Sam Thinks About Stuff

Slick, Willie

2009-08-04T16:27:00.002-04:00

So Bubba rolls into North Korea and just straight resolves the latest diplomatic minicrisis Lil' Kim has petulantly caused to drum up attention. Everybody's cracking wise about Bill going in "on his own" to pick up some ladies. But I feel the real question is this: as just about the only thing Kids My Age still remember almost universally fondly from our childhoods, when will Michael Bay get his shit together and make a terrible action movie about the guy?

Too Far, Iron Chef

2009-07-08T13:26:00.004-04:00

[Scene: Me, in my room, futzing around on my piano, about 8 minutes into the escargot episode episode of the Japanese version of Iron Chef]

Chairman Kaga's Voiceover: ...Aristocrats of Medieval Europe described the best portion of these snails as "The Lady's Sweat"
Me: WHAT? EW!
CKV: 'Lady,' of course, referring to the snail itself, and sap points to the juicy broth that collect at the bottom of the shell when cooking escargot. It is not the meat of escargot that is best, it is in fact the juices left in the shells. So, don't waste a drop of "The Lady's Sweat." [This is accompanied by softcore-pornographic shots of vaguely viscous green liquid being poured from a snail shell]
Me: EW! WHAT?

It's rare to encounter something in the culinary world that sounds as unappetizing as "The Lady's Sweat;" who would've thought it'd turn out to be EVEN LESS APPETIZING THAN IT SOUNDS?

GROSS, Iron Chef. I know you're all Japanese and stuff but COME ON. Suckling pig, abalone, those eels whose heads you have to nail to the cutting board so they won't wiggle away while you're trying to DISSECT THEM ALIVE, natto; all of this stuff is ok. But seriously. "The Lady's Sweat"? Snail spooge? Gross.

Relatedly, I volunteer "waugh!" as the interjection for situations of mingled bafflement and disgust. As in:
"Yo dude, I just shotgunned a beer that'd been sitting out open since Saturday!"
"Waugh! Why would you fucking do that?"

BREAD!

2009-06-30T10:47:00.004-04:00

I thought I'd share a bread recipe. It's adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, which is a totally rad (and totally aptly-named) cookbook. I tweak a little, here and there, obvi, but it's all for the best, I think.

1 3/4 cups bread flour
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 pkg instant ("rapid rise") yeast
2 tsp salt (kosher if you've got it and are using a food processor; regular otherwise, see why below)
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp "neutral oil" (i.e. veg oil)
~1 1/2 cups rice milk (or other "milk," dairy or non-)

*I recommend doing this in a food processor, if you've got one; otherwise, you're really gonna have to mix the crap out of it in a big bowl with a big wooden spoon.*

Integrate flour and yeast (i.e. don't just dump them in, mix them up a bit.) Add the sugar and the oil and keep mixing (I recommend pulses on the food processor, or, as mentioned above, mixing the crap out of it if you're doing it manually.) Add the "milk" slooowly, until a firm, sticky ball forms (the whole wheat means it's gonna be both firmer and stickier than white dough [plus I usually make my doughs a little wetter than some, it seems.]) If you add too much milk, just add more flour, a small pinch at a time, until you get the right consistency.

Let this hang out (in the bowl of the food processor with the top on, or covered with paper towels or something in the mixing bowl) for about 10 minutes. Go get a snack, brush your teeth, have a smoke, whatever (it could be longer than 10 minutes, whatever.) Congratulations! This is called an autolyse (or an autolysis, from the Gk. auto "self" + lysis "liberating, loosening"), and I read about it somewhere on the internet I can't find right now, but basically it's just giving the yeastlings a head start ("loosening themselves up," as it were) before the salt comes in and starts to regulate like Nate Dogg. Come back, and mix in the salt (this is why I actually recommend against kosher salt if you're mixing this bread by hand: the big crystals of kosher salt dissolve REALLY SLOWLY into the dough, so you really have to knead them in like hell in order to avoid pockets of über-salty dough.)

Pour a VERY small amount of veg or olive oil on a piece of paper towel, and rub it all over the inside of a pretty big wood or plastic bowl (not metal.) Put your newly-salted dough in said newly-greased bowl and cover (with plastic wrap, paper towels, or a clean kitchen or tea towel if you got one [ours are sketchy.]) Let this rize for about 2 hours, or until doubled in volume.

Get some flour (it doesn't matter what kind, AP is fine here), and sprinkle some out on your cutting board or a clean counter. Take your dough out of the bowl and just work it, folding it in half over itself, pushing the bubbles out and around. Think deep-tissue massage. When it's more-or-less back to the size it was, and there aren't any visible seams in the dough (i.e., try to smooth it out into one coherent thing, plz), shape it into a "loaf" or a round or whatever you want, really (you could at this point, theoretically, cut it into 3 pieces, roll those pieces into long strands, and braid this sucker like challah, but that'd be a little weird.)

And now...Let this hang out (woo!) for like an hour. This is called benchproofing, and the longer you benchproof your bread, the bigger and airier it's gonna be. (I once wound up benchproofing a loaf for 3 hours, and when I came home, it was like twice the size of my copy of Bittman. I baked it as-was, and the result was an absolutely gorgeouus, gigantic loaf that completely collapsed when you tried to cut or tear a piece off. Still delicious, though.)

And now, for some roleplaying:
YOU have made a delicious BREAD DOUGH. You are in your KITCHEN. You have pre-heated your OVEN to 350 degrees. To your LEFT, there is a spray-bottle containing 1/3 cup water and a tablespoon of cornstarch. To your RIGHT, there is a small saucepan (or kettle) being heated to boiling, as well as a baking pan. Do you want to:
SPRAY the water-cornstarch mixture on your DOUGH
Put the near-boiling WATER into the baking pan and put it in the OVEN
Do BOTH
Do NEITHER
(Here's the deal: the cornstarch-water mix, which you can also just brush on with a pastry brush or whatever, makes the outside of the bread all brown and sexy and 'artisanal.' The boiling-water rig helps to regulate the temperature in the oven, and leads to a crunchier, thicker crust. Obviously, you could do neither. But if you're someone who passes on the opportunity to improve their crust, I'm not sure you're so welcome around these parts...)

BAKE for like 45 minutes, or until it smells and looks amazing and sounds hollow when you flick the bottom (not too hard, please.)

REALLY IMPORTANT: YOU MUST LET IT REST! Please. For my sake. For like, half an hour, 45 minutes. It's worth it! Believe me!

Woo bread!

I'm Sorry, But

2009-06-29T10:31:00.005-04:00

This post, by a seemingly well-meaning woman I have never met, nor probably will ever meet, found by some light surfing after following a link from someone I "know" on twitter, really pissed me off.

For those of you who aren't link-clickers, it's a post about "raising a non-rapist." The Moirae have given this woman the grim onus of raising (gasp!) a (probably-)Straight White Male. So, naturally, in order to save society from her son, she has to specifically, explicitly mold him into a non-rapist:

It starts with teaching him that no means no, and that only yes means yes. It means that even though his best friend is almost a year older than he is (just-3, to his over-2), and taller, and larger, and more energetic, and arguably more aggressive -- even though she is all that, he is male, and she is not, and while I don't encourage her to walk all over him either, I do insist that he really listen to her noes, or make sure he gets yeses, when he wants to hug and kiss and touch and play with her.

This all very well could be fine. It could be! Boundaries! Consent! &c! But kids are exercises in unintended consequences, and I can't help but fear for this little boy-child, taught that what's between his legs is a dangerous, potentially uncontrollable thing that he needs to be conscious of all the time, lest he hurt someone around him.

I understand that this is a tricky subject. I understand that the vast majority of rapists are men. But "raising a non-rapist" makes two big assumptions: first, that all, or at least most, rapes, are entirely the result of rational processes; and second, that "rapeyness" is something that needs to be specifically quashed in boys, separately from other character-improving efforts. I (surprise!) disagree with both of those premises, although were someone to show me a study or two proving the first one, I'd be willing to change my tune.

I guess, ultimately, the point is this: my own parents' marriage was basically a total disaster. My mother drank heavily, and my father was verbally abusive a LOT. But they were both, in their own ways, completely committed to my sister, my brother, and me. They wanted to be good parents; they wanted us to become good people. They were both (and still are) totally crazy, basically, but they put their backs into it, and we came out OK. And that's the thing: neither my brother nor I were ever "raised not to rape," my sister was never explicitly educated to fight against the constant barrage of misogyny &c. "Don't hit girls" was as close as we got, but even that was worked into the greater anti-violence agenda. My brother and I are both generally very nice to women, and my sister doesn't take shit from nobody, regardless of their gender. So, I guess really what I'm saying is that raising good people should be the goal, regardless of gender, or gender norms, or your feelings about gender norms, or your feelings about other people's feelings about gender norms, or your parents. ESPECIALLY your parents.

