I got a timebomb in my mind, Mom

I stumbled across a rather apalling time capsule this morning at my mother's house, a fairly shoddy folder made from blue construction paper hand labeled "Dylan's best work." I gather from its contents my first grade teacher had me create it to hold the finest products of my genius when I was aged six and seven. While my true masterpiece remains lost to posterity, the contents provided an alternately insightful and confusing window into the man I became.

I first noted the folder was decorated in a Pac Man theme, the center dominated by three circles with missing wedge mouths. Apparently dissatisfied with Namco's art staff, I'd embellished them with poorly drawn hands and exquisitely well drawn feet that only the most unforgiving critic would fail to realize were clad in cowboy boots. Less clear cut were their hats. I'm certain they were supposed to be cowboy hats. I can't pretend they look like anything but sombreros.

I would guess the cowboy Pacmen's hands were at the ready to draw concealed handguns and defend themselves, because they were menaced on either flank by a ghost. And you could tell they were menacing because they had sharply angled eyebrows and jagged teeth in their mouths. This probably explains why I instinctively shoot every frowning homeless person and Englishman I see. But at least I never developed an adult fixation on any other computer games. That would have been sad.

Opening the folder, my perpetually unrequited frog prince romantic life was quickly explained. No fewer than three drawings labeled "tabpoles" were inside, with arrows purporting to show how they fit into the life cycle of my totem animal of the heart. The frog at the end of this process was suspiciously well drawn, but I couldn't see any lines underneath the quarter inch layer of green crayon, and I really doubt a commercial drawing would have included a pair of what I can only conclude are drooping breasts. Perhaps some things man was not meant to know.

More shocking than aged frogs deprived of sports bras was my response to an assignment requiring me to draw and label occurences that made me sad and happy. I can barely believe that "not getting a P.E. award" might have left me bereft, but I'm pretty damned certain the claim that receiving one would make me happy was entirely theoretical. There was one kid slower than me in grade school; I had my first school boy crush on her.

The most perfect and prophetic piece, however, was on a similar topic: what activity made me most happy. Needless to say, the illustrating pair of stick figures were brilliant. Indeed, after seeing the round head and shouting mouth on the shorter figure, I may have to sue Bill Watterson for ripping my artwork off. Not to be outdone, the taller stick figure's afro perfectly evoked my mom's horrid circa 1981 perm that made me run screaming from her when she came to pick me up at the sitter's house.

And the carefully written legend declaring my moment of pure happiness could easily be mistaken for my handwriting today, with a message equally timeless:

My favorite thing to do is yell at my mom to go get me ice cream.

My dimmest classmates no doubt would have enjoyed merely eating ice cream; the average ones, perhaps, more attuned to emotional rewards, might smile at receiving it from a loving provider. Cretins! Only a sophisticate like myself knew the real joy in life comes not from actually having or eating (let alone both!) your cake ice cream, but from demanding as loudly as possible that the wretched peasants bring it at once.

There may really be something in all those women who told me I should teach kindergarten or first grade.

No Mother

My quietly shameful moment of the weekend came Saturday while I was touring the home of my grandmother's chief crony for the first time. In the midst of mentally sneering at the overabundance of overwrought furniture for overaged women, I came across a hallway picture of her with a nice young man wearing the uniform of a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne and remembered her only son was killed in action during Operation Just Cause.

Later at dinner my sister managed, in a brief aside about the Iraq War, to say something in an incredibly callous tone about shipping some hypothetical person home in a box. The crony kept her pleasant smile, and I don't think my sister knows about her son anyway, so I refrained from kicking her under the table.

Really, that stand alone wardrobe wasn't so bad.

May the Schwartz be with you

Who the hell is Robert Schwartz? I'm starting to think I've identified the first artificial intelligence on the internet. He doesn't appear to have a blog of his own, but he's by far the most prolific commentor I come across, and I keep finding him on a simply absurd percentage of the blogs I read. For weeks now I've had repeated "wait, this one too?" moments. How many more is he reading that I don't?

