DLD 08.31.09: Mac and Cheese Monday ← FREE KRAUT!

DLD 08.31.09: Mac and Cheese Monday 120

Seven is an awkward number to end at. It feels wrong somehow, irresponsible, even dangerous, like passing scissors to someone blades first, or buying a purple shirt. But that’s when the well ran dry, so I guess we’ll have to risk it.

1. Stats

2. Quotes

It goes to show that thinking up the right regression to run can be worth millions.

I found this script to be a vile, degenerate, 107-page piece of shit, about as witty as a maggot-infested corpse but only half as intelligent.

3. Shoes, indignation

Yesterday my Internet travels led me down the following path: Neiman Marcus > Shoes & Handbags > Shoes > Pumps. (long story, don’t ask)

There I discovered the true meaning of insanity. $495. $725! $1,025!

Here is a picture of (one of) the shoes I am currently wearing. I think I paid $80.

Not as elegant as the Bow Couture Pump, I admit, but I have money left over to, I don’t know, fly to Finland or something.

A box of Macaroni and Cheese costs $0.50 at Fred Meyer. You need approximately 1/3 of a stick of butter to make it. Butter is $2.89 for four sticks, so add $0.24 for each box. Armed with Tupperware, a microwave, and a bit of self-control, 1 box = 2 meals. All in, $0.37 per meal. Which means that for the cost of one pair of Bouquet Platform Pumps, you could eat 2,905 meals, or lunch and dinner every day for four years.

After dining on mac n’cheese twice a day for a few months you might be inclined to spend your remaining cash on a revolver and shoot yourself in the face, but the point stands. Wait, what is the point? I think it’s that I can’t wrap my mind around the idea that a pair of shoes costs a thousand dollars.

4. Couch

Equivalent to 1,754 mac n’cheese meals, but obviously worth every penny:

5. Self-aggrandisement, self-flagellation, creativity

There was much discussion in a recent AN thread about whether or not we ought to make kids debate their way through school. Some argued that relentless idea dissection, spurred on by the omnipresent threat of humiliation, will tend to produce graduates with sharp minds and confident strides, well-equipped to succeed in the world of dog eat dog (or more precisely, lawyer eat lawyer).

It’s natural to think that the stuff you happen to be good at is more important (or more conducive to a particular definition of thriving) than the stuff other people are good at, and given the amount of time we devote to arguing on blogs, I expect many of us hold certain kinds of mental gymnastics in higher regard than the ability to, say, fix a radiator, or project ease in an unfamiliar social setting, or dance a tango. I definitely harbor that bias, though the difference between me now and me at 20 is that I now realize it’s bullshit. (They probably teach that in college, right? Sigh. Life experience is really fucking inefficient. If only I could do it all over …)

[Brief meta interpolation: My writing is 95% curse words and parentheticals these days. Problematic.]

In any event, the talk embedded below reflects a perspective more in line with my own.

Even if you disagree with the thrust of the argument, it’s worth watching for the laughs. One example:

“What are you drawing?”

The little girl said, “I’m drawing a picture of God.”

And the teacher said, “But nobody knows what God looks like.”

And the girl said, “They will in a minute.”

6. Creativity, take two

File under Never Would’ve Thunk It: the guy who wrote Eastern Promises and Dirty Pretty Things was also the co-creator of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

Here’s what he has to say about the creative environment at the BBC:

It’s a labyrinthine organization, like something out of George Orwell. All the doors have numbers, and I swear there are many of those doors where no one knows what the people inside do. But they leave them alone for twenty years, and then suddenly they’ll come out and they’ve invented digital TV. That’s why the BBC is such a fertile place. Because it’s badly run.

A friend told me recently that after a certain point in married life, almost all her interactions with her husband were about “communicating information” in service of completing tasks. Child retrieval logistics. Meal planning. Miscellaneous expenditure reports. It’s not acrimonious or unloving. Far from it. But the fact is, most of the time their relationship is basically that of co-workers, and there is just as much pressure to be productive and efficient during “personal time” as there is at work.

This is what happens, married or not, children or not: life evolves into a task completion continuum. We have a list of stuff to do at work, and a list of stuff to do when we get home. We have long term tasks and short term tasks, one time tasks and recurring tasks. There are even tasks related to the stuff we do for fun.

Now, I’m definitely not saying that if not for all the mandatory grocery shopping and diaper changing, we’d all be writing poetry, painting watercolors, and prancing through meadows with dandelions in our hair (well, maybe FSU, but probably not the rest of us). But I am saying that tasks erode the part of us that wants to contemplate things at an angle, to drift in the direction of nothing in particular. Put another way: tasks keep you from wondering about stuff. And wondering about stuff is what generates original ideas, creativity, and – in more prosaic terms – conversation that isn’t incredibly boring.

