Friday, October 31, 2008

An Actual Dave I Now Know I Now Know

Thanks to the roaring generosity of one Mike NTPB, Beck and I got to see David Sedaris in the Gammage Auditorium in Tempe a week and a half ago. We got down to campus at about 6:45 for his 7:30 show, and Beck joined the throngs of people who bought a book (Me Talk Pretty One Day, an absolute classic) and stood in line to get Sedaris to sign it. When Beck got to the front, she saw David Sedaris's Halloween toy screeching witch (which he used on stage repeatedly) sitting on his table along with a bowl of candy. She said something like "Oh, too bad my husband's not here; he loves chocolate candy." So naturally, after some friendly banter, David signed the book, "Your story has touched my heart, David Sedaris." Perfect.

His reading just killed. He started off with a hilarious account of his recent book-signing tour that included cases of Costco condoms and slave monkeys. He read his recent New Yorker piece on the election, and as funny / gold as that was in print, the nasal-whine in-person reading took it over the top. He read some other selections, some diary entries, a series of bad jokes1, a rejected piece in which he makes fun of foreign accents, and some excerpts from a book by George Saunders he was pushing. He ended it by opening things up for Q&A, and while I'm sure he's had ample opportunity to practice in exactly this format, it's still impressive to see someone handle random questions from the audience - some potentially awkward - with grace.

So a great night with a funny guy. Beck and I capped things off by going over to LSA to look at the ASU collection of rattlesnakes - turns out at night they are feisty, don't like visitors so much and actually use their rattles. Hella creepy. But fun, and Beck got to see the hall of death that I occasionally have to walk through.

So thanks again to Mike NTPB. Very fun evening, and now we have an autographed copy of MTPSD in our living room.

1For example: "A bear walks into a bar. He says to the bartender, 'I'll have a club soda... [Dave stops here to take a long drink of water] ...on the rocks." The bartender says, "Hey, why the long pause?" I mean, see? That's terrible. But Dave Sedaris nasalizes it, and it's friggin' hilarious. So much power.

Seven, Eight, Nine & Ten: The Weeks

This academic endeavor is blurring together with creepy ease, so I need to step back and account for the goings on every now and then. In BULLET form:
  • Week 7 was a no-go for Law Class. The ASU Law School gets a winter break, so a nice reprieve from the lawheads. Really, the professor for this class is great and passes the material on well enough, but the level of discourse is somewhere in the CNN ballpark. Meaning that we seem to have a generation of lawyerheads with a soundbyte-level depth to them. That's just super.
  • We read a paper by Chip Burkhardt on the issue of "space" and naturalism - essentially, what is the appropriate way to study animal behavior - in a lab, in the field, in a zoo, with a shoe? More on this in a sec
  • Somewhere in here I read a book by Levins and Lewontin called Biology Under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on Ecology, Agriculture and Health. They are hard-core Marxists and it shows, though their basic premise is entirely correct - you have to consider the complexity and shifting dynamics of all things biological in order to accurately comprehend them. This book is a collection of essays, and for better or worse they did not edit a thing - you end up reading the same examples OVER and OVER. So a problematic book - the rhetoric in particular gets tiresome - though an interesting one. J and I are supposed to write a short review at some point.
  • We hit up the Botanical Garden this week for our HSD seminar class. Hot damn, can Andrew tear apart a docent. It was a nice break from the classroom routine, and cool to see a taxonomist's perspective on such places. We also drove there, which means I got to show Johnny and Melissa the glory of GPGDS in the car. It also showed me the glory of this:
  • After class that Friday, I went to my first "grad students have lunch with a visiting professor"... lunch. Dr. Burkhardt was exceptionally kind, but man - it was "let's go around the table, and each student will describe their research." So, so worthless, largely because there were about 30 people there so everyone had about a minute to talk. Just a waste. Not to mention the sandwiches were soggy. We went to his talk afterwards on Konrad Lorenz, Niko Tinbergen, and the Founding of Ethology, and that was good.
  • Week 8 - Law class, back in session, covered Antitrust Law (Microsoft) and Technological Mandates (e.g., Digital TV). Very interesting content-wise, and to be honest this class since the break (when I wrote the above soundbyte comments) has improved, though this is all Dr. Marchant and not the students themselves (see week 9).
  • Johnny defended his prospectus in week 8, so one of his committee members (a muppet-less Pam Henson) was there on Monday to give a talk on bio-policy work in Panama. Very nice, very good scholar, but she hails from the Smithsonian and WOW am I not interested in that particular archival style of history. Good to know.
  • Somewhere in here I finished Ed Larson's Trial and Error and Kary Smout's The Creation/Evolution Controversy: A Battle for Cultural Power, two books for my law paper.
  • For seminar this week we read M. Rudwick's The Meaning of Fossils and some other works on neuro-imaging and continental drift. Melissa and Monamie presented; good stuff.
  • Week 9 - Law Class. I skipped a lecture on Tech Policy (which I SWEAR we already covered) to attend a borderline sociobiology lecture by Robert Boyd. Seems like an interesting, smart guy, but he really gave us the reader's digest version of his work. I was seriously disappointed as this guy is supposedly THE MAN when it comes to cultural evolution. I mean, he is THE MAN and was a great speaker, but this was such a general audience speech that I didn't even feel like asking a question afterwards. I have no more refined critique than that; it was basically a talk on the persistence of artifacts through culture and how they evolve over time. This version of the talk seemed to suffer from all the usual Evo Psych type complaints of positing plausible arguments sans mechanistic explanation. I digress. It was better than law class.
  • Oh, and to push it over the top, the law class later that week was on Bioethics, and this law-dork tried to claim that ethical and moral laws always match up, especially in the case of murder. When I challenged him on this, he was a PRIMO DICK and ended by calling me "crazy." After which he got summarily shot down by the prof. This put me in a bad mood for quite a while. I'm over it now; can't you tell?
  • We had a "Ballot Issues Breakfast" on Wednesday of this week, where I met Jenny, her special man friend Ilya, Genevieve, Jamie, Ryan, and Nat at La Grade Orange for coffee and political talk. This was awesome and informative. I would never like to be an activist - that would require way too much concern for the empty, fleeting material world - but I enjoy knowing them.
  • For Monday Seminar we read an article by Hannah Landecker, a sociologist / anthropologist / HPS type who used to work in the anthropology department at Rice. She irks some bioethicists (not us!) because she insists that philosophy is only comprehensible when the philosophers understand and consider the context of the science that they are studying. So she is a sort of a "friend of the program," what with our shared ideals, and a cool lady taboot - we read and discussed an article on Monday and had lunch / listened to a talk on Friday. It was a SMALL lunch on Friday, so we really had ample time to have an actual conversation and not just a roll call. That was very cool - and we got to eat Oregano's, too, so YEAH.
  • Somewhere in here I helped Dr. Armendt prepare for a "Ethics Debate" for ASU parents weekend. The debate topic: "Genetic Engineering is Necessary for a Better Society." Dr. Armendt had to argue for the con. We came up with some good examples - leukemia in XSCID patients, genetic biomarkers showing up in wild corn - but the main thing I took away from this was how stupidly low the level of discourse was for a public event. It was fun to help out a prof and discuss some of the topics, but for a straight up philosophy professor to have to deign to such an empty mode of arguing... ugh. Let me be absolutely clear here - it was the format, not Brad, that was lacking. He had 3 minutes to talk! They wouldn't let him define "better' or "genetic engineering!" Woah. I just shudder at what passes for intellectual discourse in front of the masses.
  • Week 10 - Law this week was research ethics (YAWN) and privacy technology (wahoo). Good classes, and I didn't even get called insane by anyone! The privacy class had its share of surreal moments - Dr. Marchant had just talked about nano-cameras and their illegal applications, including voyeuristic endeavors which amount to 21st century shoe mirrors. I want to avoid having my site come up for these types of searches, so I'll try to be vague here - he said there was a certain site called up-ay-irts-skay-ot-day-om-cay that had been sued and "probably shut down." Dr. Marchant moved on to the next topic, but a certain WEIRD lady in our class raised her hand, apparently after looking said site up on her computer - via the ASU NETWORK - in CLASS - and said, "Oh, [that site] is still up." Ladies and Gents, your awkward silence of the year award winner is... THAT LADY.
  • In Monday Seminar, we listened to a talk on the basics of stem cell biology and history of research. This was... meh?
  • On MONDAY, I learned that when Jenny was in Cleveland the previous weekend, she got to HANG OUT WITH DAVID BYRNE. I am so angry/jealous I could spew fluid out my tear ducts. Tears of violence, I will call them.
  • As mentioned, I had to present on a long (450 page) Challnger themed book this week, and that ate up a lot of my time. See here.
  • Lots of stuff lined up for the coming weeks, including writing two papers, finishing a couple of articles with jason, meeting with a neurophilosopher, and starting a bio-ethics paper witha real life bio student. GOOD TIMES.
Update: lots of trick or treaters have streamed through in the past hour. They have been of the four and five years old variety, so ALL KINDS of wicked cuteness - princesses, pirates, vampires, ninjas, you name it. No mini-David Byrnes of yet.

