A First For Dave (and Possibly All Men)

I am very pleased with what maintenance did to the thermostat in my classroom during Spring Break; when I came back there was a note on the white board that said "The slider now controls the room temperature" and I like to keep my class really cold (I'm always hot and it keeps the kids awake-- plus human memory works better in the cold, kind of like a computer) and I usually do this by opening all the windows, which generates a lot of complaints, especially from the ladies, and sometimes outright rebellion-- they start climbing on the cabinets and closing the windows, despite my threats-- but yesterday I was able to get the room really cold without opening the windows, and then when my creative writing class, composed mainly of girls, came in and shivered, I pointed to the windows and said, "I know, it's cold in here so I kept all the windows closed today" and they BOUGHT IT and said, "We know, it's not you today, it just feels cold in here" and I'm very proud of this because it is the first time I have ever beaten a bunch of women in a battle of wits.

4/21/2009

So it turns out yesterday was Earth Day, Pot Day (I looked up why, the legend is that a crew of California high school kids in the 70's would always meet at Pasteur's statue to get stoned at 4:20 PM, which was the time detention let out) The Ten year Anniversary of Columbine, Hitler's Birthday and the Day Benny Hill died: which did you celebrate?

4/20/2009

The other night we watched Vicky Christina Barcelona, which was quite good-- the studly Spanish painter teaches you how to pick up two beautiful women at one time, he's quite skillful in both art and love, but even more impressive is my artistic eye . . . we knew nothing about the movie, just took it out of the Netflix sleeve and popped it in the player, but as it started I said, "That's Woody Allen's FONT! They stole Woody Allen's FONT! " and in a moment we learned that it is actually Woody Allen film . . . so I guessed the director by the font of the credits: although my wife wasn't particularly impressed with my precognizant aesthetic sense, I'm sure there are hordes of beautiful young women who will read this and swoon.

4/19/2009

While I was peeling a large ripe mango, my son Alex asked me: "What rhymes with mango?" and I impressed myself with the quantity and quality of my answer-- if you want to play along, stop reading now and see what you can come up with . . . I quickly said, "Durango-- a town in Colorado-- tango-- a Spanish dance-- Django (Reinhardt)-- a four fingered gypsy guitar player--and fandango, a movie website and also some kind of exotic dance" but Alex wasn't that impressed and he said "You forgot 'mango'" and laughed, perhaps thinking of the time Homer Simpson appreciated when his softball team rhymed "Homer" with "homer."

This Guy's Picture Is In The Dictionary Under "Man"

High marks for David Graham's new book The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon Forest (I give it eleven poisoned arrows out of twelve) but I definitely felt lame and civilized reading it on the beach, nursing a Spring break hangover, my toes in the surf, kids digging contentedly in the sand, contemplating which seafood joint we should frequent in between pages-- this guy Percy Fawcett was a man (despite his first name) and though his adventures eventually killed him, he makes Indiana Jones look like a flower sniffer.

4/17/2009

Radio newscasters need transitions: "Beautiful day today, Going up to 62 with plenty of sunshine, unemployment is still on the rise in New Jersey . . ."

Andre the Giant as a Thespian? Inconceivable!

Yesterday, I was behind a green box truck with an official black and white sign on the back that read: INEDIBLE BAKED GOODS . . . this reminds me of The Princess Bride-- when Andre the Giant tells the Evil Sicilian that the word "inconceivable" does not mean "what you think it means."

