smell my fingers

Are there three more innocent words that when strung together become as gross as those three? And I think every man finds himself in a room at some point in his life when they are said. Yuck.

I've been wanting to blog but I ain't had nothing to blog about. Nothing nothing nothing. Oh, and then yesterday -- you won't believe what happened: nothing. So tonight I flip on the Knicks game and there's like 4 minutes left. Another bad Knicks loss. What a sloppy, stinky bunch of misfits, I thought.

And then a nasty brawl broke out. Yay! I had something to blog about.

You of course remember our controversial coverage of the Pistons-Pacers brawl from a couple of years ago. It led to three days of emotional debate in the comments section and while I respect all of your opinions, I still stand by my position.

In fact, tonight's Knicks-Nuggets brawl, which as far as I can recall was the most intense since that night, supports my thesis that the fans bear the main responsibility for Pistons-Pacers. Tonight's brawl actually took place in the stands, completely dangerous and out of control. Fans could have gone nuts and it could have turned into something reeeeeally ugly. But they stayed calm and let the players duke it out. Good job: NYC, Knicks fans, MSG security, Dick Bavetta. Although Bavetta could easily have just canceled the rest of the game -- it was a 20 point lead with like a minute left, no need to send the teams back out there and risk another flareup.

I don't have the energy to give a report card to everyone involved like I did last time, especially because my DVR lost the game due to some technical issues and I only saw the fight like three times. The main thing I want to say, and I say this while acknowledging that this joker Collins on the Knicks was the main instigator, is this: Carmelo Anthony is a Little Bitch. His open-handed punch-slap and backpedal, followed by his misty-eyed mugging on the sideline, made me lose all respect for him. Not forever, but for now.

Also, I would not fuck with Nate Robinson. He has a Dillahunt-like center of gravity and he will stay on you until the fight is done and you are hospital-bound. Like most little men, he's also ready to go at a moment's notice. I don't really like him, but I respect his fighting ability. That dude J.R. Smith bit off a little more than he could chew when he went after Nate.

The Nuggets landed all the punches, but they were cheap shots with dudes being held from behind, etc.

I think Carmelo will get 10 games for this one.

Of course, the most interesting thing to find out is if Isiah ordered the flagrant foul. I wouldn't be surprised. That's worthy of a 10 game suspension as well. And if it comes out that he did it, I think ya kinda sorta need to fire him.

The other question, the one the Knicks are pushing as their motivation, is why the Nuggets had their starters in at the end of a blowout. George Karl is a douche, to be sure, but it's his right to play whoever he wants, you can't just go tackling dudes by the throat.

Oh, and last thing -- it's shaping up as a real shitty season in the NBA after all the progress of last year. Here's a good slogan for the league: The NBA: Just Watch Phoenix.

Yesterday in the elevator at work I heard "Swingin Party" by the Replacements. It's the extra-slow, special elevator that only a few of us have to ride, because it services the top floors that most people don't need to go to. The music is always interesting -- it's not traditional elevator music, it's somebody's iPod or something. Thanks, anonymous iPod dude, you made my ride a little better.

Justin Timberlake -- right up there with Baldwin and Walken as best SNL hosts. Dude is very amusing. "Dick in a Box" was damn funny and will be annoying you on YouTube by Sunday afternoon.

Hans Bungle, Freshman, University of Wisconsin, Fall Semester, 1987:

Greg Oden, Freshman, Ohio State University, Fall Semester, 2006:

Quien es mas macho?

Holy shit that dude Oden looks like he's around 40 years old and I look 8. It's actually interesting to think that he was in his mom's belly when the first photo was taken.

We was holdin it down back in 87 though. I have the look of a kid who just realized that all things were equal. Check out my West 4th street T-shirt, soon after stolen.

For 10 points, tell me what is in the white box on the top shelf behind me in that Fall 1987 pic. Looking for a brand name as well as a product type. And for eight more, tell me what brand of boombox that is.

What do you want for Christmas, etc.?

cradling my composite game ball and slurping on a can of New Coke

Good riddance composite NBA game ball. The only thing I liked about that thing (not that I ever felt it in person, maybe I will go purchase one as BJL suggests) was that it wasn't made from animals. But the ball clearly sucked. Minor kwachas to Stern for the about-face, major demerits to him for instituting the new ball to begin with. If you've ever felt a properly-conditioned leather NBA game ball, you know that shit didn't need to be rethunk or replaced. It was, and hopefully will be again, a nearly-perfect thing.