Follow-up: I should mention that the last four weeks have seen a blossoming of community within ye olde SoLS Bio & Society program. Mark, Melissa, Jenny, Johnny, Katherine - just a lot of quality people, and the occasional lunches have been absolute laugh riots. I like good peoples.

All Hallow's Phew

Gave a presentation this AM primarily on the books The Challenger Launch Decision by Diane Vaughan and Normal Accidents by Charles Perrow. We1 ended up going the power point presentation route. Two years of medical school did a lot of things to my fragile being, and one of them was endowing a revulsion of luminescent blue background slides. Alas, it was a good decision; I was discussing media presentation anyways, so it was good to have quick links to videos. Hey, speaking of, if you want to have a first hand artificial experience of my artificial presentation, well, you can just look at the slides directly:

Nyet's Part of the Presentation

So that's first hand evidence of the junk I'm doing in our HSD class. Wasn't the best presentation in the history of ever, but you do what you can. I did manage to incorporate baseball decision theory into the mix, always a plus.

So that was the morning. We grabbed some lunch, I did a little work at school, and then was going to go early vote but was told that there was a four hour wait @ Scottsdale City Hall... so I'll just get up super early on Tuesday and drive up there to vote like a normal citizen. I headed to Walgreens to get trick or treater candy and some fluoxetine for Sp-izz-arkle. I'm currently awaiting the pitter patter of youthful ghouls, but have had nary a visitor.

I just did a quick search on the blog and CAN'T BELIEVE I haven't accounted for this somewhere. When we were in Grafton, so this was probably in 2005 CE aka 1 BB (Before Blog), I came home and had completely forgotten it was All Hallow's Eve. So when a bunch of freaks rang our doorbell at 5:30, not only was I surprised but I had no candy to give them. I felt terrible - being the enculturated rule-following doofus that I am - so I scoured the kitchen and found a granola bar. That was lame, so I remembered that there were two dollars in my wallet. I gave the goblin a granola bar, and got a "oh... thanks." But then I gave him two dollars and told him there was a gas station down the street where he could buy candy. I don't know what kind of priming (anti-priming?) effect the granola bar had, but the kid LOST it - "OH MY GOD DAD GUESS WHAT THAT GUY GAVE ME YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" So it was cool to have gifted that much happiness, but I also wanted to vomit a little because of that eight year old capitalist lust. Oh, well.

UPDATE - So far tonight the only excitement has been a trio of masked ghouls using pillowcases for their candy. A very efficient and business-like trick or treat transaction was made. They may or may not have said "hello" or "thanks." Sigh...

1 Many props to my presentation partner, HSDer Sharlissa who bucked the Nyet's Presentation Partner Trend and 1) Read the Books, 2) Thought About the Books, and 3) Worked on a Presentation on the Books 3a) Before 8:45 on the Morning of the Presentation. Solid work.

Diabetes spike



The Centers for Disease Control(CDC) reported on the results of a massive diabetes study today. Their study of more than 250,000 households will be published in the Oct. 31 issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. They found that the rate of type 2 diabetes amongst the American population had nearly doubled in the last decade from from 4.8 people per 1,000 to 9.1 people per 1,000.

The Clarion Content would love to see those numbers graphed along side a study of incomes. US News & World Report cites Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Yale University School of Medicine's Prevention Research Center, "as obesity and poverty are strongly associated, and obesity is the predominant risk factor for type 2 diabetes..." The Clarion finds this fascinating because we think the initial inclination might be to think the opposite. One could easily posit that rapidly increasing obesity and therefore diabetes is about America getting rich and fat, sitting on its bum. "Why the richer those Americans get, the lazier and fatter they get," might be the take.

But it is the poor that are getting fatter, while the rich take better care of themselves. Is it about the diet of poor people and the paucity of healthy choices for cheap in America? (Or the plethora of unhealthy food options for cheap?) The rich can join health clubs, get massages, buy vitamin supplements, the list could go on and on. We wonder. Is this just a reminder of a grim statistic that is well known to actuaries but little known to the public? Is there a significant difference in life expectancy by income disparity in America?

Type 2 diabetes is treatable, but incurable. Complications from type 2 diabetes can include blindness, limb amputation, heart disease and kidney failure.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

The Royal WEfnuk: Week VIII

Blar. Not even worth a writeup, or a stat count. We walked all over this team, they quasi gave up, they gave us crap for "not throwing to the women" which, ahem, may have had SOMETHING to do with their swilly-ass sir poach-a-lot defense where they had guys running all over the field and in lanes every time a female got open. Very annoying, and after we opened the lead up something fierce we just started trying to huck / throw exclusively to the girls (and then the girl who complained originally started poaching on our new players... dios mio). Anyways, a fine time, we ran around a bit, I had a layout D (and two other Ds, actually) and some other nice throws and catches, and we won 15-5. I'm gonna give myself a NR for stats this week just because the stuff we were doing was so colosally stupid - e.g., jacking backhands to brenda in double coverage - I stopped paying attention to who was throwing or catching scores somewhere around 9-2.

And I shouldn't be so negative; it's just that the "throw to your girls" comment came from someone who clearly lacked bigger picture understanding - our girls' newness and the other team's style of defense was what was CAUSING the lack of throwing to the girls. We were calling them first cut on plays, going out of our way to get them the disc, and THEIR men kept leaving their marks (player they were guarding, for those of you who don't play/watch futbol), so we ALWAYS had men open for big gains. ABRE SUS OJOS! I don't feel it's accurate to label us as not throwing to our women, especially when we call plays for Alex and Amber late in games and routinely hit Brenda / Teri / Gen for scores. HELL, Teri once caught 12 scores in a game!

Sorry for the rant. And sorry for the dearth of late. I have a presentation to give in the AM on the Challenger explosion. After this, I have two papers to write in the next week or so, and I haven't done as much of the background research as I would like. But hopefully I'll be able to fill in the last month or so at school and wax poetically in other ways about Nyetian Valley Life.

Until then...

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Ivory sale



For the first time in almost ten years there was a "legal" auction of ivory this week. The government of Nambia sold almost eight tons of ivory for $1.2 million. The group, CITES, (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) that sanctioned the sale of this ivory to China and Japan claims that proceeds from the auctions must be used exclusively for elephant conservation and community development programs in or near elephants' range. To the extent that oversight in something as high profile as "Oil for Food" failed miserably, the Clarion Content has little faith that an NGO will be able to assure how and where these African governments spend their money.

We agree with the Born Free Foundation that, "[The sale] will stimulate, not satisfy, the massive demand for ivory in countries like China. It will do nothing to re-educate customers (in China and Japan) that buying ivory is signing an elephant's death warrant."

