Instant E*Thos

Nationals Park Review

2008-05-20T20:41:00.005-04:00

With my hometown Phillies playing in DC for the first time this year, I took the opportunity to visit the brand new Nationals Park. Before I share my experience of the new stadium, I present these two caveats: 1) The Phillies went 0-12 with runners in scoring position and got blanked 4-0, so that severely dampened my enjoyment of the game. This may have biased my opinions of the ballpark experience somewhat. 2) The bar has been set progressively higher over the last 15 years for new stadiums, starting with Oriole Park at Camden Yards just up the street in Baltimore.

Parking: F
Don't even get me started with this. Forget about paying $40 to park in the garages next to the stadium. Or even $15 to park in a ghetto half a mile away. You can purchase advance parking passes online for these tiny lots because they often sell out. But be prepared to pay additional convenience fees, processing fees and ridiculous charge of $2.25 for the ability to print out your parking pass online. All of this will add up to more than $7 in additional larceny on top of the parking cost you'd pay on site. (By the way, the Nationals box office wasn't even aware that they offered this online service when I called them to inquire about the morality of said fees.)

Hidden in the depths of the Nationals web site is information about something called the "Nats Express." It would be helpful if the service was called something like "Free RFK Shuttle," because that's what it is. The Nationals have thoughtfully arranged for free shuttle service from the abundant parking lots at RFK Stadium, where the parking is also free. (And did I mention abundant?) Comfortable motor coaches conveniently await you upon your arrival and take you on a 7-minute ride toward the new Nationals Park. But I emphasize the word toward the stadium. The shuttle stops and drops you off over a half mile away from the ballpark. This is inconceivable that they would drop off passengers so far from the gate. Why isn't there a dedicated lane reserved for the shuttles to drop off fans next to the box office the way that say, the dozen chartered motor coaches were seemingly allowed to do that night? It's clear that they don't want the service to be too convenient, lest it siphon off potential parking revenue and the associated convenience, processing and internet printing charges.

Location: D
Sure, there is convenient access to the park from all the major highways, but without anywhere to park your car, what's the difference? This isn't what anyone would call a "downtown ballpark." It is nestled between abandoned warehouses, an office park and a sewage treatment plant. Talk about a low rent district. The neighborhood is truly unsightly and I don't think there's much hope, even with some investment in an "entertainment district." As you walk up to the park, there isn't that goose-bumps moment when the stadium first comes into view. Instead you see two concrete parking garages and service entrances. And did I mention the sewage treatment plant?

Seating and Sightlines: C
I purchased seats in the lower bowl, right behind third base and about 3/4 of the way up. The tickets had a face value of $63 ($50 if purchased as part of a full season plan) even though I got them for $25 a piece off StubHub.com. So these were pricy seats by any standards, yet I was staggered by the narrow width of the chairs, and the complete lack of legroom. And these are seats in a pretty prime location.

Sitting down into the seat for the first time, I felt my hips graze both armrests -- and I'm a slender guy. It made me wonder how many french fries I had just eaten. The width and depth of these seats was reminiscent of older parks like Fenway or Yankee Stadium, which were built before Americans got fat and the average male was five feet two inches tall. You can't sit comfortably in these seats without your legs and elbows bumping into your neighbors. And the rows are so narrow that it's impossible for people to pass by you to get to the aisle. Even if you stand up to let people out, you can suddenly find yourself participating in a ballroom dancing lesson with a 300 pound drunk. Oh, and my seat, in addition to being cramped, was really uncomfortable. My butt was numb by the sixth inning and my back was still sore the next morning. If you go to a game here, bring a seat pad. Or better yet, wear a bulky diaper since you won't be able to exit your row and get to a bathroom.

The sightlines to the field are not great, but they aren't awful either. They were better at RFK. Say what you will about the aesthetics of the cookie-cutter stadiums of the 1970s, but those ballparks had amazing sightlines from almost everywhere. The seats down the lines in this new park just aren't angled enough toward the field to avoid giving you a stiff neck. And the stratospheric upperdeck is not only really, really tall, it is also set very far back from the field giving you the sensation of watching the game on Google Earth. But I'm sure those hundreds of empty seats right behind the plate have a great view that no one can afford to appreciate.

Value: F
The tickets range from $5 in the grandstands to $325 behind the plate. Yes, $325 dollars, each! I wonder if that includes "convenience" fees. This ticket price is the epitome of major league greed. For that much money, I could literally buy a roundtrip flight to Los Angeles, purchase a ticket for a box seat at Dodger Stadium, and still have enough money left over for a couple of Dodger Dogs and a beer. And that is a much nicer stadium with a beautiful view of mountains and palm trees.

The $325 seats behind the plate weren't the only ones conspicuously empty during the game. There were large patches of seats in the lower bowl and the first deck that were completely empty. Meanwhile, the upper deck was quite full. To me this says that there is clearly price resistance for many areas of the stadium that are simply over-priced.

Plus, I feel compelled to point out in a curmudgeonly way that the Nationals are charging these outlandish prices to see a last place team play next to a sewage treatment plant.

Scenic Views: C
From the upper deck in right field, you can get a peak of the Capitol dome. From the left field upperdeck concourse next to the bathrooms, you can see the Washington Monument in the distance. But aside from the Washington Monument and the Capitol dome, Washington, DC has a purposefully insignificant skyline. So there really isn't much to look at anyway -- not like the bay vista of AT&T Park in San Francisco, the seven bridges of PNC Park in Pittsburgh or the snow-capped Rocky Mountains of Coors Field in Denver. Did I mention the sewage treatment plant located behind home plate?

Food: B-
There seemed to be a really wide selection of food representing all corners of the USofA. I had a chicken fingers which were quite good. The chili dogs looked very appetizing. I just didn't want to end up wearing one on my shirt. The biggest issue I had with the food was the confusing service. The concession stands at Nationals Park need to do what most other stadiums now do, which is to let you pick up your food and then move out of the way to pay at a separate register.

If you don't want to get up to weave through those confusing food lines (or can't because you are wedged into your seat), you can buy your food from the dozens of food vendors constantly plying their wares. I'd never seen so many roaming food vendors in my life. If one more loud-mouthed beer or ice-cream salesman stopped to block my view of the game, I was going to stab him with a cotton candy stick.

Overall: D
As disgusting and dilapidated as RFK was, I have to say that the overall experience was better there than in the new park. In fact, I have to say that attending this game was probably the most unpleasant experience I have had in any of the dozen major league parks I have visited. There is simply nothing redeming or charming about the place that gives you cause to tolerate the lack of convenient access or to justify the prices.

The design of the stadium incorporates all of the familiar features now prominent in these new ballparks. There is a huge high-definition scoreboard in the outfield. A fancy out-of-town scoreboard. Quirky angles to the outfield fence. A glass-enclosed restaurant in the outfield. Open concourses. Luxury boxes galore. And a massive team store. But this ballpark offers nothing unique. If anything it has a very sterile and white-washed feel. It is a new cookie-cutter ballpark of the 21st Century.

Unfortunately, Nationals Park is situated just 40 miles from Camden Yards in Baltimore. It's not fair to compare the two parks, because they simply don't compare. Everything that Camden Yards has to offer in fan experience and urban aesthetics, Nationals Park lacks.

I can only smolder over the thought that so much taxpayer money was spent to build the Nationals' ballpark in such a weird part of DC and that fans are charged truly astronomical prices for an incredibly unsatisfying and uncomfortable experience.

Little Miss Car Crash

2008-01-27T01:39:00.000-05:00

Tonight, TLC aired the annual the Miss America Pageant. How exactly did the Miss America Pageant end up on "The Learning Channel" anyway? I guess it's every bit as educational as "American Chopper."

Anyway, my favorite part of the competition, hands down, is the multi-car pileup known as the "talent" competition. This year's bill of sequined-clad singers, violinists and ballerinas was every bit as terrible as I'd hoped. And you thought walking around in high heels on a slippery floor, wearing a bikini was humiliating. Try singing an aria along to a pre-recorded track of synthesizers when you're completely tone deaf and don't even know it. Now that's humiliating.

Watching those primped beauty queens humble themselves this evening on basic cable television reminded me of these classic pageant show highlights. I share them with you now.

CAUTION: By clicking the links below, you are voluntarily relinquishing 6 minutes of your life that you will never have back. But I promise you a couple of really good laughs.

I've Got Plans Then Too

2007-10-09T00:13:00.001-04:00

Batting Crown

2007-09-11T22:17:00.001-04:00

Philadelphia Phillies second baseman Chase Utley is currently leading the National League in batting average with 18 games to play. (He'd wouldn't crack the top three in the American League.) If he wins the NL batting title, he'd be the first Phillies player to claim the title since...

Richie Ashburn in 1958!

Wow, that's a really long time. But to put that in a bit of perspective, the Phillies aren't the only club to claim such a drought.

For example, that's almost as long a stretch as the LA Dodgers who last had a batting champion in Tommy Davis 1962 and 1963. And it's only slightly better than the Cleveland Indians who last won bragging rights with Bobby Avila in 1954. Meanwhile, the Oakland Athletics haven't fielded batting champ since they moved out of Philadelphia in 1954. Their last title-holder was a first baseman Ferris Fain who won it in consecutive seasons in 1951 and 1952.

And with all the great hitters on the New York Mets and Houston Astros over the years, neither team have ever had a player claim the title while the Expos had two (Al Oliver and Tim Raines).

Richie Ashburn turned out to be a Philadelphia icon and had a statue erected in his memory outside the new ballpark. Will Chase Utley claim a similar legacy?

Shhhhh...

2007-09-06T21:12:00.000-04:00

Two observations while watching tennis this week:

Why is that in tennis, spectators must remain so quiet during play? No one may shout or talk while a player hits a soft fuzzy ball with a big racquet. Someone could get hurt. Yet in baseball, with a small hard orb flying at 100 mph inches from your face, fans may yell as loud as they want, whenever they want. Ditto for football with 300 hundred pounds of lineman flying toward you. So why the need for such silence during the intense concentation required during tennis?

When did women's on-court attire start looking like figure-skating costumes? Is it really comfortable playing tennis in lace and toille?

Uma, Oprah, Oprah, Uma

2007-07-18T21:55:00.000-04:00

Major gratitudes to my bro, Jammer Jive for an awesome birthday present. VIP seats for a taping of the David Letterman Show at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York are definitely a significant gift, and one that will be moderately difficult to reciprocate in the near future. VIP access means getting the best seats in the house without standing in line all day.

Those that did stand in line all day, sweating in the July humidity, had to keep up their energy and cheery personality to be selected by one of the CBS pages as a "dot." The "dots" were brought into the cool, air-conditioned lobby with us VIPs where they were informed that they would be seated in the front rows of the theater for the taping. Their gleaming smiles and effervecent charm would be required "front and center" to give Dave maximum energy -- even though their view of the production would be entirely obstructed by cameras, monitors, cue cards, stagehands, gaffers, grips and Eddie Brill.

After a speech from a former-cheerleader-turned-pharmaceutical-sales-rep-turned-CBS-page standing on a folding chair in the lobby about how we're not allowed to "whoop," "awww" or cheer when we hear our hometown mentioned, we were informed that there would be no access to restrooms for the duration of the taping. Such information caused immediate spasms of my ordinarily capacious bladder. Thankfully, we were granted access to one small, single-head bathroom in the already claustrophobic and mostly dingy lobby of the theater.

After relieving our bladders, we waited for a few more minutes before being ushered to our seats. The "dots' were taken to their seats close to the stage. The "non-dots" were shown their seats in the rear of the auditorium, out of sight of cameras and Dave.

Meanwhile, us VIPs were taken to our seats in the front of the balcony with a beautiful (mostly) unobstructed view of the entire set. The balcony is small, just a few rows deep, and probably seats barely 100 people. The lower level of the theater isn't that big either, and probably holds about 400 bodies in all.

The front edge of the balcony hangs low over the stage. During Dave's monologue, you felt as though you could reach over and check his hairpiece. Naturally, the whole set looks way smaller than it does on my TV -- and I own a 19-inch television. The legendary temperature of the theater is truly chilly. Looking at the empty stage prior to the show, one can't help but envisage the ghosts of John, George, Ringo and Paul (before his second marriage) taking the stage to a chours of 500 hundred screaming teenage girls. But there wasn't much time to admire the surroundings.

The warm-up act, Eddie Brill took the stage to get the crowd in a good mood. He was a funny guy, but you could tell he was giving his schtick for the 2,043rd time of his life and the second time that day. (We attended the evening taping.) They showed a short video on the monitors of some of Dave's best material: Dave as the drive-through attendant at a Taco Bell.

Eddie then introduced the band members one-by-one, culminating with the entrance of Paul Schaefer. The CBS Orchestra kicked up the energy with their take on Green Day's "Basket Case." The band sounded really tight, although it's clear a few of the guys are well beyond their prime. Do these guys get tenure or something?

Eddie then explained that David Letterman would come out for two minutes to say hello prior to the top of the show. And just then, Dave came sprinting onto stage without his jacket, ran across the set and grabbed the microphone. He swung it around by the cord several times, causing me to wonder when the last time was I'd seen a hard-wired mike. Holding the microphone like a harmonica up to his moth, Dave shouted a few untillegible comments about the weather and then asked for a single question from the audience. A nice woman from decided to use that precious moment to stand up and kiss Dave's ass and tell him what a genius he is. Dave nodded kindly and seemed gracious.

An assistant on set then motioned to Dave that he had 10 seconds until tape. And with a final joke, a quick wave and toss of the mike, he vanished into the background like clockwork. As the top of the hour hit, Paul gave the downbeat and the familiar strains of the theme song began.

Dave sprinted through the background, then walked onto stage for his monologue. The opening jokes were full of the usual late-night jabs at former presidents and B-level celebrities. On this Monday evening, we were actually seeing the taping for the Friday show. I had asked Jammer prior to the show how one could write timely jokes for a show that doesn't air for four days. His response was, "You can tell an adulterous Bill Clinton joke any day of the week." And of course, halfway through the monologue, when Dave cracked his first Bill Clinton womanizing joke, we both laughed that much harder.

The guests that night were Julia Stiles, some dishwasher guy who wrote a book about dishwashing and comedian Nick Griffin. The hour-long taping felt like it was over in mere minutes. Each segment felt brief and fast-paced -- and way funnier than it ever is when watching from home on the couch. During the "commercial breaks" a team of writers, assistants and make-up people surround the desk, only to scatter during the 5-second count down to "air." I don't really understand why a show that's being taped needs to run with such military serviture to the clock, especially when there was a re-take in the show. You see, after the second "commercial break," Dave and Paul messed up their little banter. Dave abruptly stopped the bit and asked to start over. In a flash, Paul gave a downbeat, the band played the intro again, and the whole segment started over like nothing ever happened.

At the end of the show, we were taken downstairs and sent out the side door onto 53rd Street. Jammer and I headed over to a Starbucks to relieve our now full bladders. Standing in line for the restroom we bumped into Nick Griffin, who we had just seen finish his very funny set during the taping. (He wsa buying coffee, not waiting for the bathroom. Something tells me they don't subject the guests to the same toilet provisos that they do the audience members.) It was definitely of a cool treat to meet one of the guests from the show.

The other great highlight of the day was getting to see Michael Lauziere, Master of the Unusual, do his thing on in-line skates. For readers of this blog, you might remember how I sang his praises a year ago. Michael was a featued guest during the first taping of the day. As he skated down the street, sticks on his skates hit tuned bottles in a sequence to play a complete song. So as Jammer and I walked by to get in line, we got to watch him do his thing. This time, Michael skated down 53rd Street playing a selection from "Carmen." Just what Bizet had in mind. Apparently, the top of my head could be seen bobbing up and down behind Michael during this segment. Probably not my greatest moment, being a boob on the street.

The other major highlight of the day was getting to stroll the MoMA, which I hadn't been to since it's re-opening. My main interest was in seeing the 50-year retrospective of the Helvetica typeface. The small exhibit included one of the original metal font sets and examples of Helvetica's ubiquitous usage. It gave me the opportunity to explain to Jammer the exact difference between a typeface and a font. Talk about a good time.

Yes, it was a great day. Thanks again, Jammer.

Nothing Interesting Here

2007-05-22T22:40:00.000-04:00

Since I'm moving in a few weeks, I've been saving boxes, newspaper and bubble wrap. Boxes and newspaper are easy to come by, but bubble wrap is a fairly precious commodity. Bubble wrap, as everyone knows, is no good if all the little bubbles are popped. But the urge to pop the little suckers is just too great. Thank goodness for this nifty web site to help satiate the desire.

Meanwhile, among the newspapers I'm hoarding for packing/kindling, I came across an article about a solar-powered flashlight. Wasn't this the punchline to a joke I heard in fourth grade?

Uniform Uniformity

2007-04-23T10:27:00.000-04:00

Men are more fashion conscious than they let on. Clothing is not something to be fussed with or talked about in the company of other men. But in the privacy of one's home -– or perhaps a locker room -– even the most chiseled men can become seamstresses and fashionistas.

Professional athletes are quite experimental when it comes to their threads, as demonstrated by the bizarre get-ups often on display during post-game press conferences or pre-game specials. For example, lime-green sharkskin suits with backwards lapels are not uncommon for some of these guys. But athletes don't just get bold with their street clothes. They can also get quite creative with their uniforms on the field, too –- sometimes too creative.

The Official Rules of Major League Baseball have an entire section dedicated to the appearance of players' uniforms. Most of the rules pertaining to on-field habiliments are routine guidelines pertaining to home uniform color (white*) or the minimum size of numbers included on the backs of jerseys (six inches). There are a couple slightly more surprising restrictions such as the limitation on glass or metal buttons on jerseys. Wouldn't those hurt to slide on? Or the ban on any "pattern that imitates or suggests the shape of a baseball." One might assume that this is mainly directed at pitchers who could use such ball-shaped embroidery as a distraction to hitters. But this seems like a double standard since every member of the St. Louis Cardinals is allowed to step into the batter's box with the likeness of a bat splayed across his chest. This doesn't seem fair to pitchers.

The collective bargaining agreement between the Major League Baseball Players' Association and MLB gets even more specific when it comes to "uniform regulations." (Regulations, in this author's opinion, are always best when uniform.) These provisions are a "supplement" to the MLB official rules and are an interesting insight into the peculiar behavior of professional athletes when it comes to hemming and stitching.

The first such regulation that caught my attention was a restriction on the practice of lacing one's shoes through one's pants. Kids these days. Additionally "pants pockets may not intentionally be untucked." I thought the tuck rule only existed in the NFL. Speaking of tucking, jerseys also may not be "ordered or altered to a length where it cannot be properly tucked in." I didn't realize baseball was so anti-midriff.

Shoe endorsements are big in basketball, but baseball players are clearly limited by a pesky ban on a runner's ability to "change shoes while running bases." The practicality of changing your shoes while running simply baffles me.

And these uniform rules don't apply solely to baseball equipment. Apparently "any player wearing a golf glove underneath a playing glove may not rub up balls for use by the pitcher." Well, one certainly shouldn't waste time rubbing up a baseball while in the middle of a round of 18. This just holds up the whole foursome.

What I find absent from all these rules is any mention of stirrups. Ordinarily found only on women's stretch pants, stirrups also used to be essential baseball attire. For many of us, stirrups were the most fascinating part of the little league baseball uniform. Once one figured out the front from the back, and how to wear them without them bunching up inside your cleats, stirrups were the best part of dressing for a game. Back then all the big leaguers wore stirrups, too, stretched high up on the calf creating the illusion of a crisp, broad stripe that ran from the waist, down into the shoe. Alas, it appears the stirrup has gone the way of the helmet-without-earflaps and powder-blue jerseys. Maybe they'll come back some day along with those whacky pillbox hats.

Note:
* The Sand Francisco Giants' home uniforms are not white. They are a light cream color.

Werthless

2007-04-17T21:29:00.000-04:00

Somebody please tell me. What business does Jayson Werth have being on a major league ballclub? Oh, wait. He's on the Phillies. Nevermind.

Apparently this guy is, too.

Take a Number

2007-03-05T21:01:00.000-05:00

I've never bought a lottery ticket before. Until tonight. I bought three.

The urge was brought on by the confluence of two events: tomorrow's drawing is the biggest Mega Millions jackpot in history and I just put an offer in on a house yesterday. The estimated lottery jackpot is $355 million. After taxes, that's approximately one shitload of money. Roughly speaking, it should be just about enough money to cover the outrageous taxes and closing costs on our potential new home.

I'm aware that I'm about as likely to hold the winning ticket as I am to be the father to Anna Nicole's child. (Acutally, statistically speaking, the latter odds may be better.) I've always said that the lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math. So I don't feel bad buying a few lottery tickets since I know the proceeds benefit convalescents and orphans -- oh, and the one lucky bastard who wins.

I spent three dollars and got three different combinations to play. I let the machine pick the numbers for me. I did this at my brother's advice. I remember him wondering why people use their birthdays and anniversaries to pick their lottery numbers. What are the odds that you'd win the lottery and the number you picked also happened to be the same as the anniversary of your mother-in-law's gallstone surgery?

Of course, what you're really playing for is the momentary rush. For a buck, you can experience the waking dream of just exactly what you'd do with so much crazy money. Since I bought my tickets a couple hours ago, I've spent a little time devising a plan. Here's what I've come up with:

Upon discovering that I posses the winning numbers, I will take the winning ticket, fold it up tightly and place it in a secure location on or in my person. Then, you will not see me or hear from me for days, maybe weeks. I will take my wife and child out of state and check into a hotel under an assumed name. This will become my homebase for contacting immediate family only as well as some financial advisors. I might take a moment to call my employer to offer a few supportive words about my experience working for them. And how much I will truly miss them all since I won't be coming back -- ever.

At some point, one must claim the prize, which I will do in privacy and without the glitzy press conference. I've always wanted to get one of those big cardboard checks, but I do all my banking by mail and I could see that being a bit cumbersome. I will then work with my advisors to calculate just how much money one really needs for their family to live a reasonable lifestyle. Realistically, a few million dollars should do the trick unless you're a total idiot. Familiy and friends will then see a nice windfall, too. (This will be doled out based on how many years you've known me and how often you've left comments on this blog.) The rest of the money will be donated anonymously to deserving charities. Why should I ask buildings and monuments be named for me when I didn't earn a single dime of this money?

I imagine there would be a great deal of guilt in retaining so much false wealth. Which is why most of it would just have to go. Well, maybe not too much. Alright, none of it.

The drawing is Tuesday night. So if this blog isn't updated for a while, you can make your own assumptions.

Hello, Huxtable Residence

2007-02-19T21:40:00.000-05:00

Playing in an adult softball league is one of the few youthful pursuits I have left. As I approach a milestone birthday, I feel like I'm showing my age more than I should. I'm married. I'm a father. I own a minivan. I have a mortgage. And now the wife and I are shopping for a bigger home for our growing family.

We've been reading lots of real estate listings and going to open houses. In shopping for homes, I've been in several different styles of abodes, from different eras and with varying floor plans. They include townhouses, ranchers, split-levels, colonials, dog houses and outhouses. They all have "master suites," "beautiful hw floors" and "custom wdw treatments." They also all have kitchens and they all have doors. But none of the kitchens have doors.

I have never lived in a house, apartment or condominium that has a door between the kitchen and the living room. Come to think of it, I've never even been in a house that has a door between the kitchen and the living room -- let alone a house with a double-hinged door.

Of course, in every single sitcom, there is a double-hinged door between the kitchen and the living room (never the dining room, which would make more sense.)

Where did this cliche originate? Is it just Hollywood imitating itself? Why not a pocket door? Or a beaded curtain? Whatever happened to a good old-fashioned pass through?

Maybe someday, I will install a double hinged door to my kitchen. Then, while guests are sitting in the living room, I can go in the kitchen and argue with my wife without having to worry that anyone can hear me. Except for the live studio audience, of course.

Mercy Rule

2007-02-16T11:22:00.000-05:00

Today I continued to be annoyed by having to traverse icy glaciers just to cross the street. I saw a man across from my office trying to "shovel" the ice off the sidewalk in front of his restaurant this afternoon. He grew increasingly frustrated as the thick chunks of ice that nearly claimed eight lives in 48 hours simply refused to budge. I watched as he broke not one, but two snow shovels. Maybe it's because they were "snow shovels" and not "three-day-old-packed-ice shovels." I surmise that if he had attempted to shovel his walk on Wednesday before the 3 inches of snow turned into two inches of solid teflon-coated-concrete, he wouldn't have had such a problem.

But then my day was brightened by a little e-mail I received just moments later. It was the notice that my spring softball league was now open for registration. The first game is April 29. That's practically just around the corner. Spring is almost here. I can just feel the warm rays on the back of my neck.

