Irish Trojan in Tennessee

Everybody take off your pants!

By Brendan Loy

Why? Because Hitler wore pants, that's why! Hitler!

Of Tucker and toad venom

By Brendan Loy

Glenn Reynolds weighs in on an illegal, deadly aphrodisiac: "Others may see things differently, but to me there's a big gap between 'toad venom' and 'feeling sexy.'" As Glenn himself would say: Indeed.

This comes on the heels on Tucker Carlson's disturbing relevations about his sex life, vis a vis the veepstakes:

“The VP story is a little bit like sex,” observes Tucker Carlson, the writer and NBC political analyst who falls into the skeptic column. “When it’s happening, you’re totally focused on it, it’s all you want. Then, the second it’s over, you can barely remember why it seemed so important.”

“It happens, there are fireworks for 30 seconds, ‘[AP's Ron] Fournier’s got it — it’s JACK KEMP!’”

According to Wikipedia, Tucker is married with four children, so I'm guessing he doesn't really yell out "JACK KEMP!" in the heat of passion. But who knows. I suppose some women would find it sexier than toad venom, at least. Though, if there's a bow-tie involved as well, toad venom might be preferable.

Trapped in an elevator

By Brendan Loy

The New Yorker last month ran a fascinating, lengthy article about elevators. I just stumbled upon it today. It's worth a read if you've got the time. I found this snippet particularly interesting:

In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works. (It does work if, say, a fireman needs to take control. But you need a key, and a fire, to do that.) Once you know this, it can be illuminating to watch people compulsively press the door-close button. That the door eventually closes reinforces their belief in the button’s power. It’s a little like prayer. Elevator design is rooted in deception—to disguise not only the bare fact of the box hanging by ropes but also the tethering of tenants to a system over which they have no command.

The article is framed by the story of Nicholas White, an employee in a New York high-rise building who once got trapped in the elevator for 41 hours. Here's the time-lapse security footage of his ordeal, via the New York Times's Health blog. As the New Yorker article reveals, White ultimately quit his job and sued the company that owned its building, only to settle for a piddling amount after four years of legal strife. His life is pretty much in shambles now, all because of a sequence of events that started with his getting trapped in an elevator after stepping outside for a cigarette on a Friday night.

Anyway, the Times blog post asks for readers' stories about elevator ordeals. Hey, I've got one! I was trapped in an elevator once, in France. The "ordeal" only lasted maybe two or three minutes, but it happened in a foreign country where I didn't speak the language, and I was only seven years old at the time, and I solved the problem! That makes it at least somewhat interesting, right?

The story goes like this. I was with my Mom and Dad at the tail end of our summer vacation in France. Specifically, we were leaving our Paris hotel, the Hotel Novanox, bound for the airport to catch our flight back to New York. The date, unless I'm very much mistaken, was July 4, 1989. (Irrelevant side note: Mikhail Gorbachev was arriving in Paris that day -- or maybe the next day? -- for some kind of big-deal summit thingy.)

My Dad and I were on the elevator. My Mom, the only fluent French-speaker in our family, wasn't. She was actually booked on a different flight to NYC, the next day, and thus I believe she was either back in the hotel room or else waiting for us in the lobby, to see us off.

Anyway, when the elevator got to the lobby, the door wouldn't open. We tried going back up a floor or two; it still wouldn't open. Back down to the lobby again; no luck. If I remember correctly, there were perhaps a half-dozen people in the elevator -- including, I think, a hotel employee of some kind -- but nobody seemed quite sure what to do. But then I noticed something. Watching the light shine through the crack of the door as we traveled up and down, it seemed like the elevator car was landing a foot or two below where it was supposed to. So, I thought, why don't we try going to the basement? I figured the elevator couldn't go below the basement.

I'm not sure how I communicated this idea to the others in the elevator (aside from my Dad, of course). Maybe the hotel employee spoke English; or maybe my Dad, who can speak some conversational French, clumsily translated; or maybe I just pushed the button. I don't remember. Regardless, we went to the basement, and -- as the locals might say -- Voila! The seven-year-old American tourist had saved the day. :) The doors did indeed open when we reached the basement, and we climbed the stairs up to the lobby. My Dad and I caught our flight with no problem.

