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March 29, 2003
Well, I'm done. Arizona went down, and even if Oklahoma
makes the title game (the only points I can possibly accumulate from here on out), I can't
pass Chong, who has the same thing. I suppose if that happened I might still finish
second, but I doubt it since Ric and Tyler, the top two right now, both have Oklahoma in
the Final Four as well. Only three people can possibly be right as far as
the title winner goes - you actually kinda have to like Drew's chances with Kansas right
now, though Marquette is playing lights out. It would be so weird if they went all
the way, not least because nobody had them and a good percentage of the entries had them
bowing out in one of the first two rounds (including mine - but hey, they could have lost
to Missouri). Oops. As for Kansas, how weird would it be if this was the year
they did it, with one of the least talented teams they've had in a while and after only
beating Utah State by three in the first round? I wonder when the last time was a
national champion played a game that close in the opening round. I suspect the
answer might well be "never."
Back to Northwestern tomorrow. Woo! And it'll be
snowing! Ye- um, no. Seriously, Mother Nature - if the weather sucks spring
quarter, you and me, we gonna have words.
UPDATE: The actual answer to the question is "once since the expansion of the field to 64 and I don't know how many times before because I don't want to look at that many results." It was in fact in 1985, when Villanova, a #8 seed (the lowest seed ever to win a title, as well), won its first-round game over #9 Dayton 51-49. Of course, Villanova's winning margins in that tournament were 2, 4, 3, 12, 7, and 2. The only other times since the expansion that the winning team won their opening round game by 9 points or less? 1989 (Michigan by five over Xavier) and 1997 (Arizona by eight over South Alabama). Not coincidentally, I would say, these were two of the three lowest seeds since Villanova to win titles - Michigan was a #3 and Arizona a #4, and except for Villanova and #6 Kansas in 1988, every winning team has been either a one or two seed. Kansas won their opening round game by 13 in 1988, strangely enough over Xavier, meaning that in two consecutive years, the eventual national champion had to start the tournament by beating Xavier. That 1988 final was also the last time that two teams from the same conference met in the tournament final - in that case, Kansas and Oklahoma from the Big Eight. It wouldn't be much of a stretch for it to happen again this year - what's more, it could be the same conference and quite possibly the same two teams. Isn't March weird?
March 28, 2003
Memo to Fox News: If your journalism were actually
that "fair and balanced," you wouldn't need to take out subway ads proclaiming
it. So you don't have a liberal bias like the other media outlets supposedly
do. You have a conservative bias - which is much more evident than any of the
supposed liberal biases, by the way - which, believe it or not, is just as bad!
It's still a bias, thus making your journalism anything but "fair and
balanced." As for "We report, you decide," I think most sane
people decided long ago to get their real news from other sources and just watch you for
entertainment.
The Museum of the City of New York, for whatever reason, hates the
words "restoration" and "renovation." According to their website's "glossary of museum terms," those
two terms "are not used in museums." Somebody had better tell the Museum
of Natural History either to stop calling it renovation or change their name to "The
Place with Taxidermy and Boring Anthropological Stuff." Shannon and I spent
much of our time in the museum hoping they'd mess up and use either of them somewhere, but
no such luck. In the one place where something resembling work was being done, the
sign said "We are rearranging objects." Uh, get over yourselves. We
went at two o'clock on a Friday afternoon and not even two pages' worth of people had
visited the museum during the rest of the day.
By the way, if you're planning on going to the MCNY - and who isn't,
I'd like to know - you may want to avoid that website, as it shows you a lot of what
they've got there already - and this being a museum, we're not talking about the
most interesting presentations, as a rule. The Horn and Hardart's exhibit was
interesting if only to see how cheap shit was in 1955 - cinnamon bun ten cents?
Where do I sign up? - but like a lot of museums, much of the presentation in a lot of the
exhibits was a bit campy in that "we're aiming to be educational, so let's just be
hilariously stiff so no one can possibly take us seriously" sort of way. I
don't know. Shannon might tell you differently, but she was laughing at most of my
jokes, so I doubt it. She also ragged on New Jersey yet again, saying that
the GWB was only the equivalent of Connecticut Avenue in the Monopoly NYC Edition because
it goes to New Jersey, "and who wants to go there?" However, the
Queensboro Bridge was absent altogether. Ha.
