Math Problems

I woke up Saturday morning knowing the Notre Dame needed to beat USC in order for Michigan to get a second pop at the national championship. And I was OK with that because even though I hate Notre Dame, I like Charlie Weis. But then, while watching Florida-Florida State, I realized it was worth my while to root for the Seminoles. And that's when I stopped. Nothing is going to make me root for Florida State.

Everyone hates the BCS because they'd like to see a playoff. And I'd like to see that. The problem with dissolving the traditional bowl ties in favor of putting together a 1 vs. 2 match-up is that you can't later go back and argue that anything violates the traditional integrity of college football. I don't care anymore if Michigan and Ohio State meet for the national championship. I'm just on the lookout for arguments that actually make sense.

Hostylefax: The Triangle

If they actually knew how to read, many Penn graduates might be pleased to read that Duke modeled Cameron Indoor Stadium on The Palestra. The buildings are similar from the outside in that they are built to match the campus around them. And there are similarities on the inside in terms of shape and upper deck design. An empty Cameron doesn't look like much to honest, all wood paneling and old-English "D's" But when it's full, well... sometimes my job legitimately wows me. The Cameron Crazies are legendary. But to hear them up close, the pride they take in it, the organization that goes into it, and the sheer number of taunts they have, it's pretty incredible. On TV it looks only like screaming.

Here are some chants I heard during my two days there that I hadn't actually heard anywhere else:
"I'm blind, I'm deaf, I want to be a ref," on a bad call
"Three fouls, no points," repeatedly when a guy picked up his third foul after failing to score.
"You, you, you," done with pointing when an opposing player commits a foul.

But there was also some creativity to it as well. I was there for a four-team tournament that included Columbia. During the first game, a guy in a Columbia shirt was eating pizza and the fans started chanting "Guy with Pizza," and pointing at him. The Columbia fan ignored it, even after being informed of what was happening. When you went to Columbia, I explained to another reporter, you're well conditioned to ignore any yelling directed at you that might be coming from a gym. Any way, two timeouts later, two Duke fans showed up and handed him another box of pizza, to the delight of the gathered students.

Columbia's basketball team also has a chance to be pretty decent this year. The Lions have some pretty reliable guards, decent size on the inside and the ability to fill it up from outside. It might be worth your time.

I don't have much to say about the Triangle in general, other than it's a pretty cool name for a region. People who actually did some touring liked Chapel Hill, but I didn't go. And anything I saw that said Raleigh on it was attached to an ad for Hooters or similar. And Durham's downtown was largely unimpressive. It's mostly tobacco buildings and banks. I did find a decent seafood restaurant for lunch, recommened by Fritz. But if you get a chance, it's totally worth checking out a ball game. And if you're doing it this year, contact me and I'll see if I still have my parking pass, which is good for the entire season.

There's a Little Ditty they're Singin' in the City

Mike seems to be going through an Anglophilic phase. Its growth is only slightly impeded by his never having been to Britain, excepting a layover at Heathrow in 2001. He doesn't like to share which movie got this phase started, so I'll keep quiet, too. Anyway, the latest microphase of Mike's new phase is a slavish devotion to English football. And the latest nanophase of Mike's new microphase is a curiosity about a British football fan's anthem called, "Who Ate All the Pies?"

Even I have to admit, most things are funnier when left to the English, meat pies included. Maybe that's why all the songs played at American sporting events were written by Queen (did you know Freddie Mercury was Indian?!). Mike had read and heard passing references to "Who Ate All the Pies?" from his British brethren in Sport Journalism, and despite not knowing the song, seemed to have it in his head. So we looked it up, and were not disappointed. According to Wikipedia, the lyrics to the song go:

Who ate all the pies?

Who ate all the pies?

You fat bastard,

You fat bastard,

You ate all the pies!

The entry also informs us of an alternate second line, "The burgers and the fries?" and of a vegetarian group attempting to sell a masculine image for herbivores via the alternate lyrics, "Who ate all the peas?"

