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1/31/05: NYC

Friday night, for the second time in my life, I partied with Helena Christensen.

Well, not really but if I were a pathetic loser I might make such a claim.  And I would be sure to use the expression "partied."

The first time was at the REM/Luscious Jackson tour-end party at L. Teddy's in what must have been 1995. My sis hooked us up with one backstage pass that got like five or six of us in the door, and then it was a free for all. Great night: free drinks, free grub, and massive celebrity viewing opportunities: 

-Ethan Hawke (desperately and unsuccessfully seeking to project an air of detached coolness that he's still searching for today);
-Tim Robbins, who had to that point been the consensus office pick to play cW in the FN movie whenever it got made, rudely elbowing cW out of the way at the bar and ordering a whisky;
-Absolute Tool Stephen Dorff, upon seeing the photography book that Michael Stipe had given my sister as an end-of-tour gift, saying, "Yo, that's a dope book," with a straight face;
-Helena Christensen wandering around and then ducking aside for a minute to make out with Stipe behind a ficus tree (I'm a little hazy on this one, but I think it happened);
-Assorted other famous motherfukkas.

Ten years later, which means Friday night, a couple of co-workers and I stopped for a beer on the way home from the office.  After this beer was consumed, we started walking to the subway.  We passed a gallery on 15th street, and we noticed there was some kind of opening going on inside. It was your typical gallery scene.  White walls lined with a smattering of photos. Dozens of hipsters milling around and a "Private" sign on the door.  I looked in and saw Liv Tyler standing there. Everybody looked famous. There was also a kid playing around in the gallery, desperately trying to keep himself entertained (remember how torturous it was to go to places like art galleries when you were five?).  The kid saw us and started making funny faces.  The dad, who was an actor I recognized by face but not by name,  then saw us and motioned for us to come in. So we did.  Busted right through the "Private" sign on the door and walked on in.

The actor dude was really nice.  He said, "Please, have a look around." At this point I saw Helena Christensen fluttering about, meeting and greeting everyone. They were all wearing expensive-looking pants. 

"This is an exhibit of Helena's photos," actor guy said. Then he added, "Helena Christensen, you know?"

We nodded like we had gone to Barbizon with her in the early 80's. "Helena?  Helena Christensen? Of course I remember her.  What's she been up to all these years?  I guess the modeling didn't work out, huh?" 

So we took a look around.  The photos were pretty good, actually. Liv Tyler was in one of 'em, a close-up of her staring intently at a TV that was maybe one inch by one inch.  Pretty cool shot.  We walked through trying not to gawk at famous people and then we left.

Regardless of how impressed you are by celebrity sightings, it was a nice New York moment, the way the dude waved us in, the way nobody seemed to mind our shlubby presence. I like just knowing that stuff like that is quietly happening on a random block on a Friday night.

It set the stage for a nice weekend here in the city. Temperatures hit the mid-30s and it felt almost like Spring after the brutal stretch we just went through. The wife and I had many errands to run, which brought us to all corners of the island of Manhattan.   As I walked around, I remembered again that no matter how much I bitch about it, I really love this town. Sure, there are a million things I'd change about it if I could. It's basically an impossible place if you stop and think about it.  And I don't take advantage of all the things I should. But goddammit I love it here, just the feeling I get walking down the street and looking at people and listening to sounds and smelling smells. Even the bad smells.

Clint Eastwood once said of his movie-making career: "I love every aspect of the creation of motion pictures and I guess I am committed to it for life."

I think that's where I'm headed with NYC.

So please nobody blow it up.

***

B. New emailed me this link that showcases a white boy with truly frightening hops. Scroll down to "Henry Bekkering - The Remix." I looked him up and he's going to Eastern Washington (?!?), and not getting much run.  The rest of his game must be pretty raw, because his leaping ability is on par with anyone I've ever seen. He basically dunks from the free throw line -- off of two feet and using his weak hand.  Lord.   Pierre-Marie Altidor-Cespedes ain't bad, either.  I think we're going to see a nice influx of Canadian hoops talent over the next five to ten years.  The Nash Effect.

***

If you're waiting for "The Surreal Life" to start sucking, put your feet up, grab some string cheese from the fridge, and hunker down, because it's gonna be awhile.  The America's Top Model chick is throwing herself at Peter Brady with the gusto of Homer Simpson diving into an all-you-can-eat shrimp buffet.  It's such a very good show.

***

The answer to last week's "Name That Solo" was "Girlfriend" by the Modern Lovers. You can snag the full empeetrey if you missed it over the weekend. In the meantime, some housekeeping.  We've had a few complaints about the rules of the lyric stumpah lately.  We'll iron that shit out in the future, but for the rest of this round, we're going to keep accepting answers starting at noon eastern.  We'll use the same start time for the other challenges as well.  For instance, Wheredat in the picture above (in this case, tell me roughly where the picture was taken FROM, as well as what you see in the background)?  And here's part of an easier solo,  Name that shit.

1/28/05: Who's zooming who?

Last night, as I got aboard the Number 2 train, one of New York City's last remaining functional subway lines, I detected a strong smell of booze.  I quickly realized it was coming from the businessman who had climbed on right in front of me.  He was about 55, distinguished head of silver hair, decent suit, and he just reeked of liquor and aftershave.  I immediately respected him, because there ain't many like him around anymore. Just a good old-fashioned Office Drunk. When you talk to your parents about their old jobs, I'm sure they occasionally mention The Office Drunk, some guy (or lady) who just nipped away at a bottle all day at their desk -- never out in the open but not fooling anybody, either.

Seeing this guy made me happy because I kind of thought The Office Drunk had been slowly phased out to the point of extinction over the years. It was like looking up to find a proud and majestic buffalo right there on the subway.  Since those glorious 1970s days, companies have gotten a little more buttoned-up about workplace intoxication. There are strict drug and alcohol policies, and frankly I don't think daytime drinking plays as prominent a role in business as it once did. Those of you in sales might disagree, I guess you still have the whole "martini lunch with the client" scene. Anyway, this guy was what I guess you'd call a functional alcoholic. I'm sure he makes all his meetings, rarely calls in sick, and doesn't embarrass himself by stumbling, slurring, or playing grabass.  But all day, every day, he's thinking about the hooch in his top desk drawer, and I bet he tugs on that thing twice an hour.

It made me wonder what it would be like to just keep a little bottle in my desk for periodical warm-me-ups throughout the day.  Could I drink it slowly and steadily, and stay sober enough to avoid attracting attention?  Or would I be pickled by noontime and fired by three? Were I a younger man in a different place in life, I would give it a shot in a little verbungle.com office experiment.  But I don't think the time is right for that. Feel free to try it yourself and report back with a recap of what happens.  If you operate heavy machinery, we recommend you pass on this one and leave it for the office lackeys of the world.

We also hereby absolve ourselves from any and all responsibility for whatever happens if someone is actually stupid enough to try this. If you do try it, I recommend going with a high-end vodka as your poison of choice.

Here's to you if you pull it off.  Here's to Subway Man either way.

***

Back in the mid to late 1990's, the internet was like what I imagine the American West was like in the early to mid 1800's.  Meaning, there were already those who had been there for years and understood the land, but then the white man came through and tore everything good to shreds. Along the way, though, we had some fun.  There was Napster Original Extra Gold, there was the fucking annoying dancing baby, and of course there was free pornography.  And perhaps towering above all of that, there was AOL. I recall my days on AOL with nostalgia. Other than the email interface, I really have no problem with AOL as an internet experience, especially as you're learning the ropes.

One of my favorite things to do was instant message with friends. Sometimes a few of us would go trolling in some chat room, ruining the experience for others, always agreeing that they deserved it.  For my regular email and IM purposes, I had one screen name, and for my dickhead troublemaking, I had another.*  For those purposes, I was mikereno7 (then mikereno8, then mikereno9, etc.). Of course I took the name "Mike Reno" from the wildly charismatic frontman for the hopelessly 1980's 1980's band Loverboy. I would go into chat rooms and crack one liners here and there under his name, although in no way did I want people to think I was actually Mike Reno.  Usually I was polite and friendly, and occasionally someone from the chat room would IM me privately outside the room.  Here is the long-thought-lost-forever transcript of one such conversation:

That's the way it was.  We were young and our hearts were an open book.

Please note that I tried to let him off the hook at the beginning.  Also please consider my theory that HE was fucking with ME the whole time.  Not as funny that way, though.

Reno out.

* Now you can occasionally reach me on IM as Srodyc, especially if you have a breaking news story you'd like to report.

1/27/05: The Null Set

Zippo. Nada. El Zilcherismo. Nuttin, honey. (7+2) x 8 - 93 + 21. Paul Giamatti's Oscar chances. Saddam Hussein's WMD. Hammer's remaining fortune. That's what I got tonight.

There are some nights when having nothing is a problem for me. When I try to choke out a couple of drops of something, out of some bizarre sense of cosmic responsibility.  Other blog-junkies will know where I'm coming from.

But not tonight.  I'm just very tired and I have little too offer, so I am only too happy to keep this baby short and to tha pernt.

I was going to sound off on how the iPod is the most overrated piece of technology to emerge in the last nine years, how it is just a mediocre by-product of a much more significant development, digital music and compressed digital music to be precise.  How we all bought into the iPod the same way people bought into VHS over Beta. How they all bought PC's over Macs, and how amazing it is that Apple still thinks of itself as an "alternative" brand because of that. I was going to talk about how the world is crying out for a better MP3 player, and how buying from iTunes is a miserably flawed system. How even those of us who have reservations over downloading free music should still refuse to settle for paying for music that comes with restrictions on its use. But you probably know all this, or you're already a hopelessly committed Apple zombie.  Either way, waste of time.

Not that I don't love my iPod, baby.  I do. Oh, I love it so. But just because of what it does, not because of how it does it or what it is.

Also, remember the dudes across the way at work? The guys with the Bloomberg terminals or whatever they were? Well, we put up a huge sign in our window that said, "What do you guys do over there?" but they didn't respond for like four days, so we took it down.  They are surely dickheads.

What I'm really here to do is announce our latest entertaining reader challenge type game thing.  We have the GISG, and Wheredat?, and the lyric stumpah.  And as of tonight we have a new test for you.  For now, we're going to call it "Name that solo." Because that's what you gotta do.  I will post a clip of a guitar solo, you tell me the song and the artist.  Don't be discouraged if you miss out on a couple, or if this first entry is a little soft. I'm gonna mix it up, although I anticipate there will be a strong emphasis on Richard Marx.  Anyway, here goes: NAME THAT SOLO.

You can also feel free to suggest songs or email them to us.

1/26/05: The Lumbergh Effect

I assume you've all seen Office Space.  Even if you haven't, I'm sure you're intimately familiar with the condescending boss Lumbergh, played by Gary Cole.  In fact, you know just about each and every one of his lines, because some asshole in your office just can't get enough of quoting that movie.  I admit it, it's pretty quotable.  I've done it myself around 700 times.  But it gets annoying after awhile.  The point is, with its successful lampooning of Office Life in general and smarmy bosses in particular, Office Space has actually made Office Life more unbearable on a certain level. Because now you've got thousands of schmucky workers running around spewing annoying dialogue.  The good thing is that the movie is so effective and its annoying legions of quoting disciples are so widespread, even the least self-aware bosses have probably overheard the Lumberghisms and are now chekkity-checking themselves.  So the net effect on a universal level may be zero: Lumbergh might have straightened out a few bosses, but he's made us worker bees a more annoying bunch at the same time.

A while back, I made a list of what makes a sport legitimate, what separates real sports from fun little games. Like most of the stuff I say on here, it was poorly thought out but said with a sense of real authority.  It went something like this:

10 Things That Make a Sport Legit:

1. Is it fun to play? Would you do it for free? Does it feel good in and of itself (smashing a baseball, dunking a basketball) or only when you win (running)?
2. Is it fun to watch? Is there something inherently pleasing about watching the sport performed well? Does it have a rhythm?
3. Is skill (practiced moves, intellectual creativity, etc.) as important (or almost as important) a factor in success at the sport as God-given physicality? I like God-given physicality, too, but watching a small man beat a big one always stirs my drink. And as I get older, I identify with the broken-down codgers who still get it done (Agassi).
4. Is there room for genius, meaning do some athletes in the sport (McEnroe, Jordan, Barry Sanders) paint a vastly more beautiful and intriguing picture than others, or does everybody sort of look the same while playing (Mark Spitz, Lance Armstrong, Laffit Pincay, Jr.)?
5. Is the sport accessible to and embraced by all people? Or is it largely made up of wealthy white dudes (golf) or dumb white dudes (Nascar)? Are the athletes in this sport really the best at it, or are they the only ones interested/well-connected enough to participate? Does the sport have an international appeal, bringing in the best the world has to offer?
6. Is the sport so deeply flawed or outdated in concept (boxing, bullfighting) that no amount of arguing about its "purity" or "simplicity" can justify it in my mind?
7. Does an athlete's physical conditioning have next to zero role in his or her success (billiards, golf, bowling, yachting)? This has nothing to do with how much I like the activity, but it does make me question its claim to sport-hood.
8. If you started practicing right now, could you theoretically be a professional within two years? If so, major demerits.
9. Are people who are good at the sport good at sports in general (Deion Sanders, Dave DeBusschere), or are they specialists who have only mastered their one particular craft (Tara Lipinsky, Tony Hawk)?
10. How ridiculous would you look trash-talking in the particular sport?

