I like it! It's got moxie!

Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot

Once TV signals are transmitted, they don't stop. Once transmitted, they travel... forever.

They pick up speed as they go. By now, the first TV programs ever made have been traveling for over 50 years. They are well beyond our solar system.

All of those characters from cowboy serials, variety hours and quiz shows are sailing into the 51 Pegasi system. They are the first true outer-space voyagers. They sail endlessly, intact, forever chattering in the cold darkness.

And as we listen with our instruments, as we learn to listen farther and farther into space, we can hear them. We listen farther and farther, and all we hear are repeats. And as our instruments become more sophisticated, we only hear them better... speeding away... the sound of speeding away... like a phone, ringing... unanswered.

Waiting for the Other Ball to Drop

"New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions." ~Mark Twain

"New Year's Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time." ~James Agate

"Making resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self assessment and repentance that demands personal honesty and, ultimately, reinforces humility. Breaking them is part of the cycle."
~Eric Zorn

"Happiness is too many things these days for anyone to wish it on anyone lightly. So let's just wish each other a bile-less New Year and leave it at that." ~Judith Crist

"Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account." ~Oscar Wilde

"From New Year's on the outlook brightens; good humor lost in a mood of failure returns. I resolve to stop complaining." ~Leonard Bernstein

"Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right." ~Oprah Winfrey

Do You See More Glass?

"I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy."
~JD Salinger

"Take most people, they're crazy about cars. I'd rather have a goddamn horse. A horse is at least human, for God's sake." ~TheCatcher in the Rye

"I'm not going to bed after all. Somebody around here hath murdered sleep. Good for him." ~Seymour: An Introduction

"I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody."
~Franny & Zooey

"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." ~The Catcher in the Rye

"Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody." ~The Catcher in the Rye

Screen Gems.

The comic book!

The nuttiest things in a textbook since some crazy garbage about how we all supposedly evolved from monkeys.

In 1912 Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt dove off the Eiffel Tower in a sort of real-life version of Wile E Coyote's Acme Batsuit expecting to fly or glide or do something at least pleasantly leaf-like.

He did not.

Instead, Franz did the thing that things which are not leaves do when they find themselves in the thin blue air. To quote the WFMU blog: "The film ends with men ceremoniously measuring the crater left by Reichelt."

Put your hands on your hips, and pull your knees in tight.

Rock 'em, sock 'em.

"What, like in the back of a Volkswagon?"

Sorry this is so cumbersome, but it's so worth it!
Paste this address - http://damnfinepipe.tripod.com/Justice_Rats.wmv - into your browser's Address Bar, and hit "Go," or "Enter" or whatever you do to advance to that site... and then sit back, and let the magic wash over you....

Another One Bynes the Dunst

Okay, look:

I realize that life is hard, particularly if you're young, famous, rich and attractive. I also realize that seeing a handicapped person in hollywood is about as likely as seeing the Olsen twins eating a cheeseburger. Naked. But come on Amanda - it's the holiday season after all. Just maybe watching a parade of cripples struggle past your shiny new car on the way to parking lot section Z-65 isn't quite the spirit of the holidays. Unless you start launching candy canes at them. Maybe that's what she's looking for in her bag.

Naughty.

Watch Us Climb Up Next Year!

This is how the season ends
This is how the season ends
This is how the season ends
Not with a bang, but a whimper

Holla back hollow men! The season's over, and I have touched the sky!

We already knew I didn't make the NFL.COM league playoffs (thanks for the assist anyway, Tony!), but that didn't put a stop to the fun! Hellsapoppin'! We still had Joe's playoff clash to witness! Believe me, we were pullin' for Joe... and not just because he was playing our shared 10-4 nemesis, tell you what. Sadly though, Joe was defeated, thus closing the magic window to the playoffs to all of us. No more big wheels... no more vicarious thrills... no more rule of threes as Joe battled on... no more fantasy, man.