UPDATE: I should point out that I wasn't really as down on the museum as this may have made it look. There were some nice paintings about, and most of the exhibits were at least nice to look at if not tremendously compelling. I also forgot to mention that we went into Central Park again, where we saw the Conservatory (not the world's most amazing time before things bloom) and the Harlem Meer, a small lake in the park that actually has a name that doesn't suck entirely (there's the clever "The Lake," "The Reservoir," and "Turtle Pond" elsewhere). We were only a few blocks shy of the park's north end and only a few blocks north of North Meadow, so we've pretty much concluded our Central Park tour, I think. And right in time, too.
March 26, 2003
I don't understand why my legs are so sore. It's not
like we did that much walking yesterday, or like I hadn't ever walked anywhere in
a year before this. The extent to which they are stiff matches my arms last summer
after I lifted weights for the first time in a year. I would hardly equate the two
in terms of levels of disuse - certainly I have to walk all over NU for classes - so I
don't get it.
Toro Loco tonight, which means I ate way too much salsa and chips
before entrees came out - and you would too. Goddamn if they don't have the best
salsa on the planet. I could drink a jug of it. So neither Marian nor I were
able to finish, at which point a guy who obviously didn't have the best command of English
came to take our plates. The resulting exchange went, boiled down, like this (except
that more gestures were actually used than words):
Busboy: Are you done?
Marian: Yes.
Busboy: Would you like this to go?
Marian: Uh, no, that's okay. It was delicious, though! [Note:
She did say "It was delicious, though." I'm not sure why exactly she
tossed that in, like she felt guilty about not getting a doggie bag.]
Busboy: So you want it to go?
Marian: No.
Busboy: So, yes. And you?
Me: Yes, I'm finished.
Busboy: So you want it to go.
[The busboy goes away and a couple minutes later our waiter brings us
the food to go.]
It was like a Samuel Beckett play, only set in a Mexican restaurant. You could call
it "Waiting for To Go."
March 25, 2003
Perhaps I should go soak my feet. Quite a lot of
walking today, as happens when I meet Shannon in the city. This time we met at the
southeast corner of Central Park (59th and Fifth), walked all the way up to North Meadow
(about 40 blocks away, and it was hardly a straight line), then back down to the Museum of
Natural History (around 80th and Park West), which we proceeded to traverse in exquisite
detail. Let me say right now that as much as I thought I liked history museums,
they're not the most exciting things in the world. The animals were moderately
interesting, but we blew past the anthropological stuff. The IMAX theater wasn't
even open, but worse still, neither was the Hall of Ocean Life, featuring the big whale
that hangs from the ceiling, which Shannon really wanted to see.
It wasn't a total loss. Are you familiar with the "Pet
Dinosaur" line of gummy candy? I suspect they only sell it at history museums,
though I had seen its brethren - like "Gummi Pet Rat" - before in real candy
stores. At any rate, what compelled me most to shell out $1.25 for "Terry
Pteranodon" was the set of "Care and Handling Instructions" on the back.
1. Don't be afraid to hold your gummi dinosaur, since this one is
an edible creature. It won't bite you!
2. Do not leave your new friend on the dashboard, or it will melt!
I'm a particular fan of that one. Of all the warm places a kid
might leave a piece of candy, does "the dashboard" really seem like the
likeliest of them to you?
3. If you and your Pet Dinosaur become "real pals," buy
another one to eat!
I also like that. The quotation marks are theirs, needless to
say. Don't you think someone who could become "real pals" with gummi candy
would probably become "real pals" with any gummi candy he came across? I
suspect this is how the show "Gummi Bears" was conceived; some quietly loony
writer was playing with a bag of candy he'd brought home and figured "Why couldn't my
new friends have adventures?"
4. Flavors may include two or more of the following: Cherry, Lemon,
Tangerine, and Lime.
Is this really a "Care and Handling Instruction?" I ask
you.
Anyway, despite the history museum's overall mediocrity, I would have
to call the excursion "a grand old time," were I the sort of person who used
such terminology. I hadn't seen Shannon in ten days, after all, making any trip into
the city wholly worthwhile.