Sort of holds up. Anyway, I was flipping through the channels this weekend waiting for the football games to come on, and there was a little PBA bowling on. I love bowling.  Who doesn't? Of course, its claim to sport status is somewhat dubious, using the above list or just your own gut instinct.  In fact, I would add two more items to the list, further weakening bowling's case for calling itself a sport. 

11. Do most of the people who play the sport recreationally do it while intoxicated? If so, does this measurably diminish their skill level?  (bowling loses points with the answers of "yes" and "not a bit")
12. Is there any strategy involved?

It was while watching the bowling the other day that I pondered this.  As far as I can tell, bowling is completely devoid of strategy.  Every time you go down the lane, your goal is the same: knock down all the pins.  There's never a time when you try to hit 7 pins to set up a spare or anything.  Nope.  Just knock down the fucking pins. There's also no art to it (at least at the professional level).  You never see a guy go up there and do a behind-the-back shot or a no-look.  Same damn thing every time.  The conditions don't really change much, either.  They never widen the lane or move the pins further away. Nope. I'm sure some lanes are greasier than others, but pretty much you just go up there and do the same thing every single time.  In fact, bowling at the amateur level is somewhat more entertaining than the pros because the conditions DO change and people do try to spice up their game a bit.  Hey, look at Ron -- he's so shit-housed he's bowling with his feet!

I know the pro bowlers try to liven up the viewing experience for fans by being very demonstrative after a big shot. Screaming, pointing, dancing, pulling out the Butch Johnson six-guns. But I think you have to be pretty stupid not to realize that all the guy did was knock down the pins.  Nothing special.  He'll probably do it again with his next ball. 

Anyway, right as I was having these thoughts, one of the bowlers, who had a big lead over the other bowler, went up to roll his ball with a chance to really put the match out of reach.  Here's the announcer's presumably straight-faced call.

1/25/05: January Whine

I hope this poor bastard doesn't have any plans before April.

Last few days I've been feeling a little bit overwhelmed. Asking myself questions like, "What the hell am I doing wasting all my time with this here blog thing?" It's not like it comes flowing out of me like gold ore*.  I put so much time into this thing, for such meager results, that you'd be embarrassed for me if you knew just how much time I'm talking about.  I'd say I've averaged about five hours of sleep a night over the last year or so, and a large part of that is that I'm staying up bungling my little heart out.

I wind up tired at work, unable to concentrate.  When we brainstorm, I never come up with any good ideas.  I never read books anymore. I walk around in a day-long coma, completely uninspired. Remember when you were 22 and every day you had 100 brilliant thoughts that led to grand plans that you never followed up on? I never even have the thoughts anymore.  What ideas I do have are simple and obvious, and my execution is clunky and disorganized. 

Like yesterday. I wanted to say something nice about the Great Johnny Carson passing away, and it turned into, "Carson die. Me very sad. Leno real bad man."  Who the hell needs that?  Does the world really need one more joker wasting his and other people's time with that kinda shit?

Well, maybe. Especially when you throw in all the fun games and stuff we provide.

The funny thing is that in many ways I've never been happier in my life.  And I guess I need to admit that part of that is the satisfaction of making something every day (besides a good poop). And I love getting feedback from those of you who donate eight to ten minutes of your day to reading the crap that I work so touchingly hard on. So the bungling will continue, at least through our two year anniversary, which is coming up in about a month or two.

As bad as my Carson eulogy was, it was better than Pathetic Dick Cavett's. On Aaron Brown tonight, in the middle of a rambling anecdote, he actually said, "Carson was a notoriously bad drunk." Charles Grodin jumped in with, "Take it easy, Dick. You're being too kind."  Good old Grodin. His Letterman appearances in the 80's remain some of my favorite talk show memories.

I can't remember a time when two teams were dominating their respective sports simultaneously the way we're seeing it happen right now. Of course, I'm talking about the New England Patriots and the Boys team from Real World/Road Rules Challenge. As much of a master technician as Tom Brady is, Dan from the Boys team is every bit his equal as a leader.  And Dan's words while toasting his hayseed teammate Theo were among the most inspiring in the history of the Challenge:

"Theo...I dunno...I just got a couple things to say about you, Theo...you are a unparalleled mind, and, y'know...you're my best friend, and that's all I can really say about you."

How do you lose when you've got that guy on your team?  Answer: you don't. And sure enough, the Boys continued their season-long rout of the Girls on Monday night by snatching the grand prize in the final challenge, probably setting the women's movement back about 8 weeks in the process.

We spoke of Johnny Carson yesterday, and today we speak of Johnny again.  Just plain Johnny this time. Perhaps you remember Johnny. He was our advice columnist who left almost a year ago to the day under some pretty uncomfortable circumstances. We'll admit it: just like the early 90's, when Carson had lost a couple of mph off his fastball**, we felt that our Johnny was no longer providing the kind of product that our readers have come to expect.  And just like NBC did with Carson, we forced our Johnny out.

Johnny was a pro, and he left without a scene.  Here's our description of his dismissal (from 1/27/04).

"I always said that we were a family, all in this together, and when it stopped being fun, we'd shut the whole thing down forever. In the end, that all turned out to be bullshit. That's why I am here to tell you that there are some major changes afoot in our offices, starting with the immediate and permanent dismissal of Johnny, who's been writing his little-read advice column in this space since day one. His page visits were dwindling faster than the chances of finding WMD in Iraq, and ultimately we didn't really trust the advice he was giving out anyway. Our accounting dept. calculated that he was costing us $.79 a month in web space, and that's $.79 that we feel could be spent better elsewhere, like an extra sheath of coffee cups or a pocket pack of kleenex. Johnny took the news like a man - he said he never expected to be here this long to begin with, and he thanked us for the verbungle.com painter's cap we gave him as a farewell offering. The guy always had class; I'll say that for him. The only time he let his pain show is when he turned around in the doorway on the way out, pointed at the whole room and said, "Verbungle without me is like corn flakes without the milk." I've got thick skin and I understand the man's anger, so I just nodded and gave him a sappy little salute. Our best wishes to him in his future endeavors."

Since the cornflakes comment, we haven't heard a word from Johnny.  Sure, we heard the rumors: he was down in Key West with Jimmy Buffet, drinking way too much tequila and spending way too much money at the dog track. Then somebody would say they heard he was in New Orleans, sweeping up at Tipitina's. At least two of his ex-wives said he had contacted them, looking for money and saying he couldn't understand why it hadn't worked out between them. We wished the best for Johnny, but we also expected the worst.  So we made no effort to track him down until today, when we got this almost desperate request from a reader:

"This is going old school, and even though I don't see him on this here site no more, this one's for Johnny, if that's possible. My problem: I can hear my neighbors humping at night, the girl makes the worst moans, if my girl sounded like that I would get limp and angry, which would force me to kick her out of my bed. What's the proper way to address this? Is it like someone playing their stereo too loud? please help
-Limp N'Angry"

This was clearly a serious problem and needed to be addressed. And we looked around the office several times before finally deciding we had nobody here qualified to handle it.  We needed Johnny. So we decided to track him down. Our Human Resources department had a Tampa address on file, and when I called the number a woman answered. When I told her we were looking for Johnny, she said, "Yeah, well let me know if you find that cocksucker.  He owes me $85."

After that, I tried Johnny's emergency contact, his mother Isabel, who's now close to 100 years old. She said she had spoken to Johnny a couple of months ago, and gave me a New Mexico phone number.  She said he had been working with a highway repair crew all over the Southwest. We were encouraged by this information, except that every time I mentioned Johnny's name, she'd say, "Oh, you mean Little Willy." She'd then start singing the song "Little Willy" by Sweet, and she'd say, "I love that song, don't you?"

I called the New Mexico number and spoke to a man named Vince, who was the foreman of a construction crew based in Albuquerque. I told him I was calling from verbungle.com and looking for Johnny, our former advice columnist.

"Of course I know Johnny," Vince said.

Reassured, I asked him if he had a number where we could reach Johnny.

"No, I mean, I don't actually know him know him," he said.  "I mean, I know him from reading his advice column on verbungle.com. It was always one of my favorites."

I was stunned.  I thanked Vince for his readership and was about to hang up, when he said, "You know, I kept reading him for a while after he left verbungle and signed on with amarillo nights, but it just wasn't the same, so eventually I stopped. As far as I know, he's still writing for them."

Again, my hopes climbed, and again they were crushed when I visited the site and realized that, in another coincidence of Austerian proportions, there was indeed a second advice columnist named Johnny, using the clever column name "Ask Johnny," working on the world wide web.  Vince had just assumed it was the same guy. 

For some reason, I emailed Amarillo Nights anyway, I guess just as a goof, and asked if they knew where our Johnny was.  To my surprise, they replied within ten minutes.  Here's their email:

I wasn't surprised that Johnny was staying in the best hotel in Amarillo. He always seemed to find somebody willing to foot the bill for whatever mess he got himself into. Of course, his next mess usually stemmed from trying to pay back the person who had bailed him out of his previous mess. I don't know how he handled the stress, but I guess some people need that kind of anxiety to feel alive.

I called the number and asked for room 226.  They asked me the guest's name, and I said, "Johnny."  The clerk told me to hang on while they transferred me to the manager's office.

"Hi, this is Jane. I'm the manager. Johnny checked out a couple of weeks ago," she said. "Is he in some kind of trouble?"

I could already tell that she had been the one this time. Once I assured her that I was an old friend, she came clean and admitted that Johnny had sweet-talked her into giving him a free two-month stay at the La Quinta, which she had ended only because the regional manager was starting to get suspicious about why room 226 had gone unrented for so long.  I don't know what he promised her, whether it was a cut of some deal he was working on or maybe even a long-term relationship. I didn't want to ask. She told me she hadn't spoken to him since he checked out, but that he said he'd be back in a couple of weeks.

"Did he leave a number?" I asked, doubting that he would.

She said that he did leave a number, but he made her promise not to call unless it was an emergency or if it was "the guys from that website calling with a job offer." I felt a little less than honest doing it, but I told her that I was calling from verbungle.com, and indeed I did have some work to offer him.

"Get the hell out of here," she said. "You work at verbungle? What's that like? I love their stuff, especially the reader challenges.  Why'd they stop doing those?"

"I dunno," I said, kind of embarrassed. "People didn't seem that into them.  Did you ever respond to one of them?"

"Yeah, one time I did," she said. "I was the one who said I used to flirt with men in the 7-Eleven parking lot when I was underage, so they'd buy me beer.  See, that's dumb.  Mostly I just liked reading other people's responses."

"Yeah, well, maybe we'll bring it back," I said.

"You know, that's what first attracted me to Johnny," she said. "When he said he used to work at verbungle.com.  I just thought that sounded so glamorous. I had been a huge fan of verbungle since the beginning. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I never really liked his column. I didn't care, though. It was like being with a rock star, listening  to him tell all the stories about the bullpen and the arguments at the staff meetings and all the drunken exploits at the holiday parties.  It seemed like such a fun place to work."

I was kind of relieved that Johnny didn't hold a grudge about his dismissal, that he was able to look back fondly on the early days here at verbungle.com.  And I felt kind of proud to have been a part of it myself.  I took the number and thanked her for her time, and I promised I'd ask Johnny to call her as soon as he straightened a few things out. 

It turned out to be a pager number. I entered my number and waited. When I looked down at Johnny's file, I noticed that the pager number was right there on his employee information sheet all along.  I could have just paged him straight away.

Ten minutes later, my cell phone rang.  It was Johnny, and he sounded terrible.  Crazed. Angry. Confused. 

"Who the fuck are you and what the fuck do you want? Clock's ticking," was the first thing he said.

"Johnny, it's Hans Bungle," I said.  "From verbungle.com."

"Kerfuffle.com?" he said. "What the hell is that?"

Even after I got him to say the name right, he claimed he had never worked here and he had no idea who I was. I couldn't tell if he was just being difficult or if he was really that far out of it.  I calmed him down just long enough to ask him Limp n' Angry's question about the moaning girlfriend.

He paused for a second, and then said, "You tell Limp n' Angry that Julie's gonna keep screaming and I'm gonna keep doing the things that make her scream. You got that? If he has a problem he can get some earplugs or call the police or come knock on my door and take his chances.  You tell him that, OK?"

"Um, OK," I said.  I wasn't sure if Johnny was just being a smartass, or if he actually thought he was the one living next door to Limp n' Angry.  And the way things were going today, I couldn't be sure that wasn't the case.

"You done with me?" he asked. "Mr. Fuffle or whatever your name is?"

"Yeah, Johnny, that's it. Thanks for calling back."

