The Hiearchy of Monsters

This is an unscientific ranking of ghouls, from best to worst:

1) Zombies - For everyone in and around my general demographic, this is the universal favorite. In whatever form it takes, either the serious (Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead), the satirical (Shaun of the Dead, The Zombie Survival Guide), or somewhere inbetween, (Dead Alive, Re-Animator), people have a strong fondness for the rotting, flesh-eating Undead. I suppose there might be some deep-rooted, psychological reason for this (it wouldn't be Freudian though, because he believed we would actually be terrified to see a return of the dead; so maybe it'd be Jungian), perhaps due to some painful longing to see lost loved ones again...but I'm not positive about that. What I do know, however, is that Zombies look really cool. And that's probably the biggest and simplest reason why we like them so much. They're all rad-looking, with sunken eyes, gangrenous skin, and tattered clothing (it's funny how Zombies are hardly ever naked; they always still have like 1/2 of a shirt left, or 1/3 of a pair of pants). As far as physical appearances go, they're hard to beat. And that's probably why it's the perennial last-second, default Halloween costume. It's incredibly easy -- a small-sized, long-sleeved cowboy shirt; frayed, 29-waist cut-off jeans; a little bit of make-up; a vacant stare and, there you have it, Zombie Indie Kid.

2) Werewolf (aka the Wolfman) -- We all love a good martyr, and Werewolves are the reigning marytyr kings of the Monster World. They don't transform into unholy half-wolf/half-human creatures because they want to; it's because they're cursed to. It's not like they disembowel people of their own volition (that would make them cold-blooded murders, and generally unlikable), it's just that pesky full moon's fault. Their condition, their Werewolfdom, was thrust upon them -- assuming of course that you subscribe to the gypsy, Eastern European folklore popularized by Hollywood: victim is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, getting bit by a pre-existing Werewolf -- a burden that they're forced to live with, the pall of it all hanging heavy on their conscience and their heart. For real, we eat that maudlin shit up for breakfast. We love our tragic figures. We love anyone who shoulders the load of an unfair destiny. We sympathize and empathize (as much as you can empathize with someone turning into a mythical wolf-like creature, at least) with their supernatural plight. And this is because it represents the grievances we have with the physical maladies and deformities we have in our own lives. We can relate with everything that plagues us -- the big, fat nose; the gaping underbite; the multiple sclerosis; the searing foot pain caused by fallen arches; the cleft palate; the speech impediement; the hunched curviture of the spine...we have so much in common. Life has dealt us all some unfair hands, but don't despair -- the Wolfman understands us.

3) Ghosts -- I don't even know if I believe in an afterlife. And for the sake of argument, supposing that there is, I'm probably just as likely to be reincarnated as a tree or an elephant or a dental hygienist as I am to become a floating, wailing, transparent specter (and for the record, if I ever did become a spirit, I wouldn't want to be a lame, nondescript-looking Casper kind of ghost; I would want to be like the ghost of Jacob Marley in Dickens' A Christmas Carol, carrying around all of those noisy, heavy chains as an eternal punishment for being such a misanthrope...it's very Sisyphean). But my cynicism and disbelief notwithstanding, I love a good ghost story. The eerier and creepier, the better. Like the lady who haunts room 219 at the local hotel because she hung herself from the shower head; or the little girl (wearing a typical Victorian-era Sunday dress, naturally) that died of tuberculosis and can be regularly seen playing hopscotch in the backyard garden of her childhood home; or the wandering hitchhiker who still appears on the shoulder of a lonely highway, accidentally struck and killed by a wayward driver on a particularly dark and rainy and slippery night. It's all bullshit. The people who insist on seeing these kind of things also happen to be the same kind of people who believe in it. Of course there are always the ones who try qualifying their stories with "Oh man, I was never the type to believe in ghosts, but there was this one time..." But if you asked them, honestly, if they believed in an afterlife or God or Christianity as a whole before their supposed sighting, they will almost always sheepishly answer, yes. In other words, they're predisposed to see ghosts. If I jump into the middle of the ocean expecting to see sharks, I'm probably gonna see something that kind of, sort of, looks like a shark. That's just how your mind is hard-wired to work. But despite my status as a relative non-believer (and I say "relative" to hedge my bets; hopefully if I remain noncommittal enough, Jesus will cut me a break and still let me into Heaven should I be wrong haha), I still find ghost stories completely fascinating. It speaks to my curious, macabre side. A really good ghost story will always make me hesitant to go the bathroom at night by myself.

4) Vampires - Kids who read copious amounts of Anne Rice novels (I'll give them Interview with the Vampire, but that's about it) are weird and ugly, but for the most part, vampires are still generally cool. But lets make a distinction here; frankly, the Hollywood version of Count Dracula -- the thin, pasty effeminate man, mincing and prancing around in a satin cape, sucking people off -- is actually kind of gay. But Vlad the Impaler, the real-life, historical figure that likely inspired Bram Stoker's novel? He was one of the baddest men ever. I stop and drop everything I'm doing whenever a documentary of his airs on the History Channel. Vlad was no joke, his favorite form of torture being impalement. Anyone who crossed his authority was sentenced to having a wooden stake driven through their body, starting at the anus and then slowly tearing its way through the their mouth. Being the kind soul that he was, Vlad was sure not too sharpen the stake too much, as to not give his victim the benefit of a quick, merciful death. He was known to watch these impalings while eating dinner, feasting on their spilled blood in a golden chalice. He probably thought it gave him supernatural power, bestowing him the strength of his fallen victim or something out-there like that. What a crazy, vampiric, maginificent psychopath that Vlad was.

5) Wendigo - This is underrated, under-appreciated darkhorse rounds out my Top 5. According to Native American mythology, anyone who consumes human flesh can suffer the mystical transformation into a Wendigo. For the Algonguin tribe of the Canadian wilderness, this myth was mostly a cautionary tale to deter people from murder and breaking taboos (the taboo in this case being canabalism). But much like the Werewolf, the Wendigo can also become a very sympathetic, tragic figure. There have also been stories of men getting lost in the woods, usually becoming incapacitated somehow, perhaps by badly spraining an ankle, falling down a deep ravine, or getting a foot caught in a bear trap. Either way, the man is completely immobilized and is unable to return to the confines of civilization. Days will pass by; soon, it'll be a week. He sustains himself on nearby berries and bugs, collecting rain water the best he can with overturned leaves. But the air is getting colder and his body is growing weaker. Someone will eventually find him, but he realizes that if he doesn't act in the mean time, he will die. So with his pocket knife in hand, he decides his only hope is eating some of his own flesh...and then, Wendigo. You feel for him because he's being punished for the natural human emotion of survival. You're horrified by the idea, but you can also identify with him because if placed in the same situation, you might actually do the same (not me though, as I'd probably just give up and die).

And these are the other monsters that didn't make the cut:

Mummies - They're like the dumber, lamer version of our standard non-Egyptian Zombie, all those stupid strips of bandages hanging everywhere. No one's afraid of being chased by King Tut. If anything, I'd be more scared of the curse that comes along with disturbing a Mummy's tomb than the actual Mummy itself. And no, I haven't seen a single one of those Brendan Fraser movies.



Dr. Frankenstein's Monster -- The ramifications of playing God, of creating life out of which there previously was no life, and then shunning that creation when it doesn't turn out to be exactly what you expected makes for a phenomenal psychological thriller (thank you Mary Shelley), but it really doesn't scare me. That scene when the Monster, desperate for human contact, finally decides to reveal himself to the family he had been watching from afar and that he had fallen in love with, only to have them recoil in horror when they see how hideous he is...that breaks my heart, but it doesn't exactly chill my bones. Oh, and if you want to sound like a pretentious bigshot know-it-all, be sure to correct anyone (smugly, of course) whenever they refer to the Monster as "Frankenstein" -- that is incorrect. The doctor who created it was named Victor Frankenstein, but the Monster itself had no name.

Bigfoot/Yetti/Abominable Snowman; Loch Ness Monster -- These fit under the same category; they're "monsters" in the same sense that Leprechauns, or the Tooth Fairy, or the Easter Bunny are "monsters." So yeah, they aren't monsters at all. There are people who actually hunt these make-believe, figments of imagination...and they all need real jobs.

