Thanks Dan

Lately, I've been obsessed with the TV show Community . . . it's a sitcom satirizing traditional TV Tropes (and if you haven't been to the TV Tropes web-site, block out a few hours and check it out) and creator and writer Dan Harmon, in an interview in Wired magazine, explains his method of organizing beats, scenes, episodes, and entire seasons of the show; he calls his graphic organizer an "embryo" and he ensures that the elements are present at every step before he moves on . . . and so last week, while I was teaching narrative writing in my composition class, preparing kids to write their college essays, I told a number of stories (not that I don't tell stories the rest of the year) and I found that my stories subscribed to Harmon's organizer, as did the narrative models we used from the text (Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" and "Salvation" by Langston Hughes and "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris) and so here is Harmon's embryo, in case you want to try it out:

• 1.  A character is in a zone of comfort
• 2.  But they want something
• 3.  They enter an unfamiliar situation
• 4.  Adapt to it
• 5.  Get what they wanted
• 6.  Pay a heavy price for it
• 7.  Then return to their familiar situation
• 8.  Having changed

and while all stories don't conform to this pattern-- especially once you get modern and post-modern and characters never adapt (Kafka) or fail to get what they want (Hemingway) or do not pay a heavy price (Nicholson Baker) or remain static during the course of the story (Camus)-- I think that the most satisfying stories-- whether your talking Into The Wild or Moby Dick-- usually do follow this archetype.

Asymmetrical Asynchronous Control

My parents have a pinball machine in their basement, and my Dad was impressed that my son Ian could  use the flippers independently-- apparently even some adults have trouble with this skill-- but Ian mastered this when he was three . . . and he seems to have some weird control over both sides of his body-- he kicks lefty and throws righty-- and he's always had the ability to raise one eyebrow, and in a far more natural manner than Mr. Spock.

Dave's Second Best Idea Ever!

Fans of this blog may recall Dave's Best Idea Ever, and might even be familiar with some of Dave's Bad Ideas, and so-- because Dave is a humble man who responds to the opinions of his readers-- I will let you decide which category this new idea of mine belongs, but-- not that I mean to sway you-- based on empirical evidence, I think it should be in the former . . . and I will warn you that this is a Soccer Idea, but I think that even non-soccer folks will appreciate its brilliance . . . The Problem is this: it is difficult to get very young soccer players to pass the ball to their teammates, or even to remember that their teammates actually exist, and so I wanted to create a drill that not only encouraged passing, but also had an element of immediacy to it, and not only that, I wanted the drill to reward passing instead of dribbling, which is difficult to do when the players are young and the skill levels are various, but I figured out the solution to this insoluble problem and I present it to you free-of-charge because I consider this blog to be my public service to the universe (because there's no way I'm ever going to serve hobos at a soup kitchen) and so here is the answer: zombies . . . little kids know how to act like zombies, and so I made one child be the "zombie" in the drill, and this "zombie" must hold a ball out in front of them (which is a bit mummy-like, but no one questioned it, and it slows them down) and then I instructed the zombie that all he or she desires is to zombie-walk at the ball and tag the person with the ball at their feet with their "zombie-ball" and so I put three kids in a box made with cones and told them that they have to keep the ball inside the box and away from the zombie-- but they can't get tagged by a zombie or kick the ball out of the box, or else they become the zombie-- and the zombie moves slow enough for just about any player to have enough time to look up and make a decent pass, but the zombie is fast enough (and usually making scary noises) and this encourages the player to get rid of the ball quickly and to pass it to a teammate . . . instead of just dribbling aimlessly . . . and the drill certainly makes them realize that there are other people on their team, and they understood quickly enough that the best way to defeat the zombie was to stay spread out and kick it far away when the zombie approached, and, for once, they were doing something that approximated actual soccer, passing a ball around from person to person-- and even though they were only avoiding a zombie, it still made them behave in a totally different way than they normally behave on the pitch-- and one group got good enough that I had to introduce a second zombie . . . and now I am dreaming of an entire side of zombies, forcing the children to spread out and knock the ball around like a miniature Manchester United . . . so all I can tell you is, give it a try and enjoy the results, and I am positive you will admit that this is in the running for Dave's Second Best Idea Ever.

