Another thought dump

Yes, I'm doing this again. I walk around my place and jot down every halfway, unvetted thought that pops in my head and then I'm left with random pieces of paper (and paper plates) emblazoned with idiocy. It is more efficient if I type the stupidity up and keep it in one place so a carefully detonated EMP can destroy all my worst ideas at once.

1. Is there a log of NFL coverage broken down by the number of replays after the initial play? I'm not talking about scoring plays or flagged plays (or injuries), but for the run of the mill play, I'd like to see how the number of replays correlates to the type opf play.

2. Watching more football. I got offended on behalf of the athletes. The commentator kept insisting "that's a play he has to make" or "he should have done X in that situation." This professional is making a split second decision and asking his muscle memory and finest of motor skills to operate with a tolerance of fractions of a second and fractions of an inch. And burly men are bearing down on him, and he's wearing a helmet which reduces mobility and vision. You are sitting wearing a suit. Shut up and sit down. On the flip side, hey football player -- you are getting paid more in a year than I'll make in a lifetime. Catch the ball.

3. I was considering the way movies show us the dynamics of a "team." There is the required racial and gender diversity with each person playing an archetypical role. Then, the relationships between them, their jokes and tensions, their backstories and quirks, make the characters real. And this is why it used to be more the rule not to show these aspects of the bad guys' networks. We don't want to see them with redeeming qualities or human values. We want to feel good about killing them so don't tell me that they prefer vanilla or have a toothache, or a school performance to attend. Think back to the movies you watched in which there are bad guys (especially in a group). Are they as fleshed out as the good guys? [note -- in Die Hard, the extra bits we see are of the villauins doubling down on villainy]

4. I think that it is impossible to throw a Hail Mary pass in football and not find some pass intereference (offensive or defensive).

5. Which Infinity Stone would you want to misuse and how/why?

As Dark as Dark can be

Warning -- if you are easily offended or triggered by dark humor, discussions of death and disease and like that, skip this one. But first, send me money. That's the tl;dr of this. You have been warned.

I think we all know that I'm falling apart. I have had surgeries on both feet and on my back. My shoulder is doing ok, but my back is acting up again. I'm sitting, typing this while wearing a heating pad that doubles as a weight belt. My back still hurts and I'm heavy. Mission accomplished. I originally figured that I get my bad back from my dad. Genetics and all. But if I recall correctly, my dad hurt his back in some sort of vehicular accident. I don't think you can inherit injuries like that unless evolution is actually some sort of Lamarckian joke.

But once I started thinking about genetics, I started to consider what else I would get from my parents. I missed out on the "no discernable butt" gene that my dad had. I have a double helping on that front, i.e. back. I'm balding, just like (eventually) both my parents. And that points to the big C.

Cancer lives well in my family. That's just an historical fact. Grandfather (mom's side) had it. Uncle (mom's side) had it. Mom had it. Dad had it. And they didn't just have 1 -- no, they were polycancerists and believed that one should sample all the cancers that life has to offer. Cancer dilettantes maybe, but I prefer to call them generalists. A Jack of all Cancers, as it were.

The way I figure it, all sorts of conditions and diseases are vying for the chance to take me down, but the cancer family has a real head start. I also figure that cancer is an expensive disease, as one has to spend all that money on wigs and marijuana, and I'm guess that that adds up. I won't add it up because that's math, something which I fear more than cancer, so I'll just let you imagine someone adding up the costs of my care. I figure it won't be cheap because I want brand name chemo, not the generic stuff.

How am I going to pay for all that, you might ask. And it would be a good question, so here's the plan:

I am starting a lottery. You pay an an entry fee of $10 and can put in a guess as to the type, location, date of diagnosis or date of death.  More entries and you can make more guesses!

The winner of each category will get one eighth of the collected entry fees. I get half and the remaining half is split among the 4 winners (random drawing of correct entries in the event of a tie).

Maybe I'll set up odds. Pancreas is more likely, but the dark horse of tongue cancer pays off much better.

So step right up, pay your way and make a guess. I can't guess because of the conflict of interest but I can advise you not to put money of "colon" because I'm pretty clear in that department. I'd advise something more esoteric.

More thoughts!

 It's like I can't stop thinking!

1. I imagine that if I went back in time to visit myself when I was younger, my younger self would probably kill the older version and steal the time machine.

2. If you text someone "SRSLY" that person will understand what you mean. But text someone "EIOU" and no one gets it. 

5 collected thoughts

with more emphasis on collecting than thinking

I believe that when I die, I will go to some version of the great Bed, Bath and Beyond. I will have access to some cool websites and apps, like one that can make a web of all the words I have ever used, and can sort them by frequency of use. I hope my most essential phrase is "monkey butts."

