Miracles Happen to Me . . . Frequently

Lately, Dave has been blessed, as he has borne witness to myriad miracles, behold: I was teaching the start of Act IV of Hamlet, the section when Hamlet instructs the visiting players on how to act out the play he has written simulating the murder of his father . . . Hamlet tells the clowns not to "speak more than is set down for them," and he mentions some "villainous" players "that will themselves laugh," in order to get the audience to laugh along with them, but that in the meantime, necessary portions of the play are obscured and the actors do a poor job of imitating humanity . . . so before I read this section to my students, I do a bit of acting . . . first I complain of a sore throat-- sometimes I bum a throat lozenge from a student-- and then while I'm reading, I cough, clear my throat, and take a healthy swig from my water bottle and spill water all over my shirt, but I take Hamlet's advice and I don't acknowledge the mishap, I continue reading and-- though the students always laugh, I don't laugh with them-- instead I put the water bottle on my stool and continue the section and while I am questioning them about the meaning of Hamlet's advice, I stride past the stool and "accidentally" knock the water bottle off the stool, spilling water all over the carpet, and I after I pick up the bottle and place it on the stool a final time, then I trip and actually kick the stool over, water bottle and all-- and usually by this time some clever student figures out that I am illustrating the text . . . and to prove this, I show them that I have brought a spare shirt, so that I can do my performance in multiple classes (otherwise they would figure that I was just spastic, which is often true) and so this year, during second period, when I knocked the water bottle off the stool it landed upright . . . not a drop of water spilled, and since I was still in character, I simply picked it up, as if this miracle was an everyday occurrence, and put the bottle back on the stool, but then when I kicked the stool at the conclusion of my act, it slid out from beneath the water bottle, and once again, the water bottle dropped to the floor and landed perfectly upright, and by this time the class could have cared less about the textual demonstration and instead wanted to see more miracles, but I could not reproduce this feat for the rest of the day, which just goes to show that it was an occurrence of divine providence.

Midnight in Paris: Romantically Modern

Woody Allen's movie Midnight in Paris did the impossible-- it actually made me want to visit Paris-- he films the old architecture of the city so beautifully, in yellow saturated tones, that it would probably be impossible to find this Paris as a tourist . . . there is no urban sprawl or traffic or arrogant French people, but the theme of the film is paradoxical, as the moral of the story is that you should be happy in your own place and time, yet his portrayal of Paris in the 1920's is so romantic and magical . . . every scene is full of artistic celebrities-- Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein, Man Ray, Toklas, Picasso, Dali, Eliot-- and they are all friendly and they speak as if they themselves are their own works of art (Dali asks the time traveling Owen Wilson-- an ersatz Woody Allen-- if he likes "the shape of the rhinoceros") and though the moral is an apt one, as we all think some past reality is more creative and golden than our own, the problem with the movie is that Woody Allen's version of the '20's in Paris really does seem more exciting and wonderful than the present . . . maybe he needed to include some of T.S. Eliot's anti-Semitism or a bit more of the intractably ugly and inaccessible art of the time, or the feeling that this was a "Lost Generation" . . . or maybe someone should have simply died of strep throat . . . and one last thought on the reason that Owen Wilson finally decides to embrace his present: are all the tour guides and shop-keepers in Paris really that hot?

One Tiny Step For Dave . . . and Zero Significance for Mankind.

I'm seriously thinking about thinking seriously about purchasing a mini-van . . . no that's not true: I am thinking seriously about seriously thinking about the purchase of a mini-van (but not in the near future-- I was going to try to buy a van before Spring Break, but since we're only headed to the Catskills, I've figured out a way to stall the purchase-- we're going to drive both the Subaru and the Jeep to the cabin so we can bring everything and the kitchen sink . . . I've been shopping for a new car for over five years, and so I don't want to rush the process at the end . . . and now I'm far more excited about buying a new bike, anyway . . . especially since I could buy thirty new bikes for the price of one used Toyota mini-van).

Let's Take A Moment and Think Logically

So now that all the uproar over Daylight Saving Time is over, let pitch my plan to you-- and I will admit that when I first explained this plan to my students and colleagues, they laughed at me-- but now I know how to approach the matter in the proper manner, so please bear with me . . . I will begin by asking a few simple questions:

1) is this the age of computers?

and (of course) the answer is "yes"

2) what is 2 times 30?

and (of course) the answer is 60

3) were the children tired the Monday morning after Daylight Savings Time?

and (of course) the answer is "yes"-- so when I propose this I want you to think about the children, all the tired, bleary eyed children . . . the children who don't get enough sleep because they want to watch the Super Bowl, the children who have to stay up late on a Monday night to watch the NCAA Championship, these aggrieved children . . . and so here is my plan, my plan for these children: instead of "springing ahead" an hour all at once, we "spring ahead" two minutes a day for a month . . . computers take care of the time-shift, and if you miss a few days on clocks that need to be set manually, there's no real problem . . . and so you can make a difference in the life of a child, for the low cost of two minutes a day, a mere two minutes a day and you can save a child, just two minutes a day . . . think about it.

A Good Walk Spoiled (By My Dog's Anus)

My son Alex asked me if I could bring our dog Sirius when I picked him up from school on Tuesday, and of course I obliged him, as nothing is better for an eight year old boy than to be greeted by his loyal companion after a long day at school, and then we decided to hike over to "the secret path" and the sun was shining and the weather was warm and the day seemed idyllic-- a father, a son, and the family dog out for a walk on a beautiful day-- and once we got into the woods, Sirius crouched in order to defecate, which pleased me because it meant I could bury the poop under sticks and leaves and instead of having to scoop it up in a bag, but after pushing out a few clumps, Sirius couldn't seem to bring his business to an end . . . an oblong chunk of poop wouldn't dislodge itself from beneath his stumpy tail, and Alex and I decided that we needed to help him-- so Alex held him still and I scraped at the offending piece with a stick, but no luck, this was one stubborn piece of poop . . . and Sirius was doing his best as well, occasionally crouching and shaking, but this didn't work either, so Alex pulled up his little tail and I went at the poop with some leaves, but that didn't work either, and at this point we certainly had poop on our hands and there were little specks of it on his coat, and then I spied a crumpled napkin on the forest floor and grabbed that (without thinking: for what was this napkin used before it was tossed on the ground?) but the napkin didn't dislodge the poop either, and so Alex and I gave up and decided we would take him to the dog park and let him run around, as we were certain the poop would come loose then, but after a couple laps around the dog park, the poop was still there, and so I decided to take matters into my own hands-- literally-- I took one of the bags from the gratis poop-bag dispenser and put my hand inside it, to use it like a glove, and then I got right up in there . . . and as I felt the consistency of the thing protruding from my dogs anus, I had an epiphany: two days before Sirius tore up a mitten and ate some of the stuffing inside it, stuffing that was long and stringy and white, and about an inch of this stuffing was sticking out of my dog's butt-hole-- covered in fecal matter-- and that's why it wasn't going any where, because the rest of the strand was inside my dog's colon, and I realized that it was my job, as the master of the dog, to pull out the remainder of the stuffing, which I did, and it came out rather easily, as it was lubricated by fecal matter: a six inch piece of stuffing, and-- as I'm sure you've guessed-- it was no longer white.

Don't Beat Yourself Up . . . Blame It On Daylight Saving Time

Note to self: coupons don't work unless you take them out of your pocket and actually hand them to the cashier (and, of course, I made this mistake on Monday, the day after we all "sprung ahead," and so I am suing Daylight Saving Time for my financial loss . . . as there is some evidence that the hour time shift is to blame for just about everything iniquitous in the universe).