Surprise

McCain chooses Gov. Sarah Palin as VP running mate

Wow. I did not see that coming at all.

It's definitely an interesting choice and I commend McCain for thinking (way) outside the box for his Vice President, but I have to question how well she meshes with the overall tone of his campaign. If the GOP's insist that Barack Obama is unqualified for office because of his age and lack of experience, what does that say about a 44-year-old, no-name Governor (of Alaska, no less; as beautiful as it may be, it's barely a U.S. state) with a practically non-existent political resume?

It's risky, but I'm always appreciative of the unconventional. This is what I'm loving about the 2008 Presidential race -- everything is so unprecedented. Keep bucking that trend, guys (and girls).

Final Jeopardy! 8/19, 8/21-8/22, 8/25-8/28 (or, I Am Falling Behind)

8/19

Category: State Capitals

Clue: One of the 2 state capitals whose name ends with the Greek word for "city."

Answer: Annapolis

Easy. Two of them got Annapolis, which is what I answered (the other possible answer being, of course, Indianapolis). The third kid was way off and thought it was Sacramento. He needs to spruce up his Greek. Socrates must be rolling around in his hemlock-infested grave.

8/21

Category: Famous Americans

Clue: In 1773 he wrote, "The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart."

Answer: Benjamin Franklin

This was another easy one, mostly because Benjamin Franklin was one of the few Americans who was actually writing anything at all -- let alone anything of any significance -- at that time. The concept of "American Literature" really didn't existed at such an early date. And one of my favorite things that Franklin ever wrote was the letter "Advice on the Choice of a Mistress." He argues that when choosing the right person to have an affair with, always pick an older woman over a younger girl. And he really does bring up some good points.

8/22

Category: U.S. Government History

Clue: This man cast the first tie-breaking vote in U.S. history.

Answer: John Adams.

I honestly didn't know. And I couldn't even come up with a guess in time. One of the contests just wrote down "Adams," but they couldn't accept it as a correct answer because there's two Adams' -- both John and then his son John Quincy Adams -- to distinguish from. Haha, she tried to get sneaky. And I always heard such amazing things about that John Adams TV series, but I never bothered watching it. This was mostly due to two reasons: 1) I don't have HBO, and 2) I didn't feel like it.

8/25

Category: American Thinkers

Clue: "I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude," he wrote in a chapter on solitude in an 1854 work.

Answer: Henry David Thoreau

Easy.

And, theoretically, going out and living in a cabin on Walden pond to live deliberately and suck the marrow out of life and all that transcendental stuff truly is a beautiful pursuit. But unless I get internet access in the middle of the woods, there really is no practical use to it.

8/26

Category: The 7 Wonders of the World

Clue: Philo of Byzantium called it a ploughed field "above the heads of those who walk between the columns below."

Answer: Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

I had no idea. I only knew of 2 of the 7 Wonders of the World off the top of my head -- the Great Pyramid of Giza and the statue of Zeus at Olympia -- neither of which were the right answer. Whenever there's any kind of countdown (The Old Seven Wonders of the World, the New Seven Wonders of the World, AMC's 100 Greatest Movies, Rolling Stones' Top 100 albums of all-time, etc., etc.), I always sympathize with whoever and whatever just misses the cut. After all, there really isn't any considerable difference between #100 and #101. Somewhere, Stonehenge is fuming.

8/27

Category: U.S. Presidents

Clue: Only 50 years old when he left office, he was our nation's youngest ex-President.

Answer: Theodore Roosevelt.

I didn't know the answer and I didn't realize he was so young by the time his tenure ended. I thought it was going to be one of the useless Presidents, like, oh I don't know, Rutherford B. Hayes.


8/28

Category: Famous Austrians

Clue: The home on Vienna's Domgasse where he lived in hte 1780s was reopened amid fanfare in January 2006.

Answer: Mozart.

Ahh, I should've gotten that one. And I haven't seen Amadeus in a while.

I Can Confidently Say That All I Ever Wanted To Be In Life Was A Beatle

Growing up, I wanted to be a Beatle in the very literal sense -- in that I wanted to be a famous musician. Now, as an adult, the lack of a band, an album, and any association at all with the recording industry leads me to believe that I did not become a musician. But hardly the quitting type, I still to strive to be a Beatle, this time in the very figurative sense -- in that I want to enjoy all of the other substantial (and slightly insubstantial) non-music benefits that come along with the term. At face value, a "Beatle" refers to a Liverpudlian pop sensation; but I think it's safe to say that the word has long entered our cultural lexicon as a synonym for successful. I want this to apply to myself. And I imagine that most other people, if they have any kind of drive or ambition, aspire for the same thing. We want to be Beatles. It makes perfect sense. They are pinnacle achievement, personified. Think about it -- everything they had, we want. Observe:

They were rich, we want to be rich. After a messy, prenuptial-less divorce, Paul McCartney is still practically a billionaire. And even with EMI Records and their manager Brian Epstein taking a considerable chunk of their change back in their playing days -- and then of course, splitting the final paycheck four separate ways -- they all had already amassed a sizable fortune before any of them turned 25 years old. I want that kind of cheese. I want the kind of wealth that essentially trivializes life, that makes the entire world my personal plaything. It's not just being able to have anything, it's more being able to make anything happen. Reserving an entire day at Disney World for just me and my closest friends, forcing the Olive Garden to cook me chicken fried rice and Lo Mein, visiting a zoo and taking an endangered species (is Ling-Ling the panda bear still around?) home with me as a pet...these are the perks of being that kind of rich. I imagine it's the closest thing to being omnipotent, to being God Himself -- having the authority to will anything into existence. I bet Lennon had that kind of clout.

They got laid a lot, we want to get laid a lot. This one's self-explanatory. If the prospect of sex isn't your primary reason for living, breathing, and being, then you're probably doing something wrong.

They were famous, we want to be famous. They're universally-known. I'd wager that even those African tribes who communicate with that clicking language have some kind of translation for John, Paul, George, and Ringo. People know exactly who you are even though you've never met them before in your life -- that's the ultimate self-esteem booster, that's how you know you're a somebody. I can barely begin to fathom that kind of exhilarating notoriety. I want to be a bigshot.

They had artistic credibility, we want artistic credibility. The body of their work is listener-tested, critic-approved. Their merit as artists is tried and true. They were perceived to be the best at their craft. And I know that to at least some degree, we all -- even the most practical and utilitarian amongst us -- want to create. The urge to paint, to sing, to sketch, to perform, to write, to build is intrinsic in us, it's primal. Having simply lived and died is hardly enough; artistic acclaim can go a long way in validating your existence. That album you record, that movie you film, and that fresco you paint can be tangible evidence that you made some kind of difference.

They had long hair, we want long hair. This may or may not be gender-specific, but as a guy, I understand the very simple concept that longer is more hip and shorter is less hip. There will inevitably come a time -- it's not an exact science, it could come at four or six or eight weeks; it's subject to change -- when I look in the mirror and I'll notice that my front bangs are encroaching my line of vision, the tufts around my ears start doing that little flip thing that they do, and the back gets really shaggy and starts weighing heavy on my neck. My brain thinks it's time for a trim, but what does my brain know about cool? It'd probably give me a buzz cut every few days if it could. I regret nearly every haircut I get, ultimately pining for what used to be. Just stay the course, that's the way to go.

They were innovators, we want to be innovators. Whether it's visually (the aforementioned mop-top haircuts; matching suits), compositionally (sculpting Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as an all-encompassing concept album and consequently lifting the entire bar of standard for albums as an art form), or technically (I believe the opening of "I Feel Fine" was the first instance of amplifier feedback appearing on a recording), the Beatles are credited -- sometimes mistakingly, most of the time deservedly -- for being the first to have ever done certain things. The first, as in unprecedented. Everyone wants to create something new, be the very first to introduce brand new ways of thinking or doing. This is definitely not exclusive to artsy, flighty Liberal Arts majors; surgeons want to invent new operating room procedures, lawyers want to spearhead new legal cases, chemist want to make molecular discoveries -- basically, anyone who puts any pride in their craft eventually wants to break ground.

