You know who's a dick?

Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe. Yeah, bold statement, isn’t it? But seriously, he’s a douchebag. Look at some of the things he’s done: he’s redistributed land, leaving his country starving, he’s completely killed the value of the Zimbabwe dollar, he’s stayed in power for over twenty years through all sorts of questionable methods, and he’s just not a good ruler. And then last week he may have been involved in arraigning an assassination attempt on his Prime Minister, who is also the leader of the opposition party (and who actually beat Mugabe in a Presidential election last year). The Prime Minister, whose wife died in the attack, has said that it was just an accident, and there was nothing sinister about it. Meh, he probably has to say that just to stay alive.

Anyway, the funeral for the wife, Susan Tsvangirai, was today. And Mugabe went! Not only did he go, but he spoke there! What the hell? Come on, if there’s a cloud of suspicion hanging over you, stay the fuck away. Of course, Mugabe used this platform to say it wasn’t his fault, calling the accident “the hand of God.” That’s bullshit. Seriously, I don’t understand how Mugabe has been able to get away with being an asshole for so long. Look at Guinea-Bissau, leaders are getting killed in Africa all the time. How has no one put a bullet in his head yet?

Unrelated, but here’s something else that bothers me. When you look at something that lists all the US Presidents in the same place, and has a picture of them, the same picture is used for Grover Cleveland for his no-consecutive terms. I think that he should get different pictures. He had to have looked different, Obama is aging pretty dramatically already, so let’s represent his Presidencies with different pictures. He deserves it.

Century Mark

Honest admission: I just posted that last thing half-heartedly so that I could make the 100th post. Doing this isn't especially important to me, but I know it's something Gimpy really wanted. So - - suck it, Gimpy.

Finals Interruption

So I’ve been mired in finals for the last week or so, and the end is nowhere in sight. It’s a pretty miserable experience; torts was yesterday, and property is Friday. (As an aside, I really don’t know if torts should be handled as a singular or plural word. Like, I know that when you commit multiple torts it’s obviously plural, but what about referring to torts class? I’ve been struggling with this for a couple months. Do I say “torts sucks” or “torts suck?”) Finding time to write here has been tough, but since I’ve already done a lot for Friday I figured I would find some time to share some of the things I’ve been thinking about.

First of all, Mike Vick is getting out of jail soon, and I would love for him to end up on the Eagles. My dream scenario would be for the Birds to sign him and draft Tebow, and then run a double wildcat option formation. Just have both Vick and Tebow out on the field at the same time, with Westbrook too, and defenses wouldn’t know where the snap was going. Defenses would be paralyzed, and it would be so much fun to watch. Also, it would mean that McNabb is playing somewhere else, which is definitely a plus.

I watched President Obama’s press conference the other night, and thought he did a really good job pointing out how retarded some of the criticisms of the stimulus package are. I’m really afraid that he’s just too smart to be President, and people just aren’t going to get him. Also, how is it a story when he hits his head getting into his helicopter? Was it really necessary for Drudge to have it up, with a picture, for like two days? Let’s be honest here, I’m pretty sure that Andrew Card had Bush wear a helmet in the Oval Office for the last eight years.

There’s a lot of pressure in picking a team name for a keeper fantasy baseball league. Because it’s going to be around for years, current event references don’t really work. I’m torn between doing something sorta timeless, like Waddell Fire Co., or throwing out some absurd prediction of something that I think may happen five years down the line. I’m probably going to spend more time thinking about this than I am a draft strategy.

I guess it was last week when some crazy woman, Nadya Suleman, had another eight babies, bringing her total to fourteen. She needs to be sterilized, for the sake of humanity. Obviously she has a publicist, and will probably make a ton of money off of people who for some reason think that a book of her parenting tips would be worthwhile, but she’s really just going to fuck up 14 kids’ lives. She’s an uncomfortably weird woman.

I would like to take this paragraph to write an open statement to the residents of Coatesville. Stop lighting shit on fire. It’s really not a good idea; there’s no reason to burn someone’s house down. Doing it more than twenty times is ridiculous. So seriously, stop it.

A-Rod took steroids. Meh. All this talk of Hall of Fame exclusion is ridiculous. So he took steroids to gain a competitive advantage. Babe Ruth got a competitive advantage by not having to play against any black or Latino players. Maybe we should limit the Hall of Fame to players who played between 1947 and expansion in the ‘60s, because after like 1962 the talent pool became diluted. Or maybe that’s as bad an idea as keeping steroid users out of the Hall; everyone was doing it, Bud Selig didn’t care, it happened, it’s part of baseball history, it should be recognized in Cooperstown.

It really bothers me when something that sucks has a really cool name. For instance, I really like the word flowchart, it’s a great word. Actual flowcharts kinda suck though. Same thing with chinchillas. Chinchilla is a phenomenal word, it’s fun to say and to write. But actual chinchillas suck, they’re terrible animals. And I hate when people say that they’re pets. There’s one rule for whether something is a pet or not: if it can save a child from a burning building. If an animal can’t rescue a child from a fire, it’s not a pet, it’s merely an animal that you’re saving from being eaten by a bigger animal.

I’m ridiculously jealous of my younger brother’s tenth grade English class, they’re able to read some really cool things. Obviously they’re doing stuff that everyone does, like Gatsby and the Odyssey, but they’re also doing modern fiction. Last semester he got to read and do a presentation on I Love You, Beth Cooper, and this semester he could have done a research paper on Michael Chabon’s stuff. Even though it’s a little unwieldy at times, and parts of it definitely could have been cut, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is a great novel. This doesn’t seem fair when I think about my last high school English class. Writing a paper on the weather in Ethan Frome? A third grader could have done that, why was it assigned in an AP class? Probably for the same reason that we spent 7 days reading Slaughterhouse-Five aloud in class; I wasn’t upset when I hear that teacher got fired. Dumbass.

Bret Favre says he’s retiring. I don’t believe him.

A kid in my class has an interesting idea: what if we experiment with zombieism to the point that we can learn how it works, and use it. Like, we take the aspects of zombieism that make someone indestructible, but exclude the brain-eating impulses and stuff: we could unlock immortality. I think that scientists need to focus more on this; if all of the funding that is going to AIDS and cancer research went to this, we would be set, and there wouldn’t be a loss, because AIDS and cancer can’t kill someone rendered invincible by partial zombieism.

Speaking of zombies, somebody wrote this book, and it’s gotta be awesome. Yep, he took the text of Pride and Prejudice and wrote zombies into the story. I think that this might be the future of literature, as so many books could be improved by adding a few zombies. What if they had to fight zombies on the Pequod, or Nurse Ratched was a zombie, and her brain obsession led to McMurphy’s lobotomy? I really think that this could be the future of literature.

