Wednesday, December 31, 2008

SA Greetings

Hola from South Central... Texas. Beck and I had a pleasant flight down to ye olde hometown yesterday, and I am up way before everyone else here because of my stubborn internal alarm that says 6 o'clock? Time to GO.

(Before I forget, I was awoken by a bizarre dream in which Davey, Josh and I were playing Uncle John's Band in a guitar circle, and my guitar gradually transformed into a large spoon with soup in it. The last thing I remember saying in the dream was "Sorry Davey, I can't play anymore, the potatoes are no longer lined up." I know I'm not supposed to write about my dreams unless they're about you, but if anyone can clue me in as to what deep-seated self-esteem issues I have because my dream Martin turned into a dream Campbell's, I'd be highly interested. Naturally this led me to wake up thinking about the time Josh, Davey and I played "Paradise City" in a basement in Medford. Not only was this vastly cooler than that ridiculous crap in Can't Hardly Wait, it got me amped enough to come downstairs and blog).

We lounged about the house yesterday, just chatting in the dining room and out on the porch with Mom, Dad and Grandpa. Aaron eventually rolled in, so we busted out the frisbee and played a game of catch until sunset with Dad, Aaron, Beck, Deb, Mom and me in the backyard. We then hit up the Cafer for some Mexican food with Pat & Ron, and came home for some Spurs and hanging out. Aaron and I jammed a bit on his old five string and his new Takamine acoustic guitar. (Clearly this prompted the dream, though I had no soup today so I don't know what the hey is going on there).

Good times in the casa - I think we are having a faux Christmas morning on this fine NYE AM in a little bit (read: whenever everyone else wakes up, so probably several hours from now). There's actually some pickup later on today, so while I'll be sadly missing the Phoenix NYDay "Hungover Hat" tournament, I'll at least get to enjoy the rare opportunity to play with the A-Dog. So that'll be cool, and then it's more festivities tonight - movies, dinner, Auld Lang Syning, you name it. I am currently taking bets on the Beck fall-asleep hour - when making your predictions, keep in mind that we are an hour later than our internal clocks, so she has a bonus sixty minutes to play with. She made it to 9:00 last year, so given a little motivation and maybe a slipped dose of caffeine in there somewhere, we're shooting for 10:42.

I forgot to write about it - had a fun evening with D&C on Saturday. The Light Rail, Phoenix edition is now up and running, and Dan's personal crack dealer Stinkweed's was having a little concert / sale in celebration. We headed over to enjoy some acoustic stylings where Beck judged EVERYONE and then rode the train downtown for some excellent dinner at Wild Thai-ger (I know, they are HILARIOUS). For climatological reasons that no one can explain, it has been getting down into the low forties / high thirties at night in PHX lately, so I had all kinds of pleasant Boston flashbacks while waiting fifteen minutes in the cold for the train to arrive. We eventually made it home to watch a great little film (on Katherine's rec) called The Fall, which I will review at some other time.

Oh, and before I go curl up on the couch to wait the several hours for everyone to wake up - I maintained my yearly tradition (started around 2000, I think) of making my mom some compilation CDs for Christmas. Not Christmas tunes, mind you, just a mix of songs for her to rock out in the car on her way to work. I am happy with this year's batch as I managed to seamlessly incorporate the likes of Mötley Crüe, GPGDS, Ludo, Spinners, GNR, Philip Glass, New Order and Joan Baez, to name a few. Good times. It'll be a rocking new year's eve, indeed.

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Boring Shoulder Update
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Still hurts - may have a played a bigger part in waking me up than my soup guitar, actually. I think I keep rolling over it in my restless sleep. AH, well. It's definitely feeling better - the astute among you will have picked up on the fact that I'm planning on playing Ultimate today, and I actually played on Sunday, too. A little tough to suddenly lunge at anything off to the left side of my body and above my head, but otherwise okay - on Sunday, I skyed some youngin from Tucson and had a trailing edge layout goal catch, so things can't possibly be too dysfunctional. I'll let you know how it holds up.
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Saturday, December 27, 2008

Grimmace

In this metaphor, Grimmace is both my face and my shoulder; I am the consumed toddler. Shoulder is still hurting a lot though manageable; getting sharp pains right around the biceps tendon insert in front and back just under the acromion (for all you anatomy-heads out there). I am getting actively livid with this as it seems that all I could have possibly done was sleep on it funny. LOL, Enter. Anyways, I think I am just going to grimmace a lot and bear it; hopefully I just strained some tendons in the capsule with my sleeping antics and all will be okay in a couple of days. I'll keep you posted.

Before I forget, here's the classic video of G'N'R at the Ritz performing Knockin' on Heaven's Door. This will give you an idea of what Mike was aiming for. Incidentally, I really like the Slash solo here and the ridiculous "just the play the same high D flat over and over" ending. Imho, this version is better than the one that ended up on UYI II, - just a little less gospel choiry and appropriately subdued, if a little sloppily played - though the call and response is vastly more ridiculous. Let this one be LOUUUUUD!



Dan and Christina's (with Wren, Tim & Naia) was fun last night - great food (potato leek soup, salad, mashed potatoes and delicious roast beef, capped by Beck's mousse, raspberry sauce and whip cream) and great times. Naia is running around like a maniac these days. We taught her to fist bump on their way out, so shes now sufficiently hip (if Dan's indie rock playlist didn't do the trick before that). Anyhoo, another fun evening; today we're supposed to celebrate the opening of Phoenix's light rail by partying at Stinkweed's, so more D&C-based fun in store.

That's about it from here - I'll leave you with some ore G'N'R content because hey, that seems to be the kick these days, and I'll even give you some bonus points if you can name this song before it is revealed when the video runs out:


Friday, December 26, 2008

MasterCook

Beck made Christmas dinner last night - Scallop Chowder, Challah Bread, Broccolini, Mashed Potatoes, Fillet Mignon, and Chocolate Mousse. Ridiculous, so good. If the world runs out of sick animals, she has easy back-up option.

We're headed to D&C's tonight for another holiday dinner w/ Tim & Wren (and others?). All's I'm saying, Xtina, is that the holiday meal gauntlet has been thrown! Ha, Xtina is also a ridiculo-cook, so I am sure I will be stuffing my face again tonight.

