Hilarious diversions

I am studying for my last final of the semester, and the last academic obligation I have before I go to live in London for four months. While I manage to read my notes for a class called "Poverty and Income Distribution" I also feel very sad as this class reveals that much of America's wealth redistribution programs end up screwing poor people. In order to restore my faith in humanity, I went online to read something funny, and I found it at McSweeneys.

Most of my friends play poker, and while I don't really care for poker, I do like slang. Poker slang is some of the strangest terminology out there, but I very much enjoyed this one.

Poker Terminology I Feel I Could Get Away With Saying If I Ever Played a Tournament.

BY ANDY SUTHERLAND

- - - -

He's holding Babraham Lincolns.

Caught in a flytrap.

Lay it down on "The Tarpits."

Short-weeding the double-down avocado splitter.

Deuce trips.

So I pull trash from the flop, and end up sinking the Titanic.

Laboratory rats to the left, and I know the guy on the right has a suicide johnny—nothing else to do but drop the transmission.

He was short-stacked, so I raised with nothing but a bumpy melinda and a bullet.

Crunking the small blind.

So a Madeleine Albright pops up on Fourth Street.

After his raise, I know he's sporting two mustaches, and I can see one otter swimming the river on the flop.

I've got leaky quads, and I call, after he bulldozes the pit with half his gold towers.

I fold.

The utility maximization of "Next"

My roommates and I watch a lot of bad television, and we sort of revel in it. MTV has pioneered the field of awful shows that I cannot tear myself away from, including Laguna Beach, Super Sweet 16, Made, and Next. This entry is going to focus on Next, because I saw one of the best episodes ever the other day.

The rules of Next are pretty simple. There is one guy who is deciding who he wants to go on a date with. On a bus, there are 5 girls who sit together and are called out one by one to go on a date with the guy outside. The guy has not seen any of the girls before and neither has the girl seen him. They do some stupid activity like get fake body art or have a picnic for a while, and if the guy likes the girl, the date continues. If at any point the guy isn't having fun, he can dismiss the girl by saying "next" and another girl from the bus will emerge and go on a date with our young hero. Girls who are kicked off are given $1 dollar for every minute they are on the date. If the guy decides he likes the girl, he offers her either the amount of money she would get from leaving or a second date. Next can also be played with one girl and 5 guys, but those episodes tend to be pretty boring. It doesn't sound too amazing, but a lot of the time it's incredibly hilarious. The contestants are all between 18 and 24 and most are about as dumb as a sack of wet mice. They say the most absurd things and have the stupidest dates, like breakdancing or tae kwon do. If you watch enough, you'll get some real gems, but nothing like I saw two nights ago.

This was a one guy-5 girl episode, and the guy was an absolute tool. Smug, fake tan and about as shallow as a shot glass, I knew this guy's resolute and unshakable belief in his own perfection would lead to some cringe-worthy rejections of nice but slightly homely girls. And so it was. The lineup, in order of how they would appear was one so-so looking girl, two ugly girls, and two very attractive girls. This guy was going to have to go through hell to get to heaven. He "Nexted" the first girl in about 7 minutes, but in his defense she was boring to the point of being catatonic. The next girl comes out, they are introduced, and you can see the sadness in his eyes. He sticks it out for a little bit, and then tells the girl that she is too pale, and he takes her to a tanning salon. Not really where I would take someone on a date, but I am dark-skinned, what do I know? She comes out of a spray tan (how gauche) only to meet the icy hand of a "Next" slapping the dignity right out of her, pocketing about $17. The third contestant is a bit quirky, but even less attractive than the second player. Our host takes her clothes shopping (he insists a girl's style is very important). Here, we see the abject horror in his eyes that he has to be seen with this girl in public. You know he wants to reject her right there, but he needs the pretense of incompatability to avoid looking like the worst man on television. After about 8 minutes of shopping, he says they aren't working out and puts a "Next" boot in her ass. Now it gets interesting, as the fourth contestant is a very attractive Latina with...ahem...enhancements that are catching to many men. She steps off the bus and meets the host, and he lights up. 'Finally,' I imagine he imagines, 'an attractive girl in this competition.' In about 8 seconds, he decides to offer her a second date with him, or the cash value of her date, $1.

This is nothing short of a stroke of brilliance. Obviously, this offer of a second date is a purely physical reaction. While he complimented her style (read: enhancements), that was the entire extent of their conversation. He literally asked her for another date on the spot. What makes it so amazing is that it reminded me of the utility maximization problems we used to do in my International Politics class. By asking this girl for a date so quickly, he has made the choice of walking away worthless. $1 is not a lot of money. Most contestants who go in second dates are on their dates for 75-90 minutes. If you're with a mildly attractive and marginally fun person, you might just take the $90. That's a good night out with some friends, and all you had to do was hang out with an OK person for a little while and be on MTV. However, if you're offered $1, why would you even take it? You might as well go on the second date, because you could have a good time on that date (assume the probability of having a good time is about 50%) while you won't have any fun with $1, or at least any fun that doesn't come out of a vending machine. Since the host is looking for a second date, they dispense the money in such a way as to make it a disincentive, and by offering a prize that is worthless, they can lock in the outcome they want: a second date. It's actually very interesting, and my point was proven when this girl took the second date with a guy she'd only known for a few seconds.

Who knew Next was so unintentionally cerebral? I wonder what the hidden implications of Super Sweet 16 are.

Choose your quotes wisely

As you may have read, there has been a Graduate Student strike going on at NYU for a few weeks now, and regardless of how you feel about it, it has provided great spots of entertainment. I am an economics major, a department here that is less than sympathetic to unions as a matter of principle--economists don't like the impact unions have on market clearing wages--and especially at a college. Interestingly, at a school thought to be as liberal as NYU is, the politics department here is largely against the union, and is one of the most apolitical groups of people you'll ever see. I understand the union, but don't totally agree with it. One thing all can agree on is the sheer absurdity of the picket signs. Outside of Bobst Library, there was one girl holding a sign that read as follows:

Don't you wish your TA was tough like me?
Don't you wish your TA was an employee?

Once your labor protest is reduced to glibly reconstituting lyrics from a group called "The Pussycat Dolls", you might as well fold. You've lost the chance to be taken seriously.

Test of a Man

This week, I have midterms in three of my classes. When you only take four classes, this is both alarming and rage-inducing. I've spent most of this weekend avoiding work and thinking about innovative ways to avoid work in equal measure. I'm also planning my classes for next semester, which I will spend studying in London at the appropriately titled University of London. I am very excited as some of my classes will be taught by faculty members of the London School of Economics, and will probably include the casual use of words like "bloody" and Cockney rhyming slang.

I just wanted to brag about going to London.

music: Vivali "Concerto per due Flauti"
I listen to classical music when I study because it makes me feel very erudite and composed, like a guy in a Lexus commerical, which always seem to feature violin based classical music.

Hiatus? Probably not.

I don't really post too often, because to be be quite honest, I don't owe you anything. But now, I will probably be posting even less because I am going to be doing a spate of comedy writing. I am going to be doing some stuff, I hope, with my friend Brady working on his scripts. I am a punch-up man, which is to say that I work on an existing script and add jokes and make Brady's awful writing funny. Brady is even willing to give me a small part in one of his films, the part of some Indian guy. It will be a bit of a reach for me, a tall strapping Swedish man, but that's what actors do. We pretend. On top of this, I am going to join the NYU humor magazine, The Plague, also with Brady. Failing that, he and I are going to start our own guerilla magazine, because we are too damn funny not to have our sparkling genius not shared with you, the philistines of America. So deal with it.

Yes , I did. Now get out of here!

Today in the library I was sitting in one of the group study rooms with my roommate Bryce. At NYU's library, the group study rooms on lower level II are the best places to study, because they have big tables, white boards, and are private rooms. The room seats about 8 people, and there were only three of us (my friend Raj was in attendance as well) in the room. As we sat, me studying for Economics and Bryce writing for his Varieties of Conservatism class, a girl comes into our room, unannounced I might add. It was disruptive and rude. The conversation went as follows:

Girl: Do you mind if I take a chair?
Bryce: No, go ahead.
Girl: (upset and indignant) Did you tell me to go away?
Bryce: (shocked and confused) Uh, no. I said, 'Go ahead.'
Girl: Oh. Ok.

The girl walks calmly out of the room, and Raj and I burst into hysterical laughter. This girl was actually willing to fight Bryce over a chair. In the library.

How utterly pathetic.

The Click Who?

In many ways, I am a huge snob. I make fun of the New York Post for being tabloid trash, and I read The Financial Times because on top of having the word 'Financial' in it, it is British which means it is instantly more highbrow than the Post or the Daily News. The Economist also satisfies this property quite nicely. I mock people that watch shows like "7th Heaven" because it spouts boring wholesome platitudes, is crushingly derivative, and is on the WB. I prefer comedies that are satirical and avant-garde (according to The New Republic) like "Arrested Development." I also cut down girls who read "Cosmopolitan" and "The Devil Wears Prada" for reasons should be obvious by now. By all accounts, I turn into an enormous tool when I see your coffee table and whatever is on it. Strangely, one area where I am shockingly tolerant of the mainstream is music, evinced particularly well by the fact that the song "Just The Girl" by The Click Five is on my iPod.

To preserve some dignity, I should say that I don't like all music, either. I hate emo music like Dashboard Confessional and other guys who cry for 30 minutes and call it a song, and Linkin Park sounds like a domestic disturbance incident on a CD. So you would think that for the same reasons I dismiss "Bridget Jones' Diary" I would attack The Click Five with an amount of rancor usually seen only by Mets fans, but I am nothing if not inconsistent. They both target the same audience; stupid 16 year old mallrat girls from the suburbs who have no exposure to anything that doesn't include extra cheese or a DVD tie-in. So why do I like this song?