Maine is So Gay

2009-05-15T13:25:00.000-04:00

SO I'm 'friends' with the Maine Freedom to Marry Coalition¹ on the Prosopobiblion, and earlier today they sent me a message that started like this:

Women in Harmony, a 55-voice women’s chorus based in Southern Maine, will present its spring concert, “Seasons of Love,” in celebration of the recent passage of LD 1020, the new law giving same sex couples the right to marry in Maine.

It's a shame that when people think of the fair state I grew up in, they only think of lobsters and pine trees, and not about a phalanx of ~~Smith~~ ~~Wellesley~~ Barnard grads singing chorally-adapted folk songs and 'adapted' Passamaquoddy ritual chants in celebration of finally being able to marry their acupuncturists.

It's also another reason why I'm not too worried about any sort of Prop 8-type shenanigans, although, obviously, efforts are already underway. Maine's just too gay. Think about it:

1)Assuming native Mainers are conservative enough to want to repeal the gay-marriage law³, their numbers have been dwindling as young people leave the state to go do anything else, any other place.

2)Who CHOOSES to move up to the cold, ill-lit woods of Maine? Hippies, that's who. Hippies, many of whom are lesbians/have lesbian friends/had a lesbian phase. And especially since Rummy closed the state's military bases, honest red-state sentiment is bleeding away.

That's not to say there aren't fundies and homophobes aplenty in the Great State O', but I'm pretty sure they're completely outweighed by the little-l libertarians and the hippies/yuppies/yippies/&c. I hope.

¹Yes, the website is actually mainelymarriage.org, because why would ANYONE EVER pass up such a GREAT pun like that?!²
²People from Massachussets, that's who.
³And I have reason to believe that Maine conservativism is of a distinctly Yankee libertarian quality. A lot of the folks up in the woods don't seem to care what you do, as long as you don't try and infringe on their guns/lobsters/logging/&c.

Ha-ha

2009-05-12T11:52:00.000-04:00

“In 1972, the Clean Water Act, which called for ’swimmable, fishable waters,’ prompted a Potomac purging,” wrote Time. “But last fall, the appearance of intersex fish — which have male and female organs — renewed concerns about swimming, fishing and drinking the water.”

("Volvo Ends Up in the Gowanus Canal", New York Times)

[Insert joke about Republicans here]

Password Plus Is Growing On Me

2009-04-06T14:49:00.000-04:00

Host: The clues are 'boots' and 'hairdo.'
Betty White: 'Boots' and 'hairdo'...that could be anybody. Dolly Parton?
Host: It's not Dolly Parton, though that's what I was thinking...
Betty: Oh! 'BOOTS' and 'hairdo'!
[Everybody cracks up]
Host: See what I have to live with?

Sam Writes Short Fiction About International Finance

2009-04-03T21:01:00.000-04:00

Ahmedinejad: Hola, Hugo.
Chavez: As-salaam-aleikum, Mahi. What's up?
Ahmedinejad: It's that Obama guy. He really pisses me off!
Chavez: Would you say he 'gets your goat?'
Ahmedinejad: Har har. But seriously! He's so unflappable!
Chavez: What?
Ahmedinejad: Bush reacted to every little thing I did! I could taunt him all day!
Chavez: Sure, he was hot-headed...
Ahmedinejad: Hot-headed? He was a child, Hugo! Oh, it made me feel young again, in a way not even my Just For Men beard-dye can reproduce.
Hugo: Ohh, my friend. I see. I miss him, too.
Ahmedinejad: Yeah...
(Pause)
Ahmedinejad: This Obama! All he talks about is "Economy this, economy that." What's a credit-default swab anyway?
Hugo: Swap.
Ahmedinejad: What?
Hugo: Nevermind. Hey...listen: I've got an idea.
Ahmedinejad: What?
Hugo: So he cares about the economy, right? Let's start a bank together!
Ahmedinejad: A what?
Hugo: A bank! An anti-capitalist bank!
Ahmedinejad: Oh man! Yeah! That'll get his attention!
Hugo: Yeah! C'mon, Mahi!
Ahmedinejad: Yeah! Thanks, Hugo, you're a real pal!

Sam De Horatii Carminibus Putat

2009-03-31T17:56:00.000-04:00

Acceptus Columbiae collegio, I've decided to start doing more latin and greek. Ergo vobis praesento primum carminum Quintii Horatii Flacci, translatum memet:

Maecenas atavis edite regibus,
o et praesidium et dulce decus meum:
sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum
collegisse iuvat metaque fervidis
evitata rotis palmaque nobilis.
terrarum dominos evehit ad deos
hunc, si mobilium turba Quiritium
certat tergeminis tollere honoribus,
illum, si proprio condidit horreo
quidquid de Libycis verritur areis.
gaudentem patrios findere sarculo
agros Attalicis condicionibus
numquam demoveas, ut trabe Cypria
Myrtoum pavidus nauta secet mare.
luctantem Icariis fluctibus Africum
mercator metuens otium et oppidi
laudat rura sui; mox reficit rates
quassas indocilis pauperiem pati.
est qui nec veteris pocula Massici
nec partem solido demere de die
spernit, nunc viridi membra sub arbuto
stratus, nunc ad aquae lene caput sacrae.
multos castra iuvant et lituo tubae
permixtus sonitus bellaque matribus
detestata. manet sub Iove frigido
venator tenerae coniugis inmemor,
seu visa est catulis cerva fidelibus
seu rupit teretes Marsus aper plagas.
me doctarum hederae praemia frontium
dis miscent superis, me gelidum nemus
Nympharumque leves cum Satyris chori
secernunt populo, si neque tibias
Euterpe cohibet nec Polyhymnia
Lesboum refugit tendere barbiton.
quodsi me lyricis vatibus inseres,
sublimi feriam sidera vertice.

(Text from Perseus)

My translation:

O Maecenas, with high kingly ancestors,
both my defense and my sweet honor:
there are those who delight in the noble palm
and in collecting Olympic dust on the track
after the turning-post has been shunned by the torrid wheels.
This man, if the mob of malleable knights
contend for the threefold honors exalts it
to the ruling gods of the earth, another
if he preserves whatever is swept up from
Libyan threshing-floors.
You could not, even with Attalic offers,
induce one who delights in cleaving his paternal
fields with a hoe to cleave instead the
Mytroan sea, a frightened sailor with a Cyprian ship.
The trader who fears the African wind wrestling
with Icarian waves praises rest and his homeland;
unable to learn to suffer poverty, he soon rebuilds
his shattered crafts.
There is he who scorns neither glasses of
aged Massican*, nor to take away a part of the whole day,
now stretching out beneath a green arbutus,
now at the soft head of a sacred river.
Many rejoice in the war-camp, and the intermixed sound
of lituus and tuba,** and in wars detested by mothers,
the hunter stays beneath a cold sky,
heedless of his soft wife,
whether a deer is spotted by faithful pups
or a Marsan boar ruptures the smooth fields.
Prises of ivy on the learned forheads stir me up
to the highest gods, soft choruses of Nymphs
with Satyrs, and icy glens cut me off from society,
if Euterpe does not hinder the reedpipe,
nor Polyhimnia*** shrink from stringing the Lesbian**** lyre.
But if you implant me among the lyric bards,
I will hit the stars in the highest pole.

*a kind of wine
**two kinds of war-trumpet
***Euterpe and Polyhimnia are musical muses
****not like THAT; 'Lesbian' refers to the isle of Lesbos, home of the great poet (and yes, legendary vaginal snorkeler) Sappho

Sloppy, I know. But Perseus' english translation is particularly unhelpful, grammatical exegesis-wise.

I feel like that's a decent use of an afternoon. More tomorrow, probably!

Sam Learns About Stuff

2009-03-27T12:18:00.000-04:00

It's been a pretty educational 15 minutes here at 1070 Bway this fine morning:

I. So I keep hearing blah blah "stress tests for banks" blah. Right? I had NO IDEA what anybody actually fucking MEANT by 'stress test' up until just now*:

The only way to make sense of Tim Geithner’s “stress test” for banks is to assume a kind of triage. Banks that are reasonably healthy right now -- whose assets are fully adequate to fund their liabilities, and can make new loans...

I'm still really unclear on how exactly all this goes down, whether there's an acceptable leverage ratio vs "if everybody asked you for all of their money TODAY, could you do it?," &c. But still: a little clarity.

II. So I've lived in a seriously Puerto Rican neighborhood for over a year now, and while I was working I worked in a room full of Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and an Ecuadorean. But I'm an awkward white kid from Maine. So I've always been at kind of a loss about the best way to refer to all these people collectively. Until earlier today:

Most Latin people know meringue like most white people know rock but some white people know good rock and underground rock..... Where a lot of Spanish people know “so much” about Latin music, there's still a lot they don't know about so we dig that up and do our own mixes.

