So I have just started a Vitamin Water frenzy. One of their flavors is called "XXX" here is my question; how were they ever able to discuss the creation of this flavor over email without their company Spam filters picking up on it.

I am stealing from Slinger again the Friday 5.



1. I think the fine the Patriots got was reasonable. As a fan I have mixed reactions part of me loves the fact that BB and co, have such a win at all costs mentality, but part of what I loved about the Patriots was the Team focus, being introduced as a team at the first Super Bowl, the genius plays they made. The fact that Brady had touchdowns with like 13 receivers last year. This tarnishes that, and in a way it hurts the players because it's not their fault the coaches were trying to pull a fast one. Still when you love a team, you love a team. I still say in Bill we trust.

2. Something that I spend way too much time thinking about is how going to college in the early part of the 21st century is so different than going to college in the late part of the 20th century. Someday I might write a book about this.

3. When it comes down to it my musical tastes are really just a series of songs that I listen to way too much then grow tired of and move on to the next song.

4. I want this day to be over more than usual.

5. Have a good weekend.

4. Since my Bike/Hike with

I have no problem telling my readers embarrassing stories of my childhood, ineptitude with women when I was single and other random facts... So here is my deal. London. I work for a bank in NYC I have been here for three years, need to challenge myself. There is a good opportunity there. It's a little scary, but its also exciting. I have been to London three times before so I kind of know my way around, and I really like the city, after NEW YORK, Dublin, Prague and New Orleans, its probably my favorite city. For my Chicago readers I do like Chicago, but have only been there once really and I just didn't see enough of it to fully grasp it, but liked what I saw. Anyhow the blog will continue as I move over there and hopefully can share my version of what London is like in the 21st century.

5 things. Sorry life has been busy lately.

1. It looks like October 10thish. The Lake will be moving to London for career opportunities.
2. There are many reasons to love Bill Belichick but this has to make you love him more.

"At this point, we have not been notified of the league's ruling,"
Belichick said in a statement. "Although it remains a league matter, I want to
apologize to everyone who has been affected, most of all ownership, staff and
players. Following the league's decision, I will have further comment."

"Any questions about the Chargers?" he pleaded in his standard other-
things-to-do monotone. "Want to talk about the football game? If not, I think
that statement pretty much covers it."

3. TBS has started showing the office at night. If you have never seen it now would be a good time to get started.

4. On a weirdly sombre note, yesterday was 6 years. That day and the after effects will forever have a profound impact on my life, but yesterday instead of feeling sad and wanting to dwell in the pain, I really wanted to get on with living. For that I feel a smudge guilty, but moreso I feel like I felt in late October of 2001 when I stood in a bar in Kansas talking to the cutest Kansan since Toto, that you can be respectful and acknowledge the impact of something, but there comes a time when you need to move on. I am not saying now is the time for everyone, but yesterday I felt it was the time for me.

5. My cell phone is about to die. Please let it last one more month.

So in an attempt to prove that my legs are not vestigial appendenges on Saturday the Dump and I went on a little adventure. 23 miles by bike and 17 miles by foot. It took us way too long, but that was due to a flat tire that turned into an episode of Macgyver and guaranteed good earnings for Target in the third quarter. The dump is a good friend, but I think by the end of it, we had either grown tired of walking, ourselves or each other. There are only so many times jokes can be repeated (especially about Larry Craig and Maria Sharapova) without the aid of beer before they become unfunny. Either way, I slept 12 hours on Saturday night and then woke up and felt pretty okay. The thing that has suprised me on all of these things is no blisters. My guess is that it has to do with the uniformity of the pavement and the overall slope of the walk, but still 17 miles walking and just some tight thighs and a sunburn, makes me think again about one day hiking the Appalachian Trail or starting a Forest Gump like cult. I am kidding of course, because next Sunday starts football seasons where you sleep until twelve and then spend 16 hours in front of the TV wondering if the third string wide reciever from the Vikings has more than fifty yards...

Appalachian State University is HOT HOT HOT

Great Game against Michigan

Today is free Ice Cream day in the lobby of our building. It is so much like Pretzel day on the Office that I can't even stand it.

I often joke to friends that I think in either Bullet points or analogies. That is not exactly true, because I can also think in Venn Diagrams, or more generally in graphical terms. This site absolutely is fascinating for that aspect of my brain. I like it so much I am immediately adding it to my links.

Another Sports Jersey that always garners respect: Charles Barkley Suns Jersey.

One thing that bothers me is hypocricy. And yet I fully admit that I am a hypocrit. Think about that one for a few minutes.

All I know is that in the history of the world, there has never been a man with a wide enough bathroom stance that his foot goes over far enough in the stall that it touches another man.

TS Eliot said that April is the Cruelest Month.
The Lake says that August is the Laziest Month.

A few Odds and Ends to tied you over until I can get motivated to post more frequently.

1. I always garner immediate respect for someone wearing a Walter Payton jersey, even if they are homeless.
2. Superbad, is phenomenal, there is so much in those characters that are me, my friends and my brothers. If you have ever been around a cute girl and been not just awkward, but if awkwardness was a Natural Disaster you would be both Hurricane Katrina and the Johnstown Floods tied up into one that would be you, this movie will ring true, and again with so much heart.
3. If you have an extra 99 cents on your I-tunes giftcard, you would not be disappointed to pick up Whiskeytown's Lo-Fi Tennessee Mountain Angel. Its one of those simple alt-country songs that someday when I make a movie will be used in a montage about the beautiful girl that the hero is somehow lucky enough to be incredibly in love with and incredibly frustrated with at the same time.
4. You know you are getting old when your Golden Tee skills start to deteriorate.
5. One of my favorite lines from Anchorman. Ron is reading from the Teleprompter, I'm Ron Burgundy? and he reads it as if it is a question.
6. Yesterday this was an actual email I sent out encouraging some of my team members to go to a training session this morning. I hate myself. I would strongly consider going to this tomorrow. The end game will probably mean that New System is a bigger portion of our lives and its never too early to be in on the game.
7. The field and I are now owners of a car. That makes me feel more old than turning 31.
8. In a perfect world I would be a game show host.
9. When I was kid my dream was to dig a hole to China.
10. You know what is interesting, when I was around 12-13 I thought being a Ranger would be the coolest job on the planet. Over my 31 years I have met probably 10 rangers or so and except for one that was an Army ranger, none of them are knocking on Fonzies door.

I was thinking today about Graffiti. Graffiti like tattoos are things that don't naturally belong where they are but people put there to express themselves. As previously posted I do a lot of walking and biking in the area where I live. All told I probably cover a 20 square mile area on a semi-regular basis. Since the area is primarily urban with many overpasses, trestles and other graffiti conducive surfaces, I get to see a lot of graffiti. One particular tagger, if that is the proper term, I am intrigued by because he just tags every thing "ALOT". His work, and I assuming it is a male, is seen over most of the area I believe I cover, which means that he goes to some effort, or he owns a car, to put his message up. I have four theories as to what ALOT means?


1. His name is AL OT, but that would be obvious to people in town who know Al.

2. He is being very literal in his graffiti. He tags a lot of things so he posts what he does.

3. He is describing where he is tagging much of the time. In a Lot.

4. He has some motive that I cannot identify (which I know is just a lazy way of me saying I only have 3 theories, but...)

Merv Griffin was probably a Genius for many reasons. Number 1045 hasn't been mentioned yet by many. Inspiring the Merv Griffin episode of Seinfeld.

Oh look its our good friend, Jerry Seinfeld.

RIP.

I was thinking this morning about how the male mind works, and how things that we don't find attractive on everyone, become attractive qualities when we are attracted to someone. This was spawned by me getting up and going to the bathroom and coming back planning on at least a few more minutes in bed, but the field had already made the bed and put those dreams to sleep. Here are some more not really attractive, but in the moment become attractive qualities from my past.

1. Bad Handwriting
2. Wearing a Calculator Watch
3. One too many Tattoos.
4. A slight drinking problem
5. Psychology Major
6. Two different colored eyes
7. From Ohio
8. Big Ska fan
9. Collects Flip-Flops
10. Is working as a Waitress in Hooters.

I love lists.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/3AmandaMurphy.html

6 topics I would cover if I wanted to be a hack stand up comic today.

1. Cell Phone Ringtones
2. Then segue into people who use Bluetooth
3. Then transition into the pointlessness of taking your shoes off at the airport
4. Then I would discuss reality TV
5. Then I would compare and contrast President Bush to Gilligan from Giligan's Island (including impressions of Alan Hale and Jim Backus)
6. Then I would talk about Hilary Clinton.