So that asshole still won’t admit that the Holocaust happened. He won’t go to Auschwitz, but is willing to study the scientific evidence and may possibly change his mind. This guy strikes me as pretty anti-Semitic, even quoting St. Paul’s statement that the Jews “are our enemies for the sake of the gospel.” What the hell? What possible benefit could there be for having this guy back in the Church? What an awful decision.

Finally, PECOTA has predicted that the Mets will win the NL East this year. They made the same prediction last year. If you’re wondering how that went, I’ll let Chase Utley enlighten you:

Probably the first of many

So I'm reading Jon Meachem's new autobiography/hagiography of Andrew Jackson, and it's really good. I wish I were further into it, but it takes a while to absorb so much awesomeness. Also, torts. A lot of stories about Jackson are fairly well known: his duels, attacking a would-be assassin, and the Battle of New Orleans. Some of them, however, are interesting and pretty unknown, at least to me, so I figured I would share some of them. Maybe turn it into a recurring feature, because Andrew Jackson is just that cool. If you disagre, you're wrong.

This first one, the one that prompted this whole idea, isn't actually about Jackson, but a member of Congress from while he was President, and Martin Van Buren's VP, Colonel Richard M. Johnson. For one, Johnson claimed that he personally killed Tecumseh during the War of 1812, making him either a badass or delusional. Either would be cool. He was also kind of a dick.

At various times in his life, Johnson had common law marriages with three different slaves of his. The first died in a cholera epidemic, not an especially uncommon occurence in the first half of the nineteenth century. The second, however, was a pretty hilarious case. This wife/slave was unfaithful to Johnson. Rather than handle this maturely, Johnson took an alternative route: he sold her and got with her sister.

It's stories like this that make me wonder how anyone can say that they don't like history. There's so much crazy stuff going on that it's impossible to find something you don't like.

Viva la Moa

You severely underestimated how much those bad boys need to be brought back.

They are essentially wingless ostriches the size of giraffes, and if that doesn't sound cool enough to you already, then you, my friend, are a philistine.

But I think the coolest part about Moa are how they became extinct.  They were no indigenous mammals to New Zealand before the Maori showed up, and since the Moa were the BMOCs of the island, they never had any predators.  The Maori soon learned that Moa meat was about the most delicious thing this earthly side of ambrosia and ate their fill of it.  So much so, that when the Moa would herd in low valleys, the entire flock would be exterminated before any of them had the good sense to run away.  More often than not, most of the meat would spoil before the Maori could eat all of it.

Why have I lectured you for so long on the history of the Moa?  Think about it this way - - assume that we now have an infinite supply of Moa.  Remember then, that we currently have places where you can shoot flightless pheasant for a small fee (see also: Dick Cheney shooting a man in the face).

Make the logical jump here...

Pay-per shot Moa hunting!  No one out there can tell me that this isn't a great idea.  Have you ever taken down an 8 foot tall creature before with an elephant gun?  No, you haven't - - stop lying.

Perhaps this is antithetical to the purpose behind bringing back extinct creatures, but I'm a sucker for a cash cow.

Wait, who booed Santa!?!?

The 700 Level brought this column to light. I wish they hadn't. Well, here we go:


Scarred beyond recognition, a survivor in a town that feeds on real and imagined weakness, Donovan McNabb has emerged as the perfect Philadelphia sports star.

Honestly, I don’t even know what this means. Not a good start, for me or this dumbass writing it. Scared beyond recognition? Seriously? How? I’m going to end up asking way too many questions here. As for his assertion that McNabb is the perfect Philadelphia sports star, I can’t even wrap my head around that. It’s such a ridiculous claim that arguing against it would only lend it credibility.

He has spilled the blood, sweat and tears of a thousand Big 5 players at the Palestra. He has suffered the indignities of an entire neighborhood of civic-minded families that tried attending games at the Vet.

And here’s some more over-the-top hyperbole. This is an absolute insult to thousands of Big 5 players, most of whom probably never had anywhere near the athletic talent that McNabb had, but played with way more heart.

Philadelphia is famous for booing Santa?

In 1968. And for the love of God, it’s not like they were really booing Santa, it was just some drunk dressed in a Santa costume. How is it still being perpetuated that Philadelphia booed the real (shut up, just go with it) Santa Clause?

Even Santa booed McNabb on draft day.

I could point out, as so many other people have done, that no one was booing McNabb personally, they were booing Ricky Williams not being taken, but so far this has been too asinine to merit the high road, so instead: Fuck you.

A prominent NBA coach once told me Philadelphia, Boston and New York represented their own unforgiving nation, "and every other market is Club Med in comparison."

Yeah, Philadelphia, Boston, and New York are pretty much the most passionate sports cities in the country. In Atlanta, Santa isn’t ever booed. But Atlanta doesn’t sell out playoff games. I’ll take passion over politeness any day.

I told him that grouping Philadelphia with Boston and New York was like throwing Genghis Khan into the same cell with two guys busted for jaywalking.

Genghis Khan once executed a man by having molten silver poured into his eyes and ears. He had the Caliph of Baghdad put into a sack and trampled by horses. This doesn’t have much to do with the article, I just felt that a mention of Genghis Khan merited me giving some evidence of how much of a badass he was. As for the assertion that Philadelphia fans are worse than in New York and Boston, well, I’m sure that Victoria Snelgrove would disagree.

Way back when, the Soviets' Big Red Machine of a hockey team wasn't frightened off the ice at Boston Garden or Madison Square Garden in the heat of the Cold War. That was an only-in-Philly phenomenon.

Um, I think that Ed Van Impe may want some of the credit for this. Or, you know, the amount of credit that he deserves: all of it. Also, it’s worth mentioning that the Red Army beat the Rangers and the Bruins; the only team that the Red Army (the Sabres beat the other, lesser team) in the Super Series was the Flyers. Finally, dude, you can’t call them the Big Red Machine when there’s another Big Red Machine that was playing at the same time; Joe Morgan deserves better.

The same goes for McNabb, the Rocky Balboa of $100 million NFL quarterbacks.

This doesn’t actually mean anything. I tried, and couldn’t put any meaning behind this sentence. It’s nonsense, though I invite anyone to try to convince me otherwise.

"They've thrown me out, they ran over me, spit on me," McNabb said recently of his detractors. "But you know what? ... I just continue to prevail."

Yeah, some of the criticism McNabb has received may have been excessive. These histrionics, though, are completely unnecessary. Eli Manning was getting shit in New York, and then it stopped last January. Maybe that’s worth considering. As for comparing the treatment of McNabb to how fans in Boston have acted, well, you can’t really, because most of Boston didn’t know the Patriots existed until they beat the Rams, so here really isn’t an analogous time of struggle.

