They're creepy and they're crawly

I went to see the last Mariners game of the season today, and they played all the usual baseball tunes: the CHARGE ditty, take me out to the ball game, the star spangled banner, call to post, the Addams Family theme...

And it made me wonder, how'd the Addams family theme become such a baseball staple? Who thought, let's change the snaps into claps and it'd be perfect?

I don't like evangelicals.

I think we should start calling Islamic terrorists Islamic evangelicals. Osama Bin Laden is their chief (tape-delayed) televangelist and suicide bombers are aerovangelists.

I'm losing my edge.

I dislike people who decry gentrification. People who say this would never live in a place that wasn't at least partially gentrified. It is exactly the same as people who don't like it when their favorite indie band has gotten too famous. A friend was complaining about condos recently, and I have no sympathy. People complain about the lack of neighborhood, and I have no sympathy for that either, because these people walk around with their cellphones glued to their face. But even disregarding that, I don't see anything wrong with it. When I lived in Central Square (which was great because it was like this gentrification process that got stuck and you have homeless people hanging out harmlessly outside the Gap) there were "locals" who sat around on their stoop all day chatting with each other, whom I walked past when I left for class, and were still there five hours later when I got back, and if this was what the kids like to pretend is now missing in their gentrified neighborhoods, then they are crazy because all I could think was why can't they do something productive with their time.


But I was there!

Phrases I enjoy.

I really hope I get to say "Unhand me!" at some point in my life. I like to envision scenarios in which I may get to say this, say, when I accidentally stumble into a whore house and am mistaken for a regular patron.

The PAT.

When Democrats talk about how Sarah Palin is unqualified to be vice-president (and therefore president) because she's only been mayor of a small town and governor of Alaska for a couple years, Republicans correctly point out that Barack Obama has been a senator for only a short period of time.

What the Democrats really want to say is that Palin isn't educated, or learned, enough to be president. (Though I don't doubt she's a pretty smart lady.)

I think what we need is the PAT, the Presidential Aptitude Test, administered by the Educational Testing Service, with an array of multiple choice questions, and a high score of 1600. (Or should it go to 2400? I'm old, I don't know how standardized testing scoring works anymore.)

Just as Harvard wouldn't accept* a student who scores 500 on the SAT, nor should the American people accept a president who scores a 500 on the PAT.

Here is a sample page of such a test:


These are really easy questions. These should be the giveaways at the very beginning of the test, with questions becoming increasingly difficult. Frankly, most Americans who give a shit should be able to answer at least these eight questions. Still, if you had to bet against one of the four presidential/vice-presidential candidates...

* Harvard sometimes makes nepotistic exceptions for, say, the son of the institution's former president. The American people, on the other hand, are far more uncompromising.

Canada, with pictures

I went to Canada with my parents:


We saw mountains, lakes, and glaciers:




Then I came home and the economy was dead.

glaciers and shit

I am going to Canadia for a week. Be back with pictures.