relentless

Why? is the question I get most often.

People want to know what makes me push myself to such intense limits in my basketball workouts.

The commitment. The drive. The discipline. How do I keep that burning year after year?

The answer is simple, I tell them.

I know that somewhere out there, in some other private health club in some other gated community, some other doughy, scrubby 36 year-old dude is working on his game. Logging the hours. Getting better. Or at least getting worse more slowly.

He's out there.

And someday our paths will cross. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next year. But we'll meet on some court someplace down the line. As slow, husky white guys in our mid-30's, we'll probably end up guarding each other.

And when we do, I need to be ready.

***

Actually, as I was in mid-workout at the health club, some middle-aged couple came onto the court because they wanted to play tennis. As an outsider, I don't know the rules. Did they book a court time? Did I have to leave? There seemed to be enough room on the court for me to shoot on the side while they played tennis, but when I suggested this option to them, they were like, "No, not really." So I left fuming.

Middle-aged Tennis Dorks: Gas Face.
Sports where you need to reserve a court: Gas Face
Tennis: Gas Face
Golf: Triple Lindy Gas Face

Give me basketball's democratic "I got next" system any day -- it's been working on city playgrounds for at least 50 years.

While I'm at it, sports should be free. I am a sellout for playing at that ritzy health club in the first place. After I left, I went and shot around at an elementary school. At least 8 full courts and not a soul playing. The court had a layer of dirt on it from nearby construction but it still felt right in a way that the health club did not.

I shot 50 free throws. How many did I make? (exact answer gets 8 GP's).

treat every opponent with equal respect

With apologies to Pete B, here is a brief recap of my first attempt to play basketball in California in December 2005. You should be warned that the recap may include any and all of the following: bragging about a game of H-O-R-S-E, bragging about moves pulled off against a 60 year-old man and his rather unathletic daughter, and general bragging about things that should never, ever be bragged about. You may stop reading now.

Games of H-O-R-S-E played against three surfer dudes: 1
Out of three surfer dudes, number who were good at basketball: 2
Games of H-O-R-S-E won against three surfer dudes: 1
Shots hit to stay alive in game of H-O-R-S-E when I had H-O-R-S: 2 -- the last of which was an off-the-dribble banked three pointer. And I had to bank it. That's a tough one.
Notable shots hit that resulted in letters for surfer dudes: at least 3 -- 1) hook shot off glass from 15, 2) banked free throw, and, 3) (to clinch) one-handed free throw while standing perpendicular to basket.
Notable shots hit that surfer dudes were able to match: 1 -- finger roll from free throw line
Games of 2 on 2 played against 60 year-old, overweight man and his 30 year-old daughter: 2
Games of 2 on 2 against 60 year-old, overweight man and his 30 year-old daughter won: 2
Successful spin moves perpetrated on 60 year-old, overweight man and his 30 year-old daughter: 1
Guys named Vic who live on 6th street and Second Avenue met and played with: 1
Number of times Vic made an Austin Powers Swedish Penis Pump joke as I pumped up my basketball: 2
Number of times I sincerely laughed at Vic's joke: 1
Games of 3 on 3 played involving 60 year-old, overweight man and his 30 year-old daughter: 2
Games of 3 on 3 involving 60 year-old, overweight man and his 30 year-old daughter won: 2
Overall record on day: 5-0 (H-O-R-S-E included, of course)
Shameless efforts to photograph overweight self shooting baskets alone for benefit of verbungle.com readers: many

I'll be back out there today, kids.

The Christmas tree in the picture yesterday was 110 feet tall! It's at the outdoor mall at Fashion Island. Looking up at it I would only have guessed maybe 65 feet, but the sign says 110 so I'm going to have to go with that. Deion wins either way and collects 15 points.

More lyrics from the namedatlyric round that would not end:

if I had
if I had more
more would be laid at your feet
if you give me
just a little smile
the dogs on my trail wouldn't drag me back to jail

Guess away!

rackin' up the DNP's

I've been sick almost since we got to California on Monday. Not all that sick, just a little nagging cough and a general feeling of not-rightedness. It feels about the same as being healthy in New York.

But I haven't been able to play ball yet. That's gnawing at me. Maybe today.

