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8/30/04: Tambourines and Elephants First there was Gurvir Dhindsa and the Stumbling Stomper. Now, thanks to a blessed forward from Ambrose, you can add the Nunchucks Numbnutz to your pantheon of internet klutzes. I would say this is worth 15 viewings. If you don't laugh, you don't deserve to laugh. Do not continue reading until you have viewed it. OK. You may continue. Let's assume the guy wasn't hurt too badly.
Or at least that he's healed.
Maybe it's staged, but I sure hope not. The West Side of Manhattan (especially in the low teens) has turned into something altogether un-New York, but in sort of a good way. Like Minneapolis or something. Clean little parks that are a perfect place for you to catch your afternoon winks. And you already know you can't beat the bike path and its views. I think I need a new hobby. I know, between working 40-plus hours at 35% efficiency, and publishing verbungle.com, and being a loving husband and loyal friend to the appropriate parties, I am one busy American. But I think it would be cool to be able to say without hesitation, "I'm a (insert hobby x here) buff." I knew a guy once who I didn't think had a lot going on upstairs, and then one day it turns out he's a history buff. I was impressed. He had a passion for something. We all need that. I'm leaning slightly towards this. Mounting slides might be a pain, but these pictures are absolutely gorgeous. Not just a gimmick. I am open to other suggestions. Basketball can't last forever. Your bagel analysis has blown me away. Remember, it's a depth chart and subject to change if somebody catches fire. But Cinnamon Raisin has the hot hand right now and we're gonna ride him. My wife just asked me to put some batteries in the fridge. Does that do anything? I missed the entire convention tonight. I think that may become a pattern. Just reading the recaps of the events, I am amazed that they are trying to drive home the theme of "courage" to describe George W. Bush. Has he ever done a courageous thing in his life? I think the only time he demonstrates courage is when he can do so with other people's lives. And don't forget this quote from W.: "I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes." That took some guts. What an utter schmendrick. I really think Kerry better get his ass in gear, though. This election will not be decided by smart people. They've already decided who they're voting for. Nor will it be decided by who runs the classier campaign. Kerry needs to hammer away at the idiots on the fence, the ones who respond to broad ideas and nasty attack ads. The ones who will get behind a candidate because of a catchphrase or dump one because of a rumor. He's got to be aggressive and slick and he needs to pull a Rick Mahorn every once in a while. Let Bush back him down and then "pull the chair" with one deft maneuver. Let W. fall on his face like Jimmy Nunchucks. Bush and his advisers understand all this so much better. They let the hangers-on do the dirty work while maintaining some distance themselves. Once sufficient damage is done, they denounce the shameful ads or reports as if they had nothing to do with it. It's too easy. And we have guys like Michael Moore hollering and stomping his feet and generally making himself unbearable to all but the already converted. He's too confrontational. A lot of people can't deal with that. Sure, he's in the right, but we need to be more than that. We need to be subtle and underhanded and maybe even a little slimy. It's all about the winning at this point. Get on the low road and step on the gas. That concludes my vague advice for John Kerry. In college, I had a friend who did an internship at Oscar Mayer. No, he didn't get to drive the weinermobile, but he did get a nice employee discount. And he shared it with us. The product I remember was bacon, $1 for a 1 lb. package. Throw it in the microwave* on some paper towels and you're all set. I miss $1 bacon and the era it represents. I am totally ready for the visiting Republicans to pack up their shit and leave town. And they can each adopt a terrorist to take home to Nebraska with 'em. * Of course you already know that bacon cooks up real nice in the microwave. 8/29/04: Town full o' schmucks Best softball games of the year tonight. 7 on 7, gorgeous night. Dan K. will have the recap in a couple days, and we'll post some ballots for postseason awards as well. Before the game, I shot a little pool with D. Lee. He's good. I'm not. I have not improved at all over the hundreds of times I've played. Pool and darts. I just don't ever get better. I like playing, though. You all have some serious opinions about bagels. Wow. They're just bagels. There are probably four more flavors that should be on the list somewhere, but I don't think I've ever tried 'em, so they don't make the cut. Sorry. I agree that lox would not make a good topping
for a cinnamon raisin bagel. If I were the type of man who eats lox, I might
have factored that in. But lox is some gross shit. It even sounds
gross. Lox. Yuck. I would never presume to tell anybody what they should or shouldn't eat. I would never criticize someone for eating meat, even though I find it nasty and a little bit savage. But it's your choice. That said, I think eating fish is pretty weird. I know it's healthy and stuff, but as Calvin once said in an excellent comic strip published long ago, who wants to eat something that eats worms anyway? Plus, if two animals were ever put on earth with the express intention of NOT eating each other, they are man and fish. We are environmentally completely disconnected from one another. If we go under the water, we die. If the fishes come on land, they die. We should have just co-existed peacefully for eternity, each in our own habitat. The fish have held up their end of the bargain. You rarely see them climb up on land to drag somebody's baby into the sea. But as a species we feel the need to conquer every domain that exists, so we have dug our grubby mitts into the water to kill the happy little fishes. I guess that's OK, the fishes are packed with nutrients. But when I see all the fancy equipment they make to catch fish these days, I can't help but think it's a little unfair. The fish are still falling for the old "worm on the hook" routine. They haven't developed any new aspects of their game to avoid being caught. But we now have turned fishing equipment into a hundred-million dollar a year industry.* Every fisherman must have the snazziest and most efficient tools to catch his fish. What bullshit. Just grab a pole and a worm and get to it. To the anonymous poster who issued a verbungle-wide gas face: you are not entitled or qualified to administer a gas face unless you leave an email address or URL. Perhaps we do all deserve the gas face. But we're not gonna accept it from an anonymous hosebag like you. At least leave an explanation: why do we deserve the GF? Back it up with some evidence. Thank you for your continued readership. Newest addition to the product boycott list is Pepsi-Cola. First, because their soda is syrupy and yucky. Second, because of the commercial they are running right now implying that Jimi Hendrix was a Pepsi man. Any company that utilizes posthumous endorsements is asking for a spot on the boycott list. Didn't see any protesters today. No protestors, either. I guess I should have gone to one of the protests if I wanted to see them. Still, I rode the old bike all the way down to the field this afternoon, and the streets were empty. It was a nice ride and I was cranking the iPod. The iPod battery situation seems to be improving a little. One thing I didn't count on is that the thing will run for a good two hours after the battery bar is at zero. Kind of stupid, but good to know. After today, I am not going to wrap the pictures anymore, until I can figure out how to make sure they don't cover up the text. So embarrassing. Hasn't happened to me lately, but D. Lee says it still happens to him when he looks at the site. I think I need a new publishing program. Until then, I'm going to plop those pictures right smack in the middle of the page. Ploppity plop. In the meantime, let me know if this one is messed up or not. Thanks. Thanks to the RNCC, the wife does not have to show her face in the office until September 7th. My face will be shown five times by then. I'm jealous. * Source: My Ass 8/28/04: Dog Days Just a quick update on The Dude Who Fucked Up
At Work. We fixed his mistake first thing Friday morning. It took a nice
group effort and a lot of hustle, and we got it done very quickly. No harm
done. The offender wasn't even very thankful. I guess maybe he wasn't as
terrified of the reaming he was in store for as he should have been.
Then on Saturday morning, he got in a huge and embarrassing political debate with another guy. Our man just kept reciting stuff about taxes and individual responsibility and started tossing in what I assume were Rush's standard liberal-bashing catchphrases. He was so pompous I regretted helping him out. The argument eventually became so heated and awkward that I had to leave the room. I wish he had been a little more grateful about us bailing his ass out. It would make blackmailing him easier when the time comes. Dan K. had a nice piece about Craig Kilborn yesterday. He nailed it pretty well. I saw the last episode of Kilborn's show tonight. Guests included Nikki Ziering, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, Kevin Garnett, Adam West, Jimmy Jam, Dennis Farina, Wayne Newton and Robert Evans. For someone who plays up the Hollywood bachelor routine as much as he does, he did manage to embrace some down-on-their-luck celebrities. He was never afraid to flaunt his Minnesota roots. And he got out early. And when he paraded out the C-list celebrities, I always felt like there was some genuine affection and respect involved. But I could be wrong about that. I know a lot of you still love Conan, but I've found him difficult to watch over the last two or three years. At one time I was a huge fan, too. I guess I'll be giving him another chance now, on those rare nights when I am watching late night talk shows. Anything but Jimmy Kimmel and his special brand of mean-spirited unfunniness. So the Republicans have descended on the city. How can we pick them out? Softball players, I would allow yourselves an extra few minutes on the way to the field Sunday. The protests might be near JJ Walker. Or they might not. I personally am going to do my protesting with my bat. I will wear my Miserable Failure T-shirt, though. Sunday's softball game is for all the marbles. I hope I remember to bring the marbles. With the season winding down, some of the hitters are taking their game to another level. Rob continues to spray hits all over the field and Justin can't be stopped. Matt still hits lasers down the left field line, but the shift does work on occasion. The season batting average leaders going into the final week: -Justin .692 I think the new iPods actually have a 12-minute battery life, not 12 hours. In which case mine is working just fine. Thanks for the tips, but I think there may be something actually focacta with my particular unit. I'll drain that shit and give it another try, and then I'm taking it in. iPod: you're officially on notice. I hate poking fun at auto-racing, I really do. But I must admit I got a kick out of the name of this week's NASCAR event, The Sharpie 500. I am still mildly sick. It was a long six day work week, and I'm going to treasure my one day off. Rest, softball, and some picture-taking. Maybe a Tall Boy or two to take the edge off. I don't know what it is I've got; it hasn't gotten much better and it hasn't gotten much worse. Some people at work mentioned that they've been having health problems since we moved into our new, still-under-construction office space. They think it's all the dust and the recirculated air or something. I will say I never remember being slightly ill for so long. Usually there is a cycle to your illness. It gets to a certain depth of misery, and then you climb out and find relief. That's just not happening this time. Hopefully it will. 8/27/04: Spicy Chicken I have very little to say today. Maybe I should say nothing. But that would leave seven minutes of your day unaccounted for, and I'm not one to leave you in the lurch like that. So I will tell you that I had a crap day today. Still not feeling so well (and now I have gotten the wife sick), working hard, dealing with a lot of hostility from other people. And feeling whiny about everything. Somebody at work fucked something up pretty
badly and I noticed it. I have chosen not to rat him out. I am going to try to
cover for him and fix the mistake without anyone needing to know about it.
By choosing this path I may be leaving myself open to reprimand. But I
think I can fix the mistake seamlessly without any boss types finding out.
