the shrewdness of apes

this letter is highly confusing, yet oddly compelling. all those who have been pestering me to make this blog more nautical can now back off. names and e-mail addresses have been altered. ahoy...

Dear Darren,

Best wishes,
F.B.
12/29

Posted by Jamie at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

even those who don't live here should be amused by the New York Press 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers, a list that covers everyone from Chuck Klosterman to Bud Selig to Choire Sicha to Donald Trump. you won't agree with everything, but in most cases you have to admit they have a point.

Posted by Jamie at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

the lure of baseball proved too strong this morning and so i found myself hauling my tired ass from the bed to the couch at 5am to watch the Yankees and the Devil Rays play the first real game of the year. the dog, having tried unsuccessfully to cough something up for 5 minutes, knew an opportunity when he saw one and claimed my abandoned spot on the bed.

ESPN2's broadcast was pre-empted leaving me with only the abhorrent YES Network showing the game. in retrospect i should have turned on the radio, but Ken Singleton was decent as usual and Joe Girardi didn't embarass himself in his broadcast debut, making several interesting comments about the umpiring. Michael Kay needs to have his lungs sucked out by a tornado though.

at any rate, my decision looked bad when Giambi (who doesn't look much different from last year at all, despite so much having been made of his supposed weight loss) muscled one over the left field fence for a 2 run homer in the first. and the Yankees still had Sheffield and Posada coming up. but Victor Zambrano settled down and pitched really well for 6 innings, even striking out A-Rod twice looking. Toby Hall's bloop single tied it, and eventually the Devil Rays ran away with an 8-3 victory. i have to admit that i dozed off around the 4th inning and i missed Jose Cruz's homer in the 6th, but saw the other runs score that inning. the rest of the game i was in and out, satisfied to know the Yankees would lose at least 1 game this year. i don't think i'll get up for tomorrow's game, much as i'd like the see kevin brown implode.

oh yeah, and the "Ricoh" advertisements that were on the Yankees jerseys and batting helmets were a travesty. i'm glad they have such a healthy appreciation for the sanctity of the pinstripes and what they mean to millions of their fans.

Posted by Jamie at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

why haven't i been eating more cuban sandwiches? two kinds of pork, cheese, pickles and mustard served hot on a nice crusty roll - could there be a more perfect ingredient list? i'll answer my own rhetorical challenge by saying: there could not be. the one i had for lunch was even light on the pickles and it still caused a head-slapping like questioning of my very gastronomic existence to this point. the main problem is that they're not terribly common, but i will now make it my mission to search them out and find a couple that are worth going back for time and again. i shall also try my hand at making my own. today's offering from Havana Pies on 23rd Street gets a B-.

also i realized today that i haven't had a vanilla coke in a really long time (and still never tried the vanilla pepsi). having been won over by its mysterious hangover-curing properties the first time i had it, it became a staple in the beverage stable for over a year. but it's been losing ground steadily to fruit juice and the sparkling sodas from Mistic. so the main question is whether there will be a renaissance before it gets pulled from shelves completely. since i never see anyone drinking it anymore and you can't get it in restaurants (even fast food places), i can't see it hanging around indefinitely.

lastly, i finally made it to Hinsch in Bay Ridge on Saturday for an old fashioned soda counter experience. my milkshake and the wife's ice cream soda came to $7 and were both highly tasty, though the ole stomach was in a bit of disarray later in the evening.

Posted by Jamie at 05:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

almost 10 years ago, i was part of a scheme that netted my group house a row of 3 movie theater seats. having been given the tacit approval from the film chair (now the man behind a popular personal website), we made our move under the cover of a summer night on a mostly deserted college campus. while the getaway Bronco and its driver waited three of us let ourselves into the movie theater, and quickly grabbed one of the loose sets of seats from the back of the auditorium. the lookout gave the all clear, and the two of us providing the muscle moved as quickly as we could considering we were dealing with an 120+ awkward pounds of metal, plastic and cloth. i would imagine the procedure for disposing of a body would be fairly similar.

we shoved the seats into the back of the truck and it took off. the rest of our brigade walked the 3 blocks back to the house and then helped move our plunder into the living room where they stayed for two years serving as extra seating during parties and otherwise just reminding us of how cool we were for having them. when it came time to move, i ended up with them sort of by default. i have moved 7 times since then, each time dragging them with me inflicting pain and increasing bouts of cursing from those unlucky enough to have helped me. in that time they've gone from decorative and functional to a couch stand-in to temporary garage storage to completely uncomfortable but still decorative to back in storage. at this point, they weren't something you actually wanted to use, but their service as a conversation piece was unparalleled.

the wife has been angling to get rid of them ever since we put them into storage 10 months ago (back when she was still "the fiance"), but i resisted. there was too much emotion wrapped up in them to bear giving them up. but as is wont to happen, money triumphed over emotion. as we moved my stuff in a smaller, cheaper storage space over the weekend it quickly became apparent that there would be no room for the theater seats. but what to do? we didn't have a truck to haul them away, we couldn't leave it in the hallway of the storage facility nor was there anywhere immediately outside to leave them without potentially incurring some sort of dumping fine. had we been able to lift them about 8 feet in the air, we could have tossed them onto the train tracks that may soon become a basketball arena. not knowing what else to do, we put them on a dolly and started pulling them around the block in search a suitable place for the unconsummation of our relationship (my and the chairs', not my and the wife's). after passing a couple cop cars and some people pushing a stroller, a parked SUV provided the cover we needed to unload them there on the Pacific Street sidewalk between the train tracks and the condos. our payload deposited, we hurriedly brought the dolly back and got the hell out of Dodge.

though they may have met an ignoble fate, quite frankly i don't miss them and when the day finally comes when i move my stuff out, it will be a huge relief not to feel the dread that comes from knowing they will need to be dealt with. we didn't have a camera to capture the moment, but if anyone is walking down Pacific between Carlton and 6th Ave, and they're still there, i wouldn't mind having a snapshot.

