Qwertysomething

It's not the heat, it's the humidity

2011-12-07T10:33:00.002-06:00

It's not the fall that gets you, it's the sudden stop.

It's not the crush that makes you ache, it's the lack of a cure.

Where have you gone, Stephanie Kingsbury?

2010-09-08T22:29:00.003-05:00

OK, it wouldn't sound as good as Joe DiMaggio in the Simon & Garfunkel song, but it's a valid question.

You flew the coop. And you know what I mean by coop. The coop ... not the co-op.

So, where y'at?

And yes, I am aware this is my first post in more than two years!

skk, if you find this, leave a comment. Please. Thank you.

Show, don't tell

2008-02-13T21:56:00.004-06:00

A dear friend whose voice I haven't heard in years wrote to me to say he's had some stories published. She foolishly credited me with helping her with my advice of more than a decade ago, when I told her such staples as "Show, don't tell" and other things I'd learned.

Somehow she managed to overcome having me as a mentor and write stories with color and interesting characters and intriguing contexts and payoffs. Seeing this when I read her short stories made me smile.

I also read some of my recent work and realized I was overdue to be reminded of my own advice to her so long ago.

Way to go, EK.

Long time no see

2007-09-18T19:59:00.000-05:00

If I started posting again, would anyone notice?

Ahh

2007-02-12T22:06:00.000-06:00

Is there any better feeling than slipping on a new pair of shoes that fits perfectly?

OK, of course there is, but still ... it's a wonderful sensation, is it not?

New Balance. There is no substitute.

Valentine's Day reminder

2007-02-11T10:06:00.000-06:00

It always sort of sneaks up on us guys, huh?

Gentle nudge: Don't be that guy caught in the greeting card aisle at 9:30 p.m. February 13th.

The selection is much better at 9:30 a.m.

But seriously ... time is running out.

I'm back

2007-02-09T14:44:00.000-06:00

Not surprisingly, I've returned with a rant. To the world, in general:

If you will allow me 1.78 seconds to step out of the elevator, there will be much more room for you to step into it. Thank you for your time.

Word for word

2006-12-21T18:28:00.000-06:00

Perhaps I should explain my fascination with quotes and misquotes in movies, TV shows and other arenas. Hmm, where to start?

As a writer, I use words every day. As a reporter, I must ensure the words accurately illustrate the truth I am trying to convey. More than a decade ago, a college athlete claimed -- months after the fact -- I misquoted him in a newspaper story. Almost without exception I have used a tape or digital recorder since then. I don't know a single reporter who can take notes by hand and get every word. I know several who claim they can, but they can't.

What's interesting is there is considerable disagreement among journalists about how accurately one must quote a source or public figure. To some, "If it's between quote marks, it had better be verbatim" is the only way. To others, you have some latitude. Of course, almost every print reporter removes the "uh" and "um" and "you know" -- which are more common than you'd think -- and many properly quote the most important words and paraphrase the rest.

What's more interesting is covering a major sports or news event and reading the coverage the next day. Often you can read 10 different versions of the same quote in 10 different papers.

Does it really matter as long as the reader understands the spirit of what was said, or should everything between quotation marks be treated as sacred? I lean toward the latter, but I do understand the former. There are important quotes worth slaving over to make sure they're correct, and there are others nobody will think twice about after they read the story. That said, would I want my comments to be quoted 100 percent accurately? Yes.

My perverse fun with movie quotes (and misquotes) is not for everybody. I am sure most who stumble upon these takes here find them dry and boring. I suppose I could try to pump some life into the presentation, but my point is mainly to do what appears to be sorely lacking from the World Wide Web -- post the correction versions of some of the most popular quotes in American movie and cultural history. It's certainly OK there are short-hand versions out there, more popular versions than the actual quotes. I just think there's room for the actual quotes too.

Does anybody else really care? I doubt it. Just my crazy obsession.

Some day there will be a cure. In the meantime, I will continue to perk up whenever I hear someone misquote Forrest Gump or Gordon Gekko or the Captain in "Cool Hand Luke."

That's all, folks! (for now)

Second-hand fat

2006-12-21T18:16:00.000-06:00

When that becomes a scientifically proven threat to your health, you can complain about how the sight and smell of my blood-rare steak bother you -- and try to equate it with my annoyance because of your smoking while I try to eat.

Until then, keep your mouth shut between drags of your cigarette, unless you are eating or speaking with someone at your table. They are not equal arguments, yours and mine. Your arteries are none the worse for my dining choices.

On a lighter note, have a Merry Christmas.

Chad Pennington is growing up

2006-12-17T09:51:00.000-06:00

Eleven years ago I saw him up close before and after a Division I-AA playoff game. He didn't appear old enough to drive. Now he's a veteran NFL quarterback and barely looks like a college freshman, which he was on that cold December afternoon in 1995.

Prediction: Fifty years from now he'll be the face and the voice of the New Year countdown from Times Square, and everyone will say "He never ages."

New Dellhi

2006-12-17T09:43:00.000-06:00

The location for Customer Service for the company that made my computer. I mention this after a grueling 4-hour telephone consultation during which my ability to hear and comprehend English as a second language was put to the test.

And yes, the spelling of the title of this entry is intentional, not a typo.

Wall Street

2006-12-16T08:56:00.000-06:00

Gordon Gekko's famous speech is reportedly derived from one given by Ivan Boesky. You'll note a minor but (to me) interesting point is the words "greed is good" do not appear consecutively in the sentence. The edit in the public consciousness is understandable, but I do enjoy the full context.

"The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed -- for lack of a better word -- is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind, and greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA."

A fun side note: Terence Stamp, the wonderful actor who plays Sir Larry Wildman, was General Zod in "Superman II." I'm sure you knew that, but it had slipped my mind until I happened to see the Man of Steel crush Zod's hand the other day while I was channel surfing.

Yes, I can

2006-12-16T08:50:00.000-06:00

I can, in fact, hear you now.

Now, ask me if I want to.

This won't break new ground, but one of the realities of living in an apartment complex in the age of the cell phone is you realize how many people don't have land lines anymore. How do you know this? Because quite often, they walk outside to take or make a call. If you live in a corner apartment, next to the parking lot, as I do, you notice many of these calls are placed or received or extended seemingly forever right outside your window.

I should take notes. Some of the things I hear would make wonderful blackmail material.

For college football fans

2006-12-14T12:08:00.000-06:00

Especially those who don't like the BCS. Happy holidays.

'Twas the day before the title game
By Carl Dubois
Advocate sportswriter

“Dear Editor: Some of my little friends say there is no playoff in Division I college football. Papa says, ‘If you see it in The Advocate it’s so.’
“Please tell me the truth; is there a playoff in Division I football, and if not, will there ever be?”
—West Virginia, Boise State, Michigan and others, somewhere on the outside looking in.

West Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see on YouTube, MySpace or Cold Pizza. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, West Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s or those of Division I university presidents, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge — and the insanity of championships by polls.

Yes, West Virginia, there is a Division I playoff. The championship game is Friday night between Massachusetts, known as the Minutemen, and Appalachian State, which has the same nickname as your Mountaineers. This I-AA playoff exists certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, not to mention common sense, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no playoffs! It would be as dreary as if there were no Alabama talk show hosts and columnists to make fun of West Virginia from afar, as if their Alabama were the cynosure of all things cosmopolitan. Jim Tressel would not have enjoyed the thrill of winning his four national championships under a playoff format before leaving Youngstown State for Ohio State. Verily, ESPN2 would probably be showing another poker tournament Friday night.

Not believe in playoffs? You might as well not believe in Santa Claus! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa, but even if they did not see Santa coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see, especially if they don’t have cable TV or a workable BCS system. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world. This is especially true of university presidents, network executives and bowl stewards who can’t imagine a world with a Division I-A playoff and cite academic concerns as the reason for its absence.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest man that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance — and two or three more controversial finishes in the BCS — can push aside that curtain and imagine the supernal beauty and glory beyond.

Is it all real? Could it happen? Ah, West Virginia, Boise State, Michigan and you other hopeful children, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding as the hope of a playoff one day. Playoffs? Playoffs??? Mora and mora the cause will gather steam, and it will be as natural as the postseason in the NFL. Gather your friends Friday night and watch this tiny but meaningful I-AA playoff conclude, and imagine a huge I-A one! Have your parents take you to sit on the lap of that jolly ol’ fellow, Lloyd Carr, and ask him to help your wish come true. I know he believes! Write letters to Mike Slive, even if you doubt he exists except on Southeastern Conference stationery! Just because you never see or hear him, it doesn’t mean he isn’t real!

No playoff! Good God! Even the NCAA has a sense something’s missing. By its decree, the I-AA playoff will henceforth be called the NCAA Division I Football Championship, with that other population of D-I schools to be known as the Football Bowl Subdivision. Hypocrisy lives, and it seemingly lives forever. Yes, I-AA has a playoff, and nobody accuses its presidents of being anti-academics.

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world a I-A playoff couldn’t exist. If he and the usual suspects have their way, my dear West Virginia, a thousand years from now, nay, 10 times ten thousand years from now, they will continue to make sad the heart of childhood that dreams for a true championship, one with nothing mythical about it.

