17-1

Seventeen to one

Setting the Record Straight

There are a lot of nasty rumors going around about my injury. Let's set the record straight. In an effort to save eight cents a gallon on gas (a sweet $1.05 savings in my Accord), I decided to take the car to the Mobil down the street after dinner with Jill and Jeff last night. I've come up with the following reasons that may have led to my decision to run to my car:

-My basketball game had been canceled when only three members of each team were able to fight the U2 traffic and get to Basketball City by 7:15 (Brad, Jeff, and I were not among those three), so I hadn't gotten my exercise for the day.

-I had just put my sneakers on for the first time in a few days and felt a sudden burst of energy.

-Jill is very shy and Jeff will go on for hours about the stupidest things, so I didn't want to leave them alone for too long.

-It was raining significantly harder when I left the shelter of my front porch than when I came in an hour earlier.

-I'm an idiot.

For some combination of the above reasons, I took off down the dimly lit street and lasted about six steps before my left foot hit a nasty pothole, sending me sprawling into a filthy puddle at the end of the neighbors' driveway. Before the pain came the embarrassment of my spill and the realization that I was still in my work clothes, so I sprung to my feet, only to find that the left one would be no good for walking. I hopped on one foot to the bottom of my front steps, where I yelled for Jill and Jeff, but to no avail. I crawled up the steps, lamely unlocked the front door, and was nursed by my sympathetic cousin, who knows more about ankle sprains than I know about Yankee wins, and my darling fiancee, who helped me to Ibuprofen, shot after shot of Southern Comfort, ice packs, ice cream, and fresh clothes, after my pants had soiled her favorite chair.

I took a sick day today to nurse the ankle, watched Talk to Her, rewatched the end of Touch of Evil, and threw in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs after realizing that Newbury Comics had sold me an empty case instead of The Apartment on DVD. Needless to say, the movie list was subjected to a massive shakeup by day's end.

More Birthdays

I'm now convinced that Jill's friends and family average about 2.6 birthdays/person/year, well above the national average of 1. This weekend was highlighted by Linda's birthday party on Friday, Dan's birthday party on Saturday, and hours of watching Noah, whose third birthday party this weekend will be the most extravagant of them all. Yesterday marked the second anniversary of my first day at the Library, which happens to be the day I met Jill. Weekends spent lying on the couch with the cats, watching Sportscenter and '90's sitcom reruns and waiting for Eric to come home so that we could both watch Sportscenter and '90's sitcom reruns seem more than two years in the past.

Meagan has graciously informed me that Brendan Harris has been called back up to the majors for his first stint with the Nationals. Weekends spent playing, umpiring, and watching little league games on a field christened by a living legend (with a career .180 average) seem more than 13 years in the past.

This weekend's movie viewing was way down, as only Notorious and Dr. Strangelove made their way into the DVD player. The prospect of the end of the world brought upon by bloodthirsty American cowboys seems less than 41 years in the past.

Tino, it's time to die

Jeers to T*no Mart*nez and the Y*****s and their soul-crushing ten game winning streak after such a lovely start to this baseball season.

Cheers to the first 35 chapters of Lawrence of Arabia, which I've watched over the last two nights.

Jeers to my back and right knee, and the way they feel after my basketball team dropped to 1-7 last night.

Cheers to the sounds of Matt Spence and Jimmy Smith, and the baby deer crossing the road in front of me, all of which made for an enjoyable trip into work today.

Jeers to five-day workweeks.

Cheers to lists.

It Happened One Weekend

The Mrs. and I have kicked up the movie watching in preparation for next week's 2005 QHS Movie 200. This week's films:

The Manchurian Candidate: Chilling; every bit as good as I remembered.
Saved!: Clever and adorable.
Meet the Fockers: Maybe the worst comedy I've ever seen.
The Seven Year Itch: Delightful, almost on a par with The Apartment.
Sex and Lucia: A smart story and a visual masterpiece.
It Happened One Night: Sure, it was 70 years ago, but it might have been made for me. A top ten contender.
The Third Man: What an ending.
Blow Up: I'm 25. I don't want to think that much anymore.
The Searchers: Surprisingly good; I had no idea John Wayne was such a presence.
A Night at the Opera: Was there anything the Marx brothers couldn't do?

Looking at the makeshift coffee table, I see Touch of Evil, Gone with the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, and The French Connection in the queue for the coming days. I should have three chins and gout by Wednesday.

Albums Albums Albums

Just in time for Mothers' Day, I give you my new top 350 albums. I tore down the old 250, searched the iPod for eligible albums, and ranked all but the worst 15 or so.

Not that I expect you to read on, but this weekend was my first outside of Connecticut in a month. In addition to working on the aforementioned albums list, I caught my first dingers of the season at Fenway with Jill (a bitterly cold 7-2 Sox win over Seattle: thanks, Colleen), soaked several appetizers in buffalo sauce at the Chicken Bone with Jill, Jerry, and Linda, then spent Mothers' Day with several mothers at Lisa's palace in Shrewsbury, where I took pleasure in destroying a 13-year-old in Scrabble.

To the championship entity

I promised a paean to the winning entity. Before I deliver on that, I'd like to thank the 41 of you who voted in this poll (or the 7 of you who voted 5.857 times apiece), both for contributing, and for not forcing me to write a paean to swimmies.

When we're young, we can't get enough chocolate. We think everything should come with chocolate, and that it's appropriate all hours of the day. Then we grow up and realize that the real king of the food pyramid is cheese. American and cheddar are the training wheels; feta, brie, and gorgonzola are what we plan the rest of our lives around. We eat it with meat, with bread, with fruit, and with wine, and we love it.

Dingers! To me, it once meant home runs. Then it meant baseball in general. Today, any positive event brings on a cheer of dingers!- anything as pure and wonderful as our national pastime. "They have a gorgonzola chicken sandwich? Dingers!" "There are boobs in this movie? Dingers!" "I don't have to write a paean to swimmies? Dingers!" Today is the best day of my life to celebrate dingers; the Yankees are 11-18.

A few grams of inflated plastic keep a 100-pound child afloat. A miracle of technology, or just a cool word. Say it: swimmies. Swimmies. Whatever.

On to the championship entity. From the day we're born, they're the first thing on our minds. They're our only source of food for our first few months, they're our handrests when we're picked up for years after that. In our teens, we can't get enough of them. Put a pair on a rock and we'll stare at it all day. Put a pair on a TV screen and see if we get any exercise. Even when we're grown and have a pair at our disposal at all times (whether under our chin or on a mate), we always want to see more- the same ones, different ones, any and all of them. We have a thousand words for them and a hundred magazines dedicated to them. We try to take basic rights away from people who don't like them (and people who have them and want more). They're apparently in such short supply that we're encouraged to choose one pair and stick with them for the rest of our lives. We use them to our advantage if we have them and make fools of ourselves trying to attain them if we don't. There's nothing else like a boob.

more Connecticut

Sitting in my living room last night, I found myself mumbling "Jesus can't play rugby 'cause there's 15 minutes 'til 'Charmed'" and realized that I've given up entirely on my own life. I spent another weekend in Connecticut, this time for Sheri's 30th birthday party in Wethersfield. The party was yet another in a series of smash hits planned mostly by Jill. The afternoon was marked by potato chips and misogynist four-year-olds, while the evening was highlighed by Jill's Sheri trivia game, my mom confirming my pant-size via phone, and kegstands that finished off the keg. As is typically the case in my old age (relatively, that is, since I was the only one at the party born in the '80's), I paid for Saturday's revelry on Sunday.

You have four days to vote in the entities tournament final, where Swimmies hold a small lead as of this morning.

In closing, the following players are on a 10-15 baseball team: Randy Johnson, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi, Carl Pavano, Mike Mussina, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, Hideki Matsui, Jorge Posada, Kevin Brown, Mike Stanton, Jaret Wright, Bernie Williams, Tom Gordon, Paul Quantrill, and Tino Martinez. Dingers!