From Peter King:



This is as perfect a quote summing up the Bill Belichick approach to a season as you can read -- no matter how maddeningly boring it is. After the first practice of camp the other day, Belichick was asked about his expectations of the team this year.
"I think right now what we're trying to do," he said, "is correct the mistakes from this morning and go in and have a meeting and put in the stuff that we have scheduled to go in this afternoon and try to go out and have a good practice this afternoon and that's really where we are. It's one practice after another. It's putting one foot in front of the other. We're just day-to-day right now. There's no light at the end of the tunnel. We have a long way to go and a lot of work to do and I'm not really worried about anything down the road or a month from now or two months from now or any other team in the league right now. I think we just have to work and get better each day and there are so many things that we have to work on that that is where our concentration is.''

Tom Snyder died. I wanted to write a little bit of a personal rememberence of him. Snyder had the show after Letterman for most of the time I was in college. My friend, number 13 and I would joke that we were the only people in that part of Rhode Island watching. But here are three memories of Tom, that proved even then what a Genius he was.

1. Charlie Sheen had just finished his rehab stint, this was probably 95, 96. Snyder has him on to promote his comeback movie. But Snyder doesn't softball him questions about how good he feels now that he is Sober, or what it was like to go back to work. My memory is hazy but three of the questions I remember him asking that made for phenomenal TV were:

1. So what is different about having sex on Coke?
2. Does sex feel different when it's with a prostitute?
3. What do you do after you are finished with a prostitute do you have a
conversation?

And since it was live, there was nothing for Sheen to do but take it and answer.
2. Tom would always start his show with a story. One of my favorites was he once did five minutes on buying gas in Beverly Hills. Moreso than Garrison Keillior or Spalding Gray, or even one of my Hero's Eric Bogosian, if someone wanted to be a storyteller I would have them watch a few hours of those opening stories. He had no studio audience, he would laugh with the stage managers, he would read email forwards. It was compelling televison in a way that we may never see again.
3. Tom would refer to things as short-hand, and in a way when I refer to the field as the field, it is an honor to him, who refered to his lady friend as the companion.

So when I heard the news this morning I was sad, but I know somewhere Tom is having a Colortini with his Dogs and his mother.

I am blatantly stealing from Slinger. The Friday Five. (Although with the understanding that I just know that he uses the title, and I am not sure if the Friday Five refers only to Music, but it will in this case).
5 Songs that have been ruminating in my mind for the last few days.

1. Radio Cure - Wilco. When it comes to forming opinions I usually stick to my guns. If I like something I will always like it, and if I don't like it, I won't. When Yankee Hotel Foxtrot came out, all my musically in friends were talking about it like it was Pet Sounds. I listened and was unimpressed. When I got my I-pod I put the album on anyway, over time it has won me over.
2. Follow You Follow Me - Genesis. Written in the period in between Peter Gabriel leaving and them becoming the quintessential big 80's band. It was in Chuck and Larry and is really a great song, and reminds you of what talents they could be when they wanted to be.
3. Lovers in a Dangerous Time - Bruce Cockburn. I only came to this song because I heard the Barenaked Ladies version. Great song and really a great artist. Pacing the Cage is another great song.
4. Addicted to Love - Robert Palmer. "You'd like to think that you're immune to the stuff oh yeah, closer to the truth is, you can't get enough, you know you're gonna have to face it you're addicted to love."
5. Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead. The only time I was ever in a float plane and flying over the forests of Northern Ontario, about to begin a nine day canoe adventure, this was the song that was playing on the Boombox that say in between me and the pilot. "It wears you out"...

And those are my Friday Five.

I have never understood the fascination with Scrubs. I think primarily because Zach Braff grates me like a whining cat scratching its claws on a blackboard. But Gutfeld has a good take here.

I honestly feel bad for Lindsay. Somewhere in there a lot of people, including her parents, her friends, and I would say the latest rehab facility, have failed her. She should have the book thrown at her legally, but after that some people who really know what they are doing should help her out.

I was talking to Number 13 last night. Is there anything worse than someone setting up something for you and it having the opposite effect. And I don't mean when someone intentionly says to you, "I have bad news, we are going to Las Vegas for a week for free".

I mean when someone says to you something like, "Great News, my cousin and three kids are going to be at the family reunion too, and are going to stay with us the week after to visit the area."

That's not the actual incident I am refering to, but you can see where was headed.

I call that the Free Lobster Roll Paradox. Because imagine today at your company cafeteria they were giving out Free Lobster Rolls, to some people that would be the best news in the world, but to me who hates Lobster Rolls and actually likes living Lobsters, that would be really bad news.

One of the best movie speeches ever.

5 Animal Crackers that would be tough to identify

1. Manateee
2. Platypus
3. Honeybee
4. California Condor
5. Racehorse

So through a weird set of circumstances the field and I were able to go to the premiere of I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. I will rattle off my thoughts Powerpoint style.

• So a movie about two firefighters who pretend to be gay to help the one's kids recieve death benefits, seems like a stupid idea. It was actually very funny, and as you know I am a sucker for, it actually had a lot of heart. I wouldn't say rush out to see it, but it would be a very open-minded date choice.
• Jessica Beil is very pretty in person, but huge, not fat, but just a big person. I saw Paris Hilton once in Las Vegas and was surprised at how small she was, this time I had the opposite reaction
• Even a cynical jaded person like me, must admit its pretty cool to be right next to the red carpet
• Chris Rock was there, and looks exactly like you would expect him to.
• Kevin James is big.
• It was held where Robert Evans, held the premiere of the Godfather. That's kind of cool.
• Adam Sandler sat two rows in front of us, and was incredibly gracious, signed and took pictures with everyone.
• Best Wednesday night since the season of Lost ended.

I think I can finally admit that I am kind of a Yankees fan. I mean they will never hold even the smallest iota of portion of my heart that the Patriots do, but sitting at Yankees stadium last night for probably the 50th time in my life, I realized that I do like them and want them to win.

Schilling Sucks!

The thing about the Onion, is that you read it enough, and then you only need to read the headline to pretty much predict the rest of the story. This one, was someone who doesn't own a car and only relies on Public Transportation, I thought was funny.

About the time I really started being interested in girls, I also started to leave my radio on all night. I was living in a suburban South Jersey town. The time was 1988,1989. The major powerhouse in Top 40 radio was a station called Eagle 106. The 10-2 in the evenings DJ was Danny Bonnoduce, who at the time was only known as Danny Partridge and not the almost psychotic reality? star that he is today. He had that gravely smokers voice, and just out of rehab edginess that as a wussy 7th grader who could barely muster the nerve to say hi to a girl in the hallway would be inspired by. He had confidence, and these Phildelphia girls would call up in between songs and he would fearlessly dispense advice to them.
At the same time all music, except for church music, would invoke in me a theme of unrequited love, not that at the time I knew what unrequieted love was. Anyhow Danny Bonnoduce would start his show every night with Wild Wild West by escape club. So sometimes as I am getting ready for work, and the field is long gone I put on the music channels of our Cable system. This morning I put on the 80's channel to hear Wild Wild West. And music does trigger so much and at that time, I was infatuated with one girl. Jen. Anyhow here is a verse by verse as best I can remember it, my interpretation of what Escape Club was singing about circa 7th Grade. And its amazing that I a can't remember that the field told me to pick up the dry cleaning, but I can remember this song's meaning almost 20 years ago.

