were getting (I'm looking at you Sosa and McGwire), or because the Baseball HOF is full of crackers and segregationists and similar. Or not. Hard to say, since he won't talk to you. But you can write mean things about him, protect the game, as it were.

That's fine, because about the only person truly excited about this record is him.

There may be more than one person excited about it. I'm guessing. Bruce Bochy is pumped. He needs the Giants to win. And he sucks at managing (separate issue, I know).

Aaron is right for doing what he is doing, which is nothing. Nothing is what Bonds' record deserves.

I didn't know that, but I'm glad you told me. Otherwise I might have thought damn, that guy seems like a jerk, but he's really really good at baseball. Who cares if he took steroids? I guess the same people that think Hank Aaron never took greenies, and that Babe Ruth was godlike, even though he didn't have to play against black or brown people. That's a big advantage, because they are pretty good at sports, these non-whites. You can look it up.

Middle America hates Barry because he's not white, and he doesn't give a shit about you or anything but being really good at baseball. And because you write articles about what a jerk he is, and how his record is meaningless.

Feel free to get off your high-horse and join the rest of the rank and file any time you like, Jon. We'll be over here, enjoying our beers while we watch Barrold Bonds hit another unhittable pitch over the bleachers. Then we'll get back to our lives. We're funny that way.

----------------------------
* title stolen from withleather.com. It's the truest thing I've ever read about sportswriters. and writers in general.

how much does it cost to make a great movie?

i guess it depends who you ask. you can spend $450,000,000 on a steaming pile of sh*t, or you can spend, oh, I don't know, maybe $100,000 on a masterpiece. Probably not even that much. Maybe if the spider-man people had spent their money on something original and real instead of CGI junk they might have done better. then again, maybe not. I don't think Tobey's much of a musician.

See Once at your local independent cinema, or when it comes out on netflix.

i'm on your computer, boring you to tears

I don't know what you think is funny and/or cute. some people like puppies. maybe you're into lolcats (explained at length over on slate). here's an excerpt:

Here's an idea: The furious social networking of Web 2.0 makes the Internet even more like high school than it already was. Message boards and blogs develop their own language, references, and games as soon as they acquire an audience. This photo [shown at left] actually contains two Internet in-jokes. The "I'm in ur X, doing Y" construction is a punch line found all over the place, and originates from an old video game taunt: "I am in your base, killing your d00ds." The other joke here is the informal competition to make the most realistic "transparent screen." Notice how the laptop appears to display what is actually behind it—geek trompe l'oeil.

Geek hits a new high. great.
but now that you got current on all of that, what about this? Maybe that's not your particular brand of humor. Maybe you don't have a sense of humor. Oh well. I laughed.
Full credit to Kissing Suzy Kolber (blog) for the lolpitbull, and slate and icanhascheeseburger for their respective content.
thanks for reading.

Ian Thomsen wants idiot-fries with his stupid-burger

I know it's hard to come up with something intelligent to say every single day. New material is tough, but in modern media you have to feed the beast. That means lots of sensational, idiotic news, bad TV, and, very often, really bad sportswriting. Take it away, Mr. Thomsen:

The Boston Celtics can claim they are cursed after tumbling in the lottery for the second time in a decade. But the truth, confirmed yet again by Tuesday's miserable result, is that they never should have traded for Sebastian Telfair.

Curses are nonsense made up by nonsensical nincompoops from Nonsenseland. You have nothing to write about in the way of news, so you create an "angle", and by "angle" I mean "paranoid falsehood". What happens in a lottery is that it's a lottery. So you don't know what will happen. Wait, you mean you do know? You can predict the future? Wow...

That deal on draft day last year sent the eventual rights to Brandon Roy onto Portland. Consider the ensuing chain of events.

This is the part where you should have paid attention in critical thinking class. I got a C in crit think (you can look it up), but even I can C (get it?? honk!!) that this is ridiculous.

