Moving on...

I’m sure that everyone will be pleased to hear that we successfully resolved this SI-writers pissing contest, as Dick acknowledged that he was wrong, realizing in the process that trying to beat me in meaningless competitions is a futile endeavor. In his defense, he is capable of addition, he was just working from the wrong set of numbers, which included unpublished drafts in the total. I hadn’t realized that any of those were floating around, but two were. One was a sentence that I had written and then probably lost interest in, the introduction to what seems like a post about crazy stuff I want scientists to invent. The more promising draft, also just a sentence, was by Winston, and had the title Ninja Pirates or Pirate Ninjas. I’m intrigued.

But since the title of this post is moving on, that’s what I’ll do. Biggest story, in my eyes at least, is the collision of two satellites over Siberia, one owned by Russia, the other by the United States. If this had happened during the Cold War we would all probably be dead right now; fortunately, it’s actually making people call out for some sort of Solar System Traffic Control situation. So many satellites have been thrown into orbit since Sputnik, and very few have been brought down, creating an unintentional minefield of space flotsam. The United States hasn’t been helping this situation, as in the past year we decided, “Hey, let’s shoot missiles at some of this crap.” While a pretty cool idea, it just made a lot more crap. So while I guess it sucks that satellites are crashing, it does highlight what could be a pretty big need in the coming decades. We really need to get some laws for space, before everybody gets up there and it’s just like anarchy.

My next final, on Monday afternoon, is Civil Procedure. It’s open notes though, unlike torts and property, which is a huge relief. More than any other class, this is one where you can just look at the rules and figure out what’s going on. And this quarter we covered substantially less than last quarter; basically all I have to worry about are pleadings, joinders, and preclusion. Hopefully this works out, as clearly I’m confident enough to type this while studying. I’m pretty sure I’ve devised a good system: two pages of an outline, one paragraph here.

A friend of mine was telling me earlier about Birthright, some system or whatever that lets you go to Israel for ten days for free if you’re between the ages of 18 and 26. The only catch is you have to be Jewish. Honestly, I think that the rest of Europe needs to get in on this. Pretty much all the important European countries (I’m not considering places like Moldova or Slovenia) have negative birthrates and declining populations. Sure, immigration from places like North Africa and Eastern Europe is keeping things afloat (that might be the one thing that I learned from that terrible Italian cinema class I took in Roma, from the movie Quando sei nato non puoi piu nasconderti), but if they want to get really serious about bringing up populations they should be taking people back from America. Giving away free ten day trips to suggestible kids would probably be beneficial. Also, at least in Italy, they may want to consider shutting down some churches. There are probably more churches in an Italian city than Starbucks in most American metropolises. Basically we need the mafia to step up, and start funding programs that would let me go to Italy for free. Joey Merlino needs to get on this after, you know, he gets out of jail.

What’s going on with satellite radio? Like, a couple years ago everyone was all about it, and it was supposed to be the future. Howard Stern switched over, cars were being equipped with it, Sirius and XM were feuding, it seemed like it would be around for a while. And now I’ve just read that Sirius XM, is about to file for bankruptcy, and have almost $200 million in debts. What the hell, how did this happen? I understand that giving Howard Stern half a billion dollars probably wasn’t the best business decision, but there isn’t any competition now, shouldn’t they be raking in money? Sucks for them. I wish I had something more insightful to add here. Meh.

Every year or so it seems like a minor league sports team comes up with an absolutely inspired promotion. The St. Paul Saints have been at the forefront of this movement, giving away toy boats in recognition of the Vikings’ Lake Minnetonka shitshow, and last year by creating a Senator Larry Craig Bobble-Foot doll. But now they’re being challenged by the Milwaukee Admirals, an AHL team. On February 19th, the Admirals are hosting “Don’t be Like Mike Night,” in response to this pot nonsense Michael Phelps has gotten himself into. DARE graduations can get into the game for free, as can anyone named Michael, Phelps, Mary Jane, Cheech, Chong, or Weed. One lucky fan will receive a weedwacker signed by the team, and everyone can bring incriminating photos of themselves to be shredded. But the real prize is, of course, the most difficult to win. If the Admirals score with 4:20 left in any period, someone will receive season tickets for next year. I can appreciate this promotion, because there’s a lot of humor in it. I’m still sick of sanctimonious reporters pontification about the evils of marijuana. Let’s be honest, most of these people were probably journalism majors, in college in the ‘60s and ‘70s; there’s no way that they didn’t smoke pot. Most of them have probably smoked more than Phelps. Hell, at least the last three Presidents have smoked pot, and they’ve gotten less shit than Phelps. I a little bit wish that Phelps would call a huge press conference, show up stoned off his ass, and say that he smoked before every race in Beijing. He listened to Lil’ Wayne before every race, so this isn’t outside the realm of possibilities. Just think, how many heads would explode? I’m pretty sure that would make the world a better place.

