Unreasonable Expectations

Though he had the best intentions, my brother set up my son Alex for much future disappointment; he gave us tickets to see the Red Bulls' home-opener and the seats were in the sixth row, on the end-line near the corner flag, so it was hard to see diagonally across the entire field, but it was a great view of the goal . . . and I warned my son-- who is eight and doesn't usually have the attention span to watch sports for very long-- that you have to pay close attention to a soccer game or you might miss the only goal . . . and then the game began and the Red Bulls scored two goals in the first six minutes, right in front of us . . . it was wonderful and spectacular, we got to see Thierry Henry score and assist, and this kept my son riveted to the game (despite the fact that it got quite slow-- when you take a 2-0 lead that quickly, then you just sink back and knock it around) but in the second half we also got to see Colorado score an excellent goal in front of us as well . . . and while this was a superb first professional sporting event for my, son I think he now has a skewed and unrealistic view of soccer, and doesn't realize just how slow-paced and boring the game can be; I will have to take him again to set things straight in his mind (this brings to mind my first Yankee game . . . or games, as my father thought I would enjoy a double-header, but I think my attention span was exhausted by the end of batting practice, which made for a long afternoon).

Battle Royale > The Hunger Games (Book) > The Hunger Games (Film)

If you feel the need to see a bunch of teenagers slaughtering each other in an organized contest, then watch renowned Japanese director Kinji Fukasaka's stylized and beautifully ludicrous Battle Royale rather than The Hunger Games-- an ersatz version if I've ever seen one; while Battle Royale whips through plot-arcs and violence effortlessly, elegantly and humorously characterizing the teenagers before they are killed in beautifully graphic scenes of blood and mayhem, The Hunger Games stays very close to its main subjects-- Katniss and Peeta-- much of the camera-work is done in the faux-documentary Blair Witch-style . . . but the film ignores what the book did well: the deft characterization of the other tributes-- most notably the fox-faced girl; it ignores the survival aspects of both living in District 12 and living in The Hunger Games arena . . . the hunting, gathering, camping, and sleeping in trees, and it glosses over the tactics and strategy the game-- including the best sub-plot of all: whether Peeta really loves Katniss and vice-versa, or if the romance is only a strategy to gain sponsorship . . . also annoying: the kids always look fresh-faced, made-up and coiffed, even deep into the games . . . after Katniss sleeps on a pile of leaves for two days, comatose because she was stung by poisonous wasps, she awakes scrubbed and clean, looking like she just got a facial, and her caretaker, Rue, looks the same-- no mud and grit and dirt-- even when Rue dies, she is cute and unblemished . . .  and I should also warn you that the acting and the dialogue are both extremely cheesy . . . but I shouldn't complain, the movie is for teenagers, not adults, and I watched it just so I could have something in common culturally with my students (who are going to stick me with a pair of scissors when I give them my review, but even if the movie is for teens, it shouldn't defy physics . . . how can you outrun those "muttation" dogs in a straight race, and there is no attempt to explain them-- unlike the book, in which they are genetically created from each dead competitor and resemble their human counterpart . . . in the movie, a lady generates one on a 3-D computer screen and then the creation instantly springs from the earth, fully formed and alive, and I would think if this miraculous technology existed then the Capitol Panem would have no use for fish and coal and whatever else they get from the 12 districts, as they would be gods that could create anything from nothing and I'm very disappointed that Roger Ebert gave this poor excuse of a movie three stars-- although most critics were in his camp-- but there are a few voices of reason on Rotten Tomatoes that noticed the many shortcomings of the film, especially David Denby, and I'm glad for that, because if my wife and Denby hadn't agreed that the movie sucked, then I might have doubted my sanity).

We Love You!

Just wanted to give a big shout out to all the fine people who can't seem to park their vehicle in between the lines . . . and I'm guessing you're the same fine people who are doing this sweet move as well (and a related question for all the litigators in the house: if I "accidentally" ding the car next to me in the parking lot when I open my door, but the car isn't parked between the lines, am I culpable?)

sentence of e e dave

i will no longer use caps 

and/or punctuation in my 

sentences 

(and they
will be
much more
artistic
because
of this)

i hope you like

the new format

but if you don't

then
you
don't get it

This Food Is Not Yet Rated

The Surgeon General needs to institute a food rating system; macaroni and cheese would be rated G, as not only is it is bland, but-- even better-- the individual pieces of macaroni stick together because of the sauce, so it's easy for a kid to get it from the plate to mouth without making a mess . . . sushi would be R, as it is spicy and raw, and couscous would be PG-13 . . . there may be some parents who think that, with supervision, their children have the fine motor skills to scoop up those little grains without making an unholy mess, but as for my kids-- I'll let them watch Temple of Doom and Super-8-- but they're not getting another shot at couscous until middle school.

