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Dear Albert
Posted 11:44 PM, Nov 30, 2006 |
Not much going on over here, so I’ll weigh in on a little baseball topic. Albert Pujols, formerly one of the classiest guys in baseball (and maybe all of sports) came out and said that Ryan Howard, this year’s NL MVP, didn’t deserve the award because his team didn’t make it to the playoffs.
Albert:
1) Howard’s Phils won two more games than your Cardinals. They didn’t make it to the playoffs because they were in the same division as the Mets, the best NL team all regular season. If you were in the same division as the Phils, your team would’ve finished third.
2) Your pitching staff was slightly (just slightly) better than the Phils (ERAs of 4.60 and 4.54). Not a big deal, but still no point in punishing Howard because his pitchers aren’t as good. (Your pitchers gave up about 90 fewer hits and had a WHIP of 1.38, compared to the Phils’ staff 1.42.) Unless you’re giving tips to the Cards’ pitchers, lay off.
3) You were injured. Many will say that if you weren’t injured, your slugging numbers would have been as good or better than Howard’s. But you didn’t stay healthy. Call it bad luck, call it bad timing, call it a bad back, but Howard played all year. He played in 159 games this year - you only played in 143. Part of the game of baseball is being an everyday player.
4) You had more help in your lineup. Remember when the Phillies traded away Bobby Abreu, everyone gave up the Phils for dead, and then Ryan Howard carried the team? Who carried your team for the 16 fewer games you played than Howard?
5) Your team won the World Series. You get a World Series ring, a hefty paycheck bonus (not too mention that you already made significantly more than Howard). Stop crying, you big baby.
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Shoe Pavilion Update
Posted 11:20 PM, Nov 27, 2006 |
Update! The Shoe Pavilion District Manager has come through, ensuring us a 10% discount, simply by mentioning the magic word (philopena) or his name, I can’t remember which. Hats and fire helmets off to the Shoe Pavilion!
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Hot Deals
Posted 6:50 PM, Nov 26, 2006 |
The EC and I went lawn bowling today, which was a fantastic little experience, and one would have guessed that it would be the most interesting thing to happen to either of us today. But it wasn’t.
Later in the day, we decided to head down to the Shoe Pavilion on Wilshire Blvd., partially for the purpose of buying white shoes for future lawn bowling expeditions. When we got in the store, we noticed some low-lying smoke in the back corner, and we were both quickly approached by Shoe Pavilion personnel who informed us of the truth of the old adage, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
The Shoe Pavilion was on fire!
Not a blazing fire - in fact, no actual flames were sighted. Just smoke and the smell of something burning.
The fire department was called and showed up with a few trucks. We took a few moments to go to Von’s, drop some mail off outside the post office, and enjoy donuts in Krispy Kreme.
We saw a fireman on the roof, going down the access stairs, or, as I posited, doing that old vaudeville trick that just makes it look like you’re going down stairs when you’re not.
The store was closed the rest of the evening, thus denying us a 10% savings from their Thanksgiving weekend sales.
Upon asking if we could get the 10% off tomorrow, we were told by a Shoe Pavilion employee, “No, there was a problem with the heater. It’s not our fault.” Well, it certainly is less my fault.
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Storypedia
Posted 5:14 PM, Nov 25, 2006 |
Always working on projects, here’s one:
Storypedia.
Basically, it’s a collection of 250-word stories based on whatever topic happens to be Wikipedia’s featured article for the day. I hope you enjoy them.
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Thanksgivin’
Posted 11:03 PM, Nov 23, 2006 |
Well, the EC and I cooked up a turkey loaf, which is way better than a turkey in that there’s no bones and so is easier to cut and serve. Sure, while it was alive, the turkey loaf just sat there in the corner of the pen, while the actual turkey was out running around and gobbling up seed, but once they make it to the supermarket, the turkey looks pretty silly for doing all that running for nothing. Also, the turkey loaf cost $10.06 for 6.75 pounds of turkey goodness, and then we got $10 off, resulting in a final cost of 8/9 of a cent per pound. Pretty nice.