Believe, my new young friend, as you watch Massachusetts and Appalachian State settle it on the field while announcers for ESPN2 — the I-AA of ESPN networks — make the case for the excitement and validity of a playoff.

Oh, and about your letter: I’m not the editor. He’s on vacation, and somebody had to answer you.

(With apologies to the editor, to deceased newsman Francis Pharcellus Church, the New York newspaper called The Sun, and the most famous 8-year-old girl to write a letter to its editor in September 1897.)

Published 12.14.06 in The Advocate in Baton Rouge.

Yeah, well

2006-12-02T12:03:00.000-06:00

"Cool Hand Luke" has so many enjoyable moments, I could spend all day here posting about 10 percent of them and never get around to the next installment of my little project -- misquoted movie lines.

One of my favorite scenes is when Luke and his bull gang finish tarring the road early, with about 2 hours of daylight left, after he spurs them on to work fast, fast, fast, and give the bosses speed, speed, speed, just for kicks, and to befuddle them, and because he's who he is. "What are we going to do now?"George Kennedy's character asks when he realizes they've run out of road way ahead of schedule.

"Nothin'," Luke says with a self-satisfied smile.

"Luke, you wild, beautiful thing," Dragline (Kennedy) chortles. "You crazy handful of nothin'."

Yeah, well ... sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.

The two most memorable quotes in "Cool Hand Luke" are "Nobody can eat 50 eggs" and "What we've got here is failure to communicate." The latter is frequently misquoted.

If you find the synopsis of "Cool Hand Luke" on Netflix, you'll see it begins with this sentence: What we have here is a failure to communicate! Don't they ever listen to Guns N' Roses? It's not "a" failure; it's failure! What we've got here is failure to accurately quote this line!

In fairness, Paul Newman's character misquotes the Captain's line himself, just before he's shot: "What we got here is a failure to communicate." Luke, like many in the years since the movie (including the person who wrote the Netflix synopsis), added the word "a" in front of the sentence's payoff (failure to communicate).

The writers at "Saturday Night Live" got it right when they came up with one of my favorite sketches in the show's history. It came in the fifth season, on April 19, 1980. Strother Martin, who played the Captain in "Cool Hand Luke," was guest host of this SNL and played an angry taskmaster of a headmaster of a French language camp for children. Bill Murray and Gilda Radner played young campers, and when Murray's stubborn character (Luc?) refused to say "The cat is small" en francais, Strother Martin's character punished him in a cruel-hand, Cool Hand Luke sort of way.

Then, of course, came the punchline.

"What we've got here is failure to communicate ... bilingually."

Beautiful.

Oh, and if you want to compile a long list of misquotes, get the DVD and listen to the movie with a careful ear and read the subtitles. In many cases, they are, at best, no more than reasonable facsimiles of the lyrical language in this gem of a movie. And what a cast: Newman, Kennedy, Martin, Dennis Hopper, Harry Dean Stanton (listed as Dean Stanton), Wayne Rogers, Ralph Waite, Joe Don Baker, J.D. Cannon (the boss on "McCloud") and so many other wonderful charactor actors.

Would that make her Lady Godiva?

2006-12-01T01:02:00.000-06:00

Let's have more fun with misquoted movie lines. If you didn't see "Forrest Gump," you're probably convinced someone in the movie said, "Life is like a box of chocolates."

Nope.

Early in the movie, before beginning to share his life story, Forrest tells a woman next to him on the bench near a bus stop, "My momma always said life was like a box of chocolates ... you never know what you're gonna get." It's possible he said, "My mom," but given the Southern drawl Tom Hanks approximates as Forrest Gump, it's hard to tell for sure.

Nearly 100 minutes later, during a flashback, Forrest asks his mother why she is dying.

"It's my time," she says. "It's just my time. Oh, now, don't you be afraid, sweetheart. Death is just a part of life. It's something we're all destined to do. I didn't know it, but I was destined
to be your momma. I did the best I could."

"You did good, Momma," Forrest says.

"Well," she says, "I happen to believe you make your own destiny. You have to do the best with what God gave you."

Forrest then asks about his destiny.

"You're gonna have to figure that out for yourself," his mom says. "Life is a box of chocolates, Forrest. You never know what you're gonna get."

The quote goes from was to is, and from simile to metaphor, from present to past.

"Seinfeld" episode 57: "The Outing"

2006-12-01T00:38:00.000-06:00

Perhaps no other episode of "Seinfeld" contributed a more widely used catch phrase than this one, which first aired Feb. 11, 1993. As you may recall, a journalism student at NYU mistakenly thinks Jerry and George are lovers and "outs" them in a feature story about Jerry for the school newspaper. The Associated Press picks up the story, and the world thinks Jerry's gay.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

My memory for years told me people got the quote wrong, that it's actually, "Not that there's anything wrong with it." As it turns out, we're all correct.

The first use of this politically correct reaction -- which Jerry Seinfeld said helped make the episode better than in its early drafts and enabled him to get approval from NBC -- comes at the 7:15 mark of the show. When the character Jerry realizes Sharon, the NYU reporter, thinks he and George are lovers, he sharply denies it, then says, "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

Later, George is discussing this with Jerry on the telephone (a conversation that causes them further grief) and says, "Not that there's anything wrong with it." (10:51)

After Elaine botches an attempt to smooth things over with the reporter, Jerry finds it necessary to repeat his denial and adds, "Not that there's anything wrong with that." (11:36)

In the coffee shop, after Jerry realizes the AP has run Sharon's story and he and George have been "outed" in newspapers all over the country, he says once again, "Not that there's anything wrong with that." (11:25)

Jerry's parents see the story in their newspaper in Florida and phone him. After yet another reference to Jerry's alleged gayness, his mom says, "Not that there's anything wrong with that, Jerry." (15:08)

George's mom is the only person, other than George, to say "it" instead of "that." She's in a hospital bed after falling off the toilet when she read the news, and after informing her son of her surprise about his supposed secret sexuality, she quickly adds, "Not that there's anything wrong with it." (15:54)

Jerry later convinces Sharon he's not gay, and they are making out on his couch when George bursts into Jerry's apartment, girlfriend in tow, and seizes upon a ploy to free himself from the relationship. He pretends Jerry is cheating on him by kissing Sharon, the reporter, and hopes this will convince his girlfriend he truly is gay -- and to dump him. Jerry again denies having a homosexual relationship and then says, "Not that there's anything wrong with that." (20:18)

At the end of the episode, Kramer pokes his head into Jerry's apartment before heading across the hall to his place -- with a young man Jerry and George have never seen before. Realizing Jerry and George might be curious about the nature of their relationship, Kramer reopens Jerry's door and says, "He's the phone man!"

And then, "Not that there's anything wrong with that." (21:10)

Before I watched the episode again last month, I was sure that version of the quote was outnumbered by the other version, the one ending with "it." I was wrong.

Not that there's anything wrong ...

Cinemax is airing all the "Star Wars" movies

2006-11-30T13:00:00.000-06:00

One thing that never disappoints is the crisp, timeless dialog in the original (you know, Episode IV). Don't believe me? Watch it again if you can. It doesn't hurt to have classically trained British actors reciting some of the best lines, but nearly 30 years after the movie's debut, after the special effects have lost much of their dazzle, the writing remains a joy.

The place looks the same as I left it

2006-11-28T12:54:00.000-06:00

I'm back. No, I wasn't sick the whole time, but it feels like it. There is still something bugging me, some kind of thing that happens here in the South when you get a late dose of fall, followed by a warm front, then the first cold front of autumn, then Indian Summer, then rain and cool and rain and cold and sun and, well, I'm sure you get the picture.

Thanksgiving was different. For one of the few times in my life, I didn't spend it at my mother's house. For the first time in my life, my mother was not alive for Thanksgiving. It was another in a series of firsts: first birthday without her, first Thanksgiving, first Christmas (which will be hard), first New Year's Day, and so on.

Between fits of coughing and sleeping, I've been working on a project for the blog. I hope to have installments of it here soon.

I also bought a DVD of soothing sounds and scenes from the company that makes those videos for hospital rooms. There was a song that played nearly every day of the last week of my mother's life, which she spent in the hospital in Houston, and I hoped that song would be on the DVD sampler of that company's product. I can still hear parts of the piece in my head, but I wanted to be able to play it any time I needed to transport myself back to those last days and the feelings that surfaced. Alas, I listened to the entire DVD, and the song was not there.

Perhaps I will keep trying to find it ... or give up and let it play in my head. I wonder if it will always be in there. It awakens painful memories, but necessary ones. I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone else, but it does to me.

Anyway, I'm back -- if not at full strength, at least back in some capacity. Funny how the place looked exactly as I'd left it.

I'm off today

2006-11-10T07:03:00.000-06:00

So why did I wake up at 6:30, long before I usually do? Surely it's not so I could watch "Mr. Holland's Opus" again.

No wonder Tom Waits wrote a song about them

2006-11-09T15:38:00.000-06:00

Jersey Girls lead interesting lives. Check out my friend, jersey girl, and her entry for Monday, Nov. 6.

This post has no title

2006-11-09T15:15:00.000-06:00

The movie Game 6 is not a baseball movie, but its context is the day of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and New York Mets. Yes, that Game 6.