I know. It’s petulant to complain about middle class alienation. There’s more art and writing and lively debate in the world than at any prior point in human history! The Internet has given voice to millions of stifled souls! I should keep my misguided Mad Men ethos to myself, and thank Christ I wasn’t born 300 years ago in a mud hut with some kind of terrible cheekbone deformity.

Ah, well. To that, I would just say that it is possible for all these things to be true at once.

7. Samoa

Ghana was the last country to shift its drivers from one side of the road to the other, in 1974. In a week, Samoa will follow suit:

The main reason for Samoa’s switch is that two of its biggest neighbors, Australia and New Zealand, drive on the left-hand side, whereas Samoa currently drives on the right, as in the U.S. By aligning with Australia and New Zealand, the prime minister says, it will be easier for poor Samoans to get cheap hand-me-down cars from the 170,000 or so Samoans who live in those two countries. It could also help more people escape tsunamis, says Mr. Tuilaepa.

I don’t understand how driving on the left side of the road helps you flee a tsunami more effectively.

And with that, happy Monday! You are mere hours away from Tuesday, which promises to be every bit as awesome as it was last week, if not more.

120 thoughts on “DLD 08.31.09: Mac and Cheese Monday

  1. monkeyball Aug 31,2009 9:42 am

    If #32 played in Japan, the draft from his swinging strikes would generate a tsucami.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  2. monkeyball Aug 31,2009 9:48 am

    Yeesh. Neyer links to this, and … you know, it’s a perfectly adequate and unremarkable daily newspaper feature story. And because of that, it’s utterly boring and awful.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  3. monkeyball Aug 31,2009 9:56 am
    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • mjdittmer Aug 31,2009 10:18 am || Up
      I guess Sweeney IS on a tear

      he homered, singled and tripled in his first two at-bats

    • mk Aug 31,2009 10:27 am || Up

      I’ve read that Big Urb post three times now, and I still have no idea what the title means. I get your reference, but not his. What am I missing?

      Well. No matter. My main takeaway is that I’ve got to find a way to use the term “home slice” more frequently. People might look at me funny in the beginning, but eventually they will realize how cool I am, and pretty soon we’ll all be calling each other home slice (maybe a variation here and there – home slab, home sliver, etc.), wearing sunglasses indoors, and attaching spoilers to our 2002 Honda Civics.

      • nevermoor Aug 31,2009 10:42 am || Up

        My guess is he drank some warm milk for some reason.

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • monkeyball Aug 31,2009 10:48 am || Up
        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • mk Aug 31,2009 11:12 am || Up

          Ah. My loathing of Will Ferrell has prevented me from seeing that movie.

          On an unrelated filmic note, I watched Oldboy over the weekend. Then I saw that Spielberg was adapting it, with Will Smith in the Min-sik Choi role. Which is depressing, since this is a film that needs its deranged denouement, and given the enormous budget and the decidedly unadventurous sensibilities of director and star, there’s no way in hell the result won’t be sanitized past the point of recognition. I’m thinking of quitting my job to launch a grassroots campaign to stop production.

          • monkeyball Aug 31,2009 11:17 am || Up

            Any project Spielberg announces is automatically depressing.

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
            • Leopold Bloom Aug 31,2009 3:01 pm || Up

              What if he announced he’s been killing tranny hookers and dumping their bodies along I-80?

              Yeah, I guess that’s kinda depressing too.

              • the dogfather Aug 31,2009 3:06 pm || Up

                Hey Bloomie — kindly respond to my friend request on FB.

                The meaning of life is not so much found, as it is Made. -- Opus
                • Leopold Bloom Aug 31,2009 3:13 pm || Up

                  GASP!

                  I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was you! Send again, would you?

                • the dogfather Aug 31,2009 3:56 pm || Up

                  Okay, so it sez it’s still pending, and I guess when it’s pendulous you can’t even send a message. If’n you can’t locate it, you can find me on MB’s listing.

                  The meaning of life is not so much found, as it is Made. -- Opus
                • monkeyball Aug 31,2009 3:13 pm || Up

                  Free brat?

                  you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
                • Leopold Bloom Aug 31,2009 3:19 pm || Up

                  Where? Where?!

                • mikeA Aug 31,2009 3:15 pm || Up

                  I hope you aren’t sending any homeless dogs to Florida…

                • Leopold Bloom Aug 31,2009 3:19 pm || Up

                  I like daags. Ya like daags?

                • andeux Aug 31,2009 3:24 pm || Up

                  With bright green relish and tomato slices? No.