It's definitely not an unfixable mistake. But it will be a pain and could
potentially cost the company some money. He's a decent fellow, but I am not best
friends
He's a Limbaugh-loving Republican, though. Not in your face about it, but it's part of the package. Maybe I will cover his ass in exchange for his vote. New Jersey's already locked up, though. Right? I received this anonymous blow-by-blow yesterday: "-Thursday PM, eat some of my brothers
spicy chicken So I really have nothing to whine about. I can shove cookies down my throat without fearing the immediate consequences. One thing I won't be eating is meat. It still kind of amazes me that as a species we haven't evolved past this stage of development. We kill and eat animals. Wowie. All kinds, too. Birds, fishes, cows, pigs, lambs, turtles, lobsters, frogs. Chickens, all the time. But then we frown on other cultures for eating dogs. "That's gross." Why do dogs deserve life more than other animals? Because they know how to catch frisbees?* That's not fair. If you eat pigs, you need to start eating dogs, killer. Unless you don't like the flavor. Or join me in eating some delicious farm-raised fritos. No death involved. Just delicious corn goodness. The moral guideline for whether or not something should be eaten ought to be: if you fire a gun in the vicinity of this food item, does it run like hell? If so, it wants to live and we should let it. I wonder if they ever caught this guy. I think I am going as a chicken for Halloween. Chickens crack me up. I figure I'll post some random shots of NYC in case we all get blowed up next week. Remember with fondness the out-of-shape dudes playing hoops on Thompson street. And vote that crapwad out of the White House for us. Actually, do that even if we don't get blowed up. He's still a crapwad. I want a chocolate milkshake. * Upon further thought, this is a perfectly adequate reason not to eat dogs. But it doesn't mean you have to eat other animals who aren't as good at sports. 8/26/04: Seven Strangers So I watched the Introductory episode of Real World: Philadelphia tonight. I'll say this for MTV. Even as the quality of their programming continues to nosedive, they find the most inventive ways to promote their very bad shows and make them look like something worth watching. In the end, MTV's greatest contribution to the world of entertainment will be their ability to celebrate themselves. Nobody loves MTV more than MTV. They operate under the assumption that everything they do is inherently hip and important and will influence the next generation of kids. They think they control taste and style and popular culture, and for the most part, they're right. It's unfortunate. Tonight I thought I'd be seeing the "moving in" episode, where everybody selfishly claims their bedrooms, and people form intense personal bonds with the people who they most closely resemble physically. The conversations usually go like this: "Dude, I'll be honest. I like to PARTY." Something like that. It's fun. Although one thing RW has gotten away from, which I dearly miss, is concept of the Dreamer. In the first couple of years, everybody was pursuing a big-city dream. Sure, they were all archetypes: The Singer, The Rapper, The Writer, The Model, The Annoying Cartoonist Loser, The Singer again, The Playwright, The Race Car Driver, etc. But the aspirations they had gave the show a purpose, even if it was just surface bullshit. Now it's, let's throw a bunch of hot people in a house together, supply the booze, and watch the fucking. Still good TV, but it gets old pretty fast as the shock value diminishes. The new archetypes, which they are really not straying too far away from these days, go something like this: -The black guy who hasn't hung out much with
white people thus far in his life There are probably a few more, but it doesn't matter. The apartment really just serves as a blender to get all these people drunk so they can climb all over each other while the little Paris Hilton bedroom camera rolls. The last four seasons or so have been nearly identical. And instead of realizing they've become formulaic and attempting to shake things up, MTV's marketing whizzes decide to capitalize on it, to embrace it. Smart. Those guys are smart. Tonight's show wasn't the entertaining "moving in" episode, but rather a season preview kinda thingie, where they brought back some of the more enjoyably loathsome cast members from seasons past to discuss the incoming Philly cast. The guy Dan from the Florida season is a gem. Shallow and proud of it, with a bitchy comment about nearly everyone. He's actually got a decent blog, btw. Anyway, MTV has basically said, we give up, this show no longer even pretends to have any redeeming social value. It's just a bunch of drunken flesh fighting and rubbing against other flesh. Sit back and enjoy. We are MTV. Thank you for your attention. So they sort of introduced the characters tonight. The usual bunch. I will report back on this next week after the "moving in" episode. It looks like a pretty sucky season. When are they gonna show some balls and have an Islamic Fundamentalist move in? With Dan K.'s eyewitness testimony, which is now a matter of public record, I think we can safely put the line drive mystery to bed. We now have accounts from the three people who were closest to the play (Dan, Chris H., and myself), and they all say the same thing: I caught the damn ball. The rest of yous is just plain cray-zee. I would ask for a group apology, but I know that's not the way you bastards run your respective shops. In fact, Joe Monkeyweb still demands an explanation for the "trappy" sound, I'll tell you what, Joe: I don't rightly know what caused that sound, or even what a "trappy" sound is.. How about you call Bill Nye, Mr. Monkeyweb? It's as if I was just freed by DNA evidence after serving 28 years for a murder I didn't commit, and you want to know why the victim's head was found in the trunk of my car. I am insulted. Details like this are best left to bitter, vindictive little men like yourself. Life's too short and there are too many line drives to catch for me to worry about some fucking "trappy" sound. I enjoyed reading everybody's blogs today. There was a lot of cross-linking and shout-out giving and stuff. It's almost like we've formed a small but effective little internet community. We're not in it for the big visitor numbers or the fancy rides. We're about fresh content every day of the week. Hopefully more people we know will be inspired by our cringe-inducing camaraderie and will launch readable blogs of their own in the near future. I look forward to it. Remember kids: it's cheaper than cigarettes. There was a tenacious squirrel on the field for the bulk of the Yankee game tonight. At least three times they tried to catch it, kill it, or otherwise evict it from the stadium, and they failed each time. Not sure if they finally scared him away, but he was out there sheepin' in left field for innings at a time. He gets major respect from our entire editorial staff for his guts and cunning. In fact, anytime a squirrel camps out on the field during a professional sporting event, the sun in my world shines a little brighter. And the larger the animal, the better. I'm gonna go ahead and say that's a rule. Imagine if there was a cute li'l Shetland Pony grazing out on that weird centerfield hill in Houston? And they couldn't get rid of it? That would make my day. Lastly, my iPod's 12 hour battery doesn't seem to be lasting nearly 12 hours. What am I doing wrong? I turn it off when I am done using it, and still the battery seems to drain fast. 8/25/04: Caught in a trap I love my iPod. I'm actually looking for a way to sweet-talk it into the sack. I am rapidly and dangerously approaching gizmo fetish territory. I've started reading iPod magazines and stuff (but I swear somebody I work with lent it to me, I didn't buy one), and I'm actually wishing my commute was longer so I'd have more time to rock out. The only thing that makes me sad about the whole thing is it serves as a reminder of how little music I have that I actually want to listen to. I wish Napster Original Gold or Audiogalaxy or even Kazaa were still flowing the free shit. I could use Kazaa, I guess, but I'm pretty sure they're the creeps responsible for me having to reformat my hard drive. Good advice from Pete about unchecking the shitty songs in iTunes so they don't pollute what might otherwise be a perfect shuffle. Only problem is I am too obsessive to leave anything off the iPod, as if I am ever going to need immediate access to that long-forgotten Falco B-side. But I can't help it. So it all goes on there. For now. I also love Joe Torre. And I love that little face he makes when he's excited, the one where his eyes light up and his mouth makes a funny shape, and it looks like he has no teeth. Maybe he's whistling with delight. I also love Mariano Rivera. He is very good. It's not like guys don't get good swings on him, either. When I think of bad swings, I think of Ron Guidry in his prime, throwing that slider in the dirt and guys just flailing helplessly at it. With Mariano, guys aren't fooled. They swing from their heels, like they're going to hit it 9 miles. And when they make contact, it's this incredible assortment of comical bloopers and squibs. It's just beautiful. That ball must feel like steel when it hits your bat. A-Rod kinda sucks, Joe Girardi was a catcher. As an announcer, he sees the game through a catcher's eyes. Sometimes, this serves him well. Other times, it's just plain annoying. Tonight he blamed Bob Wickman's reluctance to throw a breaking ball in a big situation on the fact that the Indians' catcher was a "bad blocker." I'm not buying that. I just downloaded Eddie Murphy: Comedian and listened to a few minutes of it. I remember howling at this one when I was fourteen, and yes, unlike Fletch, it is actually still funny. But I am more shocked by just how offensive it is. Not just in a good, breakin' the rules kinda way. In a small-minded, hateful, paranoid kinda way. Eddie definitely had/has some issues, especially relating to homosexuals. But he was one powerful talent. One thing I like about the Reader Challenge is that the answers sort of slowly trickle in over a few days, and by the time they come in, I've usually forgotten what the questions were. So I end up seeing these bizarre answers that make me crack up without even remembering the question. They're almost funnier out of context. Like this one from today: "the sound of your nuts knocking together" I forgot that tonight was the premiere of Real World: Philly. But you know who didn't forget? My buddy the DVR. He divo'd that shit so I can watch it tomorrow at my leisure. I know most of you scoff at me for my continuing allegiance to The Real World, and I have to admit San Diego and maybe the last four seasons before it were mostly crap, but I'll probably keep watching that shit 'til it goes off the air. I will give you my thoughts on the new cast at some point in the near future. Feel free to roll your eyes and skip past it. I like Jon Stewart. He's quick and he's funny. But I think he really blew the Kerry interview. Too much ass-kissing, too little willingness to actually go ahead and ask the tougher questions that he had on his index cards, all nicely typed up, right in front of him. Questions that would have helped people form an opinion. For his part, Kerry came across pretty warm and engaging, and he has got some terrific -- dare I say presidential -- hair. I know I issued a product boycott a while back...what was the product again? Oh, yes, Equinox Fitness Clubs. Hopefully you're sticking to that one. You can pretty much put all Coors products on that list forever as well. And I have a new product to boycott, starting today. Amstel Light. Reason: their offensive new ad in which soulless post-college white boys have a contest, complete with videotaping and high-fiving, to see which underpaid food deliveryman can get to their swanky date-rape palace first. Offensive. You'll see it soon. It reminds me of that a-wipe friend of a friend who used to order one can of root beer from Kozmo.com as a goof, and of course give no tip. If the internet ever fails, you can trace it back to that guy. And have you seen the new ads for The Fuse? Pretty out there. I am getting sicker. I guess that's the first step towards getting better. I'm no doctor, though. I could be wrong. Gonna be real busy at work, too. Minimum effort won't do. These next ten days are on schedule to suck some giant moosecock. At least George W. Bush is coming to town to tell me how he's going to make my life more better. We have recently gotten a clamoring for more entries in the Trayline odyssey (OK, it was one request, and the requester was probably just trying to be nice). I am going to tackle this one in the next few days, but it's kind of tough. To do it right (and I didn't do the first entry right), I am going to try to remember exactly what it felt like to be 22, shiftless, miserably employed and lost in the Wisconsin winter. Then the posts will begin to kick the necessary ass. And you'll all feel the bruises. I guess I should be a little more alarmed about the whole flying monster episode from the other day. Truthfully, my heart still skips a beat when I think about it. But if I rant and rave about it, I'm opening myself up to ridicule and nobody's going to believe me anyway. I don't think there's anything I can do to make the damn thing go away, either -- from my memory or from the walls and rooftops of my neighborhood, if that's where it's still lurking. So I am just going to move forward as if it was my imagination, or a giant eight-foot bird with human features, or a reflection of something from somebody else's TV, or maybe some crazy dude with one of those old rocketpack things. Another possibility. One thing's for certain. I will never dismiss "believers" as kooks again. (Links courtesy monkeyweb.com) I was thinking about a comment I read somewhere recently, in somebody's comments section, maybe mine, that blogging (still hate that word!) actually pulls us all apart from one another, rather than bringing us closer together. Pete B. did a pretty good job refuting this one sunny day, but I have to acknowledge that there is some truth to it, at least physically. All of us sitting alone at our computers late at night, pounding the keys in search of the perfect way to sum up the brilliant thoughts in our heads. Typing, emailing, posting, instead of getting out there and doing, talking, meeting, screwing, living. But the important thing, it seems to me, is that we are still communicating. We're still spreading our own individual blends of bullshit to the world at large, and with comments sections, people can fire back with a load of their own crap. Thus, communication. The only thing that's changed is now we're doing it from our apartments instead of in bars. Which is a lot easier on our wallets, marriages, and livers. Memo to all friends who I still live through vicariously: don't you take this as a call to abandon your bar-hopping lifestyles. You are out there fighting the fight for the rest of us, who are too weak to fight for ourselves. You're my heroes. Some of you may be wondering about the Line
Drive Incident that I have referred to over the last couple of days.