While I remember, I should point out for the sake of fairness that I
have distorted a bit on this page the extent to which Shannon complains about its lack of
updates. I have perhaps been complaining too much about the complaining, so to
speak, or at least mentioning it too often. Anyway, I think everyone is glad this
isn't May 2001, a month which featured four, count 'em four, updates, and none between May
7 and May 23.
March 24, 2003
In my update of March 11, 2002, one of the things I noted was
the stupidity of the "unbundling of subregionals" in the NCAA tournament,
wherein location of a game has nothing to do with the region it's in. Not only was
this an unmitigated failure last year - in addition to numerous games still taking place
in areas that not only benefited no one but now didn't even have anything to do
geographically with their regions, #11 Southern Illinois got the closest to home court
advantage of anyone in their subregional and waltzed into the Sweet 16 with it - but it
continued to be stupid this year. Who had the advantage in the Midwest's Spokane
subregional? Wisconsin? Dayton? Tulsa? The closest would be Weber
State. Wisconsin came out of this, but why were they playing there? Who's
getting rewarded? I'll bet Duke loved playing Colorado State in Salt Lake
City. It certainly could have been worse, but the fact is that there was no reason
to do it. It hasn't done anything for #1 seeds that the old system didn't, and it's
practically made things worse for everyone else.
However, as unbelievably fucking dumb as this was, it cannot even
compare to the stupidity that is the women's NCAA tournament. I doubt many of you
follow women's basketball - certainly I don't - but you may remember that formerly, the
first two rounds in every subregional were played on the home courts of the highest seed
in that bracket, the 1-2-3-4 seeds. Of course, in the "quality gap" world
of women's basketball, this was a true "rich get richer" situation. So
evidently the women's committee decided to join the 21st century and change things so the
four top seeds didn't get home court advantage.
What they proceeded to do, however, was not "make every court
neutral" as in the men's tournament, but "punish higher seeds by making them
play on the home courts of lower seeds." Well, that sure makes sense.
Let's break down the women's bracket by region.
Mideast: #1 Tennessee gets to play at home not only in
the first two rounds, but in the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight as well. I don't recall
them doing something this stupid in the past; at least they switched to neutral sites in
the later rounds. #4 Penn State gets home court; that's fine. #3 North
Carolina, however, must play in Boulder. Not only is this not the
"Mideast," but it's on the home court of Colorado, which is, guess what, the #6
seed and plays UNC tonight. As if that weren't bad enough, #2 Villanova is rewarded
for its win over UConn by heading to Norman, Oklahoma, the home court of the #10 Sooners.
OU lost in the first round, but that doesn't make it fair.
Midwest: #1 Duke gets home court, which is fine.
But #4 Rutgers must travel to Athens, the home court of #5 Georgia which, oh yeah, hasn't
lost at home this season. This isn't "evening the field," it's a direct
punishment for being the higher seed. And while #2 Texas Tech also gets to play at
home, #3 Mississippi State gets to head to New Mexico, where the #6 Lobos have home-court
into the Final Four. It's as if, annoyed by the criticism that the top two or three
seeds were the only lines representing the Final Four every year, the committee decided to
make it as easy as possible for a lower seed to do it.
East: At least the later rounds, held in Dayton, don't
benefit anyone directly. #1 UConn is at home in Storrs, which I'd expect. But
#4 Vanderbilt and #5 BC all have to go to Norfolk, Virginia, where #12 Old Dominion plays
host. ODU only lost by a point in round one to BC. Smart. At least #2
Purdue and #3 Kansas State get the advantages, making this by far the sanest bracket.
West: First, #1 LSU doesn't even get the advantage,
forced to travel to Oregon in the only subregional that benefits no one in it. Then
#4 Ohio State must play at #5 Louisiana Tech, and while #3 Stanford gets home court -
through to the Final Four - #2 Texas has to head to Cincinnati, the #10 seed in the
region. The Bearcats lost in the first round, much like Oklahoma, but obviously
there is something inherently wrong here. I'm all for not directly rewarding a #2
seed with home court advantage, but to give them a blatant disadvantage by having them
travel quite a ways to the home floor of another team in their subregional is nothing
short of idiotic.