For the record, if I owned a gargantuan sporting goods store -- or even a little teeny one -- there's no way I would put little plastic disks over all the basketball hoops to discourage kids from shooting on them. No, the basketball hoops would be exposed and available for anbody who wanted to come in and horse around.

And my store would crush all competitors.

Let's dole out some genius points today. For starters, how tall is this Christmas tree? You may use whatever means are available to you to formulate your guess, closest one gets 15 points. An exact answer gets 25.

And here are the next few lyrics in our failed namedatlyric experiment:

if i had
if i had more
more would be laid at your feet

I'll gladly deliver twelve G.P.'s to whoever provides the correct answer.

I want to buy a nice cotton hooded sweatshirt.

IPO baby

Not sure what this means, but scroll down to #37 on their Top 100 incoming links. Just sayin'.

Since we're buddies, you can each have a share for 200 bucks. Do you need my PayPal account number for that or do you want to send cash?

Per request, here are my top five sports deaths:

1. New York Knicks, Games 6 & 7, 1994 NBA Finals
2. New York Yankees, Game 7, 2001 WS
3. New York Yankees, Games 4-7, 2004 ALCS
4. New York Knicks, Game 5, 1993 Eastern Conference Finals (the Charles Smith Game)
5. San Diego Chargers, 1982 AFC Championship Game (loss to Cincinnati in negative 1000 degree weather)

I could easily expand this list to ten or twenty. And it changes from day to day. Let's see your lists.

Thanks to isired, dlee, crsmal and the other mac endorsers, I have finally made up my mind (sort of)...as soon as Hand Jobs makes his announcement on January 10th, I am going out to buy a 15" PowerBook (assuming his announcement doesn't directly affect this purchase). I am excited. You should be, too.

two for eighteen

I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure I no longer care about sports.

I deeply enjoy them. I'll continue to play them. If they are on TV, I will certainly watch them.

And I'll even root for my teams when they are competitive.

But I'll never die with a team the way I used to.

Until the next time a fearless kid two years removed from bagging groceries at Safeway comes onto the scene to steal, and ultimately break, my heart.

live from the apple store

just wanted to say that the idea of a psychotic jeff reardon terrifies me

I can almost remember their funny faces

As I sat in the JetBlue terminal at JFK today, watching all the tired travelers lining up to board their flights, lugging bags, sprinting with their children towards that elusive gate, the gate that will open and lead them across the country, speeding through the sky at 600mph to see their loved ones for a late Christmas, I felt a little sad. I guess it's because, at age 36, I have finally come to accept that I will never be man enough to comfortably throw or catch an official NFL game ball. They are too big and heavy. I will use mini-balls, youth balls, for the rest of my days.

Here's my Apple update. I badly want the 15" PowerBook, but I don't really know why. The more I read about it in Mac forums and reviews, the more it seems like there are a ton of substantial problems with it, largely unaddressed by Apple. But all the posters in these groups are Mac fetishists who overlook all this crap because of some deep cosmic connection to Apple. They're like, Yeah, I can't use my external hard drive with my PowerBook for some reason and I need to drape some aluminum foil across the computer to pick up a wireless signal, and it occasionally sparks when I start it up, and the battery doesn't work at all, but thank God I'm not on a clunky old PC!

For someone on the outside of the cult and looking to get in, it's a bit discouraging. Between those problems and the fact that Steve "Hand" Jobs is making an announcement on January 10th that could render this generation of PowerBooks sorta obsolete, I ain't pullin' no triggers. What I want is someone who's passionate about Macs but not on the Apple payroll to tell me the deal once and for all. I don't want no grey areas. If I'm spending $2500 on a stupid computer, I want to feel 100% confident that this computer will make me tingle with excitement every day for at least two years. And I don't want one that pisses me off. I've lived that already.

I guess I should go to Tekserve when I get back to the city. The folks there seem like straight shooters. Today I went to the Apple Store in Fashion Island, CA (time between plane's wheels touching down in Long Beach and our arrival at our first mall: approximately 36 minutes -- a record, I think) and I talked to some hotshot kid who probably has the Apple logo branded onto his backside. For every question I asked, his answer was basically, buy this damn machine now, turkeyface.