Wild Wild West
Forty-seven dead beats living in the back street
North east west south all in the same house
Sitting in a back room waiting for the big boom
I'm in a bedroom waiting for my baby
So here the first three lines I didn’t really understand. But the last line made perfect sense, because I was in my bedroom about to go to sleep and I was waiting for my baby, Jen. CHORUS:
She's so mean but I don't care
This girl Jen was in my Kindergarten class and was very mean then went to Catholic School and came to our public middle school and was not mean, but did ignore me.
I love her eyes and her wild wild hair
Jen as I remember it had extremely blue eyes, and unlike most girls in the 7th grade she had already taken a big interest in her appearance, including having manicured fingernails.
Dance to the beat that we love best
I wasn’t a dancer, I hated the thought of dancing, but in my mind the second a cute girl expressed interest I was going to be Travolta or Swayze and I would turn into a hero. I blame Footloose.
Heading for the nineties
This was the late 80’s so that made sense.
Living in the wild wild west
Jen, lived on the west side of town, I lived on the east side of town (might as well have been West Side Story)
The wild wild west

Mandy's in the backroom handing out Valium
I misheard this lyric up until googling it this morning. I always thought Mandy was handing out Valleys which never made sense to me.
Sheriff's on the airwaves talking to the D.J.'s
Sherrif was another artist of that era that sang, When I’m with you, at the time which for another time had other great unrequited love lyrics
Forty-seven heartbeats beating like a drum
I still don’t understand the 47 reference again.
Got to live it up live it up
Have fun as two 13 year olds in love.
Ronnie's got a new gun
I thought this was an offhand reference to President Reagan, but didn’t understand why.
CHORUS

Now put your flags in the air and march them up and down
Jen was a cheerleader, of course.
You can live it up live it up all over the town
She was on the west, I was on the east. Our relationship would cover all of the municipality
And turn to the left, turn to the right
Jen sat directly in front of me in Reading (we had both English and Reading in 7th Grade) so if she turned either direction she would see me.
I don't care as long as she comes tonight
I always thought of this referring to her coming to a dance.

CHORUS
Heading for the nineties living in the eighties
Screaming in a back room waiting for the big boom
Give me give me wild west
Give me Jen’s interest
Give me give me safe sex
Safe Sex was kissing, and I would have loved to have kissed her
Give me love give me love
Give me Jen’s interest, Give me Jen’s interest
Give me time to live it up
And let it happen soon so the rest of the dances in the school year I am not sitting around with the guys pretending to be cooler than I am.

Fill in the Blank ___________.

Some Monday afternoon's last forever.

Also on Wednesday Evening the Field and I, through a friend, got invited to go to the Premiere of the new Adam Sandler/Kevin James movie "Chuck and Larry". Look for my thoughts on Thursday. (and yes I am really, really, really hoping that Jessica Beil is there, if for no other reason than to ask her what it was like to work with Jamie Foxx in Stealth, and if the father on 7th Heaven really is the father of the year week in and week out.

This weekend I went golfing, my score was so high, they had to use Scientific Notation.

Slinger has a well thought out plot-hole busting post about Star Wars over here. Great reading if you are a fan of the movies.

Today something was bothering me the entire walk into work. I couldn't figure out what it was. I thought there was something wrong with my pants. Maybe a hole in them. Or I missed beltloop. I just couldn't nail it down. Then I got to work, and I started to work, but then I remembered that something was bothering. So I went to the bathroom to check my situation out. I had put my boxershorts on backwards. All I could think of is the old Farside cartoon, where the boy is pushing on a pull door and there is a sign "Midvale School for the Gifted".

You know what song would never be popular today, Wake up Little Susie.

A) Nobody goes by Susie
B) No teen has a curfew of 10.
C) There really are no Drive-ins
D) The singer is concered about his reputation being shot over falling asleep at a Drive in?

One of life's moments, that feels so good, is when you are over your head, but somehow manage to pull through with flying colors.

With the sad truth of the London Bombings, the Hippocrattic oath has come to the nations forefront again. This is combined with a mere three days ago it was 7/7/07. This leads me to ask the following questions. If you are an Obstetrician (If that is indeed a baby Doctor) when it comes to stating the time of birth and weight of the baby how much leeway do you play with? Especially on special calendar days like 7/7/07.

Example one: If a baby, lets call him Ralph, was born at 7:06:54 you might state that his time of birth is 7:07 and nobody would scream.
Example two: If a baby lets call her Rita, was born at 7:09:01 would it be ethical to name the birth time as 7:07?
Example three: If a baby and I have decided to stop naming them, was born and weighed 7 Pounds 6.5 ounces, I would think it would be acceptable to say his birth weight was 7lbs 7oz.
Example four: If another baby, again unnamed but different from the one in example three and cuter, is born and weighs 7lbs 10oz would it be okay to put on the charts that it weighs 7lbs 7oz.

I know you think I probably don't have an opinion on such things, but I do. I really don't care about Ralph and Rita's birth time (ironic in that I named them and not the others). I would think though, that in the case of birth weight that is an important medical yardstick. Later when talking about growth percentages, a few ounces might be statistically significant, especially in cases where people were rounding up.

Similarly odd: On fourth of July one of the stations predicted that the daytime high was 76. It only got up to 72. Were they trying to be cutsie with the historical temp reference or was it a bad prediction?

Is there anything better than the feeling of once in your life, saying the right thing. The thing that Dirty Harry or Sonny Crockett would say and not just thinking of something clever to say, days, weeks, years later.

The Lost Theory.

Lost as a TV show I think is a metaphor for life. Not in the way the characters, plot and mystery unfold. That is all interesting and entertaining. I am thinking more in terms of the Tom Petty gem The Waiting. The story I have always heard is that Petty wrote the song after reading a People Magazine article on Bettle Midler. In the article she is asked what is the hardest part of performing, and she says, "Waiting to get to perform for that one hour the next day" and Petty sings "The waiting is the hardest Part." It's such a simple thought that even though the song is musically nothing really special, but the meaning, pun intended, always struck such a chord.

Lost to those people that view it regularly is a frustrating show. There are 3, 4, maybe even 5 episodes where things are hinted at, there are small moments of joy but also an awful lot of frustration. The frustration is focused on the unknown, of hints but no answers, of wanting more action, more satisfaction, and just more. It gets to the point where you get so frustrated (and no this is not a call for help at all, I am not on the ledge) but where you think about stopping watching Lost altogether. Your love of life/Lost keeps you going though, because you hope and eventually there comes an episode where all that frustration is eased, where the struggle of the last 3, 4, or 5 episodes is erased by how meaningful and satisfying the episode is. And here is where I bring it full circle because even though so far the summer has been pretty good, this weekend was one of those episodes that makes you realize why you love the show so much to begin with.

All that being said, I still don't understand the Polar Bears.

Have you ever seen the Tao of Steve? If not you should.

I never got Transformers... I was a GI Joe Guy. Sure I had a few... but to me robots are much better for building cars or acting as cleaning women for the Jetsons, than doing battle.

My favorite book about America: Travels with Charley. Steinbeck's later in life journey with his poodle in a camper van. I think it captures the essence of America that is just under the surface of today's slickly marketed perception of America. Plus it has always made me want to get a black standard poodle, which happens to be the one dog the Field hates.

Fourth of July 2002. It was the first time the Field and I went away. We were going to a wedding in Andover, Massachusetts. The Field was in the wedding party and that meant while they got final dress alternations, nails done, hair done and had a brunch I was left to my own devices. It was also about 106 that day and the hotel we were staying in was miles from anywhere. To keep me amused, that morning the Field gave me the attached photo to keep myself busy. I wish I could say it didn't work.

Fourth of July is my favorite holiday. In the last 11 years, as I would define it great times have happend in like 10/11. That is a much better average than any other holiday. Plus its the one day a year I get to wear my Uncle Sam costume without looks. (Okay I sometimes can pull it off for Halloween and Election Day).

The only good thing about Wednesday Fourth of July's when you have to work... Two Fridays in the same week.

I thought that the 40 Year Old Virgin was a step in the right direction in terms of summer comedies. The movie plays true throughout, and then has one of the greatest non-sequitor endings of movies ever. The greatest part of the movie is that it never sells out in the name of laugh versus the long-term arch of the story. So this weekend the Field and I saw Knocked up. Very funny movie. And really tries to do the same thing. Tries to never sell it out, and probably never does, instead what this one never completely caught was the versimilutude of the truth. I just never bought into the story. Not because a schlub can't get a pretty girl, but because there was never a true relationship between them, They never sold me that they got there. And to me that is the shame of the movie. It took a very funny, and very possible topic and left it just short. And yet I would still recommend it. Because it is that funny, and it is so much better than so much out there.

My freshman year of college I was taking the standard writing class part two. I had to pick a poem and analyze the meaning of it. I don't like much poetry, except haiku and bawdy limericks. I picked Robert Frost's Nothing Gold Can Stay. If only because I remember it from the Outsiders. I compared it to Bruce Springsteen's song Glory Days. My teacher, who went on to be the poet lauriet of Rhode Island read the essay, the only thing he wrote on my paper was "A Are you from New Jersey". This morning as I heard Glory Days I wish I still had that paper. Anyway here is the poem:

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Since the last episode of the Soprano's I have been thinking about Journey a lot.

