Old Clams and Rocks
By Brian | October 30, 2007
Here’s something you don’t see every day – an InstaPun:
A 410-year-old clam. “The clam, nicknamed Ming after the Chinese dynasty in power when it was born, was in its infancy when Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne and Shakespeare was writing plays such as Othello and Hamlet.” And for all those years, it was happy as a . . . well, you know.
Nice one, Glenn. I’m groaning with you, not at you, I swear…
But it does remind me of a story from my past.
My wife and I went to Israel in 1997 and toured around the country on one of those package deals. One of the first stops was Masada, the famous mountain in southern Israel where ancient Jews held off the Roman army for quite some time, until they eventually committed mass suicide rather than be captured.
When you’re on Masada, your tour guide tells you that it’s considered bad luck to remove rocks, stones, pebbles, etc. from the mountain. So, of course, everyone grabs a rock and puts it in their pocket. Here’s the one I grabbed:
When I got it back to my hotel room, I washed it off, so I could put it in my suitcase without covering everything in dirt and mud. On doing so, I noticed the Hebrew letter (either a Vet or a Kaf – it’s hard to tell) that had been written on it, likely thousands of years ago when the Jews were there fighting the Romans. I’ve kept it to this day, as an interesting historical artifact and a nice reminder of a wonderful trip.
But, as with Ming the Clam, I distinctly remember the following thoughts going through my head:
1) “Wow…a Hebrew letter! This rock was around in the time of the Romans. It must be thousands of years old!”
2) “Come to think of it…*ALL* rocks are thousands of years old. After all, it’s not like they’re making new ones…”
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Baseball 2007 – The Big Letdown…
By Brian | October 29, 2007
One month ago yesterday, I wrote about how the end of the 2007 baseball season was the best end of a baseball season ever. Three days later, I was not disappointed.
Which is why it’s such a shame that the 2007 post-season was such a dud.
Now, it’s no secret to those who know me that I’m a lifelong Yankee fan, but this isn’t about the Yankees losing in the first round of the playoffs again. Well, it’s a little bit about that. But not all about that.
Mostly, it’s about good teams losing badly. After such a fantastic September, where four of the six divisions came down to the final weekend (and the other two had wildcard implications), the ALDS and the NLDS resulted in three sweeps, and one series that went four games (my beloved Yankees). That’s four good teams – the Yankees, Angels, Phillies and Cubs, who fought valiantly right up until the last weekend of the season, and then simply collapsed in October, completely deflating the end-of-season drama balloon.
Then, in the NLCS, the Rockies took the Diamondbacks in four straight games as well. This was at least mildly interesting, since it gave the Rockies an unbelievable 21 wins in 22 games. But then, they waited around for eight days, while the only series worth watching, the ALCS, reached its dramatic conclusion.
At that point, though, all of the enthusiasm and adrenalin that had carried the Rockies to that point was gone, and the Red Sox rolled over them in the World Series, four games to none. It’s almost as if, given all the other sweeps, the World Series would have been more interesting if the Red Sox had swept the Indians too.
Mind you, I’m not suggesting any sort of change to the process (although some are suggesting the Wildcard system needs tweaking, so that winning your division means something again, which is a valid point, I guess). The simple fact of the matter is that after 162 games, the championship goes to the team that can win eleven games the fastest. So it’s always going to be a bit of a crapshoot. Some years (1986 comes to mind), it’s wonderfully dramatic. Other years, like this year, it’s all a big letdown.
In the end, I’m left saying what I always say this time of year – just 18 weeks until pitchers & catchers report for spring training! Go Yankees!
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Truth in Tic Tacs?
By Brian | October 26, 2007
This morning on the way to work, I stopped by a newsstand and bought a box of Tic Tacs. Yeah, I know…I’m just not a big Altoid fan, OK? Anyway, to make matters worse, all they had was orange flavored. So I take my orange Tic Tacs, walk away from the newsstand and open the box to eat a couple. Check this out:
The Tic Tacs are white. The box they’re sold in is semi-transparent orange, and the Tic Tacs themselves are white. Now granted, they still taste like orange (or at least as orange as orange-flavored Tic Tacs are supposed to taste), but they’ve obviously been packaged to suggest that they’re actually orange in color as well. In fact, come to think of it, didn’t they used to be orange in color?
Anyway, it doesn’t really matter, but I felt a little duped, so I figured I’d share it with all of you. If just one Tic Tac purchaser is forewarned, I’ve done my duty to society…
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging | 3 Comments »
Does New Jersey State Law Discriminate Against Idiots?