Anyway, I'm going to try to find and track all of the instances of Mr. Skynet that I can.

The latest that pushed me over the edge at OPFOR.
One hundred and three and counting at Marginal Revolution.
A suspicious singleton at VC.
A few at Prawfsblawg.
One at Concurring Opinions.
Eighty-eight at Asymmetrical Information.
Thirty-five at Belmont Club.
One at Catallarchy.
A years old email at Crescat.
Sixty-six at Crooked Timber.
An occupying army at EconLog.
Four at Stay of Execution.
The same at Tigerhawk.

This is, of course, a limited sampling of his pervasive, sinister influence. I can't search Haloscan comments, and the really odd thing is all of the random sites I rarely read that he pops up on. And I thought Brett Bellmore needed a hobby...

Someone give these guys a blog of their own, or at least the password to Clearly Erroneous.

You just might get it

In seek [yes, you did need those Advil and that nap] search of entertainment, I emailed a friend asking if he wanted to go out tonight, or, if not, perhaps a movie. The response, from a late twenties attorney at a formerly respectable law firm:

Sure, you want to go see Stick It?

I knew from our escapade two weeks ago to the local young Indian professionals happy hour that he had strange taste in women, but I didn't realize it extended to ogling middle school girls in a movie theatre.

Aha! I just received another email confessing sarcasm before I could post this. Should I be embarassed for buying it, or he because I found this plausible? In my defense, I'm still traumatized by the time a friend made me go see The Pacifier.

Or forever hold your peace

A question for the married folks in the audience: did you (ladies) or your wife carefully audit the husband's proposed female wedding guest list for former flames, requited or not?

I ask because of last weekend's wedding. In a development that I should have predicted and feared, given the rather generous quantity of speechifying during the weekend, some of the less restrained bridesmaids decided they wanted to give some impromptu words of wisdom during the reception, and the MoC thought it polite to ask me if I had anything I wanted to add myself.

I said:

Well, Father, do you think it would be a good idea to recite an anecdote demonstrating the eternal bond of my friendship with K, wherein I eventually forgave him after he delivered the most callous and brutal cockblock of all time to me because his sister's slutty friend who I'd guess he'd had a crush on since grade school got loaded and leeched on to me, resulting in me making a 20 minute walk home alone at 4 a.m. because I'd lost both of my potential rides, two legged and four wheeled, due to poor tactical decisions?

Well, no, that's what I thought. What I really said was that I didn't have any "appropriate" stories or advice and I'd pass.

But in fact I'd recalled this incident at the rehearsal dinner for the first time since I blogged about it in somewhat elliptical fashion a couple of years ago, and asked K if she'd be in attendance. Nope, the wife-to-be had, he said, pretty vigorously reviewed and selectively purged all suggested distaff names he'd put forward for the guest list. Whether this meant my mistake that should have been was cut or never proffered I don't know, but I did find out from his sister the lady in question was upset she hadn't been invited.

I'll have to remember to be outraged when I'm not invited to Italian Girl's inevitable event that will destroy my will to live.

Addendum: Funny story...I had a running joke with the previous hopeless love of my life (that one, whose pic I posted from the high school reunion on the old blog) about how if she ever got engaged I'd show up at the wedding to protest if her ceremony included a "if anyone knows a reason why these two should not" line. She always cracked up at my acted out "NOOOOOOOOO..."

After a couple of years of this on the increasingly rare occasions we spoke, I saw for the only time a very funny commercial that made a play on this idea, and I decided to grow up. I immediately called her and told her it was now safe to invite me should she decide to get married, notwithstanding the fact she'd told me just two weeks previously that was probably a year or so away.

"Really, Dylan? Are you sure? Are you really, really sure?" "Yes, damnit, why...no!!!"

