7:00 PM: That was a hell of a game. First time in this tournament that UConn has really been tested. It looked sketchy mid-way through the second half, but they manned up and survived. Contrary to Bilas and Enberg, who must have been watching a different game, the game was played at UConn's pace, mostly in the half court. Missouri, however, showed the Huskies some unrelenting defensive pressure that nagged and stymied them for large stretches of the game. How stymied are we talking about? How does 2-for-16 to open the second half sound? Nonetheless, Connecticut persevered and they're headed for the Motor City.
Three keys to the game: 1.) UConn dominated on the glass, outrebounding Missouri 41 to 23. Thabeet, smothered on offense, contributed with 13 boards and Adrien, who played like a warrior tonight, grabbed another 10. 2.) Pace. See my earlier comments. There were very few Missouri possessions where Connecticut wasn't able to get back on D and force them to run their half court offense, resulting in a lot of missed outside shots. 3.) Kemba. Fucking. Walker. The freshman came off the bench to pour in 23 points, grab 5 rebounds, and distribute a team-high 5 assists. If this kid is our future, we're in good shape.
Congrats to Jim Calhoun for his third trip to the Final Four, and congrats to a Husky squad that, so far, has looked every bit the championship-caliber squad the selection committee pegged them as.
6:55 PM: WOOT! FINAL FOUR, BABY!!!
6:10 PM: All knotted up at 52 points a piece with twelve minutes left. Gentlemen, it is Gut Check time.
5:30 PM: UConn leads by six at the half. I'll tell you what: They're damned lucky to have a lead at all. They've turned the ball over ten times in twenty minutes of play. Compare that with two TO's for the Tigers. Give the Huskies credit for dictating the pace of the game, however. This hasn't been a run-and-gun affair at all, and that's allowed the Huskies to get back and frustrate the Tigers' offense. Still, they've got to hold onto the damned ball better in the second half.
5:20 PM: That damned quarter-pounder with cheese commercial makes me hungry every single time I see it.
4:30 PM: Coming up on tipoff time out in Glendale, Arizona. Forty minutes stand between my Huskies and a ticket to the Final Four. From the way their Elite Eight opponent is being portrayed, Missouri ought to be nicknamed the Roadrunners instead of the Tigers. Word is they're going to try to run their way past Connecticut. It will therefore be in the Huskies' best interest to resist the urge to play that game -- my dogs can run too, you know -- and instead slow the game down, work out of the half court, and rely on their intimidating front line to keep the Tigers from getting into a rhythm. Win or lose, this should be an entertaining game.
Tags: NCAA Basketball Tournament
Are you ready for some tourney action? Because let me tell you, after four days at the office that have felt like four times that, I sure as hell am. Let's Dance, bitchez!
Tonight's UConn matchup with Purdue is the last game in the tournament where, if the Huskies lose, I will be disappointed, as opposed to merely disappointed. My head had them getting to the Elite Eight and then losing to Memphis -- yeah, I know, my bracket has them winning it all, but as always my heart grabbed the pen from my head when I got to the point where I thought UConn was going to lose -- and if they advance that far I'll consider it a pretty satisfying season. Well, except for the indignity of seeing my man Jimmy C lose to Johnnie Clam Chowder, but that's a separate issue entirely.
Looking at the breakdown, UConn scores 9 more points per game, shoots 3% higher from the field (but 3% less from the stripe), grabs 8 more boards and stuffs 3 more shots. The one place where the Boilermakers have an advantage is in steals, where they swipe one more per game. All in all - and acknowledging the caveat that these stats were piled up against totally different opponents - I like our chances. On the flipside, I'd still rather be facing the Washington Huskies of the tissue-soft Pac-10 than a team that slugged its way to the Big Ten tournament championship.
Well lookee there, only twenty minutes to game time. LET'S GO HUSKIES!!!
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What? Oh, that other thing? Don't care. Don't wanna talk about it. Not going to let some Yahoo ruin my fun right now.
