Pieces and Cups

I just saw a commercial for Reese's version of Nutella, and I must say I'm intrigued.  I have had good luck with Nutella, but, to be honest, I could do without its pretentiousness.  It's all European and hazelnutty and what not.  What is a hazelnut?  I'm not convinced it's not an invented flavor by coffee shops like how wine tasters say that a Merlot tastes like chocolate and leather.  Leather in my wine is neither probable nor desirable.

Reese's has to potential to close that gap with the lovable peanut, which all of us can easily identify.  There is a question, however, about Reese's that I really can't believe I hadn't already written about by now.  What does Reese's rhyme with?  I had a bevy of coworkers about a year and a half ago challenge me on this to the point of calling the question line phone number located on the wrapper of the cup.  Unfortunately, they gave them bad information -- citing their famous slogan of "There's no wrong way to eat a Reese's" -- they said there's no wrong way to say Reese's, either.  If I called it Rice's or Race's, that would be ludicrous, right?

In short, I think that anyone who calls Reese's Pieces Reesey's Piecey's deserves at minimum a night in the drunk tank.  I don't think they belong in the general prison population or anything, unless there are multiple offenses and lack of remorse.  Saying Reesey Cups deserves a harsher sentence, because there's no cutesy but tempting gateway rhyme built in.  It's going straight to the hard stuff.  Reese rhymes with piece.  Reese's rhymes with pieces.  Piecey's isn't anything.

I really like peanut butter desserts, and Reese's has got some fine products.  I enjoy the cups in any context and the pieces especially on my ice cream.  My favorite specialty variation is the eggs at Easter, giving us a delightful twist on the chocolate/peanut butter ratio.  So I may grab some Reese's spread at the store, and with any justice, that will be the product that ends this Reesey madness, since their is no melody to Reesey's spread.  Only the cacophonous nightmare that follows me everywhere there is a piecey.

Conflicted, I guess

As many of my college friends could tell you, I had a bit of a creative infatuation with the work of Aaron Sorkin -- particularly Sports Night.  I was at my most prolific as a writer then and at the time, it and the West Wing seemed like the epitome of pop writing and I never thought I had the talent to be F. Scott Fitzgerald, but I at least thought I could be an Engineer by day and a reasonably  pop writer of some sort by night.  I did that for a while with a weekly in the last place I lived, and sometimes I think I'd like to do it again.

I am watching the season finale of The Newsroom, Aaron Sorkin's latest project on HBO, and the technique is similar, but the tone is decidedly less pop.  The Newsroom features a main character, Will McAvoy, who is a disappointed Republican in the state of American politics.  Aaron Sorkin, on the other hand, is not a Republican of any sort, so writing a disillusioned one requires a sort of confidence I just don't understand.

I also don't understand how all of the positions are couched in such a way that the disillusioned Republican only targets the Tea Party and the failings of his own party, rather a more holistic criticism of the situation -- including failings of the administration.

Don't get me wrong, I suppose I am somewhat of a disillusioned Republican myself and there are certainly things about the conduct of the party I dislike, although I don't really feel much loyalty to the "team.".  (I consider myself more of a classical liberal, where I feel that the role of national government is to do the things that the private sector cannot profitably, and not much more than that.)  I don't like the win at all costs attitude of either party, I don't like how much of a dependence there is on the false moral equivalence (both sides have this problem -- and that I said "both" is tragic, because this should not be a binary problem) and I don't like the cowardice to go after lazy arguments rather than attacking the heart of the failings of American liberalism and progressivism.

I think that the current administration is a critically flawed one.  I think that, like 2004, there is a tremendous opportunity that is likely to be squandered by lining up behind the wrong guy because it is really hard to unseat an incumbent president.  I want to describe what I think the biggest flaws are how I wish the Republican Party -- or anybody, really, -- were challenging them.