It's kind of hard to say. I heard it once when I was watching "My Super Sweet 16" on MTV (a show I enjoy immensely in a Ignatius Reilly-like way that defines a lot of my taste.) The line that got me was, "she can't keep a secret for more than an hour." For whatever reason, this kind of behavior is endearing and kind of cute. The lyrics are atrocious, but the pop beat gets me. There is something so deliciously manufactured, so perfectly contrived about the beat. It's like cotton candy; you know it's wholly unnatural and pretty crappy, but you like it anyway. And just like cotton candy, it costs almost nothing and provides fleeting satisfaction. Despite myself, I find my fingers clicking it on my iPod.

I have to listen to a lot of Vivaldi to cleanse the palette, but for now, I'm going to loop it.

Indefensible

While I was doing my economics homework I was listening to the radio via my iTunes player. I find it's an easy way to hear music I wouldn't usually hear, and sometimes I get some real gems. This time, I saw the link for WNYU, my beloved university's radio station. Feeling a swell of pride, I click on it.

I must say, I really love NYU. I like the classes, the faculty, the facilities, the students, New York. I have no regrets about choosing NYU, and I will frequently defend NYU against what I feel is sometimes unfair bitching. So, it was fair to say that when I started to listen to WNYU, I really wanted to like it. What I found was some of the most uncomfortable radio ever.

At a school like MIT, or Cal Tech, I would not be so taken aback by a radio host who was stumbling and mumbling like he had a ham sandwich in his mouth. But NYU is sort of renowned for its performing arts program. Is it too much to expect that someone who has a show on NYU's radio station would be somehow familiar with the concept of "dead air" and "speaking clearly?" This young man gave the impression like he had been thrown on the radio 30 seconds ago, and told "Do a radio show right now, or I'll kill your mother." In all fairness, that may be the case, but even if it were, you'd probably do a better job. Some people need the pressure. I listened for about 2 minutes, felt a tightness in my chest, and had to switch in case this bad radio gave me a heart attack. I hope for the sake of the university's reputation and my own health that someone improves the NYU radio station. I'll pay you.

Well, not really. But someone else might.

Man (almost) on Fire

At about 11 AM, I was riding the NYU bus back to my dorm, because it's free and I have no money. While the subway is less crowded and runs more frequently, the NYU bus drops me off in front of my building, a huge plus. I was reading something for my Econ class, and we'd only been moving for a few minutes, but the driver stopped on Broadway just north of Houston street and told everyone to get off. I didn't really know what was happening, but he seemed serious and there was a crowd of people around the bus. I step outside and glance over to where everyone else is looking.

Right there, directly under where I was sitting, was a fire. The bus was on fire.

Luckily, the fire was small, everyone was off the bus, and calls to the right people were being made. Another NYU bus came by and they called someone using their radios. I was very curious as to what was going on, and wanted to find out more. However, as anyone who has seen a Jerry Bruckheimer movie knows, things on fire tend to blow up, especially when that thing is a few tons and has very large tanks of combustible fuel. I walk south on Broadway, but keep looking back to see the smoke getting larger, and people start to run. They've probably seen Bad Boys too and wanted to get the hell out of there. I haven't heard anything about it since, and hope everything is alright.

I have another class later today, but I think I'll just walk.

Karma's a sassy lady

This morning, my roommate Matt and I decided to revive an old tradition and get ourselves some breakfast. We used to eat breakfast, the most important meal of the day, together all the time. It was probably how we became such good friends, since there is nothing else to do on the walk from Brittany Hall to the Weinstein Dorm/Dining Hall other than talk. Nowadays, we run on different schedules, so this was a rare and anticipated event.

As we left our building, the hot and humid New York air smacks us in the face, and we instantly remember why rarely leave our air conditioned penthouse. Befitting our status as college students and the bank account that entails, we head over the a gourmet breakfast spot known as Dunkin' Donuts. I'm not sure if you've heard of it, it's pretty exclusive. As we both order egg and cheese meals on croissants, I can detect some confusion and furtive whispers among the staff. A woman from behind the counter approaches us holding a croissant. The exchange went as follows:

Woman: You guys are waiting for egg and cheese on a croissant, right?
Us: Yes.
Woman: Well, we only have one croissant. Which one of you wants...
Simultaneously
Woman: a bagel?
Matt: Me.

At this point, I realize that Matt, thinking he was securing himself a croissant, actually agreed to having a bagel because he stepped all over the woman's sentence. I, knowing an opportunity when I see one, gamely step in.

Me: Well, it's too late now. You've just ordered a bagel.
Woman: (to Matt) What kind of bagel would you like?
Matt: (utterly dejected) Plain.

In one fell swoop, Matt learned a valuable lesson about interrupting people and trying to screw over a friend. He shan't be trying that again.

Blindsided

Why is it that everytime I meet someone who my friends insist I will like because he is just like me, or because he reminds them so much of me, I think that guy is a total ass? He usually talks too much, makes very obtuse and poor jokes, or constantly tries to dominate conversations with his loud voice and pretensions of intelligence. Why would my friends think I would like....Oh.

I get it now.

Chief Justice Handsome

These past two days, I've been watching the Senate confirmation hearings for John Roberts. I think the Supreme Court, and the Chief Justice position especially, is an incredibly important body. While I don't know if I agree with everything Roberts believes, I can certainly respect his right to hold his views, and in many instances I think he defends his opinions with a delicate balance of intellect and common sense. I also like to watch him politely defer to Senators who seem more interested in hearing their own voices or solidifying 2008 bids for higher office. I will say, without equivocation, that if confirmed John Roberts will be the best looking man to ever serve on the Supreme Court. He's a handsome devil.

Since I've moved into my new dorm, my roommate Bryce has had an incredibly positive impact on my diet. Bryce is from Los Angeles, and thus only eats organic vegetables and animals that agreed to be killed in the first place. He's very sensitive that way. Over the summer, my breakfast would very likely be 3 bowls of Honey Bunches of Oats, a very delicious and sugary cereal whose name certainly overemphasizes the number of oats per bowl. These days, I start off with a bowl of GoLean cereal, from the Whole Foods in Union Square. GoLean consists of "crunchy fiber twigs, soy protein grahams and honey puffs." It has no processed sugar, but does use cane sugar. I then add some organic skim milk and munch away, content with the notion that my body welcomes some food that wasn't drowned in chemicals and high fructose corn syrup in Battle Creek, Michigan. Best of all, it doesn't taste half bad. It's good, and good for you.

You can't beat it with a crunchy fiber twig.

Aziz Ansari

If you're a comedy geek or a hipster (I deeply dislike hipsters, but they nailed it with this guy), you might know who Aziz Ansari is. He's a stand-up comic who is very close to my heart, because he reminds me of myself in a few very notable ways.

1. Ansari graduated from NYU. I go to NYU.
2. Ansari is Indian and speaks Tamil, a South Indian language that I also speak.
3. Ansari is very funny.

The similarities are outstanding and simply can't be ignored. More than anything, though, Ansari's comedy style reminds me of jokes I make or would make if I had any sort of guts.

In an interview I read with Ansari, he mentions that he got into stand-up because a lot of people told him that he was funny. At the risk of sounding like a braggart, people have told me this too, but there is a very good reason I haven't followed through on it, and that is that while I think of myself has having a good sense of humor, it takes a lot of work to be a good stand-up.

I've done amateurish stand-up attempts, but there is a fundamental difference between being funny with your friends and being a good comic, just as there is a difference between being good at drawing and being an artist. When you're with your friends, just hanging out, it's easy to be funny. All you have to do is react to a situation or premise and direct it with a one-liner or witty remark. When you're a stand-up comic, you don't have the luxury of being reactionary and acting off an existing humorous situation, because you have to create the premise, and then make it funny. You are telling a whole story, whereas with your friends in that room, everyone is already on the same wavelength. It is actually very tough, and doing it well requires a lot of practice and finding something that is both universal, so an entire audience can get it, and specific, or at least specific enough to be original.

I will say this in my favor, though. I once heard Jon Stewart describe how he got into stand-up comedy, and he explained the whole idea of creating a premise v. reacting to one (yes, that idea was Jon Stewart's and not mine.) But he also said that good comics have a brain dysfunction in which their brain will turn to a joke or think of something funny in an almost involuntary way. It's just what happens, and you can either choose to control it, or let it run free. I have never heard a more accurate description of the way my brain works, and this has a tendency to get me in trouble. For whatever reason, good or bad, my brain seeks to turn any situation into a joke, and I get a huge thrill when a flippant or off-the-cuff remark I make gets a bunch of strangers to laugh. The interesting thing is, I have no loyalty to any "style" of comedy. Whatever form it takes: rude, sarcastic, witty, mean, intelligent (it usually isn't), or the most likely form of wholly accidental, if it gets a laugh I have no problem with it. It's sort of unnatural to love the idea of making strangers laugh, and probably suggests a desire to fill some void or lack of attention on my part, but I'm not a psych major. All I know is it gets me high to make people laugh, more so people that I don't know because it seems more honest that way. I don't get it, but more often than not I go with it.

When Jon Stewart was talking about either controlling or letting your brain go, he mentioned that he became a comic and let his brain run wild because he was "too weak to fight it." My problem is that I'm to weak to unchain it.

