Sure, the Yankees haven’t won a World Series since 2000, but at least they haven’t fallen apart like Manchester United.
Hoopage
Two neat basketball stories today. First, Chuck Klosterman wrote a neat piece on ESPN’s Page2 about how Phil Jackson will become a much better story once he’s gone through the abject failure of coaching the Lakers this year.
Americans don’t read very much, mostly because they don’t have to. But we still live in a staunchly literary world. We understand almost everything (and everyone) within the context of a narrative that’s written by circumstance and reality; each person’s history is a little story where they are the main character. As such, historical figures are remembered for the things they accomplish and the victories they win — if life were a movie, the collection of those achievements would comprise the plot. But people are always defined by their greatest failure. You learn very little about a man’s character from his success; truth exists only within adversity. And adversity is what Jackson needs to define himself as A Great Man; without it, he’s just a tall dude from Williston High School who won a lot of games with a lot of talent.
The other neat story? Why, it’s that Seattle Sonics center Reggie Evans missed a piece of the 3rd quarter of last night’s game against the Knicks because he was taking his drug test at halftime.
“I’ve been clean since I’ve been in the league, I’ve been clean since I’ve been in college, I’ve been clean since I’ve been in high school, middle school, elementary school,” Evans said. “I’m just cleaner than clean. I’m cleaner than Pine-Sol.”
Happy Holidays!
Official VM buddy Tom S. got a jump on the holidays by sending me and Amy a passel of presents! We couldn’t resist, and opened ’em up last night! It’s great, having a good friend who lives far enough away that he can’t rely on the USPS for timely delivery!
But now I feel like a heel for getting him a half-assed gift this year. Sigh. At least I have time to come up with something else.
(Update: Sez the official VM fiancee, “You’re not going to post what he got us?”
“I thought it would be tacky,” sez I.
We concluded that I should never trust my judgement on tackiness.
So Tom got us a pair of DVDs (Local Hero and Mick Foley’s Greatest Hits and Misses), three Joss Whedon-inspired books (Seven Seasons of Buffy, Five Seasons of Angel, and Finding Serenity), a 1940s copy of Ring Lardner’s You Know Me Al, and a gift certificate at the website of Roger Langridge, one of my favorite cartoonists. I’ll probably use the latter to buy a page of Roger’s original art.
Tom sez, “Don’t thank me! As my younger brother pointed out during wrapping, ‘So you’re basically getting them books you can read on their john, DVDs you can watch on their TV, and a piece of art that will probably go in the guest room.’
“‘And your point is. . .?'”)
Mondo Video
Fortunately, she’s still marrying me
Amy: Have you given any thought to what sort of wedding ring you want?
Gil: . . .
or maybe . . .
I mean, I figure that Legion flight-ring’s going to be a tough find this season. . .
A brand-new look
Ahoy, ahoy, dear reader! After nearly 3 years of the same design and platform for Virtual Memories, I’ve decided to move over to WordPress! I’m hoping this new model will allow me to post entries more smoothly, and give me more flexibility for adding functions to the blog (as is, you can now search through all the contents really easily).
In the next week or so, I’ll be done reformatting the 700-odd previous posts, cleaning up broken links, and putting in new features like e-mail notification, an Amazon database, flickr integration, and whatever other neat/useful stuff I can find. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to migrate over the comments from past posts, so I’ll need you guys to start commenting anew. I’ll try to keep up my end with some entertaining/infuriating posts.
I hope you like the new look.
I guess they call it “Ultimate” for a reason…
This is not on my Amazon wishlist. Check out the “Number of discs” line and laugh over the idea that it’s TWO-HUNDRED AND TWELVE DISCS!
That said, I do know people who would likely fork over the dosh for it. All $2,800 or so.
Duke Goes Gonzo
Sorry about the lack of updates, witticisms, etc., dear readers. I’ve been swamped with work on the year-end issue of the magazine and taking care of wedding details, while Amy & I have been adjusting to our new living-in-sin work schedules. I oughtta be back on track in a week or so.
Part of the reason I haven’t posted is because my head was blown off by the news that David Duke, Klansman and former representative from Louisiana, spoke at a rally in Damascus to support Bashar Assad.
I thought, “There’s no way on earth this story is real. Sure, it’d make for a great ‘Anti-Zionism Leads to Strange Bedfellows’ headline, but come on.”
Amy, a Louisiana native, asked, “Do you think he hates Jews more than non-whites?”
I opined that he probably doesn’t hate non-whites so much as he doesn’t want them in America. As long as they stick to Syria, I bet he’s fine with the existence of Arab people. In principle.
So I finally sat down last night and tried to source the story. First thing I found? Why, “The Official Website of Representative David Duke, PhD”! And it’s filled with links and soundclips from Duke’s visit to Syria! Enjoy!
(And I’ve determined that it’s okay–despite all the hardships that hurricane Katrina has inflicted on people–to laugh about the fact that it also dropped a tree on Duke’s house.)