Entry 151: Little Big News

The big news is that my brother and his wife had their first child a few days ago.  It's a boy!  Welcome to this world Lil' Q, which is what I shall call you in this blog henceforth.  Lil' Q is only little in the sense that all babies are little; compared to other newborns he's quite big, just two oz. shy of 10 lbs.  He's literally twice as heavy as Lil' S was when he was born.  Even today Lil' S isn't that much heavier; he went to the doctor yesterday, and now four months old, he weighs 13 lbs.  That's a bit on the light side, but nothing unhealthy, it's right around the start of the second quartile.  He's 26 inches long which puts him in the 90th percentile in length -- a little beanpole.

Anyway, congrats to my bro and sis-in-law.

[Big Baby]

In other news, the holiday season is quickly passing us by in what seems like a blur.  S and I didn't really celebrate anything this year, because it was just us on Christmas Day (S's family came to visit for a few days from SC, but they left on Christmas Morning to avoid holiday traffic).  Also, neither of us are Christian, and Lil' S is still too young to care about much of anything outside of drooling, so there's no need yet to do anything on his behalf.

We were invited to a New Year's Eve party, but we aren't going.  It's not really a kid-friendly type of deal, and it's too much hassle and expense to find a babysitter.  Plus, S has trouble staying up past 10:00, making it to midnight is just too much to ask.  We are going to a holiday party tomorrow, but I'm not super excited about it.  Who plans a party on a Sunday the last week of the football season?  Non-Americans, that's who.  The party is being throw by S's coworker, and in her line of work there are a lot of international people.  They don't get what a faux pas they're committing by having a party at a time when the nation should all be at home watching the NFL playoff races unfold.  Well, at least the Seahawks clinched a postseason spot last week.  If they hadn't, I have a feeling my marriage would really be put to the test tomorrow.

[I have this theory that Russell Wilson looks like a combination between Michael from "The Wire", and that Rutgers student who got in trouble for spying on his gay roommate.  What do you think?]

I think we'll have to bring something to this party too, so tack on some extra time and effort for that.  S bought a bunch of samosas yesterday at the India Store to bring, but I'm not sure what she was thinking.  Samosas are fried, and crispy, and flaky, that's what makes them delicious.  If you store them in the fridge for two days they are going to be soggy and congealed and gross.  Well, maybe not gross, but not nearly as good as when they're fresh -- certainly not bring-to-a-party worthy.  I said this to S, and her response was that she'd leave them out for two days.  When I said this would be worse because they'd probably go bad, like bad bad, like grow mold or something, she just kinda shrugged her shoulders.  So now we have a dozen samosas in our fridge that I'm not sure what we're going to do with.  S does this sometimes.  Her food forethought isn't always on point.  Several times she's brought home a huge bunch of ripe bananas, and since bananas go bad pretty quickly we'd eat a few of them, and then have to chuck the rest.  I got on her case about it (I hate wasting food), so then the next time she comes home with a giant bunch of completely green bananas.  Great, so in a few days they'll all be ripe, and then we're just going to have the same problem.  I noticed that on her latest run, she again got green bananas, but just a few this time, so she's getting better I think.

[That shit's bananas]

 Anyway...

I took the last week off and don't have to be back at work until Wednesday.  It's a nice little vacation for me, but with a four-month old in the house, time-off just isn't what it used to be.  We got spoiled by having S's mom stay with us for so long (she went back to SC on Christmas Day with the rest of the family).  She doted on her grandson constantly and really took a lot of the burden off us.  Now we're really realizing how energy-sapping raising an infant is.  I'll be happy when Lil' S is a bit older and can entertain himself even for just a few minutes -- a half hour here and there is all I ask.  He's at a stage where if somebody isn't constantly paying attention to him he starts to whine, and if you don't do something about his whine then it turns into a full-on blood-curdling cry.  And somehow he knows if you're trying to multitask, and he doesn't like it.  I tried to hold him and read at the same time, and he wasn't having any of it.  The only saving grace is that he naps a decent amount (he's napping right now).  But then you have to tiptoe around the house trying to get everything done before he wakes up.  It's like you can hear the *tick-tick-tick* in your head.  But, I'm sure we should just try to enjoy this time with him now, as when he's older we'll probably look back misty-eyed and wonder what happened to our little baby.

OK, that's all I have time for this week.  Until next time...

Entry 150: Twelve Days of Xmas, 6-1

This is part two of my yuletide-theme entry.

There has been a lot of attention on gun control recently, and I couldn't resist forever the urge to expound on the topic.  So for the Sixth Day of Xmas, I give you...

Day 6: Six Takedowns of Common Pro-Gun Arguments

6.  Guns Don't Kill People, People Kill People
A classic.  But it's not a particularly strong argument.  Logically it fails, because it leads immediately to justifying possession of any weapon of any destructive power.  (Atomic bombs don't detonate themselves... therefore it's OK for people to have atomic bombs?)  Practically it fails because people use guns to kill many more people than they could otherwise.

5.  The Second Amendment
Obviously, it's a little outdated, I mean, how many people do you know who are in a militia?
"Hey, Steve, I've got a great idea for you.  You know what we should start one of these days?"
"A blog about our favorite TV shows?"
"No, a militia."
That's a conversation I've never overheard at a party.  Also, the second amendment just says "arms", it doesn't say assault rifles, it doesn't even say guns.  If our government ever becomes really liberal and really snarky, we should allow people to only own firearms that were in existence in 1787.  Then when some psycho tries to tee off on people with a muzzle-loading musket, somebody can just tackle him after his first shot.

4.  Everybody In Switzerland Has a Gun and They Have Little Gun Violence
Switzerland's gun ownership, per capita, is nearly half ours, so right away this argument is a nonstarter.  But let's go on anyway.  Switzerland is a country of $8 million people with little poverty.  The U.S. is a country of $300 million people with a good deal of poverty.  Swiss citizens are required to have health insurance (they have something similar to Obamacare, from what I can tell), and presumably they have ready access to mental health resources.  Also, Switzerland doesn't have a traditional army, so they arm and train (this part is key) their citizens for national defense.  This is much, much different than allowing any schlub off the street to buy a semi-automatic AK 47 just for kicks.

3.  If More Sane People Had Guns the Insane People Wouldn't Get Off as Many Shots
Maybe.  And maybe if more people had guns, many more clusterfuck shootouts would occur, and many more people would be accidentally killed.  Sane doesn't mean safe.  Think about the people you know -- your 20-year old neighbors who set off the smoke alarm, because they were barbecuing inside their apartment; your coworker who brags about how much he drinks and drives; your friend who freaks out if she has to parallel park; your buddy from high school who always wanted to be a cop, but got rejected from the force three times* -- would you really feel safer knowing these people were packing?

Also, society doesn't work like the WWF in the mid-'80s.  It's not always obvious who's good and who's bad.  There isn't a perfect delineation between sane and insane.  This binary categorization of good and evil is a very simpleminded and wrongheaded worldview.  "Good" people will do "insane" things in stressful, chaotic situations.  Especially ones for which they have no training or practice in handling.  This idea that more guns will somehow make our society safer, because we "good guys" will all be protecting each other like trained law enforcers is the real insanity, if you ask me.  Quasi-vigilante justice is not the answer, just ask Trayvon Martin... oh, wait, never mind...     

*These are all real people I once knew.