It was maybe the fourth inning of this Sunday night's softball game. No outs, man on first, I was playing third base. The batter (does anyone remember who hit this ball? Why haven't they joined in the protest? I had too many beers in me to remember details like this) hit a sinking line drive towards me. I made a decent play, nothing special really, I reached to my left and grabbed the liner just before it hit the ground. My glove was probably on the ground when I made the catch. But I felt that I had cleanly and obviously caught the ball. The way the ball was sinking, I expected to maybe shorthop it, but it stayed up long enough to land safely in my glove. The runner on first had started heading to second, and I made a decent toss across the field to easily double him off (If you were the runner, or if you know who he was, please come forward with any information you have. All tips will be kept confidential.) It was a reasonably slick double play, I thought. A brief moment of happiness for me before trudging on with life. The game continued for a few minutes, and all seemed normal. Then my man Kissel, who was on the other team and had reached second base, hollered over to me: "You trapped that ball." I couldn't believe it. It seemed like such a definite catch, I honestly couldn't understand how there was any question about it. Kissel's a pretty competitive guy, so I figured maybe he was just giving me the business. I incredulously explained that I definitely caught the ball, the guy who catches or doesn't catch the ball is always the guy who knows best whether it was a trap or a catch, and why did the runner on first head back to first if he didn't also think I had caught it? "Whatever, it's no big deal, you probably would have had a double play, anyway," Kissel accurately pointed out. That wasn't enough for me. I mean, I knew I caught that ball. That said, I was very, very drunk. If you had asked me if I knew who the President of Chechnya was, I would have known that, too. And I probably would have said something like, "Rick Pitino." So I accept there is some possibility I may have been wrong. But I don't think so. I asked Chris H., who was at shortstop and was the closest man to the play, if there was any chance I trapped the ball, and he said no way. He was convinced without a shadow of a doubt that it was a clean catch. I figured that was it, until I received this email from Ambrose (who, it must be mentioned in the interest of fairness, was on Kissel's team, the losing team, and may have had an axe to grind like that guy John O'Neill is doing to Kerry with the swift boat nonsense): "honestly - you may not realize it - but I also think you trapped that ball" Now I was going crazy. Not only did he think it was a trap, but he said I "may" not realize it. Meaning either: 1. I realize it was a trap, and I was cheating
(something that I must admit is not beneath me, but only when I'm losing
badly, and it's usually done in a spirit of fun). Either way, I was wounded, and a bit shaken in my resolve about the whole thing. So I turned to my teammate VRF to back me up, and he gave me a very lukewarm vote of confidence. Basically, he said that he thought I trapped it, too, in a point by point response to some questions I posed:
So nobody really knows. I mean, I think I know, but there seems to be a lot of doubt. Anybody who can shed some more light, please speak up. It is extremely important. Thanks again to Chris S. for the excellent Phish recap. I feel like I was there in the mud with him. 8/24/04: Angry Creatures Uniting Not much of a response to my story about the flying monster, and what response there was could probably be described as skeptical. I guess I should have guessed as much. I've always been a non-believer myself, and now I realize how frustrating it is when people deny what you've seen with your eyes, held in your hands, and know in your mind to be true. I just hope this was an isolated incident. I'd hate to think that hundreds of flying man-creatures are circling above Central Park right now. There is a rather impressive confluence of annoying events happening in New York over the next couple of weeks. Here's what we've got, on the citywide level: -The RNC Convention and the corresponding
influx of Republicans, protestors, and terrorists -full schedule of producing 3-4 shows a day
starting this Wednesday and rocking on through like 9/6/04 So you can see it's going to be brutal. I don't think the terrorists are going to blow us up (if I did, would I do anything about it, like refuse to go to work, or would I just show up like always?). But it ain't going to be much fun here in "The Big Apple" for regular working folk during this period. And maybe the terrorists will blow us up. That would suck. Terrorism doesn't make me happy. Not a bit. Movie that improves with multiple viewings: Lost in Translation. I didn't really care for it when I saw it in the theater, but maybe I was just having an adverse reaction to all the hype. But it's rather pleasant to have on in the background when it's on cable. FYI department: I caught that live drive. Whatever, I'm sick today and this is all you're getting from me. 8/23/04: Flying Monsters I had an absolutely splendid weekend. I hope you did too. Not much to report, just want to thank the wife and the friends for making me feel special even when I'm not. Went to the Yankee game with Joe Monkeyweb and his missus today and had a great time, even though the Yanks lost and continued to show a genuine vulnerability to those cityless West Coast phonies, the Anaheim Angels. Anaheim is not a city. You can't tell me otherwise. Yes, I know the lead is down to 5 1/2 games. If it was anyone but the Red Sox behind us, I'd feel threatened. But there is something fundamentally wrong with that franchise, something buried deep within the fibers of the uniform itself. Those guys just cannot win. Yes, I am prepared to eat these words if the
unthinkable comes to pass and the Sox win the Series. But I wouldn't break
out the mustard just yet. We managed to get our drink on and holler at the umpires and create a nice attendance* pool (winning guess of 53,985 was off by exactly 100). People are always so terrified of the attendance pool when it comes their way, as if we're asking for money for a good cause or something. Once they are assured it is merely an excuse to gamble away some of their money, they usually loosen up. Today's pool was made more professional looking by Katie Monkeyweb, who actually brought a nice pen and a paper clip to the game. People couldn't say no to it. Some random woman won after evaluating everyone else's guesses and placing her guess in the most strategically cozy spot possible. Good for her. It's becoming more and more obvious every game that the Yankee Stadium YMCA groundskeepers are about as welcome during their little dancing tour of the infield as early-arriving soccer players are at J.J. Walker Ballfield. George, listen. The joke has expired. Let's move on. Why don't we play something jazzy and light, something that gives the grounds crew room to bust out the improvisational chicken dances that we all know they've been holding out on for close to ten years now? After the game, we went on a moustache hunt. I am not proud of it; there was definitely some disrespect involved. These are regular people just trying to live regular lives. But when you display such incredible plumage, you are going to attract some gawkers, it's only natural. Deal with it. You, too. Back to the soccer players. Oh, the soccer players. They are so out of control. More on that in this week's recap, when we get to it. But I will give the soccer bastards a quick no-look gas face for the bullshit warming up/stretching shit they did tonight down the right field line. Arrogant pricks. Yes, I tried to hit them with some line drives. Yes, the game ended when I hit Doug's young daughter with a one hop smash that was meant for the soccer players. But it's the soccer players' fault. They do not know their boundaries and they do not listen to reason. Most likely they have all taken too many shots to the head. I got the iPod and I had a little gift certificate left over. So I bought a case, a remote, and a totally unnecessary but rather cool plug-in microphone contraption so I can record whatever audio I want with the old iPod. Lectures, subway rides, idiotic Michael Kay soliloquies, etc. I'll probably never use it, and I'm not sure how to load that shit back onto my computer, but it can't be that hard. Apple is here to make things easy, right? Whatever. too much to drink for a Sunday. But it was a great birthday weekend that left me feeling good about humanity. An iPod will do that for ya. Major congratulations to Dan K. who got a piece published in Sunday's New York Times. Holy shit! We knew him when he was just a humble softball recap-writer. I'd like to think we "broke" this hot young talent, but we're not here to brag. Whatever. To keep him grounded, we are going to hit him up for a recap of next week's softball season finale (gratis). All of the preceding nonsense was really just an excuse to get to the following story. I'm sure you're not going to believe me, especially because I've had a few drinks today, but I saw something tonight that absolutely scared the shit out of me. I got back from softball, said hello to the wife, took a shower, etc, Just going through my usual Sunday night activities. So then I go out to the living room to maybe update the bungle and watch a little TV. Only it's kind of hot in the living room, so I go over to turn on the air conditioner. I put it on "Cool" and set the temperature for 72 degrees. As I was standing by the A/C, I sort of spaced out for a second and started staring out the window. There were a lot of lights on in the room, so half of what I could see was actually outside the window, and the other half was just reflections of what was happening in my apartment. I couldn't really tell what was what, and I didn't really care. After about ten seconds, I realized I was staring directly into another set of eyes, right outside the window. I'm on the 11th floor, no fire escape, no ledge, no nothing, so I just assumed it was my own reflection staring back at me. Then the eyes blinked. I was totally freaked out, and I ran over to the window to see if I was losing my mind. This creature, whatever it was, darted down the side of the building and out of sight. I was too scared to open the window and look down the facade, so I just stood there with my face against the glass, wondering if I was imagining the whole thing. Hoping I was. I exhaled and was going to run into the bedroom to tell the wife what happened when I saw it: a full-sized man flying away from my apartment building and off into the darkness. With wings. Flapping. I couldn't tell if the wings were mechanical or -- and I know this sounds crazy -- biological. It was the single oddest sight I've ever seen. I assume it will be in the news tomorrow. I can't have been the only one who saw this. Remember to click the pic if you want it to get bigga. * Did you know the Yankees have now drawn 2.998,000 fans, with 20 dates left? 4,000,000 is within reach. That's insane. If you build it, they will come. 8/21/04: Welcome to the Church I turned 35 today. Young in the world of Supreme Court Justices, getting up there in just about every other world, from slashing small forwards to potential Paris Hilton squires. And just about right for an apathetic clock-watching worker bee. Luckily for me, I can still act like I'm 3 instead of 35. Also lucky for me is that I have a wife who has enthusiasm for life and does nice things for me that I don't deserve. Here's what I mean: I got an evite from the wife on Thursday
evening asking me to spend a "Special weekend together." I had made it
clear over the last few weeks that I wasn't really excited about this major
milestone birthday, that I didn't want her organizing a big outing with my
friends or anything, that I just wanted to lay low, get some rest, and spend the
weekend together. I thought the evite was cute, but I also wanted to make sure I
could actually have a relaxing weekend without any major hoopla or commitments.
Then on Friday I got a sore throat and felt pretty shitty and kind of wanted to go home and rest, but she called me up and asked that I meet her at a "secret birthday location." I figured we'd go get a nice meal and then head home. She told me it was in SoHo, which even my ignorant mind knows is where the Apple store is located, so I got kinda excited. She gave me an exact address on Thompson street, and I figured if I was real lucky we'd walk to the Apple store from there and pick up my shimmering new iPod. But when I met her, she escorted me inside the building, which it turns out is a brand new swanky hotel. She took me up to our smallish room and told me that she had booked the hotel so we could have a little downtown NYC vacation, because she knows I love the village. Then she showed me that she had brought my computer and some of my favorite snacks and some trashy magazines and even my basketball stuff if I wanted to shoot some hoops over the weekend. Thoughtful, right? A perfect place to relax and just hang out together. She had taken care of everything. But dickhead me, unforgivable selfish materialistic dickhead me, couldn't help thinking 2 nights in swanky SoHo hotel = $400 = brand new 40GB 3rd generation iPod. And I guess I looked disappointed, because an iPod was worth more to me than a special downtown NYC weekend. I was disappointed, not just for the loss of the iPod, but also for what my disappointment said about me as a person. I was disappointed in my own disappointment. In my defense, I was sick and cranky. Weak defense, I know. After telling her that she didn't have to do this, and saying, "This must have cost so much money..." and hurting her feelings with more subtle immature complaints, I decided to pull it together and try to make the best of this weekend. All the things she thought of were true: I do love it downtown. It is nice to spend the weekend in a hotel. It does feel like a vacation. We went out to dinner at Layla and had a great meal complete with a belly dancer.* Then we came home to the hotel. At midnight, she instructed me to go to the room safe, where my present was waiting. I guessed the code instantly (0821) and you already know what was waiting in there. I felt like a schmuck. But a happy schmuck. Who cares if our kids can't go to college? I have an iPod. So today we went to accessorize that shit, and let me tell you, the Apple cult is alive and powerful in SoHo. Apple's arrogance is really disturbing. The help desk is called "The Genius Bar" and images of men like MLK and Gandhi float by on a monitor behind the counter. I'm like, guys, you open up iPods and un-stick "hold" buttons all day. Hardly changing the world. But important in its own way, I guess. The next available appointment with a genius wasn't until 6:03 pm, and since it was only 1:30 I was glad I didn't have a problem that needed help. I wondered aloud if I could get an appointment with a person of average intelligence in the next fifteen minutes or so. I was also tempted to walk up to the Genius Bar and order a venti latte. Whatever, fuck Apple but long live the wonderful iPod. Thank you to the wife for a wonderful birthday. Tonight we shall eat more delicious food and attend a mindless summer movie such as "The Bourne Supremacy." My throat will be sore but all will be right in my 35 year-old world. * Somebody shoved a couple of dollars into the belly dancer's waistband as if it was a strip club. I thought this was tacky at first but she seemed to welcome it, and soon many other people were doing the same thing. I was too modest, so we left an extra $5 bill with our check, with the following instructions: "Please give this to the belly dancer with our thanks." You don't get to say that every day. P.S. You can now click pictures to make 'em bigger. 8/20/04: Monkeys, Phish, and Coors Light So the lucky 20,000th visitor was none other than Joe Monkeyweb himself. I am pleased that he won, because he has been a strong supporter of the site since pretty much day one. I am also pleased because he lives in New York so I don't have to send his prize in the mail. Going to the post office is a major commitment. Finally, I am glad because he chose the Replacements CD for his reward. That's what I was hoping the winner would choose. It's always fun to proselytize for your favorite bands. I don't have all 74 minutes laid out in front of me, but these songs will definitely make the cut: -I Will Dare Played some fun hoops tonight with Dan K. and his North Carolina crew. Thanks for having me. It was nice and humid and we got to run around for a couple of hours, sweating and grunting like handsome young bucks sometimes do. As you approach your 35th birthday (and I am already in the exit only lane with my blinker on), all you can ask for is some nice guys to play ball with, a few decent moments of individual success, a couple of wins and some exercise. I got all that. Then on the way out of the court I ran into
Benge and Orie(?) and Cori(?), who were sitting on a stoop half a block from the
gym, eating some stirfry and shooting the breeze. They just got back from seeing
Outfoxed, which they said was entertaining. I stopped and talked to
them for a few minutes. It's nice talking to nice people. I've met Orie a few
times; he's a prince. I met Cori (who is his wife? gf?) once before, at Benge's
party the night he moved out of his childhood home for good. That was a
weird night. The apartment was almost entirely furniture-free, save for a
fully functioning trapeze that was hanging from the ceiling. There were a lot of
