too much brainpower - gravity affected

was dorking out and looking at photos of the great A. Einstein and found this superb photo of the man with Robert Oppenheimer.

In the rarified atmosphere of world-changing physicists and mathematicians, Oppenheimer was a genius among geniuses.

Once, during his lecturing days, Oppenheimer was called out of town for a few weeks. He asked one of his colleagues to cover for him. He told his colleague to teach directly from the textbook, and answer questions as required. Piece of cake.

The colleague arrived to find that the textbook was entirely in Dutch. The colleague told Oppenheimer that he couldn't do it, the book was in Dutch. Oppenheimer replied, "Ahhh, but it's such easy Dutch."

it's good to have the last word

i'm (in)famous for wanting to get the last word on anything. it's an unattractive trait that i wish i managed better.

Speaking of getting the last word (honk!) I recently read an article in Slate about the creator of Baby Enstein, those coma-inducing videos for kids. It was a nice bit of synergy, because it is critical of the Bush administration's education policies (a pet peeve of mine), i'm interested in cognitive psychology, and I enjoy it when popular myths are debunked. This article was the trifecta for me. Plus the subtitle had the word "mountebank" in it. I don't even know what that means and had to look it up. Double bonus.

Turns out that the subject of the article wrote a letter to Slate, and the author wrote a response to her letter. It's a bit unfair, because the author gets the last word, but the response is measured and intelligent. Even as he hands out verbal beatdown. In a numbered list, no less. Enjoy.

injury to leg: mild; injury to pride: severe

A moments inattention at the gym can be the source of some entertainment. This time, it was me.

I was lifting one of the bars w/ fixed weights on the end. Shocking the triceps with some skull crushers. Between sets, i got up and put the dumbell down on the bench I was laying on, made sure it wasn't going to roll off. As I was standing there, gossiping (as you do), it rolled off. On the way to the ground, it ran down the front of my shin, from my knee to my ankle. It looked, and sounded, unpleasant. It so happened that the grippy part of the bar scraped down my shin. I had to wipe my flesh off the bar. (not superb) Fortunately the injury looked a lot worse than it was, and although my workout ended early, i was back in the gym the next day. As it is, i have a sweet bit of road rash down the front of my leg. Which I got at the weight room. Because I am a toolbox. I'd post a picture but it's kind of icky. But also funny.

This embarassing episode got me thinking about some other stuff I've done that, in retrospect, I probably could have handled better. I'm not talking about momentary lapses in judgment (plenty of those), I'm talking about pre-meditated inadequacy on a grand scale. So in the next week or so I'll post at least one blog entry to highlight some of those instances. Not too many, because I've blocked them from my memory by now. Thank God.

----
in other news, the movie "Smoking Aces" is not that bad. But it's not that good, either.

sexy new look, same dumb commentary

Updated the blog with a new template and some custom colors. The craptop i'm doing the edits on does not show color accurately, so if you're seeing something that looks awful, please let me know. I won't get a chance to check it on a good monitor for a couple days.

Commentary is unchanged. Except I'm now funnier than ever before.

in case you were wondering what awesome looks like...

ordered my new guitar from the guy that knows the guy that knows the guy. (really, that many people were involved - it's not easy to get a deal these days.) problem is, the Les Paul Classic in "vintage sunburst" is backordered two or three months. options: get a different color (shut your mouth) or get a different guitar (i will punch you in the groin if you keep talking this jibber jabber). all i can do is put down a desposit and wait my turn.

upside: gives me plenty of time to, umm, how do i put this? plenty of time to LEARN HOW TO PLAY GUITAR. yeah. I said it. by the time i lay hands on this baby I'll have three chords and the truth. prepare yourself.

"don't be intimidated, this happens all the time. well, maybe not all the time. but you're not the first."

