The Required Amount at the Prescribed Rate (Handcrafted From the Finest Corinthian Leather)
It's A Miracle That I Convinced SomeoneTo Marry Me
Teacher Appreciation Week Belated Bonus
Can You Even Buy Pants in Florida?
I didn't bring any pants on our trip to Orlando-- just shorts-- despite the fact that I had space in my bag, because I thought we were headed to the tropics . . . but I was wrong, we were headed to the sub-tropics (still, I'm far more knowledgeable than my son Ian . . . when the plane touched down in Orlando he said, "So now we're in Canada?") and I have learned in the past few days that sometimes it gets kind of chilly in the sub-tropics, but it's worth being chilly to see the satisfaction on my wife's face . . . because I briefly tried to persuade her to not bring any pants, but-- wisely-- she ignored my advice, and brought plenty of pants (and she's gotten good use of them) and nothing makes a person happier than being able to say "I told you so," especially if it's about something trivial, like pants, and not something awful and awkward, like, "I told you not to have sex with your first cousin, and now look at that kid!"
The Test 111: This Is Your "Go To" Test
Hitchhiker's Guide meets Star Trek Meets a Modern Feminist Perspective . . .
It's a space-opera with a sociological bent-- and while I like it much much more than Star Trek-- there's an archetypal similarity in the mission. The Wayfarer is a tunneling ship that opens up lanes through hyperspace in the Galactic Commons so that there can be communication and commerce between the affiliated species that live throughout the galaxy.
Instead of five years, the diverse crew of The Wayfarer is on a one year trip, but they are definitely going boldly to seek out new life and civilizations and strange new worlds.
The characters are modern and funny and mainly and manifoldly alien . . . humans are on the low end of the totem pole. The new clerk aboard the ship, Rosemarie, is just trying to fit in, knowing full well that the human race-- mainly by pure luck-- has just passed out of this stage:
Perhaps the most crucial stage is that of “intraspecies chaos.” This is the proving ground, the awkward adolescence when a species either learns to come together on a global scale, or dissolves into squabbling factions doomed to extinction, whether through war or ecological disasters too great to tackle divided. We have seen this story play out countless times.
I also learned the word "ansible."
Chambers works with the conceit that life abounds in the universe, that it will evolve towards intelligence, and that it is carbon-based. With limitations, is it any wonder that sentient creatures have more similarities than differences. Even so, Captain Ashby is mired in this mess . . .
As open and generous as Aeluons generally were to their galactic neighbors, interspecies coupling remained a mainstream taboo.
Every alien race has to come to grip that there are others out there, with goals and dreams and culture that has evolved on a grand scale, in some ways parallel to all life, and in some way completely different and unexpected.
These Might Be The Best Sentences of 2011
1) in the "Generating The Most Passionate Discussion" category-- all of it vitriolic and all of it directed towards me-- my "miraculous" sentence 'What Balls May Come?" earns a spot on the list;
2) the winner of the "Personal Revelation" category is "I Use Probability to Solve A Marital Mystery";
3) "I May Have Given These Words of Wisdom to My Students" wins the "Pithy Maxim" award;
4) "No Principles=Happiness" is the hands down winner in the "My Wife Is Just A Little Bit Insane" category;
5) The Mystery of the Year is "A Brief But Inconclusive Tale of a Tail";
6) we have a tie in the Best Idea of Dave category between "Dave's Second Best Idea Ever!" and "Peacock Tail= 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Tail Fin";
7) in the Best Idea of Dave That He Can't Remember Conceiving Due to the Influence of Alcohol category, the winner is this gem of a sentence;
8) in the When the Odds Are Against You, Make A Sperm Joke category, the winner is this inspirational tale;
9) in the For Once Dave Actually Deserves an Apology category we have a rather prolix masterpiece, entitled "The Potato Chip Incident";
10) Krystina's Best Idea Ever wins the Best Idea by Someone Other Than Dave;
11) The Most Awkward Moment of Dave is this hypothetical and unusual entry;
and the Overall Grand Prize Winning Sentence (and also the winner of the prestigious Sentence That Made T.J. Make the Same Comment Over and Over Award) is not a single sentence, but instead an over-arching category of sentences that thematically dominated Sentence of Dave in 2011 . . . the award goes to The 2011 Taco Count! (and my wife is making tacos tonight as an appetizer for the party we are attending, and so-- God willing-- I should eat my 200th taco of 2011 sometime this evening).