Prevail? The Phillies just won the first major sports championship in that city since the Sixers claimed the NBA crown in 1983, and yet in the early hours of 2009, McNabb still has a chance to go down as the enduring Philly story of 2008.

No, he doesn’t. World Fucking Champions.

Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Brad Lidge — they weren't around when McNabb was the second player chosen in the '99 draft, when Cleveland celebrated the immortal Tim Couch like a returning war hero before McNabb was jeered by a fan base that wanted Ricky Williams instead.

Actually, the Phillies drafted J-Roll in 1996, but whatever. Anyway, I love how close he gets to the truth here, and then veers away to make his dickheaded point instead. Again, if you’ve been having trouble, the 30ish people there at the draft were booing Andy Reid’s decision, not Donovan.

The Phillies absorbed their fair share of abuse on their way to a parade — even in good times, Philly crowds best match up with the torch-carrying mobs from those old Bela Lugosi films. In fact, Philadelphia fields the only teams in sports that try to score early to take their own fans out of the game.

Well, if he’s going to cite fan behavior from the 60s, he might as well make cultural references from the 30s. As for the abuse heaped onto the Phillies, the key word here is “fair;” I don’t remember anyone being unfairly treated by the fans. I remember Rollins being booed for like two at bats after he said stupid shit on the Best Damn Sports Show, and Howard caught some shit when he was hitting below the Mendoza line, but JD Drew was booed in Boston in 07 pretty much all season until he hit that postseason grand slam. This isn’t unique to Philadelphia.

But nobody's had more line drives smacked at him than McNabb, whose 10 years in Philly are the equivalent of 20 anywhere else.

I think there’s a whole lot of short sighted, instant history going on here. McNabb pretty much coasted here for years, he got a free pass despite all the NFC Championship Game losses and the vast majority of fans and the media took his side in the TO garbage. It was only when his play dropped off, and the injuries started mounting, that he started catching criticism. I don’t see how that his unfair at all? Reid benched McNabb in Baltimore, because he play merited it. If his play merits being benched, it certainly merits criticism from fans and the media.

"We're human beings and you get tired of it," McNabb said. "But you never let them see you sweat."

He then went on to add, “It’s ok to let them see you puke, though.”

On Sunday, McNabb will lead the Eagles into Giants Stadium for a playoff game with the top-seeded defending champs. He's the only quarterback to beat the Giants on their own field this season, and nobody will be terribly surprised if he makes it two for the road.

If the Eagles beat the Giants, it’s going to be because of Westbrook, Stewart Bradley, and the rest of the defense stopping the Giants’ running game. All McNabb has to do is not blow it.

But to understand where McNabb is, you have to understand where he's been. To hell and back? Not quite.

Not so much at all. Stop trying to say he has been.

At times it just seemed that way.

Fist yourself.

As a prospect out of the South Side of Chicago, McNabb was offered two Division I scholarships to play quarterback. Two. Syracuse and Nebraska were willing to let him keep his position, while dozens of other big-time schools wanted McNabb as a receiver, a running back, or a safety.

I blame Ed Rendell for this. What a prick.

McNabb was interested in Illinois. But the Illinois coach, Lou Tepper, informed McNabb's coach at Mount Carmel High that his Illini assistant, Greg Landry, didn't want young Donovan as a quarterback. This would be the same Landry who in 15 NFL seasons threw for 13,000 fewer yards and nearly 100 fewer touchdowns than McNabb would manage in his first 10.

Yeah, that guy was probably an asshole. I bet he grew up in Philly.

"That's a situation Donovan's been facing since grade school," his Mount Carmel predecessor, Mike McGrew, once told me. "The doubts and questions we face as black quarterbacks."

Uh oh.

Doug Williams couldn't destroy all the wretched stereotypes in one Super Bowl. So if McNabb has come across as overly sensitive, he has his reasons. He's been blitzed by all comers.

So Keith Law is having a chat on ESPN.com right now; I think I’m gonna switch over to that before this article makes me headbutt my computer. That was such a good idea; KLAW is easily the best columnist on ESPN.com

A white commentator, Rush Limbaugh, actually called him the creation of a white media base that was "very desirous" of seeing a black quarterback succeed. A black commentator, J. Whyatt Mondesire, the head of the Philadelphia branch of the NAACP, actually wrote in his newspaper that McNabb was a "mediocre at best" quarterback who was "trying to disguise that fact behind some concocted reasoning that African-American quarterbacks who can scramble and who can run the ball are somehow lesser field generals..."

Limbaugh lost his job over that. It was shitty, but it’s so far in the past, why bring it up? Also, kinda worth pointing out that Philadelphia came to McNabb’s defense pretty hardcore there. As for Mondesire, well, McNabb may be better than mediocre, but he’s far from great.

In effect, McNabb was called a pocket-passing sellout by an NAACP official in his own market.

So the logical next step is to attribute blame for what this one guy says to the entire city. Let’s see if dick monkey follows through…

No, Philadelphia has never led the league in constructive criticism.

And he does!

McNabb was cast in the role of choker for reaching his fourth consecutive NFC title game before finally winning one. He threw for 357 yards and three touchdowns in a Super Bowl loss to the Brady/Belichick Patriots and yet is best remembered for the interceptions, the sacks and the alleged dehydration/exhaustion/nausea that did or didn't get the best of him down the stretch.

Yep, that is what he’s best known for from that game. The picks (3 of them, I think) killed the team. There’s a reason that interceptions make a QB rating plummet: they’re really, really bad. McNabb blew it, he choked in that game. He ran the worst hurry up offence I’ve ever seen, and it’s completely indefensible.

Terrell Owens was McNabb's worst nightmare even before stating that Brett Favre was the superior quarterback. Jeff Garcia nearly replaced McNabb, and Kevin Kolb was drafted to unseat him.

Yeah, but TO made McNabb look like a superstar for a season. Jeff Garcia came in when McNabb was injured, something that’s been a pretty common occurrence over the last five years, and did his job. He made the Pro-Bowl last year; he’s a good quarterback. And yes, Kolb was drafted to replace McNabb. With the rate that McNabb was missing games when that pick was made, it would have been irresponsible for the Eagles not to look into some sort of succession plan. None of this seems all that awful to me.

This year, McNabb was McNailed nationally for revealing he didn't know regular-season games could end in a tie. He was benched by Andy Reid, then reinstated only because the anointed Kolb was dreadful in relief.