The Invention of Air: A Solid Review

Steven Johnson's excellent new book The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America is mainly the story of scientist and philosopher Joseph Priestly, who had a Forrest Gump-like ability to be in the right place at the right time (until the rioters burned his house down and he had to seek sanctuary in America) but it's also a reminder, for me, at least, of how radical the founding fathers were as thinkers, and how much science and logic were a part of their thought process . . . to the point where Jefferson expunged all the magic and mysticism out of the Bible and created his own edition and the usually optimistic and chipper Ben Franklin, drawn away from his cherished science and into politics at the end of his life, ended up writing sentences like this (thus making him a compatriot of mine in both opinion and style): "Men I find to be a Sort of Beings very badly constructed, as they are generally more easily provoked than reconciled, more disposed to do Mischief to each other than to make Reparation, much more easily deceived than undeceived, and having more Pride & Pleasure in killing than in begetting one another, for without a Blush they assemble in great armies at Noon Day to destroy, and when they have killed as many as they can, they exaggerate the Number to augment the fancied Glory; but they creep into Corners or cover themselves with the Darkness of Night, when they mean to beget, as being ashamed of Virtuous Action."

Expectations vs. Reality

The first morning of our vacation I got up early to read, and Alex woke up soon after and he told me his favorite part of the day was sunrise, when the sky was "purplish orange" and he sat down and looked at a book and everything was peaceful and wonderful and then he asked if we could play chess and I said, "Sure" and made him a bowl of cereal and then I went to the car to get the magnetic chessboard . . . and in the two minutes I was gone Alex violently bit his tongue, screamed bloody murder, ran to the bedroom to wake up Catherine, found the bed-room door closed, yanked on it-- not knowing that Ian, woken up by the screams-- was pulling on the other side, got into a tug of war with the door . . . which ended when Ian let go and the door smashed Alex in the face-- and all this happened while I was gone-- so I tiptoed back into the condo with the chessboard to this grisly scene and realized that vacation had officially begun.

4/13/2009 I am back from vacation!

Something NOT to do on vacation: go out for many beers with your old college buddies, wake up the next morning and eat two extremely dense made to order donuts, then go to the Lost Colony on Roanoke Island and climb down into the hold of the Elizabeth II, a replica of the boat the colonists came on four hundred years ago-- because it's really claustrophobic down there and it's slowly rocking from the waves-- which is never good when you're hung-over-- and there's fifty eighth graders on a school trip, and, most difficult of all, there are dudes in authentic colonial garb, who talk with accents, and pretend that THEY ARE FROM COLONIAL TIMES . . . and they never break character, even with the adults-- which scares me, it's fine to pretend with the kids, but I don't know who they're trying to fool or if maybe they hire insane people who actually think they're from the late 16th century or what, but I'd like to know where they go at night and if they drive a car there.

Momma Spanx . . . The Director's Cut

When an attractive pregnant woman on the phone in the office politely asks "Do you have Momma Spanks? The full length version?"-- what crosses your mind? . . . because I know what crossed my mind-- a very,very dirty film-- a dirty film with two versions: an extra-long uncut version with LOTS of incestuous spanking and other bizarre sexual practices, and a shorter, edited, and tamer version-- but my attractively pregnant colleague was insisting on purchasing the unabridged and extra-perverse version, and my mind was ripe with curiosity as to why the tamer version wasn't sufficient for her sexual deviance-- but as it turns out, "Momma Spanks" is not a pornographic film . . . it is a type of slimming panty-hose for pregnant women and these "Spanx" come in two lengths, full and half . . . and the lesson here is that I should have never asked, as my fantasy was far more wonderful than reality.

A Rule To Live By

You know you're getting the stomach-ache you deserve when your wife picks up a block of cheese that you left on the counter and says "You didn't eat this, did you?" and you say "Yeah, why?" and she says, "Because it's covered in mold" and your five year old son chimes in with this adage: "You should really look at food before you eat it, Daddy."

4/10/2009

This semester my Creative Writing class is comprised of a bunch of girls: they hate it when I open all the windows and 90% of them know what a "seam ripper" is (a term that appeared in a girl's poem, which I was curious about).

4/9/2009

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree-- Alex said to me, "I don't know everything, Dad, but I know a lot."

4/8/2009

Although the Pulp song "Common People" is one of my favorites, Jarvis Cocker's premise has been refuted: there's plenty of rich folk living like common people in England these days (I mainly wrote this sentence so I could refer to Jarvis Cocker-- that's one of the best names ever, right up there with Dick Trickle and Horselover Fat).

