craziness.

obviously i have been slacking with the posting. but a lot HAS happened recently, and i WILL post about it, so please be patient, and stay tuned for chrissakes.

happy birthday palm, you beautiful bastard!

in other news, Palm L.O. Hedcatt turns 27 today. it would be hard to communicate how much this dula means to me, so i am not going to try, but will instead pay him homage by copying one of his own brilliant treatises here:

The Heart of Chotchiness

Classy's Dictionary of The English Don defines a chotch as "n., male; a doula or spru; usually with shirt tucked, pants pleated and cuffed, collar buttoned; endowed with a distinct deficit of Class and surplus of self-interest."

You see your garden variety chotch (or chotchette) almost every day. On the subway, reading the Post or possibly The Wall Street Journal. Stopped in the middle of a crowded street, blocking you. Coughing into a sneeze-guard. Going to a Disneyland or world. Most chotches have children that are usually very annoying.

A chotch can never be classy because they do not care about the world. Republicans are chotches. Rudy Giuliani is an enormous chotch. Pataki, chotch. Most chotches are not from New York City with the notable exceptions of Staten Island and the Upper East Side. SoHo is also filled to the brim with chotches, but most of them are from other places. Recently, Williamsburg in Brooklyn has become a true Mecca for chotches. All hipsters are chotches.

Chotches can be any race, religion or creed. They might be drinkers or smokers, they may be promiscuous or they may be chaste.

Famous chotches include Steve from 90210, Jude Law, B.D. Wong from Law & Order and James Van Der Beek.

Anyone holding a Harry Potter book is probably a chotch.

Please do not confuse chotches with nerds, nerds are smart.

Chotches are defined by their consumption habits, their style and the profundity of their self-interest. The entire Bush administration is made up of chotches. A chotch will never know how big of a chotch they are. To know that would make them Classy.

Most importantly, being a chotch is diced. Being diced does not necessarily make you a chotch, but if it happens often enough, chances are you are a chotch.

Keep it Classy -- Please don't be a chotch.

it is time.

i can't believe kobe bryant scored 81 points last night against the raptors. considering this was hardly a fluke--he bestowed 62 pts. upon the mavs in 3 qtrs. earlier this season, and he's been scoring like a bastard for a few good years now, and he's proven himself to be a cold-blooded clutch shooter time and again--it is way time for me to start begrudgingly acknowledging that he's every bit as talented as mj was in his prime. not nec. as valuable to his team--he doesn't generally make his teammates better, witness his 2(!) assists last night--but every bit as skilled at the game of basketball. damn. i hate admitting that about this spoiled, arrogant, non-team player, purported rapist. but it's true.

LAKERS 122 - TOR 104
bryant's line:
MIN: 42
FGM-A: 28-46
3PM-A: 7-13
FTM-A:1 8-20
REB: 6
AST: 2
STL: 3
BLK: 1
TO: 3
PF: 1
PTS: 80-effing-1

i couldn't not blog this historic event. as sg says, i will now light myself on fire.

and it ends with a whimper.

notice how he doesn't even get my name right. the candid postscript kind of makes up for it, but overall it would appear my time warner letter writing campaign/saga was a waste of both time and paper.

those crazy faceless monolithic corporations -- what r u gonna do, right?! fuggeddaboudit! bastards.

confession.

life is a game of inches.

a few nights ago i went to my neighborhood internet cafe to check my email. it costs $1 for every seven minutes online there; they have a system wherein you feed as many dollar bills as you'd like into a machine, and it spits out a little ticket with a passcode, which allows you to log onto one of the computers and use it until your purchased time expires. if you're working on something right when your allotted time expires, the computer shuts down and brings the log-in/passcode screen back, but if you purchase more time and log onto that same computer without anyone using it in the interim, it will bring back all the windows and programs you had open, as if you had never left. this is a good system, b/c you don't really have to worry about losing any unsaved work on account of not being wary of when your time will be up.

this is also a bad system.

often times, people unwittingly leave their email accounts open in the above way. not knowing that the computer is not shutting down completely--that it is keeping their work open behind the black log-in screen--they do not sign out of their email account before their purchased time is up. then the computer switches off, and having finished whatever important emails they were working on, they leave the cafe, expecting they'll be automatically booted from their open account. not so. often times, i've sat down, logged in, and been presented with someone else's open yahoo account.

i've experienced this many times, and in the past have customarily just done the stranger a solid and signed out of their email account for them.

not so the other night.

the other night, i bought fourteen minutes, logged onto a computer, and promptly saw the open yahoo email account of some dude named richard s. jagger. i was feeling strange, so i did something strange. i opened the most recent message in jagger's inbox, which i could tell from the customary signs in email accounts had been read but not replied to: a message from 'stern-jagger, monica.' it read (i copied the text and sent it to myself from my own gmail, opened in another window):