He'd proposed to her the night before. On my constantly updated list of The 100 Worst Days of My Life, that ranked #45. The wedding itself was #3. I skipped the reception as I was in no condition to attend. How I managed to drive straight for the over three hour trip home I'll never know.

I really, really won't be doing that again.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

Ugh. Watching (video warning) Matt Yglesias has entirely ruined the mental image I had in my mind. It's like if I'd read transcripts of all of Hitler's speeches and then seen him give one and realized he was just a short man with a silly mustache and (in an alternate universe) a squeaky voice. I was infuriated by that?

Ross Douthat's voice was 100% what I expected, but I'm extra glad I don't have a goatee now.

Addendum: To clarify, I doubt Yglesias threatens the top half of any derogatory category of blogger characteristics you'd imagine I might have been talking about. I just expected some subtle horns, maniacal laughter, and a Darth Vader voice.

Oh my god, they killed South Park!

I couldn't even finish watching last week's parody of James Frey. Boring topic, gratuitous yet uncreative crassness, and I never did see a previous "Towelie" episode. I was able to make it through last night's, hoping that a promising premise, Al Gore's crusade against global warming, would eventually find its way. It did not, failing to be either funny or insightful.
It wasn't a total loss, however. The right kinds of people were pissed off and entirely missed the (lamely made) point.

What are we going to do about Trey Parker and Matt Stone?

Tonight they continued their bizarre denial of climate science with an episode mocking Al Gore with the metaphor for global warning being the ex-VP fear-mongering about "man-bear-pig." Apparently Al Gore is now warning about global warning, as he did for years before his entrance onto the national political scene, because he craves attention. This is despite multiple commentators lamenting that he didn't bring up the issue during the damn election of 2000 instead focusing on the damn "lock box."

I've loved South Park for years with occasional blips when they've decided to be unnecessarily contrarian about things like global warming. These days I get the feeling that they are more interested in being contrarian than in using their show to satirize real problems.

Meh. To me, the point wasn't that ManBearPig didn't exist and was a fantasy threat of Al Gore's imagination to make him important and feel like a hero, it was that he was willing to drown four little boys to kill it. A better and more traditional episode would have revealed at the end that ManBearPig was or might be real (Skuzzlebutt, redux), and then Stan or Kyle would have concluded with a "gay little speech" on how even if it really is a threat, you shouldn't hysterically overreact and kill people (or destroy the economy) to stop it.

The best South Park espisodes are focused, sharp political/social commentary or revel in the horrid psychology of Eric Cartman. This one split the difference and fell flat.

Lucky ducklings

I don't know if I'm getting soft or the rest of the world a lot crazier, but I've been shocked twice in the last 24 hours by people espousing ideological positions I largely agree with.

First up was a minute of Carlos Mencia standup I caught on Comedy Central last night. For those not familiar with him, he's the poor man's Mexican Dave Chappelle. But while Chappelle specialized in saying things about blacks (the interpretation of which is subject to debate) that no white man could say, Mencia says things about every race that probably no one could say if they had enough talent to be taken seriously.

Last night's rant was a gleeful "conversation" about nukes with some imagined Ay-rab. My dick is bigger than yours, I had her first, glow-in-the-dark Japanese triumphalism, wow. Carlos, take it from me: if you're going to advocate the killing of tens of millions of people as a potentially necessary response to future events, at least show some class about it.


My second shock was reading my favorite pessimist, the Asia Times' Spengler. This week's entry: the best thing we can do with the urban poor is to dynamite their homes and drive them out to fend for themselves. Yes, but you don't say it like that!

The best thing the US could do for the poor people of its urban ghettos is to expel them. One does not do poor people a favor by concentrating them in government housing (or for that matter refugee camps) where they depend on the public dole. Given the incidental costs of major hurricanes, there probably are cheaper ways to accomplish this, eg, simply pay them to leave.

* * *

It was the great luck of the poor blacks of New Orleans that a great wind came along to carry them away from servitude to their political leaders. The Black Caucus of America's Congress keeps urban blacks as political hostages, much as the regimes of the Arab world have exploited Palestinian refugees, whom they refuse to take in, and expel when convenient.