1. Distaste for the law when it restricts executive power -- The two biggest examples are the GM and Chrysler bailouts and the intervention in Libya.  Without regard to policy (which I strenuously disagree with), the bailouts was of questionably legality, if not outright illegal.  In a guided bankruptcy, pensioners were given priority over bondholders, which is contrary to the way that bankruptcy proceedings go, because they were political allies.  (Links are here and here discussing this.)  During the NATO led intervention in Libya, which went from April 23 to October 31 (192 days) President Obama asserted that his administration was not in violation of the War Powers Act, which requires Congressional approval for military action exceeding 90 days, because the Libyan intervention wasn't actually a military conflict, since the bad guys weren't able to return fire against our superior forces.  That is, to put it nicely, an absurd explanation.  Libya was an illegal war.  There are other potential examples -- Fast and Furious, the way that the Bank of America president was treated -- but I don't have enough detail to document and defend it.
2. Lack of accountability for economic assertions -- During the preparations and sale of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act to the American people, the Administration sold it as necessary to pass in order to keep the unemployment rate below 8%.  That was a mistake, both factually and politically. The explanation from the Vice President was that "everybody guessed wrong."  That is tantamount to admitting incompetence and not an endearing answer. The current unemployment rate is 8.3%, which is the lowest it's been in three years, and higher than promised by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.  The ARRA was passed in early 2009, so the net increase is about 900,000 jobs for a $787 billion package amounts to about  $874,000 per job.  Not exactly a measure of efficiency.  (To be fair, that's an empirical rather than theoretical measure of efficiency -- let's say it saved 2 million jobs, as President Obama says, that's still $393,500 per job, which is not exactly a bargain either.)  Now, I do concede that Keynesian style stimulus can raise the GDP (since it's in the definition), I just don't think that there is sufficient discipline in the government to repay the debt when times are good, so I don't think it's effective policy.  Another of questionable value is "we ask everyone to pay their fair share."  What does that mean?  How much is enough?  Who decides what is fair?  The president is also quoted in that interview with saying, "we can't cut our way out of this hole."  Why not?  And how do we know when we're out of the hole?  Nobody has really said what victory looks like.  (To be fair, this isn't strictly a criticism of the president.)
3. Insistence on government solutions over individual ones -- We've all heard "You didn't build that" by now (the whole transcript can be read here).  The defense is that the president was not referring to business with "that" but rather the infrastructure he described prior -- but on full reading, I don't think it matters.  The tone of the speech is definitely one that you shouldn't take credit for your work, because there were a lot more hands in it than you appreciate.  The issue, though, is that every American has access to that same infrastructure and we're not all Michael Dell or Steve Jobs or Barack Obama.  Individual effort is a pretty big deal, and "you didn't build that" isn't the way the president should be talking about it.  Compare the tone of that speech to this one and see if you can tell the difference.  The heavy-handed paternalism celebrated in The Life of Julia is rather troubling.  It implies that people in general and women in particular can't manage themselves without a government caretaker.  My wife will make more than I do over the course of her career and it won't even close, regardless of who is president.

Like Will McAvoy, I wish the Republican candidate was stronger.  I think the principles of liberty and economic responsibility and government closest to the people are all messages that can win.  I don't think that the current Republican campaign is communicating that message, and they are playing to the bases elements of politics (both sides are, really, which makes the false equivalence rear its head).  The welfare ad is only of questionable veracity, if that.  Paul Ryan's weird marathon fib doesn't help, and this ad was deplorable.  At the end of the day, there are enough flaws with this president that opponents shouldn't need to resort to dishonest tactics to score points.  I hope they go after the heart of the man and make this really about choices and not about trivia, but I won't hold my breath.

Stop Children, what's that sound?

After watching How I Met Your Mother reruns tonight on WGN, the Chicago news came up, covering the ongoing protests of the NATO summit there.  The reporter asked the protestors what message they were trying to send and she had to go three deep before anybody had anything meaningful to say: complaining about the Afghanistan War, which was part of the summit's mission anyway.  (The first said she was there to hang out because the leaders were having dinner and "we weren't invited" the second guy literally said nothing.)

I don't really sympathize with protestors now, so when I look back at the protestors 50 years ago, like the Freedom Riders and civil rights leaders, I kind of wonder if I'd have been on the right side then.  I hope I would have.  Looking now, though, I find it hard to believe that history isn't going to look at these people as jokes, if it remembers them at all.

It feels like a disappointment that these people are getting this kind of news, thinking they're changing the world, yet they don't know what they're changing from or to.  My generation is awesome.

Just a little outside

I have a very long commute to work in the morning. This has caused me to exceed the warranty on my car in a comically fast fashion (that, along with travel to such exotic locales as Atlanta, Clemson and the Homeland). Other benefits include consuming a lot of of radio (still haven't gotten an iPod or an iPhone. What is wrong with me?), some of which is talk radio. This prompted a certain friend of mine to say to me, "You listen to AM talk radio? What are you, like close to death old?" Yes. I am close to death old because I like to listen to ESPN radio and the news.

That last one might not help my cause, but if you look on my link section, you can see that my interest in the news is of a semi-professional interest. (I say "semi" because I don't get paid in actual "money.") The former, though, is completely in bounds, I think. I caught some of Mike and Mike this morning on the way in and was struck by something, though: a lot of people on the radio are not really that good. Sporst in particular has a bit of a weird issue with this, because sports jounralism is necessarily local (or at least regional) due to concentrated loyalties and interest. Try talking Big Ten football with a resident of Georgia or South Carolina. You'll be laughed all the way back to Columbus (OH). And rightfully so.