You may or may not have heard that I am shopping for a new electric guitar. I have been hesitant to go in and actually try playing any of the possible models, mostly because I don't know how to play. What I do know how to play is all acoustic. So I don't want to go in and embarass myself at the local Guitar Center. It's very catch-22: you can't learn to play an electric until you get one, and you can't know how to choose an electric until you know how to play it. Something's gotta give. Which brought me to the local Guitar Center right at the opening bell on Saturday morning. I was hoping for fewer customers, an amp to myself, etc. I even brought a list of the guitars I wanted to hear. (Note also that I was told that to truly test an electric you should play it "very loud" through the amp. Perfect.)

Unfortunately, few customers means a very, very attentive sales staff. There isn't much opportunity to do any unobserved solo "jamming". If I could "jam". Which I cannot. My guitar inadequacy is usually only exposed to my empty room, and that's the way I like it; I try not to broadcast. So I get set up, start reviewing one of my options, and it's going fine. I set option 1 aside, and proceed to option two. As I'm sitting there, wondering what the f*ck I'm doing and sweating (profusely) with embarassment, a kid walks over and politely asks if he can "check out" the Les Paul Studio I just set aside. I say of course. Kid, 11 years old if he's a day, takes the LP Studio to the end of the row, plugs in, and starts to EFFING RIPSHRED. I mean he is killing it. He's not playing super-hard guitar parts, but he's playing some decent lead metal guitar. Sitting next to me he sounds like Steve Vai. I almost threw in the towel right then and there. But I swallowed my pride and chuckled at myself. It was good for me. God humbles the proud.

i am looking forward to playing electric guitar in the privacy of my own home. with headphones on.
okay then.

multicultural magic

I don't know how to describe this video except to say that it is outstanding. I found it here.
You owe it to yourself to watch through the full rendition of "by the rivers of babylon." beyond that is a lot to ask.

lalas puts down blunt, talks out of ass

Alexei Lalas (pictured at left), whom you might remember as that red-headed, long haired, goateed, hippy clown from US Soccer 10 years ago, is now the GM of the LA Galaxy. As such, he is gifted in the double-talk and ambiguities you expect from an executive in the "entertainment" business in LA. I don't know if all those years of smoking weed* have gone to his head, but he's also prone to making stuff up. Like in this recent interview with a guy from Sports Illustrated. The article is titled "Lalas goes ga-ga". Appropriate. Here are some excerpts of the ga-ga ness, with my comments. Alexei's words are in bold.

This is a watershed moment for the Los Angeles Galaxy, for Major League Soccer and for the sport of soccer.

true; kind of true if you say so; and maybe true in a signed-a-faded-star-for-his-retirement sort of way.

I think that we will certainly look back at this day and recognize the significance in terms of the growth of soccer.

You sold only 2,000 tickets. In an urban area that has 8 million people. With no american football team. Let's not get carried away.

my bad, by all means, get carried away.

We talk about these big-picture things and they're all very important, but what tends to get lost, and understandably so at times when you're talking about David Beckham, who is this world wide icon, is how good a soccer player he is. Ultimately that's what it all comes down to. He's going to make us a better soccer team.

Pay attention to this part where he says it's about making us a better soccer team. We will come back to it later because it is a) marginally true overall that Beckham makes them better, because the Galaxy are crap (not because Beckham is good), and b) COMPLETE BULLSHIT THAT IT'S ABOUT MAKING THEM A BETTER TEAM. It's about marketing and branding and blah blah blah.

We not only want to be the premier club in the United States, but we want to be considered one of the premier clubs in the world, and in order to do that you have to make bold statements and do bold things, and you can't get any bigger or bolder than what we did.

I applaud the ambition to be one of the premier clubs in the world. Unfortunately, there are some other clubs that have a head start. Like two of your new guy's former teams, Manchester United and Real Madrid. Real Madrid have won their own domestic trophy 25 times. They are like the Yankees of Spanish football. except their games draw 100,000 people. As for getting bigger and bolder, that same Real Madrid team used a similar philosophy and started signing all the big stars several years ago. It nearly bankrupted the club, and once the stars got old, they stopped winning. Which is why they are unloading them to shite teams in Qatar and, ummm, LA. Describing the impact of signing Beckham, he says:

...it raises an incredible amount of attention and awareness of the Los Angeles Galaxy and Major League Soccer.