That's from an interview (on the excellent FreeWilliamsburg) with a DJ from La Mega 97.9, aka Car Service Radio. That is to say, he knows what he's talking about. What have we learned? "Latin" and "Spanish." I've been saying "Latino" and feeling awkward about it, so I'll stop.

*I don't read this blog. I searched for "'stress test' bank definition" on google.

Yuano?

2009-03-26T16:26:00.001-04:00

So have you heard this stuff about the Chinese wanting a non-dollar global currency, and Michele Bachmann freaking out about it &c &c?

I have a really hard time believing this will actually happen. Here're the things:

China is holding lots and lots and lots of dollars at the moment

The Euro already exists

So that means they would have to start this new currency using non-Euro countries that also didn't want to move to the dollar. Then, they would have to sell off their dollars. The best part is that IF their new currency takes off, they'll take significant losses on the sale of their dollars (cause who would buy them instead of the new fabulous China-backed currency?), which would actually weaken their new currency. Plus most of the countries who would sign on would be either a)poor or b)run by crazy people (or both).

Sooo, basically, calm down, Michele Bachmann, is what I'm saying.

OK

2009-03-26T14:04:00.000-04:00

OK. So: I called the Columbia Classics office, and talked to a lady, who told me I didn't get the Ph.D. OK, fine. I asked her, what about the master's. She said that they didn't know I was interested, but, she could get the file back, and since they'd just looked at my stuff, they could maybe have a decision about that by as early as TOMORROW AFTERNOON! AGH! SO maybe the future's looking brighter?

Rebel EXTREME Procrastinator!

2009-03-25T12:49:00.000-04:00

Looking through my documents folder to find something better to submit as my writing sample for Masters' apps, I found a transcript I made of my favorite Sealab 2021 episode of all time. So, I present to you, good reader(s), MONKEY BANANA RAFFLE:

Quinn: So, how long has he been out there?
Debbie: Three hours.
Stormy: That’s frickin’ amazing!
Quinn: It’s frickin’ impossible! The pressure should have exploded his head instantly.
Stormy: Mmkay.
Sparks: Holy crap, I know who that guy is! (Switches on TV)
News Announcer: What would you do with a triiilllion dollars? Well, if you said ‘Build a golden fortress at the center of the earth to enslave Troglodytes,’ your name must be Max Stone, the Rebel Extreme Trillionaire! (Cut to Max’s press conference)
Max: Internet! I just bought it! Ha ha ha, suckers. (Cut back to Sealab)
Sparks: Uh, w-where the hell did he go? (Max bursts through ceiling)
Stormy: Aaah!
Sparks/Quinn?: Woah, look out.
Debbie: How the hell did you get in here?
Max: Jet pack, transportation mode of the future!
Quinn: And how did you survive the water pressure?
Max: It’s called mathematics! Look it up, dummy!
Debbie: Wait, what?
Max: Enough chitty-chat. I claim this place in the name of me, Max Stone!
Dan: (With guitar) Extreme rebel trillionaire!
Max: Muchayus graceeyus, Dan.
Quinn: You—You can’t claim Sealab! It belongs to the U.S. Government!
Max: Government? Hah, hold on a sec. (Pulls out phone; speaks into it) Hello, telephone? Get me the government. Beep boop boop. Hello, government? Buy, sell, buy, sell! Ha ha ha, you’re an a-hole. Click. (TV comes on) 
News Announcer: This just in: the rebel extreme trillionaire Max Stone has just purchased Sealab. Plus, Beeeeesss!!!
Max: Yeah, I own this tank of crap now, and I’m taking it to the extreme!
Sparks: Awesome!
 Quinn: Extreme? This is a serious research station!
Max: Seriously boring. So I filled the hallways with rabid alligators.
Alligator: Rowr!
Stormy, Sparks, Debbie, Quinn: Aaah!
Max: A-whip-cracka! (Hits alligator with stick)
Alligator: Uurgh. (Walks off)
Max: If I was you, I’d get yourselves some big sticks.
Sparks: M-Mr. Stone, let me just say: it is an honor, Sir. Whatever you need—
Max: Well thanks for kissing my ass, head-set. (Uses jet-pack claw to give Sparks a wad of bills) Money. (Again) Some double money.
Tornado: I don’t care who you are, you can’t take over my Sealab. I won’t letcha!
Max: So you’re telling me I can’t, I can not do something? (Jetpacks over to Tornado) Well, folks told Max Stone he couldn’t bungee jump the Grand Canyon, usin’ a thousand deadly cobras as a cord. Guess what happened, stupid? Slide! (Slide of Max bunjee jumping the Grand Canyon with a cord made of snakes)
Dan: (With guitar) Extreme rebel trillionaire…to the max!
Max: Great job, Dan-O. You got yourself a real gift, son: the gift of you’re fired! Ha ha ha ha, get it? You, hair guy! Grab that guitar, and make it sing!
Stormy: Mmmkay.
Tornado: Belay that order! Mr. Stone was just about to leave.
Max: Jetpack! (Jetpacks over Dan, setting him on fire)
Dan: Aauuugh!
Max: You mean just about to lead. You see, that’s where we differ, ‘cause I’m Max Stone, a leader of men. You women out there, hit the bricks!
Tornado: What?
Max: You couldn’t lead a monkey to a banana raffle! A leader needs funny catch phrases, like “Take it to the max!” and “Monkey banana raffle!” (Pause)
Tornado: Well, uh, I got a catchphrase, I’ve just, uh, I’ve just never had a chance to use it. (Clears throat) ‘Damn, that’s cold, y’all!’ (Pause)
Stormy: (Laughs)
Max: Carbonite gun. (A laser gun emerges from Max’s jetpack) Monkey banana raffle! (The gun shoots a bean which encases Tornado in carbonite)
Tornado: (Being encased) Damn that’s cold y’all!
[SCENE]
Quinn: (Pushing frozen Tornado) Damnit! This is not over! Aw, hell no! Gonna get him dethawed, call the government, and then—(dropping frozen Tornado, it breaks) Aw damn. Nyah-ah-ah.
[SCENE]
Max: (Hovering on jetpack) What we need around here is a clear hierarchy, with me at the top. Hey, you there, put my head on a dog.
Stormy: (With guitar) Head on a do-o-og!
Max: What’s with the blank looks, people? Remember Egypt?
Guy: What the f*** is wrong with this guy?
Max: Oh I am so sorry. Was that too extreme for you? Well how about this, hot shot: you’re fired, monkeyballs! (To Dr. Virjay) What’s your job?
Dr. Virjay: I am Sealab’s medical officer. Pleased to meet you.
Max: Well have fun in the burn unit, Dago, ‘cause you’re fired. (To next guy) What’s your deal, eyeballs?
Next guy: I make the robots.
Max: Well, if a big-ass robot comes up to you and says he’ll be back, you better listen to him, ‘cause you’re terminated. (Flies forward briefly, then back) Pop culture reference; look it up, stupid. (To Fire Inspector) Now, what’s your deal, Red?
Fire Inspector: I’m the fire inspector!
Max: Too easy.
Stormy: (With guitar) He said ‘too easy,’ ‘too easy!’
Max: Hey, earmuffs.
Sparks: I love you.
Max: You’re in charge until I get back. I’m going to the moon for a sandwich! Anybody else want one?
Stormy: Uh yeah, I’d love a moonwich.
Max: You got a million dollars?
Stormy: Mmno.
Max: So you’re not getting a sandwich, are you, jackass? To the moon! (Jetpacks away)
Everyone: Hooray!
[SCENE]
Quinn: (Finishing reassembling Tornado) There. Good as new. Well kinda.
Dr. Virjay: (Approaches, opens soda on Tornado’s nose)
Quinn: Hey, knock it off!
Dr. Virjay: Oh, what, so now you hate sodapop?
Quinn: No, I’m talkin’ to him.
Christian: (Chipping away at Tornado’s groin) I gotta have that d***!
[SCENE]
Max: Mm—cheese just takes better on the moon. Ain’t dat funny?
Moon Waiter: [Moon language]
Max: (Using jetpack arm to open briefcase full of money) Moon money. Go get yourself some more of them silver britches, moon-waiter.
Moon Waiter: [More moon language]
Max: Hot damn, I love this moon!
[SCENE]
(Frozen Tornado looking at snack machine)
[SCENE]
Stormy: Look, Quinn, Rebel Extreme Trillionaire Max Stone may have some quirks, but you gotta give him one thing: (With guitar) He gave me this guitar!
Sparks: Uh, the point is, he’s been here all of what, ten minutes, and Sealab’s already running better than it ever did when the government was in charge, OK?
Debbie: And have you seen the budget for your research lab, Quinn? (Stormy pokes Quinn with guitar neck) He increased it 300%!
Quinn: 300%? Wow, I (Stormy pokes Quinn a 4th time) Stop it! (To Debbie) I could finally resume my genetics research! 
Flipper Guy: (Walks on) Haven’t you done enough already?
Quinn: You get back in your cage!
Flipper Guy: (Running off) Meow!
Quinn: Now, well. The real point is, this is gonna go horribly wrong, and I’ll end up savin’ the day. Y’all can’t see that?
Debbie: You’re the non-seeing one! Max is great! I mean, he helped me start a mission at the center of the earth!
[SCENE]
Max: Listen up, Troglodytes: there’s gon’ be a little lady comin’ around these parts, preachin’ the good word. I want y’all to be on yo’ best behavior. I’m looking at you, Gragamel.
Steve: My name is Steve.
Max: Now get back to minin’ my gold. A-whip-cracka! (Cracks whip, alligator bites Steve’s leg) 
Steve: Aagh!
Max: Damnit, I told y’all to Get Big Sticks.
[SCENE]
Frozen Tornado: (Thinking) So…beautiful. Urgh…urgh…uh…urgh (inches way towards snack machine, tips it over on himself) Haha, haha, ha ha ha…I can’t eat it…
[SCENE]
Quinn: (Running in) Sparks, what’s wrong?
Sparks: What? Everything’s fine.
Quinn: The vaporators!
Sparks: Chuggin’ away at 150% efficiency, my man.
Vaporator guy: (In monitor) Hooray!
Quinn: Uh, kelp! Problem with the kelp?
Sparks: Harvested this morning, chicken little.
Quinn: Beeees!
Sparks: Uhh…there aren’t any?
Quinn: Damnit! Isn’t there something, or someone around here, that needs saving?
Debbie: (On monitor) Quinn, come quick!
Quinn: Ah, here we go! ALAARM! ALAARM!
Sparks: Eh, seriously dude, you need to calm the f*** down.
[SCENE]
Quinn: (Entering lab, followed by Sparks) ALAARM! ALAARM! ALAARM!
Debbie: What the hell is wrong with you?
Quinn: I thought there was a ALAARM!
Debbie: No, silly stupid dumb-dumb. We wanted to show you the giant electron microscope Max got you.
Quinn: Really? Huh. (A shark falls from the sky)
Sparks: Oh god!
Stormy: Aaahh!
Debbie: Demon! (The shark bursts open, Max emerges with jetpack)
Stormy: Ahh!
Sparks: Holy crap!
Debbie: It’s Max!
Sparks: I know that dude!
Max: First man in history to eat a shark from the inside out. Cross it off the ol’ honeydew list. (Jetpack arms emerge with pencil and clipboard. He crosses off “Become human parasite” from his “Trillionaire To Do List,” including “Trick bear into going to college” [crossed off], “Create Earthquake Machine” [crossed off], “Invent Time Machine” [crossed off], subitem “Travel to past; kill Father” [not crossed off])
Sparks: Welcome back, Sir. As per your instructions, I fired like 100 more people and equipped all the hallway alligators with nail guns.
Max: That’s awesome! And now I’m bored.
Sparks: What?
Debbie: Uh, come again?
Max: Bored. This place sucks. I’m outta here. (Jetpacks away)
Sparks: Wait, wait!
Debbie: Don’t go!
Stormy: (With guitar) Don’t leave me baaaaaayyy-byy! (Max comes back)
Debbie: Please, you can’t leave, Sir. This place has never run more smoothly. Even flipper guy is contributing!
[SCENE]
Flipper Guy: I’m still sexually active! Hooray! (His phone rings, he answers it) Flipper Penis.
[SCENE]
Max: (Jetting over to Quinn) What do you say, eyeballs? Y’want me around?
Quinn: Aw man, yeah, please stay.
Max: Well, super! But it’s gonna have to be a hell of a lot more interesting in this crap of tank! Scratch that, reverse it.
Sparks: Uhh, sir? I’m just spitballin’ here, but what about bats, made of fire, just bouncin’ off the walls all the time?
Max: Ooh, I love it. You people keep surprising me with stuff like that—
Stormy: (Hits Max in the nuts with his guitar) Booyah!
Max: My balls!
Quinn: Stormy!
Max: No, that’s great, I love it. You totally surprised me, son. Keep up the good—
Stormy: (Hits Max in the balls again) Booyah!
Max: (Unphased) Nope, seen that one already, you’re boring me. You gotta think of the craziest thing you can. Set it on fire, chase it with a shark, and then you’re getting somewheres!
Quinn: (Turns and runs) Beeees!!!
Max: You dumb dirty bastards. Now what did I just say, people? The bee thing’s old hat. (Kicks shark carcass) Seen it. Now you just follow my instructions—
Bs: (Rushing across screen) B B B B B B B B B B B!!!
Everyone but Max: Aaagh! (Go under)
Max: Ha ha ha, I love it! Never saw it coming! Ha ha ha! (Pause) Nope, bored again.
[CREDITS]
Troglodyte (Steve?): Do troglodytes go to heaven?
Debbie: Uhh, no. (Pause)
Troglodyte: Is it ‘cause I’m gay?
Debbie: You’re gay?
 Troglodyte: We’re kind of all gay.
Other Troglodyte: Yeah, there’s no lava women.
Debbie: Then, I’m afraid you’re all going to burn in fiery lava pits for the rest of eternity.
All Troglodytes: Hooray!
First Troglodyte: I’m a gay man, yay.
[END]