Me: "So I heard that they're going to be going to the Intel chip soon, I wonder if this is a bad time to buy..."
Him (dismissively -- for the rest of this conversation, every time he says something, you can throw in the word 'dismissively'): "Apple is constantly improving their computers every day. There are always going to be changes. But if you wait for all the changes to be done, you'll never buy a computer. Me, I just bought this 17" last week and I couldn't be happier. I intend to use it for a long time."
Me (thinking to myself): "Until you decide to buy a new one with your 40% employee discount or whatever it is?"
Me: "What about the fact that I heard that the (cheaper) iBooks get better wireless reception than the (crazy-ass expensive) PowerBooks?"
Him: "The PowerBook is aluminum. The iBook is plastic. That's why there's a difference. And the difference is so small, you'd never notice it when you're using it (this is a total lie according to everything I've read - Ed.). The only way you'd notice it is if you had some device that measures the signals precisely."
Me (thinking to myself): "Like a computer?"
Me: "I heard that the most recent batch of PowerBooks was fraught with battery problems ... like they weren't taking a charge at all ... has that been fixed?"
Him: "Apple replaced all those batteries, free of charge (like that's a big deal? - Ed.). In fact, they didn't even ask for the old batteries back, so it's like you got a free (non-working - Ed.) battery in the deal. If there's a problem with your battery, Apple will take care of you (yes, this revolutionary, Apple-hatched concept is known as a "warranty" - Ed.) . These new batteries last seven hours (another damn lie - Ed.)."
Me (thinking to myself): "So that's a no?"
Me: "I also heard that there were problems with the display on the latest 15" PowerBooks. Like there were faint lines running across the screen...?"
Him: "The 17" has a beautiful display."
Me: "That's too big for me."
Him: "The 15" is great, too. They just upgraded the resolution four weeks ago (that's about when people started getting these problems - Ed.). It's awesome. Look at it. You want it, you should buy it. If you do, you'll be kicking yourself for not buying it four months ago."
Me: "Yeah, because if I bought it four months ago I would have gotten four good months in before it became obsolete."

I think I may start looking at PC's again. I can probably get twice the value by going that route, save myself any compatibility issues, and move on with my life. But yet ... something in me ... needs ... that ... Mac. They've got me.

Today's lyricdat word is

more

bringing us to:

if I had
if I had more

Someone put us out of our misery and solve this one.

Zuzu's Petals

It's easy to get cynical this time of year.

If it's not the overwhelming pressure to buy shit for people who don't need it, it's the Christian zealots getting up in arms about some idiotic perceived slight.

It's hard not to get turned off by the whole thing.

But I'm not going to give in to that cynicism. I'm not going to question Christmas this year.

Instead, I'm going to remember how I felt about Christmas when I was a kid. And it's going to be excellent.

So if you'll excuse me, I have to go mainline some egg nog and wrap my albondigas in tinsel. I'm gonna cue up Vince Guaraldi and I'm going to sit down with the people I love and I'm going to remind myself that Christmas can mean whatever I want it to mean.

This year I am celebrating integrity and selflessness.

And I'm looking to find some more of that inside myself.

May your stockings be stuffed and may your bells ring loud.

Be good.

thoughts from The Bar

So last night (Thursday) I had a chance to raise a couple of glasses with initialed innovators cW and PB. cW is just back in town from da West Coast, and PB was just getting out of the house after spending the last few days holed up in his apartment, a "victim" of the transit strike. His boss had allowed him to work from home, so he'd been reporting the news from his couch with his albondigas hanging out of his pajama-hole.

Good to see these two fine men. We ate some mediocre food, we had a couple of beers, and we even made it to 7B for a quick round. I had a lot of fun and I was home by 9:40 pm.

Since you couldn't be there, here are a few of the subjects we discussed:

1) The transit strike. PB kept wondering how many assholes Toussaint would have during his next public appearance. "The union's gonna rip him one, the judge is gonna rip him one, the mayor's gonna rip him one," etc. We all agreed on this being a near-total defeat for the union. Others are not so sure.