True. But I thought this was about making your team better?

It is a player who is in his prime at 31 years old, who has played for two of the best clubs in the world in Manchester United and Real Madrid and now is going to what we feel is one of the other great clubs in the world.

Whoa there, Lex! Slow your roll! If by "in his prime" you mean "fired by his own national team" and "unable to make it into the first team on his current club" then yeah, he's in his prime all right. The fact that you feel the LA Galaxy is one of the "other great clubs in the world" says a lot about your tenuous grip on reality.

He is a presence on and off the field, he is known throughout the world; and let's be honest, there are teams all over the world that would love to have David Beckham and he has chosen to come to the United States and has chosen to come to come to the Los Angeles Galaxy. That means a lot and that says a lot to the soccer community in the United States, and even more to the soccer community internationally.

If this is about making your team better, why are we talking about a player's presence off the field? Because this is about publicity and market share and everything BUT making your team better. What Beckham coming to the US says is that he is too prideful to play for a second or third-tier club in England and he can get more money here. Because he is not very good any more.

They all know he's great player and when the ball is thrown out and people start playing soccer, I expect to see all the players step it up a level. That's what happens when big timers come into the mix. You want to impress. You want to do well. Not only will he raise the level of players on our team but I also think he will raise the level of play of other teams. I mean, who doesn't want to beat the team that David Beckham's on?

Ahh... It turns out that the MLS players were not reaching their potential because Beckham wasn't there. They must have been holding something in reserve. They must have not wanted to do well before he got here. When he gets here, look out! People will want to do well like never before. Opposing teams will also play better, because they didn't have enough incentive before. That silly idea of "winning" is not as good as "beating Beckham".

[SI interviewer shits the bed here and draws analogy to ARod, which is ridiculous because baseball is a much different type of game and also because ARod is one of the top 5 best players on the planet at any position. Beckham is not one of the top 10 midfielders, never mind players.]

As far as the Galaxy brand, I can tell you that in the past 24 hours, what we've seen in terms of the attention and the interest domestically and internationally has been unlike anything we've ever seen, and that's the type of impact that David Beckham has.

I thought this was about making your team better? Wait, what? It's about selling jerseys and market share and promotion and attention and "interest"? Weird. i never would have guessed that.
-------------------------------------------
* I made up that part about smoking weed. Because it is funny to me. And he looks like the sort of guy that would smoke a lot of weed. But I made it up. Even if it is true. Which it isn't.

back, and better than ever! (kind of)

it's been a tough couple of weeks for the fat kid. the flights home from south america were long and miserable. took about 24 hours, 19 hours of flight time. by the time i got back i was not feeling too hot. and of course i got sick as soon as i got home. as per usual. still, it was great to be home. i even went to the gym a couple times before i got REALLY sick. awesome.

best part about being home: seeing my peeps.

reason i came home (long version): i was sitting on a beach in Isla de Santa Catarina in southern brazil, and I realized that traveling solo was not my idea of fun. If i don't have someone to help put the experience in context then the experience itself doesn't mean very much. that's just how i am. i didn't see the point in continuing my vacation. so i came home.

in other news, David Beckham signed with the LA Galaxy! People don't realize how not good he is (got fired from his own national team, can't make it into the squad for his club team) and they grossly overestimate his ability to make an impact on the field. You have to divide any marquee player's impact by the total number of other players on his own team (except in baseball, where one guy bats and blah blah blah - baseball sucks). So if you add one mediocre player to a team of other mediocre players, what do you get? well, you get me ignoring the games for what would be my "home club". Somebody asked The Game what he thought of the move (this is a guy w/ the LA Dodgers symbol tattooed on his face), and he had the right attitude. He says, in part, "I'd kick David Beckham's ass on any given day." As you should, Mr. Game. As you should.