National sports figures are famous, frequently, for their non-sports production as much as they are for their sports broadcasting or content. Bill Simmons, Peter King, and John Madden (and Mike and Mike, for that matter). This is because, in my mind, ESPN.com, SI.com and ESPN radio have sufficiently large market share that they basically only have to put competent people out there to get an audience. How many people who use Windows or Internet Explorer o so because they tried all the competition and liked it best? My guess is the same number of pirates who don't regret trying to capture the Maersk Alabama.

This leads me to my most paramount rule of irritation when consuming media: if I (or someone I know) can do a job better than a professional making millions of dollars, then that contract is probably ill-advised. I could not write an operating system or internet browser very well, so I'm going to let Bill Gates slide. But he knows I have my eye on him.

I think anyone who watches a lot of sports could do Mike and Mike's show. I think there are probably some rather intelligent pets that could write Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback column. (A friend of mine insists that her Jack Russell has the vocabulary of a 5 year old!) Bill Simmons is talented but burnt out or lazy now or bored. The point is, if I watched sports for 25 hours a week, I could host a 3 hour talk show a day about it, especially if I had a friend with me. I could probably write a weekly column, too. If you put me on ESPN radio and published me on SI.com, people would listen and read because they are big media outlets. With backing like that, I could also even get players, press offices, agents and even owners to take my calls.

Really, what this tells me is that after all this driving in the mornings, I should just break down and buy an iPod Touch and be done with it. That way, I could get angry over podcasts, too.

No question prompting for a y/n ends well

You know what question bothers me a lot more than it should? It's not one of those cliches like paper or plastic, boxers or brief, or do you want fries with that. (Plastic, boxers and yes.) I know one of you clever jokesters is probably thinking something like, "Are you sure you're in the right restroom, ma'am? Oh, I'm sorry." Nor is it anything as scandalous as "Why on earth would you think she was over 18?" Sadly, both of those questions make better stories, but you will be enthralled by mine; a testament to my highly developed writing powers.

Using my clues, surely you have deduced that it is when automatic card readers say: "Credit or debit?" or "Debit? y/n." This offends my sensibilities for two reasons:

1. As you can see from my blogger name, I am an engineer. I work in a technological field, so that reflects on me personally, rightly or wrongly, in the same way that when my basketball team gets bounced in the first round by a team from *gasp* Michigan that's not Michigan State, it reflects poorly on the whole Clemson community. It's that personal.
2. I'm lazy.

I also noticed that you saw more colons in the previous paragraph than your average proctologist. I was going to apologize for that, but then I realized, colons (the punctuation) are great, while colons (the organ), that would demand an apology. I apologize for nothing.

The D or C question bothers me a lot. This card can hold a magnetic strip that contains my entire personal information and credit history* but they didn't think to add "Oh, by the way, this is a credit card"? How ludicrous is that? How different is the billing process anyway? What happens if I choose debit for my credit card? Will the pump take my gas back? Truthfully, that would almost be worth it.

I know there are probably other things I should worry more about. Like about AIDS in Africa and economic collapse and if we all be speaking Chinese in 20 years and what made Mike Myers stop being funny. You know what they say: I don't, I just wanted to throw in another colon.

*I have no idea what is on that magnetic strip, honestly.

Southernfolk talk different

Growing up, my dad used to use funny idioms that I'd never heard anywhere else, and since his mom is Southern and my mom is not, I just assumed that's where they came from. One I remember is "You better be over here in two shakes of the lammy's tail." This meant very quickly. Evidently, lammies shake their tails so quickly that they can shake them twice before whatever instant you need to deal with is at hand. I'm pretty sure there is another one, but I can't think of what it is. I have lived in the Real South (as my loyal readers know, I grew up in Florida, which is like the bicurious state) since 2004 now, and have yet to hear any of them come out of any other Southern mouths. So I can only conclude that my dad is an amazing idiomologist and made them up.

There are, however, a number of colloquialisms that I have come across that are worthy of sharing. You will, of course, find them listed and discussed below in my favorite and noblest of all lists: the numbered list.