4/7/2009

The Spiderwick Chronicles is pretty good as far as those kind of movies go, better than Harry Potter, but it is definitely not for young kids-- it's actually scary and we're going to have to wait a couple of years before we watch it with Alex and Ian.

4/6/2009

I thought I had a lot in common with my nerdy students, but after seeing last Friday's "Collision" Dance Competition I realize this may not be true-- they can dance (but I also saw that the key to dancing is to have long black straight hair to fling around, so I'm growing mine out).

4/5/2009

Long ago, at a wine tasting festival in Virginia, I got a chance to meet Sam Snead-- I ambled into the tent, said, "Hey Sam, can you still kick out a light-bulb?"-- something i had heard he could do when he was young and limber-- and was escorted outside by the bouncers.

4/4/2009

I was excited that my son Alex (5 years old) was holding his own in a game of chess with an older kid-- it was a new plateau, they were quietly playing in the living room while we talked to our friends-- but obviously Ian didn't see it that way, he's only three and he still doesn't know how all the pieces move, so I guess he felt left out and he expressed his frustration by spitting on the board.

Of Triffids and Chrysalids

Some science-fiction reviews: Danny Boyle's Sunshine is pretty good, lots of slow-paced space scenes like 2001 and some actual science to back it up, but it gets confusing and presses for a big ending; John Wyndham's 1955 novel The Chrysalids is really good, a precognisant story of religion, mutation, and evolution: lots to think about, and it actually has a working plot and realistic dialogue . . . so now I've got to read his other famous one: The Day of the Triffids.

Grown Men Should Not Possess Fruit Roll-ups

Catastrophe averted: I removed a fruit roll-up from my shirt pocket just BEFORE I threw the shirt into the wash.

4/1/2009

Bad news: I'm wrapping it up, I'm packing it in . . . I've got no more to say-- I've run out of ideas and my life isn't interesting or significant enough to continue this blog . . . plus, I've had an epiphany, writing these sentences is self-indulgent and selfish, I should spend more time with my family, or better yet, doing charitable deeds . . . I just can't justify it any longer, and then there's the run-ons, the grammar errors, the lack of punctuation and proof-reading and the images that barely connect to the sentence: so I'd like to thank you all for reading and commenting (although part of me thinks this is all your fault) and I am now on to bigger and better things, spiritual transcendence, perhaps, or just greater humility about my place in the universe.

3/31/2009

I left my car at the Grove Friday night, Catherine met me out after the Collision Dance Competition and when it was time to go, I thought it would be more fun to ride home with her and listen to satellite radio (we DEFINITELY did not leave my car there because I had too much to drink) and when Catherine dropped me off the next morning we saw a few other scattered cars in the lot and laughed about the other over-indulgers that had to leave their vehicles and then two of the cars moved-- and they were BOTH teachers, it was a long week and everyone was a chaperon for the Competition, because of the near riot last year -- so we chatted and laughed about that coincidence and then wondered if certain regulars always met in the parking lot on Saturday morning to fetch their cars, grunted at each other in half remembrance and then went about their day, foggy and hungover.

3/30/2009

The Sentence of Dave now-- at no extra cost to you, the reader-- provides links to the opinion section of both The Wall Street Journal and the San Francisco Chronicle; so there is no excuse, after reading a sentence by Dave (TM) you can then analyze Dave's opinion through a conservative and a liberal lens, and then-- and only then-- can you arrive at a fair and balanced insult to hurl at Dave (who will be the first to admit how annoying it is when people refer to themselves in the third person, and will anticipate and dismiss any insults on that particular theme).

3/29/2009

Senioritis has arrived: several of my seniors were trying to cover their second semester text book by wrapping (not taping) a single sheet of 8 by 11 paper around the book (one student used the tissue paper canary yellow detention form for being late to class).

