Dissed

The latest development in tennis is, we got beat again last weekend, 6-0 6-2. I thought we were fairly competitive, and I had some solid plays, but the score says we were completely outmatched. As a result, on Monday the league admin bumped us down into the lower division. It’s a bitter outcome, but then again I certainly wouldn’t mind playing some matches that are a little more even. Still, it’s not easy to be shown that I’m not as good at this as I thought I was. Moreover it’s proving difficult to schedule with people in the lower tier. Bah. That’s all I got right now: Bah.

Fitness is a harsh mistress

It’s been a bad week for sports, at least in the most local sense. Sunday afternoon I fell off my bike only three miles into a planned 30-mile ride in Gloucester, which gave me a nasty road rash on my knee and forced us to turn around and limp back to the car. It was a dumb fall and luckily pretty minor as crashes go—nothing like the one from the 2006 Tour de France I’ve embedded here.

All week I’ve had a front-row view to the healing process as I’ve been wearing these space-age clear bandages. They’re definitely not for the faint of heart, as you can imagine.

In other news we managed to get our butts kicked bad in the doubles tennis league last night. Our opponents seemed beatable but just never made a mistake, whereas we made plenty. Now we’re 0-2 and I’m feeling kind of demoralized about the whole thing. Although I did a good job returning the guy’s ridiculous spin serves and even hit a few winners. Our third match is this Sunday, and man I hope things go better. It’s tough, though, because I thought we were better than this and it’s a nasty surprise to find out otherwise. At the very least I can only imagine that I’m giving these opponents at least a little bit of a challenge.

Well, it’s nearly the weekend again and time to try and redeem myself. Here’s hoping there’s less blood drawn and more games won.

The passing of the Rove

Thanks to the arrival of the Atlantic Monthly late last week, my disgust with the Bush administration has resurged to the point where it’s been hard to think of anything else. So my emotions are decidedly mixed with today’s top story of Karl Rove resigning from the White House staff. Of course, I immediately thought about the whole rat leaving sinking ship metaphor, and the whole door hitting him in the ass thing (I sincerely hope it does), but that all seems inadequate when confronted with the legacy of someone as despicable as Rove. This timely article does a good job providing an outline of what exactly Rove did to succeed so well at campaign politics, and how he was such a spectacular fuckup at helping run a functional government.

But what’s missing from that piece is the outrage, the deep personal sense of fury I feel at what has been done to my government and my country for the last seven years. By treating every minute of every day as part of a political campaign, Rove managed to strip all vestiges of competence out of the government. Spurred by his scorched-earth attitude and monomania of securing a permanent Republican majority, the executive branch abrogated its responsibility to govern. Instead of competent people, we got political hacks put in charge of things like FEMA and managing post-Saddam Iraq. And not surprisingly, they blindly and stupidly steered the bus into the ditch. People have fucking died because of these idiots: victims of Katrina, soldiers, American civilians, and a staggering number of Iraqi civilians in Iraq. Am I a godless liberal brainwashee to notice that? Meanwhile, Rove didn’t even want Bush to land the plane from which he surveyed the Katrina damage, and we are forever stuck with the image of President Chimpface standing under a banner that declared “Mission Accomplished.”

Along with the competence, we also lost any shred of civility in political life. Considering how tenuous Bush’s claim to the presidency has been (and I’m being charitable there, please recognize) in both elections, it didn’t seem like too much to hope for that he really would try to be a uniter rather than a divider. But instead Bush managed to alienate even his own party in Congress, not to mention those of us who never cast a vote for him but still live under his management. And the mainstream media has been cowed to the point where they publish unvarnished partisan propaganda without question or analysis lest someone scream about their “liberal bias” or they lose access to the spin-controlled crumbs the administration throws them. Believe me, it’s hard to take the prez seriously when he seems more interested in whether foreign aid might lead to someone buying a condom than whether his casus belli for Iraq was actually legitimate.