(What does it say about me that I apparently already had a "Max Stone: Rebel Extreme Trillionaire" tag?)

FAILOUT

2009-03-23T11:23:00.000-04:00

GOD. Have you heard about this Private-Public Investment Thingie Tim Geithner proposed today? Let's just say that had Barry waited to go on Leno until tonight, he could have compared his bowling to this instead. Basically the government asks private investors what they think a certain charmingly-retitled "legacy asset" (why not "albatross," instead?) is worth, and then they give whoever says it's worth the most 97-100% of the money to buy it, sometimes in the form of government debt (for mortgages and stuff, as opposed to the more complicated securities which you and I will be paying for in cash.)

The thing that irks me here is, right: this crash was mostly caused by everybody pretending things cost more than they did. This program, by getting private investors to buy stuff on the company dime, completely incentivizes PRETENDING THINGS COST MORE THAN THEY DO. Listen: I have a bag of shit. You have a bag of shit. The government arrives, and says that if I buy your bag of shit, they'll give me $10 to do so. Same goes for you. Even a Special Olympian could tell you that you and I will both be $10 richer, but will still both be holding bags of shit at the end of the day.

(HT Dealbreaker inter alios.)

Master's progs

2009-03-22T23:24:00.001-04:00

STILL haven't been definitively rejected from Columbia, but I don't have enough time to sit around and wait to get rejected.

SO this is the list of master's programs I've assembled so far, with app due dates:

CUNY: Apr 14th
SFSU: May 1st
UCSB: May 1st
Columbia: Jul 15th
Bryn Mawr: Jun 30th

2 schools in the city, two schools in Cali (one in Pennsylvania...eh.) I think I have a really good shot at a master's, cause I've already missed the deadline for applying for funding, so I'll have to pay, so everybody not having any money should be less of a problem. I like Bryn Mawr and SFSU the best, I think. We'll see. Any other suggestions (theoretical blog readers...hah.)

Ups & Downs

2009-03-19T17:12:00.000-04:00

SO I've been rejected from 5 of the 6 Ph.D. programs I applied to, and seriously doubt I'll get into the 6th. I told my advisors this via email, and just got this response back from one of them:

Sam,
I am somewhat surprised that you have not been accepted anywhere. It is not your fault but probably the fact that you went to GW which is not considered to have a 1st rate classics department (actually it does not have a classics department but a joint department with other languages and this never looks good). In this case whatever your qualifications are and whatever good (rather best) things people have to say about you might not have as significant effect as in the case of someone who went to a 1st rate undergraduate department. It may well be that the current financial situation affected some of the fellowships too (I know from prof. Keesling that tenure tracked job advertised in September were canceled in November and there were about 8 such jobs left by December. That's down from the usual 40-60). An MA might be a good idea but note that most first rate programs tend not to give fellowships in this case. Most people in your situation would go to a post bacc. program.
It is shorter, less expensive, and if the program is good (e.g. Penn) it helps one get into a good school. The problem is that you are such a good student that it will probably feel like a waste of time.

So, that makes me feel a little better...

Thoughts on Stuff

2008-10-02T17:49:00.000-04:00

I. I was listening to the Faint earlier today (whom I absolutely love) and realized that this song has developed an eerie relevance viz. the Looming Financial Crisis:

Some lyrics:

as i lay to die the things i think
did i waste my time, i think i did- i worked for life

all we want are just pretty little homes
our work makes pretty little homes

like a cast shadow
like a fathers dream
have a cut out son
what's a worse disease
to get that pretty little home

...

all we want are just pretty little homes
our work makes pretty little homes
agenda suicide, the drones work hard before they die
and give up on pretty little homes

(Caesura mine, lyrics from here.)