young women at this party, and almost every one of them succumbed to the urge to Finally, it happened. The brackets came loose from the ceiling. The trapeze fell. And some girl landed smack-diddly on her head. Her friends helped her to her feet, but I was just thinking thank goodness she's loaded, and thank goodness Benge is outta here tomorrow, or there might be some litigation. She just totally smashed that melon on the hardwood floor. Ow. Then some tough guys showed up, looking for fights. Then Benge ran out of beer, so I ran to the store and got some more, maybe another 18 bottles. Nobody really seemed to want any of it except me. I was desperately trying to make the night sing, turn it into something it wasn't meant to be. People were wrapping it up. And I had to concede. I drunkenly split a cab home with Orie and Cori and bitched about the Upper West Side the whole time. So when I saw them tonight, I was a little shaky in recognizing them. That said, they are excellent sweet people. It's a matter of record now: Rich Eisen is dead to me. I used to really love this guy, when he did things like reference the Jerky Boys in his highlights. When he'd call Joe Benigno from his car phone at 4am as he was looking for a parking space near his Manhattan apartment, after driving home from Bristol. He'd even give Benigno a play by play of his parallel parking job as he pulled into the space. He was young and funny and not afraid to look like a tool. In a good way. Only a good tool is on the phone with poor wonderful Benigno at 4am. Not trying to be Mr. Cool Sportscenter Guy. He and Stuart Scott kicked ass on that 2am show. They had tremendous chemistry. Since he left, Scott has reverted to his previous sucky ways. But what's happened to Eisen is even worse. First there were those obnoxious ads for the Football channel or whatever the fuck place he left ESPN to go to. They were playing him up like he was some cool-ass bachelor studboy, and it just didn't fit. Then he started appearing on all those VH1 "I love the 80's" shows, making comments like, "I owned those pants" and standing out as being one of the least funny people out of a whole bunch of talentless wannabe comedians. I had already given up on him at this point. Then tonight I see him singing the unspeakable Coors Light song in a Coors Light commercial. Rich Eisen, you officially suck. You coulda been somebody. We had our office CPR training today (for DIRT team members only). It wasn't bad. It took 4 hours, but my ass is certified. I got 100% on the written test. That's off da hook. So did Val, though, and she got done before everybody else. What a kiss-ass. The only blemish on the CPR experience was this one annoying woman who strolled into the room almost two hours late! We were coming back from a five minute break, and I think she thought maybe she could sit down undetected. She acted as if she hadn't missed a thing, just started gabbing with one of her co-workers about some paperwork she wanted him to go over. Incredible! We were all ready to start again and she was still talking. Finally she stopped, turned to the instructor and said, "I want you to know I appreciate you letting me come late to this meeting." She had missed like 52% of the CPR we wuz learnin'. I was surprised that the guy had given her permission to show up late. After all, as corny as it sounds, CPR is about saving people's lives. I'd think you'd want to sit through the whole 4 hours so you can get shit right. Then, it turns out, SHE HAD NEVER GOTTEN SUCH PERMISSION. SHE WAS JUST ASSUMING IT WAS COOL. To his credit, the instructor guy told her she should come back tomorrow, when he's doing another class at 9am. She was all, "Yeah, I don't think I can sit through the whole four hours. Do I really need to sit through the whole four hours?" I hate her. It's people like her that make other people hate New York. Pushy, obnoxious, self-important. GA-A-A-A-ASS FACE. By the way, this training was VOLUNTARY. I double hate her. Besides that, it was cool. Oh, except for this other toolbox talking about how he wants to know how far a mortar can be fired, because he's certain the terrorists are going to be firing mortars across the Hudson from Jersey during the Republican convention. What a schmuckbag. I'll give him the two MOJO back issues that J. Monkeyweb declined if he's right. Whaddaya think, small pictures like the one posted, or links to big pictures and a plain front page? Or should I keep the small ones and turn them into links to bigger ones? A lot to think about, because if I wrap the text around the pictures, they have to stay relatively small. Your thoughts please. Please be sure to check out Part I of Chris S.'s pilgrimage to Vermont to see Phish. 8/19/04: Y20K Let's face it, the 20,000th hit is coming today, Thursday, August 19, 2004. I don't know when or who, but it's coming (unless somebody's hitting "refresh" over and over on their browser just to be the lucky winner, in which case it might come before this post hits the web). So far it looks like we have an honest bunch (please don't start doing the whole refresh thing -- let's keep this nice and random). And since my mind is completely dry of new thoughts right now, why don't I just list the possible prizes for the 20,000th visitor. The lucky bastard or bastardess (follow the instructions from 8/17 to prove the legitimacy of your claim) can choose ONE item from the following list: -a Replacements compilation CD lovingly
hand-mixed by Hans Bungle himself Just send in your screen-grab and select your prize. At a recent Underappreciated Bloggers of NYC meeting, Joe Monkeyweb offered the theory that Horrendous Michael Kay's emergence as Yes Network's #1 Yes-man has left many of us feeling a strange longing for the days of Al Trautwig. Well, after listening to the Traut announce the Men's Gymnastics tonight, I can confirm that I am no longer experiencing any such longing, if I ever was. The Traut is just a really annoying person. He's not the most incompetent announcer around, but he's always saying something stupid and unnecessary at the wrong moment. If he was your high school buddy, he'd be the one you lied to and told you were "just staying in" when you were really going to the party at that hot girl's house. You'd feel bad for being so shallow, so you'd invite him at the last minute. Then he'd show up at the party and vigorously attempt to embarrass you by rattling off obscure un-funny jokes and insane un-clever theories of life to everyone in his path. Fucking Trautwig. It feels good to say that again. So Phish has perphormed their phinal show, at a phestival in their home state of phermont. I didn't go, but I know at least one person who did. As soon as he dries out, I expect a full report on his adventures, so we can publish it here. A teaser: it involves Phish-loving Republicans (Band Name!). The Olympics are actually good fun, despite the fact that the whole thing is sort of a disaster. For a lot of these athletes, it remains the pinnacle of their athletic career. So you get some drama and emotion that you don't get from a 7-2 Yankees loss in mid-August. And you get low-rent announcers, like poor Trautwig, coming out of the woodwork to cover the many events. I heard ol' Len Berman calling the archery final today. Nice moment for him. The Koreans dominated that shit. My wife told me she was in Seoul during the 1992 Olympics*, and the only sports they televised were archery and table tennis. Americans scoff at those sports because we aren't good at 'em. There's a life lesson in there somewhere, but I'm too tired to figure out what it is. I am learning CPR tomorrow at work. I am on our company's Disaster Internal Recovery Team (DIRT). When the nukes go off, I'm gonna be one of the schmucks keeping order and leading the troops to safety. RIIIIGHT. Anyway, I'm glad to finally learn me some CPR. No excuse for not knowing that stuff. There's going to be a test at the end of the session, and I'm actually kind of nervous. Those things can be humiliating. I better not fail. I found myself at this rather good site today, and it made me realize how casually I actually follow sports. There are people who REALLY care about their team. Enough to analyze strengths and weaknesses and second-guess strategy and dress up in full team regalia. I just kind of like to watch the good players play ball. Props to those who take it further. My friend and his friends are selling anti-Bush T-shirts. They have purchased some ad time on Air America, and they have produced a cheeky radio spot. Please listen and leave comments in the comments section. We're not looking for snarky asshole comments, just constructive criticism and/or unabashed praise, please. Your input is appreciated. I am going to have a long post about the Swift Boat saga in the next couple of days, complete with an insider interview. Or maybe I'm too lazy. We'll see. Oh, the Quisling Clinic thing is a reference to the Elvis Costello song "Green Shirt," off of Armed Forces. He saw that place when he was in Madison back in '78 and injected it into his song. "Somewhere in the Quisling Clinic * yes, I know the '92 Olympics was not the one in Seoul. They were watching it on the TEE-VEE. 8/18/04: Feliz Cumpleanos First off, before I forget, happy birthday to my niece, sis, and mom, who celebrate on 8/16, 17, and 18 respectively. Not that you're reading this, but happy birthday in the cosmic sense. That always hurts my feelings, actually -- when I tell someone really close to me about the site and then they never read it. I think, this shit must be REALLY bad if my own friends and family aren't interested. It makes me sort of want to throw in the towel. I know that if any of my friends launched a stupid site like this I'd be reading it every day, not to boost their ego but just because I'd be genuinely fascinated by what my idiot friends have to say. Even if it was sucky. Boy was I right about being alone in my slight fondness for Craig Kilborn. You all hate his guts. And you are all wrong, but I will let you realize that on your own schedule. Just to clarify/backpedal, I don't think the guy's a genius, and I hate all the "staff writer" guys who he carts out on his show. But when you're hosting a late night show, part of the responsibility is to be pleasant and charming and relaxing, because you are really putting people to bed. Kilborn is much better at that than Conan, whose manic mugging actually makes me angry. Bring back Andy and it's a different story. I am going to take my statements that are sure
to enrage you a step further and say that "The Daily Show" is overrated. Not
saying it was better when Kilborn hosted it, just that the show and its host are
overrated. People jizz all over Jon Stewart, who I admit is likable and seems
pretty smart. But the show is not all that great, at least not the ten or
so times I've seen it. People are always pushing that shit on me, and then
I give it a chance, and
Can we all at least agree that Jimmy Kimmel stinks worse than three-day-old Pirate's Booty? So I got to my dentist's appointment at 9:08 am today, eight minutes late and very apologetic. The dentist showed up AN HOUR late. When he arrived, he said with complete seriousness, "Sorry I'm late. I really need to get an alarm clock." Yeah, that might come in handy, doc. Thank God he isn't an open-heart surgeon. Before we got started, he insisted on showing me a clip from Michael Moore's website. In typical Michael Moore fashion, the clip makes Bush look bad with a cheap shot. Bush was clearly trying to say we are thinking of all the ways the terrorists might strike, and, because he's an idiot, it came out sorta wrong. But not so wrong as to be posted on Moore's website (btw, I can't find it on his site or I'd link it for you -- maybe my dentist was full of shit). I really wish we had a better loud voice on the left than Michael Moore. Although I would still like to see his movie. Anyway, the dentist shot me like five times with novocaine and drilled some stuff in my mouth. No fun. I had been planning on getting an iPod or a new TV for my birfday, now I'm looking at a porcelain inlay for my molar. Yes! Then I hit the DMV. It took almost two hours at the DMV "Express." Glad I didn't get the local. And I still won't get my new license for another three weeks. I didn't take a new picture, and this new license won't expire until 2012. So I will have the same picture at 43 as I did at 29. And it's a bad picture. But it probably won't look so bad when I'm 43. Played some good hoops tonight, won every game. Got a nice free "To the Five Boroughs" T-shirt, too. Just a long and exhausting day. Thank God for minimum effort. I am really disappointed with the word "blog" and I don't think there's anything I can do about it. They established that shit when nobody was looking and now we're stuck with it. If they had taken some time, they could have come up with a cooler-sounding name, something like "Chester." But they didn't, so we're stuck with the goofy if practical name "blog." It makes me wonder about the origins of other names and phrases. For instance, we all know the expression "Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll." Somebody came up with that shit many years ago, and now every guy in a band feels like he has to live up to it. What if had been "Sex, Tennis, and Rock and Roll"? Elvis would still be packing 'em in at Caesar's, fit as a fiddle. What if it had been "Actuarial Rates, Drugs and Rock and Roll"? Things would be different, that's all I'm saying. With just one little word being changed. "Sex, Drugs, and Dungeons and Dragons." "Sex, Monocles, and Rock and Roll." "Guys Named Lance, Drugs, and Rock and Roll." Different world, But I think maybe they nailed that one the first time. The U.S. hoop squad squoke one out today. It's like that bloop hit that busts you out of your slump. They're going to get better and better, and my prediction will come true. I don't actually believe that. Not sure if cW nailed the cat. But if it happened, neither of them ever said anything about it. And now the cat's dead, so my guess is the secret will go with cW to his grave. Speaking of cW, what's with the fancy capitalization? The old double-cap ain't good enough fer ya? Did you know there are (or at least were) TWO Quisling Clinics in Madison, Wisconsin? 8/17/04: Untitled Tomorrow morning I gotta go to the dentist, and then on to the DMV. And then tomorrow night I will be hawking some T-shirts for my friend before finishing it all up with some basketball if all goes well. At some point in the middle of all that I gotta go to work, too. What BS. I am only one man. Lately I have been really worrying that somebody at work outside of the approved inner circle is going to find out about my little site and the cat's going to be out of the bag with its back arched and its claws exposed. I have even taken a couple moments to delete prior posts that might land me in trouble. Curiously, I have removed the posts in which I insult co-workers, but not the posts in which I confess to less than stellar work habits. I guess being fired doesn't scare me as much as being disliked. It makes me wonder, am I the only person in my office who has a website? There are plenty of pompous folks wandering around the place. I'm sure at least a couple of them must feel that their precious musings are worthy of publication. And now that anyone can publish themselves, I have to believe that at least one or two of them have acted upon their urges. I wonder if they dog me on their blogs. If so, I hope they get in trouble. Meanwhile, if you are reading this and you work with me or know people who do, please don't mention it to anybody. It's much appreciated. We just got cable in our offices today, and my
boss's boss was out of the office, so we had a little Olympic-watching fest in
our "team room." We have a nice little room that our 6-8 person team
can sit in to go over show ideas, view tapes of potential new hosts, and watch
some goddamn Olympics on the tube. Watching the lesser-known sports is
fun, but you also come to realize why these sports are lesser-known. I
mean, team handball is a blast,
If you want to see your kid in the Olympics, get him started on that team handball as soon as possible. Isn't it about time all the assholes who concocted the whole "Freedom Fries" bullshit came out and publicly apologized? France's position on the war has proved to be level-headed and wise over the last year and a half. Shouldn't we officially stop making jokes about how wimpy the French are? Especially with so many other good reasons to make fun of them. I will be alone in this opinion, I am sure, but I am going to sort of miss Craig Kilborn. His show's not great, but I haven't really been able to watch Conan since Andy left. Conan's personality is just so awful. He's hyper and desperate for laughter and he's a pretty lousy interviewer. I totally respect his comedic talent but I find him difficult to watch. And when people say Kilborn is smug, I wonder if they are missing the point. There's definitely some self-deprecation in his whole vodka-sipping frat guy routine. I think he's pretty smooth and clever and I loved him at ESPN. Fuck all of you who disagree. Perhaps you've forgotten who came up with "he's not your vydas, he's not my vydas, he's Ar-vydas." We are approaching the 20,000 visitor plateau. Whoever is lucky enough to be our 20,000th customer is going to get a prize to be named later (most likely a piece of verbungle.com merchandise). So if you see a "20,000" in the column at right, take a screen grab (hit the "print screen" button towards the upper right of your keyboard, then open up "Paint" or some other similar application, do a "control + v" to paste the image of your screen onto a canvas, and then trim it down to the section with the "20,000" in it, along with enough other parts of the screen so that I recognize it as my page). Then save it as a jpeg or other picture file and email it to us. Don't go and doctor it, either. Even if this long-winded description turned you off, I hope you go ahead and experiment with the "print screen button" if you haven't already. Lots of bad things you can do with that. We have received a request for more drunk photos. I like drunk photos, and this page (like most of my other pages) sort of died on the vine. I may add a couple of photos of my own, but I also hereby solicit you to email me your own drunk photos so I can add them to the page. You're cuter than you think you are. Sorry about the censorship in the comments section and the ensuing embarrassingly awkward explanation, but know that I will do it again if I see fit. 8/16/04: Simpler Times Losing by 19 to Puerto Rico is such a complete disgrace for the U.S. basketball team, I'm not sure we have anything to compare it to. Remember, Puerto Rico is in many respects part of the United States. It's like if the United States lost to Oklahoma or something. And Puerto Rico's best player wouldn't even make our team. This is a pretty serious upset. But I think it's good. GOOD TEAM > GOOD BUNCH OF PLAYERS. As hokey as that may sound, there ain't no denying it. Look at the NBA Finals, and now this game. Maybe now we'll give Puerto Rico some representation in Washington. I actually missed that game. I got home
in time for some swimming and gymnastics and stuff. The swimming is
alright, especially the finals of each event, but I have a problem with the
gymnastics. It's sort of like my complaints about figure skating: you
train your whole life just to do things a certain exact way, and then you stub
your toe or take an extra step when you shouldn't and your life is ruined.