So... what about y'all? Have any of you ever been trapped in an elevator?

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

By Brendan Loy

The six most frequently quoted bulls**t statistics. (Hat tip: Sully.)

This week in graffiti

By Brendan Loy

The world's largest LOLcat.

(Hat tip: I Can Has Cheezburger.)

P.S. O Hai.

P.P.S. Fly, u foolz!!

Farewell, Comcast

By Brendan Loy

Y'all probably remember my lengthy Comcast saga last month (posts here, here, here, here, here, here and here). The whole thing was extremely frustrating and took way too long to resolve -- and might never have been resolved at all, if not for corporate intervention which was due solely to the fact that I'm a blogger. Yet despite all the angst, Comcast managed to keep my business -- even after the revelation that they were stealing my cable -- by fixing the problem and giving me a refund.

And then they proceeded to lose my business over a lousy $5.

I explain after the jump.

The Phyllo Creation

By Rebecca Loy

Thanks to everyone who recommended different dishes that incorporate phyllo dough and curry. I ended up creating a samosa-like dish with onion, ground turkey and a grated potato flavored with curry and ginger inside phyllo triangles. I paired it with some watermelon, sauteed zucchini and onion and a salad (basic greens with garbanzo beans, artichoke hearts, tomato, celery and green peppers). Oh, and milk. :)

My next recipe challenge is finding a tasty vegetarian meal that won't break the bank or leave me hungry in two hours. Any suggestions? Find mine after the jump.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Start Your Chihuahuas!

By Lisa Velte

Yesterday was the Kentucky Derby, which is often called "the most exciting two minutes in sports." But last Saturday, I was getting some good laughs at a very different kind of race: the 4th Annual Petco Chihuahua Races. I could tell you all about it, but I think this video I took speaks for itself:

The dogs were put in "packs" of 10, with the top two dogs from each race going on to the second round. It sounds simple enough, but this "race" went on for about five minutes before a second chihuahua would make its way toward the finish line:

More videos and a few pictures after the jump.

Recipe request

By Rebecca Loy

Brendan and I enjoyed a spinach and chicken pie the other night and I have a bunch of leftover phyllo dough. Anyone have a good recipe that uses phyllo? Extra credit if it includes curry!

Um... open thread?

By Brendan Loy

Sorry for the lack of blog posts today. Becky says my readers are going to be worried that I'm dead. :) Don't worry, I'm alive. I've just been busy. But I haven't been reading too many news articles, or blogs, today. So I guess I'll just open the floor for discussion of whatever y'all want. The Voter ID case? Jeremiah Wright? Miley Cyrus? Whatever. Go nuts.

P.S. On Reverend Wright, quoth Andrew Sullivan:

Wright's cooptation of Obama for his own agenda - his assertion that Obama's distancing from him is insincere - requires, in fact demands a response from Obama.

Obama needs not just to distance himself from Wright's views; he needs to disown him at this point. Wright himself, it seems to me, has become part of what Obama is fighting against: the boomer, Vietnam era's obsession with its red-blue, white-black, pro and anti-America fixations. That is not what this election needs to be about; and Wright's massive, racially divisive and, yes, bitter provocation requires a proportionate response.

We need a speech or statement from Obama in which he utterly repudiates this poison, however personally difficult that may be, however damaging the impact will be. The statement today will not do it. This is no longer about cynics trying to associate one man's politics with another. It is now about Wright attempting to associate himself and some of his noxious, stupid, rancid views with the likely Democratic nominee. Wright has given Obama no choice - and he has also given him another opportunity. [Obama] needs to seize it.

Good news from Comcast

By Brendan Loy

In light of the revelation that they were, essentially, stealing our cable, Comcast has agreed to refund our April cable bill. So that's good. They've now done right by me, as far as my particular situation is concerned, so I'm pleased about that. My broader concerns expressed in the previous post remain in force.

Congo capital gripped by penis panic

By Brendan Loy

Posted without comment:

Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft. ...

Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure. ...

Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. ...

Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters..., "When you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'?"

(Hat tip: Becky.)

Comcast was stealing our cable!

By Brendan Loy

Well, the good news is, our high-speed Internet woes are -- apparently -- finally over. The fourth time was the charm, as Thursday's visit from Comcast techs fixed the problem. We have a newly installed coaxial line running from the cable source to our apartment, and as a result, our downstream speed is now faster than ever, our upstream speed is back to normal, and we've had no more intermittent connectivity outages.

The bad news is, we finally know what was causing our issue in the first place -- and the explanation is pretty outrageous.

As it turns out, our previous cable line, which is supposed to run from the "lockbox" (where we have our own individual cable outlet, labeled with our apartment number) directly into our apartment, was instead being run through two separate splitters in the attic above our building, with each splitter taking a portion of our cable signal -- that we pay for -- and feeding it into someone else's apartment!! Thus, the signal that actually reached our apartment was severely diluted, and the resulting decreased signal strength (roughly an 8 dB dropoff) was apparently the culprit in all of our Internet woes.

Mind you, this wasn't the result of our neighbors stealing our cable. They don't have access to the locked attic. According to the Comcast techs who explained it to me, this was the result of Comcast splitting off our cable line to feed a signal into these other apartments!! The cable company was stealing our cable!!

More details after the jump.

Comcast, me, and the long arm of Jeff Jarvis

By Brendan Loy

I figure I owe y'all an update on my Comcast Internet saga (previous posts here, here, here and here). What? You don't care? Well, I owe it to posterity, then. Or something.

Thanks to the intervention of Comcast corporate in Philadelphia, it appears our long national apartmental nightmare may soon be over. (Knock on wood!) A team of cable techs is scheduled to come over at around 3:00 PM today to replace the entire series of tubes wires that runs from the cable "tap," over to the "lockbox," up to the attic, and down into our apartment, nothin' but net. (Er, scratch that last part. There's been very little "net" to speak of in recent weeks!)

There are no guarantees, but the hope is that this re-wiring will fix our long-standing, worsening, intermittent connectivity problems (about which, details after the jump). And, crucially, they're doing it free of charge -- contrary to the company's ridiculous standard policy of holding apartment dwellers financially responsible for necessary repairs to the wiring outside the four walls of their apartments. (More on that, too, after the jump.)

I mentioned the "corporate intervention" angle, and that's probably the most interesting aspect of this saga. It all started with my offhanded expression of bloggy frustration on April 3, after the cable guy never showed up for an appointment that I'd left work early for. (The phone rep had written down my area code wrong, so the tech couldn't reach me by phone to confirm that I was home, so he never came.) That post triggered an e-mail from Frank Eliason in Philly (Comcast's corporate home base), who filed a "corporate complaint" on my behalf. (Frank also commented on a later blog post.) Frank's complaint, in turn, spurred a full-court press by the local Knoxville office to get my problem fixed, which culminated in today's appointment.

What's interesting is, Frank's intervention isn't an isolated incident. It's part of a broad Comcast initiative, of which Frank is the point man, to improve the company's image by reaching out to bloggers, Twitterers, and others who use their online platforms to say nasty things about Comcast. The Philadelphia Inquirer had a front-page story about this effort in Saturday's paper, which revealed:

Under siege for customer-service woes detailed on Comcastmustdie.com and other blogs, the Philadelphia cable giant has gone on the offensive, trawling the Internet for Comcast chatter. Eliason's assignment is very specific: If someone has a Comcast problem and is talking about it online, he contacts that person and offers help.

If Eliason thinks it's an emergency that could spiral into unpleasantness, like an expletive-loaded blog bomb, he gets on the phone and cuts through the corporate red tape. ...

Eliason's blog spotting is part public relations and part acknowledgment that the Internet is playing a broader role in defining company brands. Technology companies woke up to this fact after "Dell Hell" postings by blogger Jeff Jarvis in 2005.

Ha! The arm of Sauron Jeff Jarvis is long!

Of course, it goes without saying that one shouldn't have to pose a P.R. threat in order to get good help from a company that one pays upwards of $100/month to. Nevertheless, this is a smart thing Comcast is doing.