3/28/2009

My younger son Ian's reaction when Alex went to swim lessons but he did not (his age group was all filled up for this session) was awful (but also kind of funny, just because he's so cute)-- he went upstairs, crept into his bed, and curled up in a state of abject depression; when I asked him what was wrong, he said, "I want to be BIG-- I want to be big like you, Daddy."

Warning Warning.

The warning for today's sentence may be unnecessarily ironic.

Irony Warning!

The meaning of today's sentence may not be what it literally says! Dave might actually be content with his monotonous life! The events that he speculates about might actually be happening! Danger! Danger! Irony!

Rinse, Repeat . . . Pretty Sweet

My life has been so boring and monotonous lately (get up early, practice the guitar, go to work, grade essays, come home, have a snack, play with the kids, talk to Catherine, take Alex to swim lessons, help cook dinner, drink two beers, watch half a movie, read for twenty minutes, fall asleep, repeat ad infinitum) that I almost wish something cataclysmic would happen: perhaps the world economy could collapse, or the ice caps could start melting, or we could have a mass extinction similar to the one at the end of the Cretaceous . . . but then I think, it's not good to root for awful things to happen and I should be happy with my mundane life.

3/26/2009

In case anyone is concerned, my cyst wound is healing nicely, because I have good "tissue granulation," but maybe this was just the doctor blowing smoke up my ass, because he also said that when this is all said and done, I might have a "stela" shaped mark on my back-- which sounds really nice, but apparently means a scar in the shape of a cross (and all I could find about "stelae"-- which is the plural of "stela"-- were definitions about funerary towers . . . thus the image).

3/25/2009

In these hard economic times, it is important to remember that there are two ways to look at any political issue, and it is also important to remember that both ways are most certainly wrong.

3/24/2009

The ticket lady cautioned us that the Imax movie Sea Monsters was a bit scary, and I thought she was referring to the acting-- the B movie actors playing the paleontologists were outright awful (since when does one paleontologist say to another, "You'd better get your tools!")-- but my son Ian took this more literally: he nearly jumped out of his skin when the Tylosaur came from the blue depths and swallowed the super-sized shark in one gulp.

3/23/2009

I am wondering just how angry I am supposed to get at my children when they do not listen to me; I know it's bad for my heart to get angry, and I know it scares the hell out of my kids, but they DO NOT respond to my voice (or my wife's voice) until they detect rage-- until then, they just don't think it's pressing enough to respond; so the question is: do I allow them to be run over by a truck or fall into an open sewer or get gored by a rampant bison to avoid looking like an enraged lunatic in public, or do I continue roaming the earth red-faced, always either about to yell or just getting over a fit of yelling?

3/22/2009

It took thirty three years for me to learn that Evelyn Waugh was a man.

3/21/2009

A student told me this story yesterday, and it was so bad that I have reproduced it here verbatim: "Last night at work, I met this guy and he totally reminded me of this other guy I know."

3/20/2009

Does anyone know where I put my banjo finger-picks?

The State is Never Right

If there's one thing I've learned about politics from reading Nixonland: the rise of a president and the fracturing of America, it is that neither political party is for states' rights: if a state wants to legalize medicinal marijuana or pass civil rights laws, then the Republicans are against states' rights . . . and if a state wants to make abortion illegal or remain segregated, then the Democrats are against state's rights.

3/18/2009

If you live each day like it is your last, then very soon one of them will be . . . if you live life to the fullest, soon you will be very fat (or at least that's what would happen to me . . . maybe some people would spend time with their family or repent their sins or do a lot of crack, but I have a feeling that if someone told me I had one day left to cram in everything I could, I would be most concerned about planning my meals-- I think that I would skip breakfast foods entirely, and instead have tamales with mole sauce for breakfast, and then go from there . . .)