Now that's an e-mail I liked receiving. Maybe I won't close my inbox after all. Funny how it all comes full circle.

Willing to Sacrifice

2007-02-15T22:52:00.000-05:00

On the subject of manners, people aren't just weasels online -- they're jerks after a snow/ice/sleet storm, too. There are some standards of human decency in times of wintry weather that seem not to apply south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Namely:

1) A few handfuls of rock salt sprinkled on the ground are not a substitute for actually shoveling your sidewalk.
1a) Shovel your g.d. sidewalk.
2) When driving on a road covered with a light dusting of snow, it is not necessary to drive at 5 mph...while riding your brakes...uphill. Please get the hell over.
3) Clean off the roof of your car. The huge, jagged slabs of ice that fly off the roof of your car can actually be slightly dangerous.
4) If there is a snowbank plowed against the curb, this does not give you permission to park perpendicular to the flow of traffic so that everyone has to merge into a half lane to get around your crap-ass car.
5) To the snowplow drivers: Try plowing all the way up to the edge of the curb. Just clearing a single curvy lane down the middle of a street is not terribly helpful. It makes for a fun driver's ed course, but is not efficient for assisting in the flow of two-way traffic.
6) SHOVEL YOUR SIDEWALK!

Perhaps these various wintry hazards are what have caused all the schools in the area to remain closed for two days. Yes, the weather on the first day of the storm was a little squirrelly. There had only been one snow-day all year, so I guess the kids (read: the teachers) were deserving of one. But today, Baltimore County Schools were "closed all day due to inclement weather."

I'm wondering just what about today's February weather was so "inclement." Was it the low humidity? The moderate easterly breeze? What is the sub 29-degree temperature? Maybe it was the bright, shining sun that beamed most of the day. Or maybe they were waiting for the rock salt to melt all the ice in front of the schools, rather than just shoveling the sidewalks.

Don't Be a Human Paraquat

2007-02-14T20:53:00.000-05:00

Speaking of mustaches, you never see politicians wearing facial hair. William Howard Taft was the last US President to have any. He was also the last President to weigh more than 300 pounds. I guess times have changed just a little.

Back then, people still knew what a buggy whip was. They read books. And when they were angry with someone, they'd call them a scalawag or rapscallion. Such abasements could be followed by a strongly worded letter or the challenge of a duel. But certainly, there was no e-mail flame copied to eighteen other people in your company.

I am exactly one e-mail away from closing my inbox. It never fails to shock me at how the immediacy and perceived anonymity of e-mail empowers individuals to be complete and utter @ssholes.

At my job, I receive hundreds of e-mails per day. These range from nettlesome business solicitations to inocuous messages about empty tupperware in the staff lunchroom. But mixed among the meeting requests and deal confirmations are always several abusive messages per day. Some of them are directed toward me (deservedly or not). Others are messages I have been copied on for the purpose of embarassing the target. Worse yet, some of them I have been blind copied on.

I can appreciate how easy it is to be a complete and utter schmuck over e-mail. When you're angry, upset or just being an irrational douchebag, it's easy to sit in your filthy hole and fire off an obnoxious and hate-filled e-mail. And with a couple extra clicks, you can enjoy the cheap rush of copying the recipient's boss, secretary, janitors, ex-officemates and former-employees.

But I've learned that if you just stop for one second, take a breath and look at what you've written, it's quite easy not to be a total shithead. Don't call ex-girlfirends when you're drunk and don't write e-mails when you're angry. And certainly do not copy your insulting rants to others. It only broadcasts what a complete and total jerk you are.

There's a saying that you should never put anything in an e-mail that you wouldn't say to someone's face. Unfortunately, this is not a good rule of thumb. Because when you're sitting behind your vintage 1997 Gateway with 64MB of RAM, it's easy to feel eight feet tall. It's quite possible to picture yourself actually having the spine to say each and every word you're typing to someone's face.

As is the case with so much new technology, there are still few societal mores that keep bad behavior in check -- think cell phones that ring to the tune of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" or oblivious morons wearing iPods and blocking your way in a store.

I am serioulsy considering an e-mail boycott of one whole week. Messages sent to my inbox would receive an automated response instructing the sender to either call telephonically or correspond via US Postal Service. I kind of want to see what life was like before e-mail. If you wanted to "carbon copy" multiple people, it required multiple envelopes, multiple stamps and multiple paper cuts.

Or maybe instead of closing my inbox, I'll contruct a form e-mail that I bounce back to e-morons. If an incoming message contains criticism, editorializing, bullying, sarcasm, venting, foul language, needless "cc'ing," "bcc'ing" or general shitiness, a boiler-plate response will indicate that such messages will not be returned. A telephone number will be provided should additional communication be desired. Otherwise, please go to hell. Simultaneously, your message will be filed under "@."

Michaels, Cosell and Weaver

2007-02-13T21:06:00.000-05:00

Speaking of hiatuses, baseball is about to come out of it's annual hibernation. To get us all in the mood, all this week the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network has been replaying a game of the 1983 World Series each night. I guess it's one (dis)advantage of living in Baltimore. Hey, it could be worse. I could live in Toronto.

Even though I know the Orioles will eventually beat the Phillies in five games, I've found myself watching pretty regularly. Maybe it's the lousy mid-season replacements on the networks. Or it could be a touch of "spring phever." Whatever the reason for watching, I sure am enjoying the trip down memory lane.

Oh, the wasting confines of Memorial Stadium. The bright green carpet of the Vet. The powder-blue road uniforms. The cartoon Oriole bird logo. And check out those stirrups and zippered jerseys.

But what's up with the facial hair? I can't believe how many of these guys had mustaches! I think each team was allowed only two clean upper lips. Pete Rose and Von Hayes for the Phillies, Cal Ripken, Jr and Jim Palmer for the Orioles. Every other guy on the field was sporting their own style of soup-strainer. Of course Schmitty's 'stache was way manlier than anything Dempsey or Flannigan could muster. And it's definitely not something A-Rod or Jeter could ever pull off.

So what of the mustache? What killed it? Where did it go? Is it poised for a comeback? Why is it that relief pitchers seem to be the only players these days than can wear a hairy lip?

One Hiatus Begins...

2007-02-12T22:55:00.000-05:00

...and another ends.

These are some big shoes to fill. Can I possibly help to bridge this gap in the blogosphere? I can't promise to try. But I'll try to try.

Who's Next, Pauly Shore?

2006-11-22T20:05:00.000-05:00

Tonight another new prime time TV game show premiered called Show Me the Money. The show is modeled on the recent success of Deal or No Deal and 1 vs 100. All three shows are based on escalating amounts of money being awarded to or taken away from desparate contestants. William Shatner has taken time off from his Priceline.com commercials and Star Trek conventions to host this new show on ABC. But Shatner's presence on the show highlights a disturbing trend.

The hosts of all these money dealing games shows, Howie Mandel (Deal or No Deal), Bob Saget (1 vs 100) and Shatner, are all Jewish. I guess if you're a washed up Jewish actor in Hollywood, there's a game show being focus-grouped just for you.

I hear Richard Lewis has already been lined up for FOX's "Shyster!"

Real Scary Movie

2006-10-29T20:30:00.000-05:00

For some reason, typical horror films, with their formulaic plots and predictable shockers, just don't scare me. I'm more creeped out by psychological thrillers like "The Shining" or one of the more eerie Rod Serling "Twilight Zone" episodes.

But this movie, sends chills down my spines and brings chuckles up from my belly.

Enjoy and be nice to pumpkins.

The Life and Death of a Pumpkin

White Ashes to Ashes

2006-10-18T22:45:00.002-04:00

You may have seen the story about Major League Baseball licensing logos to mortuaries. If not, the picture here speaks for itself. In case it doesn't, I submit the following captions for this image, and invite you do the same in the comments area:

- Here lie the hopes of a Phillies' Championship.

- That Phanitic suit is hot inside...really hot.

- In loving memory of Tommy Green's arm.

- Look, I finally caught a foul ball!

- I just couldn't stand to watch Mitch Williams in Game 6 of '93 series. Can someone tell me what happened?

- Kiteman, may he rest in peace.

- Never wear an Emmitt Smith jersey to any Philadelphia sporting event. Ever.

- You shouldn't have booed me.

- "I'm a very safe pilot."

- Wait 'til next life.

FW: FW: Re: RE: FW:

2006-10-13T22:02:00.000-04:00

>>>>The greatest thing about the rapid expansion of the blogosphere, is that
>>>>my inbox no longer gets bogged down with annoying group e-mails. People
>>>>with blogs no longer feel compelled to forward along every article or funny
>>>>e-mail they come across. They just simply post their interesting tidbits online
>>>>for perusal at my leisure. I love it. Thank you blog people.

...until it killed him.

2006-10-11T23:05:00.000-04:00

When I meet my final end (hopefully many, many decades from now), let no one say: "He died doing what he loved." If I'm killed participating in an activity that I loved, I'll bet I wasn't enjoying it right up until the end. And if I knew that this activity would eventually kill me, I probably never would have done it in the first place, let alone grow to love it.

They're "Trained by Professionals"

2006-09-05T22:12:00.000-04:00

With the tragic passing of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, let us all be reminded of the brave TV hosts that put themselves in harm's way every day for our entertainment. For instance, watch these valiant daytime news anchors as they participate in science-man Steve Spangler's daring experiments. Man, I love local news. I could watch this stuff all day. Oh, and remember, don't try this at home:

Helium Hits: Sulfur Hexaflouride + Television Cameras = Instant Comedy!
Mentos and Exploding Soda: The original Mentos video
He's Got Fire!: This anchor is a real scaredy-cat.

Swing and a Long-Held Grudge

2006-08-31T19:58:00.000-04:00

Tonight Ryan Howard hit his 49th home run of the season. In doing so, Howard set a new single-season home run record for the Philadelphia Phillies, surpassing Mike Schmidt's 48 home runs in 1980.

Michael Jack Schmidt was the Phillies' starting third baseman for more than 16 seasons. He was a 3-time MVP, 12-time All-Star and was the World Series MVP for the Phillies one-and-only championship in 1980. He won 10 Gold Gloves and 8 home run titles. When he retired in 1989, he was seventh on the all-time home run list with 548.

As a young boy growing up in suburban Philadelphia, Schmitty was my childhood hero. I collected Mike Schmidt's baseball cards. My favorite number was 20 (his jersey number). I wished I could grow as moustache. I watched Phillies games just so I could wait for him to come to bat. Every kid on my little league team imitated Schmidt's batting stance (and trademark butt-wiggle). And we argued about who would win in a fist fight: Mike Schmidt or Superman (Answer: Mike Schmidt).

In April 1987, Michael Jack hit his 500th home run at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. It was a huge milestone in Philadelphia sports history. The day he hit it, my brother Jason and I were at home watching the game on TV. In the 6th inning, the Phillies were losing and our mother dragged us out of the house to go buy shoes. My brother's Bar Mitzvah was coming up and I guess shoes were a higher priority. After picking out just the right pair of junior wingtips, we returned to the car and tuned in the game on the radio. Andy Musser and Chris Wheeler, the Phils' radio broadcasters, were talking excitedly describing the big moment that had just happened. Schmitty had hit number 500. Not only that, it was a game winning shot. It was one of the biggest moments in my hero's career and I was in a shoe store.

To celebrate Schmidt's accomplishment, a commemorative video was released fittingly called "That Ball's Outta Here: The Mike Schmidt Story." It followed Schmidt through the first part of the season as he chased the 500 mark. It showed him on the phone with his wife, fielding questions from the press at his locker and taking extra BP before games. The first time I watched the video, at the moment when they show Schmidt silently swinging in slow motion, connecting for the historic blast, I started to cry. I still get choked up just thinking about that scene. Watching the video was the closest I would come to reliving that moment. Did I mention I was in a shoe store at the time?

When the video went on sale, Schmitty was scheduled to make an appearance at our local video store to autograph copies. I begged my mother to take me along. I had never gotten a chance to meet my hero in person. Here was her chance to make-up for the shoe fiasco. After much pleading, my mother decided I would stay in school that day. I wouldn't be meeting my idol.

My mother still went on her own to the video store. When I got home from school that day, she talked about what it was like to meet him -- how broad his shoulders were and how he seemed so tall even while sitting down. From a bag she pulled out the commemorative video she'd gotten him to sign. In dark, bold writing, it read "To Jason, Happy Birthday. Mike Schmidt." My brother's birthday was coming up soon and my mother had thoughtfully gotten him a personalized autograph. I thought it was so cool that Mike Schmidt knew it was my brother's birthday. I couldn't wait to see my personalized copy of the video, too.

This may come as a surprise, but there was no personalized autograph for me. There was only one copy of the video and it had my brother's stupid name scribbled all over it. My mom said not to worry. She had also managed to get him to autograph a small 4x6 photograph she'd taken of him at a Fuji Film Photo Night at Veterans Stadium a couple years earlier. Wow. I couldn't wait to put it on display in my room.

It was then explained to me that the small autographed photo was to remain inside the video's box, which conveniently lived in a cupboard in my brother's room. I was not allowed to have it.

From time to time, I would go into my brother's room, take out the video and peek at the small autographed photo inside. It reminded me of my mother's own story about her father's Babe Ruth autograph. As a young girl, she would go into her father's desk and pull out an old program with the Babe's signature on the cover. But someone else in the family had made off with it. To this day, she doesn't know where it is.

A few years ago, when I was visiting my parent's house, I went into my brother's old room and for old times sake took out the video. The autographed photo slipped out of the box and fell into my lap. I looked at it for a moment, placed it on the bed and put the video away. I carefully slid the photo into an envelope and put it in my suitcase. The next day, I left with the autograph quietly tucked away. No one in my family would realize it was gone until they came to my home years later and saw it on display, in a frame, being enjoyed.

I've met and had meaningful encounters with a fair share of famous people in my life -- from Bill Cosby to Cal Ripken, Jr. But I don't ask for autographs. Autographs are for kids. Rather than asking people to scribble their name on a piece of paper, I prefer to strike up a dialogue. In my opinion, it makes for a far more memorable connection. How can someone have any respect for you if the first thing you do is ask them to write their name down? But because I've never had personal contact with my boyhood hero, Schmidt's autograph is the only thing I have.

So to my family members that would like the autograph back, I'd like to remind you of the 10-year old boy wiggling his butt and swinging a wiffleball bat in the middle of the living room. If you really want the autograph back, I suggest you schedule a personal audience for me and Michael Jack. Then I will gladly give up the photo. Until then, happy shoe shopping.

Yonder Piggly Wiggly

2006-08-29T19:37:00.000-04:00

This weekend I drove myself to the grocery store to buy a few things. First I stopped and picked up a sandwich for lunch. The bill was $4.11. I paid for it with a five dollar bill. The cashier handed me my receipt and a bulky handful of change which I stuffed in my pocket. After quickly gulping down my lunch, I ran into the market. Grabbing just an armful of items from the shelves, I made my way to the checkout.

I usually avoid the express lanes because I often find them slower than the regular ones. What happens is that a dozen people, all with "10 items or less [sic]," swarm the express lane. Meanwhile the regular lanes always have shorter lines and I believe they move faster. Scanning and bagging the groceries is quite fast. It doesn't take that much longer to ring up 20 or 30 items than it does 10. It's the transactions, with people writing checks, fumbling with the credit card machine or sifting through purses for exact change that really drag things down. I'd rather take my chances behind one person with a huge cart full of food, than 8 people who might be writing checks.

But this weekend, I saw the express lane had only a very short line and I thought I would give it a shot. To my surprise, I was quickly at the front having my few items scanned. The total was $13.35.

In addition to avoiding express lanes, I almost always pay for groceries by credit card. But because I was in an express lane, I thought I would be considerate and pay by cash. That's always the fastest way, right? Especially if I have exact change.

So I reached down into my pocket knowing that I had a sizeable amount of change. But the coinage had become intermingled with my car keys, the paper receipt from lunch and an alarming amount of pocket lint. I was able to fish out a few coins: a quarter and a penny. Nervously, I reached in again, pulled out my keys and the receipt and set them on the counter. With the obstacles clear, I was able to get out the full collection of change. Sorting out a quarter, nickel and dime, I handed them to the cashier. I then reached into my bill fold to hand over the correct amount of cash. This is when I realized I didn't have as much money with me as I'd thought. After buying lunch, I now only had a five and three ones. I was five dollars short.

I felt mortified. I apologized to the cashier and asked for the change back so that I could pay by credit card. I was now one of those people holding up the express line. As I reached in for my credit card, I turned around to express my contrition to my fellow customers waiting behind me. That's when I noticed her. It was Betty.

Betty was my friend from the local post office. Betty was the line nazi who was mean to her customers. I recognized her immediately. She was wearing a blue USPS shirt and a name tag that read, "Betty."

I nodded at Betty. She gave me a sharp stare and flicked her tongue.

"Sorry about this," I said to her.

"Uh huh. Just keep it moving," she barked.

"I'm just going to..."

"Stop talking and start paying," she interrupted.

Turning back to the cashier, I put away my credit card. I reached into my wallet and pulled out a slip of paper I've had folded up in my wallet for emergencies just like this. I knew I had to do it for all the people in my ZIP code who have had a run in with Betty. I unfolded the paper, picked up a pen and said to the cashier:

"I'll just pay by check."

Remember Cop Rock?

2006-08-27T12:43:00.000-04:00

In 1990, the Berlin Wall came down. The first President Bush was in the White House starting the first Iraqi war. Yours truly was in seventh grade. A postage stamp cost 25 cents. Julio Franco was a spry 33 years of age. Brian McCann was 7. And the Atlanta Braves finished the season with a record of 65-97, in last place, 26 games behind the NL West Champion Cincinnati Reds. (Remember when the Braves were in the NL West?) And the NL East was won by the Pittsburgh Pirates. (Yes, those Pittsburgh Pirates.) The Florida Marlins, Colorado Rockies, Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays didn't even exist yet.

In the fifteen seasons following, the Braves tallied up a record of 1431-931 -- a .606 winning percentage -- and won fourteen division titles by a total of 116 1/2 games. Only the strike-shortened 1994 season left them without a banner that year, even though they were trailing the Montreal Expos by six games at the time.

(Here's where I feel obligated to disclose that from 1991 through 2005, my hometown Philadelphia Phillies racked up a combined record of 1144-1218 -- a .516 losing percentage -- and only made it to the post-season once losing to the Toronto Blue Jays in the 1993 World Series. We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.)

Here we are today at the end of August 2006. The Braves are 60-68, in fourth place and 19 games behind the division leading New York Mets. The Mets have a "Magic Number" of 20 to clinch the NL East. It will be the first time in 15 years that the Braves will watch someone else hoist their division's pennant. Even better yet, the Braves are only five games ahead of the last-place Washington Nationals. Any combination of Nationals wins and Braves losses, totaling 39, will mean the Braves finish in last place. Let's call this the "Black Magic Number." We'll track it throughout the next five weeks.

Braves fans old enough to remember powder-blue uniforms aren't unfamiliar with last place. Before their historic run, the Braves were pretty bad. Okay, really bad. They finished dead last four times between 1986 and 1990. Before 1991, the Braves only moved on to the post-season twice, in 1982 and 1969, since moving to Atlanta in 1966.

The Braves more than made up for those losing seasons with their unprecedented streak of domination since 1991. In that time, they've won fourteen consecutive division pennants. Fourteen. That's fourteen trips to the playoffs. But this is where their legacy will be a bit more hazy. Because baseball, ultimately, is about winning a trophy, getting a ring and staking claim as champions of the "world."

Of those 14-straight division championships the Braves won, only one yielded a World Series title. Yes, they made it to the world series on five occasions. But that's only five out of fourteen -- 36 percent. And of those five, only one ring. One. Even with a post-season record of 81-62 since 1991, the Braves pursuit of championships has been mired in futility. Especially in recent seasons where they have been eliminated in the first round five of the last six years. It got so bad, the Braves had trouble selling seats to playoff games in the last few years. Where else do you see empty seats during playoff games? (I'm looking at you, NHL.)

The phrase "high school hero, real life zero" comes to mind. The Braves are regular season bruisers, post-season losers. That empty mantle will be their legacy. Many will disagree. In a few weeks, or even days, the debate can begin. The Braves will not win the Wild Card. On October 1, at the conclusion of the 2006 regular season, the Braves will find themselves on the sidelines. Then history can decide if they belong in the company of the New York Yankees or the Buffalo Bills. One thing they won't have to worry about: being compared to the Philadelphia Phillies.

Brother, Can You Spare a Vote?

2006-08-22T19:01:00.000-04:00

Baltimore has the longest red lights of any city in the country. It makes driving in this city really annoying. These red lights can lengthen your commute by over twenty percent and needlessly increases the waste of fossil fuels.

The extended red lights also create a very dangerous situation as people race between signals at breakneck speeds. Some drivers just run the lights all together. To combat this, the city has installed red light cameras at 50 intersections. So now, in addition to having the longest red lights in the land, Baltimore is also the red-light camera capital of the world. Receiving a commemorative photo of your license plate in the mail makes for a nice keepsake, but will also set you back a few bucks.

But the oil companies and the City of Baltimore aren't the only ones who benefit from the long red lights. The traffic back-ups caused by mistimed, lengthy traffic lights also make panhandling at intersections a big business in this town. Major intersections swarm with itinerants and vagrants, each with their own unique and gruesome disfigurement on display.

One of these major intersections is part of my daily commute. It's populated by these licentious degenerates morning, noon and night. They wander up and down the median begging for change. They seem to work in shifts. Every morning there is the same toothless hippie with long grey hair, an acutely swollen hand and a limp that would do Hugh Laurie proud. In my head I call him "Stinky." During the evening rush hour a gaunt woman with one leg wobbles on crutches. I think of her as "Hoppy." And late at night, an older gentleman with no apparent disability (unless you count poor penmanship as a handicap) paces with a crudely constructed cardboard sign in hand. I call him "Old Guy."

I never give money to any of them. And I can't believe anyone would. But the amazing part is that people actually do. I watch each day as people roll down their windows, toss out change or offer a cigarette. Obviously the panhandling pays off or they wouldn't be there every day -- rain, sleet or snow. I often wonder just how much it pays off. Luckily the traffic light is long enough to do some rough calculations.

This traffic light cycles approximately every two-and-a-half minutes. That's 25 times per hour. When I see people handing out money, it's often change, but there's paper money too. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that these guys can average fifty cents to a dollar per cycle. That's almost $20 an hour. And no taxes. Beats working for minimum wage.

I remember seeing a local TV news story once where they followed panhandlers after they finished working their corner. They walked a few blocks, got into their car and drove away. Some of them had pretty nice cars and were followed to their homes in nice neighborhoods. I try not to be that cynical. Some of these individuals do need help. And they really aren't harming anyone. It's just an annoyance. But, again, they're not the last ones benefiting from the Baltimore's traffic patterns.

This morning I was surprised to see this same corner occupied by a new kind of recalcitrant: a politician.

During the morning rush hour, a middle-aged guy in a dress shirt and a tie stood on the corner and waved to commuters. He was campaigning for District Attorney. His shirt sleeves were casually rolled up and he was holding a large sign bearing his name. The sign was very large. He may as well have been wearing a sandwich board.

People paid him no attention. No honks of support. No friendly cheers. No one rolling down their windows to ask about his plan to stop panhandlers or catch the light pole thieves.

Meanwhile, I can't help but wonder what happened to "Stinky." How did Mr. Polyester get to take over the corner? Did he show up really early? Did he submit an application for a city permit to reserve that corner a week in advance? Or did he simply pay "Stinky" twenty bucks to go away?

It was a nice change to see someone a bit less scary standing next to my car this morning as I waited for the light to change. I was, however, just as reticent to make any eye contact with the guy. I wonder how much of an impact that campaign stunt actually had. It probably would have been more productive as a campaign fundraiser. Heck, he already had the cardboard sign. All he's missing is a good limp.

Don't Play with Your Art

2006-08-19T21:35:00.000-04:00

Have you been to the Smithsonian and seen some of your old toys behind glass? There's even a National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, New York where you can vote for your favorites.

Well, here are some guys that really do get their toys put on exhibit. I guess my parents spent too much time encouraging me to get a real job. Meanwhile, look what these artists can do.

Check it out, Mom, I'm making a living with:

Legos

Dominos

Etch-a-Sketch

Fly West, Young Man

2006-08-17T23:15:00.000-04:00

I recently flew Midwest Connect (operated by Sky West Airlines). Looking at the airline listings in the terminal, I realized it would be very easy to get mixed up as to which "western" airline you're on. I mean, look at all these airlines with similar names:

America West
Midwest
Northwest
Sky West
Southwest
Transwest

It's really confusing. Is the west really that appealing? Doesn't anyone travel east? I mean, you have to travel east eventually, right?