Moreover, I give credit where credit is due: in contrast to my dismal experiences* with Comcast's customer service last spring, almost everyone I've dealt with this time around -- not just the corporate people, but the techs and phone reps, too -- has been professional, courteous, and competent (wrong-area-code lady being an obvious exception). That, too, is apparently symptomatic of a broader effort by Comcast to, well, stop sucking at life, basically.

More on that effort -- and on my issue -- after the jump.

*The linked post, incidentally, was Instalanched, but triggered no response whatsoever from Comcast corporate. That was last June. So they're clearly getting better at the rapid-blog-response thing.

Arr.

By Brendan Loy

The green flash.

Miscellaneous silliness

By Brendan Loy

If only Scrabulous allowed lolspeak words:

That reminds me, apropos of my previous Scrabulous post... I just got a new external hard drive (actually an internal drive and an external enclosure), and, in keeping with my tradition of giving my hard drives silly names, it is now officially known as:

Heh. "Khaaan" joins, among others, "GENIUS HARD DRIVE OF DEATH" (the name that started the tradition, courtesy of Kristy), "One Hard Drive to Rule Them All," and "Sectumsempra II." (The original "Sectumsempra" had a technical issue and had to be returned.) So, with a Lord of the Rings-themed name and a Harry Potter-themed name, it seemed only fitting that I have a Star Trek-themed name.

Some readers might recall that I used to have an external hard drive named "Joementum," but it too had technical difficulties -- for which I blame Ned Lamont -- and ultimately it had to be replaced. In fact, "Khaaan" is, in essence, its replacement. Alas, I totally forgot about my original plan to name its replacement "Joementum the White." Oh well. (Hmm: replacing Lieberman with Shatner? Well, at least I'm staying within the Tribe.)

Random YouTube of the day: Captain Vegetable

By Brendan Loy

A bit of joyful bizarreness to brighten up your tax day, courtesy of Sesame Street circa 1982:

I dare you to not have that song stuck in your head for the rest of the day. :)

(Hat tip: Barb.)

More Comcast weirdness

By Brendan Loy

In the latest twist in my Comcast saga, I have another techie scheduled to come over tomorrow afternoon, due to the continuing intermittent speed and connectivity problems I've been having. The latest odd behavior has been a couple of instances where my connection has slowed to an inconsistent crawl, and when I've done a speed test, I've gotten a perfectly reasonable downstream speed but no upstream reading, like so:

Anyone have a clue what might cause that? I'm stumped. I just know that, when it happens, it seems to produce extremely erratic behavior: one minute, stuff is loading fine; the next, it's not loading at all; the next, it's crawling; then it's suddenly fine again. Very frustrating.

Another Comcast update

By Brendan Loy

Hmm...

Not so good. Nadine, where can I get that "testing program" you mentioned?

P.S. To be clear, this is not my typical speed with Comcast. Usually, my download speed is in the 5000-6000 range. However, my connection was crawling last night, which is the same sort of intermittent issue I was experiencing prior to my apparently-successful visit from Comcast techs on Saturday. Hence my concern.

Comcast update

By Brendan Loy

In light of my recent negative post about Comcast, as well as my earlier litany of complaints about the company's "craptastic" service, I should point out, in the interest of being fair & balanced, that a pair of friendly, articulate, and highly competent-seeming Comcast employees just showed up and gave me the quickest and most well-explained answer to a support question I've ever gotten from their company. Details after the jump.

Comcastic!

By Brendan Loy

You know what makes me, like, totally love my cable company? When I leave work 2 1/2 hours early so I can be home when they send a tech over to check on our malfunctioning high-speed Internet -- supposedly between 3:00 and 5:00 PM -- and they never show up, because they couldn't reach me by phone, because, as it turns out, someone made a typo and transcribed my area code as "830" instead of "860." Yup, I'm absolutely freakin' thrilled with Comcast right now. [/sarcasm]

UPDATE, 11:50 PM: A guy at Comcast's executive offices just e-mailed me: "It was too late to call, but I wanted to apologize for the Comcast experience that you have had. I have asked that my contacts in your area reach out to make sure you are fully taken care of for your troubles. It is unacceptable that we created that experience for you, and I will make sure to share the feedback."