Also minor demerits to him for his comments about replacing the new ball:

"Although testing performed by Spalding and the NBA demonstrated that the new composite basketball was more consistent than leather, and statistically there has been an improvement in shooting, scoring, and ball-related turnovers, the most important statistic is the view of our players."

1) More consistent? Are the leather balls they had been using pock-marked and lopsided? You can't produce enough consistent leather basketballs to keep 30 teams happy? I don't buy this.

2) "Statistically there has been an improvement in shooting, scoring, etc" -- if you watched the new ball in action at all, you would plainly attribute any increase in shooting and scoring to the fact that the ball just died on the rim -- shots that were actually missed suddenly found a way to crawl in. Several times a game. So the players weren't actually playing better with the new ball; the game just got easier. I imagine you'd see a similar spike in offensive numbers if you increased the diameter of the basket by 25% or eliminated the rule that requires dribbling.

That's about it with that.

An-dy Pet-titte! Clap Clap, Clap Clap Clap!

I was thinking today about how lame this blog has become. Posting once a week about how I ate Doritos the other day or whatever is no way to build a web empire. It got me wondering: did verbungle always suck so hard or is it just recently? I went back and looked at some old posts, and I came to the conclusion that while lameness often crept into the picture, some posts were actually pretty good and entertaining. They showed that my mind was functioning, by which I mean it had sufficient time each day to daydream about goofy stuff that might develop intro a full-fledged blog post. A blog post that would hopefully be good enough to entertain you as you sipped your morning hot beverage and put off work for a few minutes.

Like this. That was pretty good. And this one. Not bad. And this one, too -- all within a few days of each other. Sure, some of the posts sucked giant moosecock, but there were enough decent ones to warrant the continuing existence of the site. But these days...well, these days I can't remember my last decent post. Maybe this one.

So what has changed?

Well, like Columbo used to say, usually the most obvious answer is the right answer. In this case, that answer is that my job has taken over my life. Between working 70 hours a week (now down to about 55) and trying to keep my young baby alive and out of trouble with the law, I have barely had time to think cool thoughts, let alone type them up on the magic typewriter and get them to the people. When I am buying an egg sandwich, instead of observing some hilarious shit in the deli or thinking about something funny that happened to me back in '92 or trying to solve an ongoing international problem, I am instead worrying about work. Or baby. Or pops.

Who suffers? You do.

What do I aim to do about it? Not much.

But I think the next few weeks will be full of change for me, and hopefully it's good change, and hopefully it leads to some good posts. In the meantime, I will make one small adjustment. I will change the background color of this blog to suit my mood. I like to keep it white for the most part; I think that maybe it makes it less conspicuous for those of you who are reading it at work. But we need to shake things up so it's gonna get all rainbowy for a li'l while.

Since my head is empty right now, I have also decided to start utilizing your suggested post topics to get me going. 22 points for PBdotC's suggestion of talking about Billy Joel songs that don't suck. You all know my history with Billy Joel. When I was 13 years old, I would sit in my air-conditioned room with my friends (I won't name you) and play ColecoVision while soaking in the immense brilliance of every BJ lyric. Then, about three years later, I realized Billy Joel sucked. Since then, my hatred of Billy Joel has been fueled mostly by four things:

1) His massive suckitude
2) His arrogance and apparent complete lack of awareness of this suckitude
3) The sense of betrayal I felt for wasting appproximately 80 of my teenage dollars and 500 of my teenage hours on this joke of a man
4) My own self-hatred for those same reasons


So it is somewhat difficult for me to fairly evaluate his canon in the search for songs that don't suck. I think maybe they all suck.

Instead, I offer you the Billy Joel songs that I feel suck the least, or at least have something interesting or good about them. No order. Don't ask me to pick an order.

1) Worse Comes to Worst -- contains the slightly off but oddly satisfying lyric "And if I don't have a car I'll hitch/I got a thumb and she's a son of a bitch"
2) She's Got a Way -- nice, pretty love song a la James Taylor
3) Until the Night -- corny, bombastic, Billy Joelish as all hell -- but somehow it works for me. At least I think it does -- I haven't heard it in about 16 years.
4) New York State of Mind -- really not that bad, especially if you are a 13 year-old New Yorker flying home from Paris alone and listening to it on your cheap Crown Walkman-knockoff that your dad bought you for your birthday.


5) Don't Ask Me Why - not even close to a rock song, even by Billy Joel's standards, and it has a bunch of strikes against it (ugh, that wimpadelic organ solo) but it is damn catchy, in a McCartneyesque kind of way.