Tags: NCAA Basketball Tournament
No Obama for us tonight. We've got a six pack of Brooklyn Pennant Ale chilling in the fridge and we're sitting here getting ready for the Blue State Baseball League fantasy draft, which kicks off at 8:00 PM. My "preparation" thus far has consisted of my usual too-little/too-late scan of Fantasy Baseball Index and the player capsules that CBS Sportsline provides. One of these years I just know I'm going to get serious about this game...
Tags: fantasy baseball
2:05 PM: I'm finding this nascent advertising trend of tying sales pitches to the economic downturn extremely annoying. Yesterday it was that Ford dealership's flag-wrapped nonsense about people trading in their foreign cars so they could buy American instead. Today it's this bit of ridiculousness: "This country's infrastructure needs rebuilding. That's why we're introducing special financing on the truck that's made to get the work done." Right, GMC. I'm sure that's why you're offering 0% financing on your Sierra crew cab, as opposed to the uncomfortable fact that lots across the country are crammed with the things because people are disinclined to buy new vehicles in general and behemoths in particular. Got it.
11:55 AM: Alas, the final day of the Feast is upon us. Let's go Orange!
Tags: NCAA Basketball Tournament
6:00 PM: And the Huskies roll to the Sweet Sixteen easily. Now let's see who they'll face next week: The Boilermakers or the Other Huskies.
4:50 PM: Comfortable 18-point lead for Connecticut at the half. Barring an epic bed shitting, they should be playing next Thursday.
3:53 PM: All right, we're just about set for the tip-off here. Let's go HUSKIES!!!
2:25 PM: Dear Bob Thomas Ford in Hamden, CT. "Americans are trading in their foreign cars and buying American cars"? "Imports are over"? Oh, and "God bless America"? In order: Prove it; No, seriously, prove it; Stick it up your ass.
1:51 PM: I wonder if Bill Simmons experiences a little frisson every time he hears someone use the term "glue guy".
1:46 PM: This just in: Villanova looks fierce. If I could do my bracket over right now I'd pick them to knock out the Dukeschbags in the Sweet 16. (Assuming, of course, that Duke gets by Texas tonight.)
1:45 PM: Can somebody explain this Coke Zero ad to me? Specifically, why is it some huge betrayal for "Coke guys; Coke brand managers" to be drinking Coke Zero? I've seen this ad a dozen or more times and I still don't get what they're trying to say.
9:45 AM: The Big East went 6-1 in the first round. Not too shabby, although that 1 really perplexes me. West Virginia's big win over Pitt in the conference tourney seems like much more of a fluke after the egg they laid against Dayton. Of the six teams that moved on, five are favorites. The best bet to get punked among those is probably Pitt, who looked surprisingly vulnerable in their opener and now faces a very game OK State squad. I don't give Marquette, the conference's lone underdog, much of a chance to pull off the upset against Missouri. The latter cruised to an easy first-round victory while the former could barely scrape by Utah State. Still, four or five Big East teams in the Sweet Sixteen is likely and would be verrah niiiiiice.
Tags: NCAA Basketball Tournament
5:22 PM: Fucking Dayton. Fuck them.
4:52 PM: Eight minutes left and Pitt (1) leads East Tennessee State (16) by only five points. The Panthers were not the number one seed I expected would struggle. (That would have been UConn, actually.) Wow.
2:35 PM: Woot! Two great down-to-the-wire games wrapping up simultaneously. Oklahoma State just edged out Tennessee by a basket, and now Marquette is holding on for dear life against Utah State, up two with twenty three seconds left. Good times.
10:30 AM: Hoo Boy. I'm feeling every bit of my decision to stay up until the final buzzer of the last game yesterday, and 'Stonie has been going bananas all morning long, preventing me from following through on my napping plans. The good news? If today's games are as predictable as yesterday's then the tournament will put me to sleep.
Tags: NCAA Basketball Tournament
4:06 PM: Via Furious, a beautiful photo series of basketball hoops from across America.
4:00 PM: And the Huskies lead by 28 points at the half. That's more like it. That's a number-one seed playing like a number-one seed.