Roy became the Rookie of the Year who helped the Trail Blazers win a surprising 32 games this season, earning them the No. 6 position going into the lottery -- which in turn earned them the No. 1 pick overall. Would the Blazers have won as many as 32 games with Telfair on their roster instead of Roy? The answer is a solid NO. It can now be said that the acquisition of Roy, more than any other move, helped bring Greg Oden to Portland.

Wait, what? You mean by making their chances worse, Portland actually made them better? In what bizarro world does that make any kind of sense? Because the number 6 position was going to be number 1 all along? That is so dumb I'm going to copy it again so you can read it a few more times.

It can now be said that the acquisition of Roy, more than any other move, helped bring Greg Oden to Portland.
It can now be said that the acquisition of Roy, more than any other move, helped bring Greg Oden to Portland.
It can now be said that the acquisition of Roy, more than any other move, helped bring Greg Oden to Portland.

Yeah, that's still the dumbest fucking thing I've seen in a while.

Here is how the NBA lottery works: The fewer games you win, the better chance you have of getting the top pick in the draft. You get a ball with a number on it, and they put it in a big hopper, and pull it out. Each team has a percentage. Boston was 28ish% to get the first pick, Memphis 25ish%, etc.

Ian Thomsen is saying that if you win MORE games, reduce your chances of getting the first pick, you will get the first pick. But then he reverses course.

Am I saying that the Celtics somehow should have had the foresight to avoid the Roy trade in order to position themselves for Oden? Of course not. All I'm saying is that a bad trade looks even worse now, given the extent to which it helped the Blazers.

No, that's not what you're saying. Remember this?

It can now be said that the acquisition of Roy, more than any other move, helped bring Greg Oden to Portland.

How do you get away with writing this stuff? and getting paid to do it?

delivering a big digital slice of go f yourself

sometimes you make mistakes. and then you get to pay. If you've been following good case-onomic principles, you get to pay anyway. That's what makes it gooder.

In times like these, your best bet is to get over it, but not before you send out a big digital helping of GO F YOURSELF

• to the Costa Mesa Police Department for giving me my second red light ticket in as many months. I'm a jackass for getting another ticket, as I was in violation of the letter of the law. As an added bonus, you have bought my eternal disdain. Seriously, go f yourself.
  
• to the San Antonio Spurs. I am no big fan of the Suns, but when your "best defensive player" is a cheap shot artist in need of a smack in the face, and your "big shot" artist is a fraud (no one remembers the shots you miss) then I can only hope you lose, and soon.
  
• to Ian Thomsen for being an idiot. You deserve your own topic. I'll get right on it.
  
• to the guys that damaged my heater/ac thermostat wires when you fixed my drywall. Classic case-onomics: while fixing one thing, break something more expensive. great job. I had that $350 earmarked for my favorite public institution (CMPD), but I'll fit a new wireless thermostat in the budget, too.
  

There's a lot of love in the room.
a lot.

could be worse. tomorrow I won't care about any of this stuff.
ian thomsen inspired post on idiocy and false reasoning coming soon. get excited.

maroon 5's new record is supposed to be good. or not.

Unlike some people I know, I remember liking the first maroon 5 record. a friend gave it to me and it hung around in the car cd player for a while. I remember thinking some of the songs were catchy and deliciously cheesy. disclaimer: My musical taste is very unsophisticated.

One of the music critics at the Guardian (UK) thinks the new record is not very good. Here's her summary:

Imagine living in Worseland listening to the worst man you've ever met singing the worst thing you've ever heard, and make it worse.

I guess that covers it.

dj Dan: worth the money // i need a nap

time again for my semi-regular feature on club night in the OC. Because of the quirky (read: weak) club scene in the OC, it's easy to see big-name DJs at small clubs. Carl Cox, Roger Sanchez, Crystal Method, and Bad Boy Bill have all spun a Thursday night gig in the past 6 months. That might not sound fun to you, but it's cool if you're into it. I'm into it because it's $10 and close by. Last night was free because my friend Sappy McSadpants knew somebody or something. you care.