McNabb should have known that the game would end in a tie! The ref says it before every overtime! And he deserved to be benched. I would bet anything that O’Connor didn’t watch the Ravens game. And, seriously, McNailed?

The Eagles weren't going to give McNabb the extension he wanted on the $115 million contract he signed in 2002. They were going to drive him to the airport and have him play quarterback for somebody else.

He’s still under contract for like two more years. A nine-figure contract. I’m not going to cry for him. And honestly, if we can get someone to give us a first round pick for him, to have three first round picks this draft, I would do that in a heart beat. I’m all set for the Tim Tebow era to begin in Philadelphia.

Only something funny happened on the way to divorce court. McNabb beat the Cardinals, Giants and Browns, ripped the Cowboys in a win-or-else game and threw for 300 yards in a wild-card playoff victory over the Vikings.

Yeah, well, what about the losses to the Redskins, and the tie against the Bengals. He hasn’t been great this year at all. Westbrook’s 70ish yard screen pass sure helped him rack up those 300 yards passing last Sunday. Seriously, the Eagles offense didn’t look all that impressive against the Vikings. I wouldn’t point to that when talking about how awesome McNabb is.

He's won five of six games in all and thrown for 10 touchdowns against two interceptions in the process.

The one game in those six that they lost was a 10-3 game in Washington. Seriously, the Eagles didn’t score a touchdown against the Redskins. They held their playoff fate in their own hands, and couldn’t get into the endzone against a team that had quit on Jim Zorn about two months earlier.

"I've been kind of revived, I guess," McNabb said.

No, you’re playing with one of the best running backs in the league and a great defense. McNabb hasn’t been all that spectacular. He hasn’t taken over a game by himself once this year, like he did against Arizona when he was playing on a broken ankle. Seriously, is O’Connor writing a sports column or a hagiography?

This year's Eagles are suddenly last year's Giants — a white-hot wild card scaring all the top seeds straight. McNabb is suddenly the same quarterback who completed that fourth-and-26 playoff pass to Freddie Mitchell to beat Favre's Packers in his greatest NFL moment.

I wouldn’t go so far as to compare the Eagles to the Giants. I mean, not to be pessimistic, but what good teams have the Eagles beaten? The Giants, once, and Atlanta. Is that it?

Can he lead the Eagles to their first championship since 1960? Maybe, maybe not.

I’m leaning towards not, but I hope he does it.

Either way, McNabb has proven himself every bit as tough as the town that's tested him for 10 years. He at least deserves an engraved watch for that.

What the hell? Where did the engraved watch come from? That’s at least a suitably random thought to end on for a terrible article.

Jimmy Buffet would be rolling in his hammock right now...

Doesn't this seem to go against everything Jimmy Buffet's music stands for?

The fact that a bar fight broke out over a juke box selection is ridiculous enough. However, the fact that Jimmy Buffet, the King of beach and lounge music incited five men to brawl is deliciously ironic.

The only unsurprising thing: that the men who are irate enough at the mere thought of Jimmy Buffet to start brawling unmercilessly beat on the guys who have a penchant for margaritas, warm weather locales, and cheeseburgers.

Jay Mariotti is Back!

So I was between classes debating whether or not I want to read about defeasible estates for the third time when I realized what today was. It’s better than Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day, and my birthday combined. Today is Jay Mariotti’s debut writing for AOL. I haven’t read it yet, so I figured we could take this magical journey together. I’m almost giddy.

Sunnier Times in New Mainstream Media

And if Jay is anything like he was while writing for the Sun-Times, sunnier times at Suffering Idiots too.

We all have our career flashpoints. Mine came in China, perhaps triggered by a near-death experience while climbing the Great Wall. Or the horror of Bill Plaschke, my TV sparring partner, trying the local delicacy -- animal penis -- and concluding, "I guess I like penis; it's very tasty."

Wow, and Jay comes out swinging for the fences. Is he trying to provoke another Ozzie Guillen outburst? As for Plaschke, well, I’m not surprised.

Or maybe the sight of Richard M. Daley, mayor of a cold and corrupt Chicago, rushing toward me with a beer at a Beijing function to discuss ... the White Sox?

At this point, Jay would like everyone to know that he’s a popular guy.

Whatever, the surreal seeds were in place last August for a professional epiphany -- one that has led me to America Online, where I'm thrilled to launch today as a national sports columnist, commentator and friendly neighborhood rabble-rouser. I should add I'm doubly thrilled to flee the darker corners of the newspaper business, which was reminding me of Marley the dog in his final days.

Why does he feel the need to label himself as a rabble-rouser? That’s basically saying that he’s going to be controversial just for the sake of controversy. I understand that’s how ESPN seems to operate, because evidently the sports themselves aren’t as interesting as whatever Terrell Owens is saying. But Jay is supposedly leaving that all behind. I guess I just expected better. Oh well, on to his epiphany.

To wit: A week into the Olympics, I was inside The Water Cube That Phelps Built when a voice-mail popped in. It was from the sports editor of the ailing Chicago Sun-Times, asking me to accommodate the newspaper's Paleozoic-era deadlines by doing something the readers wouldn't appreciate. He wanted me to write one column that had Michael Phelps winning that day's race and another column that had him losing. Both would be filed long before the event, which, in some quarters, would be considered an editorial directive to cook up fiction.

I’m not really an expert on newpapers, but this seems like something that would happen pretty frequently. And I’m not really sure there’s anything wrong with it. If it’s either that or nothing, I have to think that the readers would prefer the pre-written articles. They can always go online later to read an account written after the race if they’re interested enough.

I would insert blanks for the finishing times, which a copy editor would fill in, and the bulk would be a lot of jibber-jabber that worked regardless of the result. The editors would decide which column ran based on the outcome. In other words, processed lunch meat for your 50 cents -- and it wasn't the first time. I usually just dealt with these hideous requests. This time, I balked.

Yeah, so this has been done before, and Jay has done it. I think that he just didn’t want to spend the time writing two columns, preferring to get back to the animal penis.

"It's not fair to the readers. They're getting stale filler when we have time to give them live substance," I said.

Wait, what? I thought you said that this request was based off deadlines. Now there’s time to write a full report? I’m lost.

What if something dramatic happened that couldn't be conveyed in the prepackaged pap? What if Phelps had to out-touch a Serbian rival at the wall? What if a teammate bailed him out on a relay? What if his Speedo LZR Racer suit fell off?

Seriously, does anyone else think that he’s just taunting Ozzie at this point?

Didn't readers need DETAILS in their morning paper, having seen the race? And wasn't Phelps becoming, um, an American icon, watched by tens of millions each night? If the deadline was 10 p.m. in Chicago and the race would end shortly thereafter, couldn't we push it a few extra minutes? Why give up?

