Muttroxia

One of my many pet peeves is advanced paper towel dispensers that make it harder to dry your hands.

At a recent lunch outing, the dispenser had a big push button to get the paper towel. I pressed the button. I am right now looking at this piece of paper towel. It has a length of an inch and half. It fits in my wallet! How can anyone dry themselves with 10 square inches of paper towel?

From a NYT editorial today:

It turns out the library can do more than just shush you. If you accumulate enough unpaid late fees, some New York libraries are ready to hit you where it really hurts: your credit score. They have reported millions of dollars in such bad debts. Most people make good before their creditworthiness is damaged. But there is something chilling in this kind of threat from a library.

I don’t see the problem here. You take a book from the library, you get fined. If you don’t pay the fines, you are a collection issue. Debt is debt, and the library deserves its money back just like any other debtor.

This editorial says that debt from libraries is different, that is is distateful for such a good and pure institution to come after a borrower with something as low and tawdry as a collection agency.

But exactly what is so special about libraries? If I run up credit card debt and don’t pay it, I suffer all sorts of financial penalties, including a ding to my credit score. It doesn’t matter if that debt was incurred by paying for prostitutes or Proust, debt is debt. Nor does it matter that the debt is from the government. If I don’t pay my parking tickets or property taxes, I suffer the consequences.

We did presents this morning, since we’ll be traveling on Christmas day.

* He can ruin your faith with his casual lies:
Me: Kids, come on down! Look who came?
Him: Who?
Me: Look at the tree!
Him: Presents! Santa! Presents!
Me: That’s right! Santa came by last night to bring presents early.
Him: I saw him too!

* A future lawyer at work:
Later, at dinner, he tried to figure it out.

Him: Today isn’t Christmas? Why did Santa come today?
Me: Because he’s very nice. He knew we weren’t going to be here on Christmas, so he came early.
Him: Did we get the first presents in the whole world?
Me: Um… so anyhow, he knew this was the best time to come.
Him: He knew we were flying tomorrow? Really?
Me: Yep!
Him: But Daddy, I thought Santa only knew if you’re awake or sleeping, and good or bad!

Happy Holidays!

Does anyone else see the Star of David behind Ben Stein?

You want some action (see comments 6,8,10)!? Consider it laid! I hereby bet Sid $100 that in the 2008 presidential election, the national popular vote difference will be 5% or greater. That is, it must be 52.5% to 47.5% or greater.

I’ll put in one weasel term – the bets off if Ron Paul runs as an independent.

You might not know that John Mayer rocks. After all, he made his reputation from a solid string of wishy washy nothing songs. On his breakthrough album, Songs for Pussies, every song sounded the exact same. True story: For our first child’s birth, I bought this album so we’d have music to play during the delivery that my wife liked. When it first went on, she gave a big grin and squealed at how thoughtful I was. Five songs in, she suddenly sat up in bed and yelled, “Turn this crap off! Find me something that rocks to distract me from this pain!” I gratefully put on some Aerosmith.

Yet, John Mayer is an absolute monster. If you get a chance to see him live, do it. We saw him a couple months back. The first two songs were exactly what I dreaded, mid-range acoustic ballads. But when those were over, he threw away the acoustic, picked up an electric and went nuts. For the next 90 minutes, he shredded and shredded. The songs are so-so. His voice is boring. His patter is annoying. But boy can he play. Every song featured extended solos that he ripped to pieces. It’s the closest thing to Stevie Ray Vaughn I’ll ever see, with a healthy dose of Clapton thrown in. If he would release those songs, he’d be a rock star instead of a pop star.

Here’s some good acoustic stuff.

Mrs. Muttrox had a conversation with a high school teacher friend of hers that confirmed a pet theory of ours.

Mrs. Muttrox: Do the kids still say “bling”?
Teacher: Not really.
Mrs. Muttrox: I heard something about it on NPR.
Teacher: If they use the word on NPR, the kids aren’t saying it anymore.

To put it another way, any piece of urban slang that I know isn’t actual current urban slang.

Yo, Peace out.