An Unworthy Cause

I know there are worthier causes to devote my time to-- people around the world are starving and oppressed; the ice caps are melting; the rain forest is disappearing; and we haven't cured all the diseases that ail us-- but those things are too abstract for me to ponder . . . I prefer to protest things that affect me more directly, such as the ridiculous nuisance that we call Daylight Saving Time, which I consider further confirmation that we have no control over our modern lives . . . just as I'm getting a grip on my morning schedule (with the help of a chart made by my wife and the fact that there is finally some sunlight at 6:30 AM) I am thrust back into darkness, and for no logical reason-- simply because of a government dictum-- and so I am suggesting that we "take back our hour" and so, for the next Daylight Saving Time, in protest, I am advising you to NOT abide by the change-- show up at work at the correct time, don't set your clocks, don't lose an hour's sleep . . . TAKE BACK YOUR HOUR! TAKE BACK YOUR HOUR! . . . it's catchy to chant and it's a protest that probably won't involve tear gas, rubber bullets, or being hosed down by the authorities.

I am an Idiot, My Wife is a Saint

Friday, as I was pulling into the school parking lot, I felt my cell phone buzz and I instantly remembered what I had neglected to do . . . and then my phone started ringing and I realized that I wasn't going to escape this transgression with a mere text . . . my wife was going to talk to me about this, and so I accepted my guilt, accepted the call, and braced myself for the oncoming tirade . . . "What is wrong with you?" she began and I immediately started apologizing, because there was no excuse-- for the third time in two weeks, I had driven the wrong car to work-- we were trying to take my Jeep to the shop to get the brake lights fixed, but every time she made an appointment (and you need an appointment because our mechanic is so good) I forgot to drive the Subaru to work and instead took the very car that my wife needed to drop off at the garage . . . forcing her to call our mechanic and report to him that her husband was a complete idiot and she would need to reschedule . . . so this time she wasn't going to do that, and so she devised a plan whereby I would drive the car to her school and we would swap cars and I would be able to do this because I had a half day of classes and my parent conference schedule was light in the afternoon-- but there was only one problem, which I explained to her: "The only problem is that I'm supposed to go to lunch with Terry . . . if I drive all the way over there then he won't have anyone to go out to lunch with," and right after I explained the "problem" I realized that it wasn't really a "problem," and more just my concern with eating, but it was too late and so I braced myself once again for a deserved angry rejoinder: "I think it's more important that you get the brake lights fixed on the car that you drive both your children around in, rather than get a slice of pizza with Terry!" and I couldn't agree more and told my wife that I would meet her, and then went into the school and while I was summarizing this book in the English office, and explaining how I was in a System 1 mood, because my wife made me a chart for what I had to accomplish in the mornings (the kids have a chart and I have a chart, and my wife is on the chart, but I don't actually think she needs the chart) and I was very happy that I completed my Friday morning duty (walk the dog) and so I blithely walked out the door and hopped into my car, not thinking that I wasn't supposed to drive my car, and went straight to work . . . and while I was summarizing System 1 and System 2 to a colleague, my phone rang again and my wife told me that she was driving to my school right then, to swap the cars, so that I wouldn't have to drive all over during my lunch, and while I was extraordinarily happy that I was going to be able to have lunch with Terry, I also realized that it might be my last meal on earth and immediately decided that I would send my wife some flowers or perhaps place them in her car at work . . . but then I couldn't even get credit for that, as while I was recounting this story to my first period class, I felt another text arrive on my phone and it was from my wife and it said, "You better send me flowers" and the text also included her school address and the name and phone number of our local flower place, so not only did I know she was serious, but also that she thought I was an incapable idiot . . . but I managed to successfully send the flowers and I have smoothed things over . . . for now.

If You're Going Shopping, It's Best To be Angry

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman shares a wealth of evidence that our intuition works better when we are in a good mood-- we are more creative but also more gullible . . . and he calls this System 1, but if you're going to do something analytic, and you have to consider several positions or the pros and cons of something, then this is called System 2, and to activate System 2, it is better if you are sad or vigilant or suspicious (or perhaps all three, although you might not be much fun to be around) and Kahneman summarizes this by explaining that "a happy mood loosens the control of System 2 over performance: when in a good mood, people become more intuitive and more creative but also less vigilant and more prone to logical errors," and this explains a lot to me; as now I can see why I was in such an ugly mood when I was doing all the shopping around for a new mortgage-- playing one broker off another, crunching numbers, comparing points versus rates, etc.-- and why I'm in such a good mood when I play soccer, which is all intuition, creativity, and spontaneous reaction.

Milestone (From An Outside Perspective)

The other day I went skiing with my two sons, who are six and eight, and it was the first time I took them without the help of my wife, and it was the first time that they didn't take a lesson or even warm-up on the bunny slope; instead, the three of us got on the quad lift, went to the top of the mountain, and all made our way down without incident-- and we did this over and over for four and half hours with only brief breaks for snacks-- and for all intents and purposes the day was a success . . . to an outsider on the mountain it must have appeared as an idyllic boy's day out (aside from one crash getting off the lift, Ian cut me off) and while I do think this was a banner day, I should still warn you people with younger kids who can't wait until they are old enough to keep up with you on the slopes that behind the scenes there is still a lot of grunt work . . . I was on my stomach in the lodge, underneath the table buckling ski boots because their little fingers weren't strong enough, and they still forgot to put on their hat and gloves and they couldn't carry their gear all the way across the parking yet and I had to pull them up hills because they don't give little kids ski poles, and dragging two kids while snowboarding is exhausting, so-- by the end of the day-- I was even more worn out than they were, but I had to drive home while they slept . . . some day it's going to be the other way around.

Ill-Suited Adjective

The marketing department at Herr's needs to have a stern word with the advertising genius who decided to add the adjective Creamy-- written in florid script-- in front of their "Dill Pickle" flavored chips; there are literal problems, of course, as pickles can be "zesty" or "crunchy," but they should never be the consistency of cream . . . and I'd love to analyze the connotations of the phrase "creamy dill pickle," but this is a family friendly blog, so I'll leave the symbolic interpretations to your collectively perverse imaginations . . . the only possible explanation for this filthy and unappetizing moniker is that Herr's is trying to acquire market dominance in the pregnant demographic.

A Bad Choice Followed By A Good Choice

I made a bad when choice when I ate the entire bag of All Natural Kettle Style Sweet Potato Chips in a fit of gluttony after work on Tuesday, not thinking that might my wife might have wanted some of these chips, but when my wife was chastising me for eating all the aforementioned chips, I made a good choice and did not complain to her about my stomachache (which was caused by eating all the chips) because I knew she would not have had any sympathy for me, and in fact, might have gotten even angrier when she realized that, though I was full, I kept eating the chips just because they were there.

Dead Letter Etiquette

What is the requisite length of time you should keep a card? . . . birthday, Christmas, or otherwise . . . and does it matter who gave you the card? does it matter that you're not going to read it again? does it matter if it has a picture of someone's family on it? . . . I believe that this story makes a case for keeping personal correspondence for a great length of time and for destroying it immediately . . . but I feel like I stash holiday cards in a basket for what I consider to be some arbitrarily polite length of time, and then I finally toss them, because some part of me feels like it would be rude to just read them, look at the picture, and then immediately chuck them in the trash . . . stupid card industry causing me more grief.

More Stuff High School Kids Wouldn't Like

Every three years the teachers at my school put on a "Faculty Follies," and though I participated my first year teaching (I played the harmonica and begged for money in a faculty room skit) this made me realize that the theater isn't for me-- I get too nervous and I don't enjoy being on stage-- but last faculty follies I did submit a brilliant idea for a comedy sketch, knowing full well it would be rejected . . . here is the sequence of events:

1) I begin by juggling three balls (I can juggle)
2) I do several basic juggling tricks-- under the leg, over the shoulder, etc.
3) my two beautiful assistants walk out on stage, one wheeling a unicycle and the other with three long-handled axes,
4) I take the axes and heft one of them, testing the weight,
5) I motion for my beautiful assistant to wheel over the unicycle
6) I lean two of the axes against the unicycle and hold the other by the handle
7) the tension builds as I prepare to mount the unicycle
8) instead I smash the unicycle to bits with the axe, take a deep bow, and walk off the stage

and I submitted the form with this description, but never heard back from the organizers, so this year, though I have another brilliant sketch idea, I'm not even going to submit the form: this was a collaborative effort inspired by my colleague Rachel, who was having a very hard time peeling an orange, and it goes like this:

1) Rachel, dressed in black, sits at a table and struggles to peel an orange . . .
2) meanwhile, the PA is blasting Wagner's Flight of the Valkyries . . .
3) Rachel finally peels the orange and then tosses the fruit over her shoulder,
4) she takes a large bite of the peel, makes a disgusted face, and walks off the stage,
5) the orange remains on stage for several skits,
6) Rachel reappears, having trouble peeling a banana . . .
7) she finally succeeds and this time eats the fruit,
8) she tosses the banana peel near the orange and exits,
9)  several minutes later, Eric comes on stage
10) instead of slipping on the banana peel, he slips on the orange,
11) Rachel and Eric bow . . .

this would be a magnificent piece of theater, but I am afraid the humor might be lost on the students.