Astronaut, Fireman, Batman -- these are all things a lot of us say we want to be when we grow up. But that's just borne from youth and naivety. I mean, fighting fires is a noble cause, but it doesn't seem like any kind of fun to me. When we grow a little older and get a better grasp of exactly what we want out of life, we realize that what we really want to be are Beatles...and everything that comes with it. At least that's the conclusion I came to. I think it describes every possible whim I could ever have, be it inspired by the financial, superficial, artistic, or philosophical. It just kind of says it all, succinctly and completely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Final Jeopardy! 8/18/08

Category: Shakespearean Heroines

Clue: The name of this heroine known for her filial devotion is probably derived from Latin for "heart."

Answer: Cordelia

Anything literary is obviously going to be easy for me, but it's still Teen Tournament week, so it's even easier than usual.

And poor Cordelia. She loved her father so much, and for what? Nothing. She got cheated out of any of King Lear's stuff. What a rip-off.

"I eat success for breakfast...with skim milk."

TV Guide has already tricked me a couple times.

There's a show on the Food Network called "Heavyweights." It's basically a documentary that explains how all of our biggest brand names (McDonalds, Pepsi, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, etc.) became the powerhouse institutions they are today. It's fairly interesting, but whatever, that's beside the point. What really annoys me is how whenever I see it listed, I always think it's the movie "Heavyweights," the 1995 Ben Stiller fat camp comedy. They really should do something to clear up the confusion. I like the latter so much more than the former, so it makes me run the entire gamut of emotions -- absolute delight, then sobering disappointment. It's a who's-who of young, husky Hollywood: Kenan from Kenan & Kel; Goldberg from The Mighty Ducks; and, umm, that other fat kid who randomly shows up in things sometimes. It's great.

I know the movie plays on the Disney channel every once and a while, but in the meantime, here's a compilation of all the best scenes. It'll do for now.

Holly Hox, Forget Me Nots

People are too modest when it comes to their own self-worth. Either that, or they're just excessively insecure. Whenever discussing an old acquaintance -- a friend, classmate, co-worker, whatever -- that they may have not seen in a long time, they always follow whatever they have to say about that person with the completely unnecessary qualifier of "Oh yeah, so-and-so was a really cool kid, but they probably don't remember me..."

They probably don't remember me, I doubt they still know who I am, I'm sure they've forgotten all about me. I hear this stuff all the time, but I don't see how it can ever possibly be true. At least, I hope people don't actually believe this. Hopefully they're just being paranoid. They'd be best served to stop being so hard on themselves.

Who knows, maybe I'm the weird one, maybe I'm just so much more observant and retentive than the average person. But I really doubt that. Who are all these people? And how are they (allegedly) so forgetful? I don't buy it. I wager that most people are like me; ergo, most people remember almost everything.

I can recall most things about the people I've come across in my life: names, faces, likes and dislikes, allergies, funny anecdotes, embarrassing moments. My mind is like a bear trap, snapping shut the moment I meet you; there's no escape, you're in there for good. I suppose certain things may get a little foggy over the years, some of the more obscure things like shoe size or Zodiac sign. But for the most part, the mere passage of time won't make me forget that your entire existence.

Sometimes I'm amazed at the clarity and vividity of my memories, so bright and sharp, as if they were painted in oil pastels. But then I remember that's just how our memory banks work. Sentimentality is subjective, but physiology is not; your neurological system is about as likely to forget a person, place, or thing as your cardiovascular system is to suddenly forget to make your heart beat. You're hard-wired to seize these moments and not let go. Give people some credit, they haven't forgotten you. Nothing short of brain damage (and I suppose a night out binge drinking, but that's a whole other story) would allow that to happen. And odds are, they're probably capable of telling you a lot about yourself -- more than you'd realize. Simply recalling that someone is, in fact, alive and does, in fact, exist is so rudimentary, it's the absolute bare minimum. Unless they're just that callous and cold-hearted (or perhaps, that inattentive), people have retained much more about you than you know, surely capable of reenacting entire conversations you've shared, as easily as they could recite their own phone numbers.

And I don't play favorites with my memories. Length of association, degree of friendship, level of familiarity -- I've noticed that it tends to have little to no affect on how intensely I remember someone. Best friend, prom date, playground bully, kid I met one time at a house party -- it's all about equal to me. I even have deep recesses of my mind that I save specifically for lasting memorials of random strangers I see on the street. Maybe I'm overlooking one or two instances (and I doubt that I am), but I can't think of a single time when someone's told me that they knew exactly who I am and that I wasn't able to completely reciprocate the favor. I may specialize in the minutia of day to day life, but I'm not alone. People are like sponges, soaking in everything they come in contact with. I know that everyone is touched/entertained/haunted by the thought of the things they've seen, just as much as I am.

The misconception that "they probably don't remember me..." is weak and groveling. It's a cop-out, because unless we're dealing with an Alzheimer's patient, it isn't true. You're doing both people a disservice; you're short-changing their ability to retain very fundamental information, and you're short-changing your own ability to make lifelong impressions on people that have met you. Haha, get confident, stupid.

Final Jeopardy! 8/14/08

Category: African Americans

Clue: As U.S. Solicitor General in the 1960s, he won 14 of the 19 cases he argued before the Supreme Court.

Answer: Thurgood Marshall

Whoops, I was wrong. I thought it was Clarence Thomas.

And on the subject of Thomas, the first two things that always come to mind for me are pubes and Coca-Cola.

These Are The Games of the XXIX Olympiad

My scattered, trivial thoughts on the 2008 Beijing Olympics thus far:

- I would hardly consider water polo a sport that's respected and revered amongst most people, but it's actually really fun to watch. And I imagine even more fun to play. The match between U.S.A and China was really exciting.

- The "Redeem Team" beat Angola 97-76 the other day, and D-Wade led the team in scoring again with 19 points. After all the problems with his knee and shoulder the past couple of years, it's a great to see he has his trademark lift back. He's running and jumping so effortlessly again. It looks like he's definitely got the spring in his legs back.

- I wonder what the monetary value of a gold medal is? I imagine that's a serious piece of cheddar hanging from their necks.

- I love the Olympic theme song. I can't even get mad when NBC takes a commercial break -- I'm still unsure of how I feel about the new Free Credit Report commercial; I've only seen it once, so I'm gonna have to look it up and YouTube and peep it a couple more times before I can fairly judge -- because that just means I'll get to hear it again. It's so inspirational. There's just something so visceral about it, stirring up competitive emotions at the very core of your being. It makes me want to mount a pommel horse. And if it isn't his nickname already, we really need to start referring to composer John Williams as "The Hitmaker."

- I'm biased because I'm a sucker for Asian graphics -- walking into an Asian supermarket, I want to buy everything I see, and not because I'm particularly fond of fermented shrimp paste, but because I love the awesome crazy cartoon character on the jar -- the Beijing mascots are infinitely better than the mascot we designed for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. I mean, the Whatizit? Ugh, we have no taste.

- I cannot wait for the Men's 100-meter final. Tyson Gay can become "The Fastest Man Alive." That's seriously one of the illest nicknames imaginable. I used to be really fast when I was little, then I got slow in my teens, and now I've kind of leveled off at what I guess could be considered slightly above average speed. So clearly, I never fulfilled my aspirations to be a world-renowned track star. But if I did, I would've done it up O.G. like Michael Johnson, running my meets while wearing a gold necklace and gold shoes.

- About that Iranian swimmer who refused to compete against an Israeli swimmer...come on guy, give it a rest. It's the Olympics, two measly weeks every four years. It'd be nice to see petty rivalries take at least a brief respite. But I guess that's what raving mad fanaticism and political posturing does -- on top of clouding all sense of honor and rationality, it also ruins good sportsmanship, too. And here's the thing, if you hate a nation that badly, compete against them and beat them. That's how you're supposed to do it.

- I love the Olympics, and if you don't, it's probably because you run like a girl.

