Two Questions, No Answers . . .

Two questions I have been pondering:

1) does possessing a smart-phone make this generation of youngsters more adventurous with travel and food? . . . my wife and I went to Atlantic City for a one night vacation, and having a smart-phone made it easy to get off the beaten path and not get lost (we ate lunch at Wingcraft and watched soccer, and then later on, for dinner, we had appetizers and several kinds of raw oysters at the bar at Dock's Oyster House and then walked through Bally's Wild West Casino, which is a bizarre hodge-podge of architectural mayhem, including a completely inappropriate beer pong section, then wandered into the heart of Asbury for Dominican food at La Finca-- the lemon chicken was excellent and the mofongo was tasty but salty-- and then next morning we had an incredible breakfast at a hole-in-the-wall called Brittany Cafe down on Ventnor. . . we covered an insane amount of ground walking to these places, but we never got lost and they were all worth it, the smart-phone made it easy; I will be polling the youngsters to see if my hypothesis is true;

2) while we were at Brittanyy Cafe, we watched Serena Williams destroy Lucie Safarova (despite the fact that she had the flu all week) and I wondered what level of men's player Williams could beat; apparently when she was 16 she played Karsten Braasch (who was ranked 203rd) and he beat her 6-1 (he also beat her sister Venus) so the question is: what level male player could Williams beat? . . . could she beat a top ranked male college player? . . . could she beat a male club pro? could she beat a decently ranked male pro with a sprained ankle?

Kids Need to Learn Stuff

Recently, I've been a font of wisdom for the young people: I coined a new aphorism about poison ivy for my oldest son-- leaves of three, do not pee-- and I gave some invaluable advice to a student of mine, who stashed his very expensive philosophy textbook on a cart in the corner of the classroom, so he wouldn't have to carry it around in his knapsack . . . I told him: never hide something valuable on a thing with wheels, hide it in something stationary . . . because the cart is gone, someone wheeled it away-- as people are wont to do with carts-- and I've asked around, but no one seems to know who wheeled the cart away or where it is-- so this lesson is going to cost him some cash; my most committed readers will recognize that this lesson about not putting valuable things atop things with wheels is the seminal lesson from this blog, the thing from which all other sentences sprung (and those committed readers might also remember that I was far less prolix in those days).

The Universe Likes to Shoot Spicy Stuff into My Left Eye

Monday at lunch, when I opened a container of salsa to put on my taco salad, some of the salsa shot into my left eye-- but I scoffed at the pain, because it was nothing compared to this terrible incident-- but then later in the day, just after I had left Wawa, the universe punished me for scoffing at the pain, and when I opened a bag of jalapeno flavored chips, a piece of spicy chip flew into the very same left eye . . . and that hurt a bit more than the salsa, but I still scoffed at the pain and drove back to school with one eye, and so I'm sure the universe is extremely angry at my insolence-- and I'm also sure the universe will take this out on my left eye-- so don't be surprised if the next time you see me, I'm wearing an eye-patch.

Not Quite Eternal Recurrence

By June, I really start to feel like Phil in Groundhog Day . . . but (fortunately) the school year ends whether I perfect my attitude towards mankind or not (and it's looking like "not," as I'm just getting grouchier and grouchier . . . but this is good for the seniors, as it makes for a clean break without reminiscence or nostalgia; on a much happier note, my wife and I celebrated fifteen years of marriage yesterday, and that's a merry-go-round that I don't want to get off).

World's Most Talented Dad!

Initially, you might be impressed by my younger son's ability to simultaneously hula hoop and catch/throw a football, but after a moment of reflection you'll realize the real talent belongs to me, and is illustrated by the perfection of my tosses, which are both accurate and well-timed.

Horticultural Aphorism Revision

We've all heard "leaves of three, let it be," but my new and improved adage about poison ivy is even more vital-- my son Alex learned the hard way and he's taking Prednisone because he neglected to follow this simple rule: "leaves of three, do NOT pee!"

Sometimes Parenting Gets Weird

Usually, when we go somewhere as a family, I drive (because I can't do much else in the car or I get motion sickness) and my wife tells the children to stops punching each other, but Friday night, my son Ian-- an inveterate cheater-- illegally punched my son Alex during a game of "yellow car/punch buggy" . . . I wish I could explain the exact infraction, but I can't make sense of the byzantine rules of this never-ending game (Catherine also plays and there is a score and something crazy happens when you see a yellow Hummer or a purple car); anyway, apparently because Ian cheated, Alex was allowed to punch him twice in the shoulder, but Ian wouldn't let him and so Catherine, in very un-mother-like fashion, let Ian have it: "Stop being a baby and let him punch you! Give him your shoulder!" and I supported her position, but Ian still refused and when Alex got to close, Ian kicked him in the mouth, and now Ian is banned from the game, which is fine by me, because I was going to ban everyone from playing it, but maybe Catherine and Alex can do it in a civilized fashion.