Why the guitar photo at top? i am shopping for a new electric, and considering this make and model. it was the only photo i had on short notice. awesome!
thanks for reading.

update from rio de janeiro

greetings from Rio. happy early new year!
its been an interesting couple of days.

finally got to see some familiar faces. it is great to have friends in town. we have been out two nights in a row. first night was in ipanema/leblon, and the second night was in leblon/botafogo/lapa. its crowded here. big weekend celebration or something. anyway, some highlights:

• if a place as described as "seedy" then you might want to pass on it.
• do not expect a cab driver to know, or even have heard of, a street. many of them are from the somewhere else and dont know rio at all. this can be frustrating. it helps to write down cross streets, and also bring a map. (the cabbies usually dont have maps, either).
• went to a huge street party in Lapa. very local, very busy. but not as crowded as usual because a lot of people have been staying off the buses. it was very cool. we had a friend of a friend as a guide. though brazilian, his name is doug. and he looks like Fred Couples.
• the speedo or "poser pants'" (as the english call them) are acceptable in almost any situation during the day. jason remarked that you see guys walking around in the speedo several miles from the beach, just because.
• boardshorts are also popular here. theres so many tourists in town for the weekend that theres no way to get a feel for how rio is on a regular day. advantage: we dont stick out as much. disadvantage: you dont get a true feel for the place.
• rio food so far has been okay. its hard to find places to eat since you dont always know what you are ordering. the buffet is my friend.
• at the beach, its cool to put your chair/umbrella adjacent to or on top of someone elses chair/umbrella. we got a picture yesterday of ipanema beach and you couldnt see any sand. just umbrellas. at first it feels awkward, but then you embrace it. the beaches are packed with people. it gets to be a bit much. you cant even play a game of catch, never mind a game of touch rugby.

big night tonight w all the nye blah blah. we'll take some pictures.

next update will be more interesting. and funny.

love you,

-c-

 

update from florianopolis, # n+1

greetings from the southeast of brazil.

after a few crummy days it looks like thigns are looking up.

p(there is a one second lag between wheni hit the keys and when the stuff appears on the screen, so ignore typos. i don~t have time for this shite internet connection - im too good for it).

 

some observations and life lessons courtesy of isla de santa catarinha:

• the hardest of the hard core wear a speedo and a ring of 50 spf suscreen i mean sunscreen around their face, across thier nose and on the cheeks. thats it. its a locals only thing. about half the dudes wear speeds and the other half trunk it. girls wear bikinis only. if you~re a grandmohter of 8 then you can wear a 1 piece. or a bikini. whatever suits you.
• the sun in the sub-tropical summer (near the tropic of capricorn o rcancer, i think) is intense. its like a blowtorch. and we just had the summer solstice, which is the most direct sun day of th eyear. so when the sun is out, it is hot.
• the sun has not been out very much. its rained off and on since i got here. summer in the tropics. it happens.
• i wold pay whatever they asked for a computer that works like it is supposed to.  
• when you get on the bus, have exact change ready. or be prepared to feel like a jackass.
• when you get on the bus, expect it to leave as soon as your back foot hits the first step. door still open? so what! if youre not ready, you might fall into some people and feel like a jackass.
• expect all drivers to be in training to become the next ayrton senna. all drivers. buses, taxis, trucks, cars, motorcycles, and whatever else, they are driving it like they stole it.
• just because its an atm machine in a major metropolitan area does not mean that it is connected to a network that will take your card. so you have to carry around loads of cash in places where every guide, tourist, book, and travel resource tells you not to carry loads of cash. makes sense, no?
• best meal so far: lunch at praia mole, watching the surf, eating a crepe, drinking coconut water fresh out of the coconut. they put them in ice water overnight, then punch a hole in them so you can drink the sweet ambrosia with a straw. finally a deal: cost about 3.50 US. total. and it was just as good as the fish i had for lunch the previouis day at 10x the price.
• i stick out like a sore thumb here. i am embracing it.

 thanks for checking out the igazu falls pix. they took forever to upload. more photos fo follow, pending internet connection and etc.

from here i go to Rio to meet some friends for NYE. bitchin.

love you.

-c-

 

cachaca 1, casey 0

i would write a funny, insightful email about brazilian cane liquor, but i drank too much of it (im on vacation) and i am hung over. blah.

