A New Career In A New Town

Best Moments in the Wire

2009-11-13T13:18:00.001-08:00

One of the contributors at Pajiba has seen fit to compile clips of what they believe to be the 100 greatest lines of dialogue from HBO's epochal series, The Wire. A few of my favorite lines are missing, but it's still well worth your time.

What The Fasionable Dog Will Be Wearing This Fall

2009-11-06T11:10:00.000-08:00

For my wife, dressing up our dog in fun seasonally-themed outfits is a standing temptation. The pumpkin-hat seen here is a little big, but I think Bink makes it work. When you have this much style, it needs to be shared.

Christmas, by the way, is going to be something.

Afternoons

2009-11-05T10:56:00.000-08:00

Summer is fading:
The leaves fall in ones and twos
From trees bordering
The new recreation ground.
In the hollows of afternoons
Young mothers assemble
At swing and sandpit
Setting free their children.

Behind them, at intervals,
Stand husbands in skilled trades,
An estateful of washing,
And the albums, lettered
Our Wedding, lying
Near the television:
Before them, the wind
Is ruining their courting-places

That are still courting-places
(But the lovers are all in school),
And their children, so intent on
Finding more unripe acorns,
Expect to be taken home.
Their beauty has thickened.
Something is pushing them
To the side of their own lives.

-Philip Larkin

A Renewal

2009-10-29T10:48:00.000-07:00

Having used every subterfuge
To shake you, lies, fatigue, or even that of passion,
Now I see no way but a clean break.
I add that I am willing to bear the guilt.

You nod assent. Autumn turns windy, huge,
A clear vase of leaves vibrating on and on.
We sit, watching. When I next speak
Love buries itself in me, up to the hilt.

-James Merrill

East Coker

2009-10-24T13:14:00.000-07:00

Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

-T.S. Eliot

"American children are fattened more efficiently than any other children in the world."

2009-10-21T12:29:00.000-07:00

So far, Parks and Recreation has been mostly ho-hum. I watch it because I'm lazy and it's on near enough to 30 Rock for me to give it some respect. Last Thursday, however, it finally lived up to its promise. The episode, "Sister City," was about a visit from a delegation of Venezuelan Parks Department Officials to the show's home of Pawnee, Indiana. Fred Armisen, perfect as usual, played the supremely patronizing and entitled head of the Venezuelan delegation. ("We thank you for this container of sap, and the bag of garbage....") but the entire cast was excellent. There were at least a dozen laugh-out-loud moments (the relationship between the two interns was particularly great). It's starting to seem as if the show is hitting on all its cylinders. Check it out.

Plug

2009-10-12T17:26:00.000-07:00

I've recently joined a subscription DVD service called Film Movement. For about 100$ a year, I get one obscure foreign movie (and accompanying short) sent directly to my house every month. I don't have to return them; they're mine to keep. That means that if I want to watch Munyurangabo, the story of a young Tutsi who steals a machete from a market in Kigali, or Spare Parts (the synopsis for which begins "Embittered widower, Ludvik, spends his nights transporting illegal refugees in his van from Croatia, across Slovenia, and into Italy")--eight or nine or thirty times in a week--well, who's going to stop me? (Besides my wife.)

I watched my first selection, Gigante, last week. The story of a lonely, heavy-metal loving security guard whose work monitoring the video surveillance at a soulless, Walmart-esque grocery store in Montevideo suddenly grows meaningful when he develops an unrequited love for one of the cleaning staff, Gigante is the first movie I've seen set in Uruguay.

Gigante was solid--not mind-blowing, but certainly worth my time. (Although can I just say that I'm officially tired of stories about people watching other people. Yes. I get it. We're all watchers. We live in a hypertextual miasma of disconnected emotions and pixellated love. Blah blah blah....Baudrilliard.... blah blah... Art in the Age of Mechanical... blah blah.... [stabs self in face with pen]....)

Point is: it's a tired conceit. Rear Window was working with the same ideas fifty years ago and in ways that were far more interesting and complicated than the subsequent imitations. (Interesting trivia: originally Rear Window was also supposed to be set in Uruguay, but they had to move it back to the States after the unions complained about the poor quality of the beaches in Montevideo.)