A Room With a View

Last night was my first night in my new dorm, and I have to admit I'm rather pleased. Our apartment is large and in charge, affording us a huge common area, kitchen and bedrooms. But perhaps the best feature of my bedroom is the view. The entire north wall of the bedroom is windows, which means I have a view of the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Metlife Building, and 3 Park Avenue, where I was an intern for a corporate attorney years ago. At night, while laying down in bed, it is easy to get the impression that one is simply floating over the city, since all you can see is the midtown skyscrapers. I love it so far.

The only drawbacks to my first day at NYU have been the hellacious time waste that was setting up my computer for the internet, and the price of my economics and statistics textbooks. My roommate Matt supplied me with a hearwarming tale, one designed to lift the spirits, of a friend of his who had to spend $400 for a SINGLE chemistry book. Honestly, who needs to know chemistry that badly?

I've had enough Law, but I could use more Order

My sister has a tendency to get hooked on television shows. I remember in the late 1990s, wild horses couldn't drag her away from Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. She was the only person under the age of 300 who watched PAX. After that, she became a rabid fan of "Trading Places" before it was cool to like that show. She likes to point out that it was one of the few times that she was ahead of the curve, and she's right. I openly mocked her and the show, not thinking it would ever take off and become the multi-trillion dollar beast it is now. Lately, the TV show she is digging is Law and Order: SVU. I've got to give her credit on this one, because if you want to feed a ravenous obsession, SVU is your go-to show. The damned thing is one four hours a day on two different channels. Plus, with six or so seasons there's quite a backlog of shows for the diligent fan to peruse. I stupidly worship shows like Monty Python's Flying Circus, which has been off the air for 30 years, and Arrested Development, which was almost cut from Fox's lineup but comes back in a few weeks. In those cases, I do the only logical thing and shell out hundreds of dollars for DVDs.

The Law and Order franchise is, let's face it, a juggernaut. I haven't done the math, and I don't care to, but I think there are about three or four Law and Orders in production, and in all of these shows I have the same problem. I like the police work just fine, but I'd like to see more trial. For me, the trial is where you make your money, that's where the drama is. I know someone is going on trial, there is no suspense there for me. It's pretty safe to guess someone is getting arrested, usually while in his house and saying things like "What's this about?" and "I never killed anyone." And plea bargains are boring. What kind of episode would it be if the cops spend 20 minutes trying to tail you and book you, and you just go "Oh yeah, I totally did it. So does my cell have HBO or what, because I really love that show 'The Comeback.'" I also need the trials because I briefly held delusions of wanting to be a lawyer, but threw them away when I remembered that:
a) Lawyers have to read a lot of dense material, some of which has words like 'habeas corpus' and 'caveat emptor.' My Latin is kind of weak.
b) Law school costs a lot of money.
c) When I worked for two summers at a law firm, not a single lawyer I met enjoyed being a lawyer. They were typically more concerned with ordering Gucci shoes and trying to find one mammoth fee that would enable them to retire in Aruba.

While I'm not going to be a lawyer, I'd like to believe that they are still out there fighting the good fight on NBC. It assuages some of my Wall Street borne guilt.

So my program note to the Dick Wolf, give us more trials. They are gripping and can be somewhat cerebral when done right and make for some good distractions while I avoid writing papers. And as a side note, all the police scenes that you shoot make me late for class when you film around Washington Square Park. Move that inside, and it's all gravy.

Sometimes, connecting with your fans is a bad thing

In a move designed to pry America's collective attention from unimportant things in the news like the Middle East and rising healthcare costs, network television stations broke in with this important news:

He is now going by 'Diddy.'

Yes, according to every website on the internet, Sean Combs has now decreed that he shall be known only as Diddy. Apparently, Diddy is "more personal" and Combs believes the P. was getting between him and his fans. He is now more "exposed."

Of course, being more exposed and personal with his fans will be tough to do from one of his many enormous mansions or yachts, but if anything can connect an artist with the people who spend money to buy his merchandise, I'm sure it's removing one letter from his pseudonym. And it was a wise move, because I believe P was getting between R Kelly and his fans too. But that's just what I heard.

No, not that one, the REAL Orange County

As I was casually flipping around the TV today, I came across MTV's latest televisual crackfest, Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County. I'm pretty sure that title is a joke, but who knows what the real Orange County is like? While I was born and raised on Long Island and now go to college in Manhattan, I've been to California many times, and I like it a lot. I'll spare you the usual East Coast posturing of how Los Angeles sucks, because to be honest, Los Angeles is nice. However, I can see why many people outside of LA hate it. I remember seeing an interview with NY Times columnist David Brooks, who had written a book on America, describe how the rest of the world views the United States. He said, "The world looks at America in the way that America looks at Beverly Hills." It later became clear that America is seen as vain, stupid, materialistic and entirely self-obsessed. All these traits are commonly used to describe Los Angeles, and while I usually defend La-La Land, that was before I saw our friends in Laguna Beach.

I've never been so repulsed and attracted to a show. The characters are so empty, sometimes I can see the stage lights shining right out the back of them, but they've drawn me in with their pathetically one-dimensional storylines. The plot of the show is as such: Lauren (hot girl) likes Stephen (hot guy) who likes Kristin (younger hot girl), but also has feelings for his friend Lauren (aforementioned hot girl.) Kristin is shallow and manipulative, while Stephen and Lauren are saintly and pure. Case Closed. Sounds boring right? You're so stupidly wrong, my dismissive reader. You made the same mistake I made, meaning you ignored rule #1 in television: people will stop whatever they are doing to watch attractive people, especially if those attractive people are young and usually in bikinis. I was so stupid to forget that in my passionate and pseudo-intellectual snobbery, I like hot people on my TV screen, it even makes me feel hot by proxy. The kids on this show, as a magnificent bonus, are also prone to Dawson's Creek-esque exchanges, like so:

Lo's Mom: Lo, it's not a fashion show
Lo: Every day's a fashion show, Mom.

You can't write that stuff. Or can you? Since debuting last summer, the show has confused people with its claims that it is all real, while managing complicated two camera shots, always being around when important and unexpected events occur, being completely linear and having guys with appearing and disappearing facial hair. I, for one, don't care if the show is a little bit staged or completely false. It's a potent mix of attractive people with minor but overly dramatically portrayed problems. Plus, I think those kids are legit--I checked them on thefacebook.

No Know-It-All

One of the strangest things I dealt with during my first year of college was the number of people who told me I was smart. In high school, if anybody thought I was smart, they never said it to me, and in my family, I would never be called smart due to my habit of losing things and not being able to follow simple directions. Yet in college many of my friends, roommates and even some of my professors indicated that I was smart. This naturally threw me for a loop, until I read an article in Esquire by AJ Jacobs. Jacobs is the author of The Know-It-All, a story about his quest to read the entire encyclopedia, a quest he fulfills. The facts he picks up are disparate and usually pointless, but it makes for an interesting read because Jacobs is very funny and writes it knowing that the excercise is both bizarre and comical. I, while not being smart, am like Jacobs in that I have an enormous warehouse in my mind brimming with irrelevant shit. I am constantly busting out facts about Austria, high fructose corn syrup, the 22nd Ammendment, and a host of other worthless crap. It is this collection of trivium that I think is confused for being smart.

To me, being smart requires powers of analysis. I can look at data and remember it pretty well. I don't know if I have a photographic memory, but sometimes it seems that way. So while I can recall the data that was in front of me, I usually cannot solve the problem asked of me. Knowing a little about a lot of things, in my mind, hardly makes me smart, but rather makes me scatterbrained and useless. I have a lot of interests, and I am a very curious person, so I spend a lot of time navigating the paths of wikipedia, not really learning but taking in facts about the election of 1824 and the Suez Canal. When it comes to subjects like history, it was always easy for me, because most classes you take about history before college are just remembering what was in the story and repackaging it. This was right up my alley as it required no real skills, but a great chance to be a poseur and an intellectual ass, two areas where I excel. Now I am an economics major, and while I lack analytical skills, I can usually detect causality. How this all plays out remains to be seen.

The point (which I've long since lost in my ramblings) is that I greatly respect smart people. Understanding how things work or having an analytical mind that can solve problems are seriously valuable talents. If I were smart, I'd feel like the standard and responsibility that often comes with intelligence would be cheapened by some college schmuck who spouts off arcane nonsense about Augustan literature or the geology of Death Valley. I'd probably kick him in the face.

I hope I've made my point, which is that I'm not smart, but I am like AJ Jacobs and know a lot of unimportant stuff which makes me SEEM intelligent. By the way, if you're an attractive girl who is "into" smart guys, this entire post was one huge meta self-deprecating farce and satire. Honestly.

He's sure in charge of me.

This is a very short, but very important and serious post. I feel like I'm going to be found out, so in the interest of full disclosure, I have to say this. If I don't, I think I'm going to burst.

My favorite song, ever, is the theme to "Charles in Charge." I listen to it on the subway every day. I can't stop.

I feel so much better.

A way to kill hours

My new favorite website. I've actually known about it for a little while, but today I spent a lot of time on it, and it just sucked me in, thanks to pearls like this one.

Chick #1: What is up with that dude?
Chick #2: You mean that little girl over there?
Chick #1: Yeah. Oh, OK.

--Tompkins Square Park

The Smartest Man in the World

While I don't fully understand it, my economics and politcal science classes exposed me to game theory, and now I'm very intrigued by it. The whole methodology of studying how people act in a strategic situations appeals to both the junior economist and the pop sociologist in me. Today, when I was listening to an interview with Tim Harford, he talks about one of the founders of game theory, a man named Jon von Neumann. von Neumann was actually a Hungarian-Jewish mathematician who was regarded, in his time, as one of the most brilliant men on the planet, and that's not a title that gets thrown around a bit, but here it may be warranted. He did make contributions to economics, physics, astrophysics, computer science, and mathematics and came up with such cool names for his work, like artificial viscosity. von Neumann was believed to have been blessed with near total recall, and his ideas and theories are used in so many facets of science and technology its incredible.