A Sight Gag Just For You

You might recall that I permanently damaged my iPod while swimming with it in a waterproof case called an Otterbox-- but I was lucky enough to know a student with an ex-boyfriend who worked at an Apple Store, and, despite the water damage, he set me up with a new iPod, which I did not submerge underwater-- but I still used my old Otterbox to protect the new iPod from rain and sweat, until the Otterbox's head-phone jack broke . . . and now I need a new water-resistant case for my iPod, but until I get one I am using a Ziploc sandwich bag as an ersatz but physically humorous water-proof case, and now I am actually becoming resistant to buying a new case for my iPod because it's so much fun to tell people in the office that I just got a great new water-proof case for my iPod (and most people at least feign some interest because it's a technological subject . . . Katie actually asked if I got an Otterbox) and then once I've built up some interest and drama about my new-fangled waterproof case, I pull out my iPod, in the clear plastic sandwich bag, with the headphones snaking out of the corner, and the people laugh and laugh, and I think to myself: I could have been a great prop comic, just like Carrot Top.

The Rise And Fall of North Eastern Fall

Some folks love the smell of napalm in the morning, but not me-- I love the smell of decaying fungus in the morning . . . last Sunday morning to be specific, I was loving the reeky, sweet, pungent odors of an entire wheelbarrow full of weird toadstools, giant fan shaped fungi, and clusters of long stemmed mushrooms, all of which needed to be removed from my backyard, as they were quickly turning to a bug infested slime . . . and I know I shouldn't complain about things I can't control but this is the worst fall ever-- what happened to late September Sunday morning sitting on the porch in a sweatshirt and sweatpants, drinking coffee in the crisp autumn air, enjoying the rattle of dried leaves, without having to fend off giant jungle mosquitoes?

Where's The Beef . . . From?

Here at Sentence of Dave, the staff occasionally provides more than the usual drivel, and this is one of those occasions; in the past, I revealed the shocking nature of beef brisket and today I will discuss another cut of meat, the hanger steak . . . Wikipedia explains that "it is derived from the diaphragm of the steer" . . . but "diaphragm steak" sounds disgusting (and is also difficult to spell) and so it has more conveniently been referred to as skirt steak and "the butcher's cut" because it has long been a butcher's secret as to how delicious it tastes . . . I got to try this steak at The Frog and The Peach-- a well-regarded rather expensive restaurant that I would ordinarily never visit, but because it was Restaurant Week in New Brunswick, they had a 35$ Prix Fixe menu and so Catherine and I decided to treat ourselves, and it was well worth it-- the hanger steak, which is very lean and has the potential to be tough if it's not marinated and cooked right, was sensationally good-- I don't eat much beef these days and I almost never eat a steak, but if I could eat one of these every night, I would: hanger steak is super lean (and I hate any fat on my meat) and very firm and consistent . . . essentially it's steak that looks and tastes as little like a chunk of cow as possible, and that's the way I like my beef; coincidentally, the night before, I was out late at the Park Pub, and on the way home I got a cheeseburger from White Rose-- and it was late enough that it was technically the same day as our outing to The Frog and The Peach, and so in a short span I consumed two very different grades of beef . . . with a substantial price difference between the two meals . . . a White Rose cheeseburger costs $3.05, including tax (I had to borrow a nickel from Connel) and so it was less than 10% of what the hanger steak cost me . . . and though White Rose doesn't point out what cut of meat they use in their burgers, the important part of the story is that both meals were equally delicious.

