gonna go back in time: part II

A few more past blasts that never made it into the present. (Part I here.)



[March 26, 2006]
While we're at it, let's ban deodorant.


[October 16, 2005]
Yesterday my wife and I happened to catch the end of the Notre Dame / USC gem. When the Irish were driving toward a comeback with about 5:00 left, I turned to my wife and said, "They're going too fast--they're going to give USC time to come back." Two minutes, in fact, enough time for a miraculous drive capped by a crazy touchdown by Mr. Heisman, Matt Leinart.

I flipped over to the WSU / UCLA game. The first half was ending, with WSU in charge of an upset. The Bruins, though, had marched down the field and were poised to score. I again turned to the wife and said, "If they score a touchdown here, they win the game."

They did, and they did, in overtime.

Be afraid.


[May 3, 2005]
The viral vector of evolution is only now becoming fully appreciated, thanks to modern genetic analysis. Natural selection doesn't operate in a vacuum.


[April 12, 2005]
I live in a neighborhood where IHOP and Shari's are the loci of the social ellipse, where traffic moves at the speed of light gray, where retirement homes and memory care facilities salt-and-pepper the landscape. By default, I can't escape considering what I'll be like in fifty years; at times I have the odd sensation that I'm passing my future self as I buzz by another leisure-paced superior citizen.

When forced to caress the brakes and meditate upon the scenery, I inevitably wonder why the car ahead seems to be treading concrete. Is the driver lost or otherwise confused? Poor of vision? Timid? Slipping into sopor? Or is there something more, say, epistemological at work?

The flow of time is subjective. We all have moments where time stops, stands still, ties its shoes; conversely, we've felt the rush and blur of accelerated time, mystified that it could disappear so quickly. Every wiser person who has lectured me on the subject has told me that time revs up after fifty (or sixty or seventy, relative to that senior's current age). I'm inclined to believe they're telling me the literal truth.

gonna go back in time

Some random observations that, for various reasons, never made it out of "draft" stage until now.

[June 15, 2007]
If you're going to play professional American-style football 'til your early retirement, better know the risk.


[April 29, 2007]
As the enchiladas are baking, I have GameCast on the laptop, the New York and Boston matchup. I love the stats it runs as you're waiting for the next pitch--but they're often contradictory. Seriously, how do you make a prediction when Manny Ramirez...

• Bats .692 against the current pitcher, Chien-Ming Wang
• Bats .263 against the Yankees
• Bats .069 after a 1-2 count
• Is 1/2 today

Which takes precedence?

(He flies out.)


[April 7, 2007]
Right now everyone's hot for the Mexican hotshots--Cuarón, Iñárritu, del Toro--and they should be. However, Korea's rising stars deserve their own limelight, especially Joon-ho Bong, director of The Host and Memories of Murder, a master of inverting and unraveling clichés.


[February 12, 2007]
A right-wing rant from the pages of the Chili's menu. (Here's why. Scroll to the end.)

We are steamed. Our beef: a lifestyle saturated with breasts, loaded with the original bottomless illness.

More risk, more cost. Guilt that mushrooms. Additional weight. Additional fire.

"Honey." "Hot." "Spicy." "Baby." Not tender, not sweet, not special.

We ask to be purified. Shredded and mashed. Battered until boneless, meatless. Healthy, for starters.

We hope this isn't an inconvenience. We're just trying to accurately communicate conditions.


[January 18, 2007]
What is the mathematical percentage of truth in the following descriptions?

• "Inspired by a true story."


• "Based on a true story."


• "A true story."

[January 10, 2007]
Not for the squeamish. And simply incredible.

Mehta said that he can usually spot a tumor just after he begins an operation. But while operating on Bhagat, Mehta saw something he had never encountered. As he cut deeper into Bhagat's stomach, gallons of fluid spilled out — and then something extraordinary happened.

"To my surprise and horror, I could shake hands with somebody inside," he said. "It was a bit shocking for me."

resurrecting the past

I have about 100-odd posts that have never made it past the "draft" stage, often for reasons obscure to me. Here are a few B-sides and also-rans and outtakes from 2006.

the lazy are out in force today [12/4/06]
Search terms hitting this here blog:

fast and easy culminating projects literature
domestic violence neg case
how to get away with plagiarism
research papers on disciple simon peter

harmonica playing when computer goes into sleep mode [9/5/06]
If it's playing Bob Dylan or Git Along Little Dogies or even Blues Traveler, everything's probably okay. But if it's Alanis Morisette... well, you got yourself a real bad problem, friend. Real bad. Not even the Church Catholic has an exorcist that powerful.


in the dark of reason [7/12/06]
Jason Kuznicki writes,

No one is ever convinced during an argument.... People change in the quiet times that come in between arguments, when they are alone with their doubts, when they have in a sense become strangers to their former, emotionally invested selves.

Before launching into his own anecdote, he asks readers to remember a time they changed their mind once the former self was a wisp of a ghost.


pennies from heaven [3/12/06]
You gotta love the government. Recently arriving in the mail:

1. My jury duty check. "Thank you for jury service" to the tune of $16.23, the recessional to that jilting of justice, the copped plea.

2. Coupons for free lottery tickets, presumably to cue a gambling addiction.


stay off the furniture [5/23/06]
The Olympian, to its credit, has taken steps to become a more interactive news source.

But that comes with a price: rowdy, distasteful, rude, boorish, bigoted, and slanderous behavior from commentators. What are we to do?


nagging questions about personhood [7/18/06]
Assume that biological improbabilities are indeed possible. If you like, imagine that this is The Future, with nanobots. Nanobots can do anything.

Are conjoined twins one person or two?
Would a human body with two functioning heads and brains be one person or two?
Is a living human body with no head a person?
Is a living human head with no body a person?
Is a fertilized egg a person?
Finally, is there a consistent criterion that covers all these possibilities?