Worse, Geneva based CITES has agreed to sanction three other sales of slaughtered elephants' tusks later this month.

Elephant murder has been so common place for so long that there are good arguments to be made that the very fabric of elephant society has been destroyed. The Clarion Content is not a proponent of "lifeboat" ethics, but neither do we believe that rapid animal extinction is good for Gaia and its inhabitants.

Monday, October 27, 2008

For Lame In, Out and Other Laws

Seriously seriously guys. I mean, how hard is it to google "Stevie Nicks AND heart." These things are not that difficult:



And as BONUS, I will take my baby to the local disco:


Smokin' SNL

I caught a little bit of SNL after Game 3 the other night, and shoutouts are due - Jon Hamm (aka Don Draper, Conquistador Extraordinaire) was the host, and they put up at least a consistently funny first 45 minutes. A couple of highlights below; you can click through to see other parts of the episode, but here were some of my favorites:







And WOW, I am not sure if the rest of the nation found this quite as hilarious as I did, as I'm sure having a caucasian in-law playing reggae for a living adds quite a bit to this. But there's one moment in this vid (toward the end, with about 20 seconds left) that makes the entire thing worth it. Enjoy, and have a groovy Monday.


Sunday, October 26, 2008

Work

People who stand on ceremony about their job description are ultimately losers, not leaders.

Friday, October 24, 2008

I Remembered: I Remember You!

So, more posts later capping off the last few weeks and a true case of "A Dave I Know I Know," but for now, YES: I remembered the song from my youth (gone wild) that blatantly participates in same-rhyming. It's Sebastian Bach's Skid Row's "I Remember You" - an awesome song in its own right, but rendered so much awesomer by this: not one, but TWO self-rhymes!

Verse 1:
So that I knew you were there for me
Time after time you were there for me


Verse 2:
I said I'd give up my life for just one kiss
I live for your smile, I die for your kiss

I mean seriously, that is the stuff. And if you know the Sebastian Bach wail, you realize exactly how impassioned this is. There is a 100% chance this is on Youtube, and there is a 200% chance you are about to watch it. WATCH IT!



More later. I swear you'll never be lonely. GUITAR SOLO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Royal WEfnuk: Week VII

Not much to say about this one - we came out against Schrute Hucks (Keith and Joanna's team, featuring Jim) a little iffy; they were up 3-2 at one point. Just some sloppy play and some unaccustomed-to-their-hustle action from us. We cranked a few turnovers just a few feet from their endzone. D'oh. But we pulled it together soon enough, stretched it out to 8-5, then doubled them up 12-6 and traded more or less to the 15-8 win. Good games from the entire Purple Squad - fun to have Genevieve and Josiah back, and everyone contributed big time to this victory. Quick game with few turnovers and few calls; we started at 8:20 or thereabouts and were done well before 9:30. Good times.

I set a conscious goal to not turn it over tonight and pulled it off. 6/4/0/1 was the count for the evening - I anchored us pretty decently in the first half and pushed through the second as well. No wind, and I felt quite buttery tonight. I did drop a Cally goal, though, meaning that I got the D but couldn't quite hang on to the disc. Ah, well. 40 / 21 / 12 / 15 / 1 on the season for 67 fantasy points in 7 games, or 9.57 fppg.

Pretty ho-hum - we certainly didn't play our best, but our mediocre ran through them pretty handily. Justin and I played pretty stellar games; we are starting to click, and throw in some D from everyone and some solid handling from other folks, and we've got a good little operation going. Important to remember how vulnerable we are to a bad night, though. Tune in next week.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

New Computer Spying



Don't look now but the word from the BBC and the Security and Cryptography Laboratory at the Swiss Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) is that a new form of computer spying has become possible. A project by two graduate students at the EPFL has shown that it is possible to tell what keystrokes a person is making from a distance of up to fifty feet away by measuring the electromagnetic radiation emitted by keystrokes with a radio antennae. The students demonstrated the effectiveness of their test on twelve different keyboard models, including embedded laptop keyboards. (Perhaps the countermeasures developed by the NSA to fight Van Eck phreaking will also work for keyboards.)

Monday, October 20, 2008

Sign of the apocalypse?



And you thought Anna Kournikova was too young and unaccomplished for the ESPN/Disney folks to make a Sports-Century documentary about her...that it was somehow all about exploiting her looks.

Leave it to the Disney publicity machine to always be able to top their hot air with even hotter air and even emptier hype.

Word reached the Clarion this week of teeny bopper Miley Cyrus's impending autobiography. Miley a tween Disney multimedia star and heart throb has been everywhere for months, including some racy Annie Leibovitz photos, which once the negative pub started she immediately claimed to have coerced into doing. Miley, star of the Disney series Hannah Montana, began her career at the ripe old age of eleven, so of course, at fifteen, going on sixteen, she is ready to write an autobiography.

Yes, she is the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus of "Achy-breaky heart" fame. She was even generous enough to give the old man a part in her hit show. You go girl.

It may be a few years before the Clarion Content gets around to reviewing her autobiography.

Governor Palin on Weekend Update

John McCain's running mate, the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin made an appearance on Saturday Night Live this weekend. Palin showed a credible sense of humor and it was SNL's highest ready show in 14 years. As the New York Times reviewer put it, "One thing everybody can agree on is that Gov. Sarah Palin is qualified — to someday host her own television show."

Sunday, October 19, 2008

I Dont' Care How Impossible... It Seems

Halloween is rolling up, and not only is there a general SoLS Halloween party, there's a CSPO costume contest as well. So I'm feeling compelled to find myself a costume, you know, participate in ritual. And I vowed sometime ago that I wasn't even going to TRY to dress up as anything for Halloween unless it was as this guy:




That's David Byrne from the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense. DB is unspeakably sublime in this film; you'd be hard-pressed to identify a better front-man act outside of Elvis. Don't believe me? Check this:



And it gets even better when he, um, interviews himself and tries to explain half of the clicky genius coursing through his head:



So the challenge here is to find that gigantic grey/blue-tinted suit and rig up some kind of coat-hanger apparatus to keep the shoulders up. I figure there's about a 0.02% chance that anyone on the entire ASU campus will have any clue as to what I am, but at least I'll be awesome in my own head. Maybe I'll carry my acoustic around and just play Psycho Killer all day.

So, these are the thoughts that occupy my head. It occurs to me that the entirety of Stop Making Sense is on Youtube, so here's a little concert list. Just a brilliant, brilliant flick if you're ever in the mood for early 80s excellence. Here ya go:

Post-Tournament Soreness Disorder

Gimping around today here at the homestead, intermittently trying to rearrange things in the house and read up on cultural aspects of the creation / evolution debate. Tournament was a good time yesterday - there were two ASU teams, a team from NAU, and about 25 or so VOTS people. We split the VOTS contingent up into two teams, and Vince shenanniganed his way into grabbing a lot of his teammates from his fall league team Offshore Swilling (which, need I remind you, is stacked) for his own team. So they were "VOTS 1" and the remaining people - who were no slouches, mind you - joined me on "VOTS 2." We got ready for a four games to 13 day starting at 12:15, when the thermometer was already at 92 or so (topped out at 97 yesterday, I am told).

So VOTS 2 (which for posterity included Eric "Cisco," Jose, Coz, Ray, Jeff, Kory, Simon, Shannon, Tim, Obert, Brayden "The Kid Junior," Genevieve and me) had a solid day, beating both ASU teams pretty handily, losing on double game point to NAU and beating (HA FRIGGIN HA) VOTS "1" 15-14 on double game point. Some big time highlights in there, including the general fearless play of Genevieve (the only lady at this man-fest; she absolutely did not back down and scored / had some secondary assists) and the "look to the future" play of Brayden - the kid is 17 and headed to college next year and already plays smart, crazy effort disc. Good stuff. Shannon put up a slew of good hammers, Obert played some hot D and made some good throws and we overall just had a fun, fun day. I played A LOT - seems I was one of the few in shape for such a day - and played well, if I do say so myself, with some layout scores, layout Ds, skies, and some SWEET hucks, especially to Cisco - we're talking full field, from my own endzone forehand shots that just settled beautifully for him to run down. Good times. I also hit Obert with a ridiculous thirty yard IO scoober for a score; hooray for me.

