Author: Gil

Posted on

Drinks at the Stasi Lounge after?

Contrary to my previous post, there were some aspects of running a micropress that I enjoyed. In particular, I got to meet some great people (you’d be surprised at how many people take your calls when you say that you’re a publisher). One of the best connections I made was with author and critic Paul Di Filippo, who was reviewing one of the books we published.

Paul and his partner Deb have become very close friends to me over the years, but I don’t get to see them often. Long-time readers know that I do a ton of traveling for my job, but I’ve yet to see any pharma-conferences scheduled for Providence, RI. And since I refuse to drive to Boston anymore (go, Acela!), I really can’t come up with excuses to “just drop in.” (Plus, I’m afraid that Lovecraft’s ghost will come after me.)

So that’s why I’m happy that Paul & Deb will be in NYC tonight (even though Amy & I drove up to see them less than 3 weeks ago)! Paul’s giving a reading (I know: that makes him sound like he’s a fortune-teller) at the KGB Bar tonight as part of the Fantastic Fiction series!

And as fortune would have it, I’ll get to stay in the city tonight, since there’s a pharma-event tomorrow morning and the sponsor is putting me up in a nice hotel! (I think they figured I’d be in better shape if I stayed in town than if I tried getting into NYC for an 8am appointment. Little do they know. . .)

If you’re in NYC and you wanna meet up with me, the official VM wife, Paul, Deb and/or the interestingly named Ysabeau S. Wilce, tonight’s your big chance! What are you waiting for?

Posted on

2006-2007 NFL Playoff Challenge, round 2: the post-mortem

Several years ago, I attended a wedding in Las Vegas. It was my first trip visit longer than 24 hours, and I thought it would be fun to gamble on sports. See, I’ve never been a cards or dice guy, but I do allege to know something about pro sports.

Well, the NBA, at least. See, each morning that long weekend, I would walk through the sports book on the way outside. I’d pick up the line for that night’s games and, like The Matrix, I would see all the numbers tumbling on a dark background. (I’d also start acting like I was made of wood, but that’s another story.)

The upshot is that it was the NBA season (early April) there was at least one game each morning that I knew for sure was an easy bet. So I put $50 on a game that Friday, and came up aces. Saturday, I saw one sure thing, put down another $50.

The other wedding guests started to laugh about these picks. At the rehearsal dinner on Saturday, we headed out to the bar to catch the results of my bet against the Vancouver Grizzlies, who were inexplicably favored in their last-ever game in Vancouver. I won again.

Sunday morning, the challenge was on. There were three games that caught my attention. I announced, “I’m putting down $50 on each [no teaser], and if I pull off all three, then I’m going to quit my job, move here, and gamble full time.

“And within three weeks, I’ll be giving handjobs in an alleyway for crack money.”

Wedding evening rolled around, and afterward, the guests kept trying to haul me over to a bar to catch the remaining games. I’d already won the afternoon bet, so I only needed two more wins. Now, I know $50 per bet isn’t a ton, but it was the idea that mattered.

(Especially since I’d embarrassed myself Saturday night at a blackjack table. I’d been looking for another guest, saw him at a table, and sat down beside him. I thought I’d get in and play some hands, and pulled some money from my wallet. No sooner had I tossed $60 on the table than I noticed that the table was $25/hand. I hit blackjack on my first hand and said, “Oh, crap! I forgot! I gotta tell my girlfriend something! I’ll be back in a minute!” as I gathered up my chips and left.)

Anyway, I won the second game of the day, which was a night game out east. That left Phoenix/Sacramento, with the Kings getting 1.5 points. Since the Kings were in a dogfight with LA to get home-court advantage, this was my lock. I was sure that they’d win handily, even though they could’ve lost by a point and I still would’ve come up 5-for-5.

Final score? Phoenix 99, Kings 97. I was agog. It was then that I realized that the bookmakers really do know what they’re doing. I went back to my day job and resolved never to get into sports betting.