Sometimes You Need to State the Obvious

I went to a Wizards game Saturday night and Gheorghe Muresan made an appearance in our suite: he is tall, very tall.

If You Like Pina Coladas and Making Love to Yourself

In my creative class, we listened to Allen Ginsberg read a poem called "Personals Ad," and many of the students had never heard of a "personal ad," as they are of the Match.com generation, and this led to me summarizing the plot of "Escape," by Rupert Holmes-- you might refer to this as "The Pina Colada Song" and you know the story: a guy who is "tired of his lady" reads a personal ad in the newspaper that describes his perfect match-- a woman who loves "Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain"-- and so he organizes a rendezvous with this lady at a "bar called O'Malley's" where they can plan their escape; so I set all this up and lead them to the dramatic moment in the song and then I asked them: "Guess who he finds in the bar?" and a student who was either only half listening or only had "half a brain" yelled out "Himself"-- an answer which made us laugh, but also an answer that does make sense in a weird way-- and this led to us creating a revision of the song, where instead of reuniting with his lady, the narrator of the song instead meets a cloned version of himself-- perhaps a mad scientist stole his DNA when he was an infant-- and this is what the narrator yearned for all his life: to date himself . . . and then his lady eventually runs into him, and he is hooking up with a cloned version of himself and he is very happy about it, and she is completely disgusted with his vanity and rather bizarre and incestuous behavior . . . Rupert Holmes hasn't had a hit in a while, so perhaps he can record this version.

High School Kids Don't Care About This

Daniel Kahneman's new book Thinking, Fast and Slow, describes and contrasts two "systems" in our brains-- fast thinking and intuitive System 1 and deliberate, tedious, and often lazy System 2-- and he describes his comprehensive research and experimentation observing how System 1 (though brilliant at detecting emotions, recognizing objects, and jumping to fairly accurate conclusions) often screws up our System 2 thinking . . . and I found this example at the start of "Chapter 10: The Law of Small Numbers" both fascinating and indicative: Kahneman explains that the lowest incidence of kidney cancer in the United States is found in counties that are "mostly rural, sparsely populated, and located in traditionally Republican states in the Midwest, the South, and the West" and then he asks you what you make of this information . . . perhaps you speculate that people are exposed to less pollution in these places or lead healthier lifestyles or do more physical work . . . but then he reveals something paradoxical: the highest incidence of kidney cancer in the United States is found in "mostly rural, sparsely populated, traditionally Republican states in the Midwest, the South, and the West" and he asks you to make sense of this conflicting data . . . and perhaps your mind can resolve this-- maybe it has to do with poverty, or tobacco use, or access to poor medical care-- and so both these populations exist in the same regions, but the fact of the matter is that there is no causal reason why this is so-- the reason is purely statistical, and the important part of the statement is "sparsely populated"-- when you have smaller numbers there is a greater chance for statistical anomaly . . . I have a better chance of picking two students at random that both have blue eyes then I do having an entire class of thirty that all have blue eyes-- the two person sample is too small to indicate anything-- and so the only reason that the highest and lowest incidence of cancer occurs in the same type of county, demographically, is that these counties tend to have less people than other regions; this logical fallacy is common, the Gates Foundation determined that smaller schools are often more successful and invested substantial funds in creating small schools, sometimes even breaking large schools into smaller units, but what they neglected to realize is that small schools are often the most successful and they are also often the least successful . . . because their smaller populations are more likely to vary statistically; I found this idea compelling enough to explain to several of my classes, and I made a discovery of my own: high school kids DO NOT find this interesting at all . . . they don't want to guess why the incidence of kidney cancer is low, they don't want to guess why it is high, they don't want to speculate on the nature of the paradox, and they are certainly not excited to find out that there is NO causal reason for it.

A Number of Universal Significance

Today is the day,

I turn forty-two--

the meaning of life

but according to who?

and if you know,

I'm willing to bet

that you have read

all the books in the set--

you know that the dolphins

had such simple wishes,

they just wanted to say

thanks for the fishes.

Glad I'm a Dad

Dads talk about what they did with their kids, while moms talk about what they neglected to do.

Teacher of the Year

Sometimes being a great teacher is about what you DON'T do . . . the other morning I was using my guitar to illustrate how form often overpowers content . . . I played my creative writing students "Delia's Gone" by Johnny Cash, which is upbeat and kind of fun, though it is about murder, adultery, and revenge, and I also played "Goodbye Earl" by the Dixie Chicks-- another song that is catchy and cute, despite the fact that it is about poisoning an abusive husband, wrapping him in a tarp, and tossing him into a lake-- and then I was about to launch into "Last Kiss," a sixties song about a fatal car crash with a catchy chorus that was famously covered by Pearl Jam . . . I have fond memories of all the high school girls on the Spotswood soccer team joyously singing this tragic song on a bus ride home, smiling and laughing as they hollered the description of the car accident that kills the narrator's girlfriend, but not before he is able to give her one "last kiss" as she fades into the hereafter . . . but then I remembered that one of my students recently lost her boyfriend in a car crash, and-- miraculously-- I remembered this before I played the song . . . and so I actually averted an awkward moment instead of producing one, and for this amazing decision, I think I should win Teacher of the Year.

Exercise Your Right To Plagiarize . . . or Plagiarize Your Right To Exercise?

I often see people doing interesting exercises at the gym-- sometimes with weights, sometimes on the mats, sometimes with unusual equipment, such as medicine balls or rope attachments, and sometimes with the machines and contraptions that I never use-- and whenever I see someone doing an exercise that I've never done before, I have the urge to immediately attempt it, before I forget all about it and go back to my normal routine, but I feel weird about stealing someone's "move" right in front of them, so I always wait until they are out of sight before I copy what they were doing . . . should I feel weird about this?-- about stealing an exercise?-- I probably shouldn't because it's not actually "stealing," as you can't copyright an exercise move . . . or can you?

A Question for Counsel

On Friday afternoon, my son Alex-- who is almost eight years old and fully literate, and who has been warned many times not to play with food-- brandished a sleeve of Go-Gurt brand yogurt snack over his head and yelled "LIGHT SABER!" and then he swung the aforementioned sleeve of Go-Gurt down in the manner of a Jedi Knight using a light saber, but the tip of the sleeve of Go-Gurt caught the counter-top, and blue Go-Gurt splattered all over both the kitchen floor and all over everything else in the kitchen (including Alex and myself) and I am wondering what legal recourse I can take in this matter . . . i.e. what is the maximum punishment I can exact and still be within the letter of the law . . . for example: could I liquidate Alex's college fund and use it to buy a vintage guitar? could I abrogate his snacking privileges for life? could I appropriate his birthday swim party as my own and invite fifteen of my friends to splash in the pool and eat pizza?-- those of you familiar with the law, I thank you in advance for your advice (and I should also point out that the kitchen floor was recently swept and mopped).

Yikes

Last Wednesday, I drove all the way from New Brunswick to Highland Park with my car door open . . . this is partly because my Jeep is so loud and porous that it doesn't sound any different if the door is open or closed, and partly because whenever I get any time alone, I recede deeply into my thoughts . . . and I must have noticed something odd, but when I looked over my left shoulder to see if the window was open on the driver side passenger door, because I didn't see a half-open window, I assumed that it was closed, but in reality, I was actually looking at air and thinking it was a closed window, and so I drove right across the Albany Street Bridge with my door jutting out at a 45 degree angle-- as Jeep doors lock into place at this angle-- and it's something of a miracle that the door didn't strike another car, as the bridge is narrow (although I guess people were giving me a wide berth as they thought I was insane, and now I know why that guy beeped at me . . . I thought he was an asshole).

