*Knock Knock*
"Who's..." CRASH
"It's the Ghost of the Motherfucking Fourth Amendment. That's who!"

Yesterday, everyone in the office wore red, black and white, in honor of the Carolina Hurricanes and their chance to wrap up the Stanley Cup - up 3 games to 1, playing game five at home. We were also, fittingly, experiencing the remnants of the first near-hurricane of the season, Alberto. He gave us two solid days of rain, and a half-hour without electricity yesterday morning - which we spent gathered by the windows, in our red, black, and white, talking hockey. And people talked hockey all day long. And then the game came. And it was close. And it went tied into sudden-death overtime. And then an Edmonton player intercepted the puck from a limp pass between Carolina players near center ice. He skated alone into the undefended Carolina zone, where he went one-on-one with the goalie - and got his goal. And the game was over in a flash.

Today, the sun is out, and nobody here is talking about hockey.

Next game is Saturday.

It's too early in "the morning" for me to figure out why, but the Gallery of ''Misused'' Quotation Marks depresses me.

Jewel has discovered booze.

If you enjoy large numbers of small things, you might enjoy The MegaPenny Project.

Being just contaminates the void.
--Robyn Hitchcock, Antwoman

Matt Yglesias defends the idea that it should be morally OK for someone to lie to get on a jury. Trust me, it's less crazy that I make it sound.

Ever see the Simpsons where they find out that a crayon had been shoved up Homer's nose, and that's what turned him into such a dumb-ass? They take it out and he turns into a genius, and spends his days doing geniusy things, and eventually pisses off everybody in town. Then he realizes he liked himself better the old way and decides to put the crayon back. So, he goes to Moe who taps the crayon in a little at a time and Homer gets progressively dumber with each tap:

Moe: (shoving crayon up nose deeper and deeper) All right, tell me when I hit the sweet spot.
Homer: Deeper, you pusillanimous pilsner-pusher.
Moe: All right, all right.
Homer: DEFENSE! Grunt! Grunt! DEFENSE! Grunt! Grunt!
Moe: That's pretty dumb... but... uh...
Homer: Extended warranty? How can I lose?
Moe: Perfect.

Remember that one? Awesome episode from the Simpson's Golden Years. Yeah, well the people who think we need a goddamn flag burning amendment didn't stop at one crayon; they used a whole fucking box.

I mostly agree with Matt Yglesias: the final episode of the Sopranos was pretty lame (though Matt's "criminally terrible" is too harsh). And you can count me and my wife among those who didn't know it was the finale. I mean, you certainly couldn't tell from the episode itself: nothing was resolved, nor was there a big cliff-hanger; it was just a Christmas episode (shown in June, no less). When the credits rolled, I walked out of the room and my wife yelled "Oh. My. God. That was the season finale!" I was all like "Whaaaa?"

I guess because I thought it was the final season (not knowing about the upcoming partial season, and when I did learn about it, not knowing that it wouldn't be on until next year) I thought there would be a lot more plot action, and less character development (Tony's hallucination episodes, Carmela's Paris episode, Christofah's Hollywood celebrity guest episode and his continued continuation of constant substance abuse, AJ's party life, Vito's vacation, etc.) - yeah, we know all about these people already; aren't you supposed to be wrapping this up soon, and shouldn't that involve some big movement, something tectonic ?? And, I forgot just how short a Soprano's season is, so I was anticipating a bunch more episodes, where things would get rolling. But, it never happened - everybody just did more of the same and then it ended... Alas. That's what I get for having expectations.

Have a beastly day!