Last night was house music big shot DJ Dan. He started early, played a solid 2+ hour set. Good times. Unexpected bonus: There was a private party at the club beforehand, and in case you were wondering, the staff at ocean magazine is ridiculously good looking. So thaaat's where the FIDM graduates go when they finish school. Good to know.
-------------------------
I need a nap.
-------------------------
ps. i'm bringing the funny back on Monday. The sexy has been here the whole time.

Decreasing WorldSuck, one peep at a time

this is maybe one of the best things ever. not the brothers that decided to communicate via video (nothing against it, but two guys talking on the interweb is still just two guys talking, on the interweb). No, I'm talking about the WorldSuck Index, and the Foundation to Decrease WorldSuck.

I was a bit bored over the weekend and watched a few minutes of one of the videos. it was great if that's what you're into (I'm not). But I liked the WSI, so i'm sharing it with you.

enjoy. and make a contribution to their Foundation, if you've got some spare change lying around and a paypal account.

when making fun of Dick Vitale isn't enough

greetings from the OC. nice weather here lately.
I miss you. it's been a while since I posted, but I didn't have anything good to share.

I was all set to write a funny post about that other thing, but it got derailed. It wasn't funny, or clever (funny and cleverness of previous posts implied, not guaranteed).

So you get that most feeble of fillers: the link dump. kind of but not really sorry about it.

• web two-point-oh reviews for techie dorks that missed out on the dotcom boom*. (thanks to uncov.com for the graphic. please don't make me take it down. it looks like you cribbed it from gywo, anyway.)
  
• analysis of baseball analysis from the guys over at firejoemorgan.com. this is one of my all-time favorite websites. regular readers of this space will remember it as my original inspiration for this blog (when it was called "firedickvitale"). note to self: I need to do another analysis of Dicky V's idiocy. and soon.
  
• celebrity gossip from wwtdd.com. perez hilton for straight guys.
  
• the Ex-Girlfriend's new blog about being a bridesmaid/maid of honor. Being in 12 weddings would probably make a girl crazy. that's a warning sign I'll pay attention to in the future. in my defense, i think she had only been in 9 or 10 by the time we met.
  only. 9. or 10.
  
• finally, the Guardian (UK) published the shortlist of Turner prize candidates. The Turner prize is often a source of controversy, not least because some of the candidates do stupid sh*t and pretend it is art, e.g. one candidate recreated Iraq war protest materials and put them inside a musuem (as opposed to in front of the house of parliament); another made a little cardboard model of a mosque and covered it in diagonal stripes. idiots.
  

-----------------------------
* see picture at top right for a sexy example

the Behemoth chicken

fear the chicken!!





(drawing copyright Dan Paladin and the Behemoth software)

it's not old, it's "vintage"

sometimes creative people do clever things. and share them. If you're into that sort of thing, do one of your own and send it in.
I picked up the reel to reel prints. I wanted the print of the old (oops, "vintage") cameras, but that one sold out. the reel to reels are just as cool.

the sketchbook looks bitchin, too.

photos; you did what?; plus: another dating red flag!

Photo is from my trip to a faraway land. Careful observers will see a person on the stairs in the middle foreground. Good for scale.

------------------
in other news, the fat kid cut his finger doing the dishes last night. minor setback. apply direct pressure, put a band aid on it, etc. after a while it stopped bleeding so I decided to put laundry away. In retrospect, this was not the smartest. it goes great until the very last thing I put away and I bleed on the laundry. that's frustrating. walking away from dresser in a huff, I stubbed my toe sharply on my guitar case. now i'm bleeding on the carpet. it's a crime scene at chez Butterball. tragedy to comedy. I have to wrap foot in a towel, walk downstairs to get spot remover, and clean up the mess. after I applied multiple band-aids i went to bed.

--------------
dating red flags, law school edition: friend KW meets a lot of guys. she's a nice girl, and she's in law school, and she lives in the bay area, so there's a lot of guys to meet. anyways, she met a guy recently and in conversation he said, roughly

I don't like to read to broaden my mind; I prefer TV. I feel my mind is broad enough.

who could disagree with that kind of genius?
---
thanks for reading.

cheap laughs

i don't care if you've heard this joke already. it's still funny.