So Saturday after the wedding the Field, #13 who was staying with us, and I get back to our apartment. The field is hungry so we decide to run upstairs to our apartment change and go to a diner. Its about 145 in the morning. So we go to the diner (which was completely unnecessary), but delicious. I even looked for Don't Stop Believing on the jukebox, but sadly ended up playing Wouldn't it Be Nice. So we leave and its a two block walk back to our apartment. Sitting on the sidewalk is a girl, who had to be 21 or 22 crying her eyes out. We asked if she was okay. She was crying so hard that she could barely talk. She also was wearing what appeared to be a cocktail napkin. Now, Hoboken is a safe place, but a drunk, underdressed crying girl at 2 o'clock in the morning, just can't be a good story. So she finally told us that she had left a bar in a huff because her boyfriend was dancing with other girls and being mean to her. She was from the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvannia and her boyfriend was not picking up her phone. She told us where she thinks where she was staying. Its about 20 blocks from our apartment in the wrong direction. The field and I did what any slightly drunk 30ish people would do, we volunteered to walk her there. About half way through the trek, my friend John comes up to us. So now like Dorothy and her friends, myself, the field, John and Rhoda the crying almost naked girl headed off to find Oz. The whole time we spoke about how her boyfriend seemed like a jerk and whether she was an Eagles or Steelers fan, and all the sort of small talk you make when you are walking a complete stranger home at 2:45 in the morning. When things like this happen it makes me never want to venture into the suburbs.

One of my favorite sayings that my father uses over and over again is "Besides everything else that happened Mrs. Lincoln what did you think of the play?"

I just am so excited to hear from Paris it is killing me................

http://cronkitegreeting.blogspot.com/

You should definitely be watching Flight of the Concords on HBO. It's sketch comedy with a lower case.

Summer Project Annoucement tomorrow. Too busy today to get in depth. Wednesday at the latest.

I am not a huge Supreme Court watcher, but I keep my pinky toe on the pulse of it, mainly from reading George Will, who comments on the court occasionally and a snippit here or there in the paper. Anyhow, It is amazing to me that George H.W. Bush nominated Souter to the Supreme court. In today's Red/Blue world that never would have happened.

#13 and I were sitting around listening to the cable channels that only play music, waiting for the field to get ready, before going to a wedding on Saturday night. The song Islands in the Stream with Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers came on. This sparked the memory of the 80's Lip synching show Puttin On the Hits. Is there anything funnier in an antifunny way than when someone dresses up half of themselves in one garb and the other half in another garb and sings karaoke or lip synchs a male and female song. That memory had us laughing for about 10 minutes.

Coming Sunday or Monday my summer Project.

Yesterday in the middle of June I wore Corduroy pants to work. (Yes, this is a Dry cleaning story so you have been warned). So I go to the dry cleaners yesterday morning with my ticket and also one of the Field's dresses. As an aside we have know for about four months that we are going to a wedding Saturday night, but the Field waits until Thursday morning to get the dress she needs dry cleaned. As a second aside the Field and I have two separate dry cleaners. Her's is close to our apartment and they always have cute little dogs in the store, I have used it on occasion, including with some stuff at the end of last week. I have one that is on my way to work that I use and has a nice guy who always has gum and gave me a planner for Christmas. So I go to hers. I ask them if it is possible to get this dress cleaned by Saturday morning.
She follows by asking me as if I am stupid, "Have you heard about the flood at the Dry Cleaning Factory? We are backed up on all Dry Cleaning, and can take nothing until at least next week and all deliveries are backed up until at least Saturday." Her tone implied I was stupid for not having heard of the flood. Now, I am sure in the Dry Cleaning community of northern New Jersey this is their Katrina, but with global warming, the space shuttle being unable to land, and me at 7:25 in the morning realizing I may have no clothes to wear to work (small big deal), and the Lake may not have a dress to wear for a wedding on Saturday (Huge, End of the World, Big Deal), a flood at a Dry Cleaning factory has not exactly set off the CODE RED. So I say thanks. Then I go to my dry cleaner with fear that he uses the same factory. I get there. He says hello and then the last four digits of my phone number. (It's a great relationship when the proprietor knows you by your code in his computer system). So I ask him, I say "I heard about the factory flood." He then looks at me, like I looked at the proprietor of the other cleaners a mere eight minutes earlier. He then says do you need this by Saturday or Monday. I say Saturday morning. He says see you soon. End of Transaction. I go home and put together a stellar outfit of a shirt that has a small hole in one of the armpits and corduroy pants. Later I Googled Dry Cleaning Factory Floods and am came up blank. So I hope my clothes are there today or I may start to get really worried. Last night I put a pair of pants that doesn't need to be in the dry cleaner into the laundry with a shirt and Ironed them both. So Thank God it's Friday.

Summer of 1995: I had just come home from my first year at college. It was the closest my life ever got to a Bruce Springsteen song. My old man got me a job at a factory changing computer chips and working in the shipping department (I just like the way that sounds). I spent the summer building shelving, shipping packages and accepting returns. The woman I worked with was a big fan of country music. That was the toughest part of the job. I am a suburban kid from the Northeast. At that time I was much more Pearl Jam, Led Zeppelin than Randy Travis and Garth Brooks. During that time I had 2 weeks that I loved. The first is when my boss went on vacation and I had autonomy of the radio. I listened to Howard Stern in the morning and then classic rock all day. The second was more interesting. In the third week of July the country station had a week of classic country. It was pretty much all Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton. That week changed my perception of Country Music. The music was so raw and real and true. It was like Zeppelin, albeit stylistically different. Then Cash came out with the America albums that Rick Rubin (who produced the Beastie Boys) produced, and a certain type of country music, that I would almost, although I would probably be alone in this, categorize as folk music, became forever in my music mix. So besides being able to afford to buy a TV for my dorm room after that summer the job gave me appreciation of something else as well. Everybody has heard the Cash version of Hurt, you should listen to the rest of those albums because he distills music down to just being voice, guitar and sadness. And sadness is the key ingredient to good music. Compare Shiny Happy People to Everybody Hurts...

Expect to hear puns galore from Jay Leno on this story for the next 3 weeks.

You know what never gets less exciting... riding in a Limo.

You really meet very few people who say their favorite food is pepperoni.

The nice thing about life is that it always offers surprises.

Slinger asked me to name my 12 favorite movies. I will add a little commentary

1. The Apartment - My favorite movie of all time. The Lake won't watch it because it is black and white. This movie captures New York to a T.
2. The Karate Kid - Years ago when I took a screenwriting class I referenced every point covered to how it applied to the Karate Kid.
3. Raiders of the Lost Ark - In so many ways the perfect adventure movie.
4. Caddyshack - Ted Knight is superb in this movie.
5. Almost Famous - There is more heart in this movie than in an entire greeting card store.
6. Wall Street - Such a moral fable.
7. Cocktail - When Tom Cruise was cool. But Bryan Burns steals the show
8. Get Shorty - I loved it when it first came out, I love it even more now. Dennis Farina steals the show
9. Scent of a Woman - Al Pacino is perfectly over the top in this movie.
10. Adaptation - Such a creative movie. It out metas - meta. (and is more accessible than the still great Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)
11. Punch Drunk Love - There are so many perfect little moments in this movie. Everybody thought it was stupid.
12. Dirty Dancing. When this came out in 87 my Mom would watch it day after day after day. Now whenever it is on, I can't help but watch it. Unreal soundtrack, nice story. In 1998 my senior year of college I spent an entire weekend trying to teach my friend's 18 year old sister the lift. We got it once, and we also shared an unprivate kiss making her sister banish her from my apartment the rest of the weekend.

13 Honorable Mentions: Animal House, Lost in Translation, Memento, Vanilla Sky, Magnolia, Joe Vs. The Volcano, The Shining, Top Gun, Jackie Brown, The Swimmer, Match Point, Glengarry Glen Ross, Point Break

Here is the difference between Men and Women at age 25. A couple who have been dating for 6 months walk by another couple who is married about the same age and pushing the stroller with their 8 month old.

The woman thinks, "Someday that will be me" and smiles
The man thinks, "Thank God that isn't me" and then continues to think about either beer, football, chicken wings or supermodels, or some combination thereof.

I write this not to unleash my inner Tim Allen, I write this because as I grow older and mellow and move away from my inner 25 year old, I realize that just like there is the 8 year old part of me that will alway think that Swords and flamethrowers are cool, there is a part of me that will always be 25.

At least it's Flag day.

Somebody found this site today by Googleing "Leather Queesiness". Welcome to the club.