Probably the funniest aspect of the whole thing is how poorly the
attempted sabotage worked. Despite giving only 6 of the 16 top four seeds home-court
advantage, very little really changed. Only in the East bracket did the chalk not
hold, and even then the only lower seeds to win were #9 TCU and #11 Notre Dame, both of
which I would expect to be eliminated by #1 UConn and #3 Kansas State, both of whom will
have the home floor in Tuesday's games. Oh, we may see a couple 5s beat 4s and 6s
beat 3s, but in the end, there are going to be a lot of top four seeds in the Elite Eight,
which is just the way it always is. Nice try, NCAA, but even with the most poorly
conceived subregional system in tournament history - and that's rather impressive
considering what you did to the men's tournament last year - you have failed miserably in
your attempt to make women's basketball even remotely interesting.
March 23, 2003
What a strange Oscars. The whole thing turns into a Pianist lovefest, and then it doesn't even win Best Picture! But I'm getting ahead of myself. As with last year, let's take a look again at my predictions compared with what happened (I don't think I had much right).
Best Original Screenplay
Nominees: Far From Heaven, Gangs of New York,
Talk to Her, Y Tu Mama Tambien, My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Will Win: At a guess, a tossup between FFH and MBFGW.
The Academy loves this category for rewarding popular and/or acclaimed films that got
screwed everywhere else. I'm not sure here whether they go with the runaway hit or
the one the critics loved; say FFH just because I'm not sure this goes to a
comedy.
Did Win: Talk to Her. I tend to rule out
non-English-language screenplays on that fact alone, but evidently it wasn't enough of a
deterrent this year. The film did get great notices, but so did Far From Heaven.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Nominees: About a Boy, Adaptation, Chicago,
The Hours, The Pianist.
Will Win: I am deathly afraid it, and perhaps the big winner in general,
will be The Hours.
Did Win: The PIanist, which not only surprised but disappointed
me (as I was still hoping against hope that Adaptation would manage it, though I
wasn't expecting it). At least it wasn't The Hours, but one suspects this
film won mostly due to its content, as it goes large stretches with not much dialogue.
Yes, there's more to a screenplay than dialogue, but that's most of what can be
directly attributed. I guess less so when you're basing off a memoir.
Best Director
Nominees: Pedro Almodóvar, Talk to Her; Stephen
Daldry, The Hours; Rob Marshall, Chicago; Roman Polanski, The
Pianist; Martin Scorsese, Gangs of New York.
Will Win: A lot of actors have won "make-up" awards for movies
that weren't their best (Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman; Russell Crowe in Gladiator,
probably his worst performance of the past four years; Denzel Washington in Training
Day), so perhaps Scorsese will take this one in exchange for not winning for Goodfellas.
He certainly wouldn't be a bad pick; given two no-names, a felon, and a guy whose film
isn't in English, I gotta figure Scorsese has an advantage.
Did Win: Polanski, and I have to figure it was because the voters
recognized how personal a story this was for him. I probably would have ranked him
fourth-most likely to win going in, but then I didn't expect The Pianist to do
much of anything and obviously I was wrong.
Best Supporting Actress
Nominees: Kathy Bates, About Schmidt; Queen
Latifah, Chicago; Julianne Moore, The Hours; Meryl Streep, Adaptation;
Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chicago.
Will Win: You have to like Streep's chances, having won the Golden
Globe. Moore and Zeta-Jones will be the only two who can give her a run, but I think
Moore's better off in the Lead Actress category, where Streep was passed over in favor of
Kidman. I like Streep here.
Did Win: As I said, Zeta-Jones would give Streep a run. I think
Oscar wanted to get some new blood, not to mention spread the wealth a little.
Best Supporting Actor
Nominees: Chris Cooper, Adaptation; Ed Harris, The
Hours; Paul Newman, Road to Perdition; John C. Reilly, Chicago;
Christopher Walken, Catch Me If You Can.
Will Win: Cooper has as good a shot as any... will Adaptation
really sweep the supporting awards? (Well, if there's any justice in the world,
yes.) If not, it's between Harris and Newman, and the Academy does seem to like
giving this one to old guys. First pick Cooper; if not him, Newman.