So Rove is finally resigning. Well, the cynic in me can ruefully say, he’s certainly done enough damage such that he deserves a nice break. And I get no joy out of the resignation, considering how many years it’s going to take before all the mistakes of the Bush administration are rectified—assuming that someone still remembers how to actually run the government in this country. It’s definitely not going to be easy to explain to the next generation how we let this happen.

Tour de Vermont

At last, a travelogue from our recent trip to Vermont! It was a four-day cycling tour, about 25 miles a day, through some of the most ridiculously hilly terrain I’ve ever ridden. We stayed at two different inns, one nice, the other extra-swanky, and had breakfast and dinner included.

So the day’s routine was: crawl out of bed at 7 a.m., breakfast at 8, start cycling at 9, a sandwich in a tiny Vermont town for lunch, cycle until about 2, lengthy shower and lengthier nap, dinner around 7, collapse in bed and fall asleep around 9:30. It was like being in the bike army, but in a good way—no uniforms or discipline. Also, there was the all-important support van. Driven by one of our two guides, you could flag it down at any time for food or snacks or a rescue. It also came in handy when I bought a quart of Grade B maple syrup from Plummer’s, since I wasn’t about to carry that on my back for the rest of the day. (Speaking of tiny towns, this next photo shows the actual, official U.S. Post Office in Jamaica, Vermont.)

Now for some details. You might be aware that Vermont is kind of hilly; in fact, one might call it downright full of mountains. And just about every day there was a hill of such staggering proportion, with a grade approaching 6 or 7%, that I did end up walking some of the way in lieu of feeling my heart explode. But then on the other side of most of them, there would be a descent for the record books: my max speed was clocked more than once at over 39 mph, which is definitely the fastest I’ve ever traveled on a bike.

The scenery was fantastic: totally bucolic, lots of chattering streams, mountain peaks and valleys, covered bridges, cows, cute little towns with nothing in them except one country store (where you could always get potato chips, the most essential cycling food there is). Not one whisker of cell phone service. And I only realized after we got back that I didn’t see a traffic light the entire time we were there. Another thing which I didn’t know beforehand is that most of the secondary roads there are still unpaved, which made for some seriously hairy moments on my road bike. There was one stretch that was so unbelievably muddy that we had to take the van for a couple of miles because it was just too dicey. Amazingly, I did remain upright the entire tour.

Before we went, I was completely unsure of whether I’d be able to take four straight days of riding, but it turned out to be just right. The third day I was pretty sore in the morning, but the itinerary centered around a three-mile hike to see this fabulous waterfall. And then on day four, I felt great. I think maybe my muscles just gave up complaining when they realized I wasn’t going to give them a break.

All told I logged over 100 miles in four days, improved my mad skillz at climbing, descending, and off-roading, and purged all thoughts of my mundane life. And in a true stroke of fortune, it never rained on us during a ride. I would definitely do it again. How soon can I take another vacation?

P.S. See more pics at my Flickr page.

Stormtrooper True

One of my fondest internet-related memories dates back to April 2000, during the whole Elian Gonzalez debacle. Soon after the raid during which Elian was seized from his family’s house in Miami, this little Shockwave movie found its way onto the Net. Sure, it’s dated, sure, it references a stupid Bud commercial, but I laughed so damn hard at that thing. And the best part was, it got pulled almost immediately because it used a copyrighted photo, so it quickly faded into obscurity. (Here’s a story describing the controversy at the time.) Now that the moment has long passed, though, I’ve found it online again and I can relive that classic moment. Good times, good times.