3:27 PM: The tournament is in its fourth hour and I just now opened my third beer. I will now hang my head in shame. Meanwhile, UConn leads the Chattanoogies by only a basket. Cut the shit, guys. Don't let these kiddies hang around long enough to start getting any stupid ideas.
3:07 PM: Less than a minute into the game Thabeet picks up his first personal foul. That is so not cool.
1:27 PM: CBS just broke the news that Jim Calhoun was taken to the hospital earlier and will not be able to coach today. Must be something pretty serious to keep him away from the sidelines in a tournament game. Get well, coach.
1:00 PM: I tried something different this year with my brackets. Rather than relying on my old but proven* method that combines gut reaction with usually outdated notions of a program's worth and/or reputation and bits and pieces of random information I hear on the radio over the last few days before the tournament, I decided to lean heavily on RPI rankings. I'm quite curious to see if this yields better results. (*Proven wrong, that is.)
12:21 PM: And... TIPOFF!
11:30 AM: Sneakers squeaking, balls bouncing, whistles blowing, coaches shouting, CBS blaring "Dah-nah-nah NAH nuh NAHHH nah-nah!" Verily, the Feast is nigh upon us!
Tags: NCAA Basketball Tournament
Every year I reach the point when I'm filling out my bracket where I've advanced UConn as far as they can go based on a reasonable read of their talent level and the matchups on the board and now I have to decide how much further I let my Homeritis push them along. It doesn't help that just the thought of writing another team's name down over theirs in whatever that next round is makes me feel dirty and ashamed all over.
Update: We have nine players in the TwoGlasses NCAA Tournament Pool. Obviously, that's unacceptable. Go out there and harass more people into joining. I mean, really, it's ten bucks. And speaking of money, those of you who have entered: What do you think about doing winner-take-all instead of the 70-20-10 split we've done in years past? With such a small pot, I'm thinking maybe we shouldn't dilute it. What say you?
Update: Obama's bracket. He took Memphis over UConn, which while wholly defensible is something I couldn't bring myself to do. Other than that our brackets are strikingly similar.
Updaet: Hey, Coach K, Obama's too nice a guy to say this so I'll say it for him: Go fuck yourself.
Tags: UConn
It's always bothered me that the same American people who completely ignored the Downing Street memo and stifled a collective yawn when it was revealed that Bush was illegally spying on them and their fellow citizens can routinely be counted on every Summer to completely lose their shit - ranting and raving and circulating boycott petitions - when oil companies jack up gas prices. Likewise, as we enter Day Three of our national round-the-clock Outrage-o-Thon over the douchebags at AIG rewarding themselves for failure with our money, I have to ask: Where was this level of sustained, universal, over-the-top opprobrium when, say, the news about Abu Ghraib broke? More generally, why is it that so many people seemingly cannot access their sense of moral outrage until their pocketbooks are involved? Just askin'.
Tags: moral outrage
This is soooooo true. I've been out of school for almost two decades and I still have that friggin' dream. It's almost like school traumatizes you somehow.
Tags: dreams
Top o' the Evenin' to ye, me bonnie lasses and drunken sots! The wife and I just got back from happy hour at Murphy & Scarletti's in Farmington. 'Twas a brief tipple, but we're home now with the wee ones, listenin' to Irish music and maintainin' our blood alcohol content. Thinkin' a' playin' a little Rock Band in a bit. Feckin' shame they ain't got no Pogues in that game. How 'bout the rest o' ye? How're ye celebratin' this fine day?
Oh the words that he spoke
Seemed the wisest of philosophies
There's nothing ever gained
By a wet thing called a tear
When the world is too dark
And I need the light inside of me
I'll walk into a bar
And drink fifteen pints of beer!
Tags: Saint Patrick's Day
I was thrilled last month when I heard that the Obama administration had put the kibosh on the phrase "War on Terror" and I was even happier when I read last week that they were considering the more substantive step of phasing out the Bush administration's dubious concept of "enemy combatants". Now I've just got one more small request: Could we lay off the whole "detainee" thing? "Detained" is when you get stuck in a meeting that ran late or pulled out of line by airport security. There's a different word that we use for people who we keep imprisoned over long periods of time for one reason or another: Prisoners.