Big going-away party for my friend tomorrow night. She's moving to "new york". I put it in quotes because she's actually moving to Wehauken, New Jersey. Wait, that's not the same thing? says who?

I know the feeling

Turns out I don't owe the feds $10,390. It was really just $700. Which is funny, because $700 seems more real to me because I can actually pay it, then eat ramen noodles for a while. Downside: ramen noodles are not my favorite. Upside: I think I'm dropping a few ell-bees.

Picture at left is from the running of the bulls in Pamplona. It's also a nice metaphor for my experience with the Feds; that's me in white.

not-so-secret passwords

Google enabled a "search public events" feature in their Calendar. (Full disclosure: I used the calendar when I was doing some planning, before I switched to the Backpack deal from 37signals.)

A special bonus of the new feature is that people haven't been paying attention to their calendar settings, and/or they weren't expecting google to make their calendar searchable. So they put password and user information in calendars that are now easy for the public to see. Oops.

You can read more about it over on another blog.

If you want to see it for yourself, log into google calendar, type "user password" in the search field, and click "Search Public Events".

2 hours of my life I can never get back; relationship insight (really); numerology

(too lazy to track down a picture - I will paint you a picture with words.)

Spent two hours of my life watching the movie Pathfinder. This is a movie that only my little brother could like. (he's famous for liking every movie, ever.) And I spent $10. The premise seemed cool: It looked cold, there were swords, and it was rated R for "Strong, brutal violence throughout." Should have been rated S for "Severe sucking throughout." It was predictable and formulaic and ridiculous. I'm ashamed I watched it. It was probably worse than Miami Vice, a movie so memorably bad that my then-girlfriend broke up with me the day after we saw it. She said the two events were unrelated, but I'm not so sure.

------------------
Was talking with my friend this weekend over lunch and he helped me realize something pithy about relationships, i.e., if you're in one, you have three options/scenarios/choices/paths or whatever:

1. Get what you want (no need to effect any change here - your needs are being met, you're happy, and also rare).
   
2. Adjust expectation so that you want what you get (this is what I understand is true about most long-term relationships).
   
3. Make a change (e.g. quit).
   

Most people these days think you should experience #1, and if not, you go straight to #3, even if you're married. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, I'm just saying that it is.

--------------
numerology and astrology is complete crap. This is blog post number 224, though, so if you're into 2x2=4 type patterns then this is the post for you.

The blog has come a long way since I started. Readership is way up*, and I'm funnier than ever**.
love you.

---------------
* outright lie
** opinion stated as fact, which could be characterized as a lie, if you wanted to be mean about it.

they don't call him jay-jo for nothing

my friend Sam has a nice little thing going on over there in cyberspace. Plus he just got engaged. But he also has a sweet picture of me with my "girlfriend", or at least a girl that I tried to make time with a few months ago. You can see me working to number-close in the photo. If you don't know what 'number-close' means, you better ask somebody.

special bonus feature: sweet shot of my man Jay-Jo dropping it like it's hot at the engagement party. get there. You can see Sam's description of the event over on his thing with the thing.

laughs, plus really good music, plus I suck at guitar (x2807)

Spent last night playing guitar (badly) and going to a show with some friends. We saw the Fishtank Ensemble in LA, and they were awesome.

That's them in the photo, and l to r there's a fiddler, guitarist, accordionist, singer/2nd fiddle/banjolele/handsaw, upright bass, and shamisan. At least I think it's a shamisan. A very old japanese string instrument? yeah, one of those.

Anyway, it was wicked good. One drawback to the show was they started playing super late, so it was tough to hang around on a school night. They played some Romanian dance tunes (really), some gypsy (Roma) party music, and Mozart, among other selections. I've only really heard about the Roma in the context of their culture, and not much of it good. But the music is fun, and it's jaw-droppingly cool to see it performed live. Seeing six people onstage performing wickedly complex musical pieces is always a treat. If they come to your town, go check them out.