Too much pressure, too little room for What the hell ever happened to Jason Scott Lee? That guy kicked ass back in the latter stages of The Day, and then he disappeared. I'll always have a soft spot for the movie "Map of the Human Heart," even if it may have had a corny streak a la "The English Patient." It was really an original story and it a beautifully made film, even if today it might seem hopelessly romantic and silly. I liked it, though, and whenever I think about it I'm reminded how I felt back in 1993: like anything was possible. As It turned out, only a very small number of things happened. But that doesn't mean more things weren't possible. So the wedding this weekend went pretty smoothly. I only knew maybe three people there, which was fine. I got my eat and drink on without too much interference. I took a bunch of schmucky pictures, and I made conversation where I could. I sounded off about Michael Moore and Bill O'Reilly and Ralph Nader and Bill Maher as if I knew what the fuck I was talking about. It's weird, Bush has generated so much ill will that I feel completely comfortable assuming that anyone I talk to, even a complete stranger, hates his guts and wants him out of the White House. Yet the polls are close as hell. This seems to me a bad sign. Florida is looking ugly again, and I bet W. gains some popularity there by authorizing a substantial disaster recovery payout after the hurricane. As he should. There was one dude at the wedding who could not stop talking about "The Muppet Movie," which he called "a perfect film." I seem to remember liking it pretty well when I was ten. Might have to see it again. Or might just have to write that fella off as a loser. We saw some deer (a mommy and her baby actually jumped out in front of our car, but we had time to stop) and some geese and stuff out in Connecticut. Pretty neat stuff for a city slicker like myself. I could live out there somewhere, I think. I'm honestly ready to leave NYC if I can't live in The Village. Call me a real estate snob, but the UWS just isn't getting the job done. The only problem with going to Conn. or NJ or someplace is that I really don't know how well I'd deal with three hours a day spent commuting. Those are valuable life hours. Maybe I can open a sandwich shop in the suburbs and just stay out there. I have no idea what I want to do. The path has never been less clear. And my game is almost halfway over. I need a reset button or a couple more quarters. Over-earnest Response to Offensive Comment Alert: To the person who left the hateful message (since deleted) in the comments section: save it, please. Not sure why you "hate fa***ts," but if you actually do, your point of view is just plain ignorant. And while you are entitled to this point of view, I don't have to lease you my space so you can express it. Even if some insane interpretation of your particular religion tells you homosexuality is "wrong," I'm betting it doesn't say to hate homosexuals. Get it together. I wonder if you have ever experienced love. Have you? Have you felt that crazy rush in your veins that obliterates all rational thought? Have you been unable to concentrate on anything outside of the object of your desire? Have you caught yourself grinning and staring at nothing in particular, giddy with thoughts of the amazing person who has entered your life? If you have, if you know what it's like to love another person, why would you object to someone else experiencing these same pleasures? Who are you to tell somebody else who they can love? Sorry about that, but I felt like I needed to say something. Proof that everything has a place on the internet. 8/14/04: Prose & Conn. So I know I said no posts over the weekend,
but we are in sleepy Danbury, Connecticut (not sure if that's an accurate
description or not, but at least it describes my physical state upon arriving
here) and our hotel has some reasonably priced high speed internet access. So
whoomp, here it is. We are staying in the Ethan Allen hotel, right off of I-84. The Ethan
Allen furniture company has its corporate headquarters here, so they just said
screw it and built a hotel like 80 yards down the hill from HQ. I assume this is
where the high rollers of the furniture world crash when they're in town for
business. The bar was hopping. There are a couple of ugly gas stations and a Super 8 down the
block from us. Definitely not the best part of town. But a decent hotel.
And I will wake up tomorrow and pull
I think I might do that every day for awhile. I finally got around to watching "Battlegrounds," MTV2's $50,000 1 on 1 streetball challenge show. The show was fairly enjoyable, but the basketball sequences suffered from a severe lack of flow. Each guy just tried to back down his opponent and shove him out of the way so he could get an easy shot. It was a mug-fest. Most of the games were decided at the line, which anybody can tell you is about as appropriate a way to settle a street basketball game as having someone kick a field goal to win a home run derby. We want to see fluidity and reverse layups and up and unders, not shoving and grabbing and sticking your ass on the other guy to clear space. I don't have a real solution. The guys are all talented, but there's just way too much contact. Plus, the French dude won.* Since when do French people win street basketball tournaments? Since now, I reckon. It's a nice microcosm of today's NBA, actually. Too much physical play. Not enough offense. The Americans coasting on reputation and the European dudes coming in skilled and hungry. Actually makes me want to root for our crappy-ass Olympic team. In fact, while I still feel that if you took the five best U.S-born players, they could beat the five best players from any other country, the gap is narrowing. You could put an international five together that would make it VERY interesting, as Tim Hardaway was fond of saying. I was not that happy with the first installment of "Trayline," although it could have been worse. I had to establish a little background and whatnot, and I still feel like there are at least five to ten interesting stories from that period that will make the experiment worthwhile. Of course, now that I wasted a good hour and a half writing that part of the story, I have come up with a better way to present the whole thing. My genius idea: post it as if it is a blog from 1992, so the experiences are happening to me as I go to work every day. It will give it a "live" feel and make it infinitely more exciting. Not gonna go back and fix the first one, though. Except to change the date. * He had a jump shot. 8/13/04: Blog 'em, Dan-O It is with great pleasure that I announce I now have a fourth daily must-read on the internet. A couple of weeks ago, I only had two. The arrival of monkeyweb.com made it three. And today I found out (through the comments section on the as-yet unsolved lyric stumpah) that our own softball recap hero Dan Kois has a blog. Actually, he has a whole website. And his stuff is excellent. The guy is like a professional and shit. I knew we were going to have to pay him for his softball recaps at some point. (Maybe he'll give us one more for free?) In the meantime, peep his site and enjoy.
"drill your girlfriend's pussy to the max!" Thanks to B. New for this bleak update (NYT reg. reqd.) on a man who enriched all of our adolescent lives. Going to a wedding this weekend someplace out of town. You will have no verbungle until Sunday at the earliest. Please adjust your schedules accordingly. Since I am going to be gone this weekend, and your entertainment options will be limited as a result, I will attempt right now to tell you a little bit about the worst job I ever held. I like hearing people's stories about their crappy jobs. I assume you do too. And since I have decided recently to limit how much I write about my current job, this seems like a fair substitute. It's going to skip around a little bit, and it's going to be a recurring segment, so any given entry might end in a weird place. I should probably have done it in one shot, edited it so it made sense, and then revealed it as a finished masterpiece. But I didn't. And now the whole thing might end up being deathly boring or completely incoherent, we'll see. So I bring you a new section I call Trayline. Please be patient as the first entry is just to sort of set things up. I think it'll get good at some point. Even if it doesn't, it won't hurt anyone. Not much else to report except that El Duque hit 92 on the gun tonight. That pleases me. But I bet it pisses off Mean Old Steve. 8/12/04: Steve Revisited Did I somehow forget to mention that I had
another run-in with Mean Old Steve at Paragon the other day? I decided to
stop by on the way to softball to pick up some softballs. I think I am the
only one who frets about whether we'll have sufficient equipment to play each
week. Everyone else just shows up and expects that it'll be there. And it
usually is. Somebody call me a Wah-mbulance. Anyway, we were down to
the assy mush-ball, which had As soon as I entered the baseball/softball section, there he was. I looked at his nametag and he even spells his name like I do, with a "ph." The guy just reeks of evil. There are plenty, and I mean PLENTY, of annoying people in this city, people I could do without. But once in a while you have a brush with someone who is so fundamentally screwed up that it actually scares you. The air around them tastes different. The lights flicker a little bit when they walk past. When you're engaged in a conversation with them, you are consumed with thoughts of running away or punching them repeatedly in the mush. The lady from the elevator is one of these people. So is the lady who tried to hit my wife with the grocery bag (the lady who drank her own sweat during the blackout). And so is Mean Old Steve. I actually managed to sneak into his department when he wasn't looking. I was hoping that I could snag the clinchers and get the hell out of there. He had turned his back and was berating a fellow employee when I approached the softball section. Of all the rotten luck, they were out of clinchers, at least on the shelf. I was going to have to ask. Before I could, he was upon me. He asked me like five questions in a row, and I just answered, "Do you--" Before I could finish, he was all, "We're out of clinchers." I was looking at some clincher knock-offs but they were rock hard and seemed like a bad substitute. I realized I was now officially dealing with M.O.S. "I was thinking about getting one of these, but they don't seem very good," I said. "They're not. I wouldn't get 'em if I were you," said M.O.S., displaying some honesty. Two young ladies came in at this point and got M.O.S.'s attention. They were looking to buy a softball glove. Poor little things. He immediately started interrogating them, maybe a thousand words of aggressive nonsense in under 30 seconds. The girls couldn't help it. They started to laugh. "Maybe you should realize I'm saving you some money here and you should listen instead of laughing in my face," Crazy Steve said. The guy is unbearable. The girls were freaked out and pretty much sprinted to the nearest exit. Steve swung back my way. There was a nasty-ass display clincher sitting there. It was dark grey and felt like something you'd put on your mantel rather than something you'd use for sports. But it was something. "Would you sell me this display model?" I asked. "What team do you root for?" he asked. "The Yankees." "You're lucky," he said, frowning deeply. "The manager likes the Yankees, and he'll probably give you a deal. And I'll autograph it for you." I was confused. That's what he wants from his customers. Confusion. Hesitation. Weakness. I think he's convinced himself that if he can get them into this state of mind, he can sell them every glove on the wall and retire on the spot. But I never see him sell a got-damn thing. He called the manager over and angrily told him that I wanted to buy this shitty softball. He was angry at me, angry at the manager guy, and angry that the store didn't have any new clinchers left. He was angry to find himself still hustling softballs at Paragon at age 67. He was angry that his wife left him 30 years ago. He was angry because nothing in his world was as it should be. "This Yankee fan wants to buy this softball," Steve said to the manager. Steve is a Mets fan. "OK, how about one dollar?" said manager guy. Steve grabbed the softball and signed his name on it: Steve. I was confused again. Who was I supposed to pay? Did I need to go wait on line and tell them I had an agreement with the manager, and here's my dollar? Or would Steve's signature solve all my problems? Steve walked away. Despite my lingering confusion, I was happy to see that little bastard go. "Look, just give me a dollar and we're done here," said manager guy. I handed him a dollar out of my pocket. He put it in his, and we were done there. The softball was worth about 75 cents. A true piece of shit. But, since it's autographed by Mean Old Steve, I figure maybe I'll put it on eBay. The guy is a legend. Except maybe I lost it.
