Saturday, November 21, 2009

Meet The Hunk Of The Week Panel! (Sweetie's Hunk Of The Week, 39)

Those panel interview shows are all the rage now, with The View and that other one that's like the View but has that sassy lady from that cleaning show. I'm never one to be more than 3 or 4 years behind a trend, so I have assembled The Hunk of The Week Interview Panel, which from time to time will appear and do an ACTUAL INTERVIEW with the Hunk of The Week!

This week's Hunk of The Week is The Guy From Friday Night Lights Who Was Supposed To Be Hunk of the Week A While Back But I Was Busy That Day:

Kyle Chandler


And our Hunk of the Week Panel is:

The Pigeon, star of The Pigeon Finds A Hot Dog.



A Micronaut Action Figure I Had As A Kid,



Johnny Horton, singer of The Battle Of New Orleans, and



A random kid I found by googling "Random Kid"




Start the madness
!

Random Kid: I'm not sure why I'm here, or who you are.

Kyle: Thanks for having me on.

The Pigeon: Hot dogs are quite tasty.

Johnny Horton: In my day, I was quite the celebrity. We had sometimes three or four fans who would show up at our shows, sitting a discreet distance from the stage. Those women were hot, too, in their just-below-the-knee dresses and pillbox hats.


Kyle: I'm not sure who you are.

Random Kid: I want my mommy. She was supposed to pick me up from school. Have you seen her?


Kyle: I've been in Friday Night Lights, the TV show, for about 5 years now, I think. I'm not actually sure how long I've been starring in it, because, like most people, I thought the show was cancelled three years ago. Then it turns out it wasn't, which was weird, because I hadn't shown up for work in like, two years.

Johnny Horton: What do you mean, you don't know who I am?

Micronaut: The center of my body actually unplugs. I'm not sure why that is.

Kyle: The show, of course, bears little resemblance to the movie it's supposedly based on, or the book the movie was based on, since those were both true stories that made a point about how important high school football is in Texas, and followed an actual high school team through a season, whereas our show hasn't shown any actual football scenes since 2002.

Pigeon: I believe that in the movie, the high school team was picked to be featured because that year they had celebrity coach Jon Voight!

Johnny Horton:
Say what you want, but I loved him in Welcome Back, Kotter.

Micronaut:
You're thinking of John Travolta. Also, for some reason I have actual shirtsleeve cuffs despite being from some kind of futuristic world. Maybe I'm from a futuristic world where we've dispensed with the rest of the shirt?

Kyle:
No, Jon Voight was the guy in Welcome Back, Kotter, I'm pretty sure.


Pigeon:
He played Horshack. Mister Kott-air!

Random Kid: (starts to cry.)

Johnny Horton: Do you think you're a bigger star now than I was in my heyday?

Kyle: I'm sorry, I really have no clue who you are.

Johnny Horton: Don't tell me you've never heard my hit song The Battle of New Orleans, or the hit remix of it, The Battle of New Orleans 2002, with Jay-Z?




Kyle: Drawing a blank, sorry.

Pigeon: Why would you say that you were picked as the 39th Hunk of The Week?

Kyle: If I had to guess, it'd be... shouldn't someone help that kid?

Random Kid: If you touch me I'll scream!

Micronaut: I bet it's the abs.

Pigeon: Do we get paid for this?

Kyle: Look, kid, I'm not trying to hurt you. Do you know where you live?

Pigeon: You're probably right. It's the abs. Lift up your shirt, Kyle!

Johnny Horton: Yeah, take it off!

Random Kid: All I know is I was waiting for my mom and then a guy in a car took me here and I'm supposed to be home watching Dora The Explorer.

Johnny Horton: Isn't that kind of a girls' show?

Pigeon: I think it's really aimed at girls and boys.

Kyle: My abs are nothing to write home about. Say, how long do you think that expression's going to be around? Does it count as writing home if it's email?

Random Kid: I want to go home!

Micronaut:
Now you've set him off again.

Johnny Horton: You've got that sort of bed-head-y look that the younger guys go for nowadays. Don't you think you're a little old for that? I mean, look at you. From the feet to your forehead, 99% of you says "Dad who sort of gave up working out except for sporadic trips to the weight room at the health club" but the top 1% says "Hipster Doofus."


Kyle: Hey, now, just because you're entirely in black-and-white, don't take it out on me. Besides, what's the deal with that They grabbed an alligator and they fought another round? You can't use an alligator as a cannon. I thought your song was intended to be historically accurate!

Cop, entering with Woman: Is that him, ma'am?

Woman: Oh, Random Kid! I've found you!

Random Kid: Mommy!

Cop: What's going on here?

Micronaut: Crap. Uses time-traveling power to disappear.
Johnny Horton: It's the Hunk of the Week panel!

Cop: Hunk of the Week? Who?

Mom: (to kid): How many times have I told you not to be googled!

Kyle: Me. I'm the Hunk of the Week.

Cop: You? You're clearly some sort of plumber. Or maybe handyman. You're nowhere near hunky enough to be a Hunk of the Week, though. Look at you.

Johnny Horton: Have you noticed the hair?



Cop: Well, yeah, there's that, but I'm pretty sure those are relaxed-fit jeans he's wearing. And they're pretty relaxed, too.


Kyle: Look, now, I didn't come here to be insulted. Also, these are Dockers. And they're not relaxed fit, they're Comfort-Waist (TM).