In fact, there is not a single airline servicing North America that uses the word "east" in its name. There used to be Eastern Airlines, but they went defunct around the time Punky Brewster got cancelled.

Imagine what would happen if some of these airlines merge and become something like "North-Southwest Airlines" or "Midsky West Airways." I'm waiting for North by Northwest Airlines: each flight would cruise approximately 50 feet above Cary Grant's head.

Drew Barry-no-more

2006-08-16T21:31:00.000-04:00

We have a subscription to Netflix. And it is the greatest thing ever. If you're not familiar with Netflix, perhaps I could interest you in a flight on a hydrogen-filled dirigible.

As I was saying, Netflix is awesome. But managing that queue of movies takes some skill. For example, I try to be sure that at all times we have at least one film both my wife and I can enjoy, plus one so-called "chick flick." This means a movie starring Drew Barrymore and one of the Wilson brothers. For every "Crash" we need a "Home Fries."

Given the way Netflix works, these fluff movies eat up valuable real estate on the queue. Real estate that's so valuable, I'd even consider having a separate DVD subscription service just for my wife's movies. I'd call it: Chickflix, of course.

A service like Chickflix would hopefully offer more than just your traditional mail-order DVD rental service. I'm thinking I could go online and schedule delivery of my wife's movies for the nights that I'm working late. Perhaps the movie could come delivered in a decorative envelope including chocolates and recipes for quick, quality home-cooked meals. Maybe even a personalized card from me could be included saying "Thank you for being so wonderful." Now that would be worth $19.95/month.

Just What Wolfgang had in Mind

2006-08-15T22:42:00.000-04:00

In 1788, when Mozart composed his Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, he wrote for the orchestral instruments he knew: violins, violas, celli, double basses, flutes, oboes, bassoons and horns.

Discussion continues about whether or not the additonal clarinet parts should be included in contemporary performances of the work. Clarinet parts do exist for this symphony, but their origins are somewhat suspect. You see, Mozart didn't have access to modern clarinets. He wrote for either the basset horn or early other ancestors of the "licorice stick" we know today. And he wasn't particularly fond of the way they sounded.

One thing Mozart certainly didn't have in his musical arsenal was a pair of rollerblades. If he had, Wolfie surely would have thought to utilize his empty wine bottles (of which there would have been many) and create the perfect instrumentation for his music. This combination of roller blades, wine bottles and asphalt is undoubtedly the truest realization of Mozart's music. However, 53rd Street in New York aint exactly Kartnerstrasse in Vienna, if you know what I mean.

Who Still Uses Audiotapes?

2006-08-14T11:22:00.001-04:00

From Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point:

[I]f there can be epidemics of crime or epidemics of fashion, there must be all kinds of things just as contagious as viruses. Have you ever thought of yawning, for instance? Yawning is a surprisingly powerful act. Just because you read the word "yawning" in the previous two sentences -- and the additional "yawns" in this sentence -- a good number of you will probably yawn within the next few minutes. Even as I'm writing this, I've yawned twice. If you're reading this in a public place, and you've just yawned, chances are that a good proportion of everyone who saw you yawn is now yawning too, and a good proportion of the people watching the people who watched you yawn are now yawning as well, and on and on, in and ever-widening, yawning circle.

Yawning is incredibly contagious. I made some you reading this yawn simply by writing the word "yawn." The people who yawned when they saw you yawn, meanwhile, were infected by the sight of you yawning -- which is a second kind of contagion. They might even have yawned if they only heard you yawn, because yawning is also aurally contagious: if you play an audiotape of a yawn to blind people, they'll yawn too. And finally, if you yawned as you read this, did the thought cross your mind -- however unconsciously and fleetingly -- that you might be tired? I suspect that for some of you it did, which means that yawns can also be emotionally contagious. Simply by writing the word, I can plant a feeling in your mind.

Lap It Up

2006-08-11T15:20:00.000-04:00

I was at the pool this week, swimming in the lap lane. During a pause between lengths, an older gentleman approached me from the top ledge of the pool. He was in his 70s, carrying a large duffel bag and wearing a full polyester warm-up suit. Keep in mind, the temperature outside was roughly equivalent to the equatorial temperature on Mercury and he's wearing long pants and a jacket.

"Can I get in this lane, too?" he asked me.

"Sure. I think I'm done anyway," I said.

Sharing a lane with other swimmers, especially elderly ones, is not something that interests me. So I slid out of the lap lane, and rested along the edge of the pool. I then watched as this impressive specimen prepared for his leisurely swim in the neighborhood spa.

First, he stripped off his jacket. He wasn't wearing a shirt underneath -- big surprise. His torso was overly tan and covered in coarse white hair. Then he took off his pants revealing a knee-length, skin-tight Speedo. Unsightly bulges of extra skin squeezed out from the edges of the tight spandex.

This guy looked serious about his swimming -- certainly a force to be reckoned with. Then he reached into his large duffel bag and pulled out a large pair of goggles.

"Interesting idea," I thought to myself as my eyes burned from the blinding concentration of chlorine in the pool. Maybe I should get a pair of those (the goggles, not the Speedo).

Next, he reached back into his bag and pulled out a latex swimming cap. Okay, he doesn't have much hair, but I guess he wants to protect what little he has left. Or maybe he wanted to protect his head from the blazing sun. Whatever the reason, it didn't seem too unusual. A bit effeminate, but nothing to dwell on.

Then came the nose clips. They were stored in their very own buoyant protective case. I haven't seen a pair of nose clips since I was six years old when a friend of mine used to wear them in the pool along with his bright-orange inflatable arm floaters. I didn't think adults were permitted to wear nose clips outside of organized synchronized swimming competitions. Never-the-less, he removed the clips from of their case, snorted a few times and snapped them on. Even with the clips on his nose, you could still see long straggly hairs protruding from his pinched-off nostrils.

But he wasn't finished. He went back into the bag and pulled out the next surprise. A big blue pair of flippers. Yes, flippers. He sat down on the chaise and slipped each flipper onto his foot. FWOP! FWOP! He stood up from the chair, waddled back to his bag and reached in again.

Already sporting a knee-length Speedo, goggles, a swim cap, nose clips and big blue flippers, he finally revealed the last piece of equipment. Webbed gloves. No, not mittens. Webbed gloves. They looked like batting gloves with large pieces of material spanning each digit. He tightened the straps of each glove, slapped his hands together a couple times and began to make large circles with his arms.

Now, fully equipped and stretched, this part-man-part-amphibian waddled his way to the edge of the pool and jumped in, much like a Navy Seal would from the skid of a helicopter hovering 30 meters above a rough sea. Safe from the threat of enemy fire, he then slowly began swimming laps.

Why on earth does a grown man need flippers and webbed gloves to swim laps in the neighborhood pool? The pool is probably only 15 meters in length -- not exactly Olympic-sized. Isn't this cheating? I can often take a few strokes and glide to the other end of the pool. But this guy looks like he's ready to traverse the English Channel. Why did he stop at the flippers and webbed gloves? Why not a kickboard and a snorkel? Perhaps a small inflatable dinghy with a gas-powered motor? At some point, you may as well just get out of the water and walk your laps on the pool deck.

The guy probably swam about 30 laps in 10 minutes and hopped out of the water. He took off the gloves and flippers. Then the goggles, nose-clip and swimming cap. Luckily, the Speedo stayed on. After a quick toweling off, he slipped the heavy polyester warm-up suit back on, grabbed his duffel bag and left.

As I prepared to resume my laps, I wondered if I had really just seen that. Or was it a hallucination brought on by the chlorine fumes? Either way, I was glad I got out of his lane.

Whoa, Dude...

2006-08-08T21:45:00.000-04:00

Okay, if you haven't seen this amazing optical illusion, check it out. This is really cool.

If you happen to be in a small room, or are too lazy to get up from your seat, try removing your glasses or corrective lenses. For those of you with 20/20 vision, just squint.

Don't Look a Bobblehead in the Mouth

2006-07-24T23:12:00.000-04:00

Appended July 27, 2006

On Wednesday, the Phillies are giving away "free to all fans" a Ryan Howard Bobble Figurine. (One would assume that said fans would need to purchase a ticket to Wednesday's game to actually receive the giveaway, but this is not stated explicitly.)

I found it interesting that it's referred to as a "bobble figurine" and not the more familiar "bobblehead doll." I wonder if this is a reference to Howard's defensive shortcomings. While Howard has shown future-Hall-of-Fame power in his first full season in the majors, his fielding is still coming along. The phrase, "hands of stone" comes to mind. But he hits a lot of homeruns, so its easily forgivable.

Never-the-less, this figurine, as seen pictured (right) clearly has a bobbling head. But on this week's Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN, Joe Morgan commented over and over again how steady Howard keeps his head while hitting. So, his lack of a bobbling head actually contributes to his power at the plate.

Maybe a bobblehands doll would be more appropriate after all.

UPDATE: July 27, 2006
It turns out these bobble figurines were pretty popular. Last night's game set a single-game attendance record at Citizens Bank Park. Either that or a lot of scouts were there to see John Leiber and David Delucci with the non-waiver trade deadline looming. Howard went 0 for 2 with a strikeout.

What's in a Brand Name?

2006-07-23T23:12:00.000-04:00

Some brand names have become synonymous with the products they produce. For instance, people will ask for a "Kleenex" rather than a tissue, a "Band-Aid" rather than a bandage or "Scotch Tape" rather than cellophane one-sided sticky tape. Some huge brand names are so strong they immediately bring an association to mind. Nike=Shoes. Mercedes=Cars.

But what if some of those brand-name companies made something else entirely? Would these companies have been as successful? Something to ponder. Submit your own in the comments area if you wish. Or just comment on how stupid this whole concept is...

Mr. Clean: Prophylactics
Nokia: Locksmith
Tide: Feminine Hygiene Products
Ivory: Toothpaste
Microsoft: Baby Diapers
Hush Puppies: Dog food
Starbucks: Hollywood Talent Agency
PanAm: Non-stick cooking Spray
Huggies: Special Olympics
Disney: Anti-motion sickness medication
Buster Browns: Police Profiling Training Videos
Gap: Orthodontics
Gucci: Baby clothes
Armani: Prosthetics

How to Write a 10-Page Newspaper

2006-07-19T21:14:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, The New York Times announced that they'd be reducing the size of their paper to cut costs. Such an announcement naturally brings out spoofs of The New York Times slogan, "All the News That's Fit to Print." Are they really going to change their mantra to "All the News That Fits?" It doesn't sound like it.

According to the report, "the newspaper plans to add pages to make up for about half of that loss." It appears to me that the Times is simply employing the same trick that most of us tried in high school: how to make the same amount of words fill more pages. Increasing the size of the margins was one of my favorites. But I never thought about trimming down the paper size. That's pretty brilliant. I recall a ten-page paper I wrote in ninth grade on The Scarlet Letter that was conspicuously triple-spaced with 2.75-inch margins. I wonder if my teacher would have noticed if the paper it was written on was also a half-inch smaller than all the other papers in the pile.

Just wait until the Times discovers Bookman Old Style 14.

It's Good to Be a Monkey

2006-06-18T12:42:00.000-04:00

This is a great time to be alive — if you are a monkey living with AIDS, Ebola, cancer, impotency, macular degeneration, toenail fungus or a common cold. Scientists seem to continue to come up with miracle cures for all of the ailments known to man. But only for monekys. You see, they do all this testing on monkeys which is supposed to help them develop a cure for humans, too. Only these cures rarely seem to translate to us! Therefore, monkeys really will rule the earth like in Planet of the Apes. While we're all dying from various epidemics, all these monkeys will be running around, fully innoculated against every pathogen, virus and disease — not to mention they'll all have lots of hair and fungus-free toenails.

Dodger Boo

2006-06-04T13:27:00.000-04:00

For several months, I had a planned business trip to Los Angeles. It wasn't until a couple days before my departure this week that I realized my hometown team, the Philadelphia Phillies, would be at Dodger Stadium that same week. With an itinerary already chocked full of meetings morning, noon and night, it was obvious I was not going to have the leisure time to see a game. But I resolved that if I finished my business early enough, I'd make the short cab ride to catch at least a couple innings.

So on Thursday evening, I finished up my final meeting of the trip around 8:30pm. A phone call from my brother advised me that with the Phils facing a 7-0 deficit after five innings, a trip to the stadium was probably not worth the effort. Well, I'm 3,000 miles from home, I've just worked hard for two days without rest and I'm jet-lagged. I was making the trip over to the park no matter what the score.

I hopped in a cab. "Dodger Stadium, please," I told the driver.

"Dodger Stadium?" he asked in a thick Russian accent.

"Yes, Dodger Stadium."

"You mean baseball game, no? Dodger Stadium?"

"Yes. Baseball game. Thank you."

It was about a ten minute ride to the park. The driver conveniently left me at the ticket office located just beyond the left field wall. Except with the game entering the 6th inning those booths were all closed. So I headed to the gate. A large family was walking in through the turnstiles. I tried to blend in and push my way through, but the security guard grabbed me. I guess blending in with a Latino family is not as easy for me as I thought. I was instructed to go to the upper box office to buy a ticket. "They will still be open," he promised, as he directed me to a flight of steps.

The thing about Dodger Stadium is that it's built into the side of a mountain. So if you enter from the outfield side of the stadium, you walk in at field level. But as you walk around the outside of the stadium, you're actually climbing approximately 4,297 concrete steps to the top of the ballpark. At the top of the steps was the box office. It's probably the only baseball stadium in the world where an entrance is located above the top row of the upper deck.

By the time I climbed to the top, it was now the seventh inning. The Phils were still down 7-0. I breathlessly asked the teller for a ticket and some oxygen. Sweaty and still wearing a blue blazer and slacks from my meetings, I must have looked like a young Willy Loman who had just climbed approximately 4, 297 steps. The gentleman behind the thick glass window explained that he was no longer selling tickets for tonight's game. The security guard, he said, would have to agree to let me in and could call an ambulance if needed. So I gathered myself and went to work convincing the security guard that I had to get into the park to assist my handicapped 98-year-old step-uncle. He waved me in.

Walking in through the gate, I found myself standing above the top row of the upper deck behind home plate. It's quite a view. And an unusual place to enter a ballpark. The seventh inning stretch had just ended. The Phils were still down 7-0. I walked down several rows and grabbed a seat.

I would have tried moving into seats lower down, but the stadium is cleverly designed. Unless you like to scale down fences or can survive a 50-foot drop onto concrete, there's no way down from that top deck. So I sat back, enjoyed the cool evening breeze blowing through the ravine, and waited for a big late-inning rally from my boys in red.

I felt surprisingly at home in Dodger Stadium. It's a beautiful park in a remarkable setting. And the fans are amazing. Dodger fans are my kind of people.

Philly fans are always derided as being the meanest fans outside professional wrestling arenas. And there's some truth to it. Philly fans will boo a small child who drops a foul ball. They will boo a pitcher who hits only 99mph on the radar gun. And, yes, they booed Santa Claus. It's true, even though he deserved it.

Dodger fans, in my opinion, are equally nasty. With the Dodgers still ahead by seven runs heading to the bottom of the 8th, the stadium began to ring out with the chants of, "Phillies suck!" In most places, this would be considered gloating. A group of Philly fans sitting down the first baseline became the focus of some ugly not-so-family-friendly slurs as well.

Now, Dodger fans also have the reputation of leaving games after the 7th inning. So I wondered why the stadium was still nearly full after eight full innings. That's when the crowd shifted from verbally bullying a 6-year-old in a Phillies cap to chanting for Eric Gagne.

Gagne, the Dodger's star closer, had just been reactivated after being on the DL for nearly a year and a half. The fans wanted to see him in the game. "We want Gagne! We want Gagne!" they chanted. But with a seven-run lead, it seemed unlikely the Dodgers would bring him in.

In the ninth, the Phils actually put together a small rally scoring two quick runs. Now with the lead cut to five and two runners on-base, number 38 jumped up in the bullpen and started to throw. The crowd went wild. Chants of "Gagne, Gagne!" grew deafening. These folks had stuck around to see their man pitch, and now he was prepping himself for some game time.

If another run scored, the tieing run would move into the on-deck circle. It would be a save situation and a likely opportunity to bring in Gagne. Abraham Nunez, the Phillies pinch hitter came to the plate with two on and one out. He hit a tailor-made double play grounder to shortstop. But the relay throw got past the firstbaseman keeping the game alive. E-4. The crowd went wild. They cheered an error made by one of their own players! After all, the game was still going and there might still be a chance to see Gagne.

Jimmy Rollins, the Phils' shortstop then came to bat. In typical fashion, he swung at the first pitch and popped it weakly to first base. The fans yelled at the firstbaseman to drop the ball. He didn't. He made the catch. The game was over. The fans all booed. Their team just won 7-2 and they booed. Those are my kind of fans.

Dr. 90210 Heroic

2006-05-24T10:18:00.000-04:00

(AP) An elderly man on an American Airlines flight was restrained by passengers, including television's "Dr. 90210," after he got out of his seat and bristled at a flight attendant late Monday, officials said.

The jetliner landed safely in Los Angeles and police took the 104-year-old one-legged man with halitosis, who did not speak English, to a hospital for mental observation, an airport spokeswoman said.

"He evidently started to panic about 15 minutes before landing, when everyone is supposed to be buckled into seats," the spokeswoman said. "He was apparently unhappy with the temperature of his soup served during the inflight meal," she continued.

The man hopped out of his seat in coach and marched into first class. He was undeterred by the curtain separating the elite from the general population.

Dr. Robert Rey, a plastic surgeon who practices martial arts, told The Associated Press he got out of his seat and intervened when he heard the man make a "big noise" as he pushed a female flight attendant away from the cookie tray and tried to grab a handful of free snacks.

"When you get a black belt, at that stage your brain just clicks into action," the doctor said. "I restrained this gentleman in a very aggressive way without hurting him. Afterall, he was a very, very dangerous centenarian." Rey believed he did the right thing, but now is concerned that he will "not be allowed to board future flights carrying these deadly weapons," he said, referring to his right and left fists.

During the struggle with the unruly passenger, Rey used the palm of his hand to break the man's nose. He then reset the nose, performed a quick rhinoplasty, breast augmentation and brow lift on the man before the plane landed.

Another passenger helped as the man kicked and screamed, Rey said. That other passenger described the man's "kicking and screaming" more like "the pathetic wriglings of a 104-year-old invalid with bad breath."

Flight crew members described the man as "very frail" and "not deserving of such an ass whooping from a Beverly Hills bully."

The flight attendant "was shook up but not hurt," Rey said. To be sure, Rey asked the flight attendant to undress so that he could take Polaroid photos of her in front of a blue wall. The flight attendant is scheduled for liposuction and tummy tuck next week.

None of the five crew members or 122 passengers aboard the MD-80 plane from Austin, Texas, reported injuries -- well, except for the old guy who got his butt kicked. The elderly man received a bill for his plastic surgery totalling almost $11,000 from Rey's office.

Rey, who stars on the E! Network reality show "Dr. 90210" about a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, was returning home after taping a cameo segment for John Basedow's latest "Fitness Made Simple" workout video.

"Let this be a lesson to anyone who thinks about coming through that first class curtain again," Rey said.

Cynic's Corner: The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-17T23:02:00.000-04:00

The Cynic's Corner provides helpful and informative movie reviews without ever seeing the film. Motion pictures are rated on the following scale:

* = Not even worth reading this review
** = Stay home and wait until it's on video.
*** = Stay home and wait until it's on TNT for the tenth time
**** = Boycott the film and march in protest around the multiplex

The Da Vinci Code
***1/2

The books on my shelves display as badges of honor. After completing a good book, I will proudly slide it into place between titles likeThe Wealth and Poverty of Nations, Visions of Gerard or The Complete Stories of Kafka where it will reside in testament to my superior taste and knowledge. In the case of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, after reading it I shamefully hid the book beneath a stack of dirty magazines.

I, like many, read Brown's bestseller in a three-hour period between reruns of The Daily Show. I had been battered about the face by a copy of the book, being told that it was the greatest novel since The Klone and I and that I was an idiot for not reading it. To this day, I don't see what the big deal is. The terrible way in which the book is written leaves one wondering was an editor at all involved? I think the poor syntax and sloppy grammar was probably Brown's best defense in the plagiarism case.

One thing is clear. When you read this book you can tell it would make a great movie. Probably a very long movie, but a good one none-the-less. And the fact that is has stirred up so much controversy, and gotten the evangelicals all huffy, just adds to the intrigue.

Back in October, I called for my own boycott of SONY Pictures after their production of films based on the Left Behind series of books. (Talk about books with a cult following.) Now the Vatican is is calling for their own boycott of SONY Pictures' The Da Vinci Code. Man, I love capitalism. If anyone should be boycotting this film, it should be art historians. The liberties taken with odd interpretations of great masterpieces is far more offensive than any marginally blasphemed messianic figure. I'd just love to see a hoard of museum curators berating ticket buyers at the box office.

The movie is worth seeing, not only for the rush of crossing a picket line, but for the thrill and mystery of a gripping story. Plus, it's worth checking out to see just what exactly is up with Tom Hanks' hair.

Digital Conquers All

2006-04-23T23:31:00.000-04:00

I believe some of the most interesting and spontaneous photographs have happened at the end of a roll. Those last few frames you thought you were burning off, sometimes yielded surprising results. But that end-of-the-roll whimsy is now obsolete in the digital-camera age. Then again, with virtually no limit on the number of digital photographs you can take, a carefree impulsiveness to snap a picture of anything and everything is probably more pervasive than it should be.

Stanley Kubrik’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is still one of my favorite movies. And the fact that all of the special effects in this science fiction film are entirely mechanical, makes it that much more special. I’d say that most of the visual effects in that film are still superior to the over-modulated, eye-candy digital CGI effects used in films today.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not preaching analog here. I’m not one of those freaks that collects LPs or feels more creative in front of a typewriter. Quite the contrary. I love technology. However, I know that with all the benefits of our binary wireless high-speed broadband satellite era, there are sacrifices. I like to know what I’m giving up and how I can salvage some of that experience while reaping the benefits of the latest-and-greatest.

For example, I used to enjoy listening to AM radio on long road trips. Driving through small rural towns, local AM radio was how I could get a fleeting sense of the local aura at 75mph. But those days are probably gone now. For my birthday, the parental units were kind enough to give me an XM Satellite Radio receiver.

I’ve been using it for nearly two weeks now and am thoroughly hooked.  Satellite radio allows you to listen to the same radio stations, commercial-free, coast to coast. So when you’re driving through Salina, Kansas and all you can find is one crackly Bluegrass channel, you can turn on your satellite radio and tune in a crystal-clear, interstellar Bluegrass channel of your choosing.

The unit I have is Delphi’s RoadyXT which is a lightweight faceplate the size of a credit card and a half-inch thick. It attaches to a base unit for the home and another for the car. While it requires a special antenna and a power source (wall outlet or cigarette lighter) it can play through any FM radio wirelessly. It’s the same concept behind Apple’s iTrip or, as I more fondly remember, “Mr. Mic.”

The broadcasts are all-digital and have an amazing clarity and range of sound. Even playing through my atrocious car stereo, the sound is impressive. Meanwhile, the faceplate displays the current artist and song playing -- a convenient distraction while driving. And living in an area where I can pick up radio stations in two major media markets but in six years haven’t found a single decent broadcaster worth programming into my presets, the selection of music choices on XM is a welcomed joy.

XM Satellite Radio offers a staggering number of channels. But much like cable television, only a small fraction of those offerings are of interest. Once you’ve weeded through and found what you’re looking for, it’s pretty addictive. However, my big gripe with XM is that they’ve gotten too cutesy by giving many of the channels names that have no relevance to the content. Names like “The Blend,” “The Mix,” “Big Tracks,” “Deep Tracks,” “Fred,” “Lucy” and “Ethel” aren’t nearly as helpful as, say, “Lite Pop,” “Alternative,” “Modern,” “Acoustic” and “Classic Rock.” When there are 200 channels to chose from and memorize, a little more specificity would be appreciated.

It took me a week to learn that “Lucy” is actually worthy of low-number preset status. It’s mix of artists like U2, David Bowie, Talking Heads, Violent Femmes and Elvis Costello is eclectic without being esoteric. And they play mostly lesser-known tracks from their albums, rather than just hits like “One” or “Pump It Up.” Too bad they have to throw in Dave Matthews or Counting Crows from time to time. Still, the variety of music played is far greater than anything you hear over the airwaves. Plus, during their station IDs, I really enjoy the little messages they scroll across the display like, “You were never cool in high school,” or “People like you made Jim Belushi famous.”  