Did Win: Cooper indeed, and it's a good thing too.
Best Actress
Nominees: Salma Hayek, Frida; Nicole Kidman, The
Hours; Diane Lane, Unfaithful; Julianne Moore, Far From Heaven;
Renée Zellweger, Chicago.
Will Win: In this case, it looks more like a tossup between Kidman and
Moore. Hayek and Lane are wild card nominees, and though a wild card got this last
year (i.e. Halle Berry), I don't think they'll do it two years in a row. Zellweger
is the outside shot but the musical/comedy group is underrepresented in acting wins.
Since I don't think Moore will get Supporting, she has a pretty good shot at this
one, also the Academy's attempt both to recognize FFH and spread the wealth a
bit.
Did Win: Kidman takes the tossup. I noted her role as Oscar bait in
the "should win" portion of this; indeed it was.
Best Actor
Nominees: Adrien Brody, The Pianist; Nicolas
Cage, Adaptation; Michael Caine, The Quiet American; Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs
of New York; Jack Nicholson, About Schmidt.
Will Win: Cage got absolutely jobbed at the Globes, losing to Richard F.
Gere (guess what the F stands for. Hint: not Francis). Day-Lewis got jobbed
too, losing to Nicholson. Nicholson is always a safe choice, but perhaps the Academy
will realize that he wasn't the best this year. I'm going to say Day-Lewis because
of all the notice he got, but Nicholson is the easy pick for second. Cage languishes
in third, while Brody and Caine are write-offs.
Did Win: I had Brody in fourth... shows what I know. I guess
Holocaust movies are just the be-all, end-all Oscar bait - if all else fails, make the
setting "Poland, 1940" - meaning Day-Lewis gets jobbed again. It boggles
my mind that the year's best performance failed to take home either the Globe or the
Oscar. On the other hand, Bringing Down the House was the #1 movie in
America two weeks in a row, so anything's possible. At least he got the BAFTA, the
SAG, and a number of critics' awards, but damn. As for Brody - sure, he was good,
but I stand by "fourth place boosted by being in a Holocaust movie."
Best Picture
Nominees: Chicago; Gangs of New York; The
Hours; The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers; The Pianist.
Will Win: The Hours winning would surprise no one, least of all
me. Which is depressing because it's the worst movie on there. Gangs
and Chicago have chances (the other two do not), but The Hours has the
Globe going for it and the fact that Best Picture very often matches the Globes' Best
Drama.
Did Win: After the show turned into a Pianist lovefest, I was
sure that would take it - I'm wrong even the night of. Chicago it is, again
to spread the wealth around - it was interesting that Gangs of New York got
totally shut out (well, maybe it won some smaller stuff, as though I was watching that
part).
So, there you have it. I believe I got one right,
a step down from last year when at least I had two. I had a couple others in
tossups, but that doesn't really count because I was too gutless to actually make a
definitive pick. Serves me right. Now I just have to be annoyed that none of
the films I wanted to win did with the exception of Cooper; but then, why should this year
be different from any other? My favorite film of the year wasn't even nominated.
Oh well, it's not all bad news. Only one more Shannon-less day,
and it's into the city on Tuesday!
Oh, before I get totally off the Oscar subject, el nuevo Poll of the Week-o. Yes, I know this is not really Spanish.
March 22, 2003
Minor update to the Challenge page. Are you familiar
with the phrase "duplication of effort?" Well, that's what it was; I have
an Excel file that I input day-by-day results into. Then I just type the final
numbers into FrontPage. Hey, why not just make the Excel file into a web page?
I mean, why else did I have it, for my own perverse statistical amusement? God, I
hope not. So anyway, rather than the Challenge page being bloated with two 25-person
leaderboards, they're on their own page. The Sweet 16, Elite 8, and Final Four
Teams Remaining are still there, no worries.