Fascinating

5 Types of It's Besides Cheeze-Its.

1. Bee'z-Its
2. Pleaze-Its
3. Suri's-Its
4. Sneese-Its
5. Flea'z-Its

Update.

I went to college in the Rhode Island between 1994 and 1998. Musically there are a few songs that will always be associated with college. The Fugee's, Chumbawumba, Blues Traveler. During that time period though if there was one constant it was the two Dave Matthews albums Under the Table and Dreaming and Crash. Under the Table and Dreaming in college was the chameleon album that was played for both a huge party, a small card game, a basketball warm-up or an impromptu late night getting to know one another session with a young lady from your Western Civ class after the bars closed. What brought this thought up is the morning as I was walking pre-work (A quick 3.5 miles to get the blood flowing), the I-pod came to the Dave Matthews' song Say Goodbye.
If you are unfamiliar with the song, it talks about two friends being somewhere together (in some versions of the song it is suggested that it is a cabin). In it, Matthews suggests that tonight said friend and he be lovers and tomorrow go back to being friends. It's a pretty simple concept and one that any guy who has a really close friend who was an attractive girl, but clearly has no interest in him, has thought about. As I was walking back into Hoboken and listening, what I began to wonder is, what percent of guys felt empowered by this song. They heard the lyrics, they thought to themselves if it can work for Dave, it can work for me with Betsy. Then I wondered what was the success rate? How many times in 1998 was there some, mediocre with girls, History major who finally got his education major, cheerleader, lab partner while studying for a quiz to listen to Say Goodbye and have her be swept up in the moment.
If such things were measurable, my hypothesis would be that maybe it worked 20% of the time. This with a baseline of, in college just asking worked 5% of the time (in today's world it's probably closer to 40%). My fear though is that what if the success rate was like 80%? What if all that needed to happen was to have the gumption to make the move and play the song? When I was a boy scout my first summer at summer camp I took Pioneering Merit Badge. One of the knots we had to learn was the bowline, which can be used to rescue people if they have fallen of a cliff, a very useful knot if you live in suburban New Jersey and the greatest incline is 30 feet at a 23% angle. Anyhow I spent the whole week trying to get it right on how to tie it. Then finally the last day the instructor showed me a way to tie it that was so easy the second time I tied it that way I did it with my eyes closed. I think I am happy not knowing if Say Goodbye worked or not. Now that I am happily married to the Field, it would be useful to me as knowing the bowline in the flat suburbs.

I guess the only thing to be said about this story is that it is timeless.

One of the greatest jokes of recent times is "What's the toughest part of rollerblading... Telling your parents you are gay."

Here are some more jokes in that mold:

What's the toughest part about being a Radio Shack Sales Clerk?
Having to buy stamps in bulk for your pen pals.

What's the toughest part about being a John Grisham Fan?
Vacuuming the Sun Chip crumbs from your hardwood floors.

What's the toughest part about baking a pumpkin pie?
Facing your disappointed relatives while hungover.

What's the toughest part about watching a sunset?
Admitting to your second wife that you have shaved your chest.

What's the toughest part about becoming a tightrope walker?
Visiting Alabama in the summer.

What's the toughest part about buying a new I-pod?
The tape on the cardboard carton it comes in.

What's the toughest part about being elected mayor of Gary, Indiana?
Changing your name to Gary.
What's the toughest part about being a seamstress?
The wolves.

What's the toughest part about flying to Tokyo?
Paying your dues with flight time on the smaller routes like Seattle to Portland and Sacramento to San Jose.

What's the toughest part about being a Russian Studies Major?
Getting the visa for your internship in Moscow.

Today is the One Year Anniversary of the Lake. Or as my alternative name for the blog: The People's Exhibit A.

This will probably break the Glaciers heart, but when it comes down to it, I really can think of few things I would like to do less in this world than fish.

What does a Skeleton say before Dinner?

Bone-Apetit

How do you make a tissue dance?

Put a little Boogie in it.

Yes I was at a 6 year old's birthday on Saturday.

There are going to be four reactions to the Soprano's in the office today so just be ready:

1. How dissapointing
2. What a genius is David Chase for ending the show on such a murky moment?
3. I am poseur so I am going to call David Chase a genius even though I was dissapointed.
4. This leaves open a chance for a movie.

I didn't think it was great, but I liked it. Chase stayed true to himself and in that sense when viewed along with the rest of the series it all fits in. Sure if you were looking for an end of MASH or end of Newhart type of ending you were going to be dissapointed. Chase should be considered a genius if for no other reason than 90% of Americans last night thought for a brief second that their Tivo/DVR was broken, and when has someone manipulated the public like that before.

Freshman year of high school in English class I read a story called "The Lady or the Tiger" by Frank Stockton. I couldn't help but think of it last night. I remember the class discussion from that time and I think it really defines how people enjoy stories. A third of the class enjoyed that the ending was left to the reader to imagine. The other two-thirds thought of it as an unfinished story. At the time I was in the two-thirds, as I have grown and revisited the story and stories like it I am now clearly in the one-third. I would much rather an ending like last night than the Usual Suspects.

Number 13 tipped me off to this which as someone who loves game shows makes me more excited than the day Nicole Ritchie found out about Bulimia.

God how I love when someone pronounced an Acronym when it normally it is just referred to by the letters. It makes my day.

Imagine if someone referred to Tom Selleck as Magnum Pie, except funnier.

Satan just said it got a little cold down there, because I kind of agree with Al Sharpton... From Drudge:

SHARPTON BLASTS JUSTICE SYSTEMThu Jun 07 2007 11:45:47 ETReverend Al Sharpton, President of National Action Network, and one of the country's foremost leaders for civil rights, is blasting the justice system for what appears to be favoritism in the early release of Paris Hilton. "Though I have nothing but empathy for Ms. Hilton whom I have met and appeared with on Saturday Night Live the night I hosted in 2003, this early release gives all of the appearances of economic and racial favoritism that is constantly cited by poor people and people of color. There are any number of cases of people who handle being incarcerated badly and even have health conditions that are not released.I have served several sentences for civil rights and civil disobedience actions and I even fasted which caused health concerns to prison authorities who paid for a doctor to come see me daily rather than release me. This act smacks of the double standards that many of us raise

Remember the good ole days when you could come up with really good punchlines to this story. Now we can only feel sad for him and his condition.

Characters we all Know #1:

A chubby girl in her twenties, who when she went to camp as a child was probably voted most artistic and creative, talking loudly on her cellphone before 8AM

#2
A guy who just never is quite with the times as evidenced by his reading the Da Vinci code this morning on the train, and listening to a walkman.

#3
The person who makes two trips to Free Coffee Day at Starbucks before Lunch, but otherwise doesn't drink coffee.

So Larry David (comedic Genuis Larry David) is getting a divorce from his wife. I can only hope that it will mean more Curb Your Enthusiasm. A long time ago an in another life I wrote a Spec Script for Curb Your Enthusiam. In it Larry and Cheryl take in Cheryl's friend whose civil union breaks up and accidently at the same time Larry hits on and becomes friends with the ex Civil unionee and then invites him over to dinner. I thought it was funny.

Last night's Celebrity Sighting of no consequence Vanessa Redgrave.

I have been holding steady in the 70-75% range the last few days. This morning I woke up feeling stronger but I want to make sure it is real and not false optimism. I hate to sound like a wuss, but this has been an awful experience.

3 Things that seem right and if you encountered the opposite situation, would seem wrong.

1. If you have a male friend from college and he has a younger sister, she should be an optimist.
2. If you meet a gay english professor, he should have a great sense of humor
3. The only guy in a suit or the only guy in shorts at any occassion never make you feel warm and fuzzy

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,277718,00.html

Stuff like this fascinates me, and I am ashamed of that.

I am at about 67% but feeling stronger every day and back to actually eating. As of this morning I lost 12 pounds in 6 days. I don't recommend that. I am in the office which actually feels better. There was a lonely moment on Saturday night where I was watching the food network to try and tempt my body into having an appetite. Absolutely horrible debilitating illness.

I have spent the last 3 days fighting food poisoning. One of the worst experiences of my adult life.

Our greatest albeit meanest Taboo Clue: Slow Mike Tyson... Can you guess who?