I also had the privilege of being covered by Vince the last game of the day - dude is just way fast and tall; he guarded me in the whole time, so I got open quite a bit on out cuts but people were hesitant to make the throws. He's a great player and very challenging to go up against, for sure.

The result of all of this Ulti-mayhem is that I am super hamstring-tight today, and my knees are pretty sore, too. The field was "Arizona dry," and I have 4,000 scrapes on my knees and arms to prove it. Ah, well, so it goes. Got back last night in time for a low key evening with the Beck - she made some delicious chicken and potatoes, and we watched the Sox win game 6 before turning in for the night.

Speaking of, it's just about time for the Sox to make the Rays cry again, so I'm gonna go check that out. Oh, but one more post before that.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

We're Talking Softball

Lost two games of softball lost night, but had a fantastic time. Just an all around good group of people, very congratulatory, out there to play well / hard and not worry whether people make errors or strike out of what have you.

I batted okay - contrary to my usual topping problems, I kept getting under the ball a little bit, so my normal line drives to left were carrying out to the left-centerfielder. I have to be conscious of hitting line drives and not being tempted to smack it over the fence, as I apparently am still the same old baseball me and lack that power. I did hit a screamer with the bases loaded later on, and oppo'ed one for a double at some point, so a decent if not great night.

The real news is that I had a top 5 of my life catch in the outfield - dude crushed a line drive way to my right, but I got a great jump on it, sprinted and completely horizontally laid out, three feet off and parallel to the earth-style, and snagged it. Unlike a frisbee, which would generally float at least somewhat, this was just two quickly moving objects - me and the ball - intersecting perfectly. The crowd went wild. Both teams were shocked. Large-breasted women stopped to turn and stare* - most of them being Scottsdale cougars at the dog park, so this was not actually as awesome as it seems. Even the ump said "sweet catch." Jason described it as "death-defying and ESPN-worthy." So that was fun.

The weird, let's see if the ump knows the rules play of the night was cool, too. Runner on 3rd with one out, flyball down the line in left, and our left fielder camps under it. I sprint over there from deep left center to back her up just in case, since she had trouble on a flyball earlier in the game. She reaches for it and misses it, deflecting the ball, but I dive and catch it before it hits the ground. Another exciting play. But the guy on third took off when it hit her glove. So when i toss it in to the infield, our third baseman steps on third and the ump calls the runner out, inning over. Did he "make the call?"

Um, no. The relevant rule, pretty difficult to find in the MLB rulebook, is under a comment under the definition of a catch in Section 2.00:

Rule 2.00 (Catch) Comment: A catch is legal if the ball is finally held by any fielder, even though juggled, or held by another fielder before it touches the ground. Runners may leave their bases the instant the first fielder touches the ball.

So the baserunner was allowed to tag and leave when she deflected the ball, not upon my completed catch. I already knew this, as it's something of a logical necessity for the game - if the outfielder could bobble it and the guy on third could only leave upon the completed catch, then any outfielder could just bobble it as he jogged all the way into the field. Can't have that, so it's gotta be on the first touch - and even if the person who catches it is not the same as the first person who touches it. So that was an incorrect call, oh well. (More than made up for by a play later on - runners on 1st and 2nd with 0 outs for us, and I happened to be the guy on second. Ground ball to the short stop, and he tried to run up and tag me so he could throw to first for the double play. So I just stopped in the basepath and jumped back, and he whiffed on the tag, so I continued to third. But the ump claimed he had tagged my shirt (which both the SS and I knew was wrong). So, I guess sometimes the judgments and technical rule interpretations balance each other out).

So some exciting times on the diamond last night. Tune in later tonight for an account of a slapdash Ultimate tourney at ASU today...

* - This is a Dave Eggers AHWoSG reference. Please do not fear me falling prey to actual Scottsdale cougars.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Facebook murder in England

A grisly tale with a postmodern twist.

The grisly tale
Wayne Forrester, 34, of London, England was found guilty of murdering his 34 year old wife and mother of two, Emma. They had been married for 15 years and recently separated. Forrester, a truck driver, repeatedly stabbed her in the head and neck with a kitchen knife and a meat cleaver on February 18th in the middle of the night in their former home. He was later determined to be intoxicated and high on cocaine. He did not flee the scene. Neighbors found him sitting outside the house covered in blood and called the police.

The postmodern twist
Forrester told the cops about his dead wife, "Emma and I had just split up. She forced me out. She then posted messages on an internet website telling everyone she had left me and was looking to meet other men.

Forrester called his wife's parents the day before the murder to protest changes in Emma's Facebook profile which was now listing her as single.

He said, "I loved Emma and felt totally devastated and humiliated about what she had done to me."


Thanks to the BBC news for the heads up on the story.

Can I Get a Witness???

So, normally I eschew the shuffle function on the iPod - being an album-oriented purist and all - but today I was carrying about 14 things to the office and I didn't feel like figuring out what album to listen to so I just went to my "radio" playlist and hit shuffle. And guess what the first song that came up was? "Elenore" by the Turtles.

Now, surely somebody out there is on google chat, and surely someone has noticed that my clever greeting message all week has been "Nyet is... your pride and joy, etc." A line from... ELENORE!!!

I am sure this somehow proves the existence of dinosaurs. Or perhaps just turtles.

Busy day ahead - seminar course, lunch, research this afternoon, softball this evening, one-day Ultimate tournament tomorrow. I'll give all of this excitement a thorough write-up later, but I felt that when T-Rex talks to you through your iPod, you have to blog about it.

And also - The Sox last night? WOW. Too much excitement. I will say that I am continuously amazed that with all the coverage and all the ridiculous angles you could take, people limit themselves to "doood, that was amazing!" As I just did. Ironically. Don't I think. A little too ironically, yeah I really do think, because instead of just reiterating that it was amazing, it was the biggest comeback of all time, blah blah, I could point out that the conservative "only throw fastballs with a seven run lead" mindset is what got Balfour into trouble, a conservative play by the Rays RF (Gross?) - not diving on that liner by pedroia - kept the seventh inning alive, again under the rationale of "we're up by 7, why would I dive?", the continued conservative mindset resulted in a megalo-blast out to right by papi, a big time misplay by Upton in center on what admittedly would have been a nice play but was surely an entirely catchable ball to CF in the 8th, a serious rush job by Longoria that resulted in Youkalis getting to second in the ninth... you see, there are a lot of details that make up a comeback, and especially with so many of those runs coming with 2 outs, you can point at those details as pivotal rather than the ubergeneral "wow, the rays choked" or whatever confusing-people-with-groups type psychology you'd like to apply.

Sheesh. Anyhoo, hope everyone has a great day, and I hope the world will produce more odes to fat japanese girls, because I, too, think Elenore Gi is swell.

BONUS Shuffle-related news: As if my morning wasn't going awesomely enough, Son of Trogdor (that's my iPod's name) next played the Ronettes' "Be My Baby" and then Barry McGuire's 'Eve of Destruction." Good times! Besides being a nice, grumbly folk song that talks about pushing the button, EoD features one of my favorite techniques of song-writing, rhyming a word with itself. Check it out:
Don't you understand,
What I'm trying to say?
Can't you see the fear
that I'm feeling today?
If the button is pushed,
there's no running away,
There'll be no one to save
with the world in a grave,
take a look around you, boy,
it's bound to scare you, boy.

See? Of course, the most famous instance of this comes from our friends at Simpsons, Inc.:

Come on Homer, Come on Homer!
Pretend this is baseball and hit us a homer

Can you think of any others? I will rack my brain today to answer this important question.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Laundry



Laundry is a difficult task because you are never really caught up, there are always the clothes you are wearing which are in the process of getting dirty.

