Another Ancient Artifact Uncovered

Thanks to Billy I searched the Daily Orange archives for my famous letter to the editor about Greek life. I read the DO religiously during my four years, and every semester around rush time there would be a cartoon that was some variation on this theme: fraternities and sororities only want good-looking members.
For example: one year the cartoon showed three sorority houses, the first two had signs saying "Rush [greek letters]" and the sign on the third house said "No Fat Chicks!"
In response some uptight sorority member would write a letter saying how sororities and fraternities are concerned with their pledges' personalities and generous spirits, and a reminding us how charitable the Greek community is.
And it would go back and forth and on and on. Until one day, a lone voiced silenced that debate forever:

Ready for the World

Chase turns 6 today. This has been a monumental year for him. He has learned how to read, how to ride a bike (that technically came when he was still 4) and how to swim. He played soccer (and scored a goal) and t-ball. He went to his first (and second) Mets game, and his first Knicks game. He went to kindergarten and in just a couple weeks he'll start first grade.
Every day he goes over to his friend's house to play. He gets himself dressed in the morning, he feeds himself dinner and he wipes his own ass.
He's becoming independent, which is great for him, but he still needs his mommy and daddy, which is great for us.
At the NJ State Fair earlier this year we bought both kids an unlimited ride bracelet and let them just go nuts. At a certain point we split up so Chase could go on some rides that Julian wasn't big enough to ride yet. One of them was a roller coaster that most adults would consider tame, but it was definitely daunting to a 5-year old. Chase was a little nervous but begged to go on it, loved it and rode it again, and again and again.
They had one of those cameras to take your picture on the coaster, but we never buy them because they're never any good. But this one we bought.
If a picture is meant to be a moment in time captured, to help you remember what you were doing, how you felt and who you were in that instant, then this one was certainly worth $10.
There's Chase at the front of the roller coaster, hands up, bravely ready to grab what comes next. There's Chase, eyes closed, a little afraid of what he might see when he gets there.

Song of the Week

"Landslide" - Fleetwood Mac
"Well, I've been afraid of changing
Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I'm getting older too"

Breaking Bad: "Buried"

So now we have a little more to sink our teeth into. Skylar stands by her man and Marie stands by hers.

This presents a very interesting conflict, because I kind of think this takes killing Hank off the table. It will be harder to get away with killing Hank if Walt would have to kill Marie too, and Skyler would have to go along with it.

I don't want to spend every second of every episode, and all the seconds in between obsessing about how it's going to end, especially because I have a strong suspicion that everything leading up to the finale will make us believe one thing, and the ending will be something completely different.

But I am speculating about what will happen to Jesse. Despite being two pivotal scenes, Jesse did not have a speaking part in this week's episode. I think all this boredom, apathy, and perhaps loss of millions will lead Jesse to start cooking again with Lydia.

Otherwise that scene with Todd doesn't make sense. Why would there even be a storyline involving Lydia and Todd if it didn't eventually bring back Walt and or Jesse?

I loved her red-soled shoes though. Was it foreshaowing the bloodshed? Were they trying to depict how much money she's making? Did the gay costume designers just want to buy fancy shoes?

Lots of unanswered questions remain. Like, in what lottery can you play number 106?

I read that those coordinates are the exact coordinates of the studio where the show is filmed. And apparently the spot where he buried the money is the original cooksite from episode 1 of the series.

And if he buried 6 huge barrels in the hole, wouldn't there be 6 barrelfuls of extra dirt to disperse somewhere?

I'm pretty sure these aren't the important questions, but I really have no idea when or how Walt is going to get outed as Heisenberg, or what he is going to do with that ricin, so I'll ponder these trivialities until next Sunday.

I Wrote This Post on August 17, 2012

Today is Yu Darvish's birthday. I wish I were at his party to sing to him:

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to Yu,
Happy birthday to you.

Breaking Bad: "Blood Money"

Since this is the final season of Breaking Bad and I love it so much, and after the episodes are over I’m still thinking about them, I will try to write a brief synopsis of each. I won’t post them right away, hopefully Tuesday or Wednesday each week, but if you’re a slowpoke, or haven’t started watching at all, but plan to catch up, please skip these posts.

This episode was like a first round draft pick, you can’t just judge it based on what it is, you have to wait until to see what it becomes. If we were just looking at it and judging it based on the entertainment value during those 60 minutes, it would grade poorly. It was slow and boring and only in the last 5 minutes did we get any serious action.

BUT…we have to wait to see what happens for the rest of the season to see what kind of groundwork was laid in this episode.

For instance, the opening scene where the neighbor sees him and drops the groceries (juxtaposed with the later/earlier scene when she says hi) foreshadows that the whole world knows about him, and he’s obviously on the lam (building on what we learned last year).