There are a few more but let's stop there. 22 points for PBdotC's suggestion.

By the way, major dingleberries to all of you for not giving me kwachas for the awesome photo on the previous post. That is a moment to be proud of, caught right there by the ol' camera. It's one of those rare instances where 12 year-old me woulda looked into the future and gone, "Damn right that's what I'll be doing at 37! Carrying bald dudes around the hallway at high speeds and grinning like a madman." And 12 year-old you would all have been jealous. And rightly so.

Also, I am happy about the Yankees getting Pettitte back. I have forgiven him -- we talked, it got emotional, and now it's over. Come on back, Andy. They're paying him way too much money but I guess who really cares, there's no cap. Baseball needs a fucking cap.

Going to California in like 2 weeks and I will play ball in the sunshine with the bro-in-law as often as I can. That is all I need. I wonder how bad I now suck; this is the longest non-injury layoff from basketball since I started playing in 1984. I can always set a pick on you if nothing else works.

Also, I got a new digital camera (free!) and it has a much-improved video mode. I will take some videos of some cool stuff soon. Maybe a video blogpost from the road.

20 points to whoever can tell me what my team's final time was in the carry the bald guy race. It was me and another dude up front and two girls in the back. We had to carry him down one hallway about 40 feet, around a corner and down another 40 feet. Hint, our time would have won if we hadn't been disqualified. Also, why were we disqualified (15 points)?

no throwing things

Long time no blog.

Quick updates: after like 25 false attempts, my pop is out of the hospital. Doing better. Not great but better. Getting old is real bitch. Beats the shit out of the alternative, though.

Thanks for the positive vibes, I think they helped.

We had our office party last night. Pretty fun. Drank a few down. Saw my co-workers dance. Came home and made myself a grilled cheese sandwich.

Drank a Vitamin Water today and it made things more better. I used to hate that stuff, especially because it had sugar and I was all, this ain't so healthy why do they call it vitamin water when it's rotting my teef and killing me slowly. But now I'm like who cares it tastes good. Give me a nice big bottle and I'll make it disappear.

We are just past a tough stretch at work and so there has been some solid fucking off for the last two days. Hence this:

There is also a completely awesome test-your-punch boxing game set up in the office and I have been waling on that thing for the last two days to the point where my knuckles are raw and I think I may have dislocated my shoulder. But worth it. I have a personal best of 864, while the office record is 888 set by my buddy Andrew. I know a lot of dudes named Andrew.

I would welcome an Iverson-to-Minnesota move. I can't think of a better story or two more deserving dudes if they were to win a title. Garnett is my favorite player and I have a lot of respect for Iverson, even if I sort of question his net value to a team. The trade will probably happen but they will just win 44 games and lose in the first round or something. Or Iverson will miss the second half of the year with a wrist injury. Something will screw it up. Mostly they just won't be good enough.

Also, the NBA's new game ball is really bothering me. I am watching highlights and the ball just reacts completely weird when it hits the rim/backboard. It just dies. It's a joke. It will be a one-year experiment. I still don't understand it. Boneheads.

Freeworkdat answers: Smoker gets 10 points for guessing that RoverTV shit, well the hell done. And Sponsor gets 10 for the ice scraper answer. PB, I have one waiting for you if you want it. There was a lot of other shit but I think it's best not to mention it.

Fuck. I just remembered I have to go to the dentist tomorrow. Not even sure what time. FUCK.

10 points to whoever can tell me what time my dentist appointment is.

some shit that happened this week

Here's a list of some shit that went on this week.

1) I got sick. Ma Bungle got sick. And Baby Bungle got sick. It wasn't pretty at all. Baby Bungle projectile barfed for the first time in her life, and it scared the hell out of her. She bounced back quick, though (thanks to some prescription-strength Gatorade), and she's now ready to kick your ass. Two times, bitch.

2) Because I was sick, I was sort of unable to spend time with my ailing but improving father. But there is good news. As of now, he is scheduled to go home from the hospital on Tuesday (cross your fingers, knock on wood, pull down your pants and spank your bare ass while crossing 14th street). The dude is tough as nails. Heart is still not strong, but everything else has improved and the short-term outlook is good. I am guardedly thrilled, if that's possible.

This part makes me feel bad: since he was moved to his current room in the cardiac rehab unit of the hospital, he has had the same roommate. Both born in 1926. This other guy is a real cranky fucker, too. Anyway, he was in way better shape than my pop when my pop arrived a week ago -- he was walking unassisted and didn't seem to need much care. And slowly that guy's condition has worsened. Slightly but noticably. And my pop has lapped the bastard in the healthiness department. And I feel good about that. I know I should be wishing the dude well and all, but seeing him worsen only makes my dad's relative improvement seem more significant. Officially, though, I hope he gets better, as soon as my pop checks out on Tuesday.

