A Man Compliments My Toes

I was at a party on Saturday night, and unfortunately there was a corn-hole set in the backyard, and this was unfortunate because I am VERY good at corn-hole -- so good that it's a little sad and obsessive, and while people generally compliment my skills or get fired up to beat me, I am sure that they also think that I am a little pathetic, which is true (although the fact that my wife was my partner, and also kicking corn-hole ass, might have made things a little more acceptable) but I can't help it, there's nothing I enjoy more than cutting out the small talk at a party, and instead playing a simple game and drinking beer -- so I've gotten my 10,000 hours of practice and it pays off . . . anyway, I was wearing sandals at the party and my friend Ashley said the nicest thing that anyone has ever said about my feet; he told me, "You have Roman toes" and when I asked what that meant, he said that Romans have a certain kid of toe -- and while I think my toes look perfectly normal, my wife always calls them "weird looking," but "Roman" is a much better adjective than weird, and then Ashley went on to tell me that Romans are often good at spatial activities -- thus my skill at corn-hole . . . and while I'm not sure I buy this -- I think my skill at corn-hole derives from getting bored with chit-chat, an explanatory YouTube video, many hours of practice at the Annual Outer Banks Fishing Trip, and the fact that it's really only tossing a bean-bag -- I'm still quite pleased because generally, when people look at my feet, they either turn away in disgust, or say I have "hobbit-feet" because of the amount of hair on them, so "Roman toes" is a step up.

Unassigned Homework

The last thing any teacher needs during exam time is more work, but somehow the Story Contest Crew forgot this, and we had an end of the year contest -- but a Scary Story doesn't fit for the end of the year, so instead we drew six elements from various bags -- and you had to include all these elements in your three-page story . . . this was painful and hard, but I am pleased to say that I was involved in a three way tie for first and lost by one in the run-off (and I would have won outright if Stacey didn't change her vote at the last minute!) because I had an especially ridiculous draw and had to write a story from the point-of-view of a teenage girl to make it work (and some people didn't recognize that I wrote the story, which made me very happy, anyway . . . here is what I drew from the bags: CHARACTER: Buddhist; CONFLICT: restrictive parents; TONE: scandalous; OBJECT: Manic Panic Hot Hot Pink Hair Dye; SETTING: Roller Rink (circa 1985); PHRASE: Oh my God, it's full of stars . . . how would you put them together?)

Hidden Talents

My eight year old son Ian is a hula hoop wizard - he can do two at a time, spin it around his knees, and walk while hula-hooping -- and this got me very jealous and angry because I couldn't do it at all, but I went on YouTube and watched a few tutorials and now I can get it going for a while (although I can't do any tricks . . . it's hard enough for me to keep the thing rotating around my sturdy mid-section).

This Too Shall Pass

My son Ian is a member of "the piggy club," but his brother Alex is not -- despite the fact that many of his friends profess to being members of the aforementioned club . . . Alex says he finds it annoying to talk at length about piggies.

Huge Cement Shoes to Fill

Although celebrity deaths don't usually occupy my consciousness, James Gandolfini's demise is slightly different . . . because not only is he the celebrity representative of my home state (along with Frank and Bruce) but he is also one of the few celebrities that I have met in my life: seven years ago, after a Rutgers football game, Gandolfini went to McCormick's Irish Pub (with the possible intent to score some controlled substances, as he said my friend and colleague Kevin: "I hear this is the most drug infested bar in New Brunswick," but Kevin disappointed him by replying: "I guess not tonight") and then Gandolfini signed up to play pool (after he left, the bartender took the sheet down in order to preserve his autograph) and I was on the table and taking all challengers, so I got to play some pool with Tony Soprano; he was very friendly, but also very wasted . . . so wasted that his handlers had to take him home, and the main point of this rambling tribute is that I was very impressed by Gandolfini's size . . . he wasn't Hollywood fat (like Jack Black or Seth Rogen) he was actually fat . . . big and looming and corpulent, and I appreciate that kind of honesty in art.

It's Not All Books That Are As Dull as Their Readers (But Some Are!)

I started my summer reading with two rather boring tomes, or I find them boring -- which may be a shortcoming of my own brain, but at least I recognize that they are boring for contrary reasons: Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You've Been Told About the Economy is Wrong is by Edward Conard, a former managing director of Bain Capital -- and while it paints a rather different picture of the 2008 Financial Collapse than the documentary Inside Job or The Big Short by Michael Lewis (according to Conard, the collapse was a run on the bank, caused by a lack of faith in short term credit, not the fault of CDO's and credit default swaps -- and the government was largely to blame for this by subsidizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which allowed the creation of more and more sub-prime loans . . . his philosophy is: why would banks want to hold mortgages they thought would default, unless forced by the government to issue such loans, and he also blames "irrational exuberance" in the real-estate market . . . some people -- such as this Anonymous Banker --think Conard makes some good points, while other folks hate his guts and think the book is a "serious abuse of facts") and while I think he makes some logical points about how America is competing against 75 cents-an-hour labor overseas and needs to counter this with investment and innovation -- I mainly want to say this is one of the driest, most boring books I have ever read, and any attempt Conard makes to insert humor into the flow is forced and pathetic, and he offers no anecdotes from his time at Bain Capital, nor does he ever address the human cost of the crisis -- he's very cold and cavalier about the lost jobs, lost equity, the evictions, the short sales, and the general decay of the middle class -- so I can hardly recommend reading this thing unless you're really dying to learn more about the economic theory behind the Financial Crisis . . . on the other hand, I am six hundred pages through George R.R. Martin's A Dance with Dragons and this book is SO full of anecdote and detail and description that the plot barely moves . . . and I can't recommend this book unless you're dying to find out more things about the pantheon of Game of Thrones characters -- as it is NOT a thrilling read.

Serenity Now?

My wife and I noticed that everyone in our house was losing their temper more than usual (aside from the dog, who retreats upstairs when people argue) and after an especially ugly weekend when we both resorted to whacking our son on the ass (on separate occasions) we decided to institute a new system, with two jars and a bunch of "animal counters," and since everyone in our house thrives on competition, we made it a contest . . . Alex and Ian versus my wife and me: if you lose your shit, then a counter goes into the jar, and I am proud to say that I haven't flipped out on my kids for over a week (nine days, to be exact) but I have noticed an inverse relationship between not-flipping-out and alcohol consumption . . . serenity now!

It's All the Same Thing (No New Tails to Tell)

It was 4:14 on Friday afternoon, and I was cutting up old deck boards so I could put them in contractor bags and toss them, when I saw a rustling in the ivy by our fence; upon closer inspection, I found that the rustling was being caused by a cub raccoon -- which was very cute and about the size of a fuzzy chipmunk -- so I called the boys and retreated to the deck, and soon enough -- as I predicted -- a mama raccoon came scurrying down the tree with the big hole in it, and then she did something I didn't expect, she whacked and bit the hell out of the baby raccoon, then walked away for a moment, and waited, but the baby didn't follow, and then she walked back over and used her mouth to pick up the cub by the scruff of his neck, and carried him back up the tree to the big hole, which is obviously their home, so that the recalcitrant cub could learn the definition of nocturnal and write it a thousand times on the inside of their hole . . . and at first my kids thought the mommy raccoon was mean, but when I pointed out that we chastise them for similar dangerous activities -- such as crossing the street without looking or wrestling at the top of the stairs -- they understood what was going on, but I don't think that just because they understand the analogy means they are going to behave with any more common sense.

I Have Achieved a New Level of Manliness

Last week, in order to expedite the demolition of my deck, I bought a "wrecking bar," and never in my life have I felt so macho about a purchase (although I didn't buy the mega-42 inch bar, I went with the medium-sized 36 inch bar . . . I didn't want to get too carried away with myself).

Meta-Anachronism (Another Question of Dave)

How does Tank -- a self-professed child of Zion -- who claims to have been born outside of the Matrix, in reality, make the comment "Hey Mikey, I think he likes it" when Neo is down-loading ju-jitsu and various other forms  of karate . . . how could someone born outside of the computer fabricated reality make an allusion to a 1970's Life Cereal commercial which may or may not have even happened inside the complex computer program enslaving all humans in the film?

Question of Dave #2 (e.g. Jack Nicholson)

How does one avoid becoming a caricature of oneself?

Question of Dave (i.e. Donald Trump)

To be truly considered a man, do you need to go bankrupt at least once in your life?

