They're Back!

Pigs in blankets have made a major resurgence on the party scene. And not just at bar mitzvahs.

Fantasy Football Rules

From nfl.com. See rules 19 and 20 in particular.

Fire Drill

We recently had a fire drill at my office.

Of course everyone knew it was a drill, so there was no panic or anything and people slowly gathered in the reception area, eventually forming a semi-circle around the building's fire marshal. During this settling period, all the types of people that surface in large groups came out. My favorite (meaning least favorite) of these is the "funny guy." The one guy who just can't stop cracking jokes the entire time. Worst of all, he always makes sure that everyone can hear what he is saying. Something like:

"A fire drill? What is this, 3rd grade? Right? Come on!"

No one likes him. But once the fire marshal started speaking, even he stopped talking.

Fire Marshal: Now it's very important that each floor has a team of devoted fire safety people in order to make sure that things run smoothly in case of a real fire. So I'm just gonna check in on this floor's team.
(FM reads out the name of the Male Searcher...pause)
Man #1: He quit working here.
(FM reads out the name of the Female Searcher...pause)
Woman #1: She's not in yet today.
(FM reads out the name of the Deputy Warden)
Man #2: Oh, she's actually on maternity leave.
Fire Marshal: So you all mean to tell me that you have none of these positions filled right now? This is extremely unsafe and would make a fire on this floor much more dangerous than it has to be. I guess that we're just gonna have to fill these positions with new people right now. Can I have any volunteers please?
(DEAD SILENCE for about 1 minute before FM specifically asks people to do the jobs)

This story is a classic example of a crowd mentality. People chat amongst themselves when they can, but as soon as they are asked to volunteer for something they clam up.

Dear Ariel...

You say you can eat a ton, right? Well check out some of these foodstuffs over at SupersizedMeals.com. Thanks to Eric for the pointer.

In case you are bored of living

I insist that you visit Mulligan's in Atlanta and try the famous "Hamdog." And don't eat just one. Make it a double at least.

Very funny stories

Check out this blog. Dark, clever, and amusing. Thanks to Bob Odenkirk for the pointer.

The Beauty of Bocce

I wish that I had a backyard bocce court.

The Harvard Club

This place is everything that the Princeton Club is not. High class all the way. A very worthy counterpart to the Yale Club. And the athletic facilities are actually superior. But they don't have Louis and that has made all the difference.

Thanks, Starbury

Stephon Marbury attaches his name to some $15 shoes. A very nice gesture. Seriously. (Thanks to Eric for the pointer.)

T-Shirt Update

The Blog t-shirts are on their way to the Berger household (also big shout-outs to Nostra for ordering one himself and to Tom and Kingspawn for getting in on the Berger order).

You should all look forward to photos. The best one will be the entire Berger family wearing the t-shirts.

And then there were 8...

Planets that is. Pluto has been officially demoted.

An analogy

I contend that David Beckham is to football (soccer) as Derek Jeter is to baseball.

Both were the most popular players on the most popular and succesful teams in their respective sports in the late 1990s. Also, both are considered to be very attractive and the ladies love them. Furthermore, while both are excellent players, they are also both somewhat overrated as to how excellent they really are. It just makes sense to me.

Both also became stars in 1996. Coincidence, I think not.

Gentrification

We need more of it. And how!

Ladies and Gentlemen, the always disgusting, sometimes entertaining, Barry Bonds!

More insider details about his evil nature.

A Little Math Music

Some brain busters courtesy of Marginal Revolution.

Little Richie gets his response

The Central Park response to this letter:

Dear Mr. Berger:

You are quite right about the information on the Great Lawn page on our website. I will remove the misleading sentence at the end of the first paragraph. We also have a soccer page: http://www.centralparknyc.org/activities/sports/soccer
which is perhaps more accurate and informative.

The only organized game we allow on the Great Lawn is softball, but we don't allow goals. If you want to play soccer near the Great Lawn, you can set up goals in one of the woodchipped areas around the Arthur Ross Pinetum (northwest of the Lawn). There are, of course, many woodchipped areas throughout Central Park.

Eve Rothenberg
Central Park Operations

Gee, we can soccer play in the "woodchipped areas"? How nice. At least I did make these people actually change their web site. However, the question now becomes: How do I (we?) proceed? Do I really push this thing and try to start a petition to take back the park? Maybe get written up in the New York Post...It's a possibility that I will look into. Is anyone else with me?