Mom: I think he's hunky.

Johnny Horton: What about me?

Mom: I'm sorry, but I'm not sure who you are.

Johnny Horton: Oh, come on! (Uses time traveling powers to disappear.)

Pigeon: It's his abs, right? That's what you like about Kyle?

Mom: No, I'd say he's the kind of guy you can bring home to Mom. (Note: That's Sweetie's Actual Reason For Liking Him!)

Kyle: I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean.

Cop: I'm pretty sure it doesn't mean hunky.

Mom: Au contraire. (Growls slightly.) In fact, you could come home with Mom, now.

Random Kid: Mom? What's going on?

Mom: Not now, Random Kid.

Pigeon:
I thought abs were some sort of criteria to be on this list.

Cop: And I thought slightly-paunchy was a disqualification.

Mom: You just leave him to me.

Random Kid: Mommy? Can we go home, now?

Mom: You're going to stay here with these nice people for a little bit.

Cop: I've got to get me some of that bed-head, I guess.

Pigeon: I've got to get me a hot dog.

Random Kid: Begins crying again.

Mom:
Now, come here, you.

Kyle: Wait, I'm not really into this kind of thing. I'm happily married, I think. I'm not even sure... nobody did any kind of background research for this at all, not even the minimal research that usually goes into it.

Mom: I'll research you.

Kyle:
I'm not sure what that means, but it was rude. (Uses time traveling powers to disappear.)

Pigeon: Tune in next time, when we'll sit down with Harold P. Warren, director of Manos: The Hand of Fate, widely considered to be the worst movie ever made. Until then, I'm Pigeon and this has been Sweetie's Hunk of the Week!



Friday, November 20, 2009

Better late than never, unless "late" makes her flunk out of college and move back home. (3 Good Things from 11/19/09)


Another Friday, another day home early from the office. If you're going to go home early, I recommend you do it on a Friday. That way, you don't even need 3 Good Things from the day before to keep your spirits up. But you'll still have them...

1. This comic, from Buttersafe. Rather than try to reproduce it, it's better if you click that link go read it, then come back. So do that.

....

See what I mean? I loved it.

(Sweetie did not.)

2. Mr Bunches finished the day in the Shorts'n'PJs outfit. Mr F, the night before (Wednesday), wanted to wear shorts for his pajamas, but with the new big boy beds we didn't want to risk an accident if he got his diaper off, so I put him in a sleeper, and then opted to put the shorts on over the sleeper. When I got home from work Thursday, I saw that Mr Bunches had opted for that exact outfit for his nap. So I started a trend!

3. I finally ordered Middle's printer ink. I promised back in September that I'd order Middle some printer ink for her computer, a task I hate because it requires me to go to the Dell site and log in, and I can never remember the email or password I used, so I have to go through the whole "security question" and log-in and clicking over to my emails and all that rigamarole, but Middle really needed the ink (apparently, she was reduced to printing her papers in mauve or something) so I soldiered on (bravely) and got it ordered.


Today's Featured Item from Elizabeth's Etsy Store
, pictured, is "Santa and Christmas Trees Russian Doll, a unique and fun Christmas necklace that'd be perfect to give someone you love, or to buy and wear to your office Christmas party. Why let the guys have all the fun with their Christmas tie?


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Thursday, November 19, 2009

Read. Dance. Bliss.: I wasn't pointing my essay at you. So thanks for reading. (3 Good Things from 11/18/09)


Today's Featured Jewelry from Elizabeth's Etsy Store, pictured in this post, is just in time for Thanksgiving: The "Bountiful Harvest Thanksgiving Veggies Necklace," available for just $19 at her Etsy store. After your third slice of pecan pie next week, your pants won't fit, but the necklace still will, so visit her store and style-up your holiday.

Now here's my 3 Good Things from yesterday...

1. I'm smarter than Jeopardy!
I skipped my planned workout last night, and instead of jogging, opted to help Sweetie grocery shop. I then did 20 minutes on the exercise trampoline we have, the one that mostly gets used by Mr F. Since he has incredibly strong legs and great abs (I'm not kidding), I figured I'd get a Mr F Workout, which I did while watching Jeopardy! (FYI: Jumping on a trampoline while answering questions should be the new format of Jeopardy!) While I did that, I got all the questions in one category right while all the Jeopardy! people missed most of them. And it was a hard category, for anyone but me: "The Grand Final "E," with all answers ending in E. You'd figure I'd be good at that, and I was, knowing the word brogue and incarnate.

2. Sweetie got the miniature frozen pizzas that I like, while grocery shopping, so I have that to look forward to now.

3. The Buffalo Bills named Ryan Fitzpatrick as their starting quarterback. It's been a week of news for the beloved Buffalo Bills, which is good for me because I was complaining recently that not only are they bad (which I can live with) but they were boring, and since sports are all about entertainment, boring is terrible. But now they've fixed that by getting the "double bird" from an 86-year-old man, firing their coach (sorry, Dick Jauron -- I liked you, but time to take your millions and move on), hiring an interim coach, and then naming Ryan Fitzpatrick their starter.

Naming Fitzpatrick as their starter is good for one reason and one reason only: I get to call him "Fitzy." As in: "Come on, Fitzy, throw it to Terrell Owens!" All quarterbacks need a good nickname like that. Just ask Peyton "Peytie" Manning.