No Way You're Beating This Statistic (nor would you want to)

It's been very humid lately here in central New Jersey, and so when I try to yank my socks onto my sweaty feet, I'm ripping one sock for every four sock-putting-on attempts.

If I Were a Double Amputee . . .

If I were a double amputee, I would definitely behave exactly like the man described in Erik Larson's fantastic non-fiction account of The Chicago World's Fair of 1894 -- The Devil in the White City; the aforementioned amputee made his way around the fair on false limbs and crutches, and a visitor constantly "peppered" him with questions, and finally said: "There's one more thing I'd like to know, and I'll not trouble ye anymore . . . I'd like to know how you lost your legs," and the double amputee said he would only answer on "the strict condition that this indeed was the last question" and then he told the inquisitive man "they were bit off" and crutched away, while the annoying and curious man yelled, "Bit off? How . . .?"

You've Got to Have Dreams

Erik Larson's non-fiction book The Devil in the White City deals with two dreamers: Daniel Hudson Burnham, the architect and director of the magnificent and monolithic Chicago World's Fair of 1894, and Henry H. Holmes, the serial killer who built a "death hotel" on land in Englewood, near the World's Fair, so he could gas young women, children, and other unsuspecting folks that he pulled into his magnetic field of trust . . . and while one of these men was working for civic duty in order to better a city he loved and the other for evil and perverse motivations that perhaps even he didn't understand fully, they both had the need to build an architectural impossibility to achieve their dreams . . . and they both succeed! . . . Larson does an amazing job of smoothly presenting all the details for both events, details both glorious and heinous -- he did all the reading for you (as evidenced by the bibliography and pages and pages of copious notes) and I highly recommend this book, especially for folks who love architecture, civic politics, urban planning, and serial homicide.

Million to one shot, doc, million to one . . .

If you're the kind of person that enjoys seeing a grown man rolling on the floor in agony, crying profusely while mucous shoots from his nose, then you are probably a bad person who has no soul . . . but you might enjoy this post: yesterday morning, I was making my signature dish (roasted tomatillo salsa) and while chopping a roasted jalapeno, fresh out of the broiler, a seed shot out of the hot pepper and straight into my eye -- under the lower eye-lid, and I couldn't get it out, though I pulled out my eyelid, and dumped water from a two gallon jug all over my face -- but my hands were covered in jalapeno juice, so grabbing my eye-lid just exacerbated things, and the pain got so bad and my vision so blurry that at one point I was on the floor on all fours, moaning in pain and unable to see, but finally I was able to stumble up the stairs to the shower -- but we only have one bathroom with a shower in our house and the door was closed -- and as I tried to open it, my son Alex yelled, "I'm doing number two!" but I didn't care and barged in, stripped off my clothes, and let the water wash over my swollen eye, and I'm not sure if it was the pressure of the shower water or my lacrimal system which removed the seed, but eventually I could tell that it was out of my eye -- and then I remembered that the broiler was still on, and that the tomatillos might get cooked beyond the recommended chestnut brown color, so I started yelling to the boys (Catherine was out getting a pedicure while I endured this suffering) to shut off the broiler, but they couldn't figure it out and so I drunkenly careened down the stairs, shut off the broiler, peeled the blackened parts off the tomatillos and then heroically finished the salsa, which ended up being delicious (though slightly spicier than normal because of the extra-special ingredient . . . middle-aged human tears).

It Was Surprisingly Funny

We saw Joe DeRosa do stand-up the other night at The Stress Factory, and his main theme was: embrace your vices, because the world is so screwed up that if you can face it without drinking and drugs and porn, then there's something wrong with you (and he had wonderful sub-themes about filling the lonely spaces in his life with fast food and the fact that in all eight stages of life, you are never free).

That's How to Perorate

At my mother's retirement dinner on Thursday, Catherine, myself and the boys read a list of The Top Ten Benefits of Grammy's Retirement -- it contained items such as "Now Grammy will have time to take us to the movies that mom and dad don't want to see"and it was a light and breezy counterpoint to most of the speeches, which were generally sappy and emotional . . . which was to be expected in a room full middle-aged female elementary school teachers . . . but Ian got a case of stage-fright when it was his turn to read, and so Alex stepped up and read it for him, and then Ian kept trying to hide behind Alex, and as I finished the tenth item on the list, they got into their typical horseplay and knocked over the heavy wooden podium, which fell backwards and hit the floor with a resounding THUD . . . and though it wasn't planned, it certainly put an exclamation point on our performance.

This Gets the Dave Stamp of Approval

While I normally eschew passing along YouTube videos . . . because I'm far too significant, dynamic and brilliant a thinker to simply be a parasitic purveyor of internet memes-- Sentence of Dave is so much more than that . . . but I think the theme of this particular parody is "meta" enough for me to suspend my elitism about base forms of internet use and pass along, so shed your hipness and enjoy some music that is "pure and honest, bordering on weird and Amish."

Is It So Weird to Do a Little Research?

My students found it odd that I was reading Over-Dressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion and when I told them that I was reading it because I was about to go on my first solo clothes shopping trip ever (not that I've never bought clothing before -- but usually just an individual item, and most of my clothes are either gifts or hand-me-downs from my brother, father, and even a colleague's boyfriend, who lost weight and gave me all his fat pants) because all of my clothes, shoes, and belts wore out at once a few weeks ago and so I was in serious need of everything . . . and one of those 30% off Kohls coupons came in the mail, so I went for it -- and it was a disaster, of course; I pulled over a rack of women's nightgowns, nearly walked into the women's dressing room, bought pants that were too long, lost my cart innumerable times, and had trouble finding the items I needed -- and then they wouldn't let me use my wife's charge card (they probably figured: there's no way this idiot is married) and so I had to get my own card in order to use the coupon, and I somehow lost my driver's license in this transaction (though it turned up a week later) and while I learned a lot about the big picture of globalized fashion from Elizabeth Cline's book, it didn't help me at all with actual shopping, and my students thought the only thing weirder than me reading a book about fashion was me reading a book to prepare to go shopping at Kohls . . . but what's wrong with doing a little research?

Dave Writes a Fashion Post!

The moral of Elizabeth Cline's elegantly written expose Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion is grim: "We own more clothes than we can wear, the quality and craftsmanship of our wardrobes is at an all-time low, and the U.S. manufacturing base can't compete on wages with the developing world, costing countless domestic jobs," but Cline does find hope in two places: the first is when she learns the joy of sewing . . . she finds a subculture of folks who won't stand for cheap "fast-fashion" clothes and won't pay inordinate designer prices, so they either make their own clothes or modify the ones they have, and while I don't think I'm going to go out and buy a sewing machine, this book has made me look at where my clothes were made and examine the stitching and material a little more closely . . . and the second place she sees hope is in fair trade companies that are making quality clothes in America with organic materials for a reasonable price (although a hell of a lot more expensieve than H & M or Forever 21) and I highly recommend this book if you are like me and know next to nothing about clothes and fashion, and it might even be interesting to someone who is a fashionista because of Freakonomics-style global take on the topic.

What is the Opposite of Fasting? Gluttony, Of Course . . .

I have put back on nearly every pound that I lost on my brief two-day-a-week-fasting-diet -- not only was I completely wrong about my ability to eat 600 calories every Monday and Wednesday for the rest of my life, but I also think the fasting triggered some reversal in my metabolism and I've been eating like crazy ever since -- I had an especially gluttonous twelve hours last Thursday night all the way into Friday; I ate a late night cheeseburger from The System at midnight on Thursday night (Pete wouldn't even let me in the bar with it because of the smell -- I had to eat it outside) and then the next day at work, bloated and gassy from beer and the burger, I was reminded that I was judging the Foods Workshop Celebrity Cook Off . . . nine courses, in the style of celebrity chefs such as Bobby Flay and Rachel Ray and Masahara Morimoto and Julia Child; the kids finished their dishes in an impressive chaotic rush, food they had ben preparing for weeks and we judged on presentation, taste, and creativity -- and I am proud to say that I was the only teacher on the panel to eat every bite of all nine courses (plus seconds on a couple) we had chicken parm, lasagna with home made noodles, quesadillas, enchilidas, tie-dye cake, butter cake, chcolate eclair, hamburger in an egg roll with dipping sauce (drunk food!) and super spicy chicken and rice . . . and I had to teach the next period and it was 90 degrees in my room and I seriously thought I was going to upchuck on some unlucky student in the front row, but then I took the kids to the library -- which has AC -- to work on their presentations, and I was able to stave off a public vomiting (though I was so full that I couldn't sit down) and I am hoping that I get an invite next year so I can repeat the endeavor.

