Friday Night Lights

quick sound off

Come sister, come brother-in-law, come father, mother, and nephew. My house of 1 will soon be a B-and-B of 6... and 2 dogs.

In honor of the parade of award shows that have already started...

Most honest author award:

Atul Gawande -- "Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science". A rare acknowledgement by a doctor that doctors make mistakes... quite often... but the alternative may otherwise be a world in which only 72 year old physicians have any experience. Honest and insightful.

Ridiculously optimistic award:

Tie: Too many banks to mention. Drive by any bank that displays the time for your convenience. The bank is also kind enough to show you the current temperature as well... in Fahrenheit.... and Celsius. Perhaps I missed it. Did Americans become metric-savy overnight? Was 7 year-old Johnny sitting in the back of the car, prepared to dust off "C = 5/9(F-32)" but for the dual temperature reading of the clock? Yes, I want 1 lb of turkey breast. No wait, please make that 454 grams of turkey breast. Maybe... just maybe... I could see some frat guy becoming a fan of the metric system... "Yeah, baby, I've got 10... centimeters... that I can't wait to show you."

Patronizing and pandering award:

The government. On Monday many people (not your truly however) will receive a vacation day -- a much needed vacation day seeing as New Year's Day was all of 2 weeks ago and Christmas was the week before that. Monday we observe Martin Luther King's birthday. Maybe I'm in the minority on this, but as great a man as MLK was, was he more important to the struggles of Black Americans than George Washington Carver, W.E.B. Dubois, Malcolm X, Shirley Chisolm, Rosa Parks, ... and the list goes on. Was MLK more important to this nation than Abraham Lincoln? Clara Barton? Thomas Jefferson? Franklin Roosevelt? Thomas Edison? And yet, Carver, Dubois, Barton, Jefferson, and Lincoln share one day together on which we honor them... the inanely titled "Great Americans Day", which replaced "President's Day" -- which had once been 2 dates in February -- a separate date for Lincoln and one for George Washington. So instead of focusing on the inequalities still faced by Black Americans, we have distilled your contributions into 1 man -- Martin Luther King, Jr., who like Roosevelt and Edison and Chisolm was a Great American, so why then the separate holiday? Given the demographic changes and the speed at which politicians race to be the first to pander... can a Cesar Chavez day be far behind?

And some predictions...

Eagles will win easily -- by no fewer than 2 touchdowns.

Steelers by lucky 13.

If the field is slick in Foxboro, the Pats by a fieldgoal. Otherwise, the Colts by 4.

Is there a team more overrated the Falcons? A player more overrated than Michael Vick (who looks and plays like Kordell Stewart with a couple of juke moves)? And yet I think Mike Martz will lose this game for the Rams. For if Belicheck is like an extra field goals for the Pats, then Martz is the equivalent of an 80 yard interception return for a TD against you. Falcons by 3.

No matter how hungry you are...

Do not eat iPod Shuffle

One of the many magnificient aspects of Ireland that I enjoyed when I went there in the fall of 2003 was the lack of American-style lawyering. I first noticed this wonderful fact about the Irish realm approximately two feet from the edge of Dun Aenghus, a Celtic fort precariously positioned 300 feet above the Atlantic Ocean on the largest of the Aran Islands, Inishmore, as my knees began to shake uncontrollably. I immediately dropped to my knees and slowly inched my way forward earthworm-style, peering over the cliff and taking in the beauty of the Atlantic below, stealing one breath every 60 seconds. Aside from the occasional gulp of oxygen and camera shot, necessary evidence of my incredible bravery, I stayed motionless and imagined the people who awoke to this sight each morning, some 2,000 years ago. It is an experience I will never forget.

Ireland as the country without million dollar tort suits occurred to me again as I took in the Cliffs of Moher seaside and caught glimpses of people watching us from O'Brien's Tower above. A thought reinforced when our captain mentioned that the Cliffs of Moher was Western Ireland's #1 attraction for tourists and people looking to kill themselves.

In America, we all know that the closest the government would allow us to the edge of the cliffs of Dun Aenghus or of the Cliffs of Moher is approximately 10 feet, obstructed by some ugly-a$$, chain-linked, barbed-wired-topped fence. Sure, we could have gone back to the "welcome center" and watched pictures of the cliffs and envied the camera crew that the government had hired to take those shots, but instead of imaging the lives of the Celts who walked the land at the time of Christ, we would be imaging what it would be like to actually peek over the edge. What sort of experience would that be, we would wonder. An inspirational day, a perfect snapshot replaced by an utterly disposable memory.

American lawyers -- make our lives safe ... and dull.

Well -- some times lawyers can make our lives fun... but only if we are laughing at them for the things that they force us to say.