Another article to read

This one is about Ted Kaczynski. It is old as well, and was written by one of the co-authors of Freakonomics.

An article worth reading

It may be 2 years old now, but this article about terrorism is still relevant. So much fearmongering these days.

More on J.M. Karr and the absurdity of it all

A good look at the case from Slate.

Classic:

We know about Karr, it turns out, largely because he carried on a four-year correspondence with a University of Colorado journalism professor, Michael Tracey, who finally became "concerned" this past May and took the e-mails to authorities, who moved with some speed to make the arrest. Tracey, the producer of three documentaries on the JonBenet case, is motivated, he says, by the desire to show how overblown the coverage is: "I don't regard JonBenet's murder as an important story." He is publicizing it to demonstrate its insignificance and to illustrate what is wrong with American journalism.

Now, there's a dedicated ironist for you: He spends all this time illustrating what a trivial subject he has!

On another note, sometimes I hate poker so much that I want to do this for a living.

Take back the Park!

After being told to stop playing soccer and football yesterday on the Great Lawn, I composed this letter to the Central Park Conservancy. I encourage you all to contact them as well.

To whom it may concern:

Yesterday afternoon, I was playing a 3 on 3 soccer game in the middle of the Great Lawn when I was told to stop by an employee of the Central Park Conservancy. I was shocked, as we had been playing for about 20 minutes and there were countless other people (kids and adults) enjoying the day by playing soccer and other sports on what is probably the best and largest patch of grass in the entire Park. The Conservancy employee told us that there were no competitive games allowed on the Lawn (besides softball), but that we could just kick the ball around or throw a football around. We were outraged by this policy and stopped our game. A few minutes later, we started throwing football patterns. A second employee of the Conservancy came over and was even more forceful in telling us to stop playing. We did so. Then we started playing softball on one of the fields. Hits went to the outfield on a regular basis and were far more threatening to passersby (this is not an indictment of Great Lawn softball, merely a point to make about the relative dangers of softball and soccer on the Lawn...neither of which I think is very dangerous at all.).

I was extremely frustrated when I got home yesterday, so this morning I took a look at your website to see what your policies were about the Great Lawn. I found this on your description of the Lawn:

"During the daytime a livelier tempo dominates, as Park users enjoy eight softball fields or play soccer, basketball, and volleyball."

from http://www.centralparknyc.org/virtualpark/thegreatlawn/greatlawn

Since when did things change and why? Shouldn't people be able to enjoy the benefits of such a large and beautiful playing field? Worst of all, I saw these employees telling 10-year-old kids the very same things about not being able to play. It's no wonder that people move to the suburbs. Why is softball the only game that people can play?

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. I hope to hear back from you soon,

Richard Berger

Spotted

A man sleeping on a bench wearing a Gangsta Football League (GFL) t-shirt. The GFL logo was the same as the NFL shield, except instead of a football at the top, there were two guns facing opposite directions.

Remembering the Good Old Days

Check out this gem from Junior Year of college:

As students wandered in and out of the Bingham laundry room to check on the open washers last Sunday, Davalos changed her three loads of laundry from washers to dryers. For her, and many other students, a lazy weekend afternoon calls for doing the laundry that has built up over the week -- or over several weeks. Wearing flannel pajama pants, a sweatshirt and flip-flops, Davalos was in full laundry-doing mode.

Other students have more creative solutions to the problem of what to wear while doing laundry. Richard Berger '05 lived right above the laundry room in Trumbull his sophomore year. After putting all his clothes in the washer and turning it on, he would pull off the shirt he was wearing, throw it in and make a dash back up the entryway to his room. He was spotted once, he said, which, he said, shrugging, was "a little awkward."

Snowboarding

Is that what the kids call it these days?

Minor but Major Change

The front of the t-shirt now reads "Read 'em and weep..." This makes a lot more sense. A major thank you goes out to a very special friend of mine...

Now we know

That's where they get the food from at Au Bon Pain. Zing!

Your Dreams Can Come True!

Instead of going through the hassle of a trip to Kinko's or trying to gather the full information about who wants what shirt in what size, I set up a store on CafePress. I give to you: The Delino and Marquis Shop. I am going to order the Ringer T in Blue/White. I think it looks great. Let me know what you all think. Notice the three different styles for the ladies. Also, I will soon add options for Delino and Marquis mugs and golf shirts.

Remarkable

Further evidence of American lunacy.