Otherwise, just getting some misc work done at the homestead today - Beck is back at her regular work, campus is closed, so it's just me and the pups today.

The only news of late is that I seem to have torn my left shoulder apart, and I have no idea how. Just started getting a searing pain every time I abduct or externally rotate yesterday morning. It's definitely on the superior / slightly posterior part of the joint, so either supraspinatusy or deltoid would be my guess. It calms down if I keep my left arm dead still, but this is of course all but impossible to do. I jerked it getting into bed last night and basically didn't sleep. Fun times. Of course, the ASU health clinic is closed today, and as I am within 25 miles of campus I have to go there before doing anything else. It's not an emergency, and hopefully I just bizarrely tweaked something and didn't really tear it, but damn, it's giving me that nice nocinausea every time I move it the wrong way. Very frustrating, because I didn't actually do anything - I went running on Wednesday, but that's it, no other athletic endeavors, and there was no acute lifting Wrigley above my head incident or anything that would warrant this amount of pain. Maybe my warranty has run out. I'm about ready to give up.

I know that doesn't make for fascinating reading, but thats what's up. I will try to press through with a healthy diet of naproxen and ibuprofen. Some icing, too. Ah, well.

I'll try to make up for this with a more interesting post in a bit. Sorry.

UPDATE
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Refined complaint: Extending and internal rotation . abduction causes maximal pain where the biceps tendon inserts. This is awesome. Not quite as awesome as reading detailed descriptions of it, though, I'm sure.

World Class Trash Talk

Props to this guy:

Jacques Cesaire

Regarding the Denver Broncos: "“They have bad teeth,” the Chargers defensive end disclosed Wednesday. “They have bad hair. They don't know how to cook. What else don't I like about them? They watch “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.' Who does that? Who watches “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman?' That's what I want to know. I heard the Denver Broncos watch it. I'm just sayin'.”

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Ice Cream tip


WaDuke ice cream not pictured

Virginia Tech Men's Basketball coach Seth Greenberg reports that the Washington Duke Inn in Durham, NC has the best ice cream in the world, bar none. The Clarion Content has yet to try it, but we have to give Greenberg's opinion some credence. The widely traveled Coach Greenberg, a FDU graduate, has been on coaching staffs all over the country including: Columbia University, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Virginia, the University of Miami, Cal State University at Long Beach, the University of South Florida and Virginia Tech.

We have to believe the man has tried ice cream in a lot of different cities and joints. And if he bothers, during an interview about his basketball team's prospects against mighty Duke next week, to throw a shout out to the locally known, WaDuke, as the best ice cream in the world, we think it is noteworthy.

We are going to give it a try. Stay tuned to this page for further updates.

Snow P.I.M.P.

Happy holidays to the Formerly Grafton branch of the Nyetverse: Sarah, Christophe, Malcolm, Ben, Ali, Bella and Heidi! Given the snow in that picture, I think it might be about time to start talking about our next vacation reunion?

Merry Tuberculosis!

Beck and I had a nice Christmas Eve - she got home at about 3 after a partial day at work and started preparing things for tonight's Christmas dinner. We went for an early dinner at Giuseppe's, a local Italian joint, and it's a good thing we did as they closed up shop pretty much immediately after we left at 6:45. Christmas Eve smack in the middle of a largely mass-going population turns out to be not the busiest time for dining; bonus for us, because we had the entire place to ourselves. Nice. (This is actually the second time in a week where we went out for a date and "had the entire place to ourselves" - last week we watched Bolt in a theater all by ourselves. We are either highly exclusive or really lame). Really good if small portioned food (or maybe their portions are normal, and Vinny T's has wrecked my sense of scale) - bruschetta for appetizers, Beck had ravioli, and I had olive oil seaping mac and cheese. Yum. We stopped by the Block on the way home and rented some flicks for a quiet evening.

After my failings, Beck managed to find Chanukah candles at her Super-Fry's. Turns out they were not in the Holiday section, nor were they in the candles section. They were in the Hispanic / Jewish food section, between the matza and tortillas. You know, because Jewish people eat candles. Perhaps a topic for another post, but I HATE GROCERY STORES and their WACK ORGANIZATIONAL PRINCIPLES. It is a scientific fact that I have wasted 4.72 days of my life wandering around grocery stores searching for products that should have been in obvious places but were not. Oh, charcoal? That's not next to the hamburger buns, it's next to the Liquid Plumber. Jelly, you say? As in peanut butter and? You say you looked in the bread, peanut butter, and fruit aisles? Silly boy, that is clearly a canned vegetable! ARGH. Anyways, Beck to the rescue, and we had a nice four candle menora setup for traditional Christmas Eve ambience. Many stoichiometry problems were solved. At least in our heads.

We watched Hancock; I'll review it later. Surprisingly dark and short. Unsurprisingly stupid. Actually, scratch that; the first half was pretty cool. Things fell apart after his transformation. I won't ruin anything else. Anyways, a reasonably pleasant way to spend the holiday night. Beck and I then tackled the NYT Crossword puzzle and kicked its BUTT. Finished a Thursday in something like 16 minutes. Huzzah! We listened to Elvis's Christmas Album while doing it (which explains the King appearance in the previous post); just a nice homey scene. I'm surprised there aren't more Norman Rockwell paintings of people with menoras and Hancock on the TV and Mac laptops listening to mp3s on their other computer. All we needed was a fireplace to complete the picture. Sigh. Capped things off with an episode of Ugly Betty, a show we've been told is good but smacks of predictable lameness to me thus far. Perhaps I am not the target audience. ANyhoo, it was then on to bed, as Beck has to work at the ER today. :(. (She does get off at 2, though). I stayed up reading 100 Years for a little while; I've got about 100 pages left.