As many of you may have heard, Apple released yet another amazing iPod product -- the iPod Shuffle. I strongly encourage you to go to this site and read about yet another fantastic offering from Mr. Jobs. And while you are looking at this iPod Shuffle page, please read the small print just below and after the "Plug-and-Playlists" paragraph.

The first point in small print notes that music capacity is based on 4 minutes per song and 128 Kbps AAC encoding. That's a nice thing to know. If they said "120 songs" and that estimate was based on 1 minute songs, I think I'd want to know about that.

But then, and please make sure you are in a nice comfortable and sturdy chair for this, read the 2nd note in small print...

What the #%%&$#%&$???

Yes. You read that right. "Do not eat iPod shuffle".

How unbelievably insane is it that some lawyer either advising Apple or working for Apple felt compelled to instruct the marketing department to include this disclaimer.

I am going to repeat it again, because I just can't say it enough...

DO NOT EAT IPOD SHUFFLE

Okay, maybe I can fathom this disclaimer if the iPod Shuffle was a Microsoft product, but even then...

Are people really this colossally f'ing stupid that WITHOUT THIS DISCLAIMER they might, in fact, pay $99 for what they mistakenly believe is a Japanese delicacy???

DO NOT EAT IPOD SHUFFLE

I think we can all sleep well at night knowing that American lawyers while preventing us (protecting us?) from experiencing once-in-a-lifetime sensations and reflections, will make damn sure that not one incredibly stupid M F'er will eat an iPod Shuffle.

And aren't we all the better for that?!?

Sigh

Stupid Tuesday

Because try as they may, some people are just too stupid to change

Scientifically challenged...

If a not-so-bright friend asks you what the periodic table is, and you respond, "I think it's the way that women keep track of their menstruation cycle."... well, you are a wee-bit of a dummy. If, on the other hand, you believe that clouds are created by smoke stacks, then you are a dummy-in-full-bloom.

Green Egg in Your Face and Spam

Three years, a bunch of student loans, and an MBA later, I can happily report that I graduated in December from Katz School of Business. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on one's perspective, I still receive e-mails forwarded from my Katz account to my Verizon e-mail account.

The first e-mail I and every Katz student with an active e-mail account received today originated from an Asian student. Now, you might think me a bigot and/or Sherlock Holmes, because the e-mail sender's name was Ping Phu. But I didn't notice that part until after I had read the e-mail. No, it was this classic opening line that led me to this conclusion "I also have a VERY GOOD condition 'Creating Business Advantage in the Information Age', asking for $40." Now, my little Asian buddy, Ping, has either grossly underestimated the value of a talking textbook or he learned how to speak English by watching The Simple Life. While it's true that you can't spell "chump" without "Phu", spam + poor English doesn't make Poor Ping Phu ("Triple P") stupid -- actually it makes him typically American.

No, no... the stupid part appeared in two part harmony shortly thereafter.

The first gem whistled into my Inbox at 10:33 this morning from William J. Kooser, who responded from his work account with the following note: "With all due respect, if you're sorry, then stop sending this type of e-mail. I for one don't want a flood of 'books for sale' messages cluttering up my inbox." Klueless Kooser kindly had forwarded his response to not just Triple P but the ENTIRE recipient list of Triple P's e-mail, which, as a reminder, is EVERY Katz student with an active e-mail account.

Now, it is stupid to make the implicit claim that you are too busy to read Triple P's e-mail when you are reading your Katz e-mail AND responding to it at work. It's even dumber to use the expression "cluttering up my inbox", unless one can imagine Mr. William J. Kooser sitting at work proudly trumpetting to a co-worker "I have the tidiest inbox in the entire company" at the very moment that Triple P's e-mail arrives in his inbox, inadvertantly stripping Mr. William J. Kooser of this impressive distinction.

I cannot tell you if Mr. William J. Kooser is Asian, Indian, or European, but I can fairly deduce that Mr. William J. Kooser is self-important and incredibly stupid. Self-important in that Mr. William J. Kooser believes that he is so ridiculously busy that he does not have the 1 second it takes to delete a "book for sale" e-mail from his meticulous Inbox but he does have the 60 seconds it takes to compose an e-mail in response to Triple P. Moreover, self-important in that Mr. William J. Kooser believed that I and every other Katz student (or former students) actually cared to hear about his well-maintained Inbox.

This is also what makes Mr. William J. Kooser incredibly stupid. Someone has just, in your mind, spammed you and hundreds of other people -- made you and they read something you and they didn't want to. Yet your response is not to send an e-mail to Triple P and the IT Administrator for Katz. Instead, you send a spam reply e-mail to EVERY person who was already spammed by Triple P, making you, Mr. William J. Kooser, Double Dumba$$.

The second moronic missive arrived 2 hours later. mpsattler thought it important to follow up on Double Dumba$$' e-mail by adding, "Well put! I think there is a Katz intranet site for stuff like this."