3) I saw a guy in the Amish market doing a crazy move where he crouched over slightly (roughly the same amount of crouch as a hockey goalie anticipating a shot on goal) and pretended to be examining the label of a canned good, as if mulling over the nutrition information. It looked very unnatural -- probably because the cans were at like chest level and he could have just grabbed one and looked at it while standing fully upright. So I looked closer and noticed that it was all a ruse -- the dude was just scratching his balls and trying to create a distraction. He has his hand in his pocket and he was just working that shit. Come to think of it, I HOPE he was just scratching his balls. He saw me and awkwardly bolted away. I passed him a minute later in another part of the store and I am not lying when I tell you that I needed every ounce of concentration not to say to him, "How are those balls doing?"

4) I left my fly open for a minute the other day and it made me wonder: do chicks look at guys' crotches and try to figure out how much lumber they're swinging down there? Growing up, I always assumed they were. Then one day I stopped caring about it. But I remember a kid from my junior high school, the son of a prominent teacher, got busted at summer camp for stuffing socks in his crotch. I think he may have been making out with a girl or something and she reached for his stuff and a tube sock came tumbling out. I bet he still remembers that shit vividly. From camp legend to laughingstock of the cabin in an instant.

I don't know if that story's even true, but it is what eventually led me to stop crotch-stuffing back in '92.

5) We got our new Stuytown lease renewal. Pretty outrageous. Not as bad as Joe M. or whoever did this, but pretty bad. 16% for a 1 year, 25% for two. We don't know what the hell we're gonna do. We're staying for at least one more year. Not sure if the two year gamble is worth it. The new assholes who run this place have the same fucking set of balls as the old assholes.

6) I appreciate all the suggestions for post topics and as soon as I review them appropriate genius tallies will be made. Here is one topic for a post that occurred to me this week that I kinda like. Sports-related, so turn the channel if that ain't your thing.

The idea was to create a list of the current NBA players who I find most amazing to watch. The guys who, when healthy, are able to do things so ridiculous that they appear to be starring in a cartoon of their own design. A cartoon in which physics and logic and all that we have believed up to now are rendered meaningless. A cartoon in which the opposing players are basically faceless villains to be bopped in the nose and their own teammates are whimpering damsels tied to the railroad tracks.

I will call these men The Cartoonists.

Just a note -- to be a Cartoonist you can't simply be an uncanny leaper or a ridiculous shooter. You have to have an ability to hit crazy shots under impossible stress, with dudes hanging all over you and shit, from all over the court. You have to be able to create for yourself and occasionally for your teammates. You have to be able to throw down a crazy dunk every now and then to open some eyes. And you have to look good doing it all.

Another note -- these dudes don't necessarily bring Cartoonist-level play to the court every night. But when they reach their happy zone, it looks like NBA Jam out there.

Lastly, I don't necesarily like these guys.

Here they are, in order:

Vince Carter -- he's become a little more consistent, but to me he's still the ultimate cartoon player. Every moment he looks like he's trying to do something larger than life, and he often succeeds. He hasn't lost much of his Freak Factor during his 9 years in the league -- which I guess isn't that surprising because he's still only 29.

LeBron -- should probably be number one, but appears to take the game a little too seriously, occasionally choosing the correct play over the spectacular one.

Kobe -- maybe my least favorite active player. But his ability to binge-score is like nothing the league has seen since Jordan or maybe even longer than that.

T-Mac -- always banged up but when he's got his shit together he can really paint a picture out there.

Baron Davis -- imagine if he really really took it seriously and had a healthy back?

D. Wade -- so solid that it sometimes overshadows how much fun he is. Needs to be able to hit the contested three a little bit to move up the list.

I think that's it. Here are the guys who are right outside the door (in no order):

Iverson
Ray Allen
Gilbert Arenas
Jason Richardson
Paul Pierce
Carmelo

Last note, this kid Ellis on Golden State looks like the second coming of John Starks...mad-dog energy. Love him.

Maybe I'm forgetting somebody.

7) I got some free shit this week. Like really cool free shit. Multiple free shits. 10 points for each correct guess, with extra points awarded for specificity at my discretion.

8) Tomorrow's another working Saturday. You bring the bagels, I'll bring the resentment. See you there.