2.  Cars Kill More People than Guns Should We Ban Cars?
Well, actually, I'd love it if we could structure society in such a way that we wouldn't need cars, but since that seems quite farfetched, no, we shouldn't ban cars.  But we should continue to regulate them and continually strive to make them safer and try to ensure that people who are too dangerous to drive aren't driving.  You know, all the things the pro-gun control people want to do with guns.

1.  Violence Is a Societal/Mental Health Issue Not a Gun Issue
I actually mostly agree with this.  But have the gun nuts ever asked the following question: Don't you think that your mission to push guns on the American people as something perfectly normal and something not to be feared or controlled contributes negatively to our gun-crazed culture (like, say, advocating for guns in schools)?  If we treated guns with more reverence, something not so normal, something you needed permits and extensive training to obtain, don't you think gun violence would go down?  I do.  That's the thing with gun fanatics, they claim it's the culture, but by being so obstinate about the most basic regulations and by being so adamant about the virtues of guns, they're largely the ones perpetuating this culture.  If gun nuts really want to change the culture, they need to start with the man in the mirror. 

As for the mental health issue.  OK, fine, then let's do the following: levy a modest tax on ammunition and use it to fund mental health programs.  We could put more trained mental health professionals in schools and workplaces to educate people and catch early warning signs.  Surely the NRA will support this.  If it's really a mental health problem, and they're really committed to a solution then they'll be behind a measure like this 100%, right?  Right, and I'm going to get a wise-cracking teddy bear for Christmas.*

*I watched the movie Ted last night -- stupid, but hysterical.   

[It's a joke, but we should seriously think about moving along these lines.]

Alright, on to the other five days.

Day 5: Five Super-Christian Celebrities
5.  Kirk Cameron, actor/former teen idol.
4.  Kurt Warner, former NFL quarterback/former supermarket employee.
3.  Mel Gibson, actor/anti-Semite.
2.  Ted Haggard, pastor/"recovering" homosexual.
1.  Stephen Baldwin, actor/extreme sports enthusiast (720s for Jesus, bra!).

 In honor of Saint Nick...

Day 4: Four Famous People Named Nick Who Are Very Unlikely to Ever be Sainted

4. Nick Swardson (Unless starring in a movie that scores 0% on the movie rating site Rotten Tomatoes is deemed a miracle.)
3.  Nick Cave
2.  Nick Van Exel  (Although his sweet lefty j was divine.)
1.  Nick Nolte

Since Christmas parties are notoriously good times for wearing cheesy sweaters...

Day 3: Three People Known for Wearing Sweaters

3.  Jim Tressel (It's a sweater vest, but still, it counts.)
2.  Mr. Rogers
1.  Bill Cosby

    

Day 2: Two Anagrams of "MERRY CHRISTMAS" That Almost Make Sense

2.  MM, CHERRY SITARS
1.  MR T. HAS MY RICERS      

[You ain't gettin' that kitchenware back, foo'.]

Day 1: One Great Movie Set During the Christmas Season that Isn't a Christmas Movie, Per Se

1.  Die Hard

I could only think of two: Gremlins and Die Hard.  It was no contest.  Die Hard is arguably Bruce Willy's finest work.

[This is pretty good, but they left out the best part.  In the movie, Bruce Willis has a gun taped to his back.  They could've done this with the Legoman easily enough; I don't know why they didn't -- really ruins the scene for me.]

Happy Holidays!  Until next time...

Entry 149: Twelve Days of XMas, 12-7

So this headline from The Onion pretty much sums up everybody's sentiment following yesterday's horrific news.  I had paragraphs of bombast in my brain ready go on gun control, mental health, and our obscenely violent culture, but when I started to type it all out, I got depressed, so I stopped.  Instead I'm going to write about happy things.  I'm not burying my head in the sand and pretending that evil doesn't exist, I'm just not writing about it here.  Plus, the absurd amount of media attention we give these atrocious acts is probably part of the problem -- it encourages the next round of psychopaths to go bigger and bolder.  So, my faithful five readers, I'm going in completely different, much happier direction.

It's Christmas time.  Even though I grew up in an areligious household, we celebrated Christmas, using it as a special family day.  (Recently, I got into a mini-argument with a Christian friend of mine who said she was bothered by non-Christians like me celebrating Christmas.  She said we denigrate it and illegitimatize it for true believers.  Knowing that she's extremely liberal on social issues, I sarcastically said, "Yeah, I feel like gay marriage does the same thing to straight marriage."  It was one of my better comebacks.)  Even though as I get older and older I think more and more that this Scrooge guy was on to something, a lot of great memories from my childhood are Christmas-related, so I decided to do two all Christmas blog entries in the form of "The Twelve Days of Christmas".  I'll do days 12-7 this week and 6-1 next week.

Day 12: Twelve Foods I'll Miss This Year
Instead of going back to the Sea-Tac region for Xmas like we have in the past, some family on my wife's side is coming here, which means I'll be eating Indian food for Christmas.  It'll be delicious, but I will miss the following nonetheless (in order of degree missed).

12. Turkey (our usual Xmas Eve dinner)
11. Mashed potatoes and gravy
10. Stuffing
 9.  Apple pie
 8.  Pumpkin pie
 7.  Baked ham (our usual Xmas dinner)
 6.  Deli-fresh pepperoni (always seems to be around my parents' house during the yule season)
 5.  Yams with marshmallows (only time I enjoy marshmallows with anything)
 4.  Eggnog (I suppose I could actually buy some here easily enough)
 3.  Scalloped Potatoes (much, much better than mashed potatoes and gravy -- a controversial stance, I know)
 2.  Mushroom soup (a specialty of a family friend we usually see on Christmas Eve)
 1.  Kielbasa (hand ground and wrapped by my dad)

Day 11: Twelve Non-Christmas Songs That Remind Me of Christmas
Christmas, 1991 was arguably the best Christmas from my childhood.  I had recently got my own CD player, so I asked for a bunch of CDs for Xmas.  My parents real came through on this one, buying me just about everything on my list: Nirvana, Nevermind; U2, Achtung Baby; Erasure, Chorus; Ned's Atomic Dustbin, God Fodder, just to name a few.

Also, in 1994 I made a very eclectic mixed tape featuring bands from the Beatles down to Suicidal Tendencies.  I remember listening to it every time I drove somewhere over Christmas break.   

11. "Norwegian Wood", The Beatles
10. "Right Now", Van Halen
 9.  "Head Like A Hole", Nine Inch Nails
 8.  "I Saw Your Mommy", Suicidal Tendencies
 7.  "Message in a Bottle", The Police
 6.  "The Fly", U2
 5.  "Chorus", Erasure
 4.  "Love to Hate You", Erasure
 3.  "Grey Cell Green", Ned's Atomic Dustbin
 2.  "Lithium", Nirvana
 1.  "Polly", Nirvana




Day 10: Ten Great Offensive Tecmo Super Bowl Characters
Christmas, 1991 again.  I got the best Christmas gift I've ever received -- Tecmo Super Bowl for NES.  The first sports game ever with real teams, real players, and real-time stats.  I played an entire 16-game season (plus playoffs) on Christmas day (I was the Packers), then I brought it my friend JY's house the next day, and we played another entire season together (I was the Falcons he was the 49ers).  So essentially three entire seasons were played in two days.  In total, I'd estimate I played somewhere around 50 seasons of this game in my life.  For at least 15 of them I copied the season statistics to notebook paper by hand after I finished them.  I still have the papers in a folder in a box in my basement.  Here are some great offensive characters.  I've weighted to give preference to those players whose ability on the game far outweighed their ability in real life.