The Clarion would argue that this makes laundry a good metaphor for the upstream nature of life. Living creatures are always swimming upstream as they perceive the world out their own eyes. We see this described in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, entropy, (in short) energy in isolated systems dissipates. Animals in what we call 'the wild' are in a constant struggle for the food and water required to survive, as well as, dying to escape the predators in their ecological niche. Same goes for the plants.

Laundry is part of the entropy process, the constant progression to disorder. It is not as hard as life in 'the wild.'

Who's the plumber?



Joe the plumber from Ohio got more air time than Iraq last night at the presidential debate. He doesn't look like the Joe Six Pack we pictured. McCain used him to bludgeon Obama on tax policy, declaring it was a bad time to raise taxes on anybody. Obama turned it around to point at McCain's dangerous and ill-advised health care plan, and his support for taxes cuts for the uber-rich. (Though as McCain noted, Joe the Plumber is no Warren Buffett.)

So who is the real Joe the Plumber?

Here are a couple of links to read about him.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The Royal WEfnuk: Week VI

Quick recap here: we played our second of three crossover games last night, this one against Flow Rida (Chris's team) and actually occurring on Tuesday. Flow Rida has had a rough go of it thus far; they came in 0-5 with a -26 point differential to our 4-1 / +22. So it looked like a mismatch, BUT thanks to the Tuesday game day, we were missing Justin, Josiah, Genevieve, Teri, Chunlang, Drew AND Amber. Sacre inconvenient!!! This left us with 2 subs on the guys side and none on the women's; poor Alex and Brenda had to play savage. I don't think Flow Rida was missing anyone of note, so it looked to be a more even playing field than the Nabity ratings (2 seed v. 16 seed, and Eric predicted a 12 point spread) would suggest.

And then the game started... they just turned it over A LOT. Blink and it was 4-0, blink again and it was 7-1. Everyone on our side really stepped up: Ned and Wade handled great, Alex (male) and Nathan played great D and cut well, Paul played great D and cut well, Pat commanded the center of the field per usual. And Brenda and Alex were just super solid - didn't get beat deep once that I can remember, and kept cutting and cutting all game long. We got Alex the disc at least twice, too, which was superb; she's still cutting a little bit all over the place but is starting to get the hang of things. And regardless is contributing big time on D; she got stuck on a fairly experienced woman all night and stayed close, even made some nice bids. Getting better, yeah.

At about 7-1 they converted to zone D which gave us a tad of trouble - our popping / deep game was out of sync, and their deeps kept cheating in and we couldn't scorch them to take advantage. Still, that said, we worked through their zone fairly efficiently and took half 8-3. They pulled it as close as 8-4, but we started dissecting their Z a bit for real after that and steadily pulled away to a 15-8 win.

In the middle there, I got a little brain dead and made some really, really bad throws. A bender to Ned on stall 9.5 just came in way too low; a forehand huck to pat just stuck in my hand badly and turned over straight out of bounds. I took way too long to get a scoober off to Paul and it got D'ed by their deep Alex, and I capped the craptitude with a worst-throw-ever, a backhand huck that slipped out of my hand and never came in, giving Flow the disc at our own endzone. Barf. Somewhere in there I also threw a scoober on stall 9 to Alex (f) that she just misread horrendously, so I won't take the blame for that (though it was my thrown turnover). So let's call it a god-awful four turnover night, most occurring in a four point stretch toward the end of the game. Ugh.

BUT - there is a pile of sugar atop that refuse heap. I cut deep for Wade, who threw me a very inaccurate outside in backhand that sailed from where I was on the field (left side of the endzone) to where I was decidedly not (out of bounds on the right). But I read it, kept running, tracked it down, jumped from inbounds, caught it in the air and greatest-ed it straight back over-my-head, beautifully crisply to Paul who was standing in the center of the endzone.

SCORE!!! Greatest for a SCORE!!!

So that was exciting. It's hard to track the usual stats, b/c I was on the field for all but two points of the game - Alex (male) has been having some asthma issues, so with only 1.5 subs I decided I could take the beating. But things get hazy when you have to run that much. As best as I can recall, 6/ 5 / 4 / 3, plus a GREATEST which we'll go ahead and give the x4 multiplier on that one thrown score for an extra 3 points. So that's +13 (even with the crappy feeling of all those turns) on the night, bringing me to 34 / 17 / 12 / 14 / 1 (the last column = GREATEST!!! WAHOO!!!) for 56 points on the season, a cool 9.33 fppg.

(Pats self on back, stares longingly into a silver lake at his own reflection, losing track of time and dying in the process).

So that's 5-1, +29 for The Royal WEfnuk, and we survived a week where we were missing a lot of our stellar cast. Stay tuned.

Beautiful photos and a debate



Once upon a time in Berkeley, CA, one of the Clarion's editors had a largely unresolvable debate with a particularly interesting interlocutor about Art. The point in question was whether or not all visual Art was a representation of something that could be seen elsewhere in the universe. Our un-indicted co-conspirator argued no, surely modern art alone was so different and free form that it was not represented. At the time, we recall arguing, that the micro-cosmos represented an array of mostly as yet unseen visuals that could have mimicked the wildest modern art. The discussion ultimately came back to unresolvable differences about the nature of infinity, already all encompassing or through the passage of time adding new to what only seems all encompassing through our mortal lens and scale.

We were reminded of this conversation earlier this week when astronomers voted for the best pictures taken by Hubble in its 16 years in orbit. The Hubble telescope transmits an almost unfathomable 120 gigabytes of information every week.

Follow this link to a gallery of the top ten photos as voted by the astronomers.

Follow this link to even more photos.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Manning the Fort While the Tough 10K

Beck's in Boston right now, gearing up for the Tufts 10K Run Walk with the iPMM and iPMeghan. She'll also be hanging with GrinGoat and the Sarahstophe later at a lunch where the iPJ, the ChrisKris and their kids, the Greg/John/Cynthia and who knows who else will be conquering the party room of some unwitting Framingham restaurant. Meanwhile, I'm at home, alternatingly making sure Sparkle's butt doesn't explode and keeping the pool full of water. I'm also reading three books this weekend, a task at which I am failing gloriously thus far. So it goes.

I couldn't sleep this morning, so I finished this: Everything and More

It's the musing on DFW, and I don't know, it makes my salient point effectively enough, that this was not a ho-hum celebrity death, this really crushes me. Just read it if you want. There are other more reportery, less off-the-cuff muse-style accounts out there - here and here from Salon, for example. That latter one is a "last days of" kind of piece that gets at the point that he was a beautiful but tragically sick man. I miss him more than any other person I've never met. Such sentiments from people who yep, didn't know him get derided as a sort of vulgar online trade fair of grief trade, and fair enough, yes, I'm writing of the concept of the man, not the man, but I think it's apropos to note that I'm now alluding to the concept of the concept of the man, exactly the sort of thing he so artfully exposed. So my grief is somehow tangential and cheap, but when i don't really *know* anybody, to have this particular unknown's death affect me this much is worth noting. In conclusion, sucks to your ass-mar.

Hit D&C's place for a barbecue with the PG-13-tattooed Aaron (?) and Tim/Wren/Naia. Fun times, even if the burgers melted their way into the grill and Xstina made us stop playing Wii golf so she could wail on us on GH.

More reading and then pickup Ultimate later today. I got an e-mail yesterday from a stand-up improv comedy member who hasn't played Ultimate in 35 years but claims to be a champion dog and frisbee competitor. He looks a whole lot like Eugene Levy. This could be interesting.

Have a groovy day, and good luck to the Boston contingent, both in the walking and surviving lunch departments. The WD approves this message:

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Saturday, October 11, 2008

House and Dogs



Just to prove I haven't forgotten, there's a pic of our house. We're still in the "living out of boxes" phase, so until we get out of that and rid ourselves of the accompanying chaos, I will hold off on snapping pics. But in the meantime, enjoy that satellite photography and these shots of the pups in their new back yard:

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Blistered Hand Blues, or THAT'S MORE LIKE IT!