And the tune? "Although not prescriptively so, it is usually sung to the tune of 'Knees Up Mother Brown'". Oh.

True or False?

I was reading The Onion when I logged onto a website and saw this headline:

"Experts try to help deer with head stuck in toy pumpkin"

That would be False.

Anna thinks this is a hoax. And if it were just the Free Press reporting it, I'd be inclined to agree. But this is from the AP.

Brush with Death

I made my first work appearance at an NBA game last night, and who did I find myself sharing a building with, but FFH favorite Suge Knight? I didn't sit near him or anything, but I was upstairs and that was probably close enough. I seem to have ascribed Chuck Norris-like powers to Suge, which is fun. We (the reporters, not me and Suge) had a long talk in the press room about Knight's history and whether how best to refer to him in print. I was surprised how quickly I recalled the Vanilla Ice incident, although I had an episode of Entourage recently where that had played a role. Supposedly Knight is working on a reality show. I'm glad to see he's finding ways to keep himself busy.

Sanders and Lieberman: Bully for Them

As we hunker down to devote our attention to Virginia and its effectively tied senatorial race, let me take a moment to speak directly to Democrats.

Get ahold of yourselves and stop kvetching.

No matter what the outcome in the Senate proves, it will be attributable to neither 1) the Green Party of Virginia nor 2) Joe Lieberman. Do you know how pissed a left-leaning voter has to be at Democrats to vote Green in a close election? I say the Green party's strength in any region of the country is a measure of the extent to which Democrats have screwed up there. This is Virginia, folks, not Northern California. Did somebody from DNC pee on Thomas Jefferson's grave or what?

I for one am really excited to have two independent senators. Bernie Sanders was first brought to my attention by my beloved 8th-grade history teacher, Mr. H. How could you not love a guy called Bernie Sanders? And if there's anything cuter than Bernie Sanders' name it's Joe Lieberman's punim. My own positions don't overlap much with the Connecticut senator's, but I'm still glad he won. I think it's preposterous to argue that he should have stepped down so a different Democrat could win. This isn't dodgeball; loyalty is supposed to be reciprocal, and the Democrats stopped supporting him. Lieberman appears to be something like a consensus candidate in his home state, and that's a hell of a lot more important than what the party bosses think. If you don't like how he votes, pony up a better candidate.

I think I could still be down with a two-party system, but I don't really care for the two parties we're stuck with. That's why I sometimes break with Democrats in the voting booth. At my very first election, in 1998, I took great pride in voting for Chuck Schumer on the Marijuana Party ticket. We all know I voted for Nader and that's why my mom stopped speaking to me for a few days in 2000. This year I voted for Peter Camejo of the Green party for governor, but it was purely a "screw you" vote, as the outcome of that race was clear months ago. An aside: in September I was engaged in conversation with two principle investigators at LBL about Schwarzenegger, and none of us could remember his opponent's name. After about three minutes I was able to supply "Phil."

I think anything that breaks our dependence on the party machines we're stuck with is a step in the right direction. I'm just proud of the people of Vermont and Connecticut for keeping their minds open long enough to listen to what someone has to say. Teddy Roosevelt would be proud.

Voting Day

We were the eighth and ninth voters at our polling place this morning, which means the cranky old guy in charge of the ballot box still had a full roll of "I Voted" stickers. We have a new voting system here, having gone from punch cards to what looks like optical scan. We don't, however, get to feed our own ballots into the scanner. That would make me feel more in control, although clearly that wouldn't be true. I watched HBO's Hacking Democracy on Thursday. It's bone-chilling in that Michael Moore way. You expect the filmmakers are exaggerating a little bit to make a point, but it doesn't change how fucked up the reality of the situation is. I'm usually not one for conspiracy theories, but when there are real stakes (and if you're in the political power and money business, what else is there) why wouldn't you lie and cheat to win? On the other hand, I voted with one of thoese scented markers. Licorice, yum.