Tags: detainees
Finally got around to watching Jon Stewart's epic smack-down of Jim Cramer and CNBC yesterday. (Note: We watched the actual episode; haven't seen the full, unedited set of clips yet.) I was somewhat surprised at the lack of fireworks. For the most part Cramer just kind of sat there with a sheepish, dog-ate-my-homework look, taking his lumps. A couple of times, notably after being presented with the video clips of his tips for slimy schemers, he tried to parry by suggesting that he was exposing this behavior and now that it was out in the open the government could look at it. This seems about as plausible as a thief, caught in the act of breaking into your house, claiming that he was just "exposing" your home's security vulnerabilities, affording you an opportunity to address them. At any rate, the interview, which spanned an unprecedented two and a half segments, was every bit as good as advertised, and should be required viewing for journalists everywhere.
My favorite part of the whole thing - the bit that made me want to walk into the television and give Jon a righteous terrorist fist-jab - came towards the end and was less an indictment of Cramer or his network than it was a condemnation of the culture they feed off of and help maintain. Stewart pointed out that the problem with shows like "Fast Money" and its ilk is how they encourage the "get rich quick" mindset; the presumption that the market is there to make a quick buck rather than to invest wisely for the long term like our elders always taught us we should do. Wealth, Jon pointed out, should come from work (i.e. creative, productive activity) and not from moving paper around, flipping stocks and gambling that you'll get that big payout. Talk about music to my ears. If there's one message I'd like to see get traction in the wake of our financial mess, that's pretty much it.
Tags: Jon Stewart, Jim Cramer
Pittsburgh. Connecticut. Louisville. North Carolina. One of these things is not like the others. Specifically, one of these teams is not from the best conference in college basketball. Or so I believe, and so, it appears, does the NCAA selection committee.
Color me a little bit shocked. I didn't see UConn holding onto a number-one slot after losing to Pitt in the season finale and then losing that epic tilt with 'Cuse in the quarter-finals of the Big East tournament. But it would seem that the committee thinks highly enough of our conference that those losses are forgivable. And who am I to argue?
Tell you this, though: Giving the Big East three out of four number ones is putting it on the line. A couple of those teams go down early and we'll be hearing from here to Halloween how "overrated" a conference we've got, and deservedly so.
Anyone else want to share their thoughts on the brackets? Consider this a bitching, moaning, and second-guessing thread.
Oh, the TwoGlasses bracket? It's on. $10 per entry. Same scoring as last year. 70-20-10% split of the pot. Let me know if you need further details or if the site hiccups and you need an invite. Get your sheets of integrity in by the deadline on Thursday, bitchez. It'll be a ton of fun.
Tags: NCAA Tournament
1:05 PM: They're playing You Shook Me All Night Long over the PA as we enter the sextuple overtime. I have little else to say. Win or lose, I'll remember this game for the rest of my life.
8:45 PM: In about fifteen minutes Connecticut tips it off down at Madison Square Garden against Syracuse. Really hoping they rock the house tonight because with our upcoming trip to the city this might be my only chance to see them play before the Big Dance. Across the bracket, West Virginia is currently leading UConn's new nemesis, Pittsburgh, by a dozen, and if the Mountaineers can hold on and pull off the upset the Huskies' road to Saturday night's championship game suddenly looks a lot more passable. First thing's first, though: Thabeet and company have to get past the surging Orangemen. Wouldn't want to get ahead of ourselves...
Tags: NCAA hoops
The preparations have been made: Gifts prepared, flowers arranged, card selected and signed, a bottle of her favorite wine at the ready, and I am now ready to kick off Tracy's three-day birthday weekend. Tomorrow, we drop the birds off at the kennel and head down to NYC where we will see the Pogues in concert, grab a couple or three awesome meals, visit the Met on Saturday, and hopefully catch a beer or two with friends before heading back to the Shire on Saturday evening.
