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About a month ago, thinking it was about time to be that guy on the subway, I got around to reading Lush Life by Richard Price. I'm not exactly sure what took me so long, and now that I've knocked it out of the way, I really have to wonder what my problem is. It's great!

Then, curiosity about the show Justified lead me to reading Elmore Leonard's ( Read more... )

New York Magainze (AKA, the magazine you accidentally click the link for when you're trying to read the New Yorker online) has a reasonably well-balanced and interesting article about bikes and bike lanes in NYC, that mostly let's the anti-bike lane organizers speak until they hang themselves on their own stupidity.

The article has the dubious ( Read more... )

My favorite theodicy idiocy today is that God is a petulant asshole with poor time management skills. This is why it took Him so long to strike Japan with an earthquake, a tsunami, and at least two nuclear reactor meltdowns to punish the Japanese for Pearl Harbor. God must have been either very lazy, with a long backlog of smiting to work ( Read more... )

A good friend of mine from college is doing her dissertation at UW-Madison--so it's exciting around there right now, for all the teachers and potential teachers and everyone who believes that labor and unions have a place in this country. I haven't been making much of a contribution to the movement, these days, unless you count starting fights ( Read more... )

Bubba's "types of shrimp" monologue from Forrest Gump is just the "you ate sand?" monologue from Raising Arizona, except without the punchline. Presumably this is because they assume we are all as smart as Forrest Gump and wouldn't have recognized a punchline had they provided us with one.

It is clear that on the whole, we (meaning guys) just don't know how to act to impress a lady. While we'd like nothing more than a lady to see us act and say, "This is sexy," it just doesn't work out that way.

This past year's winner of the John Hinckley Award For Inappropriate Wooing goes to Maksim Gelman, a 23 year old who confused his ( Read more... )

Back when Hadaly and I had decided to move in together, I went to see the doctor to get a general checkup. This was before I saw doctors on a regular basis, so deciding to see a doctor was more of a sign that I had a good feeling about this relationship and less of a sign that it was Tuesday. I've always hated doctors for the general cliche ( Read more... )

I couldn't sleep a couple nights ago, and finally got around to installing Instapaper for iPhone and for Firefox, and I am totally in love with this program.

No, that's not quite right. I'm not in love with it. I don't know it well enough. I think that, over time, our relationship will deepen and expand and we will be in love. Right now, I ( Read more... )

Drinking alcohol is fraught with rules. Not just rules governing when you can drink or how much you can have before you drive, but rules about what constitutes "real" types of alcohol. Bourbon can only be made after the fashion originating out of a certain county in Kentucky. Rye whiskey has to be made from at least 51% rye. Scotch should only ( Read more... )