Knowing me, you’d guess that I’ve also spent a good deal of time listening to XM Classics, their appropriately-monikered Classical music channel. It’s great to hear a Classical station playing large-scale symphonies and lesser-known contemporary works that the wallpaper public radio stations never go near. However, XM Classic’s programming does venture into the very obscure, even for this aficionado. I have very far-ranging knowledge and esoteric tastes. But I can do without the lowly works of Johann Wilhelm Wilms, Hugo Alfven, Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf or Alan Hovhannes, thank you. Sometimes, it’s okay to just play Beethoven. Heck, I’d even settle for Bruckner.  

XM Satellite Radio also offers “XM Public Radio” which carries some interesting programs. But last night it sounded like they were broadcasting hearings on traffic improvements somewhere in Boston. (?!) This is the one place where Sirius (XM’s competitor) has the edge in that they carry all of NPR’s programming. Which is why in morning drive time, I’m often switching off the XM and turning on the local NPR on FM. Sorry, but Bob Edwards (formerly of NPR, now on XM every morning) just isn’t cutting it for me. I need my “Morning Edition.”

I'm also excited about the large number of Spanish language stations. So many foreigners say they learned English by listening to American music or watching American TV. So I'm hoping that by listening to "Aguila," "Viva" or "Deportivo" on a daily basis will have me conversant in no time. "Radio des satélites es muy bueno!"

Saving the best for last, the greatest thing about satellite radio is that it carries every Major League Baseball game every day. This is probably the main reason it was seen as great gift for me. And that’s correct. Being a fan of an out-of-town team, I’ve been known to drive around in my car listening to fuzzy AM stations just to catch the end of a game. Now, I can listen clearly to all the games while driving around aimlessly. The little display even posts the current score, inning and number of outs.

Because of the limited number of channels they devote to MLB, they only carry the home team broadcast. It’s a small drawback. Listening to the away games, you hear the other team’s announcers in every city spouting off the same stupid facts from the media guide. But getting to hear the local commercials from Denver or Los Angeles has a surprising entertainment value.  

So, thanks mom and dad. XM Satellite Radio is definitely cool. I probably won’t miss listening to AM radio anymore. But maybe I’ll write XM a letter with a suggestion for a new radio station – “AM Across America.” Every five minutes the content would crackle from polka, to Christian talk, to Pat Boone. Now that would be worth the subscription.

How Much Dumber Can I Get?

2006-04-14T20:20:00.000-04:00

I fondly remember being intoxicating by the flicker of a 13-inch black-and-white television I had in my room as a child. With bunny ears perched precariously on top of the TV, I could only switch between the seven different channels by getting up from my cushy bean bag chair to spin the dials. The channels were 3, 6, 10, 12, 17, 29 and 57. Today, those sound more like Powerball numbers.

Now, I sit at home on my couch with my remote control -- although I do miss that bean bag chair -- partaking of not just 80+ television stations, but as much other media as I can absorb simultaneously. It's something I like to call "multivegging."

What exactly is multivegging? Well, I'm doing it right now.

The television is tuned to "Deal or No Deal." The sound is muted as this is a game show that requires no audio. Judging by tonight's contestant, apparently it doesn't require a fifth-grade math education, either.
The XM Radio is on, tuned to an out-of-town baseball game. This also has a small screen on it displaying the current score, inning and number of outs.
My laptop is open and online and there are no less than five tabs open in my browser.
1. An online poker game I switch to every time the alert tells my it's my turn to act. I'm raising on a heart flush draw right now.
2. A live box score from one other baseball game I'm currently tracking. I know, it's too early to scoreboard watch.
3. An eBay auction item I've been monitoring for a week that ends in just three -- wait, two -- minutes. Crap, outbid again!
4. An online crossword puzzle I fill in as a diversion -- a sorbet of the senses, if you will. Hey, what's a four-letter word for "bread spread?"
5. And of course, this blog I'm currently typing. Does that explain all the typos?
Oh, did I mention there's an issue of Chesapeake Home next to me, opened to an article on maintaining your hardwood floors? This is notable, of course, because I neither own a "Chesapeake Home" nor have any hardwood floors in my current home. In fact, the magazine subscription isn't even mine. It just arrives every month in my mailbox, addressed to the previous resident who has been deceased for no less than ten years.

I digress.

I know, you're probably wondering, "How is 'multivegging' different from 'multitasking?' "

"Multitasking" implies that you're actually doing something -- a task. I do this at work all the time. While I'm on the phone, I'll finish up an e-mail or file away important papers in the shredder. I'm able to fully accomplish two things at once. Talk about efficiency! Conversely, "multivegging" is about doing lots of nothing all at once. Right now, I'm processing as much useless, unavailing, time-wasting information as possible. After a long day of multitasking at work, it takes more than just one or two or three diversions for me to unwind. I need a circus of distractions to liquify my brain.

My wife, meanwhile, is in the other room, on the other computer, watching the other TV.

And somewhere in the house, a baby sits neglected. Hey, where is that kid anyway?

Coast to Coast

2006-04-04T21:22:00.000-04:00

FROM TODAY'S LA TIMES

No-show bug must be going around
Cancellations are part of life for the L.A. Phil and other groups, but this year it's epidemic.

By Scott Timberg
Times Staff Writer

April 4, 2006

It seemed like a perfect — and perfectly balanced — week for the piano, the musical equivalent of Apollo and Dionysus appearing at the same party. On March 15, the stately, golden-toned Murray Perahia was to perform a recital at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The following night, the romantic, impetuous Martha Argerich would lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Beethoven's First Piano Concerto.

Neither event, as it turned out, would come to pass.

Both Perahia and Argerich canceled — Perahia with hand trouble, Argerich after a gallbladder operation — joining a striking number of concert and opera musicians this season who have been too sick to perform.

"They come in waves," says Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic's president. "We've been lucky for the last four or five years. But it's been a tidal wave."

In fact, at the end of last week the orchestra announced the 10th cancellation of its season: Hélène Grimaud, a young French pianist, was to play Rachmaninoff this Thursday and Sunday but canceled because of the aftereffects of pneumonia. (André Watts will appear in her stead.) Those shows were to bookend a Randy Newman concert Saturday night at Disney Hall. But that was postponed until November because Newman broke his wrist.

The Philharmonic is hardly alone. James Levine, the popular conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera, canceled the remainder of his season with the Met, as well as concerts and a tour with the BSO, after an onstage fall and ensuing shoulder surgery. Seiji Ozawa of the Vienna State Opera dropped out of concerts because of shingles. Mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson has failed to meet several commitments over the last year — including the San Francisco Opera premiere performances of John Adams' new opera, "Doctor Atomic" — because of a lower back injury. Plácido Domingo canceled several Met performances in February, as well as appearances elsewhere as "Parsifal," because of an inflamed windpipe. And so on.

So how are the Philharmonic and other organizations coping with this slew of no-shows?

"You have to stop doing everything that you're doing — immediately," says Chad Smith, who became the Philharmonic's vice president of artistic planning in January right as the trouble began. "You have to make sure Thursday night's concert happens" — and is up to the standards the audience, conductor and players are accustomed to.

"I think when you panic you usually make the wrong decision," says Laurence Tucker, director of artistic planning at the Seattle Symphony. "If it was easy, they wouldn't need me."

For the producing organization, a cancellation means not only the rapid issuing of a news release and the dispatching of hundreds of apologetic postcards. It also means scrambling to find a replacement. That can entail not only bundling a budding diva, say, onto a red-eye, but also searching for available hotel space.

Some administrators try to look on the bright side.

"Because we plan two and three years in advance," says Jeremy Rothman, artistic administrator at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, "it's an opportunity to do something current: 'This person has just been discovered.' " But, he adds, "No one looks forward to it." This year, he has had to deal with gaps in the Baltimore schedule created after his artistic director, Yuri Temirkanov, decided to take four weeks off after the death of a close friend.

Though early 2006 has seen a remarkable number of cancellations, this is by no means the first time there's been a rash of ailing musicians. Borda recalls a period in the early '90s when the New York Philharmonic, which she then headed, saw so much ill health among visiting musicians that "even the replacement would cancel."

She grew accustomed to coming onstage to break bad news. "I was on the stage so much it became humorous," she says. "When I walked out, people would groan." Before a New Year's Eve gala for which guests had paid as much as $250 to see Olga Borodina, the news of the diva's cancellation came so suddenly — Borda was getting dressed for the event — that she had to tap her dinner date, Marilyn Horne, to sing with about an hour's notice.

Some administrators make a joke of it: Rudolf Bing, the longtime Metropolitan Opera general manager, once announced a cancellation wearing a Viking helmet and toting a shield, as if to repel the audience's fury.

Much of the time, locating a substitute is not particularly hard. For conductors — both an orchestra's permanent leader and guests — organizations typically have backups ready. They also hire "cover" artists for difficult vocal pieces and for contemporary works not likely to be known by a large number of musicians.

But sometimes a substitution can be tricky. In February, the young British composer Thomas Adès was preparing to conduct a suite of music from his new opera based on Shakespeare's "The Tempest" at Disney Hall. Two days before rehearsals were set to begin, the Philharmonic heard that soprano Kate Royal was canceling because of illness.

"There are exactly four sopranos on the planet who have sung that music," Smith says. "I know Tom's music well, so I knew who these sopranos were."

But one of them couldn't get out of a performance in London, and another was tied up in Seattle. The third potential replacement was in Denmark and available but was expected to have visa problems. "On that one," Smith says, "I actually sweated."

It was only when he remembered that Santa Fe Opera is scheduled to perform the work this summer that he realized another singer, somewhere, might have started learning the music. Patricia Risley, slated to sing the work in July and August, was performing in Minnesota but flew in to replace Royal.

The pressure comes partly because orchestras try to keep the program unchanged after a cancellation. Audiences, after all, are as likely to purchase tickets for the repertoire as for the performers.

Otherwise, Rothman says, "it'd be like going to a movie and have them change the film on you because a reel's broken. The music is what's survived for so many years. That's what comes first when we have to make a change."

Opera, in general, is less vulnerable to cancellations because productions tend to emphasize the ensemble. But things can still go wrong. Christopher Koelsch, director of artistic planning at Los Angeles Opera, recalls 2000's rehearsals for "Peter Grimes," during which Philip Langridge, a celebrated Grimes, was poised between sickness and health. He could probably make opening night — but only if the company would allow him time to recover during the dress rehearsal. So another tenor flew in from New York to fill in at that rehearsal, then was sent home — and Langridge opened the opera without incident.

This season, the Philharmonic's experience with Perahia and Argerich shows the range of possibilities. Perahia, who on his doctor's advice dropped out of his entire tour, was deemed irreplaceable, and the recital was simply canceled. But Argerich — whose cancellations, health-related and otherwise, are legendary — was replaced by a young fellow Argentine who had recently won the prestigious Gilmore Artist Award and was starting to build up steam. Ingrid Fliter's bittersweet interpretation of the Beethoven drew cheers from audiences and strong reviews.

The possibility of surprise or disaster, after all, is what makes attending a live performance different from putting on a record or watching a movie.

"These are the kinds of jobs where you don't know what you'll deal with when you come to work each day," Rothman says. "That's what keeps it exciting. There's always something to keep us on our toes."

Cable's Out, Kill Me Now

2006-03-28T09:30:00.000-05:00

The danger of having both cable TV and a cable modem is obvious. When the cable goes out, the information deprivation is downright dangerous.

After several hours of intense boredom last night (arranging all my pocket change to be heads up, alphabetizing those little cards that fall out of magazines and playing with the baby) I realized that I could watch TV if I really wanted to. I had a Netflix DVD sitting on the shelf that had been there for months. I'd put off watching Million Dollar Baby because of a friend's warning that she couldn't eat or sleep for a week after seeing the movie. But last night, in an act of true desperation, I finally gave in.

Now that I've seen it, I understand why it won all those Academy Awards. That being said, Million Dollar Baby is the worst, the worst, movie I have ever seen. What kind of sick bastard would make a movie like that? I remember watching Born on the Fourth of July, and feeling physically ill. That is story of pain and anguish. And it's a true story! What I can't believe is that someone would dream up a story like the one told in Million Dollar Baby. It's just sick. Get out the Prozac.

Like I said. I had been warned. But as I'm watching the movie, I'm thinking, "OK, there's obviously a twist coming, but how bad could it be?" I've seen Rocky IV like 17 times and I never got upset when Apollo Creed went down. (However, I'll admit to being mildly upset with Mr. T for years after watching him beat down Burgess Meredith in Rocky III.) But none of that prepared me for the shocker in Million Dollar Baby. Maybe it's because I'd been television and Internet deprived for several hours so the moving pictures had that much more impact. But as the credits rolled, I just wanted to kill myself. Or better yet, have someone sneak into my room and do it for me.

I Still Hate Cell Phones

2006-03-26T20:04:00.002-05:00

I've ranted before on why I hate cell phones. But I failed to mention the most odius aspect of cellphone use: cellphones with musical ringtones.

I attended a very solemn and beautiful funeral service today for a musician who passed away after a long and courageous battle with cancer. After a moving and well-delivered eulogy, it was announced that the assembled would hear a special musical selection -- one with particular meaning to the deceased and his family. But in the moment immediately before the piano sonata could be begin, a cell phone rang out in what sounded like the opening strands of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." It would have been shameful enough for someone's cellphone to ring, beep or buzz at that moment. But to have such an infelicitous song blare throughout a memorial service was just deplorable.

I can understand in a roomful of over a hundred people, that one person can be moronic enough not to turn off their ringer altogether. I'll admit to being that moron at least once -- thankfully not during a funeral! This is why I almost always leave my own cell phone on vibrate. Even if it's in my jacket pocket, or across the room on a table, I can usually hear the vibration without anyone else even noticing. When my phone isn't on vibrate, the ring is set to a single beep. This is enough of an alert for me to either answer or silence my phone.

So why do people insist on using such irritating songs on their cell phones? You'd think the potential humiliation of a circumstance like what happened at today's funeral would be enough of a deterrent as people selected their ringtones. Do you think that this particular perpetrator went home and changed his or her cellphone ring to the "standard ring" or even something like "Just a Closer Walk with Thee?" I doubt it.

Any time a companion of mine has a cell phone that starts ringing out some ridiculous melody, I ask, "What's the point?" The answer is usually something lame like, "So I can tell my cell phone ring apart from everyone else's." I don't buy this one for a second. Like you can't tell if the ring is coming from your pocket or across the room? Please.

What I do know is that people, even though they may not admit it, very carefully select their cellphone ringtone as a personal statement of who they are. "I listened to Mozart once in college -- or maybe it was Vivaldi." "The seventh inning stretch is my favorite part of going to a hockey game." Or, "I'm a girl who just wants to have fun and I know how to program my ringtone." Hey, guess what. No one cares.

Baseball: The Ultimate Equalizer

2006-03-26T09:38:00.000-05:00

FROM SATURDAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL

The Replacements
With a crop of top conductors out sick, lesser-known young maestros are getting a chance at the spotlight

By JACOB HALE RUSSELL
March 25, 2006; Page P3

It's happening in Pittsburgh. It's been a problem in Boston, too. And now it's hit Baltimore: Conductors at some of the nation's top orchestras are out sick.

The orchestra world is struggling with some big headaches lately, from declining attendance to mounting deficits. But headed into the season's home stretch, there's another problem: out-of-commission conductors. Among the no-shows are James Levine at the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera (torn rotator cuff), Seiji Ozawa of the Vienna State Opera (shingles) and the London Philharmonic Orchestra star Kurt Masur, who bowed out of this spring's major U.S. tour (heart palpitations, suspected viral infection).

"This has been fairly unusual to have this many conductors all at once having to cancel their dates," says Jeremy Rothman, artistic administrator of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, which recently had to find a month's worth of replacements when its star conductor went on bereavement leave. "It's like the disabled list for a baseball team."

The absences have been disappointing for fans, who've paid up to $100 to see stars like Mr. Masur and Mr. Levine. They've also been inconvenient for orchestra managers, who've been scrambling to fill the empty conductor slots on their schedules.

But this spate of sick conductors is also shaking up the classical music world in a surprising way. A group of lesser-known conductors -- many in their 20s or early 30s -- are being tapped as substitutes. That's giving these young maestros an unexpected moment in the spotlight -- and could end up reshaping orchestras in years to come.

Many orchestras are in a time of transition now, with conducting spots opening up at about 20 symphonies around the country, according to the American Symphony Orchestra League. These include some of the most-watched posts in the classical music world, including conductors at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington D.C. and soon the New York Philharmonic. Other top-tier orchestras in cities like Nashville, Dallas and Detroit are also seeking new maestros.

These searches come at a time that some in the orchestra world say is ripe for a new model of conductor; in the past few years, younger conductors -- and often Americans -- have increasingly risen to prominence in a European-dominated field. As they seek to attract a wider and younger audience base, orchestras value conductors who can connect with concertgoers, rather than remaining aloof.

Some of the biggest names in classical music history, such as Arturo Toscanini and Leonard Bernstein, were discovered when they subbed in for ailing conductors. Now a new generation of conductors is benefiting from crucial exposure at a key moment for orchestras. One of them is 26-year-old American James Gaffigan, an assistant conductor at the Cleveland Orchestra. Usually, his job responsibilities include conducting youth concerts and sitting in the wings during performances in case anything happens to the conductor.

But in January, when Franz Welser-Möst, the orchestra's music director, was bedridden with an ear infection, Mr. Gaffigan ended up leading what many consider the country's best orchestra in one of the biggest symphonic works, Beethoven's Fifth, and the world premiere of a major living composer, Marc-André Dalbavie.

"It's a weird job in that respect," Mr. Gaffigan says, "We're waiting for people to go down. You don't wish any harm on people, but some good things come out of bad things." Though Mr. Gaffigan has occasionally conducted subscription concerts for Cleveland, the Beethoven symphony is normally reserved for well-established music directors. Positive reviews paid off with other gigs, like subbing on Mozart's 250th birthday for a special concert at the Kansas City Symphony.

Mr. Gaffigan will also conduct La Bohème at the Zurich Opera in May. He became known at that opera house last summer, when he filled in for Mr. Welser-Möst, who was himself called in after the scheduled conductor, Marcello Viotti, suddenly died.

Even for somewhat more established young conductors, guest conducting can send a career forward several years, providing the chance to work with the best musicians -- and be heard by the best reviewers. When Bernard Haitink cancelled at the Berlin Philharmonic last month due to injury, the American conductor Alan Gilbert, who leads the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and the Santa Fe Opera, got his debut at what many consider the world's most prestigious orchestra. This led to top reviews, and some music world observers say that Mr. Gilbert, already rumored to be in the running for the top spot at the New York Philharmonic, got a big boost from his Berlin performance.

This month's big discovery might be Ludovic Morlot, a French assistant conductor in Boston. He substituted for Christoph von Dohnányi at the New York Philharmonic, earning accolades from important critics. As a result of his success there, Mr. Rothman called Mr. Morlot to Baltimore, where he again received rave reviews in a concert that included pianist Emanuel Ax.

Joseph Kluger, former president of the Philadelphia Orchestra and now a consultant on the arts at AEA Consulting, says audiences, critics and musicians often give the "benefit of the doubt" to replacements. "There's a hero-worship aspect of it," he says. "It adds an element of drama to something that could otherwise be routine."

To be sure, with orchestra seasons lasting from fall to spring -- and spanning flu season -- it's not unusual for conductors to call in sick and managers to scramble for replacements. Top conductors have packed schedules that involve jetting back and forth internationally, either with their own orchestra on tour or guest conducting, which makes the job exhausting.

But what has made March unusual is the large number of simultaneous high-profile absences at major symphonies, as well as the several-month-long absence for Mr. Levine, who is one of the world's most famous (and highly paid) conductors and heads both Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera, two of the most prominent classical-music organizations.

Artistic administrators aren't always able to find someone like Mr. Morlot waiting in the wings. When Robert Spano had to cancel a guest appearance at the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra this month, the orchestra had to call off its premiere of a composition by contemporary classical composer John Adams -- because they couldn't find someone else familiar with the complex piece. Baltimore had to nix a piece by Armenian composer Richard Yardumian for the same reason.

Conductor cancellations can cause serious problems for symphonies, as artistic directors are forced to scramble to find replacements in a game of musical chairs. "You find yourself sitting at your desk making phone calls to Europe, catching people on their cellphones, finding people in all kinds of unusual locations," says Baltimore's Mr. Rothman. "There's lots of work that you normally have 18 months lead time to figure out."

Pittsburgh and Baltimore have taken the unusual step of turning to concertmasters (the orchestra's lead violinist) to conduct some concerts -- in one case while still playing the violin. And Anne-Sophie Mutter, a top violin soloist, conducted Mozart pieces she herself was playing at Lincoln Center.

For orchestras, the stress of last-minute replacements could actually result in a modest financial gain. Conductors are paid on a per-concert basis and lose that fee when they cancel, and the replacements are usually cheaper than the stars who call in sick.

Audiences aren't usually allowed refunds for cancellations, though at most orchestras it's as much the repertoire and musicians who are the draw, and the chance to see the debut of a younger conductor can be exciting for some. But it's uncertain what impact a longer absence -- like Mr. Levine's -- could have on organizations like the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera, which heavily depend on Mr. Levine's high profile for their financial well-being.

Nice Haircut!

2006-03-22T22:28:00.000-05:00

My three-month-old son's newborn hair continues to fall out a few fine strands at a time. A soft downy fuzz is all that's left underneath. Hopefully, within a few months, that short fuzz will sprout into thick a head of baby hair. That will mean only one thing: baby's first haircut. He won't like it. Not one bit. I don't think any babies like getting their haircut. Which means we have something in common. I don't like getting my haircut either.

I've probably had my haircut nearly 300 times in my life. Wow, that's a lot of time sitting still in one of those vinyl chairs. I've probably had my seat cranked like seventeen miles up in the air. Despite all that experience and added height, haircuts still stress me out.

First of all, finding a barber who understands the shape of my head and is brave enough to tackle my wiry hair is the hardest part. Once I've found someone worthy of that trust, I stay pretty loyal. In fact, I've only ever had three people in my life that I've trusted with my hair. Okay, maybe it's not loyalty so much as avoidance of hassle. You see, the first time I sit in any barber's chair I have to put up with all the obnoxious comments and questions about my hair. You'd think barbers that want my business -- or at least a decent tip -- would be a bit more diplomatic. But I know that once they get it out of their system, I won't ever have to hear it again. This is why if they do a half-decent job I'll go back to them again and again.

This isn't to say that only three people have ever cut my hair. I've experimented with a few others over time. This was usually a circumstance of being away from home and in desperate need of a trim. My most unusual experience was getting my hair cut by a guy covered in tattoos and poked full of holes. This made really me nervous. I know it shouldn't have. I wasn't afraid he'd do a bad job. But if he had so few qualms about mutilating his own body, should I have trusted him with scissors?

The other thing that gets me worked up is that big silly bib. Do they have to put it on so tightly around my neck? And how many other people's hair and dandruff is all over those things? And once it's on, where am I supposed to put my hands? Do I have to leave them on the armrests and keep them visible? If I fold my hands in my lap under the bib, will people assume I'm playing with myself under there?

I hate watching my hair as it gets cut. As the barber shortens up the one side of my head first, I always wonder what would happen is the fire alarm went off at that very moment. Would I have to run out onto the street wearing that bib with my hair short on one side and long on the other? What if it's a real fire and the place is burning to the ground? (That jar full of combs soaking in alcohol would surely be an accelerant in such a blaze.) Then, would my barber finish my haircut on the street, or would I be left for days with an uneven coif?

If I'm lucky enough to make it all the way through without a fire alarm, why is it that when the barber finishes, it looks like nothing changed? Then when I get home and look in the mirror, I'm shocked by the dramatic alteration to my looks. I guess it's like watching yourself gain weight. It happens gradually enough that you don't notice it until you look at a picture of yourself from college when you were thinner (and had a better haircut).

Once I'm home from my haircut, the first thing I have to do is get in the shower. I just can't stand that itchy feeling around my neck, down my back and in my nevermind. Whoever thought that tiny little brush with a wooden handle would sweep away all the excess hair? I once went to a barber where they vacuumed the hair off! That hickey left me with some awkward explaining to do.

Of course, in that first post-haircut shower I always use way too much shampoo. Over the past month, as my hair had been growing longer and longer, I would have been gradually amplifying the amount of shampoo per shower. Now, with a shorter do, I'm left with handfuls of wasteful lather! It usually takes me a week to get back to an acceptable shampoo-hair equilibrium.