The Wrestler: This One Hit Me Below the Belt

I give The Wrestler nineteen staple-gun wounds out of a possible twenty-- and it's worth seeing on the big screen because the movie is almost entirely visual-- the screenplay must have been a pamphlet-- and, I must warn you, it is PAINFUL to watch this thing-- you're not sure if you're watching the decay of a fictitious character called Randy the Ram, or if it's actually Mickey Rourke falling apart on screen: it's painful to watch him take a shower, walk down the street, try to read a book, play his own character on a Nintendo game with a neighborhood kid, work the deli counter, et cetera-- and though Marissa Tomei-- Randy's stripper love interest-- is naked a lot, which was one of the reasons I wanted to see the movie, she's not very sexy: she's painfully skinny, her face is drawn and tired, and, Like Randy, she's a little too old to be in a profession that relies on a youthful body; as a bonus, the movie is set in New Jersey, and between the grainy film and the Acme that time forgot (in Rahway?) and a scene on the Asbury Park Boardwalk, this story makes the New Jersey of the Sopranos look like Beverly Hills.

Two Reasons to See Happy

I give Mike Leigh's new movie Happy Go Lucky nine trampolines out of a possible ten-- it's very funny and the soundtrack reminds me of the opening theme of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

3/15/2009

We did a double take and then used the internet to check the facts, but it is sad but true-- the median price of a home sold in Detroit in December was 7,500 dollars . . . that's right seven thousand five hundred dollars, writing it out insures that you know that I didn't make a typographic error; this is what I propose: we all buy vacation homes on the same block and instead of summering in the Hamptons or Chatham, we head out to our Detroit porches to drink Mad-dog 20/20 and hit the rock-- not only will we be saving money, but someday Detroit will rise again and we can cash in . . . so who's with me?

3/14/2009

As my sophomores liked to nebulously state in their essays: Alexander Rodriguez and I are similar and different . . . we are similar because we both just had our cysts drained, but we are different because ARod is going to need six to nine weeks of recovery, while I played indoor soccer four days later (albeit poorly, and sweating copious amounts of wine and take-out Indian food-- it was no treat to cover me, I'm sure).

My Greatest Contribution to Western Culture

Edison had his light-bulb, the Wright brothers their aeroplane, and Ben Franklin his eponymous stove . . . but I don't think I will ever invent anything tangible . . . although I HAVE invented something incredibly useful, but it is a concept, not a thing: my invention is a dinner-time mind-trick called the "don't eat it" game; when you want your kids to eat something, you simply point at the item and say, very seriously, "Do NOT eat those green beans, especially not those three-- those are mine and I don't want you to eat them" and then you go back to eating your meal, and inevitably, the child will take the green beans you pointed at, steal a glance, make a devilish face, and then scarf them down . . . because it's fun to disobey; the funny thing is, now my kids know the trick, but they often still insist that I do it just because they enjoy it so much, and they eat so much faster if we play-- even though they know they are being manipulated; I know my creation isn't as valuable as the polio vaccine or the internal combustion engine, but it has caused me more happiness than either of those inventions . . . plus it's portable and very cheap to manufacture.

3/12/2009

My five year old son Alex told my wife that his friend Tiko said he "didn't like Jews" so they had an awkward and serious conversation about racism and prejudice, but it turns out (this was clarified at dinner last night, inadvertently in a story about how Tiko was eating strawberries) that Tiko has no problem with those of the Jewish faith, it is "juice" that he abhors (perhaps he meant O.J. Simpson, which may or may not warrant another serious discussion).

Kids Say the Darndest Crassest Things

I thought the youth of today were crass, but check out this tasteless gem from Rick Perlstein's new weighty book on American politics, Nixonland: "In October of 1967, militants marched on the Pentagon, sporting signs like JOHNSON PULL OUT-- LIKE YOUR FATHER SHOULD HAVE."

3/10/2009

Do other people, when they sample free meats, cheeses, and crackers from the enticing little bubble shaped displays at the grocery store, chew slowly and pretend to savor the tidbit-- as if saying, I'm taking my time and tasting and evaluating this item, because if it's really good, I might purchase it-- even though there's no way in hell they're going to purchase it, and they are actually just feeding their faces . . . or is it just me?