10. Dwight Stone, Kick Returner, Pittsburgh Steelers
  9. Ricky Proehl, Wide Receiver, Arizona Cardinals
  8. Christian Okoye, Running Back, Kansas City Chiefs
  7. Barry Sanders, Running Back, Detroit Lions
  6. QB Eagles, Quarterback, Philadelphia Eagles
  5. Warren Moon, Quarterback, Houston Oilers
  4. Thurman Thomas, Running Back, Buffalo Bills
  3. Joe Montana, Quarterback, San Francisco 49ers
  2. Jerry Rice, Wide Receiver, San Francisco 49ers
  1. Bo Jackson (His skills on the game are legendary -- SO much better on the game than real life, as the clip below verifies.)



Day 9: Ten Great Defensive Tecmo Super Bowl Characters
If you couldn't tell, I really liked this game.

 9. Dave Waymer, Cornerback, San Francisco 49ers
 8. Rufus Porter, Linebacker, Seattle Seahawks
 7. Mark Carrier, Safety, Chicago Bears
 6. Charles Haley, Linebacker,  San Francisco 49ers
 5. David Fulcher, Safety, Cincinnati Bengals
 4. Cornelius Bennett, Linebacker, Buffalo Bills 
 3. Lawrence Taylor, Linebacker, New York Giants
 2. Deion Sanders, Cornerback, Atlanta Falcons
 1. Rod Woodson, Cornerback, Pittsburgh Steelers (I could dominate with the Steelers D because of him)

[Interesting factoid: Rod Woodson is depicted as a white man on Tecmo Super Bowl.]

Day 8: Eight "Great" Punny Christmas-related Crossword Puzzle Clues
I use quotes because can any pun really be considered great?

 8. Cupid's mate? (DASHER)
 7. Short winter day? (XMAS)
 6. Subordinate Clauses? (ELVES)
 5. Nick name? (CLAUS)
 4. Present time? (YULE)
 3. Winter air? (CAROL)
 2. Northern star? (SANTA)
 1. Little help? (ELF)

[A Christmas Carol?]

Day 7: Seven Christmas Songs That Remind Me of Christmas

 7. "Santa Baby", Eartha Kitt (I noticed recently that at some point in the song she asks for the "deed to a platinum mine".  That's a rather specific and grandiose request.  If you get it, do you really need all the other stuff?)
 6. "Blue Christmas", Elvis Presley
 5. "God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman / We Three Kings", Barenaked Ladies Feat. Sarah McLachlan
 4. "Carol of the Bells", Peter Griffin
 3. "Christmas at Ground Zero", Weird Al (It's not quite as funny since 9/11.)
 2. "Little Drummer Boy", David Bowie and Bing Crosby
 1. "White Christmas", Bing Crosby (A classic, beloved only by me and 50 million others.  Last year  I watched the movie "Holiday Inn" that introduced the song.  It's a pretty good flick if you can get past the 1940s-style hokeyness... and the horribly offensive blackface number.) 
 

[I really wanted to put this clip from "Holiday Inn" in, but embedding was disabled.]

Well, until next time...

Entry 148: Old Aches And Pains

Oh boy, I feel like Luke Appling this morning.  I'm sure I don't have to explain this reference, but I will anyway.  Luke Appling* was a WWII-era baseball player; he was very good (Hall of Famer), but he complained frequently to teammates about minor physical ailments, earning him the nickname "Old Aches And Pains".  I did an MMA workout DVD yesterday that I haven't done in a while -- it exercises a lot of muscle groups I don't normally work (believe it or not, combo punching and fence walking aren't part of my daily routine) -- and I woke up this morning embarrassingly stiff and achy.  I struggled to bend over to put my socks on.  I'm not even old yet.

I also seem to have something (hopefully) minor going on with my ENT system.  I have a bit of a sore throat, a bit of a runny nose, and a bit of an earache.  I'm slightly paranoid it's strep throat because a friend of mine whom I was in close proximity to last week has strep, but I'm not exhibiting the symptoms of strep, and I was feeling fine for nearly a week after contact, so rationally I really don't think that's it.  S started getting a sore throat last night too, and since she's more cautious than I am, she's going to the doctor.  I'll wait to hear her diagnosis before I do anything.  I really think it's just a minor bug; I normally wouldn't even think twice about it, but with a little, vulnerable (and adorable) baby in the house your brain can't help but wander to the worst.

We were feeling well enough to go to S's company holiday party last night.  It was a huge scale-back from the one last year, but still alright.  Free food and subsidized booze are always good.  The music they were playing made me think of Adam Carolla who's always complaining that the music of 22-year old club kids has somehow become the sound track of our lives.  It's completely true.  Last night for instance, the average age of the people in attendance was probably around 48, and yet the Pitbulls and the Taio Cruzes and the LMFAOs and whatever else shitty electronic/club/dance/remix music the kids are listening to was just blaring through the speakers.  Heaven forbid a little jazz is played, or if people want to dance (there was a dance floor), how about some Motown, or some Michael (child molesting aside, he was one hell of a performer), something with a little soul to it that people over 25 might enjoy, instead of that *ootz, ootz, ootz, ootz, poppin', ootz, ootz, ootz, Cristal, ootz, ootz, ootz, money, ootz, ootz, ootz, booties* garbage.

[Speaking of today's dance music, this is a pretty cool remake.]

I think what's going on is that bars play this type of music at night to drive away the fogies (who drink less, stay longer, and are decidely lamer than young people), and then it has a domino effect to the point where you're listening to Christina Aguilera at a business function.  The other day I walked by this establishment that's on the bottom floor of my office building.  During the night it's a quasi-sports bar, during the day it does lunch for business people.  I peeked through the window and there were about ten white people in there eating lunch and reading papers or fiddling with their phones.  Over the loudspeakers blaring, just absolutely blaring, I mean so loud I could hear it clearly from outside: Ke$ha "Tik Tok".  Because, you know, that's exactly what every middle-age, corporate whitey on a lunch break wants to listen to at 500 decibels.



Anyway, in other news, political news, the Republicans are up to their old tricks again, and by "their old tricks", I mean "being complete f**king ignoramuses".  Although to be fair, it's tough to say whether they're actually ignoramuses or whether they're just playing to the ignorant public.  They might not be dumb, they might be diabolical.  (I think the same thing of the talking heads on Fox News.  Yeah, they say stupid things, but they get paid a lot to do so.  They might not be stupid, just sellouts.  Their viewers on the other hand...) 

Take Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal for example; in a recent op-ed he warns of the dangers of the impending "fiscal cliff" -- a trigger of massive tax increases, drastic spending cuts, and contractionary debt reduction -- and then he calls for... wait for it... spending cuts and debt reduction!  No, seriously, read it (my favorite part is that it's written as if he's the smartest guy in the room, proposing common sense solutions that those Washington bureaucrats could just never go for).  Does Jindal really not understand the economics of the fiscal cliff, or is he just using it to scare people who don't follow economics closely into siding with him?

[Update: S just texted me from the doctor's saying that she doesn't have "Streep", so it's all good.]