Getting out of the shower, I can never get my hair back the way I want it. I'm never totally satisfied with my haircuts. For me, the sign of a really good haircut, is one that draws the fewest comments. Because what I hate most about getting my ears lowered are the comments I must endure the next day.

"Oh, you got your haircut!"
"Hey, look, a haircut!"
"Gee, did you get your haircut?"

As if I hadn't noticed that I got my hair cut. Like I didn't sit there for 30 minutes making mindless small talk while watching the guy do it. Yes, I paid for it and everything. I even left a tip, albeit not a very good one. Hey, I was out of singles and no way I'm leaving a five spot.

But then again, if people aren't making any comments, is that because it looks terrible and they're just being polite by not saying anything?

So when my son gets into the barber's chair for the very first time and starts crying, I'll understand why.

New Classic Tradition Breakout

2006-03-15T19:41:00.000-05:00

Does it bother anyone else that the international baseball tournament that started this year is called the World Baseball Classic? How can it be "classic" when it is brand new? It's like when I flipped by ESPN Classic the other day and they were showing a live college basketball game. The station logo on the top corner of the screen actually said "ESPN Classic Live." Talk about a disruption in the space-time continuum. It was like watching the end of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey -- only with more dialogue. Ironically, the game wasn't very good.

Short Circuit

2006-02-19T17:38:00.000-05:00

There has been an electrical outlet on the fritz in my kitchen. So today, being the expert electrician I am, I decided I would pull it out of the wall to see if anything terribly obvious presented itself -- you know, loose connections, burnt wires, rodent teeth marks, etc. With the cost just to get an electrician in the door, I figured it was worth risking electrocution to save $60.

Before pulling the socket out of the wall, I remembered I needed to head to the circuit box. The circuit breakers in our house were painstaking labeled by an alcoholic dyslexic over 20 years ago. The penciled lettering has faded substantially over the years, making the illegible handwriting even more cryptic. I had started to remap the switches a few years ago so that when I flipped the switch marked "master bdrm" I would know the lights in the kitchen would go off. Of course, I subsequently lost my magic decoder leaving me to throw random switches any time I needed to turn the power off somewhere in the house.

Trying to turn the power off to a specific area is not a one-person job. You really need two people -- one to throw the switches and another to stand watch in another room and yell "wrong one!" Alas, I was on my own today, flipping switches, wandering through the house, trying to figure out what had just gone off.

After ten minutes of this futility, I finally got the right switch thrown. But not before I had managed to turn off every other circuit in the house. Every clock in the house now flashed 12:00 am. With a bit of forethought, I should have done this exercise at exactly midnight. That would have saved me so much effort. Better yet, maybe I'll wait until daylight savings starts next time . I figure I'll have to change the time on all the clocks anyway.

In case you were wondering, when I finally did pull the outlet from the wall, I found what appeared to be a perfectly normal looking outlet. But what do I know about it? At least it's easier to turn all the power back on, than it is to turn it off.

Yeah, Whatever Pittsburgh

2006-02-07T00:57:00.000-05:00

OK, so now that the commercials are over...

...it's eight days until pitchers and catchers report. Oddly for the Orioles, only the catchers have to show up since they don't have any pitching.

[rim shot]

A Forking Miracle!

2006-02-02T00:08:00.000-05:00

Thomas' English Muffins reads Instant*Ethos!

The package of Thomas' English Muffins my wife brought home from the store today was emblazoned with the phrase:

"Improved Fork-Split!"

Can you believe it? They actually responding to my blog!

The instructions on the reverse of the packaging was the same (except for one corrected punctuation error). And after attempting to enjoy my first "improved fork-split" muffin, I must say the firemen needn't worry about their job security.

Hey, at least they're trying.

Fork Split My Ass

2006-01-10T03:40:00.000-05:00

The carton of English Muffins reads:

1. Thomas' Original English Muffins are fork split. Gently pull apart.
2. Toast or brown until golden brown.
3. Serve warm with favorite topping.

Translation:

1. Thomas' Original English Muffins have been slightly punctured somewhere off-center along the edge. Good luck finding the holes. If you run your finger along the side, you should find something to grab onto. Gently pull halves apart, rending your muffin into little crumbly pieces. Good luck picking those little seeds from under your nail.
2. Place cumbled remnants into toaster oven. Small pieces will fall through the grate, settle directly on the heating element and catch on fire, setting off your smoke alarm. Wait until neighbors call fire or police departments.
3. When fire or police arrive, serve charred smoking muffin with favorite topping.

I Hate Cell Phones

2006-01-06T19:42:00.000-05:00

I know it's a very Andy Rooney-type sentiment. But I really do hate cell phones.

It is amazing how cell phones can deliver instant, on-the-spot communication at any time to anyone anywhere. But then some people take this way too far. For example, here's a cell phone conversation I overheard from the person in front of me in line for a sandwich at Subway this afternoon:

Customer answers phone: Hello? Oh, hi, Cici. Yeah, did you hear about daddy? No? Didn't Aunt Tessa call you? News like this she would have called. Can I have a 12-inch Italian on white? They think it was a heart attack. No, I wanted that on white, please. Can you believe it? He was only 45. Provolone, please. So now I have to go to Virginia tonight. Yeah, he just dropped dead. Just like that. Can I get extra cheese? I meant to call him last night, but I fell asleep. Isn't that just weird? I wish he'd taken better care of himself. Lettuce, tomato, hot peppers, sweet peppers and olives. He was just too fat. He'd been having heart trouble for years. He never listened to nobody. Just mayo and oil please. So the funeral is on Friday and I'll be back for Tara's party on Saturday. Yes, the meal please. No, I'll be fine. Thanks for offering. Can I get a stamp? Okay, bye. Bye!

Of course the sandwich maker took no notice this sad conversation. Because she, too, was on a cell phone.

Papa's So Proud

2005-12-15T16:01:00.000-05:00

Papa is so proud of his little boy. He's a little blogger already! Check him out regularly at:

Diaperlogue.BlogSpot.com

Welcome, Son

2005-12-14T16:13:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the world, son.

If you thought today was rough, just wait until junior high school.

Religious Observance Gone Totally Wrong

2005-12-09T20:46:00.000-05:00

From The New York Times
Megachurches Closed for Christmas

This is unbelievable. Churches closing in observance of Christmas! The hypocrisy is positively mind bending. I guess they figure everyone just spent all their money on presents, so passing the plate won't make it profitable to stay open Christmas day.

I can only imagine a sign hanging on a synagogue door readying, "Sorry, closed in observance of Yom Kippur."

'Going Postal'

2005-11-12T21:50:00.000-05:00

When I arrived at my local post office this morning, there was quite a long line. I was in a hurry and was dreading the long wait to mail my package. There were at least a dozen people in line in front of me. After about ten minutes, I had moved near the front of the line. There were only three people ahead of me now. They included

A short Asian woman with two kids tugging at her pant-legs and a third napping in a stroller. She was there to mail a birthday present to her niece.
A young blonde woman in a long, fitted cashmere coat and lambskin gloves who was there to purchase stamps for her wedding invitations.
And a frazzled old woman in a velvet running suit and Velcro sneakers hoping to buy sheets of stamps for her grandson.

None of them would be a match for the woman working the postal desk this day.

Betty had a bad hair weave and a gold tooth. A blue USPS cardigan hung over her gaunt shoulders. She was curt, mean and efficient. With a line stretching out the door, she was hell bent on keeping that line moving.

“Next in line!”

The short Asian women with kids approached the counter in hopes of mailing her niece’s birthday gift. She shows Betty a 16” commemorative Anastasia princess doll. It’s in its original packaging, unwrapped and in no way ready to be mailed.

“Can you help me mail this?”

Betty glances at the line now stretching into the next ZIP code.

“No.”

“It’s for my niece. Can you put this in a box and mail it for me?”

“No.”

“How do I send this?”

“You can’t mail it like that and I ain’t not Mailboxes, etc. Please step aside so I can help the next person.” Betty pushes the woman to the side with her arm and waves to the next person in line.

“Next!”

The Asian woman persists. “How can I box this and send it?”

Betty gives her a look that only a disgruntled postal employee can give. “There are boxes over on that rack. I recommend you find the right size and package it up yourself before I get ugly with you. Please step aside.”

The young blonde woman steps up to the counter and asks for a sheet of flower stamps for her wedding invitations. Betty presents the two sheets of stamps requested. The blonde woman takes several moments to examine the stamps. Betty stares her down, licking her chops.

“Do you have anything more spring-like?” Betty pulls out two more sheets of stamps and slaps them on the counter.

“Look at these you just tell me when you’ve made up your pretty little mind. Now please step aside. Next!”

The blonde woman looks up in dismay and is quickly bumped aside by the older woman in front of me in line. I can only smirk. I’m in a rush and Betty is making quick work of these morons. This is making my day.

The older woman faces the counter and asks for three sheets of stamps. Betty grabs them from the drawer and tosses them on the counter.

The woman looks at the stamps and tries to flatten them on the counter with her hands.

“Ma’am, can I have fresh sheets that aren’t wrinkled?”

Betty reaches into the drawer, grabs three more sheets of stamps and throws them on the counter.

“Ma’am, can you please not wrinkle the sheets of stamps? They’re for my grandson and they can’t be folded.”

“There’s nothing wrong with those. That will be $22.20.”

Continuing to flatten the sheets on the counter, the older woman hands Betty the money and says, “You know you don’t have to be so rude about it.”

“What?!” Betty says.

“You’re really being mean to everyone here, and I’m telling you I don’t like it.” Oh, no she did not… She did not just talk to Betty that way.

Betty rears back. “Sometimes it’s the people that come in here that do it.” (She has a legitimate point). Betty continues, “And I’ve been here since five in the morning so don’t start with me.”

Unfazed, the woman responds, “Well now I know not to come back to this post office again.”

“Lady, we all make choices in life.”

The yelling escalates and the insults begin to fly. Amid the flurry of expletives the woman exclaims, “Can I just have my change?”

Betty slaps the change on the counter. The woman looks at the change it’s clearly not enough. She glances quickly at Betty, avoids eye contact and turns to leave.

“Have a blessed day and may God bless you!” the woman sarcastically calls out as she walks away from the counter.

“Yeah, you bless this,” Betty mutters to herself. “Next in line!”

It’s finally my turn. I step toward the counter and place my package in front of Betty.

She looks at the box to make sure it is sealed and properly addressed. It’s like your teacher examining your homework in front of the entire class.

“How would you like to send this?”

It passed the test. Phew.

“Um, it just needs to be there by Friday,” my voices crackles out.

Betty flips the package onto the scale, slaps a sticker on it and throws it onto a conveyer belt behind her. The box teeters on the edge of the belt, spins and falls hard onto the floor with a crunch.

My voice quivers. “Um, a sheet of flag stamps please.”

Betty slaps a wadded sheet of stamps on the counter. I pay for the stamps, step to my left and leave.

Despite the long line still reaching out the door, I’m in and out in less than fifteen minutes.

Thank you, Betty. God Bless you and keep up the good work.

Eschatology Shmeschatology, Oy!

2005-10-21T22:16:00.000-04:00

mood: Penitent
music: Jars of Clay

BOYCOTT SONY PICTURES
SONY Pictures Entertainment has put up big bucks to produce films of the "Left Behind" series of books. If you're not familiar with these xenophobic, anti-semitic, radical right-wing pulps, Michelle Goldberg of Salon.com provides a critical and thoughtful examination of this hatred-filled shit.

In short, the "Left Behind" anthology is a collection of best-selling titles geared toward kind, decent, god-fearing, Jew-Catholic-Arab-haters. The books are your run of the mill Antichrist, end-of-the-world thrillers filled with predictable plot twists -- you know, like when all the Jews realize their error and convert to Christianity before being tossed into Hell. Like we didn't see that coming...

Now you can see it all depicted in widescreen technicolor in feature films starring Kirk Cameron, Lou Gossett, Jr. and million-dollar CGI effects. Coming to a church near you! There's even a children's series of books. Nothing gets kids more inspired than a few stories about rapture. I can't wait for the animated series.

Some leaders in the Jewish community had issues with Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ for it's portrayal of Jews as the gang-bangers of the Notorious J.H.C. But the "Left Behind" series doesn't just damn the Jews. The Antichrist bares striking similarity to the Pope and Arab nations get their asses kicked by Jews who eventually convert to Christianity to save their souls. Did I mention a Democratic American president is also in cahoots with the Antichrist? Let's not forget about those hedonistic liberals. They can go to Hell, too.

Many readers of the "Left Behind" series believe that the end really is near. Violent weather, floods and terrorism are just a few of the signs pointing to the impending Tribulation. Forget about deregulation of environmental protections, destruction of wetlands and conflagratory foreign policy. It's definitely the gays and family planning centers causing record numbers of hurricanes. I'm a believer in chaos theory and all, but that seems a bit far-fetched. If a drag queen flaps his wings in Miami Beach, will it rain in Salt Lake City?

SONY is clearly exploiting the Evangelical market in producing these films. Let's face it, there's big money here. Just think of the merchandising opportunities. Antichrist Christmas ornaments and Fire-and-Brimstone Yulelogs are already available for pre-order at the online store. For the time being these films will only be played in churches, but I can only assume that these pictures are soon destined for mainstream theaters.

I thought I would funnel my rage by encouraging a boycott of SONY. So I did a quick Google for "SONY boycott" in hopes of finding others already united in my cause. Turns out a lot of people are already pissed at SONY.

Like this guy who's ticked because his SONY playstation never worked right. Or this guy who just wanted to post a blog about Ken Jennings. This activist is upset about emulation suppression, whatever the hell that is. And these homeys are furious that SONY stole Rolando's track. Those bastards.

OK, maybe it's a weak coalition for now. But I think it's a start. Meanwhile, the next time Growing Pains or Iron Eagle is on, I beg you to please change the channel.

Dial "L" for Life Sucks

2005-10-12T23:29:00.000-04:00

I’m lucky to have a relatively comfortable office at work with a few windows and enough sunlight to grow a couple neglected plants. Whenever possible, I leave my door open so that co-workers can drift in with a friendly “hello,” a “quick question” or the occasional “did you jam the printer and walk away, again?”

The only real downside to my office – besides the daily deposits of mouse droppings on my keyboard – is its location. Just feet from my chair, the building’s reception desk rests directly outside my door. A constant din of ringing phones, buzzing doors and colliding delivery carts punctuates my workday. Add to that a steady flow of conversation and gossiping and it often feels like I’m working in the downtown bus terminal. Despite all this ruckus, our veteran receptionist has kept everything in the building running smoothly for nearly 32 years.

Our receptionist is a round, friendly woman in her 60s. She has a kind, patient demeanor and a subtle authority in her voice that politely alerts you she aint gonna take shit from nobody. For over three decades, she has been the first person everyone met when they came into the building and the last person they said goodbye to when they left. Because she was the company’s receptionist before the current offices were built, I’m convinced the masonry was erected around her. If people could be load-bearing walls, she’d be 12-inch cement block.

She has been a matriarch to many of us – inviting us to her home for holiday dinners, sharing advice on career and family and bringing in freshly baked cookies every Monday morning. She has always remembered everyone's birthday, selecting the perfect card and getting it signed by everyone in the office. And when you weren't looking, she has been there at her desk taking care of the little things that no one else bothered to notice.

She’s always been fully aware of everything and everyone in the building – seeing who came in late and who left early or intercepting calls from flirtatious interns trying to reach married executives. Watching the outside video monitor she has observed the kind of behavior that people only exhibit when they think they’re out of sight. In short, she has seen where all the bodies are buried. Her presence has been omniscient. That is until this past Friday.

At 4:30 on Friday afternoon, our loyal receptionist was called into the executive offices. She sat down and they informed her that layoffs were being implemented. As had been standard procedure in the past, she assumed they were about to inform her of the individuals that were being laid-off and that she should no longer buzz them in or transfer their calls.

Instead, they told her that in addition to the several positions being eliminated, she was also being let go. The company would go without a receptionist. (Ironically, without a receptionist absolutely no one can get buzzed in or have their calls transferred – not even the people that supposedly still work there.)

I can only imagine her shock. In 30-plus years she had undoubtedly seen countless rounds of layoffs. But she had dodged them all. Now, mere months from her retirement, she had become expendable.

She was asked to turn in her key and handset and told to leave the building immediately. A folding cardboard banker’s box was conveniently waiting at her desk when she returned. (Some folding and assembly was required. Those boxes are hard enough to put together as it is. Imagine trying to figure it out as your mind races, moments after losing your job.)

None of us saw this one coming. Before we could react to the news, she was gone.

The next day I came into work to see her cubicle was dark and her chair was empty. The phone rang unanswered. Taped to her window was a paper sign that read: “Welcome! Please use the phone to your right to call the party you are visiting.” There was a clipart graphic of a ringing phone and everything. It took someone at least two minutes to make it – ten if you count the time it took them to clear the paper jam I left in the printer.

Just one sheet of letter-size paper is all that was needed to replace an entire person – her self-worth and sense of purpose. It was a Hammermill tombstone to human dignity.

I can only assume that someday my career and personal dedication to the company will be conveniently replaced by a slip of paper taped to my door. Hopefully that’s a little further into the future. Maybe by then, we’ll be able to reduce people to just an index card. In the meantime, I can’t help but wonder what clipart they’d use for me.

Drive Safe!

2005-10-11T00:13:00.000-04:00

It poured all weekend. The rain was relentless and driving was a nightmare. There was torrential rain, blinding road spray, localized flooding and the occasional biblical deluge. But I drove back and forth to both DC and Philadelphia this weekend without incident -- thank God. There is no doubt I owe great thanks not only to my Maker, but also to all my well wishers: "Drive safe!"

I must have heard it a hundred times this weekend from friends, my parents, co-workers and even my parole officer. "Drive safe!" they'd say. I even caught myself saying it to other departing drivers.

"I was just out there and the roads are pretty bad. So drive safe!" I'd caution.

Does such a warning really have an impact on other drivers? Does a concerned "drive safe" really impact my driving? As I'm weaving down I-95 at 80 mph on the shoulder does my co-worker Jerry's voice resonate in my head? "Jerry said to 'drive safe.' Maybe I should slow down now and take it easy. I wouldn't want to disappoint Jerry."

Why do we do this? Why do we say "drive safe"? If I got into an accident, would Jerry stand by the water cooler Monday morning shake his head and say, "I told him to drive safe. I really wish he'd have listened."

Well get this Jerry. No one cares more about my safe driving than me. No one could possibly care about the well-being of my body and my car than me. So zip it granny and worry about your own safe driving so you don't crash into me!

And to Mom and Dad: We made it home safe, so stop worrying already!

Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da

2005-10-02T23:23:00.001-04:00

PHOOEY

In May, when my hometown Philadelphia Phillies came to Baltimore, I tried rooting for the Orioles. It didn't come naturally, but I wanted to give it a shot. The Orioles were currently in first place while the Phillies already floundered below .500 in the young season. I wasn't shifting my loyalties. I just knew as a lifelong Phillies fan that they weren't going anywhere this year. I thought my energies could be better focused on a first-place team with a shot at the post-season.

Now I know, of course, that my instincts about the Phillies were exactly right. They would be destined for yet another dead-end season. (So would the Orioles. Oops!) But this year was a little different, in that the Phillies were able to hang on and tease their fans for another few months. By August they were back in the race. And until the last day of the season, they were flirting with a late-season miracle.

That miracle never came. Had the season ended at 3:45pm this afternoon, with the Phils leading the Nationals and the Cubs leading the Astros, that miracle might still have happened. But the season ended about an hour later in the usual disappointment.

The Phillies missed a National League Wild Card berth by one game and the Eastern Division by two. That's a pretty narrow margin. So narrow, you could probably identify the single factor that separated this team from it's post-season fate. Which leads me to the question of who to blame? (Or in Philadelphia terms, who to boo the loudest when starting lineups are announced at Opening Day 2006.)

One could easily blame beleaguered reliever Tim Worrell, who blew several games early in the season before taking leave for "personal issues." I have to wonder if his "personal issues" was his own difficulty in confronting his own suckiness.

One could surely blame manager Charlie Manuel. It's always the manager's fault.

One could blame without question thirdbasemen David Bell. On September 7, in the heat of the Wild Card race, with 2 outs in the ninth inning, he booted a routine grounder that would have ended the game. Instead, his error led to the go-ahead run that gave the Houston Astros the win. That one play represented a two-game swing in the standings with the team that would eventually keep them out of the post-season.

But I'm going to blame Bill Dancy. Bill Dancy is the Phils' thirdbase coach. My brother doesn't like him and I don't blame him. First of all, Dancy doesn't wear the uniform well. The pinstripes accentuate the sag in his pants. Secondly, he sucks as a thirdbase coach. He got more runners thrown out at home than any coach since Brady "Shakes" Calhoun for the 1887 New York Metropolitans. Thirdly, he's a good a target as anyone else, I guess. And I'll proudly be the one guy in fans booing him mercilessly next season during the pre-game announcements.

But I guess the only person I should really blame for the disappointment is myself. I should have known better. But come next April, I'll be the same idiot rooting for the Phils. No doubt.

IT'S NOT JUST A GROCERY STORE
On a brighter note, the Hunt Valley Wegmans opened today north of Baltimore. If you're not familiar with Wegmans grocery stores, I have no need for you here. Please leave.

This afternoon, I donned my University of Rochester t-shirt and dug out the Wegmans shoppers card I signed up for as a freshman in college 10 years ago. It hadn't been used since the last millennium. My wife and I hopped in the car and drove to Wegmans for the first time as a married couple (we've been married over four years).

The place was mobbed. And I mean mobbed. You'd think there was a snow storm coming and they were giving away free toilet paper. The store was a gridlock of shopping carts and screaming children. It was heaven. In preparation for the big opening, Wegmans had added hundreds of employees and for the day became one of the largest employers in Maryland.

While walking the oddly-decorated aisles, I overheard one man saying to his wife, "It's not Disney World, it's just a grocery store." Just a grocery store? I quickly spun around and responded, "Go the hell back to Shopper's Food Warehouse, you troglodyte!" Danny Wegman would have been proud

The store was everything we hoped it would be. Great selection. Friendly help. And despite the 14,000 eager shoppers, there was no wait at the checkout. All that, and it's only 15 minutes from home. Welcome to the neighborhood Wegmans. I'm glad you're back in my life.

Relive and Relieve 3

2005-09-19T01:28:00.000-04:00

Once again, I'm hoping that by exposing my most painful life experiences here in this blog, they will become a lesser part of my daily burden of stress, anxiety and self-doubt. Complex emotional issues aside, I'm grateful to at least have my health. But it came at a cost several years ago, when I found myself hospitalized following a car accident.

When I tell people that I spent the better part of two weeks hospitalized following an automobile accident, images of overturned cars, bloody asphalt, a medical helicopter transport and a full body cast come to mind. I was neither that lucky nor unlucky. The accident appeared to be a minor fender-bender on the Capital Beltway but unfortunately left me with a mysterious medical condition.

Gory details aside, I essentially had a kinked vein in my shoulder which led to bizarre swelling, deep pain and an unnatural skin hue in my arm. Doctors didn't really know what to do with me other than stick me with lots of needles. A crack team of doctors at a county hospital were split on whether or not I'd be "up and about in no time" or if my arm was to soon "shrivel up and rot like fresh fruit on a hot day."

I eventually wound up at Johns Hopkins Hospital. They're consistently rated one of the top medical campuses in the world and they're not shy about reminding you constantly. In fact, the sense from the doctors there is, "you're lucky that you're sick, because you got to come to our great hospital." The sense one gets from the nurses is more like, "we're understaffed, underpaid and the doctors treat us like crap. If you squeeze that call button, you better be dead."

The Hopkins doctors determined the only way to fix this problem with my arm was to strap it to a board (which in turn was strapped to the side of my body) and feed catheters into my arm until they came out my ass -- and subsequently fed back into my arm again. If this wasn't successful, they'd try cutting me open even further.

I was rolled into the Intensive Care Unit of Johns Hopkins Hospital following a lengthy catheterization procedure during which I had been only mildly sedated. A bed in the ICU at Hopkins Hospital is, needless to say, a step down from a suite at the Ritz Carlton. In fact, it's even a few steps further down from a cot in that little room at the end of the hall that has the trash chute and dirty mops in it.

A bed at the ICU is exactly that: a hospital bed surrounded by a shower curtain enclosure just big enough to fit the exact dimensions of your bed. And the curtain is just opaque enough as to only allow the passing silouehettes of nurses and doctors. The room is filled with a constant din of beeping, buzzing, groaning and the occasional "code." My neighbor, just a few inches to my right, had just had a triple hip replacement. He screamed in constant agony. "Kill me, please," came bellowing from his distressed voice 73 times per hour for 18 hours straight. He was sobbing only about half the time, though. Knowing that surgery was likely in my near future, this was not a comforting experience. I had tried to convince myself that surgery really can't be that bad and that pain medications will take care of everything. My bed-neighbor but those delusions quickly to rest.