Yin and Yang

I stayed out far too late at the Park Pub on Thursday night, and was suffering at school the next day-- and I knew I had a long afternoon in store because I had an away game . . . which equals two long and loud bus rides, Friday afternoon traffic, and lot of waiting around at the school with 21 eighth grade boys -- but I accepted this as my punishment for staying out late and drank some coffee and resigned myself to my fate . . . but then it started to rain buckets and the 9th grade coach told me his game on Saturday was already cancelled and I thought to myself: Odd, the universe is going to reward me for staying out late . . . my game will be cancelled and I'll have the afternoon off but when I went to the Athletic Office to hear the good news, I was informed that my game was still on, and again, I took the news stoically because I felt that the universe should punish me for staying out late . . . and the afternoon wore on and I grew more sleepy, but I received no e-mail cancelling the game, and so I got some candy and coffee on my way to the middle school, parked, carried the water cooler and ice chest into the building, and ran into one of my soccer players, and he was coming out the school door in jeans . . . and he informed me that they made a last minute announcement that the game was cancelled . . . and so I got into my car and texted my wife the news and she informed me that my parents had taken the kids for the night and that it was Restaurant Week in New Brunswick and we were going out for a nice meal . . . so in the end, the universe rewarded me for staying out late, which may seem odd, but I think it is because I accepted my punishment so willingly and with such stolid resignation.

Vocabulary Woes . . .

Friday afternoon, Liz was scrambling to make photo-copies in the English office, but the machine was jammed, and so I gallantly offered to walk across the school to the copy room and make her the copies (I actually wasn't being that chivalrous, I was hung-over and needed some exercise and a purpose in my life) and she thanked me and said, "Can you judge it for me, also?" and for a moment I was stumped-- I assumed "judging it" was some obscure photo-copy terminology . . . perhaps it meant to shrink down the text and copy it horizontally, like leaves in a book or something . . . and so I said, "I don't know how to do that," but she explained that she just wanted me to attempt the quiz and decide if it was fair-- so as I walked across the building I took a look at it, but when I saw it was a matching vocabulary quiz I nearly lost interest (because as everyone who has the patience to listen to me knows, I claim to be a walking dictionary) but then I noticed that this was no ordinary vocabulary quiz . . . it was only seven words, but these were the words: convivial, congenial, amicable, affable, jocular, levity, and cordial . . . and, you had to discern between seven extremely similar matching definitions, and needless to say, I did NOT get 100% and perhaps my claim that I am a walking dictionary is a bit overblown . . . but perhaps I'm a walking thesaurus.

A Sporting Paradox

 

I've been reading Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey--and Even Iraq--Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport, and one of the many fascinating things the authors point out is that though America is thought of as the great proponent of the "free-market," its sporting leagues are much more socialist and egalitarian than other countries-- we have salary caps and media profit sharing (in the NFL, all television profit is shared equally) and merchandise profit sharing (outside of New York, the Yankees receive only one-thirtieth the profit on each cap sold, the same as every other team in baseball) to ensure that there is some parity in our professional sports, while the countries with far more socialized governments-- countries with a larger "safety net," with unionized labor and government health-care, and cradle to the grave benefits-- let soccer players be bought and sold like commodities on an exchange, and let the teams with the most money (i.e. Manchester United) reign supreme.

Another Movie

If you're single, self-indulgent, past your prime, seeking love, and drink too much, then you'll really dig Mike Leigh's new movie Another Year, and empathize with poor Mary-- but otherwise, you'll cringe during almost every scene, but I still recommend the film . . . the acting is perfect and the actors are imperfect, and the result will make you feel good about your repetitive, mundane life . . . and if it gets you down, then watch a more upbeat Leigh film: Happy Go Lucky.

Even Subjective Questions Can Have Wrong Answers

My Shakespeare class was asking me a number of questions about how Shakespeare's plays were enacted in Elizabethan times, and while I had a few answers for them, I eventually had to admit that one of the best uses of a time machine would be to go back and see a production Hamlet or Twelfth Night at the Globe Theatre, and then I asked the class to speculate on this hypothetical question: if they had two chances to use a time machine to see something in the past (not alter history) then what was the other thing they should see-- besides a Shakespeare play-- and a student quickly guessed the other "correct" answer . . . which is a dinosaur, of course, and a few students debated my "correct" answers-- someone suggested the Lincoln Assassination, which I must admit is a pretty good thing to go back and see-- and I decided to ask my friend and colleague Kevin, who was teaching English next door, if he knew the correct answers to this thought experiment . . . and I am so glad I asked him, because my classes laughed about his answer for the rest of the day (and I will admit that it was before 8 AM in the morning and I caught him off guard, but still, his answer was egregious) and so after I posed the question, he thought for a moment and said, "So it can be anything in the past, personal or in history, right?" and I confirmed this, and then he thought hard, searching for the correct answer and finally said, "Maybe I should see my own birth?" and then he realized what he said, and I said to him, "You want to see yourself coming out of your own mother's uterus! That's disgusting!" and my class agreed that no one should want to see their own mother's distended private parts (and I know Kevin's mother, which made it worse) and Kevin realized his error and tried to back-pedal quickly: "Okay, I take that one back . . . how about a dinosaur . . . I'd like to see a dinosaur" and we all agreed that was a better choice.