Posted by Jamie at 05:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

t.s.o.a. recently complained about the lack of celebrity elbow-rubbing we have been privy to since moving to this great city. then we rememebered the time that Katie Holmes and Chris Klein walked by us on Broadway. then, a couple of friends were shown an apartment currently inhabited by John Wesley Harding. now this sunday, a whole new level is reached as a fairly major celebrity is set to join the Coffee Flats fantasy baseball league. it won't be official until they actually show up for the draft, but for now a hint: their first listed credit is for something called Jamie's Secret. should be interesting.

Posted by Jamie at 04:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

sometimes i start to think the whole Craigslist phenomenon is played out, and that it's not even worth it to scan through all the idiotic, rambling prose even to laugh at people. thankfully, the Week in Craig is there to straighten me out:

To fully comprehend how odd these posts really are, sometimes it helps to imagine if they were announced on a supermarket intercom system. "Attention Peace Rally-ers: Would the orange backpacked girl with the Irish friend please meet The Lesbian and her French Bulldog at the coffee bar." You can't make this shit up.

and while you're over there, check out Will Leitch's baseball preview which is really damn good as those things go.

Posted by Jamie at 03:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

the lede says it all:

Picking your nose and eating it is one of the best ways to stay healthy, according to a top Austrian doctor.

to quote Seinfeld, who among us doesn't have occasion to "clean house" every once in a while? and sometimes Kleenex just doesn't cut it for some of the serious stalactites that can grow in there. but could you imagine the pandora's box that would be opened if such a thing ever gained credence in "civilized" society?

Posted by Jamie at 03:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

i haven't fully digested the commentary in this essay, but it makes some interesting points about the generation gap and the ever-increasing jadedness that seems to have pervaded everything and everyone. some of the good parts:

Kids Today care about nothing -- not the future, not themselves, not their peers. So the worn story goes. We are not looking at a generation without recourse to direction or normative ideals. It's not that their parents haven't been around to teach them a system of ethics or that religion....is suppressed in schools. Kids today have plenty of outlets for self-righteous energy....yet as vocal and active as such groups may be, they remain a minority. Why? Because they are all lame.

and

[T]oday's kids have grown up in an image-inundated culture, where "the medium is the message," and in many cases kids are much more media savvy than the adults trying to capture their enthusiasm for whatever purpose. Having seen and seen through a multitude of different techniques to sway them through imagery....young people know enough not to trust any message that doesn't have a concrete pay-off.

and

[T]he real problems kids face with sex, the real problems with violence today are not a product of generation Y's own behavior. The seeds of these problems were present beforehand, as were the warning signs. Older folks are the ones who transformed sex into a commodity and simultaneously glorified violence and eliminated all healthy expression thereof.

and then the main point:

It's nice to know the people selling you groceries, making your beer and running your city, to support people who are trying different ways of earning cash, and i think we're beginning to recognize that despite hackneyed propaganda telling us it's the right thing to do.

so have we reached the point where people, especially younger people, so naturally resist the urge to do what they're told that they've effectively counteracted the message of conformity and commercialism being handed down by parents and the media (even if they bristle at the notion that they are consciously rebelling against such and can therefore be labled as anti-whatever)? much as i'd like to believe that, i think it probably holds true only for a minority of people, of which the author is likely a part (as i consider my self to be principled but also wary of labels and movements, i may qualify as well). if that minority is growing, then perhaps there is reason for optimism, but i don't see that sort of sea change happening on a large scale yet.

Posted by Jamie at 04:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

thanks to shmoo for setting us off on a tangent. talk of Africa got us thinking about geography and in turn to flags. there's a ton of them and while many are of the boring colored rectangle school, there's quite a few that attempt to break out of the mold. a lot of countries feature animals both fake and real, while others opt for inanimate objects like Kenya's shield and spears and Mozambique's bizarre machine gun and hoe motif. we'd probably like the US flag a lot more from a style standpoint if we didn't have to look at it all the time. it's a nice flag, but as it is we're a little weary of it.

for some reason we feel compelled to list a top 5:

Greenland - the best two color design going. simple yet effective.
Swaziland - good color contrast and the shield is a nice centerpiece.
Seychelles - love the radial design, and a definite improvement over the old one.
Isle of Man - whoa, what's going on here? the wheel of 3 legs has us completely baffled. highly creepy.

and our favorite: Uganda - something about that bird is just too funny. how can a country hope to be taken seriously when that creature is gracing its national emblem?

Posted by Jamie at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

we recently found a list someone had made in which they outlined things they wanted to do at some point in their lives and we'll post it as soon as we can find it and type it in. apparently the BBC has a show called 50 in which they list 50 things to ___ before you die as voted on by viewers. perusing their list of 50 places to see , we were appalled that Florida/Disney somehow was #3, ahead of Macchu Picchu, the Great Wall of China and Yosemite National park among others. what a crock - is absinthe really making that big of a comeback over there? as a drunken Bart recently spewed, "PPhhloridas sshteribble! Gaaah!"

don't miss your chance to vote for the food everyone should eat.

Posted by Jamie at 07:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

the NYTimes sports section was a wealth of interesting tidbits today:

on potential Mets 5th starter Grant Roberts:

With his surfer-dude drawl, it sometimes seems that the laid-back pitcher Grant Roberts doesn't take anything too seriously......but no one has been more spirited than Roberts, a 26-year-old from San Diego. After striking out the Cardinals' Greg Vaughn in the first week of exhibition games, he pumped his fist, impressing coaches and teammates.

"He's got a little fire in him," Mets Manager Art Howe said. "I just want to see him turn it into a blaze."

oh, he's blazing all right. and if fist pumps are so impressive, maybe Tiger Woods should be the 5th starter.

Posted by Jamie at 01:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

with baseball - and perhaps more importantly *fantasy* baseball - season approaching, here's a piece that i wrote last fall. the first line was written by my friend BillM and served as the jumping off point for the story. the rest speaks for itself.