 

i took a lot of pictures, some of them good. i~ll email you when i get them uploaded.

 

okay then.

gave up urban for the sticks - humid times in Foz de Iguacu

writing to you now from a janky internet connection in the city of Foz de Iguacu. it is in brazil.

new place = new faces and new keyboard. we are all portugese all the time now, so maybe i~ll get used to it. the apostrophe key has swapped with the tilde. so that~s sweet.

 

here~s a brief rundown of the last 24 hours.

1. wrap up my last night in BA with my new international friends. we stay out late. i get up early to check out and go to the airport.
2. i go to the wrong airport.
3. i pay for another taxi and go to the right airport.
4. i don~t have a ticket because they canceled my flight.
5. they re-book my ticket. i get on the plane.
6. plane hits weather in planned destination. re-routed to nearby airport. after 2.5 hours in the air, we land, disembark.
7. wait 3 hours in airport so small it feels like we stopped by someone~s house unexepectedly, only to find they have stepped away. but it is an airport.
8. We fly back to Bs. As. why not? no explanation is offered.
9. as soon as we land, they tell us they will fly us back to our orig destination if we wish. i say, yeah, lets do it. get my ticket, splash some water on my face, use the bathroom, and the plane LEAVES WITHOUT ME. on the ticket it said it would leave at 1030, it leaves a HALF AN HOUR EARLY. i had no issues throughout the day, but i got very angry at this point. its now midnight. i~ve been doing airport song and dance for 12 hours, and i~m no closer to my destination than i was at the start. i did get to visit posada international airport. i don~t recommend it.
10. i get a hotel room in BA, but i don~t get there until 1. my wake up call for my early flight is at 5. i get to airport on time, but my morning flight is 2.5 hours late. so i catch some z~s on the bench.
11. board plane, fly, land in FdI. OUTSTANDING! i need a map. i ask the aggressive tour booking guys if they have any maps. just the one on their desk. of course. so i ask the rental car companies if they have any maps. surely avis provides their customers with a map when the rent them a car? how else would they know WHERE THE HELL THEY ARE GOING? sorry, Avis says. no maps. That was good for a laugh, anyway. thanks, avis. way to try harder and lie to my face.  i ask the hertz guy, he apologizes, says he has only a photocopy, will that do? i say fine thanks, i~ll take it. so he gives it to me. then he says, i forgot we had brochures too. here you go. and he gives me 4 brochures with maps in them. for free. literally, un regalo, a gift. restoring my faith in the human race one good deed at a time. it lasts exactly 12 minutes, which is how long it takes for the cab driver to try and give me the shaft.
12. cabbie works overtime trying to sell me on a hostel he gets a kickback from. i say, great. i~m going to the hostel i told you about. you might remember it because ITS IN BRAZIL, and the hostel you are trying to sell me on IS IN ARGENTINA. this goes on for about 12 minutes. i say no thank you. no thank you. etc. so the asshole ignores every word i~ve said and tries to pull into the parking lot of the hostel he is selling me. we had a tense moment in the car when i alerted him to the fact that i did not appreciate his sales strategy. and i finally made it.

more info on rural brazil, waterfalls, and the effect of loss of sleep on one's disposition in tomorrows issue. im off to shower so i don~t hit a new pb on the INOASq.

xo

narrating Bs.As.

Happy Christmas!

Today is my last full day in Bs.As. flying to iguazu falls tomorrow.

here are more life lessons and generalizations from the southern hemisphere.