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Want some great running playlists and also a chance to help raise money for a charity while someone else does all the work? Check out Read.Dance.Bliss, as she runs a marathon for charity.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

If you read to the end, you'll understand the pictures. (Taking Stock: The Excess Snacks Drawer.)



Taking Stock is my attempt to inventory my life, one category at a time. Today it's the Excess Snack Drawer.

Note: Usually I put a photo of the stock up, but my cell phone broke* (*was dropped in a cup of coffee by Mr Bunches) and I don't have a camera with me, so I'll put a picture up when I get a chance. If I remember. Maybe.

I have a lot of rules in life (as you know already) and one of those rules is that lunch has three courses:

1. The sandwich course.
2. The noodle course.
3. The chips course, which is sometimes the fruit course.

(And a soda.)

The sandwich course can be filled with sandwiches, or burritos, or pizza, or perhaps leftover casserole (like today, when I had leftovers of last night's dinner, a dinner that Sweetie had written on our "Meal List" as: Noodles & Meat. And it was. That was the exact dish. It was delicious, but Sweetie will never be hired as a menu copywriter.)

The noodle course can be filled with Ramen Noodles (preferable) or other noo
dle-based filler. It should not be filled with chips, because that's the chips course.

The chips course used to be filled with "anything that ends in -ito," but then I was forced to get healthier by The Boy, who a year or so ago announced that from now on, he wanted to try to cut down on snacks and eat more fruits and vegetables, and so he requested that we buy fewer snacks and more fruits and vegetables. Pleased, I agreed we'd do that, because I want our family to be healthy and I wanted to encourage him in his health. The Boy then never actually ate the fruits and vegetables, opting instead to use his money to go out to eat. Meanwhile, I've tried to stick with the fruits and vegetables, mostly because we don't have as many snacks in the house.

This is all leading into why I have an "Excess Snack Drawer" at work. When Sweetie makes my lunches, she sometimes messes up the categories, or throws in too much, adding in extra categories to make up for what she perceives as a deficiency. For example, this month, I've given up bread (because of this), so Sweetie hasn't been gi
ving me sandwiches. Because that makes the lunch look skimpy to her, she throws in all kinds of other things.

I don't complain about her doing that, because why would I? She makes the lunches out of the goodness of her heart, and does a great job of it, and also, people who complain about someone trying to do something nice for them deserve to be punished in unusual ways, like maybe making them spend 15 minutes stuck in an elevator with Philip Seymour Hoffman (who always looks to me as though he might smell, just a little).

Instead of complaining, I take the stuff that's excess or doesn't fit into the lunch category, and put it in the Excess Snacks Drawer in my desk, a drawer I rely on from time to time when I forget to grab my pocket breakfast (like I did yesterday) or just get hungry (like I do every day...)

Now, today, I have taken out the contents of the Excess Snack Drawer and will list them. They are:

4 bags of microwave popcorn, two brand-name, twe generic. (We have tons of microwave popcorn in our house, stemming from my ill-conceived Costco experiment.)
5 Pop-tarts -- 3 generic and 2 name-brand. (Flavors: Fudge, wild berry, and 3 Blueberry.)
2 bite-sized Almond Joys.
2 Nature Valley granola bars, one peanut butter, one "oats 'n honey." (There were 3 but I ate one yesterday.)
1 package of "Club & Cheddar" crackers.
1 bite-sized Hershey's bar.
1 bite-sized M&M Minis.

Also, I have the cassette tape versions of Paul Simon's You're The One album, the
Armageddon soundtrack, Green Day's Nimrod , and "Celtic Bagpipes: The Lifescapes Collection." I actually just put that last one into my Backstreet Boys' boom box and now I'm jamming out.

Going to comment on this post? You should... here's why.

People have really been doing a good job of commenting & stuff (3 Good Things From 11/17/09)

Yesterday, when I left work, I thought to myself: Only three more days before Friday... That's right. I thought it was only Monday. At first, I was disheartened, but then I realized that if you've got to be wrong about a day, it's better to be wrong that it's Monday than wrong that it's not Monday.

Did that make any sense at all? Never mind. Here's 3 Good Things From Not-Monday.


1. Two new commenters compared the Babies! to velociraptors. Not many people would take that as a Good Thing, but I do, because it means that I have accurately portrayed Mr F and Mr Bunches and my message is getting across. I told Sweetie over a year-and-a-half ago that the Babies! had won, and I was giving in to them. Now, Hewl (whose blog I can't read but I tried) and Stanley Goodspeed (whose blog brought tears of laughter to my eyes with his November 16 entry) have hit on what I didn't know I was thinking until they wrote it: The Babies! are exactly like velociraptors.

With one key exception: Velociraptors, as we all know, never existed, whereas I'm pretty sure the Babies! do exist.

(read the original post, and Stanley & Hewl's comments, here)

2. I sold a copy of Eclipse in Scotland, making me now an internationally renowned writer. Jim -- James Taylor, but probably not that James Taylor (or maybe he is, I don't know) -- bought a copy from his home in Scotland, which is located somewhere in England, I think. As a thank-you, I'll not only link to Jim's Facebook page (where you can learn that he likes the San Francisco 49ers -- Jim, this week, you and I will both be rooting for them to beat up on Green Bay) but I'll also link to his wife Elizabeth's blog, where you can see all the great jewelry she makes, including the piece pictured with this post.