[slightly edited for taste and clarity]

> just don't forget about the bullpens - you never know what might happen.

prophetic words from a man who has seen his share of fantasy league battles. allow me to indulge a bit and paint yesterday's scene from my life for you:

i have been in fantasy baseball leagues since 1989. for those scoring at home, that means this was the 15th year of my fantasy baseball existence. the rest of my fantasy life shall remain private, but suffice to say, there are over 25 teams that i have captained in that time.

and i have never won it all. not once, not even tied, nothing. i have been in first place, but never on the final day. the past few years have been littered with 2nd place finishes, five or six in all, but i still could not get my name on a trophy.

which brings us to this year, and one of the 3 leagues in which i participate (in this league we use players only from the NL East and NL Central). to be brief, i was entrenched in first place from the get go, and stayed there until July when BillP passed me on the strength of his cadre of solid Braves - esp. Sheffield, Giles, Lopez, Ortiz, Smoltz, Hampton, etc. - and a lineup that was just crushing the ball. his trade for Al Lieter in May shored up his staff and set us up for a battle to the wire. and to the wire it went, down to the last week with mere points separating us from each other, and categories up for grabs - tied in Wins and Win%. i went ahead by 2 points one day only to lose my lead the next day.

cut to Sunday, I am on the couch for the 4th straight day recovering from my minor nose surgery (deviated septum). i have been waiting for this. i am 1 point behind, and we are tied in Wins. if i can pull ahead of him, i make up that point and we are tied. if Aaron can somehow manage 3 wins as well, then i could win it outright by half a point. i have one guy starting, Kip Wells. BillP has none with Leiter sitting the last day out. Aaron is supposed to have 3, but ends up with only 2 when the Astros bench Wade Miller for their meaningless finale.

on Aaron's team, Millwood gets behind early and Vargas only pitches 3 innings, so my hopes of an outright win are dashed early on. but Kip Wells is doing fine, and it's 2-2 in the top of the 7th. Jack Wilson (another proud member of Team Gloomtown) cracks a homer off Juan Cruz to make it 3-2, and I'm putting the champagne on ice in my kitchen - i can't drink it (antibiotics), but i can at least spray it at the dog in celebration.

after being distracted by football for a few minutes, Dan calls to ask if i'm watching this unfold. i am and we run through the possible scenarios that might get me a title (did Maddux pitch well enough to lower Mitch's WHIP under BillP's?). in the 9th inning, Tavarez gets the last out, and Wells has pulled it off for me, pushing me ahead in Wins. or has he? ESPN's graphic gives the win to Joe Beimel for some reason and my heart sinks. i call Dan and he gets online to find out what's going on. eventually it is sorted out that Wells was indeed the pitcher of record. sigh of relief. but while I have him on the phone, i ask Dan to make sure that BillP didn't get any wins. with no starters going, and 3 RP from losing Atlanta, it seems unlikely. Kyle Farnsworth didn't get into today's game, so that leaves only Ricky Stone. Ricky Fucking Stone.

somewhere in SE Texas, an official scorer decided that in the last game of the season, a game in which the starter went only three innings, the victory should be awarded to a man who entered the game in the 7th inning with a 6-2 lead and pitched 1 inning. mind you, two other relievers had come before him, but they had given up hits, walks and a run, while Stone pitched a perfect inning. when the starter doesn't go 5, but his team leads the whole way and wins, the scorer has the right to decide who to award the win to. so it was that Ricky Stone ran his record to 6-4 on the year, counteracting Mr. Wells' win and thereby relegating me to a 2nd place finish. no trophy, no big payday, no glory. just utter and abject disbelief and a deep gnawing pain that at least for a moment made me forget that my sinuses were completely congested with blood and snot. dan was sympathetic, but then decided it would be more fun to begin invoking comparisons to the Red Sox and chiding me for voting to keep Fielding% as a category, which helped provide the margin of victory for BillP. i couldn't blame him, i could only stare into the void trying to make sense of it all while yelling the odd obscenity as the dog and my fiance looked at me quizzically.

there is something to be said for the exquisite torture of being a Red Sox fan. it's the innocence of a child who believes in the Tooth Fairy mixed with the denial and co-dependence of the abuse victim who keeps going back to their abuser to repeat the same actions and patterns, while constantly trying to convince themsleves that *this* time it will be different. i was trying very hard not to think about my fantasy teams in the same terms, wanting to keep everything in context and not blame the intervention of a "curse" or a higher power. and i was beginning to buy into it, how next year would be different, how i would learn from my mistakes, how i would finally get my name on the trophy so i could gaze upon it proudly when i walked through the door from work each day. but in the middle of a hot shower that still failed to wash away the stench of another season of defeat, the intervention of larger forces became all too apparent and a cold shudder ran the length of my body. it was at this point that i remembered the small bit of information i had come across less than a month ago:

Ricky Stone was born on Friday, February 28, 1975. The same day as me.

Posted by Jamie at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

reading chris larry's thoughts about his dual-apartment existence got me to thinking about what i miss the most about independent living. the somewhat obvious answer: my own space. sharing a 1BR place with the wife means i have my own spot on the couch and my own side of the bed, but the best i can do for personal space is a closet and that's jammed full of clothes and other crap. i still pay to keep some stuff in storage, but i can't just go there and hangout (and it's a violation of the lease to live there). i'm admittedly bad about keeping up with housecleaning (on the general scale; on the 20-something guy scale i'm probably right at the median level), and i think having a space i could do whatever i wanted with might help me keep the rest of the house in order. is that some hoary married guy cliche? then forget the space - i'll settle for a decently fast computer and internet connection.

Posted by Jamie at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

remember when the government was thinking about taking bets on where and when terrorist attacks would occur? what kind of odds do you think you could get for the upcoming Athens Olympics? they're behind schedule on just about every major project, they've now scrapped plans to even put a roof over the pool, security concerns continue to mount, and we're not exactly talking about the most politcally stable place on earth as it is. i doubt even the government would be dumb enough to give you even odds on that. we will be happy to watch, but glad that we're at a safe distance from the action, athletic and otherwise.