There was a pause, and then he said, in a completely lucid voice, the voice I'd heard so many times over the years, "By the way, I was right.  You're just a bunch of motherfucking cornflakes."

Then the line went dead.

Hope that helps.

New cartoon coming tomorrow.

* Yes, I realize the process of extracting gold ore is actually probably very painstaking, but I am not backing down from that analogy.
** Note that I resisted the temptation to use the expression "jumped the shark," going with the equally tired expression "lost a couple mph off his fastball."  Please use similar restraint in your everyday lives.

1/24/05: At least Judd Hirsch is back on TV

Sometimes when celebrities die I find myself feeling disproportionately sad.  Like today when I heard about Johnny Carson. 

I guess it's because, like everybody's been saying and as corny as it sounds, he was in our homes every night for 30 years.  He really did feel like a family member.  I can remember back in the early 90's, when people started calling for him to step down, it felt wrong.  I had definitely noticed his game beginning to slip, but forcing him out was like putting your father in an old folks' home against his will. I ended up wanting him to quit, too, just so he wouldn't have to deal with the rumors and whispers.  It was probably right for him to step down, just like it was right for Lenny Wilkens to step down the other day. But it's always sad when your heroes can't just ride off into the sunset after saving the town.

RIP, Carnac. You made it look so easy that we never knew how hard it was. Until Leno showed us.

Fucking Leno.  He's the Lowest Comic Denominator. If Johnny represented dignity and class, Leno is synonymous with pandering to your audience and forsaking any sense of integrity or risk in your comedy.  Just serving stupid people the crass sex jokes and punchless digs at politicans they seem to crave, and getting rich while doing it. 

Nobody's gonna cry over Leno's death.  Remember when he was funny, before he made the deal with the devil? His comedic soul for The Tonight Show. He knew what he was getting into, the bastard. He's cheapened all of our lives with his crap.  He's the "Sleepless in Seattle" of Late Night TV hosts.

If I had the energy, I'd put together the all-time sellout list. People who have put any artistic ambition they once had into a locked drawer somewhere, and spent the rest of their careers sucking up to the masses. Leno would be right there near the top.  Somewhere among Lenny Kravitz and Rod Stewart and Wesley Snipes.

Was google working for you Sunday? Not me.  What's up with that?  I didn't see any mention of it anywhere, so maybe it's a problem with my computer.  Not sure. But if google was down for a day, that should be big news, right? Like if you went to 7-11 for a slurpee and it was closed. 

So I think Joe M. was off by about 8 inches or so in his estimate.  Does anybody have the correct final total?  I think Joe made his prediction based to some degree on the sense that Big Winter Storms never amount to what they're supposed to, at least not here in Manhattan. It's true. Our snowstorms aren't very romantic. The trains keep running.  Nobody gets stranded and has to make love all day and all night. And the snow itself  -- it's pretty while it's falling, but an instant later it's slushy and gross and only a factor if you're one of the unfortunate few who owns a car and parks it on the street.

Guest anonymous Wheredat provider today.  Wheredat on the left? And for the terminally bored at work, where are da two pictures in da previous paragraph?  Huh, Wheredey?

I've lost my mind.

1/22/05 8pm: Breaking Prediction Update!

Pretty amazing snowstorm today. Very steady, very intense.  I think Joe M. is going to be off by close to a foot in his prediction.  AJR has chimed in with a blizzard-related prediction of his own.

With any luck, both conference championship games will be played in blizzard conditions tomorrow.  I think Philly is a more reasonable bet for fun snow football; Pittsburgh looks like it might just be a bit messy. I suppose I should wish for reasonable conditions "so the best team wins," but screw that.  There's nothing better than getting nice and toasty on the couch and watching pro athletes tumbling all over the field in a snowstorm. I was burned when my Chargers lost to Cincinnati in the 1982 playoffs, playing in something like -27 temperature (with the wind chill).  Now let somebody else's team suffer.  Besides, they're supposed to be big tough football players, let's see who's got the grit to overcome the conditions.

One thing to watch for: if Philly plays badly, their shithead fans are going to start throwing tons of iceballs at each other and onto the field.  This might be the chance for my prediction (#48) to come true.

1/22/05: Taxi Driver II: Electric Bickleoo

I was a little freaked out to see that DeNiro and Scorsese are considering a Taxi Driver sequel. Not just because it's a terrible idea -- and as terrible ideas go, it's right up there with Young Einstein II, although for different reasons -- but because a sequel would ruin my man Kissel's theory (Taxi Driver I spoiler alert!) about what happens at the end of Taxi Driver 1. I wish I had the movie in front of me so I could give you a better recap, but here are the basics. After Travis goes on his bloody rampage in the whorehouse/pre-crack den or whatever that place is, he takes several bullets and is left bleeding against the wall. You can practically see the life draining out of him. The next scene in the movie indicates that not only does Travis survive his injuries, but he receives a hero's reception after the shootout: medals of commendation and notes of thanks from Iris's parents, inviting him out to the beautiful country house as soon as he recovers.  Finally, Travis is back driving again and he improbably encounters the object of his one-time obsession, Betsy. She gets in his cab and we see that the tables have now turned.  No longer is she too good for Travis.  Now she finds him intriguing and basically throws herself at him, only to be rejected by him.

Kissel's theory (and I see a brief reference to someone else sharing the theory here) was simple.  Travis dies at the end.  Everything after the last shot of him laying there bloody with a blank look on his face is his dying fantasy. You could certainly argue, and you'd probably be right, that Scorsese was making a statement about the state of  the world in 1976 by allowing his psychotic vigilante to triumph at the end of the film. But the last few minutes tie the whole thing up in such a neat and implausible way that I totally buy into the fantasy theory. Travis clearly wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, and in his dying moments he sees all of his childlike dreams of redemption come true:

-Iris, the young girl who he felt obligated to 'save' is rescued. She returns to her happy life with the parents in the country, a pretty ridiculous development considering that was the same life that apparently drove her to become a teenage New York prostitute in the first place.
-If I recall correctly, the parents even indicate that they want Travis to come visit as soon as he is able, which is not only slightly improbable but also leaves the door open for Travis to pursue a romance with Iris. Earlier in the movie, he clearly has sexual feelings towards her, and is conflicted by the fact that she's LIKE TWELVE YEARS OLD.  Her parents' approval would justify his longings and allow him to be with her without feelings of guilt.  Sounds like a fantasy to me.
-Betsy, his fantasy girl, now wants him, but he rejects her in an immature act of spite.  Just the kind of thing a lonely pscyho dreams about doing -- I'll show you! You'll see!.
-Throughout the movie, Travis talks about wanting to clean the scum and filth off the streets. His gruesome rampage and the ensuing commendation validates his simplistic ideas about "cleaning up" the city.

So basically, here is a man leading an empty life filled with frustration, consumed with insane ideas about how the world should be, feeling completely left out of society.  Then he goes and shoots a bunch of people and all his wildest desires come true.

Sounds like a dying man's sad fantasy if ever there was one.  Of course, if they're making a sequel, we can only accept that he really did survive the first film.  I also think it's funny that DeNiro and Scorsese think we'd really want to catch up with Travis Bickle 30 years down the road.  I am pretty satisfied never seeing that character again.

I think if he were alive now he'd be a dispatcher for Carmel Limousine.

***

I can't speak for anyone else, but I have to admit that for me personally Bush's reelection was so crushing that I have found myself unable to think about it at all over the last two months.  I have just resigned myself to the four more years and I was thinking maybe I'd try to make the best of it and stop whining about ol' W. But then this week came, first with Condi's confirmation hearings and now with this nauseating and inappropriate inauguration extravaganza. And now I am riled up again.  This administration is just so fucking awful, I can't take it. The bullshit about this being a defining time for freedom and all that is just a bunch of hooey. I'll say it: America sucks right now.  How did we elect this joker again? How stupid are we? Leno and Bush, the double barometer.

***

It's just about the halfway point in the NBA season, which means it's time to do some mid-season evaluatin'. I'll get to the morass that we unfortunate Gothamites call the Knicks in a minute, but first let me say that tonight's San Antonio-Phoenix game not only lived up to the hype of the whole "two best teams" stuff, but it was also the most entertaining NBA game I've seen in about ten years. The 80's are alive in Phoenix -- they've got five terrifically exciting players and they're clearly having tons of fun.  And San Antonio is a marvelous team.  They will win it all, barring an injury.  Tonight, Popovich really showed me that he's more than just a smart, hard-ass tactician.  He also has a feel for the rhythms of the game, which he showed by benching half his starters and going with an oddball lineup for about the last twenty minutes.  He didn't just stay with them until they brought the Spurs close again, he rode them all the way through the overtime to the win.  Duncan is a perfect player, even though his personality is dullsville.  And Ginobili is probably the most electrifying player in the league right now.  For about three years, D. Lee has been trying to sell me on his Ginobili-Kobe comparison, and I haven't really been buying it.  Tonight, though, I saw a little bit of what he's talking about.  Ginobili seems to be able to get wherever he needs to get whenever he needs to get there, and he does sort of have a Kobe-like ability to take over a game. Still, I think his style is totally unique and I don't want to associate him with shoot-first Kobe.  Also, Kobe is a two-foot leaper, whereas Ginobili is a one-foot leaper, which makes Ginobili's fierce lefty drives more reminiscent of Sarunas Marciulionis to me. Whatever, the guy is a stud who plays every part of the game well and he's a pleasure to watch.  Tonight he was just out there balling like a teenager discovering his love of the game for the first time. It was beautiful. It would be nice to see him at West 4th Street or in the Rucker league.

OK, I guess I'm not the only one looking to do some evaluatin'.  Lenny Wilkens is apparently resigning under pressure, and I can't say I blame the team for wanting him gone. The team seems to play hard for him, and he's definitely a man of integrity, but they are playing very very badly and Lenny needs to bear some of the blame. I love the guy, and he inherited a team that is sort of a mess of ill-fitting parts, but I think a younger, more demonstrative coach could get more from this roster. It's not Lenny's fault completely, but you simply cannot allow your team to have a 24 second violation with a 1 point lead in the final minute. Crap like seems to happen all the time with this team.  I think a large part of that is that our team has an inordinate number of boneheads who have no clue how to win games, but whatever the case we need a change.

Anyway, I've only watched about 8-10 Knicks games all year, so I really should keep my mouth shut, but here at www.verbungle.com, lack of knowledge has never stood in the way of our willingness to share our opinions. And I figure if there are people out there dedicated enough to this cruddy bunch of stiffs to actually create entertaining and informative blogs about 'em, the least I can do is weigh in with a sentence or two on each player. Again, these are just casual observations and you should probably disregard them (if you've even made it this far).  Here goes.

1. Stephon Marbury - you know I've always loved Stephon, beginning with that ridiculous alley oop he caught at the Garden as a Georgia Tech freshman. And I still think if I could have any player's skill set, it would be Marbury's.  He's just a potent little ball of basketball talent.  He also passes the ball plenty, so I don't think it's fair to call him selfish.  But his decision-making at the end of games has been pretty atrocious, and his play in general is just a little too random.  If his man can't guard him, he needs to go by that man every time down the floor until the defense does something to stop him. Instead, he always seems to be thinking too much, trying too hard to manage the game and keep everybody happy.  His defense is also butt-rotten. He just doesn't seem interested enough (I can't blame him -- defense isn't very interesting) and he consistently gets burned by inferior guards.  Grade: B-

2. Jamal Crawford - I hate it when a guy has a few good games and everyone anoints him the next King of New York. Crawford has real talent, and he and Stephon seem to like playing together, but he's also a chucker who can't distinguish good shots from bad. Just looking at the way he was run out of Chicago gives you an indication that he can turn into a real problem if things don't go his way. They haven't exactly missed him there this year.  He's one of those guys who can get smoking hot, which can make you forget a) how often he's smoking cold and b) how little happens for other players on the team when he's in one of his zones. I have a feeling he'll never live up to his potential.  But few of us do. Grade: C+

3. Nazr Mohammed - he's had a great year statistically, and he's 50 times better than I thought he would be.  But most of his points are gifts from Stephon's passes, or garbage cleaned up off Stephon's misses that draw the defense away and leave Nazr alone underneath.  He's limited, but he gets the most out of what he's got. I still can't fathom why the Knicks have drawn up two last second shots for him this season. Grade: A-

4. Kurt Thomas - He still seems a little bit crazy, but he plays a nice, under-control game and you can usually count on him for 10 and 10. He also hasn't publicly griped on the nights when he gets left out of the offense. He's a pretty solid pro. Grade: B+

5. Tim Thomas - another guy who looks like a million bucks and plays like $3.99. His numbers are actually better than I would expect from what I've seen, and I say that knowing that he's only shooting 39%. At this point in his career, he should be much further along. He gives us a disadvantage at the 3 against maybe 85% of the teams in the league. I still sort of like him, though.  Seems like a nice guy. Grade: D+

6. Allan Houston - watching him play is like sitting through an expensive meal that tastes like shit. Or going to your high school reunion and realizing that all of a sudden everybody got old. I like Allan, and I still think he can contribute if he ever gets healthy, but he has looked VERY old and weak this year.  I think there is a 65% chance he's done, and I also think his $100 million deal may be the worst contract in NBA history.