There is a wonderful scene in the 44th minute, after Michael Keaton's character brings his father a bandage to replace the one he said he'd misplaced. After helping his father unbutton his shirt, Keaton's character watches him remove the shirt and an undershirt to reveal the thought-to-be-missing bandage wrapped many times around his torso. Director Michael Hoffman, in his commentary on the DVD, describes it as "beautiful scene about just the impossibility of the gulf between this father and son."

It reminded me of a time when my mother and I searched her house for her mother's false teeth. We dug through piles of clothes, we checked the trash cans, we crawled on the floor to look under furniture -- only to be informed that Grandma Oliva realized they were in her mouth all along.

An anal-retentive's note about the above reference to the 44th minute: The payoff comes at about 43:10, so if you're fast-forwarding to 44 minutes, you've gone too far. (The 44th minute of a movie begins as soon as the 43rd minute ends, so ... at 44:00 you're heading into the 45th minute. It's the same for a person in his or her 26th year. That person is 25 years old, moving in the direction of 26 years old.)

If not for the medication, the above would make a lot more sense.

Dreams

2006-11-09T11:42:00.000-06:00

Amazing things, to be sure. Last night I woke up from a dream with one notable sequence: I walked into my mom's house and saw her sitting in a chair, smiling and talking with someone. She looked happy, and I went over to her, elated, and told her how incredibly good it was to see her. She seemed surprised, as if she didn't know the reason.

She died July 3. This is the first dream I've had about her, although she's made her presence known to me in other ways.

In the dream, I quickly explained why it was both a surprise and a joy to see her. The whole thing seemed to be a foreign concept to her. Interesting.

This reminded me of the dream a friend had years after her sister drowned. My friend encountered her sister, alive, in the dream and said, "But you're dead!" Her sister's reply: "I know! Isn't that crazy?"

That might not be an exact transcript, but it speaks to the spirit of the dream as related to me.

Anyway, my mother's smile was beautiful, and calming to see.

Keeping the pharmacy in business

2006-11-07T19:37:00.000-06:00

Drugs? I've got 'em. What do you need? I could open my own pharmacy. Maybe I should. For starters, I'd get a volume discount.

No kidney stone. That appears to have been a false alarm (knock wood). Sore throat turned into major flu-like headache, but ... so far, no flu. So, Monday and Tuesday were work-from-home days. I missed the obligatory election-night pizza in the office. Boo.

Speaking of medicine (as I was earlier), I think I may have come up with an idea for one. Caren, on her exceedingly enjoyable blog, ponders the depths of "Writers' Vuja De," which she defines as "the fear that somewhere, someone is working on a book just like yours."

She adds: "I really was trying to come up with a better term than Writers' Vuja De...something that combines something like 'pen' or 'ink' with deja vu. But nothing was working. Any thoughts? You might coin a term. You will get full credit!!"

In my drug-induced fog, I suggested the nightttime, sniffling, wheezing, hack-coughing, aching, fever, sleep better to write better medicine for those who toss and turn and agonize all night about the possibility of writers' vuja de becoming reality for them.

NighQuill.

30 Rock from the Sun

2006-11-07T19:32:00.000-06:00

A group of aliens lands on Earth and takes on the appearance of humans so they can learn everything about the planet and its people. They take jobs writing sketch comedy for NBC.

That's my idea, anyway. Wanna help me pitch it?

I'm back

2006-11-06T12:07:00.000-06:00

Sort of. Did you miss me?

No evidence of a kidney stone yet, although there are symptoms that made it seem likely Friday. Following a weekend of travel, back pain and an unexpected sore throat, I am sick today. Nothing serious, unless you consider a flu-like headache serious.

But seriously, I'm going to take a nap now. I hope to have something interesting here for you later today.

Thank you for your patience.

Uh oh

2006-11-02T11:34:00.000-06:00

I might have a kidney stone. Ouch. Some of the early warning signs arrived late last night. No pain. Yet. I'm drinking water the way Nicolas Cage drank booze in "Leaving Las Vegas."

Wish me luck. I don't want the kind of pain I fear is around the corner.

On a lighter note, it's a wonderful fall day here (finally).

Stop. Deep breath. Reset.

2006-11-01T19:56:00.000-06:00

When you make a mistake, do you compound the error by overreacting, undereacting or, worse, beating yourself up about it? I found myself today regretting an impulse from Tuesday night and trying to own up to it rather than blame it on any of a number of possible explanations.

The faux pas in question (personal in nature) came on the anniversary of my father's death, almost down to the exact hour, so I know I was susceptible to the emotions of the day (or, in this case, the night). Still, escape is a possible explanation, not an excuse, and no salve for any wounds I might have caused someone dear to me.

In my work I am often forced to find a balance between acknowledging a mistake (and they are usually very public errors) and not letting it knock me off my stride so much that I make another mistake the next day. I know a coach who said he wishes he could invent a pill to give to his players so they could take it and never look back on a mistake to the extent that they are not at their best on subsequent plays. I could use a pill like that myself, as long as it somehow allowed me to learn from my errors in judgment and execution.

At the end of a long day, I sit here and ponder the parameters of saying you're sorry, of what it means to the other person, and trying to understand why I did what I did (and do what I do).

I finally get to stop, take a deep breath and assess things after a long day. Thanks for listening.

Halloween, "The Birds," and other echoes

2006-10-31T09:55:00.000-06:00

My father died Nov. 1, 1980, but it was early in the morning, soon after midnight on Halloween night, so in many ways today feels like the anniversary of his death. Had he lived, he would have been 78.

Age is just a number, I keep reminding myself, but numbers help you fix a point in time and give you at least the illusion of being able to get a handle on the moment. My oldest sister mentioned an interesting perspective she has: She was 26 when our dad died, and he was 52. It's now 26 years later, and my sister is 52 ... and our mom is gone too. She died in July, as I mentioned in my Oct. 1 entry. On that post, I showed the birthday card she bought for me early in the year, before she got sick. We found it, unsigned, at her house after she died.

I was 19 when my dad died. Part of me, I know, will always be 19. My dad didn't live long enough for the two of us to find common ground as adults, to have what we might fondly have called a man-to-man relationship. For that to happen, I would have had to be an adult, and there's no question at 19 I was still a child.

Three years ago I wrote a column about a football coach who had turned 52 on that Halloween. He lost his father at roughly the same age I lost mine, and the coach had several players on his team who lost fathers at the same point in their lives. I remember thinking about how my father will always be 52 to me, the age he was when we last spoke, and how I seemed to keep finding myself in all kinds of relationships with men around that age. Those relationships, as with the coach, were sometimes contentious, sometimes impossible, and always instructive if I chose to open my eyes.

(Before I forget: Happy birthday, Nick)

Twenty-six years ago, a friend wanted to celebrate her last day on a job she'd grown to hate. My paternal grandmother was staying at our house, and I took her with me to the store to shop for candy to hand out to neighborhood kids that evening. After she went to bed, my friend and I made plans to have popcorn and champagne (yeah, I know) at our house. I picked up the youngest of my three older sisters at the bus station and took her to the hospital, where she planned to join my mother in a bedside weekend vigil. I planned to go back to the hospital the next day, a Saturday.

My friend came over, and we searched for something fun to watch on TV. I scanned through the listings and stopped when I saw "The Birds" by Alfred Hitchcock. My friend saw my face become ashen, and she asked what was wrong. I don't remember saying it, but apparently I told her, "My dad's going to die tonight." I explained that, many years before, when I was a boy, the family gathered in the living room to watch "The Birds," a movie I was not allowed to watch. Hearing it from my room nearby was probably more scary than watching it, because the sounds without the images left things up to my very active imagination. During the movie, the phone rang, and we learned my father's father had just died. Later I saw my dad cry for the only time.

There must have been some trigger in my brain associating "The Birds" with the death of a father, because my reaction to seeing the listing for it on that Halloween night in 1980 was instantaneous.

My friend left around midnight (we didn't watch the movie). She told me to call her if there was any news. I told her I would drive to the hospital in the morning and give her an update. Feeling a bit shaky from the champagne, I went straight to bed.

Soon after, the father-in-law of my middle sister let himself in at the house and woke me up and told me my dad had just died. My grandmother, my father's mother, sat on her bed in the guest room, sobbing. That was my first experience with the grief of a parent who had just lost a child. She would carry that grief almost 10 years before she died.

My mother lost her father to suicide when she was young. It happened on Halloween weekend. I didn't know that detail until a few years ago. I can't even imagine the emotions she must have felt every Halloween weekend, especially those after 1980.

She died July 3 of this year. About three weeks later, her next-door neighbor, the son-in-law of the man who woke me up 26 years ago to tell me my father had died, killed himself in his yard, the same way my mother's dad did years ago. I remember thinking how awful it would have been for my mom had she been alive and at home when her neighbor shot himself next door to her house.

My oldest sister has two sad reminders when she looks out her kitchen window. She sees the still-empty home of my mom, and she sees the home next door where a woman and her two boys, an extended part of our family in many ways, still grieve over the loss of the man of the house. That grief never goes away, but you learn to live with it.

I was bedside holding my mom's hand when she died. I was not at the hospital when my dad died. I should have been, but I had a bad case of being 19 and was counting on a tomorrow for a last chance to say goodbye.