Sporting news

Well, I owe everybody a long account of my Vermont vacation (in one word: excellent), but then I got caught up in watching the Tour de France, and then I got caught up in the ridiculous doping scandals that have marred said Tour, and as a result you poor souls out there haven’t heard from me in a while. I’ll try to get to the Vermont recap this weekend, although I ain’t guaranteeing anything. Also, the Swami and I signed up for a doubles tennis league, and our first match is tomorrow morning. Wish me luck—I love playing doubles, but haven’t done it in ages, and I also have a tendency to lock up with anxiety in pressure situations on the court. So I don’t expect anything but a debacle; hopefully I’ll be proved wrong. (And yes, if I just stopped being so competitive it wouldn’t be a big deal, but to that I say right, as if.)

Tune in again soon. At least I can say with confidence that there will be no doping scandals in the tennis league...right?

Please leave a message after the beep

I hope all two of you loyal readers can handle it, starting tomorrow I’m away to Vermont until Friday. It’s a cycling tour, so we’ll see if I can handle four straight days in the saddle. Next time I post, it might be while sitting on a big ice pack or something.

While I’m gone, here are some study questions:

1. Exactly how awesome was Keith Olbermann’s demand for Bush and Cheney to resign?


2. Exactly how awesome was that Federer-Nadal Wimbledon final?


3. You are watching the Tour de France too, aren’t you??


4. Write a 10-page essay on the Jungian subtext of the Transformers movie.

See you next weekend!

Crazy moon language

Like anybody’s, my day is mostly filled with routine and sometimes with outright drudgery, but every once in a while I remember why I slogged through grad school and took this crazy job. Here’s an excerpt from something I’m editing:

That’s part of a text in Glagolitic, an alphabet used in the Slavic-speaking world before the more familiar Cyrillic was used. (They were used contemporaneously, though—the exact chronology is a little fuzzy on which one was invented first. At any rate, we’re talking ninth century AD.) I’ve always thought it was the coolest looking script, all loops and impractical forms that look like they’d take a while to draw. But then again, monks spent their entire lives copying books out by hand, so maybe those curlicues kept them from getting bored.

I can’t read Glagolitic freely by any means—one of my professors in grad school actually could, which makes her pretty much a god in my view. And when I had to retype this particular Glagolitic passage using a Unicode-compliant font, it took a good while before I could get any speed going. Here’s a picture that shows the Cyrillic equivalent, just to give you an idea:
Working with Glagolitic is cool, and it definitely keeps me from getting bored when I get to do it.

Use your illusion

Just picked up this link to some fascinating illusions off the SDMB. Ah, so this is why it’s so damn difficult to choose colors for book jackets—you can thank the sheer orneriness of the human brain.

P.S. I am hopelessly addicted to the SDMB. I mean hopelessly. I feel so proud of myself today, I held out all the way until 1:30 p.m. before I surfed over there!

Tag, I'm it

All right, I got tagged by kaskasero last week and it’s high time I got around to responding.

Instructions: Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their seven things, as well as these rules. At the end of your blog, you need to choose 7 people to get tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them that they have been tagged and to read your blog!

1. I am completely hopeless for the rest of the day if I don’t get breakfast (usually some healthy kind of cereal drowned in a huge bowl of milk).

2. I used to sleepwalk when I was a little kid. I’d walk downstairs and talk to my parents while asleep, or engage in my favorite sleepwalking activity of trying to flush my pajamas down the toilet.

3. In 1988 I won tickets to a Howard Jones concert in a radio contest by correctly identifying a lyric from Poison’s “Talk Dirty to Me.” In 1993 (or 1994?) I won tickets to a Cracker concert by identifying the difference between a reflecting and a refracting telescope.

4. Despite my rep as a worldly, cosmopolitan chick, I’ve never been overseas (not counting Canada, here).

(Editorial comment: This is a lot harder than it looks!)

5. My pie-in-the-sky dream job would be professional musician. My somewhat-more-feasible-but-still-unlikely dream job would be book designer or editor at a saner place than where I am now.

6. My first single was a 45 of Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me with Science.”

7. Last but not least, in the spirit of kaskasero’s revelation, my Halo gameplaying handle is Fang. Although I haven’t played Halo in ages, too busy with Morrowind!