So I'm home alone on Christmas morning with the dogs. But it's okay. You know why? Because it's a VERY JIMI CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Now playing: Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

D

Two Years of Ballading this month, and this would be the 500th post. 562nd if you count the slow opening chords over at the old site (but who does?). I've been staring at that sentence for the past few days, trying to come up with some kind of uber-significant post on identity or change to put a big fat punctuation mark on 500 posts of self-indulged drivel. And I can't come up with anything cosmic. These things are better left to their natural flow, which is sort of the point of the Ballad anyway, a rambling pastiche account of all things Nyet, a sad struggle to figure out what's going on and find heart in the process. Two years have provided quite a change in venue, marital status, job, friends, you name it. (The dogs are the same, though, so don't name them :) ). And sitting here on Christmas Eve in Phoenix in a new (old) house with the lovely Beck and two goofball pups makes me feel quite alright with the changes. So happy 500th, Ballad; keep on plucking away and knowing that despite pervasive tumult, there will be plenty of calm moments to savor. Or, you know, on this night of all nights, we could just turn things over to the King and his commentary on the situation:


I Don't Believe We're On the Eve of Consumption

Santa by Dice Tsutsumi

Just returned from a failed excursion to buy Chanukah candles at the store. Sure, they have big fat XMAS Santa Coca-Cola Starbucks Vanilla Latte Scented Candle-tastics Coated with Reindeer Blood and Elven Bile in Blue-Ray TV Show Box-Sets, but no thin candlesticks by which to do my chemistry homework1. Truly upsetting. I bought some AA batteries and carrots for the dogs instead. (The carrots are for the dogs, not the batteries. They, of course, are hybrid gasoline / hot dog vehicles. The dogs, not the batteries). You know, doing my part. For the economy. Fighting the 7:15 AM Fry's crowds. With piped tinny holiday tunes. And Merry Christmas goodbyes.

We heard a report on NPR yesterday about a man who gave out five dollar checks during the Great Depression to help familes out during the holidays. He had gone out of his way to keep his identity secret so as to not embarrass those accepting the gifts - many of them were fallen-on-hard-times bankers who probably knew the man. The man didn't want any credit for his actions; just wanted to do something nice for his fellow humans. Of course, we heard this from a guy who figured out that the mystery man was his grandfather and decided to out him on national radio. You know, defying his wishes. Thanks for that, grandson. NPR also informs us that $5 was a lot of money in those days. All this made me think was that 1, I wish I could time travel, and 2, MC Escher must have grown up in those same snow-covered magical times when both home and school were uphill from one another.

Beck is working today; only until 2. We have been pulling off our own Chanukah miracle lately with a disc of burrito filling that has lasted 8 nights. Tonight, I think we'll break the legumonotony and go out for dinner, saving tomorrow night for a big Christmas dinner. Some cold rainy times here in PHX - cold being a high of 55, which trust me, after having your blood thinned2 by 120 degree summers, is quite cold. (Beck and I have been fighting off using the heat, but when we noticed that it was 58 in the house the other day - colder than the 62 we used to keep it in Natick! - we had to cave. I've taken to drinking tea and wearing a scarf inside; it feels like 2003 all over again). I managed to get out for a quick 2.5 mile run yesterday, trying to slowly get back into it. My other big plan for today is to continue reading Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, which is thus far excellent.

Alright, maybe some links later. Maybe not. Hope everyone's having a good one - holla to the Texas and Rachacha crews!

1 One heat-waved July night in Boston, in our post-bac-pre-med/vet days, right before a big chemsitry exam, the power went out due to excessive AC use around our neighborhood. We had to study, but no diners or coffee shops were open at that hour. We scoured the house for candles and all we could find was Beck's inherited silver menorah. Out of options, we studied limiting reagents by candlelight - a veritable festival of "ites." There are still blue wax drippings on our textbooks. I will forever associate Chanukah with sweating and ionic salts. Somehow I think the general scholarly attitude of the Jews will help the powers that be forgive us.

2 What does this mean? Blood thinned? Do I smell a metaphor? And in smelling a metaphor, do I smell a metaphor? No, seriously, I have little doubt that this effect is real as I am now a huge pansy when it comes to slightly cool temperatures. But I'd like to know what tragedy has befallen my skinny blood.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

And To An Actual Dave I Know I Know

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

HOPE THE LX IS XL!!!!
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Now playing: The Beatles - Birthday

Sisyphean Porters ReLux

Beck and I once again found ourselves in the rundown factory chic of Lux this morning, this time with no desert storm outside nor a ill-begotten silimic soundtrack to accompany it. The door remained, however, and though there were many confounding variables (time of day, clientele, etc.), we figured that this would serve as a reasonable control for the aforementioned door hinge experiment. So we did our best to ignore the guy with the GIGANTIC HAIR next to it and paid close attention to the goings-on of the door.

Surprisingly, in the absence of cold, wind and rain, more people made an effort to close the door, latch and all. But the majority still left it hanging open in the breeze, rendering the sign on the door's back that said "Closed" - as viewed from our vantage inside the establishment - somewhat ironic. This time, though, there were people who repeatedly stood up and shut the door! Amazing! One guy in particular, in full-on hipster gear / haircut / vibe, let's call him "A. Camus," sat on a bench outside the cafe next to the door and stopped reading his book no fewer than five times to close the door that others had left open. Truly admirable; Beck and I were tempted to get him a coffee but then figured that the pursuit was enough to fill this man's soul. So maybe the lesson is that while the majority are apathetic wankers, the few, the heroic, will bring us ironic hipster world-caring salvation.

More interesting: we have effectively shouted "Don't think of a dancing penguin!" w/r/t Lux. I promise if you go there now, you will be unable to NOT think of the door hinge. Just try it!

Also, lacking obvious context for the same kind of "deserts miss the rain" joke that the Lux DJ played last week, we were treated to some loud music of the genre that Mike NTPB recently dubbed "plaintive chick rock." I reiterate the inappropriateness of such tripe for coffeehouse settings. If you insist on blaring something, it's gotta be wordless techno / ambient stuff. Those words are just too distracting. But if female vocals are somehow vital to the Lux experience, please dust off your quiet folk guitar music set and let us hear some Joan.

Beck and I both thought that next time she is in town, we need to bring the iPMM to Lux as this sort of hip, artsy atmosphere is right up her alley, music selection and raised-in-a-barn considerations notwithstanding. I then said we should bring the iPJ, too, if for no other reason than to see all the Mac users grind their work to a halt and bow before his Appleness. And thus shall the prophecy be fulfilled: "And LO, the Man with Many Holsters, the Messiah of MP3s, shall come to 'The Light.'"