                  TINSTAAFK
                • the dogfather Aug 31,2009 3:51 pm || Up

                  Who, me? Why, no (not yet).

                  The meaning of life is not so much found, as it is Made. -- Opus
              • monkeyball Aug 31,2009 3:06 pm || Up

                Eh, he’d doubtless make the announcement right in front of a tall window that Janusz Kaminski had flooded with gauzy light.

                you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
                • Leopold Bloom Aug 31,2009 3:13 pm || Up

                  but he would instantly become more interesting, no?

      • 5Aces Aug 31,2009 3:28 pm || Up

        You have left out my old favorite: homey slice cheeze whiz

        Camelot sure fell apart, didn't it? -Steve McCatty
    • nevermoor Aug 31,2009 10:27 am || Up

      Tee hee

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  4. monkeyball Aug 31,2009 9:58 am

    I’m going to start using “freak up” as a compound verb.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  5. nevermoor Aug 31,2009 10:28 am

    Re: Anderson stat

    Doesn’t that just mean Anderson doesn’t get much above 75 pitches unless he’s got good stuff on a given day?

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • mk Aug 31,2009 10:32 am || Up

      He’s only thrown under 75 pitches in three games. I have no idea what the stat indicates, though. Probably nothing.

      • nevermoor Aug 31,2009 10:42 am || Up

        Right, but how many at bats over 75 pitches in games where he’s pitching badly?

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
        • mk Aug 31,2009 11:01 am || Up

          1. Beats me. I’m not drawing any conclusions. It just made me mutter “huh”. Nothing more to it. Pretend the heading says “1. Totally inconclusive stats that I have not researched at all”.

          2. Congratulations on getting married. When is the big date?

  6. nevermoor Aug 31,2009 10:32 am

    Re: Shoes

    I hear you, to a point. The soon-to-be Mrs. Nevermoor (you’ll notice a severe drop in comments from me in a few days, lasting till the middle of the month) used to buy the $20 sale shoes. In totally unrelated news, her feet always hurt.

    Now, she buys Ecco, like me (I’ve got something along these lines) and her feet don’t hurt any more. That’s money well spent. Of course, the truly ironic thing is that those four figure shoes are probably hell on feet.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • monkeyball Aug 31,2009 10:52 am || Up

      You must have narrow feet. I love Ecco’s Gore-Tex hike-y/walk-y shoes (and Teva-ish sandals), but I find their dress-y shoes to be way too narrow for my square Hobbit feet (and really flimsy — I’m hell on shoes).

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • nevermoor Aug 31,2009 11:02 am || Up

        Actually, I have relatively wide feet. Eccos seem to last about a year to a year and a half of 4 day weeks

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
        • monkeyball Aug 31,2009 11:05 am || Up

          Yeah, that’s about my experience.

          1. You shouldn’t wear the same shoes on consecutive days. Really. (That may well be mere folklore handed down from my grampa, and it may only delay the inevitable without any other benefits, but … well, whatev.)

          2. Shoes at Ecco’s price point should last longer than that.

          3. #2 is why I only buy my shoes at the Rack or DSW.

          you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  7. monkeyball Aug 31,2009 10:59 am

    “Rex Rammell”? Really?

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  8. monkeyball Aug 31,2009 11:02 am

    This doesn’t look half bad, for warmed-over Coenism.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • nevermoor Aug 31,2009 11:06 am || Up

      After the last “quirky dark comedy” I saw was absolutely horrible, I find that lead in a turn off.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  9. monkeyball Aug 31,2009 11:19 am

    2(b). Someone’s been reading too many Shane Black scripts.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • mk Aug 31,2009 11:51 am || Up

      The TOTALLY AWESOME Lethal Weapon is one of my mom’s — who is THE HOTTEST FUCKING MOM YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE — all-time favorite movies.

  10. FreeSeatUpgrade Aug 31,2009 11:35 am

    I’m wearing a purple shirt and Ecco shoes today. And my Ecco dress shoes, brown and black, have lasted me multipel years of zero to two day per week wear. But I have had them resoled once time each.

    "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
  11. andeux Aug 31,2009 11:39 am

    1. As nevermoor notes, probably some selection bias in the Anderson stat.
    3. Now that you’re in the mature stage of your life I would recommend graduating (at least) to the Annie’s or Trader Joe’s mac and cheese.
    5. I did policy debate in high school. In retrospect, the whole thing is really perverse; it’s probably good training for lawyers (and for arguing on blogs) but not really so much for putting together sound reasoning.. People should definitely learn more logic and statistics, though. (What? “It’s natural to think that the stuff you happen to be good at is more important (or more conducive to a particular definition of thriving) than the stuff other people are good at”? Hmmm.)
    7. I think more people being able to flee tsunamis is a secondary consequence caused by the extra availability of cheap cars. I would think that if you’re fleeing a tsunami, there shouldn’t be any traffic coming the other way, so you should be able to drive on either side of the street. (I disclaim any responsibility for accidents that may be caused by acting on that theory.)