Sigh.

Feelin' groovy

Mike of C&F is strangely surprised that Connecticut wants to know if bar applicants have ever been treated for depression. I'm surprised that according to the article only Colorado, Florida, Delaware, and Kentucky have this requirement.

As someone who has been treated for depression in the past and had that fact fuck up my job plans in a big and perhaps permanent way, I can't get too exercised by this. The bar disclosure requirements are already ridiculous and notably more stringent than, say, an application for a government security clearance. In fact, I believe the lack of a depression disclosure requirement is the only way in which the average bar examiner demands less than Uncle Sam.

In-famous is when you're more than famous

My most enjoyable conversation of the weekend was with the bridesmaid who is an organic farmer from Tulsa. (Really.) We're trying to make it the Portland of Oklahoma. Uh, good luck with that. Why not the Austin? Ugh. Austin's too Texas, and George Bush (the horror, the horror) used to live there. Damn those reactionary hippies, anyway.

I was especially delighted when she brought up the School formerly known as of the Americas, what has always struck me as one of the more bizarre bete noires of the American left. Yes, yes, lots of bad South American military leaders went there. But I expect to be a bad one with any authority you have to be a pretty competent officer, and isn't it likely that all of the best officers in South American militaries got sent to the SoA as a prestige training slot? There's undoubtedly a high correlation between white collar crooks and MBAs, CPAs, and JDs, but there's no causal relationship.

But maybe in this case there was. SOA Watch, among much other nonsense, does make the case that some of the training manuals in use during the height of the Reagan administration and central American communist insurgencies advocated some pretty unpleasant tactics. Which is good to know. Now rather than using the embarassing for both sides paranoid delusion rebuttal, I can just quote straight from the Guantanomo justifications play book. Round 2, should it occur, will be ever so much more fun.

Will she still love me tomorrow

The wedding was fine. As the only groomsman who was neither the best man nor a relative, my seating situation was a little awkward, and marked the second wedding in a row that I've been seated as far from the bar as possible without violating laws of space and time. This time I only walked the entire length of the floor while double fisting once, and the other champagne flute was for a lady whose name I never did catch.

My cat is eating the boutonniere right now, which avoids the very minor guilt I would have felt upon summarily throwing it away tomorrow. It's just a bonus that I also now know I'll always have girl who appreciates it when I give her roses.

She started off on Percodan and ended up with me

There are three kinds of sad bachelor party. By far the saddest is where those involved procure the services of a prostitute. Fairly sad are those where the poor idiot bachelor says he doesn't even want to go to a strip club. Somewhat sad are those who say they don't want to go to a strip club but can be convinced of the errors of their ways.

Tonight was just a little bit sad. Long time readers with sharp memories of the old blog will be disappointed to learn there was no repeat of the infamous "douchebag strippers" incident of two (three?) and a half years ago. But I do retain my supernatural nice guy vibe that leads incredibly hot women of questionable sexual morals and/or pasts to confide to me their life stories upon brief acquaintance. Envy me, Mystery Men.

I understand that the predictable hamfisted matchmaking attempt has coalesced in the form of some poor girl of allegedly raving right wing politcal views being seated next to me at the reception. This should be good.

Goggle

Personally, I think it was in bad taste for Google to pick today to celebrate the birth of a "famous" (I suppose to someone) European painter. I'm afraid Mr. Miró is rather overshadowed by a predecessor in the same field born on the same day.

And speaking of crimes against humanity, today is also the 30th birthday of the first girl I fell in love with long, long ago. Sigh.

Where do they all belong?

A friend suggested on Friday night, perhaps seriously, that I try eHarmony. I don't think I blogged about this at the time, but I did fill out their excrutiatingly long and involved application as sort of an experiment a couple of years ago.