Where have I gone? Oh, I know. Gigante. Basically worth my time. The subtlety and precision of the actors as well as the overall sweetness of the story (love triumphs; faceless corporations everywhere agree to give out bunny rabbits to all employees once per day) kept me involved. Also, I get to listen to some Biohazard. And that can never be bad.

So, I'm excited. Film Movement. Check it out.

Yesterday in LA

2009-10-04T13:03:00.000-07:00

I met yesterday somehow (how) not one but two

actual poets. In Los Angeles. Well actually I met

only one—the other was her husband—but still.

What are the odds? Slim, I says,

slim. And now, again, my thoughts turn to poetry

as the corn stalk thinks of sunlight

fitfully

dozing in its dark seed cell.

Status Update Wombat

2009-09-29T10:26:00.001-07:00

No big topics here, but I thought I'd give my legion of half-crazed fans a soupcon of glorious ANCIANT.

Glorious glorious.

-What the hell is up with Glee? I got suckered into watching it by all the hype; so far I have to say it pretty much sucks. When the episodes are good, it's almost always because the songs are good. Having ten people do a rock/a capella version of "Don't Stop Believing" is, of course, totally excellent--but only because Journey itself is totally excellent. Take away the Journey, and what do you have? A show with fantastically cartoon-like characters, ridiculous storylines, and jokes any fifteen year old could outdo. I'm giving it one more episode.

-I've been watching SportsNight on DVD. I was a huge fan of the show during its original run and I had high hopes for the DVDs. I have to say: so far, they don't live up to my memories. What was irritating about Sorkin's writing style has gotten way more irritating, and what was moving now seems a little overwrought. I'm hoping the second season gets better. That's the one I remember as being best.

-My god have I lost a lot of money playing online poker in the last month.

-Due date for screenplay rough draft: Sunday. Looks like it's going to happen. And the angels will dance.

-I'm on a white bean kick. The way I learn to cook new dishes is by taking an ingredient and working on it every night for, say, a year. Right now it's cannellini beans. My poor wife. She's tired of them already, and it's only week one. But I'm going to learn to cook some damn good white beans, by mid-2010. That's the plan.

-Also, seared tuna. Although that's not much of a challenge.

-Tuna: 22.00$/pound. What the hell!?

-Two book recommendations: The Stars, My Destination by A. Bester and The Warrior's Apprentice by L. McMaster Bujold. The best kind of page-turners; enthralling but not insulting. Nutritive and tasty! (Unlike my cannellini beans).

-What does the photo up there have to do with these entires? That's my riddle to you. The first person to tell me will receive a (now out-of-date) copy of College Board's The Official SAT Study Guide. As well as a pound of white beans with rosemary and bacon. And maybe some other stuff.

PLO

2009-09-21T21:37:00.001-07:00

Fresh from a week of traveling through the East Coast, I spent Sunday and Monday playing marathon sessions of Pot Limit Omaha. Why? I don't know. I'm not a great Omaha player (yet). If I wanted only to make money I should play Hold'Em. But Omaha still holds many mysteries; that's part of its appeal. It keeps me interested.

I played mostly B- poker, won a very small amount, and mostly ran ok. I probably still bluff too much; especially at low stakes, this is a mistake. But, against thinking opponents, Omaha offers lots of opportunities for creative bluffs.

A hand that came up yesterday illustrates this. I'm on the button with (As Ac 8h 7d). Two players ahead of me limp, and I bet the pot. I get one caller, a tight, thinking player UTG. So far this player, who I'll call "Marine" (his icon on the poker site I play at was a US Marine in dress uniform) lead out on a flop of (10h 2h 2c), betting exactly half the pot.

You can make an argument to call, raise, or fold here. I had noticed, however, that this player tended to bet smaller when he had drawing hands than he did with made hands. (A pretty common phenomenon. People who have good hands bet more than people who don't. Seems obvious, but it's true.) It's unlikely that he would have a two in his hand and if he had tens full he would either bet pot or, more likely, check in an attempt to go for a check raise.

I decided that he probably had a flush draw--although a two was not impossible. I called, figuring that if the heart flush did not hit, he might give up.

Instead, the turn was a King of hearts. Again, Marine bet out half the pot (about 20$). Again, I called. Why? I have no idea, except that his half-pot bets made me feel like he was weak. So far during that session I had played very tight; he hadn't seen me bluff once. He was also way up in the game, and I thought it was likely that he would be wanting to protect his winnings, and not want to put in a lot of money with a medium strength hand. If he had a flush now, he still had to be worried that I had filled up--a distinct possibility given that Kings or Aces are the most likely hands for me to raise preflop.