We also made the rest of the usual fixings, from corn to mashed potatoes and gravy to stuffing, and also had cranberry sauce and pickles, with pumpkin pie for dessert. A veritable feast.
We watched a little of the Macy’s parade, the entire AKC dog show, and a fair dose of football as well. We also took a little post-prandial walk in the chilly air and listened to people doing dishes and clattering about in the throes of their own post-prandial celebrations.
All in all, quite a bit to be thankful for; however, I am not thankful right now for the cold hardwood floors, which are making my feet cold.
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Nothing to See Here
Posted 11:32 PM, Nov 21, 2006 |
Greetings, fellow travelers of the Information Superhighway. This stop is kind of like a gas station that has no gasoline, all the pumps are rusty, and the windows are all boarded up.
But! But, a nickel mine has been discovered nearby, so all is not lost.
For the time being, sorry things are so slow. I hope you all have a marvelous Thanksgiving, yes, and an excellent Busiest Shopping Day of the Year. Look for me doing my shopping online, somewhere on the Information Superhighway.
Sorry for the totally weird post, too. I really just wanted to say, “Hello, it’s me, I’m still alive but don’t have much to say.” So if you like that better, well, just pretend.
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Strange Maps
Posted 6:03 PM, Nov 18, 2006 |
I’ve been meaning to tell you about this for a couple weeks, and haven’t really had time to explore it fully, and wanting, of course, to make a really solid recommendation. I’ve been reading this website, strange maps, which is basically a collection of strange maps.
I love maps, so this site is great, because it has maps! And some interesting explanations of what the maps are. The maps are not typical.
This map details one man’s plan for the UK to join the US and how it would be divided up into states. So it’s your standard map of England, but with a little extra. You know, for the kids.
This map details the enclaves and exclaves of modern-day Cyprus, which is a cartographer’s worst nightmare, apparently. I can’t explain it any better.
This one goes through the historical subdivisions of Australia and raises one question from me: Until 1825, it looks like Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) is actually connected to Australia. The map notes that it “separated” on June 14th, 1825. Did part of Australia actually just fall into the ocean on that date, creating what we know as Tasmania? According to the map, yes. However, there’s no record of it in the always-reliable Wikipedia, which does note that in 1825 Tasmania (then Van Diemen’s Land) became an independent colony from New South Wales and that the year also saw the opening of Richmond Bridge, a bridge in Tasmania, which is Australia’s oldest bridge and composed entirely of pineapple husks and the bones of marsupials (or boring old sandstone, depending on who you ask).
And this map is of Flash Gordon’s planet, Mongo, complete with Unexplored Continent, which, as one commenter pointed out, exists only due to pure laziness, lying directly between two explored continents. Especially lazy since Flash Gordon’s two crash landings on Mongo occurred on the two continents bracketing the Unexplored Continent. So the obvious question is: what was Flash Gordon doing all the time?
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Kin
Posted 10:44 PM, Nov 17, 2006 |
I’ve been reading Jonathan Franzen’s collection of writings about his youth, growing up in Webster Groves, near St. Louis, MO, and I think Jon and I could be really good friends. In a lot of ways, we seem to have shared experiences, being popular in high school, sort of, and for some sort of indefinable, indeterminate reason. We both aspired to be writers at some point - he succeeded, and I didn’t, at least not to the degree we both had in mind. We went out with friends until sunup and then had to explain where we were when confronted by our parents; both of us were never really up to much, by the sound of it - harmless fun - but we both convinced our parents (or at least thought we had) that we were up to even less than that.
Franzen writes about his church youth group that was, somehow, the place to be. I wouldn’t have missed mine, for many years in middle school and at least until I was able to drive, for anything. They went on retreats, to camps, played innocent pranks, ran around, played cards; nothing that, again, sounds like much of anything, but somehow, at the time, was everything.
