It’s a pity I plan to have a Viking funeral, since Costco has such good deals on caskets. Think of it! Get some steaks for the BBQ, a 15-year supply of Fiddle-Faddle, and a grave-box for your husband Earl, who died of a heart attack this morning while pooping.
There’s been a lot of local talk about Michael Vick, most of it ranging from “meh” to “HOLY CRAP I’M NEVER WATCHING THE EAGLES AGAIN WATCH ME BURN MY SEASON TICKETS AAAAAA”. The sports professionals are focusing on whether or not this makes the Eagles a better team, but results are inconclusive.
My take on him as a person: he spent almost 2 years in jail, he’s undoubtedly going to spend time and money on the Humane Society and other groups, and Lord knows he’s going to hear about this for the rest of his life. (If I were a Cowboys fan, I’d already be dreaming up jokes about how the center should be in a “rape stand” if #7’s gonna touch him there.) I’m willing to give him a second chance, until the first time he screws up, in which case I would imagine he’ll go back to prison and he’s out of chances in the NFL.
On the other hand, it’s hard to picture him strangling a pit bull with piano wire and think that he could have changed into a model citizen.
Still. One shot. That’s all he gets.
As to football, I guess we need to wait and see. It seems stupid to get another quarterback when we have a still-functional Donovan McNabb and the “QB of the Future” Kevin Kolb. Still, depending on what kind of shape he’s in, he could well be the finest physical athlete the Eagles have seen since Cunningham. I’m not going to say I don’t want that on my team. If he gets used as some kind of all-purpose player, returning some kicks, lining up at the slot, seeing plenty of downs, that would be well worth the money, and any PR hit the Eagles take. (Of course, if he’s instrumental in getting the Birds to the Super Bowl, he could rape each of the fans’ mothers in turn and they’d probably tip him.)
I’d really love to see him as a trick back, running crazy sweeps and taking direct snaps for flea-flickers. Or, and this would be so sweet that I may get diabetes if it happens, he runs a few option plays here and there. (I think option football is the most exciting form of the game around.)
So I guess you can put me in the “meh” camp, but with a big “if this works out it’s going to be SO AWESOME” asterisk next to it.
Something I had not previously considered: Does killing terrorist leaders actually do us any good? I think we would instinctively say “yes,” but Robert Wright points out that there is a fairly inexhaustible source of terrorist leadership, something that we only increase by killing civilians in our quest to kill terrorists.
It becomes clearer and clearer to me that military action doesn’t do nearly as much good as we’d like to think. Catching and punishing criminals should always be a function of police, not soldiers.
A particularly amusing image from PassiveAgressiveNotes.com:
Noooooooo! Les Paul has died. He was exactly one day older than my paternal maternal grandfather, my oldest living relative. Damn.
Update: Apparently I don’t know what paternal means. At least I caught it before I got rude comments! (Not that I won’t still receive rude comments. Just that, you know, I fixed it first.)
Ever wonder what it’s like to be a Cleveland Indians fan? Nurse The Hate can tell you. (Note: naughty words.)
Once again the white flag of surrender proudly flies over Progressive Field, and the team has sent all the core players packing, unable to pay them what the market will pay in upcoming seasons. It’s hard to believe really. Six months ago the organization was talking playoffs. Now two of the top three in the pitching rotation are gone. Plus, the set up guy, and four of the starting position players have been dumped for minor league players 2 years or more away from possibly playing at the Big League level…
The question I have as a ticket buyer is why do I have to keep shelling out for this bulls***? The answer is, of course, I don’t. And neither does anyone else, as the Indians attendance has slipped to 27th out of 28 teams. I am stuck with 5 more games in my season ticket package at $50 a game to watch minor league players audition for next year’s team. Not to worry though, as a customer I am very excited to hear from the head of the Indians organization that once every ten years they might be able to compete. Where do I sign up for my 2010 tickets! Whoo!
Patrick Appel, posting on Andrew Sullivan’s site, has a pertinent reader comment on the current healthcare situation, which helps explain why I think a public option is not an unreasonable intrusion on the marketplace.
The problem with predicting medical expenses is that, even though you can find the codes (they’re called CPT codes and you can find them here) you would have to get the price from the doctors’ billing coders, which they would probably be loathe to give out- how can we expect the market to work when the consumers don’t get to know the price BEFORE consuming? …If you have the time to sit down and do the research, it would be nearly impossible for the average person to make an accurate decision about the most cost effective doctor to have. Imagine trying to make that decision in a panic.
I’ve had this funny spot in my vision for a couple days, and also I haven’t seen an optometrist in roughly ever, so I scheduled an appointment to have my peepers examined yesterday. I’m the only person of my age that I know who doesn’t wear any kind of corrective lenses, but recently things have been…not necessarily blurry, but definitely less well-focused than they were ten years ago. It was time.
I knew the basic drill from what my various friends and family reported, so I read off the letters and words and impressed the hell out of the technician by reading the bottom line of the close-up card without even squinting. Then Dr. Nguyen came in and we got down to Business. He put the big metal Mardi Gras mask in front of me and started twisting dials, checked for astigmatism, all that good stuff. Then he grabbed some eyedrops off the shelf, which I assumed were to dilate my eyes, but instead he said “These are a bit of anesthetic, they may sting a bit,” and quickly dropped them in before I could ask “what exactly are you about to do that might cause me pain?” which turned out to be an important unasked question.
Then he flipped off the lights and used another tool with a bright blue light to look at my eyes, and tossed off the following sentence like he was asking a waiter for an extra spoon: “I’m going to press this blue light against your eyeball. Open your eyes wide.”
You’re going to do what now?
Hey, uh, could you not, um…okay, bright blue light, getting closer, that’s close enough, OKAY PLEASE STOP PRESSING THE BLUE LIGHT AGAINST MY EYEBALL and he pulled it away.
“Now for the other one!”
Um…do we have to, uh…wait…wait…no…BRIGHT BLUE LIGHT AGAINST MY EYEBALL AGAIN TOTALLY NOT COOL and we were done.
“Ocular pressure’s totally normal.” Yeah, thanks for that.
Also thanks to everyone who had had this procedure done but didn’t warn me that SOLID OBJECTS WOULD BE PRESSING DIRECTLY AGAINST MY PUPILS. Awesome times.
After that, he did dilate my eyes, and to rule out a neurological reason for the funny spot in my vision, he had a technician do a peripheral vision test which I passed with flying colors. After my pupils were as big as pupils have any business getting, he shined a painfully bright light around my retinas for a while.
“Okay…first of all, your vision’s 20/15. You don’t need glasses.”
Just like Ted Williams!
“I do see a little scarring on your retina…” (Perhaps from the fact that you just shined an automobile headlight into my eyeball? Just throwing that out there.) “…but that’s normal.”
The funny spot is probably just the eyeball equivalent of a bruise, and will probably disappear soon. Yay! I don’t have eyeball cancer or syphilis or something!
“We’ll see you next year for another appointment!”
Great, ’cause it’ll take me that long to forget what it was like to have A BRIGHT BLUE LIGHT PRESSED AGAINST MY CORNEA.
This cat is much smarter and far more fit than any of mine:
Wow. The Penny Arcade guys got into quite the argument yesterday (warning: Naughty Words) on the topic of guys taking classes to learn how to manipulate women. At one point Gabe is accused of molesting unconscious women, to which he basically responds that it was “Asleep Style” sex, which is totally different.