Sometimes it's nice to have a blog with a decent-sized audience! Heh. I never expected by whiny kvetching to actually get results. I am blogger, hear me roar! :)

The geography of dating

By Brendan Loy

Where are all the single guys? West of the Mississippi, apparently. A fascinating map. Suddenly I understand why our two closest single SHA-girl friends like Denver so much... :)

(Hat tip: Sully.)

Manhattan: Foley's Pub bans "Danny Boy" for the whole month :)

By Joe Loy

And here you always thought March Madness consists merely of Basketball, Politics, and half-arsed-baked Recruitment Center Bombings in Times Square but OH No: now it's Katie bar th' Door to boot ~

It's depressing, it's not usually sung in Ireland for St. Patrick's Day, and its lyrics were written by an Englishman who never set foot on Irish soil.

Those are only some of the reasons why a Manhattan pub owner is banning the song "Danny Boy" for the entire month of March.

"It's overplayed, it's been ranked among the 25 most depressing songs of all time and it's more appropriate for a funeral than for a St. Patrick's Day celebration," said Shaun Clancy, who owns Foley's Pub and Restaurant, across the street from the Empire State Building.

The 38-year-old Clancy, who started bartending when he was 12 at his father's pub in County Cavan, Ireland, promised a free Guinness to patrons who sing any other traditional Irish song** at the pub's pre-St. Patrick's Day karaoke party on Tuesday.

...At least one patron at Foley's was glad to hear the song was banned from the pub for the rest of the month.

The song is "all right, but I get fed up with hearing it — it's like the elections," Martin Gaffney, 73, said in a thick Irish brogue...

Heh

By Rebecca Loy

Check out the comments on this article about Subway's spokesperson, Jared, celebrating his 10th year of endorsing sammiches.

Man-crush 101

By Brendan Loy

Who's your man crush? (Hat tip: BK.)

Calling all moral celebrities!

By Brendan Loy

I asked this question of a few friends, in relation to something that I'm writing about fatherhood, and I've been getting some fun answers, so I thought it might be entertaining to ask the wider blog audience:

What female celebrity or celebrities do you consider to have "good morals," in the sense that you might say of your (real or hypothetical) daughter, "I hope she grows up to have good morals like _______"? (The implicit, unspoken end to that sentence, of course, being "...and not like Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan," etc. etc.) And why?

No questioning the premise of the question, please. :) I know all individuals are unique, and I cherish my daughter's uniqueness; and further, I know that celebrity hero-worship can be toxic, especially for girls, and I'm not actually hoping Loyette grows up to be just like some celebrity or other. I'm simply trying, for analogical purposes really, to come up with a list of celebrities who people consider to be "moral," whatever that means to each of you.

P.S. Feel free to define the term "celebrity" however you like.

The Civil War in four minutes

By Brendan Loy

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.) [Bumped. -ed.]

Losing Bobby Fischer

By Brendan Loy

The great chess champion has died.

Knoxville's amazing talking parrot

By Brendan Loy

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Knoxville's own Einstein the parrot:

That segment aired in 2004 on Animal Planet's Pet Star (though I hadn't seen it until this morning, when my mom e-mailed it to me). Einstein was eventually voted AnimalPlanet.com's most popular Pet Star ever, and she appeared on Leno. And she's way more interesting than Fred Thompson. :) Einstein for President!

A request

By Brendan Loy

Does anybody have copies of last Monday's and Friday's New York Timeses that you'd be willing to send me? I wanted to buy Monday's paper (the baby's birth date) for posterity, and Friday's for the Iowa caucuses coverage, also for posterity -- but I didn't have a chance to get Monday's, and I totally forgot to get Friday's. If anyone has them and wouldn't mind sending 'em to me, shoot me an e-mail at irishtrojan [at] gmail.com. Thanks!

UPDATE: Following an anonymous suggestion in comments, I just ordered these back issues from the Times directly, so I no longer need them. Thanks!