    TINSTAAFK
    • monkeyball Aug 31,2009 11:45 am || Up

      3. Really, there’s no excuse not to make an honest-to-Ba’al made-from-scratch M&C. Box pasta + roux w/grated cheese of one’s choosing + some julienned Allium family members …

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • mk Aug 31,2009 11:50 am || Up

      1. Why would that be the case for Anderson but not other pitchers?

      3. I make macaroni and cheese from scratch, usually. It’s one of three or four things I know how to cook. I make the most unhealthy, artery-clogging version possible, with half & half and heavy cream in lieu of milk. It is delicious.

      • monkeyball Aug 31,2009 11:57 am || Up

        3. Damn straight. I hope you use butter for the roux.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • mk Aug 31,2009 12:26 pm || Up

          4 TB butter
          4 TB flour
          2 cups half & half
          Dash pepper
          1/2 tsp Tabasco
          1/2 cup heavy cream
          1 lb macaroni elbows
          1 lb grated cheddar cheese (3/4 filling, 1/4 topping)

          • monkeyball Aug 31,2009 12:37 pm || Up

            Hunh. The Tabasco is an interesting addition. I use white pepper and fresh nutmeg in the bechamel. And I usually add a half cup or so of garlic/scallions/leeks, or some other spicy green (mustard and radish are good).

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
            • mk Aug 31,2009 1:37 pm || Up

              I can’t taste the Tabasco, but I’ve been told it “brings out the flavor of the cheese”, whatever that means.

    • FreeSeatUpgrade Aug 31,2009 11:51 am || Up

      I, too, was an HS debate geek. I was pretty good at it too; I therefore believe it to be one of the most important things in the history of mankind.

      "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
      • mk Aug 31,2009 5:39 pm || Up

        Have you decided to go the JD Salinger route and retire from posting? I don’t even remember the last time you wrote one – was it the Kentucky Derby? (this is still in my “to read” queue)

        • FreeSeatUpgrade Aug 31,2009 8:53 pm || Up

          Uninspired. I can’t even summon the energy make easy jokes about Luke Hochevar’s ears.

          "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
    • batgirl Aug 31,2009 12:13 pm || Up

      I actually prefer Kraft to Annies and Trader Joes box mac & cheese (at least I think I’ve tried TJ’s boxed.) However, the Trader Joes frozen heat & serve is insanely good. Until I’ve eaten the entire box, and read the back to find it was supposed to be a 3 serving box.

      • mk Aug 31,2009 1:37 pm || Up

        Until I’ve eaten the entire box, and read the back to find it was supposed to be a 3 serving box.

        I lack self-control in three main areas:

        1. Christmas cookies. Only once a year, so not too debilitating. I trek to my parents’ house, gorge without pause, then spend the first two weeks of the new year in recovery.

        2. Movie popcorn. Three quarters of the way to the bottom of a large bag, nausea kicks in, and I’m forced to stop, pre-refill. Otherwise, this would be serious problem.

        3. Homemade macaroni and cheese. My aversion to cooking saves me in this case. The ratio of cravings to actual ingredient procurement/preparation is approximately 80:1.

        • nevermoor Aug 31,2009 2:19 pm || Up

          Re 1, for me it’s eggnog. Problematic.

          "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
          • Leopold Bloom Aug 31,2009 3:02 pm || Up

            I lack self control at all. I am an extreme example of self-will run riot. Now give me another slice of pizza, you whores!

            • dmoas Sep 2,2009 9:28 pm || Up

              You and me both. Hey, we can split a couple of large pizzas!

          • salb918 Sep 3,2009 6:54 am || Up

            First time I ever had eggnog:

            9:00 pm: Wow, this is really tasty.
            9:15 pm: It’s like drinking ice cream!
            9:30 pm: Holy crap I’m trashed.
            12:00 am?: What the fuck
            10:00 am: What the fuck

            • nevermoor Sep 3,2009 9:15 am || Up

              Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

              "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • mk Aug 31,2009 12:30 pm || Up

      5. Maybe this experience is particular to me, but I doubt it: when I am engaged in an argument (online or otherwise), I am barely listening to the other person. Instead, I’m scouring their remarks for attack points – seize the piece you can pry apart, discard the rest. It’s a gear I shift into unconsciously, and afterward I always think the same thing: “Ugh. That was a) unenlightening, and b) kind of gross.” Debate can be illuminating, so long as neither side is trying too hard to win. Alas, that is rarely the case.

