Yes, indeed I am once again dangerously late to the party. I really need to become reunemployed. But belated laughs are still laughs. Enjoy Ms. Morrisette’s rendition of the Black Eyed Peas classic.
[From Slumbering Lungfish.]
December 30, 2007
Indiana’s Whiffenpoof-equivalent riffs on “Twelve Days of Christmas.”
Repent your sins!
[From my father.]
December 28, 2007
This week in consumption.
This week I…
- …watched the best much-hyped unmusical unromance featuring an Irish busker/vacuum repairman and a Czech pianist/flower seller, a little film called Once, and enjoyed it immensely.
- …drank several glasses of Basil Hayden’s, and realized I’m not yet prepared to be a straightforward bourbon drinker.
- …continued struggling to get interested in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars.
- …ate a couple of helpings of figgy pudding.
- …listened, after a couple of years lull, to Nellie McKay‘s “Get Away From Me,” and was again disappointed.
- …began viewing the seventh and final season of “Gilmore Girls,” finding it much more satisfying than expected, given the negative impressions that had been communicated to me.
What have you consumed this week?
December 26, 2007
Figgy pudding.
To complete yesterday’s festivities, I decided to spend several hours concocting what turned out to be a relatively simple desert: figgy pudding. The foodstuff most known to modern Americans by its inclusion in “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” Figgy pudding is, so I’ve been told, a close cousin of Christmas pudding, and distant cousin of fruitcake. Happy Christmas indeed.
I used a recipe I found that didn’t call for very many exotic ingredients, and then fudged after two groceries failed to carry fresh figs, resorting to the canned variety instead. The result? Figgy pudding is essentially a well-baked cake. Similar to a rum cake. Worthwhile? I suppose. I’m not much of a cake person. Or a fig person. But as an experience, I’d consider repeating it. After all, I’m a big proponent of reviving quaint, meaningless traditions that have fallen on hard times.
December 25, 2007
Michael Bloomberg.
Having not lived in the New York metropolitan area for some time, I have not followed the career of Michael Bloomberg too closely. But he presents well in an interview in the latest issue of Wired. For example, he manages to articulate a rare statement of sense re tobacco consumption that doesn’t overstate facts:
“But if you’re trying to save money, it’s very different than if you’re trying to help the world. For example, you might think that you could say, ‘Hey, it’s great to pay people not to smoke, because if they smoke they’ll come down with tuberculosis and cancer and we’ll have to support them.’ It turns out the numbers are the reverse. People use so much more health care when they live longer.”
Ron Paul just lost my vote.
I was recently appointed to be the Republican Party’s precinct committee officer for the 215, a position I sought in part to try to get Ron Paul the nomination, or at least make a strong libertarian showing that may influence policy long term. I got nervous about Paul’s stance on abortion and sexual orientation. I got frustrated by Paul’s record in Congress with regard to earmarks (essentially, he’s fine with inserting them into bills, but won’t vote for them). The deal-breaker, though, is Paul’s anti-evolution position:
Now to scraping that damned sticker off my bumper and resigning from that irritating Meetup group.
[From The Carpetbagger Report.]
December 24, 2007
Check boxes ruined my Christmas Eve.
For the most part, the court-provided guilty plea forms, riddled with check boxes, save a great deal of time and effort. However a careless stray mark can have a lot of unintended consequences. Case in point:
Client charged with three counts of telephone harassment under three different cause numbers. In one case, the alleged victim managed to record my client making a number of statements on her home answering machine. I negotiated to have her plead to the one with the recordings, with the other two dismissed as part of the plea agreement. Good deal, right? Unfortunately, when I filled out the plea form, I wrote down the wrong cause number. And, more to the point, I uncharacteristically checked the box that incorporated the probable cause statement by reference. Usually I write out a statement that provides the barest of factual bases. Smart on a number of levels. But my laziness got the better of me, and rather than document the dozens of phone calls involved, I checked the box. Which meant when the judge went to find whether the plea had a factual basis, because I had written down the wrong cause number, she read the wrong probable cause statement. She understandably didn’t detect that anything was wrong.
Figured out the error after the pre-sentencing investigation had been completed and made reference to a different set of facts than expected. Tried to move to correct the “scrivener’s error.” No dice. Was told because the record clearly reflected a set of dates that only made sense with regard to the cause number used, not the cause number intended, it went beyond a mere scrivener’s error. Judge suggested as a remedy a withdraw of the guilty plea and a do-over. Set the motion hearing for New Year’s Eve.
After some thought and discussion with other attorneys, decided to withdraw as counsel. Didn’t want to prejudice the client with my inability to make a serious stab at an ineffective assistance of counsel argument. Judge, perhaps out of spite, scheduling a hearing on that motion for Christmas Eve. A day I had up to that point meticulously kept free.
Lesson: always write out a statement. For all the usual reasons, but also because it adds another layer of protection against scrivener’s errors. Larger lesson: use caution in the face of check boxes. Those dangerous little buggers.
December 21, 2007
Dream pear.
D is a lunch packer. My arteries, wallet, scheduling thank her. Typical lunches include a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, crackers, and fruit. The fruit of the moment are those supersoft pears that seem to accompany Christmastime. D packed a pear for each of us yesterday. I dangerously consumed mine apple-style while driving around Shelton. When D got home yesterday, she pulled her pear from her bag, bruised to all hell, unconsumed.
Usually, I do not remember my dreams. At all. But for some reason, I last night I had a dream that included a sequence involving a shifty bearded man attempting to sell me a pear. The pear he was trying to sell me was the same pear D had failed to consume yesterday. Any armchair psychologists want to take a stab at what what?
“On the day Dennis Franz’s lung collapsed…
…spring rain was misting down on Kingston.” This Mountain Goats lyric confused me greatly for quite some time. Had the former “NYPD Blue” star fallen to such sub-celebrity status that his death while vacationing in Jamaica was completely ignored by the glamor press? Did John Darnielle decide unexpectedly to eschew the whole autobiographical-realisim of The Sunset Tree‘s lyrics in the middle, only to pick it up again for the album closers “Love, Love, Love” and “Pale Green Things”?
As it turns out, the mystery was solved simply by looking at the song’s title, which is “Song for Dennis Brown.” I really need to get my hearing checked.
December 19, 2007
Garfield.
Hipsters cautiously embracing Garfield in a non-ironic manner? Qualified yes, as per Jesse Walker via Priya. Qualified, because the appreciation is limited to redacted strips.
I’m willing to go farther than the hipsters. I hereby champion Garfield, straight up. Partly because Garfield, with all its faults, actually manages to elicit a legitimate laugh now and then. And even when it doesn’t, it isn’t embarassing in its failure (see e.g. Marvin, Wizard of Id). But mostly because–and Roger should be able to back me up on this–Garfield once ran a strip in which a seedy sub-used-car-salesman-type asked Jon, “Hey buddy, wanna buy a bad suit?” To which Jon replied, “Sure!” Funniest comic ever.
p.s. Can anyone help me find this particular edition of Garfield? It would have run about five years ago in a weekday edition. If not, can someone with skills (I’m looking at you Levi) draw it for me? So that if it did not heretofore exist, it can exist for posterity. Thanks.