April 2001

Matthew Paul Schofield reached under a toilet cubicle during an office Christmas party and lit colleague Gareth MacFadyen’s Hawaiian skirt on fire. MacFadyen was killed and his girlfriend was seriously burned by the “prank.” A judge sent Schofield to jail for two years and told him: “I believe you were drunk and out of control.”

James Gandolfini, on the family:

“When you meet people, you don’t know if they’re Mafia or not - they’re just gentlemen who dress nice.”

Buy Sopranos stuff:

• HBO store - official site
• SopranoLand.com - fan site

Women only stay with men for security, and men only stay with women for sex. It’s a cynical view of human relationships, but researchers now say it is the driving force behind the evolution of monogamy — and women started it. By offering sex all the time, females in monogamous species disguise whether they are fertile and trick males into sticking around.

<understatement>
“The male has no cue,” says Enquist. “All he can see is the behaviour of the female.”
</understatement>

You really should be reading Über each and every day. I can’t stress this enough. I’m not kidding. Seriously. I stopped reading for a few weeks and, man, I don’t want to tell you the things that started happening to me. It was bad. Real bad. But now I’m reading Über again and everything is better. So much better. I just feel more … complete. It’s like that feeling you get when you’ve lost something that was really important to you and then realize that it wasn’t lost, you had simply put it behind that other thing so you wouldn’t forget it when you got back from where you were going but since you had so much fun at that place you totally forgot about the thing that was oh-so-supposedly important to you and when you realized yesterday that you didn’t have it and went looking for it and couldn’t find it you freaked and then you spilled your drink on the counter next to that thing that you had balanced on top of the book that was near the box under which you had put that important thing so not only is it lost but now it’s got soda all over it and that is just wrong wrong wrong (why were you hiding it in the first place? you idiot.) so now you’re frustrated and cleaning the soda and you hate to move that box but now there’s going to be carbonated beverage stains all over it and the really old t-shirt that you really liked and had put in that damn box last week before you went to … and then you remember … the important thing is behind that other thing! … and then you get it and it’s got a little soda on it but otherwise it’s okay and man, don’t you feel better? That’s what reading Über every day is like. Kinda.

The Pseudodictionary is full of words (and phrases) that aren’t really words but should be. In the early 80s we used to call these sniglets, a term coined by, I think, Rich Hall of HBO’s Not Necessarily the News. I first found the Psuedodictionary several months ago when there were only a handful of words there. Now the site is a veritable cornucopia of fun and exciting ways to say things you already say but didn’t know other people said, too.

I just submitted BFE (butt-f*ck egypt). BFE is, of course, a place very far away from where you are and to which you would need a very good reason to travel. BFE is interesting because in Gainesville, Florida it was any place that was more than a five-minute drive from me. I considered the Oaks Mall (less than ten miles away) to be in BFE. In Los Angeles though, BFE is much, much farther away. Now I don’t think twice to drive twenty minutes to get someplace. So.

“If you can send a man to the moon you can certainly build a tower for 100,000 people …”

Shanghai plans to build a 3,700 ft skyscraper! Dwarfing Kuala Lumpur’s twin Petronas Towers, the world’s tallest buildings at 1,483ft high, it would be set in a gigantic, wheel-shaped base incorporating shopping malls and car parks.

This is why I read Romenesko’s Obscure Store and Reading Room:

• Sisters Go Bonkers on Plane after Boozing It Up: The twin sisters, who are models, went from shouting to fighting. They smoked in the bathroom and used perfume to mask the odor, says an affidavit. One said to another: “I’ve gotta get out of here, let me off this airplane, I’ve gotta smoke, open this door!” One of the sisters threw a phone and the other put a flight attendant in a headlock.
• Ex-Drug Dealer Says God Told Him to Be Peppy the Pepper: Kenny Carter says God told him to put on the vegetable suit and entertain shoppers at the Super Fresh store. “I was crying out in the middle of church: ‘Oh, God! Oh, God!’ And suddenly I heard an audible male voice that said: ‘You will be a vegetable.’ … I looked around, thought I was going crazy! I began to worship again. I said: ‘Lord, speak to me.’ And I heard it again: ‘You will be a vegetable.’”

When it comes to having fun, the element of surprise may be more important than most people realise. A great link from Follow Me Here …

And in completely unrelated news, I grabbed Dave Egger’s book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius at Target earlier today. I got a bit of a sunburn, too.

Did I mention that I saw Blow and heartBREAKeRS a few weeks ago? I didn’t think I did. Blow was a good flick … better if you’re in love with Johnny Depp. I’m not. Heartbreakers was a lot of fun, but certainly not amazing … better if you’re in love with Jennifer Love Hewitt. I’m not. I’d write more, but I wouldn’t want to ruin either one for my mom. <grin> Ray Liotta was, by far, the best thing about both films. I thought his performance in Blow was Oscar-worthy; and the only other time I’ve said that about anyone was about Kevin Spacey after I saw American Beauty.

Lunch: Bologna sandwich
A Day In The Life of Martha Stewart is fun reading if you aren’t afraid of her. I found the “article” in a parody eZine called Happy Woman, which has some terrific articles, like: Repair Your own Transmission and make 3 1/2 dozen Maple Butter Cookies, Funeral Etiquette Do’s & Don’ts, and Drunk to Hunk in Three Easy Steps.

Given that hiring a helicopter costs about $956 per trip, some farmers have opted to blow up their dead animals at a cost of $32 with the help of demolition experts, who place explosives inside the cadavers.

The space shuttle Endeavour launched this afternoon. I was lucky enough to live in Daytona Beach, FL when I was a kid so I was able to see this many, many times … My mom took us to Cape Canaveral to see one of the very first launches. Incredible. Awe-inspiring. Loud.

Kinda like this.

I’ve recently revised and reorganized my favorite books page. I also added links to the selections at amazon.com so you can grab your own copy.

So here’s an interesting idea. I used to have a pal named Mike Sapp. We rowed together for Florida Crew in ‘95 and ‘96. I can’t find him. I’ve looked. I’ve tried all his old eMail addresses. None work. I’ve tried all the internet people-finders and looker-uppers. No dice. Then I thought, “Maybe he reads this page every now and then … maybe some reader knows him …” If you do know Mike, or know how I can find him, or you are him, drop me a line. Do you know Mike?