I thought that calling the turn might seem like a smooth call--like I was trying to lure him in to betting into my Kings full. Or at least, I thought that it COULD look that way. It was possible that HE had Kings full, in which case I was in big big trouble.

The river was a brick and again he lead out, but this time for only 30$, into a pot of about 90$.

I then reraised, all-in (for about another 120$). He thought for a long, long time. Clearly he had some kind of flush and didn't want to let it go. But at last, he folded. He'd decided to give me credit for Kings full. Which I might have had. But I didn't.

Then a few hours later I donked away that same hundred making a hugely inopportune bluff into someone who'd flopped quad eights. In poker, if you want to bluff, you should not bluff someone who has four of a kind. That's an old saying. And it's true.

Good Mojo From Amazon

2009-09-03T16:32:00.000-07:00

Does anyone else think this is hilarious? It's smack at the top of the amazon.com home page. Is this a book they have for sale or a cache of highly enriched plutonium? (If you find it hard to read, click on the image. It will enlarge).

It Looked Like This....But Real

2009-08-27T11:50:00.001-07:00

This starts out ok but halfway through becomes amazing. Sublime, almost. That's the job I want to have: to stand behind the cutout of a cardboard bear and try to manipulate it so that it looks like it's really alive.

For some reason this reminded me intensely of my friend, Johannes. J, if you're out there: this is for you. [Via Andrew Sullivan]

There Might Be A Rabbit in La Regle De Jeu

2009-08-20T11:56:00.000-07:00

This short film by the Coen Brothers made me laugh out loud. It also made me want to see this movie, Climates. And by the way--for anyone wondering--there are actually dozens of rabbits in La Regle De Jeu. That's pretty much the source of its greatness, right there. The rabbits.

A Post Which Starts Out With Me Trying To Be Funny But Ends Up With Me Just Being P*****

2009-08-18T13:33:00.000-07:00

At some point during my first year of marriage, I originated a exciting coping technique, which I call “conversation retire.” (I know: it needs tuning. Let me know if you can think of something better). "Conversation retire" works pretty much like it sounds. Once a certain conversation topic has come up a certain number of times (43), without in any way drawing close to a resolution, either one of us is allowed to declare that that topic is, from that day forward, banned from public consumption. It has been “retired.” We could think about it; we just couldn’t talk about it.

Almost immediately, it proved a hit. Gone for good were the most emotionally agitating (and dialectically unsatisfying) of our conversations. For example: Angelina Jolie. My wife, as it turns out, has a LOT of anger towards Angelina Jolie. Probably, she should. I don’t know. But I have now heard about the many faces of Angelina Jolie’s evil enough times to be able to recite them all by heart. Even worse, despite how frequently it comes up, the subject STILL sends my wife into something approaching a frenzy. So, in the interest of the common good, I’ve had to have it banned.

Other topics that we’ve decided to ban include: Oprah Winfrey (Who, Even Though She May Not Be As Evil As A********* J****, Is, in Reality, MUCH Worse than Certain Naïve Unknowing Husbands Might Suspect); Felipe, Our Ex-Housepainter, And How Stupid We Were Not To Have Done A Last Inspection Of Our In-Fact-Badly-Painted House Before We Paid Him; The Unbelievable Gall of Certain Friends of My Wife Who Never Bought Us A Wedding Present (Despite The Fact That Some Were Actually Members of The BRIDAL PARTY); Jon and Kate Gosselin, Relationship and Parenting Skills Thereof; Hugh Hefner, Relationship and Business Acumen Thereof; and, finally, above all else, THE TOPIC—the one for which the whole idea of ‘retiring’ conversations was originated…Michael Vick. More specifically: How Michael Vick, As Punishment For His Crimes, Deserves the Death Penalty.

Ok, now understand. I don’t like Michael Vick. I didn’t like him before the dogfighting stuff came out. I like him less now. He’s a terrible person, and deserves to be permanently banned from public life. But I don’t think he should be put to death. And my wife, hyperbole aside, actually did. And does.