Now my true confession: I don’t know seven bloggers to tag! But I’ll call out Lifton, Danielle, and Frantix. Make me proud, guys. (TJ, if you’re reading this, you could always post your 7 to my comments if ya want.)

A always, B be, C closing

Tomorrow’s the closing on our old place, and thus an era will finally come to an end. I don’t have kids, so I can safely say that buying and selling a house (especially both at the same time) is by far the most stressful thing I have ever done. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to permanently curling into a fetal position, that’s for sure.

However great it will be to close the book on that place, the memories are poignant. The first stab at home ownership, the first annoying neighbors, the first flooded basement (thanks to the annoying neighbors, no less), the first smoke alarms going off for no reason in the dead of night, the second and third flooded basements. (Did I mention those neighbors yet? At fault for every instance of basement flooding. Everyone, make sure your washing machine hoses are either younger than five years old, or better yet, get a damn shutoff valve that works.) There were good things about it too, though. It was the Trekette’s first home, for example. And I’ll definitely miss the beautiful rosebushes in the yard; I love any plant that responds well to stern and remorseless pruning.

But anyway, it’s time to look forward. I love our new place, next month we’re going on vacation, Erin and Keith are coming back for the summer soon, and two Crowded House concerts are on the schedule for August. Lots of good stuff ahead!

A turkey runs through it

Here's an action shot of the fabled Kendall Square wild turkey, shot by the Swami with his Palm Pilot (hence a bit of blurriness, sorry). I’ve never seen the turkey in person, so I was a complete skeptic about his existence until presented with this photographic evidence. The turkey’s been around for a couple of years at least, judging from links off Google like this one and this one. Given the total lack of she-turkeys in the area, dude’s got a pretty dull existence. But he’s apparently still pretty feisty, gobbling at people if they get too close. A typical unfriendly New Englander. I still agree with Ben Franklin, though, how cool would it be to have the wild turkey as the national symbol?

Squonk

Last week I was both shocked and pleased to find a lot of Genesis-related stuff on VH1 Classic; they were part of this year’s Rock Honors concert or somesuch. Let me tell you, I never thought I’d get to see Peter dancing around in his Slipperman costume while flipping channels. There was a long show on their history, which fortunately spent more time and attention on the early stuff than the superstar/sellout phase from the late 1980s. The live footage was amazing, partly because I never expect to hear such obscure music on TV, partly because Peter was such a freak onstage at that time, and partly because I can’t believe live shows were ever like that: all the musicians sitting down, one lunatic jumping around wearing bat wings on his head, and eons of dead time between songs while the band set up the equipment for the next song. Totally alien to the modern pop era in every way. And then they showed an hour-long show of live footage from the Seconds Out concert, where a pre–pop slimeball Phil sang Lamb songs while sporting a beard of mountain-man proportion. I mean, you can’t beat that with a stick.

Unfortunately, my Genesis buzz was totally killed later in the week, when the Rock Honors concert was aired. It was all has-beens: Heart, ZZ Top, and the boys in Genesis, who reformed this year in order to fund the pensions. I watched about two minutes of “Turn It On Again” before I had to look away—man those guys look old, and Phil sang with absolutely no energy. They also knocked the key of the song down a few steps, I suppose in order to spare Phil’s voice, but it was a move that thoroughly sucked the life out of the song. Ugh. I guess I’d better pull out Three Sides Live if I want to experience the full, glorious spectacle that was Genesis.

Oh, and one more thing I must gripe about: at one point during the history show, they interviewed Phil talking about the fact that their early fans were almost always male. Bastard made some idiotic comment about men being better able to handle the complexity of the songs. I know, I know, Phil is a complete tosser, despicable in many ways, but I always held off with my own contempt because of what he was part of, what he accomplished when he was just a drummer in a band. That kind of statement indicates that I should probably give in to the scorn, what a sexist asshole. No more slack for you, pal.