Kids Don't Know Shit

I can't refer to The Matrix any more in class -- my students haven't seen it-- and when my older son, who was involved in some inane either/or scenario debate with his younger brother, asked (with all sincerity) "Do you mean a pool or a pond?" I (of course) immediately said, "A pond would be good for you" but neither of them knew what I was talking about (so then I showed them the clip, but out of context it doesn't make much sense, so then I had to explain the clip to them, and then I found this ridiculous video . . . maybe I should just give up and only make allusions to stuff they've seen).

Things You Might See in Donaldson Park at 5:45 AM

An older man in all white, with a headband, hitting tennis balls rather poorly . . . tennis balls being served up to him by a giant boxy robotic tennis ball serving contraption (and you'd think someone with that outfit and that contraption would have a much better stroke).

What The Kids Are Watching

Here are some YouTube videos the high school seniors recommended; despite the age gap, I still found them entertaining.

Watch Out Guys . . . Here Comes Maya, Carrie and Sarah!

Zero Dark Thirty is intense and usually feels very real (although at times some of Maya's dialogue is action-movie schlock . . . "I'm the motherf*cker who found him . . . I'm going to smoke everyone involved in this op and then I'm going to kill bin Laden") but I think Kathryn Bigelow's previous war movie -- The Hurt Locker -- is much better . . . Zero Dark Thirty recounts an event, and lets us watch how that event unfolds in a most gratuitous fashion, but there's not much beyond that, while The Hurt Locker has a lot more going on under the surface; on a more interesting note, I think there is a new archetypal character in the world of drama: the obsessive and intelligent female working in a world of men, who is the only one who believes in an idea, and is considered far too crazy and too risky to ignore, though no one wants to side completely with her because she's a neurotic, anti-social bitch . . . The Killing, Homeland, and Zero Dark Thirty are all fueled by a female of this archetype: Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison -- the bipolar CIA officer; Mireille Enos as Sarah Linden -- the obsessive and paranoid Seattle detective; and the aforementioned Maya, the young CIA officer who becomes obsessed with stalking bin Laden.

The Answer Is . . . No! Not Even a Little Bit!

It was really hard to feign excitement when the boys ran into the house and shoved a yogurt container under my nose and said:"Hey Dad, do you want to see the giant spider we caught?" and it was even harder to get into the spirit of things when the spider jumped out of the container and hid under the carpet . . . but the one positive from this incident is that I have been trying hard not to pass my arachnophobia to the boys, and it looks like I have been successful.

Internuts

You know how sometimes you go on the internet for one reason (to look up how to marinate octopus before you grill it) but you end up doing something completely different (watching Brazilian ghost-prank YouTube videos) and then you totally lose your train of thought and forget why you even went on-line in the first place (I still don't know how to marinate the octopus).

Nothing But Terror

Yesterday, I finished teaching Henry James' ambiguous ghost story "The Turn of the Screw" and I also finished reading The Looming Tower: Al -Qaeda and the Road to 9 / 11 . . . and while both works focus on the theme of terror, they are a study in contrast: 

"The Turn of the Screw" is purposefully obtuse, and relies on the reader's imagination to create the terror, while Lawrence Wright's account is definitive, comprehensive, and precisely detailed . . . and though you know exactly what happens at the climax, his description of 9/11 is so photo-realistic that it brings back all the terror of that day; in short, when you finish "The Turn of the Screw," you know nothing -- except that human perception is a bewildering puzzle to untangle, while at the end of The Looming Tower, you know why Osama bin Laden  was able to get his jihadis to die for him (and now I understand that Arab man who approached my wife and I when we were at a gas station in the vast desert between Syria and Iraq and said, "You like bin Laden?" and then handed me his cell phone, which had a cartoonish graphic of the World Trade Center getting hit by a plane and collapsing, followed by a caricature of bin Laden smiling . . . creepy, especially when you are taking a service taxi, so you can't leave the premises until the driver is done buying candied dates) and now to complete my month of terror, I am going to finish watching Zero Dark Thirty and then watch Argo, both of which I have on Blu-ray from Netflix.

As a School Teacher, I Am Sad to Admit That This Doesn't Make Me Feel Confident At All

Airborne . . . created by a school teacher?

Maximum Testosterone

I agreed to dog-sit two dogs over Memorial Day Weekend -- Norman and Sniffer -- essentially turning our house into a dog park, and though this was a bit chaotic for Catherine and me, my children thought having three dogs really increased the awesomeness of the house . . . as we increased this most-significant ratio to 6 to 1.

I Am Not Sure Which Alternative is More Disturbing

Lawrence Wright's dense and definitive book The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 is full of disturbing stuff (and I'm only halfway through) but nothing comes close to this: after an assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's life,  Egyptian security forces made a concerted effort to rid Egypt of radical islamists, and to obtain information about Mohammad el-Zawahiri -- one of the leaders of the al-Jihad movement -- they captured Ahmed Sharraf, the thirteen year old son of Mohammed Sharraf (a high ranking al-Jihad member) and then they drugged the boy and sodomized him, and when he awoke they showed him photographs of his homosexual activity and threatened to show this to his father, if he did not cooperate . . . which, of course, he did -- and the security force did this to several children of radical Islamists in order to turn them into "boy spies," and while I obviously don't condone this fiendish but effective method, I am curious: did the sodomizer and the photographer take turns, or was one security agent always the sodomizer and the other always the photographer?

I Suppose You Had to Be There

Though I doubt many of you care, I beat Dan (the Unbeatable Dan) on Thursday night: I shot an 8 in the 9th to beat him by two -- 42 to 40 -- an unprecedented event which no one cares about except me, and needs to be noted here so that I can refer to this when I am very old, as it will probably never happen again.

Stryper Never Made It to Saudi Arabia

One of the most disturbing things I have learned while reading Lawrence Wright's book The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9-11 is that if Osama Bin Laden heard music, he would literally plug his ears, and he declared that "music is the flute of the devil."

Dave (Reluctantly) Gives Away Another Great Idea

This idea is even better than my Second Best Idea Ever but I should warn you that it is also soccer related; one of the biggest problems with training little kids to be skilled soccer players is that at the early ages, skill isn't really rewarded -- size, speed, and the ability to kick the ball far are the most dangerous weapons a young player can have . . . but these abilities lose their effectiveness once everyone gets a bit older and stronger . . . so you have to create drills that are fun, but also slow the defense down in some way -- because when you are little, it's much easier to play defense than it is to control the ball with your feet -- and so my new brainstorm, which I am reluctant to reveal because I don't want other teams using it (but I'm also so egotistical about Dave's Brilliant Ideas that I can't stand to let one stay secret)  is to do this: 1) make a decent sized grid (square) and place three players in it with a ball 2) send a fourth player into the grid carrying a soccer ball in his hands 3) the player with the ball in his hands is the "chucker" 4) in order to NOT be the chucker, the chucker has to chuck his ball and hit the ball that the other three players are dribbling and passing around 5) the chucker CANNOT touch the ball in play with his body, the only way out of being the chucker is to chuck his ball and hit the other ball 6) if you kick it out of the grid, or your pass gets hit with the ball, then you become the chucker . . . but it's kind of fun to be the chucker, because you're just running around chucking a ball at another ball, so kids don't mind it too much . . . and what this encourages is shielding, because you can protect the ball from being chucked at with your body and butt, and it encourages spreading out and controlled passing, in order to get the ball away from the chucker . . . and it eliminates the usual rugby scrum that kids create on defense because instead of charging in and kicking at the ball, the defense has to take their time and line-up and chuck the soccer ball . . . so it affords the offensive player more time to think, which is exactly what they need at a young age to develop the soccer skills that are going to be useful later on in their soccer career (and diligent readers of this blog will realize that this is the third use of the word "chucker" at Sentence of Dave, and each time I have used the word in a different way . . . how will I use it next?)