Oh, and btw, the coffees were super yummy.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Slight Respite: A Misc Mix

Trekked into school today and put in the last couple of hours on a quick research project I was doing for Jason. 'Twas about some of the neuroscience aspects of using model organisms for research. Not my favorite topic, and I didn't do a bang-up job, but I got something down on paper, so there's a physical thing to build from. Always helpful. Given that he and everybody else are absent for the holidays, I'm going to work from home until at least after Christmas day. Wahoo.

(In other school-related news, I got my grades back from my papers today, and everything went swimmingly to the tune of a 4.12 GPA for my first semester. Wahoo Two. Before you get too excited, I am told everyone and their dogs get As in grad school, so all this really means is that I am mediocrely competent and didn't overtly offend anyone's academic senses. Go Team Nyet).

Good Sunday - got some reading done in the morning and played a solid couple of hours of Ultimate in the PM. I ended the day with a crazy back of the endzone full layout catch on a big huck from Vince; tres exciting Ultimate action to win the game. Much better than regular frisbee, indeed. More importantly, I talked to Aaron yesterday and he had a much better time at his Austin Ultimate league. He's getting back into the swing of things after a long break from bigger, whiter, floatier (BETTER) disc sports, and after a shocker of a first week, it sounds like he is back on track for glory. We'll be sure to get some intense training in over New Year's and turn him into an indomitable beast. A forehand flickin', chump-skyin', layout-Din' beast. Raw; scream.

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This is a quick interlude to allude to things TIP. For those of you who don't know, Mike NTPB and I attend the Duke Talent Identification Program during our wayward youth. It is best defined as nerd camp; we took college-esque classes like Film and Intro to Philosophy while hanging out with dorks of our own ilk and girls who would talk to us. Unbelievably formative, at least for me; among other things, this was where I picked up Ultimate and a penchant for dancing the Time Warp. I'll save a detailed rundown of it for a rainy day post, but the things you need to know are this: 1, we had this friend Franklin who apparently has used the powers of e-mail to dominate Hollywood. I can't even explain this; Franklin was a shy child genius who seemed destined for I.R. glory or something, and now he's a bedreadlocked big guy behind the scenes. Who knew. That link is probably wildly uninteresting to you, but... hmmmm, let's say that Mr. Rogers turning out to have fronted a punk band in the late seventies has about equal "WHAT???" value. Anyways, thing 2 that you should know is that every year ended with a talent show. Mike mentioned this as his most embarrassing moment the other day in the comments, and what is scary to me is that I have no recollection of this whatsoever: we played G'n'R's version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," complete with Mike playing Axl and a call and response section. And apparently Mike couldn't hear himself or the audience or anything - no monitors at the TIP talent show, unshockingly - and so he essentially did a call and response sans response. Holding the mic out to the crowd and everything. Oh wow. This is just stupendous. And I can't believe I don't have it trapped between my ears somewhere. So next time you need to calm yourself down before speaking in public, just think to yourself, "as long as I don't warble "knock knock knockin' on heaven's dowowowowoorrr, hey hey yeah" and hold the mic out to a cricket crowd, I am okay." Yikes. Serious bonus points to Mike for surviving that.
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We capped Friday with dinner with D&C for the first time in a while - hit up a place called Ticoz which had some reasonably tasty southwest fare and some OH TRES CHIC attitude as well. Another one of those restaurants - maybe not as bad as Ra Sushi in this department - that made me feel like I wasn't anywhere near cool enough to be there. Fun times with D&C regardless, and we headed back to their place to watch the truly bizarre 2008 European MTV music awards despues. Why bizarre? Um, I had a dream once that Jared Leto crappily interviewed miscellaneous rock stars, Katy Perry1 screamed her brains out to introduce acts called the Ting Tings, Kanye West dressed like Carlton from the Fresh Prince circa 1991, Kid Rock ruled a place called the Irony Free Zone2, a slew of wackos gave shoutouts to Liverpool, Bono verbally climaxed as he introduced Paul McCartney, and then Paul actually showed up to pump his fist in half-assed they paid me to be here triumph. But the dream WAS REAL. Yikes.

I can't remember past that. It was raining a lot last week, as I recall. Anyhoo, I'll try and get some posting done over the next few days. Hope everyone's having a great holiday. And a big happy birthday eve to the Dadster!

1 Don't know Katy Perry, eh? Well, that's amazing, because her trite songs have been all over the place this year. You should know that she has a white-washed weak drunk girls night out lesbian experience song and another that perpetuates the use of the term gay as a mild derogative. Did I mention she's a former Christian rock artist turned pop-sex prostitutestarlett? You stay genuine, Katy. Let's just let the allmusic review of her album describe her relative place in the trash pop spectrum: "she sinks to crass, craven depths that turn One of the Boys into a grotesque emblem of all the wretched excesses of this decade."

2 As dubbed by MC Dan. I don't think that's original*, but it quite aptly describes the fur wearing blues mangler ripping off Warren Zevon and Lynyrd Skynyrd simultaneously in his sad sack summer single. I like that the same show welcoming him as a legend follows up with Bono and PM. That's just great.

* - It has come to my attention that "Irony Free Zone" is a DFW-ism.

Friday, December 19, 2008

That Time of Year

Pitchfork's Top 100 Tracks and Top 50 Albums of 2008.

A quick confession: I am nowhere near as alterna hipster beatnik hippie great as you or I think I am. I have neither the insider access nor the teenage patience to mine the album bins or the late night clubs across this fine nation to find the latest greatest. I need a filter, and Pitchfork provides it nicely. The website routinely gets ridiculed because of their easy susceptibility to accusations of horn-rimmed snobbery; admittedly, sometimes their reviews spectacularly say nothing and seem to have no connection to the pretentious 10 point-scale rating the album receives. A skewering of the PF sensibility, something I've linked to before, is an Onion article that cites Pitchfork as reviewing the entire human history of music and giving it a 6.8. That more or less sarcastically sums it up.