At least, not online. When in Vegas, etc. (although I likely wouldn’t bet on NBA game nowadays for the life of me; I have no ability to guess the outcome of virtually any game, and nowhere near the certainty it’d take me to go against the house)
That gets us to this week’s NFL Playoffs post-mortem, which helps prove I know nothing about football. For the second straight week, I went 1-3, dropping me to 2-6, while my rival, Ron Rosenbaum, now surpasses mediocrity at 5-3 after a 3-1 weekend.

Funnily enough, I’d have been content to go 0-4 this weekend, if it meant that the Patriots lost (by 6 or more) in San Diego. Instead, the only team to cover for me was the wildly irritating Patriots.

See, I was perfectly happy with Baltimore losing to Indy. I didn’t think the Ravens had the firepower to hold up against a San Diego, but I didn’t think they’d stink up the joint to the tune of 6 points against Indy. But I’m happy that Peyton and the Colts (who are starting to resemble the World Series winning Cardinals, whom nobody expected much from) will get to the AFC Championship game. I’m hoping they’ll knock off New England, but I refuse to bet against Belichick, so I’m stuck.

I thought the Saints would win by more, but I was glad that the Eagles made it an exciting game, even if Amy & I were out at my super-fantastic birthday dinner Saturday night.

I was also worried that the Bears would make too many mistakes to blow out the Seahawks, but I let Seattle’s stumblebumness cloud my judgment. Rex Grossman looks like the most confused quarterback in the NFL, with literally no ability to grasp when the pocket is collapsing. Have fun under Hollis Thomas next weekend, Rex.

But it’s the Chargers who just killed me. I was pulling for them all game to prove me wrong (or win by a figgie, so I covered), but they did just enough things wrong to let the Pats do what they do best: win.

So I have no hope in this NFL Playoff challenge, unless I go against Ron on the remaining three games and pull off all three. At which point we’ll tie and I’ll try to get him to fall for some NBA bets. . .

Posted on

In review

I read two articles/posts this morning that I found quite affecting. First, judiciary-writer Dahlia Lithwick at Slate, who isn’t given to alarmism, draws some nefarious conclusions from the Bush administration’s legal wranglings in the terror-war:

But it has finally become clear that the goal of these foolish efforts isn’t really to win the war against terrorism; indeed, nothing about Padilla, Guantanamo, or signing statements moves the country an inch closer to eradicating terror. The object is a larger one, and the original overarching goal of this administration: expanding executive power, for its own sake.

Now, this may seem like a slam-dunk conclusion to some, but she puts some interesting evidence together to explore the mechanics of how this has occurred. Give it a read.

In the other piece I read this morning, Ron Rosenbaum discusses the lessons of Cambodia, and explores the possible historical parallels with the current war. It’s an interesting article because Ron uses it to examine the evolution of his attitude toward the Vietnam war:

My opposition to the Vietnam war, developed during my college days was based on the oversimplified premise—which turns out, by most serious accounts, now bolstered by the former Soviet archives—to be false or seriously flawed.

My belief and that of most of the anti-war movement—that the North Vietnamese regime represented an indigenous, nationalist movement expressing the Vietnamese peoples centuries-long struggle for independence from foreign control—was only half-true at best.

There was a germ of truth in it, but more than a germ of foreign control in Hanoi, whose government was in fact a Stalinist puppet state of the Soviet Union (here’s where the diplomatic cables in the former Soviet archives are so important and dispositive).

His post covers more than this, particularly the failure of the “world community” to prevent or stop genocide, but I found it important that he was able to reassess that situation in history, as more of “the truth” comes out. I’ve long contended that we can’t understand the situation in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc. without taking into account the history of Soviet aggression in the area. Just because the USSR has collapsed doesn’t mean that its influences were erased.

Which is to say, while people blamed “U.S. withdrawal” from Afghanistan for the failed state that led to the rise of the Taliban, they managed not to blame the Soviets for invading Afghanistan in the first place, which led to the U.S.-sponsored mujahideen. It’s interesting to me, how often people will seek out “the truth” in issues like this, but stop once they get to the conclusion they wanted to reach.