This ended up becoming a long-running debate. Her side of the argument was that after he got out of jail, he would re-sign with another team, make a lot of money playing football and eventually be totally rehabilitated. In a few years, it would all be forgotten; therefore to make sure that didn't happen, he should be executed. Really.

My argument was that it wasn't necessary. Even before the dogfighting stuff, Vick was on the way down. He was never better than a second-tier quarterback. He couldn’t pass; he wasn’t a great leader; he wasn’t well-liked. Add to that the massive public outcry that would greet any team crazy enough to sign him, and there was no way—NO WAY, I explained (in the Knowledgeable, Man-Who-Understands Sports voice I trot out from time to time)—that he would ever play again in the NFL.

You all know what happened. Somehow—stunningly—my vast insight into the mechanisms of pro football has proven insufficient. Vick’s been given one more chance. My wife, it saddens me to say, was totally 100% right. (Which suggests, by the way, that Angelina Jolie lives entirely on the blood of slaughtered kittens). It makes me sad. It makes me angry. It makes me want to root against the Eagles.

I started this thinking I’d write a funny post about the travails of marriage. Now, though, I’ve become upset. I was grouchy (well, grouchier) all last week because the Bink was going through some sort of unhappy emotional phase (it manifested itself in a lot of mean-spirited growling and excess barking). Literally 1/3 of my waking involves me worrying in some way about his happiness. And I don’t even like animals! Meanwhile, Michael Vick is charging money so people can come watch dogs fight to the death!? I mean…what the bleep is that?

I guess no one deserves to be punished forever, but somehow this seems to have all gone away so fast. I just feel like somehow there is something deeply wrong with Vick. Anyone who would willingly inflict pain upon something innocent and helpless is profoundly broken. And two years in jail is not enough. The death penalty may be too much. But this.... This is not enough. It can't be. It just can't.

What a great guy!

New Review

2009-08-14T09:12:00.000-07:00

I have a new review up over at The Second Pass. Here's an excerpt:

It is hard to explain why the American, except in his exhortatory and passionately argumentative moods, has not struck deep into American life, why his stories and verses are, for the most part, only pretty things, nicely unimportant. Anthony Trollope had a theory that the absence of international copyright threw our market open too unrestrictedly to the British product, that the American novel was an unprotected infant industry; we printed Dickens and the rest without paying royalty and starved the domestic manufacturer. This theory does not explain.

Wait a second. No. That's not right. My review is of a book called The Magicians. It's about, uhm, Magicians. College age kids. Anyway, read it. What else do you have to do?

(The above quote, by the way, comes from "American Literature" an essay written in 1921 by John Macy).

It's Coming

2009-08-07T19:08:00.001-07:00

My friend Dez, over at GNABB, has just finished compiling a list of his "Top Fifty Movies of All Time." It's got me thinking. It's got me inspired. It's got me riled. And so, my fellow readers, be prepared. Soon, I too will have a list. Magnificent and shining it will be as a beacon, giving light succor to the blighted citizens of our weak and weary world.

Probably it will feature The Muppets.

Really.

Name That Tune

2009-08-03T11:03:00.000-07:00

The following is excerpted from a classic work of literature. My challenge: can you identify the book in question? It's one I believe many of my readers have read. It was written in the last 150 years, in English, and continues to be read to this day. I've removed all proper names, so as not to give it all away.

By the way, in case it's not clear: the passage opens with someone speaking.

`And you, you will come too, young brother; for the days pass, and never return, and the South still waits for you. Take the Adventure, heed the call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes!' 'Tis but a banging of the door behind you, a blithesome step forward, and you are out of the old life and into the new! Then some day, some day long hence, jog home here if you will, when the cup has been drained and the play has been played, and sit down by your quiet river with a store of goodly memories for company. You can easily overtake me on the road, for you are young, and I am ageing and go softly. I will linger, and look back; and at last I will surely see you coming, eager and light- hearted, with all the South in your face!'

The voice died away and ceased as an insect's tiny trumpet dwindles swiftly into silence; and _____, paralysed and staring, saw at last but a distant speck on the white surface of the road.

Mechanically he rose and proceeded to repack the luncheon-basket, carefully and without haste. Mechanically he returned home, gathered together a few small necessaries and special treasures he was fond of, and put them in a satchel; acting with slow deliberation, moving about the room like a sleep-walker; listening ever with parted lips. He swung the satchel over his shoulder, carefully selected a stout stick for his wayfaring, and with no haste, but with no hesitation at all, he stepped across the threshold just as ____ appeared at the door.