Anyway, it was fun to see the band play for about an hour. I had a Beck's* and soaked in some cool air and took some pictures. I could really get into not working for a living. The guys in Dub Trio are maybe 25 or so. They probably have no money, but they're doing something they're passionate about. They get up around noon, eat some oatmeal, play with their guitars for awhile, watch some TV. Then it's nap time. I read a quote today that demonstrates the arrogance that goes into joining a band: "When Hendrix came along I thought that I
might as well become a bus conductor." I understand where he's coming from: nine to five is a load of jive. But I always feel bad when rich celebrities bring up a specific profession to signify the mundane nature of the working man's life. I mean, don't you suppose there were some bus conductors that have been huge Jeff Beck fans since 1965, and then they read this interview, and they're like, "Pud." I'd be offended if I were a bus conductor. It reminds me of the famous short-order cook incident (I think I've linked this before). * I've always felt that Beck's is an underrated beer. I bought one for one of Lucas's co-workers today, and I shared this observation with him. "I think Beck's is underrated," I said. "Not by me," he said. Good answer. 8/11/04: Hoops, I did it again Tonight was one of those nights where there were a couple of things I wanted to do and a couple of things I really should do, and I ended up doing none of 'em. Laundry was one thing I really should have done. And what I really wanted to do was play basketball. Well, actually I didn't really want to play that badly, but it pains me deeply any time I have a chance to play and let it pass. When I was growing up, I lived with a constant
fear of my father's death. He was an old dad, 42 when I was born, and I
laid awake at night just hoping he'd make it 'til I was 18, then 25,
As I approach the logical halfway point of my own life, I start thinking not just about death, but about how someday soon I won't be able to do some of the things I love. Namely play basketball. That's why it stings whenever I pass up a game. And that's why whenever a free afternoon comes up, my thoughts turn to playing hoops. I dread being the old guy who comes out and ruins the game for the younger kids, but I'll do it when the time comes. I ain't there yet. I've got one knee that's missing some cartilage, and I don't move my feet that well, but I can still get after it out there. But realistically, I'll probably see a big dropoff in the next three to five years, especially if I start playing less. The less you play, the sooner that part of you dies. I'm always saddened when former ballplaying friends of mine tell me they've quit. I may have never become a great basketball player, but there are few people I know who enjoy it as much as I do. I talk to people my age, guys who were great players, and they're like, yeah, I just don't play anymore. What's the matter with these people? I'm going to play until I'm 50, like that guy Vern at Tompkins who still sticks cheap little jumpers if you leave him open for a second. I just fucking love playing. There are so many things I love about it I can't even list them. But here go a few: I love that you can just show up on a court in any country in the world and get in a game with complete strangers. I love that you will be slapping hands with these complete strangers within minutes if all goes well. I love that you don't need fancy equipment to play. I love backdoor passes for layups. I love bank shots and picks that free people for cuts to the basket. I love it that each player, regardless of skill level, has their own style. I love the way it feels when you're playing well as a team and the opponent is helpless. I love it when you go off as an individual and rattle off maybe five shots in a row. I love that you can play anything from 1 on 1 to 5 on 5 and it's still fun. I wish I was better at it. So the mystery is solved...sort of. The Dipak impersonator has stepped forward...sort of... and explained his reasoning. He has decided that he is in charge of when a lyric stumpah has run its course. If I haven't called off the dogs myself at this point and posted the answer, "Not Dipak" will look up the lyrics on google, and then send the song title in using Dipak's name. While I sort of resent "Not Dipak" for dictating when and if I decide to post a new lyric stumpah, I also get the point: if nobody's answered that thing for a week, they probably ain't gonna. So that will be my new rule: the stumpah will stay up for one week or until somebody solves it. Also, after the first couple days, if nobody has solved it, I will post a lo-fi clip of the song in question as a hint. I've done this with this week's stumpah, just click on the lyrics to hear it (assuming it worked). As I look at other blogs across the web, I realize that my daily posts are really long and rambling. I kind of like putting a bunch of stuff on there, and I always assumed that everybody likes long posts. I know I like reading long posts by others. But maybe that's just me. Maybe nice concise posts are the way to go. I don't know. When I look back a few months, I realize I used to keep it much shorter and maybe a little sweeter. Did you know that Gene Garber lost 16 games in relief for the 1979 Braves? That's a shit year. Quite an accomplishment, really. I thought you should know that Howard Stern can't talk about vaginas on his radio show without getting fined, but Michael Kay is allowed to do a one hour sit down interview with Bob Costas, and you don't hear a peep about it. It aired tonight, and I'm sure they'll repeat it, too. Steer clear and please make sure your kids steer clear. It touches me when I walk around the neighborhood and see people who take some fucking pride in their jobs. Saturday I woke up with a little bit of a woed-ka hangover, and the wife mercilessly sent me out to buy some grub. My first stop was the smoothie place. Smoothies won't really mend you up after a hangover, but they never hurt. They may have a mild positive effect. And they taste good. The guy who takes your order at my local smoothie place is a prince. He's nice and he's on top of shit, and he doesn't waste any time. He keeps things moving but manages to be polite, even friendly, at the same time. I wish him a happy life. Then I went to
Le Pain Quotidien for some sandwiches and fruit salad. Often the wife
and I will go there to get some delicious food on a lazy weekend
afternoon. They have communal tables and it's a real nice atmosphere.
But on this day I was just picking up a couple of items to go.
Then I went to Giacomo's and got some iced tea. Again, the guy working there had a good attitude. Some annoying lady came in with her toddler and she was sort of standing in front of me, deciding what she wanted while preventing me from ordering my iced tea and getting the hell out. The lady kept consulting with her kid and then asked the guy behind the counter a question about cookies. He answered the question and then tried to make the kid smile by saying something cute like, "Are you guys on a cookie hunt?" The humorless lady didn't even chuckle. She didn't acknowledge the guy had even spoken. I get the feeling that her attitude towards people serving her is: serve me, don't talk to me. You are a server and I am a customer. The only words I want to hear out of your mouth are "May I help you?", "Yes, ma'am," and "Here's your change." It's not like the guy wanted to be her best friend; he was just making the best of an empty social exchange between strangers. She should have felt obligated to do the same, especially with her ass blocking the counter from people who already knew what they wanted (that would be me). That lady sucks. But to the dude behind the counter at Giacomo's: Keep up the good work and the good attitude. You're on the right track. I wish I had as good an attitude as these people. Maybe I will take some inspiration from them and do a better job. Or find a more appropriate one. In high school, I had Frank McCourt as my Creative Writing teacher. Sounds pretty cool, but like most things, it's only as cool as you make it. I had some problems with Mr. McCourt's class, and admittedly many of them were my own fault. I was a flake, a lousy student, and Mr. McCourt didn't push you to be more. He assumed you were mature enough to want to write stuff, and so he never assigned actual work. A typical class consisted of Mr. McCourt telling a few stories, and then a couple ambitious students would read what they had written that week. For flakes like me, who sat on the radiator because the class was so overcrowded, it was a free period, a blow-off, a chance to maybe catch up on some other homework or do a crossword puzzle. I never wrote a thing. I wish I had understood back then what school is supposed to be about. For me, it was just about survival. One problem was that Mr. McCourt was friends with my pop, so he knew me by name. As the weeks rolled by, he must have been a little disappointed in my non-output, so finally one day he called on me. "Mr. Bungle, do you have anything you'd like to share with the class?" he asked. I looked down at my notebook, where I had been writing out potential Knicks lineups and all the words to "Rockbox" by RUN-DMC. "Uh, no," I answered. "Well, next Friday I'd like you to bring something in and share it with the class," he said. I thought this was pretty unfair, as he rarely if ever called on anyone without them volunteering first. I recall the following Friday afternoon pretty clearly. I was sitting in the auditorium during lunch, hanging out with my friends Regan and James, when all of a sudden a bell went off in my head. The assignment. I had forgotten it. And class was in like 10 minutes. There was a 50% chance that Mr. McCourt would forget about our deal, but if he didn't forget, I'd be fucked. So I grabbed a pen and wrote about a page of the lousiest, blandest, most obvious observations about life that I could think of. It read like a mediocre verbungle post. I was ashamed, but at least I had something, Sure enough, almost as soon as we got into class, he called on me. "Are you going to grace us with some of your work?" Mr. McCourt asked. "Uh, OK," I said. I was terrified. Reading my ten-minute effort to the entire class. So I read it, slowly as to make it seem more substantial. There were chuckles from the class, in the appropriate places. Chuckles of courtesy, no doubt. But it wasn't a complete disaster. And at least it was over. Mr. McCourt took a long pause.