The elections here are less than sexy. We know Arnold and Feinstein are going to win. Our Congressman is running against someone who doesn't have a phone. So I wonder how that will turn out. There are some interesting ballot props though, which make it worthwhile to get up early. Statewide there is parental consent for abortion and a new tax on California-produced gas that would pay for research into alternative fuel. The latter is interesting in that it's funded by a guy with reams of money invested in alternative energy research. Mostly, he funded the campaign to pass it. So that's fun. Locally we're voting on whether or to switch power providers, allow a Target to be built in town and consider choice voting (which I don't really understand).

Like everyone else, I'm more interested in what comes tonight, the control of the House, Senate. No one in the media seems to think Lola's Congressional candidate has a chance, but neither has anyone conducted a poll to prove that.

FFH Film Series Continues

Pursuant to our resolution to watch each other's favorite movies, we recently re-watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Out of Sight.

Eternal Sunshine was one of my picks, and we got to see it on the big screen, since our local independent theater has a midnight movie thing going on (stay tuned for their screening of Lebowski in December). I still really, really love this movie. The first time I saw it I took my dad, who didn't particularly care for it except the part where the character Mary screws up and calls Alexander Pope "Pope Alexander." Dad referred to the movie as science fiction, and the weird thing is that it hadn't occurred to me until then that it technically is. Yes, the film's concept hinges on a process that allows characters to selectively erase memories, but to my mind it doesn't really belong with science fiction because the point isn't utopia or dystopia, it's the everyday. The Mierzwiak method is just a means to exploring something highly realistic, namely the way two lovers come together and apart, and the ways in which we imagine our own regrets. That's the heart of the movie, and that part isn't exaggerated at all. It should also be noted that this film is the only one in which I've felt able to tolerate either Jim Carrey or Kirsten Dunst, but it's so well done that Dunst is passable and Carrey is truly excellent. And I don't know about you all, but I'm at least half in love with Kate Winslet's Clementine, totally against my will.

I also really like Out of Sight, as long as we turn it off before the last scene. Samuel L. Jackson makes a lovely cameo, but the fact is that the rest of the film makes no sense with the happy ending tacked on. I really miss the nineties when I see all of Jennifer Lopez's suits. I also miss her original ass. This movie is now eight years old if you can believe it, and Mike says Detroit has changed a lot since it was made. He says Downtown has more stuff in it.

Both pictures stay on the list.

Long on Vocab, Short on Plot

My dad finally converted my old bedroom into his study, a move which had been postponed for years because no one felt like tackling the piles I had left there when I moved into Carman. Out of said piles my dad rescued one box's worth of memoribilia, which he recently mailed me. These included a journal in which I discovered the following work of fiction, nearly lost to posterity. Judging by the handwriting, I think I was around ten when I wrote it. I have preserved the original spelling and punctuation, so I will pre-announce one giant "[sic]" for the piece.

My name is Sarah. The day my children got lost was the scariest day of my life. I was napping by the fire with my pups, Margaret, susan Bobby, Daisy, and Toby, one night. We had just had our meal, and everyone was sleepy. Bobby yawned and stood up. He nudged Maggie. "Come on, let's go see if the cat is asleep," he said. The two of them trotted of to find the cat, Agnes. She and I were on fairly good terms for two adversarial species. She was a snob, to be sure, but she minded her p's and q's around me. The puppies loved to chase her kittens, though wich often caused some heated arguments. I would have made them come back if I had known they were leaving, but I was asleep.

When I woke up I was startled to find two puppies missing. Awful thoughts ran through my head. Dog-catchers, automobiles, construction sights. I raced up to my mistress'es bedroom. I barked and howled, and jumped up and down. "Help!," I cried, "Bobby and Margaret are missing! We have to find them." My mistress could not understand, though. "I can't take you out, it's pitch black out there," she said. I could see I would have to find them myself.

I ran down to the living room, "Stay here all of you. Don't move a muscle," I said and ran off again.