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell pulled off a gem of his own when he filibustered his own proposal.  He moved to put a proposal on the debt ceiling (not be confused with the fiscal cliff) to a straight up-and-down vote, and then when majority leader Harry Reid agreed, McConnell said that actually a super majority of 60 votes would be needed, denying the chance for what he had just suggested to go into action.  Apparently McConnell thought the Dems wouldn't go for his up-and-down vote, and this would make Obama look bad, because the to-be-voted-on proposal is favored by the White House (presumably McConnell would've gone public saying that not even Senate Dems favored the president's position).  Instead his bluff was called, and he embarrassingly had to reveal his two-six off-suit.

Not that this matters that much.  Liberals will make fun of him, and the youtube clip will get some views, but his supporters will find a way to rationalize and justify his actions.  That's really the "strength" of the Republican party.  Blind faith.  It doesn't matter how wrong a Republican is, as long as he or she continually hits the key beats on his or her idiotic drum -- low taxes, free market, pro-life, Obama's a socialist, small government, so on and so on -- they'll be supported.  Actually being able to think objectively and come to one's own fact-based conclusions isn't necessary, and in fact, it's generally discouraged.  Don't take my word for it.  Take former Republican operative Bruce Bartlett's.  Seriously, read the linked article, it's excellent.

That's all for this week.  Until next time...

*One of Appling's notable achievements is hitting a home run in a 1982 exhibition game as a 75-year old man.  I was so impressed with this story until I recently found out that the fences were moved way in for the game, and the ball only traveled 250 feet, well within the confines of a typical ballpark.  It's still kinda impressive, but it's like me saying I could dunk in junior high, because I could... on an eight-foot hoop.

Entry 147: Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

Feeling a little groggy today.  I did that thing where you wake up in no man's land (for me it's around 7:00 a.m.) and you have to decide whether or not you just get up and be a little tired throughout the day, or whether or not you try to fall back asleep despite the fact that you can hear other people awake in the house.  I went with the latter, and apparently it was a good decision, as I manged to fall back sleep until nearly 11 -- paying off the sleep debt that accrues throughout the week, I guess -- but now I'm in that post-slept-in daze.  Oh well, it's better than the painfully-tired daze.



Anyway, last week I had a nice little vacation.  I took the entire week off as well as Monday this week.  The Sunday before Thanksgiving my friend JY, his wife CC, and their 9-year old boy IY came to visit for a few days.  On Thanksgiving I drove with S, S's mom, and Lil' S down to South Carolina (S's parents' home when S's mom isn't staying with us) to visit a bunch of family on S's side for a few days.  Coincidentally, CC's dad and step-mom also live in South Carolina only a few miles from S's parents, so JY and family also drove there the day before Thanksgiving.

It was great to see JY (especially since I won't be going to Sea-Tac for Xmas, which is when I usually see him).  On Monday, we basically recreated the trip I took with my family in June.  Thankfully this time it wasn't 104,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit outside and nobody nearly passed out from heat stroke; quite the opposite, it was a bit on the nippy side.  Also, the reflecting pool was actually filled in and there was no construction going on like in the summer.  This is good because it made our Forrest Gump references a little more poignant.



We met up with a friend of IY and his mom -- they recently moved to the DC area from Seattle -- and we strolled around the National Mall for a bit; well, for IY and his friend it was really more of a wrestle than a stroll, but you get my point.  We saw all the memorials in the area (Vietnam, Lincoln, Korean War, WWII), and then we hit up the Natural History Museum.

IY went into a 9-year old snit at the museum.  He wanted to see an IMAX movie, which JY agreed to, thinking it was just like a 15-minute presentation that's part of the typical museum admission, but it's actually a full-length movie that you have to buy tickets for and all that, so JY had to recant his agreement for time reasons, and this put IY into an inconsolable stew.  He did that thing that all little kids (and sadly many adults) do when they're upset -- pout and make it a point to demonstrate just how aggrieved they are.  It him in a weird bind because there are dinosaur skeletons and giant sea creatures and sparkling gems and all this cool stuff around to look at (especially for a kid his age), but he had to pretend like wasn't enjoying it, which to his "credit" he managed to do for quite a while.  Finally, he broke down though and told his dad, "I really like all this stuff.  I'm just doing this because."  To which his dad replied, "I know.  Now, knock it off."  And after that everything was good.  A great thing about kids is that they usually don't hold grudges for very long.

After the museum we went to the Metro Center part of town for lunch.  I envisioned sitting down somewhere, being waited on, and maybe even having a beer.  I suggested a pizzeria I know in the area.  But as it turns out, IY's friend can't eat gluten so that was out.  So annoying.  Being married to a vegetarian (a picky one at that) I already feel like I spend way too much of my time trying to find an accommodating eatery.  This is one area where S has it easier than me -- if she's making or buying dinner, she can literally make or buy anything and I'll eat it (and almost always enjoy it) -- she doesn't even have to ask me.  If I'm making or buying dinner, I have to be so precise about it or she won't eat it.  Anyway, we ended up eating at Pret A Manger, which is a quasi-fast food sandwich shop.  It was OK, but there was no place to sit; it wasn't very relaxing, but so it goes.

Next we went to Ford's Theater which I've never been to before (I tried to go with my parents once but it was closed).  It was pretty cool.  I never really knew the details behind Lincoln's assassination -- for instance, I didn't know John Wilkes Booth was a well-known actor, which is how he was able to access the presidential box in the theater -- so it was cool to learn.  IY liked it, but he fell asleep during the lecture part of the tour.  To be fair, so did I for a few minutes  What?  I woke up early and did a lot of walking.

  [It's a little dark, but this is the box where President Lincoln was assassinated.]

Just before the South Carolina leg of my vacation I came down with a pretty bad cold, ironic since I had just been bragging to JY about how seldom I get sick.  I thought about not even going to SC, because I didn't want to get everybody else sick, but S wanted me to go, if only to help out with the drive (3 adults vs. 1 baby on an 8-hour drive -- advantage baby), so I went; it's not like I wanted to spend Thanksgiving by myself anyway.  It ended up being fine.  I started feeling better pretty quickly, and I don't think anybody else really caught my bug.  Lil' S got a bit congested, we could hear some phlegm when he breathed, but it was nothing some elevation and a little Baby Vick's Vapor Rub couldn't handle.  It's kinda good to expose him to some common sicknesses now, get his immune system working -- at least that's what I tell myself.

S has two little girl cousins (ages 7 and 3, they are S's cousin's kids to be exact, Lil' S's second cousins) who were in SC with us.  They are a lot of fun, but they are relentless in wanting you to play with them.  And they always want to play whatever game expends the most energy and makes the most noise, usually some sort of chasing game.  They also want to "play" with the baby, meaning they want to poke and pull and prod at him.  You end up doing a lot, "OK... That's enough... I don't think he likes... OK, be nice... Don't... Just leave him..." when they're near him.  I taught the oldest one how to play chess, so that we could do a nice, quiet, consuming activity for a while.  She mostly understood.  She was good for about 15 minutes, and then after that she'd start getting bored and start trying to move the pieces illegally to capture all your men.  She called bishops "bishers" which was cute.

On Saturday JY and I ditched the families and spent the day in Clemson for the Clemson vs. South Carolina football game.  Neither of us had a rooting interest in the game (he's an Oregon Ducks fan, I'm a college football agnostic), but we heard SEC football games were off the hook, so we wanted to check one out.  Honestly, it wasn't really anything more crazy than any other big college game I've been to -- pretty much the same atmosphere as UW and U of O.