Serpentine!

I am teaching my dog Sirius to heel-- which essentially means that he needs to stay on my left side with his front legs even with me and he needs to adjust his gait to my movements-- and Sirius, although very good-natured, is also fast and athletic, so it's easy for him to get ahead on the leash, but I have been reading a lot of dog training books and one of the methods to get your dog to pay attention is to frequently change direction, which is what I have been doing-- I execute a left turn, then a right turn, walk to a tree, walk to another one, walk in a square, walk in a circle, go forward, go backward, etc.-- and I am sure everyone in the park thinks I am a lunatic who likes to torture his dog, especially when I'm executing the "serpentine," but I just channel Peter Falk and Alan Arkin from The In-Laws for inspiration.

Dave Invents Keyboard Therapy!

I am having trouble expressing how angry I am with words fit to print on a family-friendly blog, and I don't want to resort to kicking my dog, beating my children, or taking an axe to my computer to dispel these feelings, so, in order to convey my outrage at McAfee's policy of automatically renewing one's anti-virus subscription (despite the fact that I don't own a PC nor have I used McAfee anti-virus for four years . . . and I realize this is my fault, but the automatic renewal e-mails all got sent to spam and so I never noticed I was being charged until now) and also to convey my general outrage of living in a digital society that makes me feel detached and alienated from all financial processes, in order to convey all this ire without the use of four letter words or random violence, I am going to pound on this keyboard for a few seconds and let the pounded jumble of letters and numbers signify my emotions towards McAfee, my own incompetence, and the society we live in: " hio;efg3 RQ \M=we ra NI]0- 4 4T U]9- fq I0-  Y89PWE TA BY89PSE  BY89PS RGA8N]0-6J=U90  - RTWE 4TAWE TAI]0 NI]0- RG ]90 Isrg I]0-E G NI]0-we r90W 4T B89-  MI]0- RN890we rq \,= WERQCBFNU90N94E YU90 RYUIO[NI0RA0NU=90" and now, hopefully, I will be able to go on with my day in an even-keeled manner; Serenity now!

Sometimes It's Best To Keep Quiet

So on Monday, my wife and I took separate cars to the LA Fitness because I had to leave before her, and while I was walking across the parking lot, I overheard a little girl talking to her mother about what went on in the Kid's Club that morning . . . and my children were still in the Kid's Club, waiting for my wife to finish her spinning class and retrieve them-- so neither the little girl nor the mom recognized me-- and the girl said to her mom: "Ian head butted me" and that is my son's name, and the mom asked the girl, "Who's Ian?" and she replied, "Alex's younger brother . . . Alex was choking him and they got in trouble-- I told the lady," and for a brief second I thought about apologizing to this little girl for the atrocious behavior of my children, but I only entertained this for a second, and then I got into my car and made a clean escape (although I did question my children about it later, and Ian said he ran into the girl with his head by mistake while they were running around).

Your Secret is NOT Safe With Me

This is a long one, but if you're a fan of awkward moments and bad decisions, then it might be worth your time: once we finish Act II of Hamlet, I have my students rate the artistic, practical, and ethical nature of the various schemes in the play, and we discuss how Polonius forces his daughter Ophelia to turn over Hamlet's love letters, so he can read them to the king, and I always provide a real example-- for educational purposes, of course-- and ask them if this sort of behavior is ethical, to take someone's private, romantic writing and make it public . . . unfortunately, my example involves my friend Kevin, who teaches next door (and we are only separated by a thin, temporary accordion wall with an foldable opening, so we often pop in and out of each others classrooms through this "secret" entrance) and he was kind enough to sit in my class while I told my students this "case study" last week: so here it is . . . once upon a time, many years ago, before I was married, a "small world" coincidence occurred-- I met my wife on the streets of New Brunswick outside The Corner Tavern Bar, and I was with my childhood friend Rob, and Catherine-- my future wife-- was with her good friend Tammy and-- wildly-- eight years later Rob and I ended up married to these two lucky girls . . . and if we had walked out of the bar moments earlier or or stayed for last call, then we would have never met our future spouses . . . so after several years of dating Catherine and Tammy, we learned-- another weird coincidence-- that my long-time friend and colleague Kevin (who teaches next door to me) dated Tammy-- Rob's future wife-- in high school, when Tammy was a freshman and Kevin was a senior, AND-- miraculously-- Tammy had kept all the notes and correspondence that anyone had ever sent her in high school in a shoe-box . . . in other words, she had love notes that my friend Kevin wrote in high school-- which was the greatest news ever-- BUT, she wouldn't actually cede the notes to me because she knew I would use them for nefarious purposes (perhaps photo-copy them and give them to Kevin's students) so Tammy just gave me a quick glimpse and then hid them, but I was able to ascertain one fantastic piece of information: he signed all his love notes to Tammy "TTFN" (Ta Ta For Now) and so when I finish telling the students the story, I reveal his "signature" valediction and they laugh and laugh and scream it through the thin wall at him and taunt him with the information whenever they get the chance, causing him much embarrassment (although he's used to it by now-- since I do it every year-- and I think he actually enjoys the whole charade, which is why he sat in my class last week while I told the story . . . so he could face the "Ta Ta For Now" taunts head on) and then I remind the students that this was an educational case and I ask them if it was ethical for Tammy to let me see the letters, and if it was ethical for me to tell them the story, and then we compare the case to Hamlet and everyone is happy except Kevin-- but he knows the deal, which is that I will pretty much use any example that connects in my class to prove a point, but, unfortunately, not everyone knows this and my big mouth can lead to some awkward situations, such as last Tuesday, when I was explaining to my Creative Writing class how I am often a terribly illogical arguer and that I often make points that are rhetorically powerful but lack substance, I told them the breast milk example from the other day, and the fact that I shared this rather personal story found its way back to Rachel, the woman who tasted her own green-tinted breast milk, and she was NOT happy with me using that example because her students mentioned it in class and it made her truly embarrassed and red-faced . . . so there's a lot for me to learn here and I think I've learned it, but in case I haven't learned it, please remember: your secret is NOT safe with me.

Fecal Paradox

Due to lack of snow, the Canadian geese never left the park by my house this winter, and so the fields and paths are a shit-stained mess, except-- ironically-- the dog park, which has the only clean grass in the vicinity.

Polar Plunge 2012: Time to "Mose Up"

I have reported before on my wife's tendency to mix metaphors-- and she's been in rare form lately, creating new idioms such as shit in the wall (a mixture of "hole in the wall" and "shithole") and screw yourself into a corner ("paint yourself into a corner" and "screw up") but my favorite is the one she used at this year's Polar Plunge . . . she said that next year everyone has to "Mose up," combining the phrase "man up" with my buddy Dave's nickname "Mose," as Mose was the clear victor of the Polar Plunge again: last year he plunged three times and this year we thought we lost him in the crowd, only to find him swimming around in the frigid ocean . . . he was probably in the water for close to ten minutes, and when he finally emerged from the water-- surprise!-- he was wearing a Speedo, which he hid under a long pair of bathing trunks until moments before the mayhem, so that none of our group saw his outfit until he came out of the water . . . and as he strode out of the sea, pale and red-skinned, we rushed over to get pictures with him and found it difficult as he was painfully cold to the touch, so the bar has been set once again and next year we are all going to have to "mose up," and if my prose wasn't enough for you, scroll down for a special event on Sentence of Dave that we like to call The Sequence of Mose.

Attention Lorne Michaels: Free Comedy Sketch!

My friend Igor wrote a scathing critique of The Grammys the other day, and it gave me an idea for a gut-bustingly funny comedy sketch . . . here's my pitch: you have a bunch of grandmothers-- a.k.a. the grammys-- discussing the biggest hits of the year, rapping hip-hop lyrics, trying to sing Adele a capella, and then ultimately deciding who winds the awards-- somehow these women, these antediluvian grammys, like the Greek Fates, have all the power in the industry . . . I'm chuckling already, thinking about old ladies breaking, locking, and popping to "Watch the Throne."