Posted on

2006-2007 NFL Playoff Challenge, round 2

It’s do-or-die time, dear readers! I went 1-3 vs. the spread last week, while rival Ron Rosenbaum went 2-2. There’s no denying it: Ron reached mediocrity before I did!

I need to catch up in a hurry, since there are only 3 more games after this weekend, so this week’s picks will take some daring. It’d be easy to go with the home favorite in all 4 games, but that’s just the sort of strategy Mr. “What do our interpretations of Long Island say about our views on Hitler?” would engage in. Or maybe not.

Without further ado:

RAVENS by 4 over Colts. The Colts were bad last week, but were out-terrible-d by Kansas City. The Ravens evidently have restored that monstrous defense they had when they won the Superbowl in 2000. Still, this is one of those X-factor instances, where everything in my head says that the Ravens are going to cripple the Colts, but my animosity toward Brian Billick makes it tough for me to clearly pick the game. It’s like that passage in The Western Canon where Harold Bloom concedes that he may be letting personal judgment get in the way:

Robert Lowell and Philip Larkin are here [on this list of modern canonical writers] because I seem to be the only critic alive who regards them as over-esteemed, and so I am probably wrong and must assume that I am blinded by extra-aesthetic considerations, which I abhor and try to avoid.

In that spirit, I’m going with the Ravens to wipe out the Colts and start the “re-evaluating Peyton Manning” vibe that leads to off-the-record comments about how his enormous contract is restricting the Colts from bringing in difference-makers. So it’s Ravens minus 4 points.

SAINTS by 5 over Eagles. My wife is a lifetime Saints “fan,” so she’s expecting the bottom to fall out on this miracle run. It was bad when the Saints played well and won their first few games, because she knew her family would start talking playoffs four weeks into the season. Since then, they earned a bye-week, which will help Reggie Bush and Marques Colston recover from nagging injuries. Plus, they get Hollis Thomas back, although his 4-week suspension may have affected his conditioning (ha-ha). Anyway, Amy’s still expecting Carney to honk a big field goal attempt, but I’m enough of an optimist to believe that the Saints will ride this miracle season for another week at least. Especially since the New Orleans factor (lots of alcohol and shellfish) could take its toll on the already depleted Eagles. Take the Saints minus 5 over Philly.

Bears by 8.5 over Seahawks. It’s either a testament to how shaky the Bears QB is or a testament to how little I’ve followed either team, but I actually dithered over this pick for 15 seconds. Sure, Rex Grossman is a terrible QB, but Seattle’s defense is godawful, and only one of the most embarrassing mistakes in the history of the NFL (combined with an amazing tackle) got the Seahawks into the second round. So I’m going to have to go with the Bears in a rout, although this could be a game where their defense and special teams scores more points than their offense. Take the Bears minus 8.5.

CHARGERS by 5 over Patriots. I’m not even going to discuss this game, except to say that I’ve finally learned my lesson: Don’t bet against Bill Belichick in the playoffs. Take the Patriots plus 5 points.

In this week’s picks, Ron tries to guess what Philip Roth would bet on. In response, next week I’ll try to get NFL conference championship picks from Thane Rosenbaum.

Posted on

But, plug?

Here’s a piece from Cato fellow Jerry Taylor on the hype for plug-in hybrid cars:

Of course, if [plug-in hybrids] really were the wave of the future, there would be no need for ranting in Washington — automobile manufacturers would be busy making them as we speak. It’s only when corporate America is cool to an idea that the prophets turn to the taxpayer or the regulator. This illustrates Taylor’s law — “the commercial merit of any particular technology is inversely related to the degree of political tub-thumping heard in Washington for said technology.”

Here’s the issue I have with these proposed cars: just because they use less gasoline doesn’t mean they’re better, because their power still has to come from somewhere. “Plug-in” doesn’t mean its power miraculously appears from a wall-socket. It means that the electricity infrastructure has to deliver power to keep a car going. Given that we’ve received plenty of alarms about how The Grid is doomed to collapse as our electricity demands keep rising — and that a large portion of that electricity is generated by burning coal — I don’t get how plug-in cars are going to “solve our oil addiction” without creating even greater problems.