We had these crazy nosebleed seats where the benches didn't have backs and pretty much everybody stood for the entire game.  The game wasn't boring, but it wasn't particularly exciting either (SC won fairly decisively).  The most action came in the row in front of us where two chesty college kids started jawing at each other.  There were a lot of "What are you going to do"s and "C'mon, then, bitch"s and "You ain't nothing"s thrown about.  One of the kids looked like he was about 5' 3" and the other wasn't much bigger.  I had a fantasy of lunging forward and shoving both of them down the steep stadium tier -- it would have been so easy.  Ultimately their girlfriends stepped in to play peacemakers, and the stadium police stopped by for a chat at some point, but nothing came of it.  Or if it did, JY and I missed it, because we left early.  I'm not a huge fan of leaving sporting events before they're over (why even go), but I must admit there's something very satisfying about walking past the rows of parked cars, knowing that you'll be out of the vicinity in a few minutes while everybody else will be stuck for hours.  It's like evacuating a hurricane's path just before the storm comes.

Well, that's all for this week.  Until next time...

Entry 146: Next Up, Entry 147

Went down to South Carolina this Thanksgiving weekend to visit the in-laws -- no time nor laptop for blogging, thus no entry.

I'll be back in a few days with a full entry, better than ever.  In the meantime, enjoy a clip from a classic that I watched (again) recently.  My friend JY was in town visiting, and we put this on with his 9-year old son in the room.  Perhaps not the best choice given that it ranks among the top movies for most f-bombs (I count 17 in the clip below), but whatever.  I saw worse when I was a kid.  I remember watching Porky's at a neighbor's house when I was about 6.  Now that is inappropriate. 

Entry 145: Worst. Song. Ever.

Two days in a row I entered the gym in the basement of my office building to be greeted to somebody else's music blaring over the stereo -- so annoying.  The gym stereo needs to go the way of payphone, toward obsolescence.  We don't need it anymore.  Everybody has an iPhone or an iPod or some other portable listening device now, there's no justification for one person subjecting the entire gym to their (usually shitty) musical preference.  I keep meaning to take the power cable to my gym's stereo and hide it -- just put it behind the stack of ab mats or something like that (I tell myself it's not stealing if I don't take it out of the gym) -- but I never remember this when I'm alone in there.

The first day it was some hip-hop mix which is especially irritating because it's got that bump-bump-bump bass that just cuts through headphones like they're nothing.  The second day it was a "jock rock" ensemble.  You could tell the kid (by kid I mean 27-year old) who put it in made it especially for working out, like if you looked at the CD it would say "Get Pumped Mix" or something like that written in Sharpie.  It was terrible.  It had a bunch of songs by bands I don't like (Bush, Nickelback, Chevelle) and bad songs by bands I kinda like ("My Hero" by the Foo Fighters).  When the only decent song by a good band came on ("Fortunate Son" by CCR) he skipped it.  It was mainly fast, hyped-up songs, but it did breakdown with one slow song, and I believe it was meant to be my coup de grace, as it's a song I absolutely cannot stand.  In fact, it's my choice for Worst. Song. Ever.

Before I say what song it is, I need to lay down the criteria for Worst. Song. Ever.  It's fourfold:

1)  Bad, annoying beat.  It helps if it's a little bit catchy, as then it gets stuck in your head and bugs the crap out of you all day.
2)  Terrible lyrics.  Different ways lyrics can be terrible include, but are not limited to, pretension, awkwardness, and triteness.
3)  Saturation.  This one isn't really the fault of the artist, but it's a criterion nonetheless.  If you hear a bad song everywhere you go, it's much worse than a bad song you rarely hear.
4) Earnestness.  This criterion is very important and is often overlooked by others, in my opinion.  Some songs are intentionally bad for the sake parody or camp value or humor or something else along those lines (think "You Got What I Need" by Biz Markie).  These songs don't qualify as Worst. Song. Ever. because they aren't done in earnest.  They aren't missing the mark, because they aren't aiming for the mark.

Without further ado... I give you the Worst. Song. Ever.  "What It's Like" by Everlast.



Let's go through our list.

1) Check.  Although, to be fair, the beat is actually the best part of the song.  It everything else was good it would be a tolerable song.
2) CHECK, PLUS, PLUS!!!  Paul Krugman recently said of Paul Ryan, "He’s a stupid person’s idea of what a smart person sounds like."*  This could be said of Everlast, although the word "smart" should be replaced with "deep".  His lyrics are like poetry written by an uncreative, suburban wannabe-gangsta with a learning disability for a remedial junior-high English class.

I've seen a rich man beg
I've seen a good man sin
I've seen a tough man cry
I've seen a loser win
And a sad man grin
I heard an honest man lie
I've seen the good side of bad
And the down side of up
And everything between
I licked the silver spoon
Drank from the golden cup
Smoked the finest green
I stroked the baddest dimes at least a couple of times
Before I broke their heart
You know where it ends
Yo, it usually depends on where you start  

The most amazingly terrible part is that his lyrics are simultaneously awful and self-congratulatory.  He makes himself out to be some sort of imbecile guru.

3) Check.  The song is nearly 15 years old, and I still hear it somewhat frequently.
4) Check.  Unless Everlast is some sort of Andy Kaufman-esque comedian, he's being completely serious.

So there you have it Worst. Song. Ever.

*Krugman attributes the saying to Ezra Klein originally who said it about Dick Armey. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In other news, things have been going pretty good on the home front.  Lil' S is doing well, although he's currently got this condition called "cradle cap" -- dry, flaky skin on the top of his head (I call it "crusty crown").  It's medical name is seborrheic dermatitis, and it's apparently pretty common in babies.  It's nothing to worry about, but it looks kinda gross.  Oh well, he needed something to bring his cuteness down a notch (just a notch), he was too cute before, and it was overwhelming people.

He's been so-so when it comes to letting us sleep.  He still can't make it more than a few hours without waking up, but with three people -- I'm on evening night shift, S is on middle of the night shift, and S's mom is on morning shift -- we all manage to get enough sleep; not as much as we'd like, but enough.  It's hardest on S, because she's the only one who has to wake up from a dead sleep to tend to him.  We tried rotating shifts so that I take a 4 a.m. shift sometimes, but it's not very practical.  By the time I get up and get a bottle ready, he's already been screaming for five minutes and S is awake anyway, so it doesn't really work.  Also, it takes much longer to get him back to sleep with a bottle than it does with a boob.  So S gets all the really bad shifts.  I sleep through them completely.  I don't even know when she gets up.  It's not fair, I admit it, but until I learn how to lactate (which I don't expect to happen anytime soon) so it goes.

Anyway, I'll leave you with a math problem.  A coworker of mine sent it out in an email.  I solved it in about a minute and replied with the answer.  He wrote back, "Wow.  Nice work.  I had to Google it."  I wanted to write back, "I solved it in my head! I didn't Google it!"  But then it would have just made me look like I did Google it (overcompensation), especially since nobody ever said that I did, so I just didn't write back anything.  I can't help but wonder though, does he think I actually solved it, or does he secretly think I Googled it?  Hmm...

Here's the problem.  What is the angle between the hour hand and the minute hand when a clock reads 3:15?  (Note: it's not 0.)

Until next time...