It thought for a few seconds and informed me I was in the 20% or so of the population to whom they could not, for reasons unexplained, offer their services. Too picky? Too weird? Obviously mentally unstable and exposing the company to legal liability when I butcher and eat my first date? There's no way to say. If it hadn't taken over 30 minutes to complete I would have done it again with strategically different answers to try and figure out what the problem was, but instead I shed a solitary tear at the tragedy of it all and moved on.

Anyway, I was pleased to note another eHarmony pariah in the comments to Eugene Volokh's post on online dating.

I tried match.com and eHarmony and didn't have much luck. eHarmony told me I was way too picky and that they knew of no one on the planet who would put up with me.

As above, it's not at all clear that this is what's going on. It may be that a given response is too "picky," but it could also be actively irrational and contradictory, or your personal description may be, while honest, empirically known to be entirely unattractive to others looking for self identified traits.

My heart is stone and still it trembles

Who knew?

I'm Javert!
Though my personal integrity is admirable, I tend to see everything in absolutes, and I don't cope at all well with ambiguities or opposition. I should probably seek therapy for those obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Which Les Miserables Character Are You?

Via Positive Liberty.

Look upon my works

On second thought, I would like to claim a bit of hero worship for...myself. A lady friend who hadn't seen me in a few months did a double take on Tuesday and said I looked "buff," the same word my mom used a few weeks before, who hadn't seen me since Christmas. In all honesty, that's still quite a strech in absolute terms, but relative to my recent past - hell yeah.

Now to go scare some fish.

I still haven't found what I'm looking for

A brief and literally sophmoric Posner infatuation aside, I've never really understood the appeal of heros, role models, or even celebrities of any sort. I'd never be inspired to go see someone speak or perform because of who they are; I'm much more interested (or more often not) by the message.

So when it comes to attendance at the local World Affairs Council events, I tend to go listen to the sometimes justly unknown speakers on odd topics I don't already read about frequently. And when it came to learning that the Dallas chapter is sponsoring a speech by Bono, I had to laugh. Then I saw my local chapter is actually putting together an overnight road trip for those who want to skip work on that Friday and pay $150, and I nearly fell out of my chair.

Why would anyone want to do that? I just don't understand it. But if you'd like to donate a sawbuck a piece I'm willing to conduct some research.

In a way, each of us has an El Guapo to face. For some, shyness might be their El Guapo.

I'm tempted to go watch today's immigration march. Alas, without a replacement yet for my stolen digital camera, I'm not sure it would be worth it. I'm also having some difficulty deciding which items of clothing and assorted accessories would make me look most out of place.

Addendum: Oh, my red Che Reagan shirt, of course. But I think it's at the bottom of my laundry pile.

Declare, if thou hast understanding

The New York Times perpetrates one of the top five most aggravating sins of journalism:

Despite tight lips on Christie's executives, the secret was out within hours after J. M. W. Turner's "Giudecca, La Donna Della Salute and San Giorgio" sold to a mystery telephone bidder on Thursday for $35.8 million.

The buyer was Stephen A. Wynn, the Las Vegas casino owner and collector, confirmed two people familiar with the transaction, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of being accused of betraying confidences. Mr. Wynn did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment.

Oh, give me a fucking break. Is it really that hard to just honestly write in these sorts of leak situations, "speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of being known to have betrayed confidences and thereby losing their jobs, being blacklisted in the profession, and possibly facing civil/criminal liability"?

It's sort of cute in a pathetic way when they feed us this line of bullshit over national security leaks that in theory, at least, might serve some sort of grand public interest. Maintaining this cheap facade to protect the fictional dignity of art gossips serving voyeurs just makes me want to puke.

A gentleman never asks a lady her age

Megan McArdle notes an event at which she will be speaking. From the event bio:

Late twenties, female, 6' 2'', an undisclosed number of pounds. Brown hair, green eyes, pug nose and freckles. Rumored to look like an overgrown elf.

