Re: Alas

1

I thought Downfall was good, but I'm not going to say I liked it.

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2

Fair enough; maybe "liked" isn't quite right: having seen it, the decision to see it seemed to have been correct.

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3

That's inspired performance art! Every unfogged reader must now do this!

I did once stand right next to this and loudly exclaim "hey, it's just a bunch of dots!"

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4

Wow, baa, Roy Lichtenstein sure got fancy in his later years.

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5

Truly a touching story, ogged. Something plaintive there, I think.

baa -

How're you feeling about your Cs now?

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6

That's excellent. Also possible (with good delivery): "Trees don't really look like that."

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7

I think of all my "but I was alone" stories as speaking for both of us, Tim.

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8

Faced with a Mondrian: "Man, this is totally a ripoff of the Partridge Family bus."

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9

Good! Also "You can tell he used a ruler."

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10

It takes a lot of balls to go to the movies alone. It was just recently that I went to a sit-down restaurant by myself for the first time.

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11

Yes, but what happens when I come singing into the comments one day, filled with the all-to-obvious joi de vivre? Or worse yet, when you do? Will you (or I) feel all the more bereft?

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12

Adam, we talked a bit about going out alone here.

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13

Tim, now you understand the bond between us, and why neither one of us can ever have sex again.

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14

Fandango is great for going to movies by yourself. Get to the theater right when the movie starts. Waiting by yourself for the movie to start is the worst.

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15

Ogged, I think the line is, "Luke, I am your father." But Kotsko, et. al.'s wierd neuroses about going places alone makes me feel infinitely better about myself. Thanks, Adam; consider it your act of charity for the day.

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16

You know, if you two can just stop flirting and get it together at the Mineshaft, neither one of you has to feel bereft.

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17

I've considered that, but I think Tim wants to hurt me.

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18

I understand it gets much easier after the first few times. You could ask Mrs. Scalia.

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19

That would be undignified. I could however, call the cops on suspicion of sodomy in the Scalia household, and have a lawyer ask her on the stand. That's still ok, I hear.

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20

Am I the only one to whom it's obvious (like that grammar, Wolfson?) that ogged and SCMT are destined to share a stall at the Mineshaft, while Labs looks on, wondering when to assert himself, and the late, lamented and banned one prepares the strap-on (probably without lubricant)? Wolfson will be off to the side, reading the KY Jelly's directions in the most sonorous tones possible while the dreaded apostropher cooks up a mess of andouille sausages.

Is my imagination too vivid? Or has ogged's detachment from life become so complete that there are no Thoreau quotes to describe it?

Me, I don't know. I'm not one of these fancy academics. Just a journalist, and a drunk one at that.

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21

Can we please get back to not talking about oxen?

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22

Here's the real question: given that the Republican Party seems to have imported, nearly wholesale, all the worst aspects of English public school decorum, is simple membership in the party sufficient to believe that Scalia is in to forceable buggery?

Also, will someone please promise to invent a good but overly-tetchy grammar-checker and name it after Wolfson? I can't imagine that he's not famous Interweb-wide for this tic of his (which I like).

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23

Invincible Celtics Juggernaut, Tim!

Can't beat: Shaq-fu

50/50 at best: Detroit

Likely to beat: Everyone else.

On topic:

The Partridge family bus is good! As is the ogged's ruler.

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24

So, am I gonna have to defend Scalia? Really, must I?

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25

Really, you only have to defend (a) Bush v. Gore, and (b) originalism as not a hopeless joke (but one that has the virtue of being clearer than most of what we've got).

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26

Nah, don't do it.

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27

I'll say that I was very proud of Scalia on Hamdi. Something else lately, too, but I can't think of it.

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28

I'd much rather attack the ludicrous Ben Gordon for 6th man campaign.

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29

Yeah LB, exactly! And what about the meaning of Golf? That's a timeless classic!

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30

baa, the Cs can beat Philly and Cleveland, or whoever overtakes either. 50/50 against Wizards, and maybe the Bulls sans Curry. Hopeless against Miami, Detroit, or a resurgent Indy.

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31

Is this the time to whip out my Volokh Conspiracy-as-Lakers analogy? (One of the other big guys is off doing other stuff, and the only remaining star has gone kind of crazy and is putting up bricks.)

Note: I don't actually care about the NBA, so my analogies might be off.

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32

Shit. Delete "other."

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33

Antonin "Tony Scales" Scalia and I happen to share an alma mater. Trust me: You don't want to turn your back on the guy.

But I do find hm excitingly jurisprudent, if you know what I mean.

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34

The Wizards? That's the only team with worse D than Boston. And they're net negative in PF/PA, for pete's sake! We all love Arenas, and when he fulfills his destiny by getting traded to the Mavericks, the world will be a better place, but those guys are gonna get hammered. Chicago -- that's more worrisome, but as you point out, Curry's gone.

Detroit is overrated. I think they'd beat the C's, tho.

I haven't seen Indy play in some time. But they start both Jeff Foster and Austin Croshere. That can't be good. As a Pacer-related aside, has any athlete complaining about the league ever been more right than Jermaine O'Neal?


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35

Damn, snees really is drunk.