2) Stealing Music: A Historical Perspective from Napster to Audiogalaxy to Kazaa to Bit Torrent. We reached a consensus that the glory days of AG were as glorious as it'll ever get. PB and cW fondly remembered crashing the CBSnews server by moving all their MP3's onto it. I lamented the fact that of the maybe 1000 songs I've stolen, only 20 remain after two of my hard drives went up in smoke. PB proudly announced that he has managed to hang onto his entire collection. We all admitted that we don't really understand how to use bit torrent, and PB added that he has no interest in trying something with a stupid name like "bit torrent."

3) The irrational shame of reading a book with the Oprah endorsement on it. PB was nice enough to lend me his Oprahfied copy of "A Million Little Pieces." cW felt inclined to point out that he read the book when it was in its hardcover, pre-Oprah phase.

4) Johnny Damon's throwing arm; specifically as it relates to Bernie Williams' throwing arm. PB thinks Damon will lead the Yanks to a championship next year, and says his arm is much better than Bernie's. I say Damon throws like a little old lady coming off Tommy John surgery. I brought up how excited I am about Farnsworth, not just because he throws 100 mph but because he is a lunatic and will probably beat somebody's head in at some point. We haven't had somebody like that in a while, maybe since Don Zimmer. I guarantee you will love watching Farnsworth, even if he has a crappy year.

5) The Mets. Pete basically said, don't sleep on the Mets. In the end, I kind of feel the same way about the Mets as I do about the killer bees. You hear a lot about 'em, some of it's probably true, but I'm not gonna waste any time worrying about it until they're here.

6) We had the inevitable website conversation. We discussed ways to make PBdotC and verbungle.com profitable. We wondered if we could create some combination supersite along with Joe M. and Crsmal and the boys and make a billion dollars off of it. Then we remembered that our combined readership is like 19 people. We discussed selling ads as an experiment. cW commented that he has really been digging crsmal's blog, citing crsmal's writing and also the specificity of his subject matter. It seems that crsmal has correctly guessed that non-handies might be interested in handy-man talk if it's made interesting and easy to understand. I think of all the blogs I've been reading every day, crsmal's has the most commercial potential.

7) We told a couple of old drinking stories. Like the time PB and cW almost got their asses beat in by fascists at Continental. And the time PB thumb-gouged me at Galapagos.

8) We discussed the Elia Rant and the elusive Earl Weaver Manager's Corner Tirade. (neither SFW)

9) We briefly discussed the NBA. They asked me about this Knicks team and I had to comment that I could not care less about them. They suck and they are disorganized. They're a mess. We talked about the Wizznutzz website, which we all agreed is an inspired bit of insanity. That guy's a trip.

10) We talked about how PB needs to get a new digital camera, even though his phone pics are charming.

11) We spilled a couple of drops over what we all perceived as the death of humor in hip hop. We all agreed that either 50 Cent sucks or we're getting old.

I have Xmas with the family this weekend in BKN, then it's off to Cali for sunshine, Jamba Juice and missed jump shots. Maybe a tour of an aircraft carrier courtesy of Navy Davy before he deploys. Unfortunately I think I'm getting sick. I hope I didn't catch SARS from cW. Bastard.

If I don't see ya or talk to ya before then, have a great holiday and remember to drink plenty of red and green Gatorade.

Today's lyricdat word (actually I'll give you three because they're the same as the first three):

if I had

So what we have so far is:

if I had
if I had

Let's do it.

Dear My Dentist

Dear My Dentist,

So we had an appointment today at 9am. You remember, the second stage of what may end up being a ten-visit root canal procedure? Yeah, that one. I wasn't looking forward to it, either. And I'm not sure if you know this, but it is a busy, busy week for me at the office, so taking two hours out of my workday to get this taken care of was kind of bumming me out.

But I knew we needed to get it done, so I hopped in a cab with some strangers, we battled our way through godawful traffic, and I arrived at your office at 56th and Lex at 9am. On time.

Your staff greeted me as usual, then your assistant dental lady brought me back and sat me in the chair right away. Good, I thought. You guys want to get an early start.

But you weren't there. You weren't there at 9:15. You weren't there at 9:30.

So I just sat there in the chair, waiting, anticipating the pain. At 9:35, I said to myself, five more minutes then I'm out. And at 9:40, you weren't there. No updates from the staff, either. So I went up to the reception desk, still wearing my bib, and I asked your receptionist what the deal was.