Bucket List: 1) Make a Bucket List

One of my students-- a senior-- recommended to the class that they make a "bucket list," and she reminded them that it didn't have to consist of extraordinary accomplishments and events (summit Mount Everest, win a Nobel prize, circumnavigate the globe, etc.) but could instead be fairly mundane (see the sun rise over the ocean before attending school) and then I polled the class and it turned out that about half the students had "bucket lists" of things they wanted to accomplish; I was in the no-bucket list group and I'm wondering if I should be concerned about this-- maybe I need to focus on some specific goals in order to achieve more in my life; I'd like to finish recording my album and I have some vague ideas for a sci-fi novel, perhaps if I put them on a bucket-list, then I'll work harder on them . . . but two things does not a list make, so I'll be taking suggestions for other things to put on this hypothetical list and then I will post it and then I will accomplish everything on the list . . . or maybe I won't (I did accomplish one specific goal a few years ago: I ate more tacos).

Kids Ask the Darndest Damned Things About the Letter "D"

The dinner topic was WWII (not my choice), and my boys decided that things would have turned out better if the Germans had played some RISK before trying to conquer the world again (because they would have realized how difficult it is to achieve world domination, and they would have given up before they started) and then Alex asked me one of those questions that I thought I knew the answer to, but immediately realized I didn't: "What does the 'D' in D-Day stand for?" and while I gave them a few guesses that make sense, if you read this article, you'll learn that the "D" was essentially a variable.

Don't Worry About That . . . Worry About This

Though the recent Amtrak derailment was an awful and tragic event, it's not something you should worry about . . . in fact, there's a school of thought that say that anything that you hear about on the news isn't something that you should worry about-- abductions and drive-by shootings and gas explosions and lead poisoning and looting and bear attacks-- because if it's in the news, then it is probably rare and unusual, and thus news . . . so what you need to worry about the things that aren't on the news-- like gum disease and kidney stones-- and it's much more difficult to worry about things that aren't on the news, so perhaps it's best not to worry about anything at all.

Christmas Squared

Overheard one nerd saying this to his chubby four-eyed friend at the gym: "The Force Awakens is due out in late December, that's going to be like Christmas on Christmas."

Tamales and Rocks and Things

If you like big rocks stacked on top of little rocks-- and who doesn't?-- then Pyramid Mountain is the hike for you; while rocks of all sizes are plentiful for the entire hike, there are two in particular that stand out: Bear Rock, which is huge and balanced precariously on its side, and Tripod Rock, which is a really big rock sitting on top of three smaller rocks . . . either a glacier or some very industrious Native Americans did this, and it's got a Stonehenge type feel to it; you can do a loop, climb the mountain, see the big rocks, and then return to the parking lot along rocky cliffs overlooking Taylortown Reservoir . . . this is one of the best hikes I've done in New Jersey and I highly recommend it; it was steep enough in spots that the discussion turned morbid and we ended up making a bet about how many people died trying to summit Mount Everest; I said 72, Catherine said 89, Ian said an even hundred, and Alex went high and said 150 . . . the stakes were five dollars a head to be spent on Birnn Chocolate given to the winner; you can make your own guess and then read this to see if you would have won; luckily, we did not die on the mountain and so we got to stop for lunch in Morristown on the way home at Macho Nacho, awesome chorizo and carne asada tacos and gigantic pork tamales for cheap (and Ian had his first ever chimichanga and pronounced it good).

Is Mad Max Insane? Or At Least Insanely Hungry?

It's hard to criticize Mad Max: Fury Road because there's so many awesome visuals: the flame-thrower guitarist in the bungee cord rig; the bendy pole guys; the spiky vehicles; the custom steering wheels; the winches and the pulleys; the face masks of Max and Immortal Joe; Furiosa's war paint; the beauty of the breeders amidst the starkness of the desert; the bad-ass biker chicks; the storm; the half-life war boys spraying chrome paint on their faces as the race toward Valhalla . . . BUT there are three things that bug me:
1) this one is minor, but it still bugged me-- perhaps because I'm always ravenous: nobody eats for the entire course of the movie (aside from from when Max gobbles down a two-headed lizard and Nux eats an insect) and so I'm not sure how they are sustaining themselves (are they drinking human breast-milk on the sly?) but amidst all the furious driving and fighting and repairing, no one even takes a moment to scarf down a sandwich . . . meanwhile, I finished all of my snacks before the end of the coming attractions and had no food to eat for the entire course of the movie, a great hardship;