- Today, I heard the Caesars' "Jerk It Out" twice, once when I was at Pasquale's for lunch and then again playing over the PA system during the Men's beach volleyball match against Argentina. It's nothing important, but I just thought that was a neat coincidence after not hearing that song one time over what's probably been years now.

- A friend of mine said that Michael Phelps is "like a shark when he's in the water." Yeah, pretty much.

- These particular competitors are obviously experts, but do children normally practice archery? Like in P.E. class, or at those secluded sleep away summer camps in the woods? I don't know if they actually do, or if this it's a misconception that I've dreamed up. Or maybe it's just TV, because I remember a couple of episodes of Salute Your Shorts that showed some of the campers casually using bows and arrows. I know that I wouldn't want to be within 1,000 feet of any stupid kid shooting off arrows.

- This doesn't apply so much to Kobe Bryant and LeBron James because they're established household names already, but it amazes me that for most Olympic athletes, this is the absolute pinnacle of all their hard work. Sure, there's stuff to do inbetween -- training, preliminaries, qualifying tournaments, etc., etc. -- but they essentially live for these two weeks of competition, and that alone. Their only opportunity for self-actualization comes once every four years. That's gotta take an unbelievable amount of sacrifice and discipline.

- I don't know an awful lot about architecture (other than that I don't really like Frank Lloyd Wright), but the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube are awesome.

- There's something so calming and reassuring about Bob Costas. His presence on camera puts you at ease. If I were on my deathbed, I would want him to read my last rites. It's as if he were built specifically for television, which makes sense because he kind of looks like an android.

Final Jeopardy! 8/12/08

It's Teen Tournament week, so most of the questions are fairly easy. But if nothing else, I guess it helps dumb people boost their self-esteem...

Category: Characters in Books

Clue: This character says, "It's Christmas Day! I haven't missed it. The spirits have done it all in one night."

Answer: Ebenezer Scrooge

Yeah, no kidding.

And while A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, and Great Expectations get all of the critical acclaim, A Christmas Carol is easily my favorite Charles Dickens novel.

And I love both the Disney and the Muppets adaptations of it.

What I Had For Lunch 8/12/08

Pepperoni pizza from Pasquale's.

There aren't too many individual words in the English language that can be combined to make a phrase that arouses so much deep-rooted, guttural euphoria in all of us than "pizza" and "party." I'm a full grown adult now, but just the thought of one still makes me smile like a madman.

On Legacy

There's been lots of talk on legacies between friends lately -- take a look at Angelica's blog post here -- and I feel I have more to add to the conversation:

I need a group of personal acquaintances (friends, family, lovers, co-workers, neighbors, classmates, rivals) to contribute to my posthumous biography. I'll need them to provide the standard biographical requirements of a documentary -- thoughts, opinions, anecdotes -- but it's important for them to not excessively gush over me and not exclusively sing my praises. I don't need them all to wax poetic on how nice, caring, talented, loving, generous, and wonderful that I (supposedly) was. I'm sure my Mom could provide all of that on her lonesome. But too much of that mushy, saccharine stuff would be boring. I don't want this to be a eulogy; I want a fair and brutally candid account of my life.

What I really need is people who resented me, begrudged me, hated my guts. They'll have to be passionate about their disdain, willingly voicing their complaints both in print and on camera. If I'm lucky, maybe a TV crew (I'm thinking this could air on the History Channel) can get shots of them desecrating my grave. They'll cast doubt on my public perception, blurring what would otherwise be a pristine image, forcing future generations to decide if I were an artist or a scumbag or both.

I'm interested in getting a wide spectrum of negative opinion, running the entire gamut. I'll need these people (and I'd like to thank them all in advance, from the bottom of my heart) to corroborate the fact that I was mean, weird, condescending, creepy, distant, overrated, cold-hearted, petty, and just the tiniest little bit mentally ill.

They'll have to recount personal stories of their past experiences with me. I've already scripted the perfect fictional anecdotes, so hopefully they'll be, more or less, similar to these:

A neighbor: "I don't remember ever seeing him go outside during the day. His house was always so eerily quiet, like a tomb, like a mausoleum right in the middle of a suburban cul-de-sac. I don't think I can even recall ever waving to him through the window, his blinds were always sealed shut. I'd notice that his car would be gone sometimes, his newspaper picked up, and his garbage cans dragged to the curb. So he obviously came out sometime, I'd just never actually see it. I thought that was strange."

An ex-girlfriend: "Yeah, we had a fun together, but he was kind of cheap."

A former friend: "He had this annoying habit of making plans, and then breaking them off at the last second. We were supposed to see a movie or grab a bite to eat, then something would come up and he wouldn't be able to make it. And he'd do this habitually. It happened a lot. I secretly presumed that he did this on purpose. It's as if he got off on being a flake and messing with people. Either that, or he had some weird social phobia."

Another former friend: "I remember one time he got this really bad haircut. They took too much off. I jokingly told him that it looked retarded, just goofing on him, just busting his balls a little bit. And he got really mad about that! I don't know why he took it so personally. And here's the funny thing: he never spoke to me again after that. Let's just think about that for a second, he held a lifetime grudge over a stupid joke."

A co-worker: "He was always late for work. It'd be, like, 15-20 minutes after the hour and he'd just be pulling into the parking lot. Under any other circumstance, I wouldn't care what he does. It's a free country. He's the one running the chance of getting fired, not me. But with the way our system was set up, one person would always have to relieve another person. If you wanted to clock out, someone else would have to clock in...y'know, pretty typical stuff. And of course, I'd always get stuck working the shift that ended just as his shift started. I'd confront him about it, but he'd just mutter some half-hearted apology about traffic being bad or something other lie. He was actually a pretty fun guy to work with, it's just this one habit of his was so rude and inconsiderate."

Another ex-girlfriend: "He never complimented me on anything. I was never pretty enough, or thin enough, or smart enough. And whenever he did say something nice to me, it always seemed insincere. Like he was mocking me, like he was secretly laughing at my expense to some inside joke that he had with himself. It was actually very hurtful. It was really fun breaking up with him."

A classmate: "He had such a high opinion of himself. He thought he was this incredible writer -- like he was the next Fitzgerald or Faulkner -- but to be honest, he was kind of a hack. Now he was decent, don't get me wrong, but not nearly as innovative and original as he thought he was. It's, like, whenever he'd pitch to us this great new idea for a novel he wanted to write, it was basically just a rip-off of The Catcher in the Rye; whenever he had a new idea for a screenplay, it was basically just a rip-off of Garden State. Heh, it's funny, the only thing he ever seemed capable of doing back then was that stereotypical 20-something-year-old coming-of-age story...and it was always based on something else that'd already been done. And I don't want this to seem like sour grapes, I'm glad he became successful. Some of his stuff is okay. But shit, he was pretentious."

The stories have to be incriminating. They have to be kind of funny, kind of pathetic, kind of disturbing. They'll cast me in a light not made up of stark whites and blacks, but more muddled shades of gray. This is exactly why Tom Hanks isn't an interesting human being. He's adored by all. Everyone loves him. I don't think I've ever heard an associate of Hanks' relate a single story of him ever resisting arrest, or cheating on his wife, or getting into a barroom fist fight. His record is so spotless, his character so beyond reproach, that I bet you'd be hard-pressed to find an old kindergarten classmate that could admit something as harmless as him eating paste as a kid. I'd hate for that to happen to me, to be a historical footnote that has no other points of interest other than being a historical footnote. I don't want to be Tom Hanks.

But I also want to make this clear: I don't want to be a monster. I don't want to be despised by the public. I want my fame to be laced with infamy...but just a little. I'd be crushed if any of this were allowed to overshadow my life's work. My name is important to me and I'd hate for it to be ruined. Take Joseph Conrad for example; he wrote Heart of Darkness, Chance, and Lord Jim and yet his lasting impression among many scholarly circles is that of an unapologetic racist, someone who believed one group of people (namely, his own) held genetic superiority over everyone else's...now that really sucks, that really is a shame. Being a jerk or a recluse or an eccentric shouldn't be my legacy, it should simply be one small chapter to it. That'd defeat the whole purpose. Cutting nose off, spiting face...you're familiar with the old saying. I'd hate for my maladjustment to consume me. First and foremost, my accomplishments take precedence. And any other quirks I may have are supplementary.