"He's on his way," she said.

"Sorry, I have to reschedule," I said. "By the time I get to work, it'll be noon."

So they rescheduled me, gave me a half-assed apology, and I stormed out and took a 40-minute cab ride to my job.

Now I think you owe me an apology or at least an explanation. It cost me $20 round trip, and more importantly I missed two hours of work on a day when I couldn't really afford to do that.

Before you get all, gridlock...commute...no cabs...took me forever...I should tell you that I am aware that you can walk from your apartment to your office in fifteen minutes.

Fume.

Sincerely,

Hans Q. Bungle
Patient/Yuckmouth/Cash Cow

***

As bad as I want that Mac, I think it's prudent to wait right now. There will be an announcement on January 10th at the International Mac Dork Conference or whatever it's called. The announcement will address the Intel issue in some meaningful way and hopefully this info will help me make a sound decision. So if you were thinking about getting me the 15" PowerBook for Christmas, hold off for at least a couple of weeks. In the meantime, if you absolutely INSIST on buying me something, here are some suggestions:

1. $75 in cash
2. $100 in cash
3. $1 million in cash or stocks
4. A CF who can reach the cutoff man on the fly (actually, Damon is a nice addition and I'm happy they signed Bernie as well)
5. A video camera so I can document our adorable kid before she gets old and nasty

***

Today's lyricdat word (and I am now realizing I should have chosen a less obscure song):

had

Bringing us to

if i had

Please solve away.

***

Thursday Thunder:
Valsmal has a new saga from suburbia...we have added the old "trayline" posts to their own blogspot blog... Going to Cali on Monday. Will take photos. Will shoot baskets. Will dip my albondigas gently in the Pacific if I get the chance.

Judd Nelson Gettin' New Jacked

Bill Boggz. Bill Muthafukkin' Boggz.

And a bunch of chicks.


Are you surprised?

You shouldn't be. If you're familiar with his 1980 erotic novel At First Sight, you know that the Boggz-man is, to borrow a phrase from the inner city youth of 1994 and the suburban youth of three years later, a player. A dirty, nasty player. The Conrad Dobler of erotic novelists.

The Boggzinator is only one of the heroes up on the Astor Wall of Fame, although he is right near the top where he belongs. For a larger photo of the board itself, you can click here. I don't think anybody got any of them right.

My favorite is the buff guy who's seven foot ten. What kept this guy out of the NBA? He's ripped. And seven foot ten.

So it's going on 3am and we don't know if there's going to be a transit strike. Most bogus. Poor NY1 blew their entire 2006 production budget covering this event, and now it looks like they may have to sign off without a definitive answer.

3:05 am update. Strike is on, baby. Dean Meminger is all over the story.

And I have a mondo-importante week ahead of me at work. What fun!

Today's word in namedatlyric is

I

which leaves us with

If I

Are we getting closer? No? I was listening to this song today. It's a good song. You may or may not have heard it. Don't give it too much thought.

Apology of the day (potential new feature!): to my good friend who I saddled with a mean-spirited nickname back in like '92. I was a dick. You were kind of a dick, too. But I was a bigger dick and I apologize.

But you were definitely a dick as well. Let's call it even.

No? That's not good enough? You still wanna hold a grudge? Forget you, then. Apology rescinded.

countin' squirrels and cuttin' heads

So my one-day weekend is over. It wasn't bad.

Ten loads of laundry. One beer. One glass of Prosecco. A few more of those awesome little sweetish crackers with some cheese.

I got a long-overdue haircut. I went to (Dis) Astor Place and my man Rocco took care of me. I think he will be my featured barber for awhile. He don't say much, and what he does say you can't understand, but he's 2 for 2 in the haircut department. And ultimately that's what counts when you're choosing a barber, no?

Those of you who are familiar with Astor Place Haircutters but haven't stopped by in a while might be disappointed to learn that the ground-floor half of the place is gone. They got priced out of their lease. Now it's just the basement, and the cost of a haircut is up to (a still-reasonable) $14.

But I was relieved to see that they haven't discarded their board of celebrity Polaroids. They just took it and wedged it half-assedly into the stairwell. It's an amazingly random assortment of people who have been at least quasi-famous at some point in the last 30 years -- athletes and movie stars and rappers and socialates -- all smiling dutifully as they get their cheap haircuts at Astor Place.