I meanwhile lie in my hospital bed, arm strapped to a board, strapped to my side, unable to move. The ICU does not allow visitors. The nurses for some reason took kindly to me and allowed my fiancee to come visit for a little while. She convinced them to roll a TV into my curtained area. The TV made the curtain bulge out and it was struck throughout the night by passing "crash carts" and gurneys. The TV was eventually taken away and I was left to watch the shadows pass along the curtain.

I think was there for the better part of two days before I was finally taken to an intermediate care unit. Here I at least had a large room to share with only one other dieing person. This was an 87-year-old man without a lower jaw. I couldn't imagine what had just happened to him. I couldn't even bare to look at him. He probably thought the same things about me.

Since my condition was not improving, I was scheduled for surgery. In preparation for surgery, the doctors ordered a chest X-ray -- because nothing cures you faster than a dose of radiation delivered directly to your vital organs. A few moments later, in rolls the portable chest X-ray machine. But they go straight to my roommate. He's completely out of it as they prepare to "take some pictures." Only, I notice the technician is referring to him by my name after each shot. I finally call across the room and ask the tech to make sure he's got the right patient. Recognizing his mistake, he gets the pictures of me they need. I can only wonder what the doctors would have done to me had they seen the X-rays of my 87-year-old roommate, thinking they were mine.

Early the next morning, I'm awakened at some ungodly hour to be prepped for surgery. I'm rolled into the OR and surrounded by nurses. As they begin to administer the anesthesia, I'm told to count backwards from 10. I remember getting to 9.

I woke up from surgery with my father at my bedside. It was eerily reminiscent of all those mornings in high school he'd come to my room to drag me out of bed. Only this time he wasn't screaming at me and I was quite thrilled to be awake. He had a look of serious concern, since the doctors had said the surgery was not successful. I was soon taken away for another short procedure, after which the doctors were now more confident in saying I'd be "up and around in no time."

I was now due for another stint in the ICU. This time, my neighboring bedfellow was an elderly woman named Mrs. Norris. Mrs. Norris had just had her gall bladder, two kidney stones and Adam's apple removed. She was much quieter (or more nearly dead?) than my previous neighbor. The nurses seemed to be having difficulty waking her up.

"Mrs. Norris, can you hear me?" the nurses would shout at her.

"Muhh..." replied Mrs. Norris.

"Mrs. Norris, do you know where you are?"

"Muhh..."

"Do you know where you are, Mrs. Norris?" the nurses persisted in louder and louder tones.

"Mrs. Norris, are you awake? Mrs. Norris, who's the president? Do you know where you are, Mrs. Norris?"

This series of questions were repeated every five minutes until she started to come around.

She finally answered their questions: "Yes," "Taft," and "Cupcake," respectively.

I soon was transferred from the ICU to a semi-private room. Let me just say this. A semi-private room is the furthest thing from private. It is the most un-private place imaginable. So un-private that you get to hear every single bit of medical history about your roommate -- and vice versa.

My first roommate was a middle-aged African-American man. He looked pretty normal, but had just received news of his terminal condition. The doctors came in to talk to him about his situation. They drew the soundproof sheer curtain between our beds when they came in to ask him some additional questions about his bowels and sexual history. The questions consisted of various combinations of the words, "bleeding," "rectum" and "intercourse." His answers to these questions were positively astounding. No matter how much I turned up the volume on my TV, nothing could drown out this line of questioning.

The worst moment came a couple nights after my surgery when I was woken up by what was nothing short of an explosion. My roommate had soiled his bed. And by soiled, I literally mean some ungodly foul shit. The nurses rushed in, followed by a team of orderlies and the 3rd Armed Infantry. The orderlies donned their hazmat suits and made quick work of removing my roommate's sheets and gown and incinerating them.

I wasn't in great shape myself. In order to prevent blood clots in my legs after being in bed for so long, I was fitted with a pair of inflatable pants. These weren't like MC Hammer pants. These were essentially plastic bags attached to a leaf blower. Every two minutes the blower would kick on for a few seconds and the bags would inflate, squeezing my legs. At night, I woke up every two minutes thinking someone was sitting on me.

I'd now like to take this opportunity to point out that morphine doesn't do crap. The excruciating pain of post-surgery was no match for narcotics. You get a little button to press whenever you feel pain. Pressing the button releases a specified dose of morphine. I pushed that button so many times, you'd think I was playing Space Invaders. None the less, I was really pissed when they took it away and made me get out of bed.

Walking sucked at first. I had all kinds of things hooked up to me and hanging off my body. But being young and quick to heal, I was moving little by little after a couple days. Since I was receiving medication that required constant monitoring, I spent an additional week in the hospital after my surgery. By the end of that week, I was walking pretty well. At no point during this ordeal, did I ever really lose my faculties. I had been fully aware of everything that had been going on. And I was now completely aware of the fact that I was stuck in that goddam hospital with no where to go. I'd take my little IV pole, make sure my gown was tied securely behind my rear, and go for walks around the ward. I'd do laps. Nurses would give me strange looks after passing their station for the 35th time. Eventually they'd ask me to make runs to the vending machine, deliver mail and take vital signs from another patient.

During the course of those several days walking the wards, I'd peek into rooms and see truly tragic cases. Johns Hopkins Hospital gets some of the sickest and most desperate patients. I now realize that Mr. Triple-Hip-Replacement, Mr. No-Jaw and Mr. Explosive-Defecator are probably no longer with us. (I hear Mrs. Norris is doing great, however.) While this ordeal really sucked for me, I was able to walk out on my own power. No matter how bad you think you've got it, a place like Johns Hopkins Hospital will remind you that there's always someone else that has it worse. And that all the other stresses of life are minor in comparisson.

Relive and Relieve 2

2005-08-24T23:56:00.000-04:00

Again, I return to reliving some of the more stressful moments of my life here in this blog in the hopes I can return to a more normal-functioning lifestyle. With a child on the way, I'm confronted with new concerns about how I will protect and provide for my growing family. Luckily I've rarely found myself or loved-ones in harm's way. But I always thought I would be able to act bravely and calmly in the face of adversity. That belief would be tested in one particular instance about a year ago.

Heading North on I-95 through New Jersey, with my wife in the car, I decided to stop and grab a coke to keep me alert for the rest of the drive. It was about 12:30 am, so I thought caffeine would be a smart choice. As it turns out, my decision to pull into this particular road-side rest along I-95 would be my first mistake.

The rest area was the kind centered between the northbound and southbound side of the highway. Pulling in, I saw a rare open space right in front of the building, next to a handicapped space and directly facing a shiny, illuminated Coke machine. I scraped $1.50 in change from the coin holder in my car (sparing the state quarters I don't already have in my collection), and quickly hopped out of the car toward the Coke machine. After feeding the machine my less-desirable specie and retrieving my 16-ounce beverage from the dispenser, I jumped back into my car. Without thinking, I quickly twisted the cap off the bottle. That was my second mistake. The rapid hissing and bubbling from the bottle immediately reminded me of some simple laws of physics. Seconds later, my steering wheel, dashboard and imitation wood paneling are drenched in syrupy high-fructose corn syrup.

My wife valiantly jumps out of the car and ran inside to get some wet paper towels. I, in the meantime, grabbed some extra napkins I have in the car and started tidying up. With the driver’s door open, one leg dangling out of the car, I attempted to reach the deep recesses of the dashboard that only an exploding carbonated beverage could reach. As I busily wiped away, I was approached by the kind of character you’d only expect to see roaming a highway rest stop at 12:30 am.

“Hey, man, can you give me money for gas?” he asked. “I’ve been here for hours and really need money.”

“No, I’m sorry.” I responded curtly. Was I wrong not to give him a dollar? With the price of gas these days, it wouldn’t have gotten him very far. None-the-less, mistake number three.

He came back a minute later.

“Look man, I just want some money for gas to get out of here.” He implored in a slightly more psychotic tone.

“No. Sorry,” I said as I swung my leg back in the car and closed the door. The guy slinked back into the shadows of the parking lot.

A few minutes later, my wife returned to the car with the damp paper towels. Lord knows what took her so long. We spent a few more minutes wiping down the car. Before we left, I quickly ran inside to wash the diluted Coke and Armor-All off my hands. My wife stayed behind to continue cleaning up. Mistake number four.

I rushed into the restroom, toke care of all the necessary business and hustled back out the door to the car. As I stepped outside, I am shocked to see that my parking space, the one next to the handicap spot, in front of the soda machine, is now empty. The car is gone. Only an oily stain remains.

“Okay, she moved the car, right?” I thought rapidly to myself. I looked across the aisle, down the row, but I didn’t see her. I spun 360 degrees. After 15 or 20 seconds, a mild panic began to brew.

“Maybe she moved the car to get away from that creepy guy,” I mulled in my head. “Or worse yet, maybe he forced her into the car and is taking her god knows where.”

Now the worst possible scenarios are racing through my mind as a rush of adrenaline washes my body. “Fuck, why didn’t I warn her about the creepy guy before I left her alone?” (Please refer to mistakes four and five.)

I now realized that my wallet, cell phone and keys were all in the car. I can’t even call her to find out what the hell is going on. Another mistake.

A half minute has passed by now. It’s felt like an hour. My heart was pumping and my vision focused down to a tunnel. I looked around to see who might have witnessed anything. I looked again at the empty parking space, the handicap space and the Coke machine. Complete panic consumed me.

I whirled around and headed inside for help. As I charged back into the rest stop, the first thing I notice is a large sign hanging above the doors across the lobby. The sign reads “SOUTHBOUND.” I spun around and look at the wording above the door I just entered: “NORTHBOUND.” The ultimate blunder!

I ran across the lobby and blasted through the doors to the northbound side of the building. As I stepped outside, I realized I’d been roaming a parallel universe. Here, next to an identical handicapped parking space and Coke machine clone is my car, with my wife sitting inside, still wiping the Coke from every crevasse of the dashboard that only a carbonated beverage could find.

Opening the door, I slinked back into my seat. I grabbed my wife’s hand and breathe a sigh of relief. My wife gave me a confused look. Reaching out to close the door behind me, a voice called out.

“Hey, man, can you help me with some gas money?!”

Relive and Relieve 1

2005-08-08T22:00:00.000-04:00

My therapist says I have "a lot garbage in the basement." I hope he wasn't referring to the size of my ass.

This probably comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me well, but this "garbage" has seemingly accumulated over the years and is adding to my daily "baseline of stress." This baseline, according to him, grows and grows until I become the human equivalent of an M-80. He contends the only way to eliminate some of this garbage is to haul it out of the basement and spread it across the dining room table during Thanksgiving dinner. It sounds pretty convincing coming from a professional, even though this "therapist" is actually my "hair stylist." But he's as close to my head as anyone else, so I think I'll go with it.

Anyway, I thought I would heed his advice and take space in this blog to "relive and relieve" some of the more stressful things I've had to endure in my short and uneventful life -- hopefully putting them in front of me once and for all. Call them rants. Call them unforgiving negative attacks. Call them poor writing. But please don't call them petty. Here goes...

Relive and Relieve 1: My Freshman Roommate
Daniel weighed 98 pounds after a large, heavy meal. He had an affinity for Magic cards and sorted through them incessantly. Daniel had odd hygiene habits. No, strike that. Daniel had a surprising lack of hygiene habits altogether. Daniel showered but once a week, every Sunday morning before church. I guess he wanted to be sure he was clean for god.

Daniel read his bible every night. He often took to reading his bible atop the heating register, after turning the heat up full blast. I would walk into the room to find Daniel perched on the radiator which would be cranking out heat at a toasty 87 degrees, spreading his stink all over the room. I'd ask him to turn it down. He'd flip open the door on the heater and pretend to turn it down, then continue reading his bible.

Daniel slept in a sleeping bag every night. He would lay the sleeping bag out on his bare mattress and sleep in it. In the entire first semester, he never washed that sleeping bag. After a couple weeks I was afraid to be alone in the room with it. Come to mention it, Daniel never did any laundry that I knew of. He wore the same clothes every day: a white BugleBoy sweatshirt and white jeans. If you don't do laundry often (read: ever) white is color you should probably avoid.

We originally had our beds bunked, his on top. He would always dismount from his top bunk by jumping straight down onto the floor with a loud thump. This would of course wake me up every morning by scaring the living bejeezers out of me. Then, every single night the bed would shake in a way that left little to my imagination. Eventually I decided (unilaterally) that we had to de-bunk the beds. I should have asked him first. Instead, my friends came in and hoisted around the furniture while Daniel was out. Daniel came home later that night to find his bed relocated to the other side of the room. He asked me why I had done this. I said it was for religious reasons. He didn't find it very convincing or funny.

With his bed now on the floor, the sleeping bag was much more visible and eminently more aromatic -- a consequence I had foolishly not foreseen. But l deserved it, given what I had just done. What I also now noticed, was a piece of paper, folded in half, that Daniel had taped to the cinder block wall above where his pillow now lay. I asked him what it was. Daniel said it was the program from the funeral of his best friend from high school who had died the year before. Okay then... I asked if he had a picture of his friend that might serve as a better reminder of their friendship. He said he didn't have any pictures of him. It was clear Daniel found much more comfort in the wrinkled funereal program.

From this point on, instead of sitting on the heater, he would now sit on his bed facing that program while he read his bible. Was I wrong to be totally creeped out? Either way, I was completely and utterly weirded out by this. Not to mention he continued to turn the heater on full-blast. And there's nothing worse than being creeped out AND hot in your own room. To boot, I was now left with someone who probably came to hate my guts even more than I hated his. But at least I had clean sheets on my bed.

We Are Sick, Sick, Sick

2005-08-04T01:00:00.000-04:00

So what am I doing during my summer vacation? Not much really. Catching a few rays. Catching some Zs. Catching fireflies. And catching up on my blog, of course.

One activity I'm ashamed to fess up to, is that I'm also catching up on recent episodes of MTV's Real World Austin. I watched every episode of the original Real World in New York, which first aired like 15 years ago. This was before reality television and Richard Hatch had really hit it big. I've only caught a few episodes of other "Real Worlds" over the years -- Real World San Deigo, Real World Philly, Real World Boise -- but not of them seemed to have the energy of the original.

The most-recent cast based in Austin, TX doesn't seem to be any different. The whole concept is basically the same -- pitting differing cultures and values against each other in an over-modulated and artificial microcosom. There's always the innocent country girl who's never left her home town and the slutty sexpot. There's a "playa" and an angry blackman. And of course a gay or lesbian or both. Except this cast is surprisingly lacking the token homosexual. (The last group of seven, living in Philadelphia, had two!) Perhaps by the end of the season, someone will come out of the closet for some added "reality."

The show has gotten into some pretty heavy issues before. There was once a cast member living with AIDS. And probably more than half of the Real Worlders have had to struggle with some sort of alcohol-related addiction. But this past week, MTV presented what I think is the most powerful moment of "reality" TV I'd ever seen.

MTV had been using this moment of drama as a teaser in ads for months. One of the roommates is seen crying on the phone. He's gotten some bad news. Had he gotten a call from an ex-girlfriend? Was his dog hit by a car? Did he learn the spoiler of the new Harry Potter book by accident?

No.

One of the roommates, a dude named Danny, got a call from his father. Danny's mother had died.

The camera drew in close. Danny sat in stunned silence. Fade to commercial.

After 4 minutes of commercials for acne wash, diet vanilla cherry Dr. Pepper (Mahna Mahna) and Tampax, we return to "the worst moment in Danny's life already in progress."

The power of this scene was truly moving. Watching a young man receive word that his mother had died was unbearable to watch. He sobbed. He spoke of regret and guilt. (And of course had a cute blonde's shoulder to cry on.)

In the midst of all this powerful drama -- a young man mourning the news of his mother's sudden death -- MTV actually ran a pop-up ad in the corner of the screen. It was a flashing ad for another of their hit reality shows. It was an ad for "Date My Mom." This is no joke. While a character on The Real World was mourning the death of his mother, MTV is simultaneously showing an ad for "Date My Mom." This is sick, sick, sick.

It's not just the poor timing of the ad that is sick. It's the whole thing. When Danny signed his release waiver, little did he know the worst moment of his life was going to be captured and replayed over and over and over again. Worse yet, it will be replayed over and over again in teaser ads and among commercials for The Dukes of Hazzard.

The producers of the show surely knew this news was coming. Danny's father had been trying to reach him all day. So when he came back to the house the shots were all lined up, ready to catch the big moment. And after watching it myself, I just feel sick. I feel sick and sad. And by watching it, I'm no better than the network execs who thought it would be appropriate to put this on the air.

I thought I reached my limit with reality TV when I saw the Osmonds on Celebrity Fear Factor. But this is a new low. It really makes me want to...

Wait.

Hang on, I got distracted. The newest episode of Surreal Life 7 is on and Omarosa looks pissed! Gotta run!!

Oh, Boy!

2005-07-18T23:13:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's a boy!! The Kievitz family name will carry on!

Now accepting recommendations for first and middle names! Winner gets a free tattoo.

(Don't) Give That Fan a Contract

2005-06-28T23:54:00.000-04:00

In my 28 years, I would hazard to guess that I've attended upwards of 120 professional baseball games. I've saved every ticket stub from every game I've ever gone to. So I could count them all up to give a more precise number. But that's not really why I save the stubs.

I've sat in nearly every corner of a dozen or so diffent major and minor league parks -- in the upper deck behind the foul pole, in the third row behind home plate, even once in an owner's box. I've seen walk-off homeruns in extra innings of a World Series game. I've seen near no-hitters. I've seen comebacks, blowouts and rainouts. But one experience is still missing.

I've never caught a ball.

A few years ago, I was seated in the left field seats of Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia when Mike Lieberthal launched what would be the game-winning homerun into the air. As it approached, I could start to see the seams of the ball spinning by. I stood, leaned forward and braced my palms for impact. At that moment, a man with a glove reached back a picked it cleany from the air. But that's about as close as I've ever come to catching anything.

As an adult, I've never believed in bringing a glove to a game. I can't remember who said it first, but it's true that a grown man should never bring a glove to a game unless: 1) You're with a young child and so close to the field of play that the glove serves as protection; or 2) Someone in the game is poised to hit a momentus homerun and the ball will be worth six-figures if caught.

So tonight, when I attended the Yankees-Orioles game at Camden Yards, I was true to my principles and went bare-handed. (I was also coming from work, and I don't usually keep a spare mitt in my desk drawer. Although I do keep an extra athletic cup in there. You never know...)

When mitt-less at a game, you always fear the line-drive foul ball. "Would I have the courage to stick out my fleshy palms and take the full force of the ball and all that spin?" You hope that if a foul ball comes to, you can pick it cleanly out of the air, right at the apex of it's arc. All gain and no pain.

Tonight, in the first inning of the game, with Yankee's second baseman Robinson Cano at the plate, this is exactly what happened -- to the fan just above me. Cano lofted a weak foul-pop to the left side. It drifted back toward the upper deck. An eager fan reached out. It slapped against his fingers, then quickly it spilled out and began to drop. Looking up and back, I saw the ball falling right from his hands and into mine. I saw the label on the ball spinning right toward me. I reached up. And it was gone.

For some reason, the ball spun right off one finger tip and into the hands of a Yankee fan two rows down. What happened? How did I miss that? It was coming right to me. I waited my whole life for that moment and I blew it.

Perhaps it was the angle. Maybe it was the lights. Was it just an optical illusion?

Either way, I left yet another game without a souvenir. And it will likely be another 28 years before another one comes even half as close. Had I caught it, I'm convinced I would have had the valor to give the ball to the cute youngster three seats down with ice cream all over his face and glove. Instead that lousy Yankee fan stuck it right in his pocket.

I can't end this entry sounding completely unappreciative. Earlier this year, I attended a Washington Nationals game at RFK. They were playing my hometown team, the Philadelphia Phillies. I showed up early for batting practice. From the outfield seats, I shouted a friendly word of support to a Phillies player shagging flies. To my surprise, he turned around, and tossed me a ball. I didn't catch it. But I was able to scrounge beneath the seats through the week-old peanut shells and beer cups to retreive it. Now that ball has personal value, because it was meant for me. It hadn't just dropped randomly out of the sky. That one I wasn't going to give away. It was mine to keep.

Sure, it's just a ball. But it's also a connection. It's a real connection to a memory. Holding a ball from a game takes you instantly back to that moment. It's the closest thing I know to time travel. But for tonight's game, I'll have to settle for the ticket stub.

F*ck Speed Bumps

2005-06-27T01:36:00.000-04:00

Is there anything more universally annoying than speed bumps? I think even aliens visiting Earth for the first time would quickly come to loathe these things (not that their flying saucers wouldn't just hover right over them. Alas, I digress).

What exactly is the point of them anyway? Yes, they make you slow down, but only for 10 feet at a time. For people like me, a speed bump means you floor it and go as fast as you can for 50 yards, then slam on the brakes until your front tires hit the bump, then floor it again.

They're probably kept around by the powerful car dealership lobby. They just want people to blow out their suspension, drop a transmission or accidentally deploy an airbag, as they run over one inadvertently. This then results in expensive repairs they can rape you up the ass on.

I know snow plow drivers hate them. Imagine their surprise when their plow hits one of those things! With any luck, the plow will rip the fucking thing right out.

The only good thing about speed bumps, is that sometimes they're referred to as "speed humps." There's nothing like a big "SPEED HUMP AHEAD" sign to make me chuckle and brighten my day.

Better than Snood

2005-06-06T23:44:00.000-04:00

I spent the most productive hours of my college years sitting in front my computer playing Snood. If you're unfamiliar with it, Snood is a cross between Space Invaders and Tetris -- only more addictive. I'd sit there for hours on end, up way later than I should have been, playing this mindless little game. Given the fact that my GPA missed high honors by only a few hundredths of a percentage point, I can single handedly blame Snood on my mediocre success in career and family and for my poor personal hygeine.

Its been years since I've played Snood. I thought I'd grown beyond such petty addictions. Until I stumbled upon a new vice. Internet Poker.

Unlike Snood, or computer solitaire, internet poker involves other presumably live human beings sitting alone in front their computers all around the world. And for the past week, I've been completely hooked. I've played hundreds of hands of Texas Hold'em Poker and turned $1,000 in play money into $120,000 (still in play money).

It's easy to multitask, tracking the rounds of betting while watching Baseball Tonight or having a conversation with the spouse. But there's also the small box at the bottom of the poker table where you can chat with your competitors.

I've never been into Instant Messaging, so I've had a bit of lingo and shorthand to learn. I felt silly asking, "What's 'lol'?" Or trying to figure out how to make funny faces like >:P

But in addition to my improved poker skills, I feel I've truly shined in an entirely realm: The realm of trash talk.

This trash talk is as important to the game as the cards you get. Getting under a guy's skin by making fun of his sccreen name, where he's from or simply egging him on to bet seems to be quite effective in getting great results. Plus, you're completely anonymous and can say whatever you want. It's a great feeling. When was the last time you actually offered someone "a cool refreshing glass of shut the fuck up?" There's nothing like coming home after a long day and razzing someone for half an hour because his nickname is "SyracuseStu." It's truly liberating.

Well, no more time to blog tonight. I'm off to another poker table to talk a bit more smack and make some more fake money.

HF and GL, u DC!

Review: Revenge of the Sith

2005-05-25T00:44:00.000-04:00

See it. It's really, really good. Not like Episodes I and II that were total crap and had hardly anything to do with the original trilogy. This one is the bomb. Even though you know what happens at the end, it's still very suspenseful. Seeing Darth Vader put on the helmet for the first time (and take his first infamous breath) is worth the 28-year wait. Too bad his final line almost ruins the entire film.

However, the very last line of dialogue is saved for Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) who also has the first line in the original Star Wars. The whole film is filled with nice touches like that.

Now that the film cycle is complete, is childhood over for an entire generation of X's and Y's? Do we now all put our Star Wars figures and matching sheets on Ebay and move on?

40 Weeks

2005-05-17T20:05:00.000-04:00

Yes, Mrs. Ethos is with child (hopefully mine). If this is news to you, perhaps you should call more often. And I'm sorrry you had to read about it on a blog page. That's incredibly lame.

This impending miracle will surely be a limitless source of cute stories, embarassing parenting missteps and humorous visits from zany social workers. But you will read none of that here. OK, never say never. But here's my guarantee:

This blog will remain 68.29% baby-free.

If ever you are dissatisfied with the level of non-baby material being posted, please reprimand me in the comments area. However, pot-shots at my wife or child will not be tolerated. You may instead make fun of my growing "sympathy belly."