Posted by Jamie at 01:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

two movies actually exceeded my expectations over the weekend. Dawn of the Dead allowed me to suspend disbelief long enough to ignore Great Basin-sized plot holes and cringe in my seat for 100 minutes. the audience was into it without being obnoxious which helped. a little advice - if you go see it, make sure you stay in your seat through the credits. Starsky and Hutch, meanwhile, succeeded simply by not making me cringe in my seat. it wasn't great, but it could have been much worse. i wish i had had some popcorn though - i am completely incapable of managing my candy intake well enough to make it last more than 15 minutes into any movie, especially when i'm waiting for zombies to start biting people's faces off.

still undecided about The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. it's pitting my uncorruptible hatred of Jim Carrey against my slightly waning admiration for Charlie Kaufman. it's a tossup.

Posted by Jamie at 03:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

why do we have about half a ton of pizza in our freezer? well, Food Network was having a mini-marathon of pizza related shows. this prodded the wife to order the "special sicilian", a square pie with about 25 toppings on it. upon calling the said "i'd like to order a pie for delivery". when asked if that was it, she responded "actually, i want the special sicilian", which they took to mean in addition to the original pie. since there's only two of us and a dog with newly diagnosed thyroid problems, we ended up with enough pizza to last us the better part of the week. makes for a free lunch at least, but we're going to be very sick of pizza before all is said and done.

still, we're excited for the new brick-oven place - Franny's - that's opening on Flatbush Ave soon. the Park Slope area has somehow been designated a "good pizza-free" zone.

Posted by Jamie at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

perhaps we're just drunk, perhaps it's just Friday, or perhaps we're just huge dorks for anything trivially presidential but this is goddamn funny.

also, stop complaining about the snow (mostly melted, thankfully) and do something with it.

finally, Laura's tales of NYC.

sorry for all the links today folks. y super gracias a el verdadero janelle.

Posted by Jamie at 04:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

fun things i've been able to squeeze in between work today:

Will Leitch gettin' some pub (but that picture is pretty bad, as is the term "Lad Lit").

Mark Cuban's most recent entry is awesome on numerous levels, not the least of which is the revelation that he drinks 2 sugar-free Red Bulls and a Diet Mountain Dew for every Mavs home game. no wonder he's such a freak.

Balgavy.com headmaster Marc produces on of his best ever pieces in his DVR blog.

and a question to those in the know: how do i stop pushers of erection and other drugs from posting comments on here? so far they've only infiltrated two somewhat old postings, but i'm worried they'll start gumming up the works. any suggestions appreciated.

and a question for everyone: which remake looks better, Dawn of the Dead or The Ladykillers? i'm excited for both of them. something about those Ladykillers trailers has really crept into my subconscious.

Posted by Jamie at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

we've been a little distracted and busy this week so we didn't sort through our stock of found writing to find something worth posting. there were few complaints but the call of duty sounded nonetheless so we will point you, treasured readers, to a wonderful site called the Royal Journal of Found Art. as the name suggests they post ephemera found in the street, on trains, in apartments with an emphasis on written notes. there's a lot of funny (escort service phone #s on the back of a business card) and interesting (flier concerning an international kidnapping syndicate) pieces within so it makes a nifty little time waster or window into the human soul, depending on how "deep" you're feeling.

Posted by Jamie at 02:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

we had been testing out the various options since last October's baseball playoffs. with the advent of the NCAA tournament today we can now say in no uncertain terms that the CBS Sportsline scoreboard is hands down the best of its kind. when you are on the main page, it's constantly updating itself in very close to real time while filling you in on the last play in good detail, telling you what happened and who did it (it differentiates between layups and slam dunks, and even uses terms like "floating jumper" while also noting assists and the like). it's almost as good as the radio in terms of following the ebb and flow of the game. when you go to an individual game page, you can see more clearly how the momentum shifts. here's a series of plays that led Charlotte to cut Texas Tech's lead from 12 to 8:

TXTECH 17:26 Defensive Rebound by Darryl Dora
TXTECH 17:14 Lost ball turnover on Devonne Giles, Stolen by Curtis Withers
CHARLO 17:08 Martin Iti made Slam Dunk, Assist Demon Brown
TXTECH 16:41 Jarrius Jackson missed 3-pt. Jump Shot
CHARLO 16:38 Defensive Rebound by Demon Brown
CHARLO 16:34 Eddie Basden made Slam Dunk, Assist Demon Brown
TXTECH 16:27 Full Timeout

Demon Brown? you can practically hear Dick Vitale screaming or Billy Packer prosletyzing. and the best part is they haven't had any noticable slowdowns or dropouts - they were obviously well prepared for the amount of traffic they knew was coming. moral of the story? ESPN sucks. (and go Jaspers! up by 10 w/ 12 to play!)

Posted by Jamie at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Will Oldham is indeed a strange person. first there was the whole Palace Brothers/Palace Songs/Palace Music/(Just Plain) Palace thing, and now there's the whole Bonnie 'Prince' Billy alter-ego. or is Billy the real person and Oldham the phantom? after reading this piece from the Guardian we're more confused than perhaps ever. that the latest release is called Bonnie 'Prince' Billy sings Greatest Palace Music does not help matters. at the very least we like his beard. and Matewan. (link via fitted sweats)

Posted by Jamie at 03:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

WANTED
For Crimes Against Humanity

Name: Old Man Winter
Description: Old, male, long flowing white hair, blustery disposition. Possibly related to Mother Nature and/or God.
Accusations: Conspiracy to extend Winter beyond its natural length; Serial Snowfall; 11 million counts of Freezing Asses Off; 17 counts of Nuisance Wind Gusting; Failure to Alter School and Work Days; Indirectly Rendering Local Newscasts Even More Laughable.

Possible Accomplices:

Canada - Largely worthless northern landmass suspected of housing and nuturing large supplies of frigid air with help from pal "Jet Stream".
Great Lakes - Small timers who flex a lot of muscle in Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, etc. Suspected of seeding clouds to produce snow. Also suspected of foul play in the 1975 wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Gulf of Mexico - Viewed as likely source of moisture fuel for Mr. Winter's many storms. Reportedly volatile under the influence of "Arctic Air".
Sir August de Wynter - Previously convicted in Remaketeering scandal of 1998.
El Nino - No one yet knows exactly what his role in the system is. While indications are that he tends to raise temperatures slightly in the NE, we're certainly keeping a close eye on his actions.