Entry 144: A Brief Election Recap and Other Stuff

Well, the election came and went.  Overall it was a huge win for "liberals" (I hate that term, but don't have a better one); Romney/Ryan, Richard Mourdouck, and Todd Akin all lost, Tammy Baldwin and Elizabeth Warren won, gay marriage passed in Maine, Maryland, and Washington, and marijuana decriminalization passed in Washington and Colorado.  For me personally, it was a very satisfying Tuesday night.  And perhaps the best part of it all is that the math-savvy analysts called the election almost exactly.  Nate Silver called all 50 states, Sam Wang called 49 out of 50*.  This is nice because it hammers home the point that the Republicans really are divorced from reality.  It's not liberal bias.

It's one thing to want your guy to win, it's quite another to believe your guy is going to win when all logic points to this being a very unlikely event.  It's not everyday we see a political experiment that has a definitive outcome -- most of the things we argue about in this country, the economy, immigration, regulation, etc. don't often lend themselves to resolutions that people (without advanced degrees in these areas) can easily and objectively assess.  The election is an exception -- no one can argue that Obama didn't win handily.  The people saying that the election would be close were resoundingly wrong, end of story.**

[I was very happy about Elizabeth Warren's win over Scott Brown in the race for Ted Kennedy's old seat in Massachusetts.  I think on the "Daily Show" Jon Stewart told Warren that he wanted to kiss her which is pretty funny.]

The good news is that now millions of Republicans are going to start questioning the critical thinking skills of their party leaders, questioning their stances on supply-side economics, climate change, and the deficit -- after all if the Reps showed themselves to be so inept at objectively recognizing the clear signs of this election, what else might they be getting wrong?  Oh wait, that's probably not going to happen.  I'm guessing very little is going to change with the Reps, at least not yet.  But we shall see.  Perhaps the most distressing part for the GOP is how the electoral college broke down this election.  Romney could have carried Florida, Ohio, and Viriginia, and he still would've lost.  The "tipping point" state was Colorado which went to Obama by nearly 5 points.  And keep in mind, Obama is the incumbent in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.  What would the results have been if everything was going swimmingly?  Obviously a lot can change quickly, I don't believe anybody can predict with any accuracy the sentiment of our country years in advance, but if, in 2016, it's anything close to what it's been the past four or five years, the Republicans are going to find themselves steep underdogs again.           

[From Nate Silver's blog.]

A question that's been on many people's mind since Tuesday is: What can the Republicans do to turn things around?  Certainly not mocking climate change a few weeks before a series of devastating storms is one thing, toning down the rape-children-are-God's-will rhetoric and the fight against contraception are others, taking a more progressive (and realistic) path on immigration is yet another.  But the main thing, in my mind, is to quit treating people who are struggling to find work and make ends meet as if they're inferior beings.  It's one thing to promote personal responsibility and hard work (values that just about everybody can get behind regardless of politics).  It's quite another to make people who were laid-off during a terrible economic crash -- people who were good at their jobs and did nothing wrong, and now can't find work because they're just isn't enough work to be found -- feel like trash.  Many unemployed people aren't moochers trying to sponge off the John Galts of society, they're people who got hit in 2007, and have since been crowded out of the slow recovery.  If you disagree with my assessment ask yourself this: What were all the "moochers" doing pre-2007?  If Mitt's "47%" just want free rides, then why were they working before the crash, why weren't they living off the government's dime then?  The obvious answer: they want to work, but can't, because our economy currently isn't allowing it.***

[Also very happy gay marriage passed in my home state.  The first time it has even been approved by vote (along with Maryland and Maine).]

Here's an excerpt from writer Matt Taibbi's blog expressing a similar sentiment.  I actually don't really like Taibbi's style.  Something about it rubs me the wrong way, but I think the general message he's delivering below is spot-on.

Similarly, the fact that so many Republicans this week think that all Hispanics care about is amnesty, all women want is abortions (and lots of them) and all teenagers want is to sit on their couches and smoke tons of weed legally, that tells you everything you need to know about the hopeless, anachronistic cluelessness of the modern Republican Party. A lot of these people, believe it or not, would respond positively, or at least with genuine curiosity, to the traditional conservative message of self-reliance and fiscal responsibility.

But modern Republicans will never be able to spread that message effectively, because they have so much of their own collective identity wrapped up in the belief that they're surrounded by free-loading, job-averse parasites who not only want to smoke weed and have recreational abortions all day long, but want hardworking white Christians like them to pay the tab. Their whole belief system, which is really an endless effort at congratulating themselves for how hard they work compared to everyone else (by the way, the average "illegal," as Rush calls them, does more real work in 24 hours than people like Rush and me do in a year), is inherently insulting to everyone outside the tent – and you can't win votes when you're calling people lazy, stoned moochers.    

OK, that's all I have time for.  I have to hit up a quick run (to work off all that candy I've been munching on from our seemingly endless Halloween variety pack) and then get ready to see the movie Argo.  I guess, this election recap wasn't so brief, and I didn't really get to any "other stuff".   Oh well.

Until next time...


*And he wasn't even really wrong on the one he didn't call.  He said Florida was a "coin toss", which it basically was, but guessed it would go to Romney, which it didn't.  That's the thing about setting odds, if you say something is 50-50, your odds aren't right if you can pick the winner every time.  Your odds are right if you can pick the winner half the time.  On a similar note, the past two presidential elections Silver called 101 out of 102 states (plus D.C.).  It makes me wonder if he's underselling the odds of a state going the way he favors it to go.  Of course the number of swing states in that sample is much, much smaller than 102, it's probably less than 20, and it's hard to say anything definitive based on that size sample.  I'd have to study it more, which I'm probably not going to do, so I'll just leave it as something I'm curious about.

**The popular vote was kind of close, but the electoral college wasn't, and obviously it's the latter that determines the president.

***By the way, the Reps have a very strange message concerning jobs.  On the one hand they say "don't blame the government blame yourself", on the other hand they attack Obama for stifling job growth.  Which is it?

Entry 143: It's the Most Electionful Time of the Year

Hurricanes and elections are what's on everybody's mind these days.  Here in DC, we certainly didn't feel Sandy's wrath head on.  It stormed, we lost power for a night, and that was that.  It felt like just a "normal" storm although the pictures below that I took yesterday in Rock Creek Park tell a different story. 

By Wednesday evening the city was pretty much running again, and Halloween celebrations went on as normal.  We took Lil' S trick-or-treating, by which I mean we put him in a zip up giraffe outfit and pushed him around the neighborhood with some friends (I asked some of the kids we encountered if they knew what he was, and they guessed a cow, which was pretty funny.)  Our friends have a two-year old, and she was good for about three houses before she got tired, so it was a pretty brief excursion, which is fine.  There were a lot of kids out in our neighborhood, but we didn't get any trick-or-treaters at our place (my parents, who were in town visiting, we on candy-passing-out duty, in case).  We live on a very busy street, and although there's a big sidewalk, there's no real incentive for parents to take their youngsters up to the main street when there are plenty of houses to hit up on the less-trafficked side streets.  So now we have a giant bowl of candy that I've been dipping into a little bit each night.  I've been eating it according to my Official Mixed Bag Candy Power Ranking which is as follows.

Tier 1: Like
Twix
Snickers     

Tier 2: Kinda like
Kit Kat
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (a little overrated)
Nestle Crunch (a little underrated)

Tier 3: Like only in a pinch
Milky Way (would be ranked higher if not for the existence of Snickers, whenever I eat a Milky Way I think, "Where are the peanuts?", it's such a let down)
Almond Joy
Peanut M&Ms

Tier 4: Don't really like but will eat anyway, because they're there and I hate wasting things
Regular M&Ms

I haven't gotten to Tier 3 yet, I've been mainly working on Tier 1, but I've worked in some Tier 2 as well.  S, to her credit, hasn't been touching it at all.