Sorry if this entry is a bit of a downer. Enjoy today, even if you don't celebrate Halloween. If you do and you get scared, take solace in knowing that's just proof that you're alive. I suppose that's as good an ending as I'll find for this one.

All Saints Day

2006-10-31T09:44:00.000-06:00

Jeff Duncan, a friend who writes for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, crafted a good history on the day the NFL awarded a franchise to the city. That 40th anniversary is tomorrow, but you can get a jump by reading the story on the Web.

It's uncertain whether New Orleans and the surrounding area can support the Saints on a long-term basis in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but it's clear from reading the story the birth of the Saints 40 years ago redefined the Crescent City.

My favorite Saints story remains the touchdown scored by John Gilliam on the opening kickoff of the team's first game in 1967. As I've written elsewhere, one can only imagine the thousands of fans who must have thought, "This is going to be great!"

Do you feel lucky, punk?

2006-10-29T14:12:00.000-06:00

"I love the punk movement. It was really a romantic movement disguised by horribleness."

-- Em Fuller, 13, after watching "Sid and Nancy."

I know I didn't say anything that interesting when I was 13. Em's mom tells me she made the comment after seeing the movie and reading the following passage written by Colin McDowell in Harper's Bazaar:

"Powerful enough to frighten old ladies in the street, punk was actually a romantic movement hiding its insecurities and fears behind a buccaneering, sneering facade."

And really, doesn't that pretty much describe all of us?

B.P.

2006-10-29T11:19:00.000-06:00

You thought this would be about my blood pressure, did you not? Sorry, no.

I took batting practice last night. Or this morning, to be more precise. It was after midnight, but exactly when, I cannot say.

There's nothing like the solid connection of bat meeting ball. There were more wicked line drives than dribblers, more fair balls than foul balls and pop-ups, and more home runs and doubles off the wall than I'd have thought possible after so many years of never picking up a bat. I remember being aware of the coach in the dugout, watching me take my cuts. That's the person you're trying to impress. There's nothing worse than scorching the ball and looking over to see the boss looking elsewhere.

The last swing was perfection. For all I know, the ball is still climbing.

Then I woke up.

Where does this come from? Well, maybe from spending a lot of time lately laughing and joking and flirting with a delightful younger woman. I've been downright candid with her that it makes me feel younger, and surely dreaming of the days when I could drive them over the wall is somewhere in the same ballpark, so to speak.

Maybe it's not the coach I'm trying to impress after all.

It's about time

2006-10-29T11:01:00.000-06:00

Were you an hour early for church today? Brunch? Coffee with a friend? Maybe you forgot to set your clock back one hour before bedtime last night.

Your computer took care of its clock for you, probably. Maybe your cable box did the same, and your cell phone, and your caller I.D. I'm guessing you still had to change the time on your watch, your microwave, your stove, alarm clock and car stereo.

My big wall clock is analog, and it picks up a signal from the national atomic clock in, I think, Colorado. Twice a year it adjusts -- for standard time or daylight time -- and its hands spin around and around at the appropriate switching time, around and around and around, until ... they ... settle in on the correct time. Whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr .... tick ... tick ... tick. It's very cool.

I've invited someone to stay up all night with me and watch it happen. She said it sounds like fun. Yes, we're dorks. We admit it.

I told her one of my favorite Garrison Keillor stories, about an elderly woman whose husband has died since the last time change. With another coming up, she stresses about making sure she doesn't forget -- and whether she can stay up until 2 a.m. to make the switch. She drinks coffee and sits alone in her house, and of course it's a sad, sweet story because she doesn't realize she could just adjust her clocks before going to sleep.

For those of you afraid of the dark, it will come sooner today.

Set your clock one Auerbach

2006-10-29T09:51:00.000-06:00

Not my line, but appropriate on this weekend. Red Auerbach -- and if I have to identify him, this post won't mean anything to you -- died last night at 89.

Former Boston sportswriter Michael Gee, whose blog is linked on my front page, wrote an obit that was eaten by Blogger soon after he tried to post it. What Michael reconstructed to share with a different readership appears below with his permission.

Laker fans, you're just amateurs at Celtic-hatred. I'm from Philly. I was one of the rowdies who threw lit cigars at Red's head in 1967.
Then God laughed and I covered the '80a Celtics. Auerbach was the best journalism teachers ever.
Once I asked a question with the hackneyed "some people say."
Auerbach: "That's bullshit! You mean what you say, but you don't have the guts to say so."
Busted. And every time I hear that question format, I agree with Red.
Another lesson: The Celts win Game 4 of the NBA Finals. In LAX, they're waiting for the same red-eye as some weekly writer. It's late, and a concourse and a half away, Cedric Maxwell (I think) finds an open cafeteria.
I snag the last dessert, a lime Jello. The man behind me in line, Auerbach, swipes it off my tray and gives it to the man behind him, Larry Bird.
"Larry ought to get this," Auerbach said, "because he was a good boy tonight."
Bird had only had a 20-20. I let him the Jello. Then Kevin McHale came over and said, "Red will only respect you if you fight for the Jello."
Try being more hopelessly fucked then that. Try standing in Red Auerbach's way. He beat segregarton, Michael Gee couldn't have been much of a contest,
Poor Mendy Rudolph probably thought eternity would be a peaceful place. Not anymore.

Apparently the Weekend Update duo on SNL lit cigars after the "news" last night. Well done.

The Boston Globe quickly published a special section about Auerbach. Again, well done.

Today's diet tip

2006-10-27T20:00:00.000-05:00

This is an oldie but goodie from a retired football coach: "If you put it in your mouth and it tastes good, spit it out!"

All the news that fits between the fluff

2006-10-27T17:41:00.000-05:00

Daily Kos has an interesting visual look at how American news, specifically CNN, is less substantive than that of international news agencies.

The subject came up among journalist friends during a discussion about remarks by Robert Kennedy Jr., who said we have "a negligent press in this country." See more at mediabistro.com.

Kennedy said, "We know more about Tom and Katie than we do about global warming. We're the most entertained, least informed people in the world."

Do you agree?

Brain sprain

2006-10-27T10:38:00.000-05:00

An area high school football coach said the following to our reporter while explaining why his team would be short-handed tonight:

"We had one player just go stupid on us. Injuries are one thing ... you can put ice on an injury. You can't put ice on stupid."

More Sorkin

2006-10-27T10:11:00.000-05:00

Some of my best friends have wildly differing opinions about "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." A lot of journalists, some damn good writers, think Aaron Sorkin's world is an all-too-serious world of make believe, only vaguely resembling ours. Others think he telegraphs his pitches, and they claim they know the dialogue that's about to unfold once they see the character (and once they figure out what Sorkin archetype he or she is). Me? I like the show.

Recent blog entries (and their comment sections) cover a wide range of opinions.

Alan Sepinwall, an accomplished TV critic for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., writes a less-than-flattering opinion on his blog. Some of you might know Sepinwall from his weekly in-season breakdown of "The Sopranos."

Veteran TV screenwriter Ken Levine writes on his blog an example of what he imagines a Sorkin-penned show about baseball would be like.

The Onion has a fun take that requires no set-up here.

Then there's this USA Today piece.

My friends at SportsJournalists.com have been tracking the show since before its debut. One of today's posts addresses what the writer sees as a lot of joy on the part of this piling on Sorkin for not being flawless every week.

I don't agree with everything Michael Gee says about the show on his blog, but after discovering his site a few days ago I like it enough to link it on my front page.

I hesitate to say this -- because it will sound a little like the "You never played the game" line from athletes and coaches who dismiss journalists and columnists who critique their play -- but I'd like to see more of Sorkin's critics submit a draft or two for a TV show. Even at what is perceived to be his weakest, his stuff still takes me to interesting places.

I'm still watching.

How's your weather?

2006-10-26T21:33:00.000-05:00

If it's nice, enjoy it.

Tonight: Thunderstorms - some locally heavy downpours are possible, especially late. A few storms may be severe. Low 69F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected.
Tomorrow: Windy...scattered thunderstorms, some strong in the morning, will give way to partly cloudy skies late. High 73F. Winds W at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 60%.

It's raining

2006-10-26T20:37:00.000-05:00

We've had rain all day. There's no sign of it stopping. I'm off work today, and it's raining, and yet I couldn't find the time to blog until now. I've been distracted.

Not that I mind.

That's all for now.

It's the recovery, stupid

2006-10-25T11:20:00.000-05:00

That's part of the headline on what Chris Rose wrote a few weeks ago about the repair and refurbishing of the Louisiana Superdome. If you appreciate his column I linked a few days ago about his battle with depression (and even if you didn't see it), this is another tremendous read from Chris. He wrote the column for The Times-Picayune after the Saints played their home opener against the Atlanta Falcons, a night that marked the reopening of the Dome.

The setup:

Despite ESPN's sensitive handling of the tricky "New Orleans is back/New Orleans is definitely not back" message that we needed to send out, it seems that lots of folks did not buy into the Superdome extravaganza as a good thing at all.

This became clear to me as I read the letters to the editor in the weekend edition of USA Today. And while I am somewhat loathe to let USA Today set the tone of dialogue on south Louisiana's recovery, there can be no getting around the unanimity of views of the six letters published on this topic.