It sure is great of Jay to stand up for the little guy. But seriously, he worked for the Sun-Times for like 17 years, he has to be familiar with deadlines and the printing process, and I’m sure it’s constrained him before. Why whine about it now?

Then I looked across the table. Sitting there, relaxed and ready for action, were staff writers from a leading sports Web site. The columnist was flanked by the Phelps beat writer, and, nearby, an editor was leading the coverage. They had the luxury of analyzing the race, reporting afterward, waiting for the news conference, then writing the hell out of the biggest sports story of 2008. By no coincidence, several top national sites, including AOL Sports, all were read by staggering numbers of eyeballs during the Olympics.

Oh, there it is. He found a better job, jumped to it, and doesn’t want to look like the bad guy. I’ve been reading paragraphs of self-serving drivel. Oh well, might as well keep at it.

It occurred to me, then and there, that this is why so many print stragglers are wheezing -- and why Internet sites such as the one you're reading constitute the new media mainstream and business model. Failing newspapers are a victim of their own stubbornness, stupidity and lack of foresight in moving their news initiatives to the digital world. The large paper in Chicago, the Tribune, started a digital transition years ago and gave itself a chance. The Sun-Times? The owners became jailbirds, preferring to siphon profits rather than invest in the future.

Ok, now Jay is being more honest. He’s leaving a sinking ship, and I can’t really fault him for that. But at least be up front with it, don’t hide your actions behind some veil of fake nobility and animal penis references. It’s unbecoming. As for failing newspapers, that’s something to write about later, but there are an awful lot of interesting things there.

How do you keep fighting for a place that had stopped fighting? How do you work for any newspaper, save a select few, in 2009?

See, this is a legitimate concern. But why all the nonsense about fake columns or whatever? I’m sorry, I can’t get over that.

I resigned after the Games with a calm, professional letter,

Somehow I doubt that. I’ve seen too much ATH to believe that there were no histrionics in this letter.

a decision that came mere months after I'd signed a contract extension. I guess I hurt some feelings.

Yeah, that was kind of a dick move. Maybe this is why he added all that crap about caring about the readers.

The boys called me a "rat," forgetting those 5,000 columns through the years. They accused me of using Beijing as vacation time ("Hey, kids, let's ditch Hawaii and hang out in a Communist country."). They let a few staff writers, who should focus on doing better work, react with rage reminiscent of Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction." All because I handed back about a million bucks and wanted something more.

I don’t know why, but I love it when sports writers throw out how much money they make. It just seems so petty, like when Bill Conlin went off ranting about how he makes “ball player money” to write two columns a week. Settle down.

Know how nutty it got? AOL rated me 14th on its Most Controversial Sports Figures list, between Chad Ocho Cinco and the Steinbrenners. If my eventual new bosses knew about my torrid fling with Madonna, I'd have cracked the top five, I betcha.

Ewwwwwww. Not cool, Jay, not cool.

So I'm obviously jacked, at the start of a new year, to hook up with one of the largest and most-read content sites on the Internet. Just because papers are dying doesn't mean writers will die with them.

Ehh, I’m not so sure about this. Like, who is the online equivalent of a David Halberstam? Is anyone going to write anything like The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved? Bill Simmons? Yeah, not so much.

Many will keep moving onward to potent, ambitious missions such as the one at AOL, which has assembled some of the best in the profession -- columnist Kevin Blackistone, my "Around The Horn" colleague on ESPN; and Lisa Olson, among the elite columnists in New York during her lengthy run at the Daily News.

Um, these are far from the best. Neither of these writers make me want to go to AOL for sports news at all.

AOL also is fortifying its staff of dedicated writers and bloggers, many of whom, like Michael David Smith, break news on FanHouse and have a solid journalistic base. There will be a dynamic site relaunch on Jan. 13 and, I assume, attention about the continuing crossover of writers from print to cyberspace.

Same with these guys; as much as Jay would like it to be, FanHouse really isn’t that good. It pales in comparison to Deadspin and The Sporting Blog; there really isn’t anything that AOL provides that isn’t done better elsewhere. And, while I’m thinking about it, I really miss FJM.

I am here to bring you fiercely independent views about a multi-billion-dollar industry that is more complex than ever and, somehow, more fun than ever. The biggest Internet sites -- most importantly, those unaffiliated with leagues and franchises -- are in position now to do the best unfiltered work. Newspapers? I read where Mark Cuban wants the sports industry to form "a beat-writer cooperative." Yes, he wants leagues to hire the writers who will cover teams daily, a frightening thought. "I know this is in violation of all previous principles of editorial church and state," Cuban wrote, "but then again, watching papers going out of business and not even being able to give themselves away means it's time to start a new branch of that church."

Wow. I hadn’t heard about this before, and it’s a terrible idea. Beat writers are already biased enough, I guess because getting access depends on favorable portrayals, but this would be even worse. I was watching the Pens-Panthers game this weekend, the Penguin’s broadcast, and all the announcers were doing is whining about what they thought were missed calls. It was ridiculous, and pretty much unwatchable. Jim Jackson is often just as bad calling Flyers games. We don’t need that to become more pervasive. Save us, Jay Mariotti!

I'd rather not lose my religion, thank you. As it was, I worked at a paper whose editor once called and asked me not to criticize a particular team -- read: owner -- in the wake of a circulation-padding scandal. I ignored him.

Seriously guys, if you didn’t pick up on it from the beginning of this article, Jay Mariotti is a hero and a maverick. And he has out best interests at heart.

Expect me to zealously comment on national issues while spanning the country and world to cover events. Sometimes, my pieces will appear via video, so you get to know me even better than the guy who schools Woody Paige every day on ESPN.

I don’t think that beating Woody Paige in anything is worthy of being bragged about. It would be like Usain Bolt showing up and sweeping the sprinting/stumbling events at the Special Olympics.

The difference is, the column won't go through the 20th-century, ink-and-newsprint monkey grind where you hope the truck driver doesn't stop at Dunkin' Donuts and the delivery boy doesn't hit your dog on the ass. The column simply will go from my computer to an editor to you.

I’ve spent a pretty long time reading this, and I’m not going to lie; it would have been preferable if a truck driver had stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts and I had never seen this.

I'm working for a company, AOL, that attracted 54 million unique visitors to its programming content sites in November and ranks fourth in traffic among Internet news sites. As established writers keep moving Web-ward, it will cause consternation among a few members of the sports blogosphere, some of whom think they own the Internet when, as everyone knows, Bill Kurtis owns the Internet.

Bill Kurtis doesn’t own the Internet, he’s just really good at finding it.

