Bullshit Update

In the same 24 hours, Martin Scorsese won an Oscar and Dick Cheney almost got blown up by a fucking bomb.



I'd say SOTB 2007 has a clear favorite now.

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Dear Old Dad

My dad turned 68 last week. About the same time, he came down with the flu and was in bed for most of the weekend. When I would tell people it was his birthday, they would usually ask how he's been doing. But in reply, I would always leave out the part about him being sick.



Because when you think about it, the word "sick" changes meanings as you get older. When you're a kid, sick just means you've got a sore throat or something. But once you're old, sick becomes much more serious. As in cancer, or emphysema, or Multiple Sclerosis. If I asked someone about their mom and they said, "Mom's sick" I wouldn't think of the flu. I'd assume the worst.



Dad's better now, so you can put away your stationery. But the incident got me to thinking: are there other words whose meanings change as you get older?



The only one I can think of is "single". As a teenager, my girlfriend would have murdered me if she heard me tell someone I was single. But now, as an adult, I'm undoubtedly single until I'm married (or at least engaged). Even if by some bizarre turn of events I could trick someone into being my girlfriend, I'd still be single. There's no box on your tax return for "dating exclusively".



Are there any other words like this? Does this interest anyone?

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Apocryphal Sports Idea the Entirety of Which I Stole From Someone Else

Last weekend a friend clued me onto an interesting football discussion he found on the internet. Someone had made the bold claim that a team down 14 points late in the 4th quarter is better off attempting a 2-point conversion after it scores a touchdown (thus putting them down 8 point before the conversion) rather than kicking the extra point.



Conventional wisdom suggests you kick the extra point, which puts you down 7 points and in position to score another touchdown and extra point to tie the game and send it to overtime. 2-point conversions, of course, are far less successful, and failing on the first attempt would put you down 8 points, meaning your team would be forced to convert a second 2-point conversion attempt just to tie the game and send it to overtime.



But the numbers don't lie: going for 2 clearly makes more sense.



Two important things to keep in mind: (1) Getting to overtime, which is the coach's only chance at winning when he kicks the extra points, means you'll only win (roughly) 50% of the time. (2) If you successfully convert a 2-point attempt after the first touchdown, you don't need to go for two again. You're only down 6 points, which means a touchdown and extra point wins the game outright.



Back to point (1): given that extra points are sometimes missed (approx. 2% of the time), this means the conservative coach's overall chance of winning is below 50%. (98% x 98% = 96.04%, the chances of making both extra points. Multiply by 50% to see how often you win in overtime and you get 48.02%. (There are other less likely outcomes, such as missing the first extra point then successfully earning a two-point conversion, or making the first extra point then missing the second, which put the overall chance of winning at 48.44%.)



But the aggressive coach will actually win more than half the time. The success rate of 2-point conversions has fluctuated between 40 and 50% since the NFL began allowing them in 1994. Let's use 42%. Going for 2 after the touchdown(s) means you'll win without overtime 41.16% (42% x 98%) of the time and lose before overtime 33.64% (58% x 58%) of the time. The remaining ~25% of the time, you'll go to overtime and win half, for an overall chance of winning at roughly 53.76%.



So, what's interesting about this? If you know anything about football, you know this argument flies in the face of pretty much every coach's strategy, which is almost always incredibly conservative.



But I was reading about this last Saturday night, right after the NFL Pro Bowl. As I read the synopsis of the game, I realized this exact situation had occurred. The NFC was down 28-14 with 3 minutes left in the game. It scored a quick touchdown and tried a 2-point conversion (and failed). It got the ball back and scored again, this time earning the 2 points and tying the game at 28. The NFC's coach, Sean Payton, had defied all conventional wisdom and tried out the strategy. He had succeeded in tying the game while also (if they had converted the first 2-point attempt) giving his team a shot to win outright.



In the end, however, Payton's team made one mistake-- they scored too quickly. There was enough time left on the clock for the AFC team to march down the field and kick a game-winning field goal as time expired. The AFC won 31-28.