In the interview I listened to with Harford, however, he mentions that once when von Neumann was putting Albert Einstein on a train, he put Einstein on a train going the wrong way. It kind of lowers the bar for "Smartest Man in the World" a bit.

To finish this fetishized tribute to von Neumann, I'll conclude with two quotes of his that I enjoy. One is a kind of meta philosophical idea, and the second is included because while I like game theory, I'm awful at math.

"Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations."

"In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them."

Never Far From My Heart

I was listening to some "hip-hop" music on the radio today, which I don't do a lot of. I don't mean to distance myself from rap music, as I actually listen to and like a lot of rap music. These days, however, I find most rap consists of telling me:

1. Rappers are incredibly rich. They are so wealthy that they buy things they don't need, like or want and set them on fire on the lawn of a rival rapper.
2. Rappers weren't always wealthy. In fact, they used to live in a small shoebox at the bottom of the East River with their 75 brothers and sisters, all of whom have their own South Pacific islands now that said rap star has made it.
3. If Rapper B thinks they are richer, better with the opposite sex, more talented, have more fans, and are better respected in the rap community than Rapper A, Rapper B and all those people who agree with his take on the situation are unfortunately mistaken and will pay dearly, likely at the hands of a Rapper A's associates.

The notable exceptions to this are rappers like Common, Immortal Technique, and to some extent Kanye. I'm sure there are other good, socially conscious and talented rappers out there, but I don't know them. If you do, let me know and I'll be sure to give them the appropriate amount of "cred" and "props" respectively.

But today on the radio, I heard a familiar voice on the radio as I listened to New York's blazin' hip-hop and r&b. It was a sound I knew so well, and yet couldn't place. It was at this time that I absently pondered, "whatever happened to Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Diddy/Marathon Man?" Then, the unmistakable cry of "Bad Boy baby" reminded me. Oh, there he is.

I'm not sure why, but Diddy tells me the name of his rap label every 3 seconds. It isn't as though anyone who wants to buy his album needs to know the label. I've never gone into a record store and said "I say my good man, I'd like to purchase a new hip-hop album. I'm not sure of the artist, but it was undoubtedly urban in nature and belongs to the label of Bad Boy. Could you assist me?" Of course, I'm not from 1937, but endlessly bleating "Bad Boy" only annoys people when they are trying to drive or dance, and briefly halts the flow of pounding...uh, allegro. (Ok, I don't know music terms, but it jerks the music out of actual music and into an advertisement, and a pointless one at that.)

I wonder if Diddy chanted "Bad Boy, Bad Boy, Bad Boy" as he ran the 26.5 miles of the marathon. I'd have thrown down some of Nelly's Pimp Juice and got the hell out of there.

I wish I could make metaphors

Today I left earlier than usual, and decided to walk around midtown. I took the subway to 50th street, and walked back to the Penn Station. I am something of an ambler when I walk. I have a start point and an end point, but no real plan for that interim time. I duck into avenues, walk in all the cardinal directions and have no real regard for time. It was in this aimless fashion that I stumbled upon the New York Times Building on 43rd Street. I should mention here that I am a regular reader of the New York Times, and I read almost all of the sections: international, national, business, op/ed, arts, and in moments of desperation, fashion and style. Most people swear by the crossword puzzle, but I don't because I am terrible at crosswords and am easily frustrated by clues that seem like the cryptic musings of a heavy LSD user. Of course, I am not as brand loyal as I imagine the Times would like, but I find their reporting to be solid. In short, I am a New York Times fan. All that being said, it did not fail to escape me that right across from the hallowed halls of America's paper of record, was the largest pile of urban detritus I've ever seen on a Manhattan street. It was enormous and had exactly the aroma you'd imagine a stack of garbage the size of Boise would have. To say I was surprised would be understating the case. This was the view--that window view--reporters were clamoring for; a pile of filth. The incongruity struck me as hilarious. The New York Times is America's signature newspaper, and right outside an office staffed with some of the country's best journalists, a building with more Ivy League degrees per square inch than perhaps anywhere in Manhattan, is the premier rubbish hill of the most disgusting crap in New York.

I'm not sure if there is some parallel I can draw between The New York Times, and a huge pile of trash, but I'm sure some Weekly Standard reader will tell me. That's what I pay them for, to make my literary allusions for me.

Save the children and yourself

I've always been a big fan of doing things for the children. Saving their music, donating food to their hungry, and reading to their comically illiterate. Many people--selfish people--don't understand how beautiful it is to help a child, a person incapable of helping themselves. It's important that we recognize that the glorious and special gift that it is to help a child.


Plus, if we don't help them, they will grow up and kill us. Except me, because they will remember my service and loyalty, and I will be made king of the new land. I will sing and dance on the bodies of the foolish who forgot that angry children make poor enemies when they age.

Before Dennis Haysbert did insurance commericals, he was a pretty badass President.

I just finished watching the second season of 24 on DVD. If you are a total loser and read this weblog, you'll remember my earlier post about my roommate Matt's borderline clinical infatuation with this show and Jack Bauer. I mocked him for his fervord at the mere mention of the words "real time," but the show is amazing. If you aren't watching it, and are ambivalent towards getting started, put those feelings aside and get season 1. I don't think you should buy it, because there isn't a real repeat watching value, as I've watched seasons 1, 2, and 4 and probably wouldn't pay to watch them again. That being said, the initial watching value is unreal. Even though I watched the seasons out of order (4, then 1, and now 2), I am completely addicted while I watch them. Jack Bauer is a pitch perfect character: tough, ruthless, patriotic, but intensely vulnerable. I am very good at predicting what characters will do, but it's tough to get a read on Bauer. I like that he is so unpredicatable. Sutherland deserves more awards for this character, and I hope he gets them.

More on 24 later, but someone please give Haysbert some real work. Everytime I see President Palmer in one of those commericals, it kills me. You're better than that Dennis.

Go Away

Look, JM, I know you are reading this. Don't. Close the browser window, and don't come back.

Spellin' Mistaches

For whatever reason, the practice of adhering to an understood spelling of words is out the window. Spelling properly is seen as uncool and ancient, according to urban marketing that has swept every phase of product development in the past 10 years. Lately, if you use 's' instead of 'z', you might as well put your spokesman on a polo horse, because your product is undoubtedly "white."

I'm a pretty hip and with-it guy, as evidenced by the fact that I only wear a belt 2 days a week and sometimes wear my loafers with jeans. I can stand some incorrect spelling in an effort to make your brand seem rebellious. But I have urban friends who think most of this stuff is patronizing bullshit and has become a parody of itself. And I tend to agree. For example, on the ground floor of my office is a smoothie place. The smoothies they serve are complex mixtures of all kinds of berries and the like. They call these concoctions....fuuzh'ns. Say it aloud, it will only sort of make sense. This is the hip way of saying "fusion" because on top of replacing 's' with 'z', meaningless apostrophes are now de rigueur.

It makes me want to throw up all over the phloaah'z.

What happened to the evening news?

A large part of my job is monitoring the news. Ok, that is all my job is. I read the newswires, papers, and watch the news channels in an effort to tell traders (wall street traders, not those involved in the barter economy) what to expect. It's a pretty good job because reading the Wall Street Journal and watching CNN is what I would be doing anyway, but now I get paid for it. Oh, and I have to do it for 8 hours. There are 5 TVs in the newsroom I work in, and they are tuned to the following stations:

- CNBC (with audio always on)
- CNN
- FOX NEWS
- MSNBC
- BLOOMBERG TV

These are all the outlets known as "24 hour news channels." They provide all news all day and all night. However, I am going to let you in on an industry secret.

On an average day, about 10 minutes of news happens.

Of course, you can't just have 10 minutes of news everyday, because if you did what would these pseudo journalists do all day? So these cable stations devised a brilliant strategy: take the 10 minutes of news, and add 23 hours and 50 minutes of tedious and hollow "analysis."

The beauty of this "analysis" is that since no actual conclusions need to be reached, and nobody is willing to point out lies for fear of appearing biased, mindless automatons get facetime on national television to say whatever they want, and to have it repeated every 15 minutes. Of course, they won't be challenged to defend their points to the anchor or audience, because the anchor has no knowledge of the subject at hand. He is a television guy, not an investigative reporter. He doesn't to research on the topic, or ask pointed questions to challenge opinions stated as facts. No, to do this would appear to be taking a stand on the issue and being an "operative," when all it would really be doing is serving the interests of the viewer. Since no factchecking or rigorous work is done, the broadcast consists of having the polar opposites on an issue argue about all the points like children, reach no conclusion, fail to educate the audience on the issue, and be sent off by the anchor saying, "an interesting debate."

It is patently absurd to expand the little news or issues of a day into the entire day. It leaves networks with the only option of offering bloated and lazy commentary disguised as analysis to fill the time. In the end, nobody is well served and the merits of television news are lost.

Go back to 1 hour news broadcasts with thoughtful analysis that provokes the reader to think and engage in the issue instead of being turned off by puerile bickering and apathetic talking heads. The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer does it right.

The End of an Era

At about 1:15 AM this morning, early by anyone's standards, I crept into my house after a night of revelry with my friends (who called me it seems.) My parents were sleeping, so I took great pains to silently approach my bedroom. Once inside, I empty my pockets of cell phone, keys, wal...shit.

I lost my wallet.

Immediately I get on the phone and call the people who I was with. I ask them to check their cars, their backyards, any where I would lose my wallet. I go to sleep without any further news, confident it will turn up.