In fact, I'll provide that link each day for the rest of November, and feature one of Elizabeth's pieces on each 3 Good Things for the rest of November. So if you like great handmade jewelry, Go Visit Elizabeth's Etsy Store.

3. Sweetie loved her latest Tuesday present. As you know, every Tuesday I bring Sweetie a present. So far, that list is:

-- Flowers, of some sort (I just liked the way they looked)
-- An Edward t-shirt for her to wear to the showing of New Moon she's attending this weekend. (Sans me.)

And now, the latest:
-- An Apple Pie from Whole Foods, picked up by me on the way home from work yesterday and delivered to her by hand -- later to be served, heated up, with ice cream.

She said this one was her favorite so far. So, men, skip the vampire t-shirts & flowers: The key to a woman's heart is organic pie.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

I can't think of a clever title to put here... (3 Good Things From 11/16/09)

Better late than never, right -- these are being put up at 6:35 p.m. Here's the 3 Good Things from yesterday that kept me going today:

1. The Babies! got their big-boy beds.
The cribs are gone, victims of incessant jumping and climbing. Yesterday, I brought home two box springs and two mattresses and we've set up their room as a big boy room -- with the Babies! immediately beginning to jump these beds into submission.

2. The mortgage company extended my deadline for paying... which shouldn't have been necessary, but it was. Two weeks ago, Sweetie gave me the payment to mail, and I tucked it into my briefcase. Last week Thursday, I found it, still tucked into my briefcase, behind Corelli's Mandolin. (Good book!) So I sent it in, but wasn't sure it'd get there by yesterday, the deadline for paying (and I've never paid late.) When I called to see if they'd gotten it, and they hadn't, I offered to cancel the check and make a payment online, but the lady said they'd just extend my grace period.

It was very nice of her. It makes me sad that I'm suing that same company in three different cases.

3. I got out of work an hour early, the result of an out-of-town hearing in the mid-afternoon which took up just enough time that I didn't have to go back to the office -- but not so much time that I couldn't get home early anyway.

Monday, November 16, 2009

1001 Ways To Tune Up The World, Number Forty-Eight.


48. Use metered lanes to close a lane when doing traffic repairs, thereby avoiding long backups when jerks opt to ignore the lane closing signs.

I solved this problem long ago, but have never had the forum, until now, to present it to the waiting world, which I assume will welcome it with open arms.

How many times have you been sitting in a line of traffic on a road where they reduce the number of lanes up ahead to do some repairs, and while you sit, you keep watching cars zip up alongside you and move on, ignoring the "lane closed" sign and edging in farther up while you sit there, like a sucker, fuming?

And how many times have you decided to do just that because, hey, if everyone else is going to do it, why shouldn't you? (Be honest. I'm raising my own hand, here.) (I fight both sides of this issue, because I've crept up ahead, but once, I drove along in the soon-to-be-closed land pacing the car ahead of me and keeping everyone behind me from zooming up ahead, ignoring the honks and the guy who kept flipping me off.)

Everyone does that, zooms up ahead, because everyone does that; the line of law-abiding citizens who sit in the lane gets longer, more and more people opt to go up in the soon-to-be-closed lane and edge back in, and then society breaks down a little more until we're almost at anarchy. People get angry, people get into minor accidents, people cause trouble.

Metered lanes will end that, completely. All you do is this: Put a parking-ramp meter light, like they use on on-ramps for busy freeways, at the spot where the lane-closure begins. Then have it alternate right and left lanes, letting in first the one, then the other.

Presto! No incentive to creep up on the closed-lane, because you won't get through any faster. No punishment for those who obey the lane-closing signs. Just smooth traffic flow, and society keeps working a little longer.

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Prior entries:
























13. Ban driving any kind of automobile, motorcycle or other personal vehicle within 1-2 miles of downtown in any city with a population of more than 100,000.

12. Abolish gym class; instead, teach kids to play musical instruments.


11. Change copyright laws to allow anyone to use anyone else's creative work provided that the copier pay 60% of the profit to the originator and that the copier not cast the original work in a negative light.

10. Have more sidewalk cafes and outdoor seating.

9. When you have to give someone a gift, ask them what they want, and then get that thing for them.

8. Never interrupt or finish someone's jokes.

7. Periodically, give up something you like for at least a month.

6. Switch to "E-money."

5. Have each person assigned one phone number, and then add an extension for the various phones and faxes that person might be reached at.

4. Abolish Mondays and Tuesdays.

3. Don't listen to interviews with athletes or comedians.

2. Have "personal cashiers" at the grocery store.

1. Don't earn more than $200,000 per year.

It's Monday. 'Nuff said. (3 Good Things From The Weekend, 11/13-11/15).

I'm a little grumpy today (as you might be able to tell) and so my 3 Good Things are especially necessary...

1. The movie Up, which Sweetie and I and Middle watched Friday night for the first time. I was surprised at how sad it was -- bittersweetly sad,but sad nonetheless -- but not surprised at how good it was, and not surprised at how it kept confounding my expectations at each turn.

2. The Sonic burger I got when we ate out by eating in Saturday night. Although our efforts to civilize the Babies! are coming along, they're coming along slowly, so we're not quite to the point where we can inflict the Babies! on others in a restaurant. Saturday night, I decided we'd eat out by ordering in. Sweetie, Middle and The Boy got Chili's take-out; I opted for a Sonic burger because Sonic is awesome. So awesome that I forgot until a couple hours later that I'd sworn off bread for the month of November; so officially, this month I'm giving up all bread except the bread Sonic burgers come on.