`Why, where are you off to, ___?' asked ___ in great surprise, grasping him by the arm.

`Going South, with the rest of them,' murmured ___ in a dreamy monotone, never looking at him. `Seawards first and then on shipboard, and so to the shores that are calling me!'

He pressed resolutely forward, still without haste, but with dogged fixity of purpose; but ___, now thoroughly alarmed, placed himself in front of him, and looking into his eyes saw that they were glazed and set and turned a streaked and shifting grey--not his friend's eyes, but the eyes of some other animal! Grappling with him strongly he dragged him inside, threw him down, and held him.

___ struggled desperately for a few moments, and then his strength seemed suddenly to leave him, and he lay still and exhausted, with closed eyes, trembling. Presently ___ assisted him to rise and placed him in a chair, where he sat collapsed and shrunken into himself, his body shaken by a violent shivering, passing in time into an hysterical fit of dry sobbing.

In other words, is not a person

2009-07-18T08:59:00.000-07:00

My favorite moment in the July 20th New Yorker is below. It describes the attempts to hand-count every ballot in the closely-contested Franken/Coleman Senate election.

Each challenged ballot was projected onto a large screen visible to a roomful of observers from the public and the press. The members of the Canvassing Board scrutinized and debated the markings on each ballot to decide the voter’s intent, and their deliberations were videotaped and streamed live over the Internet. Minnesotans found the process mesmerizing.

Some ballots presented little difficulty; in one instance, a voter had clearly filled in the bubble beside Coleman’s name but had accidentally, or in a moment of indecision, touched his pencil tip in Franken’s bubble, leaving a small dot. The judges gave the vote to Coleman. Other ballots provoked long, absurdist exchanges. One ballot—from Beltrami County—became locally famous. The voter had filled in the bubble for Franken but had printed “Lizard People” in the write-in area. After a few minutes of discussion, Marc Elias, a lawyer for Franken, spoke up. “My argument would be that ‘Lizard People’ is not a genuine write-in,” Elias said. “In other words, is not a person.”

“Do we know that for sure?” one of the judges asked.

Another asked, “If it said ‘Moon Unit Zappa,’ would you say, ‘Oh, no, there is no such person as Moon Unit Zappa?’ ”

“I would say that that would be permissible,” Elias said.

“Well, but you don’t know that there’s not someone named Lizard People. You don’t!”

The judges voted to have the ballot tossed out.

Self Promotion

2009-07-09T16:57:00.000-07:00

Over at The Second Pass, John asks contributors to write about their most overrated classic--about canonical books you're allowed NOT to read. My contribution comes at the end. It's on A Tale of Two Cities. The whole piece is worth reading, though. I particularly admired--and agreed with--the entry on Lawrence's The Rainbow. In the immortal words of Krusty the Clown: "Ughh. That just kept on going."

Rubik's Art

2009-07-05T12:01:00.001-07:00

TOP 10
Uploaded by extermitent. - Independent web videos.

This more or less blew my mind. (Hat Tip: Andrew Sullivan).

Annie Are You Ok?

2009-06-26T11:21:00.001-07:00

I once owned parachute pants. I had a black jacket covered in zippers. I did the Moonwalk-- whenever I had a chance. (I had them more than you might think.) When Michael Jackson was on the cover of Time magazine (1984?)--I harassed my mother until she went out and got it for me. Then, I read the article about him over and over and over.

When I got to college, I found out he'd done an album before Thriller. Every few weeks or so, during my senior year, some friends of mine would clear out their living room of furniture, hang up a disco ball, and play Off The Wall over and over and over. Disco Dance Party Nights, we called it. When I started dating my wife, we used to paint together at my apartment; there were only two albums we ever listened to while we worked--There's A Riot Going On, and Off The Wall. When I got married, I insisted that "Billie Jean" be one of the first songs our DJ played--not for the crowd, but for me.

What he had was joy. Skill and musicality and moves--sure. But it was more than that. Michael Jackson made ME want to dance--a gangly, suburban white dude. More than that: he made me think I could.

He probably went crazy in the end. But on the way, he made some f***** incredible music.

The world today is a little less funky.