For three genius points each -- and no research of any kind is allowed -- name as many of these celebrities as possible.

I will post a picture of the board tomorrow.

As I was walking out of Stuytown on the way to the barber, I thought of a fun game ST/PCV residents can play on their way to work each morning:

The object is to guess how many squirrels you will see before you leave the project, as well as the ethnic makeup of this group. My guess today was "19 squirrels total; 12 brown, 7 gray." I stopped counting when I reached 27 squirrels. Those little monsters are everywhere. If you ever get it exactly right, you can buy yourself a chocolate milkshake.

No Mac for me this Xmas. With the Intel switchover happening at some point in the next year, it seems like a bad time to buy one. When the switchover happens, I can possibly either get the new one or maybe they'll have some leftover stock of the non-Intel PowerBooks on sale for cheap. Maybe not, but best to wait and see either way, I think. Plus, a lot of people have told me that the 15" PowerBooks get hot as a mother when you use them. That's no fun, burning the old balls and such.

In the meantime, I may order a new hard drive for my busted computer to see if that's what the problem is. I found the exact same model hard drive online at some shady retailer for like $100, but I'm wondering if I should buy something different cuz that one is a lemon. What are the rules governing laptop hard drive compatibility? Isired, you out there?

***

While you are guessing Astorlebrities, you can also have a quick, preliminary look at the next namedatlyric song (an MP3 of which will appear following the correct guess).

Here goes:

If

Good luck with that one.

Also, please check out Crsmal's new blog! (As mentioned in the previous post below.)

not a bad day

Phish-head. Carpenter. Husband. Griller. Wry observer of suburban life.

And now, blogger.



That's right, kids. We are proud to announce that one of our contributing columnists, Crsmal, has spun off his "burbs" page into his own full-ass blog. It bothers me a little bit that he already has a nicer looking design than I have on either of my two sites. But that's OK, we will gladly add him to the blog-roll at right.

From the early posts, it seems that the blog will be geared towards home-improvement and all its amusing pitfalls. However, as time goes by, he will undoubtedly be posting about whatever thoughts go drifting across his fine brain. It's all gonna be fun.

Here's to you, Crsmal! Bravo and keep postin'.

Although I think an even better title might be "He knew enough to be dangerous." That's a great phrase.

2 E Z

I can't tell you how liberating it is to be using this Blogger shit. When I think back to how clunky and hard to use my old web publishing software (which shall remain nameless) was, it's amazing that verbungle.com lasted this long.

Even when I had a good idea, I would dread the actual process of starting a post. Because it was fucking time-comsuming. And labor-intensive. I would manually create individual permalink pages for each day's post (I wonder if anyone ever even used one). I would update links by hand. I would be "saving as" with each day's post into the next. I would be cuttin' and pastin' me haloscan links left and right. When I wanted to create a link, it took like a full minute for the correct window to load. Painful. And there were glitches. Daily damn glitches. And my site looked vastly different from browser to browser, computer to computer. I'd get to the office and it would look much shittier than it did at home. And I couldn't easily edit it from a remote computer.

I am so happy to be rid of that process. The only danger is now that posting is easy, I might have an even lower standard of quality to turn a thought into a post. Sort of like how digital photography helped ruin the art of photography. How digital anything removes the threshold of talent - the barrier that used to exist when somebody tried to do something. Now we can all do it. I think it's a better world because of it.

You might be gettin' three crappy posts a day sometimes. And someday I might even be tempted to post from work (on my lunch hour, of course).

You'll need to keep checking back.

I repeat: it's so easy, I don't understand why you ain't bloggin' yet (you know who you are). I'm not even endorsing Blogger over any other service, just saying that if you feel like posting something to the internets, you should. You too. You could be doing it ten minutes from now.

But I also want to make it clear: I am not abandoning the content of good ol' verbungle.com. Not at all. As Don says in Sexy Beast, "Not this time, Gal. Not this time. Not this fucking time. No. No no no no no no no no no! No! No no no no no no no no no no no no no! No! Not this fucking time! No fucking way! No fucking way, no fucking way, no fucking way! You've made me look a right cunt!" The predictions, the reviews, the snippets, the columns by stalwarts like Dan K., cW, the Yatchman, and CrsMrsmal -- I love all that shit and it will continue. Even the Gatorade reviews. Just consider this site the new homepage.