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sunday

the boy slept late on purpose, betting correctly that feeling rushed would leave no time for the crippling anticipation which had recently come to dominate his life. hastily he threw on his long-planned outfit: faded chicago bears sweatshirt, navy blue stocking hat and matching gloves. he hustled downstairs into the kitchen, where his dad filled a green thermos with hot cocoa and crammed bologna sandwiches into the front of his coat.

the man drove, his son quiet. eager and optimistic that this would be the year.

they shuffled to their seats. the boy grabbed the binoculars from around his neck and scanned the field below. they weren't too close, but they had a clean view of the action. satisfied, he passed the glasses to his dad and thought about how long he had waited to be here.
__________

but he had no idea it would be so boring. weeks of unchecked hype begat delusions of miracle: hordes of graceful beasts moving in unison, savage and balletic. but the boy's imagination couldn't have prepared him for this reality. sheets of rain. runny nose. the rare flash of excitement leading only to another sustained and eerie silence.

three hours passed like this, their fading enthusiasm no match for the sluggish pace of the wet evening. the boy sat slumped in his seat, his father contemplating the expanding hole in his left glove, when suddenly it happened.

the man shot up with a grunt, rousing his son, and they hastily trained their eyes on the brown missile soaring through the air, down, fading, falling, finally landing gently in the lithe brown limbs stretched delicately out into the quivering air.

"holy shit." the dad said.

his son was standing now, speechless, mouth open. he pulled the binoculars to his face and watched the round brown bird shudder itself dry on the branch below.

the two passed the lenses back and forth, whispering breathlessly about the mighty creature's plume, its talons, its stark yellow eyes.

the boy said "dad. what a superb owl."

the man looked down with a smile. the boy was right.

Certain Blogs goes political

So this is my third consecutive entry to feature some kind of political statement, however unoriginal. Sorry. I'll go back to making fun of myself soon, but in the meantime here are two awesome clips from Iraq.



Normally I'd post the actual video but YouTube is fucking up so I'm just posting the links. Neither of these are violent or gory.



Support our troops:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G4tw-cxQJk



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efv9-vQ2jpA

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let's meet the frontrunners

Dick Cheney- Mr. Vice President has been sick of the bullshit longer than most of us have been alive, and this might be the year all the sneers and audible sighs finally pay off. Between a bumbling boss, a hostile Congress, the Scooter Libby trial, a knocked-up lesbian daughter and a liberal press unwilling to forget that he once shot a man in the face, there's a lot of bullshit in Cheney's future. Odds: 5 to 2

Martin Scorsese- Currently a long shot, Scorsese's viability as a candidate will become clear after the Academy Awards. Marty doesn't emote the way Saddam Hussein or Dick Cheney do, but make no mistake: he's been dealt a heaping pile of bullshit over the years. Try losing Oscars to sentimental hacks like Robert Redford, Kevin Costner, and Clint Eastwood and see how you feel. Odds: 10 to 1

Barry Bonds- This is one disgruntled ballplayer. Not only do reporters insist on interviewing him after every single game, but thousands of adoring fans have been pestering him for autographs ever since he was a rookie. And if that weren't bullshit enough, recently people have been accusing him-- Barry Fucking Bonds-- of using steroids. With a federal perjury indictment looming, this could finally be Bonds's year. Odds: 4 to 1

Suri Cruise- At first blush, Ms. Cruise might seem like an unlikely candidate-- after all, she's got youth, wealth, and fantastic genes. But on the other hand, she's got paparazzi swarming her and the world's most insane parents raising her. All year I'll be asking myself: is she crying because she's hungry, or because she's Sick of the Bullshit? Odds: 10 to 1

The Field- Of course, these candidates could fade and a new contender could emerge. No one is immune from the bullshit, and prolonged exposure has been known to wither even the hardiest of men. There's a lot of bullshit yet to be suffered, and no telling who might snap. Odds: 2 to 1

Sick of the Bullshit

Part of me is going to miss Saddam Hussein. Being a longtime sufferer from the bullshit, I've come to appreciate the daily struggle that being Saddam must have been. During his trial, little made me happier than watching him roll his eyes as wave after wave of bullshit came crashing down: Not allowed to call all his witnesses? BULLSHIT. Not allowed to insult the judge out of turn? BULLSHIT. Lawyers kept getting murdered? BULLSHIT.

But through it all, Saddam took it like a man. He confronted the bullshit with a blend of arrogance and disbelief that would make the Geico Caveman proud.