Here's an idea for a scene -- a new guy is being walked around the office and shown things by a veteran employee. For each person to whom the veteran introduces the new hire, the veteran includes some racial or cultural stereotype, but he keeps applying it to the wrong ethnicity ("that's Chan -- he's Chinese and you know how they control the media").

OK, how about this one: an NHL goalie falls in love with an NHL ref. The resulting class action suit changed the way professional sports dealt with employees, and forced it to reword its morality clause to force all relationships to be put on ice.

Part of the fun of hunger is that you get to think about food all the time, with no restrictions about how you combine foods. No one can say anything! You can imagine combinations, relive memories (true or not), make wishes and dream up any scenario you want in which you eat whatever you want. People who aren't hungry can't really appreciate that freedom.

The NFL has acceded to my demands! I have complained about the scheduling of games, pointing out that there are entire days of the week that are bereft of pro ball. But this season, if you look across the entire schedule, there have been games played on every day of the week (I watched 2 on Wednesday). The system works!

A sordid post

 Here's a nice mix of crazy thoughts that have been in my head over the last couple of days. Sift through them and you'll find something for everyone. Except you. Sorry. Cuts had to be made.

1. An Affirmation -- I like to remind others that this career attracts the outsiders, the "nerds" and the emotionally stunted. I tell them that teaching is a noble career for erstwhile losers and that we are all trying to improve the world one kid at a time. I mean, except me. I was always cool and am doing this for the money and fame. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRUYCR8Vn3k

2. A realization -- I don't like how you have to accomplish something to be recognized for your accomplishments

3. A musical interlude -- Marshall Crenshaw sang "There she goes again" and his song opens with a little melody which reminds me very strongly of the first three notes in the vocal line of "There she goes" by Sixpence None the Richer. Could someone check on that, please?

4. A Word -- I don't know if I have ever heard the word "escapability" but on Sunday, I heard it on both an NFL broadcast and an NHL broadcast. Linguistic conspiracy!

5. A movie idea -- and this is not the same as the recent Awkwafina movie "Jackpot." In my film, the organization running the lottery hires a "cleaner." You know those tickets that have someone win $X every week (or month or year) for life? This guy goes around killing them to save the company money.

6. About my faith -- I believe that cars are more than just the sum of their parts. There is something "soulful" that makes cars unique and, if not alive then at least "not dead." We love our cars on a variety of levels, including familialy. We talk to them, cajole them, berate them, bargain with them, thank them and remind them how awesome they are. They have personalities.

7. A self dialogue:

Me -- I'm such a failure! I can't even win the lottery.

Also Me -- uch...so gross

Me -- what?

Also Me -- Why do you think you should even deserve to win the lottery? Aren't there people who are really struggling and who should win before you? Like I said...gross.

Me -- No -- I, I was just trying to create a metaphor to express my lack of luck in my whole life as epitomized by this particular failure.

Also Me -- so you are labelling the billions of people who have not won the lottery as "failures"? Even Grosser.

this is why I try not to engage myself in dialogue.

8. Alton Brown looks like Robin Wilson. There, I said it. I have looked up pictures. I'm right. Deal with it.

9. Sometimes I get confused between "Wild Child" by the Black Keys and "Dark Star" by CSN.

10. Another Word -- I never see or hear the word "rabbit" as a verb (to run away) except in "The Avengers" (Coulson's death scene). Today, I read a Jonathan Kellerman book (Cold Heart) which used it 3 times and then I turned on an episode of Adam-12 (season 2, episode 5) and the word was used!

11. A hard truth -- When it comes down to it, any polite declining of an offered place to stay for the night is ultimately sourced in my distrust of all and my fear that I will be kidnapped, imprisoned, murdered and eaten or otherwise victimized while at your place.

12. I was watching the Jets game. The commentator said, "The Jets have had a very methodic drive." I heard the grammatical mistake but felt helpless. I yelled at the TV but he didn't hear me! But I watched the closed captioning and it read "a very methodical..." The system, either human or computer generated fixed the grammar. Curious.

13. I saw a commercial for IHOP. They were promoting their "world famous pancake combo." All I could picture was 

14. Here's a loophole -- when you get arrested and they read you your rights, they finish up by asking if you understand these rights as they have been read, and ask if you have any questions. I have questions. Lots of questions. MAN do I have questions. What are they allowed to answer and what have they been trained to explain? If I stump them, do I get to go free?

15. Is there much else that we have to reckon with other than a force?

16. Folk you, etymologies -- The phrase "learning on the fly" developed from the MIT Genetics lab where they do cutting edge experiments and make pioneering discoveries about genes, learning new things while working with drosophila.