Before the festivities commence, however, I've got to clear out a little blogstipation, and so while Tracy yogifies her bad self I'm going to grab two fingers of bourbon and bang out some Slices of Toast!
Much fun has been had this week by lefty bloggers mocking the growing chorus of right wingers threatening to "Go Galt" - that is, to emulate the hero of Atlas Shrugged by withdrawing their oh-so-vital contributions to society and leaving the rest of us to spiral to our economic doom. This mockery is well-deserved; the idea that society would fail if some percentage of loudmouth wingers and glibertarians took to the hills is almost as risible as the idea that they'd be able to survive on their own for more than a handful of days. But for my money the best response to this nonsense was this dead-serious, put-your-money-where-your-keyboard-is challenge from Hilzoy:
If [Galt] was right to think that an inverted morality could triumph only with his sanction, and that the parasites around him were helplessly dependent on his mind, and could survive only with the aid of his self-immolation, then once he and others like him withdrew, that fact would become clear. If not, not.
If Dr. Helen, Glenn Reynolds, Michelle Malkin, and the rest of the bloggers who are talking up the idea of Going Galt had the courage of their convictions, they would make the same experiment. If they don't, it's worth asking why not.
[T]he three most obvious answers are: (1) they do not believe that anything they do is in fact creative or productive, or (2) they are urging other people to do something they don't have the guts to do themselves, like scam artists who convince people to invest their money in schemes they themselves steer clear of, or (3) they have not bothered to think about what they are saying, even to the limited extent required to see that there's a conflict between their words and their actions.
I think that, given the astonishing self regard of those in the conservative "intelligentsia", we can pretty much rule out option 1. Option 2, being predicated on moral cowardice, is undoubtedly true as a matter of fact but also something which no doubt remains unconscious because it conflicts with the aforementioned self regard. The bulk of the smart money, however, should go on option 3. Let's face it: Modern Homo Conservatus may have many readily-identifiable characteristics, but thinking through the results of their adolescent theories about government and the economy is not one of them.
Uh, What you talkin' bout', Willis?
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The 110-story Sears Tower, tallest office building in the Western Hemisphere, will be renamed the Willis Tower later this year, global insurance broker Willis Group Holdings announced on Thursday.
Willis said it was leasing multiple floors in the 1,451-foot 442-meter building in downtown Chicago to consolidate several offices. As part of the agreement the building will be renamed the Willis Tower this summer when the move takes place, the company said.
Yeah. The "Willis Tower". Riiiiiiiight.
Here's my thinking on this bold proposal: Fuck that noise.
This isn't some new sports stadium where it's now customary to hand out "naming rights" to any two-bit operation that can plunk down a pile of cash for a few years of contractually-obligated publicity. This is the tallest building in America, dammit. It's also the most readily-identifiable landmark in one of our greatest cities. I, for one, am not letting some damned Brits come over here and tell me what to call it. No thank you, sir. I pledge right now that until the day I die I will refer to that soaring edifice with the horns on top as the Sears Tower. Are you with me or what, people?
If you're not on the DNC's mailing list, you might not know that they've been running a contest to come up with a rejoinder to Rush Limbaugh's latest round of revolting bloviation - specifically his loud and proud assertion that he "wants Obama to fail" - which they're going to place on a billboard in Rush's home town. Well, the winner is... (drumroll)...
Um, not to be a buzzkill here, but was that really the best anyone could come up with? Because if that's the case then either participation was very weak or the DNC had the snark filter turned up to maximum. Granted, any of the more appropriately pungent suggestions - I'm thinking along the lines of "Hey, why don't you shut your fucking mouth you fat, clueless, drug-addled fuck?" - wouldn't pass muster with the community standards board, but still... this is the winning entry? How about "Don't Let That Bum Rush Bum-Rush America"? (Clever, no?) Or maybe that same picture of Rush's ugly gourd next to "At long last, sir, have you no sense of decency?" (I like that.)
I mean, I'm just sayin', "Americans didn't vote for a Rush to failure" sounds... (sigh)... exactly like something the DNC would enthusiastically approve of.