What Do Todd Margaret And Tommy Saxondale Have in Common?

The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret is another TV program that belongs in the "Dave Thinks It's Hysterical But His Wife Thinks It's Too Silly" category, along with Saxondale and The Alan Partridge Show.

Would This Happen If I Were Driving A Mini-Van?

Someday I'm going to man-up and buy a new car-- most likely a mini-van-- and although it will be convenient and wonderful to have sliding doors, a cup-holder, heat, A/C, doors that lock, and other modern features, I'll miss the things you can't buy in a car: case in point, the other day I was walking out of the public library with my new books, and I was thinking about a million things and not paying very close attention to my surroundings and when I pulled on the door handle of my Jeep, I was surprised to find it locked-- and I rarely lock it because I don't have power locks-- so I pulled a bit harder, and then I was even more surprised when a face appeared in the window; after a moment it dawned on me-- this wasn't my Jeep! it was an identical 1993 forest green Jeep Cherokee with the same rust marks and peeling plastic trim, and so I shrugged my shoulders and gave my best "I'm not a lunatic smile" and pointed to my Jeep, which was parked next to the doppelganger Jeep and the guy inside, an older African American gent, followed my muted logic and laughed as well . . . two days later, I parked next to him again, and he rolled down his window and introduced himself to me-- his name is Bill and his Jeep has 187,000 miles on it and his wife had one that got 380,000 miles before she got into an accident on Industrial Avenue and since the mistaken identity incident we've talked several times as he's always reading in his car in the library parking lot (which is a bit odd, but maybe he's so attached to his Jeep that he prefers to sit inside his car rather than sit inside the library) and I doubt that anything like this will happen once I purchase a Toyota Sienna.

One of the Benefits of Growing Old

Twenty years from now, my only hope is that people will refer to me as a "character" instead of an "idiot."

This Is Why I Don't Drink Milk or Argue With Women

The other day in the English office, my friend and colleague Rachel claimed that her breast milk "turned green" when she ate a lot of salad, but I was skeptical and told her that she must have been hallucinating-- but I guess I don't know much about breastfeeding (and I have no problem admitting this) and so I did some research on-line and certain foods-- especially yellow and orange foods loaded with carotene-- can tint breast milk; Rachel has also tasted her own breast milk, which I find extremely gross, and when I tried to express this she countered with a very rational remark: "I taste everything my child eats," and that gave me time to process and NOT say what I was going to say next, which was, "Well, I don't drink my own urine," which doesn't make a lick of sense, but momentarily seemed like a powerful rhetorical flourish to my argument.

Christmas Serenity . . . for Now

Though I loved this particular piece of anti-Xmas art, I am proud to say that I had no annual Christmas melt-down this year-- I may have ranted a bit to my students about wrapping paper, but that was just to bait them into discussing consumerism and American culture-- but I delivered no full out angry anti-Christmas monologue to family members or colleagues, so either I am mellowing out or things are building to a head behind my calm exterior and we are going to have a "serenity now" scenario soon (on the other hand, I do readily admit that I despise Valentine's Day, especially the whole kids being forced to give every single classmate a Valentine thing-- the card industry is "training" them to be guilt-ridden materialists and we're all encouraging it).

Six of One, 3.85 Fixed Rate APR of the Other . . .

Though the result is essentially the same, I think I'd rather rob my bank rather than go through the hassle of refinancing my mortgage.

Does A.D. Mean Alcohol Dependent?

And without the discovery of fermentation, would we have already conquered the stars?

Does B.C. Mean Before Caffeine?

Without the benefits of coffee, would mankind still be in the dark ages?

Alan Moore: Predictable and Amusing (Just Like Me)

DC Comics is planning to release a seven comic book mini-series prequel to the unparalleled comic masterpiece Watchmen, and (according to The New York Times) creator Alan Moore is-- you guessed it!-- outraged and calls the new venture "completely shameless" and the article reports on Moore's typical pompous grouchiness, and explains that he has "completely disassociated himself from DC comics and the industry at large," and this sounds like a lot of fun-- to completely disassociate oneself from something, so here are a few things that I am now involved in that I plan to completely and indignantly disassociate myself from in the future:

1)  doing the dishes
2)  picking up dog poop
3)  tying my children's shoes
4)  wearing underwear
5)  flossing
6)  blogging
7)  canker sores
8)  Boardwalk Empire
9)  driving
10) Canada.

Sometimes You Need To Take Yourself For A Walk

I am browsing through Cesar's Way: The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems, which is written by Cesar Milan-- the "dog whisperer" himself (no relation to the slightly lesser known "dog hollerer") and Cesar believes that walking your dog is the "single most powerful tool" to connect with your dog's mind, as "fish need to swim, birds need to fly . . . and dogs need to walk," and I think this might be true for humans as well, but the difference is that humans don't need to walk in a pack-- obediently following the pack leader-- humans need to walk themselves . . . we occasionally need to be alone and moving with complete autonomy-- I think this taps into our hunter-gatherer roots . . . perhaps it's why women like to go shopping; I certainly walk to relieve stress and my friend Whitney recently reminded me of a perfect example of how well this works: several years ago Whitney and I drove from Virginia to Colorado for a wedding, and we were supposed to get a good night's sleep and start the drive bright and early, but instead we stayed up until three in the morning drinking beer and playing darts, and then we spent twenty-two hung-over hours in the car together, and when we arrived at our destination in Boulder and parked the car, we had a brief argument about the best way to walk downtown-- where we were meeting a friend-- but the argument was more about being in the car too long with each other, and so, without any formal good-bye, we simply parted ways, and I took the high road and Whitney took the low road, and twenty minutes later, we met at the bar (I think Whitney got there first, but we actually didn't speak of our separation or the argument until hours later) and after each of us had our "walk," we were able to tolerate each other again . . . and even cooperate with each other: we bought a wiffle-ball and bat and when we crossed the continental divide, we took turn pitching to each other in a very civilized fashion until Whitney hit one over the edge of the continent: the ball plummeted over a cliff and onto a snowbank and we were quite pleased with ourselves-- but then, to our surprise, some high school kids clambered down the cliff and formed a human chain and "rescued" the ball and returned it to us, so we had to hit it off the divide again.

Dave's Favorite Story About Dave

Other readers have shared their Favorite Stories about Dave, and most have these have been in the Awkward Moments of Dave genre, but I would like to tell my favorite story about Dave, and it's not awkward at all, in fact-- believe it or not-- I am the clever hero of the story, in the tradition of cunning tricksters like Odysseus, Loki, and Br'er Rabbit, but don't worry, this theme won't be a recurring feature because it never happened again, so enjoy the one time I came through in the clutch: several years ago, when my two boys were quite young-- just able to walk and talk-- and we took a trip to the Newark Museum, which has a mini-zoo, art galleries, a fire museum, and a natural history section . . . and we were walking from the mini-zoo to the elevators, and the only way was through the art galleries, and so I was making the best of it, pointing out things my kids could recognize in the paintings, boats and cars and colors; the museum was empty-- a ghost town-- and so the guards, who were probably bored out of their minds, started chasing Alex and Ian around a bit, which my kids loved . . . Ian went one way and  Alex ran the other, and I chased Ian because he was younger and then I heard BEEP BEEP BEEP from the room next door and when I got in there, I saw Alex touching a large painting, and this had triggered the alarm system-- so I told him you couldn't touch the paintings and apologized to the guards, but they weren't upset at him, of course, since they had instigated the running around, and when we finally got to the elevators, there was a post-modern sculpture next to the doors-- it was an intimidating pile of seven or eight televisions, and the top and bottom screens showed a silver Buddha head floating on the ocean, being buffeted by the waves, and all the screens in the middle showed the same rotating Buddha head, but each screen was tinted a different color-- red, green, blue, yellow, purple-- and right next to the tower of TV's was a video camera and a rotating Buddha head-- the same Buddha head that was on all the TV screens-- and so I wondered if the camera was actually filming the head and sending a live-feed to the televisions, or if they were just playing a loop of film, so-- naturally-- I stuck my hand in front of the camera (I also wanted to see if my hand would appear in a different color on each screen) and I was rewarded with both the image of my hand on every screen and the BEEP BEEP BEEP of the alarm-- like a child, I had set off the system, but when the guard jogged in to check out why the alarm was going off, I pointed to my son Alex and said, "Alex, I told you, you can't touch anything here-- it's a museum!" and then we got into the elevator and made a clean getaway; this is the only time in my life I was able to think on my feet and say the right thing at the right time, and-- even though I threw my eldest child under the bus-- it felt wonderful.

