Jeff from Curb is Funny

During a round of golf, Larry's agent Jeff Greene angrily counsels Larry's dopey cousin on how much information you should divulge to your wife:  "I don't tell my wife anything!  I'm at the office right now, not playing golf . . . the only time I tell her I'm playing golf is when I'm with another woman!"

8/16/10 It's Easier to Invite Everyone . . .

Larry David did an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" about the awkwardness of the invitation: Larry can't mention that he's invited to the Greene's dinner party (but of course he does mention it to Marty, who is NOT invited . . . and then Larry gets angry because he's not invited to dinner at a restaurant . . . and his friends are dining on him because he was the one that got Ted Danson the gift certificate, but Larry's friends claim that they didn't invite him because then he would be giving the gift to himself) and this theme manifested itself right in front of me the other night in New Brunswick . . . we were out with a large group of people and one couple revealed they had gotten an invite to someone's beach house (a drunken and late invite, but an invite nonetheless) but no one else had gotten an invite recently-- although one person had gotten the broad promise of a later invite a month before . . . so this was funny enough to discuss, but technology has taken awkwardness to a new and more immediate level . . . everyone started bombarding the non-inviter with texts about the lack of an invitation, until she finally confessed (in text format) that she was a "bad inviter," which leads to my motto of the day:  it's easier to invite everyone, as most people won't be able to make it anyway.

8/15/10 Some Movies Are 3-D!

I took the kids to the 11:05 matinee the other day and it cost twenty seven dollars, which I thought was outrageous, until they handed me a pair of 3-D glasses, and then I realized that Toy Story 3 would be my first 3-D movie (besides some movie with fish I saw many years ago at an Imax theater) and it went beyond all expectations . . . the movie was fantastic, especially the set-up at the Sunnyside Daycare Center (Lotso the Bear is a tough motherfucker and his story, told by Chuckles, a creepy sad clown toy, is priceless) and the metro-sexual Ken jokes are worth the price of admission alone: ten disembodied potato-head eyes out of ten.

Bonus Post at Gheorghe: The Blog

I found an excellent essay about world class athletes at kottke.org and I wrote a response over at G:TB . . . if you have time to read several sentences today, check it out (sorry-- that's a lot of hyper-links).

Sadly, The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree

We went camping with old friends in Vermont last weekend and it was like driving to Fall . . . it was COLD at night (low forties) so we were able to do a serious hike with the boys and after some early complaints they performed admirably-- it was the first time we really climbed a steep rocky trail to a peak with them . . . the little summit is called Cantilever Rock and you can scramble out onto a giant boulder with a huge skinny shaft of rock balanced overhead and see all the way to Lake Champlain . . . but just because the boys hiked to the top doesn't mean that they are now self-sufficient or any more mature than they were before the hike; for example, later in the afternoon, I had to stop Alex from barrel rolling down a steep rocky, tree filled hill to what would have been certain death, and while I was mumbling under my breath about his insane choices, my friend Rob said to me, "Just like you at Forsgate," and I had a quick flashback to our last high school golf match,  and what I thought was a fitting farewell: I barrel rolled off the monumental sand trap/cliff on the ninth hole (facing the clubhouse of course) and plunged, whirling away, and several of my team mates followed me (I think, or maybe they didn't) and my coach was very, very angry and embarrassed and I am sure he was mumbling the same sort of things I was mumbling and that was when I was SEVENTEEN years old so it's just going to get worse and I've got to prepare for it.

8/13/10 An Invention Just for You . . . You're Welcome!

I don't do charity work for the homeless or volunteer at the local food pantry, but I do consider this blog and the ideas that I give the on-line universe as my form of community service-- and if you doubt me, let me remind you about conceptual gifts such as this, this, and this-- and so I just came up with a new one, and more power to the person who reads this and follows through with the patenting and production of this invention I am donating to the internet . . . all I want is the ability to say, "You saw it here first" . . . so here it is:  everyone hates putting away laundry-- it's difficult enough to DO the laundry and once you're done there's never any motivation and energy left to actually put away the clothes-- so you make a dresser with laundry basket style drawers, so once you've put your laundry into the baskets, you're done-- you just slide the laundry basket drawers into your dresser and go back to your busy life and once you've worn all the clothes in your drawer, then slide it out, fill it with clothes from the hamper and do some laundry . . . knowing that when it's complete you can put it in your basket and effortlessly slip the drawer shaped basket right into your dresser.

8/12/10 A Comedic Epiphany

This sounds impossible, but my son Ian figured out how to "fart with his neck," as he so eloquently phrased it . . . he raises his shoulders to his ears and creates the suction that is normally generated with the classic "cupped hand under the armpit" fart, but this way he can produce fart sounds when his hands are occupied (and he has found that this only works when the humidity level is over 75%).

A Fishy Meal

A few weeks ago, we were eating cod from Costco-- each fillet is frozen in its own plastic pouch-- when Catherine discovered a long pink worm in her piece, and this skeeved her out so much that she refused eat any of the other pieces of that batch of cod, but though she wouldn't eat the fish herself, she had no problem feeding it to our kids . . . who ate it without a problem . . . and someday, if the internet doesn't implode on itself when the singularity arrives, Alex and Ian will read this and either laugh or decide to seek revenge.

8/10/10 A Horticultural Surprise

It's rare that something actually lives up to its expectations, but my wife's butterfly bush almost always has a butterfly on it.

8/9/10 Nap Etiquette

I waited until the air-conditioning repair guys went to lunch before I took a nap on the couch; it's embarrassing to sleep in the daytime in front of people who are working with their hands.

