Amsterdam

The Listmaker Movie

Paris

The Listmaker Movie

I Need a Break From Fantasy Baseball

After spending about 25 hours on the endeavor the past three days for three different leagues, I'm tired.

Regular posting to resume soon in this space.

I did make a huge Frank Thomas for David Price deal last night in case you are interested.

A Cold Cold Night With Heavy Heavy Rain

We love Amsterdam!

The forecast for the next two days isn't much better. Ugh.

Picking The Best Time to Travel to Europe

On Monday, the day we arrived in Paris, the dollar fell to an all time low against the euro. Nice.

In other news from Paris, SHR stepped in French dog poop, not once, but twice yesterday.

On the Eiffel Tower, some Frenchie 7-year-old boy on two separate occasions hit her on the rear end as he swung his arms back and forth. By the end of our stay on top of the tower, he began to "inadvertently" kick her.

Luckily for dinner, all was good, when we found a Korean restaurant. The waitress was very happy to speak Korean to a customer even though SHR got shy and made her speak in English for the first half of our stay.

Best Baseball Poem Ever

Written by Boy That Should Have Been In My Class but Never Has Been:

I Know
I know the Mets won the World Series in 1969.
I know the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004.
I know the Mets got beat by the Cardinals in 2006.
I know the White Sox won the World Series in 2005.
I know the Yankees won 26 times in the World Series.
I know Babe Ruth has 714 home runs.
I know Hank Aaron has 755 home runs.
I know Ricky Henderson holds the world record in stolen bases.
I know Barry Bonds took steroids.
I know the Mets got Johan Santana.
I know Carlos Delgado is fat.
I know catchers are fat.
I know the Cardinals won the World Series in 2006.
I know the Yankees drool and the Mets rule.
I know my baseball.

A kid after Stone Groove's heart!

Never Was on This Particular Bandwagon To Jump Off Of But I'll Gladly Pile It On Now

A few months ago, I wrote this as part of a larger music review post but never published it.

Vampire Weekend - EP, 2007
Eh, whatever. Indie's latest darlings don't do much for me. Whoopteedo - they are influenced by Afropop! I'm influenced by Pauline Kael but that doesn't make my movie reviews worth reading. I'm sure I'm being too harsh and all but this band bores me. I'm sure I'll eat my words come 2010 but this is where I am today.

I only mention that I wrote this a few months ago because I do want to separate myself a bit from the recent blogosphere backlash to this band. But I take back what I said about liking them in 2010. After suffering through their performance on Saturday Night Live, I fucking hate this band.



I will admit that I like the video though. It reminds me of an early They Might Be Giants video. But this is the only song of theirs I even like.


And if I have to hear that dumb song that mentions Peter Gabriel one more fucking time, I'm going to go beat up some sweater draping asshole (any will do) in retaliation.

Their performance the other night reminded me of what the asshole preppie characters in a John Hughes movie would have looked and sounded like if they put together a band to play a high school dance.

Client 9 Is Messing With My Day

In a few minutes, my class is going to be in my room and I suspect that some of them are going to be relishing the thought of putting me on the hot seat by bringing up Spitzer.

I rarely shy away from issues in the news that they want to discuss. But I don't quite know how to handle this one without catching hell from parents.

I guess feigning sickness and going home would be lame.

Damn you Eliot Spitzer!

UPDATE:
It came up in class. This is what I wrote to the parents at the end of the day.

I just wanted to mention that the Spitzer saga did come up a bit today in class. We talked a little about how he was going to have to resign, that he was caught breaking the law, and that people were upset with him for the hypocrisy of the whole thing.

Most of the children knew why he was in trouble or had a general idea why. A few did not. I simply stated that he was caught dating other women that weren't his wife and that he paid the women to date him. I explained that the money part was the illegal aspect.

One child asked if that meant there was "kissy kissy" stuff going on and I replied yes. Another child wanted to know if he was in trouble for cheating on his wife. I responded that the main thing he was in trouble for was the breaking the law part and not the cheating aspect because that isn't illegal.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know about this because I did tell the children that I didn't want to get too much into the details and that they should come to you with questions if they had any.

I didn't mention that a student earlier in the day, during a discussion spurred by another student's Current Events presentation about crocodiles that mentioned poaching, made a disgusting comparison. He said something like, "Poaching is like Saw because poachers take the skins from crocodiles and in Saw, he takes the skin from people." Um, great. Thanks for sharing.

Hot Curling Action on the Cold Cold Ice

Last weekend, Sir Balgavy arranged a curling outing. It was a lot of fun but not as easy as most of us thought it would be.

Practicing

Um ....
Finally, the games began.

Signals



The Movie

Thank you Marc for the additional movie footage that I was able to blend seamlessly into mine. I like to think of this curling movie as my version of that Beastie Boys documentary that used 7,000 cameras or so.
Balgavy Pics

I Have Hair on My Ears!

Ugh. What the hell?

From the time the Russian barber at the 86th St. subway Barber Shop trimmed my ears with hair clippers without me asking back in 1997, I've worried about the problem getting worse.

That time has arrived.
What was once just a light fuzz has now turned into real hair growing on my fucking ears!! I've tried using my electric razor (and I'm to the point of doing it a few times a week) but it doesn't work that well and it leaves my ears (the helix on each ear to be precise) feeling annoyingly stubbly.