A Question of Curd

My wife took a bite of her salad Sunday night and instantly decided that the bleu cheese had gone bad, but-- despite the fact that she has a more acute sense of smell than me-- I questioned her judgement because I'm not sure there is any way to ascertain if certain stinky cheeses (such as Roquefort, Limburger, and Stilton) have passed their prime . . . and though we checked the package and found that the cheese was three days beyond the expiration date, I could taste no difference and I suffered no adverse effects from the slightly stinkier stinky cheese.

Dish Washing Corollary #245

My wife has often corrected my method of loading the dishwasher-- apparently I don't categorize and group like items, and as a result I don't maximize the number of items that can fit on the bottom rack . . . and I'm also a bit cavalier with the kinds of items I place on the bottom rack and this leads to all kinds of trouble-- but Saturday Catherine also informed me of a Dish Washing Corollary with which I was not familiar: if the dishwasher is running and someone has just washed all the other dirty dishes, pots and pans that did not fit into the dish washer by hand and so the sink is totally clean and clear, then you should not toss a dirty dish into the sink (even though this is the normal protocol . . . the dirty dishes eventually get loaded into the dishwasher) because the sink is clean and someone has put in the time hand washing all the other dishes and so you should hand-wash this lone dish in order to show appreciation for the work the other person has done (even though hand-washing a single dish is a major waste of water, which I pointed out . . . and then I picked up another dirty breakfast dish off the kitchen table and asked, "Do I have to wash this one, too?" and then I dropped the subject because I knew I was pushing it and didn't want to get in big trouble . . . but, for the record, I'm not sure about the logic of this Dish Washing Corollary).

I'm Still Waiting . . .

Still no apology for The Potato Chip Incident (and while I'm on the subject, still no apology from my neighbors for the Out of Control Ivy Bed Incident . . . and you may be thinking: Who does Dave think he is? How can he demand apologies when he's constantly offending people?-- but after I put my foot in my mouth, I always apologize for my gaffe . . . unlike some people).

I'm Waiting . . .

Still no apology for The Potato Chip Incident (obviously the author of the offending e-mail is neither familiar with the experiments of Dan Ariely nor the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail).