This morning, it's status check time. All my leads crumble to dust as nobody sees the wallet anywhere nor do I find it in my extensive search including visiting the places I went and inquiring to its status. It becomes clear to me that my inability to find a wallet means I don't watch nearly enough Law and Order. I contemplate calling Chris Meloni and call in that favor he owes me from when I handed him a napkin and stirrer at a deli on University Place. I know he remembers.

Despite my scatterbrained nature, I am pretty good about keeping track of my belongings. At school, I lost my room key, but I found it after about a day or two. Other than that, I keep my stuff together. I quickly did an inventory of what's in my wallet and feel like a Capital One commerical. Credit cards, ATM card, Drivers License, Office ID, NYU ID, train ticket for the month of July, petty cash, health insurance, car insurance. Of all those things, what I really miss is the license. Not having permission to drive is like being 14 again. Thus began a long day of calling credit card companies to cancel cards and filling out forms online to get a new license. I was immensely thrilled to find out I don't have to sit in the cesspool of modern society that is the DMV. I am not too worried about the whole situation, because beyond the train ticket everything else can and is being replaced. It is more annoying and stupid that I have been stripped of everything I need to entertain myself (car and money) because I misplaced something so important. I feel like an idiot who needs to be told to watch my stuff.

I realize that this entire narrative was very boring. Why do you, my faithful and incredibly sexy reader, want to read about the trials of me and my American Express customer service representative? You don't, of course, and I will let you go now before you realize that this entire blog is a waste of time, mine and yours.

Send me $20.

Episode V: Repugnance Strikes Back

In the interest of full disclosure, a lot of this entry is going to come across as self-pitying pathos, but know that it isn't intended that way, and should be taken as critical but honest reflection.

A while ago, I wrote a long and trenchant post about my post-high school life and how I anticipated that this summer was going to be occupied in equal measure by avoiding people I don't like and spending time with people I do like. Unfortunately, it has spiralled into me not really seeing anybody. Sure, I've hung out with my high school friends a few times before I went to Italy. After that, I haven't seen any of them. Part of the blame must come on my shoulders, as I spent a lot of time looking for a job and now that I've found one have little time to hang out during the week. However, I can't help but wonder why nobody calls me anymore. During high school, I got calls all the time, and while we didn't do a whole hell of a lot once we got together, I often enjoyed the meaningless hangouts and just shooting the shit. Despite occupying myself, the question of why this happened and the signs of friendships from one's past are getting harder to ignore. Yesterday on the subway, I was could hear a song about losing a friend from someone's ipod. Last night, I was watching an episode of the hit Canadian comedy "The Newsroom" where the main character George is met by a friend from high school who accuses George of thinking he's too good for everyone and cutting all ties to that group of people. These signs were starting to get absurd. I was turning the whole situation over in my mind this morning while driving to get my haircut, and the answer hit me like a bolt from the heavens and I almost hit a Nissan Maxima.

I'm a bastard.

Now here is where I want you to remember that pathos warning I issued earlier. I am not fishing in the compliment pool for reassurance that I am a nice guy and all that Lifetime crap. I'm a bastard, and I know it. What's worse, I don't do anything about it. In fact, I indulge my obnoxiously sarcastic personality to monstrous and ill-advised proportions. I am excessively rude to people, often to their faces, have virtually no sense of propriety and if I were anymore self-absorbed I'd collapse on myself like a neutron star. It's textbook. For a long time I got away with it and people still hung out with me, though I suspect they did it just to enjoy the show when I turned on someone like an LAPD Rottweiler. Nowadays, after time in college, people have matured (probably) and are wisely reticent to hang out with a narcissistic creep who offers no postivity to a group dynamic. I can't say I blame them, and probably secretly applaud their presence of mind. Who could take all that abuse without some payback mechanism?

If I knew me, there is no way we'd be friends.

Financial District & HBO Does It Again

Tomorrow is my first day at a new job. I cannot say that I know for sure what this company does, or what I am doing for it, but I do know that it is at an address I had no idea existed: 11 Broadway. Before I got this job, my knowledge of Manhattan was fairly good on the Upper East and West sides, strong in midtown between 3rd and 7th, and good in Union Square and the Village. Even in the Village, the lowest number I've seen Broadway go to is in the 600s. In midtown, the building addresses look more like phone numbers. 11 Broadway can only mean that nether region of Manhattan: The Financial District.

I don't mean to denigrate the Financial District. It is a center of American and global commerce. It houses Wall Street, Battery Park, and has views of the Statue of Liberty. That said, it is rather one-dimensional. If you don't want to walk past banks and investment houses, you could take in a museum: The Museum of American Financial History. You see what I mean? At night, save for the South Street Seaport, there is precious little going on. Of course, I won't be there at night, but a place that is so alive in the daytime should have something to do at night. For all its money and power culture, the Financial District is kind of like that rich friend you have. He seems to have it all from far away, but as you approach you realize that money is all he has going for him. Plus, he is overrun with tourists trying to take pictures in front of the New York Stock Exchange. This metaphor kind of got away from me.

***

I started watching the HBO show "Entourage." It is a hilarious depiction of rising acting star Vincent Chase and his boys; Eric, his business saavy manager and best friend, Turtle, his corpulent gofer and best friend, and Johnny "Drama" Chase, Vincent's older brother and current falling star. All of them live off Vincent's dime, and while Eric has a certain hunger to make it and take Vincent to the heights of Los Angeles demi-god, the others are content to go along for the ride. Eric tries to steer Vincent to substantial roles in good movies and build a solid career, while Drama and Turtle try to steer Vincent to parties with truckloads of hot women willing and able to submit to Vincent's good looks, charm and celebrity. Rounding out the cast is the phenom that is Jeremy Piven as super agent Ari Gold. Brash, over the top, and constantly chasing money and women, Piven is pure brilliance as Gold. He is the Ego to Eric's Superego in Vincent's life, while Turtle and sometimes Drama act as the unabashed Id. The show is produced by Mark Wahlberg, and is sort of based on his life getting started in LA with all the hangers-on and getting used to celebrity life. It is like Sex and the City, if Sex and the City were in LA, were funny, and had realistic and engaging plots. Beyond that, the similarities are shocking. The second season has just gotten started, and I am hooked. You should be watching this, because come Emmy time, I think this show might pull a statue or two.

Italy, a piece

So I have returned, triumphant, from my 10 day trip to Italy. It was an amazing trip, and I urge anyone with the means and opportunity to make it. I cannot do justice to the trip in one enormous post, so I will add information about the cities over a staggered period. I might also add my trademark irrelevant posts as well, just so you don't choke on my descriptions of Italy. That all being said, I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention something about the trip.

We flew Air Canada to Rome, which involved a flight from to Toronto, and then a 9 hour jaunt to Leonardo di Vinci Airport in Rome. Now, I like to imagine some people read this page and perhaps might be so bold as to take my advice on something. If you hear nothing else, hear this: for the next two years (minimum) avoid Toronto International Airport like you would avoid a piano being dropped on your head. It is a dingy and labyrinthine study of needless complications. I am skipping around a bit, but pretend I'm Garcia-Marquez. On the way back from Rome, we had our connection in Toronto. Our bags could not be checked all the way through from Rome to our destination, and we had to pick them up in Toronto to pass customs. The procedure for getting our bags was as follows: arrive at terminal 1, take a bus to terminal 2, go to the baggage claim belt, get our bags off the belt, walk through a short corridor, deposit our bags on another belt, take a bus from terminal 2 back to terminal 1, retrieve our bags from a belt, pass through Canadian customs, pass through American customs, mercifully board the flight. Murphy's Law being the unshakable truth that it is, our bags were...lost between that second belt and the third one. As we stood staring incredulously at a conveyer belt full of luggage that nobody seemed to claim, we were running out of time for our flight. We finally filled out some forms demanding that our bags be shipped to us at home. It was a grueling and idiotic enterprise. Toronto Airport's logistics make about as much sense to me as Kangaroo Jack being the number 1 move in America its first week.