Still, it's a nice place to seek out music and music news, and even if they are a little too indie powerful for their own good, you can at least start there when trying to figure out what the hey is going on in indie music. So I love it when these end-of-year lists come out; just a great place to start digging through the mess. I temper it with other sources - MetaCritic, AllMusic, and Dan's living room are other great places to start. This approach pretty much guarantees that you will be a few months behind the times, but hey, there's no way you could ever really keep up anyways. Really, it's the same reason I like older music and older films - they've been run through a theoretical cultural filter already, and I don't have to waste time with the chaff. You miss a lot of gems that way, obviously, and your whole access to the pop cultural universe is being quietly controlled by list-makers, but hey, gotta start somewhere, and the list-first mentality has taken me places so far. (I should also give a shoutout to nudeasthenews and their "most compelling albums of the nineties" list, something that decidedly shaped my initial forays into list-based music collection. Without that, I wouldn't even know what an "Elephant Six Music Collective" was or that "No one wants to hear what [I] dreamt about unless [I] dreamt about theeeeeeem [sic]," and wow would I not be able to show my face in certain publics in that case2). (Not that I do show my face in those publics, as I could probably count the number of non-Phish non-GPGDS shows I've attended in the past five years on a shop-class-accident-mangled hand1).

Anyways, trek on over to Pitchfork; they've got mp3s embedded of the bulk of the top 100 songs, and it might be interesting to you to hear what the indie kids who think they're cool but are actually Pitchfork sheep are listening to these days. And don't forget that your musical, literary and other pop cultural experiences are highly sculpted, controlled, and fantastically arbitrary. Embrace the list.

1 The New Pornographers and Flaming Lips in Boston, Vampire Weekend in Tempe. I mean, I saw Crisis Bureau a few times at the Middle East, Jon's band Sigma, Liz's friends King Wilkie, so i should qualify that I mean non friend-supporting concerts. But really, wow, I am even less cool than I thought at the beginning of this post.

2 In fact, CONTEST: if you can name the first album that I copied to iTunes, knowing that it comes from the top ten of that natn list, I will do something spajo for you.

And Now: Bath Time!

Two Styles of 2008 in Review, as Recommended by a Real Writer: The first sentence of the first post of each month, and then the last sentence of the last post of each month (in reverse order).

Jan: The sun is up, The sky is blue, It's beautiful, Why'd you go for two?
Feb: Phew.
Mar: Yawn, cough, wake from the slumber.
Apr: Barf.
May: Happy May!
Jun: Sorry for the dearth - a few things to post about, but time is lacking this morning, as I have marathon tutelage to perform.
Jul: Skidding our way into July here, only six weeks until I re-re-restart my real life at grad school.
Aug: Sheebus McSheebus!!!
Sep: But first, a rewind: My official foray into school was the general orientation within the school of life sciences.
Oct: Big time game last night- WEfnuk was matched up with "Wii Huck," a team featuring a dude named Nick who goes by the name of "Tricky" who would easily be on the starting line of any kind of Phoenix area all-stars squad.
Nov: That's the Nu-q-lar Searl (minus James) in Boston at the Tufts 10K a couple of weeks back.
Dec: Greetings from the depths of academia.

Hmmmm... Method Two?

Dec: The last sentence of this month is obviously subject to change.*
Nov: Here's the OH NOES!!!
Oct: So much power.
Sep: I'm gonna go ahead and leave it caption free and hope the people get it.
Aug: Fun times in the valley of the Airborne Thunderstorm Event.
Jul: And Ben, we are not a shoe depository.
Jun: Don't do this.
May: Hopefully Russell Crowe won't show up, because DAMN.
Apr: (And btw, Wrigster is still a little gimpy but overall feeling much better).
Mar: This post is dedicated to Dan and his love of CREED.
Feb: If you think this scene is odd out of context, trust me that the context does not add a whole lot.
Jan: And now: bath time!

Well then. I... I don't know. I don't really think we've accomplished much of anything here. Ah, well. 2008, ladies and gents!

*The last sentence of this month is obviously subject to change.

Moving



The Clarion Content was surprised to read in this morning's LA Times that more people are moving out of the state of California than into it. It is our positively biased view towards the almost nation of California that makes that fact hard for us to swallow. When this was last happening in the 1990's, we made epic arguments that it wasn't only to be factually debunked.

What, you are leaving the temperate climes of the most cutting edge place in the country behind? What, have you been reading the Clarion Content's anti-recession shoutouts to the Dakotas? Unlikely.

The LA Times says the states that Californians are most frequently moving to Texas, Nevada, Arizona and Washington. It is primarily the cost of living and the economy that folks cite as reasons for leaving. California is an expensive place in the best of times, but when jobs are scarce and the economy is contracting it becomes a downright difficult combination of circumstances. Fear not Cali, your mini empire of 38 million is not going away, a mere 135,173 more people moved out of California than moved into it, a drop in the bucket. And California rates as one of the top four states for likelihood that natives reaching 18 there stay there, with more than 69% electing not to leave. The three states that rank ahead of CA for their residents who grew up there loving it enough that they are not leaving, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

A Short Take on the Past Five Day's Four Films

In order of, um, appreciation?

Dreamland: 50

Something that should have before now but if not will in a moment have revealed itself is that I appreciate effort and ambition in my film. And this one had it - not your standard story, and a huge effort at spectacular, color-rich cinematography taboot. Quirky film editing, dialog, the works. But still - there's just something spectacularly unbelievable about a multi-year alcoholic claustrophobe suddenly pulling himself up by his bootstraps, something just pain-stakingly silly about a 140 pound long haired goof-kid (who practices by dunking on an eight foot hoop) getting a scholarship to UNLV. I additionally did not buy the love triangle or the heartfelt poetry. 'Twas a pretty film, but it just didn't hit it for me.

Bolt: 65

Something about this ho-hum Dreamworks production just hit the spot. Possibly the fiction / reality conflict of which I am such a fan. Wildly predictable plot, complete with the changes of heart and lessons of friendship, but that didn't really bug me so much. Maybe it's because I have a severe penchant for crying at dog drama, but Bolt's longing for reunion and his canine dedication were just touching. My only big complaint is that the hamster could have been so much more. Yeah, Beck dragged me to this, but I am not complaining at all; I enjoyed it. And I am now especially suspicious of Wrigley whenever she barks, stares, or tries to paw me on the shoulder.