• any time you are in an argentine grocery and you use the words 'tabasco sauce is too expensive' then you need to adjust your priorities. i overheard some american girls say it when i was wandering aimlessly, wondering if i could learn to like dulce de leche as much as I like peanut butter. (i cannot)
• you know that thing where people raise their voice when speaking their native language in the expectation that it helps non-native speakers understand? yeah, it doesnt work. ive been yelled at in restaurants, on the street, at a shopping mall, etc. not in a mean way, but after a while its easier to pretend i dont understand a word of spanish. its good practice for when i get to brazil and dont know 3 words of portuguese.
• if the argentines can cook an entree without 8 sticks of butter in it, then i havent seen it. officially, the travel books recommend you avoid salads and uncooked veggies, but how long can a person go without some greens?
• the xmas decorations around town are holly and tinsel, just like home, with the odd xmas tree (including snow) mixed in. plus lights and stuff. they dont do much in the way of decorating.
• if you like dark haired people, this is the place for you. almost everyone has dark brown to jet black hair. lots of exotic (to me, anyway) skin tones and eye colors. i stick out like a sore thumb since my hair is a) not black, and b) not worn in some kind of shaggy, messy mullet.
• highlight of yesterday was the 5 a side soccer game we played against the hostel staff. it was competitive. i scored a goal. YEAH THATS RIGHT I SCORED A GOAL!!!!!!!! i had to pretend like it happened all the time, been there before, etc. but i was pumped. the shaggy, mulleted argies ended up winning, 4-3. it was fantastic fun.
• supposed to play touch rugby today with some english guys. that should be interesting. i heart adventure.

thats it for now. thanks for reading. i took a couple pictures but they are boring. ill send pix when they add value. if you want to know what Recoleta cemetery looks like, look it up on the interweb. google: headstone.

love you.

my kingdom for some peanut butter

greetings from the southern hemisphere.

i forgot to check if the water swirls in a different direction when you flush the toilet. i{ll get on that immediately.

 

it's alternating between blinding hot and pissing down rain here. nice.

three things i miss the most:

• peanut butter
• the gym
• my guitar

i think i can find a gym here. so that{s good. you would think i could find peanut butter, but no. 23 kinds of dulce de leche, but no peanut butter. bust. and the bread is really good too.

 

so if youve never been here, they have this thing where you don{t flush the toilet paper after you use it. you throw it in a trash can adjacent to the toilet. whether you{re going numero uno or dos, and irrespective of any gastrointestinal distress, that is the procedure. it takes some getting used to.

 

so when i moved into the hostel i was assigned a top bunk. that sucked, so as soon as the guy underneath me vacated the bunk i promoted myself to the lower bunk. they cost the same, so why should i get the crappy elevated position? the next guy they put in the room, he got the top bunk. turns out the move was fortuitous, because when i got back last night the roof was leaking into the bunk above me. taste it, bearded euro packpacker guy. that is bad luck. it happens. maybe they refunded your 6 euros? i{ll never know. he left before i got up today.

 

more later.

-c-

 

day one so far

yeah i'm reprezenting the oc like a mofo. at least people know where the oc is. kind of.

early returns on BA are good. lots of touristy stuff to do.

best part of the day so far: a 30 oz beer costs about $2. including the tip.

starting a new deal called the In Need of A Shower quotient, INOASq for short.

the possible scores are:

 

mild - typical, end of day shower need.

moderate - light workout at the gym need a shower, not really sweaty or smelly.

severe - sweaty and gross. get a shower immediately.

italian subway in the summer - call in the hazmat team. i'm awful.

 

right now i'm on my way to the shower, so i'm going to give myself a 'severe'. yuk. \

 

thanks for reading. \=c=

and I'm off...

Hooray for summer in December.
Blog posts will be infrequent and travel-related for the next couple months. I'm going to spend some time in Argentina and Brasil (I leave on 13 December, get back in February.)
I'll post as often as time and internet availability allow. Once or twice a week, probably.
If you want to do some google mapping on my itinerary, i'm going to the following places:

• Buenos Aires
• Foz de Iguazu
• Florianopolis
• Rio de Janeiro
• Buzios
• Porto Seguro / Arraial d'Ajuda
• Salvador / Morro de Sao Paolo
• Fortaleza
• Jericoacoara
• then back to Fortaleza, on to Rio, and home.

see you when I get back. and, as always, thanks for reading.
love you.

gift cards: when you care enough to say you don't care very much; plus, new idiot HOF entry

