Sentence of Dave

Getting Your Money's Worth Will Cost You

My friends were discussing the great museum scene in DC, and how there's no pressure to get your money's worth-- the museums and the zoo are free, so-- as the always sagacious Zman put it: "You can run into the Museum of Natural History for 20 minutes just to see the Hope Diamond, some dinosaurs, and a basilosaurus (and its tiny hip bone) without feeling pressure to get your money’s worth" and I'm a big fan of this-- not getting your money's worth-- as getting your money's worth almost always leads to frustration, injury and disaster; I have no problem leaving sports events and concerts early, to avoid the mad rush and the traffic; when I go snowboarding, I get off the mountain sooner rather than later, because getting your money's worth with a lift ticket leads to fatigue and injuries . . . and when we were in college, we were obsessed with the all-you-can-eat Wendy's Superbar and it led to some supreme gluttony (including a day where we were ostensibly studying for exams, but we started the studying at the all-you-can-eat Shoney's Breakfast Bar, then-- after stuffing ourselves on pancakes, sausage, grits, and French toast-- we took a long nap, then headed back out with our books and our bloated stomachs, and sat for many hours at the Wendy's Superbar, repeating the same charade . . . we got our money's worth and it cost us dearly).

Getting Your Money's Worth Will Cost You

Locke and Key May Be Coming to a TV Near You

It took a while-- in fact, I forgot all about it-- but then something jogged my memory (perhaps someone opened my brain with the head key and fiddled with my consciousness) and I remembered to seek out the rest of the Locke and Key comic book series and the boys and I recently read all six of them, in the nick of time, it turns out, because Netflix is about to release a Locke and Key TV series . . . the comics are compelling and wild, but I should warn you, they are also grisly, disturbing, and totally fucked up; Joe Hill-- Stephen King's son-- did the writing and Gabriel Rodriguez did the art and the combination is chilling and horrific, I hope the series captures the mood, as this is a good one.

Locke and Key May Be Coming to a TV Near You

Dave is More Right (and Almost Modal)

The new episode of Planet Money attempts something ambitious, to determine the "modal American" . . . it's easy enough to find the median or the mean, but the mode-- the most common-- is more difficult because you can't categorize things too large or too small-- there are more women than men, but that seems like too large a category and they had to discount kids-- because kids all fall into all the same categories-- they don't work, they haven't been to college, and they aren't married-- but once they narrowed things down a bit-- they were looking for age, marital status, income, college education or not, race and ethnicity, and where the person lives-- and the solution, spoiler ahead (you might want to listen to the podcast) is surprising and-- for me-- fairly relatable . . . the most common American-- and they are 2 million strong-- is a Gen X married white dude who lives in the suburbs, works full time, does NOT have a college degree and earns (as a household) an upper middle class income . . . they actually talked to a 47 year old guy who fits the categories, he works at a car dealership and is married to a nurse and has one kid and owns some plaid shirts (grunge!) and while I can realte to this guy, the big differences are that he doesn't have a college degree and he lives in the suburbs . . . although the definition of suburban and urban areas are not particularly well-defined and you can really go down a rabbit-hole trying to figure out which areas are urban and which are suburban, even within city limits (Alec, Connell, Paul and I had quite an argument about this on the way to the pub) but if you go by some data compiled by FiveThirtyEight, then Highland Park is definitely urban, as urban areas tend to have more than "2,213 households per square mile" and Highland Park is 1.8 square miles and-- in 2010-- it had 6,200 households and the town's population has grown since then, so while Connell is right to say that Highland Park is the outlying area of a larger city (New Brunswick) and thus sub-urban, I am more right in saying that the density and feel of Highland Park is more urban than suburban.

Dave is More Right (and Almost Modal)

The End of Napping is Nigh

A good end of summer morning today: I got to ride the away bus with both my children and coach them in a JV scrimmage, and then we ate lunch out, but after all the fun and excitement, I took a two hour nap . . . I'm not sure how I'm going to pull off an entire work day next week (unless they work "nap time" into the high school schedule).

The End of Napping is Nigh

Music Review: Proceed with Caution

It's tough to recommend this album with a straight face, but Mannequin Pussy's new one-- "Patience"-- is awesome: fast-paced punk rock with chaotic squalls and compelling lulls . . . and I guess since our Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief brought back the p-word, it shouldn't be as difficult to tell your friends about this one (and the band is mainly females, so I suppose they're using it ironically).