Silver Screen vs. Silver Book

I was thoroughly entertained by the dysfunctional crew in David O'Russell's movie Silver Linings Playbook -- despite the fact that my wife was obsessing a bit on the differences between the book and the movie (and, of course, in her opinion the book is much better) -- so I had to tell her to stop making comparisons and contrasts, because she was f*@#ing up the juju of the movie for me, and I just wanted her to sit and watch and enjoy it and spend some quality time with me on the couch, eating crabby snacks and home-mades, not saying anything to disturb the good vibe that we had going . . . and eventually, she was able to settle back and relax and enjoy it, and -- of course-- everything turned out great in the end.

You Can Eat an Orange Like an American or You Can Suck It

For the most part, my fellow colleagues in the English Department aren't terribly diverse, but we do have a lovely Jamaican woman named Audrey -- and she has the onerous task of representing "the rest of the world" in our mainly white-bread crew -- so last week, when I saw her take a knife to an orange and skillfully peel off the thick skin, leaving only a bit of white rind around the fruit, and then cut it in half and start sucking on it, I was curious and questioned her method . . . and so she patiently explained to me that "this is how the rest of the world eats an orange," and even though she told me this in a Jamaican accent, I was still skeptical: and after some internet research, I'm not sure that she speaks for the rest of the world on this . . . I think her method is how Jamaicans eat oranges and if you follow the link you will understand why Jamaicans have to do this to their oranges (which are actually green and yellow) but I don't think many other countries do this with their oranges, and the lesson here is that I'm going to be a lot warier when Audrey tells me this is how something works in the rest of the world, because I'm from America and I don't believe anything anyone tells me.

Stern Artistic Advice

I showed my friend John this charcoal drawing my seven-year-old son Ian made and he said to me: "He's a talented kid . . . whatever you do, don't give him any advice."

The Most Racist Show On Earth?

I attended the Ringling Brothers and Barnum Bailey Circus again last week (the last time I went was almost exactly three years ago) and while I am not a huge fan (I sort of agree with the PETA folks who handed my son Alex a pamphlet about elephant cruelty, and the music is downright awful, and very loud . . . and though I looked over my sentence from three years ago, I still forgot to bring earplugs) but one thing particularly intrigued me about the show this time: when all the performers came out for the opening number, I noticed that the ten unicyclists were all African-American, and this struck me as odd, because the rest of the cast was quite diverse -- and also because I imagine unicycling as a nerdy and very Caucasian past-time, but twenty minutes later I realized why they were all black . . . they were a basketball squad . . . and this offended me a little, as a case of reverse discrimination -- it seemed as if Barnum and Bailey was insinuating that only black people play basketball (or perhaps, more logically, the act auditioned as a troupe, and they happened to all be African-American) but either way, I would love to be the token white guy on that unicycle basketball team . . . on another, less racist note, the best part of the night was the meal we had in downtown Trenton, near the Sun National Bank Center, at a Guatemalan dive called Taqueria el Mariachi . . . if you are in Trenton and you love tacos, you've got to try this place: best salsa ever and delicious al pastor and verde sauce.

My Son Was Almost Sensitive

My seven year old son Ian, who generally plays it close to his vest, told me this unsolicited piece of information: "Ben is my closest friend" and I responded, "That's great, he's a good guy and it's nice to have a best friend," but I had assumed too much and gotten it all wrong, and so Ian corrected me: "No Dad,  I don't mean he's my best friend, I mean he lives closer to me than any other friend."

Funniest Thing I've Read Since The Big Short

This article is hysterical.

Do It! Do It! Redux

I should probably point out that I am more sympathetic to my son Alex's behavior on the bus than my wife is, because I succumbed to peer pressure in a similar (but even dumber) situation: I was in sixth grade and had just gotten braces installed to correct an overbite, and I was riding the bus home, playing one of those old school handheld video games with the blipping red dashes, and I took the nine volt battery out of the game, held it up, and said, "I wonder what would happen if I touched this to my braces" and before I knew it kids were chanting for me to "do it! do it!" and so I stood up, faced the back of the bus, and stuck the battery terminals to the metal on my top and bottom teeth, completing the circuit, shocking myself profoundly, and knocking myself back into my bus seat, where -- once I came to -- I revelled in my glory . . . I did it!

The Platinum Age of Bewilderment

Wired Magazine explains why television is better than it ever has been . . . and the Netflix original series House of Cards is certainly an example of "platinum quality" TV: the show is so good, I don't understand it (and neither does professional Entertainment Weekly summarizer Hillary Busis, who -- in her episode four recap -- doesn't mention a word of Frank Underwood's complex political stratagem hinging on the collective bargaining chip in the education reform bill, and instead concentrates on the easy, romantic stuff . . . I had to search around until I found this post, and I still don't think that Nathan Matisse understands the plot any better than I do).

Spooky Serendipity

I finished Henry James' ambiguously supernatural novel Turn of the Screw Sunday morning and not an hour later, while walking back from our secret salamander spot, my son Ian -- unprompted -- told me that "the boy's bathroom at school is haunted" and then he explained that while he was going to the bathroom, the door inexplicably locked of its own volition and that this "happened to another boy," and so I asked him my favorite question (Do you believe in ghosts?) and he said, "not really" and I said that I felt the same, and suggested that maybe it was the wind that locked the bathroom door, and he countered, "How could wind get inside a building?"

Do It! Do It!

In class right now, we are studying the ethical implications of some classic psychological experiments . . . Milgram, Asch, and Stanford prison --  and the main lesson from these is that humans can be quite obedient -- whether to a group or an authority figure or social pressure-- once we are put into a "state of agency" . . . and so it was hard to totally blame my son (though he suffered some consequences) for what happened on the bus ride home from his class trip on Friday: he had picked up a bottle cap, as boys are wont to do, and brought it in the bus, and some girl had the bright idea that he should throw it out the window and the other students started chanting "Do it! Do it!" and so he did it.

Our Dog Is Male

Wednesday night, my seven year old son Ian made an observation and then reacted to his observation, all in the same sentence: "We have four boys in the house and only one girl . . . it's awesome."

A Riddle My Nine Year Old Son Created (I Didn't Get the Answer)

What bites but has no mouth . . . and has wings but cannot fly?

I Give Up!

Diligent readers of Sentence of Dave know that I believe that Neal Stephenson is one of the greatest writers of our time -- he combines the best qualities of Thomas Pynchon and William Gibson -- and so it is with much regret that I report that I am quitting his gigantic philosophical novel Anathem . . . perhaps this is a case of what Thoreau said: "It is not all books that are as dull as their readers," as I have certainly become more dull of wit in the past year, because my life has become extraordinarily busy, but whatever the reason, I have been stuck in the forty percent zone on my Kindle for weeks (and I even took out the analog version from the library to see if that was the problem) but it looks like I'm never going to finish this incredibly speculative and meta-physical novel, and so I started something more concrete-- The Looming Tower-- and I was able to read forty pages before I fell asleep (a great contrast to Anathem . . . I couldn't get through two pages before nodding off) and Lawrence Wright's book on the origins of Al-Qaeda and 9/11 is well written and full of great research, including this quotation from essayist E.B. White, who was trying to get a grip on the dawn of the nuclear age . . . before we learned to stop worrying and love the bomb: "In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm."

Technology is Cool/Scary

Cool technology: lidar (it's like radar . . . with lasers!) and it is being used to discover load of archaeological sites in the dense, impenetrable jungles of Mosquitia . . . scary technology: algorithmic high-frequency trading . . . it's like investing . . . with lasers!

Warning. This is Gross.

If you aimlessly scratch at a pimple behind your earlobe, it can bleed a lot.

One For the Actuaries

I am assuming, from an insurance compensation stand-point, it is better to wait for a windy day and let your tree get knocked down by nature, rather than pay a certified arborist out-of-pocket to do it ahead of time.

Very Fine Gradients of Class Warfare

I know this isn't the best trait -- as a coach or an athlete -- and it has probably been handed down to me from my father . . . but whenever my team has away game in a town that appears to be much richer than my hometown, I ineluctably feel extra-motivated to give them a beatdown, and so as we entered lovely Basking Ridge, and drove past the rolling hills of Basking Ridge Country Club, I said to my son Ian, "We've got to kick these rich kids' butts today" and then -- as punishment for my classism -- when we got out of the car and Ian took a look at the opposing team, he said, loudly, in front of several Basking Ridge parents: "they don't look like rich kids" and I had to explain to him that we shouldn't say things like that (even though I did) but still, I am happy to report that we did indeed kick their butts, a great victory of a lower-upper middle class town over an upper-upper middle class town.