And Franzen’s parents were a lot like mine - Franzen says his dad would look at him with disdain at his continual reading habits, or his long afternoons and evenings of hanging out with friends, and would say, disapprovingly, “One continual round of pleasure!”
Franzen tells the story of trying to build a telescope in the garage, building a tripod and mounting hardware, and how it was a failure, and how his father watched him attempting to build this crazy thing and ended up just building the whole thing himself. This happened to me - I don’t remember what I was trying to build, but it happened.
Maybe one of the reasons Franzen’s stories seem like mine is because they describe all of us well-intentioned kids with a little creative flair who grew up in the Midwest. I suppose that’s really the point, that all of us are all the same in many ways, some of them basic and fundamental and ways that we all recognize, and some of them more subtle, some of them that we think make us unique, and they do, in our own little communities, and these are the same ways that make us all the same, which is just as important.
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Allegretto in A Minor
Posted 4:41 PM, Nov 17, 2006 |
Here’s some more classical guitar, a piece still in practice mode but coming along pretty well. This is by Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829), “one of the leading guitar virtuosos of the 19th century,” which is to say, better than me:
Allegretto in A Minor
Let this fill your belly over the Thanksgiving holiday.
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Infinite Jest Turns 10
Posted 4:21 PM, Nov 16, 2006 |
For only $10, you can own a copy of one of my favorite books ever, Infinite Jest, now in a 10th anniversary edition. The edition has a new introduction by Dave Eggers, who explains why you should read the book and why you should not be daunted by it. The entire introduction is here.
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Show Me the Money
Posted 11:20 PM, Nov 14, 2006 |
I caught the new William Shatner-hosted game show, Show Me the Money this evening. In an effort to continue to bring you game show news and reviews, this one wasn’t as bad as, say, 1 vs. 100, but wasn’t particularly good, either. The basic idea is you answer a question, then pick one of 13 models (sound familiar?) who shows you a dollar amount. If your answer was correct, that amount of money goes into your bank, otherwise it is deducted from your bank account. You win if you answer six questions correctly, I don’t know what happens if you get six questions wrong (I assume you lose, but maybe you still get what’s in your bank, which is bound to be very little), and if you pick the model that has the “Killer Card,” you have to answer a “Killer Question” or you lose and leave with nothing.
That’s right, “Killer Card.” That’s the best name they could come up with for what is ostensibly the game’s most dramatic moment.
The game features, bizarrely, a lot of dancing by these 13 models, as well as William Shatner. Personally, I’d rather watch Shatner dance. Anyway, the dancing is weird on a trivia show. All the models are mildly annoying on Deal or No Deal, and here they’re worse, honestly, because they dance.
I did enjoy the sweet irony of the show’s first contestant being a flamboyantly gay man, someone clearly out of the show’s target demographic.
But this show gets a giant strike - so bad, in fact, that it counts for three strikes, all at once - thanks to their proofreaders. (Somehow I can’t get a proofreading job, but every time I turn around, there’s a gaffe on national television or some major magazine.) Anyway, here’s a photo still from the show (!):
If you read (semi-)carefully, you’ll notice that the word “we” is repeated twice in the question, once at the end of the second line and then at the beginning of the third line. Bad enough in a question, but even worse in a quote - I wouldn’t be surprised if the contestant involved could have gotten another chance at the show, since the question, as written, has no correct answer. (In another view of the written question, it does not contain the error, so it’s possible the contestant never saw the gramatically incorrect question, and the contestant won $500,000+, so no worries, I suppose.)
How does this happen on a national game show giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars? I’m sure someone lost their job.
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Gallery: Malibu
Posted 4:54 PM, Nov 13, 2006 |
Given a wonderful November Sunday afternoon, the EC and I took a little trip up the coast to sunny, breezy Malibu. We walked out on the fishing pier, along the beach, and on a little wilderness walk around a lagoon. The EC says I’m in my “bird period”; however, based on the ratio of photos with birds to photos without birds (1:2), you can draw your own conclusions. Some photos are actually in black and white - do not adjust your monitor.