Tore it up at softball last night - nary a swing and miss, went 6-8 with some reasonable opposite field shots, line drives to left, shots through the hole, and one CRUSHED ball to left... that landed about 15 feet short of the fence. It is a SHOT out to left at that park, I tell you what. Ended up with a triple on that one (I was, um, slowed a bit by a person on base in front of me) and generally had a successful offensive day, including a slide safe at second that has left me with a skinless shin. Ah'm Baaaaaaaaccccckkkkk!!!

And I killed in the field as well, except for a diving catch that I trapped - shoulda had that one. But I gunned down a pair of baserunners and doubled a person off of first on a line drive to the outfield, so good times. Big wins in both games, and other than some illegal substituting by the other team, this game "lacked the drama" of last week's.

Stay tuned for next week's version of "Nyet relives his glory days through softball and indirectly reminisces on his failure to make it to the majors." Starring me.

Sending a Message of Love to My People Back Home

On Tuesday, Beck and I worked the morning and then reconvened at the homestead for a trip to Flagstaff. The inimitable Giant Panda Guerrilla Dub Squad had a show, and hells yes we were headed up to the North Country to check them out and see Beck's brother Jamie James, the bassist and shared-duty lead singer of the group. We also had the benefit of Katy's parents' generosity, who were out of town for the night and once again offered to let us and the dogs stay in their home in north Flagstaff. Sweet! So Beck, S & W and I piled in the car at about 1:00 and took the Prius through the desert to pine country.

On the side of the road, we saw a crazed looking vagabond who clearly hadn't showered in a millenium. As we pulled closer, we got a sense that it could be some sort of "rock musician," and as we pulled even closer, we saw his left hand aloft with a thumb protruding from his fist, as if he was saying "good job" to all the passers by on the highway. As we blew by him at 75 mph, we wished him well out the window and tossed some quarters and a bag of stale donuts his way. I checked the rearview mirror and noticed... it was Jamie! So we turned around and gave him some water, too. I, being the cynical and untrusting deviant that I am, did not want to pick up this wayward looking chap, but Beck argued something to the effect of "But it's my brother." So we begrudgingly gave the Kerouac a ride. So many risks we take, eh?

Wait, that's not what happened at all. Jamie just called us - they had gotten a late start on their trip and were about 15 miles behind us on I-17. So we pulled over and waited for the DubVan to appear. It did, and we dutifully picked up the bass-playing superstar and continued on up the mountains. Great to see James - he is very upbeat these days, loving life and embracing the road trips of GPGDS. We rode up to Kate's-rents'-house and had some time to grab showers and a few peanut butter M&Ms before heading in town to dine at a local brewery. Good stuff, though I certainly could have done with less food than the mammoth burger I got (oh, forgot to mention - this just in, I weighed in at a cool 183 at the gym that morning. Granted, this was after no breakfast and a sprint workout, but still, I am creeping back toward reasonable dimensions. My belt is yearning for an invisible 6th loop on the correct side of things. Huzzah me). We walked with jamie over to the Orpheum at about 6:30, where he walked in the back doors because that's what people who say "I'm with the band" do. Beck and I had an hour or so to kill so we walked around downtown Flasgstaff and eventually settled on a little indie music store, where we listened to the debates ("that one" and "nu-q-lar power plants on submarines" stuck out as the "whaaaaaaa?" moments) and I bought Remember by the Fiery Furnaces.

(WARNING: The Fiery Furnaces Remember will make you question your sanity. Quickly, they have a habit of *completely* rearranging their songs from concert to concert. Meaning that the melody barely stays intact, and the underlying riffs and rhythms and mood chords are worlds apart on any two versions of a particular song. On this album, they took multiple live performances and spliced them together. This is artistically mind-blowing and unprecedented to my knowledge for a live album - I mean, sure, people splice in studio footage with live, but they don't just mash together 17 remarkably different versions of the same song onto one track. The result is gorgeous, but it is also a bit like living between the ears of someone with some seriously fluid associative capabilities, with this loose line of lyrics tying things together. Highly recommended, but man oh man, be sure to buckle your brain belt).

Getting back to the central narrative, Beck and I got to unopened doors which allowed for this shot:

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We were waiting in the pleasantly cool air, barely hearing the tones of the GPGDS soundcheck when a band of three hippie girls walked up. "Oh, that's James's voice!" one of them chirped. Beck beamed with pride as the bassist's brother. Turns out that two of these chicas are big time groupies of the band - or if not groupies in the Behind the Music with Whitesnake sense, certainly groupies in the "we follow the Dead" sense. Yet another sign that Panda is seriously on their way.

The doors opened late, and we strode in as official VIP "on the guestlist" types. The start time got pushed back a half hour, so Jamie hung out with us in the front row of the theatre. He had access to plastic cup beer, too, which made for a nice evening. Les hombres went on at about 8:30, and INSTANTLY they fulfilled the general pattern - every time I see these guys, they get better and better. This is roughly the 7th time I've seen a Panda show - and yes, that includes our pre-wedding bash - and it just gets more and more fluid, confident, precise, punchy, vibrant.They strode on stage and launched right into it - in huge contrast to the sophomoric antics of the opening band we saw for Vampire Weekend a couplel weeks back, GPGDS owns the place whether you've seen them before or not. They are not an "opening band," they are "the other act on the bill." Just ridiculously impressive, tight, beaming, excellent sounding groove dub reggae thrown down sans hesitation. Just great. But why write, in this media age, when I can show!!! Here's a full eight minutes of stellar Panda song "Missing You More," recorded on my Fuji camera with terrible audio quality.


Superstunning. The groove was infectious, in a kind of "do the reggae robot" kinda way. One of the groupie 3 mentioned above existed entirely in 30 second bursts of robot fury dance. I knew words would never suffice, so here is surreptitious footage of some seriously inspired grooving:


Great, great set, though only an hour long. Highlights included well, the entire thing, but I particularly enjoyed the above MYM and their hyperspeed version of "Seasons Change." Fun fun times - jamie came out and hung out with us a bit while we waited for John Brown's Body to take the stage. They're a different style of reggae outfit - their horn section is the obvious thing, but they also feature less group dynamic singing and more of a "guy singing / rapping over the top of his accompanying band" aesthetic. I prefer the GPGDS, not to say that JBB was bad - they put on a high energy, musically tight and inspiring show, too, and their horn section killed. (I especially enjoyed the trumpeter's dinosaur dancing antics and the fact that I now know that the answer to the question "What the hey is Blossom's Joey Lawrence up to these days?" is "playing Trombone for John Brown's Body." Exciting - we were pretty tired after our day that had started at 5:00 AM, so we only made it through about half of the set before heading home. Jamie et al were headed for Utah the next day, so we said goodbyes to him and all the band members and rejoined the real world.

So, so excellent to see James and another fantastic show from the band. If you'd like to share in the virtual experience, might I recommend downloading a show of theirs from 2006 in Colorado - the audio quality is superb, and you'll get a good feel for some of their work. You can even listen to it from a player on that page! So really, even if you are technologically inept, you can handle that. And, if you are one of these kinds that thinks "but I don't know the songs," then you should check out a GPGDS cover treatment of some tunes: Easy Wind and Dire Wolf are two Dead tunes they do up right. I'll close this out with the usual photo montage of the night (and, per usual, I had some trouble with the aperture / shutter setting, so some of these are a little fuzzy and / or lowlit. One of these days I'll get my Greg on and shoot a show with some high Q stuff. For now, these ain't half terrible):

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Friday, October 10, 2008

Ahhh, the fair



If you were looking for one more reason not to ride the rides at the State Fair or your local carnival, how about this story from Port Orange, Florida.

