LUCY (kneeling and looking at the ground): Look at those stupid bugs … They don’t have the slightest idea as to what is going on in this world.
CHARLIE BROWN: What is going on in this world?
LUCY: I don’t have the slightest idea.
Schwaber on Scrum
You know that Scrum is gaining traction when all of the things that have been ignored to date become painfully obvious and you just wish you had never started the whole thing. This often happens within three months. At that point, the only thing that pulls me through is looking back and realizing that things have actually improved.
Did She Find an Aardvark?
Ann Avery Andres has been selected as the Foreperson for the 2007/2008 [Orange County] Grand Jury, which will begin its term July 2.
Albert Andreas Armadillo was unavailable?
I Forgot About Her
I’m explaining to my 8th-grade kid that his mom is pretty attractive for a mom, but he’s not seeing it.
I list off several of his friends’ unattractive moms by way of example, and then ask him, “Which of your friends has a better-looking mom than Mom?”
“Lopez,” he says, naming one of the kids on his hockey team.
OK, I’d forgotten about her . . .
Another Mystery Unraveled
Our dog is not fat, but he could probably stand to lose two or three pounds. To that end, I’ve been taking him for more walks and carefully measuring the amount of food he eats: one-half cup twice a day.
I’ve instructed my wife and kid, “When you feed the dog, no more than one-half cup per serving.”
I even bought a new measuring cup with bold markings to make it easy for everybody.
In spite of all this, the dog hasn’t lost any weight.
This morning, as I was about to give the dog his one-half cup of food, my wife looked at the measuring cup and said, “Oh my god! Is that all you feed him?!”
Procrastination
The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don’t just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed.
Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny.
The Finer Things in Life
One thing you can’t help noticing in spending a day at LACMA, what with the proximity to West Hollywood and all, is that gay guys really like art.
I mentioned that to my son and his response was “Case in point: you,” which wasn’t very nice.
He’s not much of an art lover . . . I admit that I occasionally drag him along to an art museum, because I feel like he should know at least a little bit about it whether he likes it or not.
On our way back to Orange County — in keeping with my mission of introducing the boy to the finer things in life — we stopped off at the original Tommy’s stand at Beverly and Rampart, not only an L.A. landmark, but a favorite of USC students for decades, where you can still get — as the boy did — a double chili cheeseburger, fries and a drink for $5.40.
Apologies to Pete Townshend, but I’d call that a bargain!
Safety First
According to the 2006 FBI Annual Uniform Crime Report, Irvine, CA — where I live — is the safest city in the country.
Coconut Pancakes
The Epps family was in Thai Town in Hollywood late Friday night. Most establishments were already closed . . . one exception was a Thai sweet shop called Bhan Kanom Thai, across the street from the famous Sanamluang Cafe.
There were three generations of Thai women in the shop: 1) A very cute, very poised 9-year-old girl, who probably could have run the place herself; her mom; and Grandma, who was cooking up some coconut pastries about the size, shape and consistency of silver dollar pancakes.
My wife walked out with about 25 dollars worth of the coconut pastries and other goodies.
When we got back on the 101 South, our son announced he was hungry.
“Try those coconut pancakes,” I said. “Best thing I ever tasted. I’m in heaven.”
“I don’t like coconut,” he said.
“How can you not like coconut?” my wife asked in alarm. “It’s a main ingredient in Asian food.”
“There’s no coconut in chow mein,” the boy said, by way of counterexample.
We couldn’t get him to try any, but that’s okay . . . more pancakes for me.
T.J. Simers Must Die
I thought sports columnists were appointed for life, like Supreme Court justices, no matter how irrelevant they become, and yet I see that the Los Angeles Times has just dumped J.A. Adande.
Well, by golly, that’s a good start!
I can’t think of a single print columnist, at the Times or elsewhere, who’s remotely relevant anymore. There are dozens of sports websites (not that one — start at Deadspin and follow the links) with at least an order of magnitude more energy, insight and wit than you’ll find in your local print rag, which is why newspapers are going the way of the 8-track tape, the buggy whip and whale oil.
The next in line to go at the Times should be fatuous blowhard T.J. Simers.
Simers positions himself as a pot-stirring wiseass, and the line on him seems to be that if people don’t like him, he must be doing something right.
Actually, nobody likes him because he’s a dull, uninformed, solipsistic clod, whose “style” consists of run-on sentences, juvenile name-calling, and endlessly repeated in-jokes and shout-outs that were never funny in the first place.
Up the Organization
You know what I saw at the bookstore this afternoon? A 35th anniversary edition of Robert Townsend’s Up the Organization!
If I’ve ever read a better business book, I can’t remember what it was. Townsend was way, way ahead of the curve in both style and content . . .
Highly recommended!
A Day at LACMA
We drove out to LACMA last weekend to see The Modern West: American Landscapes, 1890-1950, and Re-SITE-ing the West: Contemporary Photographs from the Permanent Collection.
I love exhibits like this . . . I’ve lived in California my whole life and I feel like these Western landscapes are part of my DNA.
While we were there, we also took in the Dan Flavin retrospective. Flavin’s work consists of standard fluorescent tubes arranged in patterns not beyond the imagination of the average six-year-old.
I tried viewing them up close, far away, from the side . . . I couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it.
LACMA helpfully provided a detailed theory of Flavin’s work in the form of a fold-out brochure with a lot of small print, but I didn’t read it. Isn’t art supposed to provide some sort of pleasure and/or illumination — pardon the pun — on its own merits?
I was reminded of Tom Wolfe’s epiphany in The Painted Word, that the distinction between, say, a Jackson Pollock painting and the splatterings of a kindergartener is that the kindergartener’s work lacks a persuasive critical theory:
All these years, in short, I had assumed that in art, if nowhere else, seeing is believing. Well–how very shortsighted! Now, at last, on April 28, 1974, I could see. I had gotten it backward all along. Not “seeing is believing,” you ninny, but “believing is seeing,” for Modern Art has become completely literary: the paintings and other works only exist to illustrate the text.
Pug Photos from Flickr
Originally uploaded by Velvet_.
Originally uploaded by Pinkpollyanna.
Originally uploaded by gina64.
Greta Garbo at USC
From Scott Wolf Inside USC:
In 1926, MGM called USC and sent actress Greta Garbo down to pose for some publicity photos with the track team.
Garbo initially refused until MGM deducted $25 from her salary, which convinced her to head to campus and don a USC track singlet.
Choices
From xkcd:
Flamethrowers
The very existence of flamethrowers proves that sometime, somewhere, someone said to themselves, “You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.”
The Left’s Iraq Muddle
Bob Kerrey’s WSJ opinion piece is the best thinking I’ve seen lately by a Democratic politician on the war in Iraq . . .
Animusic – Pipe Dream
The Daily Puppy / Dudley the Puggle
Puggles are cute, but a puggle is still not as good as a pug . . .
Another Reason I Never Put My Kid in Day Care
A day care worker in Tulsa, Okla., was looking after eight children ages 7 and younger.
One of the kids, a 2-year-old boy, would not be quiet for nap time, so she bound his hands and covered his mouth with masking tape.
That silenced him — permanently. The boy died after several days on life support.
I never did trust people enough to have them raise my kid. Never did.
Now if you were to respond that the average day care worker is no less capable than the average American mom of raising a child without killing it, I’d say — you’re probably right!
I’m just talking about my kid . . .