      • nevermoor Aug 31,2009 2:20 pm || Up

        Yeah. I’ve found myself flying to fangraphs to attack, seeing no evidence, and trying to tease some out anyway. It’s a dirty feeling.

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  12. monkeyball Aug 31,2009 12:04 pm
    On the Internet, no one knows you’re a Jesuit

    Spotted this ad at Kevin Drum’s place:

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  13. monkeyball Aug 31,2009 12:05 pm
    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • monkeyball Aug 31,2009 12:05 pm || Up

      Boy, does that word look funny if you repeat it enough.

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  14. Leopold Bloom Aug 31,2009 1:13 pm

    in “honor” of the new appointment:

    i like mac and cheese–it’s good. one time, i poured a whole bowl of it down the front of my scotch-guarded slacks to see what it would feel like and also to see if the stain would set. it did. i like the mac and cheese that kraft makes, although this makes me a corporate whore, i cant bring myself to love annies natural. it feels like i’m chewing on dirt. sometimes while making mac and cheese, i imagine that the noodles are people and the nuclear cheese sauce i’m spreading among them is a virus, destined to kill them all, like radiation slowly or sometimes quickly leaking through their little noodle pores, dooming them to death by radiation–all their noodle hair will fall out, all their noodle skin will begin to flake off and little noodle sores will begin to break out all over their bodies. by that point, i get so disgusted by their visage, that i cant bring myself to eat the rotting corpse bags of noodles covered in nuclear cheese sauce.

    • nevermoor Aug 31,2009 2:22 pm || Up

      I threw up a little in my mouth at that honor.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • Leopold Bloom Aug 31,2009 3:16 pm || Up

        YAY! My writing’s getting a reaction!

    • lenscrafters Aug 31,2009 2:33 pm || Up

      Trainman will become a FPW before DFA does.

      • Leopold Bloom Aug 31,2009 3:15 pm || Up

        pretty cool that Lynn put that right up front.

        • nevermoor Aug 31,2009 3:29 pm || Up

          Yeah. I hope it gets 15 recs

          "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  15. JL Aug 31,2009 1:44 pm

    Re: #5

    I’m a recent college grad (who didn’t want to get involved in the Urban thread). I’m not sure how many students are actually in school to learn, then again, I went to a CSU school. College seemed like a 4+ year wait until we could get a job using a rather expensive piece of paper. This probably seems hard-headed and naive, but I knew what I was going to do going into college, so I didn’t need to explore underwater basketweaving or calculus. I took the classes I needed, learned what I felt was prudent, and followed the system of what professors liked. Maybe a debate-based college or two would work, but to revamp the entire system? Ehh… I don’t believe for the most part, any kind of motivation is there to actually think.

    Great DLD, mk.

    "Ain't no man can avoid being born average, but there ain't no man got to be common." — Satchel Paige
    • monkeyball Aug 31,2009 2:39 pm || Up

      Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome!

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • JL Aug 31,2009 2:42 pm || Up

        Thanks. A few of my favorite commenters migrated over here. Figured I’d check it out.

        "Ain't no man can avoid being born average, but there ain't no man got to be common." — Satchel Paige
        • nevermoor Aug 31,2009 3:08 pm || Up

          And so you know, you won’t have to wait any more now that you’ve earned the monkeyball seal of approval.

          The following are FK’s groundrules:

          "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
          • monkeyball Aug 31,2009 4:32 pm || Up

            You forgot the rider:

            The amendments:

            The code of conduct:

            And the subscription-fee agreement: $75 checks are payable annually to the FK webmaster.

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
            • nevermoor Aug 31,2009 4:53 pm || Up

              fixed

              "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
            • JL Aug 31,2009 5:25 pm || Up

              I can pay in IOUs. I just graduated college. And I’m a journalist. I’m about as reliable as the state, right?

              "Ain't no man can avoid being born average, but there ain't no man got to be common." — Satchel Paige
              • nevermoor Aug 31,2009 7:12 pm || Up

                Just tell me the check is in the mail.

                "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • mk Aug 31,2009 3:12 pm || Up

      Underwater basketweaving sounds kind of awesome.

  16. mk Aug 31,2009 1:47 pm

    This is the sort of thing that activates my liberal erogenous zones, but probably there are all sorts of wonky reasons why it would never work. Maybe one of you policy debater types can tell me what they are.

    [E]very adult in the country would get a transferable $100 “artistic freedom voucher” once a year, which could be cashed in only by someone putting new intellectual property — anything from databases to photos to drum solos — into the public domain.