Boogers Part II (in 2-D)

While not nearly as epic as this booger story, this is a cautionary tale for students and teachers alike: I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that every educator has lost a student's assignment at some point . . . whether it was misplaced or tossed aside by another student during peer-editing or fell under the desk or got picked up by another teacher . . . so I always give kids the benefit of the doubt when they tell me that they handed something in; this scenario was playing out last Wednesday, and so I did the first thing I always do, which is check the pile of papers -- because sometimes I forget to grade one, or a student mistakenly staples another kid's paper to his own . . . and we found the girl's paper in the pile, but it was connected to another student's (graded) paper not by a staple, but by a booger -- or I'm 75% sure it was a booger, I didn't any testing to determine exactly what it was, but it sure looked like a booger, and we don't use rubber cement in high school.

Killing Is Worth It!

The first two seasons of AMC's The Killing focus on two Seattle homicide detectives trying to solve the murder of a high school student -- Rosie Larsen -- and the writers kept me guessing until the  last moments of the last episode of the second season . . . I think the ending of the case rivals that of the best final TV episode ever made (The Shield) . . . the solution is both surprising and perfectly logical; Mireille Enos plays Sarah Linden perfectly . . . she's a homely, unmedicated and possibly more neurotic (but in a realistic way) Seattle version of Clare Danes in Homeland . . . and though the show is dark, rainy, and bleak, unlike Danes, Linden has someone she can rely on, her partner -- Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman) -- and they bring the buddy genre to new levels of weird awkwardness (and since I'm making absurd analogies, I will also say that at times Holder and Linden look and act like the bizarro world Moulder and Scully).

My Son Successfully Sails the Seas of Cheese

We commanded our children to make my grandmother a hand-made card for her 91st birthday, and in less than a minute my nine year old son Alex came up with this corny Hallmark-style stanza:

No matter how old,
no matter how young,
I will always be
your great grandson.

Dave's Weather Report (Including the Sinuses)

Unusual weather for central New Jersey today: sunny and dry, with clear skies and low humidity . . . and a 70% chance of boogers.

What Did Birders Do Before the Internet?

There is a bird in my yard that says "cheeseburger! cheeseburger! cheeseburger!" and it only took me three minutes to learn that it is a Carolina Wren (and not a black-capped Chickadee) though both these birds say "cheeseburger," but the Carolina Wren says it much faster and clearer . . . but why I am I wasting my time using langauge to explain this . . . watch the Youtube video!

That Point Doesn't Count . . . The Ball Was Dead and I Wasn't Ready and the Sun Was in My Eyes

My seven year old son Ian is the king of the "redo," which is short for "do-over," which is short for "I love to cheat."

More Fun Things About Owning a Dog

That's a strange ball in the middle of the living room . . . I don't remember the kids playing with that . . .  it's kind of oblong and fleshy-looking . . . and it smells really good in here . . . I think I'll take a closer look . . . hmm, that's not a ball . . . it's a chicken carcass, stripped to the bones . . . I suppose the lesson here is that if you own a dog, you can't leave the house for more than ten minutes if you've left a rotisserie chicken on the counter (and I won't go into detailed consequences of this feast, but I will say this: the next day, when I arrived home from work, I had to carry the rug outside and hose it down).

Graveyard for Resolutions

Every so often I notice that I still have two failed New Year's Resolutions prominently displayed on the top of the sidebar (to the right of this sentence) and while I was going to remove them, I have decided to keep them for the time being because I like the reminder that most of our "deep plots do pall, and that should teach us"; I may not have become an expert in Canadian culture, or committed a 100 songs to memory, or become a virtuoso at the banjo . .  and I may not continue to fast on Mondays and Wednesdays for the rest of my life, but the important thing is that I gave it "the college try" and not only that, I learned a few things about Canada (and also learned that I have oceans of ignorance about our neighbor to the north) and I memorized the chords and lyrics to a few songs, and I discovered that even though I don't play my banjo any longer, my wife won't let me sell it, because she likes the way it looks on the wall . . . and so I will attempt to eat nearly nothing on Mondays and Wednesdays, though I know that most days, I am doomed to fail, as are most people are when they make resolutions, but that's okay . . . we would be a sad species if we never made them at all.

Dave Cannot Assess the Situation (Even Though He Refers to Himself in the Third Person)

I have gotten so busy living my life, that I don't consume the same amount of literature, television, film and pop-culture as I used to . . . and I'm not sure if this is making me wiser and more experienced, or simply tired and dull.

Weird Hair Day

There are days when I always feel like I have a spider in my hair.

Dave Learns Something! Maybe Even Two Things!

Although I am a self-proclaimed Master of Vocabulary, every so often a student stumps me with a word (and I'm not talking about slang . . . I learn slang from the kids all the time -- my favorite new term this year is "ratchet") but last week I learned about word that's in the actual dictionary that I never dreamed exist -- a girl in my Creative Writing class wrote a poem about working in a shoe-store (she actually works in a shoe-store) and she used the word "brannock," and apparently a brannock is the device used to measure someone's shoe size.

My Children Are Both Overachievers

I didn't think my boys were capable of it, but this year's school pictures are the worst yet.

Third Grade Forensics

My son Alex gave me the lowdown about what was being debated on the playground Monday: cougar vs. owl in a fight to the death . . . and the setting was "the plains" and this occurred "at night," probably because both animals are crepuscular (Alex didn't use the word "crepuscular," but judging by his conversational topics, he will be soon).

More New Music from The Moving Rocks

The Moving Rocks are on a roll -- here is the second song from the very-low concept album I am working on; it's called "Many Lives" and the lyrics are over at G:TB . . . I recorded this song after reading this book and so my recording process was different than usual -- I started out by creating some rhythmic loops and interlocking them in various patterns, and once I had this musical framework, then I wrote the lyrics and added the guitar -- and this theme was certainly an influence as well, but that's probably obvious.

Spring Issue of Lifewild

Spring is here, and with it a new issue of Lifewild Quarterly . . . an online magazine that my friend Adam puts together . . . I have written a carefully researched article about Canadian geese and their feces, and there is a piece by my friend Eric as well, along with some cool art: check it out if you can (there's also a Winter Issue).

Beer Might Be Like Jazz

My new favorite beer in the universe is Switchback Ale, a delicious amber brewed in Burlington, VT and sold in 22 ounce bottles -- and I was surprised that BeerAdvocate gives it a fairly run-of-the-mill review, but then I remembered tasting this highly reviewed "world class" beer, which was way too hoppy and bitter and fruity and spicy for my primitive palate . . . and so I think my taste in beer, like my taste in jazz, might not be that sophisticated . . . I love Miles Davis and Charlie Parker, but have some trouble with Sun Ra and Ornette Coleman; if you are unsophisticated as well, then I highly recommend Switchback: it is smooth, delicious, high in alcohol, unfiltered, and has a scent and flavor vaguely like Magic Hat #9, but not as fruity.

It's a Great Time for Wealth Inequality and Music

Unemployment is high and the the environment is going to hell in a handbasket, but if you like music, then times couldn't be better: I heard a snippet of some rhythmic Latin jazz on WBGO  Wednesday morning, but didn't hear who the artist was . . . and forgot about it until Thursday, and then I went to WBGO's web-site and found the playlist and learned that it was an Eddie Palmieri song called "Listen Up" and so I popped that into Spotify (which now streams at my workplace) and I was suddenly immersed in some phenomenal Latin jazz by an artist I had never heard before . . . this is a vast improvement over the methods we used when I was a kid (putting a cassette in the boom box, and then racing to the radio to hit record whenever a good song came on) and while I know there are folks that will lament the loss of the mixed-tape or the album . . . or even the investment of paying for a record, which forced you to really listen to it, I still prefer the magic of the internet over those antiquated auditory customs (and I'm sure there are those hi-fi purists who hate the fact that most music is listened to on crappy computer speakers these days).

It's Hard to be a Man in the 21st Century

Last month, I helped a female teacher create a "Manliness Survey," and making the survey was so entertaining that we discussed the issues in my English class -- it was fitting because we were in the middle of Hamlet, and while there is no question that Hamlet is intelligent and eloquent, there is debate over his machismo -- and this resulted in another student and me having a one-armed push-up competition in front of the class, and during this display of unbridled masculinity, the girls were yelling "We don't care! This is stupid!" and the guys were yelling "It's all about push-ups!" and while this was a lot of fun, it made me remember that on that same weekend, Catherine made me take the kids to Target, in order to shop for the two birthday parties that they were attending, and we bought some Squinkies and Pokemon cards, and while I was doing this, I saw my friend Rob, with his kids, doing the exact same task . . . and we said "Hi" to each other and then went our separate ways without commenting on how unmanly we were behaving . . . it was Saturday morning and we should have been chewing tobacco and using power tools, but instead we were both pushing shopping carts at Target, and I was learning the distinction between Squinkies and Zinkies.