Anyway, let me indulge you with some Italy tales. Our first city was Naples, which we arrived in by train from Rome. Italian trains and train stations are nice enough, but are sort of a microcosm of Italian life in some ways. The trains are always a minimum of 35 minutes late--even when they arrive early. Railway station employees seem to not understand that people have trains to catch, and need service quickly. They are all to busy smoking 3 cigarettes at once, watching Juventus play Parma on a TV behind the counter, and gesturing so wildly that they poke small children in the eyes. Nonetheless, our arrival in Naples was in the early afternoon, and it was so hot even my parents, who grew up in tropical climates, complained. Naples is a fascinating city that is an intense study in Italian life. Everyone says that Italy intensifies as you head south, as the more European cities of Milan and Rome in the North are tempered by an international flavor. Not Naples. It is distinctly Italian. There is very little English spoken, and the Italian image cultivated through movies greets you on every corner and cafe. I loved it instantly. Naples has a chaotic and rumbling charm all its own, personified in their taxi drivers. We rode in a lot of taxis in Naples, and they all seemed to have a few things in common. First, every taxi driver in Naples is your best friend, or at least he acts like it. You are infinitely amused when they place their hand on your shoulder and passionately explain to you that since it is after 10 PM, what would cost you 10 Euros in the daytime has now been adjusted to a fair of 35o,000 Euros. If you looked at their faces and didn't speak Italian, like me, you would believe every word of it. These guys should be getting Oscars. The other shared trait among drivers in Napoli is their extreme recklessness coupled with cheerful obliviousness. Naples drivers lunge down alleys and scream around corners in whichever lane suits them, but are blissfully unaware of the danger they put themselves and passengers in. It is almost instinct, like they can feel that enormous van coming around the corner and slam the brakes and swerve around it, only to stand on the accelerator a moment later. It was like a Formula One race with traffic. I used to thing New York cabbies were dangerous, but the Napoli drivers make them look like Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy.
For dinner in Napoli we had pizza, fitting since Napoli is the birthplace of pizza. Italian pizza is generally thinner, has less cheese, but is more filling. It was light and exceedingly tasty without making you feel like you swallowed a cannon ball, a common after effect I get when eating at pizza hut. After dinner, we walked around Napoli's Via Toledo, a major shopping street full of clothing stores, gelato vendors, and cafes. I found it very interesting that one of Napoli's most lively streets shares a name with one of preeminent centers of dullness. You know what people do for fun in Toledo, Ohio? They leave. But enough bashing Toledo, no need to kick it while it’s down. Back in Naples, we grabbed some gelato and headed to a large indoor mall, the name of which escapes me now. Inside, we met some Italians and sensing we were foreign by our baseball caps and cameras, they asked us where we were from. When we mentioned New York, they all got very excited and told us how much they loved New York, how it was so fun and alive. Then one of the Italians, a blond haired, blue eyed gentleman who looked like he knew his way around a nightclub, informed us that he had lived in America as a model for some time, setting up camp in Los Angeles and South Beach. I couldn't say I was shocked--he looked like the type of chap who would live in LA and Miami, but I was amazed at how much enthusiasm he had. It was nice to see. Later, we walked down to the boardwalk equivalent, a sidewalk area off a main road that overlooked the Naples harbor. It was gorgeous, full of soft twinkling lights and the gentle slap of waves against rocks--it was no wonder the Italian youth made this their make out spot, as we saw 15 young Italian couples trying to suffocate each other with their mouths, I thought to myself, "hey, that's Italy."

More on Capri, Florence, Venice, and Rome later.

Banishing Gwen Stefani

Someone, and I am nominating myself, has to tell Gwen Stefani to go away and never return to the land of music. Growing up in suburbia, I was exposed to my share of No Doubt and Stefani, and I cannot remember thinking any of it was good. For some reason, I have not been able to shake her awful cacophony. I can lose a telemarketer with CIA level ease, but Gwen Stefani's claims of not being a "hollaback girl" (we will leave aside the idiotic question of what precisely a hollaback girl is) continue to dog me in my car, on television, and in restaurants.

To me, Gwen Stefani is sort of an embodiment of that irritating Southern California nonsense pop artist who will do anything for you to look at her. People, mostly tween girls, laud Gwen Stefani for being "unique and different" (since we are already leaving things aside, let us add to the list that unique and different mean essentially the same thing.) A lot of things are unique and different, like watching Don Johnson intentionally, or tetanus. You can see that being unique and different isn't always positive. My other gripe with Gwen Stefani is how recycled she is. Not only does her music fail to strike an original chord with me, all of her bad songs sound the same. "Hollaback Girl" sounds stunningly similar to "Hella Good" or "Hey Baby." Plus, all the songs I can think of at the moment start with "H." That is pretty weird too, and probably should be studied by professionals.

In summation, I wish on a thousand stars that someone at ICM reads this and uses their industry power to convince Gwen Stefani that she could refocus her efforts and considerable means to building a music school for kids. Maybe one day, we could be spared another Gwen Stefani. I think we'd all be winners then, and I'd sure feel hella good.

Season 3

Last week, Arrested Development, the funniest show on television, was given a third season. The show has performed moderately in the ratings, but is a favorite among critics and award groups. Let's face facts, Fox currently has the best comedies (Arrested Development and Family Guy) and the best thrillers (24). In terms of entertainment, I don't see how any other network can touch Fox.

I don't know if I've ever extolled the virtues of Arrested Development, but in order to compel you to watch season 3 and maybe buy the DVDs, I would be remiss if I didn't do it now. In terms of casting, this show has hit it on the head. Every single character is matched with an actor who imbues the character with ease and subtlety. Michael Cera as George Michael is perhaps the epitome of awkward teenager, and Will Arnett's GOB struts about with wholly misplaced bravado. In terms of the style of comedy, it plays mostly off the members of the Bluth family's complete inability to think of anyone but themselves and their pathetic attempts at preserving the status they no longer have. They are plagued by envy, greed, rivalry, vanity, and a healthy dose of incest, but best of all don't realize any of it. Except for Jason Bateman's Michael Bluth, the entire family is deeply flawed. If you don't watch the show, you must not have eyes, ears, or that part of your brain that controls enjoyment.

Fox is airing reruns this summer. I implore you, nay I beseech you, do yourself a favor--watch the show and get arrested.

My weekend in luxury

This weekend I went to a party at my cousin's house in Maryland. Actually, house is something of an understatement. This place was enormous--about 20,000 square feet. It had twice as many bedrooms as people, and even more bathrooms. It was a replica of an Italian villa; from the red tile roof, to the balcony, to the twisting marble staircases. There are flat screen TVs everywhere--in fact, I was watching Cribs on MTV, and as I saw Omarion show off his LA pad, I felt vastly superior as I sat in a house much better than the one I saw on television. The best part, however, was the shower.
As I stepped into a bathroom the size of an airport hangar, I saw a glass door for the bathroom. Inside, there were a half dozen nozzles at different heights embedded in the wall. Trying my luck, I turned on the faucets, on opposite walls naturally, and was greeted with the most sensational shower I've ever imagined. Water rushing on me from the front at the right shoulder and thigh AND from the back on my left shoulder and thigh, not to mention water flowing from the side and above. It was Shangri-La with granite floors. Going back to my shower with a mere one nozzle is a rude awakening.

My first house is going to have a massive and complicated shower with water flowing from 20 directions, and nothing else. I am fine with the prospect of living in a huge shower. Just get me a flat screen plasma TV.

Who cares about Paula Abdul?

While doing some research for my final paper, I have been reading through various newspapers and online magazines to find some information about Putin. You can see by the links on the left what kind of newspapers I read, and for the most part, they are relatively serious. Not that I don't like to check up on sports and how Brad and Angelina are doing (and they are doing great--spending a lot of time in Malibu, but wouldn't you?), but for actual "news" I like to go to "news" websites. The past few days, however, I cannot read anything on the internet without being confronted with a major American scandal--the likes of which have not been seen since Teapot Dome in the Harding Administration.

Paula Abdul had an affair with a contestant on American Idol.

Truth be told, I used to be interested in American Idol. It seemed like an interesting concept, and by and large is a meritocracy. I also like watching talentless hacks be told that they are talentless hacks in a pleasing British accent. Yes, I watched American Idol, for about two weeks. After that, my taste for schadenfreude and pathos fully satiated, I went about doing normal things. I haven't really watched it since, but since I read about this story, I have to ask why people even care if Paula Abdul, a 42 year old has-been, had a relationship with some alleged "singer" two years ago? Aside from being deeply intrusive, it's wholly irrelevant. While I first imagined American Idol to be a merit based system, it is also a hugely popular television show that needs ratings. To that end, factors other than talent are probably frequently considered. I can't even conceive the number of levels on which I don't care about this story.

Perhaps the even more interesting question to ask is: even with this affair, why didn't our young hero win and become our Idol? Either that says something about his talent, or the heat in this liason. In any case, it doesn't say much for him.

Television values

This post is more of a complaint that a long joke, but I think it's important.

The past few days, I've been watching a lot of "Coupling." Aside from the show being very funny, I've also noticed how much more leeway British shows are granted. Cursing seems to be completely in bounds, and I applaud it. This comes on the heels of new technology being rolled out for parents to combat the amount of "filth" they are seeing on television. To be fair, there is a lot of stuff on network TV at 9 PM that wasn't there 10 years ago, but I always thought that is part of the reason parents are there--to parent. If you give an 11 year old his own room and a TV, you are giving him the power of choice--to watch Wild On when it airs at midnight. If you don't want your kid watching shows you don't approve of, make it harder for him to watch them. Trying to alter the content on television hurts people like me, who (probably) don't have kids and want to watch programming with some edge to it.

I don't know who told you to have a kid anyway.

My Birthday

Today is my birthday, and for no related reason, I am awake very early. I had lunch with my parents and sister yesterday in the Upper West Side, at a Mexican restaurant named Gabriella's. I enjoyed it very much, but even more than that, I managed to become an official New Yorker. Yes, I got an Ipod (mini.) So far, I've loaded all my music on it, and it sits in my bag right now. I have never before been so excited to walk somewhere, as I can now do it to a soundtrack.

I always really enjoy my birthday, but I'm not sure why. The whole premise of celebrating birthdays is kind of silly--what exactly are you rejoicing for, not dying? Why do you get gifts on your birthday? It seems strangely divorced from logic.

In fact, I think you should be buying me presents all the time

Pompous Weekly

It seems that there is some sort of publication for any activity a human chooses to engage in. There are magazines for fishing enthusiasts, car enthusiasts, gun enthusiasts, pompous conservatives (The National Review and The Weekly Standard), pompous liberals (The Nation and Mother Jones), pompous music scholars (any magazine that mentions Conor Oberst and "genius" four times in one page), and pompous assholes (Cigar Aficionado). Clearly this is telling America that the pompous have a voice and they need to be heard. I say, shout it out, oh Emperor of the patronizing tone, and let the peons and philistines hear you condescend to their sadly humble level. Take up the pompous man's burden.

[Editor's note: I grossly overused the words "enthusiast" and "pompous" because I like they way they look. The decision was purely aesthetic.]

