Muttroxia

Inspired by the deluded ravings in the comments of my last post, I present a list of the most embarrassing songs currently residing on my playlist (out of 1,948 songs). They fall mostly into wuss artists, pure 80s music, and music that makes me feel far too emotional. (Some of these I’m not the least bit embarrassed about, but my readers might think I should be.)

Barbara Streisand – The Music of the Night
Berlin – Take my Breath Away
Billy Joel – She’s Always a Woman
Bob Seger – We’ve got Tonight. Who needs tomorrow!?
Chicago – Colour my World. Wish we’d had this for our wedding song.
Def Leppard – Bringin’ on the Hearbreak. Can’t you see?
Hall & Oates – I have four songs, and I like them all. Fooey on you.
Huey Lewis & the News – Do You Believe in Love?
John Denver
Journey – Send Her my Love and Separate Ways. (Stone in Love doesn’t count as embarrassing, that mother rocks.)
Linda Rondstadt – You’re no Good. When our band did it, I realized what a great tune it really is, pre-Van Halen.
Loverboy – Workin’ for the Weekend
Mazzy Star – Fade into You (Apparently embarrassing. Fuck all y’all.)
Michael Jackson (& Paul McCartney) – The Girl is Mine. I’m a lover, not a fighter. I’m not embarrassed about Billy Jean or Wanna be Startin’ Somethin’
The Motels – Only the Lonely
Natalie Imbruglia – Torn
Pat Benatar – Shadows of the Night
Paula Abdul – Rush Rush. This is the one I get called out on. I love this song, play it six times in a row, sing along to every word, and I don’t care.
Styx – All of Paradise Theater. Every last stinkin’ song.
The Eagles – One of these Nights. I hate every Eagles song except this one, which is odd since it has wuss written all over it.

This is a standard dialog box you get in Windows:

I am copying almost 2,000 .mp3 files. About 1,400 of them already exist in the destination folder. Some of them aren’t in the copying source, so I can’t just block delete. Yes to all means clogging up the computer for a couple hours.

Notice one choice missing there? Where is “No to all”!?

I clicked “No” 1,400 times.

Joy. My finger feels like it did the first month I had Minesweeper.

Menino for President! (Funny if you’re from Boston)

Karate Monkey! Not a joke, a real monkey doing karate!

25 Reasons Why I am No Longer a Christian. Written by an obviously extremely bright person. Well reasoned and sourced. I particularly liked #4 and #12. Many of the arguments apply to other religions as well.

Rate your blog (or website) like the movies do. Muttroxia is rated a family-friendly G! I really thought the Al Gore post would move me up…

The prettiest girl in Warsaw. Another comic graphic novel thingie. It’s short.

Police brutality backfires. Cops attack man on soccer field, and disgusted fans and players retaliate, beating the police.

Take a trip through the time machine. A 1982 article where the writer uses a computer for the first time. 48K of memory, and you get this “It is faster to type this way than with a normal typewriter, because you don’t need to stop at the end of the line for a carriage return (the computer automatically “wraps” the words onto the next line when you reach the right-hand margin), and you never come to the end of the page, because the material on the screen keeps sliding up to make room for each new line.”

For no real reason, Alec Baldwin’s career making speech in Glengarry Glen Ross.

The Worlds Tallest man meets World’s Shortest Man, oddly enough both from Inner Mongolia.

I can’t help but think of Seinfeld.

The thoughts that come to you while wandering the streets of Provincetown. Let’s say Al Gore decides that he wants to buy a little something special for Tipper. For him and Tipper really, add a little spice to things after the beard thing ended. A vibrator, a sling, maybe some bondage gear. How does he actually go about doing it?

He can’t just walk in, everyone knows who he is. He can’t use a credit card, everyone knows his name. Does he send an aide out to get the stuff? “Hey Eric, you’ve been here a few months now… you want to move up, right? Here’s a list of some things we need. Discretion is of the — don’t make a face Eric, just do it. Goddamnit, just do it, OK!?”

Or maybe the ol’, “Frank, I’m planning a joke party for Bill, I need you to get supplies. I was thinking of a blow up doll, or maybe one of those ramp wedge things… use your best judgement, just get a lot of it. Use cash, I’ll reimburse you. Um, I guess you should get a cake and stuff while you’re out, whatever…”

In the car today, my four-year old started singing random thoughts that enter his head. He was seriously freestyling, his lyrics could have gone right onto a rock and roll album.

Baby, baby! Baby, baby baby!
I don’t care about that, I don’t care about that
O no, o no (“say it mama! Say o no o no!” “O no, o no!” “Good work mama!”)
I don’t like dogs. And cats are bad!
I don’t care about that, I don’t care. Yet!

(At this point, he broke off to tell Mrs. Muttrox not to drum because he was already drumming. She looked at me with a dropped jaw and said, “Have I just been kicked out of the band!?”)

There’s LIGHTINING UP AHEAD!!! (shrieked)
O no, I don’t care.
I won’t do it… I don’t like that car. Cars are bad!
I don’t care and I won’t care!!!!

YET!!!

So Bush commuted Libby’s prison sentence. What a surprise.

Libby isn’t the worst of the Bushies, not by a long shot. By their scale of corruption and incompetence, he’s just a relatively minor team player, just someone who’s good at implementing other peoples plans. Which is what he did. Cheney or Rove or both wanted Wilson smeared, and he helped do it. And he protected his bosses when the law came around. Cheney or Rove or both are free from trouble now because Libby subverted justice. Libby deserves his sentence. Others deserve more, but thanks to Libby, they get off free and easy.