By Brian | October 26, 2007
Public Question #4, Union County, New Jersey, 22nd Legislative District:
Shall the amendment of Article II, section I, paragraph 6 of the Constitution, agreed to by the Legislature, revising the current constitutional language concerning denial of the right to vote by deleting the phrase “idiot or insane person” and providing instead that a “person who has been adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting” shall not enjoy the right of suffrage, be adopted?
And here’s the Interpretive Statement that follows it:
Approval of this amendment concerning the denial of the right to vote would delete the phrase “idiot or insane person” and replace that phrase with “person who has been adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting” in describing those persons who shall be denied the right to vote. The phrase “idiot or insane person” is outdated, vague, offensive to many, and may be subject to misinterpretation. This constitutional amendment acknowledges that individuals with cognitive or emotional disabilities may otherwise be capable of making decisions in the voting booth and that their right of self-determination should be respected and protected in this regard. The amendment only denies the right of suffrage to those individuals determined by a court, on a case-by-case basis, to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting.
No word, of course, on what legal body, if any, would declare a person an “idiot or insane person” under the old law…
As Dave Barry likes to say, I am not making this up…
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One for my Harvard Friends…
By Brian | October 26, 2007
Since being linked to by IvyGateBlog, my site stats tell me that I’m getting quite a few visitors from Harvard University. Welcome, one & all. I thought, given my new audience, I’d share a joke I heard back during my (Penn) college days:
A Harvard Man and a Penn Man are standing at adjoining urinals. After both men finish urinating, the Harvard man goes to the sink to wash his hands, but the Penn man heads straight for the door.
Disgusted, the Harvard man says, “You know, at Harvard, they teach us to wash our hands after we go to the bathroom.”
The Penn man turns and replies, “Really? Well, at Penn, they teach us not to pee on our hands.”
Categories: University of Pennsylvania | 1 Comment »
It’s Never Funny When Someone Dies…
By Brian | October 26, 2007
But this is damn close.
Some highlights:
The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi has died a day after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys. SS Bajwa suffered serious head injuries when he fell from the first-floor terrace of his home on Saturday morning trying to fight off the monkeys.
The city has long struggled to counter its plague of monkeys, which invade government complexes and temples, snatch food and scare passers-by. One approach has been to train bands of larger, more ferocious langur monkeys to go after the smaller groups of Rhesus macaques. The city has also employed monkey catchers to round them up so they can be moved to forests. But the problem has persisted.
As Glenn Reynolds would say, read the whole thing…
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Why Keep Josh Beckett in the Game?
By Brian | October 25, 2007
Watching the Red Sox rout the until-then-invincible Rockies last night, I was amazed that with a twelve-run lead, Terry Francona chose to keep Josh Beckett in the game, rather than save his arm for potential future use later in the series.
It seems the good folks at the Onion were wondering the same thing and, as is their way, they’ve come upon the answer: Terry Francona Announces Josh Beckett Will Start Games 1, 4, 7, 2, 6, 3, 5 – In That Order.
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I Found a Vulture – Does That Count?
By Brian | October 24, 2007
This from one of those “public service” e-mails I got at work today:
Scavenger Hunt at the American Museum of Natural History – Saturday, Nov. 3
11:45 – 4:00Join students from PS11M school in Chelsea for a scavenger hunt at the Museum of Natural History. Volunteers will first meet at the school, eat lunch and then go to the museum for an interactive hunt. You will also see the Mythical Creatures exhibition with the children and then escort the children back to the school.
If you’re interested, please sign up on the website. For any questions, please contact [name withheld]
So here’s my question: when the scavenger hunt takes place at the American Museum of Natural History, are you looking for small objects on a list, or are you actually looking for scavengers?!?
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The World’s Largest Conducting Baton
By Brian | October 24, 2007
It all started, as most things do these days, with an e-mail.
The Harvard University Marching Band has set a Guinness World Record in October, 2006 by creating a baton measuring more than twelve feet long and using it to conduct the band during their halftime show.
As a proud alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania Band, I sent an e-mail to the band’s director, R. Greer Cheeseman III and it’s Assistant Director, Dr. Kushol Gupta, suggesting we show Harvard who’s boss by shattering the record at our homecoming game the following year.
What ensued was a coordinated four month effort by more than a dozen members of the Penn Band (including several engineers) to build the baton, issue a press release, and throw a kick-ass party after the game to celebrate (complete with actual batons for the kids and other cool souvenirs!).
Here’s a photo collection from the event, and here’s the video:
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Mmmm….Security!
By Brian | October 23, 2007
Taken this past weekend in a West Philadelphia Dunkin’ Donuts:
I understand the need for security in an urban setting where a lot of cash changes hands, but something about seeing this message in that ever-so-friendly font is just unnerving, no?
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