---------------
unrelated, I had some big laughs with my friends before and after the show. My friend Jordan described how he first kissed a girl. He was fourteen-ish, and although he liked a girl and she seemed interested, he couldn't work out how to actually french her. he asked her if she would be his girlfriend. she said, umm, no.

old jordan would have been put off by this, but new jordan had an ace up his sleeve: he was getting his wisdom teeth out in a couple days, and the dentist had told him that he might lose sensation in his lipface. so he tried a different strategy...

"I might lose feeling in my lips, because I'm having my wisdom teeth removed. Can we make out so I know what it feels like, just in case?"

her heart softens, because now he's like a soldier going off to war, except he's 14 and he's actually going off to the dentist. but still, they did some frenching. ahhh, young love.

Sam pointed out later that this was a good strategy, and that you can employ it for any surgical procedure. I was at similar risk when I had my back surgery, but I didn't take advantage. mores the pity.

thanks for reading.

a whole website on a dry-erase board?

here's a clever, funny promotion for a new book.

enjoy.

You're gonna want that back

this is graphic and severe and awesome all at once.
here's the description from the guardian.co.uk :

Kaohsiung, Taiwan: The lower left arm of zoo veterinarian Chang Po-yu was bitten off by a crocodile when he tried to pull a tranquilizer dart from its body. In a bid to rescue the arm two bullets were shot at the crocodile but it was unharmed. Chang eventually underwent emergency surgery to have his limb reattached.

don't view the slides unless you're ready for images of a graphic nature. i'm posting remotely, so I can't add the main photo, even though it rules. the pictures tell the story. second best picture (after #1): the one where the police officer tries to shoot the crocodile, to no effect.
enjoy.

the persecution of the white and wealthy must stop!

Did you hear that those Duke lax players accused of rape had the charges dropped?

In the interest of fairness, it's nice to see their names cleared with the same enthusiasm with which they were smeared.

(Aside: in the UK, if accused of rape, your identity is kept secret - here in the states, it's only the accuser whose identity is not reported. That doesn't seem fair to me, as when Kobe Bryant was getting pummeled in the media and his accuser remained comfortably anonymous. I'm not saying a crime did or did not occur, but if you're going to report the identity of the accused, you should also report the identity of the accuser.)

Moving on, I'm glad that this terrible persecution of rich, white, boarding-school kids can come to an end. There's only so much of that I can take. And i'm not the only one. I appreciated this comment from one of the victims:

"This whole experience has opened my eyes to a world of injustice that I never knew existed."

That sounds ignorant and obtuse, which is about what I'd expect from a Duke lacross player. How much injustice do you experience when you're a rich, athletic white guy? That's part of why you went to college, to learn about that stuff, not live it. It's like you took the practical exam for being a famous athelete, except you're not famous. Just infamous. And you didn't get paid like a pro athelete.

happy easter

nothing happened.
well, nothing interesting. Some stuff broke in my house, so I get to fix it. super pumped about that. kind of.

happy easter.

cool: the blue marble; not cool: getting a ticket for turning right on a red light without stopping

found an interesting website during a period of extended interweb dorkout the other day. The image at left comes from NASA, and besides being an utterly spectacular picture, it's completely free. I just have to say that it came from NASA (it does) and they also ask that you put a link to the origin of the image. done. If you're into that sort of thing, you can find a lot more (free) amazing images like the blue marble shot at left. enjoy.

-------
less cool than panoramic shots of planet earth is getting a ticket for turning right on a red light without stopping. I'll be doing my part for local government by cutting a them a nice check and also attending traffic school. super pumped about that. special bonus: the officer did tell me that it was "very expensive" ticket. thanks for the heads up. please go bother somebody else.

probably not going to make it to the 20 year reunion...

it's been kind of a slow week in case-land. there was that whole business w/ the IRS (still unresolved, if you must know), plus chores and house and blah. It happens to people. into each life some rain must fall, etc. and so forth.