To summarize their words: We -- we being anyone who cheered for the Saints or greeted the Dome's reopening as a forward step in recovery -- are wrong.

The first part of Chris' take on those letters:

Let's start with this: If we did not open the Superdome for Saints games, presumably we could not then open it for the Bayou Classic, the Sugar Bowl, Tulane football, the state high school football championships, the Essence Music Festival, rock concerts, religious revivals, car shows, home and garden shows, or anything else that happens there in the course of a normal year and which generates massive spending, jobs and activity in the community.

No Super Bowls, no NCAA championships and no chance at the national political conventions. And, worst of all, no monster trucks.

And I'm guessing those opposed to repairing and renovating the Dome for $185 million wouldn't buy into the concept of building a new stadium from scratch for about five times that amount. And therefore the logical extension is that all of the above events be moved to Houston, Atlanta or somewhere else and Tulane can just play their games at Muss Bertolino Stadium in Kenner and this community can just muddle along without the perverse spectacle of "games" in a building that housed sorrow and despair.

The Saints? Send them to San Antonio. The Sugar Bowl? Please, don't trifle around while there is still garbage to be picked up.

And:

Prior to the levees breaking and the water pouring into the city, there were approximately 10,000 evacuees inside the Dome. After the flood waters rose and trapped a population across the region, 20,000 more were delivered to the Dome by air and boat and bus.

I ask you -- and those 20,000 people: Better to be at the Dome or trapped on your roof or in your attic for those four days?

The fact is, the Dome, for all its squalor and misery, saved lives. It wasn't Abu Ghraib. The toilets didn't flush and there was no cold drinking water and not enough medicine, but toilets didn't flush anywhere and there was no ice or medicine anywhere and it's crazy to think that only folks who were at the Dome or the Convention Center have a lock on the misery that befell the Gulf Coast in early September 2005.

And this:

Why are we having this discussion still? Why are people from other places spending so much effort to tell us that, as a community, we are wrong, misguided, amoral and racist? Why are they making things up?

I mean, I can't really fathom how to craft a sensible response to a black man from Omaha who was offended by the appearance of U2. I mean, is this really an issue?

No African-Americans on the Saints roster or in Southern University's band or in the attendant media or Dome employees or security staffs or Irma Thomas or Allen Toussaint or the first responders who were honored or African-American season-ticket holders chose to boycott the game and maybe that's because they don't get it.

If there weren't thousands and thousands of black folks in the seats Monday night, then I am blind. And it might be worth noting -- just because I'm feeling ornery -- that when you incorporate surrounding parishes and trace a map from southern Mississippi up through central Louisiana, the demographic makeup of the Saints potential fan base is not an African-American majority.

In fact, it's not even close -- but acknowledging this would weaken the demagogic arguments of outsiders who keep hammering home just what a cesspool of humanity we've turned out to be here in south Louisiana. Human dreck. Unworthy.

Let me ask you something, Omaha: If you get your ass kicked by a tornado, are you going to tell the College World Series to permanently relocate somewhere else so you can get your priorities in order?

I hope this encourages you to read the column in full.

I didn't post yesterday

2006-10-25T09:00:00.000-05:00

Did you miss me?

The Bush

2006-10-25T08:51:00.000-05:00

President George W. Bush, who once talked about "the Internets," said this week he sometimes uses "the Google."

The Google.

From the transcript at Think Progress:

HOST: I’m curious, have you ever googled anybody? Do you use Google?

BUSH: Occasionally. One of the things I’ve used on the Google is to pull up maps. It’s very interesting to see — I’ve forgot the name of the program — but you get the satellite, and you can — like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It remind me of where I wanna be sometimes.

I don't think the transcript is 100 percent precise -- I think he said "where you get the satellite" and "It'll remind me" -- but he clearly said "the Google." You can watch the video at the link above.

So many jokes, so little time.

Do yourself a favor

2006-10-23T19:58:00.000-05:00

Read this column by Chris Rose in The Times-Picayune, the daily newspaper in New Orleans. Trust me: It's worth the effort to register to read this one.

Rose overcame a depression that gripped him fiercely in the months after Hurricane Katrina. This is his story.

There are variations of his story all over the Gulf South, and not all of them end with a smile. Do yourself a favor and read his compelling first-person account of falling down "the rabbit hole" and living to tell about it.

Buck Naked

2006-10-23T19:27:00.000-05:00

That got your attention, I'll bet.

So, here's a fun little story that will illustrate how worldly and sophisticated I am not. Tonight after work I went to a health-food store in search of a supplement my doctor wants me to try. The young lady behind the counter was busy speaking with a customer, so I searched in vain until I decided to head to the opposite corner of the store to grab some bottled water. As I was reaching into the cooler, I heard, "So, how is everything? How've you been?" I turned around to discover the young lady was talking to me.

Fine, I said, and headed to the counter. I was taken aback by her friendliness. She spoke as if she knew me. She asked if I needed anything else (does this read like a Penthouse Forum letter so far?), and I asked if she had the supplement. She said yes and quickly fetched it for me.

I asked how long she'd worked there. When she said four months, I told her I hadn't shopped there in years, but I said she looked very familiar.

"I'm secretly a porn star," she said with a straight face.

After my face turned a deep crimson, she laughed and said she was joking.

Later I thought of the "Seinfeld" episode in which George attempted to extricate himself from a relationship by pretending he was secretly a porn star named Buck Naked. For the record, the young lady behind the counter has a much better shot than our comic foil Costanza.

Also for the record, she was the second young lady in an hour to make me blush. A young woman who said she was from Israel stopped me in a mall and grabbed me by the hand and led me to a kiosk where she washed and scrubbed my hands, made them smell nice, healing them with Dead Sea this-and-that, then tried to sell me the products. Her sales technique was pretty good: I blushed from the hand-to-hand contact and the coy invasion of my personal space, but sadly for her, I didn't buy anything. I asked for a card, in case I change my mind during the holiday shopping season, but she had no card and scribbled her name -- and the promise of a 20 percent discount -- on a scrap of paper.

One more thing: Does it make it a funnier post that the supplement I bought -- and was looking for at the mall before heading across town to the health-food store -- is supposed to help boost testosterone levels?

Busy day

2006-10-23T07:33:00.000-05:00

Don't expect much from me today. There is so much to do.

Work. Pay a bill or two. Write a letter or two. Run an errand. I might have to schedule a time for daydreaming instead of letting it happen naturally.

So, let me repeat: Don't expect much from me today.

Based on the number of daily hits and comments, I expect the world to survive it.

It's time I admitted something

2006-10-22T12:54:00.000-05:00

I love "Ishtar." There, I said it. Wanna make something of it?

There are two other people I know who like it: my ex-wife, and Tim. Somehow, I think, we were able to take it on its own terms and enjoy it for what it is.

What is it? I don't know, exactly, but it makes me laugh.

Charles Grodin doesn't hit a wrong note in the film. The rest of the supporting cast is on the mark. The original compositions are hysterically funny for their badness.

Most people can't get past trying to imagine Warren Beatty as a loser who can't catch a break or a woman. Some I know say Dustin Hoffman and Beatty simply have too much star power for the schmuck roles in "Ishtar." Get over it, I say.

One of my favorite scenes is when Hoffman and Beatty compose their signature song.

"Tellin' the truth ... is a ... bitter herb."

No, no, no.

"Tellin' the truth ... is a ... bad ... idea."

No, that's not it.

"Tellin' the truth is a dangerous business."

Yeah. But ...

Hoffman: "Why?"

The final version of the song is great. Come on, sing along. You know the words.

"Tellin' the truth can be dangerous business.
Honest and popular don't go hand in hand.
If you admit you can play the accordion
No one will hire you in a rock and roll band."

Maybe I could get a government grant

2006-10-21T12:28:00.000-05:00

My life seems more interesting and less random to me when I think of it as performance art.

Thug U(pdate)

2006-10-21T12:25:00.000-05:00

Mike Bianchi checks in. Not a lot of love for Donna Shalala. Not another bash-Coker column.

Mike's usually an entertaining read. This one doesn't disappoint.

Is that all there is?

2006-10-21T10:37:00.000-05:00

When I was a boy, my dad would sometimes take me with him to the neighborhood bar. It had a name, but we called it Mr. Henry's. I remember later realizing my mom and dad used that name, not the name of the bar, if the subject came up in public.

You know, because ... people might jump to conclusions about why my dad seemed to be at The Neighborhood Bar a lot.

Not until a few years after my dad died of lung cancer could my sisters and I admit to each other -- and discuss with my mom -- that he was an alcoholic. My sisters said he was Norm from "Cheers" long before Sam Malone poured his first beer. Years after that, a therapist told me my dad had the classic signs of being a maintenance drinker, but that's a story for another day.

The cast of characters at Mr. Henry's would make for a wonderful movie, but that's yet another story for another day. Today I'm remembering the rare times some of them danced in the tiny space between the bar and the front door, and the only song I remember from those nights. Whether it played on a jukebox or radio, I can't recall.