So, let's talk about the election.  It's on Tuesday (as if you didn't know).  Finally!  I think the entire nation is feeling a bit like Abigael Evans right now.

[Hysterical!]

Nate Silver is now giving Obama an 83% chance at winning, and he's actually a bit bearish compared to Sam Wang who puts the president's reelection as a near certainty (between 98%-100%).  Wang sums up the reason he's so high on Obama in this quote, "To put it into plain English: If state polls are accurate on the whole, then Obama will win."  The bold is his.  So basically, he (and Silver) are banking heavily on the state polls being accurate, which they have been in the past (for the most part), and that's why Obama is such a heavy favorite in their eyes.  When you break it down state-by-state, it's really hard to find a likely path for Romney to the requisite number of votes in the electoral college, even though in national polls it's a virtually tied race.  (There is an apparent disconnect between the state polls and the national polls, which both Silver and Wang try to reconcile.  Neither one believes it's all that likely that Obama will win the presidency while losing the popular vote, rather they seem to think the most probable explanation is that the national polls are undervaluing Obama a bit, as state polls have traditionally been more accurate.)  

As you might expect, many Romney supporters don't believe the analyses of people like Silver and Wang, and they have done their best to discredit them, which is very hard to do, because they're doing mostly basic and transparent mathematical modeling based almost entirely on data collected by other people (namely the pollsters).  There's nothing particularly shady or nefarious or partisan to their work.  This hardly means their models are beyond reproach, but it does mean attacking them for being left-leaning and partisan doesn't really make much sense.  What's really going on is: a) Lots of "pundits" have a vested interested in Romney doing well or in the race being a tossup, so they want to create this illusion, even if it's not reality, and b) Lots of "pundits" don't understand basic math, so they don't want to give any credence to mathematically based arguments, because it will make their own reasoning less credible (the "shut up, nerd" argument).  As somebody who does understand basic math I can say that the sentiment behind b) is unfortunately quite prominent is many parts of our society.  But so it goes...

[I loved this movie as a kid, which is why I shall never watch it again.]

Anyway, we will get the bottom of everything on Tuesday, hopefully, and hopefully it will be an Obama victory, if only to shut up all the mathophobes of the world, as it's almost a certainty that if Romney wins they will claim this essentially invalidates the work of all election modelers predicting an Obama victory, even though it doesn't.  I mean, Silver is giving Romney about the same chance at winning the presidency as the chance of rolling a 1 on a die.*  Does rolling a 1 seem so inconceivable?  And if a roll does come up 1, does it mean that anybody who said the roll had a much better chance of coming up something other than 1 was wrong?  Of course not, but that's how it will be spun.  Look, I don't know anybody who can see the future (except the cyclops in the movie Krull, and they could only see their own deaths), improbable things happen sometimes, let's all just hope, nay, pray that Romney winning isn't one of them.

Well, that's it.  Until next time...                               

*Wang's odds for Romney are more like rolling double 1s with ten-sided dice, which obviously, is much less likely, but still well within the realm of possibility.

Entry 142: This is the Story of Hurricane

No time for a long entry this weekend.  My parents came to town, and I wanted to hang out with them, so I didn't have much free time to sit down and really crank something out.  It's great having them here and meeting Lil' S for the first time.  We have plenty of great pics to show for it.  

They are leaving on Tuesday, weather permitting.  Hurricane Sandy is making it's way north and is suppose to wreck havoc on the Mid-Atlantic region in the next few days.  Last I saw DC was just within the error bounds of it's projected path; it's unlikely that we will get the brunt of it, but heavy rain is a near certainty.  In fact weather.com is saying the chance of rain here tomorrow is 100% -- a prediction the likes of which I've never seen before on weather.com.  Last time my parents visited a crazy derecho blew through town, and thousands of people lost their power for an extended period of time.  Coincidence?  Yes, absolutely.

Below is the a youtube video of Bob Dylan's epic song "Hurricane" about a professional boxer named Rubin "Hurricane" Carter who was wrongfully convicted of murder.  Denzel Washington played him a 1999 biopic.  It's a pretty good song, but if you listen to the lyrics carefully they're very ramble-y and pretty bad overall.

Anyway, this is my reverse jinx for Sandy coming through here.

Entry 141: Binders Full of Women (My Dating Life When I Was Single)

OK, I never had binders full of women when I was single; a few scattered numbers in my phone is a lot closer to the truth.  It's weird that this is the line that people are giving Romney grief for.  In context, it doesn't seem bad to me.  He's basically just saying that he reviewed a lot of women for staff positions, what's wrong with that?  Of course, in typical Etch-A-Sketch Mitt fashion, he's probably not being honest about it, but that's not what has the Internet astir.  I guess it comes off as kinda condescending, and it's a funny meme (my favorite joke on the topic is by one of my Facebook friends, "Romney also has Trapper Keepers full of minorities"), but it's pretty low on my list of things to criticize Romney about.  I'd much rather have the "gotchas" be on his bullshit tax plan (this link is funny), or his utter disregard for any sort of environmental or economic regulation, or his contempt for people who aren't rich, or his general willingness to do or say anything to anybody to get elected, or... well, you get the point.  So it's strange to me that people are focusing on this "binders full of women" line.  It's a bit like when a call goes for your team in a game, but you thought objectively it shouldn't have been called -- you just shrug your shoulders and accept it because there's going to be one that breaks against you down the line, so it all evens out.  If people want to dis Mitt for what seems like a mostly benign comment to me, have at it, it slightly balances all the BS he gets away with, and I certainly don't want him to win, anyway. 

[It's pretty remarkable that Trapper Keepers were insanely popular during my grade-school days.  Why would any kid care about a plastic portfolio?  I guess that's marketing at its best or worst, depending on how your feel about manipulating the minds of impressionable youths.]

As to whether or not he's going to win, who knows?  Obama is still a 68% favorite in FiveThirtyEight Forecast.  This is up a bit from his pre-second-debate odds, but way down from his pre-first-debate odds.  The national polls are right around 50-50, but Obama has held a slim but consistent advantage many swing states, particularly Ohio, and it might all come down to, whoever wins the Buckeye State wins the election.

Given the state of the economy (bad), it's quite an achievement for Obama to be leading at all.  But given the dreadfulness of Mitt Romney as a candidate, it's a feather in his cap that Obama's not ahead by more.  I mean, you have a guy who is openly campaigning against his opponent's signature bill (Obamacare), despite the fact that he implemented the same basic law as a governor and called it, "a model for the nation". If this isn't a definitive example that the guy doesn't have the integrity to be president, I don't know what is.  Of course Romney claims he meant his healthcare law was a model for the nation "state by state", but that's not what he meant.  I know it's not what he meant, because if it is what he meant, it's what he would have said.  He would have said, "It's a model for other states" or something like that.  He said "the nation", and didn't mention anything about individual states, because clearly he meant the nation and not individual states.  It's only after Obamacare actually came to fruition, and Mitt realized he couldn't win the GOP primary and support it that he came up with his clearly bogus, post hoc rationalization.  I think even most Republicans would admit this if they were being honest (I know an honest Republican is quite a fantastical notion, but you can imagine it, if you try), they're just going to support him anyway.  Fine, but hardcore Reps are only about 33% of the country, where the other 17% of soon-to-be Romney voters come from is beyond me.