17. Just for fun and, please, JUST FOR FUN, I turned the poem by William Carlos Williams into a suicide note

This is just to say

I have eaten

the bullet

that was in

the handgun

and which

you were probably

saving

for later

Forgive me

life is worthless

so sad

and so cold

A new Business Idea -- Seeking Investors

I have been teaching high school English for over 30 years and this has not really taken me to the heights of richdom, which was my life goal. So I have tried to find ways through which I could supplement my income without having to do much more work. I have asked nicely for a sinecure, tried to sell my leftover chulent, wrote a few books that never sold. So what's left other than winning the lottery (at which I have proven a collossal failure)?

Yesterday, for approximately 75 of the 5 hours of sunlight, I stared at my computer screen as I ran my parent-teacher conferences. These 4 minute sessions give me a chance to meet parents and tell them how my feet hurt and their children are ugly. And vice versa.

During the day, I spoke with one parent who asked me if I had taught at a particular school many years earlier. I checked my notes and, indeed, I had! It turns out, I was his teacher in 11th grade and he failed a quiz on The Moonstone and earned a 55 on the quiz for 1984. As I looked up his records, I started seeing the spate of parents whose children I have taught or do teach. Could I but see the future, I would, no doubt, see a continuing list of parents who survived my tutelage and whose children are on the path towards my clutches.

So I went back and looked at the grades. This kind of information is exactly what a child would love to know about a parent so that when a parent yells "you can do better" or something, the child can shoot back, "why should I, you failed a couple of quizzes and missed some homeworks!"

The business model I have in mind is based on a bedrock technique with a long history: blackmail.

All I need to do is to threaten parents that I will make my old gradebooks available to students if they don't cough up some quality holiday gifts, tips and random trips to Europe. It would be, um, "unfortunate" if your son or daughter were to find out that you still owe me work, and earned a really solid 83 in my class after begging me repeatedly.

I'm looking for investors for my scheme. Investors, you ask -- but why. Honestly, you are right. There is very little overhead. But here's what I figure -- you send me a couple of thousand bucks to get my venture off the ground. I don't need the money, but it would make me happy. When the blackmail starts paying off, I'll give you the money back, promise.

Unless you used to be one of my students. In that case, you might want to make it a contribution. Or else.

What's Up, Chuck?

I grew up reading Peanuts, the brilliant comic strip by Charles Schultz. My parents had collections and books back to the 50's and the daily newspaper kept me on a steady diet of childhood angst and philosophy.

There were, therefore, certain truths were a big part of my life. Charlie Brown would never kick the football, rarely (and never with witnesses) fly a kite and never win a baseball game. Basic stuff upon which I could build a solid foundation of a depressingly empathetic childhood.

Part of this education was my repeated listening to the soundtrack to the Broadway musical, "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown." I listened to it, easily, over a hundred times. I would come home from school (in the era before computers and with limited TV access, people listened to the radio or audio) and put on the album. Sometimes I would pace the living room, singing the whole thing, sometimes  would lie on the floor, singing the whole thing. There were other positions I held, but in each one, I sang. I knew the words and all the parts. My parents had ticket stubs from when they went. There was a playbill. I even got a copy of the book version with all the lyrics and such.

Heck, last year, I decided to take a picture of the vinyl and my holdings and ask Mr. Gary Burghoff for an autograph and he sent me one!

So I put the CD on last week (it has the cast recording plus 3 early versions sung by the composer) and I started pacing and singing. But as an adult, I started listening to the words and realized how much of a lie is wrapped up in just one song, "TEAM." In the song, Charlie Brown the pitcher and manager of a local baseball team, is recounting a recent loss. But the set up: they were playing for the championship "For all we have to do is win just one more game
And the championship is ours." You can't get to the championship game without winning during the season (note, "one MORE game")! So even if young Master Brown was not pitching or even playing, he, as the manager, was involved in winning games!

Then Lucy screws up. No one ever yells at Lucy, but she caught a fly ball and dropped it! Is that Charlie's fault? Heck no!

Then, to make it worse, we get to the final stanza. Here's the introduction:

"And one run would win us the game
As I came up to bat"

One run could win it. That means that the game is TIED! Charlie brown gets up with 2 men on and 2 out. Two outs. That means that two players already made out that inning. Is the loss then Charlie Brown's fault? It was a team loss. But his striking out should not have spelled the end of the game because, remember, the score was tied.

So how am I supposed to feel? Charlie Brown's team is still tied with the other team, battling for the championship. Charlie Brown isn't a loser at all -- he has managed his team this far, victories and all. Next thing you'll tell me is that he kicks the football.