Malibu
We also enjoyed some excellent fish tacos (not pictured).
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Did You Hear the One (Part I)
Posted 7:44 PM, Nov 11, 2006 |
Did you hear the one about the bouncer who got so tired of kicking really drunk people out of a bar, he actually picked up this one guy and carried him all the way to his house? He was booked and charged with Grand Theft Blotto.
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Word of the Day
Posted 12:52 AM, Nov 9, 2006 |
Before we get to the Word of the Day, a note about a New Yorker article about game designer Will Wright (SimCity, the Sims, etc.). The article mentions the number 1024, and then felt the need to put, in parentheses, (ten to the twenty-fourth power). I suppose this might be analogous to writing, for example, “9 (nine),” which you occasionally see places, but more than that, it strikes me as the editors thinking people might not understand what 1024 means. I’m a little sensitive to such things, especially after reading two books about mathematics in a row.
But anyway, on to the Word of the Day, which isn’t a regular feature around here:
philopena (noun) :
1. A game involving the sharing of a nut with two kernels between two people, with the agreement that the one failing to keep some stated condition shall pay a forfeit.
2. The forfeit.
3. The nut.
I guess the two-kerneled nut, in this case, is more like a symbol of the stated condition and agreement than anything else.
Here’s a special, bonus Word of the Day, for any day of your choosing:
sjambok (noun, verb) :
1. A strong, heavy whip made from thick, tough hide, such as that of the rhinoceros or hippopotamus, used in South Africa, for driving cattle.
2. To strike or drive with a sjambok.
And lastly, don’t forget about my favorite Word of the Day, which isn’t even a real word, but a dreamword: fustlethrum. I’ve used it in the past on this site, and even did a little research, jumping in the WABAC and traveling back to good old 2003 (June 25, 2003, to be exact) to find the origin of fustlethrum. Quoting from an old blog, (i.e., not this one):
I had a dream involving an old high school teacher of mine. I was a student in one of his classes, and two eighth-graders were making out in the hallway. A security guard yelled at them and the girl ran away and the boy ran into the class I was in with this teacher. The security guard came in and the teacher got upset with the security guard, pleading, “Eighth-graders have no other form of expression.” The security guard wasn’t having any of it, and said something to get the teacher riled up. The teacher called the guard a “bellwether,” (which is an actual word), and the guard responded by calling the teacher a “fustlethrum,” (which is not an actual word). The teacher responded by completely breaking down into tears, sobbing uncontrollably with his head in his hands. I had to console him. It was very odd, and even more odd when I realized that fustlethrum was not an actual word. The word has really leapt crept into the popular usage (here).
(Lastly, in a technological note, the new version of Firefox is able to restore sessions, if the browser crashes while you’re in the middle of something. My browser inexplicably crashed in the middle of writing this long, detailed post, and Firefox saved the whole thing for me, and for that, I love it.)
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Decision 2006 Coverage
Posted 11:54 PM, Nov 7, 2006 |
It seems I should say something about the election. So it’s this:
I think politicians (and media, and everyone, I guess) should stop saying, “So-and-so voted Republican” or “So-and-so voted Democrat” when we’re talking about issues, about politicians voting on things. It seems like an incredibly partisan response, and I suppose that’s partially semantics, but I’d much rather my candidate (or any candidate) say, “I voted to do this because I believe this,” than simply saying, “I voted Republican/Democrat.”
This concludes my Decision 2006 coverage.
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Book Design
Posted 9:34 PM, Nov 3, 2006 |
I just finished reading Michael Lewis’s The Blind Side about Ole Miss defensive lineman Michael Oher, who was raised out of poverty by a rich, white family in Memphis and is now an (apparently) outstanding football player who will probably show up in the NFL in a couple years. Three notes:
1) Michael Lewis also wrote Moneyball, about the Oakland Athletics and GM Billy Beane’s strategy to build contending teams with a low payroll. I didn’t like The Blind Side nearly as much as Moneyball, but am impressed by Lewis’s versatility, not so much in terms of moving between sports, but just the style of the book. Moneyball seemed a lot less of a story and more of a statistical analysis (which, given the topics of the two books, is a good thing). The Blind Side really is the story of Michael Oher, and the narrative is pretty good.