So what does this say about Bush? A man who never pardoned one person in Texas, never showed the least curiousity about any case, accepting Gonzales’ word for every single case, laughed at the widows, has no problem locking up any citizen of the country with no legal recourse at all, has subverted virtually every legal protection in the Constitution, has never served time for any of his own known crimes, never thought his daughters should be punished for theirs, never pardoned or commuted the sentences of anyone during his years as president — but this, for this he will be glad to step in personally. After all, this is one of his own!

Actions speak louder than words, and these actions shout out what a miserable corrupt syncophantic petty meanhearted little selfish man George Bush is.

Is God a Taoist?

Learn a little about how experimental design and statistics work. As Darell Huff said, “it is easy to lie with statistics,” but as Frederick Mosteller said, “it is easier to lie without them.”

Insensitivity Training

If fire was made of water

A incisive essay on liberalism. I disagree with a lot of it, but I’m not sure why, which usually means I need to re-examine my beliefs. That’s a good essay.

The best baseball pitch I’ve ever seen.

Incredibly funny intro to the new AquaTeenHungerForce movie. Be sure to watch it all.

If you “make some noise” or “get pumped” because an electronic sign tells you to, you should not be allowed to vote.

I rushed out of work today because there was a sudden downpour and I thought I had left my sunroof open. (I hadn’t). The elevator stopped on the way down, and a woman got on with a basket. I mumbled heyhowsitgoin at her. She brightly replied, “It’s going great, would you like some candy?” and offered me the basket. I selected an orange Starburst. The whole incident kept me happy for a good twenty minutes.

“Hey sports fans!” No follow-up, no point like Applebees has more TVs or loves the Braves or half-off during playoffs. Nope, just getting your attention.

Hey, Muttroxia readers! Madejalook!

The New York Times has a priceless editorial today. Using Michael Bloomberg as a springboard, they let loose with ripsotes like these:

For a couple of days, at least, he changed the subject from who has raised the most money and focused attention on some of the nonwedge but really important issues that he and a few other mayors and governors have been trying to push to the front of the national agenda…
Mr. Bloomberg was right when he said Americans care “about who’s going to pay their Social Security; they care about who’s going to pay their medical care; they care about immigration, about our reputation overseas.” And, unlike politicians in both parties, he talked about America’s out-of-control gun problem.

I have news for you. The “subject” is not some vague force of nature that just happens. It’s an artifact of how the mass media spends time and inches. And guess what New York Times, that’s you. You’re writing the articles, they don’t just magically appear. You’re the one publishing stupid articles about every triviality there is instead of writing about positions and policy. You’re the reason why our electorate is so incredibly uninformed about anything important. The candidates do talk about medical care, they do talk about Social Security, they do talk about our reputation overseas. You just don’t report it. Look in the mirror.

In no particular order, here’s some books I’ve read recently that I recommend.

• Sweet and Low (Rich Cohen): Rich Cohen’s grandfather started the Sweet & Low company. He lifted the family from relative poverty to generating hundreds of millions of dollars of income every year. Along the way, Rich’s branch of the family was cut out. This is the story of his family history, the company, sugar, New York, the Jews, the FBI, the FDA, World War II… it has something for everyone.
• Now I Can Die in Peace: How ESPN’s Sports Guy Found Salvation, with a Little Help from Nomar, Pedro, Shawshank, and the 2004 Red Sox (Bill Simmons aka Sports Guy): I have been reading Sports Guy religiously since 1999 or so, back when he was the Boston Sports Guy. I am a bit too proud to have two of my letters to him published. If you want to get a taste of one of the best and funniest sportswriters around, check out some of his columns here.
• Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Marisha Pessl): This was one of the New York Times books of the year. I read it based on that recommendation, and I’m glad I did. Incredible use of language that wraps you up in every sentence. The plot is interesting, then a little less interesting, then when you least expect it, it gets fantastic. This is a long dense book, but it’s worth the payout.
• My Name is Red (Orhan Pamuk): Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Obstensibly a murder mystery set in historical Istanbul, this book is more a meditation on the meaning of art. The language is beautiful. Full of stories within stories, and layers of meaning that are present without being overt. Everything about this book feels like ti comes from another time and place, in a good way.
• A Solider of the Great War (Mark Helperin): A long recounting of the events in and around World War I that made the narrator into the character he is. Just a good read.
• The Blind Side (Michael Lewis): It’s either a great football book, or a great upbringing book, or a book about racism, or a book about a idiot savant… whatever it is, it’s a great book. Michael Oher was a huge kid barely living in the deep South, without a home, without a family, hardly ever speaking a word. First, he randomly gets adopted by one of the wealthiest, whitest families in town. Then, it turns out he is an incredible football player. He was born to play left tackle (the second highest paying position in pro football). A prodigy, he is enormous and fast and athletic and wide in all the right ways. If this story was fiction, you wouldn’t believe a word of it. (Michael Lewis is also the author of Moneyball and Liars Poker.)
• Pound for Pound (F.X. Toole):(FX Toole also wrote the story that would become Million Dollar Baby.) Boxing fiction is it’s own little subgenre, filled with violence and betrayal and heartache. This is easily the best book I’ve ever read around boxing. The author had been around boxing his whole life, and it shows. It’s a story about people and loss and forgiveness and drugs and children and I don’t know what else. Wonderful writing, like Ed McBain, only with something to say.
• Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi):A wonderful graphic novel about growing up in Iran during the 70s and 80s. Very simple artwork, very powerful story. If you loved Maus, you’ll like this.