Then I get an email from a good friend about a guy that flunked out of his fancy-pants high school, only to enroll at my high school. Back in the day Ronnie was well-known around my high school for a) being good at basketball; b) being funny; c) scoring beers at the local quickie mart because he never got carded. Times have changed. You can Google the (in)famous Ronnie Ledesma yourself, but I'll save you the trouble and give you some highlights right here:

• here's a link to the news story about him being arrested w/ a "transient" in manteca, including video from News10 action local connected news, covering Sacramento, Stockton, and Modesto. this is by far the best resource for this awesome story. They have an interview and mugshots of the accused. I tried to get captures of the mugshots but action10NEWS was too clever for me.
  
• Here's a link to an article on some sort of online record keeping thing, probably a paper in manteca or maybe modesto, about the same thing.
  

I can't make this stuff up.

More info: Ronnie's dad was a police officer. For real. What's really bugging me is that this happened two months ago and I just heard about it today. Can I set some kind of alert for when Ronnie's rap sheet gets longer?

More superbness: In addition to the several charges pending for the recent arrest, "Ledesma also is being held on three outstanding warrants in Placer County for domestic violence and one for burglary."

He's a long shot to make the 20 year reunion, then.

the IRS says I owe $10,390 in back taxes

I don't know if I ever mentioned that I bought a house. It took about 7 years to save the down payment, and I had to pay off my student loans and car along the way, but whatever. I had some help from my folks (no rent for a while). Some people have it easier, some tougher. That's life. Anyway, that ended up being a spetacularly bad financial decision with no end in sight. But the best part (so far) is how the bad news just keeps on coming. Things in the house break, roommates are douchebags, loan rates go up, property values go down, and you learn what "upside down" means. (It means the same thing as "negative equity", but sounds less snooty.) It's a relatively common thing in cars, not so much real estate. I'm unique!

Anyway, roommate douchebaggery wasn't even the most annoying thing about this week. not even close. the most annoying thing was yesterday when I got a letter from the IRS saying I owe them $10,390 in back taxes/penalties/interest. Payable by 25 April. Gotta love the IRS. I fedex'd the info to my accountant today, and I am sure that the IRS is full of shit.

how is this related to the house? when i was pinching pennies to save for a down payment, my "financial adviser" told me to "put the money to work". so I did and invested in mutual funds. For my down payment, I sold the funds, and used the money. here's a flow chart:

post-tax paycheck money saved > buy mutual funds > sell mutual funds > money returned by UBS

That last part UBS reported to the IRS as income. The IRS is claiming that should be taxed like I got it in a paycheck. After they already taxed it once. So they want to double up, which is retarded. You tax the GAIN on investments, not the total investment. (For the record, after fees and hassle, I lost money on the deal.)

It's like if you buy a car, drive it for a while, and then when you sell the car the IRS gets to tax all the money you make on the sale as income. umm, not so much.

So now I'm being audited. Yeah. is that awesome? because it feels awesome. Thanks, UBS, for f'ing me over. i'm really glad I "put my money to work" with you. It's working out really well. I'm going to invest with you again when I have money. At my current rate, that will happen in my next lifetime.

the icing on the cake: If I don't have $10,390 sitting around, I can get on a payment plan with the IRS, but it costs $152. Fill out form, send in check. yeah. I love the government, too.

what if you live in a world of sh*t?

the reporters on the local tv called it a "sewage tsunami", but I think that's overstating it just a bit. A tsunami is big, and it tends to cause widespread damage, not just slurp around in your little neighborhood. This disaster was so localized that I can't even find the "region" it's in on a map. Nevertheless, when a wave of sewage washes through your village and kills 4 people, and 5k more have to evacuate, and people are floating in a lake of shit, then that's not good. at all.