5 Quick Thoughts from the Weekend.

1. The Field and I challenge anyone in the world to Taboo. We were averaging 5 right guesses a turn and hit as many as 8. Its a sign of the strength of our relationship that we are able to both give clues that we think the other will understand, but also guess based on how the other is presenting clues.
2. I am not a breakfast person, but there is something to be said for an hour long breakfast involving made to order omelets, homemade toast and jams, and fresh orange juice. It makes me almost forget that Lunch is by far the best meal.
3. We finally got around to watching the season finale of Law and Order SVU. By no means, Lost, but very impressive ending to a show that in someways is formulaic.
4. Having not ridden in a bicycle in about 3 or 4 years, it's like riding a bike when you step back on one.
5. I don't go to nearly enough museums.

What a restful and nice weekend... it really hurts my cynicism.

Once a year I work from home. Memorial Day Weekend Eve. Today is that day. Enjoy Memorial Day.

6 Memorial Day Speech Titles that did not win the Walla Walla, Washington American Legion Hall's 10th Grade Memorial Day Speech Contest

1. Subsidizing Enhanced Environmental Protection Regulation by curtailing Veterens Benefits
2. Duty to Country, Cha Right!
3. How serving in Vietnam is similar to the prolonged run of Sanjaya on American Idol
4. Flagburning and its positive role in history
5. Canada where the real heroes went
6. Korean War Sham

This weekend the Field and I are going to a bed and breakfast for the weekend. Seven years ago after spending a night making friends in a mildly friendly way with a girl from Yonkers I went back to my house at the Jersey Shore around 5:30 AM to find there were no rooms at the inn. So instead I slept on a bed in the abandoned house next door. The whole I night I feared that my snoring would alert the police that I was in there. It wasn't until the next morning that I went to use the bathroom and saw two other people from my house also sleeping there that I felt slightly safer.

The girl I saw one time a year and a half later and she treated me like I was her boyfriend coming home from war. By that time she was living on the Upper West Side and I was still in Hoboken, while we thought about exchanging numbers we both knew we could never handle the distance. There are days when the Upper West Side seems further than Miami.

By the way I need to start trying to create silly lists again... eventually if one were to read this too much they would think that my life has been 26 years of uninterested cute girls and four years of one slightly interested cute girl, which would be the saddest but most accurate obituary ever.

LOST!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Best episode of TV in a long time. I loved last weeks Office. Many episodes of 30 Rock are fantastic... but last night rewarded all those people that have stuck through with the show. I can't believe I have to wait 9 months. If you weren't excited when Hurley came barrelling down, well you just aren't human.

Greg Gutfeld is an insightful writer, who has the perfect sick sense of humor that makes him seem like he would fit in nicely to an afternoon drinking with the Dump, #13 or my brothers and I. I watch his show Red Eye every morning on DVR as I get ready and I probably check his web-site Daily Gut slightly less frequently then I check to see if my boss is over my shoulder. Anyhow the NY Observer did a profile here. It's an interesting read and gives hope to those of us who have been known to say something only to get a look of "did you just say that". If you haven't watched Redeye, much like Lost, the Office, Coke Zero Cherry, Swifter Wet Jet or any other tremendous efforts it takes a few tastings to ease into, but once you are there it is the best.

There are two type of people in this world. People who are excited about American Idol tonight and people who are excited about Lost. You can be excited for both, but more likely you are really excited for one and slightly excited for the other. In college I took a course "Forecasting" we learned about regression analysis and how to use it when dealing with financial markets. The class was borderline impossible. The teacher had the charisma of a white piece of paper placed on a field of snow in Alaska as viewed by some who is blind, has no sense of smell, and cannot touch. The course did have two things. My study partner was a girl who the first time I went over to her dorm room it smelled so shockingly feminine (in a the best way imaginable) I almost collapsed and she was wearing only a sports bra and shorts even though it was already November. The second thing is that from an intellectual perspective the material was such that just when you thought you couldn't grasp it any more and were ready to throw in the towel and become a lowly marketing major, you would get it. You would get it with such insight that everything you struggled with before was suddenly easy. The final of that class was comprehensive everything you learned, and having had those insights along the way it was long and it was a lot of work, but it was never hard. Forecasting to me is like Lost. Every time I struggle and think about giving in I make a breakthrough that I realize why I have stuck with it.

American Idol reminds me of my freshman writing class, but that song and dance is for another time...

One of the greatest episodes of Seinfeld (and really there is no definitive list is there, it changes to make whatever point you want to make) is the one where the message is left on the answering machine and they attempt to switch tapes. People fear heights, public speaking, and cacti, but there is something incredibly fear inducing of not being prepared to leave a message. That's why I think on cell phones you see a lot of missed calls and then a message. The person calls gets your voicemail and then calls back once they have formulated what they want to say. What isn't known is that this mimics a natural phenomenon:

The Grey Tiger of West Africa rummages the plains or as it is referred to there, the savanna, a perfectly good geographic term that questionable blond movie actresses have absconded and made their own (what pervy man would buy a movie starring Tundra Monroe or Estuary Sampson?). I digress. The Grey Tiger loves to eat, but animal psychologists have found that what it does when finding its prey, is that it will often go to within a few feet of an antelope or rabbit and then it will run back because it is nervous. It will then take some time ranging from 5 seconds to close to a minute and formulate and eating plan. At that point it will attack the prey with determination and ferocity. Why does it do this? Well, animal theorists think that the Grey Tiger has very potent taste buds. So if it were to just rip into the Antelope it might get a part of the carcass that is unsavory. So it attacks but at the last minute realizes that if it goes about it incorrectly his taste will be so soured that he cannot go on eating. And this explanation can all be found in my next book... Why I never lose at Balderdash...

Here you can see pictures of Paris Hilton who is now reading the Bible... more interesting to the Lake is that she has what appears to be web footed. In college one of my close friends had only three toes: his pinky and ring were fused together as were his index and pointer toe. The odd thing is if I had toes like that I would probably wear socks alot, but this guy wore flip-flops when nobody wore flip-flops. Either way I hope she is reading Paul, because in a lot of ways if Paul were alive today he would be a blogger.

I really don't think I have had REM Sleep in 6 days.

Thursday Night 3 hours of sleep not enough time for a full cycle.
Friday night Slept two hours and then was up for 15 minutes and then slept another two hours
Saturday Night - Slept for 2 hours woke up for about 30 minutes, slept for 2 more hours
Sunday Night - Slept for 8 hours but again I didn't dream, I didn't move I think I passed out from exahaustion.
Last night - Slept for 7 hours but woke up every hour. So instead of getting one good nights sleep I got 7 one hour naps.

What does all of this mean. I don't know.

The one highlight of the graduation I was at yesterday. The person who sang the national anthem was named Melody. I like when things like that happen. Like if you had a golf instructor named Chip or a Museum curator named Art.

6 Things that are fun to do at a college graduation

1. Look at the graduates and see who is more excited to graduate because they didn't think they passed that one class
2. Look at the graduates and guess which ones had a pregnancy scare during the course of their studies
3. Count how many people are sleeping during the commencement speaker
4. Try singing the Alma Maters words to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody in your head.
5. Walk outside and pretend you are going to the bathroom but actually just go for a walk on a rather nice day.
6. Stay home and hear about the stories later at the party.

I have really decided that I don't like events at all. I may have a good time while at an event, but in all honesty 98% of the time I am having a good time anyway so I would much rather it be on my own terms. Here is how 90% of all events go for me. I find one or two kindred spirits who I end up spending 75% of the time talking to (mostly about either A) something that really interests us or B) about how there are things we would rather be doing (it's always nice to hear someone else's sacrifice for being there) or C) about some commonality of the human condition that is humorously being displayed by one of the other event goers) then I spend the other 25% of my time pretending to care about things that I really don't care about. What's interesting is that I write all of this as if this situation is unique to me, but maybe this is how everyone approaches an event.

And just to prove my point 75% conversations may include:
A) places people have been that I am interested in, funny anecdotes, opinions on books, music or literature that may interest me or presented in a new or interesting light
B) Talking about what you could have been doing such as hiking, drinking, dancing or singing Belinda Carlisle songs in Karaoke
C) Like one of the people in attendance may be wearing an inappropriately revealing outfit, or plaid pants, or talking too loudly or about their portfolio and you and the kindred spirit can dryly comment on the silliness of such actions.