3/9/2009

I attended the renowned middle school Potato Pancakes and Pierogie Party Friday night, and like the Polack of the joke, I did something very stupid-- after several games of beer-pong, Ed commented on how deceptively heavy the quoit ring base was and I called him pansy (which is ridiculous, Ed builds elevators and at the Highland Games he flipped the twelve foot caber) and then I told him that I could lift the quoit base with my pinky, which I then did . . . and then Ed had to do it as well, of course-- but when he woke up this morning, his wrist probably didn't hurt as much as mine.

3/8/2009

They must see some nasty shit at the doctor's office, because the phrase "healing nicely" and the giant open wound on my back (where they sliced and drained my sebaceous cyst, in case you haven't been following) do not belong in the same sentence.

3/7/2009

If Legally Blonde isn't your cup of tea, perhaps Piece of Cake is your rock of crack-- it's Cupcake Brown's memoir of life as an orphaned gang-bangin', crack addicted, meth scammin', sherm smokin' violent drunk who rises from behind her dumpster to become a lawyer . . . it's the opposite tone of the emo-faux memoir A Million Little Pieces (I would love to see Cupcake Brown kick James Frey right in his puckered asshole) and if you're down in the dumps and need a little inspiration, or you just want the ins and outs of how to smoke crack on a budget (use a car antenna instead of a pricey glass pipe for the cooking) then I highly recommend it.

My fiction is fact: http://http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1166968,00.html

Arboriculture, Dave Style

You know you're a real homeowner when you find yourself on your front lawn, armed with a football, duct-taped to a length of thick rope, staring at a huge broken limb hanging precariously in your tree, but stretching out over your neighbor's sidewalk and driveway, and you're trying to determine if you're able to heave the football through the tiny Y shaped crevice and get some leverage and pull it down; after twenty or thirty throws (and learning to coil the rope AROUND the football and let it unravel in the air) and the encouragement of my neighbor and her son, I was able to snare the limb and then rock it violently until it came loose and crashed to the ground . . . it was WAY bigger than I thought, and I really should have left it to a professional-- but think of the money I saved (and for Catherine it was win/win, either we would save a few hundred dollars or she could cash in on our life insurance policy).

3/5/2009

This sentence is rated PG-13 for brief nudity (nothing too provocative, just my bare back, but I do have some hair growing there, so I thought a warning was warranted) and excessive pus: yesterday at the doctor's office I underwent my first operation-- though it seemed more in the style of a Medieval barbershop bleeding: they were slicing and draining the sebaceous cyst cyst on my back, but because a new doctor (the fairly cute one who looked at me with disgust last week when I asked if I could drink beer on Keflex) was doing the procedure, an older experienced lady watched and helped her, so I got to hear a descriptive play by play as they worked, including such phrases as "juicy" and "make that bigger or it will shoot pus like a geyser" and "I like to be a little more aggressive with the knife there" and "stick the needle in there more . . . now there and there and there, right on that line" and "pull that out with the forceps, I really want to cut a piece of that" and "now I'm going to squeeze that edema really hard" and, finally, "you were a really good sport."

3/4/2009

The one benefit I can see about getting old is-- simply through trial and error, time, and word of mouth-- we now know an honest contractor and an honest mechanic.

3/3/2009

Some days you think of something brilliant to write-- such as The Dog Hollerer-- and sometimes you've got to steal someone else's sentence . . . so here's on written by the essayist E.V. Lucas: "I have noticed that people who are late are often so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them."

A Gross Present

I share my birthday with a Cat named Seuss--
who, like all writers, liked his juice
as I like mine, fermented and sweet . . .
especially for a birthday treat--
but this year, instead of getting pissed
my present is a sebaceous cyst.