Music Review: Proceed with Caution

Is There a Position Open for Doing This?

My friend Dom, who I just spent a week with at the beach, would like it to be known that-- in addition to his general congeniality, his ability to consume gin/vodka, and his formidable biking stamina-- he has an uncanny knack for identifying 80's songs in two or three notes (even Aldo Nova's "Fantasy").

Is There a Position Open for Doing This?

Space Werewolves > Intergalactic Politics

During our beach vacation, I had some trouble getting through John Scalzi's novel The Last Colony; it's the third book in his Old Man's War series and it's not exactly a beach read: there's a lot of intergalactic political strategy . . . John Perry and his rather unusual wife Jane Sagan (she's a special forces soldier made from the DNA of John's original wife) are trying to colonize planet called Roanoke-- a name which doesn't bode well-- and the colony becomes a pawn in an increasingly complicated series of alliances between the Conclave (412 alien races that have banded together) and the rest of the denizens of the universe (including the humans) and while all this is compelling and interesting, the part of the book I enjoyed the most was towards the middle, when the humans were still trying to colonize the planet and they ran into some werewolf life creatures with stone-age technology . . . this is something you can pay attention to, even when there's women in bikinis wandering around, but unfortunately, this plot-line is never revisited and so I struggled to finish the book at the beach and didn't get it done until last night, in the quiet of my very own bed.

No Ordinance For Offspring

Thursday morning, our peaceful vacation slumber was perforated, pierced and punctured (at 7 AM) by staccato bursts from several nail guns-- the crew framing the roof of the new construction across the street were getting an early start-- and while this didn't bother me, because I was up and ready to roll, Catherine thought the noise was excessive and so-- as she is wont to do-- she solved the problem; she called the Sea Isle police and they informed her that there was an 8 AM noise ordinance and they would ride by and inform the workers . . . and they did and the next morning the crew didn't start work until later; BUT soon after that, the three little kids set up a stand on the corner right below our front porch and they chanted-- for at least two hours straight-- "FREE POPSICLES AND LEMONADE! FREE POPSICLES AND LEMONADE! FREE POPSICLES AND LEMONADE! FREE POPSICLES AND LEMONADE! FREE POPSICLES AND LEMONADE! FREE POPSICLES AND LEMONADE! FREE POPSICLES AND LEMONADE!" and it seems there is no ordinance on the books to stop this sort of insanity (and the creepiness of the "free" aspect has really turned their patrons off . . . there's quite a bit of foot traffic and not one who walks by takes them up on the offer, as everyone knows there's no such thing as a free lunch, especially when it's offered by miniature towheaded redfaced sirens with high pitched voices).

No Ordinance For Offspring

Miracle on 51st Street

After running on the beach yesterday, I took an outdoor shower and then-- standing in the driveway, wearing only a towel-- I decided to throw my wet spandex and shorts onto our porch (rather than carry them through the house, where they would drip seawater everywhere) but my shoulder has been hurting and I can't throw wet clothing overhand, so I pitched them underhand and-- miracle of miracles-- they BOTH landed on the railing (and I've got a photo to prove it . . . although I guess you could photoshop something like this if you were that sort of person).

Miracle on 51st Street

You Could Probably Unfuc*k Yourself

Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life by Gary John Bishop is a silly little book, obvious yet inspirational, but mainly, you'll think: "I could have written this!" but the point is that YOU didn't write it, Gary John Bishop did . . . and that's why he's a rich and famous life-coach and you're not (the Scottish accent might also help).

You Could Probably Unfuc*k Yourself

Star Crossed Neighbors

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane is a modern-day Romeo and Juliet, which begins with a pair of Irish cops on the beat in 1970's New York City who end up living nextdoor to each other in the suburbs, and -- like the Montagues and the Capulets-- the two families are oil and water, but the children fall in love and though the time sequence is much much longer than the three breakneck days in Romeo and Juliet, Keane makes her novel race through time at a relentless pace-- I loved this the most about this book (which is a bit depressing at times . . . regret, alcoholism, mental illness, and being shot in the face are some of the themes) so while there are rough times, you know you'll see the end of them (sort of).