25% conversations include:
People talking about their painting of their home
Jokes about republicans and democrats that involve puns
People talking about Dogs who are long dead with no humorous or interesting slant
People talking about how impressed they are with the cheese selection
Anyone ever talking about a trip they took to Napa
Any discussions lasting longer than 30 seconds about cell phone plans
and any discussion more than 30 minutes into the event discussing how the person traveled there (unless they have crossed more than two time zones)

A few years ago through a series of unfortunate events I was supposed to go to a cabin I own with a few friends from college, and at the last minute work told me I couldn't go. It was the end of feb and plans were to work perfectly such that I would leave on Thursday afternoon and have a blast and stay until Monday. So late in the game I decided to go anyway, even though it meant me getting on a 6 hour train ride and spending about 20 hours there and getting on a six hour train ride back. So I get on the train and watch the entire first season of Arrested Development on my laptop, followed by the first season of the Office (the british version). I get to the cabin about 5:30 at night. We go out to a few of the bars in the woods and have a phenomenal time. I get up at 10AM and drive back to the train station. The sad part is the train is sold out. And the next train doesn't come until Monday morning. Additionally it is the middle of February and about 6 degrees out, and I have no cell phone reception. The other person waiting for the train suggests that I call the 800 number from the pay phone and I may be able to get a reservation. I do. When they tell me my reservation number it is 10 digits long. So I look around and there are four people waiting for the train. An elderly woman, a man who is drunk, a girl of about 19 with more metal in her face than pores. So I ask if any of them have a pen. They don't. If you have read anything about Mental faculties, one of the reasons that phone numbers are 7 digits is that is about all the average head can remember easily. This was 10 digits (and I may just be bumping of the degree of dificultly but I think it was alphanumeric as well). So I ask the girl with the metal face... (or as I will call her Roboface) if she will help me. She said sure. I said this is going to be silly. When I was a kid and would play Simon (The electronic game where you had to remember the pattern of colors that lit up), I found that if you sung with different tones the names of the colors you could remember much further to like up to 21-22 colors and if you played with a friend you could break thirty) She said "so". So I began to sing the numbers to her, and she would sing them back to me. "1CD459K43L". Then once we had them sung a few times we harmonized them. 10 minutes later of us singing this song the train came and Roboface and I ended up sitting across the aisle from each other and sang the song until I found someone doing the NY Times crossword puzzle and borrowed their pen to write it down until the conductor came. Then he didn't even ask for my reservation number. So I offered to buy Roboface a soda or beer or something, and she just said, "no the story alone is worth the singing".
On the way home I pretty much slept.

Lake Trivia Question: What is the major distinction between a parable and a fable?

I am not a fan of breakfast, but still is there a more delicious smell than waffles cooking.

Do you ever use Weather.com?

They now have an interactive radar map that if you love meteorology and you love maps, might as well be your Brad Pitt or Jessica Alba...

Interesting

Have you ever listened to so much Rush that you actually think you could be a 17 year old Canadian in 1982?

If you like sports and don't TIVO Pardon the Interupption, it's a shame. Last night they interviewed Phil Mickelson. One of the things he said was that in golf there are too many people that are happy getting top ten finishes and don't worry about winning. That is a pretty interesting insight into golf, it is a much more interesting insight into life.

Here is my question to all the parents out there: Has anyone ever had a baby without having had previously painted their room?

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If you get IFC, there is a documentary showing this month called This Movie's not yet Rated. It is all about the movie ratings board. (warning there are bad words and nudity, but you knew that) It is really interesting look into how movies are rated. I recommend if you have any interest in censorship, corporate power or movie making in general. It is especially interesting in light of the announcement that smoking is now going to be taken into consideration in rating films.

When I was in college I was involved in student government. At the beginning of the year there were elections for the Freshmen and then the following weekend there was a retreat. On the retreat you went away in the woods and did teambuilding and goal setting stuff. My first year on the Senate I was a sophomore and shy when we went away and was even more shocked at the end of the night when someone pulled out a book of questions and we sat in a circle with the lights off answering them. I was shy and really didn't like sharing about myself answers to things like "who are my heroes?" or "What was the greatest day of my life?". The other type A-'s in the group though loved having that platform to talk about themselves. And at first it was interesting. People telling you their favorite song or favorite movie. The questions though were building to a creshendo and I remember one senior girl telling us that her one wish was that her mother would get better, and a freshman girl telling us about the time she was sexually assaulted. The other thing that was clearly obvious though were two things. The freshman men trying to make themselves appealing to the sorority girls, and the upperclassmen trying to make themselves appealing to the freshman women. The second year I went on the trip I was a little more jaded. There were moments of sincerity like someone talking about the time they were in coma, but for the most part I could just see something that was supposed to be a moment filled with truth to just be a moment filled with people angling for something. And then the topper of them all was senior year.
There was a guy who I will call Ryan. He was short, like 5-5. He had one of those crew cuts with long sideburns that made him look like a monkey. He had an earnestness however that made him seem genuine. So we get to question time, and by this point I already had one job offer, I had recently found out that my parents were getting divorces. To call me jaded is like saying that Prince Charles ears are a little big. So immediately I can tell Ryan is trying to play into the adorable factor that his size suggests. He actually answered "puppies" to one question. And then came a question and I think it was "name something you are proud of"... now me being jaded probably said something like, "being able to be a part of such a driven group of my fellow students." Which to the advisors made me look like a hero, but to two or three people who really knew me they thought it was incredibly funny. When the time came for Ryan to answer, he began to tell a story about how his neighbor is a single mother, because the father died of cancer. He told of how everyday in high school he would stop over and visit the child and help the mother with things like taking out the trash. And then he said and I remember this forever because I almost vomited. "the toughest part of being away at school is that I don't get to see him any more, and make sure he is okay. but I keep a picture of him" he took out his wallet "so that I can still keep him close." There were tears from a few of the girls, there were aahs. and although the room was completely dark I could tell that a few of my buddies and I were simoutaneously throwing up in our mouths. That night after the question round we had a big campfire. Everyone was in flannel PJ's and hooded sweatshirts. There on the opposite side of the fire as we told stories and jokes and laughed... was Ryan cuddling with a super-foxy junior sorority girl.
The moral of this story is the next week I signed up for Big Brothers... Just kidding. The moral of this story is that even altruistic people eventually use their good deeds for personal gain.
Why do I bring this up? not sure, but I think has something to do with reading an interview with Al Gore talking about the environment.

great moments in tv

Here is someone who deserves a medal. He cared enough to not just be a rote employee.

In the history of your life have you ever been interested when you ask someone at work how their vacation was, if you have already been to where they went to? In fact if I really think about there are only maybe 6 places that if someone from work went on vacation I would actually care about hearing about.

1. Antarctica (especially if they have pictures of adorable penguins... speaking of which what do you call a baby penguin.. a Chick? Don't know... hmm and only have one browser open so can't google...)
2. South Africa (because I really really want to go, and think in 10 years South Africa will be the new Australia)
3. Playboy Mansion (Curiosity Kills the Cat)
4. On a Game Show (Obvious)
5. Austin (only because everyone I have met that has been to Austin has a good Austin story, even moreso than New Orleans or Vegas)
6. Outer Space (Not because I would want to know what outer space was like, I have read books about it and besides getting to see the Earth (which is supper freaking cool) it actually sounds pretty boring otherwise.. I would want to find out so I could have ammunition to make fun of the person in a more clever way than the rest of the people whose little sense of humor would immediately go to hacky jokes about Missle Toe or Sex in Zero G's)

How to make a four item list
1. Start with the first item.
2. Move onto the next item
3. Bring in the next item
4. Then have one more item.
5. If you have one more item don't add it.

Three things as I am back in the home office after my one day jaunt to Chicago...

1. Slinger, you may or may not agree with me, but yesterday in that part of the world the weather was borderline perfection. Clear, Crisp skies, nice soft wind, and warm but not oppressive heat.
2. When I studied Finance in college I had this vision of what studying Finance meant. I soon learned that my vision and reality were sharply different. Client dinners and deal making was replaced with reconciling spreadsheets and meetings with no purpose other than to make everyone sound important. Sunday night we get to the hotel and I am with my Boss's boss's boss (which sounds impressive although theoretically as recently as two or three months ago he was my boss, so it only proves that they are layering people on top of me). So we are sitting there in the hotel bar looking over the report we were to present on Monday drinking scotch (which I know make me a poser, but when in Rome or Oak Brook, Illinois as it were). I looked around the rest of the bar and other people doing work and for a second my vision from sophomore year of college and reality were in sync. Then what we we went over included changing the font on the page numbers.
3. How awkward is it when someone you really like writes you an email that you normally would immediately mock and laugh at. For example a girl I once kinda saw in the pre-lake days would send "Happy Wednesday" emails. I am not going to say that was a dealbreaker or showstopper, but it didn't help the cause.