Two Choices Make Things So Much Easier

If I could be the star of any TV show, there are only two choices that come to mind -- I would either want to steal David Hasselhoff's role on Baywatch or be Jeremy Wade on River Monsters . . . and I'm pretty sure that for heterosexual males, these two choices are the archetypal options for this hypothetical question -- they've got everything covered . . . you can either travel the world, hooking into giant freshwater fish with a rod and reel, with a dedicated staff helping you find the action . . . or you could run around with a bevy of hot lifeguards, saving the day every episode, with the added bonus of beautiful California beaches and weather . . . so which do you choose?

Same Dave Under a Different Name

I have grown tired of Greasetruck as my fictitious band-name, and so I am changing it -- it's not like I have to consult with anyone! --and so the name of my new (also fictitious) band name is The Moving Rocks (The World's Second Greatest Rock Band) because I like the origin story of this name . . . anyway, here is my first song under this new moniker -- I am hard at work on recording a Moving Rocks album, and perhaps if I am extremely motivated, I will find some real live people to actually flesh out this project, but until then, this is nothing but Dave (and I've replaced the usual rambling psychedelic monologue with a guitar solo!)

It's Fun to Eat Junk Food and Watch a Lot of TV

Sometimes it takes an injury to remember how wonderful it is to eat salty and sugary snacks in alternation, while getting completely sucked into a TV show . . . especially when every episode is available on Netflix . . . I have watched thirteen episodes of The Killing since last Thursday, but season one doesn't wrap everything up in a neat package, so I need a new injury so that I can watch season two equally as fast.

Miracles: I Generate Them

While zealous fanatics of Sentence of Dave know that I am no stranger to miracles, I realize that some of my more skeptical readers question the authenticity of these wondrous happenings, and might even doubt my hagiographic qualities . . . but this example will certainly sway them: last Wednesday night, while playing basketball, my leg popped out of the hip socket -- or that's what it felt like -- and I knew to stop playing, but it didn't seem like that bad of an injury, but the next morning it felt much worse, and by mid-day Thursday, much to the amusement of my colleagues, I was curled in a ball on the floor of the English office, unable to find a position to relieve the excruciating pain in my right hip and leg -- and so I had to do the unthinkable . . . cancel soccer practice AND miss pub night, and despite taking Advil and Aleve, I couldn't sleep and my hip kept getting worse and worse, so I took off work on Friday and went to the doctor -- who despite having a very calm bedside demeanor, still scared the crap out of me, since he kept mentioning X-rays and MRI's and physical therapy and possible surgery . . . but the first step was to get an X-ray, which was an epic trip in the rain, considering I needed the use of a cane to get in and out of the car, but luckily all that showed up on the x-ray was a bone spur and lots of wear and tear, so he thought it was probably just a bad "bone bruise," where bone hit bone on the spur, and then everything swelled up, and so I spent Friday in incredible pain, taking a prescription anti-inflammatory drug, and I was unable to sit up, or walk very far . . . and in order to get off the couch, I had to undergo ten minutes of weird gyrations (including a step when I had to crawl on the floor) and I was feeling pretty low -- like I was done playing sports forever, even with my kids, and probably wouldn't even be able to attend Ian's soccer game on Saturday, let alone coach it, but when I woke up Saturday morning, I was able to get out of bed without a problem, and though my hip was sore, it didn't hurt . . . and I now realize the acute difference between those two states, and so I was able to walk the dog, coach the game (we won! Ian scored!) and rejoin the ambulatory world . . . and now I have a new lease on life, an appreciation of the simple things, and I have sworn to take it easy until I am fully healed and not jeopardize my health and the well-being of my family and myself by vainly taking part in adult athletics, because I am long past my prime . . . unless . . . unless . . . this miraculous recovery is a sign from the powers above that I should continue to recklessly participate in sports aimed for people many years younger than me, and I am sure that my stupid brain will slowly rationalize the latter logic, and I will act just like Steve Martin's character Davis in Grand Canyon.

That's a Killer

Though my injury sucks,  it is allowing me to watch and enjoy the first season of the AMC's Seattle noir murder mystery show The Killing . . . and I especially enjoyed it when local senator Ruth Yitanes tells councilman Richmond that his mayoral bid is over, because of his association with the murder of a high school girl, and that soon he will be "the punch line of a dirty joke."

The Medium Might Be a Message

 Neal Stephenson's ponderous, otherworldy and philosophical novel Anathem may be the perfect book to consume on an e-reader -- although it's disturbing not to know exactly how far I am through the book (30% . . . but 30% of what? I don't know how many pages it is) but I can see the monastic avouts in the concents of Stephenson's world carrying around a similar gadget . . . still this book isn't for everyone, as there is more description of architecture than there is conflict, which is probably why the electronic version is only $1.99 on Amazon.

The Looming Specter of Death and a Tonka Truck

I re-injured my groin/hip playing pick-up basketball Wednesday night, and part of me wonders whether I am getting old and should give this kind of stuff up, and the other part of me wonders whether getting drunk and stepping on a Tonka truck did more damage than I thought at the time.

Bags, Cans, Baskets, Etc.

During our vacation in Vermont my wife got to spend more time than usual with me, and so while she got to see how I operate out in the world, I had to endure her criticism -- which was always warranted, but I'm used to doing things in my own particular style, and when she's not there to witness my own particular style, then I think everything is going just fine; here are three examples from the trip that come to mind:

1) I have a poor sense of direction, but I like to drive -- especially in mountainous terrain, because controlling the car keeps me from getting carsick -- and over the course of our week vacation, we took quite a few drives -- for lunch, to snowboard, to shop -- every single time we approached the town of Weston, I had to ask my wife which way to turn (left) and if she asked me which way I thought I had to turn, I would yell, "Just tell me!"

2) we had to take the trash to the dump, because there was no garbage service at the house -- and I put the trash can in the back of the mini-van -- but the seats were folded down -- and so I tried to use the seat-belt to hold the garbage can in place, but every time I stopped short, the can tipped over, spilling garbage juice into the car, and the first two times the can tipped I told the kids to unbuckle their seat-belts and run back there and right the can -- which they thought was awesome . . . "We're walking around in the car while it's driving!" and I was thinking, "Welcome to 1978" and then my wife ended the party by asking, "Why didn't you put on of the seats up and put the can in the well?" and I told her that sounded like a great idea, and that I wasn't sure why I didn't think of that (perhaps I am an idiot?) and when I stopped the car and went back there and tried it, the garbage can fit perfectly and did not spill;

3) at the grocery store, I noticed that Switchback Ale was only $3.99 per twenty-two ounce bottle, instead of the $5.99 per bottle price at the beer store, so I brought six bottles up to the register, along with a frozen pizza and a rotisserie chicken -- and the old lady scanned the beer first, and put the large bottles in three little paper bags -- two beers per bag, and while Catherine was getting out money to pay for everything, I decided that my part of the transaction was over, and grabbed one of those little plastic grocery baskets and put the beer in it, and the old lady gave me a funny look and said, "You're going to bring that basket back, right?" and I said, "Of course, I'm just afraid if I carry these bags loose I'll have an accident," and then left, but my wife got to see her slow head-shake of disapproval at my strange behavior, because she was going to put those three paper bags into another plastic bag, which I didn't anticipate, because I have no patience and very poor communication skills (unless I'm talking about something I just read).

Complaint or Humblebrag?

I should count my blessings that I have complaints like this one about my children: sometimes my older son gets so wrapped up in listening to audio books that he doesn't pay attention when people talk to him (right now he's really into Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series . . . it's sort of like Harry Potter crossed with mythology).