A Table For One

Seeing someone eat dinner alone is sad.

I've been witness to sadder things in my life -- loved ones laid into the ground, buried; Requiem for a Dream; ex-girlfriends holding hands that aren't mine. And there are other things I haven't necessarily seen firsthand that I can confidently wager are also much sadder -- citizen casualties of war; slaughterhouses and meat packing plants; the Rwandan genocide. But I don't think that makes a table-for-one any less depressing.

And make no mistake, it's definitely a shallow kind of sad. It's the kind of sad that's brought on by reading too many books, growing up in the suburbs, daydreaming too often, studying too much poetry, being too observant, thinking too much. It's something that bothers the kind of person who spends too much time in their own head. There are no tangible consequences, no catastrophic fallout, from a person sitting down to a meal by themselves. But for the oversensitive among us, you might as well tell us our that our childhood family dog was hit by a cement truck.

I just saw this today at Applebee's (a very quick aside, I hate Applebee's. It's food's lowest common denominator. I ordered the overcooked steak; it sucked. And it isn't like it's the only chain restaurant that serves painfully-generic Middle American dishes and sticks stupid, random junk on the wall...it's just the one that does it the worst). At the table next to me, a man -- older, slightly overweight, a tucked-in button-down shirt and slacks, suspenders, pocket protector with pens -- was seated by his lonesome. This immediately made me feel bad. I started to lose my appetite. Many questions raced through my mind: who will he speak to? Who will he share his food with? Who will protect his plate from being cleared if he goes to the bathroom? And how will he possibly explain himself to co-workers who see him on their way out and ask him why he doesn't have any company?

As I always do in these situations, I eavesdropped on his order (he got the bacon cheeseburgers with fries), took note of the expression on his face when his food arrived, and discreetly watched him out of the corner of my eye as he ate. I always want to see if they order something good, if they look genuinely excited when their plate is placed in front of them, and most importantly, if they appear to thoroughly enjoy their meal. This is like consolation for me; if they're having a good time, I theoretically shouldn't feel so bad. But it rarely ever comforts me.

Obviously people eat alone. If not, they'd starve. Restaurants have single seating at the bar, have those individual swivel chairs at the counter (like at Denny's, for example). So there's an expectation that eventually someone, somewhere, will sit down to lunch or dinner without companionship. That contingency was clearly accounted for, built right into the blueprint of the building. But that doesn't make me any more predisposed to go along with it. I won't do it. I'd rather make dinner plans with someone I don't much care for, sparing myself the shame and humiliation. I'd rather order the food to-go, take it home and eat where the couch or TV or microwave isn't likely to judge me. And if it absolutely came down to it, I'd rather go to bed hungry, promising to treat myself to an extra-big bowl of cereal in the morning for breakfast.

When you're seated by yourself and look out across the table, the closest thing to human contact that you'll see in front of you is the back of the person sitting at the next table over -- there's just something that seems so hollow about that. And I'd like to distinguish that there is a difference between being seated alone by a hostess at a sit-down restaurant and simply choosing to quickly eat a meal on your own, like sitting down on a park bench with a brown-bagged lunch or stopping by the cafeteria real fast inbetween classes. Somehow, the latter is just a lot less pathetic.

And all of this is ironic because I do plenty of things on my own. Playing basketball, sitting and reading at the library, taking a walk -- I do this stuff by myself all the time. I'm extremely self-sufficient, very independent. I would go as far as saying I love solitude. I'm my own favorite person, so I don't otherwise have any objection with spending as much time with myself as I can. But it just so happens, for one reason or another, eating is one of the very few activities (one of the others being watching movies at the theater) that I'd rather do with a friend.

If You Can't Beat Him, Sign Him

Pennington signs deal with Dolphins

Great move. Our team has improved overnight. Chad Pennington is a better quarterback than anyone currently on our roster -- Josh McCown wasn't able to hold down a job in Oakland, Detroit, and Arizona...three teams that could have desperately used a QB; John Beck has struggled all throughout training camp; and Chad Henne is still just a rookie -- and he's a lock to start for us from Day One.

He's a little injury prone and has a weak arm (he can't get much zip or much velocity on 20-yard out patterns), but those are about the only criticisms that I can come up with. Otherwise, he contributes a lot to the team: renowned leadership abilities, pinpoint accuracy, is a longtime starter in this league, has the endorsed approval of Bill Parcells (he was the one who drafted him out of Marshall), is experienced with Dan Henning's slow-and-steady run-based offense, very cerebral with a keen understanding of X's and O's.

He's unspectacular, but steady. And that's an upgrade for us. I can't wait until he memorizes the playbook and gets up to speed with the rest of the offense.

Twice a year, every year, Pennington would convert a 3rd-and-long by connecting with Wayne Cherbet in the flat, or hit a streaking Laverneas Coles down the sideline for a game-winning touchdown. But now, thankfully and mercifully, I'll never have to see that again. I have been spared.

What I Had For Lunch 8/9/08

Hardshell tacos (two ground beef, one chicken) with yellow rice and refried beans, leftover Subway (club sandwich) with potato chips, and pancakes for dessert.

I was starved to death.

By The Dawn's Early Light

I'm basically stealing this from one of Chuck Klosterman's essays in his fan-favorite book Sex, Drugs, & Cocoa Puffs. He's already articulated everything I can posibly say on the subject, but with the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony today, I think it's a point worth discussing:

Why does patriotism for the U.S. carry a decidedly negative connotation?

For many of us Americans, a gushing and effusive pride for this country is generally frowned upon. At its best, patriotism is seen as lame and old-fashioned and naive. Loving one's country is considered an odd hobby, in the same way that stamp collecting and taxidermy are considered odd hobbies. It may not be offensively repulsive, but it's enough to elicit raised eyebrows and cursory looks. Wearing an American flag pin on your lapel is likely to evoke comments of mild disbelief, such as "Oh, so you're that way? How...interesting." It just isn't preferable.

But at its worst -- and this mostly applies to the specific demographic of vaguely-intellectual, artistically-inclined, free-spirited, relatively-liberal 18-24 year olds -- patriotism is considered to be uneducated and narrow-minded and bigoted. Somehow, patriotism has become synonymous with ignorance. It's become this colossal, amorphous inanimate thing (if you need an example, think of Ticketmaster, or the media, or dog-fighting) that people can rally against and project all of their anger and disdain towards; it's become an entirely bad thing. More than anything, I think patriotism can most closely be compared to organized religion, perceived as an opiate for the masses (I've always wanted to use that phrase), something that dumb people fall for because they're too stupid to think for themselves or to know any better.

But I don't really join in on that sentiment. Yeah, "God Bless the USA" is one of the worst songs ever, apple pie is vastly overrated, and wearing t-shirts with big bald eagles emblazoned on them are extremely not chic, but those are very minor complaints. Otherwise, I love America. I'm proud to be an American. I've been outside our borders, have traveled around the globe, have visited foreign nations, and I can honestly say that nothing quite measures up. I enjoy having the freedom to speak my mind without being locked in a dungeon, drinking the tap water without catching explosive dysentery, and going to sleep without fear of being abducted from my bed by extremists toting AK-47's. This is a good place to live. Sure, if I ever felt compelled enough, there are places abroad that I could see myself temporarily relocating to -- Toronto, Manila, Tokyo, London -- but none of those would be permanent moves, and certainly none of them would replace the U.S. as my home.

Interestingly, some minorities think seeing other fellow minorities acting overly-patriotic is hokey and cheesy, going as far as accusing them of being white-washed. Not me, though. I think that's ridiculous. Those miniature novelty American flags aren't meant for just John and Jane Johnson; Khalid, Jamal, Chen, Esteban, and Saeko are just as entitled to wave them. And I really love seeing that kind of thing, that kind of enthusiasm. It's so uplifting. You can tell how genuinely happy they are to be here and not anywhere else.