Oooh...I've been thinking a lot about the Faint's weird puritanical streak recently, after listening to them in the car-ride home from D.C. last weekend. Sasha pointed out that they kind of hate sex; listening to their corpus, they seem to generally be repulsed by physicality in general. Cf: "Casual Sex," & "Worked Up So Sexual from Blank Wave Arcade; "Glass Danse," "Your Retro Career Melted," & "Posed to Death" from Danse Macabre; and "Erection" & "Birth" from Wet From Birth.
Interesting. They also hate on hipsters (passim) and the pharmaceutical industry ("Symptom Finger"). One could definitely locate them in some sort of thematic and/or moral space close both to the Roman Satirists and to 16th- and 17th-century (and beyond) Christian writers, which is funny, cause they make dance music.

II.
Watching last night's Daily Show just now (on my computer), I was struck by some stuff:

First of all: does Peggy Noonan talk like that all the time? I feel like that'd be kinda draining.
More importantly, Jon at one point accuses McCain (/some abstraction of Modern American Political Discourse) of talking to voters as if we were children. Stewart asks Noonan why McCain can't say "I'll won't let gays get married and we'll try to overturn Roe v. Wade" instead of "I'll pick judges who'll strictly interpret the constitution and won't legislate from the bench." See, Jon: That's how it's ALWAYS BEEN. Appealing to the Founders (in whatever form: Protestantism's doctrine of sola scriptura, Roman emperors appealing to the principles of Augustus, &c.) is one of the most powerful political tactics. And it's hardly a tactic, really. It's really just practical manifestation of the human tendency to advantageously alter the past to suit current situations. "I'll do it the way we used to do it!" is intimately connected to the equally pervasive "Golden Age" meme (which I once heard is generally established as approximately 50 years earlier than "Now," whenever "Now" was. In retrospect, this seems like not far back enough [relatively speaking], and may have possibly only applied to ancient peoples with little established history [nor anything really resembling modern history whatsoever] and very short life spans, but whatever.) The thing that really frustrates me about partisanship is that it blinds people to the bigger picture: the hierarchies and interrelationships that exist between the Haves and the Have-Nots, the Rulers and the Ruled; and the discourses and praxes that maintain and strengthen those structures. McCain has absolutely no need to be forthright about his agenda, that's simply not how it even works. Nobody, except possibly nymphomaniacs with Asperger's, would ever say "Hey, wanna go fuck in my room?" And yet you don't see Jon Stewart criticizing anyone who uses the decades-old "Wanna get high in my room?" line.

III. Who else is excited for the Palin-Biden debate? It's gonna be like watching a puppy running into an electric fence, over and over and over, for 90 minutes. Schadenfreudey!

IV. Yo, it is cold in Brooklyn.

A Shockingly Good Point

2008-09-10T18:22:00.000-04:00

It's like a really bad Disney movie. You know? The hockey mom, 'Oh I'm just a hockey mom from Alaska,' and she's the PRESIDENT, and it's like she's facing down Vladamir Putin and using the folksy stuff she learned at the hockey rink. It's absurd, it's totally absurd, and I don't understand why more people aren't talking about how absurd it is.

It's true! How long until the Internet produces a video of Palin hunting terrorists with a plane? (BONUS QUESTION: Considering the McCain camp has already compared Obama campaign workers to wolves, will the McCain camp make that video first?)

The most shocking part? The quote's from Matt Damon.

Celebrities offering cogent, accurate political opinions? What's next? Dogs and cats living together?

(P.S.: Go watch Ghost Busters)

Yay Britney!

2008-09-07T23:12:00.000-04:00

Britney Spears won 3 VMAs tonight, delivered 3 brief, coherent, charming acceptance speeches, and looked great.

I'm so relieved. She's become imbued with a certain cultural significance by her meteoric rise and very public meltdown. Her mental health has become res publica, and her rehabilitation will do us all some good.

Más 106&Parkblogging!

2008-09-03T18:07:00.000-04:00

Now with me saying nice(-ish) things about V.I.C.!
Specifically, "Wobble"

I)The video's dedicated to Cab Calloway. It's a classy touch (since they bite his style the WHOLE TIME), and also, it's nice to see ANYONE in contemporary music making any mention of anyone who made music before 1955.
II)I don't know how much V.I.C. does in the production room (although I cannot imagine him having all that much to do with the 3-man "Package Store" production team), but in the video, he does almost nothing. In the Collipark mode, there's a multi-part hook that accounts for most of the actual song. Introductory pre-song skit aside, V.I.C. is like the 4th person you see. It's almost as if he's smugly emphasizing his novelty status.
III)Is this the first time the word "vibrator" has appeared in a song on 106 & Park? 'Cause it's pretty awesome.

ALSO: the reaction of the Livest Audience to Robin Thicke (Alan Thicke's son, he looks like this [for the record]) is BLOWING MY MIND. He's looks (and, to a great extent sounds) like the second coming of Barry Manilow. And they (=mostly girls in the front) are EATING THIS SHIT UP.
SLIGHTLY RACIST FOLLOW-UP ESSAY PROMPT: Compare and contrast Robin Thicke and Barack Obama, placing special emphasis on transcending racial animus and cheekbones.
UPDATE: Now Terence J and Roxie are comparing Alan Thicke to Barack Obama themselves!

[BONUS ADD VIDEO:

Cab Calloway + Betty Boop = FUCKING AWESOME. Props to my dad for playing shit like this for us when we were kids.]

I <3 This Video

2008-09-02T18:09:00.000-04:00

And it's even a T-Pain song! [Embedding disabled by request (but seriously, watch it)]

My favorite parts (OMG SPOILERZ!): "Welcome to WISCANSIN" and the pantomime bear with a top-hat.

There's a really excellent air of whimsy here, which I REALLY appreciate, especially in hip-hop videos. Despite the fact that there is just as much weed being smoked in your average rapper's abode as in your average rock band's—if not more—the videos tend to be relatively formulaic, at least in comparison to rock videos. (Which is not to say rock videos aren't formulaic; cars, girls, and [artificial-]wind-swept performances are now wholly cliché, largely thanks to the '80s. But it is precisely because rock videos had the 80s, in all their leather-clad overabundance, that such formulas have had the time and exposure to become cliché in the first place. The format's been given time to breathe a bit, I suppose.) This could be because of the smaller corpus, but I suspect at least as much credit has to be placed on the lack of wide-scale involvement in hip-hop videos by over-moneyed white boys with film degrees. I would point to Sabotage by the Beastie Boys as an example of what could have been.

I suppose some consideration could be given to the possibility, over time, of the more marginalized "indie" rap genres coming to prominence as a percentage of the overall cultural share of "hip-hop," in a way comparable to the progress made by "indie" music over the years. But I have to go pay rent now.

[BONUS ADD EMBED:

Pantomime Horses! It's a cold world.]

A Happy Accident

2008-08-27T17:54:00.000-04:00

Gov. David Patterson knocking John McCain:

Gov. David A. Paterson, continuing his oratorical assault on John McCain as Democrats gather in Denver for their national convention, used a phenomenon known by physicists as the “Parallax Effect” to slam the presumptive Republican nominee.

...

“When something is so far away that you cant even measure it, you take an object that’s a little closer. And by knowing the distance between you and that object, you can now assess how far away the third body is,” Mr. Paterson told New Jersey delegates in a speech on Wednesday morning.

Astronomy metaphors from a blind guy!

David Patterson: Awesome Governor, or the AWESOMEST Governor?

[Hat Tip: Wonkette]

AAARGH!!

2008-08-26T17:43:00.000-04:00

There's a commercial for Wendy's stupid new artery-clogger wherein a girl offers a guy a bite of her salad, and the guy responds that he's a "Meatatarian." He then takes a bite of his sandwich which has CHEESE AND BREAD ON IT. He also has french fries, which are (technically) made from POTATOES!

I'm sorry. This commercial comes on ALL THE TIME, and it really INFURIATES ME.

It's so infuriating as to not even be on stupid YouTube for me to link to. God damnit.

ALSO: WENDY'S. YOU ARE NOT NOT FAST FOOD. YOU ARE AN ESTABLISHMENT WHEREIN ONE IS SERVED 'FOOD' FROM BEHIND A COUNTER IN A RAPID FASHION. GET THE FUCK OVER YOURSELF.

Again, I realize it's just a stupid slogan and I'm a worse person for getting riled up by it, but still: I AM FUCKING RILED.

Also also: Bangkok Dangerous looks like the most retarded movie of all time. Seriously. The marketing campaign is literally: "ACTION MOVIE! EXPLOSIONS! ASIAN CHICKS!" Towards the end of the trailer, since it's an action movie, the time comes for the gravel-voiced announcer to make a pun based on the title. So he says, "Things are about to get...Dangerous." That's not a pun; that's a fucking crime.