If you're concerned that my soon-to-be fatherhood will limit my free time to hang out, remember that between my work schedule and my penchant for hookers, you probably haven't seen much of me in the last five years anyway. So I'll still be totally available to hang out -- just as soon as I get the diaper genie emptied, the stroller fixed and the baby fed and put down for a nap.

You probably have many other questions, so to save us all some time, below is the baby FAQ section:

When is she due?
-What is she a goddamn library book or something? Do I get charged a nickel for everyday she's late? OK, December 8 (2005).

How is she feeling?
-Hell if I know. Every time we start talking, she runs off to pee or falls asleep.

Was this planned?
-None of your fucking business. And Yes.

Are you going to find out if it's a boy or a girl?
-I certainly hope so. I know I have zero experience with babies, but that much I should be able to figure out.

Do you have names picked out yet?
-Yes. But my wife hasn't agreed to them yet.

Will your wife get the Down Syndrome screening?
-I'm pretty sure she doesn't have Down Syndrome. But I guess it wouldn't hurt to be doubly sure.

Will you raise it to be a Phillies fan or an Orioles fan?
-Orioles. Cmon, the kid's gonna have enough problems already.

LO3B

2005-05-11T01:11:00.000-04:00

Looking at a baseball box score you can virtually reconstruct the entire game. It's a thing of beauty, I think. The information is dense and cryptic. But if you know what you're looking at, you see exactly who came up big and who let the team down.

There are the runs batted in, the homeruns, the extra base hits, the sacrifices and the 2-out RBI, just to name a few badges of honor. Then they indicate who made errors, who grounded into a double play and who left men in scoring position with two outs. These are the dubious honors. I'd like to propose one more. This one I think should be pointed out as it is even more egregious: runners left at third base with less than two outs.

When a runner is at third with less than two men out, simply putting the ball in play will usually score the run. A fly ball to the outfield. A well placed ground-ball. A hit. All will score the run easiliy. Striking out or popping up in this situation is a complete embarassment and should be indicated in the box score.

If you're going to single out batters who are unable to place a clutch hit to score a runner from second base with two outs, surely we can point out hitters who can't even move a runner 90 feet with no outs or only one out.

Let the tallying begin!

Viva Las Grand Canyon (PART II)

2005-04-27T23:58:00.000-04:00

OK, so after the Grand Canyon, it was back to Las Vegas.

On Easter Sunday I woke up unusually early, as I still hadn’t fully adjusted to Pacific time. At around 8 am, I left the little lady asleep in the room and headed down to the casino. Besides the few dollars we had flushed into the slots earlier in the week, I had never really gambled before. I looked at the Blackjack tables, but didn’t know exactly to play. I contemplated roulette, but even with my C-minus in statistics, I could see that was pretty ridiculous. Then, I found myself standing at the threshold of the poker room.

I figured that the hours of watching Celebrity Poker on Bravo had more than prepared me for what lay inside. I sucked up my courage and walked in.

I bought into a game of Texas Hold ‘Em for $60. It seemed like low enough stakes with a maximum $8 bet. You can cash your chips in at any time. But once you’re out of chips, you’re done (unless you buy in again). There were already seven guys sitting at the table, drinking at this hour of the morning. There was an empty seat for me. The usher showed me in.

I took my little tray of chips, swung my leg awkwardly over the chair, and sat down. In my nervous attempt to look cool and confident, I managed to spill my chips on the floor and knocked over a drink. For that moment, I was Peter Sellars. But I collected myself, took a deep breath and focused on the game at hand.

Having never played at a real poker table, I wasn’t sure what was going on at first. I folded the first half-a-dozen hands until I could figure out how everything worked. The fact that the hands totally sucked didn’t exactly make these difficult decisions, either.

As the action moved around the table, I casually checked out each of my competitors. The cast was just as you would expect. To my immediate left was an older looking gentleman wearing a denim LA Looks baseball cap tipped slightly to one side and a pair of round-rimmed sunglasses that barely concealed the crows feet around his eyes. His T-shirt hung loosely off his gaunt shoulders. His well-worn leather jacket was draped over the back of his chair. I noticed, as he continually ran his fingers around the rim of his whiskey glass that he wore several rings. He never played a hand. He would look at his cards, thrust out his stubbly chin, and toss the cards in without ever looking up.

Next to him was a heavier man who sat high and upright in his chair. He wore a white polo shirt with a brown horizontal stripe that stretched tightly across his midsection. Someone needs to tell this guy horizontal stripes are not his look. His wide fingers shook each time he reached down for his chips. I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one with nerves at the table. He had an obvious tell. He’d run his hand across his head, slicking down his comb-over. He’d do this over and over until he’d fold. Sitting behind a meager stack of chips, it was obvious he was not having a good morning.

On the other side of the dealer was a thin Korean man in his 50s. His jowls hung motionless from his stoic face. His thick, over-sized glasses reminded me of something you’d see sorting through the lost-and-found of a dinner theater. He was a careful player who always managed to win split pots. When he spoke, his voice was soft, but his words were sharp.

To my right was a young guy with a goatee and backwards baseball cap (Cleveland Indians, I think.) He knew all the little tricks you can do with your poker chips. He shuffled them with his fingers. He spun them out on the table so they would roll back into his hand. We would swallow and regurgitate them. It was mildly impressive. Too bad his playing didn’t really back it up. Plus, he was sitting backwards on his chair, and these chairs really weren’t designed to be sat on backwards. Instead of looking relaxed, he just looked ridiculous.

To his right, was an uptight little guy with a neat haircut and a tucked-in button-down shirt. He had a little good-luck gold token he kept on top of his cards. He also had a very small stack of chips. But every time he went all in, he’d win the pot. He had a silly little laugh and an aw-shucks way about him. But he was completely out of place. He looked better suited to be a salesman in the men’s department of JC Penny, to tell you the truth.

Then, there was the other end of the table. The far end was occupied by two slightly more intimidating characters. One of them was very shifty looking. This guy hid behind an enormous stack of chips. Keeping in mind that this was a low-stakes game, he must have had at least $5,000 in $1 dollar chips teetering all around him. I didn’t quite understand this. Is this supposed to scare the competition? Or does it keep foreign objects from falling you’re your drink. No matter what the reason, everyone found an opportunity to razz him about it – right before he’d take their money. He had really messy blonde hair and probably hadn’t slept in days. He talked to himself constantly in a language I’m not sure was English.

Then there was George. George was a round fellow wearing a bright yellow Seattle Supersonics jersey. He wore two thick gold chains around his neck. It isn’t immediately clear what race he is, but you know he’s a NYAWG (Not Your Average White Guy).

George talked a lot. I mean, a lot. George knew every dealer and attendant by name. And they knew him. George took almost every pot he played. Everyone at the table with half a brain knew not to go into a hand against George.

Then, there was me. I must have looked like a little kid lost on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. I sat motionless with a confused look upon my face as money flowed from one side of the table to the other, and then back again.

Finally, after getting in the grove of the game, I was dealt an ace and queen. I went in for my first raise. My bowels went into spasm at this moment.

“Don’t you know what you can buy with those $2?” I asked myself.

As the flop came out, I immediately had two pair, aces and queens. As the betting went around the table, I kept my eyes focused squarely on the green felt in front of me. If the look of terror makes for a good poker face, I was in the money.

As the rest of the cards came out on the table, I had a full house. I kept raising and most of the players folded. Then at the end of the hand, only one player was left – Mr. Horizontal Stripe. We showed our cards. I turned over my full house, still doubting what I really had.

“Ooh, full house,” says George. “Who’s the big dog?”

Mr. Stripe had a pair of aces. The pot was mine. The dealer pushed the pile of chips in my direction. I leaned over and scooped the bounty to my side of the table. I casually tossed the dealer two chips. This was a courtesy I had quickly picked up on. I felt big. But my nervous fingers shook as I fumbled the rest of the chips into a pile, knocked them over and had to start all over again. I was tempted to just leave them in a messy pile in front of me, but this apparently will get you beat up. I wish someone would please explain this to me.

Over the next 90 minutes, I cruised along and won a few more pots. I was actually up about $30. Not bad for a first time out in a low-stakes game. I was ready for ESPN2. Of course, the thought of cashing out never crossed my mind. Surely if I were to walk away with $30 in winnings, I’d immediately go out and spend $40 of it. Instead, I stayed in my seat and confidently marched ahead.

Then the tide turned. Quickly.

I went in on a couple losing hands. And after 30 minutes my $30 surplus was gone and I was down to about $20. But I was looking at a great hand. I had two pair, Hooks and Ladies (jacks and queens in more common parlance). The pot piled up. Then, I went all in and everyone folded. Except for the creepy guy hiding behind his fort of chips. George sat back in his chair and started jawing at me. Something about my nuts, or being nuts. It all became a blurry pastiche of swirling cards, faces and voices.

I was all in. My hand was unbeatable. We both showed our hands. I moved in to scoop up my chips. Except that I failed to notice the straight sitting on the table. Oops. (If you’re not up on the rules of poker, a straight beats two pair. Every time.) I slumped back into the chair. The dealer quickly pushed the pot over to Creepy McCreeperson.

“Oh, snap!” George exclaimed.

“Nice hand,” Mr. McCreeperson said. “I got lucky.”

I got up from my chair in a stunned fog. George encouraged me to go buy more chips and keep playing. This could be translated into, “Go get more chips so we can take them from you even more quickly.”

I muttered something about having to meet my wife and slinked out of the room. I was proud of myself for not getting wrapped up in the adrenaline rush to gamble even more. Otherwise, I knew that by noon my car keys, the deed to my house and my marriage certificate would be on the table. I had to walk through the casino floor on the way back to my hotel room, as you are forced to. With blur of what had just happened and the extremely confusing layout of the casino, it was twenty minutes before I realized I was walking in circles.

The whole experience ate at me for the rest of the day. All I could think about was going back, buying more chips and getting back what I’d lost. My chips and my dignity.

But I resisted. I was just amazed at how quickly I had gone from being up to being down. It was easy to see. I was playing with found money. I was loose and it was gone. I’ve always thought of myself as an intelligent, well-disciplined person. It was now clear to me how people get so addicted to this.

To take my mind off things, my wife and I went that night to see the Blueman Gruop at the Luxor. If you’re not familiar with them, I’d liken them to a cross between the Crash Test Dummies (not the band, but the automobile safety spokesmen) and the Smurfs. Their deadpan comedy combines performance art and music. The show is hilarious and brilliantly crafted. It was better than Cats and I would recommend it to all my friends.

The next morning we got up early and headed to the airport. Passing through the terminal, I stopped at the slot machines. I had one last dime in my pocket. I’d be damned if I’m going to have that rolling out of my pocket the whole flight. So, I tossed in the dime, pulled the lever and watched the wheels spin.

I wasn't, I swear!

2005-04-13T21:19:00.000-04:00

I wasn't staring at your breasts. I swear. That meeting this afternoon was so boring, I was looking for anything to keep my mind occupied. But after I dropped my straightened paperclip on the floor for the third time and it bounced out of reach, I had to find a new diversion. Glancing around, my eyes happened upon the odd-looking inscription on your coffee mug. You had it turned so I couldn't make out the first couple letters. Something - Something - R - A - C - L - E ? What the heck is that word? I casually craned my neck to see the rest of the message, only to realize the mug was directly in the line of sight of your breasts. And you had a button loose on your blouse to boot.

I wonder how long you saw me staring and how big of a creep you think I am. Judging by the brief eye contact we made and the hurried realization that your blouse was unbuttoned, I assume there is now a warrant out for my arrest. Or at the very least a restraining order. Now that I think of it, a restraining order would be quite welcome if it prevented me from attending such boring meetings in the future.

I must have looked terribly guilty at the moment, but I swear I wasn't staring at your breasts. I'd apologize, but for what? I did nothing wrong! Perhaps I could try to explain myself. And in explaining myself, I'd ask if I could read the rest of your coffee mug, to know exactly what's going on there. "Oh, Monday's Miracle!" I'd exclaim. "That's cute!" And you'd apologize for ever thinking me such a low life. We'd hug. But then I'd run the risk of hugging inappropriately and you'd think I'm an even bigger creep-o-rama. Nevermind.

What I can't believe is that you're so self-absorbed, that you'd think I would be so enamored at YOUR breasts. Believe you me, there were much better breasts in that room. But you seem to think yours take the cake. Not to mention you are significantly older than I am. And you've had children. Gross. Now I just feel sceevy.

Any by the way. I'm married. Not that I let that prevent me from enjoying a passing glance every now and then. But my standards are a little higher. And based on what I've heard around the water cooler, higher than yours, that's for sure.

2005-04-10T23:12:00.000-04:00

Death and the Media
There seem to be no qualms about showing the lifeless body of an arena football player being carted off the field. They'll even replay the hit that killed him. We've all seen the dead body of the Pope paraded around repeatedly. But we still haven't even seen anything in the mainstream media displaying injured or killed American soldiers or Iraqi civilians. Not even a flag draped coffin. Can someone explain this to me?

Ode to the Phillies Bullpen Pitchers

2005-04-09T01:25:00.000-04:00

You suck.
You suck.
You suck.
You suck.
You suck.
You suck.
You suck.

Pope's Got it Right

2005-04-08T00:20:00.000-04:00

By having his funeral at four o'clock in the morning, the Pope got it right. Personally, I've always wanted my funeral at some ungodly hour like 4 am. Why? A couple of reasons:

First of all, if you hold your funeral at such an hour, only your true friends will show up. No fake mourners scrounging for free bagels and lox that early in the morning.

Secondly, I hate how funeral processions tie up traffic. The last thing I want to be remembered for was a traffic jam. At 4 am, this is most certainly not an issue.

Viva Las Grand Canyon (PART I)

2005-04-06T21:40:00.000-04:00

Over the Easter break, Mrs. Kievitz and I made a trip to the great American southwest. We took a flight into Las Vegas and spent some time there before renting a car and driving to the Grand Canyon. I wasn't sure if I was planning to gaze at the casinos and throw my money into the canyon or if it should be the other way around. As I soon learned, it wouldn’t make much difference.

Arriving at the Las Vegas airport is a lot like walking through a portal into a parallel universe. Only this parallel universe is filled with slot machines, flashing video screens and shiny ads for escort services. Really, if all you want to do is gamble, you don't even have to leave the airport or get a hotel room. You can play the slots right there in the terminal and hop back on the next flight home. Then again, it is a convenient way to get rid of all that pocket change that annoyingly rolled out of your pocket every ten minutes during the flight.

We stayed at the Tropicana on the south end of Las Vegas Boulevard for one night before leaving for Arizona. (You'll notice from here on out that I do not refer to this stretch of road as "The Strip.") The Tropicana is one of the classic properties in town. And by classic, I mean aging, dim and musty. But thanks to a local connection, we were upgraded to a Jacuzzi suite for the same price as a modest room at a Super-8 Motel in Wichita. The Jacuzzi was wonderful, but I could have done without the full wrap around wall-of-mirrors. The visual distraction kind of ruins the soothing sensation of easing yourself into the warm bubbly water. Once in the tub, however, being able to look across the room and gaze out of our 22nd-floor window at backdrop of hotels and mountains seemed to be a classic high-roller experience.

Walking Las Vegas Boulevard the following morning was probably the most touristy thing I have ever done. Well, that and buying a bumper sticker at "South of the Border" along I-95. Most of the hotels look the same. Large lobbies filled with beeping, blinking, bleeping, blaring, slot machines and gaming tables. A few of the hotels, however, definitely stand out.

As cynical as I am when it comes to commercialism and grandeur, the Bellagio was pretty impressive. The dancing fountains are admittedly cool. Although, watching a large mist of water spray 300 feet into the air, you have to wonder why they complain about water rights. The shopping in the Bellagio is impressive as well. The large indoor mall contains famously upscale stores selling luxury items at prices you can't imagine. I really enjoyed the Armani shop, and the misses was most intrigued by the Gucci store. I even caught her eyeing their items for baby known as the "Guccci-Gucci-Goo Collection." Caesar's Palace and the Venetian each have their own gimmicks, but they pretty much look the same after five minutes of walking around. So after a bit more walking, we thought it was time to split town.

The next day we rented a car from the airport (after stopping off to play a few slots in the terminal) and headed for Arizona. Along the way we stopped at the Hoover Dam. We each got to make one "dam" joke before agreeing to a moratorium for the rest of the trip. The misses walked up to the edge and predictably yelled, "Day-yam, girlfriend!" I dropped my camera accidentally and yelled, "Dammit!" wasting my only opportunity to make a cute pun for the rest of the week.

The drive from Vegas to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon takes about five hours. It's a wonderful drive. I love those kinds of roads -- straight and flat. I set the cruise control on 85, let go of the steering wheel and took a nap. Occasionally I would awake and gaze across vast swaths of desert, picking out specs of tiny trailer homes on the horizon. About 15 miles past Chloride, Arizona, I spotted the perfect place to retire on a peaceful 10-acre cactus farm.

We arrived at the Grand Canyon after dark. We were staying in an inn right on the south rim of the canyon. We caught a quick glimpse of the canyon in the clouded moonlight. It was difficult to comprehend any details, but the scale of the place was immediate. With jaw agape, the misses simply (and predictably) exclaimed, "Day-yam, girlfriend!" We were both completely blown away.

Our room at the inn was about as close to camping as I will ever get. The accommodations were meager. No Jacuzzi. No television. No mirrored ceiling. It was the kind of room where you "shit, sleep and shave" and get the hell out. But when you do get out, the view is unbeatable.

Standing right on the rim of the canyon, you can see for miles. Everyone says that nothing can prepare you for the size of this place. They're right. Pictures do no justice. But I took a couple hundred pictures anyway.

I was not prepared for the elevation there. The South Rim is at an elevation of 7,200 feet above sea level. Because of the elevation, the first day we were there, several early spring snow storms blew down the canyon. You could see them coming from miles away. Like white sheets dancing between the canyon walls, the storms would race in and create near white-out conditions. Only to quickly clear, leaving bright sunshine and a dusting of beautiful white snow on the red cliffs. Oh, and did I mention it was fucking cold, too? Yeah, desert my ass.

That night, the clouds cleared and a brilliant full moon rose over the landscape. The moonlight lit up every feature of the canyon. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. The misses adroitly pointed out why the canyon seemed so much more beautiful in the moonlight.

"You're not distracted by all the details," she said. "All you see is the scope of the entire thing. It's tranquil, calm and beautiful." Then someone’s car alarm went off.

The next day was clear and crisp. The views were even more beautiful than the day before. We drove the rim of the canyon, walked a few trails and spent the better part of an hour just sitting and staring the vastness. This was the one trip I had always wanted to make, and it was well worth the wait.

I told “enchanted_pants” I was going to see the Grand Canyon.

“What for?” he asked.

“I just want to sit there, gaze out at the world, and feel insignificant,” I said.

His reply: “Come over to my place. I’ll make you feel insignificant and save you the airfare.”

Well, “enchanted_pants,” your verbal assaults are just no comparison. I’m still glad I made the trip.

I also took a short hike below the rim of the canyon on the Bright Angel Trail. This is a wide, well-graded trail that is build up by several thick layers of compacted mule shit. The mules use this trail to schlep overweight tourists into the inner reaches of the canyon, leaving their voluminous droppings along the way (the mules, not the tourists).

Walking down the trail was pretty easy. Walking up was not. The altitude, combined with my lack of physical fitness, made for a slow climb. Crawling my way back up, I noticed the great diversity of world cultures represented in the tourist population there. I was most impressed by the three elderly Indian women, dressed in full traditional Indian garb and sandals -- passing me on the trail!

Now fully demoralized, we felt it was time to leave and head back to Las Vegas. Upon arrival, we checked back into the Tropicana and got our same Jacuzzi suite on the 22nd floor with the full wrap-around mirrors.

MORE TO COME!

I Can Die Now...

2005-03-21T23:26:00.000-05:00

WARNING: THIS ENTRY CONTAINS TASTELESS JOKES ABOUT REPUBLICANS AND THE MEDIA

I think given the recent coverage of the Terry Schiavo case [pronounced SHAI-vuh by Tom Delay], the phrase "persistent vegetative state" has replaced "weapons of mass destruction" as the media catch phrase of the year. The pervasiveness of the story has caused many of us to think about our own mortality and how we'd want to be treated in such a situation -- especially since watching the C-SPAN coverage of the Congressional debate on this issue can bring you perilously close to a temporary, if not persistent, vegetative state of your own.

Watching the debate last night, it does make me wonder why the Republican Party is so concerned with this one Florida woman. The president even cut short his vacation at the "Waco White House" to sign the legislation in Washington. Looks like maybe the Republican Party owes her something. Perhaps it's because she voted for Bush in 2000 -- three times.

I guess a lot of lawyers will be having a good month, helping people write their living wills. I don't have a living a will. So if anything happens to me, and there's a question as to whether or not to keep me alive, this blog entry will have to do my talking for me. That being said, if I'm in a persistent vegetative state, I don't want to live. Plain and simple.

But what if it's not that simple? Sometimes things can be a bit grey. Each case is unique and one can never plan for every contingency. What if I can drool, but not swallow? What if I can respond to painful stimuli, but can't pass gas on my own? What if I can't blink voluntarily, but involuntarily laugh while watching reruns of Seventh Heaven? These are tough questions. So what to do?

Well, here's the one rule that I want observed when it comes to keeping me alive:

No matter how alert or responsive I may seem, if I can't fully comprehend and appreciate a Philadelphia sports championship, kill me. If an Eagles Super Bowl win doesn't generate any reaction, pull the cheesesteak puree from my feeding tube. If you think shouting the words, "The Phillies won the World Series!" would mean nothing to me, smother me with a rally towel.

Here's the catch. You really won't be able to tell for sure whether or not to pull my plug until a Philadelphia team actually wins a championship. So, I figure this should buy me at least a few more decades. And who knows, maybe in that time they can find a cure for my sorry condition. Until then, good luck with Congress.

Hello

2005-03-16T22:22:00.000-05:00

There is a Starburst commercial that is currently running that plays off the famously cheesy Lionel Richie video, "Hello." The commercial makes me laugh every time I see it. Perhaps it's the thought that every time it airs, Lionel Richie gets another royalty check, which he then passes on to his "daughter," Nicole, who turns around and spends it on booze and eye makeup.

I haven't seen the actual video in probably 15 years. So I went in search online. It didn't take very long to find this web site that has a link to an .mpg version of the complete video. Ah, the memories came flooding back to when MTV actually showed videos. Remember that?

When you visit this site, you may notice it's actually about a dude who tried to make his own "Lionel Richie" head. The whole thing is pretty sad and marginally amusing. No less, I thought I'd share. Enjoy.

http://www.macalester.edu/~fines/lionel/

I Must Be Sexist

2005-03-07T23:26:00.000-05:00

Allow me to be a man (read: sexist) for a moment. I'm all for women's rights, like equal pay, suffrage and having driver's licenses. But the women's sports thing is getting a little silly. Women can play tennis or field hockey, and the cute little skirts don't hurt neither. Golf and softball are okay, too. But that's abou tit.

I tried watching some NCAA Women's Basketball and it's just far too distracting. It's impossible to watch these young, well-toned girls run around on a court while the commentators talk about "penetration," "ball handling" or "getting physical inside." I can't help but chuckle, continuously commenting to myself, "That's what she said!"

And have you ever watched the women's professional pool tournaments on ESPN2 at 3am? It's just one punchline after another. "I hope she doesn't scratch!"

While I'm at it...

There's a commercial running at the moment for which Julia Roberts does the voice over. Anyone else find this a complete waste?

I'd Like to Thank...

2005-02-27T22:28:00.000-05:00

Watching the Oscars, we all imagine what it would be like to stand up there in front of god and everyone, statuette in hand, and give the speech of our lives. Being a self-proclaimed neurotic, I imagine myself tripping up the stairs, arriving at the podium with my tie crooked, stammering over my words, forgetting to thank my wife and getting cut off by the swell of the pit orchestra. It's the most embarrassing moment of my life and one I would replay in my mind forever. What could I have done differently? Where did I go wrong?

The bigger question lingers. Is my life better off without that moment ever happening?

There is great truth to the adage, "the bigger they are, the harder they fall." The greater the heights you achieve, the greater the distance to the bottom. At the Oscars, for example, there's no greater height. Wear the wrong dress or say the wrong thing in your speech. and the next morning you can find yourself 30 stories below street level. Soaring highs bring even deeper lows.

So is it worth it? We all experience such highs and lows. They may not be an appearance at the Oscars, but weddings, children, job promotions, you name it. With all of these things, comes greater risk. Much of that risk is actually learning what your limitations are. And are you prepared to face them? The challenge is learning to face whatever shortcomings that surface and looking beyond to what are your gifts and blessings.