Sweeney Todd
: 70 (75, maybe?)

I heart Tim Burton, and I heart absurdity, so I really heart Tim Burton musicals about revenge-seeking barbers who turn their victims into meat pies. I find it TRULY WACK that so many of my former Walnut students cited this as their favorite Broadway musical; still, I respect the story and all its comitragic whims. I really like that they didn't back off from the gore. They really maxed out what they could do with this piece.

I'm Not There: 473

This is the kind of film that makes me feel inadequate as a human being. Big cheater points for involving one of my favorite subjects, but MAN OH MAN did they do this up right. I am speechless to the point of being unable to review: even the audio commentary was fantastic. Maybe someday I'll get it together enough to review this properly, but in the meantime, wow, just kudos for refusing to bow to a standard "biopic" methodology and keeping this mythic tale in the realm of the myth. A+++. And the soundtrack TABOOT.

Another Boring Diary-esque Post: Week 16, and Other Considerations

Week 16 unspectacularly came and went. I had battened down the hatches for the last few weeks of the year in an effort to get my papers done (something to definitely consider for next semester is to get on top of the writing aspect a lot sooner. I did a reasonable job organizing, but only left myself a week and a half to write at the end, which was sub-ideal), and the last week was no different. And consequently, very un-exciting and uninteresting to report - basically a whole lot of me sitting at a computer typing surrounded by six piles of articles from the 1970s. I did finish, though, with time to spare, and thanks to the helpful editing of Beck, I got my papers in on Thursday. Semester one: done.

The other prominent feature of the final week was my officemate's Jenny attempt to grade 150 papers and 90 exams in far less time than normal human effort can manage. She's TAing for Andrew's Science and Society class, an upper level Bio & Society class, and let me tell you WOW - you should see some of the CRAZY stuff people write in their papers. I may be spilling a long held dark TA secret here, but there's only one way to bear the psychological burden of reading 450 pages of undergrad stupidity, and that's to laugh your ass off as you share it with your officemate. I don't feel bad about this at all; if you don't have the courtesy to read your own work before you turn it in, well then, we reserve the right to mock. Seriously - simply reading these things out loud before handing them over to the peanut gallery would fix 90 percent of the problems. They could catch the spelling-check gaffes, they could hear that their verbs don't match their subjects, they for-pete's-sake could hear how absurd some of their sentences sound. Just off the top of my head, here are some paraphrased passages from this semester:

"In his latest work, [Smith] takes us, the readers, on a magical philosophical journey through time."

"Some Diary products turn out to be not so good for you." (This was an opening sentence!).

"There haven't been too many people quite as wide as Aristotled."

"What you may not know is that milk contain nine vitamins. And I disagree that its bad - I drink one cup a day at least and I am not fatty."

"There have been five most influtential people in history: Jesus, Hitler, Einstein and Edison. Issac Newton could be a sixth."

"In elucidating, Dawkin's theory remains unclear, and I can't exactly get his meaning.*"

"* - I e-mailed Dr. Dawkins to ask him to explain, but as of this writing, he has not returned my e-mail."

Let me reiterate: those are just the ones off the top of my head. Don't get me wrong; they obviously stand out as absurd-plus, but just trust that for each of those there are fifty more run of the mill ridiculous mistakes and claims. So to get an idea of the past two weeks, picture Jenny and me hunkered down in the Ethics Lab1, brandishing a red pen as a similic dagger and typing away furiously, respectively. She interrupted the monotony every so often with one of these gems, and we just laughed and laughed. So despite the stress of deadlines, we managed to make a good time of it. I like our lab.

One day last week - Wednesday I think - I had just finished another round of edits and was headed home for the day. My cold was in full effect, so I stopped by the overpriced Yogurtini shop on the way back to my car and got some cold dessert to soothe my aching throat. It was a cool 60 degrees and the sun was setting, so I kicked up my feet on a patio chair and watched ASU rush hour while listening to something appropriately pastoral - Erasure Pop! - to pass ten minutes before going home. And in the midst of the mayhem, this decidedly unpeaceful scene of finals stress on top of gnarled bumper to bumper, I achieved a certain sense of calm. The thousand crossing itineraries made a sort of senseless sense. It's easy up close to papers and tests and work and whatnot to lose purpose. Easy perhaps because there really is no purpose, strictly speaking. I've often held the erroneous notion that there's a right thing to do, a trajectory, something of import to be accomplished. Sometimes I conceive of it as a something generally for people everywhere, sometimes as a something for me, like I was somehow carved to do a certain set of unknown things and it's a matter of finding them. This smacks of some weird sort of fatalistic, teleological ridiculousness, and certainly did so in that moment. How does Mike end up in law school, Frank geologizing, Beck a vet, Nyet sitting in a stupid Tempe cafe subconsciously concerned with mid seventies science communication? What, we're all whittling down towards proper life trajectories? Tres dumb. And just for a second, I capture it, that we're the multi-headed beast, mattering not in what we accomplish individually but as the grand collective. Probably a symptom of too much "level of selection" type evolutionary thought. But it strikes and make sense for just a moment, carries just the right mix of horror and solace. We don't matter. There ain't no life path nowhere, just blind trajectory seeking based on uncertainty and arbitrary values. That's got the typical vibe of Parisian cafe despair. But the other - no life path to which to adhere. Only thing mattering a generalized attempt to transcend. No burden outside that of trying. And the beast benefits. Kinda nice.

Of course, eventually my cup runs out of choclate and reece's, and it's time to head back to the Honda and join the fray. The traffic's a lot less symbolic when viewed from within.

The other COOL development of the end of this semester has been Beck picking up Ultimate. I am psyched. I was still feeling sickly on Sunday, and with league finals supposedly happening on Monday, I elected to skip pickup. Beck and I instead jogged up to a local park and threw the disc around. I coached a little, but mainly we just tossed and ran around and enjoyed the afternoon. Beck's already faking and pivoting and looking every bit the part. Very, very schwank, and a thoroughly lovely way to spend the PM. Rain has so far prevented her attending another practice (the latest was Thursday, when she still couldn't walk because of the body-beating she endured Tuesday - seems not sprinting for 9 years is not the best Ultimate training regimen), but I'm excited to see her out there. More news on that as it happens.

