The Best Gifts Don't Even Come in a Package

The kids and I decided to go cheap and painful this year with my wife's birthday gift: next week, we are going to do all the cooking, cleaning, and dishes so that Catherine can put her feet up and live like a queen while we slave away . . . and this present doubles as a tactically preemptive strike that might deter another two week cooking strike (and while Catherine loved our utilitarian present, our friend Melanie trumped it by sending Cat this fabulous 90's picture of young Dave and Cat about to embark on a bar crawl called Just Hair-Do It).

Tuition Wars

So here is my idea for a reality TV show . . . and I wish I had the gumption to actually do it: I tell my two children we are going to pay for one of them-- and only one of them-- to go to college, and thus pit the two of them against each other in a tactical battle to ascertain the scholarship: they could use any strategy they like to "win" the money . . . they could devote themselves to the family and do lots of chores and cooking and cleaning, or they could excel at school or in the arts or in sports or they could demonstrate extreme philanthropy or whatever . . . the main thing is that I would film every ugly minute of it and the show would make loads of cash and in the end, the big surprise would be that they both get to go to college, their education ironically financed by the very show that nearly destroyed them.

Compare/Contra$t

It's doubly annoying: not only do I have to take a day off of school so I can accompany my son Ian on his Initial Orthodontic Workup, but I then have to meet with the unfortunately named Dr. Overcash to discuss our plan of action; I already know braces are going to be expensive, but a name like Overcash is just rubbing it in-- not that I'm an anti-dentite-- he's a very nice guy and I trust and respect him, but it's certainly one of the worst dental names I've ever heard (unlike the aptly named pediatric doctor who cared for my son Alex when he got hit by a car last year . . . nothing assuages the anxiety of a trip to the emergency room more than a guy who introduces himself as Dr. Pepper).

Biathlon Lovers Beware

Our friends Rob and Tammy (who moved from central Jersey to Vermont many many years ago) stopped by on Saturday and they reminded us that back in the old days-- when we would trek up to their place for Thanksgiving-- the ski mountains were always already open and we'd get in a couple days of November riding over the long weekend . . . but these days, they said the mountains no longer open until December-- so some pretty specific climate change that's happened right in front of our eyes, in the last fifteen years . . . on the bright side, the boys and I have been out playing tennis every day since soccer season ended (and the same happened last year . . . I wonder if this generation of kids is going to be, on average, better at tennis and other warm weather sports and worse at snowboarding and skiing and snowshoeing and the biathlon).

All Hail Professor Truck

Finally got this song to sound the way I imagined it in my head.

That Prop is a Hero!

I learned a new term during the latest 99% Invisible: a "hero prop" is an item in a film that has a life of its own and serves more as a character than a component of the background story . . . my favorite "hero prop" is Marcellus Wallace's glowing briefcase in Pulp Fiction (but I'm also a fan of the Leg Lamp in A Christmas Story).

I AM the Internet

Let's all take a moment and celebrate ten years of Sentence of Dave (ten years man! ten years! ten years . . . TEN . . . ten YEARS . . . ten years!) and in order to really understand what this means, I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations, and apparently-- and this was as shocking to me as it will be to you-- I am responsible for 85% of the original content on the internet (my buddies over at Gheorghe: The Blog are responsible for most of the remainder, with a tiny sliver of a percentage ascribed to Twitter, Wikipedia, and eBaum's World) so while I contemplated quitting this project while I still have a few thoughts rattling around in my brain, I've decided to forge on towards dementia . . . because what would the internet do without me?

Smile . . . It's Thanksgiving (and, hopefully, you weren't molested by the head brother)

I felt slightly betrayed at the end of Roddy Doyle's new novel Smile . . . the narrator and the narration unravel into a metafictional mess . . . there are plenty of clues along the way that this is going to happen, but it was still rough reading; I wanted the narrator to get over his abuse at the hands of the Christian Brothers, I wanted his psyche to escape unscathed, I wanted Fitzpatrick to be a harmless barfly, but--alas-- it was not to be so . . . enough, I'm already spoiling things, but be forewarned . . . if you want something a little less heavy, Irish shenanigans and such, then read Doyle's The Barrytown Trilogy . . . The Commitments, The Snapper and The Van.

Dave Accessorizes!

It makes me extremely jealous that women have so many fabulous choices on how to accessorize their outfits-- scarves and brooches, feather boas and scrunchies, bangles and handbags-- so, to combat mundanity, I've added a couple of items to my fashion arsenal:

1) with my battery powered headlamp, not only am I a shining beacon of coolness in the 6 AM darkness, but I also don't trip on the uneven pavement near my house (the streetlight on our corner is out) and I'm able to let my dog pursue his interests (chasing deer in the park) without losing him . . . so shine on, you crazy fashionable Dave . . .

2) around the house, in the driveway, and even in the car on a quick errand, I am sporting a pair of OOFOS OOClogs to help my feet recover from plantar fasciitis . . . my wife is not smitten with these-- in fact, she called them "the world's ugliest pair of shoes," but I should point out that she has a long history of clog-hating (when she met my friend and rugby phenom Brian Hightower for the first time, she was not impressed, mainly because he was wearing a pair of hideous black clogs-- but also because he's short with a big head; Hightower let me try on the clogs and I really liked them, they were comfortable and easy to slip into; Catherine made some derogatory comments about the clogs and the type of men that wear them and then we went out and got drunk and I forgot all about the entire incident, but Whitney didn't, and a year later he gave me a pair of them for my birthday-- to Catherine's chagrin-- and I wore them until they fell apart . . . I'll never forget that gift, as it was both incredibly thoughtful and incredibly vengeful in equal measures).