Huey, Willie, and Bill

The classic novel All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren, is ostensibly the fictionalized story of Huey Long, the amoral populist Louisiana demagogue known as the "kingfish" . . . Warren embodies him in Willie Stark, known to his men as "the boss," and the novel delves deeply into the corrupt politics of the South and into the paradoxical soul of "the boss"-- he wants to do good for the poor, but he's got to get his hands dirty to do so (Stark is also reminiscent of Bill Clinton-- the arc of their ascent and their rhetorical strengths are similar) but really the book is about the narrator, Jack Burden-- he is an advisor to Willie Stark-- and how Jack grapples with the forces of history and slowly moves from believing in a detached deterministic universe (his Great Twitch theory) to finally believing in something larger (and there's also a scene right out of Star Wars: in between the philosophizing and politics, there's quite a bit of melodrama . . . a tour de force and a great read: ten sugar cubes out of ten).

8/7/10 Are You Average?

The average Facebook user has 130 friends . . . but how many of these people would you lend money to . . . or invite to a party at your house . . . or trust to take care of your dog/ gerbil/ kids . . . or allow to drive your car?

8/6/10 Larry David is Funny

Two throwaway bits from the first episode of Season 7 of Curb Your Enthusiasm that I loved: 1) Larry calls the apricot a "low percentage fruit . . . only one in thirty is any good" 2) Larry is informed that the neighbors have been talking about recent burglaries in the neighborhood, and he is far more paranoid about talking to the neighbors than the robberies . . . "the burglars want your stuff and the neighbors want your time; I'd rather lose my stuff than my time."

A Political Thought Experiment

If we could divide our nation into two, and all the Red State Conservatives lived on one side and the Blue State Liberals lived on the other, and you had to choose where you were going to live and you couldn't switch . . . would you live on the unregulated, low taxation, abortion is illegal, few social services, health care for those with jobs, non-unionized, lobbyist empowered, large gap between rich and poor, underfunded public education Red side or the high taxation, plenty of social services, abortion is legal, marijuana is legal, universal health care, unionized, regulated markets and financial institutions, pro-public education Blue side?

Just Say Your Sorry!

Another tip from social scientist Dan Ariely:  saying "sorry" really does have a beneficial effect . . . Ariely proved this by setting up a simple experiment where the technician running the experiment takes a cell-phone call in the middle of questioning the subject-- and rudely ignores him for a time-- but later the subject has a chance to exact "revenge" when the technician over-pays him for his efforts; if the technician did NOT take the cell phone call, then the subject usually gave back the overpayment, but the times the technician took the call, the subject usually exacted pecuniary revenge for  the rudeness . . . unless the technician said, "Sorry, I shouldn't have taken that call" afterward . . . but, of course, if Ariely simply watched this scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (when Lancelot storms the wedding and kills the best man and many other guests, but ends up getting along smashingly with the King because he apologizes for his violent actions) the he wouldn't have had to go through all the trouble of running the experiment.

Bonus at Gheorghe:The Blog . . . The Internet is for Corn-Hole

If you want to learn more about corn-hole performance during Outer Banks Fishing Trip XXVII, check this post out . . . you will also learn about the true purpose of the internet.

OBFT XVII

Highlights (and lowlights) of the Outer Banks Fishing Trip XXVII . . . worst water ever, cold and full of sea lice and jellyfish, which led to the most corn-hole playing ever, my right hamstring and back muscles actually started to get sore from tossing those beanbags . . . after a sound beating by the Bill/Whit corn-hole dynasty, Jerry and Chris go inside and Google "how to toss a corn-hole beanbag" and then return minutes later and drub the dynasty . . . Bruce a.k.a. "Windy Buttocks" gives an extemporaneous wind report off the deck of the Martha Wood . . . T.J. tries to leap the chair, although "leap" probably isn't the correct word . . . a fantastic sit-com called "T.J. and the Weave" also featuring "Jerry" . . . two guys with mustaches . . . Lacey the bartender is pregnant so we do the math (and also try to name the baby "Whitney" but she says it sounds too snobby) . . . a discussion of The Book of Mormon . . . Bruce tries to change seats at Tortuga's because of the "menu game" . . . the advent of the Tortuga's "bar crawl" and a cyber-method of persuading someone to pick them up . . . thanks again for another successful trip,Whit.

Bonus : A Pertinent SNL Skit

Here is a related SNL skit (thanks to Greg) that is almost as funny as the last sentence:  "How Much Ya Bench."

8/2/10 This Won't Help What People Think Of New Jersey

My friend Bruce runs Kittyhawk Kites down on the Outer Banks, and he often teaches hang-gliding lessons at Jockey's Ridge, and this was his unfortunate experience with a Jersey guy a few weeks ago:  the guy was built well, he certainly worked out, but he was having trouble flying the glider (actually, a lighter touch works much better) and not getting half the distance the rest of his group was getting, so Bruce took him aside and gave him a few pointers, and then when the guy walked back over to his friend, and Bruce clearly heard him say: "Yeah, so that guy knows a lot about hang-gliding, but how much can he bench?"

8/1/10 Family Life: A Portrait

A snapshot of our family life:  my lovely wife agreed to sugar-wax the disgusting patches of hair off my back, which really hurt, so my youngest son held my hand during the process, and while my wife ripped and teared away I told my other son that if I was a movie star, they'd depilate my entire body, which would really hurt and he said, "But do they let fat guys be movie stars?" and then he qualified it and said, "Not like you . . . even fatter, like THIS fat" and he mimicked being really fat with his hands and I said, "Sure, John Candy and John Belushi and Chris Farley and Jack Black were all fat movie stars," and he said, "Oh yeah, if you had a fat movie star you could paint him brown and he'd be like a piece of poop, that would be funny" and this image of painting someone like John Candy poop brown made us all laugh really hard (despite the fact that Catherine was dripping hot wax on my back and then yanking it off) and then Catherine said, "Our son is weird."