Suspects are considered armed, dangerous and cold as a witch's tit. Your best defense is to look skyward, raise a fist and bellow "Damn you, snow!!" If you have any information that could lead to the successful prosecution of this crime ring, please call (877) SNO-BLOS.

Posted by Jamie at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Marc Cuban is one of my favorite people in the sporting world. he's constantly taking on the league, the officials and the press and most of the time i feel like he's right. plus any billionaire with that haircut is somehow endearing. big thanks to Marc for tipping me off to the fact that he actually has his own blog going now. we'll see how often he updates it, but so far he doesn't seem to be lacking for word count.

you may rememeber him getting behind the counter at Dairy Queen to make up for running his mouth about bad officiating:

Posted by Jamie at 06:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

pretty great: a t-shirt with a cow that instead of being divided up into cuts of meat, is divided up into the neighborhoods of Brooklyn. i'd be buying one except that they left off both Dyker Heights *and* Bay Ridge while including Flatlands and Sea Gate. that and all my money is tied up in doggie pain pills and college basketball bets right now. (link via the real janelle)

Posted by Jamie at 05:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

the orange soda taste test is now online exclusively at balgavy.com. in a similar vein we found this 2-year old pizza taste test from Slate today.

and courtesy of Jim, fun craigslist job postings:

* become A-Rod's (?) personal assistant

* become the Cyclones mascot!

* operate an elevator (must provide own uniform)

Posted by Jamie at 03:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

every year at tournament time, we all become experts for 3 days, analyzing trends and matchups before trying to find our way to a TV at noon on Thursday. i wish i had a database from the past 20 years that showed me how teams fared against the conventional wisdom regarding them (i.e., hot or cold, tough or soft, peaking or declining, etc.) because i have a sneaking feeling that many of the justifications people (paid talking heads and laypersons alike) use for their picks and preferences end up getting flushed within four days. i know mine usually do - it's just too hard not to pick with my heart most of the time. here's some of the things i've picked up on in recent days:

• teams that everyone agrees got hosed in seeding: Pittsburgh, Wisconsin
• teams that got a higher seeding than they deserved: Florida, Maryland, Texas Tech, Alabama
• teams no one likes because "they don't play well in the tournament": Miss. St., Cincinnati
• teams everyone likes because they've got "tournament history": Michigan St., Syracuse
• team who got a #1 seed despite going 6-4 in their last 10 because they've cast some sort of spell over people: Duke
• teams no one cared about 2 weeks ago but who are now being overpicked (relative to seeding): Washington, Maryland, Xavier, Utah, Pacific
• teams everyone cared about 2 weeks ago who are now being underpicked (relative to seeding): St. Joe's, Providence, Air Force, Louisville
• teams from Conference USA who no one knows much about: DePaul, UAB, Charlotte
• teams somewhat under the radar who have serious chances of winning 3-4 games: Cincinnati, Illinois, Vanderbilt, Boston College, Memphis, Seton Hall

of course, now i look at how the picks are breaking down and see that much of the above is simply conjecture. with all of that said, it's hard to pick against Stanford and their consistency to win it all. #1 seeds have won it all 11 of 19 times since the field expanded in 1985 and 10 of the last 14. oh, and i love Lehigh in tonight's play-in game. lay the points.

Posted by Jamie at 02:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

say you find yourself at the copy machine. not an unreasonable scenario no matter what your occupation. now, as you're working on a rather large job, the copier emits a horrid, rapidfire "thud-thud-thud" sound. what to do you do?

A) note that a piece of paper has become accordioned in the output area, then continue making your copies, compounding the problem and leading to another noisy episode.
B) same as "A" only twice so that a competent person finally asks what the blue blazes is going on and steps in to fix the problem.
C) automatically decide to call a technician without seeing if you can fix the problem yourself, thereby costing the company money and time.
D) head back to your desk where you will soon create a problem on your computer that also requires the competent person's attention.
E) B, C and D

other interactions with this person in recent weeks have included:

* assisting in finding airfares, then explaining how Priceline works
* fielding 3 separate phone calls asking for directions to a destination
* attempting to fix an ancient Epson printer when a high quality networked LaserJet model was available a mere 10 feet away.

and this person somehow manages a family, and car payments, and feeding themselves. 'tis a wonderment.

Posted by Jamie at 01:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

in deference to Dave's comment, i will agree that Utah State got jobbed. royally and thoroughly. and sure, yesterday i was stomping mad about it, though i didn't really have any sympathetic ears to rant to.

but when i really looked at the bracket today and saw that BYU, Richmond and UTEP had all made it, i just couldn't maintain the moral indignation for very long. so i'm sorry, Dave, but the acrid invective for the selection committee just wasn't there. blame it on a sick dog.

Posted by Jamie at 05:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

if you're like me and your knowledge of economics, NAFTA et.al. is scant at best, you should find this essay to be highly enlightening.

Posted by Jamie at 05:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

while every sport has it's share of injuries, baseball seems to produce many that can only be described as bizarre. to wit:

according to Jayson Stark's latest column on ESPN.com, "Marlins pitcher
Bryce Florie pulled a rib-cage muscle while throwing, then had a nightmare
later that night, jumped out of bed, slammed into the window and needed 15
stitches to stop the cut in his chin."

plenty more interesting injury stories - from Glenallen Hill's arachnophobia to Steve Sparks' attempt to rip a phone book in half - can be found here and here.