Thanks to his groundbreaking work in the field of Being Forced to Live in a Cave Because Some Numbskull Wrongly Invaded Your Country, Saddam was the recipient of the 2003 Sick of the Bullshit award. And just a few weeks ago, he became the only repeat winner in the award's history.

Unfortunately, Saddam is something of a lame duck these days. But if there's a silver lining, it's this: for the first time in a while, the race is wide open. I've listed some candidates in the poll near the top of the page. Have a vote, and I'll come back later to handicap the early front runners.

Victory is ours

Certain Blogs would like to thank you, dear reader, for your unflinching support of my advertisers-who-use-unfunny-clichés-and-outright- misconceptions- about-masculinity-to-sell-their-products Boycott.

A mere six months ago, the average viewer was besieged by these types of commercials. But now, thanks to your efforts, either these ads have been expunged from the airwaves or I have become so numb that I no longer notice them. Either way, it smells like victory from here.

Let's look back at the progression of our movement. The first important step happened in mid-summer, when I finally got tired of complaining about these stupid ads. As luck would have it, this initial stage was followed by a prolonged period where I was traveling or otherwise living without cable television. While I was gone, Hummer retooled the commercial that had drawn my ire, rendering my lucid, carefully measured rant obsolete.

The third step happened after I moved to New York, where I ordered a DVR along with my cable package. Armed with the ability to record stuff and fast-forward through the commercials, I became oblivious to whatever buffoonish ads were probably still on TV.

Finally, last week, the death knell sounded.

During the middle of an NFL playoff game, I noticed a peculiar commercial for a pickup truck. The ad begins stupidly enough, with two dudes doing a bunch of rugged things to their truck, like throwing anvils into the bed. But then the guys get into the cab, which is reasonably clean and nice looking. And when the passenger puts his feet on the dashboard, the driver says something like, "hey asshole, get your fucking feet off my dashboard".

I was dumbstruck, and not just by the driver's potty mouth. Here was a character in a truck commercial who (a) used his truck for its intended purpose and (b) didn't want it to look like complete shit if he could help it.

Holy hell! What a reasonable way to act!!!

Yet Another Mailbag

I don't just pretend to receive letters; sometimes I pretend to send them, too. Recently I've kept myself busy writing fake letters to my favorite music celebrities. So busy, in fact, that I haven't had time to fake mail them!

So, like grandpa chugging a glass of Metamucil, it's time to empty the ol' outbag:

Dear Brandon Flowers,

I think The Killers rule! (I especially like the one album I own.) But one thing has always bugged me. In your song "All These Things That I've Done", you repeatedly sing, "I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier." Do you find that people make this mistake a lot? Personally, I've never misidentified anyone as a soldier; then again, I've never known anyone with an ounce of soul.

Best wishes for the new year!
_____

Dear Kanye West,

I think you're the greatest entertainer in the world. That's not hyperbole- I really mean it. I wonder if you could take time out of your frenetic schedule to answer a question from a longtime fan:

In your song "We Don't Care", you sing, "Drug dealin' just to get by/Stack your money 'til it gets sky high". This is one catchy lyric. But my question is, Does your character sell all those drugs to feed his family and pay his bills, or is he out to get rich? I read an article that said this song demonstrates your keen awareness of the tension between social responsibility and consumerism that informs many aspects of black culture.

I'll admit this didn't occur to me; I just figured you were looking for a good rhyme. So which is it?
_____

Dear Mike Skinner,

I've long enjoyed your work as the only member of The Streets. I think you're terrific. That's pretty much it, actually. Cheers!
_____

Dear Julian Casablancas,

I have grudgingly begun to accept that ignoring your band, The Strokes, won't make it go away. After listening to your first album, I have only one question: What are your thoughts on disaffected sex?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Warm regards,
Blogadier General

stop me if i'm wrong

"Courage is grace under pressure."

Really? REALLY??? What the fuck kind of a thing is that to say? I love Hemingway about as much as my own mother, but what the fuck? Is that not the stupidest definition you've ever heard?

Where exactly does grace enter into the picture? Is that a better definition than "courage is not being afraid to die" or "courage is getting shot up by a bunch of krauts because you want your unborn child to go to college"?

What's the matter with people?