7. Michael Sweetney - I like Sweetney for a number of reasons: he's got a mint 1980's physique, and he has some cool McHale-style moves underneath.  He's got a great knack for offensive rebounding and he has a pretty nice touch from 15 feet as well. Good hands and a very refined game overall. HOWEVER, I don't foresee nearly as big a future for him as a lot of people do. He's neither athletic enough nor big enough to finish consistently inside.  And he looks real winded out there after just a few minutes of play. I can maybe see him someday being a 12 and 7 guy, but I think he's more effective as a boost off the bench for short stretches. Grade: B

8. Jerome Williams - I loved him at Georgetown but never thought he'd make it this far in the pros. Good for him. Again, though, he's just a very limited player who's most effective in short stints. And he's got to learn to tone down the aggressiveness when the game is on the line (or, probably better, he should be sitting in those situations). Still, I love having him on the team. Grade: B

9. Moochie Norris - another guy who seems like a great role player until he comes to your team and you realize that he's not very good at all. He's too small and not very athletic. He's an erratic shooter and he can't bring the ball up against pressure. All we need is somebody to spell Marbury for a few minutes a game, and he ain't it. I like him as a person, but I don't like seeing him out there. Grade: C-

10. Trevor Ariza - I think he's got a chance to be very good in a couple years if he fills out and polishes his game.  It's nice to have young guys with some room to grow. Grade: B

11. Penny Hardaway - what could have been.  And what isn't ever going to be. I like Penny, but he depresses the hell out of me. Grade: C

12. Vin Baker - why keep a guy like this around if you don't plan on using him?  Baker's amazing decline brings up an interesting question: when was the last time a star athlete pissed his career away on booze? I almost give him credit for his throwback approach to self-destruction.  But I can't. Grade: F

13. Jamison Brewer - he can dunk hard, but he's not very good at the other parts of the game. Grade: C-

There you have it, your 2004-05 New York Knicks, as reviewed by somebody who's paid casual attention all year.

Oh, and wheredat above right?.

1/20/05: Geeked

About once a week, maybe more, probably less, I am going to post a windows shortcut of some kind on here.  'Cause I got nothing else to do. Some of them are quite well known, so you may already have 'em down pat.  Others are kind of obscure and they may make you crap your pants a little they're so good.

Today, let's talk about control + shift + comma and control + shift + period.

When you highlight some text in one of the Microsoft programs and you want to increase or decrease the text size, you can use these two shortcuts to do it. Or if you just want to change the text size as you're about to start typing, works for that too.

Pretty slick, right?  Keep pressing it until you get the size you want.

Yeah.

***

I have a question about MP3's that may reveal my complete lack of computer knowledge, but I don't care.  Say I am ripping my CD's to my hard drive so I can put them in my iPod. As I ingest the CD's, I have set up iTunes to convert the songs from CD files (.wav? not sure, but whatever lossless format CD's come in to begin with) into MP3's (I know, there are probably better compressed formats than MP3, but it is so popular that I can be sure my songs will play in almost any player they encounter).  MP3's, from what I understand, compress an audio file from about 40-50 MB to about 4-5 MB. This is what allows us to walk around with 1000 albums in our iPods. The idea behind MP3's is that they remove all sorts of information that lies outside the human hearing range, so the songs sound basically the same but take up a fraction of the space. Many people claim to be able to hear the difference between MP3's and the original CD files, but I am not one of 'em (not that I've ever actually done a test).

Now say I want to burn you a CD --  "Thank God I'm Not Making Rock Videos: The Very Best of Richard Marx." There are a number of ways I could do this. If this was a pre-existing CD, I could just make an exact copy on my computer, without any audio loss. If it was a compilation of songs from all of my dozens of Richard Marx CD's (which I have already ripped to my hard drive as MP3's), I could still do this without any loss, by re-ingesting the songs individually as .wav files (or whatever they are when they are originally on the CD), then burning them all to CD.

But say I have already ingested all 51 Marx CD's, including all the bootlegs and outtakes I have collected over the years. And it would really be a pain for me to re-ingest all those songs, just to make a CD for some joker like you who probably wouldn't even appreciate it.  So say I want to burn you a CD from the MP3's that already exist as MP3's on my hard drive. I could make you an MP3 CD, which could hold like a hundred and some odd songs, but most old CD players won't recognize MP3 CD's. So I choose to burn you an old-fashioned CD by "uncompressing" the MP3's into CD audio files (.wav? whatever).  I can only assume that when I uncompress the MP3's, whatever info was lost during compression remains lost.  Yet the files become as large as regular ol' CD files.

So what I am getting at is:

What occupies all that extra space in the new CD files? Silence? And if you take this Marx CD I have burned you, and you want to rip it to your hard drive as MP3's so you can play it in your iPod, is there further loss when you re-compress the files? Or is the information that is removed during re-compression simply the placeholding silence that was added during the un-compression process?  Meaning, if people burn CD's in this manner for each other, will we eventually see over time the kind of multi-generational degradation that we used to see when we made analog tapes for each other?

Do you get what I'm asking? Good, Step up and answer, you whizzes.

***

I ain't the first to use it, but the analogy between a bad job and a bad relationship is an apt one.  Surely you've been in at least one of each. I was thinking about my job (not my relationship, nor any previous relationship in particular) the other day, and I was like, Yeah the job is easy, it's comfortable, it doesn't throw me any curve balls, but it's not going anywhere. It doesn't stimulate my mind or arouse my passion. I've been in it so long I don't really know how to do anything else. And I'm fairly certain it's going to end badly.

These are not good reasons to stay in a bad job, I know. But you just get crippled by the reassuring sameness and the fear of change.  So you duke it out, year in year out.  If you're me. If you're somebody else, you go out and do something about it.

Goal: to do something about it.

***

There are going to be some changes at the verbungle.com compound which will be announced soon.  Exciting stuff.  Life should be getting more interesting.

***

Speaking of changes, we have made an adjustment to the lyric stumpah game. From now on, please do not answer until noon eastern, the way we used to do it with the GISG.  Answers received before noon eastern will be ignored and/or deleted. This should make it fair for our readers on both coasts (and overseas!), and we always want to be fair.  If we can't be good, at least we can be fair.  If anyone has no access to a computer or is sleeping at noon, you can email our judging panel and request an exemption.

***

Finally, we have another Wheredat, above right. Wheredat?

1/19/05: Quick-Hittin'

I'm in one of those moods where I want to shake things up here on the ol' website. It'll pass in a day, when I remember how lazy I am.  But I was really disappointed in yesterday's post, especially my trite intro about MLK.  I just felt like saying something, and I didn't have the energy to type something meaningful or original.  Oh well.  That's why we get to post new stuff every day.  Out with that old crap, and on to the new strategy: we're going to keep things nice and simple for awhile. I'ma hit you quick like the 46 Defense.  Your quarterback will panic, creating multiple turnovers, and before you know it, I'll be sending in the Fridge for a goal-line plunge.

***

I was reading about Les Moonves' attempt to put a positive spin on the Rather departure, and who knows, maybe he's onto something good with the multiple-anchor solution.  But I daresay I have a better idea for choosing a replacement: American Anchor. What better way to ensure long-term ratings supremacy than to let America itself choose Rather's replacement? Start with the ten or twenty most qualified available candidates.  Give each candidate one or two nights in the anchor chair. Send Morley Safer and Mike Wallace -- I don't care, send Geraldo -- and do a full-scale investigative background check on each candidate, to be presented at the end of their mini-stint as anchor.  Then open up the phone lines and let the people pick the nation's new father figure. Narrow it down to five, then three, and then two, with the final vote to pick a winner based on the job they did guest-hosting and a few other tests, such as current events, history, geography, and hair.  You come out of the (approximately) six week period with two gigantic benefits:

1) a huge ratings bonanza, complete with the kind of buzz that hasn't been associated with the news game since Ernie Anastos returned to WCBS.
2) a new anchor whose popularity with the American public is already certified.  He'll probably also skew younger, bringing in the much-coveted 18-34 demographic that up to this point hasn't given a damn about network news.

Les, you owe me for this. Big time.

***

Since I'm already giving out free advice today, I have some for all of you, dear readers. The next time you arrive early to something and have a few minutes to kill, do yourself a favor and sneak into the nearest Barnes and Noble/Border's/Megabooks and locate a copy of Tommyland, Tommy Lee's latest autobiography.  Never mind that the Motley Crue autobiography only came out a couple of years ago and should more than adequately cover any lingering questions you may have had about the Crue.  Put that aside and assume there is some plausible audience for a book by Tommy Lee about Tommy Lee. Pick the book up off the shelf and just read the foreword.*  It's worth a look, mostly because it's written by HIS DICK.  I ain't shitting you.

What a tool.

***

Today I was rubbing my red eyes on the way to work, wedged onto the #2 train with all the other shit-sacking zombies, and I wondered to myself: at what point in life did I decide that money wasn't important to me, and on what idiotic basis was I making this decision?  A great deal of money -- less than 10 million but more than $750,000 -- would radically improve my life in innumerable ways. Why didn't I see this when I was young and had the opportunity to choose a wealth-generating career path?

I guess maybe I was misled by all those stupid songs, like "Can't Buy Me Love." But even the Beatles knew better: they also covered "Money (That's What I Want)," a sentiment that, judging from their career earnings,  proved to be closer to their hearts.  I should have learned how valuable money could be. Even Run-DMC were there to wonder, "Won't ya tell me last time that love bought your clothes?" And our old friend Alex Chilton, whose legend was based on thumbing his nose at success, still had the good sense to record this cute little ditty for his pre-Big Star solo album, 1970: "All I really want is money."

Maybe it was all those corny movies and ridiculous fairy tales, which constantly tried to show you that even without a dime to your name, you can lead a rich and fulfilling life. Too bad that isn't true.

I need me some money. Maybe 80 grand to start.

***

One more wheredat, above right.

***

Finally, I want to send out a get-well-soon to another wounded buddy, my man Brady in Chicago, who recently suffered a quite-serious arm wound courtesy of a mitre saw. Tough old-fashioned bastard that he is, he didn't even let out a yell. And he's been driving his stick shift with one good arm. I hope you get better soon and are ready for this summer's arm-wrestling season.

* If you can stomach the high-grade stupidity long enough to make it that far.

1/18/05: Back to the Sack

RIP, MLK. Every time I see the "I have a dream" speech, I still get moved near tears.  Certainly he was a flawed man, but he made a tremendous contribution to this country and his holiday is well deserved.

The wife and I went to lunch today at the Marquet Patisserie on 12th street.  Good little place there, I'd probably give it around a 23.847 on the VRS. It's got a nice little seating area in the back, and glass cases in the front full of pastries. It's sort of like Le Pain Quotidien, if you've been there.  I had a camembert sandwich with lettuce, tomatoes, red onions and mustard on soft country white bread.  Had some roasted rosemary potato fries along with it.  Warshed it down with some unsweetened iced tea.  A nice meal for a man's day off.  Even if the raw onions are murder on my breath.

The walls there are papered with yellowed pages from the New York Times that look like they've been there for 30 years. It's not an original decorating strategy, but I still like it.  It's a nice effect, and I like seeing old newspapers in any setting. On one page, I noticed two small faded snapshots.  One was a man, one was a woman. I was about ten feet away, but from what I could tell, the woman looked stylish and elegant, and I thought perhaps it was Jackie Kennedy. The man was dressed in a dapper suit as well. I couldn't quite recognize him, but I was thinking maybe it was Cary Grant or somebody. Either way, it was cool to see an old newspaper like that with pictures of the reigning stars of the day.  I decided I had to move in for a closer look. To my disappointment, the two people pictured turned out to be Al Roker and Sharon Osbourne.

Damn Brit writes in with some breaking news from the land of our former imperial masters.  He recently had the good fortune to meet this incredibly talented all-around entertainer, and he now generously shares the website link. It's worth some serious exploration -- you should probably know that the entertainer in question considers himself a Huge Star.

We are pleased to announce the first edition of verbungle.com's cartoon of the week, courtesy of D. Lee.  Here is the premiere installment of Big Yotch.

We also have a review from AJR on a highly rated product we'd all like to own.

Back to work tomorrow.  Not excited about that, but it's a relief that hostboy won't be anywhere in the area.  Man, we had some laughs during that run, but the laughs weren't enough to offset the despair that you feel when you realize that you're part of something very, very bad. I remember a few times when he was screwing up repeatedly, and we'd sort of tolerate one mistake, then two, then three, until they mounted so high that we just had to stop and start over.

"Stop," we'd say in his ear. "Stop. Let's go again."

He'd get this look of surprise on his face, one eyebrow arched, as if to say, "Stop? Are you sure? That was pretty fucking flawless if you ask me."  He was in disbelief that we weren't as satisfied with his home run performance as he was. Then we'd feel obligated to explain the stoppage, so we would just mention the last mistake in the chain, the one that finally put it over the top.  It would go something like this.

