Malt Shop Logic

Last night, at the Malt Shop, we found grafitti in the bathroom that read "Truth Prevails ANF2".

It made me think of the scene in Fight Club when Brad Pitt and Ed Norton are smashing headlights of cars.

"Did you hear someone started a Fight Club up in Detroit?"
"That wasn't you?"
"No, I thought you did it."

...that Claycomb is gay, or at least "metrosexual."

In response to Chris' last post, here is what I can recall about those he listed:

1. T-51 - Lisa ? and Jen Bowden
2. Jerusha Roads (aka The Absent T-Norther)
3. Tom "I wear maxipads on my open back sore, I converted from Catholicism to Judaism, and I love gefilte fish" (don't know his real last name)
4. Liesl Liang
5. 4 girls - Mary Alice (hot, tanned, black hair); Space Girl (brunette, always spacy, big yabos and rear assets); don't remember the other two
6. Drunk E-Mail Victim: Julie Smallwood
7. Laura "I'll kick your ass" Sicola
8. The Herd -- remember only Shelly -- dark brown hair, coke bottle glasses, giant ass -- and that's only because I had the misfortune to run into her on the Metro 2 days ago.
9. RAs - Freshman Year -- Meeeeegan "I need my Beauty Sleep and Why Do You Keep Undermining My Authority!"; Sophomore Year -- Janet "Why do you hate Chinese People" Shih; Joelle "I don't understand how chicken bones end up under the couch cushions" Goode; Cherie "Chapin's PseudoWife" Raven; John "The Stupid RA" Weinstein; and that's all I can remember.

Damn Malt Shoppe is killing my brain too. To quote Steve Rushin, " Can't quote Kerouac; Can quote Caddyshack."

Scary enough, it took me a while to come up with Claycomb's name (see previous post). My memory about people who I was around a lot, but peripherally, at college is getting bad. How about this list:

Freshman year:
the two girls who lived in T-51 who dated Speck and Master Bates. One of them was named Lisa maybe;
the girl whose quote on the wall was blank - almost positive it was Jerusha something;
that guy who lived with Vaughan first semester who was just weird;
Liesl who dated Wes;

Sophomore year:
at least two if not all four of the girls who lived to the right of Brandl and Walsh - this one isn't surprising as I didn't know their names then either;
the girl who received the really drunk e-mail from someone on this blog;
that girl who lived with Johanna who did not like any of us, particularly those who lived next door to her (me and Todd);
the herd (I don't think I knew their names then either)

And what abour our RAs - I remember Megan, but then there was Joelle something and I can't even remember who was before Joelle.

Damn Malt Shop - killing all my memory cells.

I know that Brian and Matt will appreciate this installment of where are they now. I'm not even sure what prompted me to look for this former T-Norther, but I think it had something to do with all the gay marriage crap I have had to read lately, which made me think about that sign debacle from I guess our sophomore year. You know which one I am talking about, and it wasn't the one about delivering the newspaper or filling the soap dispenser (we had a lot of sign debacles now that I think about it, and when I say we, I don't mean me).

Anyway, it was this guy who declared that "I am the most heterosexual person around" or something like that in the floor meeting about the signs. (I actually cannot confirm exactly what he said as I protested the meeting by not showing up). It turns out that at least part of that statement was correct as evidenced by this.

Will the wonders of google ever cease?

Came across this story in the Detroit News today about a letter U.S. Representative John Dingell sent to the head of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, N. Gregory Mankiw, about how the CEA is defining manufacturing jobs. You'll remember Mankiw as the person who got grilled over his outsourcing comments, even though economically - and he is an economist after all - he probably is correct. But whatever legitimate point the letter had was lost with all this Mayor McCheese garbage.

It's just sad when the "Dean of the House", an individual known for his legislative prowess, stoops to this pathetic level to get a little press coverage. This Mayor McCheese stunt is barely worthy of a freshman Member of Congress who is desperate to get any attention from the press whatsoever. And we wonder why no one takes Congress seriously. It's just sad.

Here's the opening paragraph of Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank's "analysis" today of President Bush's decision to endorse a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as the union of one man and one woman as husband and wife:

With President Bush's embrace yesterday of a marriage amendment, the compassionate conservative of 2000 has shown he is willing, if necessary, to rekindle the culture wars in 2004.

Um, do you really think that the President rekindled this culture war, or was it in fact the Massachusetts Supreme Court and city officials in San Francisco? If anything, this President has shown an absolute unwillingness to go after hot-button issues, and this is one of them. If it weren't for the events of the past few months, and particularly the past few weeks, I am willing to bet that yesterday's press conference would never have happened. But I guess if you disagree with Dana Milbank's position on the issue, you must be the one igniting the culture war.

Two Bosnian brothers who say they can drink as much as they want without feeling drunk have been told they each have a spare set of fully functioning kidneys.

Josip Galic, 69, from Kucetine in Bosnia said: "I had a car accident and doctors discovered I had four kidneys. That surprised me, but at least it explained why I could drink all my friends under the table, and never had a hangover."

He added it was a further surprise when his brother found out after a visit to the doctor that he had four kidneys as well.

Looks like Snyder and Weinburg have some competition.

...I think we're all a little afraid of the Zest...and with good reason.

Brian, are you telling me you didn't enjoy living with me? Does the Zest frighten you?

...is being in an office where grown men flatulate openly and admire their own stink.

I don't believe I'd ever heard a female bartender say to a male patron,

"I want your drawers."

Until last night.

Or, after mumbling shamefully, "I work uh...in defense...boring...you probably don't want to talk to me anymore...I'm going back to my hole now,"

...I'd never heard a smoking hot blond waitress, 5'7", 115 lbs, all tig ol bitties, say, "Really? I work at SAIC! I just bought a house, so I'm working this job for a little extra cash. Oh, and if you ever see me there, just remember, what happens at the bar, stays in the bar."

Coyote Ugly.

AKA, "Last night I went to the Caps-Devils game"

Can I get a hallelujah from the congregation!

Amen.

"Pruno, a prison wine created from fruit, sugar and ketchup, is such a vile and despicable beast in the California state penal system that prisoners can't eat fresh fruit at lunch. Back in December 2002, the warden at Lancaster prison in Los Angeles County removed fresh fruit from box lunches in the maximum-security lockup, as an effort to reduce violence. Apparently, sober, scurvy-addled felons are much easier to control than drunken, violent convicts."

Gentlemen? Guess what we're doing during my final week...
http://www.blacktable.com/gillin030901.htm

Well, that's what one Chicago sports columnist is calling the Cubs rotation for this year, and I like it. It's good to be a Cubs fan right now, especially with Greg Maddux signing. It's very hard to see the Cubs having a major losing streak next year. They may actually be the favorites in the National League. Outside of maybe 1985, I can't remember a time in my life when that was the case. Now all I have to do is figure out how to get Comcast to add WGN to my cable.

I'm not saying that this is what I am working on today, but I'm not not saying it is either.

The ball clears.

It reveals...

...Yes, a trip to Virginia Beach to see the Vandals live!

You know the guy with the pencil in his ear will be there.........

It looks like Vandals are playing the Warped Tour. They've confirmed Virginia Beach, but not for the Washington, DC show. Jerks. They better get their act together.

Simpsons Movie!

Coming maybe at some time in the fairly distant future.

Cough. Cough. Pain. Cough. Cough.
Cough. Pain. Pain. Pain. Cough. Cough. Pain.
Pain. Cough. Cough. Wheeze. Pain.

Golden Tee sasses Chris
So he hits the trackball hard
Thinks he broke his hand

Beer here different;
the secret ingredient
must be antifreeze.

"Are ASS and POO gone?"
"Of course they are." "I'll take KAK."
"NGR for me," says Matt.

Black Sharpie. Bathroom.
"To beer, the cause of all of
life's problems." Amen.

Townies drink tonight
With strangers on the barstools.
Riggins would be proud.

We drank nine pitchers
Bill only sixteen dollars
Malt Shop I love you

Play the Golden Tee
Off the rock wall through the trees
Now my name is Ass

Hey, it's Joe Weinberg
The Malicious Ball-Grabber
Hands off my nutsack!

Drink the Bud Diesel
Peanuts go out the window
Grab my balls you die.

...seems Jim Ward, the VP of Marketing for Lucasfilm, spoke to DVDFile.com about which version of the trilogy will be on DVD. And he spoke thusly:

"Of course, the big question mark amongst fans has always been whether Lucas would allow the original, unaltered original editions of the trilogy to also be released on DVD. Not possible, said Ward, who confirmed that the upcoming set will feature only the 1997 Special Edition versions of each film. "What George did in 1997," Ward explains, "was [to] make the movie he originally wanted to make." "

One need only read George F. Will's latest Washington Post column, "For Bush, It's Game Time", to understand why my faith in President Bush and his administration, and the faith of seemingly millions of others, is fading fast.

1. Fiscal irresponsibility -- called out by Mr. Close's post, and in Will's column -- "This president's certitude that $400 billion "is enough to meet our commitments" for 10 years under the new Medicare prescription drug entitlement was followed by a one-third upward revision of the estimate"; "It is surreal for a Republican president to submit a budget to a Republican-controlled Congress and have Republican legislators vow to remove the "waste" that he has included and that they have hitherto funded"

2. Over-Reaching/Dishonesty about Going to War: The decision to commit US forces to war is the single most serious and important duty of the presidency. The failure to execute that duty with a solid factual foundation is perhaps the worst sin a President can commit. It vitiates US credibility in the international community and erodes a president's ability to call the country and world to action when real threats arise. Before the war, the administration assured us again and again that we "know" Iraq has WMDs, and where they are. Yet here we are, 9 months after the President's declaration of the end of major hostilities, and we've not found a SINGLE WMD. Not one! I believe in the doctrine of pre-emption, but there must be a significant threat to preempt. Can anyone say that a present or nascent threat existed that needed pre-emption? Some say the WMDs are hidden in Syria, but I say, if that's the case, I must believe that US forces would have crossed into Syria months ago to find and procure them to show the world and our own people that we didn't commit our boys and girls to possible death in pursuit of a chimera.

What's worse, is that as described by Will, the president doesn't seem to understand the importance of going to war based on a solid, factual foundation. As recounted by Will, ""So what's the difference?" said the president in December about the failure to find WMDs, because "if [Saddam Hussein] were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger." Such casualness, which would be alarming in any president, is especially so in one whose vaulting foreign policy ambitions have turned his first term into Woodrow Wilson's third term, devoted to planting democracy and "universal values" in hitherto inhospitable places."

And the worst part is, it didn't have to be this way. The administration had a valid, factual argument sitting right in front of it that it failed to make -- in my belief because they didn't think it was "sexy" enough. Iraq violated the cease-fire resolution that ended Desert Storm. It violated somewhere near 14 subsequent resolutions of the United Nations begging, pleading, demanding, that Iraq comply. The president could have said with facts to back him up that the credibility of the United States and the world had been dangerously compromised by its long-standing failure to force Hussein and Iraq to comply with the cease-fire resolution and subsequent UN resolutions. The president could have said that a dictator who continually fails to live up to his international obligations and who consistenly thwarts the will of the world has no place in the international community. He could have said that we needed to go to war to protect the credibility of the United States and the war resolutions to which it signs its name. And in all likelihood, given the attitude of many Americans in the post-9/11 world, he would have gotten the votes he needed. But did he? No. Instead, he and his administration subordinates crowed loud and long about WMDs and the imminent threat they posed to the United States. And now that the lie is given to that argument, the country's faith in the president is failing. And so is mine.

Has there ever been a director who has ruined his greatest work more than Lucas? Not only has he sullied the original Star Wars trilogy with the second trilogy, but by adding in those digital effects to the original, he has ruined his real masterpiece. Shame.

At long last, the end of suffering is in sight. For those of us who love film, who love the DVD home theater experience -- which so often these days outshines the in-theater experience of worn-out prints, overly loud sound, and the reek of oil on popcorn -- this is a great -- and also trepidatious -- day.

STAR WARS on September 21st!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Will it be the original version? The special version? The much-rumored "Archive" editions with characters from the prequels spliced in?

Who knows? George Lucas has been very canny about deceiving fans. For those who believe the Archive editions are a forgone conclusion, not so fast. Is this not the same Lucas who said over and over and over that he would not even begin work on the DVD of the original trilogy until after Episode III was in the can?

Let us cross our fingers and hope for the original original edition. Followed by another set with the special edition -- which, let's admit it, was good -- and then NOT followed by the Archive editions, which would suck.

Only days after delivering a budget that proposed spending "only" $256 billion over the next six years on a transportation bill - a 21% increase in its own right - the Senate Majority Leader has said, according to CQ Daily, that the President told him that the Senate's version of the bill can be the basis of negotiations - at $318 billion over six years! Is it any wonder that there is an extreme level of concern over federal spending and whether the Administration ever plans to do something about it?

"The DVDs, which are certain to be blockbusters, are also certain to be controversial: Despite pleas from Star Wars fanatics all over the world, these DVDs will not contain the original theatrical version of the movies."

I can't decide if Kerry would be thrilled, or concerned, that this picture exists.

I love literature of all kinds, but I prefer non-fiction. Why? Because life, in all its forms, is more beautiful, disturbing, exalted, and debased, than any imagination could render in fiction.

Timothy Ferris, who writes about science and primarily about cosmology and astronomy -- the history of man's understanding of the universe and the current study of the development of the universe -- is among my most favorite authors. He transforms complex, obscure, and obtuse scientific achievement into exciting, impassioned, remarkable tales of human triumph and failure.

My favorite of his many books is titled, "Coming of Age in The Milky Way". It ostensibly tells the story of the evolution of human understanding of the universe. At heart, however, it focuses its lens on the life stories of a series of legendary men who contributed to that understanding.

Along the way, Ferris debunks a number of popular, enduring myths about some of our early astronomers -- among them, one Galileo Galilei.

For hundreds of years, right up to being immortalized by the Indigo Girls, Galileo has been portrayed as a helpless victim of the Catholic Inquisition, persecuted merely for saying the obvious -- that the planets revolve around the sun in what is called a heliocentric system.

Au, contraire...

Galileo was a pompous, self-righteous, arrogant, duplicitous lout, who only by his own idiocy landed in the doghouse of history's most famous religious court.

1. Galileo the Liar -- Galileo began his descent into ignominy by telling the Senators of Venice that he had invented the telescope. As a result, the senators doubled his salary and granted him a lifelong university appointment in Padua. But, in fact, telescopes were in production at the time in the Netherlands, and Galileo merely copied -- and badly -- Dutch efforts. This came to light when better Dutch and Italian telescopes not of "Galileo's" design began turning up in Venetian marketplaces.

2. Galileo the Wrong -- Galileo's troubles with the Church began first with his insistence that he had proven the rightness of Copernican physics -- i.e. that the planets move round the sun -- when in fact he had not proven it at all. Instead, he offered a series of analogies about planetary movement that were just as readily explained by the old, geo(earth)-centric model of Tycho Brahe.

3. Galileo the Arrogant -- To make matters worse, not only was Galileo wrong, he hectored anyone who said so and then insisted that the Catholic Church adopt Copernicanism as its official cosmology. Among other things, he a) referred anyone who doubted his theories, including professors and priests, as "pigeons" and "blockheads"; b) wrote a "dialogue" between three participants, in which two highly intelligent conversants spouting his theories rail against a third conversant, "Simplicio the Simpleton", purposely named in an insulting fashion, who expresses concerns about Copernican cosmology, represents official Roman Catholic cosmology, and represents what he believed was the stupidity of his opponents; c) after being told not to preach Copernicanism, he turned on the religious thinkers, authoring an attack on Jesuit thinker Horatio Grassi; d) ignored the friendly advice of his buddy Cardinal Robert Bellarmine that "to teach Copernicanism as fact in the absence of evidence would be a very dangerous attitude and one calculated not only to arouse all scholastic philosophers and theologians but to also injure our holy faith by contradicting the Scriptures." e) responded to Bellarmine's caution by stating that he would only waste his time arguing with his opponents, whom he described as those "incapable of following even the simplest and easiest of arguments." f) ignored another warning from the Florentine ambassador, who told him that "Rome is no place to come to argue about the moon."

4. Galileo the Fortunate -- Galileo was initially treated very well by the Church, despite his loutish behavior. a) The Vatican initially praised his telescope work and honored him with a day of ceremonies at the Jesuit Roman College; b) when a Dominican monk, Thommaso Caccini, preached against him in Florence, the Dominican Preacher General sharply rebuked the monk and apologized personally to Galileo, stating that he was "sometimes obliged to answer for all the idiocies that thirty or forty thousand brothers may commit." c) Just before his downfall, Galileo enjoyed six audiences with Pope Urban VIII (aka his good friend Maffeo Barberini), and was rewarded with lavish gifts and a declaration of "fatherly love" for "this great man, whose fame shines in the heavens" d) Galileo's dialogue, referred to earlier, was cleared by Church censors and allowed to go to market, where it caused his ultimate downfall.

5. Galileo the Doomed -- When his "Dialogue" and his idiotic behavior eventually stirred enough controversy that the Church attempted to ban the book, Galileo turned to yet another nobleman for help to get the ban overturned. Unfortunately, it was the exact wrong nobleman. See, Pope Urban VIII, previously one of Galileo's longest-standing and best friends, had been ever since his ascension to the Papal throne, under attack by pro-Spanish factions in the Vatican. It was no secret to anyone except apparently Galileo that Urban craved the chance to get back at them. So, when Galileo needed help, he turned to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Who was, you guessed, it, pro-Spanish all the way. Only after the Duke of Tuscany sent a letter ghostwritten by Galileo to Pope Urban VIII decrying the ban on the book, did the Pope order Galileo brought before the Inquisition. After the Inquisition, he lived only 8 more years, all of them under house arrest, and all because of his own arrogance and stupidity.

Thus ends my first blog post.............

The first time I heard this was in California last October, late at night, on the middle of the night techno guy's show. It's pretty funny that it's getting big now...

Glad to see that it only took a few minutes before the f-bomb showed up here - also, the g-bomb (Galileo? Hmmmm).

Good afternoon, true believers. I will be one of your bloggers from this moment forward. So you had best unf*** yourself or I will rip off your head and s*** down your neck!!

Sorry, been spending too much time around jarheads lately.

Since my main interests are literature, film, sports, women, and video games, (not necessarily in that order) expect to hear a lot about those here at MaltShopLogic.

I will seek to provide content not usually found on blogs, but we'll see how successful (or not) I am in that regard.

The first post later today will be titled, "Galileo: Not The Martyr You Thought He Was". Until then, adieu....

Knob Creek is bad. Evil bad.

I have deleted my earlier posts - except for my thoughts on that milk shake song - in the interest of starting fresh. I don't have enough time to keep one up, at least without someone else provoking me.

The good news is that I will have administrator rights, so I'll be keeping the posts somewhat clean - you know who I am talking about - everyone.

Malt Shop Logic is a state of mind -

- it tells you that it's a good idea to arrive at the Malt Shop at 4pm on a Friday because it will be more fun to be trashed by 7pm;

- it tells you that we should play just one more game of Golden Tee because my +22 score was not an accurate reflection of my video golf skills;

- it tells you that copious amounts of Knob Creek won't hurt you at all;

- it tells you that adding grafitti to the men's room is perfectly acceptable behavior;

- and it tells you that you aren't a townie, when you really are.

This is Malt Shop Logic, which will be home to four regulars of one dank bar. We'll all be better off for it - or something like that.

I've been thinking about this milk shake song that you may hear on the radio now (you know what I'm talking about - it goes something like, "My milk shake brings all the boys to the yard"). Here's what I have concluded:

I am young enough to enjoy the music and understand why it's become a hit.

I am old enough that I sense there is something vaguely dirty about the lyrics, but I don't understand what it is.