Why I dislike LeBron

Besides the fact that he should have gotten his ass handed to him by Gilbert in the first round of the playoffs, there are these two lovely moments in the public eye:

• Lebron on not trusting a gay teammate who’s in the closet


• James Refuses to ‘Be a Witness’ against Darfur Genocide

What’s next? Well, I hope it’s getting his ass handed to him by Detroit. Not that getting beaten in the playoffs improved his public persona since last year’s defeat by, hey, Detroit. By the way, here’s a link to Amaechi responding to what James (and others) said. Classy dude.

New and improved

All right, it’s Monday, which means one of two things: either (1) time for a fresh start, or (2) why not blog because it’s a good way to kill time at work! I survived my move to the new place, although there is still some stuff at the old place (isn’t there always?). Now I would like everything to magically unpack itself. As for the old place, after more fraught negotiations we finally signed the Purchase and Sale agreement with the person craz—I mean, discriminating—enough to want to buy it. Meanwhile, the few times I’ve gone back over there to get more stuff, those heavy-footed moose upstairs have been engaged in vigorous bowling tournaments as always. In other words, good riddance to them.

Once things get a little tidier in the new pad, maybe I’ll post some pictures. So far, I’m warming up to its charms fairly quickly, which is good because I’m usually pretty squirrelly in new surroundings for a while: everything smells kind of weird, things creak in unfamiliar ways, and I’m not settled into any routines. I’m not a huge fan of other people’s dirt, either, so as it gets overlaid with my own I should be fine.

Many times during the last few months I’ve wondered why the hell I put myself through this. But now that the whole process is in the final stretch, maybe, just maybe I can start to feel optimistic about it. Hey, that’s pretty positive from Dr. Cynical over here. Did someone spike my drink?

This offer is unrepeatable

All right, after closing on our new house last Monday, I started getting seriously worried about whether anyone would want to buy the old place. I’m not too keen on carrying three mortgages at the same time, that’s for sure. And since the move date is May 12, I was also getting antsy because I’ve been holding off packing so that the place will show as nicely as possible.

Fortunately, after a small price drop, we got another offer this past Friday, and unlike the first one it’s solid and reasonable. So everybody’s signed off on it, and we’re now under agreement! Fingers are crossed that the home inspection goes well. And now there’s no excuse, I need to start tearing this place apart and stuffing it into boxes. So, enough screwing around on Blogger, heh.

Those are some shoes

I’ve been reading a lot of other people’s writing recently, and that’s led me to misplace my own voice a bit. Some of it’s jealousy, some of it’s fatigue from the house-selling saga (I don’t feel like writing much about that, so for now let me sum up in two words: “lead paint”), some of it’s my intrinsic laziness. But I notice I don’t have much in the scriptorium category lately. Hopefully the house crap hasn’t completely dried up the creative juices.

Anyway, here’s a little story about a shoe. A very expensive shoe. I was minding my own business at the local bike shop, killing time while there was an open house at the domicile. And I’d been thinking about buying clipless pedals for my road bike sometime this spring, since you’re cool on a bicycle only if you have clipless. I mean, being physically connected to your bike conveys a special blend of hardcoreness (“I want to maximize my pedaling efficiency so I can bike just that much further before collapsing on my face in exhaustion”), dedication (“I’m serious enough to have special shoes just for cycling”), and masochism (“I plan on falling over and scraping up my knee with nasty road rash at least once because of a panic stop where I can’t detach my foot from the pedal in time”), and I was just about ready to sip that hot and zesty blend.