There's a Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever
Got To Be the Calf Sleeves
I played indoor soccer for 90 minutes yesterday and then I played pickleball for two hours this evening-- and while I think I looked fairly athletic playing both sports, if you could see the awkward and ugly effort required for me to pry off my shoes, socks, calf-sleeves, and knee sleeve/braces after I finished playing, you'd wonder if I was capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time, let alone actually doing something athletic, graceful, and coordinated.
Slow Carb Diet Nearly Gets Me Fired
Here I Am to Save the . . . Ugh, Sorry . . .
Kids Trick You Into Thinking They Are Civilized
Teacher of the Year
Sometimes being a great teacher is about what you DON'T do . . . the other morning I was using my guitar to illustrate how form often overpowers content . . . I played my creative writing students "Delia's Gone" by Johnny Cash, which is upbeat and kind of fun, though it is about murder, adultery, and revenge, and I also played "Goodbye Earl" by the Dixie Chicks-- another song that is catchy and cute, despite the fact that it is about poisoning an abusive husband, wrapping him in a tarp, and tossing him into a lake-- and then I was about to launch into "Last Kiss," a sixties song about a fatal car crash with a catchy chorus that was famously covered by Pearl Jam . . . I have fond memories of all the high school girls on the Spotswood soccer team joyously singing this tragic song on a bus ride home, smiling and laughing as they hollered the description of the car accident that kills the narrator's girlfriend, but not before he is able to give her one "last kiss" as she fades into the hereafter . . . but then I remembered that one of my students recently lost her boyfriend in a car crash, and-- miraculously-- I remembered this before I played the song . . . and so I actually averted an awkward moment instead of producing one, and for this amazing decision, I think I should win Teacher of the Year.
Attention NBC: Free Sitcom Idea!
Awkward (and Impulsive) Dave Amuses His Students
Today during first period, while I was showing a movie clip-- so it was dark-- a young lady in a denim jacket entered my room, but just barely entered-- and she asked if she could talk to one of my students-- and my student got up and the two of them talked in the hall-- I figured it was something about homework or a computer charger or something-- and then the student came back into the room, but the young lady continued to lurk and then said something else, so I shushed her . . . Thomas Haden Church was explaining The Scarlet Letter to his class in Easy A-- crucial for our assignment about the evolution of mate choice and gender norms and the ever-changing aesthetics of attraction-- and then the young lady in the denim jacket said, "I just need Tanvi to go to room 1618 . . . I'm a school aide . . . I work here" and I was like: "I'm so sorry I shushed you-- you look so young, you look just like a student!" and she said, "I'll take that as a compliment" and then she left and my class laughed at my rudeness and embarrassment and I said to them: "Notice how I used gender norms and aesthetics to get out of that awful situation-- you can't go wrong telling a woman she looks young" and we all learned some valuable lessons.
Big Jay Oakerson Works the Crowd
Going to The Stress Factory in New Brunswick is always fascinating, especially when there are several opening acts. We went this Friday with some folks (most of whom were present for this incident) and we were treated to the entire continuum of comedy.
If we're talking basketball, then the host-- who did five minutes-- was akin to a pick-up game at the park. Nice hustle, trying hard, but some awkward pauses and all that. Then Zach Martina came on, and it was like a good high school game. Loud, some good moves, a little inconsistent, a few puns, and fairly lowbrow.
Next was Sal Vulcano, from Impractical Jokers. Class act. Like a great college game. Not as long as a pro-set, but accomplished, comfortable, and A list material. He was really funny and consistently entertaining. I recommend him.
The headliner was Big Jay Oakerson, and he was something else. A total pro, he made it seem as if he had no bits at all. He just went to work with the crowd. Several moments into his set-- while discussing relationships with a couple in the front row-- he mistook a woman for a man. You could actually see the gears spinning when he realized he got it wrong, and then he adjusted his material for this ambiguous-looking lesbian couple and got back into it.
Oakerson is the white version of the late, great Patrice O'Neil. He weighs about the same as O'Neil did, and prefers sitting to standing. His refusal to do bits-- aside from his last meta-bit, which is too filthy to recount here-- was so fascinating that my friend Stacey and her brother went back Saturday to see if the show would be completely different. They report that it was (besides the closing bit, which-- unfortunately-- is too filthy to recount here). You'll just have to go and see Big Jay for yourself, and what you'll see won't be anything like what I saw.