3. Sweetie. Sweetie is always a Good Thing in my life. It'd get boring if I just listed her here every day for all three things, but I could do that. I could list 300 Good Things from her, if I had the time to type them all up. Sweetie's a fast typist -- one of those 300 things would be the time she helped me quickly type up all my short stories so I could send them to a publisher... so would it be out of line to ask her to type up all the good things?

Probably.

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Sunday, November 15, 2009

Why We Should All Be Rooting For The Yankees, All The Time and Everytime (Nonsportsmanlike Conduct!)



The pathways to success in America are many and varied. Beyond simply having tons of kids or sleeping with everybody you come across, you could achieve success by, say, having Kanye West embarrass you at a fake celebrity event, after which you'd be more famous than you ever were before and you'd win all sorts of awards, becoming a less-painful Nancy Kerrigan.

Or you could just be better and richer than everybody else.

If you take the first path to fame, people will feel sorry for you even though you have probably achieved a greater level of success and fame and fortune than you would have otherwise (and maybe more than you deserved.) People will say Oh, that poor Nancy Kerrigan, or Oh, that poor Taylor Swift, or Oh, that poor Erin Andrews, and will never stop to think, Wait a minute -- I never heard of Taylor Swift before Kanye took her "moment" away from her, and now I have heard of her and I've even bought her song.

Or they'll never stop to think, Wait a moment, how many other silver-medalist skaters do I remember by name?

Or they'll never stop to think Hey, you know, I don't know any other female sports reporters by name, either, especially not female sports reporters who go on TV to announce that they will never talk about this deplorable violation of their privacy again and will somehow time that one-time-only interview for the night of the big game they just happen to be covering for their network.

No, they'll only stop and think Oh, that poor person.

But if you achieve success the old-fashioned, American way -- by being better and richer than everyone else -- people will hate you for it and they'll in fact propose ever more grandiose schemes to try to take you down a peg or two or three or four. Like the Yankees. When was the last time you heard Oh, those poor Yankees? Never, that's when. Nobody feels sorry for the Yankees, because the Yankees are very good at what they do and they're rich and they win 27 World Championships over the course of their history and they're kind of arrogant about it, aren't they? So we hate them... and by "we" I mean "you" because I don't hate the Yankees. Or any of the big rich teams that win all the time. I think it's great. I think it's perfect that USC and Florida and Ohio State win all the time. I think it's just fine that the Yankees and the Red Sox are on TV fourteen times a day during the basketball season. I think it's bad for people, and sports (which is made up of people) when the Cleveland Cavaliers do pretty good for a while, or the Minnesota Twins make the playoffs or win a World Series, which they might have done, I don't know.

It's bad for people, and society, when someone Nancy Kerrigans their way to the top; it's good for people, and society, when someone Yankees their way to the top. For a bunch of reasons.

First, here's why it's bad to Nancy Kerrigan your way to fame -- unless you're a Nancy Kerrigan, that is. For people who Nancy Kerrigan their way to fame, it's good, because they got a little taste of success. For everyone else, it's bad, because it encourages people to go against everything we want people to do in a society.

You Nancy Kerrigan your way to fame and fortune and success when you get there accidentally and through no real talent of your own. I began using Nancy Kerrigan as a verb back when Nancy Kerrigan became the first one of these types of people I was aware of: People whose fame and fortune and success wouldn't exist if they hadn't suffered a happy accident. Nancy Kerrigan, as everyone knows, was an Olympic-hopeful ice skater who was kneecapped by Jeff Gillooly, ending her Olympic dreams, sort of, but catapulting her to fame and fortune beyond what she likely otherwise could have expected as an Olympic skater .

The number of Olympic skaters the average person can name can be counted on one hand, with three fingers left over: Dorothy Hamill and Nancy Kerrigan. That's it. And Nancy Kerrigan wouldn't be in there if it wasn't for having been kneecapped -- if it hadn't been for the happy accident that ended her Olympic career, Nancy Kerrigan would not be remembered today.

It's not as if Nancy Kerrigan was a great ice skater before the attack. She had finished first in competition four times in her career before the attack in 1994, and had finished 5th at the World Championships the year before. That makes her a very good ice skater -- but Dorothy Hamill at the height of her career finished 2nd, 1st, and 1st, in three consecutive World Championships, taking that last first the year she got a gold in the Olympics, and she had three consecutive 1st place finishes in the US Championships. She was a great ice skater.

But Nancy Kerrigan now can be booked as a speaker (at a cost of up to $15,000), she was given a parade at Disney World (how many 2nd place finishers can say that?). She even got to record a record, putting her in the same league as Taylor Swift, who shot to greater fame than ever the night Kanye West interrupted her and took away her "moment" by claiming that Beyonce's video was better.

Which, FYI, it was.

Taylor Swift, before Kanye jumped up on stage, had a nice little career going; it's not as though all her fame is owing to Kanye West being an idiot. But while she was doing well as a country/pop star prior to that Video Music Award incident, her career after Kanye did that has taken off. And by taken off I mean really taken off, shot into the stratosphere like a NASA rocket aimed at the base of the moon in a misguided attempt to prove that there's water on the moon when what people really want is an awe-inspiring journey to Mars.

Okay, that was a very mixed metaphor but I can't make that point enough, NASA: time to start reaching for the stars. Enough stupid landers crashing into planets.