In the end, complete and utter disaster is always worth the risk. Otherwise, what is the point of living? At least that's how we comfort ourselves in a valley of despair and loss. You can try to escape to an ashram or kibbutz and never have to face the real world. But life will find you there, too. The best option is to always face every challenge and take every risk, even if it means teetering on an even deeper abyss.

Now, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my mom and dad, my lawyer, all the people at livejournal, my six grade teacher Mrs. Sterling, and my three cats, Emma, Gracie and Bea and most of all my beautiful and supportive ... [music].

Arrested Development Jumps the Shark?

2005-02-14T18:07:00.000-05:00

If you're an "Arrested Development" fan like me, you're not just a fan, but a cult member. The cult requires you to clap your hands and dance like a chicken (even though chicken don't clap), wear cutoff jeans under your clothes and make the occasional reference to a stair-car. The news of the show's second season getting cut short early came hard, too. FOX's pledge to keep the show on the air was of little consolation. Based on last night's episode, perhaps FOX is more prescient than given credit for.

The struggling ensemble comedy has always been a bit quirky and off the wall. But last night's "Arrested" was completely off everything. If this is the direction the show's creator, Mitchell Hurwitz, plans to take, I can't blame FOX for pulling the plug.

Martin Short appeared in the episode as the Bluth family's estranged Uncle Jack (although he's not really related) who is crippled and has to be carried around by a deaf giant because he refuses to use a wheelchair -- not the giant, but Uncle Jack. At one point, the giant accidentally shakes Short's character to point that he throws up on himself -- again, not the giant, but Uncle Jack. The whole concept was stupid, crass and unfunny. I credit the writers of the show for really trying to stretch the boundaries. But the show already does that on an average day. Now I'm angry at them for not only taking the show too far, but also for digging an even bigger hole for the show to climb out of.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge fan of Martin Short. And that's not at all colored by the fact I spent a week working closely with Marty during which time he affectionately nicknamed me "kid." He's a genuine guy and a true Hollywood insider, but he doesn't show it. He flaunts it. Unfortunately, this character, "Uncle Jack," really doesn't work at all. Even worse, it looks like "Uncle Jack" will be returning for a few more episodes. I only hope Arrested Development and Martin Short in the arms of a giant, haven't jumped the shark already.

Shingles Revisited

2005-02-13T23:54:00.000-05:00

Exactly a year ago, I was cut down by the ravages of shingles -- a horrible affliction that cripples you for several weeks. I would say that the worst thing about the shingles is being stuck at home to watch daytime television day after day. But I managed to switch off the TV and get out of bed long enough to scratch out a little ode to my shingles. Enjoy this anniversary retrospective of my shingles, written a year ago today...

My Shingles

It began as an itch near the center of my breast
That seemed a harmless but pesky guest.
It announced its arrival as a tiny red rash
That I marked up to smoking too much cheap hash.

Then not too soon after my chest got an ache
An ache so intense my knees got to quake.
Those rashes grew bigger and deeper dark red,
And all I could do was lie there in bed.

I writhed and I moaned and I cried for my mommy
On the phone I told her, "Gee, mom, I feel crummy."
She told me to rest "it will all be okay."
"See Dr. Margolis and be on your way."

So I rang up the doc and told him the news.
He said to me, "Son, it's only the blues."
"Remember to sleep eight hours per night,
Get some life counseling and you'll be alright."

So I looked to my shrink in continued duress
Who informed me, "Young man, you've got too much stress."
"I think what you need is to quit your new job,
Do something today, don't sit there and sob."

So I went to the phone and I got up the nerve
To call up my boss with vigor and verve.
But when I told them stick it "you know where,"
I hung up the phone and the pain was still there.

So I gathered my strength and I went online
To search out exactly what's afflicting my spine.
I searched and I searched for a description or match
For this bright red rash I continued to scratch.

Neither Lupus nor asthma nor venal stenosis,
Nor pinkeye nor bird flu nor fecal mytosis,
Explained why my torso continued to tingle,
Until I discovered an ailment named shingles.

Once I discovered the affliction I had
I thought to myself, "Hey, it can't be that bad."
But this misery lasts for three weeks or more
With an ache so intense it rattles your core.

The pain can't be told in a cutsie short rhyme,
And you'll know what I mean if it comes in your time.
It's like double the worst pain you've had in your life,
Plus ten thousand hornets on the point of a knife.

I continued to writhe in unbearable pain
Leaving my sheets an unfortunate stain.
The pain was like lightning only twenty times worse
And I found myself praying for my own private hearse.

Percoset blunts the pain you endure
But I wouldn't exactly call it a cure.
All you can do is sit there and wait
And hope that this virus soon will abate.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger,"
But I can't bare to take this much longer.
When the angel of death was soon to appear
I felt the drugs had kicked into gear.

I sat up and stretched feeling airy and light
Only to remember it'd be weeks 'til I'm right.
'Cause shingles don't leave for any good reason.
They linger around for most of the season.

Where Are My Glasses? [Part IV]

2005-02-12T01:28:00.001-05:00

Until now, I had only bought a couple of items off ebay -- new camera equipment mostly. These were not items I bid on. I got them at the “Buy Now” price. (If you are unfamiliar with how ebay works, I am not going to explain it here. Go to the site and see for yourself. Just try to not get ripped off.) Previously, I had neither the courage to go through the bidding process nor the patience to wait until the auctions expired (in “8d, 11h, 32m”).

Sporting a mild buzz from two White Russians and woozy from the persistent carbon-monoxide leak in our apartment, I settled in behind the keyboard of my laptop to dip my toe in the dark wold of ebay. I searched the site for matching sets of the Crown Royal glasses I now had to have. It's such a bizarre thing to want to collect, but I had to have more. I wanted all of my friends and guests to experience the same peaceful serenity I had the first moment I raised that glass.

After a quick search, I realized that these glasses were not only collectible, but also oddly plentiful on ebay. There, among the listings for neon Budweiser signs and Miller Girl blowup dolls, were dozens of sellers offering my treasured Crown Royal etched highball glasses. Let the bidding begin!

Over the next several days, I bid on multiple sets of glasses sold by seemingly reputable sellers. I entered what I thought was a pretty generous offer for what is really a cheap piece of glass. And ebay would cheerily inform me that "You are the current high bidder!" I would sit back, smugly cross my arms and wait for my bounty to arrive. But of course, It wasn't that easy.

Another member of the ebay community -- someone with the screen name "mcdoogie44" -- seemed to have a similar affinity for these glasses. And "mcdoogie44" had an obnoxious way of showing it. Moments before the auctions were to expire, "mcdoogie44" would sweep in and outbid me. Not only was I in disbelief that there are 43 other members with the screen name "mcdoogie" but that any one person would need so many matching glasses.

As "mcdoogie44" continued to steal away my precious glasses, each time at the very last second, I grew increasingly impudent. I’m not going to let this schmuck get my James-Bond-without-the-tuxedo-and-explosive-cufflinks etched highball drinking glasses. So I continued bidding on sets of these glasses, one after another, raising the price higher and higher. "mcdoogie44" was not deterred. "mcdoogie44" paid some outrageous amounts for these glasses. I garnered great satisfaction knowing that I was making this person pay more and more for his addiction to cheap barware.

Now, with toxic blend of ire and free time, I looked up "mcdoogie44" on the ebay listings to see what I could learn about my nemesis. What ebay allows you to do is look at every member's activities -- what they've bought, how much they paid for them and how they bid. I scroll through the list of items recently purchased by "mcdoogie44." At the top of the list are the glasses. My glasses. Further down are Hummel figurines. And then more figurines. Dozens of them. If you don’t know, Hummel figurines are these shitty little European-made statues, each about four inches high, depicting stupid little scenes of Aryan kids playing the piano, sledding down a hill or being toilet-trained. The list goes on and on displaying more and more figurines. Who is this freak -- an alcoholic with an obsession for whiskey and small Scandanavian children? And how close am I to becoming this guy myself?

Creeped out by the whole experience, I eventually give up altogether. I savor the two beautiful Crown Royal etched highball glasses I have and move on with my life.

A couple of weeks later, beckoned by my own sulking ego, I go back on ebay and search for my favorite collectible. Oddly, at this moment there is only one set of glasses currently being offered. I smirk and type in the lowest possible bid. I submit my bid and wait. The auction ends in nine days, four hours and three minutes.

You may be asking yourself, "Why don't you just wait until the last minute of the auction and then enter your bid, in hopes that you'll outsmart 'mcdoogie44' ? " Answer: I have a wife and job. And keeping up with this blog is hard enough.

I had completely forgotten about my bid until I got an e-mail in my box nine days later. It was from ebay. I open it expecting the usual message. (You've been outbid! Find similar items by clicking here!") But not this time. The message surprisingly tells me that I won the auction. Finally, the glasses are mine! I was the only bidder with no sign of "mcdoogie44." I've made off with the greatest bargain ever.

While I enjoy the rush of my victory, I do wonder what happened to "mcdoogie44." Did he drink himself to death? Was he picked up on charges of child molestation? Did he sell his Hummel collection and retire to Aruba? Visiting his list of most-recently purchased items, It seems "mcdoogie44" had not moved to Aruba. He had moved on to Hallmark Christmas ornaments. With "mcdoogie44" seemingly now out of the picture, I could now have all the Crown Royal etched highball glasses I wanted. But I had all I needed. Several days later, my glasses arrived, packed neatly in bubble wrap. Each one was, as advertised, in mint condition. They looked pretty, but the moment had passed. It was just kind of a disappointment.

I washed all the glasses, stacked them neatly one on top of another and stored them in the back of the bookshelves. Most likely they'll be forgotten back there. I can only hope that I remember to take them with us when we move.

Moral of the story: Don't forget to look underneath the kitchen drawers before you buy a new home.

Where Are My Glasses? [Part IV]

2005-02-12T01:28:00.000-05:00

Where Are My Glasses? [Part III]

2005-02-09T22:45:00.000-05:00

After moving into our new home, my wife and I had a lot of work to do cleaning the place out. Although the furniture was all gone (all but the bookshelves and deteriorating sofa we bought from the previous owner), a general layer of dust and greasy newsprint covered everything. Friends of ours came over to help decontaminate. We scrubbed all day and all night, making a few odd discoveries along the way. Like the ten years worth of rubber bands that had accumulated between the refrigerator and the wall. Or the shower cap still hanging on the bathroom door. The most-bizarre find was on the underside of a kitchen drawer – a Cro-Magnon-like doodle of a naked woman’s body in black permanent marker. No head, no feet. Just tits and pussy. We could only assume this was the act of a mischievous construction worker, with poor art skills and a primitive view of the female figure. It was good for a laugh and the doodle remains to this day. It continues to provide wholesome amusement on Thanksgiving with my in-laws.

In our salvaged bookshelves, I happened on the only true treasure left behind -- not a dried-out rubber band or an old phone bill. It was two highball drinking glasses with the Crown Royal logo etched on the face. They were still in their original packaging, a sort of commemorative set. It was obvious they had never been used.

My wife and I are not heavy drinkers. Even so, we could not ignore the impressive heft and sturdy proportions of the glasses. We washed them with a heavy detergent, and set them in the “keep” pile. The “keep” pile now contained only the glasses and a phone book and was easily dwarfed by the “burn and/or exorcize” pile.

The glasses were stored neatly in the back of a cupboard until a recent party. Searching for more glassware for our alcoholic guests, I rediscovered the etched Crown Royal highball glasses. The memories came flooding back. The shower cap. The naked doodle. Signing away my left kidney.

I set aside one of the glasses for myself and fixed a drink. A white Russian. (The Dude abides.) As I swirled the drink in my hand, the clinking of the ice against the thick glass was purely musical. Lifting the drink to my mouth, the glass balanced perfectly in my fingers, allowing me to gracefully sip the “Caucasian” without a single ice cube touching my lips. I set the glass on the table with a percussive thump. I leaned back, scratched my chin and bathed in my debonair masculinity. At that moment, I was James Bond -- without the tuxedo and explosive cufflinks. Perhaps it was the vodka or the expired half-and-half. But when I looked into the cut-glass, as if into a crystal ball, the light glinting off the angled facets enchanted me. I felt warm and secure. And I wanted more.

I could have sought out more alcohol. Vodka and Kalhua were plentiful that night. But I did not. No, I went to seek out what I really yearned for: Crown Royal etched highball glasses. And where else to look, but on ebay?

To be continued...

Philadelphia Feables

2005-02-07T20:00:00.000-05:00

As is typical of Philadelphia also-rans, the story of Super Bowl XXXIX wasn't so much what the New England Patriots did to win, but what the Philadelphia Eagles did to lose. While everyone gives Pats QB Tom Brady and wide-receiver Deion Branch their props, the questions about the Eagles failures seem to dominate. "Why was their clock-management so poor?" "Why does McNabb throw picks in the biggest games at the biggest moments?" "Why didn't they capitalize on scoring opportunities in the first quarter?" You'd think if one of these questions was answered, they'd be sporting the Lombardi bling.

I'm happy the Eagles made the Super Bowl. (It beats going 4-12.) They're a fun team to watch. And they should be fun to watch for at least a few more years. They're a good team. But they're not a great team. In the 22 years since Philadelphia has last hosted a championship parade, there have been many good teams -- but they've been beaten by great teams. Since the Sixers brought home their NBA title in 1983, each of the Philadelphia teams has fallen victim to championship juggernauts. I know I sound like a pathetic whiner, but I'm not exaggerating. Check this out:

1985 and 1987 Flyers: Lost to Edmonton Oilers who won 4 Cups in 5 years
1993 Phillies: Lost to Toronto Blue Jays who were the defending champions, winning their second Series in a row.
1997 Flyers: Lost to Detroit Red Wings who went on to win the Cup again in 1998
2001 Sixers: Lost to LA Lakers who were in the second-phase of their 3-Peat
2005 Eagles: Lost to New England Patriots who have now won 3 Super Bowls in 4 years

I can only hope that one day we'll catch a break and a Philadelphia team will beat a team as "good" as they are in a championship match-up.

Where Are My Glasses? [Part II]

2005-02-03T22:34:00.000-05:00

The woman who lived (and possibly died) in our apartment before us, didn't buy the place herself. Her gentleman friend did. After his third wife died, she was his live-in, and they never married. When he passed away (probably in the apartment, too), he left the place to her and screwed his own family out of the deal. So the daughter of this woman, who was in no way related to the guy who actually bought the place, got the apartment and sold it to us as her inheritance. Nice deal, eh? She gets the money and we get to live with the spirit of her mother and her mother's boyfriend.

I don't believe in ghosts, specters or poltergeists. But a few months after we moved into the apartment, I had a very creepy experience. I had a work appointment at a local synagogue. The head Rabbi gave us a tour of the facility. Walking down the marble halls of the temple, my goyishe co-worker innocently inquired about the memorial plaques on the walls.

"What are all these names on the walls, and why do some of them have bulbs lit?" she asked. The Rabbi sagely waved his hand at the hundreds of names inscribed on brass plates around the temple and explained that these were "yahrzeit" plaques, commemorating those who have passed away. He pointed to a single name on the wall and said, "See, this one here is lit, to honor the anniversary of the deceased. May he be in peace."

There was moment of silence as my co-worker and I nodded respectfully. He kept his finger on the plaque, closed his eyes and bit his bottom lip. I focused in on the name and my eyes widened.

"I recognize that name!" I blurted out. "I get his mail!"

The Rabbi looked at me with a cross stare. But it was true. I had this guy’s mail on my kitchen table. The name on the plaque was that of the man who had owned our apartment -- before leaving it to his now-deceased lady-friend. Letters from the AARP and the Scoliosis Foundation, addressed to him, continued to find their way into my mailbox. Of all the hundreds of names on this wall, this was the one he pointed to. And it was the anniversary of his death, to boot. A chill ran up my spine (Was that you, Mrs. Sapperstein?). The Rabbi looked at me as if I had been sniffing the spice box and moved on. But that moment has stuck with me. It was a sign.

To be continued...

Where Are My Glasses? [Part I]

2005-02-01T20:13:00.000-05:00

I don't usually do this sort of thing. I'm not one of those people. Really. But this is starting to become a pattern – maybe even a compulsion. Dare I say, this is my personal crusade.

The story begins three years ago. My wife and I bought a condo just north of the city line where the grass is greener, children are smarter and property taxes a third lower. It was a fixer-upper we slightly overpaid for. But, hey, The Money Pit is like the funniest movie ever and wouldn’t it be fun to live like that?

Our realtor was an older gentleman with liver spots and an affinity for polyester button-down shirts. He had surprisingly poor social skills for a salesman, which is perhaps why we were drawn to him. He took us on walk-throughs of the property before we bought it, pointing out modern amenities like a self-cleaning oven and the instant-hot water spigot. Sure, we noticed the mildewed furniture and dated decor. But there was nothing we couldn’t fix with a combustible mixture of elbow grease and midnight oil.

The previous resident had died and her daughter was selling the place. According to the information we gleaned from the daughter and the realtor, it appeared she did not die in the apartment. Some law supposedly requires the owner to disclose whether or not someone died in the property. But I guess that all depends on what your definition of "died" is. We had no choice but to accept the facts as sufficient and move ahead. (Quiet, Mrs. Sapperstein, I'm getting to that part!)

We jumped in feet first and made our offer on the condo. It was accepted. The daughter explained she didn’t have much need for her mother’s furniture and asked if there was anything in the unit we wanted to keep. My wife and I discussed what would go and what would stay. It was quickly apparent that there was only one thing we liked. A set of bookshelves that fit neatly in the den, perfectly situated on the short wall of the room.

At closing, after signing my name 87 times, and initialing 103 clauses, the deal was done. The sale was approved. The title was transferred. And my left kidney was now the property of the Tennessee Valley Authority. After several handshakes and some awkward small-talk, the daughter asked if we had decided to keep any of the furniture.

Politely we passed on the lime-green velvet armchair and the Johnny Unitas commemorative spoon set. She gave us a disappointed nod. In a momentary fit of guilt, I commented on how nice those bookshelves were. She suggested we buy them and I suddenly found myself writing a check – for $200. She threw in a deteriorating sofa, too, that didn’t even match the room. But I wasn’t going to argue with a woman who had just lost her mother. However, considering the fact that leaving the bookshelves and the sofa in the apartment probably saved her money by not having to move them, paying $200 for them was probably a mistake. But that was only the beginning.

To be continued...

Did I Spell "Doubt" Correctly?

2005-01-28T00:55:00.000-05:00

I had a moment of great doubt this morning just before dropping my mail into the mailbox, wondering to myself:

What if I realize an error in my credit card payment after releasing it into the mailslot? Did I remember to write my account number on the check? Would I actually have the personal fortitude to wait here until the pickup time posted on the box (4:17 pm on Weekdays, 11:04 am on Saturdays)? Does the Mailperson even come at that time? Should I get here early in case my watch is slow? If I am here at the mailbox when the Mailperson arrived, would he/she believe me and give me back my mail so that I could properly write my account number on my check? And if I got my mail back, would I quickly tear open the envelope only to realize that I actually did write my account number on the check absent-mindedly while I was thinking of something else? What was I thinking about?

Was my mind on the garbage I had thrown in the dumpster moments before? Was anything in there important? Did I accidentally throw out that $25 gift card to Petco? If not, then where on earth did I put it? Should I stand by the dumpster and wait for the Garbageperson to empty the dumpster? If I did, would he/she believe me and give me back my garbage? Would I even recognize my garbage from all the other garbage in the dumpster? Perhaps the Garbageperson would help me root through the garbage and find my displaced gift card if I agreed to split the gift card with him/her? Would he/she really have need for a gift card to Petco? Garbagepersons have pets, right? Or is that a stereotype? Do I want to risk offending a Garbageperson by asking? Would he/she then want the gift card for himself/herself? But if he/she doesn't have pets, the gift card to Petco would be useless to him/her, so what do I have to lose by asking? What can I get with a $25 gift card from Petco anyway? Would it really be worth the bother?

Oh, wait, didn't I spend that gift card last week on a scratching post, two squeaky mice and 40 pounds of kitty litter? But what about the two squeaky mice that squeak slightly out of tune with one another? Should I take one of them back? Can you take back just one squeaky mouse? Will I need my receipt? What if I can't find the receipt? Where is the receipt anyway? Shit, that's right...I threw it out.

Coat of Sports

2005-01-25T22:59:00.000-05:00

Eagles Can Finally Disappoint

My earliest sports memory is of my family taking me to a Philadelphia Phillies game at Veterans Stadium in 1983. Our seats were somewhere along the third baseline. Pete Rose came to bat. He grounded out to first. My father called him a "lousy bum." End of memory.

Later that year, the Phillies lost to the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. I didn't really mind then. My older brother seemed to be quite upset by it. So much so that he ripped down his Mike Schmidt-Steve Carlton/MVP-Cy Young Poster. Little did I know this was just the first in a long line of serious disappointments.

As a lifelong Philadelphia sports fan (too young to remember the 1980 Phillies championship, or even the 76ers Broad Street parade) I’ve come to not only expect disappointment, but to relish it.

In that time, I’ve gotten to see the Phillies falter in the 1993 World Series -- a series they were four outs away from winning. Too bad those four outs were in two different games. I saw the Flyers falter in the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals. And I cringed as the Sixers got swept away in the NBA Finals in 2001. Each of these teams stepped up and lost the big game. They lost when it counted. They had reached the highest echelons of disappointment.

In that time, the Eagles have been a failure, but only in a bush-league sort of way. They’ve lost a lot of games since I first became a conscious sports fan (sometime during that 1983 Phillies season). But they’ve lost mostly meaningless games. They never lost the big one. Dare I say, they've been bad at losing.

Next Sunday, in Super Bowl XXIX, I can only hope that the Eagles will lose the big game, and disappoint me in a way they’ve never been able to before.

Maybe Next Year

Has anyone noticed yet that next year will be Super Bowl XL? Can’t you just imagine all the catchy slogans and t-shirt graphics? I’m so over Roman numerals…

Doug Mientkiewicz and Raider of the Last Ball

If you haven’t read this story yet, let me summarize:

Doug Mientkiewicz is a piece of human garbage.

When Cardinals shortstop Edgar Renteria hit a weak grounder back to Red Sox pitcher Keith Foulke in Game Four of the 2004 World Series, the Red Sox first championship in 88 years was clinched – almost. The out still had to be recorded.

Foulke turned toward first base and softly lobbed the ball to late-inning replacement Doug Mientkiewicz. Mientkiewicz, with his nimble hands and acute reflexes, grabbed the toss out of the air and squeezed the ball into his mitt. The out was made. The Red Sox were victorious. And Mientkiewicz continued to squeeze the ball in his mitt. He squeezed it all the way into the locker room. Then all the way out to his car. Then all the way to his safety deposit box in Florida.

Now, Mientkiewicz is keeping the ball and joking about his newly-found retirement plan.

As if professional athletes weren’t greedy enough, this mouth-breathing dip-shit (who only came to the Red Sox for the last two months of the season) stole a baseball. And not just any ball. A ball that represents generations of frustration, anguish and despair. He has no business keeping that ball. That ball, in the words of Indiana Jones, “belongs in a museum.”

Perhaps there are more important things for me to get upset about. It is only a ball.

Yet when you visit the Baseball Hall of Fame Museum, there is case after case, filled with anonymous looking baseballs. Each one looks pretty much the same. A white cover. Red stitches. Maybe a few scuffs. They’re almost all interchangeable. But they’re not.

Each ball holds its unique place in history. There it is -- inches from your nose -- the ball that scraped the outfield wall for a momentous homerun. Or the ball that popped into a catcher’s mitt for the final out of a perfect game. It’s a ball that made a dream come true. And it's there for everyone to enjoy. Fathers can point to it and tell their sons, "I remember that day."

Few objects represent history the way that ball locked away in Florida does. Like a holy relic, it has an energy. It vibrates at a frequency all it’s own.

Perhaps Mientkiewicz felt his .238 batting average more than made up for his $2.8 million salary this year. And the World Series bonus wasn’t enough either. No, he felt he needed more and decided to claim something he has no rightful ownership of. Given his actual level of performance, I think he should just be grateful the Red Sox haven’t charged him for all the extra letters on the back of his uniform.

I can only hope that this sort of greed is recognized and punished by a higher power. Again, as in Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark, I want to believe that right now the ball is burning a hole in the side of that safety deposit box. Better yet, maybe the next time Doug opens the box, lighting will shoot out of it and melt his face.

When someone says, "I'll see you next Saturday," do they mean...
	This Saturday. The next one coming up in this same week.
	The Saturday after next. A week from this coming Saturday.

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