I Love Theoretical Math Articles on Wikipedia

2008-08-26T16:39:00.000-04:00

LOVE them:

An approximation algorithm is called a c-approximation algorithm for some constant c if it can be proven that the solution that the algorithm finds is at most c times worse than the optimal solution. Here, c is called the approximation ratio. Depending on whether the problem is a minimization or a maximization problem, this can either denote c times larger or c times smaller, respectively. For example, the vertex cover problem and traveling salesman problem with triangle inequality each have simple 2-approximation algorithms. In contrast to that it's proven that the traveling salesman problem with arbitrary edge-lengths can not be approximated with approximation ratio bounded by a constant as long as the Hamiltonian-path problem can not be solved in polynomial time.

They're like those embedded 3-d Magic Eye posters for your entire left hemisphere! If you look hard enough, you can see a sailboat, travelling the shortest route between several islands that are various fixed distances from each other.

Addendum:

2008-08-25T18:34:00.000-04:00

Kim Kardashian just said that this year she wanted to "do things that make [her] uncomfortable" and "step out of [her] box."

...

_Buttsecks?

The Dream Is The New T-Pain

2008-08-25T18:25:00.000-04:00

"Feat." in the Number 7 AND Number 6 videos on today's 106 & Park? GTFO.

Where ARE you, Nate Dogg? Truly, the world mourns for thee. Please, come back and Regulate all over these inferior fools who have welled up in your absence like feudal states after the fall of the Roman Empire.

David Brooks Is an Idiot

2008-08-24T03:35:00.000-04:00

"Barack Obama has decided upon a vice-presidential running mate. And while I don’t know who it is as I write, for the good of the country, I hope he picked Joe Biden.

Biden’s weaknesses are on the surface. He has said a number of idiotic things over the years and, in the days following his selection, those snippets would be aired again and again.

But that won’t hurt all that much because voters are smart enough to forgive the genuine flaws of genuine people."

(Emphasis mine)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

You WISH, Brooks. Voters are petty and borderline amnesiac.

Like, who gets PAID to write shit like this? I was doing an OK job of not being upset earlier, but now that I'm drunk, I can say it: Joe Biden was a fucking STUPID CHOICE. Sorry, Barry, but Biden means you're playing McCain's game. Biden's a complete and utter toolface who, by virtue of being a slimy career politician, has believable foreign policy credentials. Woo-motherfucking-hoo. Ugh. Hype is most of what Barry had going for him, and, by picking Biden, he acknowledged it as such, and, in doing so, deflated its power.

The Politics of Drafting

2008-08-20T17:54:00.000-04:00

At a town hall meeting in New Mexico today, John McCain endorsed the draft, telling a pro-draft question-asker "I don't disagree with anything you said."

The question is:
1)Will enough of the right kind of people (i.e. people who don't spend their days writing "Moulitsas" after their first name all over their notebook) will notice/care about this to put it on the teevee tonight/this week/ever?
2)IF (and, obviously, only IF) this does become an issue, and McCain is forced to address it in some way, will he back out of this statement? Sure, it's on the internet, but he's a politician, and the draft issue actually comes equipped with a really handy escape-hatch: "I respect the bravery and heroism of the men and women of our volunteer military..." &c, &c. Yay troops! Yay military! Yay [Apologizing politician]! Points are scored with the right demographics, the end. But McCain is also pitching himself on his "straight talk," such that actually being coerced into repudiating his own statement in a relatively short time-frame would potentially do some damage (consider Obama's recent polling woes against the background of the "moving to the center" meme that's been percolating all summer for the general idea.) The thing is, a lot of people (NOT just THE MSM [boo! hiss! off with their heads! &c], but real, genuine, vote-casting people) completely buy into McCain's honest maverick schtick, because he sells it hard, and it makes sense to people—McCain plays on the whole Rambo/The A-Team locus in the American popular consciousness. The net effect is why I wonder about 1, above.

I'd like to think that reinstating the draft is held so abhorrent among the general populace that McCain's support for it would significantly decrease his popularity. On the other hand, there are a lot of people whose bellicosity has survived (if not increased) in the face of the senescence and/or obesity that has long disqualified them for military service, but not for voting.

I still don't think it'll ever get brought up effectively, though.

[Hat tip Queerty]

(Totally ADD BONUS LINK: NAND)

The Onion Is Just So Great Sometimes

2008-08-14T18:05:00.001-04:00

From an article about Obama's secret hillbilly brother:

A statement issued last week by Obama's top adviser, David Axelrod, claimed that the two lived together only for a brief period in 1981, shortly before Barack left to attend Columbia University and Cooter had to drop out of chicken-killing school because an air conditioner fell on his head.

Brilliant.

Work is Gonna Be SO Much More Tolerable

2008-08-11T18:22:00.000-04:00

The Daily Intelligencer says the Yankees might not make it to the playoffs. This would be AMAZING. I've always considered the Yankees to be kind of evil, and when they STOLE JOHNNY DAMON from the Red Sox after the Sox beat them for the first time in forever, their status as the Evil Empire of baseball was cemented in my mind. Plus, I'm not a Sports Guy by nature, and it's REALLY HARD to care about baseball (I like to say it's the reason they invented SportsCenter.) So, people (=New Yorkers=my coworkers) not talking about baseball this fall will be really pleasant.

NOTE: I sort of like the Mets, in as much as the only things I know about them are that they're underdogs and from Brooklyn. So if they do well and people talk about them, it'll be substantially more tolerable.

Good Stupid

2008-08-11T17:48:00.000-04:00

The New Yorker, that most ivory of aesthetic towers and highest of Critic-with-a-capital-C dudgeon, loves Wipeout, the absolutely amazing summer throw-away "competition show" (as TNY calls it) on ABC. Somebody (Gawker? Mollie? I just can't TELL ANYMORE!) once referred to it as "Guts for grown-ups," which is EXACTLY what it is, except in the water, and (obviously, in these oh-so po-mo times), 300% snarkier. I think the final obstacle in Wipeout is way less hard than that final huge chaff-and-boulders-and-shit-spewing mountain at the end of Guts.

I first caught it at the beginning of the summer (maybe the 1st ep, even) at Mollie's, cause she and Rach don't pay for cable. Which is to say: Mollie and I (especially I) are fucking BLEEDING EDGE cultural mavens.

RIP Isaac Hayes

2008-08-10T17:12:00.001-04:00

OH NOES!

"Why are so many good people dying?" -Roomie Rachel*

*Quoting friends/roommates on your blog copywright Julia Allison

It's Stuff Like This That Prevents Me From Being Too Worried About November

2008-07-31T13:12:00.000-04:00

The f'ing WALL STREET JOURNAL OP-ED PAGE DOESN'T LIKE MCCAIN.

It's funny, because the editorial actually accuses McCain of acting like his opponent will lose the race on his own; in fact, it seems like Obama is the one who could be resting on his laurels right now. Hopefully (see what I did there?) he doesn't.

[Via TMN]

Barack Oblogging

2008-07-28T19:20:00.000-04:00

Radley Balko basically captures all my quibbles with Obama in his latest Fox News column (yes, he does a column for Fox. Get over it.)

The thing is, every single one of these are politically easy positions. Willie Nelson has earned my everlasting ire (despite his absolutely amazing collabo with Snoop Dogg [SPOILER: IT'S ABOUT SMOKING POT]) for his free memetic PR on behalf of the Farm Lobby; similarly, nobody who is interested in getting elected to anything and is not either a certain crazy elf from the Midwest or a certain web-popular Texan Obstetrician dare oppose the War on Drugs or expanding federal powers. Needless to say, a Democrat who goes against the Teachers' Union has all the chance of a Republican who hates Jesus.

It's not surprising, it's just a good reminder to certain people (like my father) that simply electing a youthful, charismatic, less-evil-than-most-other-politicians Black guy is going to magically change the world.

Sam Watches Silly Commercials

2008-07-22T17:21:00.000-04:00

So there's a commercial for a "pancake puff pan," which is basically a cast-iron pan that's been divided into several hemispherical cups (if you will.) You pour pancake batter into said cups, heat on the stove, and you get...wait for it...spherical(ish) pancakes! OMG! Apparently, you can also use it to make round brownies! Any relatively homogenous baked good of your choice can be made vaguely spherical. It's one of the most pointless products I've ever encountered. Yes, you can do a fairly decent number of things with it, but every single thing it does can be replicated by preexisting equipment found in all but the worst-equipped kitchens.
So anyway, here's the commercial, in Spanish:

(I couldn't find an English version on YouTube, and the way the Spanish announcer pronounces it "Pahncayk Pouffs" is excellent.)

For Great J.U.S.T.I.C.E.

2008-07-07T17:47:00.000-04:00

This song is apparently produced and/or released by some sort of musical entity named J.U.S.T.I.C.E League (it's unclear because they seem to be identified en masse after the lead guy and the hook-singer, which position usually falls to the producers. But it also seems to be the imprint under which the record was released. Whatever.)