Dog Thought #2

They say you have to bond with a new dog, so that it feels like part of your family, and-- as everyone knows-- the best way to bond is to have something in common . . . luckily, Sirius and I do have a common thread: parasitic worms (and you'd think since I once had some of these critters living in my intestines, I would have been less grossed-out when I "discovered" them in his stool, but they were still wriggling, nearly causing me to faint in the park).

Even Hamlet Can't Compete With a Giant Wasp

Like most teachers, I get very wound up and excited when I start Hamlet -- it's the ultimate piece of literature, totally engaging and entertaining, and full of comedy, tragedy, controversy, ambiguity, and supernatural fun -- but no matter how exciting the opening scene is, from the initial "Who's there?" to the ghost's entrance, it can't compete with a giant wasp, but that's been the recurring situation for the past few days, I start a lesson and then a wasp appears . . . I think there might be a nest somewhere in my ceiling . . . and once a wasp is hovering around, there's only one thing for students to look at , and it's not their Shakespeare text, and so the wasp must be killed, and one period that got pretty ugly-- I was smashing a stool into the ceiling tiles at one point-- but later in the day, when another giant wasp appeared in a different class, instead of killing the wasp-- which was time-consuming and distracting-- I incorporated it into the scene: I was playing the role of the Hamlet's scholarly friend, Horatio, who is enlisted to speak to the ghost, and so I made the wasp play the ghost and I yelled my lines at it "Stay, illusion! If thou hast any sound, or use of voice, speak to me!" and this seemed to appease it, so maybe it's not a living wasp at all, but the ghost of a giant wasp that I killed in the past.

Dog Thought #1

One of the ways I blow off steam is by walking around-- but I always feel a bit like a lunatic if I'm walking around completely aimlessly, without any ostensible purpose, so I usually "create" a perfunctory errand: I go buy cold cuts or a cup of coffee or some beer . . . but, of course, it's more about listening to my iPod and getting out of the house, alone and unfettered; one of the benefits of owning a dog is that now I don't have to invent a task for myself, I can just walk around aimlessly with the dog, and people look at me and think: he's not an itinerant wandering lunatic, he's just out walking his dog . . . but the only down side to this arrangement is that you have to talk to the Dog People you meet and I'm horrible at Dog Talk . . .

Dave: That's a beautiful dog . . . what is he, a Basset Hound? A Pekinese?
Dog Person: She's a Great Dane . . .
Dave: Oh, right . . . how about that one? A Shar-pei?
Dog Person: That's a cat.

Who Cares? Not Tom Ripley. Not Banksy. You.

The talented Tom Ripley is at it again in Ripley Under Ground, the second book in Patricia Highsmith's "Ripliad" series-- this time his victim is an unlucky art patron named Thomas Murchison, who rightly suspects that the painting he has bought is a forgery-- unfortunately he has stumbled into one of Tom Ripley's sophisticated con games-- and because he can't adopt Ripley's amorality, he ends up a corpse, but Highsmith has bigger fish to fry than just murder: Ripley asks Murchison, "Why disturb a forger who's doing such good work?" and this raises one of my favorite artistic/philosophical debates, which is portrayed in both the documentary My Kid Could Paint That and Banksy's perplexing film Exit Through The Gift Shop . . if there is any way to objectively judge art, then it shouldn't matter who painted the picture-- if it's good, then it's good-- but, of course, our brains don't work like that; art buyers want to be sure that it is prodigy Marla Olmstead that painted the canvases they spent so much money on, not her dad, and when Oprah revealed that James Frey's "memoir" A Million Little Pieces is actually part fictional, people were outraged-- including me!-- and so I suppose I should come clean here and reveal that Sentence of Dave is actually written by a trained donkey, not a computer program . . . but I'm sure you all suspected that from the start.

How Did This Happen?

I am an introverted person who enjoys being alone for long stretches of time-- I like to read and play the guitar and write sentences and listen to music-- and I have trouble thinking about more than one thing at a time, but somehow I've gotten myself into the absurd position where I have to: 1) be the boss of over a hundred kids during the school day . . . I constantly compel them do things that they would never do on their own: read Shakespeare, write essays, perform skits, and draw horses (I especially love compelling kids to draw horses, because if you can't draw-- and the bulk of the population in America can't draw-- then drawing a horse is especially comical) and then 2) after school I have to lord over my own children, and compel them to do homework and clean-up their shit and eat their dinner and brush their teeth and stop fighting, and now 3) we've added a dog to the equation, and I've never had a dog, but everything I've read explains that you have to establish yourself as the alpha and show the dog who's boss and my friend John gave me this advice: "Dog training is easy, you just need to establish that you are the master," and that makes sense, of course, but I often wonder: How did this happen? because I would be perfectly content being The Boss of No One and The Master of Nothing.

Specific Demographic

My friend Ann believes there is a very specific advertising demographic profile which consists of: 1) men in their late thirties and early forties 2) who use the digital music service Spotify 3) and run while wearing Vibram Five Fingers (those goofy looking "shoes" that have individual slots for each toe, and simulate the experience of running barefoot . . . sans glass shards, tetanus, and trichinosis) and she may be right . . . and I may be a member of this demographic, but all I can say in my defense-- which is exactly what the advertising folks want me to say-- is, "I love Spotify!" and "I love my Vibram Five Fingers!" and "I can't wait to see what they sell me next!"

Neal Stephenson Cares About Canada . . . and by the transitive property, so do I

The first seven hundred pages of Neal Stephenson's new novel Reamde take place in exotic locales such as Xiamen, Taiwan, the Philippines, and the MMORPG T'Rain, but the last three hundred pages follow international terrorist Abdullah Jones as he makes his way through the mountains of British Columbia towards the U.S. border-- and though the Canadian portion of the novel is a bit slower paced than the rest, it is well worth the wait until the entire international cast of characters descend on the inaccessible and mountainous border of Idaho and Canada-- Stephenson has a miniature war play out there, and his detailed, steady description of multiple plot threads is so arresting (not to mention that after 1000 pages you're rather attached to the characters) that your heart will race, your palms will sweat, the outside world will vanish, and when you finish the final page, you won't believe that the experience was NOT virtual, not generated by any sort of technology, and simply the result of well-placed squiggles on the white pages of a very thick book.

Hey Michael Lewis! In A Book Titled Boomerang, Shouldn't You Visit Australia?

In his new book Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World, Michael Lewis is more cavalier with is opinions than he was in his last book, the longer and denser The Big Short . . . Boomerang is more of a travelogue with some finance thrown in, and at times you get the feel that he's winging it, relying on his good name in each country, but he's an engaging writer and the book is a lot of fun-- considering it's about a depressing topic-- because for each country he visits, he tries to link their national character to the type of financial disaster they are experiencing: corrupt and tribal Greeks refuse to band together for the sake of their country; feral Icelanders treat high-risk banking the same way they treat fishing in the cold and dangerous waters of the North Atlantic; stoic Irishmen shoulder their country's debt with tight-lipped penitence, though they should have acted shamefully and defaulted; rule abiding Germans don't notice the filth under the sheen of the bonds they have bought (and here he takes a scatological side-trip into "the German's longstanding special interest" in "Scheisse (shit)" and tries to extend the analogy to the financial crisis, claiming that the Germans "longed to be near the shit but not in it," and although this is entertaining, I think his logic is stretched thin and that you could find loads of "Scheisse" jokes in every culture--  Mr. Lahey from Trailer Park Boys comes to mind-- so even Canadians stoop to this sort of humor); finally Lewis ends up in America, searching for the state that is the biggest financial disaster . . . and banking analyst Meredith Whitney determines this by invoking the logic of "the tragedy of the commons," she explains: "companies are more likely to flourish in stronger states; the individuals will go where the jobs are . . . ultimately, the people will follow the companies . . . Indiana is going to be like, NFW I'm bailing out New Jersey . . . those who have money and can move do so, and those without money and cannot move do not, and ultimately rely more on state and local assistance," and Lewis asks her, "What's the scariest state?" and I hoped her answer wouldn't be New Jersey, but she "only had to think for about two seconds" and then she said, "California."