Since Kanye jumped onstage at the VMAs, Taylor Swift has become more famous than she ever would have been if that hadn't happened. I did a little test of my own this morning, a scientific examination of Taylor Swift's fame pre-Kanye and post-Kanye. The test was this: I searched The Superficial for mentions of Taylor before and after the VMA incident.

The final tally of total number of times Taylor Swift was mentioned on The Superficial in:

September, October, and November 2009: Eight.
June, July and August 2009: zero.

In fact, every mention of Taylor Swift on that blog was from after the Kanye incident.

But I can prove that Taylor Swift's current level of fame owes more to Kanye than to her musical talent even more scientifically, by using Google. Did you know that you can Google something and find out how often it's mentioned over a period of time, and they'll even give you a little handy bar graph? It's true, and I did just that for Taylor Swift. Here's what I got:


Note the first article on that list. But note, more, the two peaks on that graph. In October, 2008, she released her second album and was on a bunch of industry magazine covers and hit the top of the charts... then began her long slow slide into KatyPerryville, until Fall, 2009, when Taylor Swift had not released anything new or done anything of note... except get insulted by Kanye West, an insult that led to her increasing in fame beyond anything she could have expected and in getting invited to host Saturday Night Live.

So what does all this have to do with the Yankees? And sports, in general? A lot, as it turns out, because everyone hates the Yankees, and hates success achieved the good ol' American way (being better and richer than everyone else) and everyone feel sympathetic for Taylor Swift and the other Nancy Kerrigans of the world, people who get vaulted to fame and fortune by bad luck.

Which is, as I said, bad for society: We -- and by "we," again, I mean you -- celebrate the Nancy Kerriganing of America even though it goes against everything we should want to celebrate and promote. We remember Nancy Kerrigan even though she was a snot and even though she finished second, but can you name the person who won the gold medal that year?


It was Oksana Baiul, who didn't have the good luck to get kneecapped so that she'd be remembered.

In celebrating the NancyKerriganing of Americans, we are working against what sports are supposed to represent, and what we are supposed to be idealizing for our society: we are working against the idea of working hard to achieve excellence, the idea of pushing oneself to be better than others, the idea that being truly great is something that takes time and effort and, yes, money. We are, instead, telling ourselves that anyone can be excellent, or at least famous -- and rich -- provided that they are just in the right place at the right time.

Now, there is always a certain element of luck in achieving fame and fortune and success. If Harrison Ford had not been painting a doorway at the right time, he would not have become first Han Solo and then Indiana Jones and then Regarding Henry. He might have ended up being a painter. There were probably 10,000 actors at the time who could have created a memorable old space pirate who's just in it for the money, and Harrison Ford was lucky to have been picked out. There is a certain amount of luck in being Brett Favre -- being lucky enough to be born with the right genes to have the ability to grow that big and strong, to have big hands, to not have gotten polio or hit by a truck, to have been on the Packers when Don Majikowski went down, instead of rotting away in Atlanta. To have had Mike Holmgren as a coach instead of Lindy Infante.

But in celebrating Harrison Ford's acting- and vest-wearing achievements, and Brett Favre's passing achievements, we are not celebrating the luck that put them there. We recognize the luck that got them there (if we're smart, like me) but then we celebrate the skill that kept them atop the charts, as it were. It takes skill to stay up there at the top -- luck and skill to get there, and luck and skill to stay there. In 1979, among the movies that were released alongside Star Wars were Pete's Dragon and something called Killer of Sheep. The stars of those movies -- "Sean Marshall" and "Henry G. Sanders," respectively, did not go on to fame and fortune like Harrison Ford did. Neither, for that matter, did Mark Hamill or Carrie Fisher, who had respectable careers but did not dominate as an actor like Harrison Ford did.

In the NFL, in 1992, teams started quarterbacks like Brett Favre -- then an unknown -- and also started quarterbacks like Bobby Hebert, Browning Nagle, and Hugh Millen. Each of those last three had all the luck that Brett Favre had; each had made it to the NFL, just as he had. But they didn't have the skill to stay there, the skill to play for 17 consecutive seasons (and counting) without missing a game.

Brett Favre, Harrison Ford, and the New York Yankees are the exact opposite of Nancy Kerrigans, the exact opposite of the Erin Andrews', but we don't celebrate them. We vilify them and try to create ways to stop them, while celebrating the Nancy Kerrigans, and we do that because it's easier to believe that fame and success are a matter of luck than to believe that they're a matter of skill. Americans would rather win the lottery than build a company from the ground up, it seems, and Nancy Kerrigan, Taylor Swift, and Erin Andrews represent winning the lottery: they are not much more skillful, or hardworking, than their peers, but they got lucky and got a taste of fame.

Celebrating luck over skill is a bad thing because it encourages people to wait for luck rather than work hard to get the skill. But that's not the only reason to bemoan the Nancy Kerriganing of America. There's also the fact that the fame, and fortune, and success that comes from being Nancy Kerriganed into the heights is short-lived and short-sighted.

Paul McCartney mentioned once that his success as a musician -- a musician who cannot read music -- came from the sheer amount of practice he put in. The Beatles got picked to play a German strip club and had to play long, long hours. By the time they became "overnight" successes they'd played 270 shows in 18 months or so between 1960 and 1962, and by 1964, they'd played 1,200 times live. (Source: Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers). U2, no slouches at musicianry, formed in 1976, and signed a record deal in 1980. They didn't hit it really big, though, until The Joshua Tree, which got released 11 years into their career -- and which they'd interrupted the recording of to tour some more.