1)It sucks cause Aquaman can only produce albums underwater.
2)C.f. (in your own mind, apparently, because none of them seem to be online) the commercials for the 2008 B.E.T. Awards, featuring rap stars (Lil' Wayne, inter alios) with superpowers. Is Irwin from Billy & Mandy the new face of African-American culture?

Also:
Consider me way charmed by the new Lil Wayne video:

(especially the part where he raps in the port-a-potty.)

Take of every ZIG!

The Glorious Return of 106 & Parkblogging

2008-07-01T18:04:00.000-04:00

Nothing specific, really, I'm just charmed by this one. The homage to this Nike commercial from a few years ago is cute, and the video is chock-a-block full of the hypercolorful clothing that's sweeping "the streets" as of late, which I simply adore/covet (in particular, scope what Andre 1500 is wearing.)

In other news, I still kinda hate The-Dream. I just saw that his album is named LoveHate. Seriously.

BEEEEEEEES!

2008-07-01T14:00:00.000-04:00

Bees!

I tried to find the relevant clip from Sealab 2021, but I don't think YouTube has it, the bastards.

Great Minds Think Alike

2008-07-01T09:33:00.000-04:00

Just like I do, Billy Collins <3s Looney Tunes. I especially identified with this part:

As unsophisticated as any nine year old, I had never been to an opera when I saw Chuck Jones's Wagnerian parody in which Bugs sings Brünnhilde's role in a blonde wig stuffed under a helmet with horns. The first symphony orchestra I ever saw was a cartoon one with a fat man playing a tiny flute and a studious-looking dog with triangle duties -- plus, a conductor wielding a "baton" and wearing "tails." There I saw my first bassoon.

There are SO MANY great pieces of classical music that now serve only to evoke in me images of synchronized-swimming ducks, or highly choreographed routines with hammers, thanks to Looney Tunes.

[Via the almost-always interesting Morning News]

Ugh.

2008-06-30T18:48:00.000-04:00

This is absolutely disgusting.

On the other hand, how can we possibly expect a human father to act rationally towards his son in a situation like this? Shit like this happens often enough to be a fairly significant problem. The only answer, to me, is to reduce the number of people with this kind of power, and reduce the power individuals have. The only other possibilities are this kind of miscarriage of justice or expecting/coercing a parent (or child, or spouse, or friend, or...) to act inhumanly towards a person they love. Not cool.

[Via Radley "The Agitator" Balko]

Hindu-Christian Syncretism in India

2008-06-30T10:16:00.000-04:00

Awesome.

Panopticon

2008-06-27T15:05:00.000-04:00

I guess there's only so much ambient Bill-of-Rights-support to go around, as hot on the heels of the Supreme Court's dismissal of the D.C. gun ban in Heller, comes this little gem:

PHILADELPHIA - JUNE 26, 2008 (WPVI) -- 44-year old Andre Moore is being held at the 18th Police District by the very officers he apparently wanted to kill.

At least that's the message he allegedy sent out to the world in a disturbing, hate filled rant on YouTube.

...

Moore faces a number of charges, including aggravated assault.

(Emphasis mine.)

Seriously? As the article points out, it's highly unlikely that any of these charges will stick. That's not really the point, however; the burden of proof needs to be on the State when it comes to exercising force against its citizens.

[Hat Tip Hit & Run]

FLASHBACK!

2008-06-26T15:18:00.001-04:00

So I'm so bored at work I just google image searched my own name, and found this little gem:

For those of you keeping score at home: that's me in the very upper left, in the brown jacket, and Nick "Nicky Cizzle" Crane 2nd from the right in the 2nd row (3rd, if you're counting from the top), in the bluish sweater.

I was so fat, and he was so tiny.

Anyway, the pic was taken at Eartha in Yarmouth. I was part of some sort of vague NASA-related earth-monitoring something-or-other. I dont' know. It was middle school...

@Workblogging: What 4th Amendment? Edition

2008-06-23T08:36:00.000-04:00

So now, apparently La Migra are borrowing tactics from their drug-bustin' bretheren and harassing innocent people at home. The only surprising thing is that there is a concerted legal effort to stop the practices.

The money quote from the article:

"As long as we have people willing to flaunt the law, then the possibility of an innocent person having to endure wrongful arrest will always be there," said Jean Towell, president of the Citizens for Immigration Reform Dallas.

The thing is, it's really just incidental that immigration is the issue at hand. You could replace "flaunt the law" with any one of your favorite illegal activities:

"As long as we have people willing to double park, then the possibility of an innocent person having to endure wrongful arrest will always be there."

It's a scary look into the mind of the law-and-order types who are pointing this country in a worrisome direction.

[Hat tip Radley "The Agitator" Balko]

IMHO

2008-06-19T18:02:00.000-04:00

So I read Julia Allison's tumblr (or whatever)—voluntarily, so I get what I deserve, I guess. So today:

“He just doesn’t bullshit. And he doesn’t suffer bullshitters. Which is so rare that people think he’s being a dick. But he’s not. He’s just being honest.” - me talking to Ronen about Marco

She quotes herself. That's it. (Actually, the self-quotage is the title, and the post itself is merely self-attribution and name-dropping.)

I knew she was a fameball (to use Gawker's delightful neologism), and I'm fine with that. This, however, strikes me as just tacky. Look to Socrates: the point is to be witty, or insightful, or provocative enough so that other people record your words posteritati. Quoting something you said earlier IRL on your own blog is the equivalent of telling the same story to everyone you know, all the time, forever.

Not a good look, Julia.

Perhaps...Too Clever?

2008-06-15T19:52:00.000-04:00

This week, the The Onion did their American Voices feature on Ron Paul's dropping out of the presidential race. All three people featured have the last names of people who work for Reason Magazine, including Radley Balko, the guy I interned for at Cato.

("Hat tip" Reason Hit & Run and Radley's blog The Agitator)

Dear The-Dream,

2008-06-05T18:16:00.000-04:00

the only thing I hate more than your ascot is your hyphen.

Fondest wishes,
-Sam

This Really Pisses Me Off

2008-06-03T20:03:00.000-04:00

According to this CNN article about it, the children of the FLDS compound members in Texas will be returned to them, but:

Under the judge's order, the Department of Family and Protective Services will still have the right to visit and interview the children.

These unannounced visits could entail medical, psychological and psychiatric examinations, and the parents must not intervene.

This is ridiculous. The very fact the kids are being returned speaks to the fact that prosecutors didn't really find anything wrong or harmful.

I actually posted a pretty long comment about this on 23/6 when they covered it. Basically, the government is prosecuting parents for their religious beliefs. Like I said on 23/6, this is a frightening precedent for parents with non-traditional religious beliefs, e.g. atheists.

("hat tip" Reason Hit & Run)

Is It Just Me...

2008-06-03T18:03:00.000-04:00

...or does 50 look really gay in this video? Maybe I just have Hiding in Hip Hop on my mind, but certainly the highly-toned black men in high-fashion military-inspired garb—not to mention 50's jaunty little chapeau—aren't helping.

Random @Work Stuff

2008-06-03T09:50:00.001-04:00

I. This profoundly bitter-yet-accurate Ken Layne article. It's why people need not to spend too long in D.C. He is right, though, is the worst part.
(Via Gawker)

II.
DARPA's ("Immanetizing the Eschelon Since 1973") new "robot pack mule:"

IT STUMBLES AND GETS UP! NOT OK.
(Via PopSci, ultimately via Daniel)

Because we were listening to "Crush on You"

2008-05-30T21:22:00.000-04:00

Just had to let you know here is a list of "Lil'" rappers & producers.

It's not an official Wikipedia list, but it's good enough.

I bet there are more. (Thoughts? Does anybody actually read this?)

Who Let You In Here?

2008-05-22T17:58:00.000-04:00

RE: This Rick Ross video:

Nelly's an easy, understandable mistake to make. He's putting out a new album, maybe there was label pressure, whatever. People used to like him, fine. (Apparently, he's actually more interesting and articulate [OMG NOT RACIALLY TRANSCENDENT!] when he's freestyling, or at least during this one freestyle he did on Rap City.)

ON THE OTHER HAND: WTF is up with the white guy with the nasty hair and trashy hat? He looks like Kevin Federline campaigning to get elected mayor of Margaritaville. Get him out of there.

Rick: if you're so desperate for a hook-singing-guy as to stoop to Beach Blanket Trailer Trash there, maybe think about giving Nate Dogg a call. I'm pretty sure he's available, and maybe a little bored and/or hungry.

MATCH GAME!

2008-05-12T18:26:00.001-04:00

I fell in love with amazing '70s game show Match Game Sophomore year of college, when we had cable in the dorms and I spent HUGE amounts of time watching GSN. I loved a lot of the shows (in particular, the similarly-awesomely-'70s Richard Dawson-era Family Feud, in which our drunken host would just stick his tongue down the throats of female contestants in front of their fathers, brothers, and husbands), but Match Game was the BEST. Period. Subversive, winkingly dirty, clever as hell, full of in-jokes and weird sexual tension.