The Potato Chip Incident

I ran the 8th grade soccer try-outs last week, and it was a stressful time both for me and for the forty-three prospective players that I had to evaluate . . . so when I received an e-mail Wednesday night from a disgruntled player that had the words "belittled" and "disrespected" in the first line, I took it quite hard, but then by the second line I knew this was not the kid writing to me, but a parent posing as the kid, because of the the phrase "to have a grown man embarrass a thirteen year-old boy in front of all his peers is truly not something I would have expected from a coach" and then by the third line I knew that this was something even more bizarre than an irate e-mail from a parent posing as a kid, as the reason cited for the narrator's anguish was "the potato chip comment"; I read the e-mail to my wife, at a loss as to what it meant or what had happened, as I remembered this particular player as being a bit chubby and unable to keep up with the running-- so much so that I never actually spoke to him (I run with the kids and so if you're at the front of the pack, then you get the added bonus of being able to chat with me . . . otherwise, I'm setting up drills and small sided scrimmages and taking notes on players) and so I sent an apologetic e-mail back to the "kid" saying I was sorry he felt this way, but that I only remembered showering the players with compliments (they're the strongest group I've ever had) and that perhaps he misheard or misunderstood, as I did not recall any "potato chip" comment or even remember making any comment to him . . . and then a few minutes after sending the e-mail, I remembered what had happened-- and if you're expecting another Awkward Moment of Dave, you're going to be disappointed-- while we were running full field sprints at the end of practice, this player went down to a knee in the middle of the field and started rubbing his leg and so I jogged over to him and asked him if he had a calf cramp and he confirmed this, and so I said-- as I've said to players a thousand times before-- "Okay, keep rubbing it, drink lots of water, and when you go home, eat a banana or some some potato chips" and then the rest of us ran on and I explained to the players that bananas have potassium and potato chips have sodium and potassium, and those minerals help with cramps (I could have also recommended kale, but 8th graders aren't usually partial to obscure leafy greens) and-- thinking back-- I'm sure the chubby kid with the calf-cramp missed the nutritional component of my advice, as he was in a world of pain that only a calf-cramp can create, and so I sent another e-mail to the "player" explaining that when I told him to "go home and eat a banana or some potato chips" that I was being serious because these foods cure cramps and I included a link to a web-site that explained the physiological reasons for this, and I explained that I was in no way belittling him or disrespecting him . . . and I am guessing that the kid didn't interpret the comment this way either, but that when he went home, he told his mom that try-outs were very difficult and that he got a cramp and that the coach told him to "go home and eat potato chips" and his mom-- who is probably more sensitive about the kid's weight than the kid is-- interpreted the tone of this phrase for the kid-- she heard this as me telling her chubby son that he was worthless and should "go home and eat potato chips"-- and so she wrote the angry e-mail that unfairly accused me of picking on a thirteen year old . . . and what really gets my goat is that once again, I am owed an apology and I'm never going to get it, because the kid never showed up to try-outs again and the mom never wrote back explaining how sorry she was, either posing as her son, or--  as she should do-- as herself, but this time contrite and penitent.

Dave's Radical New Diet!

Diet Tip #2: here is the best way to avoid snacking at night . . . once you finish your dinner, go straight to sleep.

My Big Chance To Earn A Darwin Award!

I can't wait for the cold weather to arrive-- and not just for my usual reasons-- I also have some evidence there might be a wasp's nest in my Jeep because 1) my son Ian found a wasp hiding in the floor trash and 2) while I was driving to work on Monday, in silence because my stereo no longer works, I distinctly heard buzzing coming from the back of the car . . . and the back of the car is full of coaching equipment, trash, and-- most significantly-- debris from when I ripped out a rotting wood fence and used my Jeep to transport load after load of wood and ivy and brush to the park dumpster (so lots of sticks and leaves and organic material like that) and there certainly could have been a few wasp eggs in that mess and now it's covered by coolers, a med-kit, cones, balls, and other soccer related stuff, and there's no way I'm cleaning all this out, so my only hope is that we get an early frost that kills them before they decide to swarm me . . . otherwise, you might read about my horrific wasp induced car wreck on this site.

How Do You Not Be "That Parent"?

I am finding it extremely difficult to watch my son Alex's travel team soccer games without "coaching" from the sidelines . . . I think I have coached soccer too long and I have lost my ability to simply be a fan; I'm trying to chat as much as possible with the other parents to divert my attention from the game, but it's a losing battle-- inevitably, I have to disperse some of wisdom I've garnered from nearly twenty years of coaching and so I yell: "Spread out!" or "Relax and pick your head up!" or some other brilliant phrase that will certainly ensure a victory for the Eagles (and I am certainly aware of the irony of yelling the word "relax").

My Wife Is A Terrible Alcoholic

My wife is not a raging alcoholic (and I am thankful for this) but she is an awful alcoholic . . . around dinner time she often opens a beer or pours herself a glass of wine, but she always misplaces it and never finishes it; I usually find it later-- half-full-- on the counter or next to the computer . . . she apparently doesn't know that if you pour yourself some alcohol after a long day of work, then that stuff should stay glued to your hand until you finish it . . . she does the same thing with coffee in the morning: she says that she "likes the idea of having a cup of coffee" but never finds the time to sit and actually finish a mug (I usually find her coffee cup-- hours later and three quarters full-- on a book shelf or next to the TV).