Sometimes You're Soft and Sometimes You're Hard

So everybody likes to say they are "hardcore," whether you claim to be a hardcore surfer, hardcore mountain climber, or hardcore shopper . . . but what if you're not hardcore? . . . what if you're just moderately into the thing you are talking about-- I purchased a new mountain bike the yesterday and I told the guy at the bike store that I used to mountain bike, but I didn't tell him I was a "hardcore" biker because that would have been exaggerating-- I certainly took my bike to a lot of difficult single-track and rode often, but I wasn't "extreme" or a "gear head" . . . so I suppose I was a "soft-core" mountain biker, but I'm not sure if you're allowed to say that in any context other than the pornographic-- telling someone you're a soft-core mountain biker makes it sound like you do niche films with lots of bikes, oil, and spandex-- so I didn't say this . . . but perhaps someone braver than me will try out the phrase . . . perhaps you can tell the guy at the camera shop that you're a "soft-core" photographer or tell the Boy Scout den leader that you're a "soft-core" camper . . . I think if we all cooperate we can make this phrase as permissible as it's more explicit companion.

Creepy Surveillance Contest: U.S. vs. Syria

Here is one of my favorite stories from my time in Syria, and it sounds like America is following suit: my friend Drew-- a Canadian-- was on the phone speaking to a friend from home, who was French-Canadian, and his friend switched from English to French, as French-Canadians often do, but after he spoke a few words in French to Drew, another voice-- a deep voice-- interrupted their conversation and said, "Please continue the conversation in English," and so they did, as no one wants to be "disappeared" like Dunbar . . . and though it was no surprise that our phone-calls were being monitored, as we had all been forewarned about the methods Syria's oppressive police-state infrastructure employed, it was still pretty damn creepy, but-- according to this Wired magazine article-- the United States is far beyond this in terms of surveillance (though there's nothing more effective than a creepy voice from nowhere as a scare tactic) and soon nearly everything we say over the phone and everything we do on-line will be stored in the NSA's massive Utah Data Center, an innocuous sounding place five times the size of the U.S. Capitol that will specialize in data storage and breaking encryption-- so watch what you say, as it will come back to haunt you, especially if you are one of the one million Americans on the terrorist watchlist . . . or if you know one of those people, or if you've ever been in the same room with one of those people . . . and while this is scary, intrusive, and certainly some violation of our First Amendment Rights, it's also kind of nice to know that someone will always be reading Sentence of Dave-- a built in fan base-- so here's a shout out to all those folks at the NSA that are saving these words for all of digital eternity . . . and if I'm not on the watchlist, then please sign me up, because I spent three years in Syria and I loved it! 

Anti-social Notworking Part II

Facebook has advanced one step closer to the idea I pitched to them in 2009 (and by "pitched" I mean wrote it on this blog and posted it on the internet, where anyone, including Mark Zuckerberg, could read it) because they have now added a feature where you can demote your not-so-close friends to the status of Acquaintance . . . but they still haven't gone whole-hog and added the "Enemy" status that I suggested . . . and, now that Facial Recognition software and language decoding filters actually work, this Enemy feature would be a lot of fun; you would only see Enemy updates on your News Feed if it were bad news-- only statements like my dog got hit by a cement truck today:( would activate the filter-- and the facial recognition software would ensure that you only saw ugly, asymmetrical pictures of your "Enemies," . . . perhaps a certain BMI could also activate the feature, so if one of your enemies put on some weight, you'd be alerted . . . and imagine if you could "Enemy" the celebrities you hate . . . Zuckerberg, you know this idea has legs, so thank me in the comments and I am still available for hire, although I only work a maximum of six hours a day and I require summers off.

Crazy Asians

On Saturday mornings at the park by my house, a bunch of older Asian guys play something that vaguely resembles basketball-- they position themselves around the court more like they are playing soccer or hockey, and they tend to chuck long passes and dribble wildly and shoot on the move-- and this Saturday, as I rode by, my dog trucking along by my side, I kept hearing a weird tweeting sound-- and so I stopped to investigate, and I noticed a guy with a whistle, zealously refereeing the game, which looked ridiculous, of course, but in retrospect, it's not a bad idea and certainly some of the pick-up games I've played in could have used an Asian guy with a whistle.

The Kindness of an Old Lady in a House Robe

Unlike Blanche DuBois, it's not often that I've depended upon the kindness of strangers-- and we all know, from the murder of Kitty Genovese and the so-called "bystander effect," that if you are in trouble and there's a group of strangers nearby, you certainly can't rely on them to help you-- but all bets are off if there's only one person observing your predicament, there is a much greater chance that a single observer will come to your aid, and I got to experience this firsthand on Saturday morning: my dog escaped out the back gate and took off down the street, he made it a couple of blocks before I finally caught up with him, and he was scared shitless because he knew he had really screwed up and so he rolled onto his back and did his best imitation of Jello and when I pulled at his collar to get him up, this scared him even more and, of course, in my mad dash to catch him before he got hit by a car, I forgot to grab the leash so I was essentially going to have to drag him two blocks to my house or carry him, but luckily, an old lady in an old lady house-robe, walking her old dog, came to my aid-- she brought her dog over so Sirius could sniff him, which made him stand up and relax, and then she gave me the cloth belt of her robe to use as a leash and this worked wonderfully and I was able to walk Sirius home and then return her belt to her, and the only thing that would have made the story better is if she wasn't an old lady in an old lady house-robe, but instead the woman in the photo above . . . she is the first image that pops up on Google, if you type in "house robe," which is both an absurd and wonderful thing about the internet.