Also, the inane conversation between Badger and Skinny Pete about Star Trek might pay off, if it was meant to show Jesse’s boredom with his “good” life; and to portend him “breaking bad” again.

I clearly think that is what was going on with Walt. There is no way he can get the kind of rush and feeling of power from rearranging the air fresheners (how could pine be the best seller?), that he gets from cooking meth. And that is why Lydia came to the car wash, to appeal to the same side of Walt that had to speak up when Hank thought Gale was Heisenberg.

As for the dramatic final scene, I have long thought that the final season would be a cat and mouse game between Hank and Walt. Because it now seems so obvious, I’m starting to rethink it. I think Walt may kill Hank, and go back to cooking meth, before he has to go on the run.

But then who is the ricin for?

6 million people watched this episode, which I think is pretty great considering Big Brother on CBS is only doing slightly better than that. But then I see that Rizzoli & Isles on TNT was viewed by 5.5 million, so I don’t understand anything at all.

Have an A-1 day!

Song of the Week

"Closer" - Tegan & Sara
Tegan and Sara are my favorite identical twin lesbians since Mary Kate and Ashley.

Ancient Artifact Found

While cleaning out my drawer I discovered this picture, drawn by AK, 17 years ago, as BC, TON and I were about to go off to college.

Click here for Vin Juice bonus

Poppy's Favorite Team

Poppy has been known to frequent New Britain Rock Cats game, but unfortunately he wasn't there Friday night to witness this between innings marriage proposal.



Apparently, people actually believed that was an authentic, genuine marriage proposal and it went viral on the internet. Now the team is confirming what all people with functioning bullshit detectors, immediately knew, the proposal was a fake. It was completely staged by the team's marketing department. And they are not apologizing for it, they're saying it worked great.

Song of the Week

"Same Love" - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Mary Lambert
What can I say, I like hip-hop with a positive message.
This song about gay rights was actually released last year but only got significant publicity after the duo's singles "Thrift Shop" and "Can't Hold Us" made it big.
I don't like the political finger-pointing but everything else is pretty much on point.

Eating Your Own Cooking

Beofre the 2008 season, the Yankees signed Alex Rodriguez to a 10-year, $275M contract. After this season the Yankees will still owe A-Rod $86M over 4 years, with the (increasingly unlikely) potential for another $30M in performance bonuses for hitting certain historical Home Run milestones. But the Yankees may be thrown a lifeline by Major League Baseball which wanted to ban A-Rod for life for his involvement in the BioGenesis scandal. But now MLB wants him to accept a ban for the rest of this season and all of next. We don't know exactly what evidence MLB has against A-Rod, but no matter what it is, a lifetime ban would be so far above the punishment for other recidivists (Braun, Colon, Manny Ramirez) there seems to be more at play here than just wanting to punish a cheater. If the Yankees are freed from the liability of paying A-Rod, not only would it clear up $86M on their books it would get them under a certain luxury tax threshold which would prevent them from paying an extra 40% on the overage. That would be a huge advantage for the Yankees and the worst bailout since the financial crisis. If the league does decide to take this extraordinary step of banning A-Rod, and the Yankees don't have to pay his contract, his salary should still count against their luxury tax number. I can't believe the clubs' revenue sharing agreement doesn't include a stipulation to this regard. It seems like the mostly likely outcome here is for A-Rod to miss the rest of this year and all of 2014, which would still keep the final four years of his contract on the Yankees books, which I'm ok with, though I still thing salaries of suspended players should count against their teams for revenue sharing purposes. If not, it's almost an incentive to sign cheaters, because if they get caught you don't have to suffer any consequences. With these new suspensions and new enforcement methods, I think this is something MLB definitely needs to consider.

Near-Death Experiences

Most of my posts about the Universe involve insignificant incidents like the Universe bringing me the Mr. Belvedere theme, or a silly hat or candy or Mark Feinsand, but this is a little more serious.
On Monday I was completely unharmed by two experiences that could have ended really badly.
On the way to work a slow car was holding up traffic in the left lane. I later passed this car and saw the driver to be an Asian woman (double whammy). It is always my contention that slow drivers cause more accidents than fast ones. This driver was going so slowly in the left lane that the center lane was full of people zipping past (though not at an excessive rate of speed). This left me and the two drivers in front of me frustrated, because we were essentially trapped behind Yoko Ono is a Prius. Eventually we came up on accident scene where traffic was slowed. The unsure, nervous driver in the Prius must have jammed on her brakes, and the two frustrated drivers in front of me jammed theirs as well. But they were driving too close and collided with each other (though not with the Prius). I jammed my brakes as hard as I ever have. Tires squealed, everything on the seats went flying off, kids books and stuff from the back came to the front, I was shot forward too, until my seatbelt locked. But luckily, and very narrowly, I avoided being part of the accident. I noticed a piece of someone's bumper in the road, and the two cars pulling off to the shoulder. Later that day, while doing my late night Paul-ates, the walking cool-down lap, I heard a crack and a crash. It wasn't windy at all, but it sounded like a tree branch being broken. I stopped and looked around but it was too dark to see. Then I walked about 5 more feet and saw this.