The ride operator (read: Meth addict) operating the "Crazy Bus" at the Port Orange Carnival forgot to apply the safety brake as folks were getting off the ride. Not surprisingly, the ride rose back into the air. Most folks were still inside the ride. Unfortunately, a mother and her young daughter were caught half in and half out of the ride as it ascended some 40 feet in the air. Thanks to a group of good samaritans this story has a happy ending. According to witnesses, the mother managed to hold on to the "Crazy Bus" with one hand and her daughter with the other for nearly three minutes, during that time a group of ten to twelve on-lookers formed a circle underneath the pair and urged the mother to drop her daughter into their waiting arms.

The mother, one Sheri Pinkerton, said later, "There was nothing I could do. I could not hold both of us. I held on to her as long as I could. I let go of her and she grabbed my shirt so I had to pry her hands off my shirt and let her fall."

The catch was made successfully and amazingly both mother and daughter survived the trauma unharmed.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

The Royal WEfnuk: Week V

Big showdown down in Tempe this week - little Nyet (that's me) vs. a dude named Big Nate, a former DIV I football player who has transformed himself into an Ultimate beast. Great guy, and the team behind him - The Black Mamba - ain't too shabby, neither. PLUS we were missing Genevieve (for hopefully the last time!) and Josiah. We were 3-1 with a +15 point differential; they were 4-0 with a +16. The famed Nabity ratings had us at #2 in the entire league, them at #4, so it was a hyped up game. And yes yes oh yes a hundred times yes did we come to play.

Back up - Monday, still reeling from my utterly humiliating, dog-faced boy batting performance in Softball on Friday, stupidly headed to a little funpark called Fiddlesticks and took 200 hacks. I wore a batting glove, but it didn't matter - that was a dumb, dumb thing to do as my hands became covered in ugly, bloody blisters, Argh. (note to self: this had better be worth it; I'd better have some seriously good contact in tomorrow night's game or... sheesh). (note to Jason: this had better be worth it. Because if softball ever interferes with Ultimate again, well, you can guess which one will be quickly dropped from the routine). So i had a stressful couple of days* as I tried all combinations of triple anti-biotic ointment, band-aids and hand lotion to get these pups to heal. No dice - I came to the game tonight and couldn't really grip the disc for a forehand or a hammer, so I tried both gloves and taping it - and decided to go with tape for the game. Very uncomfortable, and I was essentially throwing the disc with my finger tips to avoid letting it grind into my blisters. No good.

(* - a stressful couple of days which involved a trip up to Flagstaff to see GPGDS live and in action. That story, pics and videos are forthcoming).

And no good - first point of the game, I tried to pull back a throw to Paul - in essence, I tried to throw a fake - and the disc slid right out of my hand into the ground two feet in front of me. Tricky aptly heckled "who brought the rookie?" So I decided adrenaline was gonna have to take the day and took the bandages off. Bare blistery hand disc, baby. Yes.

And... that was my last turnover. Just to get the personal stuff out of the way: 6/3/1/1, for a +9 night, bringing me to 28/12/8/11, for a +43 / 8.6 FPPG. Yeeha - blisters did not wreck the week after all. Just to keep things in perspective, I did have some wackiness - I got handblocked on a hammer by Russ, but manged to catch my own disaster by laying out on the sideline. Woah nellie. And one of the scores I caught was a silly stupid outside in huck from Drew that came within about two feet of hitting a palm tree that about 15 feet out of bounds. Epic amount of curve on that one. So, clean, but we had some wacko moments.

And to bring things out to the team perspective, we played great. Things stayed close to about 4-2, then we pulled away to a 8-4 halftime lead. The traded for a bit to 11-8, then pulled away with the last four goals of the game to win 15-8. Wahoo! The fnuk takes the big time contest!

Some notes - Justin played huge, per usual. Pat really took Big Nate to task - Nate cheated in a bit on some zone points and on some man on man D to do his usual poach-crazy defensive game, but we got it by and around him a few times. Just took advantage very well - lotsa handling on this team, and we're doing a superb job keeping it relaxed. They hit their women deep a few times - that's still a problem for us, something to work on - but we recovered to play solid help D. Really, this just boiled down to another case of us running hard, playing good D, and seriously capitalizing on turnovers. We kinda did to them what Offshore Swilling did to us in week one. So it's not like they played bad, we just played incredibly well. Very few turnovers this game, and next to no calls. Clean Ultimate being played lately, I like it.

So yeah - next week is a Tuesday game against a now 0-5 Tuesday team. We'll be missing Justin, but will have Genevieve and Josiah back, so things should turn. I was happy to get the disc to Amber a couple of times tonight, and we tried (called her in a couple of times) but didn't get it to Alex. Next time. Until then - see you where I left you. Unemployed: in dreamland.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

A Yom Kippur thought

"Should we, then, despair of our being unable to retain perfect perfect purity? We should, if perfection were our goal. However, we are not obliged to be perfect once and for all, but only to rise again and again beyond the level of the self. Perfection is divine, and to make it a goal of man is to call on man to be divine. All we can do is try to wring our hearts clean in contrition."---Abraham Joshua Heschel

And to do our level best, again, at the next opportunity...

Faith and Being your best self

"Your body's gonna do what your mind lets it do. You have to surrender to [it.] You try to control the process, not the result." ---Barry Zito, San Francisco Giants pitcher

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Leadership

A good leader uses one's subordinates leadership skills to further enhance the goals of the group. A fearful or insecure leader suppresses the leadership skills of subordinates.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Web Comic Genius

I may have linked to this already, but I don't care, it's brilliant. Courtesy of the GENIUS that is If You See Something. Check it out and pay him money.


Saturday, October 4, 2008

A Style of Golf Course

Why So Serious?: A New Yorker History of the Classical Concert
So there's this game Spore (via MetaFilter) - and even though it has launched the awful concept of "Sporn" - I'll let you google that one yourself -it is being used to teach evolution in some biology class circles. So... yeah.
Two interesting and foul-mouthed comics: If You See Something and Alien Loves Predator
30 Large Hadron Collider pics
Twin Peaks is now available online. For free.
An Explanation of Bayesian Reasoning (Really good tutorial if you've ever heard me rant about how certain medical tests are actually detrimental to public health)
Manufactroversy
Lego Album Covers (Primarily Beatles)
The Guinea Pig Olympics
If you insist on being political, at least support your local left-field instrumentalist:

Even though los osos pequeños are seemingly on their way out - again - let's not forget the good times.
And in more somber news... THIS is a commencement speech. (And yes, the musing is still en route).
Cool video of a real live Nautilus

Warning: The following video contains a bit of topless sunbather nudity, but it ALSO contains all three minutes of french kangaroo ska you need to see in your life. Seriously, check this, it will reset you (even if it is a little but, um, jackassish):



I continue to foist Dinosaur Comics upon you!
Watch this video:



And now check this link.
A real "art" video (thanks Christastrophe)
Are Mark Reynolds' strike-outs an issue? (Great little sabermetric article)
SOPHIE CAN WALK
Quincy ain't no punk (thanks again Chris? - can't remember where I got this one) (but really, check it; exquisite painful awesomeness)
Andy Summers of The Police discusses his effects (ah, yes, but do they...



Dr. Strangelove Dr. Strangelove
Best Science Images of 2008
Mugshot of the Year!!!
And finally, Bill Simmons somehow claims that none of this was Manny's fault.

That's it for the links... but since Manny et al are about to send the Northsiders packing, I would like to point out that this is not Manny's fault, either. Back in 2003, with the Cubs up in Game 6 and within 6 outs of the World Series, my friend Ian called me. "Can you believe it?" he asked. "Thanks for jinxing it," I replied. Someone did the Bartman, and after another horrible game 7, the curse of the phone call was complete. The Cubs were not headed to the world series, not fulfilling a million dreams, once again.

So flash forward to 2008... I check my messages last Wednesday, and I hear, "Nyet, we were just excited to call and tell you the Cubs are winn... oh, wait. Wait. L.A. just hit a grand slam. And now the Cubs are... losing. Oh, no. Oh no."