In the New York Times today, there’s fairly prominent links to a video discussion entitled, “Who Can Beat the G.O.P.?: Mark Schmitt of the New America Foundation and Matthew Continetti, above, of the Weekly Standard debate who is more electable, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.” Once again, we see framing in action.

You only see questions about electability for Democrats. Why is this? There are occasional articles about how weak the field of Republicans are, but they are framed a different way, that the GOP hasn’t yet found a candidate they’re in love with. Electability is assumed. This is very odd, since the country is tilting more and more towards the Democrats every month. Every poll for years has shown every important issue going towards the Democrats, and indeed pretty much all the major Democrats beat all the major Republicans in every poll.

Yep, all the Democrats beat all the Republicans. But one name stands out. John Edwards absoultely creams the GOP, and is far and away the best of the Democrats for head to head matchups. So why is there no mention of him? He’s obviously the most electable.

The Muttrox clan is growing, we’re having a third child! Due at the end of May, stay tuned true believers!

(This is for the few of you who don’t know already.)

I’ll come out and say it, ONCE might be the best movie of the year. A little movie from Ireland that nobody saw, including myself, when it first opened in selected theaters this summer. I kept hearing that it got rave reviews from every critic that saw it, but the poster was so non-descript that I never got the motivation to actually get into a theater and see it. Here we are, many months later, and it’s what I call “free movie season” in Los Angeles – meaning that if you’re a member of certain unions or associations, the studios invite you to free screenings of the movies they want nominated for year-end awards like Golden Globes and Oscars in the hopes that they’ll get your votes. Seeing as how your correspondent is a member of the Editors Guild, and also unemployed due to the Writer’s Strike, this is proving to be a particularly packed free movie season.

But back to the story – I see a lot of movies and I’m a harsh critic. Working inside the machine of Hollywood makes me very aware of the tired tricks and regurgitated stories that so often stain our country’s movie screens. I’m not just a harsh critic – I’m a brutal critic. Just ask my fiancée, who suffers through my heavy sighs when movies take a wrong turn. Well, in this weekend’s screening on the 20th Century Fox lot, the only sounds coming from me were sniffles after profoundly emotional moments. ONCE is simply a magnificent little movie. No huge drama, no robots crashing through cityscapes, no murders, rapes, or revenge, just a simple story of a few very real human beings, one of whom makes his living as a street musician on a busy commercial street in Dublin, and the girl he meets one night on the job. Anyone who loves music will love this movie. The acting feels completely real and natural; the story feels completely real; and the music is tremendous. Right after seeing the movie, I went out and got the CD and it’s been playing in my car ever since. Anyone who loves playing the guitar will love this movie. Anyone with a heart in their chest should love this movie. I don’t want to give anything away, so I’m just going to say, go see it. If it’s not playing in your area anymore (which is very likely), don’t worry. The DVD is out December 18th.

And if anyone’s interested…
My favorite popcorn movies of 2007 were probably PLANET TERROR and TRANSFORMERS. Yeah, I know TRANSFORMERS was really dumb, but it was also a lot of fun. And SURF’S UP was wicked good too!

How to raise smart kids.

Tunnel baby.

You can buy houses in Detroit for $250. That’s $1 a month. Really.

Learn about the dangers of marijuana from Dewey Cox.

The best lunch ever.

The Bill of Rights under Bush: A Timeline

Let’s think of those in need. The unfairness of Christmas babies.

Christmas beer tree

What is it with Bush and bald guys?

Well, we pulled it out somehow. Baltimore outplayed us on offense and defense and special teams, and somehow we got the W. We were lucky, and luck favors a disciplined low-error team like the Patriots.

The worst point in the game was the Ravens stuffing Brady on 4th-and-1, only to have it called back because a Ravens coach had called a timeout just before the snap. Why are coaches allowed to call timeout? This is a dumb rule. Only players on the field should be allowed to call a timeout. The coach is not on the field, he is not a player, he shouldn’t be allowed to have direct effects on gameplay. Referees should only be looking at the field. It’s hard enough to call the game correctly, and now they are expected to be looking at the coaches to see if they are calling timeout? Even worse, it’s not just the head coach, apparently any old coach can call a “T”. This is a dumb rule, and I hope it’s changed in the offseason.

In the meantime, 12-0 baby!