All I want for Christmas is... HUGH!

By Brendan Loy

At Becky's and my baby shower four months ago, Hugh Manatee, who had only recently returned from his Denver ordeal, was peacefully minding his own business as we opened our presents...

...and then, suddenly, he was gone. His disappearance was sudden and without warning, and to this day, no one is quite sure just when and how it occurred. What's clear is that Hugh was mysteriously spirited away by unknown parties engaged in a nefarious kidnapping conspiracy, which investigators have tied to a known criminal mastermind in the western New York region:

"Westside!"

Some feared Hugh Manatee would never return to his Knoxville home. It appears, however, that he made a daring escape from his captors, with the help of an anonymous holiday hero, a few days ago. The day before yesterday, we received a package in the mail from "The Christmas Stork" in North Tonawanda, NY. Inside the box?

Jeez... your stuffed animal spends a couple months in New York, and he comes back looking like Rudy Giuliani. ;)

But we don't judge. We're just glad to have Hugh home for the holidays!

Happy Festivus!

By JLR

Happy Festivus, everyone! Today is the day when we remind our family about how they have DISAPPOINTED us over the last year!

Man killed by exploding cellphone....or not

By David K.

A story came out of Korea a few days ago, reported on by the blog Engadget, about the death of a quarry worker that was being initially blamed on his cellphone.  According to the story he was found dead with the remains of the burned cellphone in his pocket.  Of course it all sound a little suspicious and investigation by the local authorities found that the mans injuries were too extensive to have been caused by a possible exploding battery.  How extensive you ask?  Well since the actual cause of death was being backed into by a 15 ton hydraulic rig driven by a coworker, i'm guessing there were pretty severe. The co-worker who fabricated the story of hearing an explosion and finding the body, later admitted to the crime and is being charged with manslaughter.

So there you have it, even if your cellphone explodes it probably won't do so with enough force to give you injuries equivalent to being hit by a 15 ton vehicle.  Don't you feel much better now?

Strange blue cloud over Ohio gas station

By Brendan Loy

Creepy. (Hat tip: Becky.)

Free tacos: the day after

By Brendan Loy

Jacoby Ellsbury, the Red Sox rookie whose stolen base in Game 2 of the World Series triggered Taco Bell's "Steal a Base, Steal a Taco" promotion -- or, as I like to call it, "Free Tacos for Brendan's Birthday" -- got a free taco himself yesterday, with a side order of fan adoration.

The promotion was such a success in Boston that it snarled traffic in some areas; one Taco Bell drive-thru in Quincy had to be shut down by police because the long line was disrupting traffic on nearby streets. (Heh.) There was also a pretty long line at the Taco Bell that I went to in Denver, and according to the Rocky Mountain News, local Taco Bell locations gave away an average of 200 to 500 tacos.

I'm just glad I was able to take part in this transcendent cultural phenomenon. Someday, when my daughter asks me, "Daddy, where were you when Taco Bell gave out free tacos?," I'll be able to tell her that I was in Denver, at the Taco Bell on the 16th Street Mall, and yes, I got a free taco, and yes, it was yummy. Ah yes, many years from now, we'll be recalling the events of 10/30/07, and I'll be able to prove that I was there.   

;)

Actually, though, this article suggests that Free Taco Day wasn't such a big deal outside of Boston and Denver... which makes sense, as Taco Bell really didn't promote it very much -- there weren't even signs in front of the restaurants announcing "free tacos today!" -- outside of Fox's on-air shilling during the World Series. And the Series got dismal ratings nationwide... but the ratings were, of course, much higher in Boston and Denver. So I daresay more people in those cities were aware of their opportunity get free tacos.

P.S. On the other hand, Taco Bell spokesman Will Bortz said "we have seen a huge response in New York and New Jersey," as well as South Carolina, Oregon and California. "A lot of people are jumping to get their tacos," he asserted. "Who doesn't like a free taco?" Or free publicity, for that matter, eh Will? Heh.

Favorite 1960s documentary?