1. Show [one's] tail - The first time I heard this one, I actually had to ask for an explanation. I have not heard this one outside of rural South Carolina yet, so it might be unique to there and not Southern at large. It has nothing to do with nudity or discovery of morphological changes in humans, to my disappointment. How great would it be if they discovered lizard people in the Upstate of South Carolina? Clemson's swim team would win all kinds of national championships. It actually means to misbehave, as in, "After eating several pixie sticks, the State Senators really showed their tails."
2. Cut on - This is the phrase that made me want to write this entry. This one bothers me for aesthetic purposes. It doesn't sound right. This is the opposite of (obviously) cut off, as in "Cut off the woodchipper, he's already dead." Cut off should be obnoxious too, since it doesn't really make sense either, but it gets a pass because cutting off and termination kind of make sense, even though cutting off a light switch is not really that permanent or serious of a change. I do feel strongly though that you should not be able to cut on anything.
3. Might could - These are two linking verbs. I know that because in seventh grade Mrs. Adair made us memorize all of the linking verbs in the English language via a cute little song that I will never forget ever. The thing about verbs like that, though, is that two of them can't follow each other in a sentence, with the exceptions of am/is/are/was/were and being. No other combinations are possible, including might could. This means might be able to, and I grit my teeth every time I hear someone say this. An example of this being used in a sentence is "I might could help you with your math homework, but you have to take off your shirt first." (In this example, the speaker is talking to a girl [who is over 18]. The speaker can be whichever gender you prefer.)
   
4. Stay - This one isn't so much a phrase as it is a word. That's ok, though. It means live. As in, "No, I don't stay in this refrigerator box. Thanks for asking." This one, though, isn't really quite as aggravating or funny as the others, but it's still unusual. Like a cat who barks or a complete sentence coming from Rep. Corrine Brown. I am also told that this is restricted to a subset of Southerners who are also black, which is consistent with my very scientific observations.

I really wish I could remember the other prolific one that my dad would say because it would really make the intro stronger and it's really weird. Feel free to share any regionalisms you have encountered, and point out the region. The stranger the better!

Things I Learned on the Oscars

I have to confess that I did not watch all of the spectacle last night. I made it until the all important short documentary award, which was won by a movie called Smile Pinki about children with cleft palates which I'm sure was super uplifting. It was presented by Bill Maher. The presenter is relevant, but I don't want to say anything further because I don't want to step on my toes later on. As you probably already know, I like numbered lists. I am going to use this technique to describe my discoveries.

1. Of Hugh Jackman's talents, being funny without scripted jokes is not one of them. He was pretty impressive with his singing and dancing and making out with Anne Hathaway, but he was not funny after the opener. Later on, though, in his second dance number, it gave us another image of Vanessa Hudgens to think about where she looked good with her clothes on. I was going to post a pic of her from the show, but all I could find was that shot of her naked in her bedroom. No kiddie porn for me.
2. Bill Maher is not funny. At all. To be fair, I knew this one already. He is not funny, nor is he insightful. This man upsets me, because he reflects poorly on Irish people. Maher is the same as my grandmother's maiden name (although her family name was corrupted upon their arrival in this country). I might go see Religulous just so I can storm out and be indignant. Being indignant is suprisingly satisfying.
3. Jack Black is still capable of hilarity. He had a great joke series about animated films and how much America loves him. He even involved gambling, and quite frankly, gambling is fun. He presented with Jennifer Aniston and they did surprisingly well together. I don't care if I'm alone when I say this, but Brad Pitt made the wrong call with Angelina. She is crazy and has too many kids. Jennifer is crazy and has no kids and presents with Jack Black. Jack Black tells jokes about betting on the movie studio that employs him on national television and I'm pretty sure neither of them have tattoos.
4. The only difference between Sarah Jessica Parker and Dee Snider is Matthew Broderick. I don't know how Sarah Jessica Parker got famous. Is she supposed to be a sex symbol? Is she supposed to be a glam metal rocker? I never saw a single episode of Sex and the City (how surprised are you?), so I don't get what it's all about. I had a cosmopolitan once, and it was pretty good, but all girly drinks are and as far as girly drinks go, it kind of sucks. What's that you and your Sex and the City friends say, Jessica? You disagree with my joking abuse and you're not gonna take it?
5. They should have awards for movies that came out last year. I had seen a grand total of zero of the movies that were up for best picture. I had seen one last year -- Michael Clayton. My living room is so awesome that I never want to go out to movies anymore. The academy should reflect that.
   

Graphs Aplenty: Matt Drudge

I myself am not an avid reader of the Drudge Report. I'm not a reader of it at all, I guess, avid or not. Do you ever describe anything as avid other than consumption of various sorts media? (I am an avid watcher of the news. I am an avid eater of salsa. I am an avid sleeper. Do those work?) I don't have a lot of personal insight to add to this graph.


It is important, however, to note that the Y-Axis shows Personal Anger at Matt Drudge and not necessarily at the content being presented. As my avidness in going to the Drudge Report is so lacking, I cannot provide stylistic input as to the potential source of the anger from a "factual" point of view, so I'm just going to speculate that Mr. Drudge is a jackass, and that clearly shows through in his writing. But I don't know that for sure; I need to stress how I am speculating that Matt Drudge is a jackass.