"Is That All There Is?" by Peggy Lee

It's funny how I almost started this sentence with "I remember when ..." and then realized that's how the song begins, with Peggy Lee speaking:

I remember when I was a very little girl, our house caught on fire.
I'll never forget the look on my father's face as he gathered me up
in his arms and raced through the burning building out to the pavement.
I stood there shivering in my pajamas and watched the whole world go up in flames.
And when it was all over I said to myself, "Is that all there is to a fire?"

The ensuing chorus is more familiar to me:

Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is

What I don't remember is how old I was when I heard the song and watched my dad's friends dancing to it at Mr. Henry's (probably around 9 or 10), but the lyrics stayed with me for years.

SPOKEN:
And when I was 12 years old, my father took me to a circus, the greatest show on earth.
There were clowns and elephants and dancing bears.
And a beautiful lady in pink tights flew high above our heads.
And so I sat there watching the marvelous spectacle.
I had the feeling that something was missing.
I don't know what, but when it was over,
I said to myself, "is that all there is to a circus?"

SUNG:
Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is

SPOKEN:
Then I fell in love, head over heels in love, with the most wonderful boy in the world.
We would take long walks by the river or just sit for hours gazing into each other's eyes.
We were so very much in love.
Then one day he went away and I thought I'd die, but I didn't,
and when I didn't I said to myself, "is that all there is to love?"

SUNG:
Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing

SPOKEN:
I know what you must be saying to yourselves,
if that's the way she feels about it why doesn't she just end it all?
Oh, no, not me. I'm in no hurry for that final disappointment,
for I know just as well as I'm standing here talking to you,
when that final moment comes and I'm breathing my lst breath, I'll be saying to myself

SUNG:
Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is

Source: search.able2know.com

I hadn't thought about that song in years, but a few days ago I heard Bette Midler sing it on "Higher Ground," a CD from the Katrina benefit concert of the same name. Her voice, at least in this version, is more joyful, more optimistic than I recall of Peggy Lee's in the original. The Divine Miss M's rendition doesn't conjure up the same melancholy and infinite sadness of the version I first heard at Mr. Henry's decades ago. Then again, I am a grown man, not the scared, confused boy afraid of death I was in those distant days.

I mean, I never feel like something is missing, never ask if that's all there is. Never. Ever. No, not me.

But anyway, that's all there is to this post.

Thug U

2006-10-20T09:47:00.000-05:00

Two of the more interesting debates in the wake of the fight between football players of the University of Miami and Florida International University regard perceptions. Is Miami, known for the "U" on its helmets, unfairly labeled Thug U? Is "thug" a code word, a racist word?

Columnists in Miami and other parts of south Florida have differing opinions. UM graduate Michelle Kaufman defends her alma mater in The Miami Herald and rips the national media for portraying the Hurricanes as criminals and linking them to an "outdated" image for the U's football program. I suspect she would not be happy with columns today from Rick Telander of the Chicago Sun-Times and Oregon professor Jim Sprow, writing for The Chicago Sports Review. Edwin Pope of The Miami Herald strikes a different tone than Kaufman.

The Hurricanes have a history of embracing thug-like imagery that dates to the 1980s, spans the '90s and in this decade isn't limited to the fight with FIU. The Miami supporters seem to be suggesting you can't take the actions of a small percentage of the team and paint the entire program and university with a broad brush that says "thugs." Sorry, but if you find similarly inappropriate behavior in three consecutive decades of football games at the U, isn't it fair to suggest there is a pattern of behavior at the U? The players who embarrassed the university in the 1980s weren't the same players who embarrassed the school in the early 1990s, and they weren't the same as those who brawled with LSU players after the 2005 Peach Bowl, and they weren't all the same as those who fought with FIU last weekend.

What did they have in common? They wore the U of Miami on their helmets and played for the University of Miami. It's not unfair to suggest leadership is in denial about the problems at Thug U.

Now, is "thug" a code word that implicates its user as racist? Scan the titles of music CDs and you'll find rappers embrace the word. Perhaps it is a reaction to being so labeled, a means of making the word their own and giving it the meaning of their choosing. A badge of honor, much like the use of the term "nigga" within the black community, or the word "bitch" among women. Don't fight the term -- claim it on your own terms. That type of thing.

I can't say what goes on inside the head of a person who uses the word "thug" to describe anyone, but Merriam-Webster Online defines it as "a brutal ruffian or assassin" and links it to the terms "gangster" and "tough." Find the lyrics to rap songs recorded by Miami football players (and those at other schools) and you'll find a willing identification with the gangster image. I suspect most thoughtful people would use the word "thug" equally for white and black, but I don't claim to know for sure.

Someone I know suggested "goon" as a better substitute, but in the Deep South that sounds too much like another racial epithet. I have no ending for this post, except to say I don't expect Larry Coker to remain the football coach at Miami much longer.

The Remains of the Day

2006-10-19T18:07:00.000-05:00

That's where (and when?) I find myself. That's what I find myself watching, again.

An exceedingly sad movie, beautifully told. Even the most quiet dignity contains at times achingly haunting and silent screams -- of unrequited love or unfulfilled promise, or perhaps unbearable pain. Sometimes it is all three, and at other times ... well, who's to say?

You know what I am doing, Miss Kenton? I am placing my mind elsewhere while you chatter away.

And after Mr. Stevens informs Miss Kenton he is too busy to leave his duties to see about his father, the news of whose death Miss Kenton has just reported to him:

In that case, would you permit me to close his eyes?

I would be most grateful, Miss Kenton.

And yes, for the more literate of you out there, I know it's also a swell novel.

I enjoyed last night

2006-10-19T08:42:00.000-05:00

Even though I was sick. Was it good for you too? Feel free to comment. If you don't, I'll take it as a no.

Loud bang

2006-10-18T17:57:00.000-05:00

At 5:45 p.m. I heard a loud bang, an American Movie Classics gun-shot sound outside my apartment door. The first thing I did was write down the time. A cautious minute later, there was nothing but rain and humidity (yes, here we can have rain and a separate sense of humidity at the same time) at the scene of the ... what? So, it's a mystery. I love a good mystery.

Many years ago, while doing some free-lance work in a home office near a golf course in my hometown, I felt the house shake and heard a rumble for a few seconds. Recalling there had been a rare earthquake in our region a few years earlier, I wrote down the time as a reference point, just in case I'd hear something later. The guy I was working for, who also noticed the brief disturbance, said, "I guess you're a real reporter."

A real reporter would have made some calls right away. Instead, I finished my work and went home for a few hours before showing up at my real job. The first thing I did was ask the other reporters if they'd felt anything that morning. No one had. Scanning the AP wire, I was about to give up when I came across a short story about the United States resuming underground nuclear testing that morning after a moratorium of a duration I can't recall. The time of the underground test far below ground level in Arizona, adjusted to our time zone, matched that of the little quake we'd felt that morning at Dave's house. Coincidence? I'll never know.

I'm certain of this: The bang I heard 12 minutes ago had nothing to do with nuclear bombs. So, what was it? I'll probably never know, but that's OK. I love a good mystery.

I'm sick today

2006-10-18T12:37:00.000-05:00

Talk amongst yourselves.

Fall was nice while it lasted

2006-10-17T03:47:00.000-05:00

Today: Isolated thunderstorms during the morning hours, then skies turning partly cloudy during the afternoon. Hot and humid. High near 90F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%.

(source: Weather.com)

I guess there is always the chance Weather.com is wrong, or that I am simply dreaming that I woke up at 3 a.m., couldn't get back to sleep and found this most disturbing forecast.

Something clicks into place in my head

2006-10-16T10:27:00.000-05:00

Mimi Rogers has been my most constant hopeless crush of the last two decades. The rest of the top 10 changes, sometimes from hour to hour, but Mimi is always No. 1.

Well, that's not entirely true.

She tops the list of unattainable-celebrity crushes. A dear friend tops the list of unattainable-real-girl crushes.

I met her eight years ago when we became coworkers. She's two states away now, but we still see each other a couple of times a year and stay in touch with almost-daily e-mails and the occasional phone call. Mostly, we vent to each other and make each other laugh. She's sharp-witted and can turn a phrase like no one else I know.

Her life is in transition right now. When it comes right down to it, aren't all of our lives? But anyway, the last thing she needs is my hopeless crush getting in the way of her new path.

But I digress.

Sometimes I am painfully slow to figure out certain things. The last time I saw my friend, her eyes did a number on me, and I felt all the familiar tweaks and torture and tickles. And then I thought, I've seen those eyes so many times -- what seems so different to me today? What am I missing?

It bugged me until I couldn't let it bug me anymore.

So this morning I put on HBO while I'm catching up on my reading, and I see an old Mimi Rogers movie. And I look at her eyes. No, I look through them and see, on the other side, my friend's eyes that July afternoon, two states away. And I think, holy majoly, how come I never noticed that before?

Sure, I can hear the wet-finger psychology out there. Misplaced crush. Transferred crush. My friend is my up-close-and-personal Mimi.

Nah. Truth is, it's more than a crush. I love her, and I've told her. She was as gracious as a girl can be in those situations. I never got the I-love-you return, but she never made me feel like George Costanza in that regard (bonus: she's a big "Seinfeld" fan too). She's still the same girl I fell in crush with years ago and fell in love with a few months later, and I'm grateful for every second I share with her, and I realize the futility of wishing for more when I should be grateful for what I have. Besides, if one were to craft a strategy for winning her heart, it would not resemble the way I've shared all my foibles and flaws and insanity in the last year or so.