[The state that's "round on the ends and 'hi' in the middle... O-HI-O".  I bet Sandusky, Ohio has really taken a PR hit since the Penn State scandal.  Speaking of which, hilarious Onion headline, here.]

Anyway, enough about politics.  Let's talk about other things.  Like how men's testosterone levels drop after they have kids especially if they co-sleep with their babies.  I don't generally share a bed with my baby (sometimes I don't even share one with my wife), but I do feel like my testosterone is dropping.  I haven't felt the desire to curb-stomp anybody in at least two months.  I've been doing my best to keep the levels up by watching copious amounts of football and MMA.  It's been mostly working, but sometimes I do get sucked into S's chick shows like Project Runway and House Hunters.  My favorite part about the latter is when people hear their house is worth 50 grand less than they were expecting.  I don't know why I like this, it's a weird sort of schadenfreude.  It's even better when they act as if the appraiser is personally insulting them.  As somebody who tries to look at things critically and objectively, it's refreshing to watch people get a reality check, even if it's a harsh one.  I think that's why I like it.  Or maybe I'm just a dick, that's another a possibility.

Ever since we bought our house, I've started keep an eye on real estate prices in the DC area.  I always take a peek at the listings in our neighborhood paper, and I make it a point to check out any "For Sale" signs I see; I never did either of these things before.  They actually had an episode of House Hunters in DC; the couple's budget was about 75% of what we paid for our house, and I kept thinking, "They better not get a better house than ours."  When they settled on a fixer-upper in a not-horrible-but-not-great neighborhood (albeit one with a Metro stop, unlike our neighborhood) I was satisfied.  I don't want to put this house on the market someday and have it be worth 50 grand less than we were expecting.  Then I'd have to smugly laugh at myself.

Alright, that's all for this entry.  Until next time...

Entry 140: DC Fans

First a few items in sporting news to mention.  Both the baseball teams in the Washington-Baltimore metro area were eliminated from the playoffs last night.  The big-picture story isn't that they were both eliminated, it's that they both made the playoffs in the first place -- the probability at the beginning of the season of this occurring was right around 1%*.  I was kinda pulling for Baltimore because my boss is a huge Orioles fans, and he's a good guy, so he would've been happy, but they lost to those damn Yankees.  I was kinda pulling against the Nationals (despite adopting them as my NL team earlier this season) because they shutdown their best pitcher Stephen Strasburg before the playoffs -- a bizarrely overcautious move that I wanted to backfire, which it did, sort of.  Who knows what happens if Strasburg pitches?  You enter a Back to the Future II alternate-1985 (in this case 2012) reality, and it's moot to speculate on what it would have looked like.  What you can say, however, is that the Nats made a move that clearly diminished their odds to win the NLDS, and then they didn't win.  What makes it even more heartbreaking for Nats fans is that they were winning the decider 6-0 early in the game and twice had the Cardinals down to their final strike, but couldn't seal the deal.

And while I'm on the topic of Nats fans, let me say this, in my view there are no real Nats fans between the ages of 21 and 50 (family and friends of the players, people with a financial stake in team, and the players themselves excepted).  The Washington Nationals began play in 2005, 7 years ago, and age 14 is roughly the cutoff for when you can really be a fan of a team.  After 14 you can follow a team, you can root for them, but you can't develop the ingrained, emotional attachment of a real fan -- it's simply not possible.  A team's performance just doesn't effect your being and mood the way it does for fans who established a connection pre-14.

It's like learning a language.  You can take ESL classes as an adult, but you'll always have an accent, even if you've been in the US for 30 years.  On the other hand, a 10-year old can come to this country and speak like a native by the time he or she is 11.  It's the same way in fan-dom.  Sports fans who find a team after the age of 14 always have a "fan accent", they can never be a native speaker.  And by the way, this isn't a bad thing or a knock on accent fans.  I wish I cared less about Seattle sports teams.  Trust me, I know how pathetic it is to have my mood effected by the performance of a bunch of 20-something millionaires (many of whom aren't the greatest guys in the world) to whom I have no direct connection.  But I got it in me when I was little and it's tough to get rid of it, just like it's tough to unlearn your native language.  It can be done, but it's probably not worth the effort.

[On the right, Oriole legend and Jules Winnfield lookalike, Eddie Murray.]

You'll notice I also allow for people over 50 to be Nats fans.  This is because it's possible they were fans of the old Washington Senators who moved to Arlington after the 1971 season and became the Texas Rangers.**  Someone who is 50 now would have been 9 or 10 in 1971 which is just about the right age for when a sports team can initially become ingrained in your psyche.  It's perfectly reasonable to replace a now non-existence team of which you were once a real fan with a new team in the same city.  It happened to Cleveland fans with the Browns and hopefully will someday happen to Seattle fans with the Sonics.

So that's it for Nats fans -- kids and seniors.  For everybody else in this city, we can go to the games and cheer and cop a "Nattitude" (this is an actual, terrible marketing term), but let's not pretend like the game effects us that much one way of the other.

In other sporting news, my old B'ham friend Barb "Little Warrior" Honchak won another fight.  Here's the link.  The announcers kept talking about the other fighter's defense, and I was just thinking to myself, "Defense?  She's getting whupped.  What about Barb's offense?"

Anyway, in non-sporting news, S and I get our first night out tonight since Lil' S came along.  Both her parents are in town, and we're going to take advantage of the babysitting by going out to eat with some friends.  Dinner starts at 6:30, and I'm setting the even-money over/under for when we will be home at 9:15.  I'm sure we will get antsy about being away for too long, and S will probably be dead tired by then anyway.  She usually goes to bed around 9:30.  I'm always up on night shift.  I haven't gone to sleep before 1:15 since Lil' S has been born.  I don't get much sleep, but I figured out an easy way to deal with it.  It's called being tired.  You just be tired all the time -- there's nothing to it.   

It'll be nice to get out, if only briefly.  Lately a "date" for S and me is an episode of Homeland while she pumps breast milk.  We just started Homeland, and it's looking like a solid choice.  It's got Mandy Patinkin in it, which is a great choice.  Claire Danes is really good so far, too.  One thing that bothers me about a typical TV drama is that they always have a foxy woman playing a role that a foxy woman just wouldn't be in in real life (like crime scene investigator), but with Claire Danes's character they made her borderline psychotic which makes it more believable to me.  The only gripe I have with the show is the following.  The premise is that a POW US Marine has been rescued and returned home, but he was actually flipped and is now an al-Qaeda agent.  Danes, a CIA analyst knows it and is trying to prove it (this isn't a spoiler, BTW, it's all explained in the pilot).  The show is set in the DC-area where Danes lives and works (since she's with the CIA), but it also is where the POW Marine comes home to.  His family lives here also.  Here's my big question: why does his family live in this area?  He's a Marine, couldn't they live anywhere in the country?  Is it just a complete coincidence that his family lives in the DC area?  This seems way too lucky.  They need to explain this, it bothers me.

Anyway, gotta get ready for a big night out.  Until next time...

*Technically the probability was around .01, as a probability, using a strict mathematical definition, is a number between 0 and 1, not a percentage, but you get my point.   

**These Washington Senators, who began play as an expansion team in 1961, aren't to be confused with the original Washington Senators, who were an inaugural member in the AL in 1901 before moving to Minnesota and becoming the Twins after the 1960 season.