I've never bought into this "mainstream media vs. bloggers" blood war because, in my mind, we're all writers.

And, as a member of the mainstream media, you were losing.

The best young writers provide compelling takes on sports. The losers wake up each day and attack (choose your ESPN target), an approach that can't attract much audience beyond a few neurotic souls in sports media.

What does it say about Jay that he’s the guy attacking those that are attacking whoever on ESPN? (Or me, that now I’m attacking him? Things are spiraling out of control here.)

Now hear this: I'm a bit too busy to hate bloggers or, really, anyone but terrorists and certain Illinois politicians. I just think they should be writing about Steve Smith, not Stephen A. Smith.

I disagree, as long as it’s well done, I’ll read about pretty much anything. I’d rather read Ken Tremendous writing about, well, pretty much anything, than a story about who Steve Smith punched in the face this week.

So it's off this week to the BCS title game in Miami, where Blackistone and I will do what we've always done: write 1,000 words about a major event. We'll just send our columns to a different place.
The place to be.

I can’t wait.

Book Review of Meg, notes on Boston, and other odds and ends

After writing this, speculating about the continued existence of Megalodons, Gerber recommended the book Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, about just that. It’s the story of the aptly named Jonas Taylor, a paleontologist/oceanographer/marine biologist, who believes that megalodon still exist. Everyone thinks he’s crazy, until a 60-foot behemoth, through an unlucky series of circumstances, is able to leave the trench and wreaks havoc throughout the Pacific.

The megalodon is able to rack up an impressive kill count while Taylor and some others are trying to capture it, before a climactic battle takes place between the predator, people trying to capture it, people trying to kill it, the media, and a fleet of curious onlookers. The ending here, and if you know anything about the Old Testament you can probably figure it out, is so absurdly unbelievable, even in a book about an extinct shark, that it is a little bit of a letdown.

The novel did have some great scenes, including an opening battle between a Megalodon and a Tyrannosaurus Rex. I would recommend this book based on a person’s reaction to the back cover. In big letters it says, “Two Words: Jurassic Shark.” If you rolled you eyes at that, I would stay away. If that seems pretty awesome, give the book a shot.

Moving on…

A friend and I went up to Boston this weekend to visit a third friend before he goes to spend the semester in Tahiiiiits, and some aspects of the trip were definitely worth passing on. On the drive up we saw a scene straight out of Tommy Boy. As a white pick up truck was heading north on 95, its hood flew up, completely obscuring the driver’s view through the windshield. The guy in the truck handled it like a champ, acting quickly to get to the side of the road. Presumably he then removed the empty oil can.

Saturday night we went out to bars in Plymouth. After an early last call (1 o’clock? Seriously?), we were walking to the car when someone mentioned threw out going to Plymouth Rock. Then an incredible conversation happened; a girl walking behind us blurted out, “You should definitely go to Plymouth Rock, it dances!” The guy walking with her looked at us and said, “No, it doesn’t,” to which she replied, “It does when you’re on acid.” No one raised any further arguments.

On Sunday we went to the Museum of Science, which was pretty sweet. They had a planetarium, and although not everyone managed to stay awake through it, it was still pretty cool. There was also a three D movie about sharks, narrated by a kindly British turtle, which was fun. There was one part, though, that left me completely befuddled. At one point in the movie it looked like a whole school of jellyfish were floating at the audience. Some people decided to reach out to try to touch the jellyfish. Why would anyone do this? First of all, come on, you’re in a 3D theatre, do you think they’re actually there? And second, what if you reach out and are able to grab one? Then you’re just sitting in a dark theatre with a jellyfish in your hands, not a good situation. Finally, there was a presentation about electricity. At one point, the guy running it decided to show what would happen when electricity was passed from a generator to an ungrounded person and then finally to a grounded person. So he had a girl stand on a milk crate and a boy stand on the ground next to her, and started the electricity flowing. When it got going he had them reach their fist towards the other. As the electricity was passed to the boy it gave him a little shock, and he yelped. For most people, that would be the end of the presentation, but there was something clearly wrong with this kid. He reached his hand up again, same result. Ok, maybe he was just trying to put on a good show, and that would be the end. Or maybe not. He kept reaching his hand up, three times, a fourth, yelping each time. Finally, after the ninth time, the guy running the demonstration shut off power to the generator. If he hadn’t, I can only assume that the kid would have kept electrocuting himself.

And one last marine biology note. Here's a professor in Northeastern's Masters program:





And, some other thoughts:

Today Gov. Blagojevich appointed former state Attorney General Roland Burris to fill Obama’s Senate seat. He has yet to announce how Burris compensated him, though it is probably safe to assume it’s some combination of free legal advice and connections within the state Department of Justice.

It really bothers me when football announcers call an end-around a reverse. How difficult can it be to correctly call a reverse? I mean, seriously, the play is described in its title. If the ball is handed one way, then direction is reversed when given to another player, by all means, call it a reverse. But if the quarterback just hands the ball to a wide receiver, it’s just an end around. Stop fucking this up. Also, the Hail Mary is probably my favorite play name ever.

I recently tried to read Black Belt Patriotism, Chuck Norris’ political manifesto, but I could only get through about 25 or so pages. It’s not that Chuck isn’t a passable writer, I read his western novel The Justice Riders cover to cover, but he’s out of his mind. From what I did read, though, Chuck believes there are eight major problems facing America: no national legacy, no control over spending, not enough border control, no moral compass, not enough value for human life, no future for the children, no traditional family values, and no might to fight. There are a lot of right wing buzzwords in there, but I was still willing to persevere through it. I could look past all the name dropping and bragging. I was even willing to ignore that he left out wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, perhaps not considering them to be big deals. But after what felt like the thirtieth mention of liberal judges legislating from the bench I couldn’t take it anymore. How is it that only liberal judges are said to legislate from the bench? Pretty much any time a judge issues an opinion he’s shaping the common law, in effect legislating from the bench. That’s what judges do. Why is there such a negative connotation? And why is it only attached to liberal, progressive judges? Seriously, this is pretty ridiculous.

Not to be a dick, but why are all these year-end retrospectives including Steve Fosset in with people who died in 2008? He died in 2007; I understand that his remains were found this year, but that’s still cheating.

Institutional deaf-ism

I was just watching TV on mute while I was on the phone, which automatically kicks on the Closed Captioning. When the NBA on ESPN commercial came on, there was nothing written in CC except two music notes. Now that's just mean.

"Hey deaf guy, there's some sweet music playing right now. What's that? You can't hear it? Ok, let me tell you about it. Oh, you don't know anything about music because you have no basis for comparison since you've been deaf since birth? And you can't hear what I'm saying right now? Hmmm...do you know what music notes look like? Bingo."