When I bought Tracy's Peaceful Progression Wake Up Clock from Hammacher Schlemmer for X-Mas I apparently forgot to check/uncheck the box that would keep me from getting emails from them. As it happens, I'm glad I did. These guys are cool in the same way the DAK catalog used to be when I was growing up. They're all about the quirky, the unusual, anything that makes you go "Whoa, that's awesome! I want that." The latest such item to grab my attention? Right here:
Wait, is that a stainless-steel wallet? Sure is. Does yours truly like him some wallets? Sure does.
There are few consumer items that can compel me to browse a display like wallets can. Well, OK, few non-alcoholic consumer items. Watches are probably at the top of the list, but wallets are a close second. They just fascinate me. And wouldn't you know I've had the same increasingly beat wallet for half a dozen years now? Hmmmmm...
Senators Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin want to create a Financial Products Safety Commission modeled after the Consumer Products Safety Commission. You know what? Aside from the moment at around five minutes before eleven where I said to myself "Hey Toast, since there's nothing in the fridge why don't you order the Kung-Pao Shrimp luncheon special from that awesome new Asian Fusion restaurant in town that you and Tracy discovered the other day?" that's the best damned idea I've heard all day long. What I liked even more was the way that Elizabeth Warren - Harvard law professor and bankruptcy expert - framed the issue in the book that inspired Chuck and Dick to embrace this approach:
It is impossible to buy a toaster that has a one-in-five chance of bursting into flames and burning down your house. But it is possible to refinance an existing home with a mortgage that has the same one-in-five chance of putting the family out on the street - and the mortgage won't even carry a disclosure of that fact to the homeowner. Similarly, it's impossible to change the price on a toaster once it has been purchased. But long after the papers have been signed, it is possible to triple the price of the credit used to finance the purchase of that appliance, even if the customer meets all the credit terms, in full and on time. Why are consumers safe when they purchase tangible consumer products with cash, but when they sign up for routine financial products like mortgages and credit cards they are left at the mercy of their creditors?
Don'tcha' love the power of a great analogy? Let's see the anti-regulation clowns get the American people to buy their screeching after that argument starts making the rounds.
Tags: Tracy's birthday, going Galt, Sears Tower forever, Rush Limbaugh, wallets, Financial Products Safety Commission
So the power-hungry dweebs who live in the ninth circle of the sub-sub-sub-basement at work have struck again, adding Haloscan to the list of domains that are blocked from work. Yah-fuckin-hoo, gentlemen. Nice work. Bravo! Bravissimo!
But you see, here's the thing... No, wait, meet me at Camera Three...
OK now, like I was saying, here's the thing: Given that we can be reasonably certain Haloscan doesn't pose a legitimate information security threat to our business, I'm going to assume that you've blocked access to it because you think employees are wasting time commenting on web sites and that preventing them from doing so will make them more productive. You know, the same reason you block access to YouTube and to all the big fantasy sports sites. Free ticket for the Clue Train? You're wrong. In point of fact - and maybe you should sit down for this...
If you blocked access to the entire internet tomorrow, it would not make me any more productive than I am right now.
The problem here is that you are reasoning from a false assumption; to wit, that "being productive" is some sort of default state people revert to when you prevent them from being otherwise. That particular theory only holds true under ideal laboratory conditions, e.g. in the belly of slave ships. In real-world work environments, people spend part of the time working and part of the time not working. The proportional allotment of time to those behaviors is determined by both circumstances and personality type. My productivity level, for example, is contingent on external factors such as my workload and my temporal proximity to impending deadlines as well as to internal factors such as my mood and overall energy level. It is not contingent on access to things that allow me to procrastinate - at least certainly not in the limited, highly-targeteted sense that underlies your presumption that blocking this website or that one will suddenly make me produce more. The need - and it is a need for those of us who are psychologically well-adjusted - to mix productive and non-productive activities throughout the day is like water; it will find a way to get where it needs to go, your best efforts to bottle it up be damned.