Very Specific Audience

If you're looking for a novel where the protagonist is a doctor in the witness protection plan because he was once a hit-man for the mob, and he desperately needs to fashion a weapon for an impending knife fight, so, with an exposed piece of metal in a locked freezer, he cuts open his own calf, then reaches through the tendons and muscle until he locates his fibula, and then snaps it off so he can use it as a makeshift blade, then Josh Bazell's Beat the Reaper is the book for you.

2/28/2009

Is every open field in Middlesex County covered with gooseshit?

2/27/2009

It must be really hard to be an unbiased and objective news reporter; case in point, how do you NOT inject some sarcasm into this story from The Week: "Orchard Park, N.Y. The founder of a television network devoted to improving the image of Muslims was charged this week with beheading his wife . . . Hassan founded the Bridges TV network to counter negative stereotypes about Muslims after the 9/11 attacks" -- so, does his network cover the story . . . if they do, it's certainly going to promote a negative stereotype, but if they ignore it, it's going to promote a different negative stereotype.

2/26/2009

So why is it that when you go to the doctor's office and they give you antibiotics for a sebaceous cyst (which is essentially a big pimple) and you ask if you can drink beer while you are taking antibiotics for this non-life threatening infected hair follicle thing that is essentially a big pimple, why is it that the doctor-- a woman younger than you who looks like a reasonable sort of girl-- looks at you as if you are a lunatic dipsomaniac and says (in a tone somewhere between shock and disgust) "It's only seven days, and you should never mix alcohol with antibiotics"?

2/25/2009

Apparently, Tiger Woods hasn't played golf for a year, but I didn't know this-- my brother actually claimed I was lying to him when I told him I wasn't aware that Tiger hadn't hit the links in a while and accused me of "living under a rock"-- so I'd like to offer an official apology to Tiger Woods (and give him a coveted photo-op on my blog) and I'd also like to say I'm sorry to all other athletes and celebrities that I have not paid enough attention to in the last year.

2/24/2009

I thought raising kids was hard enough, but now what do I say when they bring up the subject of marijuana use . . . you might end up like Michael Phelps . . . or the President . . . or even (gasp) Cheech and Chong! (maybe mentioning that Bill Clinton didn't inhale will set them straight).

2/23/2009

Saturday night Catherine and I went to a "reunion" of the Melody bar; Catherine wanted to see her old roommate, who often played music there and who invited her on Facebook-- but on the Facebook invitation it said that only those 36 and over would be admitted, which we thought was a joke, but when we got to the Elks, the old bouncer from the Melody was working the door (wearing a NASA suit and looking as dour as ever) and he checked our ID's and actually turned a fellow teacher away who was 35 3/4 years old, so he had to wander off to meet other people at Harvest Moon, but he didn't miss much-- it was hot and crowded inside, and although we talked to a few people and everyone looked half familiar (and scarily old)we were ready to go after an hour (you couldn't get a drink-- they had the old bartender from the Melody working, too, and he looked like he was about to have an aneurysm)-- Catherine got to see her roommate again, who looked exactly the same (except I think she got a nose-job, but I didn't ask)and once we got outside there was actually a giant line to get in, and luckily we saw the rest of the North Brunswick crowd we were supposed to meet (I think this is as close to a twenty year reunion as class of '88 is going to get)and pulled them out of line and went to Harvest Moon, and it was definitely fun to see everyone-- but I still don't understand how Harvest Moon has survived for so long, it's been making average to awful beer for a over decade now-- you think they'd either get better at making beer or go out of business, but it's always crowded.

The One Reason to Love February (Unless You Are a Ground Hog)

Sorry about yesterday's sentence about nothing-- today's will be about something far more concrete: money; February is my favorite month because I make more money per hour (due to the fact that the month is the shortest, yet my bi-weekly paycheck remains the same) though I suppose if I were an extremely dedicated teacher, I would try to cram in a little more learning each day in February so the taxpayers would get their money's worth.