also check out this interview with Red Sox special consultant Bill James. the interviewer did a pretty terrible job, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Posted by Jamie at 04:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Arlo, the official dog of t.s.o.a., took ill this morning resulting in some furrowed brows and constant reassurance that everything was "OK". after sufficiently scaring ourselves into thinking the poor thing was on his death bed (thanks, Internet!), a trip to the vet was in order. a horribly cute 4 month old Bull Mastiff was in the waiting room with us and we talked to his owner (a woman) about the joys of pet ownership. she filled us in on the dog's lineage, which she had traced back 5 generations and made it clear that he had champion bloodlines, though she was decidedly unhaughty about it. a digression about how the old people in the neighborhood reacted to dogs took a bizarre turn when she decided to tell us that little Justice didn't like Asian people. wouldn't so much as look at them. sometimes "she might try to go up to some of the Oriental kids, but the adults never. [quieter] i don't know, maybe they have some sort of smell or something. [to the dog, in full puppy-talk] you're not prejudiced are you? 'cause that would be bad!" whoa. fortunately at that point, she was called in to discuss her dog's urinalysis.

two hairy beasts

so as not to dissuade any potential dog owners out there, we'll refrain from divulging the total $$$ of the visit. as it turns out, Arlo's got some arthritis in his back legs, which we already suspected. some blood work will tell us if there's any other noteworthy problems, but otherwise he should be fine - he got two medicines to help combat the arthritis and he couldn't have been happier to leave. on the way home, the wife and i discussed whether it would behoove us to get pet insurance. looks like we could get it for $40 a month or so. certainly something to consider.

Posted by Jamie at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Between 1939 and 1941, the city photographed every house and building in the five Boroughs. Copies of these unique images are now available for purchase.

sounds good to us. you do have to know the block and lot number (or pay $5 for them to figure it out), and the pictures are $25, but there's gotta be some pretty cool shots in there. anyone know the lot number for Tammany Hall?

elsewhere, it appears that the evening with Bill Murray on April 13th at BAM is now sold out. too bad, but there do appear to be some good shows at the Bowery Ballroom that week and the next. anyone up for the Pernice Brothers ($15)? Blonde Redhead and Secret Machines ($17)? Four Tet ($13)? Tortoise ($16)? GbV ($18)?

Posted by Jamie at 01:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

it looks like St. Joe's is finally going to lose, leaving the whole NCAA tournament even more wide open than it already was. t.s.o.a. has a few ideas about who we'll be picking, but we'll save those. we will remind everyone now that over the past 15 years or so, teams from Utah have averaged at least 1 first round win per year (they were 1-3 last year, though Utah State took finalist Kansas to the final moments before losing by 3). let's check in on this year's batch of Beehive State contenders:

BYU: looking good for an at-large berth out of the MWC. beat Okla St earlier this year.
Southern Utah: ousted in quarterfinals of Mid-Continent tournament.
Utah: 21-8 and 3rd in the Mountain West, but might need to win conference tourney to get in.
Utah State: 25-2 overall, 17-1 in the Big West. they're in and they're dangerous.
Weber State: eliminated in semifinals of Big Sky tournament. too bad too as these guys are always a sentimental favorite (moreso!) since we lived about 1/2 mile from the campus for a few years, and because our shocking pick of them to upset in North Carolina in 1999 provided the margin of victory for our winning entry that year.

checking in with the unique lexicon that springs up this time of year, we find it highly amusing when those who don't own the trademark to "March Madness" resort to calling it "March Mayhem". what if someone trademarks that phrase? "March Morass" perhaps? bonus linguistic question: which terminology for the group between "the Sweet Sixteen" and "the Final Four" do you prefer, "The Elite Eight" or "The Great Eight"?

p.s. this was entry #100!

Posted by Jamie at 02:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

we have to own up to being the culprit of this week's entry. this was part of some essay or another that never got finished. poignant existentialism or inveterate navel-gazing?

Sometimes life is just like an extremely long run-on sentence in the all-encompassing book of life where the further you get into it the more abstract and convoluted it seems what with all the subordinate clauses and participles and before you maybe even realize what’s going on you’re stuck in the middle of it with all these words swirling around you and though you’re aware that they mean something you start to lose focus and commence to wondering if you can even remember what this chapter is about let alone the entire book at this point and sure you can go back and re-read parts later to try to parse them out but if you didn’t figure them out at first then I’m not sure what makes you think that you’ll have any better luck the second time around especially when even if you do manage to clear a few things up that’s no guarantee that it’s going to be any easier to understand the parts coming up and anyway if you get too stuck on re-reading and you start to think that it’s all coming into focus you’re only going to be blindsided by the plot twist lurking a chapter or two away and really isn’t there some dirt under your fingernails that needs attention?

Posted by Jamie at 05:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

here's some interesting reading on the whole steroids in baseball issue. all i can say is that if i disagree with Mike Lupica, then i know i must be on to something.

meanwhile, thanks to Matt for clueing me in to the fact that my high school alma mater has made the state semifinals in basketball. go Blue Devils!

Posted by Jamie at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

apparently you can create your own custom Bush/Cheney posters that say whatever you want. well, not quite whatever as they've blocked out a number of words, but there's still a ton of comic potential here.

via Wonkette. i recommend that you go read some of the posters already submitted with taglines like "because Nixon's still dead" etc.

Posted by Jamie at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

yep, we lost. dr. fact got the best of us. we were sad. but in the interest of a united front, i won't be making any excuses either. we lost to the team that had come in 2nd the two previous times. and we do get to go back next month to take back what is rightfully ours.

this time around, here's questions we should have answered correctly but either changed our minds about or couldn't agree on or were just dumb:

1. How many movies did Clint Eastwood make in the Dirty Harry series?
2. What is the tallest mountain in Western Europe?
3. How long is Long Island: 200 miles, 90, 66, 35 or 110?
4. How many territories are there in Canada?
5. How many people are killed by Tigers in an average year: 5, 10, 50, or 100?
6. Who played Cyrus 'the Virus' Grissom in ConAir?
7. What was the only year (besides 1980) that the US did not win the gold medal in basketball?

click below to find out...

right answers (our answers)

1. 5 (3)
2. Mt. Blanc (the Matterhorn)
3. 110 (200)
4. 3 (2)
5. 50 (10)
6. John Malkovich (Steve Buscemi)
7. 1972 (1976)

Posted by Jamie at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

especially for SuDan and anyone else with a jones for the team from Flushing: the Shea Hot Corner. i recommend scrolling down to read the entries about Justice Blackmun's papers that include a shot of official SCOTUS paper that reads "V.P. Agnew just resigned!!.....Mets 2 Reds 0".