And then, years later, we both had our breakthroughs. Him with that whiny memoir about how poor he was growing up in Ireland, and me with the daily dose of literary might that is verbungle.com. But I can't help thinking, as I pour over months of meaningless shitty posts, whether it's much. I suspect it isn't. In fact, sometimes I look at everything I've ever done, and I see him squinting at me with those black eyes. "It isn't much, is it?" So I take solace in the fun times I've had. Like the time in Milwaukee in maybe 1995, when Mike Dillahunt drunkenly and intentionally ripped a button off my brand new shirt. I was furious, and I told him what I thought of him. He responded by picking the button up off the street and eating it. It just reminded me that you can't fight City Hall. Armed with this knowledge, I was able to laugh. And I hope you are able to laugh. Even a courtesy chuckle is appreciated. I'm feeling pretty dark over the last few days. Maybe it's that I am approaching birthday #35 (36 if you count the day I was born). Among those 35 years are ten spent in my current job. I should be running the place by now, right? The other day, I got an email from a woman (now pregnant) who used to work there. She CC'd a couple of other people, too. It said: Dear Hans, Love, Pregnant Lady who used to work there It's that dirty unspoken question that anybody might wonder about, but few dare to ask. How can someone spend the prime years of their life doing something they have no interest in? I dunno. It isn't much, is it? But maybe preggo's words will serve as an inspiration to get more out of life, like Frank McCourt's words did years ago. Oh, that's right, they didn't. So I will motivate myself: I guarantee there will be a softball recap posted by tomorrow night. That's a start. For anyone interested in a bizarre academic
interpretation of Et Tu, Babe,
click here. 8/8/04: Russkies So I went to a bachelor party in Brighton Beach last night. Had a great time. I would like to give you a nice linear recap of what went on, but somehow writing in complete sentences and even (ugh!) paragraphs is making my brain hurt. So I will give you a little numbered list of observations. Easier on my head. Just as much fun for you to read. 1. If you've never been out to Brighton Beach
(and I hadn't), you have absolutely got to make it out there. If you have
friends coming to town and you want to show them a slice of New York that they
can't get in Topeka, take them to Brighton Beach. I think it's a good idea for you all to start checking in with monkeyweb each day (and add some comments to the discussion groups, for Criminy's sake -- a discussion group is nothing without brilliant people like you discussifying shit). The blog is starting to really show some signs of compact brilliance. I think Joe Monkeyweb totally nailed the Rick James obit. Far too often when people die, we are afraid to discuss their life's flaws (see the Reagan death coverage). I've also seen people go overboard in the opposite direction. They want to show us how they're not going to become swayed by the emotional response that always follows a celebrity's death, so they fill their blogs and newspaper editorials with venomous assaults on the person who died. That's no good, either. But JM just calmly reminds us that, at his core, Rick James was a dirtbag. That is his real legacy. The only thing that might slow down monkeyweb's development into an internet giant is that Joe Monkeyweb has a rich and hectic personal life. It remains to be seen if he will dedicate himself to nerdy cyber-antics for the long term. Consistent readers of verbungle.com will remember a post from a couple of weeks ago in which I mentioned that every time I go to Chicago, people tell me what a mean person I am. Some of you might agree. Some of you may say I'm a pussycat. I know I try to be a decent guy, but sometimes things come out wrong, especially when I'm just trying to make a harmless joke. Here is an example of how I can be a dick from yesterday at work. Our office, which now must house 200 or so employees, has several bathrooms. The one closest to my work area is semi-co-ed. Meaning there are separate bathrooms, but the area where you wash up is shared by both sexes. I came out of the men's room the other day and there was a woman from some other part of the office checking herself out in the mirror. I sort of recognized her but don't know her name. I nodded hello and then went to wash my hands. "Oh, there are separate bathrooms," she said. "I heard it was co-ed." "Yeah, but you have to wash up in this common area," I said. "Still, you have this great mirror," she said, still checking herself out. "I guess so, but since it's out here, the opposite sex gets to see you primping and stuff." "Oh, you noticed that I was looking in the mirror," she said. Then she said something like, "How do I look?" "You still got some work to do," I said, hoping she'd laugh. She didn't laugh, so I just sort of mumbled goodbye and walked away. In my defense, she was an attractive woman who should be able to take a joke like that. I hope she didn't take it too personally. I was just funnin'. Sorry, lady. This would never have happened if we had separate primping areas. The more I hear about people fired for their blogs, the more I realize maybe I better watch what I say on here. The People at work are definitely bound to find out about this stupid thing eventually, and then I will be canned. Will I get severance? I don't know why the softball reviews haven't been happening. I think maybe because that stupid guy Dan hit his so far out of the park, nobody really wants to follow him. We'll get over that. Stick with us. A little optimistic, ya think? 8/6/04: An Uneaten Nestle Crunch and an Unwatched Porno Tape It's a beautiful night in New York. 65 degrees, breezy, perfect for a sweatshirt if you want to put one on. If I was a contemplative man with things to contemplate, I'd be out walking and contemplating until 3 in the morning. Instead, I went to Gray's Papaya to buy the wife a couple of hot dogs, and I ended up betraying my vegetarianism and getting one for myself too. They make good hot dogs there, and sell them for a fair price. No gas face for Gray's Papaya. The dudes who robbed all the banks in Iowa during the campaigning depress me. Such lack of original thought. I guess some of them were smart enough to get away with it, but still. Robbers of America, you can do better. I was thinking about the chintzy bar time in Boston (1 or 2 or whatever it is), and I thought to myself, I could never live in a place like that. I need a city that can outlast me, or at least give me a run for my money. I don't want to be thinking about squeezing in as much fun as possible before my beer turns into a pumpkin. 4am for last call, with a second, unofficial last call around 4:30 and finally one more for the stragglers at around 5 is the way a town should do it. Then I thought more about it and said, wait. What if in Boston they go out at 6 or 7 instead of 9 or 10? They get off work, head straight to the bar, pound away all night and still get home by 2. Up at 8, to work by 9, and do it all over again. That might actually work quite well. Of course, with our 4am bar time we have the option of going out from 7 to 2, also. We choose not to, though, which proves our system is superior. Beantown gets the GF. Again, I have little for you tonight. But I like to give you five decent posts during the week, and then maybe one more on the weekend if I've got some downtime. It ain't much, but it's what I got. Going to a (thankfully) stripperless bachelor party tomorrow night in Brighton Beach. I think it will be at least the 3rd bachelor party I have been invited to without being invited to the corresponding wedding. Possible interpretation of these facts: the wives and girlfriends hate me. Hopefully more probable interpretation: I've been known to get bombed and act stupid, and the fellas hope my behavior distracts from their own. Sorry, not going to happen tomorrow. I am past that point in my life (as of two or three weeks ago). Tomorrow will be nothing but good Russian food and BYOB in the restaurant. Have a rocking weekend and remember to use the glass. 8/5/04: The Fine Art of Fucking Off My submission for the Perfect Foods Hall of Fame: Egg and Cheese on a Roll I am really getting into the whole "show up late and sneak to my desk without being seen" thing. It's kind of pathetic, really. If you could see me hustling in to work in the morning, you'd feel some shame on my behalf. The last few days I've been showing up at 9:44 am. It's no big deal -- I've gotten there before my boss almost every day. His office door is always closed when I arrive. Not that he really cares so much what time I get there, but I feel a certain sense of corporate responsibility. I don't want to embarrass the team. It's actually fun playing the role of timid worker bee. My new move goes like this: I go in the main entrance, walk through the reception area, and then hang a hard left down the long (usually empty) hallway towards my desk. Once I get to my cubicle, assuming I haven't been seen by any higher-ups, I dive ass-first into my seat and say "SAFE!" while making the appropriate umpire's gesture. If you've worked with me/for me/against me over the years, you might have noticed this: I have a low threshold for office hijinks. When shit starts getting loud and raucous in my work area, I've been known to flash the universal sign for "shut it" or to utter the bouncer's plea for group composure: "Guys...guys...guys." Sometimes it's effective, sometimes it's overruled by the mob mentality. You might think I'm a square or a stick-in-the-mud who doesn't appreciate a good time at work. Nothing could be further from reality.* The truth is that fucking off at work is near and dear to my heart -- so important, in fact, that it absolutely kills me to see people yelling and carrying on and drawing attention to themselves. Because when I see that, I see a lack of discipline, a lack of commitment, a disregard for future opportunities to fuck off. And I can't abide any of that. The right to fuck off is too important. Similar to the golden rule of masturbation ("Don't get caught"), fucking off at work has one basic guideline: don't arouse attention. If it's obvious to the office at large that you're having a real good time, it probably means you're having too good a time. Don't draw attention to yourself. Don't curse loudly. Don't gather three deep around someone's desk and tell drinking stories. As much fun as that may be, it makes you look like a bunch of clowns to anyone who might happen by. Don't play music loud at your desk. Don't get up on your chair and squawk like a chicken. Remember, even though you may be doing a kickass job, even though you know you deserve a little break from the grind, you're not in a bar. You're not in a playground. Other people need to work. It's an office. Show respect.
Here then, are a few ways to fuck off at work
that get my endorsement: Basically, the rule is: fuck off, enjoy yourself, give whatever effort you're comfortable with. But get your work done, be discreet, and don't give the boss types any clue that you're having so much fun on their dime. They don't like that. Strangely, there has been a lot of discussion of 3rd Bass here over the last few days (this discussion continues in yesterday's comments section below). I may have started it with my offhanded Michael Rappaport comment. I invite the discussion, and I want to make my stance clear. While I am not as steeped in their oeuvre as some of our readers are (and thus should perhaps let others carry on this debate), I remember The Cactus Album and certainly recall their big hits. 3rd Bass was definitely not bad. They were creative and interesting and clever. They were funny and fresh and really had the goods. They went wrong, in my book, by trying too hard. Picking on easy targets (Vanilla Ice, Hammer) and acting as arbiters of all that was legit in hip hop was kind of annoying. It was as if their quest for credibility had to come at the expense of others. Which, I understand, is part of the rap game in general. It just seemed a little inappropriate coming from these flat-topped honkies who were posing as hard rocks. They always reminded me of white guys in my high school who really loved rap, invested their souls in it, but somehow came across as less than 100% authentic. I'm sure I'm wrong about this, and maybe I am judging them by their skin color, which isn't quite fair -- but it is a factor when you are co-opting an art form. Carry on, messrs. Nice, Serch, and Ad-Rock. The Yankees aren't going anywhere until they sort out their pitching. The lineup is truly monstrous. Rivera and Gordon are gems. But the starters are all for crap****, and we could really use a stud lefty reliever like Mike Stanton in the postseason. Stanton may be the most underappreciated piece to those championship teams -- he was almost always lights out. I loved that guy. Whatever, he's gone. * OK, maybe I am a bit of a square 8/4/04: Well a person can work up a mean
mean thirst, after a hard day of nothin' much at all The upside is that all your lame stories are recorded somewhere, so when you're 118 years old, you can look back and have a chuckle. I say this as a preface to one of my old lame stories, one that you probably have heard, and one that I may tell you again if I corner you at a party some night. I have a problem with sarcasm. While I'm no stranger to using it myself, I have a hard time detecting it when others use it. And I use it so much, sometimes people think I'm using it when I'm really not. For instance... 1987: freshman year of college. I am sitting on the toilet in our dormitory (in retrospect, I am astonished that I was able to use our community toilets -- there were four of them in a row, and often more than one person would be using them at once), and I suddenly realize there is no toilet paper in my stall. Stranded, I sit and wait for someone to enter the bathroom and rescue me. I hear the door swing open, and someone starts using the sink to wash up. "Help!" I call out. "Who's out there?" "It's Steve," says Steve Waggner, a 23 year-old sophomore. Steve was a rough guy -- full moustache, rugged complexion, and a bit of a chip on his shoulder. He had worked for a few years after high school, and he must have felt some degree of distance from the rest of us, a bunch of once-a-week-shaving freshmen who had no real understanding of life. He always had dark bags under his eyes, like he stayed up at night regretting things that hadn't even happened yet. He always seemed a little bit sad. "Steve, could you do me a favor?" I ask. "Could you roll me some TP over the top of the stall?" Steve is happy to oblige. He was a pretty nice guy in general; he'd buy us beer and rock out to The Doors with us in his dorm room. He takes some of the toilet paper from the stall next to me and sends it over the side of the adjoining stall into mine, where I can use it freely. "Thanks a lot," I say. That night, I went to the bathroom to brush my teef, and there was Steve, brushing his own. "How'd that TP work out for you?" Steve asked, smiling. Here I must explain that, despite my wholesome
good looks and aw-shucks midwestern speaking pattern, I grew up in New York
City. We didn't "TP" people's houses, we didn't use the phrase "TP," and
thus I was genuinely confused by what he was saying. Yes, I had used the
"What TP?" I asked, forgetting about how he had kindly saved me earlier that day. I honestly had no idea what he was talking about. "You know, the TP..." he said, quickly growing angry, looking me in the eye and waiting for me to crack a smile. "What are you talking about?" I asked, sincerely baffled. At this point, Steve got right up in my face and I was sure he was going to haul off and deck me. "Don't FUCK with me!" he said, and then he turned and left the bathroom, slamming the door on the way out. It wasn't until weeks later that I found out what TP was and why Steve was so mad at me. What I'm getting at is that sometimes people give you more credit than you deserve. They assume you know things that you do not, and that you're cleverer than you really are. An example is the last line of yesterday's post: The internet does not grow stale. It just grows. I was just trying to close my post with a nice ringing last line, but somebody found a connection to something deeper. Reader AAA posted the following in the comments section: Reference caught! (or lyric stumper) Now I wish I was smart enough to have been referencing this song, but I'm not. I don't know the song. Who sings it? I like it. I wish I was cool enough to know this song. And to Steve Waggner, I was being straight with you, dude. Sorry about the misunderstanding and danke for the TP. I went out for a few beers with queer eye alum Josh D. tonight. Oh, how I miss the village. We ran into a guy Lou and his buddy Joe at the bar. Nice guys, real drinkers, chatting to every lady who walked into the bar. Lou was a card. He was a salesman, in a suit, somewhere between 38 and 45 years old. He told us he had a presentation the next day. "What are you selling?" I asked. "Truth," he answered. I couldn't help but call him on that. "I bet that's a tough sell. Nobody's really interested in that," I said. He nodded to me and said, "I'm buying this guy a beer." He bought us each a drink and told us some great stories, like the one about the time he was pulled over doing 90 in a 50 drunk and somehow avoided a ticket. Then Joe told us the story of how he got suckered out of his house in Salt Lake City by two cops during a party. As soon as he got outside, they cuffed him. Apparently he had six outstanding tickets. He said he was cursing them and trying to drag them back into the house, which would nullify the arrest. He was a pretty big guy, too. I wouldn't want to bust him. After we talked for awhile, the two of them made a sincere effort to buy the Food Network. "How much you want?" they asked. "$5,000 or $50, whatever you got on you," I said. Somehow the deal fell apart. As much as I agree with the general suspicion that the latest, building-specific terror warnings are a calculated effort to distract us from all the other things that are going on right now, things that would benefit the democrats across the board, I can't help but feel a little uneasy living here in New York. Hopefully, nothing will happen, but I keep thinking about those people in the WTC, and how that day started out so normal for them. You hear all those gut-wrenching stories about guys who left messages for their wives that morning, before anything happened, reminding them to send in the rent check. Or how they stopped and got their morning coffee from their morning coffee guy, and discussed the Yankees' postseason chances. And I imagine more: how a guy spent an extra five minutes in front of the mirror that morning, straightening his tie, getting ready for his big meeting. All the mundane bullshit we do every day assuming there's more life left in us. All meaningless when we get killed. And I wonder about the stuff each of us are doing every day now, all under the belief that we'll live long enough for it to matter. It'll seem so trivial if we die. I was going to expound upon this, so I sent myself a little list, which I'm now just going to leave as is, because it's late and I'm tired and I'm not sure it's worth saying any better. new yorkers 8/3/04: New Arrivals Congratulations to my sis and her hubby on baby #2. Piper Rose, a girl, was born at around 6:30 this morning. Another Leo in the family. Years have passed, I've had a chance to reflect on this, and I still can't believe Michael Rappaport was never affiliated with 3rd Bass in any way. I can't wrap my head around that. Often a piece of information will surface about a person or a group that is so damning, it becomes known as "the smoking gun." Usually, this information turns out to be so much fluff, anything but a smoking gun. However, today's news item about Roger Clemens, first broken in yesterday's comments section on verbungle.com by Pete Brush, gives me hope. If there is anyone out there who has so much as a pimple-sized lingering doubt about Clemens' character, refer them to this story. I hope, oh I hope, that it doesn't turn out to be case of an over-aggressive umpire trying to make a name for himself. If it emerges that Clemens was indeed yelling at the umpire, and spit a sunflower seed at him, I want this information to go up on Clemens' Hall of Fame plaque. When little eight year-old kids are strolling through Cooperstown thirty years from now on induction weekend, and Clemens is there with all the other old-timers, signing baseballs for $5000 a pop, they can ask their dads, "Why isn't there a line at Roger Clemens' table? Wasn't he one of the greatest pitchers of all time?" And their dad can say, "There goes Roger Clemens. The biggest asshole that ever took the mound." And then he can read to his son the famous tale of the sunflower seeds, and the subsequent meltdown that culminated in his release from the Astros, and finally the short stint in the army that ended with a court martial for desertion (see prediction #22). And the kid and his dad will walk over and take their place in Derek Jeter's line, which is by now extending through the door and out into the parking lot.