Machine vs. Anti-Machine

Yikes . . . I wrote a lot of words about Highland Park soccer over on Gheorghe:TheBlog . . . my post is called Machine vs. Anti-Machine, and if you've several hours to kill, head over and read it.

It Might Be the Pants?

I got on the scale this morning and the number seemed a little heavy-- normally I step on just wearing underwear but this morning I also had on my pants, so I'm assuming this caused the discrepancy between what I think I should weigh and what I actually weigh: how much do pants weigh, sixteen pounds or so?

Cheers + The Replacements/2 = Professor Truck

I finished up a new song: "Lost Souls" . . . it's what you get if you add "Here Come a Regular" and the Cheers Theme Song together and divide by two . . . somewhere between the bibulous depressive alcoholism of The Replacements and the romanticized sit-com utopia of "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" . . . check it out, especially if your fond of sitting in a bar and drinking your troubles away.

Can You Hear Me Never?

So that's all she wrote . . . after twenty-five years of monogamous bliss with my lovely spouse, we're calling it quits . . . not with our entire marriage, just with the auditory phone communication portion of the relationship: every time we try to speak to each other on the phone, Catherine gets frustrated and ends up yelling at me because I don't finish my sentences (or my thoughts) and I also apparently don't talk at the right intervals-- I either pause too much or I ramble . . . and then-- because I'm being yelled at-- I get really anxious and offended, which exacerbates the problem . . . so we had a serious talk and decided the only way to solve the problem was to never talk to each other on the phone again; I brought up the "what about an emergency situation" exception but Catherine countered with the "an emergency is when you definitely need to speak quickly and coherently, so you're DEFINITELY not allowed to call me if it's an emergency" rebuttal so we've decided to leave it at no phone dialogue ever (and I'm not very consistent or proficient with my texting either . . . I think my preferred medium would have been the telegraph).

Is Holding Your Breath Exercise?

Enduring the stench in the men's locker room at the North Brunswick LA Fitness is a workout in itself.

Where to Go & What to Get

Here's a million dollar idea for all the ambitious web entrepreneurs out there: there should be some kind of bot (or industrious group of humans) that trawls restaurant reviews on sites like Yelp and Urbanspoon and then tells boils it all down and tells you exactly where you should go eat and exactly what you should order . . . and that's the name of the site: Where To Go & What To Get . . . my wife did a pretty good job of it Saturday night-- we were sampling beers at Cypress Brewery and she decided to find somewhere in that neck of the woods to eat and after reading a bunch of reviews on her phone, we ended up at Taiwan Tasty, a grubby little Chinese joint in an Asian strip mall where Old Post Road intersects with Route 1; there are a lot of red neon Chinese characters in the window and a sign in English that says "Chinese Food" and once you go there, you should definitely get two things:

1) the Minced Pork Black Bean with Leek, which has lots of leek greens, a few black beans, and delicious minced pork;

2) the beef scallion roll, which is not on the menu but is pictured on the wall . . . this is thin sliced lean beef rolled inside a delicious scallion pancake with a bit of plum sauce, my wife and I agreed that it's one of the best Asian dishes we've ever had . . .

so there it is in a nutshell, now you know where to go and what to get.

My Son Ian Is Smart Like Kramer

Last night, I banged on the bathroom door and told my son Ian to brush his teeth and get out of the bathroom, because I wanted to shower-- it was 9:30 PM and I was still cold from practice-- and he said, "I'm brushing my teeth!" and I said, "Then why do I hear the shower still running!" and he said, "I'm brushing my teeth in the shower! It's smart! I'm multitasking!" and I had no stock parental reply to this silliness, as I was lost in thought, fondly reminiscing about Kramer's shower salad.

The Test 102: Superstitious Spray Butter Intervention

This week on our podcast The Test, things get real . . . grievances are aired, alliances are formed, and amidst the chaos, I manage to administer a quiz on superstitions and their origin stories; so tune in, take sides, keep score, and if you don't learn something, I give you permission to key Stacey's Jeep.

If It's Not Spanish, It's CRAP!

On my car ride to work this morning, in order to lexically prepare for our big family trip to Costa Rica, I listened to several episodes of Coffee Break Spanish, but I ended up learning all the wrong things; Kara and Mark, the hosts of the show, are Scottish and (of course) when they speak in English, they have distinct Scottish accents . . . and I'm not blaming them for where they were born, but I do find this is very distracting and so during the lessons, instead of practicing my Spanish pronunciation and vocabulary, I found myself trying to mimic their genuine Scottish accents-- I kept repeating words like "additionally" and "download" in the style of Kara and Mark, instead of focusing on rolling my r's; and while I certainly subscribe to the maxim "if it's not Scottish it's crap," I still think I'm going to have to find a different podcast to brush up on my Spanish (but I highly recommend this one, both for the lovely accents and the insanely upbeat music).

Carry the Little Cup Proudly

This one goes out to all the folks who aren't afraid to ask for a gratis tap water cup when they're eating fast casual . . . it's a little embarrassing but if you do it over the course of a lifetime, you save a lot of money, evade a shit-ton of empty calories, and avoid diabetes.

Poopy's Law (with Apologies to Adrian McKinty)

So here's the big follow-up to the first post ever commented on by an acclaimed author on Sentence of Dave . . . I've noticed that whenever I go into the yard with the good intention of cleaning up the dog poop, while I am searching for the dog poop so that I can bag it and dispose of it, I always end up stepping in dog poop . . . this happens 100% of the time-- including this afternoon-- and if it happens 100% of the time, then I believe this makes it a scientific law: Poopy's Law.