And let's examine our Independence Day, the 4th of July. It's great, and it doesn't suffer at all from the fact that, by definition, it's an inherently patriotic holiday. There's so much to like: hamburgers, fireworks, swimming, potato chips, walking around shirtless. After the Big Three (Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween), you can easily argue that it's the next best holiday. I like New Year's Eve, but at it's core, it's still just an annual reminder that you're one year older...and that's sort of a downer. Easter sucks if you're more than 8-years-old, because by then, you've outgrown the age where bunnies and tie-dyed eggs are cool. Asians (especially Asians that don't drink, like me) have no need for St. Patrick's Day. Valentine's Day is whack, I couldn't advise anyone to honor a genocidal monster like Christopher Columbus, and April Fool's Day is barely even a holiday. So the 4th of July, in all of its star-spangled glory, definitely ranks high up there.

And the Olympics' opening ceremony was awesome.

Final Jeopardy! 8/8/08

Category: Colonial American Government

Clue: From the Latin word for "fortified town," this term later referred to a person -- the representative of a town or borough.

Answer: Burgess

I got it wrong. I thought it was a mayor.

And if I could segue into another unrelated "burgess" -- namely, writer Anthony Burgess -- I've always thought it was cool how he absolutely hated the fact that he was best known for A Clockwork Orange. Up until his death, he was resentful that it had become his definitive novel and would've preferred that he be remembered for some of his other work. I don't know why, though. I've read The Doctor is Sick and it's nothing amazing. But anyway, I can only hope to be as successful myself. Just imagine, he writes a world-famous book (which later becomes a world-famous movie) and he was actually mad about that. That'd be like, oh I don't know, Tag Team telling people that they're tired of talking about "Whoomp! (There It Is)" and that they'd much rather discuss their other accomplishments. Haha, it's so wonderfully pretentious. I really hope that I do something that makes me insanely famous someday and then defiantly refuse to acknowledge whatever that one thing is.

What I Had For Dinner 8/8/08

Slow-roasted pork shoulder.

My favorite part is always the chicarrones, or the crispy crackling skin.

Now Serving E98

I had to re-apply for a replacement Social Security card today.

And while this is a common complaint, it still amazes me how sitting and waiting in U.S. government buildings (ie. the DMV, the Post Office, the aforementioned Social Security office, etc.) always makes me feel like I'm not in America anymore -- or for that matter, not even in a First World country anymore.

I'm not an aristocrat, a blue blood, or a prude, so it isn't like I'm above waiting in line to get my business taken care of. I've been to buildings far more dilapidated and in far worse condition than this, so it isn't like I can't survive a measly 45 minutes. I don't have to endure any physical bodily pain (I can't even complain of any mental anguish as I brought two books with me to stave off the boredom), so it's already got a leg up on getting your wisdom teeth extracted at the oral surgeon's. But still, all of that aside, it doesn't change the fact that government offices are always entirely unpleasant.

Even by the kindest and most generous of standards, my fellow patrons are unattractive and overweight. People take the empty seat next to me instead of the empty seat next to the empty seat next to me. There's a single-toilet bathroom here, but I can wait; there's a water fountain here, but I can wait. A sign on the wall says "No Weapons" with the Ghostbusters sign crossing out a picture of a handgun and a knife; this is funny because of how absurd it is, but also a little troubling because people have assuredly set the precedent for these warnings by walking inside with a loaded, concealed revolver. The waiting room doesn't necessarily look disease-ridden, but I abstain from touching anything. For some reason, crying children are louder in here than they are in most other places; I don't know, it might be the acoustics. The crowd's overall hygiene could stand for a little improvement. A guy one row in front of me asks another guy in my row which way he's headed home and if it's possible if he could bum a ride -- I frantically divert eye contact.

But all in all, I'm not suffering, as that would be an over-dramatic and irresponsible use of the word. I'm definitely not fearful for my safety, as the armed security guard sitting near the front door looks more than capable of protecting me from getting shanked. And I'm not agitated to any appreciable degree, as I can think of very few things that are less stressful than simply sitting quietly and waiting. So I'm not in terrible shape, but at the same time, I am not content. I would like this to be over soon.

Even with the company of my two books, the perpetual sitting and waiting allows for the mind to wander, and I make trivial observations on the minutia of details that surround me:

There are headshots of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on the wall; it goes without saying that Cheney has the most unflattering smile/sneer ever, but Bush is actually very photogenic. He has an effortless smile, so smooth and natural. With the way he flashes it for the camera, you wouldn't know that the weight of a nation -- and with that war on terror of his still waging, it's really the weight of multiple nations -- sits squarely on his shoulders. I actually find myself growing a little envious, because by comparison, my own smile is a little stiff and forced. I'm like a schoolboy on picture day, completely self-aware that other people are expecting me to smile and that it's what I'm supposed to be doing at that particular moment.

I intently watch as the office employees call out numbers on microphones from behind glass partitions: A207, E88, N13. This is the numerical order of our freedom. Once our number is called, we know that our sentence is almost up. I have ticket E98. I try to figure out the order, try to unlock their secret. It's like those math problems we used to have do in Liberal Arts I & II: "3, 6, 12, 17, 22, 42...what digit comes next?" Eventually I give up because I'm an awful math student and I'm convinced that they're just calling out numbers randomly and arbitrarily. I know this because they actually called E99 before E98, which caused me to suffer a mini panic attack until they called my own ticket number about 3 seconds later.

I am grateful to the kid wearing the Hannah Montana t-shirt. Seeing it was confirmation that, yes, I was still a part of civilization. It was oddly reassuring. It was a reminder of my previous life, the one just outside these front doors. Even in this purgatory, pop culture still exists. Thank you.

I'm an amateur sociologist, so I'm always aware of the people around me. After a quick survey of the room, I can report that 1/2 of the crowd is black, 1/4 is Hispanic, and the remaining 1/4 is a mixture of about three or four white people, one Middle Easterner towards the back, and me, the lone Asian. I've noticed that these figures are pretty standard for any time I have to visit any kind of government building. No one ever looks like me at places like this, not their facial features, or bone structure, or build, or hairstyle. And not just physically, but also from a personality standpoint -- judging entirely by everyone's book cover (and let's be real here, even though we've all been conditioned to consider this an entirely un-politically correct practice, I really do believe that our assumptions hit a lot closer to home than many of us are willing to admit), none of these people look like they have anything in common with me. Nothing, not music or art or ideology or cinema or literature or politics or philosophy or fashion. I imagine the only thing we do have in common is that we both happen to be sitting in this room together on this particular day, that and I'm guessing we both eat and breathe and sleep every once and a while. I wonder, where are all the other like-minded 20-something-year-olds? I never see them. I mean, certainly they have to replace their Social Security cards and renew their driver's licenses and mail out their Christmas presents sometime. Anyway, this always makes me feel so lonesome; not really the crushing, existentialist nobody-understands-me kind of loneliness, but more like the I-don't-have-anyone-to-sit-with-and-chat-with-at-this-one-moment kind of loneliness. It's sort of a bummer, I guess, but it's very temporary. I can't get too sad because I have the luxury of knowing that my plight can, and will, be remedied. Soon enough, they'll call me up, I'll turn in my replacement card application, and I'll get to go home to friends and family.

Surprisingly, the lady that I got was really nice and helpful. We even ended up making a little small talk as she processed my information.

And on a sidenote, it turns out that federal law states that each citizen is entitled to no more than three replacement Social Security cards in a year, and no more than 10 replacement cards in a lifetime. I highly doubt that I'll need 11 replacement cards before I die, but that still seems at least a little steep to me. I mean, what if...? This stipulation isn't enough to keep me awake at night, but it is enough to plant a tiny seed of doubt in my head. It's just something to keep in mind.

Final Jeopardy! 8/7/08

Category: Scientists

Clue: In 2007, this 1962 American Nobel Laureate became the first person to receive his own personal genome map.