How many times have you been to the airport when you were not doing one
of the following three things: a) Getting on a plane; b) Picking someone up; c) Dropping
someone off? If you are me, the answer will be once as of tomorrow. My parents
were generous enough to give me the vouchers they'd gotten for getting bumped going to
Phoenix to use for flying to ICT (a ludicrously expensive proposition, particularly with
two teams involved), but you have to actually go to the airport to redeem them. At
least it gives me something to do; you'd be surprised how much it turns out I can't watch
basketball. I've been tracking games on the internet and going downstairs if they
get exciting, but I'm having a hell of a time sitting there for two hours watching a whole
game. It just doesn't work. Maybe I burned myself out during the conference
tournaments, when I watched so much basketball in one day I actually fell asleep in front
of the television (what am I, 70 years old?).
Shannon noted to me the other day her amusement at appearing in several
consecutive updates; when I chided her for not updating her blog, she retorted that
readers could simply come here, as she got so many mentions it was serving as an update
for her. Anyway, this has been your token Shannon reference for today's update.
I am so bored I may go back and see what the record is for most consecutive
references to one individual, though I would be stunned if this does not now hold it.
It's hard to get five straight mentions on this page.
UPDATE: I wasn't paying very close attention or actually keeping score,
but the previous record appears to have been three, possibly by Drew, or maybe Ric.
(Like I said, not very close attention.)
March 20, 2003
Marian and I had some fun with her digital camera this
afternoon taking goofy pictures. I told Shannon this and she asked if there were any
"good goofy pictures." Well, I think that goes without saying. I
enjoy having an expressive face. By the way, I know the red eye is heinous in these
pictures, so don't bother pointing it out. (Likewise do not bother pointing out the
lack of shaving. I last shaved Tuesday night, so sue me.)
Let's start off with the suite theme. I have impressions of Rich
and Marc when they're sort of confused about something that I do. They're very hard
to hold without cracking up, so I hope you appreciate that. Actually, most of these
were hard to hold without breaking up.
Rich
confused, and a little sad that he is confused (I didn't totally nail this one, which
is unfortunate)
Marc
confused and sort of indignant that he should be confused (this is way more
exaggerated than Rich's)
Now let's go to the "Dad Gallery." These are so funny
(to me and Marian they were, anyway) because they're true, and I'll even give you
comparison pictures so you don't think I'm exaggerating. It is well known in my
family that my dad basically takes pictures one of three ways:
Deer
in the headlights (comparison Dad pic ici)
Eyes
closed, head back in faux laughter (comparison Dad pic ici)
Sleepy grin
(comparison Dad pic ici)
My mom takes exactly one kind of photo, the "hey-it's-a-camera" wide smile,
which can be seen in that last Dad shot.
Finally there are the photos that are just me being sort of goofy.
Usually they involved Marian barking a pose from off-camera as though this were
some sort of fashion shoot.
The traditional "Flax arches his left
eyebrow" shot
In honor of war in Iraq, it's my "compassionate
conservative" pose
Perhaps this shot will
convince you to buy me a pony
I don't know what porn stars do, but this is what I do
when Marian tells me to mug like one... am I turning you on?
These last two just crack me up to no end. The first is
Marian going "Be a giraffe" and the second is her
telling me to "Be a giraffe nibbling the treetops," which I thought I had done
the first time. I find the second in particular to be impossible to view without
bursting into laughter.
Oh, there's also this picture, which
is just kind of normal and I think isn't half bad (as I don't often take tremendous
pictures; see the FAQ for a great example of that). Use it as a sorbet to
clear the palate of wackiness.
March 19, 2003
Milhouse once said, "Spring breaaaaaaak!
Yeah!" I am loath to agree with him, as aside from basketball watching and
possibly meeting Shannon in the city at some point this could be the most boring spring
break on record.
Ric's picks will probably trickle in late because he sent me a blank
worksheet (I would guess by accident) and then left for the evening. Hopefully I'll
get them before the games start, but I don't think Ric is about to cheat and it would seem
he's already made his picks and something just fucked up. Everyone else's picks are
now up on the tourney page, along with a
quick summary of how many people picked which teams to win it all, and which picks I
estimate to be the ballsiest (or maybe just stupidest, though at least no one took a 15
seed this year).
March 17, 2003
After much wrangling and head-scratching, I finally completed
my brackets today. (Yeah, I know, some "finally," but I'm not big on
waiting.) I actually went down to Deering to do the brackets because I felt like I
would really be stupid not to go outside when it was 70 degrees. It didn't really
feel that warm, though the ability to go out in a t-shirt at all and not immediately die
was pretty nice, and really it was fine in the sun.