One more curious Mimi connection: I realized, after saying Mimi Rogers' first name out loud just now, that my friend's first name creates some sort of internal rhyme with Mimi's first name if they appear in the same sentence. Same number of syllables, and the second syllable of the two names are identical.

Holy majoly.

I hope if she stumbles upon this one day (she reads the blog now and again) she won't be too embarrassed. I'll stop short of making this a pathetic ode to my hopeless crush (is it too late? hmmm). That's another story for another place and time. But I had to tell someone about my Mimi discovery today. Weirdly comforting.

That is all. For now.

These Saints I (do not) recognize ... (headline revised)

2006-10-15T14:45:00.000-05:00

Big first-half lead, wild second-half collapse. I've seen this before.

FOURTH-QUARTER UPDATE: Saints make a play, and it's 24-24 now. I'm not letting them sucker me back into this game, though. Back to channel surfing.

LATE FOURTH-QUARTER UPDATE: Saints are marching. What they are really doing is teasing. Why am I watching?

TWO-MINUTE WARNING: Saints inside the Philadelphia 10, first-and-goal. They've got some nerve.

TIME-WARP UPDATE: Saints are going backward, on purpose. Take a knee, take a knee, let the clock run, call a timeout, line up for a short field goal attempt.

GAME OVER: Carney kicks a 31-yarder. Saints win 27-24. Subject header above updated to add parenthetical revision to the original.

Go, comma

2006-10-14T14:13:00.000-05:00

You're not as necessary as we once thought.

Watching college football, I think of all the wonderful grammar teachers I had and consider what they'd say about the signs sprinkled throughout the stadiums.

Go Dogs!
Go Vols!
Roll Tide!

My foggy brain can't always recite the name of the rule, but it certainly has the intent stamped hard somewhere inside it. If you're urging or commanding the Dogs to go, it should be: "Go, Dogs!" If you're likewise exhorting the Vols, it should be: "Go, Vols!" If you're encouraging someone to see America by bus, you might borrow from the ad campaign and say: "Go Greyhound!" But if you're rooting for a pack of dogs, it should be: "Go, Greyhounds!"

"Roll Tide?" That strikes the grammarian in me as a wish or command to see the Tide get rolled. You want Alabama to win? Then it should be: "Roll, Tide!"

Alas, the commma is the penny of English punctuation, the endangered species. In increasing numbers, people seem to find the comma unnecessary (this sentence is an example of one an editor friend of mine would change by removing my comma). That's not even considering chat-speak. I love the road-sign theory of punctuation: you have stop signs, yield signs, blinking caution lights and other pauses. We call them periods, commas, colons, semi-colons, ellipses and the like.

There are naughty implications, especially in song titles, if you omit certain punctuation. Think of the difference a proper comma would make for that early 1980s hit, "Come On Eileen." Gosh, I hope my teachers never see that (but I think they'd approve of the spirit behind the thought).

They'd probably be saddened to note that the missing comma in "Go Dogs" and "Go Vols" and "Roll Tide" is emblematic of a battle already lost. Trust me, I won't lose sleep over it, but the downsizing of the comma work force holds a hint of sadness for the part of me that slaved over sentences and diagrams in Mrs. Patin's class.

Now, excuse me while I get ready to Go Honda to see people chant "Geaux Tigers."

Echoes

2006-10-13T10:01:00.000-05:00

I was 12 when my dad was the age I am today. I remember wondering why he didn't seem as energetic as he'd been when I was younger.

Getting out of bed this morning, I had no trouble figuring it out. I informed my inner child. He sorta understood.

Convenient? For me, maybe

2006-10-12T11:49:00.000-05:00

Joe works the overnight shift at a nearby Circle K. When I lived in this neighborhood from 1999-2002, I met Joe after stopping in for a midnight snack or a roll of paper towels. He is the kind of cool I wouldn't mind being: uncomplicated, unaffected, rushing for nobody and yet in no way a slacker. He works two, maybe three jobs to make ends meet.

I lived in an apartment in another neighborhood, then moved back here in October 2004. The first time I stopped at the ol' Circle K after relocating, there was Joe, restocking between waves of customers.

This Circle K is in the crosshairs of a convergence of wildly different neighborhoods, a short walk from a highway exit fully capable of depositing drifters, across the street from an all-night bar no cop would care to investigate, and popular after midnight. I've seen people dancing in the parking lot to music playing on their car stereos. I've seen fights. I've seen people drive up and just sit in their cars, waiting ... for what?

I worry about Joe. Late-night crime documentaries are rife with security-camera video of convenience-store robberies and murders. This is the reason I prefer the term "overnight shift" to the more common version when I talk about Joe.

Often I wonder why anyone would want to work there. Then I realize Joe is probably like most in that he doesn't have many other options. Every time I hear about a robbery at a convenience store I suspect it's only a matter of time before this Circle K gets hit. Would Joe be one of the lucky ones and escape harm? Would his gentle, unflappable cool save him or make him more vulnerable?

Nothing I buy there is exceedingly essential to my life. Sometimes I marvel how Joe could be putting his life on the line on any night he goes behind the counter, and I don't take for granted that he is there when I walk in to buy something I don't need or something that could usually wait until morning. It's a strange feeling Joe could be harmed for a fistful of money that could include my contribution.

Maybe there is just something morbid about my mind late at night, but each time I leave the store I think about Joe's position and wish him well, and I hope I see him again next time.

It's all A's so far for the Tigers in the ALCS

2006-10-11T22:24:00.000-05:00

Last Oakland A's update of the night: Yes, I know they trail Detroit 2-0 in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series. I still like them.

I also like the Tigers. Their ALCS report card looks pretty good right now. I recently became acquainted with a friend of one of Detroit's execs, so that's cool.

Anyway, Jim Leyland's magic touch, as the Fox crew called it, is up 2-0 on Moneyball.

The Big Hurt, the tiny swing

2006-10-11T21:04:00.000-05:00

A's update: I'm quite certain they're not paying Frank Thomas to swing meekly at pitches outside the strike zone and pull them for a feeble force-out at third base with two runners on base and two outs.

Random thoughts

2006-10-11T20:11:00.000-05:00

~ The Oakland A's have my support. I don't follow Major League Baseball like I used to, but since reading "Moneyball" I've become a fan of Billy Beane and the A's. No, I don't think a championship would necessarily be a vindication of "Moneyball" nor mean the death knell for traditional scouting techniques, but I appreciate someone who shakes things up, who challenges the norms, who looks for underexplored angles.

Most of Beane's critics focus on the "ball" half of the title and forget about the "Money." If you have unlimited funds for your player payroll, you probably don't need to find some other kind of edge over the long haul. If your owner says "Win with less money," then you've got to search for undervalued players, and that's precisely what Beane did. It's not a perfect system, and there are things about it I don't like, but I love the way it pricked a lot of egos of a lot of so-called experts. I love how Beane's approach first had little use for good defensive players, but when other teams followed his lead and began paying more money for players with good on-base percentages, defensive skill became undervalued, so Beane began looking more often for gloves. Etc., etc.

And I'm not forgetting the contributions of the likes of Bill James, the SABR folks and many others who were integral pieces of the puzzle.

~ The death of Cory Lidle and another person on his small plane today in New York was sad news and brought back memories of Thurman Munson's plane crash in 1979. I'm going to need some time for any further perspective.

~ Fall weather is finally here in the Deep South. A prediction: In a week, it will be 88 degrees again and humid.

~ I thought "30 Rock" was kinda clever. Not a big fan of the way it's packaged. Clutter where there shouldn't be clutter. I'm going to have to see more episodes. I'm guessing we'll see tweaks.

~ It sure seemed like Fox cut to Lou Piniella just now for some insight just as he might have been finishing the last bite of a hot dog.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

2006-10-10T08:43:00.000-05:00

Friends keep waiting for the show within the show to show signs of being funny. After all, it's a show about a comedy show. One friend, while being an Aaron Sorkin fan, nonetheless is tiring of what she sees as his tendency to write as if he were saying, "Check out the big brain on me."

I wish I weren't so busy these days that I could really sink my teeth into "Studio 60" and render an insightful analysis. Still, I recall being equally distracted during my first few viewings of "The West Wing" but coming away much more eager to see the next episode, knowing I had just seen compelling television. Short of the opening to the premiere episode, "Studio 60" has yet to deliver that feeling to me on a regular basis. Perhaps it's because the context -- writing sketch comedy -- doesn't have the gravity of behind-the-scenes White House functioning.

The plagiarism angle last night drew me in, but as one friend said this morning, it felt like a reach. But I'll keep watching. For years my friends and I have said we'd watch anything written by Sorkin. Is it possible he overheard those conversations?

On a related note, "30 Rock" premieres on NBC tomorrow at 8 -- 7 Central. The promo that aired during "Studio 60" was funnier than most of the bits on the sketch comedy show on Sorkin's show. But then again, I tend to give Tina Fey the benefit of the doubt for reasons too shallow to appear here.

UPDATE: I'm writing as I'm watching (DVD recorded last night), and I'm bemused by this twist: They credited the plagiarized sketch to the wrong guy.