Rich,
I'm sorry I've resorted to emailing you this, but I don't see another way. Please stop calling me. We are obviously not able to communicate with each other effectively by talking right now. And at this point I would like to get this over with as painlessly as possible. We both agreed we could do this on our own - I still hope that's possible. I still think it is. For now, I think the important thing is to agree on the list;
Aside from my half of the stuf [my note: i assume she meant 'stuff'] we're splitting 50/50, here are the things I would like to keep, all of which I think were orginally mine:
#The couch in the living room
#The TV stand and the CD wrack [my note ii: why did she spell wrack like that? wack! also, who has a cd stand? i guess they're in their thirties?]
#The architecture/decorating books
#The dresser in the bedroom. I know my mother gave this to us b/c you had always admired it, but since it came from my family, I think it should stay there.
#The photograph in the kitchen
#The bartender's set
#The blue carpet we used to have in the living room

You can come by any time, just let me know in advance and I'll give you some time to gather whatever else you want from the aptarment [c'mon monica, that's thrice] outside of the above stuff.

M

reading this only made me feel stranger, so my behavior only got stranger. i clicked 'reply' and wrote:

M:
I'll just come by one day while you're at work, Friday, Tuesday? But I insist on keeping the bedroom dresser. Your mother and I obviously never saw eye to eye on anything, and when she gave us that dresser I took it as a personal peace sign from the old cunt. It's a good luck item to me now.
Yours,
Dick

i debated this in my head, wondering how big a crime on my fellow man it would be, then, in a flash of indifference, decided 'fuck it' and clicked 'send.'

after sending the message, i signed out of the account. as i said, life is a game of inches. i suspect richard was about to log out himself, when his purchased time abruptly expired on him. he prolly assumed the computer shut his open window/email account down automatically, and simply left the cafe. if he had just finished going through his email a minute faster, he would have signed out and i never would have been able to pull this hijinks.

somehow i didn't think too much of all this at the time, but since then ive felt increasingly guilty. im sure 'richard' will eventually be able to convince monica that he didnt write it, but it seems like he was already lacking some credibility with her, that their relations were headed for being indelibly fractured anyway. still, this was a low thing to do.

although interesting.

a thought while wondering why it's so warm in the middle of january.

QUESTION: if an office receives a temp worker, and a three-way popcorn tub on the same day, which will remain in the office longer?

see, i think it's a tough call. in most cases, surely, both start off fresh but get stale quickly. i actually think temp agencies should provide three-way popcorn tubs WITH their temp workers. wouldn't that be extra classy?--not only do you have a new temp to help with the pensky account, but she's brought a giant tub of popcorn! who's up for eating cheddar popcorn out of a clear plastic cup?! then, as soon as the popcorn gets tossed, the temp must return to the agency. it should be an industry SOP. mark it, dude.

they both have olympic medals, except the mouse.

growing up, one of my favorite jokes, for reasons i can't altogether explain, was: what's the difference between santa claus and a mouse? they both have beards, except the mouse. anyway, here are pics of me and angela ruggiero from the photo shoot, that the photog took. (these are not the shots of me wearing the medals, which susie took then had destroyed. clearly.)

in other news, i'm not paying nearly enough attention to...other news. namely the alito confirmation. although part of me thinks i have not been keeping up because i subconsciously don't want to depress myself. is there really a shot of dicing this guy? anyway, fortunately (or not?), stanton has filled me in a bit on the proceedings: "the aclu just came out against his nomination - the only other nominations they have ever opposed were robert bork and rehnquist (in his bid for chief justice, coming on the heels of a case when he basically suggested that black people don't know how to vote anyway, so why bother extending them the franchise)." major props (big ups) to the likes of the aclu and ian bassin for doing real work opposing alito. yeah--i really should get up in the piece somehow. wait--does this count?



notice the giant ice cube we're sitting on?



you should have seen the size of the tray!



my ass was soaked! angela sat on a towel. who's the tough one now?



one day she'll be showing these photos to HER grandkids!



except prolly not.

this is just a crazy picture.

all that brainpower in one room, and the man with his finger on the button is the dimmest of them all. it's equivalent to joe torre placing bubba crosby in the cleanup spot in the yankees lineup. hey--i don't mind saying i really like that analogy. that i came up with.

happy birthday, peter!

as a human being, this man is a true gem. it is an honor and a privilege to know him.

and obv. to know him is to love him.

things always get good just when you're falling asleep.