Mean while Bobby and Maggie had wandered off and lost their way. They were treking forlornly through the kitchen when Bobby said, "Maggie look! There are our bowls!." And sure enough there were six little bowls with our names on them. " I know how to get to the living room from here," said Maggie. So off they went with renewed energy and before long they were back with the other pups.

I had searched every room in the house and I could not find them. I retraced my footsteps back to the living room. Sobbing I through myself on the floor and whined.

"What's the matter Mama?," said Bobby. "Bobby! It's you!," I cried. I hugged and kissed them and after repremanding them and putting them to bed I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

In which I Hire my own Secret Service

Halloween has come and gone. I usually forget it's Halloween until I see someone buying antihistamines at the drug store dressed as Prince or something. The Friday night before Halloween, Mike was out of town, and I took the opportunity for a rare night of socializing in Berkeley. My companion was one Ruth, a new friend introduced to me by my mom. We had seen The Science of Sleep, a film for which you should all go purchase tickets directly, and it was nearly midnight when the show got out. I was now faced with a fifteen minute climb over the Berkeley hills in the dark as a prelude to the drive back to Davis (this is why I so rarely socialize in Berkeley in the evenings). Ruth was reluctant to leave me to this walk by myself, but I didn't want to take her with me and drop her back at the BART station because the car has been smelling strange ever since I spilled a gallon of water in the trunk on the way back from the Co-op. So I insisted Ruth go home, and began the climb.

I was mildly interested in the pair walking ahead of me. All I could see from the back was that one of them was wearing a red robe and a giant white sphere on his head. The other was clad in an Irish football jersey with a turban and scimitar. I did notice, however, that everyone who passed them greeted them in admiration. It says something about Berkeley that it did not immediately occur to me that the two were dressed for Halloween. In any case, I approched them. "Scuse me, " I said. "Are you two walking toward Hearst and Euclid? I have to walk to my car in the dark and the way you're dressed I kind of get the feeling no one's going to fuck with you." They agreed to accompany me as far as Hearst and LeConte, and we began to chat.

I could see now that the guy in the robe was dressed as a cardinal from the neck down. From the neck up, he was dressed as the guy from the Jack in the Box commercials (do you have Jack in the Box on the East Coast nowadays?). He explained to me that he was dressed as Cardinal Jack. I pressed, but he said the phrase had no deeper significance. "I keep trying to explain to everyone that there is no concept to my costume," he said. He could see out of a thinned-out space around the mouth of his giant sphere head, but not all that well. His companion was dressed as the Irish Taliban, and proved to be a genuine Southside Dubliner. He was responsible for making sure Cardinal Jack didn't trip on the curbs. They were grad student physicists.

Now that I was walking with them I could also see that every group of two people or more that passed them was shouting "Hey! Jack!" at the Cardinal. He informed me that he'd never had such a popular costume before, which I felt to be a slightly depressing comment on the state of food advertising in our country. Apparently the two of them went as characters from Aqua Teen Hunger Force last year, but no one recognized them. I said I'd heard of it, to which Irish Taliban responded "Then you must be some sort of scientist." "I guess," I said, "Do you count Epidemiology?" "Well, some sort of nerd then." "That I will totally cop to," I said.

They took their leave of me at Hearst and LeConte, as it was obvious that the city was full of Halloween partiers and I had no need of escorts. Cardinal Jack waved goodbye to me and promptly walked off in the wrong direction.

Baby in Hat with Pumpkin

This is Ruth's niece in a pumpkin patch. Ruth says, "See why she is my crack and I can't get off the pipe?"

Mike is a Local Hero

One of the reasons FFH has languished a bit since I started school is that Mike is now dividing his blogging time. The Davis Enterprise now has a Sports blog. Though theoretically a project of the Sports Department as a whole, I'm pretty sure Mike's the only sports staffer who actually likes to write, so it's all him. Anyway, it's growing weekly in popularity, so go check it out at www.davisenterprise.com/sports_blog.