2/21/2009 Bonus Video

2/21/2009

I'm trying something new, I'm starting this sentence with absolutely no idea, no topic, not a thought in my head, and I'm just going to roll with it and see where it goes, and hope some kernel of a thought, some nugget of consciousness, some crackle in my synapses sends a concrete subject to my mind which will then flows effortlessly into my fingers, to be typed for your entertainment and pleasure-- but if in the end, when all is said and done, the sentence says nothing at all, then still, there is this question: was this a waste of time for everyone involved, or something more significant?

Why Whisper When you Can Holler?

Last night, our next door neighbors went out for the evening and in the mad rush (they have five kids) they left their dog out and he was barking incessantly while Catherine and the kids were trying to fall asleep, so I opened the window and yelled "Colby, stop it!" and, unlike my children, he actually listened . . . so I'm thinking I could star in a TV show called The Dog Hollerer (and in addition, an hour later, when he started to yelp again, I opened our bathroom window to use my hollering skills once more, but he shut up at the sound of the window opening so I've definitely got some kind of special power here).

2/19/2009

My microwave oven was taking so long to melt the cheese on my tortilla chips (like 35 seconds!) that I had a snack while I was waiting for my snack: I was able to open a container of cashews and down a handful before my nachos were fully nuked.

I Think You'll Understand . . . I want to Read Your Sca-aaaan

A funny sentence from Daniel Levitin's This is Your Brain on Music-- a book that has as much technical neuroscience as it does music theory, Levitin was a session musician and record producer but now he runs the Laboratory for Musical Perception, Cognition, and Expertise at McGill University: "The research on the development of the first MRI scanners was performed by the British company EMI, financed in a large part from their profits on Beatles records . . . I Want to Hold Your Hand might well have been titled I Want to Scan Your Brain."

2/17/2009

Random recollection from the surreal time before children: Catherine left my alone for the day, but when she came home I was in the same spot as when she left nine hours earlier, but with greasier hair (I had hair then) because I discovered speed chess on the internet.

The Netherland of Unfinished Books

I gave up reading Netherland, a subtle novel about cricket and divorce in post 9-11 New York-- it was too subtle for me, perhaps someone can explain what it was all about and why it got such great reviews; instead, I read two easy books with very long titles, both of which I highly recommend for people who want something less subtle: 

1) Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar . . . Understanding Philosophy through Jokes, which delivers what it promises-- it's a great review of both the classic joke structures and the classic debates in philosophy (A sadist is a masochist who follows the Golden Rule) and 

2) The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston, imagine a darker, gorier, and less romanticized version of the world of Winston Wolf in Pulp Fiction, in fact, substitute a giant fat Asian for Harvey Keitel and set it in the sleazy side of Los Angeles, in a world where you actually have to use cleaning supplies to get rid of splattered brains, throw in a teacher with a past who is way out of his depth, and you're getting close.

2/15/2009

I recommend Transiberian if you want to watch a fast-paced thriller set in an exotic locale, plus it has one of those hysterical movie conventions where the hero suddenly and fortuitously uses what you thought was a random skill mentioned earlier in the story-- I won't ruin it, but it reminds me of when Benjamin Braddock (The Graduate) runs out of gas on the way to the wedding and has to hoof it to prevent the marriage of Mrs. Robinson's daughter Elaine to the med school guy-- but luckily, as was mentioned in the beginning of the movie-- he's a track star!

2/14/2009

My son Alex said that his friend's nanny died, and so I asked him if he told his friend he was sorry; Alex looked at me and said, "Why? I didn't do it."

2/13/2009

It made me happy that I put the drawer slides upside-down in our new TV stand, because I was forced to reach into the drawer recess and unscrew them, which gave me an opportunity to use the tiny flashlight at the end of my power screw-driver, something I just discovered (though we've had it for ten years) the other day by accident . . . and when the tiny light popped on because I hit the little switch I had never noticed before, I wondered: "When the hell am I ever going to need a tiny flash light at the end of my battery powered screwdriver?" and now I have answered my own question.