    • nevermoor Aug 31,2009 2:24 pm || Up

      I’m intrigued. Of course, depending upon your political stripe, the unions or the corporations would just hijack the whole thing.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  17. monkeyball Aug 31,2009 3:13 pm

    Awesome:

    They should convene a panel for the next Meet the Press with Jenna Bush Hager, Luke Russert, Liz Cheney, Megan McCain and Jonah Goldberg, and they should have Chris Wallace moderate it. They can all bash affirmative action and talk about how vitally important it is that the U.S. remain a Great Meritocracy because it’s really unfair for anything other than merit to determine position and employment. They can interview Lisa Murkowski, Evan Bayh, Jeb Bush, Bob Casey, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller, Dan Lipinksi, and Harold Ford, Jr. about personal responsibility and the virtues of self-sufficiency. Bill Kristol, Tucker Carlson and John Podhoretz can provide moving commentary on how America is so special because all that matters is merit, not who you know or where you come from.

    UPDATE: Just to underscore a very important, related point: all of the above-listed people are examples of America’s Great Meritocracy, having achieved what they have solely on the basis of their talent, skill and hard work — The American Way. By contrast, Sonia Sotomayor — who grew up in a Puerto Rican family in Bronx housing projects; whose father had a third-grade education, did not speak English and died when she was 9; whose mother worked as a telephone operator and a nurse; and who then became valedictorian of her high school, summa cum laude at Princeton, a graduate of Yale Law School, and ultimately a Supreme Court Justice — is someone who had a whole litany of unfair advantages handed to her and is the poster child for un-American, merit-less advancement.

    I just want to make sure that’s clear.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • mk Aug 31,2009 3:18 pm || Up

      It would give me great satisfaction to print out the UPDATE portion and staple it to Bill Kristol’s sweaty forehead.

    • mikeA Aug 31,2009 3:23 pm || Up

      John P. can get a little touchy about some gentle teasing regarding “n” word:

      Tell you what. When you start two magazines, write speeches for a
      president, work at two newsmagazines, co-found a successful corporate
      communications firm, publish four books and achieve gainful
      employment in journalism for more than 25 years, my boy, then we can
      talk.

      /angry email.

      • mk Aug 31,2009 3:36 pm || Up

        I think he should have gone with my dear boy, but maybe he was too pissed to edit for elegance.

      • monkeyball Aug 31,2009 3:59 pm || Up

        I never knew Podhoretz was black.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • nevermoor Aug 31,2009 4:02 pm || Up

        It’s actually an interesting question, if we’re not being too polarized/frothy.

        If your family is prominent but you do important things, are you fairly placed in the critique? Certainly less so than, say, Paris Hilton. The problem with answering yes is that you’re saying that people with prominent last names can do nothing at all ever that will prove they deserve their success. That feels uncomfortable to me.

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
        • monkeyball Aug 31,2009 4:05 pm || Up

          < cough > Crosby < cough >

          you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • mk Aug 31,2009 5:27 pm || Up

          Well, I think the critique has more to do with (racist) hypocrisy than whether or not the (racist) hypocrite has done anything important. In other words, regardless of the quality of their contributions to society, all of them benefited from being born into affluence. None of them have ever had to do anything resembling “pulling themselves up by their bootstraps”, but by God, if they think some poor black kid got into college ahead of a suburbanite with a higher SAT score, or an illegal immigrant got a tetanus shot in an emergency room, they fly into spasms of outrage about “level playing fields” and “fairness”.

          • monkeyball Aug 31,2009 5:31 pm || Up

            That would be a nice portmanteau word: “spoutrage”

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
          • Leopold Bloom Aug 31,2009 6:25 pm || Up

            Can SOMEONE PLEASE just think of the children?!

          • nevermoor Aug 31,2009 7:14 pm || Up

            I certainly agree that there’s a point to it, but the phrase used is “meritocracy.” Some of these guys are pretty sharp, and I think it would be wrong to say they haven’t earned (at least some portion of) their position.

            How much would be an interesting discussion to have.

            "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  18. mk Aug 31,2009 3:13 pm

    I don’t know whether to applaud the ingenuity or despair at the symbolism:

    My Brother-in Law was throwing away a double schwin jogging stroller with alluminum frame and I jumped on it. I ripped out the safety harness stuff and added some quick clips from home depot and two sets of rugged gear gun holders. I strap my hydration system to the back rail and use some small canvas mechanics tool bags I got at my local Army-Navy store for under 10 bucks each. My pistlo range bag goes underneath and it even has its own detachable cooler bag for sandwiches and an ice pack. It folds up small enough to get in my chevy HHR along with all my gear. It turned out to be the Humvee of range carts and much more reliable.

  19. nevermoor Aug 31,2009 4:20 pm

    It must be hard being stupid.