My favorite quote from the Times article was from the man on the scene "Women and children were screaming at the top of their lungs for help." I'm sure the men didn't do any screaming at all. No doubt waves of poo are routine in their experience.

joined a book club, but i'm not sure if I'll go

i joined a book club on meetup.com. I like to read, and presumably it would be interesting to meet other people with a similar interest. Or something. So I joined a book club. When you join, you can see other members of the club, learn more about them and the group, etc. An example description of one of the guys on the list of "new members":

"Am very good at Ms. Pac Man, know the difference between Monet and Manet, do yoga, enjoy social-poli-econ discussions, love adventure travel, like live stage, was caught reading a book in a cafe, eat healthy, love to do things, pass GO! Collect $200."

awesome. looking forward to meeting you. Because I like to go to the gym a lot, practice guitar, play video games, and read books. so we kind of have a lot in common. maybe you can do a dramatic reading of your poetry for me. with some interpretive dance.

next book club meeting is in April. RSVP now.

bracket of superb-ellence

it took a couple games, but I got out of the cellar with my NCAA bracket. don't let the ranking fool you, though. I'm stuck in the middle ground with nowhere to go but down, since both my finals teams are done dishes. I guess that's why they call it gambling.

I had a funny story but then I lost it. more later.

how's that bracket coming along?

Your NCAA tournament bracket is only slightly more interesting to me than your Fantasy Football league, and generally on par with that "crazy" dream you last night. That is to say, not interesting to me at all. But I thought you would like a little insight into how my tournament is going so far. You might have to click the img to get full value. Go on and do it. That's a screen capture of my ranking at the far right.

TAKE THAT, EXPERTS!

Harder than college: beating Alien Hominid with just one life

not sure if you're into video games. if you're not, you're probably into cute drawings. either way, the Behemoth software company has got something for you.

AH is a super hard, brilliantly drawn video game. I recommend it. I wanted to know more about the company when i saw the logo, a grossly overweight chicken. weird, but superb. The game is funny but it's so damn hard that you can't even appreciate how good all the art and animations are. full credit to The Behemoth for the graphic. I tried to buy a logo t-shirt but they didn't have any. They did have skate decks, which was cool, but I'm old and if I fell down I would hurt myself (again).

daylight savings time started. sweet.

rock and roll takes it on the chin

[Open Letter to Rolling Stone Magazine]

Dear Rolling Stone,
Please stop putting wannabe tough-guy douchebags on the cover of your magazine. I am begging you.

Your long decline into irrelevance hit a new low with the shameless, pointless, and irredeemably stupid "I'm from Rolling Stone" synergy suck-fest currently polluting your pages, your website, and the airwaves. But that doesn't mean that you have to demean the magazine even further by putting pussies on your cover every other g-damn week. First it was sucknuts at the cabaret, you gave it a bit of a break w/ some new "guitar gods" (bee-tee-doubleyou, that issue was crap but J. Frusciante rules), and now it's more boys that look like girls? I know you want to sell issues, but all you're selling with this crap is that you like pictures of guys that couldn't beat up their sister. Maybe that's why they all met in the first place: their own sisters kept kicking the shit out of them and it made them emotional.

This is what happens when you get a copy of a copy of a copy. Each successive iteration loses something in the duplication. So the Replacements and the Ramones inspires Green Day inspires Fall Out Boy. See how that works? Rather, doesn't work? Green Day's strong catalog highlights how far your sissy cover boys have yet to go. And they will still be poofters.

best regards,
a subscriber

when is a uniform not a uniform?

I caught a recent "news" item on si.com today. Nike Basketball is showcasing it's new uniforms for four major programs this weekend. I'm sorry, it's not a uniform. It's actually a "system of dress", and it looks a lot like some guy in an under armour top with matching culottes. awesome. but not.

I don't mind the longer shorts, although these are a bit much. I think you can strike a nice balance between the John Stockton butt-huggers of yore and the skirts the kids are wearing these days. Nike disagreed; they made skirts. Actually, not to put too fine a point on it, they made culottes.

Apparently the "form-fitting" jerseys can be "customized" by wearing compression shirts underneath. You can wear something long sleeved, short sleeved, or sleeveless. My issue with this is that IT'S A UNIFORM. The purpose of a uniform is for everyone to BE UNIFORM, which is why you're all wearing the same thing. You don't customize a uniform, because then it is no longer uniform. I understand some guys already wear compression shirts underneath their jerseys. I'm fine with that, because it's at the coaches' discretion. This institutionalized mix-and-match makes me want to puke. If you want to be an individual you should have taken up tennis.