If sending out spam in response to spam makes you an imbecile, then I think sending out spam praising spam that rails against spam makes you the Chucklehead of the Week.

Paper Route Speeding Tickets

mall money

Back in the days of yore, when you couldn't work for the $3.35/hr. minimum wage at the local outlet until you were 16, entrepreneurial 14 year-olds tossed newspapers for a living. For a year this newsboy spirit coursed through my veins, expiring, coincidentally, about the time my parents informed me that they would no longer help me deliver said newspapers.

What I remember most about those glorious times (and this I say facetiously... though I guess it could have been worse, I could have worked with the "Blue Shadow" as a rent-a-cop or toiled at McDonald's for all of 4 hours) are "collection days".

If one had run his route efficiently, one would collect for the papers at the beginning of every month. Being like most route runners -- which is to say, "inefficient" --, however, I collected from a few patrons at a time, whenever I needed cash to go to the mall.

I thought of this as I discussed my numerous brushes with the law with my grandparents this Sunday -- two speeding tickets (only one of which I was found guilty of), a few parking tickets, a "failing to obey speed traffic devices" (which is what cool cops give speeders), driving with an expired registration (thank you Farmer's Insurance, you incompetent b*stards), and, oh yes, the time my car was impounded less than 2 blocks from my house -- but only after no fewer than 3 police cars and 5 police officers surrounded my car... in Sewickley... and again, 2 blocks from my house.

I thought of those exciting times as a Reading Eagle news carrier because it occurred to me that municipalities are really no different than those 14 year-old paperboys -- than me. Police enforcement is not uniform. No, police seem to only start writing tickets whenever municipalities need mall money.

And while I did speed, just as my customers did receive the paper, the difference is that I treated my customers courteously when I asked for the money they owed. When is the last time a local cop (as compared to a state police officer, who clearly has had training on acting professional) acted with compassion or with a sense of humor toward you? I know some of the people who have become cops in the area in which I grew up and these guys were delinquent, loser jacka$$es. Most became cops because of how much time they spent in the proximity of cops... typically in holding cells... and, oh what fun, I'm sure they thought/think, it would be to harass other people under the color of the law. In short, the local yokel police academy became the fraternity house for the G.E.D. crowd.

At times I become frustrated with this 14 year-old-like behavior... particularly as a cop writes me out a $50 ticket for parking in front of my house on the designated street cleaning morning, whereas he is no where to be found at the time someone's stealing a bike out of your neighbor's yard. (Okay, so that happened on Cops and not in Sewickley, still...) Fortunately, I remember the advice a police captain gave to my roommates and me without an ounce of irony in his voice nor with a drop of sarcasm on his lips after someone tried to break into our college apartment and after we waited 3 hours for the cops to arrive --

"The next time this happens, don't call the police. Just walk up the street to Mister Donuts. You should be able to get a cop there right away who can help you. Otherwise you'll be waiting for hours again."

Ah yes, mall money well spent.

Sunday Odds and Ends

Tried and true? expressions

When people ask me if I participated in any student groups during my college years, I typically tell them that I was the head of the student chapter of P.E.T.A. ("People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals" ... and not the humorously titled group "People Eating Tasty Animals"), but that a bunch of radical members (which is redundant) kicked me out after I said regarding one of my action proposals that it would allow us to "kill two birds with one stone".

As far as expressions go, this one is particularly violent and seemingly insane. I'm assuming that the only time that people spoke literally about "killing two birds with one stone" occurred during our "hunting and gathering" stage -- which ended some 10,000 years ago.

And while I find the expression at once useful and barbaric, I'm not prepared to sponsor a contest on finding a suitable alternative because then the expression may have to be changed to killing two loons with one stone.

Don Rumsfeld

Even Republican Senators are hammering this guy. Over the past several months, he's become a lot like NBC, in that neither has Friends.

Playoff Football

Perhaps it is because he's from Canonsburg, where I work. Or maybe it's because unlike some coaches in the NFL, he's neither an obnoxious, arrogant fool nor an imbecile. Whatever the reason, I was rooting for Marty's Chargers yesterday and am disappointed that he will yet again have to answer questions about his playoff record.

And I know my sister is probably happy that the Steelers will likely now face the Jets (and not San Diego) next week, but I was not afraid of either team. If the Steelers do not beat themselves (which can happen -- though I don't think this year), then I cannot see any team beating them. They are playing incredible team football like New England has these past few years, and I think a combination of hunger and talent is what makes them a better team than the Patriots this season. So I don't care who they play. Bring 'em on.

Quick note on my prediction to Patriots, Colts, Jets, and Eagles fans

So far in 2005 I have made one football prediction -- which was that Pitt would beat Utah by 3. Pitt, in fact, LOST by 28.