    “I was disappointed with the image on the shirt.” Melby said. “I don’t think evolution should be associated with our school.”

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • monkeyball Aug 31,2009 4:31 pm || Up

      Christ, what a brass hole

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  20. salb918 Aug 31,2009 4:56 pm

    Annie’s Mac and Cheese, Mild Mexican Flavor = pure awesome.

    I can’t believe they stopped making it.

  21. monkeyball Aug 31,2009 5:01 pm

    Well, crap. Looking likely we’ll be stuck with Nomar.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  22. whiteshoes40 Aug 31,2009 5:29 pm

    I have now been inspired to have mac and cheese for dinner (I think I have a Kraft box in the pantry).

    I have also been inspired to buy more shoes. At Payless (my favorite shoe store), though, not at Needless Markup Neiman Marcus.

    • monkeyball Aug 31,2009 5:37 pm || Up

      I’ll probably be making a cheese bechamel sauce … to go over salmon patties and choufleur.

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • nevermoor Aug 31,2009 7:15 pm || Up

        You’re really pushing the word bechamel today. Would you like to be a camel?

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  23. monkeyball Aug 31,2009 5:32 pm
    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  24. JediLeroy Aug 31,2009 6:45 pm

    Mac & Cheese: awesome, but not 350 yen/box awesome.
    Shoes: Can’t find size 13 (or anything over 10.5), and my feet are shaped like a backwards piece of pizza, so my toes are always crushed.

    Honest question: why don’t people make fresh mozzarella? It’s. Not. Hard.

    College: Linguistics major completed in 4+ years while working full-time with a family. I couldn’t take any classes that weren’t absolutely essential to graduate. Within the field, there were a lot of useful classes–especially for second-language proficiency–but discussions of Chomskyan Universal Grammar and the like did more to confuse me than expand my ability to reason. Sure, I can diagram sentence structure with theoretical invisible traces pointing to intricate unseen particles. But what good does that do me, outside of fulfulling my curiosity about language?

    If I had truly grasped the idea that my four years of linguistics study wouldn’t help me find a long-term career, I probably would have studied engineering instead. Those guys all got great jobs right out of school.

    But then I wouldn’t be living in Murakami’s Japan, learning my third (fourth?) language. I love what I’m doing, but at some point, for the sake of my wife and kids, I’m going to have to settle down in America doing something I don’t really enjoy. I don’t want to be a banker. I don’t care if I excelled at it. I hate retail. There’s got to be a market for trilinguals with 5 years’ banking experience. Something that doesn’t suck my life away.

    If only I could just learn languages for the rest of my life. Sigh.

    I sincerely hope that grad school won’t be a big waste of time and money. If I can even get in. A 3.28 GPA with no extra-curricular activities or internships isn’t exactly prime material.

    And honestly, why is that? Why is it that I get penalized because I worked through college to support a family and avoid debt, when others can get by on their parents’ dime? They live on campus and have all the time in the world to study. Then my GPA gets pulled down because I don’t have the time to participate in group activities in a stupid Biology 101 course, or to turn each homework assignment in three times (after peer revisions)?

    I truly feel like I learned more about life by balancing full-time work with full-time schooling, all while raising a family. Yet Billy McMommy’stab (not to be confused with Billy McMommyStab, who’s currently serving a life sentence at the state prison) gets into the school instead of me because he had time to buddy up to the teachers?

    Okay, maybe this is all premature. Maybe I’ll get accepted to my school of choice. But I hate that a number like a GPA dictates whether I’m qualified to learn more.

    az di bobe volt gehat beytsim volt zi geven mayn zeyde
    • Leopold Bloom Aug 31,2009 7:04 pm || Up

      You’re not going to get punished for your GPA. In your letter, write about your experiences of working your way through undergrad. The old axiom holds true: those that mind don’t matter and those that matter don’t mind. True for school too. My letter started off with a story about how I was arrested for knowingly and willfully exposing my penis in public. I led with that. Upon reflection, I now understand why perhaps I IMMEDIATELY (within two weeks of submitting it) got a letter of rejection from Vandy. U of C bit, though. Sweat your GPA less and your letter and/or essay more.

      • nevermoor Aug 31,2009 7:18 pm || Up

        This.

        The kid with the 4.0 GPA is sitting there worrying about how he can spin “spending all night in the library” into a useful essay. You’ll win that and there’ll be a school that cares more about post-grad work than college GPA (in law school, for example, that school is Northwestern)

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • JediLeroy Aug 31,2009 7:35 pm || Up

        Note to self: willfully expose self in public.