This Sentence Was Written Under Duress

I apologize for the poor quality of this sentence, but I am feeling light-headed because of the stupid fad-diet that I have vowed to adopt for the rest of my life; it's called the 5:2 Diet and it started in England -- the gimmick is that you "fast" two days a week and eat what you like the remaining five days . . . but it's not really fasting, it's just eating very limited calories two days a week (600 calories for men) and the craze for this diet serendipitously coincided with my reading of Jared Diamond's new book about hunter-gatherers and the success of their feast and famine diet . . . so I am going for it, and I don't do things half-assed (actually, yes I do) so I made the promise in the English office that I would fast on Mondays and Wednesdays for the rest of my life -- and I'm writing this late Monday afternoon, and so the fasting is really catching up with me (though I correctly spelled "serendipitously" on the first attempt!) but if I can hold out another couple of hours, with just a salad for dinner, then I can go to sleep and really pig-out tomorrow (and one of the problems with this diet is that you need complete control of your environment . . . two weeks ago, I had made it through the bulk of Wednesday, but my wife walked int he door with two delicious smelling pizzas and I broke down and ate four slices).

I'm Really TRYING to Be Enlightened . . . Really, I Am

If you haven't seen the HBO series Enlightened, starring Laura Dern, then be sure to check it out -- it's funny and horribly awkward, and Dern -- who has a nervous breakdown at work in the first episode and attends a life-changing holistic rehabilitation center in Hawaii --returns to her old life, sort of . . . she's been severely demoted and has to move in with her estranged mom, but despite this, she is trying to become a better, calmer, less-materialistic, less bitter, more optimistic and hopeful person -- an "agent of change" -- but most people don't want to deal with this sort of person, and not only that, she's barely holding on to this new persona . . . I often feel this way when I vow not to lose my temper because of my children -- I can usually hold it together a few days (Serenity now!) and then I explode; the show alos reminds me of the Nick Horby novel How to Be Good . . . most of us our trying to be good people, but we wouldn't want to live with one (and I just read that the series was cancelled due to low ratings, despite critical acclaim, and that is actually a perfect end for the show).

Dieting Rule #487

It is not your duty to finish all leftover slices of pizza in the refrigerator.

Am I Misanthropic or Merely Grouchy?

In some respects, I'm glad the weather has finally turned spring-like, but the downside is that all the amateurs crawl out from hibernation and get in the space that has been mine all winter . . . these fair-weather folk clog up the sidewalks and the park and the tennis courts and the ball fields.

Two Very Very Important Questions

The house we rented in Vermont last week had Playstation 3 and Rock Band set-up in the basement, and after many hours of playing (and I must say that I am a pretty good Rock Band guitarist and drummer) two questions come to mind . . . one of which the internet answered: Question #1 . . . Are actual rock stars good at Rock Band? -- and there are loads of YouTube videos proving that actual rock stars usually CANNOT play their own songs on Rock Band . . . Question #2 is . . . Why don't they have a Jazz Band module for Rock Band? and while I love jazz, Bruce McCulloch answered that question long ago: if you like jazz, then you, sir, are my nemesis!

My Children Are Animals (and I am Inured to It)

Yesterday, I picked my kids up from school (plus an extra kid, as a favor) and I made the mistake of trying to talk to a friend for a moment, which gave my kids and their friend time to start wrestling, tackling each other, and slamming each other to the pavement -- which I noticed but didn't really address, because that's how they generally behave -- but because this was right in front of the school, two school aides and a teacher rushed down, to break up the melee, and I had to walk over and claim the children -- two of whom I explained, were "brothers" and then when I tried to finish my conversation, they started in again, and by the end of this round, Ian was kicking Alex in the head -- and my friend had to yell at Ian . . . and while this was horribly embarrassing, it was good for me to see how others view my children's behavior -- behavior which I am so used to that it doesn't faze me -- and all I could see on people's faces were expressions of horror.

I Hate to Say I Told You So . . . or Do I?

I hate to say "I told you so," but I told you so (and actually, like everyone else, I love to say "I told you so") and it wasn't me telling you anyway, it was someone far more respectable -- Diane Ravitch -- and she had the backing of Campbell's Law . . . so no one who reads this blog should be surprised as to what happened at Beverly Hall's school in Atlanta.

The Jungle is Low in Sodium

If you don't want to change your ways, then do NOT read the chapter on diet in Jared Diamond's new book The World Until Yesterday . . . like Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma, it reveals some eye-opening dietary facts . . . except that Pollan points out the dangers of adopting a modern diet of corn 2 and corn syrup, and Diamond reveals the dangers of staple food laced with sodium and sugar, two ingredients that hunter-gatherers in the jungles of New Guinea do without -- and they have no incidence of stroke, diabetes, heart attack, coronary disease, and many of the other modern illness that plagues civilized man -- so I am going to try to eat less refined sugar and less sodium, which is difficult, because they both seem to be in everything -- but these are the only habits I am going to adopt from hunter/gathers, because while I agree with Wilfrid Oakley that "man may be captain of his fate, but he is also victim of his blood sugar" I don't think I am ready to abandon the elderly in the forest once they cannot move with the tribe, or commit infanticide if a child is born too close in age to the oldest child who is still on the teat, or adopt the treachery ideal of southwestern New Guinea, where it is even better to invite your enemy to share food and kill him than it is to kill him on the battlefield . . . "tuwi asonai makaerin!" (we have been fattening you with friendship for the slaughter!)

Big Announcement!

I loved our vacation in southern Vermont so much that I have convinced my family to abandon their hectic central Jersey lives and move with me to the Green Mountains -- and, of course, we will be living off the grid, growing our own granola and tofu, sugaring our own maple syrup, and doing without the internet . . . so no more Sentence of Dave, instead I will be keeping a daily journal, and I will write this journal with a quill pen, on hand-made vellum, and I will lock this journal in a wooden chest, which I will bury under our sugar-shack, and long after I am dead and gone, perhaps someone will exhume it, read it, and enjoy my posthumous wisdom.

Snowshoeing = Snowshoeing

I went snowshoeing for the first time in my life last week, while we were on vacation in Vermont, and I must say that the experience of snowshoeing is exactly as I imagined it . . . it was no easier or harder than I imagined, and I sank into the snow the exact amount I have always imagined I would sink into the snow while wearing snowshoes, it was exactly as exciting as I imagined (not very, compared to snowboarding, but very practical and relaxing) and so while I recommend snowshoeing -- it's exactly as fun as you imagine it to be -- you don't actually have to get out into the snow and do it, you can just think about doing it and it's pretty much the same experience (besides the cardiovascular benefits, of course).

Circus Peanuts Beware

The Vermont Country Store in Weston is over-priced and full of kitsch, but these minor faults are overshadowed by the vast array of free samples: dips and chips and salsa; local cheeses and pepperoni; fudge and cookies . . . if you're trashy enough, you could skip paying for lunch next door at the Bryant House (the associated restaurant) and just graze your way through the enormous store, which is actually several connected old buildings; the candy section fills one of these structures, and it is a joy to behold, several hundred square feet of every kind of chocolate, sweet, and confection possible -- arranged in a maze of jars and bins and cases . . . and from this horn of sugary plenty -- to avoid gluttony -- we decided to each choose a small scoop of ONE item -- Ian filled his bag with candy blackberries and raspberries; Alex chose candy Lego bricks, Catherine got dark chocolate covered cranberries, and I had a hankering for black licorice -- but there was a LOT of black licorice to choose from: ropes and strands, dog shaped licorice, swirls, rounds, twizzlers, etc. -- I finally decided on some smallish rhombus shaped pieces with the word "ZOUT" stamped on each piece . . . I assumed this was the brand of the candy, but when we got into the car and sampled our treats, I nearly had to spit mine out -- it was incredibly salty . . . and I soon learned, after doing a bit of research, that zout means "salty" in Danish, and I had purchased the infamous Dutch double-salted licorice, which might not be a candy at all, and instead some sort of folkloric remedy for sore throats . . . some folks on the Internet mentioned eating it as a "rite of passage," and all this is fine and good -- you might know that I am a fan of the circus peanut, and not because of the taste of course (circus peanuts taste horrible, like disintegrating Styrofoam) but simply because they exist at all and people continue to buy them and someone must be eating them . . . but I do believe there should be some sort of warning on this Danish double salted stuff, because now I have a bag of them, and the only way to unload them is to foist them off on unsuspecting people who don't speak Dutch.