So go ahead. Take away my internet access. I'll read more newspaper or magazine articles in the bathroom. I'll go for walks or coffee breaks. Or - and here's a variable to throw into your productivity metrics - I'll bother my co-workers by engaging them in conversations about sports, television, politics, or what have you. What I won't do is heave a frustrated sigh and say "Curses! Ya got me. Back to work."
Tags: the futility of net nannies
Some nerd at Blogger apparently has a clever sense of humor, because there's no fucking way this was just a randomly-generated character string.
Tags: Turing
I'm sitting here right now eating wine-marinated porcini mushrooms and brie and just loving life. Tracy is in Bon Appetit mode, and this is the gorgeous appetizer she's delivered to me and my Mom. It don't get much better than this unless you're out at a five-star restaurant paying through the nostrils.
But here's the funny thing: I hated mushrooms as a kid. Loathed them. Despised them. Wouldn't go anywhere near them.
And now here I am having a mouthgasm over 'em.
This is not a unique thing, the whole "used to hate 'em, now I love 'em" bit. For example, I could never stand green peppers as a kid, and now I think they're the bomb on pizza, in salad, as a side, whatever. And get this: I refused to even try horseradish as a youngster. Wouldn't touch it just on principle. Now? I'd put it in my top five flavors alongside wasabi, garlic and bacon.
Young Me? Sans a clue on the food tip.
Middle-aged Me? Down with the flavor, yo.
So here's the Question of the Moment: What food or beverage did you hate as a kid and learn to love as an adult?
Tags: food
Llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllet's get ready to RRRRRRRRRUMBLE!!!!!!!!!!!
Number One Connecticut takes on Number Three Pittsburgh in a final epic battle for the Big East regular-season championship and quite possibly the number one AP ranking at the closing bell. These are the days I live for as a college hoops fan. Crack a beer or ten, pour an overly-large bowl of snacks, and join me for an afternoon of slam and jam.
Tags: Connecticut, college hoops
OK, you really need to read Fridge's "open letter" to the douchebag who was joking about the Obama chia pet. You really do. Want a taste? Here's the vicious pummeling against the ropes segment:
Perhaps you feel that the world has passed you by (it has). Maybe you think that the things you hold dear (racial segregation) are going the way of the rotary phone (it is). You probably think that this has made our country less than it was in the good ol' days (it hasn't) and you feel isolated in your dismay at a world that's, in your eyes, going down the tubes. So, you construct a crappy, unfunny joke and it's a litmus test. Whether it's funny or not is not the point. You can go around and tell this joke to folks and try and find people that feel the same way as you. You can almost immediately see in their eyes if they're thinking to themselves "move along you unfunny fuck" or "Yes! Someone gets it! Black people shouldn't be president!" And when you find that person you can cling to each other like two castaways in a raging sea of racial equality. Perhaps then you can use a terribly unfunny bit of gallows humor to share your bitterness over a loss of status and reminisce about the days when black people didn't raise our taxes, they parked our cars at restaurants and carried our luggage at the airport.
That, my friends, is the work of a man who needs to blog way more often.
Tags: racism
I can't convey how happy it makes me to hear that Obama is going to lift the ban on federal funding for stem-cell research. Everyone's got their issues that animate them. This is one of mine: That real, live persons with hopes and dreams and memories and actual lives have suffered needlessly; their health, their futures held hostage because a loud group of obnoxious right-wing religious scumbags and their clown president were overly concerned about protecting the "rights" of what are basically clumps of cells. Monday is going to be a good day for sanity and for science and a bad day to be a pig-ignorant superstitious asshole.
Tags: stem cell ban
Humans seem to get into a lot of trouble whenever they deploy the concept of "all". I was reminded of this fact just now while reading two posts - one by TNR's Michael Crowley on the ridiculous demonization of earmarks and another by Steve Benen on the Obama administration's self-defeating ban on employing lobbyists.