The Beatles and U2 are among the two most long-lasting musical acts of my lifetime. 45 years after hitting it big, The Beatles hit it big again this year with the re-release of their music. U2's latest album, No Line On The Horizon, sold over a million copies in Europe and the US, but was considered a disappointment by them. While Taylor Swift's latest album, Fearless, has sold over 4,000,000 copies in the US, my argument still holds, because Taylor Swift hasn't shown the staying power that U2 or The Beatles have: U2's album sales are in part a disappointment because no album of theirs has ever sold less than 1,000,000 copies in the US -- none of their twelve albums over 19 years has ever sold less than 1,000,000 copies, and some have gone as high as ten million.

All without anyone hitting Bono in the knee with a tire iron, or taking nude photos of The Edge.

This is a sports post, so let me focus on sports. Michael Jordan didn't come out of nowhere to become the greatest basketball player ever. It's legend, now, that he got cut from his high school team, but what isn't legend and should be is that Michael Jordan is widely considered to have one of the hardest-working practice ethics ever. Tiger Woods, too -- a guy I used to admire but now think is kind of a jerk and no longer admire -- is reported to be an extremely hard worker at being great at golf.

Compare them to Michelle Wie, who was blessed with a little talent and a lot of luck, and who has yet to win an LPGA tour event. I could go on and mention other who are celebrated for being famous or considered to be pretty or who were lucky to get the spotlight-- Danica Patrick (career wins, 1), Kellen Winslow Jr., the "I'm a soldier" guy who thought swearing and comparing himself to real soldiers was the way to go, and who now toils away on 1-7 Tampa Bay.

But the point is made: The brief, momentary fame and success that comes from a Nancy Kerriganing isn't worth celebrating, or hoping for. If you want a career at something, or even to just do it for a long time for fun, then hoping for the Kerriganization works against you.

Will we know who Taylor Swift is in 10 years? I doubt it.

Will Kellen Winslow Jr. be enshrined next to Brett Favre in the Hall of Fame in 10 years? I doubt it.

And yet, it goes on, people loving the Kerrigan moments while hating teams like the Yankees, who just go out and win, who just are excellent at what they do, and who excel at what they do. They badmouth Brett Favre for wanting to (and being able to) play football even after the Green Bay Packers no longer wanted him to do so. They complain that we need "salary caps" and other rules to keep the Yankees from winning every year. They gripe about the BCS and how it rewards schools like USC and Florida and Texas and punishes schools like Boise State and Iowa... all while not recognizing that Boise State and Iowa are Taylor Swift and Nancy Kerrigan, that the Yankees and Brett Favre are what America is truly about, and what we should truly aspire to. They -- you -- do that because it's easier to believe in success when success is just a lightning strike away than it is to believe in success when success is years and years and millions of dollars of hard work away.

While we can enjoy the brief spectacle that comes when, occasionally, Kanye West embarrasses Taylor Swift, or when Boise State wins 10 games in a row and does so in an entertaining fashion, those aren't what sports are really about, and aren't what America is really about. Those are sidelines, little blurbs of fame and entertainment that brighten up our day but don't really do more than that. When Iowa briefly climbs up in the polls and takes on Ohio State (to lose), when Wisconsin goes 12-1 and almost gets a BCS spot only to crash back to 7-6 the next year, those are the equivalent of Nancy Kerrigan getting kneecapped: They highlight a second-place finisher who otherwise we wouldn't know about, and show us a little bit of the world we wouldn't pay attention to absent that little happy accident. So we briefly (as I did this year) root for Iowa and (as lots of you did this year) buy Taylor Swift songs, having just heard who she was, but that should be all. We shouldn't be celebrating those achievements, because they were dumb luck or celebrations of something other than talent, hard work, and money.

On the other hand, when USC and Florida get credit over and over for being great, when the Yankees win title number 27, when New York and Boston and Los Angeles teams keep grabbing the spotlight over Pittsburgh and Kansas City and Nebraska, that's the way things should be, and that's what we should be rooting for. Those teams got to the top, and stayed there, through a combination of smarts and hard work and yes, money, but it takes smarts and hard work to keep that money rolling in. Just look at the Mets and the Yankees.


You know how scientists study twins in some instances? They do that because twins make a great case study for some experiments. Being genetically identical, scientists can use twins as a great control group because they don't differ at the most fundamental level.

The Mets and Yankees are baseball's twin study. Both of them play in New York, both of them rake in the cash, but the Mets just keep losing while the Yankees just keep winning. Playing in the same exact city with the same exact media market and number of fans and advantages that the Yankees have, the Mets have won... two World Championships.Two, versus twenty-seven for the Yankees. Two.

That can't be explained by the kind of dumb luck that Americans want to celebrate, dumb luck and Nancy Kerriganing over smarts and hard work and money. Twenty-Seven versus two is the proof that Americans should honor the Yankees, because the Yankees take their advantages (New York, money) and use it wisely, in a talented way, and become better at what they do.

Here's more proof: A few years back, the Yankees let manager Joe What's-His-Name, Torre, go. That was, in some circles, derided. At least some of the people I know said they shouldn't have done that. (More of the people I know said Who cares? It's baseball?, but that's a different point for a different post.)