Had I been walking just a little bit faster I might have been under that branch when it fell.

This is what it looked like the next morning:

I'm not saying it would have crushed my skull or that I would have died in the car accident had there been one, but no one wants to be whacked in the head by a falling branch or involved in even a minor fender-bender.

And I'm perfectly happy to give the credit for these near-misses to the mysterious power that watches over me.

Song of the Week

"Like Glue" - Sean Paul
This is my pick for 2003 because Sean Paul was the first reggaeton artist to bring the genre to major popularity in the U.S. Also, a couple of other great choices from this year have already been SOTW.

3000 Words

"Guys With Kids" got canceled but its humor will live on, such as this sight gag where one of the kids got a temporary tattoo at a birthday party.

Scott Clements was evidently collecting all the small denomination chips.

Yao Ming takes a picture with a 4'11" waitress.

Funny or Douchey?

Dustin Wray booked a room for himself and his girlfriend and the Woodlands Resort in Texas. As he completed his online booking he noticed a section for special requests. He wrote "Three red M&Ms on the counter. Not packages, just three single M&Ms. One for me, one for my girlfriend and one to split if we get hungry late at night. And a picture of bacon on the bed. I love pictures of bacon."

When he got there he saw 3 red M&Ms on the counter and was initially confused by it, because he had forgotten his own request.

Then he saw a framed picture of bacon on the bed and it all came back to him.

I think we all agree the hotel actually doing this stuff is funny, and this guy not tipping extra is douchey. But judge by the other stuff, the simple fact that he made this request, and what he requested, funny or douchey?

Cool Story I Never Knew

There's a little noticed show on MSG Network called "Four Courses with JB Smoove." It features JB Smoove (Leon Black from "Curb") sitting down for dinner with four athletes and entertainers. In this particular episode he is joined by John Salley, Larry Johnson, Black Thought from the Roots and Judah Friedlander.
During the episode Larry Johnson told this amazing story:



To think, we were this close to never seeing Grandmama. Disappointing because I really like that "Larry," "No, Johnson," "ok, Larry Johnson" ad concept.

Oh Snap

Tim Hudson suffering a gruesome leg injury during last night's game against the Mets.



This will be a lesson for youngsters, the fielder should always put his foot on the infield part of the bag, and allow the runner to step on the other half. This was a total accident, Eric Young didn't mean to do this, but he couldn't help it because Hudson put his foot in Young's way.

Sluts at Penn

A very interesting New York Times article sheds light on the new age of sluttiness on college campuses. The author spent an entire school year interviewing 60 female students about their sex lives.
Obviously you can't categorize 60 women into one specific type, but the overall gist is that these driven young women are too focused on schoolwork, extra-curriculars and post-graduation careers to form meaningful romantic relationships. But they don't want to be left out of the fun so they get drunk and have cheap meaningless sex but they try not to regret it in the morning.

“You go in, and they take you down to a dark basement,” Haley, a blond, pink-cheeked senior, recalled of her first frat parties in freshman year. “There’s girls dancing in the middle, and there’s guys lurking on the sides and then coming and basically pressing their genitals up against you and trying to dance.” Dancing like that felt good but dirty, and like a number of girls, Haley said she had to be drunk in order to enjoy it. Women said universally that hookups could not exist without alcohol, because they were for the most part too uncomfortable to pair off with men they did not know well without being drunk. One girl, explaining why her encounters freshman and sophomore year often ended with fellatio, said that usually by the time she got back to a guy’s room, she was starting to sober up and didn’t want to be there anymore, and giving the guy oral sex was an easy way to wrap things up and leave.

I don't remember girls like these when Reissberg and the Conch were matriculating there.

Song of the Week

"Mr. Wendal" - Arrested Development
I can't believe how many great songs came out this year. This was my musical prime I think. I loved every single song on this list, but I narrowed it down to Mr. Wendal and Two Princes by the Spin Doctors. I don't even know why I chose this one. I love them both. I love them all. If you are of a certain age, peruse this list and I guarantee it will take you back.

The Most Wonderful Post of the Year

Diesel in Maine in 2007:



Diesel in Maine in 2008:


Diesel in Maine in 2009:


Diesel in Maine in 2010:


Diesel in Maine in 2011:

Diesel in Maine in 2012

Diesel in Maine in 2013