Recently, I've even noticed a hair or two growing inside the upper part of my inner ear - the antihelical fold. Luckily (at least not yet) I don't have any hair growing out of my external auditory canal that so many old men sport.

What should I do? What grooming device should I buy? I hate this shit.

It was bad enough having the facial hair of a werewolf (if left unchecked) but this shit has got to end.

Some of Matt Pinfield's Best Friends Are Black

I know I'm a few days late with this but last month was Black History Month. If I hadn't noticed all the PBS shows about black folk or Diddy starring in Raisin in the Sun on ABC then at least there was MTV2 to remind me.

I record Subterranean (the modern day version of 120 Minutes) every Sunday night.

The first couple of episodes of the month didn't feature many musicians of color. "Alternative" music isn't known for too many black musicians these days and TV on the Radio and Bloc Party didn't time their most recent releases near Black History Month for the convenience of MTV.

But that didn't stop MTV2 from reminding its viewers that it was indeed Black History Month. Any time, a black person was on screen, they let us know. And if the person was only on screen for a moment or two, then the message didn't stay long either.

How silly are these photos from the episode broadcast on 2/25?

And how silly was it that the Black History Month logo was displayed only when a black person was on screen?

Hey Pallie!

Last week, Girl Who Loves Sparkly Clothes but Hates Hillary Clinton made an announcement.

Dean Martin was no longer number one on her list of top 5 favorite singers. Frank Sinatra was the new number one (after my recommendation to listen to some Sinatra) and Dean had slid to number two.

I asked her who had fallen out of her original top five now that Sinatra was number one. Was it Eric Clapton, Paul Simon, John Travolta, or Hannah Montana? She said that it was either Simon or Stockard Channing. Stockard Channing?

I told her that Channing wasn't even on her original list. She responded, "Channing was on my secret list. My Pee Wee list." From what I can tell, her Pee Wee list is sort of like a minor league squad - just waiting for their chance for the big time.

But Stockard Channing? Clearly this list is Grease heavy so where is the love for Olivia-Newton John?

She added, "My dad told me that I would like someone but now I can't remember who. I think his name is Bing or Bang or something like that."

Dino responds to being dropped in the rankings.
This is now the fifth time that Dean Martin has been mentioned in recent blog posts. In case you missed these brilliant comments in the original posts, it seems that I've gotten some attention from the all coveted Dean Martin readership.

The first post brought this response from Dino Martin Peters:

hey pallie listmaker, gotta say that girl who loves sparkly clothes has such good taste...and nice to see more and more of today's youth fallin' in love with our Dino. Never was, never will be anyone as cool as the King of Cool....oh, to return to the days when Dinowalked the earth...

Followed mere moments later by Dino's pallie Rogue Spy '07:

Great to see another Dean Martin fan. He's a great all around entertainer. He wasn't dubbed the King of Cool for nothing. My sister is 22. She's fallen hard for Dean Martin herself over the last year or so. The man's the best.

After the second post, Dino Martin Peters wrote in:

hey pallie, please relate to sparkly clothes girl that I think she has the best taste in makin' our Dino here numero uno fav...no one croons a tune like our King of Cool...and no one like our great man to inspire the best in everyone and everythin'...

Followed again mere minutes later by Rogue Spy 07:

Great to see Dean Martin on top. What a great all around entertainer, whether it was in music, movies, or television. What a cool, smooth, and effortless way Dino did everything. There's nothing like Dino music for Valentine's. His Italian Love Songs CD is in my player now.

The third post brought this from Dino Martin Peters:

"I like you because you’re really funny because when you asked Girl Who Likes Sparkly Clothes but Hates Hillary Clinton if she would kill someone to see Dean Martin, and she said yes. I thought that was funny."

Hey pallie, I loves how Sparkly Clothes girl loves our Dino...and the lengths she would go to be with our great man. That's true Dinopalliedom!

But nothing from Rogue Spy 07.

This amazing poem --
A true account of me being me
Sorry I couldn’t be me yesterday, but . . . . . . . . . .
I wished on a shooting star that I would be Dean Martin
And before I knew it, I was Dean Martin (before he died of course)!
After a few hours it became torture.
It was like detention with cameras!
The press was so annoying.
At least I didn’t have to go to school.

Which was posted the other day brought nary a response from the Dino lovers. What's up with that pallies? Have you gotten complacent? What are your thoughts now that Dino has slipped in the rankings?

Paris Hilton Fractions

A recent homework assignment read: Find a picture that shows a fraction. Cut it out and paste in in the line below. Write a fraction question for a classmate to solve.

Bumblebee Girl's Question: What fraction of the person here have dogs?


No pressure here but I'm banking on Weasel to come up with a witty comment.

A Day of Toms

2/23 was my 35th birthday.

SHR and I started the day at Tom's. Gus wished me a happy birthday.
Then we headed to Jersey for the Peanut's 5th Birthday party.
Ahpa relaxes.
Cake Time

The Buddha was hungry.
The cake was not being given to her quickly enough.
Don't even think of cutting in line.
Happy.
Only enough space on the chair for one of them.

Sharing.

Picklepants Buddha

Rumi
Dinner at Two Tom's
Check out those pork chops!

Beth made 8 bucks. Check out the movie that follows to figure out how she did it.
This picture was taken right after Dave and Jen left. Sorry Dave and Jen.
Yowsa.



Check out the movie.