2) I happened to find out Lewis’s relationship to Sean Tuohy, the father of the rich white family who actually adopts Oher, online about midway through the book. (Lewis and Tuohy were classmates growing up in New Orleans.) Lewis mentions it in the Author’s Note at the end of the book. The author’s note seems a good a place as any, but I can’t help but wonder how I might have approached the book differently had I known about the relationship between Lewis and Tuohy from the beginning. Quite a bit is made in the book about the Tuohy’s motives and whether they took in Oher to help out a poor black kid from a rough part of Memphis, or whether they took him in because they saw the raw talent and sky’s-the-limit salary for Oher if he makes the NFL. (The Tuohy family is rooted in sports, and it isn’t at all unrealistic for them to see athletic potential and recognize it as financial gain.) I’m not suggesting that’s what the Tuohy’s did, and I’m in no position to say one way or the other.
But, while Lewis paints them as altruistic throughout and paints the NCAA investigator who pokes her head around the Tuohy/Oher family as annoying and kind of dopey and a nuisance, I have to wonder how much of that is true. Sure, everything in every book and news story is subject to the author’s interpretation, but knowing about the relationship between Tuohy and Lewis early-on certainly would have changed my perception. I suppose that’s why it’s in the Author’s Note at the end of the book.
3) And finally, this book has the most poorly-designed front cover in recent memory, especially for a book that is guaranteed to be pretty popular. (As of this writing, it’s #64 on Amazon’s sales list.) The cover is just hideous - boring, off-center, almost black-and-white. Totally visually unappealing. It smacks of being thrown together in five minutes. And the back just features a giant photograph of Michael Lewis, a move I’ve always considered tacky. The backs of books are for blurbs. It’s almost as if the publisher didn’t even consider that people might pick up this book in a bookstore and look at it, not knowing anything about it, and having their potential purchase be tempered by a first impression.
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That’s the Wrong Answer
Posted 1:20 PM, Nov 2, 2006 |
I watch a fair amount of game shows while conducting my business during the day, and recently the Game Show network has been advertising their new show, What’s the Question?. The premise is simple - it’s a rip-off of Wheel of Fortune except that all the puzzles are questions, so when you solve the puzzle, you then get to answer the question asked by the puzzle. (Still a rip-off - Wheel has done the same thing.)
In one of the ads, the contestant solves the puzzle: “What web browser is like screaming for joy?”
One might assume that the answer is “Yahoo!” - I haven’t seen the show featuring the puzzle (I haven’t seen the show, period, and won’t), but that’s the only thing that even makes the remotest bit of sense. I can’t remember the last time I yelled “Internet Explorer” after scratching off a winning lottery ticket.
Sure, this guy claimes that there is one, but when you ask the Yahoo CEO Terry Semel, he pretty clearly establishes that there isn’t one. I guess the difference is semantics, but we can’t let semantics allow That’s the Question’s writers to get off the hook so easily, or at all.
The writers certainly were not referring to this quasi-browser that Yahoo allegedly makes or made. They were clearly referring to the web site, which is clearly not a web browser.
And these are the puzzles they choose to air on commercials? How does anyone think this show will survive? Should the writers be fired? Or, rather, how soon should the writers be fired?
Two recent new game shows, one high profile, one low profile, that both fail to cut the game show mustard by a long shot.
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Snowsuit
Posted 12:16 AM, Nov 2, 2006 |
While sitting on the (relatively) cold tram heading up to the Getty Center this evening, the EC remarked that she thought it would be funny to wear snowpants around town. I replied that it would be embarrassing - in fact, an “embarrassment of britches.”
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