Little Miss Sunshine

As the drama and comedy built up to the climactic dance scene in Little Miss Sunshine, my mind couldn't help but wander over to another independent film with a supposedly lovable loser getting up on stage to dance. I was thinking of course about Napoleon Dynamite. You can see my comments about that film here (suffice it to say that I hated it).

The difference here was that this movie had a plot and characters that were actually engaging and funny. And the dance scene turned out to be way funnier. In addition, it actually felt like the culmination of something. It was a true climax and a release for the entire Hoover family that managed to bring them closer together. It was further evidence that Little Miss Sunshine was a movie, whereas Napoleon Dynamite was just a bunch of scenes put together. I highly recommend that all my readers see Little Miss Sunshine.

On a side note, I think that the son (Dwayne) looked a little like my friend Kai. Anyone else think so?

Do as I say, not as I do

Al Gore might have some 'splainin' to do.

Cool advertisement

For one of my favorite products: Guinness

Getting Older

I went to play golf yesterday at the Yale Course. When I stepped up to pay for my round, I encountered Camile's familiar face:

Camile: How you doing? Just one today?
Me: Yep, here you go. (At this point I took out a $100 bill to pay for my round.)
Camile (laughing): Hey, remember when this used to buy you four rounds?!
Me (crying as I receive just $25 change): All too well my friend, all too well.

(Note: This post is meant to convey how terrible it is to graduate from college and have to pay full price for a round of golf at a course you love.)

Gridiron Gang

One of the first things that I did at the NFL was read the script for this movie called Gridiron Gang. It is now finally coming out in about a month. I'm excited, even if it is something of a generic feel-good sports movie.

Gum

First of all, I believe that chewing gum is a disgusting habit. What is the point? It tastes terrible and gives you a fake feeling of being full. No thanks. That said, reasonable people do chew gum. I'll never understand it, but fine.

Everyone will agree, however, that putting gum on the street is despicable. A young gentleman on the way back from his lunch break might step on it and then carry it with him back to his desk on the bottom of his shoe, making a mess. In addition, that gentleman might have to deal with the smell that the (watermelon) gum leaves around his desk.

I have no problem with Singapore's punishment of caning for these gum bandits. Michael Fay only vandalized some cars and he got hit 4 times with the rattan! Gum bandits should get hit at least 10 times.

Where my dogs at?

Apparently your dogs are black women on leashes defecating on the floor. Disgusting.

Sex

Sex sells and people like it. Turns out it's good for you too!

NFL Publicity

That Neil Rackers video that I sent to many of my readers got a mention on Deadspin today. Not bad.

Bodies Exhibition Follow-Up

Check out this article in The New York Times about preserving bodies in China. It is clearly a very controversial practice. As long as they are really using completely unclaimed bodies I still encourage Dr. von Hagens and his lab.

Extra Traffic at Delino

Could it be because a lot of people are searching for Alex on Wikipedia?

The Bloggers have a new pony

Check out the incredible progress of our friend Noah Siegel. He is now in 10th place in chips with 135 people left in the Main Event of the World Series of Poker.

Update: Noah busted in 64th place.

Denial and Deception

The new book from Alan Kennedy-Shaffer.

A Crude Attack

But I couldn't stop myself from laughing at this Al Gore penguin parody.

Thanks, MR

Marginal Revolution always provides great links. Read these about Wikipedia. Also, look at this entry in particular.

Cosi

Yes, the bread is delicious. But it would kill them to not be so skimpy on the sandwich ingredients? I only got two slices of tomato and two slices of fresh mozzarella on my Grilled Chicken TBM. Don't the customers deserve more from an $8 sandwich? And also, it would have been nice if they had told me about their sandwich card (buy 10, get one free). I had to ask about it today on a whim.

Cornhole jumps the shark

It is now an official NFL product. To read more about the game, go here.

Company Softball

I got into my first game yesterday and boy was it a doozy. After falling behind 3-0 early, our team rallied to take a 6-4 lead into the bottom of the 6th inning. But the men and women from Tap-A-Keg fought back to tie the game at 6. In the 7th and supposedly final inning, we took the lead again at 7-6, but Tap-A-Leg tied it up in the bottom of the inning. Everyone decided to play an extra and final 8th inning. After a lead off home run, our team looked to have things under control again. But unfortunately the bottom of the 8th brought yet another tie to the game. 8-8 after 8. And then darkness fell. For those who are curious, I went 2 for 3 with 2 singles.