So I’m looking at the pedals. There are a few different brands with slightly different means of snapping onto the cleats on the shoes, but not too different. I figure I’ll go with what the Swami has, what the heck. Plus that was the cheapest option, and I don’t feel hardcore enough to spend a hundred bucks on friggin’ pedals. Having made that choice, I move on to the shoes. Here the salesperson takes a laudable position: she starts with the cheapest shoes. So I try ’em on. And of course, they’re terribly uncomfortable, too tight, bleah. Next price point up: nah, still kind of tight and chafing in a couple of places. Next pair: same dif. (Although I’m glad, because that particular pair was metallic silver, and I really wasn’t interested in looking like either Neil Armstrong or a breakdancer from 1985.) Hmmm, we are really climbing the ladder in terms of benjamins. Another pair goes by, and I’m starting to worry less about the money and more about my actual feet. Are they freakishly wide? Not in any universe I knew of—until I entered the European tiny-footed female cycling universe. It’s funny how trying on clothes that don’t fit can lead you to question your body rather than the clothes. (I think I just summed up a lot of neuroses with just that one sentence.) And then, just like that, we were at the top of the stack. Aaaaaah, that one felt awesome! It was like Cinderella with the prince, except with lots of Velcro and snappy clippy things to screw onto the bottom. And of course that shoe turned out to be so nice, as I turned it over and looked at the price tag: $230. Well, well, well.

And that’s how I bought the most expensive pair of shoes I’ve ever bought by far, for wearing maybe two or three hours a week at the most. And which will probably lead me to at least one scraped knee and a fair amount of beginner’s anxiety. But damn they are comfortable, and they make me want to ride. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Virginia Tech

As someone with some family ties to VTech, just wanted to say, well, something. I’m completely speechless but thought this unbelievable awfulness should not go unmentioned. The worst thing that should ever happen to someone in a classroom is being called on.

Open house

The last couple of weeks have been a rollercoaster ride, to say the least. I haven’t even found the time to upload pictures of our short trip to San Francisco, or inform you loyal blog readers about it! (Summary: lots of fun, great food, great to see Erin and Keith.) But all the news these days is on the home front. Yesterday was the first open house to sell the condo, and I’m still not sure whether to be optimistic or not. I took Friday off work and spent a Herculean effort getting the place staged—that’s real-estate-speak for hiding all personal items and making things as empty as possible while still projecting a homey and lived-in appearance for your gracious dwelling. And apparently, despite the insanely wet nor’easter that blew through the whole thing, there were a lot of people looking around and looking interested. We even managed to cajole the moose cloggers upstairs to go out somewhere and not stomp around and drop things.

After a somewhat tense evening of anticipation, an offer did come in today, although it’s a little lower than we were hoping for. So now the chess game really begins: counteroffers, sizing up the offer, deciding how to act and when. This is where our agent will make her dough, because I definitely don’t have the fortitude to play that game. If I’m not careful, “The Gambler” will start playing in my head and that could seriously drive me over the edge. So the game’s by no means over.

Speaking of games, I must add a postscript that the NBA regular season is over on Wednesday and I’m about to repeat as super duper champion of Andy’s league! I am the greatest! Go me! Just had to woof a little, there.

Tagged in a good way

Whoa, this is a new thing for me, I’ve been tagged by my man Lifton. (Edit: To my embarrassment, I see I missed one last month. Sorry, man.) And I say, why pass up a chance to blab about myself? To pass it on, I hereby tag Raoul, Frantix, Sashe, and Danielle. Maybe this will inspire those slackers to get back to posting.

And now on to the Q and A.

FOODOLOGY

Q. What is your salad dressing of choice?
A. Bleu cheese

Q. What is your favorite fast food restaurant?
A. National? Chipotle. Local? Boca Grande. One might sense a theme.

Q. What is your favorite sit-down restaurant?
A. Of all time, the Galaxy Cafe in Columbus, Ohio. Sadly defunct.

Q. On average, what size tip do you leave at a restaurant?
A. 20% on small checks, 16% minimum on large checks.

Q. What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick off of?
A. I actually eat the same Kashi cereal every morning, but breakfast is a special circumstance. Chocolate for when I'm wide awake.