I love gift cards, because they say so much. Mostly what they say is, "I couldn't be bothered to get you a real gift; how about I just write you a check?"

it's become increasingly popular to hand out gift cards in lieu of an actual present, esp. at gift exchanges. I know one guy that has an awkward gift exchange with his family every year ($10 max- don't spend it all in one place). A couple years ago every single person brought a gift card, and more than half (of ~9) were from blockbuster. wow. so everyone just kept trading their blockbuster cards back and forth. you kind of had to be there, but I promise it was funny, in an awkward, depressing sort of way.

don't get me wrong, the gift card is an acceptable intermediate solution for someone that lives far away, but it's not a thoughtful gift. if you don't know someone well enough to get them something, why buy them anything at all? instead, get yourself something nice. you'll both be happier in the long run.
--------------------
in other news, Ben Johnson, who freely admits to being on drugs when he was stripped of his gold medal back in '88, says that the drug he tested positive for is not the same as the drugs he was doing. but he says it in a much more believable way. to wit:

Number one, that day the drugs that they find in my system was not the drugs that I was using. Number two, Ben Johnson was sabotaged in Seoul. Somebody set me up.

you said it BJ! You deserve that gold medal, since you didn't test positive for those drugs that you were taking! wait... what?

Breakup Beatdown: Better You Than Me

[no photo - posting remotely]
first things first: You know those stories that people tell about how they have a "friend" w/ some kind of an issue, but it's really the person telling the story that has the issue? It's all just a big fakeout? Well, this is not one of those stories. Let's clear that up right away.

This story is what you get when I scale back my general idiocy and have to resort to describing the eperiences of others. From a certain remove, if you will.

I have a friend (previously famous for his special order at Jack in the Box) that is dating around. Let's call him "John". About 2.5 months ago John met a friend of a friend (we'll call her "moms", b/c she has a child from prev. relationship) and they started seeing each other. Not often, since moms has a job and also a kid. Maybe once a week. They agreed to "take it slow", and "not rush". That suited John, since he wanted to see other people, and it suited moms because she knew John would bail as soon as he started getting some dad practice.

Fast forward to last week: John has given it the college try, but he's not into it. He decides to end things. But how? Does he do the slow fade, whereby the girl gets the hint and can prepare herself? Or does he go the mature route and tell her that he's over it? In the past it's been all fadeout, all the time. But in light of the friend-of-friend clause, plus the shoplifting-the-pooty issue, he decided to be up front.

Bad move.

Instead of being cool about the whole thing, moms has been going through the five stages of grief. I don't mean the Kubler-Ross model , I mean the crazy bitch model: snotting (think crying, but worse), jealous, bitter, furious, and desperate. often all in the same conversation. Taste it.

John acted more maturely than he ever has, and he was rewarded w/ more drama than he ever expected. he said "it feels like we've been going out for 2 years, not two months". setback. That's what you get for being mature. dummy.

make the fish lips; plus, uncivil war?; and: good (free) music; 2 weeks to summer in december

not sure if you caught this story about the king of all prehistoric fishes. [caught. get it? honk!] if you didn't, this thing was the boss. in the evolutionary arms race that was the Devonian period, this thing was the king. or at least, the king we know about. It probably fed on the coelacanth, among other things. synergy: You can feed on a coelacanth too, if you can catch one.

unrelated: there's a fuss about whether or not to describe the war in Iraq as "civl war". maybe "uncivil" is better? i'm going with uncivil war from now on. back to your regularly scheduled programming...

some intrepid soul is posting podcasts of eclectic mixes. check it yourself: www.oddiofile.net. (even the logo is cool) it's mostly mellow, jazzy, downtempo, ambient mixes, but w/ a variety of beats and styles. there's even some hip-hop that doesn't suck. weird. the recording quality is not great (to save on file size/bandwidth costs), but it's worth a listen. If you have itunes you can search for "oddiofile" and set up the podcast. if not, you can download the mixes direct from the oddiofile blog. I recommend it.

lastly: the south american expedition starts exactly two weeks from today.
makes me feel a little queasy just reading that. eesh.