Answer: James Watson

Ah, okay, the double-helix DNA guy. I really had no clue. I blurted out Marie Curie, but that's just because that was the only remotely-scientific name I could come up with before time expired. I'm not a student of science, nor have I ever shown a slightly-more-than-casual interest in that field, but I still think it's really cool how he and his partner Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA. That's such a lofty, far-and-away endeavor to me, I can't fathom how someone would go about accomplishing it. To me, trying to figure out what DNA looks like makes about as much sense as trying to figure out what sunshine or imagination or a dream would look like. It's just so hazy and abstract. I wouldn't know where to begin.

Final Jeopardy! 8/6/08

Category: Newspaper People

Clue: In 1987, her assignment for the New York World was an expose of the insane asylum on blackwell's island.

Answer: Nellie Bly

There isn't much that I remember from my two years spent as a Journalism major, but I do remember that Bly pretended to be insane to expose the horrible conditions of a New York insane asylum. She baited the police by carrying on like a raving nutjob in public, purposely got locked herself away in there, and then reported on the atrocities she saw. I think the most interesting part of her story is how she actually practiced acting insane, making weird faces in the mirror and scripting her incoherent babbling. That's so awesome. She just helps reinforce the (very true) notion that crazy is cool. Afterall, better deranged than boring.

What I Had For Dinner 8/6/08

Pan-seared snapper.

Amazing. It's meals like these that remind me that I really ought to have fish much more often.

I'm Walking on Sunshine (Whoooa Oh)

Woman clones dog

Bernann McKinney says her beloved pit bull "Booger" saved her life when another dog attacked her, then learned to push her wheelchair while she recovered from a severe hand injury and nerve damage.

He died in 2006, but now he's back — at least in clone form, after the birth last week of puppies replicated by a South Korean company.

The five clones were created by Seoul-based RNL Bio in cooperation with a team of Seoul National University scientists who in 2005 created the world's first cloned dog, a male Afghan hound named Snuppy.

It is headed by Lee Byeong-chun, a former colleague of disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk, whose purported breakthroughs in stem cell research were revealed as fake. Independent tests, however, proved the team's dog cloning was genuine.

Lee's team has since cloned some 30 dogs and five wolves, but claims Booger's clones, for which McKinney paid $50,000, are the first successful commercial cloning of a canine. -- The Associated Press

Okay, there are a lot of different things to consider here: moral and ethical issues, animal welfare, the fact that this woman paid a staggering $50,000 for what is -- for all intents and purposes -- a brand new dog with little association to her old beloved dog other than a smeared DNA sample on a petri dish, etc., etc. But for the moment, all of that is inconsequential, because the very first thing that came to mind when I heard about this story is that great episode of Futurama, "Jurassic Bark."

It's the one where Fry finds the fossilized remains of his dog, Seymour. The last time Fry saw him was in 1999, just before he was cryogenically frozen, so he asks Professor Farnsworth if he can clone him. Just before they go through with the procedure, Fry has an epiphany: through the cloning machine's carbon dating, he learns that Seymour was 15 when he died, living 12 long years after Fry was frozen. He realizes that Seymour must've lived a long and productive life after he was gone, so it would be unfair to bring him back to an owner he probably wouldn't even remember. What he doesn't know, however, is that Seymour patiently waited for him in front of that pizzeria, waited everyday for him to come home.

That kills me every time.

Hmm, on second thought, I guess I can't blame that woman too much. And I guess I can't blame that grief-stricken Pet Semetary guy who buried his dead son and wife on that Indian burial ground in hopes of resurrecting them, even though they came back all evil and twisted. I think many of us would go to the same lengths to get back a loved one.

And there's been a lot of animals in the news lately, huh? Some scientists recently stumbled upon 125,000 gorillas that were previously unaccounted for. They were all within the forests of the Republic of Congo, just hanging out. That's pretty cool.

Final Jeopardy! 8/5/08

Category: The Movies

Clue: The title of this award-winning 1963 film refers to the number of films it director felt he had made to that point.

Answer: 8 1/2

I didn't know the answer. I thought it was Ocean's Eleven or something.

And incidentally, two contestants ended up tying at $15, 401. This being the Tournament of Champions week, they couldn't end with a tie (Alex mentioned that this was the first time this happened in 20 years), they had to go into sudden death. Another Final Jeopardy! clue was given, and the first person to buzz in and answer it wins. I'd never seen that before, so it was kind of exciting. Here was the sudden death clue:

Category: Child's Play

Clue: A Longfellow poem & a Lillian Hellman play about a girls' boarding school share this timely title.

Answer: the Children's Hour

I wasn't able to spit out the answer, the girl was too fast for me. And for what it's worth, I'm really not that big of a fan of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He was wildly popular during his time, but his stature has diminished significantly among scholars in the 100+ years since his death. Aside from grade school teachers who need poems with plodding rhyming couplets that their classroom of 9-year-olds can easily recite, I don't know of any other curriculum that actually teaches Wordsworth these days. His work just isn't academic enough. When it comes to his 19th century American poet contemporaries, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allen Poe, and Walt Whitman all make him look like an amateur.

What I Had For Lunch 8/5/08

Went to Blue Moon and had the hardest time deciding what I wanted to order -- my initial gut reaction was to go with the salmon -- but I eventually settled on the meatloaf with herb mashed potatoes, green beans, fried onion shoestrings, sweet potatoes, and mixed zucchini salad in marina sauce.

I loved it. The meatloaf was moist and tender, but still had some bite to it. And all of the different textures on the plate -- the crunch of the fried onions shoestrings, the fresh snap of the green beans, the creaminess of the sweet potato -- all played off of each other well. And the portions were huge; I can't wait to eat the rest of mine for lunch tomorrow.

And I definitely liked how they put those huge sliced pieces of plantains on the plate, both for its presentation and its functionality.

She said: What's in a name?

As an ever-aspiring writer, I'm very concerned with the quality of any future work I happen to produce. I want to contribute something meaningful, subversive, significant, and entertaining to the dusty annals of literature.

But more importantly, as a wildly-vain narcissist, I'm even more concerned with my legacy, of how my work will be regarded long after I'm dead. Even though I won't be around anymore to attend local book signings and schmooze with my devoted fan base, I want to still matter. I want my novels (or poems, or plays, or memoirs...I have not yet decided exactly which medium I want to be most famous for) to still resonate in the literary field, to hold a certain amount of timeless relevance, to carry a definitive clout among scholars and students alike. I want to be remembered and revered, and that's exactly why I need to figure out the best proper adjective form of my last name.

Many of history's great writers have the luxury of having their last name transform neatly into a strong and memorable proper adjective; consequently, this same proper adjective is then used to describe any work of art that portrays any distinct traits or style of that particular author. For example, if a play ends in heart-breaking tragedy -- or, for the more erudite reader, if a sonnet is composed of absolutely perfect meter and rhyme scheme -- then that play (or sonnet) is described as being Shakespearean in nature. If a story attempts to be bigger than life, ambitiously trying to include all of the accepted conventions of the epic poem, then it'll be described as being inherently Homeric or Miltonic. If something is clever and sharp-witted, it's Wildean; if something is overtly political with a grim futuristic view, it's Orwellian; if something is whole-heartedly British, it's Dickensian; and so on and so on and so on.

The common theme among each of these adjective forms of proper names is that they all sound good. They roll off the tongue effortlessly and melodically. The sound of it is just so appealing to the ear. It's fun to hear and even more fun to say. And when pronounced with just the right inflection, along with the right cadence and the right amount of conviction, these adjectives carry with them an indisputable sense of prestige. Call it what you want -- cachet, dignity, power, esteem, renown -- it has all of these qualities. Being the sensory creatures that we are, those just look and sound right.

Unfortunately, I don't think my last name transitions as seamlessly into its own catchy adjective. My favorite ending is the -ic, it just sounds so stately and intellectual. I don't know how well it works with my name, but I'm very fond of it. I suppose you can also adjective-ize it by tacking on an -ean or -ian, but I don't think it fits just right, there's no ring to it. I don't know if it's the wrong amount of syllables or what, but it's too much of a mouthful, it's too clumsy and awkward.