This year, Torre and his new team met the Yankees and their new manager, Joe What's-His-Name, Girardi, in the playoffs. (The Yankees appear to be following the same management pamphlet that circulated around Green Bay a while back, entitled Make Sure All Your Managers Have The Same First Name. It must be to save on letterhead or something.) The winner? The Yankees and their new manager -- proving that the Yankees were smart enough to be able to let a good manager go and still win.

It takes smarts to know when to let a grizzled old veteran who's had a lot of success go -- just ask Green Bay Packers GM Ted Thompson, who doesn't yet know when to do that -- and it takes smarts to hire a new manager who will then beat the old manager.

Sure, it's easier to hire a new manager and make it a good one when you've got billions of dollars, like the Yankees -- but that just proves my point, because the Yankees wouldn't have billions of dollars if they were mismanaged and weren't worth looking at. Some teams with all the same advantages as the Yankees, or as their other counterparts in identical circumstances, just can't get it right. It's not just the Mets and the Yankees. It's also the Clippers and the Lakers.

The Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers play basketball in the exact same city, with the exact same fan base and exact same media outlets and thus the exact same starting position. The total number of championships held between these two teams is fifteen -- that's zero for the Clippers, and fifteen for the Lakers.

Why do the Lakers win more titles and have more fans and (probably) make more money? Because they have Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson? That's no answer; if that's the answer, why don't the Clippers have Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson? Or their equivalent? The answer is that the Lakers are better run and better organized and just better than the Clippers (and than most NBA Teams.)

But still, people hate the Yankees. People hate USC. People hate success and find reasons to credit things beyond simply being better for their success.

"The Yankees win because they spend all that money," people say. Conan O'Brien made that joke, that the Yankees' victory shows what hard work and a billion dollars will get you. But other teams spend money, too, and other teams (like the Mets) have the exact same base from which to work... and don't win 27 titles.

"USC just gets a lot of credit from the media," people complain about college football titan USC, which sits at number 22 in this weeks' BCS poll, but which stayed in the top 25 even though they've lost three games, and even though two of those losses weren't even kind of close. But why does USC get a lot of credit from the media? Not because of their location -- there are other equally-famous schools around in California, Berkeley and UCLA and Stanford, none of which are in the BCS top 25. There are other famous schools out there in college football, Notre Dame and Nebraska and Tennessee, but they don't stay in the top 25 after losing three games. No, USC gets a lot of credit because people know they're good anyway, and even when they struggle, they're still good and still a lot better than those flash-in-the-pan teams, those Nancy Kerrigans like Iowa that rise up to number 6 and then drop back down to 10 and soon will fall out of the limelight entirely.

But people want to believe that Iowa is the way to go, that Boise State is the way to go. Play on a blue field, work hard, and give Ohio State a tough game and good things will happen to you with a lot of luck, people want to believe.

And maybe they will. Maybe Kanye West will storm onto the court at a Memphis Grizzlies game and the resultant attention will send the Grizzlies to their first-ever NBA Finals and America will thrill to the prospect of an underdog making it big. Maybe someone will snap nude photos of Sebastijan Ajster, currently ranked 1,365th in the PGA tour rankings, and he'll flash into our consciousness and get an endorsement deal from a golf-club maker and net himself a nice little income before fading away again, too. Maybe someone will kneecap Brett Favre at the start of the postseason and Tarvaris Jackson will get to quarterback his team in the Superbowl, a nice little human interest story that will fill up some air time.

But will those people be back year after year after year? Will the Memphis Grizzlies ever have 15 NBA trophies to hoist? Will Sebastian Ajster wear a green coat at Augusta? Will Tarvaris Jackson go to three Superbowls, as Kurt Warner has and Brett Favre is likely to do?

I doubt it. I doubt it just as much as I doubt that Mr F and Mr Bunches, my three-year-olds, will know who "Taylor Swift" is. I'll bet that in 15 years, I'll be telling Mr F and Mr Bunches about how I've liked The Beatles since I was a kid, how I listened to my parents' Beatles records and then how I got the older kids to like them and now they liked them, and nobody will remember Taylor Swift. And I'll bet I'll be doing that in a year when the Yankees will be winning their 35th World Series, and maybe Brett Favre will even still be playing.

And I'll bet that even then, people will feel sorry for whoever is accidentally famous that year, and even then, people will be saying that we have to construct a BCS that will let the Boise States into it because it's not fair that USC and Florida always get in, that even then people will be saying we need a baseball salary cap because it's not fair that the Yankees and Red Sox always win everything, that even then people will be decrying good, old-fashioned American success and hoping for lottery-winning, lightning-striking success.

It'll still be going on, because most people will still rather be lucky than work hard, and most people would rather explain away others' success and their own comparative lack of the same by claiming others' success is based on unfairness, that they had more money or better players or more money to buy better players. They'll cheer the sudden, accidental fame and jeer the longtime dynasties.

They'll be wrong, then, as they are now. They'll be wrong because the Yankees, USC, Brett Favre, the Lakers, all the successful rich people and groups that people love to hate, succeed not through unfairness but by smartly using their advantages, while others don't do the same. They'll be wrong because fame and success and fortune that come about entirely by accident are short-lived and not worth celebrating, or, really, wanting at all.

But they'll still do it. And I'll still be wearing my Lakers' shirts, listening to my Beatles' albums, and working hard, the way truly successful people always have and always will.