Sodom and Gomorrah and Explosions

Everyone knows that "Cool Guys Don't Look At Explosions"-- including my favorite "cool guys," the silent and scary Mexican cartel assassins from Breaking Bad-- but I have a hypothesis as to why this trope is so common: it is actually a subtle Biblical allusion to the the story of Sodom and Gomorrah; Lot and his wife are commanded by the angels NOT to look back at Yahweh's explosive destruction of the depraved cities but Lot's wife disobeys the angel's instructions and looks back and she is turned into a pillar of salt . . . and so not looking back isn't just about being cool, it's also about obeying God's will and showing humility when something is justly and purposefully destroyed-- and I had this epiphany while showing my children the story of Sodom and Gomorrah on a site called The Brick Testament, which is an illustrated Bible depicted with Legos . . . it is comprehensive and incredible; on the other hand, if something is being randomly destroyed in a movie, then people watch it in fascination (such as the colossal train derailment in Super 8).

North Brunswick Alumnus Scores 102 Yard Goal

Tim Howard, Premier League and U.S. National Team goalie, is arguably the most famous North Brunswick High School Alumnus (he's competing with Glen Burtnik of Styx and two comedians: Jim Norton and Aries Spears) and this goal certainly helps his case.

Movie Trivia (Answer in the Comments)

What film contains cameos by Dom Deluise, Charles Durning, James Coburn, Milton Berle, Elliott Gould, Madeline Kahn, Bob Hope, Mel Brooks, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, Telly Savalas, and Orson Welles?

Basketball vs. Soccer: Microcosmically

In the winter I play pick-up basketball and indoor soccer in the same spot-- an elementary school gym-- which is conveniently located two blocks from my house; there are only two people who play in both games, myself and a guy named Bruce . . . so we'd be in the middle sliver of the Venn diagram, but the rest of the folks don't occupy the same world; here are the differences between the two games  . . . draw what inferences you like:

1) for soccer, you need to bring a white and a dark shirt-- so that you can wear the same color as your team-- but for basketball, you have to memorize who is on your team-- this is fairly typical and I suppose it is because in soccer you are looking down more and have to make longer passes and might not be able to recognize someone's face from that far away, but my eyes aren't great and I wouldn't mind if the basketball game adopted the soccer policy;

2) in the soccer game, if you have to sit out a game because there are too many players, you are guaranteed to play in the next game-- even if someone from the winning team needs to be relieved-- but in the basketball game, if there are more than five players, and you miss your foul shot, you will NOT play in the next game . . . as the winning five always get to stay on;

3) because of this rule, more fouls are called in the basketball game and the score is more important;

4) the soccer crew has an email group but the basketball group does not;

5) if the weather is decent, the soccer group will play outside, while this has never happened with the basketball group . . . even when it was 95 degrees in the gym in the summer;

6) more advice and strategy is dispensed by the experienced basketball players, and it is more often accepted, or at least entertained and discussed . . . while during soccer if anyone mistakenly attempts to give someone else advice, it usually results in a vehement argument (which may happen in a language other than English)

7) sometimes at soccer, while we are warming up, we talk world politics . . . this never happens at basketball;

8) there are a couple of women that occasionally play in the soccer game-- and they can hold their own-- but I have never seen any women at the basketball game;

9) you can bring your kid to the soccer game, and if you get there early then he might get to play some-- my seven-year-old son once played for a while before everyone got there . . . but I've never seen any kids at the basketball game;

10) the soccer game has people with names such as Mario, Gio, Jose, Guillermo, Felipe, Mohammed,  Javier, Yorim, Ahmed, Yusuf, Ari, Josi, Bruce and Mike . . . the basketball game has people with names such as Al, Keith, Ben, Tom, Chris, Anthony, Richard (Cob), Eugene, Bruce, Isaac and-- of course-- Mike.

The Greek Economy is Ik (Michael Lewis Thomas)

One of the economically devastated countries Michael Lewis describes in his new book Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World is Greece, and his tale is a sordid one of corruption, tax evasion, and systematic cheating and abuse that is so endemic to the culture that it is difficult to fully quantify-- he finally concludes that Greece "does not behave like a collective . . . it behaves as a collection of atomized particles, each of which has grown accustomed to pursuing its own interest at the expense of the common good," and this reminds me of a Lewis Thomas essay about anthropologist Colin Turnbull's infamous portrayal of The Ik, a displaced Ugandan tribe; Turnbull's observations-- in his book The Mountain People-- give a firsthand account of the Ik's selfish and highly individualist practices-- which include defecating on each others doorsteps, leaving the old and sick to fend for themselves, and having no collective spirit whatsoever-- and this makes Turnbull question the goodness of human nature . . . but Lewis Thomas dismisses this pessismism and the Ik behavior-- insisting that The Ik society has essentially gone crazy-- and as a solution to the insanity, each individual Ik has formed a "group, a  one man tribe on its own, a constituency," and Thomas says this is not all that unusual, as it is how nations behave, and "for total greed, rapacity, heartlessness, and irresponsibility there is no match for a nation."

Is Something Wrong With Me? Besides the Obvious . . .

Last weekend I did a lot of walking up and down the sledding hill in my duck boots, and I eventually grew so annoyed that I had to switch to my regular hiking boots because when I wore the duck boots my socks kept getting pulled down . . . somehow the duck boots were literally sucking my socks right off my feet, and I am wondering: is something wrong with my feet? is something wrong with my boots? does this happen to anyone else?

A Fact I Will Never Reveal To My Children

In this months issue of Wired magazine there is a tiny article called "Three Smart Things About Boogers" and one of the smart things is that "boogers are good for you" and apparently mucophagy-- or the act of picking one's nose and eating the results-- has a long and fruitful history and may bolster the immune system . . . but I'm not reporting this to my children, nor am I telling them that my descriptions of the horrible consequences of eating your boogers are completely wrong.

Things Start Making Sense

My work today is over at Gheorghe: The Blog-- and, unfortunately for those of you with limited patience for my rambling, it is more than one sentence long-- as I have written a rather existential essay about how my life is starting to resemble one of my favorite songs: "Once in a Lifetime" by The Talking Heads.

The Tragedy of Dave Learning About The Tragedy of the Commons

Biologist Garrett Hardin famously used the idea of "the tragedy of the commons" as an environmental principle that explained how individuals will inevitably deplete a shared resource-- such as a common pasture-- because no one owns the particular resource, so no one is invested in protecting it; the simple solution is to allow people to own the land, because then they won't let their animals overgraze-- unless they are stupid-- and the tragedy of the commons explains why public bathrooms are filthy and why it's difficult to get kids to clean up their trash in the school cafeteria and why it's impossible to get nations to subscribe to the Kyoto Protocol, and it is also a wonderful rationalization if you feel like littering in your local park or don't feel like scooping up your dog's excrement or if you stain a library book with chocolate fingerprints or if you feel like tossing some trash out your car window . . . if someone looks at you askance, simply shrug your shoulders and say, "tragedy of the commons, what can you do?"