You might infer from my defense of Michael Phelps that I’m not a big fan of outrage and indignation. If that is the case, you would be wrong. I can’t stand when outrage is directed at the wrong person, like Phelps or A-Rod, but some decisions are absolutely despicable, and the people who made them need to be called out. It seems like most of those people, assholes who make terrible decisions and fuck good things up, are members of the Maryland Jockey Club. In quite possibly the worst policy decision since the French decided to pour all their resources into the Maginot Line, the Jockey Club is banning outside beverages from the infield at Preakness. In years past, the Pimlico infield would be a magical place filled with booze and bad decisions, and now these horse-racing assholes want to stop that. I don’t understand why. In all seriousness, Preakness probably hasn’t actually been about horse racing for years. I went a few years ago, the year that Barbaro ran, and didn’t know he had broken his leg until watching Sportscenter later that night. In all seriousness, you have to make a legitimate effort to see a horse if you have infield tickets. And that’s awesome. The rationale behind banning fun at Preakness is that they want to improve the overall experience. So they’re replacing bring your own beer with a ZZ Top concert (meh) and a Women’s Volleyball Tournament (again, meh). Clearly though, the real reason for this is so that they can charge $3.50 a beer, make a shitload of money, and bastardize a great American tradition. I am willing to state, unequivocally, that the Maryland Jockey Club hates America.

In the last 24 hours, I’ve watched Stephen Lynch’s second Comedy Central Special twice. If it were on again right now, I would watch it a third time. In all seriousness, Lynch is probably the best stand-up comedian going right now. But also, he’s probably one of my favorite musicians too. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement for the music industry, but he’s really good. Not since Bob Dylan has an artist been as tapped into the social conscience of America as Lynch is, with songs about the Special Olympics, divorce, religion, and euthanasia.

Yesterday Loyola was an option on ESPN’s Streak for the Cash, hosting Iona. This was clearly a game they should have won, but, well, it’s Loyola, so the Streakmaster deemed it to be even enough. Jon texted me pretty early yesterday, wondering if he dare risk his streak of 4 on the Hounds. I had no such reservations; Loyola was getting even a little bit of national exposure, so I was going to take advantage of it. I checked the Loyola box. And they lost. I really haven’t had any faith in Loyola basketball since Andre Collins left for Italy. Well, hopefully my streak will rebound tomorrow with as AS Roma win over Atalanta. Oh, and speaking of Loyola Fucking Basketball, they come to Philly to play Drexel two days after finals end for me, on February 21. And I can’t go. Oh well.

The NBA All-Star game is this weekend. The NBA sucks, but its All-Star game is better than the NHL’s, the Pro-Bowl, and the MLB All-Star game when it’s ending in a tie. Seriously, where does Bud Selig get the moral standing to say that Alex Rodriguez shamed baseball? I mean, Selig has done so much deplorable shit that listing it all is difficult. Off the top of my head, I’d just throw out his involvement in collusion in the late ‘80s, which is killing Tim Raines’ HOF chances right now, his usurpation of the commissionership, and how he’s been throwing all sorts of benefits towards the Brewers since, expanded to the point that he had to threaten the Twins with contraction, the all-star game tie, the mess he made out of game 5 of the 2008 World Series, the one that the Phillies won, making them the World Fucking Champions, and of course he’s just as guilty as any player who took steroids. By turning a blind eye towards steroids since the Bash Brothers (the fake ones, Canseco and McGwire, let’s leave Fulton and Dean Portman out of this) were tearing shit up in Oakland all the way through Barry Bonds’ annihilation phase, Selig was ok with everyone shitting all over the last 130 years of baseball, and if not for grandstanding congressmen it would still be rampant. Fuck Bud Selig. And now he’s gonna be making moves for a salary cap, because dumbasses like Houston’s owner got pissy when the Yankees signed some free agents (obviously that Carlos Lee monster contract doesn’t count), when he makes more per year than all but like 7 players. Seriously, this past year that motherfucker made 18 million dollars. I would ruin baseball for half that amount.

One of the biggest things that I miss from college is the opportunity to have conversations with Jeff where we don’t use any real words, and when we do they have entirely random meanings. Like, I feel that I could communicate pretty much any thought through some combination of blame, tame, flow, shooter, jumpshot, pistratica, berkey, meh, allora, and berkey. You won’t be able to convince me otherwise. In closing, I now have a 30-page outline for Monday. I really need exams to be over so fun can exist again.