Good job by cW for nailing "Mama told me not to come" in the lyricdat challenge. I would post the MP3 but I don't own it. I like that song though.

Dan K. says:

Don't redirect. How will we access the old stuff if we're constantly getting auto-sent to this page?

First, I am flattered that anyone might actually be accessing the old stuff. Second, don't worry -- it will be easy. Basically, there will always be a link on the bottom of my link list that takes you to a directory of "verbungle classic" content. That directory might not be located at www.verbungle.com, but clicking on it will allow you to access all the non-blog content. I would only do a redirect to...er...redirect people here from the old blog location. I may do that later this week.

So I'm feeling pretty good about things. Better than I felt the other day, when a woman at work caught me scratching my dry itchy right ass. She turned and immediately left the room, too. That was embarrassing.

This just in: hockey continues to suck.

Alright kung fu heroes -- tell me whodat. Thirteen points.

the way it's gonna be from here on out

welcome!
until we decide otherwise, the page you are now looking at will be verbungle's new home. update your bookmarks and all that.

you can still access the old content here.

in a few days, we might make that old page auto-redirect to this page. that's a threat.

all of this may change at any moment. in fact, it will definitely change eventually.

but I like the freedom of using this blogger software and I am too lazy to get it to co-exist with my old stuff on my old site. so here we go.

the genius board will be on the lower right.

the links will be on the middle right.

if we update pages within the "old" bungle, like say we add a new list or somethin', we will notify you at the end of that day's post here on the blog. maybe we'll have three asterisks (***) separating the actual post from the housekeeping.

I am open to suggestions for how to run things better.

let's not consider this the death of the ol' bungle. just the start of a new and healthier bungle. your feedback, as always, is not only welcome but critically important.

***

Lyricdat word for today:

whiskey

leaving us with:

will you have whiskey

solve that shit.

Eddie was money

I need a haircut. Been too busy. Plus I don't really have a place I like.

When I was a kid, I used to get my hair cut at Little Tony's on West 11th street. Stopped for some reason at some point.

Then when I was like 28 I started going there again. Eddie was my guy. He was the only one working there with a good haircut, so I picked him. All the guys there were nice, though. They had lots of dirty pictures on the mirror, like chicks lying on their bellies in the surf, exposing their thonged asses. They also had a Polaroid of Cecil Fielder up on the mirror. He and his son were getting haircuts at Little Tony's ca. 1996. I wonder if it's the kid who plays for the Brewers now. That would be cool. He was a big kid, the kid in the picture.

One time Eddie gave me a Heineken while I was getting my hair cut. Me and Eddie and Tony and the guys, drinking Heinekens and listening to WCBS-FM on a Saturday afternoon.

Another time it was a glass of wine.

Then I moved to the Upper Wessside and it became harder for me to go to Little Tony's. So I started going to some place uptown.

Now I'm back downtown, so a couple of months ago I stopped in at Little Tony's to see if Eddie was still there.

He's not.

Dear Ben

Dear Ben,

I love her, you know. I'm not just doing this to get back at you. I'm not pulling some bizarre Mr. Ripley-style stunt. The whole pregnant-before-we-were-married thing is just a coincidence.

I'm totally cool with us just being friends.

Oh to hell with it -- I love you.

Matt

All Things Being Equal

ATBE, here are some things I would never say "No" to:

-wanna play basketball?

-should we bring you some more chips?

-do you mind if I put the Replacements on the jukebox?

-next weekend, you wanna get a 12-pack and rent Point Break?

-would you care for a baked potato?

-(expunged obvious sexual joke)

-come on, stay for one more beer.

-why don't you come in a little late tomorrow?

-would you like the Super Combo for 89 cents more?

-do you want to buy a box in this Super Bowl pool?

-I hereby request that you grow a beard.


The problem with all that is that All Things are never really Equal.

Wait, I think there was a night in maybe August of 1992 where They Were All Equal.