Q. What is your favorite type of gum?
A. My parents’ deep hatred of gum has taken hold in me as an adult, alas.

TECHNOLOGY

Q. What is your wallpaper on your computer?
A. Right now, a Japanese postcard. Alternates with a still from X2 and Neil Armstrong on the moon.

Q. How many televisions are in your house?
A. One. Don’t despair, Raoul, someday there might be two!

BIOLOGY

Q. What’s your best feature?
A. Aw, I don’t know. It sure ain’t humility.

Q. Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
A. Wisdom teeth, the occasional vial of the red stuff.

Q. Which of your five senses do you think is keenest?
A. Taste, not to be confused with the abstract version thereof.

Q. When was the last time you had a cavity?
A. God, what a tragedy. My first and only one was in 2004. I am mildly convinced that the dentist scammed me. A thing about myself I was so proud of, crushed like a stale cornflake.

Q. What is the heaviest item you lifted last?
A. My suitcase, coming back from San Francisco on Tuesday. Metaphorically, the burden of being one of the two competent people at work.

Q. Have you ever been knocked unconscious?
A. I almost fainted once. And they knocked me out to remove the aforementioned wisdom teeth, thank the gods.

BULLSHITOLOGY

Q. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
A. No way, no way.

Q. Is love for real?
A. Yes, no doubt about it.

Q. If you could change your first name, what would you change it to?
A. I love my name, although there are times when I’ve been tempted to switch full-time to Fang.

Q. What color do you think looks best on you?
A. Good question. There are some shades of blue that make my eyes look even bluer.

Q. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item by mistake?
A. Oh man, when I was a kid I once collected a single dime for Unicef at Halloween, and I was holding the box above my head, shaking it, when it dropped down my throat. Sorry, Unicef.

Q. Have you ever saved someone’s life?
A. No.

Q. Has someone ever saved yours?
A. No.

DAREOLOGY

Q. Would you walk naked for a half mile down a public street for $100,000?
A. No.

Q. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?
A. If her name were Uma Thurman, or Kate Winslet. Actually, I kid, I’m easier than that.

Q. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000?
A. No way.

Q. Would you never blog again for $50,000?
A. Tempting, very tempting. How would you enforce it!

Q. Would you pose nude in a magazine for $250,000?
A. No.

Q. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1,000?
A. No, man that stuff is too much for me. (See taste question, above)

Q. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?
A. There are a couple of people who tempt me, but I doubt I could actually do it.

Q. Would you give up watching television for a year for $25,000?
A. I can’t live without my Stewart and Colbert, unfortunately.

Q. Give up MySpace forever for $30,000?
A. Hey, I’ve never gotten into it! Start writing that check.

DUMBOLOGY

Q: What is in your left pocket?
A. Empty! My left pockets are, as a rule, terribly underutilized.

Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
A. I haven’t seen it, but my spidey sense says it sucks.

Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?
A. Hardwood with some rugs.

Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower?
A. Stand. What a goofy question.

Q: Could you live with roommates?
A. I have in the past, although I imagine I’m not an easy roommate. My misanthropy doesn’t help.

Q: How many pairs of flip-flops do you own?
A. None, plastic shoes are evil!

Q: Last time you had a run-in with the cops?
A. Never, as a matter of fact.

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?
A. In Neil Finn’s backup band.

LASTOLOGY

Q: Friend you talked to?
A. Erin, though I already miss her.

Q: Last person you called?
A. Swami, of course.

RANDOMOLOGY

Q: First place you went this morning?
A. Bathroom. Outside the house, it was to work via the bus. Ah, suck.

Q: What can you not wait to do?
A. Get my damn condo sold and move into my new one! Not in that order.

Q: What’s the last movie you saw?
A. Theater: The Queen. At home: The Sting.

Q: Are you a friendly person?
A. Not in the least, until I warm up to you. If I do. Watch out!