Astor Place

Astor Place is a fine example of a commericalized yet funky street here in New York. I am not sure about the nomenclature, but I think it qualifies as being part of the East Village. From where it starts between Waverly and 8th Street on Broadway, the first few shops you see are:

1. A Vitamin Store
2. Astor Place barbershop (a pretty famous place where famous people get famous haircuts)
3. Coldstone
4. Barnes and Noble

If that isn't an effective cross-section of American life, I don't know what is. All I do know is that I easily get lost on Astor Place in a hazy, consumerist euphoria of discount books and expensive ice cream. Today, as I walked past the Gap (oh yeah, there is a Gap right by Astor Place, but those are sort of everywhere) on 8th Street, I saw two yuppies prattling on about yuppy #1's newest cell phone. I'd like to pretend that I heard them purely by accident, but I was trying to listen to them in a cheap effort to amuse myself. Mission accomplished, and now I will use it to amuse you.

Yuppy 1: Dude, this phone stores over 500 phone numbers.
Yuppy 2: Dude, you don't even know 500 people.
Yuppy 1: Yeah, but with a phone like this, people will be dying to be friends with me.

And he's right. I almost became friends with him on the spot.

Michel "Mindwarper" Gondry

Today I watched 6 music videos directed by Michel Gondry for my writing class. What his videos have to do with writing, I haven't figured it out yet. I don't have too much to say about his videos, I just encourage you to watch them. I will say this: Michel Gondry's only mission is to blow your mind.

And blow it he shall.

College v. High School

When I graduated from High School, I left it behind. I haven't been back since that day in June. I haven't spoken to any of my teachers. I haven't made any earnest efforts to contact anyone who works there. A great deal of this is by design. I was so anxious to come to college and experience all that it had to offer, that I didn't want to miss out on college by looking backwards. In this pursuit, it appears that I neglected my High School, and ostensibly, my hometown. To many of my friends in High School, this is a grevious offense. Some of them feel that I am purposefully ignoring them because I am too good for them, or some such nonsense. In truth, it didn't really cross my mind to call them all the time, or make plans to hang out when I am in town for 1-2 days. That probably sounds horribly selfish, but it's true. There are only a few people from my High School that I take pains to contact. In generous terms, it numbers around 10. I don't really see this as a problem, however, but rather a natural consequence of college.
I feel I should qualify this by saying that I had a great time in High School. For the most part, I had good teachers who cared about their jobs, I had a good group of friends who supported me, and I managed to manipulate enough of the High School infrastructure that I got away with late papers, being late to class, late submission of community service forms, and late submission of college applications. There are about one or two teachers that I want to stay in touch with, but outside them I am not really interested. I am incredibly glad that there are a lot of kids that I knew in High School that I don't have to see again. Most of the people I am happy to never cross again were self-centered and arrogant tools, and a lot of them used to whine about they were so much smarter than everyone, how they were so socially awkward but good-hearted, how the jocks stole the girls that were so sweet and who Lamey McPoser admired from afar, and brag about obscure music and esoteric tv shows that nobody cared about. In short, they were hipsters, I just didn't know it then. I have mercifully left those people behind.
Once I got to college, I was meeting tons of people on a daily basis. I made friends with a lot of them, and we grew very close very fast. By December, I would say I was as close/closer to my college friends as I was to almost everyone I knew in High school, save 3-5 people. By living with these people, it had put our friendship in a time compressor--it felt like we had known each other forever. By now, as the year comes to a close, I am remembering all the kids in my high school who I thought I'd never see again, but realize that there is no real escaping them. It is easy when we are all scattered across the country, but when shoved into a town of roughly 3 entertainment options and about 2 diners, there is very little chance that I can effectively avoid them. I wonder if I can ignore them--I mean really ignore them--or if I'll have to resort to being actively hostile. There is a good chance a lot of my exchanges with those I've ignored will play out something like this:

Weird Guy/Girl: Hey, how's it going? You live in New York now right? How is that? (Girl-->)Oh my god, I totally want to live in New York. (Guy-->)I'll bet you see so many hot chicks. We should meet up some time.
Me: Look Weird Guy/Girl, I didn't like you then, I don't like you now. The only difference now is that I don't see you every day in English class, so I don't have to pretend. Have a nice life, and hopefully this is the last time I'll speak to you in a non-emergency situation (read: This place is on fire or I'm suffering from pneumothorax right here in Applebee's.)

It is going to be a very interesting summer.

My love of Turkish pop

I think it was in 1999, during a visit to India, that I first was introduced to the symphonic genius of Turkish pop singer Tarkan. He had a chart topping smash in the song "Simarik" which I believe translates to "Kiss Kiss" or "Stolen Kiss." You might have heard it covered by a variety of artists, but Holly Valance popularized it in English. I don't know a single word in this song, and even when I looked up an English translation, it confused me more than people who like Sean Hannity. If you are willing to overlook abject bemusement, I think this is a finely crafted pop song. I don't mean to use "pop song" as a pejorative description, just that "Simarik" isn't meant to be exceedingly deep, and is mercifully free of affectation (read: Coldplay.) It is a fun and free song, or at least I think it is. There is something amusing about listening to foreign music, because not only do I know nothing about the lyrics, I don't know anything about the singer. I saw the music video for this song on Indian MTV a few times, but I am not privy to any other information about our beloved Tarkan. Apparently, he is a huge star and is recording an English album due out this Spring, but I've never heard from him since I saw him on Indian MTV 6 years ago. If you can get this song, I highly endorse it. Maybe listen to it while you are alone, as it is impossible to be blue when some faceless Turkish guy is spouting lyrics like:

Seni gidi findik kiran
Yilani deliginden cikaran
Kaderim puskullu belam
Yakalarsam (kiss kiss)

Just go with it.

Washington Square Park

One of the many great things about NYU is Washington Square Park. Surrounded by NYU classrooms, dorms, and other facilities, it acts as NYU's quad, a public square, and in these days of nice weather is a place to sit and marvel at how amazing it is to live in Greenwich Village. I particularly enjoy sitting out there shooting the breeze with a friend, reading a book, or soaking up the assorted characters of the Village. Unfortunately, massive and generally pointless renovations are scheduled to begin in June, and it will render the park impotent for 2 (scheduled) years. However, given that the 2 year timeframe given for the Washington Square Arch renovation expanded to a robust 9.5 years, I'd say the City inspires skepticism in its estimates.

I'm not much of an activist, but there are some things that are worth fighting for. Go HERE to get information about what you can do. Don't be passive on such a crucial issue.

Meet the Federlines

When I saw this on my Google News page, I nearly threw up in my own mouth. The idea is that Britney wants to "express herself" through "art." It is an act of supreme hubris to assume that anyone cares what Britney's dating life was like--and if the pictures I've seen while on line at the store are to be believed, it has consisted of unequal parts Marlboro Light, Cheetos, and iced latte. I imagine that if the best part of your day is to sit down with your partner and recap a day in the life of Britney Federline, on UPN no less, you might as well just quit. UPN is owned by Viacom, as is MTV, which has already blazed new trails in the voyeurism of vapid celebs. I hope that nobody will watch any of these six audio-visual treats that are sure to be self-indulgent shrines to Britney, but I know people will. I can only pray that I won't be one of them.

* * * *

For some reason that still eludes me, I have decided that listening to The Shins hundreds of time will help me retain macroeconomic information, and the more I think about it, I'm sure it doesn't. My only hope is that, in an incredibly happy accident, The Shins have subliminally programmed their lyrics to teach the pros and cons of expansionary fiscal policy.

Fingers crossed.

I knew going to Dartmouth couldn't be good for you

My friend Dom has decided to abuse the free email addresses colleges bestow upon their students by creating the following Dartmouth email aliases:
(note, these are in addition to his primary email, which is just his name--how lame.)

1. Stayhot
2. Seinfeld
3. KelVarnsen
4. VanNostrand
5. GeorgeCostanza
6. Rudy Giuliani

Aside from four of these being allusions to Seinfeld, the first and last are named for a nonsensical saying and a former New York mayor.

I'm trying to get him to register David.Dinkins@dartmouth.edu

Colossus

I'm afraid this post is going to be slightly nerdy.

There is a famous, and somewhat controversial Scottish historian who teaches at Harvard and holds a chair at NYU named Niall (pronounced Neal) Ferguson. Ferguson is something of a hybrid academic, focusing on history, political science, finance/economics and other disciplines. He is known for his books on subjects as diverse as the Rothschild family, the British Empire, the intersection of money and political power in his book The Cash Nexus, and most recently a book titled Colossus; The Rise and Fall of the American Empire. I've read Ferguson's articles before and I really like him, not just because I am a huge geek about this sort of thing, but because Ferguson engages in what is known as counter-factual history, where one makes a claim 'what if...' and then examines the possible consequences. One of his famous and controversial claims is that Europe, and maybe the world at large, would have been better off had Great Britain never gotten involved in the First World War. I must admit, I don't know too much about this particular theory, but it has to do with the costs and benefits of allowing Germany to acquire limited territory in a continental war and having it lead to a free, liberalized Weimar Republic. But I digress, my main point here is the contentions Ferguson makes in Colossus. Ferguson's claim is that in America, it's fine for liberals to call the United States an empire, as long as you hate the fact that it is. For conservatives, it is acceptable to act like America is an empire, as long as you never call it one. Ferguson says this is silly, and that people should embrace American imperialism, contending that historically, the world benefits from an enlightened empire. The major benefits of a strong but benevolent empire are: relative lack of world wars, spreading of free market economics, and development of manifestly underdeveloped regions. Ferguson points to examples of Germany and Japan, where an American influence, which was interventionist and one might argue imperialist, had an overwhelmingly positive impact and has created democratic and economically stable societies. The difference between Germany/Japan and what is currently being called American imperialism in Afghanistan/Iraq is that now, the United States is trying to nation-build on the cheap and by proxy. In order for these things to work, Ferguson claims, the country needs a strong and sustained US presence with US personnel building the institutions needed for real democratic reforms. In Germany and Japan, occupations lasted for 7-8 years, and now American politicians and voters are only willing to devote 18-24 months, and then expect to hand off the new country to natives with little or no experience with democracy. Ferguson contends that America is going about this all wrong, and will have to reconcile the fact that the United States IS an empire, and has acted like an empire since its inception (a little thing called Manifest Destiny is textbook imperialism, as is extending influence into Latin America.)