"Yeah, well, you just held up that tomato and called it a pineapple," we'd tell him in an effort to simplify things and spare his feelings.

"Yep. Copy that.  I did do that," he'd say, as if this "small" mistake was the only thing that threw the segment off track. It was so sad. I wanted to hug him. I also wanted to kill him. So I did neither.  We just watched our lives tick away and waited for it to end.

Now it's back to the usual shit-sacking, which is somehow just fine with me.

We're going to post one more edition of "Wheredat" above left, then we're going to take a li'l break.  Good luck.

1/17/05: Something to Du

I wonder if down the road at some crappy-ass little club, we're missing something like this today.  I doubt it.  I can't get enough of old concert posters like these.  Imagine seeing the Replacements for 88 cents, while knocking back 25 cent Special Exports from 9-10, then chasing 'em with some 88 cent wine coolers?  What a time, what a time.  These came from a Husker Du fan page, and it amazes me that all that art still exists.  Who was saving it? Well done by whoever it was.  It put me in a Mid-80s Minneapolis state of mind, and I tracked down a must-see for diehard Mats fans: Twin Tone's site has added some really high quality video files of a Replacements show at the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis from September 5th, 1981. Amazing how focused and un-sloppy they were.  They clearly wanted to make a name for themselves and they were taking things quite seriously. I guess they hadn't developed their whole bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you ethos yet.  I wish there was video like this from a few years later, once they had written their great songs and perfected their mess of a live show.

Husker Du was part of the whole super-serious 1980s hardcore scene, where everybody had such staunch principles about selling out and staying pure and all that.  Of course, to me the scene becomes completely lame once there are an entire set of rules that everyone must follow to be members of the scene. For instance, maybe you joined the scene because you were an outcast in high school. Maybe you dressed different and looked different and people made fun of you for it.  So you join a scene full of other outcasts, and you find acceptance in each other's arms, and it's a beautiful thing.  But then one day you decide you don't want to dress the same way as the other outsiders, and maybe you want to play some different kind of music that's not approved by the scene governing body.  All of a sudden you're an outsider among outsiders, and you realize that in a way, not selling out is another way to sell out.  Meaning, if Bob Mould wanted to wear Gap khakis and start his techno career in 1983, and his whole hardcore community said he'd be a sellout if he did it, he'd actually be a sellout if he DIDN'T do it.

Selling out can mean many things, but usually, it has a financial implication. It can mean taking money from McDonald's to use your song in a commercial advertising crappy food that kills people. To some, signing to a major label is signing out.  To many people, the minute you start making commercial concessions in your art, you've sold out.  Like, if the record company wants you to use a certain producer, because he had a hit with so and so, and you say yes, you've sold out.  If you try to write a song that will make tons of people buy your record, you've sold out. 

But in the most basic sense, selling out simply means not staying true to yourself.  You'll often hear a musician say, "We're gonna write the songs that we like, and if people buy 'em, great. If not, that's OK.  Because once we start trying to write songs to please other people, we're finished."  It sounds like such pretentious "artist" boolshit when they say it, but it's sorta true.  And you can apply it to every part of your life.

I know I sell out all the time.  Allowing douchebags to have their way because I want to avoid a confrontation. Refusing to write about farts on this site because there are several people that read it who I know for a fact don't think farts are funny.  Overtipping in restaurants. Not calling fouls in pickup games. Little stuff like that.  I'm working on it, though.

Anyway, there's no real point to any of this, except that I want to point out what I believe may be the ultimate sellout, the one project in which commerce triumphed over art every step of the way.  I don't believe I have ever seen a cornier, more mass-appealing movie than Sleepless in Seattle.*  It was on the other day and I couldn't help thinking: this movie has absolutely no soul whatsoever.  Every scene is calculated so as not to offend a single person. What an incredible piece of shit.

Sorry, I'm a little out of it here and don't have the patience to edit this into something that makes sense.  Let's move on to a quick round of Wheredat. Today's picture is at right and comes courtesy of Deion Sandals.  Be as precise as you can. We will turn it over to the judges and the winner will receive (only if they want) a pair of underwear inspired by Michelangelo's David.  They look sort of like this.

Well, we've got lots of new content today. A new stumpah. A new review. A new list that should have been much better. 

We have a new empeetrey from Richard Ashcroft. It was on one of those promotional CD's that come with magazines.  This guy made such a perfect rock star.  He had the looks, the voice, and the swagger.  And, when he ripped off that obscure Stones ditty and wrote a song around it, he had a huge hit.  Of course, lawsuits followed and it came crashing down around him and the band received next to nothing from it. So now he slugs it out on his own year after year, playing to audiences who of course want to hear the big hit. Which kind of gives this performance a little more poignancy.

Tomorrow, assuming I can get my scanner working again, we will have a brand new recurring feature for your enjoyment.

* Granted, I never saw You've Got Mail, which looked to be even more of a purely commercial endeavor, complete with AOL tie-in.

1/16/05: Fucking Jets

Well, it was a good game. As we discussed earlier this week, you just can't overstate the importance of a trustworthy kicker.  And it's funny, as much as coaches like to joke about kickers, belittling them, saying they're not "real" players, these same coaches seem completely comfortable putting their seasons, and their careers, in the hands, er, feet of these same silly little kickers. You hear the coaches saying stuff occasionally about how it's a shame that all the hard work and blood and sweat that went into the long and painful season can just be pissed away by some flaky kicker pushing one wide in the closing moments of the big game.

Yet at the end of close games, with a chance to pound the ball down the field for a TD or a chip shot FG, the vast majority of coaches do the same stupid thing: look for the first opportunity to kick a "makeable" FG. You can almost hear a sucking sound as their assholes tighten up and they play it embarrassingly safe. They are so scared of a turnover that they'd rather turn the game over to their screwball kicker than place their faith in the offense to move the ball. It leads me to believe they don't hate these kickers as much as they pretend to.  Perhaps it's because if the kicker misses, you've got an automatic goat. Damn kicker. He let us down.  You can't blame a coach for a bad kick, right? Of course you can. You can blame a coach for inserting a kicker into a situation that's over his head. In other words, while Brien should probably have hit one of those two FG's, they were both tough kicks in a TOUGH stadium under volatile conditions.  Edwards had no such excuse for his decision making..

Let's call it The Schottenheimer Principle. The Jets saw it happen to the Chargers in San Diego last week, but they didn't learn.  That's the shame, and that's why Edwards is my goat of the game. With a chance to knock off a teetering Stillers squad, his anus constricted and he was only too happy to turn it over to Brien, who is a pretty good kicker but far from automatic.

Perhaps a list should be circulated to all NFL head coaches: Kickers You Can Trust in the Big Game. Coaches could consult the list, and if they didn't see their kicker on there, they'd know they had to move the ball inside the 20 to feel comfortable. I mean, kick the 43 yarder if you have to, but try like hell to get the ball down close. And here's another crazy idea: go for a fuckin' TD, you cowards.

I think Adam Vinatieri might be the only name on the list.

That said, the Jets were lucky to be that close in a game in which the offense failed to score a TD. And the Steelers were lucky to win it. Roethlisberger looked real shaky out there. I don't look for much from Pittsburgh in the AFC Championship game next week. Although they will be at home, so it could be interesting. 

I watched the game over at Mark and Adrienne's house.  They are friends of AJR and Joe M. from college. It was a fun atmosphere...at one point, all four Stillers fans were standing and smoking while the three of us who were rooting for the Jets sat nervously in chairs and ate cheese.

By the way, smoking is gross.  Thanks to the righteous smoking ban, I had forgotten.  It stinks up your clothes and gives you a headache. Of my worst twenty hangovers, I'd say other people's cigarette smoke factored into maybe 17 of them.  It's like the rich butter frosting on top of the regular old hangover.

Oh, and wheredat in the picture above?

1/15/05: Feel better, Monkeyman

There are certain days when I'm hyperemotional, where just about anything can make me start crying.  Who knows what causes it. Today was one of those days. 

As a reward for all our hard work during hostboy's recent studio run, the boss gave us the day off on Friday. Well, he didn't officially give us the day off, but when we asked, he said we could take it off if we wanted to.  He was probably applying a little bit of guilt, hoping we'd come in because our consciences would get the better of us if we didn't.  If so, he was wrong.  My conscience is as tired as the rest of me, and I didn't have the patience for the guilt game.

Why do people still play the guilt game? Why can't people just come out and say what it is they want? Dunno.

Anyway, I spent the day doing not much of anything. It was a good day for that, cold and rainy.

I slept 'til around noon, and I woke up feeling hungry.  To honor my ailing comrade Joe, I decided what I needed was a diner-quality grilled cheese. There's a little diner right across the street from our apartment building, so I threw on my Degrassi sweatshirt and jogged across the street.

I stopped to pick up a NY Post on the way.  I know I shouldn't be reading the NY Post.  You don't need to remind me.  But it costs a quarter and it fits ever so nicely on a diner table. So I'm reading the Post and enjoying my meal (grilled cheese, fries, coke), and I come across this cloying, poorly written article by that utter douchebag Steve Dunleavy. It's so badly written you kind of have to read certain passages twice just to understand what he's saying.

But dammit, it made me cry.* The fact that the Sergeant guy has given twenty-one years of his life to the military, and then he gets stuck over there fighting in a hopeless war, then loses his best friend, then comes back to surprise his wife with a visit -- it just made me well up for a second right there in the crap-ass diner on the corner of 72nd and West End.  War in general is such a heartbreaking endeavor. An unjustified war ordered by cowards operating under false assumptions (at best) is completely tragic.  I was so happy that the guy got to see his wife, but then you think about it and remember that he's got to go back over to fucking Iraq in a couple days. 

Because we thought they had weapons, or something like that.

I don't know what Bush has to do to lose support. He's tried just about everything. His reelection is one of the great political miracles of all time. And the stories of his second term are going to be even sadder than the stories of his first.

***

I played ball Thursday night and my body is aching like I got run over by a snow plow. Getting old = not so much fun. But the shot was falling and the spin move was working, so what else can I ask for? 

***

There was a semi-serious little fight in the Wolves-Nuggets game tonight.  It was pretty annoying.  First of all, it needs to be pointed out that most NBA players fight like sissies.  I would say "they fight like girls" except that I've seen girls fight before. Girls know how to fight.  They know how to cause pain and injury. They pull hair, they kick, they bite. That's pretty sound strategy.  They attack with whatever means are available to them. If it's their nails, you get scratched. If it's a kitchen knife, you get stabbed. They don't fuck around. When two girls get in a fight, you can be fairly certain one of them will be crying and/or bleeding when it's done. As a battered little brother, I have the utmost respect for the fighting techniques of girls.

But NBA players just kind of lean away from each other and start throwing flailing roundhouses that never connect. Tonight it was Oliwikandi and Nene, who together weigh in around 580 pounds.  But there they were, tossing these wimpy, cowardly punches from behind a wall of teammates trying to protect them. Why even fight if that's all you got?

Not that I am saying I want to see another Kermit Washington episode, or another Detroit-Indiana melee. But why pretend to be all hard and then throw down like scared little schoolkids? You end up looking like clowns.  Just walk away, ya losers.

And in the immediate aftermath of the fight, thuggy Kenyon Martin started raising his arms and hollering in an attempt to incite the crowd. Kenyon's a dick. Sorry.  That's just a dick move, and it's the 48th dick move of his career. I think you officially become a dick after ten dick moves.  He's in there comfortably.

***.

Speaking of dicks, if you're wondering which side of the Randy Moss debate I come down on, it's the "What's the Big Deal?" side. I don't like Moss much, even though he kicked tremendous quantities of ass for my 2003 fantasy football team, Nimphius. That said, his gesture in Green Bay was crude, but it wasn't really that much worse than what kids see in Bugs Bunny cartoons. It was mildly annoying, I'll give you that. But I have to agree with all those who think Joe Buck's frothing indictment during the game was WAY too strong. Calm down, ya douche.

Especially because it was a little bit funny (assuming you aren't a Packers fan).

Gonna watch some good football on this 4-day weekend. The NFL playoffs are a near-perfect spectacle, ass-shaking and all.

My picks for tomorrow and Sunday: Jets (that one's with my heart), Colts, Vikes (that one's with JPW's heart), and Falcons.

***

Do you have certain shirts that, through no fault of their own, never seem to make the upper tier?  Meaning you'll wear 'em once in a while, but they just can't crack your starting five.  I feel bad for those shirts.  There's nothing in particular the matter with 'em, but they just aren't nice enough to ever amount to anything. I have a green one from Brooks Brothers that's like that.  It's kind of ugly, I guess, but it's fine for wearing to work.  By the way, if you're a working stiff who needs to wear some sort of button-down shirt to the office, I wholeheartedly recommend the Brooks Brothers non-iron collection.   I know, Brooks Brothers is kinda lame, but these shirts are fucking amazing.  You really don't have to iron them one bit, and they look pressed.  People used to always make fun of me for my wrinkled shirts, but not anymore. With Brooks Brothers' non-iron dress shirts, my confidence has soared and the ladies have noticed! Thanks, Brooks Brothers!