And if push comes to shove, there are a number of other suffixes to use, such as -like (I'm not crazy about this one at all, it has no style), -istic (it doesn't blow me away either, but I guess I could live with it), and -esque (this is definitely my favorite of these three, there's some charm to it). In the end, though, I'm not entirely sold on any of them. All three of them are a little too generic and commonplace for my taste. They seem like the kind of endings that can be affixed to any name, regardless of how important or unimportant they may be. These are pretty much last resorts.

Either way, I shouldn't stress out about it too much. I'm sure it'll work itself out on its own. It's like any kind of nickname; you can't decide yourself if you suddenly want to start being called "Iceman" or "Maverick" or "T-Bone" -- it just has to happen, naturally and organically. Nicknames can't be chosen; they have to be assigned to you. That's how it works. So in that case, I'll just get comfortable and wait.

Final Jeopardy! 8/4/04

Category: English Language Writers

Clue: In his journal of 1710 to 1713, he referred to himself as "Presto."

Answer: Jonathan Swift.

Somebody at the head offices obviously likes me; in the past two weeks or so, there have been three Final Jeopardy! clues tailor-made specifically for my expertise. Being the 18th century British Literature enthusiast that I am -- Swift, Alexander Pope, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Robert Burns, John Dryden, Francis Burney (only her journals though, none of her novels), Thomas Gray (one of my favorites; so underappreciated), and all that good stuff -- this was fairly easy. And it's pretty fitting too because the Italian translation for presto is "fast, quick, swift."

And as much as I love Gulliver's Travels -- Yahoos, Houyhnhnms, Liliputians, Brodingnags, pissing on miniature castles, and all that good stuff -- I think his less-famous essay A Modest Proposal deserves just as much acclaim. An excerpt from the text:

"A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a friccassee, or a ragout."

With tongue-jammed-in-cheek, Swift suggests that the impoverished Irish can solve their money woes by selling their children as food to the rich. Cannibalism will be the solution to all of their problems. Haha, classic.

It's Like a Real-Life Fortress of Solitude

The local library has changed its hours: Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday, closes at 8. Thursday-Friday-Saturday, closes at 6. And Sunday, closes at 5.

It was bad enough when they used to close at 9 P.M., but now they're closing even earlier. I can always go to the library at school, but still, this doesn't bode well for the nocturnal bookworms among us.

What I Had For Dinner 8/4/08

This was kind of a makeshift dinner.

I put some leftover sliced up kielbasa in a hard roll with swiss cheese. It was good, like a glorified hot dog.

Sausage King of Chicago, indeed.

Retired Players I Hated Watching #4 (the form on his free throws may have been even worse than Shaq's)

Anthony Mason

"Poetry in motion" and "hardwood ballet" are the typical cliches sportswriters use when trying to pontificate on the aesthetic appeal of basketball -- and for the most part, they're pretty appropriate. With all of the displays of running and agility and passing and coordination, it really is a beautiful game. But Anthony Mason, all hulking 6'7" and 260 lbs of him, stood as a complete antithesis to the fluidity and grace of the game.

He was the embodiment of the paradigm shift the NBA experienced in the mid-90's. Whereas players used to be sleeker and smoother, players had now become heavier and more muscle-bound. Instead of a quick man's game, basketball was transforming into a strong man's game. Players should have been spending their free time practicing fundamentals, like footwork or shooting free throws; instead, they were spending that time lifting weights. And there's nothing specifically wrong with a professional athlete improving his musculature and overall level of fitness, but the byproduct of this change in mindset was devastating. Suddenly, NBA games were nearly unwatchable. It was all-defense, no-offense; final scores were regularly in the 80s (and often as low as the 70s); and teams were trying to out-muscle and out-bully the opposition instead of out-skilling them.

Mason was a habitual offender, using his stocky build to grind the pace of every game to an excruciating halt. On defense, he grabbed and reached and hacked, using less guile and more brute force. "Defense wins championships" is the timeworn mantra head coaches preach to their players, but what Mason did to opposing players could hardly be called "defending." More to the point, he was just beating people up.

On the offensive end of the court, he planted himself on the low block, pinned his defender on his hip, and demanded the ball. After receiving the inbounds pass, he'd hold the ball, holding and holding. He'd then start backing down his man, slowly and deliberately ad naseum, just bull-rushing toward the basket. When he finally steamrolled his way directly under the rim, he'd put up a point-blank lay up, or he'd get fouled. All of this would take up the entirety of the allotted 24 seconds. Basically, it was the most boring brand of basketball imaginable. He just bogged everything down; whenever he was in the game, it was slow-motion, like everyone was running in quicksand.

And even the gimmick he was most known for -- the ability to play "point forward" -- was grossly overstated and very misleading. Granted, he brought the ball upcourt every once and a while, but he was hardly a savvy playmaker. It's not like he was capable of orchestrating an offense out on the perimeter, or make split-second decisions with the ball while on the fast break. Most of his assists came after he had held onto the ball too long and just kicked it back out to an open teammate at the very end of the shotclock. Assists like those aren't conducive to effecient, free-flowing offense...they're just last ditch bailouts.

Even when Mason made the All-Star team during his lone season in Miami, I could barely stand watching him. Not even mentioning all the off-the-court legal problems he had throughout the course of his career (the statutory rape charges, drunken disorderly conduct, starting bar fights, locker room dissension, etc., etc.), he just wasn't a very entertaining player. Nothing about the way he played the game was fun.

About the only complimentary thing I can say about Anthony Mason is that he used to shave words, signs, and phrases into the side of his head. I can't deny it, that was pretty cool.

Anthony Mason's career statistics

(And I checked, I couldn't find a single Mason video on YouTube).

What I Had For Dinner 8/3/08

A quesadilla burger with fries from Applebee's.

Much like with anything else Applebee-related, there's really nothing particularly deep or enlightening to say. It was satisfactory, and that's about it.

Regarding the Travel Channel

I'm really happy about the upcoming new episodes of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations and Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods because there's just something inherently fascinating about watching Westerners (i.e. white people) eating mysterious and exotic Eastern (i.e. non-white) cuisine. Like the Sun revolving around the Earth, the product of a whole integer and zero being anything but zero, and a panda bear playing a violin, that just goes against all accepted scientific wisdom. It's so unusual and out of the ordinary. Watching someone from outside the native culture eat scorpions and chicken embryos and goat brains makes for remarkably gripping television...I can't stop staring. I've already seen so many episodes of these two traveling (and eating) their way across Thailand, the Philippines, Korea...and it never gets old. And really, all of the extreme gross-out food only makes up about 1/4 (or maybe 1/3, tops) of the whole episode. Clips of them devouring steaming bowls of pig guts are what make the commercials, but that's only the work of shock-value producers trying to reel in as many potential viewers as possible to spike their Nielsen ratings. Otherwise, the rest of the 3/4 (or maybe 2/3, at the least) of the food looks delicious. All of the bugs and rodents are what makes travel shows like these fun, but it's all of the noodles and seafood and fresh produce and suckling pig and spicy sauces and roasted duck that really makes it worthwhile. I always get so hungry watching it.

Even ol' bubbly, white bread Samantha Brown (Girl Meets Hawaii, Passport to Europe, Passport to Great Weekends, etc.) is starting to visit far east locale now. There was a time when she only went to places like Rome and Britain and Paris -- really conventional, touristy First World places; basically, cities that aren't typically known for kidnapping their visitors and selling them into sex slavery. That's all well and good, but it's kind of boring ho-hum TV. Nowadays, though, she's branching out. Just today I saw an episode of her traveling to China -- mingling with the locals, visiting Buddhist temples, getting Szechuan cooking lessons, practicing tai chi, exploring the underdeveloped countryside. It was fun watching her interact so enthusiastically and so sincerely with a culture that she obviously has no natural affiliation with. And I guess I'm just automatically appreciative of anyone who wants more than McDonald's burgers and fries. I can definitely support that kind of culinary ambition.

With that being said, there's just something inherently less interesting about watching Easterners eat typical Western food. I'm not sure a weekly TV show of Cambodians eating bologna sandwiches would be nearly as profound or engaging.