Education: Too much. BA from the University of Pennsylvania, Class of 1994, English Literature and Economics. MBA from the University of Chicago, Class of 2001, Economics and a number of other things.

I'm certainly not unwilling to believe she's both younger than I and graduated from college the same year I finished high school. But...I can think of a couple of other possible explanations, too. On the other hand, maybe libertarian blogging is just the new form of young prodigy social underdevelopment.

Hey, Marge, remember when we made out to this hymn? Part II

I'm very disappointed that Posner's organist employment decision missed the obvious Simpson's reference.

So far as his role as organist is concerned, his lawyer says that all Tomic did was play music. But there is no one way to play music. If Tomic played the organ with a rock and roll beat, or played excerpts from Jesus Christ Superstar at an Easter Mass he would be altering the religious experience of the parishioners. [. . .]

At argument Tomic’s lawyer astonished us by arguing that music has in itself no religious significance—its only religious significance is in its words. The implication is that it is a matter of indifference to the Church and its flock whether the words of the Gospel are set to Handel’s Messiah or to “Three Blind Mice.” That obviously is false. The religious music played at a wedding is not necessarily suitable for a funeral; and religious music written for Christmas is not necessarily suitable for Easter. Even Mozart had to struggle over what was suitable church music with his first patron, Archbishop Colloredo, whom the Mozart family called the “arch-booby.”

Via Tom Kirkendall.

(Part I)

They killed Technorati! You--bastards!!!

I think the person most deserving of a horrible, lingering death in the four millenia history of human malfeasance is the bright spark who thought Livejournal "blogs" should be searchable with Technorati. I have a suspicion it used to be possible to find fast, intelligent commentary on pop culture events. But since my brain just oozed from every orifice of my body, I can't really recall with any certainty.

Google blog search is grossly inferior in most ways. But thank god they don't give me access to this trash. Discerning judgment or crass protection of their own brain dead mass blogging platform? All I know is I'm willing to fellate the person responsible. This isn't about sex, Gary, it's about trust!

Addendum: My god, the pain - I hit refresh. I fucking dare each and every one of you to go Technorati search the name of a popular tv show you just saw and read the top ten results. Do this with a loaded handgun within reach, live to tell me about it, and I'll buy you a drink. Convince Instapundit to link to this post and you'll be responsible for tens of thousands of deaths or my bankruptcy. I know which outcome I'll bet my entirely secure fortune on.

Update: Google, you are dead to me.

Oh, I am the 7th degree imperial yo-yo master

From a conversation last night with the loveliest attendee at a World Affairs Council function:

You scare me. [beat] No, I mean it, you really scare me.

I wasn't really trying to hit on her; not only was she Indian and therefore presumptively unattainable, but she had a boyfriend tagging along nearby. Still, I note for future reference that it's probably best not to expand the horizons of such supposedly cosmopolitan women by demonstrating that there really are people who not only support the Iraqi War but think Bush is a total softy. I fear the poor dear will run screaming the next time someone offers her a $20 bill.

Her friend, however, was far more charitable.

Well, you are very unusual.

Lady, you have no idea.

If you look around the table and can't spot the sucker...

Of the half a dozen people who could be bothered to get up from their post-DST hangover and run before dawn yesterday morning, I knew one of them. He was the second most intense/scary/creepy guy in my 1L section. This morning the usual hundred or so people were out and about, and once again, one was from my 1L section. He was the third most intense/scary/creepy guy.

I used to be pretty sure who the #1 potential serial killer was. He must always be running half a lap behind me. He'd better be.

You guys cool it with the gay

I finally watched The 40-Year-Old Virgin this weekend. I am an unholy mix of Andy and David.

Checking up on Steve Carell's career, I was pleased to add to my trove of surprising voice work knowledge - Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell are, respectively, the voices of Ace and Gary, the Ambiguously Gay Duo. I guess I wasn't imagining that odd tension between the two in their infrequent Even Steven segments on the Daily Show.