***

New, vastly different stuff from outside contributors coming soon.  I'm excited. Oh admit it, you're excited, too. In the meantime, you can take a look at the picture above right and tell me, "Wheredat"?  And you can also read a brand new review from cW right goddamn now.

* I also cried more than once today while watching the NFL Films history of the NY Giants on ESPN Classic. I'm not really a Giants fan, but damn those NFL Films guys can tell a story.  This wasn't even one of their best, because they were trying to pack too much info into too little show, but seeing YA Tittle kneeling there on the grass with his face all bloody**gets me every time. Also, Frank Gifford was a real stud.
** My dad, who has had a Zelig-like connection to many of the important stories of the 20th century, helped break the Tittle retirement story.

1/13/05: Finally Finis

It's become quite clear that the Geography Photo Quiz is a hit.  Maybe not an out-of-the-gate box office smash like the GISG, but a nice winter sleeper that seems to have generated some solid buzz. If we accept that this game is here to stay, we probably also need to accept that "The Geography Photo Quiz" is simply not a good enough name to support a game of this stature. So we need a new name. I have a few ideas, like "Whereizzit" and "Wheredat." You can go ahead and suggest something better. For now, we'll go with "Wheredat." Thanks to Damn Brit for submitting today's European-flavored entry.  Take a look at the picture at right and tell me, whydoncha: Wheredat? Best part is, I don't know myself.  So I get to play, too.

You asked for a pic of hostboy, and I deliver.  Here's me and him after production today (I'm on the right).  It was a long and grueling day. That's why I look so fat and ugly. Also, I guess I should add here that I do feel a little bit bad harshing on Hostboy so much here on the ol' website. He's actually a nice person, but through his incompetence and weirdness he creates an insurmountable wall of crapola which in turn brings us all down.  So I must unleash a little punishment here.  Sorry, friend.

His ISO reels* could fetch thousands on eBay.

I can't tell you how delighted I am to be done with this run of shows. Tomorrow I can start returning phone calls and answering emails and doing laundry and being a regular person again. Only thing that sucks is our whole team has to meet with the company president at 9:30am.  I would have liked to come in around noon. But at least I'm not making rock videos.**

I haven't bashed Bush in awhile (you can read into that whatever you want), so let me just point out this li'l news item.  My favorite line is this next one, which becomes especially curious when you realize it directly followed an acknowledgement by the administration that there ain't no weapons.

"Based on what we know today, the president would have taken the same action because this is about protecting the American people," said Press Secretary Scott McClellan.

Did the next reporter to raise his hand at least have the nerve to ask, "Um, OK, then, I see...wait...protecting us from what, exactly?"

They probably would have gotten a response like, "The president believes in protecting us from all threats, real and imagined. Certainly there was no threat today.  But how do we know that there might not be a threat tomorrow? Are you willing to take that chance? Our president is not going to wait until the threat is real to start protecting us from it, because by then it might very well be too late."

And the press would have scratched their collective head and gone, "Um, yeah, I guess he's got a point." 

Department of the Obvious: Lenny Wilkens is not long for NY.

* That's "TV Talk" for a tape recorded on a VTR dedicated to the output of a particular source, like say the camera that is always covering Randy Moss during a Monday Night Football game. In Hostboy's case, the ISO reels contain every last one of  his outtakes in all their moronic glory. They are side-splittingly funny. At one point (actually at several points), he screwed up a simple line about 14 straight times, the same way each time. So it would be:

Hostboy (to camera): Welcome back.  I've got my fish draining in the sink and I'm about to bone my escarole.
Me: Stop tape. Hostboy, you've got that backwards.  It's "I've got my escarole draining in the sink and I'm about to bone my fish."
Hostboy (to me): Copy that. Let's rock.
Me: OK.
Hostboy (to camera): Welcome back.  I've got my fish draining in the sink and I'm about to bone my escarole.
Me: Stop tape. Hostboy, you've still got that backwards.  It's "I've got my escarole draining in the sink and I'm about to bone my fish."  OK?
Hostboy (to me): Yep, I did it again, didn't I? I knew it.  My bad. Let's roll.  I've got it.
Me: OK.
Hostboy (to camera): Welcome back.  I've got my fish draining in the sink and I'm about to bone my escarole.

Multiply that by ten times and you get some astonished and frustrated crew members.

** This is a reference to a joke by a standup comedian from the early 90s (which, we have already established, were really still part of the late 80s). I don't remember now if I even saw the joke or it was told to me second-hand, but it's one of my favorites.  It goes something like this.

"I was watching MTV the other day and they had an interview with Richard Marx on. He was talking from the set of his new video.  He said, 'You know, I love making music more than anything.  But videos -- making videos is the worst job in the world.' Yeah, I can just picture the guy working in the donut factory, pulling down the lever over and over all day - pull, squish, pull, squish, pull, squish -- saying to himself, 'Man, this sucks.  But at least I'm not making rock videos.'"

That's a good way to remind yourself that things ain't so bad.

1/11/05: 5 down, 2 to go

Logan, baby.  Logan.  That's the answer we were looking for in the Previous Geography Photo Quiz.   Perhaps not the best edition of the game, but we're working on it. Let it flow, it floats back to you.

Now try the one at the left on for size. Just give me the most info you can about where that might be.  Winner gets a low two next time I see 'em.

Since the day we moved into our new office space, we've been trying to figure out what the dudes across the way from us do for a living.  It seems like it might be a boiler room operation of some kind.  I think it may involve gambling. Maybe baseball. But we can't tell for sure. I may need to bring in the cheapo binocs I got as my ten year thank you gift from the company.

We have two more days with schmendrick and it feels like twenty. I have no idea how this guy can remain so sucky at what he does.  You'd think he'd pick something up by accident.  It's sort of like me and billiards.  No matter how much I play, I don't improve one bit. Which is lucky for Dipak because it gives him a big edge going into the ping pong part of our weekly billiards/ping pong challenge.  If I ever took a lesson, he'd have reason to worry.

Remember the days when you could take a ride in a taxi without the driver yammering on the phone throughout the entire trip? I understand that the job gets boring and maybe they're lonely and maybe they have a sweet cell phone plan, but it's really fucking annoying.  Especially when the driver gets distracted by his call. This can cause him to make dangerous, careless moves.  It can also take away his aggressiveness, leading him to miss lights and get you there much later than he should. I think there should be a button you press when you get in, indicating if it's OK that the driver blabber away for every second you're in the cab. It's rude. I also worry that these guys are going to end up with humongous tumors all over their heads from prattling on all day on their radioactive cell phones (see prediction #7).

1/10/5: I want to kiss you!

Respeck to da Jets. They tried hard to stay true to their rotten history with that insanely moronic roughing the passer penalty, but apparently the Chargers wanted it even less.  It's been said many times before, but damn is the stupid little kicker important in football. I was discussing it with Little Scotty F. and we could only name two kickers (Vanderjackoff and Vinatieri) who you'd really trust with your season on the line.  There are probably about five more who are really good, but that means there are maybe 8 or 10 guys in the world capable of kicking a football consistently in pressure situations.  It doesn't seem like it should be that hard. 

Vinatieri is one of the few guys who actually seems like a legitimate member of the team. Most of the time, kickers are merely tolerated by their teammates. Even after a big kick, usually only a couple of guys will run up to congratulate the kicker. It's like they don't want to mess with him in any way.  He's just a fragile, annoying but ultimately necessary part of their football experience.

I know I dogged U2 a while back, and I'm still not a big fan, but I recently caught the last ten minutes of their SNL appearance and it was really great.  They came out at the end of the show, right before the credits, and played "I Will Follow," with Bono in full ham mode.  He was dry humping the face of a woman in the first row, and he was grabbing the camera and swinging it around the studio.  I'm sure it was all cleared and choreographed in advance (is that redundant? you can't choreograph something live, can you?), but it had a nice impromptu vibe going. They sounded great, too, which is rare on SNL. Major paws to them. That's a new one.  It replaces "ups" or "props."

"Your nipple's showing. Do you care?"  With those words, and wonderful accompanying images, VH1 introduces "The Surreal Life 4."  If you know me, you know I have a weakness for trashy television, but I want to make it clear that I am not a reality TV addict.  I don't watch "Survivor" or "The Bachelor" or "Fear Factor" or "The Apprentice" or most of the other popular reality programs.  I like "Real World" and "RW/RR Challenge" and beyond that it's hit or miss. And I haven't really been that into the previous seasons of "The Surreal Life" because I personally find the practice of poking fun at has-been celebrities mean-spirited and played-out.

But with "SL4," the muddafukkas at VH1 have me hooked.  D. Lee called me up after seeing the premiere Sunday night, and he was barely able to speak he was so excited. Even though he eventually gave me a thorough recap that should have spoiled the whole thing for me, I still found myself alternately laughing and covering my face in shame when I watched the encore at midnight.  Just a few highlights from tonight and the season preview they showed afterwards:

-Mini Me drunk, naked and pissing in the corner while sitting on his little scooter thing.
-Mini Me creepily grabbing the nipple of the winner of "America's Top Model" Season 1 while all the cast members ate sushi off her naked body
-The model chick eventually falling in love with Peter Brady(!)
-A tipsy Markus Schenkenberg repeatedly asking a disturbingly buff Peter Brady "You work out?"
-Jane Wiedlin from the Go-Go's hosting an S & M party

Lots of other good stuff. This series is going to be a huge hit.  Get on board now.

If anyone wants to tell me what airport is in the picture below this post, you might win the latest edition of "Where is this?", verbungle.com's latest image-related quiz game. More on the prize in yesterday's post below.

I just noticed that Jenny McCarthy is on the cover of Playboy this month. I think one of the saddest career arcs is that of a big-time Playboy centerfold.  It probably goes:

-stripper
-centerfold
-almost actress
-professional celebrity
-centerfold
-stripper

I don't want to know what comes after that.

Finally, yes, we struck out on the VWFE this weekend, but I blame that on the fact that I had to work on Saturday.  We'll have that thing up and running soon, no doubt. In the meantime, we have something better: a contribution from the author of the popular "Coventry" entries, Crsmal. Here are his Driving Rules. Dig in and feel free to agree, disagree, or add your own rules.

1/9/5: 4 down, 3 to go

This show we are working on has been every bit as painful as it was the last time. Hostboy has failed to improve his game in any way, an astonishing achievement considering he had so much room to grow in every area. The guy is unreal. There is something about him that just ain't right.  Like maybe he's a cult member or something.*  But he's too inefficient to be in a cult.  He'd fail in his cultly duties, the same way he fails on his miserable damn show.

Worse than his exceptional array of fuckups is his ridiculous personality. He has an awful laugh that he uses in an attempt to hide his nervousness. And when he does a segment of the show without having to start over, he reacts as if he's just led his team down the field for the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl. Here are some expressions he uses without even a hint of irony:

-Rock On!
-Banzai!
-Bitchin!
-Heck Yeah!; Oh yeah!; and Oh Yeah!  (pronounced something like this)

On camera and off, he'll boast about how people come up to him on the street after recognizing him from the show. He's also a born-again Christian who brags about his hot sex life with his gross little wife.  He also says "copy" or "copy that" whenever one of us says something in his earpiece, and then tells the show guests "that's TV talk." The guy can do it all; he's the Michael Jordan of crappiness.

Today (yes, in a cruel insult, we had to tape his show on a Saturday) he plumbed a space darker and lower than I ever would have thought possible for a simple TV host.  First, just a little perspective. His show consists of four segments, each about five minutes long. With a normal, somewhat competent host, we will have maybe 2 instances in a show where we will have to start a segment over because shit has gone too far bad to salvage, and then there are maybe 2 more times where we have to do a pickup (That's TV talk!) -- meaning we will have to stop the segment, but instead of starting it over from the top, we will find an edit point, somewhere before the moment it got messed up, where we can "pick up" the action and continue through the end of the segment. On hostboy's show, that 2 and 2 becomes 8 and 8, not counting maybe another 12 times where we start a segment and he fucks up the first sentence he's supposed to say, forcing us to start over immediately.  Anyway, today he had a segment in which he maybe only had to start over three times, and then got through without having to redo the whole thing.  He didn't do a good job, mind you.  He did a VERY BAD JOB.  Just not bad enough for us to stop him (we've sort of given up at this point).  As soon as we gave him the word that we were moving on to the next segment, that his fuckups hadn't been bad enough to warrant doing the whole thing over again, he let loose with the following:

"Who's the man?"

You read that right.  He said, "Who's the man?"

Where can he go from here? "How ya like me now?" "In your face!"? "I am The Wiz"?

I don't know if I can take it for three more days.