And speaking of high-minded dialogue, which I definitely was, don't you sort of wish you had been the first kid on your block to discover 80's era Spy magazine, or The Onion, or Metafilter, before they all got lame? Well, let me clue you in to the next destination for witty urban discourse, which is now only in its infancy. Spread the word and be the cool guy for a change. It's been added to my daily must-check list, and you should do the same unless you want to look outside your window late one night to find Dillahunt hanging from your telephone wire and staring in blankly at your family. Here it is, jerkies: www.monkeyweb.com. Sign up, spill your guts, and feel like you're part of something for once in your life. When we first moved to our new office, they made one thing very clear to us: office hours begin at 9:30 am. You are to be there by 9:30 am, work 8 hours, and then and only then may you go home. If you take a one hour lunch, you can leave at 6:30. If you take a half-hour lunch, you may leave at 6. The reason they elucidated this for us is that we had been over on 52nd street among the horse and human shit for so long, a lot of us had lost our sense of worker's pride. We'd roll in at 10:15 or 10:30, and sleepwalk through half the day. The medium-ups in our office were concerned we'd embarrass them when we merged with the more professional midtown office. So they plainly said: 9:30, people. The delightful secret is that nobody has made any adjustments at all. People still come in whenever they want, and now it's even easier to do so. There are like four or five entrances that you can use to sneak your way in without any boss types getting a look at you. And our desks are now so much more private, we can surf the internet freely all day. Productivity is at an all time low, I'd guess. And I bet the suits from midtown are the worst offenders. Here's to togetherness! Since I am one of the most prominent Yankee fans on the web, with daily hit totals well into the double digits, I bet you are all wondering what I think about the Nomar trade. I don't think much of it one way or another, really. It's sad that it couldn't work out for him there. But he definitely had to go. It was over. He's got a fresh start in a new city and I think he has to check himself and get back to the old Nomar attitude if he can. He's probably only got like three or four more good years at short if he's lucky. If he re-signs in Chicago, I think he might have an MVP in his future. Maybe even next year. You can't ask for a better place to play. The fans, the day games, the dimensions of the stadium -- it's up to him now. Boston is weakened by the move, I think. But they got some good players and they shored up their saggy D. And they really had no choice. He was just taking up space. They'll be alright, I think. They'll get the wildcard. The answers to the NBA nickname question from yesterday: "Blumpy" was Tony Campbell. "Chibbs" was and is Kenny Anderson. I'm afraid I cannot tell you what was in the paper bag on the kitchen counter. Keep guessing if you like. I am not one to dwell on the inherent value of retro stuff -- something isn't compelling just because it happened awhile ago and isn't it cute that we wore those pants? But I think you need to watch yourself some VH1 Classic if you get the chance. Yes, you will be amazed at just how far things have come in the last 20, 15, 10 years. And you will also be absolutely floored that things could have ever been that way. It will remind you of what you once were and what you can never allow to happen again. You will look for explanations and find none. It is a powerful experience, one that I suggest you not attempt without friends nearby. I was watching a Journey video today and they kept cutting away to the audience, sitting in their seats, blandly clapping, heartlessly singing along -- as if they knew something was desperately wrong but were powerless to do anything about it. They should morph out the faces of the poor souls who are in these videos. Not just the audience -- the performers, too. Neil Schon in particular. He should really have major plastic surgery to avoid possible sidewalk recognition. From www.donmattingly.com: Reggie Wrote: The internet does not grow stale. It just grows. 8/2/04: Please be more considered Since the Yankees failed to land the Big Unit,
I can safely root for them for the rest of the season. Not just root, but root
like a prick. My little stand about the RJ deal was sorta misguided, I guess.
I am a Yankees fan and I need to embrace that. No, the playing field in
baseball isn't level. But to cite perhaps my least favorite catchphrase of
the last fifteen years: don't hate the playa, hate the game. Baseball's
fucked in the Yankees' favor, and they are doing everything they can to exploit
its fuckedness. As is the nature of sports, of capitalism, of man. Go
Yankees. Did I ever tell you how much I love Derek Jeter? When they count up the chips at the end of the careers of the big 4 shortstops (that's Nomar, A-Rod (who, I guess, we'll have to remove from the discussion), Tejada and Jeter), Jeter will probably be second in hitting and last in home runs and RBI's. But is he really worse than those guys? No, he's better. The hatred that non-Yankees fans feel towards him illustrates how good he is. They tell us he's overrated and that his 4 (and counting) rings have a lot to do with playing for the richest team in the league, with the most good players. They resent him because the girls love him. They even say things like, "He's not even good looking. I don't get it." It may all be true, but we see him every day and we know how good he is. He's simply not overrated in any way. The guy hits .320 and just finds a multitude of ways to win games when it's essential that somebody does so. In a huge pivotal postseason moment of any kind, I'd take him over any one of those guys. And for the Yankees, the postseason is all that matters. Sorry, I have little to say right now, so I'm just trying to be an unbearable Yankee fan. I was flipping through the stations this afternoon, and I came across the finals of a bass fishing tournament. As a matter of fact, I think it was THE bass fishing tournament. One way you know a sport is lame is when a guy starts off his postgame interview by rattling off all his sponsors right at the top. It happens in auto racing, and it happens in bass fishing. Not sure if the guy who won today did it, but the second place guy couldn't stop talking about how great his bait and rod and reel and hook and hat and boat and waders and every other thing that you could associate with fishing was. Each one by name. Anyway, before the final weigh-in (and how ludicrous is it that the most dramatic moment in their sport consists of a dude weighing some fish? You can see that at Fairway about 400 times a day.) the announcers were, without any sense of irony, discussing what happens when you win the Bassmaster Classic. These are direct quotes: Announcer #1: What's the biggest thing an
angler goes through after winning the classic? Call me out of touch, but I think even the world's greatest bass fishermen could slide past me on the sidewalk undetected. I think perhaps my two favorite NBA nicknames of all time are "Blumpy" and "Chibbs". Can you tell me who's who? I went down to the old neighborhood on Saturday and drank a few down in the daytime. It was a nice sunny day and a lot of fun. Ate some delicious Freedom Fries, too. Give me potatoes and eggs and cold beer in the daytime and I will be your most reliable friend. It was great to see the old haunts and especially the old crib, but it also made me feel kinda sad. Made me feel kinda old. Those days of "Beer...bong...beer" and pissing off my German neighbor by rocking the boombox on the roof at 4am are over. I'll probably never again invite everybody back to my hovel for hotdogs and beer. Never again will snow fall on my head through the skylight as I sit on the toilet. I won't wake up from a big night with the door to my apartment flung wide open. I won't wake up from a big night with blood on the walls (God willing). I won't wake up from a big night with a paper bag of unknown contents sitting on the kitchen counter -- a bag of items I bought the night before while drunk but passed out before I put them to use. Can you guess what 2 items I found when I opened the bag? My pop on Bill O'Reilly: "I'm sorry, but he's just every Irish blowhard I remember from my childhood." Sorry, I don't have my good fastball tonight. I'm just trying to change speeds and hit the corners and keep my team in the game. |
though. I like his
attitude, but he just isn't clutch. That'll change, though. One of
the perks of being a Yankee is that you have an endless stream of opportunities
to make a name for yourself. Look at Giambi. He failed all the time
in the clutch, and then he hit those 2 HR's off Pedro in Game 7 last year and
all of a sudden his name is attached to one of the legendary Yankee victories.
It
will probably be dissected again in VRF's forthcoming
get on the trapeze and show off what were some very impressive trapezing
maneuvers. I couldn't help thinking that the trapeze was going to snap.
But I also couldn't stop watching the women climbing around on that thing.
It seemed like at least five of them had serious trapeze experience.
it's
mediocre. I especially dislike the correspondents who go around smugly picking
on easy targets to generate cheap laughs. Maybe I've just seen bad
episodes. I give it a 17.439 on the verbungle quality meter.
especially
with the fast breaks and stuff. It's sort of what basketball used to be.
But it's also kind of silly -- when the guy is taking a penalty shot, and he
leans as far forward over the line as he can, pump-faking with the ball before
falling down and whizzing it past the goalie, it actually makes me laugh out
loud. And let's be honest: you could probably start for any country's handball
squad right now. 
recovery. Plus I sit there and
worry that some hormone-deprived little girl is gonna cream herself on one of
the multiple unforgiving apparatuses that they have to climb around on. Stupid.
the
curtains open to reveal a brand new
Connecticut day. And I will thank the heavens that I am not James McGreevey right now.
Remember when I was collecting
been further scarred from rolling through the Everglades last week, so I figured
I'd stop at Paragon and pick up a couple of clinchers.
I
took the day off today to clear my head. I wanted to go see my dad and help him
master his DVR, but then it started to pour so I stayed home and did laundry.
Then at 6 I went to the South Street Seaport to see
then
30. He's still going at 77, and I still worry. Mortality is a
vicious fanged bat that circles your head every day of your life.
Sometimes it flies crazily away for an hour or two while you're out tossing the
frisbee or sticking your hand down someone's pants or eating grilled meat, but
it never loses your scent and it always finds you again before long. 
I placed my order
and stepped back from the counter to wait for them to make our sandwiches.
While I was standing there, I noticed that a piece of wax paper had fallen
from the counter onto the floor, and it was just sitting there. It was a
little unsightly, but no big whoop. This one sort of gruff but super-competent
waiter who's waited on us several times spied it sitting there, and went out of
his way to go pick it up. I'm sure that's not in his job description, but he
didn't care. He saw something that wasn't right and he ran right over and
took care of it. The paper could sit there all day, and it wouldn't really
affect his life. But he knows that a good restaurant shouldn't have pieces
of wax paper sitting on the floor, and rather than bitch to somebody else about
it, he just went over and -- boop -- picked it up. He's got pride and he
gives a shit. My hat is off to him.
"Well,
it isn't much, is it?" he said. He didn't mean not much by volume, which was
obvious to anyone who sat through all 1.4 minutes. He was talking about the
depth, the substance, the quality, of what I had submitted. "It isn't
much, is it?" He could not have been more right. Those words stayed with me.
Alexi,
not so good. 
I also think it's important to preserve the
illusion that work is getting done. When the president of the company walks down
the hall past your work area, and you're playing baseball with wadded-up paper,
the president files that shit away. It's noticed. And that's when
all of a sudden mysterious edicts get passed down saying that every employee
must file a weekly report with their supervisor, or that there shall be no
playing of baseball with wadded-up paper. And then you've shamed your boss,
shamed yourself, and made yourself a target. You've cut down on your
chances of fucking off successfully in the future. Remember: to fuck off is your
right; to visibly fuck off is to invite your own demise. 
term
myself earlier that day, but it was just an instinctive abbreviation on my part.
I didn't realize it was not only an accepted phrase in suburban circles, it was
a rite of passage.
Speaking
of the comments section, which I sort of was, I want to tell you how much I love
it when y'all leave comments. Even the ones that say stuff like, "My cock
is going to eat your cock." Please continue to utilize this magical tool
of interactivity. Let the high-minded dialogue continue. 
Number of brave souls who made it to the bottom: