Malt Shop Logic

Anger at atrocious playcalling assuaged by Golden Tee domination...

2009-12-27T23:18:00.002-05:00

1. Memo to Wade Phillips: If you repeatedly cannot figure out how to get 3 feet or less on either 3rd or 4th down against the lowly Redskins after having the same exact problem 2 weeks ago, you're not going far in the playoffs.

2. Memo to Jason Garrett: There is no reason for a trick play when you are at midfield, up 14, and jamming the ball down the Skins' throats. Just keep jamming it, instead of putting your team in a 2nd and 23 and forcing it to take unnecessary risks that result in turnovers.

3. Memo to the faithful: my anger at the atrocious playcalling and execution that kept the Cowboys from what should have been a 42-0 demolition of the Redskins was assuaged by the fact that I HOUSED Mr. Close in back-to-back matches of Golden Tee at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Warrenville, IL. Pictures will follow after I download them from my phone.

Merry Christmas to all.

I Saw AU beat DePaul

2009-12-17T00:05:00.001-05:00

And I did a running diary of it.

Impersonal Delivery of News

2009-12-08T10:55:00.001-05:00

So I started out with the goal of contacting people personally, but it turns out that this is much easier. So here it is: my wife is pregnant.

I truly couldn't be happier and can't wait until June 29. Everything has been good so far and we're doing everything we can to make sure it stays that way.

Cross-posted at that other blog

Not looking good for the Eagles...

2009-11-19T13:52:00.003-05:00

The AU Men's Basketball team dropped its 3rd game in a row last night, losing 73-62 to Mount St. Mary's. Yes, we got creamed by Mount St. Mary's. We've now lost consecutive games to St. Francis, Albany, and Mount St. Mary's. It's not looking like a Patriot League Championship year for the Eagles.

I knew this would be a rebuilding year, but I had hoped after the last couple of years and our berths in the Big Dance, our recruiting classes would be strong enough to avoid this poor a start. Oh, well, it least it will be cheap Saturday afternoon entertainment for the munchkins, who will get to hear their dad yell, "Boo, you're terrible, Papparo!"

Behold a great twitter feed

2009-11-16T17:51:00.002-05:00

A friend at work pointed me towards the greatest fake twitter feed since Barack's Teleprompter started its:

The Fake AP Stylebook

Among my favorites:

Avoid using "gadzooks," lest your monocle pop out and land in your jar of mustache wax.
The antecedent for "she" in "that's what she said" is generally understood to be "your mom."
Use the suffix "-ista" to describe someone famous who doesn't really do anything.

Please read.

That night...

2009-11-10T21:56:00.002-05:00

...for those of you who remember how Cherie and I painted our apartments at Columbia Crossing, the Seven Corners Home Depot, where FBI employee Linda Franklin was gunned down by John Allan Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, was "our" Home Depot. It was the store we drove to again and again for paints, brushes, tarps, and the occasional impulse soda buy at the register.

We were headed there that night for more paint. But it had been a long and frustrating day, I was tired, and I convinced Cherie to turn off the path to Home Depot and head back to the apartment. Not long after arriving at home, I turned on the TV and saw the news about Franklin's murder at the very place toward which we'd been headed. Who knows, maybe it saved one of our lives that night. That was what was so frightening about those weeks -- the random nature of the killings and the knowledge that you were totally at the mercy of chance -- maybe it would be you while pumping gas, maybe not.

So good riddance, Muhammad. I hope that even unconscious, you felt your breath slip away. I hope you felt panic at the control taken away from you, at the certainty of your impending death. Like Dennis Miller said, some fuckers are just too evil to be allowed to stay on this earth. Tonight, you joined their ranks.

Chron 990

2009-11-05T12:16:00.002-05:00

As an alumnus of both The American University and The Chronicle of Higher Education (I am proud of one of those right now)... and as a longtime PR person who was once responsible for pushing The Chronicle's "editorial choices" on to other publications so that they could make the same "disappointing" decisions to publish this factual information...

This letter from our alumni association president looks like a serious case of the university's institutional advancement machine stepping on its own dick.

I bet this wasn't the PR folks' idea, and I feel kind of bad for them. Campaign must not be going well.

From: aualum=american.edu@reply.bronto.com on behalf of AU Alumni Association
To: Matthew Snyder
Subject: Important Message from Your Alumni Association President
Date: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 7:14:19 PM

Dear fellow alumni,

I am writing you today as proud as ever to be an alumnus of American University, and with great confidence in the students, faculty, and leadership of our shared alma mater.

In your local paper, online, or in national publications such as the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, you may have noticed a story that referenced a report in the Chronicle of Higher Education regarding presidential compensation in higher education. Annually, the Chronicle collects and compares data as listed on publicly available IRS Forms 990. On Monday, the Chronicle published a story using the data from 2007–2008, which reported that AU president Neil Kerwin, SPA/BA ’71, received $1,419,339 in total compensation in 2008, ranking third highest in the nation.

Eagle to eagle, you should know that this report of Dr. Kerwin’s income is misleading. Dr. Kerwin’s annual salary, $559,067 in FY2008, historically ranks third among the seven presidents of private research universities in Washington and is moderate in relation to presidents at private universities. The total reported included deferred compensation ($481,304) and investment growth ($318,864) that Dr. Kerwin earned over nearly a decade during his service as provost and interim president. He was required to take the payout when the funds vested, consistent with board policy. It is important to note that each year of the deferred compensation was previously reported on IRS 990 forms and prior surveys as a benefit.

I hope you are able to take a moment to review a communication from AU Board Chairman Gary M. Abramson, SPA/BA ’68, on this subject here.

On behalf of the AU Alumni Association Board, I would like to express my disappointment for the editorial choices utilized by the Chronicle and, subsequently, by other news outlets. During his tenure, Dr. Kerwin has led the university to tremendous financial and academic success and the board’s compensation is especially focused on competitive, market-based compensation that is not excessive. I am proud to be serving as Alumni Board President during this time. I hope that this information is helpful to you, and I encourage you to maintain an open and honest dialogue with your alma mater.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,Brian F. Keane

X-treme townies

2009-10-26T13:26:00.002-04:00

I can't see this happening at the Shoppe (where would you park it?), but this sure beats having a Dallas Cowgirls post at the top of the page:

Man pleads guilty to DWI in motorized La-Z-Boy
A Minnesota man has pleaded guilty to driving his motorized La-Z-Boy chair while drunk. A criminal complaint says 62-year-old Dennis LeRoy Anderson told police he left a bar in the northern Minnesota town of Proctor on his chair after drinking eight or nine beers.

Planet Moron, a kindred spirit if ever there was one, has more.

Tony Romo haters...

2009-10-25T22:21:00.002-04:00

can suck eggs....

Stop blogging now!

2009-10-23T08:10:00.003-04:00

Or so says (sort of) friend of the Shoppe, Adam Keiper in his book review in the WSJ:

But what's so bad about a little self-censorship? It may prove safer for those of us who leave no moment unphotographed, no heartbreak or health scare unblogged, and no thought un-tweeted. And it may also help reawaken us to the quiet pleasures of private life.

I was...

2009-10-18T23:42:00.002-04:00

...going to post something about the pathetic, inept Washington Redskins, but even as a Cowboys fan, it's just not fun to dump on them anymore. What a sad state of affairs.

Cap'n Lou, we hardly knew ya...

2009-10-14T17:10:00.002-04:00

Rest in peace, my favorite rubber-band covered wrestling promoter. I hope you and the Ultimate Warrior enjoy some Budweiser up in heaven.

Hello in there...

2009-10-14T15:47:00.002-04:00

...and greetings from mobalicious Utica, NY...

The Chapins, Maine Style...

2009-10-06T13:06:00.002-04:00

Because I was tired of seeing that other post, and because I have the cutest kids on the planet....

Story of my career...

2009-09-23T22:42:00.005-04:00

Client, 6 weeks ago: You've done a great job, Brian, and so has your team. We're going to extend your contract for a year.

Client, 4 weeks ago: You've done a great job, Brian, but the people who promised the $$ to fund your contract extension lied, so we don't have the $$ to fund your extension. But, we'll extend your contract 2 months until we figure something out.

Client, 3 weeks ago: You've done a great job, Brian, but we can't find the $$. We'll extend your contract 1 month until we figure something out.

Client, 2 weeks ago: You've done a great job, Brian, but we can't find the $$. We'll extend your contract 14 days until we figure something out.

Client, last week: You've done a great job, Brian, but we can't find the $$. Your contract expires on Monday, and that's it, you're done.

Client, last week: Oh, by the way, my boss found some $$, but he wants to give it to another contractor who claims they can do the work.

Another contractor, today: We can't do the work, so we'll advertise for it.

God Bless Detroit Tigers fans...

2009-09-19T21:42:00.003-04:00

Earlier tonight, I took a quick look at home park attendance figures for Major League baseball. I was stunned to read that 16 of MLB's 30 franchises have been filling (on average) less than 60% of their seating capacity during home dates.

But, in Detroit, where we all know that the economy has been craptastic for most of the last 30 years, and especially so the last few years, the Tigers have managed to fill the park to 78% of capacity this year, putting them just out of the top 10 in attendance, and ahead of 19 other franchises. Unbelievable.

And Milwaukee does even better, averaging 89% sold during home dates! Is it just that there's nothing else to do in Milwaukee?

Also of note -- I always imagined that the strength of Red Sox Nation would mean that it would be #1 in average road attendance. But, the #1 team in MLB road attendance? The Chicago Cubs. Of course, I should add that they're helped by the fact that the NL Central contains 3 of the top 10 most-attended teams in all of MLB.

Finally, this sad fact -- the Atlanta Braves average 58% of capacity sold at home...73% on the road. Pathetic.

Mark Grace is no Kazimierz Michalski

2009-09-19T08:35:00.002-04:00

From The UK's Daily Mail, we learn that a 101 year old bested a 47 year old would be thief:

A 101-year-old war veteran caught a would-be burglar by holding him in a ferocious bear hug and watched him turn red and gasp for breath.
...
"I am not as quick and decisive these days but I was much stronger physically than him.
"I used to be a boxer and I wish I was few years younger and quicker, then things would have been very different. I would have massacred his face.

Polish veteran of WWII, boxer, librarian, vigilante...role model.

Mark Grace is awesome...

2009-09-18T21:47:00.000-04:00

...because he "owns" her....

Yes, Chris...

2009-09-09T23:40:00.003-04:00

...BearingPoint did an exceptional job of "lowering overhead" -- lowered it right out of existence, along with the company!

All kidding aside, yes, I too was disappointed in the President's speech. Mainly I was disappointed that it came tonight and not several months ago. His references to "...the plan I'm announcing tonight....", and "Now is the season for action," left me asking, "Where the hell has this plan been for the last several months while you've left Congress to dither??? Why wasn't the season for action 3 months ago?"

I also thought President Obama lost an opportunity with people who want to support our President but who have lost faith in him to exercise some humility and state outright that he has been too passive in this effort, and that he has failed completely to articulate (before tonight) his plan for health care.

He made health care reform a top priority (leaving aside for the moment the strong argument that there were and remain many other top, and expensive, priorities), and then apparently sat idly by watching as the Congressional cockfight over health care likely ruined any chance for reforming a system that all of us agree needs fixing in several areas.

Now, here he comes, the supreme rooster, feathers shining, strutting into the fray, with his grandiose calls to action -- "...I intend to be the last," "Now is the season for action," "Now is the time to deliver," "...we will meet history's test," -- UGH.

I want to support him, but tonight's speech smacks of (well, some bad, cliched speechwriting to start) a president out of touch, who as his biggest critics contend, is a big fan of speechmaking, but not much of a fan of real, actual work.

And yeah, the quip about "profits" being bad -- to me, smacks of stupid, misplaced class warfare -- the bottom line is, the President needs the cooperation and collaboration of the private health care industry to achieve any significant reform -- and calling them out again as the bogeyman isn't going to help him.

I hope I'm wrong. He's our President -- I want to believe him and believe in him. I want for our country to make changes to our health care system that will improve it. I hope he understands that he has mismanaged this effort, that sitting back and now strutting into the fray has not been a helpful approach, and that he intends to (to use another cliche) roll up his sleeves and get down to the dirty, detailed business of working with Congress to craft useful legislation. But, I'm not optimistic.

PS, we're coming to Chicagoland again Sep 27 - Oct 2. Prepare for another visit to BWW, and to conjure up some good ideas for wagers on your predictions on the performance of my fantasy football team, 'cause 4-8-1? Them's is fightin' words.

Uh, Really?

2009-09-09T22:22:00.003-04:00

This line from the president's speech is getting a lot of laughs out there:

"But by avoiding some of the overhead that gets eaten up at private companies by profits, excessive administrative costs and executive salaries, it could provide a good deal for consumers."

Profits are part of overhead, according to the president. I guess Bearing Point did a really good job lowering its overhead in recent years.

If that's really what the president thinks, then Adam Smith just rolled over in his grave.

Real Live Death Panels

2009-09-09T14:24:00.002-04:00

I'm excited to beat Brian to the punch on a day when Sarah Palin has an op-ed in the WSJ. She even talked about Death Panels:

Given such statements, is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats' proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by—dare I say it—death panels? Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans.

Of course, no matter what former Enron adviser Paul Krugman says about horror stories from the British health system, those people are facing real death panels:

Doctors left a premature baby to die because he was born two days too early, his devastated mother claimed yesterday.
...
They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment.
...
She said he was breathing unaided, had a strong heartbeat and was even moving his arms and legs, but medics refused to admit him to a special care baby unit.
Medics allegedly told her that they would have tried to save the baby if he had been born two days later, at 22 weeks.
In fact, the medical guidelines for Health Service hospitals state that babies should not be given intensive care if they are born at less than 23 weeks.

God Damn...

2009-09-06T22:59:00.002-04:00

I wish I had 1-10th the talent or ability to inspire that these guys have....

Guess who's back

2009-09-02T22:14:00.001-04:00

@ Yahoo! Video

Attention, Attention Sunny Day Real Estate Fans...

2009-09-01T23:08:00.002-04:00

...Sunny Day Real Estate is reuniting after a 10-year hiatus for a US concert tour.

Mr. Close, do I recall correctly you were a fan? They're playing the Metro in Chicago on 9/24. More info here.

That is all.

East of Moline...

2009-08-24T22:01:00.004-04:00

If you were to look up Shorewood, IL, on Google Earth or Google Maps or Google Mildly Useful Product #341, you would see that west of Shorewood, all the way to Moline, IL, on the Illinois-Iowa border and on the banks of the Mississippi, there is, essentially, nothing. Oh sure, there are maybe a couple of hundred houses stretched across a couple of hundred miles, but really, there's just nothing.

Driving along Route 52, or Route 80, it's a rather featureless landscape -- lots of flat fields, green in summer, brown any other time, growing corn, wheat, and soybeans, and providing forage and space for hogs and cattle. All of those are important -- but it makes for a boring, even dreary landscape.

Adding to the dreariness, we are here in Shorewood to celebrate and mourn. We are here to celebrate Cherie's dad's birthday, but here to mourn that this is likely the last birthday he will live to celebrate.

He suffers from terminal, metastatic prostate cancer. Seven years ago, while prepping for surgery to repair fractured, weakened bone in his upper right arm (the consequence of another cancer, liposarcoma, that he beat, and the severe doses of radiation he endured to beat it), doctors found the prostate cancer. He suffered every treatment the fine doctors at the University of Chicago could come up with -- chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, more chemotherapy, androgen deprivation (aka chemical castration), various drugs in various phases of clinical trial, and soon more radiation-- but no treatment has been able to fully arrest the growth and spread of the cancer. He has suffered loss of appetite -- for food and sex -- had to shit through a pillow, lost his hair, puked his guts out, pissed blood, filled with fluid, nearly gone comatose, had his testosterone level driven to zero, suffered radiation burns to his skin -- has survived every side effect that has been thrown at him -- but it hasn't stopped the cancer.

Instead, slowly, inexorably, it has spread to distant regions of his body. He has lesions in his shoulders, back, and ribs -- and more growing in other places, not large enough yet to show up on the various scans he endures on frequent visits to the hospital. Doctors long ago stopped talking about remission, first retreating to talking about slowing the disease, and now talking about "palliative" care -- reducing pain in the face of fairly imminent death. The lesions are growing, more are appearing, the cancer markers in his blood are more numerous, and the pain he suffers is greater by the day.

No amount or variety of painkillers eases the pain completely. Sometimes he swallows oxycodone until he passes out. He sleeps off and on all day. But the pain is always there. The lesions eat through bone, causing tremendous pain, and weakening his bones to the point of fracture. The lesion on his spine may eat right to his spinal cord, which he won't know until one day he wakes up paralyzed, or just doesn't wake up at all.

He's not yet 60, but he shuffles like an 80 year-old man. The radiation treatment he will soon begin will target the individual, visible lesions, seeking to shrink them and reduce their impact. Ultimately, the treatment will fail, and it will be time once more for a decision he has faced several times already -- fight on, or give in -- and die?

Fight on, he says. More medicine that makes me puke, he says. More radiation that burns my skin, he says. More chemotherapy that makes everything taste like metal and gives me hemorrhoids and makes my hair fall out, he says. I've fought for seven years, he says. I've seen four grandchildren born, seen the first reach first grade just today, he says. I've seen a son and a daughter become parents, and I've seen another daughter grow into one of Boston's finest surgeons, he says. Fuck you, cancer, he says. I'm not done with you yet. You may have taken my brother, mother, every uncle and aunt I've ever known, others I never got to know, and you may get me, he says, but NOT WITHOUT A FIGHT. Seven years and counting, and I'M NOT FINISHED.

And that's why I love him. For all the agony -- the pain, the suffering, side effects, the bad news, the march of treatment, failure, treatment, failure, treatment, failure -- he blazes on. For his children, grandchildren, wife, brother, friends, and for all those who fought and lost and all of those who fight on still, he blazes on.