Bad Art

2009-06-25T12:24:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking these days about what makes some art seem better than others. In the process, I've come to think that most of the art to which we're exposed (or at least to which I'm exposed) is basically pretty good. The Road may not have lived up to the hype, but it's not as if it was a self-published guide to selling tractor trailers. If you actually want to understand good art, you need to think about bad art. And bad art (not mediocre art) is often out of sight.

Somehow this has lead me to the website for Boston's Museum of Bad Art. I can't even begin to do justice to what's there; let's just say that it's worth your time. Almost every single painting they have posted should be seen, but since I can only choose one, I've decided to go with...wait for it...."Sunday on the Pot With George." (I know. What a title!) Someone on the site describes the painting as "the single most memorable artistic experience in his life--a bit like his recent bout with shingles." Yes!

Ok, I'm sorry, but I have to show another one. This one was painted on lace--four layers of lace, to be exact.

The description is worth quoting in its entirety:

The texture of the lace lends a luster to the complexion. Careful placement of Christmas poinsettias adds an Easter Island element to this remarkable portrait of the sixteenth president's wife. A painting that could have changed the course of the Civil War.

Iran, Twitter, Kutcher

2009-06-20T13:31:00.001-07:00

What's going on in Iran seems somehow to be hugely important--not just the events, but the way they've been covered. The cable stations have been mostly terrible; they don't have many reporters there, and they've got a lot more experience hosting fake round tables in which pseudo-pundits repeat canned talking points about who's up and down in Washington than they do reporting on nascent revolutions. Meanwhile, the blogosphere has been all over the story. Andrew Sullivan especially has been great (it's an event made for his strengths), and if you haven't been reading his site regularly, I urge you to do so. It's gripping stuff.

And to think: without Twitter, none of this would be possible. Maybe Ashton Kutcher was right. The mind reels.

A Real American Wombat

2009-06-07T11:48:00.000-07:00

G.I. JOE trailer in HD

Let’s be honest: This is probably going to be bad. Fine: it’s definitely going to be bad. Still, I’m going to see it. Because it has ninjas. Ninjas ninjas ninjas. Two of them, actually. You may reasonably ask why a high-tech, 21st century Special Ops military force would need a ninja. Aren’t throwing stars pretty useless in comparision to, I don’t know, anti-tank guns? That misses the point--badly. The point—as any ten-year old boy would happily tell you—is this: ninjas rule. They just do. And if one ninja is good, then obviously two ninjas are better. Way way better.

By the way: Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow. Those are their names. The ninjas.

Yep. It's gonna be goooood.

The 23rd Time MIGHT Be The Charm

2009-06-04T15:04:00.000-07:00

Part of the enjoyment I'm getting from suddenly starting to care about the NBA is that I can now appreciate the full genius of ESPN.com columnist, Bill Simmons. For those who don't follow sports, Simmons ("The Sports Guy") combines actual sports analysis with a fair amount of high-level ridicule. At his best, he's very very funny.

The moment below is my favorite from his new mailbag (a regular feature in which he responds to reader questions). The premise of THIS mailbag is that the people writing in aren't average readers, but sports celebrities. (Obviously, the letters are all made up). Here's his response to a question from Mike Brown--the coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, a team that lost in a blowout to Orlando after almost everyone on Earth predicted they'd make the NBA Finals.

Q: What should I have done differently?
-- Mike Brown

[+] Enlarge

Elsa/Getty Images"No, no, no -- just keep doing the same thing!"

SG: You mean, other than come up with offensive plays or a playbook? I will never understand two things. First, why you didn't mix things up at all : throw a zone at Orlando, try a zone press (which worked really well in the regular season), go super-small when Howard was on the bench and play LeBron at center; something, anything. You just let the Magic do their thing and made no real attempt to throw them off. Perplexing. And second, why did you insist on doubling Howard and leaving their shooters open? One of the reasons I picked you to kill Orlando in my now-infamous chat was because I thought you'd use 24 (and maybe even 30) fouls on Howard, single-team him, make him score 40 points a game to beat you and stay home on their shooters. You did the opposite. I will never in a million years figure out why. It was like watching someone hitting on various female celebrities at a Hollywood party by saying, "Hi, I'm a member of the paparazzi, I have no money, and I have VD" and going down in flames over and over again but feeling like the 23rd time would be the charm. Again, perplexing.