Mr. Gerber's Wild Ride

Here's a description of some of the people I had the esteemed privilege of seeing on my romp across the country for the holidays:

The woman in front of me at Airport security
She chose to wear knee-high boots with a zipper down the calf from top to heel. I know that these new-fangled security guidelines are capable of shattering anyone’s routine, and that having everyone take off their shoes really slows down the security line. But September 11th was over 7 years ago. Now, you’re just another fucking moron and not merely living with St. Christopher’s absence.

The guy directly behind me in the Southwest boarding line
For those of you who haven’t flown in the “no hidden charges zone” Southwest still has you pick your own seat. In order to do this, you are assigned a check-in number and you have to get yourselves in line when the time is called like you’re headed to recess. This conversation ensued:

Me: (standing in line minding my own business)
Middle-aged dude in need of friends: Well looks like you’re A15, and since I’m A16 I guess I’m right here.
Yep. That’s how number fucking order works.
My disinterested nod shook him off of me, but my ears could not be saved. After all, A15 must stay in front of A16. We just covered this.
Middle-aged dude in need of friends: (to no one in particular) So…headed to Baltimore, huh?
Crickets: Chirp chirp.
Middle-aged dude in need of friends: Don’t know what the big deal is with this weather! Back where I’m from in Syracuse this is like flurries. We got 18’ of snow in December 3 Christmases ago.
Right. Which is yet another reason why I don’t live in Syracuse.
Middle-aged dude in need of friends: All they need to do is prep the streets with salt and get the rotation going. And where do you get your salt from? Salt City, USA. (dramatic pause) SYRACUSE!
What are you, a Syracusan real estate agent? And if you are, you suck at your job. So far your major selling points have been 1) we’ve got salt 2) we’ve got God-wrath amounts of snow and 3) your sorry ass. You can’t pay me to live there.

Then, moments later, douchebag in the aisle holding up the whole flight.
I know for a fact that you’re only allowed to bring one carry-on bag. They tell you fucking anywhere you look in an airport. This fact is incontrovertible. But somehow, this guy gets onto the plane with 3 fucking bags! He’s pushing a rolling bag in front of him, pulling one behind him, and has a massive backpack strapped to his back. But it wasn’t the number of his bags nor was it the fact that it took him 10 minutes to realize that he couldn’t fit 3 great big bags into an already crowded overhead compartment that told me I wasn’t going to like him. No, I knew I wasn’t going to like him from the moment I saw that the straps of his backpack were clipped together three inches below his chin like he was ready to go absailing in a fucking canyon. That was enough.

Dickhead shuttle bus driver
After this debacle, I had to grab a train to get to my final destination. I had roughly 30 minutes to catch the shuttle to the train station, pick up my ticket, and get on board. When I got to the curb to grab the shuttle, there was already a mass of people waiting there. One guy was yelling as loud as he could as if that was the signal to get a shuttle driver to show up. I did not hate that idea.
I noticed about 100 feet away three shuttles were idling instead of, you know, shuttling. I walked ahead of the pack and waved to try and flag one down. In response, the shuttle driver in the front turned his lights off, presumably to prevent me from seeing the giant white bus parked under row upon row of artificial light. Or maybe just to be a dick. I would be less offended if the latter was his motivation.

There were many other fine travelers out today, but I’ve been en route for over 6 hours now and that much travel combined with all this anger has really worn me out.

Amen I say to you...

I’m starting to think that maybe some people may have missed the point of what Jesus was all about. This article is a pretty clear case of that. Apparently this divorced woman, Rebecca Hancock, is dating another guy, and her church, the Grace Community Church, isn’t too happy about it. So they’re going to do what any responsible, tax-exempt organization would do: publicly shame the woman because Jesus wants them to.

Unless this woman ends her relationship with whoever this guy is, her sins will be announced to the congregation. Evidently, this happens fairly frequently. The church is defending its actions by saying they are merely doing what Jesus instructed them, cherry-picking a bible verse, Matthew 18:17, which says, in part, “tell it unto the church.” (KJV)

I looked up Matthew 18:17, because, well, it seemed inconsistent with Jesus’ whole message. My understanding of Jesus’ teachings is essentially “don’t be an asshole, even if you think you can get away with it.” This church has gotten something else out of it all. Well, judging by the rest of Matthew 18, not to mention the rest of the Gospels, I’m pretty sure my reading comprehension skills are better than theirs.

Matthew 18 is a pretty long chapter, and has a lot of moral commands in it. It opens with Jesus answering the question of who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. The answer, as I’m sure most of you remember from CCD, is he who humbles himself like a child. Jesus goes on to say that whoever accepts the child accepts him, and that those who offend a child would be better off drowning. Now, this might be a stretch, but when I read this I interpret child to be representative of anyone who can’t really defend herself, like Ms. Hancock. Jesus is basically saying here, and throughout the Bible, that by looking out for those who cannot look out for themselves you are doing His work, and if you’re not doing this you’re fucked.

Eventually Matthew writes the line that this church is basing their assholery on. But if you read it in context, you can see that they’re really manipulating Jesus’ words. Matthew 18:15 says, “Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault…” It then goes on to say to talk to him with two or three witnesses, and if that doesn’t work to “tell it unto the church.” I think the key part of this is “against thee.” This woman has done nothing against the church, they’re just a bunch of self-righteous dickbags. I think that the more appropriate verse for the church to base its actions off is John 8:7, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

Seriously people, if you want to be an asshole, fine, I’m not going to try to stop you. Just don’t use the words of people that are better than you to rationalize it.

This just in...

Sometimes you can tell that CNN is trying really hard to be original. And sometimes, that search for originality leads them to report shit that is neither news nor particularly surprising.

Take, for instance, a headline from the frontpage of CNN.com today:

No good way to tell kids they have cancer

Well you don't say!

I had to open it up. And much like curiosity killed the proverbial cat, it also obliterated some of my bygone brain cells by seering them on frustration the frying pan in a nice you-can't-be-fucking-serious bisque.

The article centers on the Pasley family who two years ago had to tell their 9 year-old daughter Gigi she had cancer. Says Elizabeth Cohen, the sage who wrote this article:

The Pasleys learned that day there's no good way to tell your child she has cancer.

Well skin my ass and cook me up some bacon! It sucks telling someone who hasn't yet reached double digits in age that they have cancer? I had no idea!

Can't we quickly file this under the "shit I could have figured out without having to experience it" section and call it a day? I mean, I don't have kids (and never have had kids, I might add - - in case writing a douchy article about juvenile cancer might lead you to believe otherwise) and I've never told anyone they have been diagnosed with cancer, but just knowing a little bit about cancer I think I could have come up with that assessment even with absolutely no hands-on experience.