If you have no friends and are interested in the interface between finance/economics and supranational empire building, Colossus is for you.

New Slang

I have listened to the song "New Slang" by The Shins for the past hour as I've been writing a paper. This song has some haunting, eerily soothing quality about it, and I can't quite understand why I like it so much. I feel like I've heard songs like this one before, yet there is something uniquely captivating about it. I first heard it in commercials for "Garden State," but I didn't know who The Shins were and how to go about finding out who sang that song that goes "oooh oooh oooh." I'm amazed nobody understood what song I was talking about when I wailed that part at them. It was only when I heard someone play some music by The Shins that I recalled that song I liked so much. Now, with it resting firmly in my iTunes player, I can listen to it ad infinitum as I compose my weird writing assignment and read essays by E.B. White.

If anyone knows why it is called "New Slang" please tell me--I'm curious.

What did Ashton Kutcher ever do to you?

I was one of the few kids in my high school to never own a trucker hat. it seemed kind of silly to want to imitate Ashton Kutcher to the point of wearing a "Jesus is my Homeboy" mesh hat. That being said, I like Ashton Kutcher and defend him frequently against people who call him a vapid pretty-boy. For starters, Ashton Kutcher was a biochemical engineering major at the University of Iowa. Now, I don't know what the hell that is, but it sounds complicated and like the kind of thing that requires lab coats and short hair. Secondly, Ashton Kutcher doesn't really come across as a jerk. This is something I find increasingly rare in celebs these days, and while it doesn't bother me too much that spoiled, rich people act like tools, I think we should reward Ashton for not being that way. Finally, I think Punk'd is hilarious. Even when the actual prank is poorly executed, I still laugh at some member of Good Charlotte cursing out a tow-truck driver or something, mostly because I think Good Charlotte sucks and deserve anything negative that happens to them. Overall, Ashton Kutcher doesn't do anything that justifies people thinking he sucks. Or at least that is what I thought before I saw the commericals for "Guess Who?"

"Guess Who?" is a remake of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" which is mentioned in the same sentence as words like 'seminal' and 'breakthrough.' I thought it strange that Ashton Kutcher and Bernie Mac were doing an inverted version of the movie. The message isn't problematic, but the movie looks straight up unbearable. Nothing in the preview made me want to see the movie, except to find out if the girl in it is actually African American, or if she is Dominican as I read in some reviews. I can't decide what this movie is trying to say--that race tension still exists in America, but if you look at people as individuals and see past their skin color, you can can meet some truly wonderful people? If this is the case, the movie is completely useless and not funny. Why do studios keep greenlighting these movies? When is somebody going to make an actual engaging, thought provoking movie with good writing and convincing acting? Oh, I forgot; nobody makes those movies anymore. For every 1 movie I see that is even kind of good, I see previews for 5 that are awful.

I think we should hand over all American Film powers to a oligarchical collective controlled by;
Luke and Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, and others of that ilk. At the very least, I'm assured escapist cinema with lines like, "it's a deep burn...it's so deep."

high fidelity + beautiful girls = $10 for Barnes & Noble

last week, i saw the movie Beautiful Girls, and have been raving about it since then to anyone that will listen. tuesday i was in Barnes & Noble (i so rarely get to use ampersands), and i saw this book. now, i must confess, i buy books like it's my job. not only do i buy books, but i consume them like reuben studdard consumes entire hams. on top of this, i will read books 20 times over if i enjoy them, a feat even the corpulent mr. studdard fails to achieve with his ham.

i bought this book for a few reasons.

1. i had a barnes & noble gift card with me holding a balance that was the exact price of this book. i took this as an omen.
2. i've heard that it has been optioned to turn into a movie that will be a lot like Beautiful Girls, and it is to be produced by brad pitt and jennifer aniston. how could i refuse? everything those two touch turns to gold!
   
3. this book has been described as a mix of High Fidelity and Beautiful Girls, with a bit of Garden State thrown in. this can only spell an enjoyable read.

i have read only a few pages, because i'd had so much to do. but with so little work to do, i can sit back, drink some tea, enjoy a book, and get a hip replacement.

knocking out that whole to-do list in one afternoon.

listening to: Queen "Somebody to Love"
--remind me to talk about how i've become a rabid fan of Queen these past few months. furthermore, remind me to tell you what Nikki Sixx said about Queen. it's pretty hilarious.

matt <3 jack bauer

my roommate matt has a lot of strange quirks, but perhaps the most disturbing is his love of the show 24. now, i've seen 24, and it's a good show. matt doesn't think it is a show--he seems to really believe that jack bauer is an actual federal agent, and he's fighting for america. of course, on some level he knows it isn't real, but that level is frequently ignored for the giddy schoolboy crush matt harbors for jack bauer. not 5 minutes ago, matt described a situation that he has imagined wherein he calls a telephone number established by the show for fans to call in and maybe talk to a star of the show. in this fantasy world, matt gets to talk to kiefer sutherland, becomes friends with him, and matt enters and wins a sweepstakes where he gets to come to the set, and from there the flights of fancy are endless.

i'm sure if it were in any way feasible, matt would marry jack bauer, and live happily ever after.

sweet caroline

today, i caught a movie titled "Beautiful Girls," directed by Ted Demme and starring Timothy Hutton, Matt Dillon, and to a lesser extent Uma Thurman. it is the story of working-class guys in suburban Massachusetts the week of their 10 year high school reunion. Timothy Hutton, who i've always thought is an incredible and underrated actor, comes up from New York City, where he plays the piano and lives with his attractive, sweet and well-to-do lawyer girlfriend. the movie is a funny and poignant evaluation of the way men think about women, committment, life, jobs, and such. Natalie Portman is in the movie, playing the 13 year old neighbor of Timothy Hutton's parents. Portman is intelligent far beyond her years, and seems to get Hutton, and there is a Lolita-esque quality of their relationship, but Hutton just admires how smart and cool this kid is. Nothing sordid happens here, but Portman helps Hutton realize how much he cares for his girlfriend. The camraderie is portrayed honestly, as the 20-something fellas exhibit mannerisms and dialogue that rings true. More than anything else, i'd like to thank this movie for reintroducing me to a songs i'd long forgotten: Neil Diamond's "sweet caroline." Of course, when i say "sweet caroline" you know exactly who it is. This song is so representative of Diamond, but what is so great about it is the chorus. i've described it as "beautifully languid," because it is so cheery and reflects a kind of belonging that everyone wants, and when you have it, you clutch it knowing how precious it is. This is the song you sing with your buddies at a bar, lingerieng a bit too long on the 'caroline.' It is a song that reminds you instantly of friends you'll have forever, of being young and having nothing to be responsible for. It imbues the listener with a longing for the days when your life was so simple it startles you. This song reminds me of people i love, and that i'll have them for a long time. This song, simply put, makes me happier than almost any other.

Sweet Caroline, good times never seemed so good.
I've been inclined to believe it never would.

Tartar

today i went to the dentist. unlike most people, i don't have a pathological aversion to the dentist. i don't particularly enjoy an elder gentleman poking sharp metal instruments into my gums, and then acting bemused when they bleed, but it's not so bad. usually, i am playing some song by Queen in my head, and today it was "killer queen." i derive a disproportionate amount of joy from being praised by my dental hygenist on how well i brush and floss. it's kind of sad and pathetic that i aim to impress a 40 year old woman i see once a year, but by all accounts i am a sad and pathetic person.

continuing along this theme of me differing from most people, i don't see what's so damn great about dogs. dogs are like any other animal, except less interesting and they require you to pick up their feces with your hands. if i wanted to live with a useless ball of hair who slobbered all over the place, made loud and incomprehensible sounds, and forced me to clean up after it, i'd live with anna nicole smith. i can't imagine what dog would add to my life, except shave 3 seconds from my allotted "find my slippers" time, but this doesn't help me because: a) i don't have house slippers and b) i wouldn't immediately wear anything that was just in my dog's mouth. ironically enough, and what would this blog be without irony, i used to beg my father for a dog when i was younger. i thought my canine pal would make suburban life infinitely more interesting, what with all the ball throwing, running about with peals of gay laughter, and endless affection we would share with each other. of course, my father refused, and i was mercifully spared all those late night walks and bags of dog crap.

thanks dad, i owe you big.

you're so vain, you probably think this post is about you

among the billions of things i fail to understand is carly simon's song "you're so vain." my main problem with the song is that carly (i call her carly because we're such good friends) claims that the subject of the song is so vain as to assume that the song is actually about him. the nerve of some people. here is the rub: the song IS about him. that's the object of the song: his vanity. to write a song about someone, and then call them vain for thinking that they are the muse is stupid. it's sort of like shakespeare calling julius caesar vain for thinking "julius caesar" is about him. people should see how pointless the lyrics of this song are, and i should be awarded some sort of cash prize for figuring out how absurd it is. something of the area of $100,000,000 sounds just.