Posted by Jamie at 03:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

driving from fort greene to williamsburg yesterday evening, i found myself on Bedford Avenue near Flushing Ave. in this heavily Hasidic area, i'm accustomed to seeing the clusters of black-coated people clogging the sidewalks and darting into traffic (especially during the Sabbath). the throngs were more plentiful than usual however, and many of the children were dressed in costume. buses idled at regular intervals and i soon found myself stuck behind a couple non-moving vehicles. waiting for the blockage to abate a young Hasidim beckoned to me through the window. i rolled it down and he asked me if i was heading "up Bedford". i assumed that he was going to tell me that the street was closed and to find another route, but instead he met my answer of "yes" by opening the back door and getting in. his friend who had been standing there quickly darted away as i wondered whether the white Honda i was driving could have really been mistaken for a cab. what to do? "how far are you going?" was all i could think to ask him, unsure of how i would respond if he wanted to go more than a few blocks away from my predetermined route. "Clymer" he said, which i recognized as being no more than 10 blocks away. traffic heaved forward, and he asked me if i was a Jew. i certainly wasn't wearing the traditional garb, but i was sporting a beard and a head covering, so i suppose i might have fit the loosest standards of looking Jewish. "no" i told him, and he then said that today was Purim and asked if i knew what that was. still flustered by the situation and his halting, accented English i tried to explain that while i had heard of it, i didn't know what it was specifically. two more blocks passed and we reached Clymer. he thanked me and jumped out into the night. as i continued on my appointed rounds, i couldn't help but try to peer into the backseat to see if he had left something (like what? a bomb? his wallet? some sort of pamphleture?). apparently he just wanted an 8-block ride.

later after relaying this story to some friends, Robin was nice enough to fill us in on the history of Purim and explain that the young man was likely drunk before recommending that i start a company called Shlomo's Car Service .

this now enters into my "only in NY" pantheon to go with the time i actually heard a cop say to someone "why don't you go take a walk".

Posted by Jamie at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Ted Leo playing some of the worst songs ever written in Union Square? and we missed it? damn.

link via the real janelle

Posted by Jamie at 03:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

in a potentially recurring feature, we'll pit two words against one another and see which one lives to populate another sentence based on our arbitrary and ephemeral whims.

today's battle: 'forfend' vs. 'slather'

a couple of action verbs go toe-to-toe. the archaic forfend - meaning to avert, forbid and/or protect - evokes the haughtiness of formal British society while slather - to use large amounts or spread thickly - conjures visions of joe six-pack with ketchup dribbling down his chin. not to promote classism, but this is no contest. also, forfend is a lot more fun and dramatic to say. victory!

on a somewhat related subject, why do journalists, et. al. simply append "-gate" onto the end of every scandal (Ms. Jackson's "Nipplegate" being the latest example)? "gate" is not a Latin root for "miasma" or "of dubious morality". i know it comes from the Watergate scandal originally, but since then it's been lazily applied to any whiff of impropriety. whatever happened to the days of "the Teapot Dome Scandal" or "the Red Scare"? those sound like a lot more fun to learn about than "Travelgate".

Posted by Jamie at 02:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sour Starburst, where have you been all my life?

Posted by Jamie at 05:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

does everyone already check out the Manhattan Users Guide on a regular basis? we need to add a link to them over on the right somewhere. the past two days they've had NYC bloggers naming their 10 favorite things about New York. we know they're not about to ask us for our opinions, but fuck 'em we'll do it anyway:

1. 5th Avenue in Brooklyn - taking you from O'Connor's near Flatbush to Century 21 on 86th with a ton of great stops along the way: Al di La, the Chip Shop, Buttermilk, Green-Wood Cemetery, Melody Lanes, the Latino strip of Sunset Park (the wife got a tip for some good tamales), the Bay Ridge movie theater, Hinsch old-fashioned soda counter (we'll get there soon) and so many others. if we had to pick one street to spend the rest of our lives on, this would be it. unless you're in a car, in which case avoid it like the plague if you hope to reach your destination this year.

2. the Cyclone - what can we say that hasn't already been said? the greatest.

3. sausages at Shea - the subway ride takes forever, the stadium is sadly out of date, the fans can be a bit brusque and most of the food stinks. but the sausages are great, these days the lines aren't so long, the low-flying planes are plentiful and hey, it's baseball watching with friends without all the Yankee fans.

4. bodegas - especially since the advent of the ATM era the occasional price gouger notwithstanding. there should be a law that say that no one in the city is allowed to live more than five blocks from one.

5. brunch - ahh that ubiquitous saturday and sunday event. roll out of bed bleary-eyed and stagger to your favorite place. lots of restaurants do it justice (it's hard to screw up eggs) but few do it well.

6. Staten Island Ferry/Roosevelt Island Tram - two great unique modes of transport. the ferry approach to Manhattan makes it look like the buildings are rising out of the water. the tram gives you a privileged feeling like you're getting to see something everyone else is missing.

7. walking across the Brooklyn Bridge - once we were walking across around dusk, with a beautiful, full yellow moon rising in the sky. it might have been the most romantic moment of our lives had we not been talking football with our college buddy at the time.

8. avoiding traffic - it's a wonderful feeling when you're stuck in the bumper-to-bumper honk-a-thon - which can seriously happen anywhere, anytime - and realize that you know a way around it. even better when it actually works.

9. sitting in the studio audience - ok, so you're probably going to end up next to some rube from Dubuque, but it's always surreal to be there for the taping. you usually get some extra entertainment - we were once treated Conan singing "Hunka Hunka Burnin' Love" to the woman seated behind us - and the opportunity to yell something they might have to edit out later.

10. the pickles - this town is a pickle-lovers paradise. they're everywhere and they're almost universally fantastic. none of that sweet bullshit neither. from the UWS to the LES, from dill to new to sour they're the best in the world. favorite place to get them: Katz's deli alongside a towering corned beef on rye.