And wouldn't it be pretty disturbing if it was easy for you to tell a 9 year-old she had cancer? Wouldn't that be a pretty bad sign?

And again, not to pick on a little girl with cancer, but this story gets more unbelievable.

Not only did it take the Pasleys actually telling their daughter that she had cancer to know that telling their daughter she had cancer would be tough, but this wasn't the first time they had to tell her!

Unfortunately (yet fortunately in the end), Gigi had fought (and beaten) leukemia 3 times before age 9 when she was diagnosed with a new bone cancer.

But it was "that day" when she was 9 that the Pasleys learned that lesson? It didn't cross your mind the first few times you told your daughter she had cancer that that experienced sucked for everyone in earshot?

So the fourth time's the unlucky charm with childhood cancer? Good to know.

World #&*(^$@ Champions

In the wake of the Phillies’ World Series victory, Chase Utley took the stage at a post-parade rally to deliver a few remarks. He started, “World champions… world fucking champions!” The stadium erupted, his teammates loved it, and I still watch it on Youtube about once a day. Well, it was broadcast live, on pretty much every station in Philadelphia, without a delay. And some people decided to complain to the FCC. The Inquirer obtained copies of the twenty six complaints, and published excerpts of some of them. You can muddle through all that self-righteous bullshit at Philly.com, or just keep reading, and I’ll tell you what they’re really saying.

"If they didn't want such words to be broadcast, they should have aired [it] on a delay to catch any obscene language. Pull their license to broadcast."

Because about half a second of profanity was aired in the middle of the afternoon, NBC, CBS, FOX, and ABC should be razed, and their fields strewn with salt. Not only were they ok with Utley saying “fucking,” they probably told him to, and should never be heard from again.

"He should be disciplined for his lack of respect towards his fans and in particular the children exposed to such vulgarity. . . . The broadcasters are not at fault. Chase Utley is."

Chase Utley played through an agonizing hip injury for months to bring a World Series to Philadelphia. Although he’s only played for a couple years, he has Hall of Fame potential. That’s not enough for me though. Despite years of being a consummate professional, almost to the point of being boring, and working tirelessly to save abandoned animals, he is a disrespectful, vulgar bastard. The responsibility for raising my children is clearly on his shoulders, and he isn’t doing a good job.

"This was not a casual slip. This was an intentional misuse and abuse of the public airwaves. . . . How am I to explain such profanity to my child?"

(This one is my favorite.) I am a terrible parent. I am completely incapable of communicating with my children. Instead of using this as an opportunity to show them how you can be successful through hard work, like this team was, I’m going to harp on Chase Utley dropping an F bomb, for the second time this season, no less, and blame him when my daughter runs away to be a stripper and my thirty year old son is selling weed out of my basement. Damn you, Chase Utley.

"It was embarrassing that he was allowed to do that and if there are no ramifications I will be furious. Is there no platform that is sacred anymore?"

How dare they sully the good name of broadcast television, which has given us such cultural staples as Temptation Island, two wife-swapping shows, people eating horse testicles, Desperate Housewives, every soap opera ever, and pretty much all reality television? I expect nothing but excellence from network TV, and anything less should be punished.

Earlier this week Chase Utley tried to put this nonsense to rest, saying, “I tell all kids not to use that word. If they're 29 and they win the World Series, I think they can say that. But I definitely would say to all the kids out there, 'Kids, it's a bad word. Don't say it. And I'm dead serious.'’” I don’t understand why not everyone could have this approach. I wish I could say the the people complaining were Mets fans, but they probably weren't. I guess I wish people were smarter.

Get to know me!

I often laugh with my students, like when this conversation about white music took place:

Tracee: "Coldplay is definitely white music! Watch. Hey Ty'shandra, what's Coldplay?"
Ty'shandra: "Is that some kind of dessert?"

But often I laugh at them. Most times in my head, but I've been known to laugh audibly, too. I couldn't help myself today.

I was grading the quizzes from one class while a later class took the quiz. In perhaps my craziest moment yet in a classroom, I straight up cackled in front of a quiet room. This is what I had read:

When prompted to describe how you could tell two different types of objects apart while blindfolded (to paraphrase, describe the texture of these two objects) one of my high schoolers wrote:

"You can see them like pictures in your head. Sort of like little worms."

Often, I laugh so that I don't cry.

Best quotes of '08?

The Yale Book of Quotations has announced its top ten most notable quotes from this past year, and while I think they actually did a decent job, there were some glaring omissions. So I’ve taken it upon myself to come up with my own top ten list, without repeating any of their choices. This is all pretty arbitrary, and will probably be skewed fairly heavily towards things that were said after August, considering this is all coming from memory. Also, I stopped thinking after I came up with ten. Anyway:


10. “You’re likable enough, Hillary.” – Barack Obama

9. “Eat, sleep, and swim. That’s all that I can do.” – Michael Phelps

8. “God damn America!” – Jeremiah Wright

7. “I’m gonna make this pencil disappear.” – Heath Ledger, as the Joker

6. “Wall Street got drunk, and now it’s got a hangover.” – George W. Bush

5. “If the Human race is going to continue for another million years, we will have to boldly go where no one has gone before.” – Stephen Hawking

4. “If some people don’t have a sense of humor, then it’s their problem.” – Silvio Berlusconi

3. “If Jesus came back today, I think he’d throw up.” – Jesse Ventura

2. "We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation." – Sarah Palin

1. “World champions… world fucking champions!” – Chase Utley

Feel free to add your own in the comments.

I Love Cole Hamels and I Don’t Care Who Knows

Some of the writers on this site are Mets fans; others are Phillies fans. I don’t want to set any kind of precedent here that could lead into this turning into just petty bickering about which baseball team is better, but I just had to write something about 2008 World Series MVP Cole Hamels’ comments this week on WFAN in New York. (Full audio here if you haven’t heard it)

So Hamels (again, it bears repeating that he was the MVP of the 2008 World Series. That the Phillies won. Just saying.) was promoting a DVD of the World Series, and since he was talking with a New York radio show, the Mets came up.

Not shying away at all from the provocations of the radio hosts, Hamels unleashed possible the greatest thing a Phillie has said since Jimmy Rollins declared them the team to beat before the 2007 season: “Yeah, yeah, for the past two years, they’ve (the Mets) been choke artists.” I’m sure he’s going to catch hell for this, in New York at least, but, well, it’s not untrue. I just love that someone said it.

I really don't have anything else to add here. Seriously though, listen to the interview, it's awesome.