Corrupted Blood Incident: A Good Name For A Screamo Band

Much of the new Neal Stephenson novel REAMDE takes place in a fictional Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) named T'Rain-- which is similar but more developed than the infamous World of Warcraft (and T'Rain has supplanted World of Warcraft as the most popular MMORPG in the world of the novel)-- and the plot of REAMDE revolves around flesh and blood teenage Chinese hackers that have co-opted the gaming platform to disseminate a computer virus that encrypts the victim's real data on his computer, and the hackers are receiving "ransom" payments for a data encryption key from infected users in T'Rain currency inside the world of T'Rain, allowing them to launder the money, remain anonymous, and profoundly intertwine the reality of the game and the reality of reality; much of this MMORPG stuff is new to me, and so Stephenson made curious as to how accurate the T'Rain stuff actually is-- as I have never played World of Warcraft-- and I ended up reading about the "corrupted blood incident" of 2005, an incident which must have had some influence on the novel-- because (and this is a real incident . . . or it really happened in virtual reality) someone wrote a computer virus that spread through World of Warcraft just like a real virus, through proximity and transmission-- it actually spread through the game like a disease-- and made the people in the game behave as if there was a pandemic: people holed up in the country, avoided other people, died en masse in the cities, etc. and the reaction was so accurate that doctors and scientists studied the game-play in order to further our understanding of how people behave during an outbreak (and I wonder if I had a character in World of Warcraft, if I could have him write a one sentence blog inside that virtual world, detailing his life in there . . . Sentence of Thok?)

It's Good To Give Your Children Concrete Goals To Strive For . . .

The other day I promised my son Ian-- the budding artist-- that if he draws something cool enough, I'll get it tattooed on my back.

I'm Going to Read Me Some REAMDE

I am half-way through Neal Stephenson's gigantic new novel REAMDE, and it reads like a 1000 page Wired Magazine article, a Wired article with a thrilling plot and a multitude of well-drawn international characters, but a Wired article nonetheless, and this makes my review pretty simple . . . if you like Wired Magazine, I recommend the novel . . . and if you don't, then I don't; you also might like the novel if you appreciate the word "albedo," which is a fun word to challenge people to define, but also a word I have never seen in a novel, but Stephenson had no problem working it in: "modern paper, with its eye searing 95 percent albedo,  simply ruined the look that was coming together inside the walls."

My Sentiments EXACTLY!

Carrie Brownstein-- of the sketch comedy show Portlandia-- was being interviewed on "Fresh Air" a few weeks ago, and when Terry Gross asked her to describe her tattoos, Brownstein said something that I agree with wholeheartedly . . . as I possess some really stupid tattoos that I do not wish to talk about (why couldn't I have gotten a cool science tattoo, like these people?) and not only do I completely and unequivocally agree with what she said about tattoos, but I also think she used the perfect analogy to develop her opinion . . . she said: "Telling people about your tattoos is worse than telling people about your dreams."

12th Man = Chili

So I have made Giants play-off chili three times in my life, and all three times have resulted in good luck for the Giants-- but Sunday was the first time I actually had good luck making the chili . . . to explain: the first time I made Giants play-off chili was in 1991-- the Giants played the Bears that afternoon in the NFC divisional play-off game, which they won 31-3, and then they eventually went on to beat Buffalo in the Super Bowl-- and I had recently received a crock-pot as a gift from my parents, once they discovered that I went off the William and Mary meal plan and pocketed the money, and so I was cooking for myself (which consisted of eating fast food, catfish we caught in the Chickahominy River and microwave burritos) and I decided to inaugurate the crock-pot by making some chili so I bought some beef and peppers and onions and chili powder and tossed it into the pot and left it to simmer for a few hours, but when I returned there was a slick of viscous golden liquid atop the chili and there was so much of it that I couldn't scoop it off, it had permeated the entire batch and the chili was disgusting and quite inedible and by this time my roommate Jason had returned and he took a look at the concoction and asked, "Did you brown the meat before you put it in?" and I said, "Brown the meat?" and he said, "You didn't brown the meat and drain the fat?" and that's when I learned that you need to brown the meat before you put it in a crock-pot and by this time the game was nearly on, so I put the top on the crock-pot full of fat saturated meat and peppers and unplugged it and . . . I forgot about it, I suppose it got lost among the detritus on the floor of our room and I "discovered" it a few weeks later; the chili was dry, irremovable, and covered with blue, green, and yellow fungus and so I did the only thing we could-- I tossed the crock-pot off the third floor balcony to the bricks below and a cheering crowd watched it explode into shards of pottery, chunks of chili, and clots of fungus; the second time I made Giants play-offs chili was in 2001, we were living in Damascus and the Giants played Minnesota in the NFC Championship game, which they would win 41-0 and then go on to lose to the Ravens in the Super Bowl (which my friend Drew and I watched at the U.S. Marine house in the middle of the night) and while I was cooking this batch of chili-- and I should mention that I browned the meat-- the power went out, which was a common occurrence in Damascus, so I had to cook by candle-light and I thought I might have to carry the chili to Drew's apartment for the game, because his power was still on, but miraculously, my power came back on an hour before game-time; unfortunately, while I was cooking in the dark, I over-salted the chili, and I soon learned that you can't erase the taste of salt with more spices, and so by the time my wife got home, it was nearly game time and I was close to tears and I hysterically beseeched my wife to help me-- I worked so hard! my chili tasted awful! more chili powder didn't work! more cumin didn't work! more cilantro didn't work! help!-- and my wife looked at me in disbelief and said, "Why don't you brown some more meat, and add a couple more cans of tomatoes and beans and dilute the salt?" and I realized: this was why I married her! this was brilliant! utilize ratio and proportion! more chili and the same amount of salt=less overall salt! and so I was able to save this batch of chili, and everyone enjoyed it as well as the resounding Giants victory; and the third time I made Giants play-off chili was, of course, on Sunday, and the Giants throttled the Packers 37-20, and not only that, but I finally got my culinary act together and made an excellent batch of chili (in a crock-pot) and so I think this bodes well for both the Giants and future batches of my play-off chili.

Is This How Lenny Bruce Got Started?

My seven old son Alex invented this riddle last week: "What does a lady cat carry around? A purrrrrrse," and I thought it was quite clever-- though his delivery was atrocious-- but I assumed that although he "invented" it, that someone else had already thought of this previously, but I checked the all-knowing internet and did not discover its existence . . . so when I explain what a pun is to my students, I will use his example, and give him credit (I normally use the classic "what happens when you step on a grape? it lets out a little whine" as my example).

The E-Reader: Pros and Cons

I am certainly what the tech-world calls a "late adopter," for example: I only recently got a cell-phone, and that's because my wife purchased it for me, brought it home, and said: "You have two kids . . you need a phone," and then handed me a slim, white, lime green gadget that my students described as the phone a "12 year old Asian girl would have"-- and so, well behind the rest of the reading world,  I have finally started knocking around the idea of getting an e-reader . . . but, as I am a disciple of Neil Postman, I always think about the pros and cons of any technology before I allow it access to my life . . . and the pros for an e-reader are pretty obvious:

1) I like to read multiple books at the same time and some of them are hefty, so it would save a lot of space and clutter,

2) I hate small font, and so I could adjust this on an e-reader,

3) my book-light would be attached to the e-reader, so I wouldn't always lose it,

4) when we travel, I like to bring a lot of books . . .

but I have decided, for now, that the cons outweigh the pros, and here they are:

1) I like to take books out of the library because (duh) it's free,

2) I like to buy cheap used books off Amazon and Half.com,

3) I don't want to spill coffee or soup onto an e-reader, while I don't care if I spill coffee or soup onto a library book,

4) this one is the most important: if I read on an e-reader, no one can see what I'm reading, and-- if these things become ubiquitous-- I won't be able to see what other people are reading, and maybe I'm obnoxious, but I like it when people see me reading the new translation of War and Peace, and I liked sharing a knowing glance with the dude I saw last week on the exercise bike at the gym reading Steven Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From . . . and if that dude was a cute female, I might have even said a word or two about how much I liked the book . . . so really what it comes down to is that I have enough trouble making conversation, and I don't need the one topic that I am knowledgeable about taken away from me, made obscure by a convenient technology-- I'm still recovering from the switch from boom boxes to personal stereos . . . who knows what the kids are listening to on those head-phones?

Can Someone Explain This?

I'll go to the gym and exercise until I am sweaty, lightheaded, and about to puke . . . but moments before I leave, I can't work up the effort to carry a laundry basket full of folded clothes up the stairs.