If you’re looking for an inexplicably hilarious summary of Fidel Castro’s tenure as the leader of Cuba, look no further. George W. Bush is all over it:
[Bush] said that Raul Castro is “nothing more than an extension of what his brother did, which is ruin an island.”
You hear that? Cuba was a perfectly good island. And Fidel Castro ruined it.
Fucking island-ruiner.
I’ve switched to a new web hosting company for this site. Several things got broken in the move, but I think I’ve fixed all of them. If you run across something that doesn’t work, though, please let me know.
At the end of the documentary I Like Killing Flies, New York restaurant owner Kenny Shopsin crams a year’s worth of talk therapy into this monologue:
This is, like, another one of my half-baked philosophies. The first duty of everybody in life is to realize that they’re a piece of shit. They’re selfish, they’re self-centered, they’re not very good. And that you’re willing to sacrifice 20,000 people in another country just so that you can go to a Wings concert. [to the director:] You’ll sacrifice the lives of 100,000 Chinese female babies just so you can rent this fucking camera and do your stupid art project.
No problem! You’re a piece of shit. Once you realize you’re a piece of shit, it’s not so hard to take. Because then you don’t have this feeling that you’re a good person all the time. And lemme tell you something: Feeling that you’re a good person all the time is like having a brand-new car with no scratches on it. It’s a real responsibility which is almost impossible to live up to. Being a piece of shit and then occasionally doing something that’s good and true—it’s a much easier place to be.
I think that’s really important, and I always tried to raise my kids to understand that they’re not that terrific. And that not being that terrific—that’s okay, ‘cause most people who say they are terrific—Bill Clinton, Cardinal Egan—anybody you want to talk about, they’re not so terrific. Martha Stewart! They’re not so fuckin’ terrific either, and there’s nothing wrong with being not so terrific, you know. In fact, it’s what the whole ballgame is about, is about being not so terrific and accepting it.
Brace yourself, Internet, for I’m about to reveal a deep, dark secret.
For the past few years, several of my friends and I have periodically assembled, both in the light of day and the gloom of night, at various fancy pizza places. With gleams in our eyes and growling in our bellies, we gaze eagerly upon their menus, searching for the perfect marriage of crust and topping—one that will set our limbic systems alight with bliss.
Our name is Team Pizza. And our quest is neverending.
Last night, Team Pizza journeyed to the wilds of Glen Park, in San Francisco, to visit Gialina. People: It was excellent. I’d say it’s one of the top five pizzerias in the Bay Area. We ordered four different pizzas, and they were all great. Don’t miss the Atomica, which has possibly the best tomato sauce I’ve ever had on a pizza. I also recommend any of the pizzas that include various pork-related products.
To the Bay Area’s other upscale pizza-oriented restaurants, I say this: Ready your ovens. Proof your dough. You cannot know when Team Pizza will strike, but rest assured that we will. If your pizza is inferior, our scorn will be merciless. But if you delight us with a superior meal, you may be semi-coherently praised by one man with a seldom-updated weblog.
Hey, everyone: Go read this fascinating article about boredom.
According to a recent study, I live in the fourth-most dangerous city in the United States. How delightful.
On the other hand, if I really cared about safety, apparently I would move to Mission Viejo. Thanks, but no thanks.
From a Steven Pinker essay on the emotional power of swearing:
As it happens, most expletives aren’t genuine adverbs, either. One study notes that, while you can say That’s too fucking bad, you can’t say That’s too very bad. Also, as linguist Geoffrey Nunberg pointed out, while you can imagine the dialogue How brilliant was it? Very, you would never hear the dialogue How brilliant was it? Fucking.
When one of my friends mentioned that it was Fleet Week in San Francisco, and that the Blue Angels would therefore be coming to town, I immediately got on the highest horse I could locate on such short notice. “It’s unconscionable,” I complained. “Does it make any sense for jet fighters to fly in close formation above a densely-populated city? No, it does not. Can you imagine if an accident happened? I don’t think I could ever watch the Blue Angels. I’d feel horribly guilty.”
By the time I wound up in San Francisco this afternoon, I had forgotten this conversation entirely. So it came as a complete surprise when, as I walked south along the Embarcadero, I heard a thunderous roar overhead. Looking up, I saw four jets arcing through the sky in a diamond formation, maybe a half-wingspan apart; they swung out over the water, then curved around and flew over the Financial District.
I still think it’s completely reckless to conduct an air show above downtown San Francisco. However, I am forced to concede that it is also totally awesome.
I cannot say how long this has been so, but lately I have found that when I think, my thoughts are in iambic—what’s the word? Pentameter; that’s it. And I am vexed by all the sing-song thoughts that I must think because of this affliction most bizarre.
How can I keep blank verse out of my head? I’d be most grateful, readers of my blog, if you could help me end this nasty curse.
A coworker walked up to me as I stood in front of our office’s supply board, writing an order for yellow legal pads. She noticed that I was taking the time to copy the appropriate product number from the supply catalog, which, in theory, we are always supposed to do and, in practice, almost nobody ever does.
“Do you need a special kind of legal pad or something?” my coworker asked me.
“Well,” I told her, “if I don’t specify which ones to order, I find that we usually wind up getting white legal pads, or legal pads printed on really crummy paper.”
She stared at me for a moment before saying, “Sometimes it must be really hard to be you.”
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My name’s Jeff Williams. This is my Web site.
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