Blanket statements and absolutist positions are tantalizing things. They make life simple. They make you appear principled and they make it easier to broadcast your desired position to the masses. Problem is, planting your flag on Planet All usually bites you in the ass. Witness the aforementioned cases. Sure, earmarks are easily abused by Congresscritters eager to bring home some bacony goodness to their constituents, but there is nothing intrinsically bad or inherently wasteful about tagging funding in your legislation to a specific project. Likewise, while the lobbying community is replete with slimy characters who want nothing more than a little old fashioned tit-for-tat from their political targets, it is also home to an awful lot of individuals who passionately advocate for good causes. In both cases, laying down a marker that says these things are bad in all cases is just silly.
It reminds me of a concept that one of my favorite authors loved to promulgate in his books: Sombunall. As in "Sombunall lobbyists are sketchy motherfuckers just trying to work the system." Or "Sombunall earmarks are porkulous nonsense." Sombunall. Use it the next time you find yourself reaching for "all" and see how it works out for you.
"Without a doubt, we believe that there is a definite agenda to destroy America that is being empowered by satanic wickedness and enhanced by Godless citizens." -- "Doctor" Gary Dull of The Faith and Freedom Institute.
This particular Godless citizen has no interest whatsoever in destroying America, but comments like this from the aptly-named Dr. Dull make me want to dust off the copy of the Satanic Bible I had in High School and do some freaky rituals just to see if I can give him an aneurysm.
Tags: Satanic wickedness
The Bad Astronomer passed along this graphic that I just had to share:
OK. And now, back to Rock Band™.
(No, I don't have an addictive personality at all. Why do you ask?)
Tags: popular epistemology
Been a few months since I last did one of these. Last thirteen:
Cindy Bullens - "It's Raining on Prom Night" (Grease - Soundtrack)
"All i got was a runny nose and Asiatic flu"Elvis Presley - "Love Me Tender" (Golden Records)
"All my dreams fulfilled"Norah Jones - "Shoot The Moon" (Come Away With Me)
"And miss completely"Johnny Mercer - "Personality" (Capitol Collectors Series)
"She had a well-developed ... personality"Skid Row - "Monkey Business" (Slave To The Grind)
"Slim intoxicado drinkin' dime store hooch"Phish - "Manteca" (A Picture Of Nectar)
"Crab in my, crab in my, crab in my shoemouth"Cracker - "Wild One" (Gentleman's Blues)
"Were you raised by wolves?"The Pogues - "Young Ned Of The Hill" (Peace & Love)
"A curse upon you Oliver Cromwell!"Led Zeppelin - "D'yer Mak'er" (Houses Of The Holy)
"Oo oo oo oo oo darlin' oooohhhh oh"Nelly - "Pimp Juice" (Nellyville)
"You really wanna put your feet on my rug, don't cha?"Queen - "Fat Bottomed Girls" (Greatest Hits)
"Ain't no beauty queens in this locality"Talking Heads - "Memories Can't Wait" (Sand In The Vaseline)
"There's a party in my mind; and I hope it never stops"XTC - "All You Pretty Girls" (The Big Express)
"The more I have to drink, the more that I can think to say"
Well. OK then. Pretty sure that's the most, uh, eclectic Poddery Barn my 'Pod has ever produced.
Tags: music
"[W]ould it kill these right-wing clowns to learn what "socialism" actually is? Until Democrats start calling for state control over the means of production, the conservatives sound like idiots. The right may not like the idea of a top individual tax rate going from 35% to 39%, but to bash the idea with a red scare is even more intellectually lazy than most of the right's other absurd talking points." -- Steve Benen, pointing out the absurdity of the Party of Limbaugh's favorite new boogeyman.
I would just add that, as always when it comes to spreading ridiculous right-wing memes, the media is culpable as well. It's a lot easier for carny barkers like Limbaugh and Glenn Beck to rail against the "U.S.S.A" when you've got allegedly respectable mainstream journalists like Newsweek's Jon Meacham penning articles titled "We're All Socialists Now".
Update: Bonus QoTD:
"This is a sputtering, rudderless, idea-free movement. There is a reason the only thing they can do is yell 'socialist' and attend tea parties." -- John Cole, reacting to the bold new 12-point plan that Newt Gingrich unveiled at CPAC which consists of -- wait for it -- a whole slew of tax cuts!
Tags: socialism