These end-of-season rankings, by the way, reflect our playoffs. In case you're interested, the Costa Rican Panthers faced our nemesis, Blueflames. The Panthers won the title, in an unlikely (if not unwelcome) victory.

East Division
AntiBushTexans 7-8-0
Metropolis Meteors 6-8-0
jump 6-8-0
Crawford Vaqueros 4-9-1

Central Division
Eau Claire Charlatans 11-5-0
blueflames 10-5-0
marauders 8-6-0
San Jose Synecdoche 7-7-0

West Division
COSTA RICAN PANTHERS 11-5-0
METRO ALLSTARS 8-5-1
Jimbo 5-9-0
scurvy dawgs 3-11-0

Joe made it further than any of us (what else is new?), but how, you ask, did we all do vs each other this season? Funny you should ask!

Our inter-pal rankings:
Chris 3-1-0
Joe 3-1-0
Nancy 2-2-0
Tony 0-4-0

I listed our names alphabetically, but by a weird coincidence, it's a power ranking as well! Go know! I'd say we were pretty evenly matched, but then you see poor Tony there at 0-4, and well, that shoots the shit outta' that statement. I could say that he's the "exception that proves the rule," but does that mean anything? How does an exception prove a rule, anyway? That's just one of those things people say like "Sometimes you have to roll the hard six" or "Yeah, I'll call you," isn't it?

In the office Yahoo league? I lost in the first round of the playoffs. There's some solace in making the playoffs, sure... but winning woulda' been better than settling for solace. You heard it here first. So, I finished the season in 5th, but finished the playoffs in 6th. Yeah, just wait'll next year... put another record on... knowwhatI'msayin'?

The final, regular-season rankings:

*1. San Diego Zoo 11-2-0
*2. Kirk's nightmare 10-3-0
*3. Arsenal 8-5-0
*4. Turd Burglars 8-5-0
*5. Gotham Knights 8-5-0
*6. Last & Least Too 7-5-1
7. Super Chargers 7-6-0
8. Budwipers 6-6-1
9. Wade Reeves QB 6-7-0
10. AggieDucks 5-8-0
11. Las Vegas Heat 5-8-0
12. kimpossible 5-8-0
13. The Nation 4-9-0
14. Cyanide 0-13-0

San Diego Zoo took home the trophy, which only seemed fair since they were winning most -if not all- of the season.

So fantasy football season has drawn to a close. Next year, Miss Canfield, I'm gonna' do things different! I'm gonna' draft... you know what? I'm not saying. It'll be my little secret. I have a plan, though, you can count on that.

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
'Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over.'
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.

Dunst Devil

If I were a no-talent lush in desperate need of a latte, I wouldn't give a damn about the van full of crippled kids either. Dammit, Kirsten Dunst drives a Prius. That counts for something, right? She's saving the environment! Who cares if she uses it to back over amputees?

Easy does it!

Intolerance lies at the core of evil.
Not the intolerance that results
from any threat or danger.
But intolerance of another being who dares to exist.
Intolerance without cause. It is so deep within us,
because every human being secretly desires
the entire universe to himself.
Our only way out is to learn
compassion without cause. To care for each other
simple because that 'other' exists.
~Rabbi Menachem Mendle

A renowned genius once asked a student, "What are you watching when you sit on a hillside in the late afternoon as the colors turn from yellow to orange and red and finally darkness?" He answered, "You are watching the sunset." The genius responded, "That is what is wrong with our age. You know full well you are not watching the sun set. You are watching the world turn."
~Jeremy Kagan, "The Jewish Self"

"I will insist the Hebrews have [contributed] more to civilize men than any other nation. If I was an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.

They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their empire were but a bubble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more and more happily than any other nation, ancient or modern."
~John Adams, Second President of the United States

"...If statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of stardust lost in the blaze of the Milky way. properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and had done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it.

The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed; and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?"
~Mark Twain ("Concerning The Jews," Harper's Magazine, 1899)