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36

Curry's out, as is Deng. And they're too young to win a playoff series anyway.

What did O'Neal say?

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37

Did "British journalist" not conclusively establish that?

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38

Good point. But he's been lucid in the past. In neither state has he been able to get Lucy Mangan to go to lunch with him.

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39

Kotsko, just noticed the subtitle change on your blog.

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40

The last few times I've seen Hitchens on TV he's been swaying like a crooked gyroscope. What is it with these guys?

O'Neal said, and I quote: "If I can go to the U.S. army and fight the war at 18 why can't you play basketball for 48 minutes?"

The NCAA/NBA cartel: what a bunch of sanctomonious, theiving bastards.

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41

Ah, yes, I did hear that. Right on the age limit, not right to call it racist, I think (discriminatory, maybe, but not racist).

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42

I may be drunk, but I'm not British. Bad assumption there, LB. But I forgive you because I'm fond of freckly lawyers who spent time in Samoa. Call it a weak point.

As for ogged, well, I just don't know about him. I've been talking to the apostropher about an intervention, but he's too busy talking punctuation with Wolfson. Grrr.

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43

I do think there's a lingering view that NBA teens are "juveniles" who will be ruined by money, whereas hockey/baseball teens are wholesome farmer boys. There's a tone there...

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44

Are you living in Britain? I could have sworn I'd gotten that from somewhere... Anyway, some of my best friends are drunken British journalists. (The love of my life is a not-particularly drunken American journalist -- all in all, I'm fond of the profession.)

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45

Back from punctuating apostropher--what's up, guys?

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46

Snees, Wolfson established conclusively that you are, in fact, British.

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47

It is a subtle subtitle change.

I'm sorry that I brought up a topic that had already been discussed; it's always annoying to drive a topic into the ground and drift off into pointlessness.

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48

Got it -- American journo, working in London. I understand the drinking's contagious.

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49

baa, maybe it's because NBA teens are juveniles who will be ruined by money, whereas hockey/baseball teens are wholesome farmer boys.

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50

LB, I'm an American living in England. According to ogged's sense of demographics, that makes me English, British and God knows what else. He just hates me for the fact that Lucy Mangan actually communicates with me, whereas the best he can do is her parents.

And wolfson, did you learn the apo on the ways of lubricants, or do his womenfolk just got to shriek for a few more months?

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51

Adam, I didn't mean "shut up, we already talked about that." Just letting you know.

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52

I can get shot down by Lucy Mangan anytime I want.

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53

Weird. I go away from here for two minutes to tell an affectionate story about a British drunk I once knew. And I come back here to find a discussion of British drunks. Or American drunks confused for British ones.

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54

ogged, that was about as conclusive as OJ's search for the real killer. ooh, he must british if he knows that british people call balls, nuts and the like bollocks. i think LB would agree that you shouldn't take your act to a courtroom anytime soon

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55

I can tell you're flagging, peter. The point was not that you knew that balls are called "bollocks," but that you used "bollocks" instead of "balls." Proof positive. The hot shot for you, as the dear departed Lenny Briscoe would say.

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56

ogged, i believe i used the phrase "a right kick in the bollocks," which would be pure Geordie syntax, and i used it in the context of referring to a guy from Newcastle, people who come from which place being known as Geordies. i think you get the hot shot, my friend. though i'd prefer to give you the high hat.

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57

which would be pure Geordie syntax

Google seems to think that Peter Snees is the primary source of the phrase.

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58

do his womenfolk just got to shriek for a few more months

Wombmenfolk. And yes.

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59

if that's your gotcha moment, i'm glad you didn't go to law school. i'm too tired to do it now, but you might as well search for "If you're gonna tell, I'll kick you in the nuts" on Google, because that's what I grew up with, just south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Live among Geordies, and you'll hear that phrase again and again.

It might or might not appear in a Geordie-themed movie, Purely Belter, which I recommend despite your insane insistence that I am somehow British.

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60

Sorry, apo, but I had forgotten about the adoption of that new convention. I hear you treat your wombman right good, by the way.

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61

Peter, I'm starting to think that you think I'm serious, which scares me.

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62

baa is right. O'Neal didn't say it was racist, he said something like he suspected race was a factor. And, of course, it is. It's easier to tell a black inner city kid that he ought to assume the risk of injury or being found out as not that good than to say the same thing to a white farm boy. Not because they are racists, but because they probably know more white farm boys, and it's easier to imagine the circs. realistically. Take the money, take the money, take the money.

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63
"In the last two or three years, the rookie of the year has been a high school player. There were seven high school players in the All-Star game, so why we even talking an age limit?" said O'Neal yesterday, himself a former draftee out of high school.


"As a black guy, you kind of think that's the reason why it's coming up. You don't hear about it in baseball or hockey. To say you have to be 20, 21 to get in the league, it's unconstitutional. If I can go to the U.S. Army and fight the war at 18, why can't you play basketball for 48 minutes?"

Fair enough.

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64

I'll take the Normans over the Celtics.

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65

Upon leaving an excellent HS production of "West Side Story" I said loudly "You see. It is always fun until someone gets hurt."

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