Take It Slow?

Patience is certainly a virtue-- but it is a virtue that can be expended-- and once your tank is empty, you don't sputter and roll to a stop . . . or at least I don't (for example: after several weeks of patiently reminding my son that running around with his shoes untied was dangerous, several weeks of patiently helping him tie his shoes, several weeks of patiently reminding him of the time he tripped over his untied shoelace and spent four hours in the emergency room-- there was the day that my tank was empty and I told him, "the next time I see you with your shoes untied, I'm going to kick you in the ass," and then five minutes later, when I saw him with his shoes untied, I followed through with my promise . . . but now I'm back to gently reminding him to tie his shoes and waiting patiently while he incompetently ties them . . . and when my wife was about to take him Cohl's to get new sneakers-- Velcro strap sneakers-- and he said to me, "Can I get tie sneakers?" I didn't have an aneurysm, I just reminded him of our past history with tie sneakers (minus the ass-kicking, which we don't ever mention) and when he said, "But Dad, I want to get better at tie sneakers and practice makes perfect," I didn't lose my temper or kick him in the ass or anything, and then I waited for some sort of divine omen, some provident sign for my good behavior, but nothing happened-- no manna fell from the heavens-- and so I think we are going to get caught in the same cycle of inept shoe-tying and ass-kicking and I doubt there is any exit from it.

I Should Be Doing Something Other Than Writing This Sentence (But I Forget What It Is)

So here is a question for married folks: if you and your spouse combined are equivalent to one brain, then do you play the role of the long-term memory, the short-term memory, both-- or as my colleague Krystina said about me when I had the audacity to wonder which one I was . . . "You're neither, obviously," but my wife does not agree; she is definitely the short term memory, keeping track of everything we need to do on a day to day basis and remembering just enough to make our household run smoothly, without experiencing the anxiety that I feel-- I either think about too many things, far into the future and freak out, or I forgot about everything I have to do and then suffer a sudden shock when I realize how busy I should have been . . . but she credits me with storing many of our long-term memories: movies we've seen, stories from our world travels, where to find old files on the computer, etc. and while her job is far more practical and important, I think my memories are an important aesthetic contribution to the relationship; like the arts, I could certainly be cut without ill-effect, but that doesn't mean I'm insignificant.

What Do The Pontiff and My Dog Have in Common?

Like the pope, my dog prefers to shit in the woods (except when he has the runs . . . then he shits in the playroom . . . my dog, I mean . . . I'm not sure how the Pope handles the runs).

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Game of Thrones

I read George R.R. Martin's fantasy masterpiece Game of Thrones last year, and I was nervous about how it would translate to the small screen, but everyone is perfectly cast-- from Tyrion the dwarf to Daenerys to Ned Stark-- the characters met all my expectations and usually exceeded them (aside from Khal Drogo's impeccably waxed back) but here is the sad thing: after watching a few episodes, I no longer remember how I originally imagined the characters-- once I saw them rendered on my giant HDTV, all the previous images that I created, the unique vision of the novel that I held in my mind's eye-- this was instantly erased from my anemic brain; and we are used to this . . . it happens all the time: Billy Beane is Brad Pitt, John Adams is Paul Giamatti, and-- horror of horrors-- Hester Prynne is Demi Moore . . .we are no match for HD technology, and I suppose it's fine, in most cases, but there is some kid out there, who when you say "Johnny Cash," he imagines Joaquin Phoenix, and that is a travesty.

I Am A Big Hairy Clock

Last week, when I began my usual rant about Daylight Savings Time, my wife said, "It's like clockwork," and I said, "It's NOT like clockwork! It's the opposite of clockwork! It's anti-clockwork! Clocks don't just jump an hour ahead!" and she said, "Not Daylight Savings Time . . . your annual complaints about it."

Darth Vader vs. Sirius

Though my loyal readers expressed their disgust with some of the recent content on Sentence of Dave, I think the root cause of this story about my dog's anus needs clarification: my dog had good reason to tear apart the mitten and eat the stuffing, as my son's Darth Vader Alarm Clock went off in the middle of the day and the clock was screaming DON'T UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE FORCE! and THE EMPEROR HAS BEEN EXPECTING YOU! in a creepy Darth Vader voice, and Sirius was home alone and listening to this emanate from the top of the stairs for God knows how long, before I got home and unplugged the thing-- and I had to tell my son that we were going to have to get rid of the clock, as it's difficult to control the alarm, and impossible to shut off-- once it went off in the middle of the night and the dog knocked over the table it was on (and Alex was very good about parting with his beloved birthday gift . . . I told him he could sell it at a garage sale and use the money for whatever he desired . . . but I think he may have an inflated view of the value of the clock and be in for a rude awakening when he goes to sell it).

Miracles Happen to Me . . . Frequently

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

Midnight in Paris: Romantically Modern

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

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

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

Let's Take A Moment and Think Logically

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

1) is this the age of computers?

and (of course) the answer is "yes"

2) what is 2 times 30?

and (of course) the answer is 60

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

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