Since ATWE, I found myself unable to say no to a number of things. I still don't feel comfortable discussing the events of that evening in public. Here are a few things that were involved: The Maltese Falcon, The Pinckney Street Hideaway, a drunk Italian on a Harley, and a girl with fashionably short hair who's now dead. Not necessarily in that order.

You think I'm kidding.

Thanks, but I'll stay right here where All Things Aren't Equal.

if i was a cop

i would try real hard not to be on the take.

being on the take is wrong, i'd know that.

i wouldn't rat out my buds, though, if they were on the take. i know how to look the other way. i ain't serpico.



eventually, something would happen, like i'd get set up by my partner and beaten into a bloody mess by some punks. as a warning.

or i'd get shit on by a bum and then come home to an empty fridge and a bunch of overdue bills.

and then i'd realize it was time to go on the take.

here's how i'd rationalize being on the take:

i'd be like, if the city of new york doesn't recognize that the job i do is a special one -- it's fraught with danger, it's open to public criticism, and it's all that separates the people who do bad things from the people who don't want bad things done to them -- then who am i to turn down kind offers from the people who DO recognize this?

people who gave us money would get special treatment. i'd still protect and serve everybody, but i'd be more protective and servile of the people who paid extree for it. i'd be their bitch. i'd take care of them.

and life would go along pretty good for awhile. i'd have big christmases and a secret sock stuffed with twenties, way up on a high shelf.

eventually, it would get out of control, though. we'd be divying up money and coke after a narcotics bust. we'd be giving out bullshit tickets to small businessmen who didn't want to play ball with the local mob.

and then one day, my partner would say he wanted my help with something really big. there was risk involved, he'd say, but if we could do this one thing and do it right, we'd be set.

and i'd meet him in a bar, not the cop bar we usually went to but someplace out of the way. and he'd tell me about the really big thing he wanted my help with.

and it would be something real bad.

and before he even finished telling me what it was, maybe halfway through his sales pitch, i'd realize that it didn't matter if i said no. i was in it now. right there in the middle of it, along with him.

and i'd wish i'd never gone on the take.

and i'd wish i'd never been a cop.

oh, by the way, if i was a cop, you can bet your ass i'd have a moustache and big reflective sunglasses.

I should totally

shave my head

grow a beard like the guy at the whole foods body store on 25th

get a big ol' dangly earring

and a barbed wire tattoo.

and then i'd come over and we'd watch the simpsons

after a while we'd go to the deli and buy a sixer

lie to the lady there for no reason

come home, put on some music, crack open our beers

and then we'd sit back and laugh and try to figure out where it all went right

Fuckin' finance it

You know what hits me right in the ribs? Listening to salespeople in electronics stores talking to customers who are hopelessly underinformed.

Todat I stopped by BestBuy and as I was browsing through the laptop aisle I overheard like three different salespeople taking full advantage of customers who didn't have a clue. I don't know much about computers, but I know enough to know that these sales dudes were throwing around technical terms just to confuse people into thinking they needed x laptop or y hard drive. And the sales dudes themselves didn't seem to know much.

It was all "this computer has 512 megabytes of RAM, which is really awesome. And the hard drive is 80 gigabytes -- that's what you need." And the poor (usually older) customers just nod along helplessly. And commerce tales place.

It's lame when people do shit like that. It reminds me of the scene in the fine 80's film Ruthless People (IMDB link)when Judge Reinhold is trying to sell the young married couple some speakers. Sensing their ignorance, he takes them to "The Big Room," where he pushes a giant, shitty, expensive set of speakers on them. They are blown away by his pitch and they are all ready to sign their names on the layaway plan, and then Reinhold's character notices the wife is pregnant, and he can't go through with it. He then sells them better speakers for less money.

He does the right thing, and costs himself money. That's usually how it works, I guess. Especially in sales.

BestBuy dickheads, go rent Ruthless People.

***

Half the time when I go to espn.com I see this douchebag:

And each time, I think:
1) he looks sorta like Anthony "Goose" Edwards.
2) he has the expression of somebody who really thinks he knows what he's talking about.
3) I don't like him. And having read his columns, I don't think he knows what he's talking about.

ESPN, dump this dude, or at least dump his picture. Thanks.

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Wrasslin'

Wrasslin' is a young man's game. I miss it.


Wanna wrassle?