The U. of Florida look incorporates an alligator scale pattern? It sounds lame but actually might look kind of cool. And the Syracuse unis are a good color, too. It's the customization part that's killing me. And the culottes.

Finally, the jerseys incorporate some history, with old logos and "names of hall of famers". Or, in the case of Ohio State, the logo of Lebron James. That makes a lot of sense, because LeBron was awesome when he was at Ohio State. Except he wasn't. He went to the NBA straight from high school. He WOULD have gone to Ohio State for at least a year. If he went to college. Which he didn't. So Ohio State is pumped because they get to wear the logo of a current NBA player that is, uhh, from Ohio.

Fitted jerseys are $75, shorts are $60. See you on the court.

how to throw a party in three easy steps!

had a good time out w/ one of my peeps on Friday night. as in, so bad it was good. here is how it went down, in a bulleted list.

• we drove to west hollywood, which is not exactly around the corner from Chez Butterball (my crib in Costa Mesa).
  
• we brought booze, because showing up empty handed is not cool. not that team weakness grasped that concept. (more on TW in a minute)
  
• when we got west hollywod, we went to some girl's condo and we hung out until Team Weakness showed up. they didn't add anything to the conversation or the wet bar. not even a mixer.
  
• after 40 seconds of banality from TW I lost interest and asked the hostess if she could put some music on. thought she might have something since she WORKS IN THE MUSIC BUSINESS AND LIVES WITH TWO GIRLS IN A BAND. she ignored me. we spent the entire time at her place in stuttering, reticent conversation. music would have helped. a lot.
  
• Team Powerhouse showed up about half an hour after TW. thank goodness for TP. they brought some good vibes. all was not yet lost. They were invited by us, though. the girl having the little get together failed to provide booze, music, or company. She did have the good sense to invite people that knew cool people. so that's something.
  
• did i mention no music? a stereo was in evidence. as were guitars and related accessories.
  
• We try to figure out what to do. Hostess claimed to have this sorted earlier in the day. but when the rubber hits the road, she's not sure. after much confusion, they work it out. and we go to an 80's dance party, with snacks. turns out it's not fun after all (who saw that coming?), so plan B is go to a pub on sunset blvd. at 1 AM. i call it quits here; we hit my limit of lame and I threw in the towel.
  

[editorial aside: not sure if you have ever been to sunset blvd in LA at 1 AM on a friday night. it's a mess of street traffic, pretentiousness, pedestrians, cops, and drunk people. pretty much the last place in LA county i would go to get a beer. end of aside]

on the way home my buddy describes how easy it is to throw good party, since we were both disappointed at how inadequate the night had turned out to be. here you go:

1. fill the ipod.
2. fill the fridge.
3. invite cool people.
   

thanks for reading.

i meant to do this on my vacation but didn't get around to it.

when i made a short trip to England and France a couple years ago I tried to convince my traveling buddy that we should annex Lichtentstein. I thouht we could do it in a long weekend. That's a picture of the country (really, the whole country) in the photo. It's tough to find countries worth annexing these days. Either they're too big and won't fit in one long-focal, wide-angle shot, or they probably aren't worth the effort. But Lictenstein has a lot to offer. Apparently the famously neutral swiss agreed, because when some soldiers were out on manoevres they accidentally invaded Lichtenstein. Don't these guys have the swiss army knife with the compass in it?

[Brief editorial aside: went to find a link to a knife w/ a compass but I got lost on the victorinox swiss army knife page. I clicked "Cutlery" but that took me to kitchen knives. At a loss, I clicked "multi-tools" and there was a page full of the knives that made them famous. So it's not a knife any more. It's a multi-tool. Because when I see a knife, I automatically think "multi-tool". This was so lame I remembered that it's not victorinox that equips the swiss army with their knives. It is wenger. You can look it up. Thankfully Wenger has their knives listed under knives. End of aside.]

Thanks for reading.