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Happy Smarch, ev'rybody. I am hereby declaring that it's going to be a good month. Highlights include: the return of the Ghan birthdays of major import massive housewarming parties, each one warmer than the last literary devices and readings proper weather surprise Shabboses scheduled Lents Am I leaving anything out?

It's a lovely day--finally, a lovely day!--and I'm sitting on the Promenade, reading, listening to my iPod, enjoying the scattered sun and the view of the city. Hell, I'm even enjoying the view of Jersey. Just in case you were wondering.

Speaking of gips and the Times , Mary Gordon decided to publish her movie review (well, it's an Essay, not a movie review) of The Passion (of the Jesus!) in that particular publication, completely forsaking my blog, much like--well, I'm sure there's some forsaken analogy that could be drawn from the Bible. It's only a matter of time before Banana gets too big for 34 and only gives me the stuff that the Davis Enterprise turns down.

There's an article in the Times today about those "push to cross" buttons at crosswalks in the city. Turns out they're a huge scam. I press the one mentioned in the article on Atlantic Ave all the time. What a gip.

"Sure your friends will have fun. If you give Jeff enough to drink, he can have a great time running around in circles..." -Sharon to Dave on the possibility of single-sex circle dancing at her wedding.

A cereal box archive . That's just amazing. Were I unscrupulous I would just download some of those images and Photoshop them up, but that wouldn't be true to my art. And really, most of them are funny enough as it is.

In case you happen to be a newspaper publisher, and someone asks you what the fuck that means, and then you tell them it's like being a movie producer, and then they tell you that's another job they have no fucking clue about, here's a good snippet about publishering from a Times article about a madam's black book. Except this dude is just an acting publisher, so remember, it's all pretend. It seems fair to say that at least a few men in this city of 52,000 are nervous about what lies inside. Already, City Hall has been inundated with phone calls about the list, mainly from wives asking whether their husbands are on it, officials said. More than 100 copies of "the book" have been sold at $20 apiece to the curious and vindictive alike. The News-Post has assigned six people, including the publisher, to search the files for familiar names. The acting publisher, Robin L. Quillon, said the paper did not intend to print the entire list of men who paid $250 an ...

Apparently, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog made fun of French-Canadians on Conan the other night. Or something. I didn't see it first hand, but word is that it's sparking nationalist/separtist outrage in the frozen north. Having read Infinite Jest (and you should too!), I know that's nothing but good news. The weird part is a columnist for the Montreal Gazette writing "I wonder how he'd feel if we let Canada's Insulting Beaver Puppet loose on U.S. TV to yuk it up about Sept. 11." Which, obviously it's not cool to yuk it up about Sept. 11, but Canada has an Insulting Beaver Puppet?

Adam put up some photos of the apartment. My ass is prominently featured in only one of them. Sorry. Please don't rob us.

In my experience, the best thing about panaceas is that they cure all.

One of the perks of my job is being in a mailgroup that receives all the fax spam sent to our fax-to-email numbers. 90% are about discount trips to Cancun or penny stocks. But now I have seen the ultimate piece of fax spam: "Happy Valentines Day Specials" from GIV , a medical supplies company. "Lowest price in the Country!" on tetanus and diphtheria toxoids, absorbed for adult use. The Tidi(tm) drape sheet and latex exam gloves are vaguely sexual, I guess, depending on your tastes.

A while back I bought a box of this granola (though I bought it from, you know, a supermarket, not a website). It's by the same people who make the Good Friends crap, which is very bad despite the favourable review at that particular cereal website. I neglected to save the granola box, which is a shame because I could have art-ed the fuck out of that. I'm mentioning this because I was shopping for granola this evening and was tempted to go for the SuperNatural stuff just for the box, but my taste buds prevailed and I bought some of Garden of Eden house brand. Posting a link to the box will have to suffice.

Wes Clark, quoted in the Times : "I'm handing out doughnuts to people who care about America." They're Kripsy Kremes though, which might fly in the South, but baby, you've got to go to 86th & Lexington for the real thing.

I'd summarize the 15 minute conversation the people a few cubicles down just had about "My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee" but I'm pretty sure that if I did, the terrorists would win. Meanwhile, I can't express how much I love my digital cable with HBO and Showtime On Demand and a built in TiVO-like-thing.

Ikea has been officially hit up. I'm all set now, except some miscellany (a bed, for instance). Here's the list, for those interested in that sort of thing: Malung (w/ footstool) Jerker Allak Leksvik Leksvik (Leksvik must be the Swedish analogue to "shalom" or "aloha") I was reading a piece a few days ago somewhere (either the New Yorker or the New York Times , if that helps) about how the U.S. has something like a thousand military bases around the world on foreign soil, but Americans would never tolerate having foreign bases here. My point being that if you've ever gone to Ikea, you start to wonder if the Swedes haven't backdoored their way in... it's a small step to go from vending desks named "Jerker" and offering Swedish meatball lunch specials to running naval drills in the Hudson. Fortunately, the Swedish are cool, so we'll be all right either way.

When I was little, say 5-12, I kept a trampopoline in my room. Endless fun, or if not fun, bouncing. But my ceilings are quite low now, being stuck on the top floor of a pre-Civil War building and all. So I don't think I'll be getting another bouncing thingy when I go shopping for furnishings tomorrow.

As promised , every single story on the Internet about faxing will be blogged. At least until they move me over to something sexier.

(Form wanted me to post something else on my blog, but it wasn't terribly interesting, so instead I'm going to post our hot three-way conversation about applying sabremetrics to Football. If it doesn't make sense [more so than, say, everything else on my blog], it's because you're dum. I've copied it straight from my email, so read it from the bottom up or something... I don't really care.) Well..according to my transcript, I took Calculus for Social Scientists, so I should be able to understand all of this. Unfortunately I do not. However here are some thoughts.... 1)Mike's point about running the ball 30 times does not consider the sabremetric method. The panthers win when Stephen Davis runs the ball 30 times would be one of those stats that people seem to pay attention to, but means nothing. Mike is right to point out that this is more a symptom of the Panthers winning, rather than a cause. (What I forgot in Calc for SS, I make up in things I reme...