It's been off the air for quite some time now, although the Wikipedia says there's been a few efforts to revive it. I say the time is nigh. It was in SNL, for chrissakes!:

(BRILLIANT, btw.)

SO! BRING BACK MATCH GAME!

Clearly, there are some problems. It'd have to be on relatively late at night, OR on some sort of premium-cable-type channel (MAYBE GSN, maybe like, Spike? or Logo? something like that? G4?). The hardest part would naturally be people. I think the ideal host would be someone like Joe McHale or maybe Greg Proops...someone snarky but not angry (NOT like the people who do Root of All Evil). As for guests? All things considered, the show could potentially be a vehicle for post-reality tv stars, and could be manned on a semi-permanent basis by members of the same pool of c-list comedian-pundits who show up on Best Week Ever/I Love The.... Doug Benson is no Charles Nelson Riley, but it'd be a start.

So yeah!

Let's start a petition or something...

Irony!

2008-05-06T18:31:00.000-04:00

Isn't it funny that Florida and Michigan's tragic mania to influence the election by being the earliest states to hold primaries DIRECTLY CAUSED the chain of events before us, when the last 8-10 states to hold primaries may end up determining the Democrat nominee, and therefore the next 4 years?

HAHA.

I guess I'm ultimately glad my parents moved out of Florida when my brother and I were still young...(They could've picked a better state than Maine, though.)

In other news, I'm pretty sure that my recent trip to D.C. has caused me to fall impossibly behind in my RSS-reading. That I'm doing this doesn't help, but whatever.

We're boned

2008-04-29T10:31:00.000-04:00

From
Wonkette:

More than 6 million homes will go into foreclosure before this housing collapse is finished, and the number of houses now sitting empty in America has reached a staggering 18.6 million — including 2.3 million currently on the market.
Imagine every housing unit in the entire state of California suddenly empty. That's about how many houses are vacant today.
...
Columbia professor and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz did an interview with CNBC on Friday. Guess what he said about the combination of food and energy inflation plus the housing collapse?

"This is going to be one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Depression."

Two points:
1)Wonkette adds, with typical snark, "And this is why we need to take a long, hard look at Jeremiah Wright's religious sermons about black people." I'm not so sure I agree with their implicit point (i.e., that just maybe there are more important things the candidates should be discussing.) The thing is, based on everything I've heard about the candidates' economic positions, the question really seems to be: whose underinformed, ill-conceived, special-interest-pandering-to economic policy will make the upcoming crisis the least worse?
2)My generation doesn't really have a work ethic, from what I can tell. There was a spate of trend pieces a few years ago about how people around my age joining the workforce for the first time were pissing off their supervisors by whining too much and expecting praise for their every action. Recent studies indicate that a vast majority of my peers want to be famous, and I'm pretty sure the percentages just increase as the kids get younger.

I'm making a prediction: in 2011, President Obama announces that he's rescuing the economy by nationalizing MTV and making everybody the star of their own reality show.

I can't believe I'm blockquoting Bill Maher

2008-04-26T12:58:00.000-04:00

But I am (apparently):

There's a seemingly dry headline this week that is a lot scarier than it looks: Bank of America's profit declined 77% this quarter. They're a big bank. They're a consumer-oriented bank. And it turns out their losses are not just coming from the subprime mortage crisis. They're coming from small business loans, construction loans, and simple credit card debt. Bottom line--people can't pay their bills.

The time for arguing over whether or not we're in a recession is not only past, it seems almost quaint now--a little math game that we had the luxury of playing back when things seemed like they might improve at any moment. Whether or not the eventual numbers reveal that this is technically a recession, professional and amateur economists alike can now agree that the economy is technically "in the shitter."

Wow.

I'm pretty sure that the Iraq war is significantly contributing to this recession. It's costing us hundreds of trillions of dollars, the costs to local governments and businesses to comply with various bizarre 'anti-terrorism' regulations is onerous, and the already-rising costs of health care are only going to be pumped up to incredible new heights by the demand from veterans—both military and civilian (in the form of contractors and volunteers)—who have been both physically and psychologically wounded by their experiences. It's a god-damned shame.

I'm pretty sure Frederique Bastiat is loling in his grave right now...

I only talk about T-Pain

2008-03-26T18:43:00.000-04:00

Apparently.

Anyway: T-Pain revealed on 106 & Park today that he has a moustache tattooed on the inside of his index finger, for the purpose of holding it up to his upper lip. I can't honestly say whether this makes me like him more or less.

He also out-shouted fingerstash.com, which he claimed was some sort of networking site for finger-stache enthusiasts. Or something. As of right now, it's a brief green logo(?), and then a redirect to a "page does not exist on this server" message.

This is as mysterious as it is silly and ultimately pointless. God bless you, 106 & Park.

Bonus ridiculous: watching various teams of either slightly-too-lanky or slightly-too-chunky high school dancers compete to music videos.

106 & Parkblogging

2008-03-25T18:22:00.000-04:00

It's on right when I get home from work. It's hilarious and depressing. And the best part is that the music videos AND the hosts interaction with the audience/the guests/each other are BOTH hilarious and depressing in equal measure.

Anyway: I just watched Terrence the Male VJ give Tracy Morgan a pound for not having to pay child support. And then they played the video for "Too Silly" by V.I.C., the latest terribly-rapping, silly-dance-relying-upon, bar-lowering nonsense consort of Soulja Boy. Apparently he, V.I.C., and Hurricane Chris (? I heard of him in like...Rolling Stone? or something? I don't know his song) are all on the same record label, according to the random older black man who did the shout-outy bit at the end of this "Too Silly" song. Now I know who to blame.
And then after that video, Tracy Morgan gave the least enthusiastic talk-up EVER for Superhero Movie. He definitely said something very close to, "The paycheck was good." Yeah. And then Terrence the Male VJ, and Rocsi (seriously, how her name is spelt in the titles at the bottom of the screen) the Female VJ asked Tracy Morgan a bunch of too-in-depth questions about the movie and comic books.

Also inspired: "New Orleans in the house!" [pan to 6 cheering girls] "Well, there's only 6 of them, but they're here!"

2008-03-10T18:04:00.000-04:00

So everybody is sort of obsessed with Vampire Weekend (see: Spin, most of the internets.) I just experienced them directly for the first time, not counting their forgettable appearance on Stereogum's OKX: A Tribute To OK Computer (which is basically inferior in every way to Exit Music: Songs for Radio Heads, which is BRILLIANT), and, I gotta say: underwhelmed. Woo, dancy indie music. Great. Their music video is visually appealing (enough), in a way that reminded me of Etsy and makes me want to try and expand the semantic range of the term "lo-fi." Again: so very indie-as-usual. Again: underwhelmed.

Their playlist on MTV Hits is way better: Mariah Carey ("Fantasy," and the boys reference the Tom-Tom Club sample and ODB), Ice Cube ("Good Day"), Basement Jaxx "Romeo"), Kanye ("Good Life," which is a f'n GREAT video [although, T-Pain: VACATION. U NEEDZ IT. GTFO my tv. Srsly.]).

I think I'd rather see these guys dj than play a concert...

T-Pain is the New Nate Dogg

2008-03-04T21:05:00.000-05:00

Dude and his vocoder need to take a vacation. Srsly.

I got a new Ipod. It's really good to be able to listen to my music all the time. I put that shit on shuffle while I was at work today. It was so worth it.

2007-07-11T19:34:00.000-04:00

Q. I claim that, by that definition, all organized religion is fundamentally psychotic. Do you agree?

DD: There is definitely a similarity, but more interesting are the differences: most deeply religious people can be entirely effective and clearheaded agents on behalf of their curious beliefs. Nothing disorganized about their behavior.

Q. Why are people who claim to be alien abductees looked upon askance while those who see the Virgin Mary [are] not?

DD: There are good reasons to believe that many who claim to be alien abductees have actually had a traumatic sexual experience at the hands of some abusing member of the family, or other sexual abuser. For them this is just the socially easiest way of "explaining" their traumatic memories, and their PTSD symptoms, and they may be entirely sincere in their hallucinated memories. (So John Mack was probably half right: these people had indeed had a terrible experience; it just wasn't with aliens.) The phenomenon should be studied with a suitably rigorous methodology (not the way Whitley Strieber "investigated" it). But that's tough, since ethical and legal problems arise immediately. That's no accident. It's an instance of Nicholas Humphrey's Argument from Unwarranted Design (in his excellent book LEAPS OF FAITH). Now why should it be that the juiciest and most contagious tales of horror and wonder always seem to involve circumstances that are systematically difficult to investigate? These myths spread because they can spread, just like the virus for the common cold.

Daniel Dennett really needs to read Joseph Campbell. Like, seriously.