Often the Field and I disagree on what movie to go see. She wants either something in costumes or something where some oppressed person is being saved by someone who is really good. I usually want something either with a lot of Fart jokes, something that will mess with mind, or something where a lot of stuff blows up. Yesterday in a moment of weekness she agreed to go see Hot Fuzz. The new policey movie from the guys that made Shaun of the Dead. Fantastic movie and even better she enjoyed it too.

As a kid I remember loving the Naked Gun, Hot Shots types of movies. The nice development in the world of Parody is that we have been able to move beyong those kind of gag a minute type of things into creating "real-ish" movies that spoof the genre they are playing to while still creating an enjoyable movie. One could argue that Scream did this first, but when you get to stuff like Grindhouse and Hot Fuzz it takes that to the next level and makes it so enjoyable. Plus in the case of Hot Fuzz, the British are just so much funnier than us...

Someone at work said to me this morning that she wished she had known me when I was single... What does that mean?

If you ever wonder why there is an information super-highway look here.

Whenever I meet someone in New York who moved here from California I wonder why, and yet I really don't think I would ever want to live in California... Interesting Paradox.

Today's Poll, and please vote if you agree in the comments section:

When you are walking a public thoroughfare and happen to be walking at such a speed that you find yourself approaching a blind person, do you hesitate for half a second before you make your move to pass them? (And I am not talking about taking the time to make sure logistically you can pass them with no incidents, I am talking about a half second of moral struggle where you wonder if as a sighted person this is ethical to do.)

To me that half second is infinitely more troubling than when I turn down giving homeless people money.

Another one day trip to Chicago next week. Someday it's going to happen with enough time to visit Milleneum Park, Wrigley or at least get some of what they call pizza. (Although even as a New Yorker I can appreciate Chicago style pizza. The analogy, because you know I love them, is that New York Pizza is like Rudie Can't Fail by the Clash, it is a great rock and roll song. Chicago style pizza is like Rhiannon by Fleetwood Mac, a great song in and of itself, but not exactly a rock and roll song, even though at times it's played on a rock and roll station.) I think with Analogies like that I should be a food critic. Nothing would be better than writing a thousand words on Zuchinni and cucumbers. (The last sentence being the kind I could never write in 5th grade).

If I had a bunch of free time in the next few weeks I think I would write a movie about the following character. First day of college a guy goes out of his dorm to see that there is a really cool guy, who spent his whole summer learning how to play acoustic guitar. It's 1996. He knows how to play More Than Words, In Your Eyes, Elderly Woman. All these great songs, and he doesn't really play them well, but the women fall all over him. So our observer guy asks his over protective parents for a guitar for Christmas. We cut to Christmas and he gets it. He spends his entire Christmas break trying to learn how to play the guitar. Unfortunately since he is a bit dorky he gets back to college and its the middle of winter and he only knows how to play the Cure, REM, Blind Melon, Savage Garden, and the theme from Macgyver. One shy girl who spent her first semester trying to figure out what it takes to have boys notice her befriends him and they fall in love. Then however in the late Spring he become a hit because he learns how to play the Macerena and the Fugees and is invited to all the "cool" parties. The women want him, and he starts treating his dorkmate rudely. Then however one night as he is at a party he comes to his sense and across campus he runs until he gets to her dorm room guitar and hand and heroically plays her music that wins her back.

There is only a matter of time before 90's nostalgia comes back and I want to be there ready.

RANDY MOSS!!!! I think no matter what its a good thing. Simmons Take here.

I consider myself pretty knowledgable about a few things, one of which is music. This article almost blew my mind. Some great music trivia there...

3 thoughts from the weekend.

1. Saturday around noon I am sitting at a Subway sandwich shop. I was enjoying a 6 inch turkey with extra veggies. (This may be overstating it, because how much can you really enjoy Subway. Subway provides perfect consistency and mediocrity, but best of all in Manhattan they are relatively cheap and more importantly clean.) So I am sitting eating. Let me also elabortate that I am in a Patriots T-shirt and camoflague shorts. I am as I often am on Saturday afternoon at my dorkiness, which is saying something. So along come these two Irish guys who ask me the following question, "Do you know where we can score some coke?". Now I have never done coke, but if I were to and if I was going to try and find it, if I saw a goofy guy eating a turkey sandwich at noon, that wouldn't be the guy I would ask...
2. I think I have come up with a million dollar idea. Yesterday I was watching the Yankees play the Red Sox. What if I could market to Spaulding or Wilson or whatever sporting goods manufacturer makes batting gloves, batting gloves that stay tight for more than one pitch. After every pitch the batter steps out of the box and retightens his gloves. I could guess that for some this is superstition, but they all do it. Imagine the first time Derek Jeter tried them on "What are these voodoo gloves you guys are giving me, they stay tight for more than eight seconds?"
3. There was a scene in the Sopranos last night that was horrifying.

My 5 all time favorite Game Shows

1. Card Sharks - I remember from childhood the Jim Perry version. I actually found on ebay a few years ago Perry's biography about his is spiritual awakening, which in a word was weird. He however was the consumate hope and it combined with the perfect game. A little bit of gambling and perfection.

2. Jeopardy! - There is nothing more gratifying than the feeling of being good at Jeopardy.

3. Family Feud. - I love watching the reruns on GSN, because you have to put your mindframe in that of 1979 when you are asked to Name a Sexy Female Actor

4. The Pyramid- When Dick Clark would come over after this person came so close to winning $100,000 and offer up his perfect clues, you just wanted to deck him. Plus in a weird way as a child and even to some extent now I found Adrian Barbeau attractive.

5. Three's A Crowd. This is a 70's game show where a husband, wife and his secretary go on to see who knows him best. It was fantastic. In all ways.

Things that you and I will never have to think about*

1. That the net was set up by three drunk hillbillies who get paid 4 bucks an hour but then get docked 18 dollars a day for food.
2. That you can't get life insurance for your wife and newborn because your career is too risky
3. That your work shoes make you look like a sissy
4. That all you do is walk in a straight line with a pole in your hand, you don't even jump or tame a beast from exotic lands
5. That your father was right you should have been a football referee
6. That your bed for the next two nights is in a train car with Bozo the snorer
7. That you stepped in Elephant poop this morning
8. That the bearded woman is actually a man
9. That the person outside selling T-shirts is making only 45 dollars less a week than you
10. That they probably aren't going to bring back Circus of the Stars, giving you at least some national media exposure.

* Unless we were a tightrope walker

I was tempted not to post this since it gives away my real name and I prefer to be known solely as the Lake, but a list has been published on McSweeney's here.

3 Unnumbered and Unrelated thoughts

Sunday afternoon the Field and I saw Fracture. Interesting movie. The best part about it though, was that it takes place in Los Angeles and they filmed LA as a City. Too many movies that take place in LA seem like they could be in any suburb.

Who are more creepy... people really into Disney memorabilia or people who tell you about their fiber regimen.

Tangerine by Led Zeppelin is a really good song.

Today's Music Trivia that maybe only interests me. The woman who gave the drugs that killed John Belushi dated Gordon Lightfoot years before.

I hate routines. If someone wanted to torture me they would give me a job where every day I did the same thing at the same time. From time to time my life seems to get into routines and I usually do something DRASTIC or drastic to try and bust out of the rut. Saturday morning at 5:30 I got up and did something "drastic". I then left my apartment and walked north until I got to the George Wasthington Bridge, which I crossed and then I went down Broadway through Harlem, the Upper West Side, Midtown, Union Square, NYU, Soho, Tribeca until I finally got down to the Path station back to Hoboken. All told according to Google it was about 21 miles. During this time I put away my I-pod and as I preposteriously and prentensiously told my friend #13, "I listened to the sounds of the world". The weather was beautiful and by eliminating outside influences I really got to enjoy and see a lot of New York that I either see whizzing by in a cab or never see because I am in a subway. Either way my calves and feet were a little sore, but I came home Saturday afternoon in much less of a rut than I had been on Friday afternoon. And as hopelessly 14 year old girl writing in her journal this sounds, spring is about rebirth and renewal. That being said, the field thinks I am a nut. Not sure how the pictures are going to look, since I took them with my camera phone. The one is sunrise with Manhattan in the background as I was leaving Hoboken. The second is looking down at Manhattan from the GWB. And this link will show my route.

Anyway here is to a week of no routines.