PEOPLE: Do NOT call me while the Cubs are in the playoffs. Don't call me to check how I'm doing, to confirm when we are having that important meeting, to ask whether our kidneys could be a match, AND ESPECIALLY to say "hey, the Cubs are winning." This ALWAYS ends badly.

And it just ended badly- Broxton just K'd Alfie to complete the series sweep. So the media may blame Alfonso Soriano or Lou Piniella or whomever, but I know who's really to blame. And it's not Sue (though she did make the costumes). It's the iPMM. This one's on her.

The Cubs will shine in 2109,
Nyet

Any of Four Medium-Sized Wild Cats

Yeah, here we go again:

A jpg Map of Springfield!!!
The Limitations of fMRI (Meghan take notice!)
Freakishly Real Human CGI
Saved by the Bell Quote of the Day (kinda kaput, but definitely worth a hilarious read)
Interesting Way of Viewing Box Office Takes
Colorful Lakes
AH, Food Pron
Primo National Geographic Pics
Funny Because It's True
When I said kill the ref...
Seeing In Four Dimensions
A couple of samples from the ever brilliant LP Cover Lover:



ANd now, some solid comedy:



Together Again!
Dawkins reads his e-mail
Pants!
Ferraris of the Insect World
Remember that storm from a while back?:


Color is Relative
Flowers for Algernon, Blogstyle
50 Greatest Art Videos
Barackin' me with Science!!!
10 Most Fascinating Savants in the World

Um, when Talking Heads / Devo meets Ska meets Christian Rock, you get: a song stuck in your head:



And yeah, we're not going to top that.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Big ol' Bucket o' Suck

So, it turns out when you don't play softball for six years, you tend to revert muscle-memory-wise back to your pre-softball, baseball hitting ways, and your idiotic self, though it sees the looping ball arcing and coming to the plate at 32 mph, is all tuned up for a 90 mph fastball and despite telling yourself to wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait, you swing early again and again and again and again anyways, and you strike out three times* and feebly ground out** the last time and you generally let everybody down and you feel like a big ol' chump and you wanna die.***,****, *****

* - of course, this was one of those start with a 1-1 count, a foul ball with 2 strikes means your out leagues, so a miss, a foul tip, and four consecutive misses added up to those three Ks.

** - though let's be honest, you did actually beat that out and the ump all but admitted he called you out because he wanted to go home and it was 16-1 at the time.

*** - not really, but I felt the need to end this like a Morrissey rant, because I am human and I need to be loved, just like everyone else does.

**** - and the team lost both games by a gob of runs, so it wasn't like you were the single-handed downfall or anything; still, those first two Ks came with runners on and two outs in tight game, so if clutch existed, you certainly were not very that.

***** - and then you remember hey, my presentation actually went really well this morning, and I did play out of my head at Ultimate a scant 25 hours ago, so all is not lost. And the battle / that we're in / rages on / 'til the end.

Weeks 4-5-6

The problem with trying to get my school on and blog at the same time is that the former generally prevents the latter. For shame. Here's a quick, bullet style account of the weeks that have passed us by:
  • We hosted Beck's Tufts classmates Beth and Shelly for a few days while they attended a conference in Scottsdale. Crazy-timing as we were in the move-out-of-condo phase, but fun to have guests in the casa. Spackle and Dubsy appreciated the extra attention accordingly.
  • Speaking of out-of-towners, I grabbed a quick drink with superstar of Rice Cloud Nine Ultimate and all-time awesome guy Mike Konopka - he was in town doing some collaborative work with some of the Biodesign folks at ASU. We presciently bemoaned the Cubs playoff chances and generally caught up on goings on, frisbee-related and otherwise. Mike, nay Ragdoll, is still as awesome of a dude as ever.
  • That same night, D&C and the Beck & I caught Vampire Weekend in concert down at the Marquee in Tempe (Xtina, strangely, did not order an 8 dollar long island, nor did she attempt to find Dan in the bathroom). I've gotta hand it to those NYC boys and their Afro-pop stylings - despite essentially playing their album on shuffle and only doing a 45 minute set, they do have quite the little songwriting showcase repertoire in them. Kudos, and their tunes are still running through my head. For example: who gives a @#$% about an Oxford Comma? Beck, Dan, Christina*,* and I do.
  • I would be remiss if I did not mention that Danimal played his first of two awesome e-mail subjects that week, this one being "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Doc Martens." Even my loser in-laws will probably catch that reference.
  • Did I mention WE MOVED last week? Into a house? A human style, take ownership of the land abode? I can't even begin to do this topic justice just yet. Phineas agrees: A separate post.
  • Law, Science and Technology Topics covered in the last three weeks:
    • Science, Values & Politics in Risk Assessment (Case Study: Nuclear Risk)
    • Congress's Role in Risk Assessment (CS: Global Warming)
    • Social / Economic Risk Assessment (CS: Second Life and Virtual World Law)
    • Technology Assessment (CS: Nanotechnology)
    • Digital Copyright Law
    • Patent Law (Case Study: Gene Ownership)
  • Various Books Read in the last three weeks
    • Segerstrale's Defenders of the Truth
    • Francis's Why Men Won't Ask For Directions
    • Carmen's Politics in the Laboratory: The Constitution of the Human Genome
    • Bowker and Star's Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences
    • Kohler's All Creatures: Naturalists, Collectors, and Biodiversity, 1850-1950
    • A veritable slew of other articles
  • In addition to the typical WEfnuking, I played in a scrimmage of local Phoenix club level players against the current PHX Club team, the aptly named Sprawl. I HAD A FRIGGIN' BLAST! So much fun. Unfortunately, we won - not exactly great for Sprawl morale if they get beat by a thrown-together team - but man oh man was it fun to play high level disc on a Sunday morning.
  • I'm working on a book review with a former student of Jason's named Maggie - we have had a couple of very productive meetings and things are rolling along nicely.
  • I wrote an abstract for my law paper. See below*.
  • And we moved. Many rolls of tape and bubble wrap were involved. Lots o' boxes. Lots o' sweaty scrounging of condos in Scottsdale. But now we are here, and thus far it is good. Among other thing: we are much closer to D&C, facilitating casual dinners / movies. Most excellent.
That's about it off the top of my head. Of course, other salient points are that the Cubs are in the process of blowing the playoffs, I have my first Scottsdale softball game tonight, and I actually did a presentation on that horrendous All Creatures book mentioned above which went pretty fantastically well**. So... yeah. Okay, back to work - I'll hit y'all on the flip side.

* - Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, despite general acceptance within the traditional institutional scientific community, remains a highly controversial topic in the United States of America. In the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st century, opponents of evolution have put forth quasi-scientific theological theories such as Creation Science and Intelligent Design as alternatives. They have attempted to insert these alternative theories into standard public education curricula or, failing that, have employed other means to discredit evolutionary theory. Consequently, much of the legal debate regarding evolution has focused on the First Amendment Constitutionality of teaching religiously-motivated theories in a public school setting and whether those theories are in fact religious or are true scientific alternatives. In this essay, I contend that there is a fundamental incongruence between the argument taking place in the courts and the argument within culture. While the First Amendment Establishment Clause is largely intended to disallow state-sanctioned religion, that is not the contested issue between the cultural pro- and anti-evolution ideologies. The culturally-motivated issues between the two camps invoke a wealth of values and narratives that are not accounted for by that narrow conception of the problem. Further, I argue that this disconnection between the legal and cultural debates encourages overly technical and indirect approaches to the conflict. Such "underhanded" tactics ultimately debase the discourse and distract from the underlying issues which could be addressed more directly for societal benefit.

** - To protect the names of the not-so-innocent, I'm just going to assert that this presentation went "fantastically well." I will leave to the reader's imagination the extent to which this two person presentation was actually written and presented by one person. What the reader may not imagine is the identity of that one person writer/presenter, who was me I.