Posted by Jamie at 05:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

the circus is coming to town, and while we pretty much don't care, the wife has been agitating to see the elephants as they come through the Midtown Tunnel on their way to MSG. we went with balgavy.com CEO marc and some others a couple years ago - it was freezing and took forever for them to appear , but it was still kinda kool to see large, wild (albeit well trained), mammals wandering the streets of manhattan. here's the scoop on this year's pachyderm procession:

It all begins on Tuesday, March 16 with the arrival of the Pachyderm Procession at 11:30 p.m. Elephants will emerge from the north tube of the Queens Midtown Tunnel and proceed along 34 Street to The Garden. Make sure to come out along 34 Street and welcome them.

drop us a line if you want to join us and pray for temperate weather.

Posted by Jamie at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

t.s.o.a. hasn't seen the movie, but we were tempted to steal this line and claim it as our own:

"Given Mel Gibson's vicious focus on the rigorous corporeal destruction of Jesus Christ in the R-rated "The Passion of the Christ," and taking into account the sheer amount of blood on display, his movie could've easily been titled "Kill Jesus, Vols. 1 and 2."

the source is so obscure that we can't even link to it, and we might have succeeded in our plagiaristic attempt, save for the fact that no one would have believed we could be so clever.

Posted by Jamie at 07:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

it's a busy week here in t.s.o.a. land. thankfully, wednesday is DLO day. here's a relic from 10 years ago that speaks to the anything-to-avoid-work mentality of college. "hey, let's predict who will die in the coming year!" not many entries were submitted, but here's one from a person who, from what we hear, is recently engaged. note that many of these people are still alive and were likely the product of some gray-area morality whereby the picker may have secretly hoped that their choices come true to fulfill some sort of control fantasy while building an "i'm not wishing for anyone to actually die" facade around their soul.

Death Picks 1994

Signed November 21, 1993

Posted by Jamie at 06:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

the steroid truffle hunt has finally turned up some players long suspected of juicing themselves: Barry Bonds, Jeremy Giambi and Gary Sheffield (not to mention lesser lights like Randy Velarde and Marvin Benard). while i still stand by my earlier comments that i'm not sure that steroids have had much of an impact on the power numbers of the game, i got to thinking about the subject a bit more today while reading George Vecsey's horribly sanctimonious column in today's NYTimes.

and what it came down to for me was: so what?

why do we care so much? why is what other people put into their bodies so dazzlingly interesting to so many people? i laugh in the face of anyone who tries to use some ridiculous "unfair advantage" argument to justify their outrage over "performance enhancing" drugs. we exist at the intersection of biology, chemistry and physics. the whole concept of natural selection is based on the fact that certain beings have innate advantages over others. caffeine might give one student an advantage over another on an exam. marathoners "carbo load" before a race because it will help their performance. i'm a much better pool player after 2 beers. where do you draw the line? a 6'5" gentleman who weighs 335 pounds is more likely to be employed as an offensive lineman than one who weighs only 240, depsite the fact that the weight gain is likely unhealthy. they both have the choice of what they want to do, and are hopefully armed with the information to make an informed choice regarding the possible consequences both short-term and long-term (which would be more likely if we didn't constantly try to sweep all this stuff under the rug).

barry bonds hit 73 home runs in 2001. if your enjoyment of that fact is diminshed because he may have used steroids, then you're watching for the wrong reasons - it's about pitcher vs. hitter, the crack of the bat and the beauty of a ball arcing through the air. steroids didn't let Bonds hit all of those home runs, hard work and a lot of natural ability did. look at Benard or Velarde - alleged steroid use didn't boost their power numbers as a look at their year-to-year SLG% can show you. hell, look at Bonds' numbers and try to figure out when the steroids kicked in. or Sheffield - his progression looks pretty normal for player with his talents. so enough of the hand-wringing and the brow-furrowing - let's talk about baseball.

Posted by Jamie at 02:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

talk about your moral dilemmas. the Yankees and Cablevision are currently in arbitration to determine whether Cablevision can force subscribers to pay extra in order to receive the YES Network. if they are allowed to do so, it will trigger clauses that allow other cable providers to follow suit. if that happens, what's a Yankee hater to do? pay the extra $2 or $3 a month in order to see the games against the Red Sox and others or expand my Quixote-esque Yankee Stadium boycott to the realm of TV? that $30 or so per year is the equivalent of a couple of tickets. but then they also show the occasional English Premier League game, plus they have coverage of the NCAA Hockey Tournament. i'm torn - but I can't root for the Yankees to win the case, because then they stand to make even more money by being able to charge cable providers based on their total number of subscribers. any help out there?

Posted by Jamie at 01:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

we think we've pimped them before, but the geniuses behind Funny Paper are back with two new editions today. in short: they "read the comics so you don't have to" and then boil it all down, even the Jumble. this excerpt was particularly amusing:

YOU CAN WITH BEAKMAN & JAX: "Dear Beakman: What makes your ears have a ringing sound after you listen to headphones?" asks Aleane Kleckley of Cleveland, Ohio. Ah, that would be the motherfucking rock and motherfucking roll, motherfucker. Like in your motherfucking Hall of Fame, Miss Cleveland, Ohio. Only hopefully not so much the James fucking Taylor. James Taylor, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer. We've seen fire, we've seen rain, and we smell bullshit.

Posted by Jamie at 05:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

worst oscars ever. non-stop groans and not even one upset in any major category. my picks were, as usual, horrifically bad (some would say on purpose. i just don't see the fun when everyone picks charlize theron). Bart/EW took the predicting crown. on top of it all, the weekend has left us feeling quite the worse for wear. which is really terrible considering we slept for about 22 hours on friday/saturday nights.

as part of some ongoing work, our computer consultants are in the office today. one of the guys bears an uncanny resemblance to the shrunken head guy from Beetlejuice. really - he's about 6' tall, but with this tiny head and there's even some facial resemblance (minus the dessication). but what the hell happened to Michael Keaton? look at his resume post-Batman Returns. not pretty. but he's got the lead in White Noise, and i'm interested to see how well Delillo adapts to film. maybe he's poised for a comeback.

Posted by Jamie at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)