well, the game started out like a rusty squeeze box, but by the final moments of the 4th quarter, it was genuinely rocking. sadly, by that time it was like 1 AM and i just wanted to go to sleep. i lost $20 to stanton (i would have only won $10 from him if SC had won btw; stanton's a crafty SOB). why do i ever bet stanton? have i EVER won a bet from him? we even have a two word phrase to symbolize our one-sided betting relationship: drew bledsoe. drew bledsoe indeed, stanton.
anyhoo, my predictions were not all that far off. the lines:
colbs-predicted score: usc 42, texas 40
god's imposed score: texas 41, usc 38 (close!)
colbs-predicted vince young stats: 3 rushing td's, 2 passing td's, 170 rushing yds, 150 passing yds
god-endowed vince young stats: 3 rushing td's (check!), 0 passing (oops), 200 rushing yds (basically check), 267 passing yds (touche, vince)
colbs-predicted reggie bush stats: 350 all-purpose yds
reggie bush reality: not even close, something like around 200 yds, but EVERYONE got this wrong. even god. he should have endowed reggie with more total yds, though im sure he'll endow him with a fat paycheck right quick.
colbs-predicted matt leinart: 3 td passes, 320 yds passing
matt leinart's reality: 1 td, 365 yds (not too bad, colbs)

NEXT POST WILL GET BACK TO MY HANUKKAH PROMISE. PROLLY.

all the marbles.

-

it's supposed to be the granddaddy of them all; this one may well be.
PREDICTIONS.

he killed us (michigan--go blue!) last year, in this same game. killed us. easily the most dominant individual performance ive ever seen in a college football game (although i was living in spain when michael vick almost singlehandedly beat fsu for the '99 nat'l championship--and therefore missed that game--which i have been assured was a virtuoso performance). in last year's rose bowl, against michigan, vince young made it look like he was a varsity h.s. qb playing street football against a middle school b team. he was that good. i think he had five total td's: 4 rushing(!) and 1 passing. usc's defense is mediocre actually. i look for a similar masterpiece from mr. young tonite. i say he accounts for five td's again (3 rushing, 2 passing), and over 300 total yards. (around 150 passing and 170 rushing) BY HIMSELF. this dude's a man among lesser men.

ANY other year, vince young is the man. the best by far. strangely for him, his reign over college football coincides with the reign of an even greater titan. reggie bush is the most dominant college football runner ive personally seen since eddie george, who i think people forget seemed to regularly run for 300 yds on teams while with ohio st. from what i gather, bush is the best running back since fellow sc heisman winner oj simpson, or jim brown, and maybe the best ever. he does it all. and if young looks like he's playing street football with middle schoolers, bush looks like he's playing with third graders. he simply outruns and outpowers EVERYONE eventually. it's a joy to watch and behold. and he makes it look effortless. simply impossible not to be enamored with his game. i say he racks up over 350 all-purpose yards, beating steve breaston's mark of 315, set just last year. i also say bush gets the mvp.

fuck this dude. he's too fucking cool. he's got it all--the game, the celebrity, etc. i hate him. he's too perfect. ice water in his veins. the fourth down play he converted against notre dame this year--that's all you need to know. he's money. i say he throws for 320 yards and 3 scores.

FINAL SCORE: USC 42, TEXAS 40.

hanukkah, i hardly knew ye.

so, i totally missed acknowledging hanukkah in any way this year, as i have for most of the past, say, ten years. i think it officially ended last night or something. anyhoo, stay tuned. my next post will be a treatise on my feelings on judaism and me being jewish specifically.

susie finesman's daughter, much like her mother, is the devil.

two weeks ago, when i met angela ruggiero--the ice hockey olympian whom i interviewed for the cover story for april's figure--at our photo shoot--she let me try on her gold and silver medals. this was particularly cool for me because i had spent a lot of time on the piece, and took a liking to angela, who is a fantastic person. our fashion director, susie finesman, took some digipics of me wearing the medals, which were obviously quite classy. so the pics with the medals, symbolically and nostalgically (nostalgia ain't what it used to be), meant a lot to me. that rug really tied the room together.

anyway, susie never uploaded the pics, lent her camera to her ditz daughter for new years eve, and the twerp promptly overwrote the two pics of me mit medals with god knows whatever b & t-esque mindless scenes she was taking part in at tunnel, or brother jimmie's, or dorians, or 'vue', or 'remote', or 'sway' or the effing starlight express diner.

long story short, no more pics of me wearing olympic medals, but plenty of some UES JAP in an H & M halter and mavi jeans doing body shots off some waxed-chested neanderthal from jericho or syosset. (i can only assume).

i am angry.

other than that it was a good break, and i'll fill you(s) in going forward. this had to be the first post b/c those pics were gonna be the first post back!