By Brendan Loy

Becky asked me to ask y'all if you have any favorite 1960s documentaries. The reason for her query is super-secret, but she could definitely use some suggestions, so please leave 'em in comments if you've got 'em!

Proof that New Jersey is the Armpit of America

By JLR

In a recent poll, 49% of adults in New Jersey said that they would rather be living somewhere other than New Jersey.

As anyone living on the East Coast will tell you, New Jersey only exists to get people from New York to Philadelphia (or in my case, Washington D.C. to Hartford) anyway.  This just proves it.

Bored at DFW: the most pointless post ever

By Brendan Loy

When I was a freshman at USC living in the "nerd dorm," Trojan Hall, there was a guy across the hall named Marcelo. Like most Trojan Hall residents (myself included), Marcelo was a quirky kid in various ways. One of his quirkier moments -- albeit one I'm not sure anyone remembers except me -- occurred when he made a "gotcha" video, in the style of a local news reporter investigating a scandal of some sort, at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport while on a layover here during a break from school.

You see, there's an airport store at DFW called "South of Gate C6" -- a title designed to mimic "South of the Border." Your average traveler, I'm sure, gives this matter very little thought. But Marcelo concluded that the store is not, in fact, south of Gate C6. Indeed, he declared, it's north of its namesake gate!! Oh, the horror!! The scandal! So Marcelo whipped out his video camera and, feigning outrage, badgered the store's employees in an impromptu on-camera interview, goading them to admit that the store's title is false advertising. It was a pretty funny video, albeit extremely nerdy and obscure. Had it been made today, it would probably have gotten a few dozen hits on YouTube.

Anyway... I'm at DFW now, and it so happens my flight to Denver leaves from Gate C4. So, as I walked to my gate, I walked past the infamous store...

...and saw, in the distance, its namesake gate:

Because I have an excellent memory for obscure, unimportant nonsense, I instantly thought of the video that Marcelo had shown me, and a bunch of other Trojan Hallers, almost eight years ago. And I wondered: was Marcelo right? It had never been clear to me (or if it had, I've forgotten) what Marcelo's evidence was for his "North of Gate C6" theory. And I sorta wondered if perhaps he made up the whole controversy for a laugh. I wish I could test his theory, I thought to myself as I walked past the store.

And then I realized: I can test it! Yes, dear readers, it just so happens that I've been walking around all evening with a compass in my fanny pack. (Really... are you surprised?) I bought it recently to help with my Iridium flare tracking, and I decided to bring it out to Denver because there will be some decent flare-viewing opportunities while I'm in town. So I whipped out the compass and -- guess what -- Marcelo was right! Here's the proof:

The "Gate C6" sign is blurry because I wanted to focus on the compass, but you should be able to spot the sign by comparing that photo to the one above it. In any event, it's the blue sign near the right-hand side of the image, immediately to the right of the dark-skinned person in the white shirt. And as you can see, looking at the compass, "South of Gate C6" is clearly north, or perhaps NNW, of Gate C6. Heh!

This post has been brought to you by the letter C, the number 6, and the boredom of a 2 1/2-hour layover.

UPDATE: Naturally, thinking about Marcelo for the first time in years has inspired me to Google-stalk him. It seems he's been busy. See also here, here and here. God bless Google!

The perils of righteous rage

By Brendan Loy

These words don't just apply to sports; they apply to blog comment-wars as well -- and many other aspects of life, for that matter:

Your righteous indignation never looks as righteous as you think. It really doesn't matter if you have a good reason to lose it. You still look like a maniac.

I plead guilty, Your Honor, to forgetting that principle every now and then, most often here on the blog but occasionally elsewhere too (like the time I went off on an insurance supervisor, or rather on his voicemail, because his company was totally screwing me over... which they were, and he had the power to fix it, and was infuriatingly stonewalling me at every turn... but nevertheless, my approach was all wrong).

"Your righteous indignation never looks as righteous as you think" is a good lesson to try to keep in mind -- even if doing so is difficult for us logical-and-articulate-but-occasionally-hot-headed lawyer types. :)

Selling stuff

By Brendan Loy

Anyone want to buy an aquarium or a saxophone? :)