        Thanks for the words of encouragement. It’s nice to feel like I might have a shot.

        az di bobe volt gehat beytsim volt zi geven mayn zeyde
        • Leopold Bloom Aug 31,2009 9:22 pm || Up

          ain’t no might. You will. Just broaden your scope, and be willing to both fight for those that waitlist you (wait list means “convince me and you’re in,” by the way) and accept the schools that say yes.

    • whiteshoes40 Aug 31,2009 7:20 pm || Up

      Sounds like you’ll be able to write a pretty awesome personal statement, if this post is any indication. That probably would help a lot more than a few more extracurriculars or a slightly higher GPA.

    • mk Aug 31,2009 7:52 pm || Up

      1. Don’t ever lead with a penis story, no matter what Leopold Bloom tells you.

      2. Far worse than not being able to earn a living doing the thing you love is not ever figuring out what that thing is. My sense is that most people go through life passionless (unless you count beer and American Idol as passions), and spend a lot of time dramatizing banalities in order to compensate. Really, you’re lucky. Even if the momentum of your life pulls you in the direction of a career you regard with disinterest (and let’s face it, this happens to practically everyone), you still have all this stuff you’re experiencing right now. And you’ll always be able to diagram the shit out of a sentence.

      3. Shorter #2: You will probably end up in a job you dislike. It happens. But don’t forget to look around every day and marvel at the fact that holy crap, you’re in Japan. Because if you don’t, in ten years you’ll wish you had.

      4. Do you read Japanese well enough to tackle this?

      5. Have you seen the film Fear and Trembling? It’s sort of a satirical drama (if that makes any sense) about a Belgian woman navigating the bewildering (to her) conventions of a Tokyo corporation. It’s a French film, but nearly all the dialogue is in Japanese. I’d be interested to hear your take.

      • JediLeroy Aug 31,2009 8:13 pm || Up

        2/3. I feel pretty lucky to have a wife that’s not materialistic. It’s allowed me to truly experience rural Japan, which is something that few people have the chance to do. I’ve decided that even when I do settle for a job, I won’t stop studying. I’d love to take night classes or just read on my own.

        4. I’m currently studying for the JLPT Level 2, (the second hardest of the four tests offered), which requires knowledge of about 1000 kanji characters. Right now, I know about 600. They say that reading a newspaper requires at least 2000. I’d love to trudge through a Murakami novel in Japanese, but it’ll probably be four or five months before I feel ready for that. By December, if all goes as planned, I should have about 2100 under my belt.

        5. I’ll see if I can find that anywhere.

        az di bobe volt gehat beytsim volt zi geven mayn zeyde
      • salb918 Aug 31,2009 8:50 pm || Up

        dramatizing banalities? This is a baseball blog fercrissakes!

        • JediLeroy Aug 31,2009 9:06 pm || Up

          I heard that in the newest Mortal Kombat game, you have 3 seconds after hearing “Finish Him!” to enter in a special move, which will force the opponent to watch American Idol.

          az di bobe volt gehat beytsim volt zi geven mayn zeyde
          • nevermoor Sep 1,2009 9:32 am || Up

            While doing DDR? Or is the Disney/Marvel combination frying my brain

            "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
        • mk Aug 31,2009 9:32 pm || Up

          Ha, true.

          I guess I mean “treat things that are of dubious importance as though they were of critical”, not “indulge frivolous interests.”

          People unconsciously convert strings of unremarkable interactions into intricate dramas of perceived slights and hidden motives, like they were on The Real World or something. It’s a coping mechanism, a way to stave off boredom, to fulfill (however poorly) the natural desire to slot our lives into a dramatic narrative.

          When we gossip at work, we’re “dramatizing” the mundane. When we watch movies, we’re reveling in its absence. But it’s all the same thing. Sort of. I don’t know. I am probably full of shit.

          • JediLeroy Aug 31,2009 10:04 pm || Up

            People unconsciously convert strings of unremarkable interactions into intricate dramas of perceived slights and hidden motives

            Wait, are we still talking about Japan? It’s almost impossible for a non-native speaker to fully comprehend all the social norms, which ignorance leads to people doing just what you described.

            az di bobe volt gehat beytsim volt zi geven mayn zeyde
      • Leopold Bloom Aug 31,2009 9:23 pm || Up

        I refute this.

        Penis stories grab peoples attention. Regardless of who they are or how much learning they have, the chances of them being obsessed with penises are 90%, either “mine” or “his”.

  25. Poppy Sep 1,2009 1:23 am

    And the insomnia has made an early return. Not the “I’m too busy to sleep” kind (yet), but the “I’m physically/mentally unable to sleep” kind. I’m not drinking any caffeine these days, so I can’t cut that out. I guess I’ll have to increase alcohol instead.

    There's a wild thing in the woolshed and it's keeping me awake at night.

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