FURTHER UPDATE: The right guy worked for them when he wrote it, so they own the material. Loud exhale.

FINAL UPDATE: The teaser for next week, when it showed Matthew Perry and Sarah Paulson possibly reconciling as love birds, felt strangely like an invitation to watch a "Very Special Episode" of "Friends."

It's fall

2006-10-09T08:06:00.000-05:00

So why doesn't it feel like it here in the Deep South? Caren celebrates the month of October (her favorite month, and mine) at Addled Writer and has been blessed with the arrival of cooler temperatures. When's my turn?

You know, they get everything up there in New York before we do: fashions, movies, trends and even autumn. It's a fact of life.

Come to think of it, we don't really have autumn. We have fall-like weather, but we don't ever have that explosion of autumn leaves. One of these days I'm going to move where there are four seasons.

Down here we have two: and they consist of one season plus two roughly equal parts of half a season. We have half a fall and half a spring, and the rest of the year it's freaking hot!

OK. Time to take a cool shower and get to work. If you have fall where you are, enjoy it.

It's the media's fault

2006-10-06T11:05:00.000-05:00

Perusing fan message boards of various college football programs this morning, I came upon a post from some guy wondering why women seem to like Matthew McConaughey. He's short, the guy pointed out, and others chimed in to say he has other flaws. Someone answered the original question: The media tells women McConaughey is handsome, and so they fall for him.

I always wondered how that worked. So indeed I do need a publicist.

More fun notes about the man who is all hype:

-- A popular drinking game would be to require everyone to take a swig each time they found a new variation of the spelling of McConaughey.
-- I worked with a guy who could be McConaughey's brother. If they ever make a movie about my former co-worker, Matthew must play him.
-- My favorite role of his remains his turn in "Dazed and Confused." Among the things I like about it is although I get older, he stays the same age.

Boswell hits another one out of the park

2006-10-05T08:10:00.000-05:00

I've always enjoyed Thomas Boswell's baseball columns. He all but predicted disaster for the Boston Red Sex in 1986, writing on the morning of Game 6 of the World Series that aging, gimpy first baseman Bill Buckner was a defensive liability and trouble waiting to happen. If you know baseball, you know what happened that night.

Today Boswell skewers the Los Angeles Dodgers for their inventive baserunning. Well done.

Found

2006-10-05T07:20:00.000-05:00

If there's a sequel, is that what they'll call it?

You'll probably have to read yesterday's post for that to make sense. Or maybe not. I'm sure, as was the case with qwertysomething, someone thought of it before me.

Lost

2006-10-04T21:19:00.000-05:00

A word that best describes me after seeing the first three minutes of tonight's episode of the show by the same name. Several friends are hooked on "Lost," including one for whom I captured tonight's installment on DVD, just in case she wouldn't get to see it.

Now I'm pissed I've never watched it before. It seems strange and quirky enough to hold my attention. Now I'm hooked, sorta, after three minutes.

And I'm pissed about that too. I'm a busy man.

Happy anniversary

2006-10-03T08:53:00.000-05:00

Published an investigative piece today (not here) that shook loose some memories. Twenty years ago today, my first investigative piece appeared in my hometown paper.

Like I always say, "If you don't want it printed, don't let it happen."

I discovered something

2006-10-02T21:53:00.000-05:00

I discovered I wasn't the first to discover or coin the word Qwertysomething. A curious Google today turned up several cases that predate the creation of my blog.

I'm not changing the name. Perhaps a more detailed investigation of Qwertysomethings everywhere will follow in the next few days. Tonight, I'm tired. Long work day.

Goodnight, and don't forget to defrag every now and then.

No stamp, no signature, nothing written ... but much love

2006-10-01T09:56:00.000-05:00

Today is my birthday, but this isn't about me. My mom died July 3 after a hard fight with lymphoma and other unsolved mysteries, and my sisters recently began the bittersweet task of going through her things and discovering forgotten souvenirs and curious keepsakes in her home. You will find one of them as you scroll.

My mom was a smart shopper. She bought on sale, bought with coupons and stretched a dollar near its breaking point. Today I am left to assume she also bought in bulk those things she knew she'd be buying down the road. One such example, apparently, is birthday cards. One of the discoveries my sister made upon closer inspection of my mother's living-room desk was, in a slotted organizer on the old-fashioned kind of desktop, a birthday card for a son. Because I have three sisters and no brother, we could assume the card was for me. She had to have bought it before April 9, the last day she saw her home before going to Houston for a fourth biopsy and further treatment. She never recovered from the complications of the biopsy, and she never came home.

The card below is sitting next to me, along with signed cards from family and friends. I am not sure how long I will keep it close, nor what I will do with it in a month, a year and beyond. Hang onto it? Of course. Sadly, I am not the pack rat my mother was. She saved everything, and her boxes of the greeting cards we sent her are the proof. I wish I'd saved the cards she sent me. I have only one now, and it's unsigned, with no signature and no usual birthday wish. My memory tells me had she lived to send it to me, she would have said something along the lines of, "Hope you have a great birthday. Hang in there and know that we love you. God Bless You!! Love, Mom."

My mother grew up in the Depression in a rural home with no indoor plumbing and, as hard as it is to imagine here in the Deep South, no air conditioning. She lived a harder life than I did, and her family didn't make a big deal out of birthdays when she was a young girl. When she married and had four children, she tried to make our birthdays special. She let us choose the kind of cake she'd bake, and when I modified the custom by asking if she could just make me her small but addictive oatmeal cookies, she was fine with that.

There's no doubt I will write more about my mother. Today I will let her birthday card for her only son speak for itself. It's a good way to remember her, because it's not elaborate, not expensive, not wildly funny or irreverent. It's to the point, and the point is she loved her son. It's sentimental, and thank goodness for that. Oh, she had a sense of humor, but birthdays to her were serious business. No messing around. Tell them you love them, and let them know you're glad they were born.

Here is the last birthday card she bought for me: no stamp, no signature, nothing written ... but much love. I have the rest of my life to read whatever I want to on the white spaces of the inside pages.

What's in a name?

2006-09-29T09:32:00.000-05:00

Qwertysomething is, I think, my invention. Qwerty is not. The q-w-e-r-t-y keyboard configuration, patented by Christopher Sholes in 1868 and purchased by Remington five years later, is so named because of the first six characters on the top row of letters on a standard typing keyboard (typewriter, word processor, computer). You probably have your hands on such a keyboard right now.

There is some debate as to whether Sholes chose this specific arrangement of letters intentionally to prevent rapid-fire typing, which on manual typewriters often caused the striking mechanisms of two or more letters to stick to each other. As some of you may recall, you then had to stop and separate them before you could proceed. There were other problems, and many think Sholes' keyboard layout is meant to slow you down.

Alternate keyboard arrangements exist. The world record for speed typing was set on a Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, designed by August Dvorak and William Dealey (patented in 1936). I'm fascinated by the notion of building a better mousetrap, keyboard division, yet coming to the realization that a world of typists trained to type on a Qwerty isn't eager to relearn typing with the letters arranged another way. Hey, where's the 'z' on this thing?! My friend Amy envisioned an independent film, perhaps starring Nicolas Cage, showing the tortured life of a Dvorak or Dealey or some other inventor, slaving away to save the world from inefficient keystrokes, only to discover after years of work that the world doesn't want to be saved. Ah, the f-r-u-s-t-r-a-t-i-o-n.

Some speculate hand-held devices, not necessarily best suited for Qwerty, should have configurations other than Qwerty. For all I know, some already do. The only hand-held device I use for writing is a reporter's notepad, unless you count the text-messaging on my company cell phone.

This is a rough, simplified take. There are fascinating stories and legends about keyboards, typing, Qwerty, Dvorak and much more. If you found this, I'm sure you can find them. To that store of information, I'll add this: A few years after learning to play guitar, I discovered a song, "The Last Time I Saw Home," by John Pell. It's an instrumental composition, and I wanted to learn to play it. In fact, a friend, Freddie, suggested the song was too hard for me to learn. I set out to prove him wrong, but I kept hitting a wall. I had the song on cassette tape and kept rewinding to the beginning. The song was featured on a concert album, and it was only after I rewound the tape a little bit more that I heard Pell playing with the tuning on the guitar, and I realized he changed the top two strings from open E and A to open D and G. Aha! I learned the song and played it for a disbelieving Freddie (and about 500 other people) one Sunday afternoon. That was my first experience with alternative guitar tunings.

Long before I'd heard of Dvorak (the keyboard configuration, not the classical music composer), long before I knew why Qwerty was Qwerty, I explained to someone how hard it was to play in a different tuning. I said, "It's like trying to type something after someone moves the letters around on the keyboard."

I learned about Qwerty a few years later, when computers replaced word processors as the fancy tool of college students. Qwerty was part of my first e-mail address (on AOL) and my first handle or nickname on a message board popular among journalists.

Closet "thirtysomething" fan that I am, I hit upon Qwertysomething as the name of this blog. To me, it just sounds better than Dvoraksomething.

The first cut is the deepest

2006-09-28T11:54:00.000-05:00

The first post will probably be the shortest.

Woke up, didn't put on clothes, didn't go to work. So there.