That's probably enough waxing for this morning; on to work. I'm Nyet, and I apparently think I'm as wise as Aristotled.

1 Our lab is jokingly referred to as "The Ethics Lab." We have a large table in the middle of the room as this space used to be an actual lab lab. The latest ingeniousness we've come up with is to buy a model train set with a big locomotive and a splitting pair of tracks. On one track will be five lego figures, and on the other will be a lego Einstein-as-a-child. When people walk into our lab, Jenny and I will drop everything and just stare at the set up. When the inevitable question comes - "What the hell are you guys doing?" - we will calmly reply: "Ethics experiment. We value our lab space."

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Banker desserts

Hopefully you saw the British comedy clip we posted last week about the roots of the economic crisis. It was dry, acerbic, funny stuff. Here from the highly recommended Best of Craig's List is a little more fiery American response rooting for the bankers to get their just desserts. Ahh, comeuppance.

It is titled, "You reap what you sow: the greed of an archetypal Lehman douche."

"Most of you deserve this, you really, truly do. You chose this road because it was easy and because you’re stupid. This was and is the best you’ll ever do. You know who I’m talking about. I’m pointing the finger at you, you and you. And especially you. To all the overtanned Jersey douchebags with steroid addictions, to the smug Ivy League grads with dads in high places, to the good looking brain dead women that eschew Anne Taylor Loft for sales rack Brooks Brothers, and to the upwardly mobile black girls with fake hair and inappropriate-for-work Joyce Leslie outfits. Actually, scratch that. The black girls can stay.

Fuck all of you. You brought this upon yourselves. Your Alpha male bullshit begat this greed, your vile existence is truly at the core of this collapse. For all the times you and your drunk cronies threw up on the street outside Pacha, for all the times you made a scene on the 3:51 LIRR train to Babylon, for all the times you stood on the Path train, or the 6, iPod in hand, desperately trying not to touch anyone. You had it coming.

Is there some kind of code that says you MUST wear a blue shirt? Or is that some kind of unspoken bro ethos? Like, if you’re the dude in the white button down in Bryant Park, is no one gonna blow you? Or is conforming just that much easier, is conformity just a part of your DNA? Is that really the true reason why you’re so universally loathsome to anyone that’s not a part of that vile world?

Before the Bubble O’ Bullshit burst, you would laugh at me. You were the douche bags that felt superior, the ones who turned up their nose at their working-class roots, the ones who scoffed at their peers who worked at the Local Union. You were the ones who laughed at those that worked at non-profits and LIKED IT. “Art History? What are you going to do with a major in Art History?” Yeah, your finance major got you real fucking far. Maybe after this ship sails you’ll realize that aside from your rape trial, college didn’t teach you much of anything. Sorry bro, but in the real world, you can’t walk down the street, lacrosse stick in hand, and just get respect.

I hope that with this smashup comes your own social foreclosure. I hope all those dudes from my high school -- you know who I'm talking about -- the ones that never got good grades, the ones that never knew how to act like decent human beings, the date rapists, the juicers, the guidos, the Quinnipiac or Iona grads that never should have graduated yet somehow landed cushy Wall Street jobs -- receive the guerdon from the gods . I hope you’re evicted from your Upper East Side apartment, I hope your Denali gets repoed, I hope you can’t afford your bullshit Murray Hill lifestyle. I hope you truly get your comeuppance. Because it’s well fucking deserved and the Universe knows it. And what about me, you ask?

I’m laughing all the way to the nonexistent bank."

The Clarion Content says, "Whoa."

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

"Missing" a Hinge: Doors DeLuxe

Beck had the day off, and I still feel cold crappy, so we both stayed home this dreary Tuesday. After I edited a student article and read five more neuroscience articles and Beck facebooked quite a bit this AM, we trekked over to Luxe, a hipster indie coffee shop not too far from our house.

Luxe has that nice, abandoned warehouse aesthetic combined with enough Mac computers, black turtlenecks and unnatural hair dye colors to give it that so-hip-it-hurts vibe. The parking lot houses high mpg vehicles with Obama bumper stickers. A guy in the corner wears a shirt proclaiming "Enjoying My Coffee," smacking of concert-going being-that-guy. (Did his wire-rimmed glasses twinkle a little more than usual as he pulled that shirt off the floor? Don't know). Cool kids behind the counter deal lattes below sharpe-ed glass door menus; a stray marker remark asks if we are "real." Local art adorns the walls. There are tables and lounging chairs and couches. People in rugged sweaters greet one another as regulars. Beck asks if they have real jobs. All of this is meant to signify that Luxe is a cool, liberal-minded kid typical kind of a place. An archetype. Perfect setting to sip 500 calories of coffee goodness and read up on chimpanzee / human comparative neuroscience.

Except that this FRIGGIN HIPSTER COFFEEHOUSE found it necessary to blare an Everything But the Girl mix instead of perhaps more appropriate, certainly more desired light guitar strumming Baezian offerings. This would have been annoying enough, except that said mix featured at least four different versions of "Missing," that big club hit that you've undoubtledly heard before with the chorus "I miss you, like the deserts miss the rain." And it was on repeat.

Okay, i get it, you hipster ironists, it's pouring today in the desert. Your musical selection is quite jokily apt.

But they didn't want to just tell the joke once, they wanted everyone who entered in an hour-long period to hear the joke. Hence the repeat. They stopped eventually, but not before this tune had bored into my consciousness. Dammit.

Problem: not so much the tune that was reverberating between my ears. But something that I'm sure has been pointed out before: deserts don't miss rain. Deserts fare remarkably well without it (with the possible exception of those rare natural Arizona phenomena known as "golf courses," which are truly an ecological miracle). They are in fact kinda defined by their non-missing of rain. "I miss you... not at all because I by my very nature don't really need you all that regularly." Or even if you want to get all technical, the deserts here do get hit pretty reliably with a big dose of rain every monsoon season and again in the winter. So even if we grant that yeah, they miss their rain lover a bit, they still know it's coming back before too long. "I miss you... like other predictable cyclical events, for example, Arbor Day."