Since I can't imagine he will ever return to the studio for more shows (I don't care who he's blowing or how good his ratings are**), I am offering the winner of today's Geography Photo Quiz an invitation to come down to the studio this week and see the carnage firsthand***.  First of all, let's take a step back and acknowledge that the Verbungle.com Geography Photo Quiz is the best verbungle-related internet-based quiz game since the GISG was in its heyday. OK, has that been acknowledged? Good. Anyway, whoever can tell me what airport is seen in the clickable picture at right will get this invitation. It'll probably be on Tuesday or Wednesday. Most likely Wednesday.  You can still guess, even if you don't want the prize. Just say something like, "What, are you nuts? I don't want that prize."

If nobody gets it, closest guess wins. Bonus points for guessing where it was taken from. If you were present when it was taken, you are ineligible.

***

Speaking of appalling celebrity types, I thought I'd give you the scoop and let you know that Mariah Carey's forthcoming album is entitled "The Emancipation of Mimi." I smell multiple Grammies. Or maybe it's something else I smell.

***

The only positive to come out of this last week in the studio is that I have discovered a new, relatively secluded bathroom at work where I may go for emergency attacks should it ever become necessary.  I say "discovered" in the same sense that Columbus "discovered" America, meaning plenty of other people already knew about it and were enjoying it, but now I've found it and I plan to claim it for my own before slowly destroying it over time. You're lucky that I am really not a work pooper.

***

So far, the Verbungle.com Weekend Fiction Extravaganza hasn't managed to produce anything printable.  There is still a day left.  Check back around 9pm Sunday. Or send something in if you've got it.

***

I have included a little empeetrey here from an Australian band called You Am I. They've been around for probably 15 years.  I kinda like 'em, although I sorta wish the singer had a stronger voice.  But since he's really the whole band, I don't think they're gonna fire him.

*Speaking of cults, how despondent and beaten down by life do you have to be to join a cult at this point? Cults are now like 0 for 50,000 in terms of being correct in their vision for mankind.  You join a cult, it ain't gonna end so good for you.  Except maybe if you're a rich scientologist.  Those guys seem pretty happy. Scary. Inhuman. But happy.
** And I'm sure they've plummeted since last month's fluke success.
*** Provided I know you and can verify that you're not a security risk.

1/7/5: 2 down, 5 to go 

Well, our host is even worse than I remember him.  It's been two really long days so far, and I don't see it getting better. I wish you guys could see it. It's a sight to behold.  You could walk into a room anywhere in the world, pick out the first person you saw, and that person would do a better job than this crapslinger. 

It's kind of fun, though.  He fucks up in some of the most fascinating ways imaginable. Like, he'll hold up a can of soup and call it a pancake. Just completely disconnected from what he's doing.

Sorry if I've done a bad job returning calls over the last few days, I really haven't had any free time until like 11 o'clock at night.

There's one guy we work with who's very frugal. While most of us still go out to eat every day, because we're holding onto our lunch choice as our last little opportunity for self-expression and excitement in our humdrum workday, this guy very responsibly packs lunch every morning. Today he brought in the makings for cheese sandwiches.  Some cheese slices, a bunch of kaiser rolls. Every time I looked up, he was eating a cheese sandwich. When the night ended around 9:00, I glanced over, and he had just started eating another cheese sandwich. 

Somebody asked him how many cheese sandwiches he'd eaten, and he said, "Honestly, I have no idea."

If I had to guess, I'd say it was about seven or eight.  That's a lot of cheese sandwiches.

I had a couple of decent ideas for the site over the last few days, but for the most part, they all gone now. Somewhere in the verbungle stratosphere, never to return. Don't think I've forgotten about the Weekend Fiction Extravaganza. Either I'll come up with something, or somebody else will.

Sometimes I think back on what optimistic, stupid little dudes we all used to be, and I get a little bit sad for some reason. But then again, I'm glad we all were who we were and I'm glad we all did what we did. Like take a picture of ourselves at that exact crest of a hangover when everything's hilarious and your brain is pulsing with wild thoughts and you feel like you could learn a foreign language in about ten minutes. And you don't even care that you look like a monkey.

Depending on just how bored you are, you can download this 32 (!) MB video of me riding my bike to work earlier this year (before we moved to our swanky new space). I am warning you: ONLY DOWNLOAD this if you have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE TO DO. If you do download it, check out the dude with the HAZMAT suit on, about halfway through. And see if you can tell me what his role in life is.

"Bonita Applebum" just came on VH1 Classic.  Just sayin'.

If you're real, real, real bored, you can also tell me where the picture on the right was taken.

1/5/5: Look at me, I'm hosting!

Our on-air talent guy arrived today.  He's a strange one, to say the least. About ten minutes after he got there, the director of the show swung by to say hello. Host-boy had no idea who he was.  They had worked together for about ten straight days in October, 10-12 hours each day.  For those two weeks, the director was on the set every ten minutes, giving direct feedback to the host.  And today hostie just stared at the director like he was a bag of feed.

Imagine a Yankee prospect called up for a September cup of coffee. Joe Torre starts the prospect in five games (in which the prospect goes 1 for 22).  Torre sticks with him, pats him on the back, gives him some valuable advice, and tells him he's got a great future if he keeps working at it.

The next Spring, the prospect is one of about forty guys looking to make the team. Of those 40, perhaps 2 will make it.  And our prospect is maybe #36 on the depth chart.  But Torre sees him stretching, remembers him from the previous fall, and stops by to exchange a greeting.

"Hey, Billy," Torre says, extending a hand and accurately recalling the prospect's name.

"Hey, man," says Billy the Prospect. "You think you could get me some more Gatorade?"

That's this guy.

Yet somehow his show is succeeding. It is among the top rated shows on our network.  I recently compared that to a Special Olympian winning in the regular Olympics.  It's about that improbable. So a certain part of me can't help but root for him.  It's inspiring. He comes up short in just about every phase of his chosen profession, yet he plows ahead like he's leading the league in hitting.  Our hero.

Long nights lay ahead, but we'll tough out the next 8 days and see what happens. And we'll remember how good we've got it.

1/4/5:Playin' it McCool

One more mini-resolution for the Year of Some People's Lord 2005: I'ma stop calling people's home numbers. Everyone has a cellphone, and while getting through on a particular cellphone call has only a 34% probability of success, that's probably better than you get when you call them at home. And by calling the cell, you eliminate the possibility of getting the wife, girlfriend, mother, child, housekeeper, handyman, piano tuner, etc. Not that I don't like talking to those people, but usually when you call somebody you are calling to talk to them specifically, because you want to ask/tell them something. Cellphones only from here on out, unless I have a real reason to call the home. Home phones suck.

Also resolution-related: I was worried that I had put on a few pounds over the last year.  Imagine my relief today, when I measured myself and realized I have grown four inches since last January as well.  So no big deal.

We all know people talk a little bit different in different parts of the country.  When I got to Wisconsin in 1987, it was "pop" as opposed to soda and "bubbler" instead of drinking fountain. That one, bubbler, always annoyed me.  Like the people there were so amazed by the magic of this strange device that they couldn't even come up with a reasonable name for it.  They just described what it appeared to be doing in a very primitive way.  Fuck "bubbler." Anyway, you may or may not know that Western Pennsylvania has a bizarre dialect all its own. I am lucky enough to work with ValSmal from Washington, PA, and over the years she has filled me in on some of the lingo. It's pretty fun, and it's outlined in Sam McCool's 1982 Pulitzer winner, New Pittsburghese: How to Speak like a Pittsburgher. Imp n' Arn is short for an Iron City Beer with a shot of Imperial Whisky.  Redd up means "to clean up" as in, you better redd up your workspace before the boss comes by. A vacuum cleaner is a "sweeper." You can read a bunch of 'em here.  To me, the craziest thing they do is leave out the words "to be" in certain contexts.  For instance, if your car was dirty, I might tell you your car needs to be washed. But in Pittsburgh, it would be: "Your car needs washed." I shit you not.

In fact, they've been using their little idioms for so long they may have forgotten how the rest of us talk. Check out this headline Mrs. Smal sent me today. (Read the sub-headline under "Pulling the Plug on Slots Addicts.") Unbelievable.  Well, they must know something the rest of us don't know.  Their football team is 15-1 and Pittsburgh is one of the most literate cities in America. Yinz better recognize.

Ted Williams used to say that all he wanted out of life was for people to say of him, "There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived."  He succeeded pretty well on that one. If it was you, what statement would most accurately describe your impact on the world?

There goes (your name), the (what the hell you'll be known for when it's all over) who ever lived.

For example:

"There goes Hans Bungle, the most sullen, volatile and sadistic bullshit webmaster who ever lived."

Give it a shot in the comments, yo.  You can always use a fake name.

Finally, has anyone seen the show "Love Is in the Heir" on E? It is a new reality series about an Iranian princess trying to make it as a country singer in LA. I was just about prepared to call it the greatest show of all time, and then I saw this week's episode, which convinced me that it's scripted, that it's just a hoax.  In which case it's not the best show of all time, but rather the 14th best show on the E network.  I still recommend you watch that shit.  If by some miracle it's real, the central character deserves a gas face larger and more tricked-out than even Creepy-lookin' Kevin Brown.  Please watch this and let me know what you think.

I am feeling a little bit grouchy and tired.  No fun coming off all this time off and having to do actual work.  The worst part for me is that our no-talent talent is back in the studio this week, and it's going to be long nights of frustration and laughing at our fellow man to release some of that frustration.  Oh well, I ain't dead in a Tsunami and I ain't stuck in Iraq risking my life in a bullshit war.  I've got it pretty damn good. Here's a toast to all the people in the world who are completely fucked, who'd give anything to trade places with ungrateful douchebags like me if they only had the chance. When you think about it, most of the world falls into that category of the hopelessly fucked. And yet they trudge on every day, working 'til their eyes go blind in sweatshops, fighting for crumbs in famines, and sneaking peeks at banned books when nobody's looking. Putting everything they have into whatever they can, praying for an opportunity to make things just a little bit better. And here I am, whining about my 12 hour days making TV shows. Tool. 

1/3/05: A Real Drunk

Here's the difference between NYC and Southern California this time of year. Yesterday, January 1st, was a beautiful day here in NYC.  I think the temperature hit 61 or something like that. In San Clemente, it was about the same. So far, no difference. But in NYC, even though I was tired from a wild night of Balderdash the night before, I felt obligated to get out there and enjoy every one of those 61 degrees. In San Clemente, they put on their sweaters and gathered around the fireplace, waiting it out until the cool front passed through.  Tomorrow was sure to be better.

I don't say this to imply that NYC is superior because we have the different seasons that force us to appreciate the value of a 61 degree day in January. On the contrary, I need to live in a place with an unlimited supply of nice days, so I can afford to waste 'em: waste one on the couch watching meaningless bowl games, waste one sleeping off a late night, waste one fixing my computer, waste one doing a fantasy league draft, waste 'em, waste 'em, waste 'em.

I am convinced that people who live in warm climates where you can schedule outdoor activities 362 days a year are approximately 27% happier than they would be in a cold-ass place like, say, New York City.

***

So the Jets snuck in. Dinny was looking pretty good there for awhile (see #49).  I wanted to see the game but I had plans with my mom at around 1, and then the wife and I had errands to run.  So I decided to settle for sneaking into a bar for the 4th quarter while the wife shopped for an hour.

I ended up in Phebe's on Bowery and 4th.  I haven't been in there in years. It was always one of those default places that you might wind up if nothing else panned out. It was really a scummy, poorly lit, unpleasant little place, redeemed only by the remarkably cheap beer prices. There were some interesting evenings there: D. Rosner busting out the one hitter, J. Lynne being reprimanded for chewing tobacco (back when cigarette smoking in bars was legal), lots of other memories that have floated away on a tide of stale beer. I was at Phebe's the night I went on my parking meter vaulting expedition.  I never loved the place, but I was always glad it was there.

Well, Phebe's has changed quite a bit since I last saw it.  They've cleaned it the hell up, and they now have pretty decent-looking food.  The prices don't seem so great anymore, but I think they have drink specials that are pretty reasonable. Whatever about all that.  The biggest change is the TV's. Holy crud. They have at least three nice-sized TV's there, and they are perhaps the most beautiful TV's I have ever seen. Crystal clear with beautiful sound.  The place wasn't too crowded, either. A good place to keep in mind the next time we get a small crew together to watch a big game. More about the TV's in a minute.

So I walk into Phebe's with about 14 minutes left in regulation. It's a pretty pleasant scene, very calm bar, some Jets fans here and there, no face-painters or anything. I quickly observe that there are two empty seats at the bar in optimal TV-viewing position.  I notice one of them has a jacket draped across it, so I settle on the other one, which is just to the right of the jacket stool and is actually in better TV position, although it is set back about five feet from the bar for some reason.  No matter, if I pushed it forward it would be kind of snug, so I leave it where it is and hang all my stuff on it. Then I walk up to the empty part of the bar where my stool would normally reside. I order a $5 Stella (it tasted stale -- all draft beer has been tasting stale to me lately), and was waiting for my change when the occupant of Jacket Stool came back from wherever he'd been.  He was kind of lumbering and he gave off a slight vibration of malevolence.  I couldn't place it, but it was no good, I tell you. Maybe he was mad at me for infringing on what he thought was his space.