More of Flax's Wild America. Coming back from the library last
night (just dropping off books I'd used for my History of Film paper; rest assured I was
not doing any actual "studying") I saw two skunks hanging out right by where I
was going to walk. Naturally I gave them a wide berth. Then today going down
to Deering, I saw a huge possum wandering around near the entrance to Coon. As I was
sitting on the Deering steps, I heard a slight rustle to my right - and here comes the
possum, out of the bushes. I jumped about five feet backwards, then had to explain
this to the steps' other occupants, who were unable to see the possum before my presence
scared it off.
Maybe it's because I have a hard time seeing Bush without picturing the
mechanical chimp who crashes the cymbals together, or maybe it's because I didn't want to
get depressed, but I went to Chili's tonight with Rich and Drew rather than pay any
attention to whatever announcement was coming, as though anything said was much of a
surprise. Shannon, who did watch (and announced that it was in fact more than a bit
depressing), noted to me that the title of one particular news bit was "When
Diplomacy Fails," which I quite enjoy. I'm no Saddam Hussein fan, but nothing
about "abdicate immediately or we're coming in to getcha" screams
"diplomacy" to me.
Say there's a big kid in the schoolyard. He never really does
anything to anybody, but the littler kids in his area are a bit wary that he might plan on
beating them up one of these days. One day, the bully does in fact beat up one of
the little kids. The principal comes out and makes the bully stop, and threatens him
with further retribution if he ever does it again.
Cut to six months later (clue to understanding the analogy: six months
= twelve years). The bully hasn't beaten up anyone since the previous incident, but
the principal has been wary of him the entire time, figuring the bully must be close to
beating someone else up. One day the principal can no longer take it. He goes
into the schoolyard and announces that the bully is expelled, and that if he doesn't leave
school grounds immediately he will be - wait for it - "forcibly removed."
Okay, it's not a perfect analogy because the bully hasn't been
developing chemical weapons, but does anyone else see a basically flawed process here?
March 16, 2003
Wow. I can't believe it's been a week since I've
updated this (though I'll bet Andy and Shannon can, as they keep complaining about
it). I warned Shannon that most of the updates in the next month would concern
basketball, which as you might expect did not overwhelm her with glee, but no
matter. Brackets by region are up on the Tournament Challenge page, and I have to say
that these brackets are giving me a headache like no others in recent memory. I
picked too many high seeds through, so now I have to go back and "clean things
up," by which I mean pick a few more double-digit seeds. I'm so not winning
this year.
Speaking of the NCAA Tournament, non-basketball fans would do well to
avoid the finally-updated Poll of the Week,
which concerns first-round upsets. For those too lazy to check the archives,
"The Road Not Taken" and "The Raven" ended up tied with 12 votes each
of the 36 total cast for the last poll, so more than a month failed to even settle the
question.
March 9, 2003
Yesterday was the Carleton tournament, which for
the second straight year was hideously disappointing as Jan and I finished fourth by
stumbling big time in the playoffs. Things were even more bitter for me as my PPG
dropped all the way to 47.3, which is 18 PPG less than I averaged my freshman
year at CUT. (To be fair, I get quite shadowed by Jan. I may have to play as a
one-man team next year depending on how much I suck at ICT, so we'll probably see my PPG
go back up while the wins drop off dramatically.)
Things then got even worse for Jan on the way back as the overzealous
cops in the Wisconsin Dells area nailed him for going 80 - ooooooh, so fast - and hit him
with a $163 ticket. I can't even conceive having to pay that kind of money for a
speeding ticket where you weren't going at least 20 miles per hour over the speed
limit.
So things started cool (two separate 500-point team rounds in the round
robin - fun) and then got kinda lame (no trophy again, speeding ticket, got back at four
am). The 18,000 things I have to do in the next two days will probably get my mind
off it, though.
Have you seen this new soda called "dnL?" I
came across it at Osco, and of course curiosity got the best of me. "dnL,"
for those totally baffled, is "7up" upside down and backwards. Why did
they do that? I would argue it's because no one could come up with a better name,
but the official site (www.dnL-FlipIt.com) has
other ideas. From the FAQ section:
Q: What is the link between dnL and 7 UP?