This is all trite of course, but my weird observation here is that Luxe managed to get not a song stuck in my head, but an irritation at a dumb metaphor. One that may not bother you all that much, but go listen to the song eight times in a row in marginally different forms at loud volume, and let's see how you feel about casually dropped incoherent metaphors that rose to #2 on the charts.

The other source of repeated entertainment at Luxe was the entranceway. I recently read this article by Bruno Latour about mechanical agency; one of my two or three favorite pieces from the entire semester. Highly recommended if you get a moment. A big part of it is dedicated to the human labor that gets replaced by placing a pneumatic hinge and an automatic latch on a door. (Latour refers to doorways as "wall holes" in the article, something that cracks me up for no obvious reason). Luxe's door decidedly lacked anything pneumatic about its hinge - Luxe being a decrepit converted warehouse and all - and the latch was hardly functioning at all. It was 45 degrees and raining outside, so this was somewhat noticeable for those of us sitting near the entrance. And when I say noticeable, I mean, "chilled our souls."

What was fascinating was the incompetence with which Luxe customers attempted to solve the door problem. I'd say it was about a 1 for 50 success rate while we were there (excluding the Beck, who thanks perhaps to being biased by my observation and generally being a considerate human who cares for the comfort of others, closed the door with aplomb). Some assumed pneumaticness and just let go of the door after they traversed the wall hole; one lady waltzed through the door, refusing to deign to touch it; others gave it a perfunctory shove as they went on their way. But the vast majority did a four step dance: 1, walk through assuming the pneumatic; 2, shuffle step in surprise as the door did not close; 3, push it closed, but not all the way, leaving it unlatched and one foot agape; 4, shrug and leave. You know, denying the door its "doorness." An utter failure to secure the wall hole or keep out the wind and rain. Wasting electricity isnide of Luxe and making all of our carbon footprints that much EEEer. Seeing this exact same pattern of failure and apathy quickly made me question the resolve of our hipster slick community. I mean, if they can't even shut a friggin' door, how can we expect them to sort their recyclables? And these are the conscientious folks? I miss that door's functioning hinge like the desert misses the time before human reign!

Now, this may seem like the mindless minutiae of a cold Tuesday morning. And it is. But had you even thought about door hinges and their implications for the future of mankind before now? Or the evils of stupid club hit metaphors, and the think-they're-clever barristas who blare them? On repeat? This is annoying, important stuff, people!

All of that said, the coffee was mad yummy, and yeah I am like totally going back tomorrow, mainly to be seen. And I'll be the guy wearing the t-shirt that says "t-shirt."
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Now playing: Beck - Missing... a hipster lack of consideration for people sitting next to the door.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Comedy Opportunity Missed

There are very few chances in life for a head of state to nail, just absolutely nail a Mike Myers comedy reference, and this was one of them.

In other news: heavy rain in the forecast. Tonight doesn't look good, because either it gets canceled or we play cold, wet disc in a mud bowl. I'll keep you updated.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

(Nothing But) Flower House

Long overdue: pictures of our new house. This is incomplete because one of the bedrooms is still brimming with boxes, but it otherwise gives a fairly solid idea of where we've been hanging our metaphorical hats. Note that it's the relative dead of winter, so plants are not their normal vibrant green selves. I also had the misfortune of taking these on an overcast day, so everything has that lovely dead hue to it. Basically, look at these pictures, and then imagine brighter, better ones, and you'll get the idea. The front yard:

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Ah, lovely, the hedges trimmed to perfect 83 degree angles. The greenery in front of the house obscures the front door and keeps the blazing sun out of our living room window; very nice. And to the right, what's that?

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Yep, our very own orange tree. So far its primary function has been to supply our lawn with perfume when I run over its fruits with the mower, but Beck has been munching on them of late and swears they're super sweet. Fun stuff. Even I(saac)PJ approves:

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Shot from the driveway and another view of the front of the house from there:

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And here's the front porch / front door:

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Step on through and the first thing you see is a little window shot into the kitchen via the bar:

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And walk a little to your right and you see the living room / dining room:

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Which, in case you didn't notice, is the home of the dog beds:

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The kitchen, and its view of the front door:

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The study and guest bedroom:

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Our cavernous and largely unfurnished bedroom:

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And finally, the backyard / pool:

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And what the hey, you made it this far - why not some flowers for the flower house?

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So as you can see, we're pretty sparsely furnished and decorated but getting there. It's very nice having our own home - with all the psycho roommates, stolen deposits, urine-soaked window screens, Katrina refugees, etc. we've endured over the years, it's good that we're the bosses now. And slightly terrifying, of course. But so it goes.

ALright, bedtime for me. Lotsa work tomorrow. Stay tuned for Beck's non-practice Thursday, our Fish & Dreamland date, and a really nice though sick and sleep-deprived Sunday. Ultimate playoffs for men's league are tomorrow, but the forecast calls for rain, and given those crappy grassless fields, it may get called off. So you may or may not get treated to that as well. Until then, I'm still sniffly and coughing, so it's time for a little big N little y big friggin' Q...

Phrase of the Week

I can't even begin to explain where this came from, but try to imagine a situation where the action has stalled out a bit, nothing seems as if it's ever going to resolve the central conflict or advance the plot one iota. The problem, whatever it may be, is simply intractable. And suddenly down the chimney slide eight drunken men dressed as St. Nick, and in their jolly gift-slinging belligerence they kick some serious ass and force the issue to a point where everything gets fixed.

Deus Ex Santa!

I think, but I could be wrong, that is precisely what American banks and auto companies are looking for these days.

Related, but not at all the same, a story that begins:

"So there I was, landing my reindeer-powered ride on the 2,278,094,164th house of the evening when I suddenly realized: "Na" comes before "Ni." I had gotten the lists backwards!"

In Medias Claus!

Yeah, I can't sleep.

Dogs For Your Pleasure

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Hey, wait a minute...

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