Bonus Post! Good Friday? The Best Friday

I am about to pour a triumphant local Vermont beer: we survived four days of family snowboarding without mishap (though my children nearly died several times sledding in the yard of our rented "cabin," which is actually nicer than our real house) and while most of the time when I am on vacation, by the end of the week I am getting that "this place is real nice but I'm looking forward to going home" feeling, I am NOT getting that feeling this time -- and that is probably because we lucked out with the weather . . . could be the nicest week of spring weather in the history of Southern Vermont.

Comparing and Contrasting Insane People (with an extra dash of irony)

While I recognize the irony of someone like myself judging lunatics who write lots of words on the internet, I still can't help offering my two cents: last Spring Break we ate an amazing little taco joint in New Paltz called Mexicali Blue, and while the Yelp reviews are generally quite positive, there are also some fascinating narratives sprinkled in the mix, about mischarges for guacamole and enduring loud music -- long competent narratives with loads of details . . . in fact, if they weren't written on a restaurant-review web-site, these people might pass for educated and normal . . . and we spent this Spring Break in Southern Vermont and when I drove through Ludlow, on my way to get some new bindings for my snowboard, I saw a little shack called Taco's Taco's (that's how it is spelled on the sign) and I love tacos, so I checked the Yelp reviews and while I will definitely never visit this restaurant, I am glad I visited the reviews, because while they are bad, they are also wonderfully written, informative, entertaining, and quite funny . . . especially "Tasteless Tacos, Bogus Burritos, and Nasty Nachos," written by David K from Fort Lee, New Jersey, who describes his "first taste of nachos at Rye Playland Ice Skating Rink" and says that they were "totally better" than the nachos at Taco's Taco's . . . he also calls their Spanish Rice "one word: disgraceful" and claims that the rice is not only an insult to Spanish people, but to all people "of Hispanic descent."

A Tough Fruit to Digest

I highly recommend Tyler Cowen's e-pamphlet The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better . . . it is a quick read with a powerful thesis: we are not as rich as we think we are . . . and the stuff that made us feel rich in the first place, the low hanging fruit we grabbed and ate, is pretty much a thing of the past -- there is no more free and cheap land, the major strides in public education happened last century (at the beginning of the 20th century, very few people went to school or university -- intelligent or not --and Cowen argues that we have reached an age of diminishing returns in education . . . now everybody goes to school) and there haven't been many life changing scientific breakthroughs recently -- aside from the internet, which is a special case, because though it eases the shock of the stagnation, it is mainly free, and wonderful for those folks who are "intellectually curious, those who wish to manage large networks of loose acquaintances, and those who wish to absorb lots of information at phenomenally fast rates," and so though we still have our Constitution and relatively cheap fossil fuels, they are only two of the five . . . and in areas of great gain, such as financial innovation, these innovations do NOT translate into gains for the American people (and might translate into losses) as "recent and current innovation is more geared toward private goods rather than public goods," unlike the innovations of the 20th century: refrigeration, transportation, sanitation, mass communication, electricity . . . I agree with this, though the internet is super-neat, it pales in comparison to an indoor toilet, and I will still pay my plumber more to fix my pipes than I will pay for an internet connection.

Transitions? WTF!

Last week, my wife texted me the following message "U need to pick up the boys from your parents' house on the way home; I took out meat meat for tacos for dinner" and I told her I would pick up the kids and then I chastised her for not using a transition between two very different ideas -- thus creating an abrupt non sequitur of a message -- and I sent this message despite receiving advice NOT to send it from the women in the English office . . . because I thought it was humorous, but my wife thought it was "kind of annoying" and so I suppose that transitions are unnecessary in texts and I won't bring it up again (and of course, my wife used a period, not a semi-colon, in her text but I don't want to ruin the integrity of Sentence of Dave and so I made that slight adjustment . . . I apologize to all parties for being "kind of annoying").

Cheap Electrical Fun

Just before I go to sleep on a cold, dry winter night, I strip off my black fleece sweatshirt so I won't get hot once I am under the covers, and the last thing I see before I close my eyes is a pyrotechnical festival of static electricity, caused by the fleece rubbing against my head, made all the brighter because I am inside a tunnel of black fabric . . . and if you haven't experienced this, I suggest you try: it's inexpensive, safe, and a suitably dreamy image before you settle into a cold and comfortable night's sleep (and this is in direct contrast to what happens before bed on a hot, humid summer night . . . I peel a sweaty t-shirt off my hairy torso . . . and instead of receiving a visual treat, I am punished with an odorous olfactory slap in the face).

Saving It . . . Forever

This smart and spot-on post about amateur art by my friend Rob made me realize that the reason I have never actually tried to paint a picture -- though I love the idea of slapping some colors on a canvas -- is because I secretly think I would be an awesome and amazing painter, and I know the only way to ruin this pleasant fantasy is to actually try painting . . . there are several other things in this very particular category of "stuff I am purposefully avoiding so that I don't find out that I'm not as good I would imagine I would be" that I can share with you:  for instance, I just know I would be a natural at curling -- so I'm never going to visit Bemidji, Minnesota and try my hand at the sport . . . I'm also positive that I would be an excellent actor, and the best way for me to preserve this opinion is to never try out for a play . . . and I am as certain as certain can be that if I took the time to buy some new clothes and actually put some effort into dressing myself, that I would be the most fashionable guy around . . . and as long as I continue to wear fleece pants out in public, I'll never have to worry about this theory being refuted . . . so what are you avoiding on purpose so that you don't have to face the sad reality that you aren't a natural at it?

The Human Memory is Strange, Wondrous, and Stupid

Though I most definitely saw the film, if you were to ask me "Do you remember Remember the Titans?" I would have to say no . . . but I do remember Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Total Recall, and Memento quite well (and Dark City is an odd, in-between case).

I Am Mean (But Not Golden)

My friend Stacy and I each both teach Philosophy this year, and we were talking about Aristotle's Golden Mean . . . Aristotle says for every virtue there is a deficiency and an excess (so for the virtue of courage, the deficiency would be fear and the excess would be recklessness) and he says that it is admirable, but very difficult, to find the "golden mean" of each virtue -- the exact right amount of each thing you should be; we challenge our students to choose a virtue and apply this philosophy, and we usually do one ourselves: I decided that I needed to work on the virtue of "patience" -- and I definitely have a deficiency of patience . . . I lack patience when I drive, when I walk the dog and he won't poop, when I walk through the hallways at school, when I am eating, when I go to live music shows, when I go out to dinner, at the theater, when I am ready to leave a party, when I am tying my kids' shoes etc. etc. and Stacy was nice enough to offer to print out a question sheet for this assignment that she had saved from the previous year . . . and as the paper slid from the offic printer, and she tried to hand it to me, I grabbed it out of her hand, and read it . . . and it said "Please return ASAP" and nothing else, and before I could turn my filter on, I asked my friend Stacy this question: "What kind of asshole are you?" and then I realized that this was simply the flip side of a piece of recycled paper, and that the question sheet was on the other side -- but by this time it was too late . . . luckily Stacy has a great sense of humor, and she thought my horribly rude response was very funny, and not only that, she hopes that I do NOT succeed in improving my patience because she gets great enjoyment from my inappropriate spontaneous and ridiculous behavior, and -- of course -- the irony was not lost on either of us that if I can't be patient even while I am designing a lesson about my own patience, then I am probably not going to imrpove it anywhere else in my life either.

If You're Reading This You Are Probably WEIRD

In his new book, Jared Diamond explains that the human subjects studied in the vast majority of psychology experiments are WEIRD, and that may be skewing the results -- and you are probably WEIRD too . . . Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic . . . and if you are WEIRD, then you might learn a lot from The World Until Yesterday, and I highly recommend it: nine mongongo nuts out of ten.

Setting the Youngsters Straight

Every year, it seems that I have one annoying class . . . it's usually a large class in the middle of the day, just before lunch, when the kids are fully awake, but also have low blood sugar -- and every year, when I am expressing my annoyance to this annoying class, one of the students kindly asks me if I am having a bad day . . . because these students aren't annoying individually, they are annoying as a horde of thirty boxed-in teenagers . . . and so they can't believe that they would ever be annoying; and every year, I have to explain to this annoying class that if I am in a bad mood, and expressing this to them, it is not from some outside influence -- because I am a consummate professional -- and the reason I am in a bad mood is a direct result of their annoying behavior. . . and this always shocks them a bit, and makes them laugh: I think it is human nature to think that if someone is in a bad mood, it's certainly not my fault, there must be some other reason, some reason outside of me, because why would anyone ever be angry at me?