A: dnL is from the makers of 7 UP, but it is everything 7 UP isn't.
Take 7 UP and flip it upside down and inside out, you get a green beverage in a
clear bottle with a bold, full flavor and a kick of caffeine. That's dnL.
Okay, so 7 UP is clear soda in a green bottle and made a big deal about
having no caffeine - but do they really mean to imply that 7 UP's flavor is weak and, uh,
italicized?
The main page also offers a "What is dnL?" section:
Now, 7 UP is turning itself upside down and inside out to introduce
dnL, the strong, full-flavored soft drink guaranteed to flip your perspective on life and
give you a big kick of green.
If I were the ad guy who wrote that copy, I think I'd be flipping my
perspective on life, but let's break this down.
a) What exactly makes a soft drink "strong," much less
"full-flavored?" And again, doesn't this imply that the weenie taste of 7
UP is only for little girls who can't handle a rough, bold soda like this one?
b) If this is so guaranteed to flip my perspective on life, can I have
my money back now?
c) What in the hell is "a big kick of green?" Unless
that refers to some amount of cash, I don't think I want it.
Truly, though, my favorite section is the FAQ section. I was
trying to find out what flavor this was supposed to be - however full it is, I was not
comfortable enough with the flavor to venture a guess. Here's what I found at the
FAQ section:
Q: Why is dnL green?
A: It represents the fruit flavor blast.
Well, we're halfway there, right? Wrong.
Q: What flavor is dnL?
A: Its a fruit flavor blast.
Lack of apostrophe theirs. So, what flavor is this full-flavored
soda? Apparently "whatever esters we could get our hands on," because
obviously they were so busy coming up with a clever name (uh, yeah) that they couldn't be
bothered to come up with an actual flavor. "What flavor is this new, hip soda
going to be?" "Uh, you know, it'll taste like fruit." "I love
it!"
The final question in the "FAQ" was Q: How do I turn my
thirst upside down?, which I really doubt is frequently asked of them. This
question is apparently code for "How do I purchase dnL?" The answer should
be "It doesn't matter, because it has no distinct flavor and an aftertaste that is
reminding me, for no apparent reason, of swiss cheese."
These recent "watch us put our knowledge of artificial colors to
work" experiments in the field of soda have really got me down. Dr. Pepper's
Red Fusion may be the best of them all, damning testimony if ever there was. Pepsi
Blue sucks big-time, and while dnL is probably better than that, it's not by much.
Thus concludes the first ever BigFlax.com soda review. I'm always
on the lookout for new and different pop, and I know Burgess wants me to do this, so
perhaps this will become a regular "feature." Or, maybe not.
March 4, 2003
Snow ended up forcing me inside tonight (walking over to 2020
Ridge tomorrow will be really fun, though Shannon rightly points out to me that
she has it far worse), so news from the front is only trickling in. Apparently Torms
is flying solo as WNUR Sports' director next year? What the hell is that? No
one else could serve with him? I mean, even the least qualified candidate (fill in
whoever you want here) would be better than nothing, right? Torms is the man and
all, but I don't see him emerging next year alive. I propose that we either let him
win the Tournament Challenge, or the winner donate their money to him, so he can buy a
lapdance or something before he marches into the breach.
(If you're wondering why I didn't throw my hat into the ring, thus
apparently negating this problem, it's a little thing called "president of Quiz
Bowl.")
March 2, 2003
Shannon keeps giving me a hard time for not updating this
site. My defense is that nothing that interesting is happening to justify it.
Occasionally I also post random thoughts, but I usually have to be sitting in front
of the computer when they come, which doesn't tend to happen.
I made pasta tonight and piled it into a truly heroic mountain of food.
I took a picture of it because Drew half-seriously suggested it. Actually, I
took several. These two show the side view so you can see
its height; this one shows the top
so you can see the width. Enjoy.
There's more! View last month's updates.
Thanks to Tabnet for the domain name and my parents for paying it off.
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© 2003 Barren Malt Fox Productions
This page last updated: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 05:56:42 AM