Not really in the mood for a bar fight at 3:45 on a Sunday afternoon, I decided to play it friendly.

"Excuse me," I said. He just sort of grunted, looking away from me. I never got a look at his face, but I could tell from what I could see that he was about 50, heavy-set, and plenty drunk.  As I tried to clear a little space for him, I accidentally knocked his jacket from the back of his stool onto the seat itself, so I picked it back up.  He just grunted again.

"Sorry about that," I said. "I'm just getting my drink here."

"No worries," he said. "As long as the Jets win."

"That's right," I said, glad that he was capable of speech and that he seemed friendly enough. I got my beer and retreated to my stool, five feet behind this guy.  This afforded me a good view in case he had an episode or something. He pretty much kept to himself, but I did notice that the reason he hadn't been there when I arrived: he had gone to Burger King and picked up a HUGE bag of grub. Whatever. His business.

So I started watching the game and I swear to you it was the best TV picture I have ever seen. I know Joe is looking for a new TV, and he should swing by Phebe's and have a look at this beauty. Fucking unreal. The names were popping off the backs of the jerseys, even when they were on a wide shot. 

At one point, a guy came in with his kid to check the score and he said, "Wow, look at that TV.  That's beautiful."

"I was just thinking the same thing," I told him.

I've never had such an intense visual experience watching a game as I did for those 45 minutes today.  It was a flat-screen TV, but I don't know enough about TV's to tell you if it was a plasma screen or just a regular flat-panel or projection or what have ya. Probably plasma. And certainly high-def. Wow. Real real nice.  I am now officially entering covet mode. I think HDTV is a big mess of formats and stations and FCC mandates, so who knows when they'll get it all straightened out and it will become the industry standard.  I can tell you that that day will be a bright, beautiful one for mankind. And if you live in Southern California, you can sit inside messing with your cool HDTV and not worry about missing a rare opportunity to shoot buckets or tend to your tomato plant.

It will be a great day.

Anyway, I was watching the game and it was pretty clear that the Jets were gonna back into the playoffs, because Buffalo had too much ground to cover. So there wasn't all that much tension, which was fine.  Occasionally someone would scream, "Go Curtis," or "Get him*," but for the most part it was a nice pleasant Sunday afternoon bar scene.  I kicked back and just soaked in that amazing image quality.

Then a tall, younger guy came up to the my drunk grunting buddy and said it was time to go.

The grunter grunted something back.

"No, really, it's time to go.  Please listen to me," said tall younger guy.  I wondered where these guys met, what they had in common, what their relationship was, where they were off to.  Were they father and son? Drug dealing partners? Lovahs? I am stupid.  It took me about a full minute to realize that the tall guy was the bouncer and he was attempting to bounce the gruntmaster.

The gruntmaster wasn't getting aggressive or anything, just kind of grunting and refusing to move. Finally, young bouncer guy got him to stand up.

"Don't forget your bag," the bouncer guy said, handing the dude his enormous Burger King bag. Bouncer Man was about to help the guy put his jacket on when grunty keeled over like he was shot, spilling his beer and knocking over a couple of now-empty seats to his left. Wow.  He was too fucking drunk to stand up.  Bouncer Man helped him back to his feet and then helped him put his jacket on.  The guy still hadn't said anything.  He just kind of glared at everybody. Bouncer Man now slowly walked the guy out of the bar, arm in arm, and sent him on his way.

I have been drunk many, many times in my life. Drunk to the point where I have embarrassed myself so completely that it still haunts me to this day. I have fallen asleep in flower beds, walked face first into glass doors in front of laughing cops, scampered naked across medium-sized Midwestern cities. I've peed in a grandmother's easy chair, I've vomited while talking on the telephone, and I've thrown potatoes out of car windows. I've insulted people for no reason and I've intentionally injured myself to make up for it. I've wiped out on mopeds and I've gotten in cars with strangers. I've been punched out in Wisconsin and I've been shived by my so-called friends in Williamsburg.  I've been tossed out of a bar for dancing on the mini-bowling game and dislodging ceiling tiles with my head.  And I've tried unsuccessfully to sneak back in wearing a friend's shirt. I've lobbed a nearly empty beer can across a bar towards a garbage can, only to overshoot and hit a 275 pound bouncer right in the chest, leaving a nice little beer stain. And yes, I've been cut off and asked to leave by a wise and caring bartender. That's all just what I can remember right now and I'm willing to admit.  Basically, I am no stranger to drunken idiocy and I am in no position to judge.

But this guy was scary. I can't explain exactly what it was, but he was just a dark, dark soul and he was drunk in a way that I can't imagine a regular person can achieve.  He was drunk like a bum in a 1940's movie: old-fashioned, fall-down, wake up in your own piss on a sidewalk three days later drunk.  It was fitting that it happened on the Bowery, I guess. This guy was drunk in the tradition of Bowery Bums from years past, and he gave their legacy the respect it deserves.  Just a magnificent, mumbling, old-timey drunk and I wonder where he'll be tomorrow.  At least he has food in his belly.

***

Some notices: Deion has a nice new review for y'all.  We also got an interesting update on the "Available Band Names" list from a while back. And I am not moving forward with the GISG until somebody gets IMAGE #25 or IMAGE #27**. Same goes for the glut of unsolved stumpahs. Get on that shit or you'll make me think you don't care, and that would hurt my feelings. 

* The universal cry of a football fan when his team is on defense.
** Hint: #25 is two words, #27 is one.

1/1/05: Happy 2K5

I had a nice married New Year's eve last night. Instead of stumbling through the frozen streets from party to party, caked in rotten beer and fruitlessly searching for cabs, it was couples, brie cheese, and, I kid you not, Balderdash.  And to be honest, it was one of the most enjoyable New Year's Eves I can remember. If this was the Ghost of New Year's Future, which I'm pretty sure it was, I'm OK with that. I got to drink a few beers and hang out with fun people and I didn't have to spend the whole night wondering why I wasn't having any fun.* This New Year's Eve gets a 23.7 on the VRS.  Thanks to Alexi and Amy for hosting, Deion and Berit for transporting, and Dave and Laura for holding off on dog walking duties so we could get through almost an entire game of Balderdash.**

I hope your New Year's was as frustration-free as mine.

***

Now it's a 61 degree New Year's Day and I am watching this horrible Wisconsin-Georgia bowl game. I think it's the Amihotornot.com Bowl. I've said this before, but as proud as I am of Wisconsin's athletic resurgence over the past ten years, I still always feel like our success is a fluke, a very shaky thing. I really can't accept that we might actually be good. I can't fathom that our recruiting is strong enough to bring in real talent. This is even as more and more of our players end up on NFL (and occasionally NBA) rosters. And games like this one, in which Georgia is screwing up non-stop but is still dominating us all over the field, seem to back me up.  It's now 24-6 in the 3rd quarter, and we cannot move the ball more than 8 feet on one set of downs.*** Oh well.  Same damn animal as last year, but it's a lot more ferocious than the docile Don Morton Badgers that I had to endure when I was in school.  9-3 ain't bad.  By the way, the announcing team of Mark Jones and Bob Davie did a very nice job on this game.  A few mistakes, but some nice enthusiasm and some decent insight as well.

Watching the Badger players continue to talk shit even as their asses are being handed to them makes me wonder: who was the first athlete to shut up a taunting, trailing opponent with a simple comeback of "SCORE-BOARD"?  That's a good one.

***

Dick Vitale just pissed me off.  I generally like him, even though he's a blabbering lunatic. I like the fact that he genuinely loves the sport he covers, and he's not ashamed to let it show.  But just now, he was talking about "the Tulsa job," going on about how there is a coaching vacancy there and how he's got "just the guy" to fill the job. I was expecting him to mention some up and coming coach, hopefully an African-American one who hasn't been given a chance to shine yet.  Fine, forget about the African-American part, just mention a new guy, a guy who only needs an opportunity and then he'll knock the door down, a guy who's not a huge name.  But instead, Vitale says, "Matt Doherty." Come on. If there was ever a coach who's already been given a chance, perhaps the ultimate job in college hoops, it's Doherty. And he failed badly. He managed to tarnish UNC basketball, which is pretty tough to do considering half of the NBA came through Chapel Hill. He basically got the job because he was lucky enough to play with Jordan/Perkins/Worthy and hitch a ride on their legacy, and then he lost the job through his own incompetence. And if I remember right, he made a bit of an ass of himself in the process, crying at press conferences and stuff like that.  He also ducked out on Notre Dame after coaching there for just ONE YEAR.  The guy's a tool. And Vitale is a suck-up for promoting him as a candidate.

***

Internet savant AJR has unearthed the following creepily understated early report on the tsunami:

Strong Quake Hits Indonesia, at Least Nine Killed

Sat Dec 25,10:58 PM ET World - Reuters

By Tomi Soetjipto

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A strong earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale shook Indonesia's Sumatra island on Sunday, killing nine people, triggering large waves at sea and sending thousands fleeing their homes in panic, officials and media said.

Residents said buildings collapsed and people fled their houses amid widespread panic.

"I saw four bodies of kids and five bodies of adults," one resident identified as Mustofa told El Shinta radio from the Aceh provincial capital, Banda Aceh, on the northern tip of the island.

A flash flood hit part of Banda Aceh city before receding, he said from the town, 775 miles northwest of Jakarta. It was not immediately known where the water had come from.

Most telephone lines appeared to have been severed and calls to the area could not be connected.

"The quake was 6.4 on the Richter scale. It happened at 7:59 a.m (7:59 p.m. EST Saturday)," Fauzi, an official at the Bureau of Meteorology and Geophysics in Jakarta, told Reuters.

Residents of coastal regions reported large waves at sea. In the town of Sigli witnesses reported rising sea levels, Fauzi said.

Inland residents said river levels could be seen rising.

The earthquake could have triggered tsunami tidal waves and may also have damaged dams, causing rivers to rise, Fauzi added.

The U.S. Geological Survey (news - web sites) measured the earthquake at a magnitude of 8.1 and said it took place off the west coast of Sumatra at a depth of 25 miles.

The tremor was felt as far away as Singapore and Bangkok.

The epicenter had yet to be determined but preliminary data indicated areas between Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra, and North Sumatra province, had been affected, Fauzi said.

Residents in North Sumatra's capital, Medan, reported a strong tremor that caused panic.

"It was quite strong. We ran out of our houses but we're now back inside," said one resident.

An earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale rattled Indonesia's eastern Papua province in November, killing 29 people in the coastal town of Nabire.

Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands, lies along the Pacific Ring of Fire where plate boundaries intersect and volcanoes regularly erupt.

***

I'm not going to make such a grand production of my Resolutions this year. Last year it was a lot of resolving and not much doing. This year we're gonna keep it nice and simple.  Let's go.

1) Lose 20 pounds/get handsomer (carryover from last year): it ain't gonna get any easier. I gotta stop eating crap. I know it's the most clichéd New Year's resolution there is, but there's a reason for that: we're all a bunch of fat hogs and we need to stay away from the chunky chews.

2) Get a promotion and a legitimate raise at work, or find a new job. I really like my boss and a lot of the people I work with, but I don't see much of a future there. A lot of past, not much future. It's probably time to do something else, but a nice big salary bump could convince me to waste some more of my life there.

3) Post at least one story per month on the site.  OK, I know almost nobody readsthe site on weekends, so I am going to give those intrepid few who do a little reward: on at least one weekend per month (I am going to try for every weekend), I will post a little fictional story on the site. For you to enjoy. For you to make fun of.  It's gotta be better than more stuff about my stupid job or my sore knee or the guy I saw picking his nose on the subway today. They may be serialized pieces of a longer story, they may be self-contained little stories. There may be contributions from other people (please!). This may suck. In fact, it will suck. But it's going to happen, so you may as well get behind it.  We are now officially accepting submissions for the ongoing Verbungle.com Weekend Fiction Extravaganza. Please join the party.

4) Continue working in the rest of last year's resolutions, both successful and failed. Remain an excellent man in general.

***

In 2005, I predict my new name for the anus will catch on: the poo-gina.

***

Finally, some of you may already know this, but there is a secret verbungle.  It's sort of like the shadow government -- it's there, doing its thing, but you don't know about it unless somebody clues you in.  And just as the shadow government is made up of cast-off politicians and humorless bureaucrats (right?), the Shadow Verbungle consists of unfinished rambles and abandoned ideas. There's a good reason they are abandoned.  They aren't very good.  And if something's not good enough to make the grade at this here bullshit website, it must be REAL bad.  But since it's a new year, I will let you check out one of these lame entries in all its raw glory: here is how I imagined my pro boxing career might look (until I realized it was a lame idea and let it sit there). Enjoy as much as you can.

* Although there have definitely been some great New Year's Eves over the years, no doubt.  Thanks to aoll who helped make those possible.
** Deion and Alexi, I forgive you for your inability to read my two excellent definitions, costing me valuable position.  My bad handwriting was to blame.
*** OK, we made a nice comeback before falling short.