2) at the end of the movie, Furiousa leaves Mad Max down with all the toothless scum . . . she doesn't even invite him up into the Citadel for tea; after his heroic performance, he should at least be allowed to come up and shower and eat a meal and hang out with the beautiful breeder chicks . . . right? . . . and honestly, you'd expect a little something more than that for his effort (wink wink nudge nudge say no more) and he's certainly of better genetic stock than all those cancerous half-lifes, but instead he disappears into a crowd of dusty, disgusting rabble, with barely a chaste wink between him and Furiosa . . . Max may be mad, but he's not dumb (although he is damn close to mute) and he's certainly not going to find better looking women out in the salt fields or the barren mud zone . . . this reminds me of my review of Frank Herbert's Dune . . . when I lived in Syria, we had all sorts of of fun out in the desert, but apparently in books and films, humor and romance are just not appropriate when there is an abundance of sand;

3) when driving at high speeds and you've got cute women in togas, those togas should occasionally fly off because of the wind . . . at least if I'm directing they would.

Birds and Chicks and Things

I know that "birds" is British slang for chicks (which is American slang for available women) but I prefer to imagine George Best drunkenly racing around in his Lotus, with several macaws. 

Attention: Ian Rankin and Michael Connelly

I just finished Ian Rankin's first John Rebus novel, Knots and Crosses, and I think that Michael Connelly and Ian Rankin need to collaborate on a thriller where John Rebus and Harry Bosch cross paths . . . both detectives are generally glum and dour, both had traumatic experiences in the military, both are rather lonely because they view the world as a dark labyrinth of depthless anguish and violence, and they both have daughters-- Rebus is a little more religious, but he doesn't press it, and I think it would be cute if they solved a case together, like True Detectives, and then at the end of the novel, they could nurse their shoulder wounds together in the same hospital room (detectives in thriller series always get shot in the shoulder, it doesn't kill you, but it bleeds a lot).

You've Got To Know When To Fold Them

I wish I could claim this discovery for myself, but it's all Stacey: if you want to fit more stuff in a manila folder, then you can expand the bottom-- there are some ribbed pleats-- and make it wider and flat, instead of a sharp crease (I wish someone told me this twenty years ago).

A Review of Dave's Most Ubiquitous Wardrobe Malfunctions

Lately I've noticed that if I don't wear a belt, then my pants fall down-- this was never a problem for me until recently and I'm not sure why it's happening now, but it's not the kind of thing you can ponder, it's the kind of thing you have to address-- and I'm dealing with this on top of my other clothing problems, which I've gone over in previous posts, but I'll list them all here for your convenience:

1) my neck is too thick to comfortably wear a dress shirt or a tie;

2) I can't wear a hooded rain jacket unless I wear a hat;

3) scarves perplex me;

4) duck boots pull my socks down;

5) I tear apart a lot of socks

6) I need to tuck my sweatpants into my socks when I ride a bike;

7) in general, socks suck.

The Pros and Cons of Humidity

Tuesday, I suffered the season's first humidity indignity and the season's first humidity benison, all in the same afternoon (I ripped a sock in half at the gym, while pulling it onto my sweaty foot, but then when I got home from the gym, I shaved and it was smooth and easy going . . . it's weird that humidity increases the friction of a sock, but decreases the friction of a razor).

What the Lunch?

Every day at lunch, I storm into the English Office-- a ravenous Tasmanian Devil-- and every single day, once I finally put fork to lips, inexplicably and without malevolence or premeditation, the ladies (and Eric) start discussing subjects scatological, menstrual, and emetic and, sad to say, but I'm actually getting used to it . . . yesterday Eric was showing off pics of his child's explosive diarrhea, and though I was mid-salad, I had to look.

The Black Ice: Killing Three Birds With One Drug

The only thing questionable about Michael Connelly's second Harry Bosch novel The Black Ice is the eponymous drug "black ice," a mixture of cocaine, heroin, and PCP in one "powerful little rock"; Connelly admits he used his "artistic license" to invent the drug and it does seem a bit over the top, but the rest of the novel is a fantastic and realistic thrill ride back and forth across the border, mainly in the sister cities of Calexico and Mexicali . . . there are medflies and bulls on parade, drug tunnels, good cops gone bad, bad cops gone worse, undercover agents gone rogue, and lots of Harry Bosch, of course, the grouchy descendant of Philip Marlowe, the knight in the powder blue suit.