People Whom I Have Known Part II: Basketball

Whatever shock I might have felt to learn that my former middle school classmate Paul DePodesta would be portrayed in a major motion picture by Jonah Hill was far exceeded on the day after Thanksgiving, when my high school classmate, Rey Deceraga, accidentally elbowed President Barack Obama in the upper lip during a basketball game, causing an injury that required twelve stitches to close.

As I understand it, things went something like this: Rey zigged, the President zagged, zig met zag, and all hell broke loose. And we were left with the conclusion that they play some smashmouth basketball in the Federal government. (At least I think that it is smashmouth basketball. Smashmouth is a word that sports journalists seem to like to use. Of course, Smashmouth was also a catchy/annoying band from the Nineties. Anyway, I am discussing the actual smashing of a mouth, so I am probably right in my usage.)

By this point the story has crested and subsided, but it was briefly big-time news. I cannot hope to recap all the serious coverage; if one wants that, I would recommend a Google search. Instead, I will note a few of the odder references to Rey in the media/entertainment universe.

Over the weekend following the incident, Rey inspired the Drudge Report headline Elbower doesn't say sorry.

On Monday, November 29, Jimmy Kimmel in his monologue referred to Rey as "Roy Deceraga" and identified him as Mexican, although in reality Rey originally hails from Panama.

On Tuesday, November 30, Jay Leno showed footage from a news report concerning the incident, and at the point where Rey's name was mentioned, the real video was replaced with a scene of a man being thrown out of an airborne helicopter. (The helicopter scene was presumably meant to show the retribution exacted against on Rey.)

As a final comment, let me say that no one who knew Rey would have expected him to become involved in a brouhaha, or even worse, a brouhahaha, with a sitting President. In our senior class, Rey was voted both Most Popular and Most Mature, and he is widely known for his natural diplomatic skills.

People Whom I Have Known Part I : Baseball

About a month ago I was watching Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. The guest was Jonah Hill, an actor best identified as Seth Rogen's mini-me. Hill discussed filming a movie called Moneyball starring Brad Pitt. Hill will play a character based on Paul DePodesta.

Paul DePodesta is a baseball executive who rose to fame in 2004 as the general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, making him one of the youngest general managers in Major League history, at the age of 31. Unfortunately, as best I can understand with my feeble knowledge of professional sports, things, um, didn't quite work out right, and he was fired in 2005. He then worked for the San Diego Padres as a "front office assistant", which is presumably more prestigious than it sounds, before being hired by the New York Mets as the "vice president of player development and scouting", in which role he does important baseball stuff.

I am not a baseball fan, and indeed all that I know about managing a baseball team I learned from George Costanza. What makes all this interesting to me is that from around first or second grade until eighth grade, I went to school with Paul. I was even the campaign manager in his failed run for sixth grade class president. (Do not trust me for political advice.)

Of course, there are probably hundreds of people out there who went to school with Paul at one time or another, but that's not important, because none of those people is me (or, more grammatically, none of those people is I, although that sounds weird). And I would like to take this opportunity to wish Paul well in his future endeavors, and to thank him for giving me this brush with fame—fame in its most modern sense, which translates as someone having his own Wikipedia entry.

In a final odd sub-coincidence, while researching this post I learned that, before the DePodesta-derived role went to Jonah Hill, it was set to be played by an actor and comedian named Demetri Martin. I didn't know him, but he was in my class in college.

I Force Myself To Blog About a Dinosaur Coincidence

I wish that I had the energy to blog more, but most of the time I am too tired. When I have blogged, I have mostly blogged random thoughts and meaningless flights of fancy. I'd like to blog about more serious, science-related stuff, but that generally requires too much work in terms of research and making sure that I actually get things right.

I am forcing myself to blog about something interesting in the realm of dinosaurs that I noticed yesterday. There has been a lot of news related to ceratopsians in the last few months; I mentioned one piece of news here. In a new development that some would describe as ironic, but which would probably better be described as appropriate, paleontologists have announced the discovery of a new dinosaur from Korean Peninsula, named Koreaceratops . . . just in time for the artillery attack by North Korea on South Korea.

Halloween Is Going

Halloween has come and gone, and the evil pumpkin-headed dude did not show up. He could appear next year, though. Or perhaps evil rat-men will emerge from the sewers. There is always hope.

Sunday afternoon I was in the Old Town section of Alexandria, Virginia. There were a few people wearing the evening's costumes early. And I also saw some people, mostly women, dressed in such a way that made me ask myself, "Is that a costume, or just a questionable fashion choice?"

With men it is usually clear cut as to whether clothing is a costume. I did see one guy, however, who led me to wonder, "Is that a costume, or just a questionable beard choice?"

Another seasonal milestone that will soon pass is Election Day. And that means a (temporary) end to political advertising. This year there have been so many political advertisements that we almost ran out of commercial space for things like Skittles. Just about every television ad for the last month has consisted of angry people glaring into the camera and delineating why a particular candidate is a bastard. (Bonus points were awarded if one of the glaring angry people wore a hard hat, because that made him the Authentic Voice of the Working Class.)

We are supposed to love political advertising, because it's America, and freedom, and democracy. But I hate it.

Halloween Is Still Coming

I am going to write about Halloween again for no good reason. If I have the energy to write something, then I might as well write something about something.

Halloween comes at a good time of year. Dead leaves lie in the street to rustle eerily in the breeze as we walk by. The sky at sunset looks spookier than it does in other months. (Or do I just think that it looks spookier because I am seeing it through the lens of the Halloween season?) Yet Halloween lacks any real monsters, because they do not exist. And I have to wonder, if Halloween monsters were real, how would they affect your Halloween?

If, on Halloween night, you were to walk outside and see a dude with a flaming pumpkin for a head standing there, would it make your Halloween better or worse?

Or, what would you do if you saw a mummy, with a kopesh, and other historically accurate ancient Egyptian accouterments, and he started to chase you, and you ran, and as you ran you could hear the creaking of his ancient joints behind you, coming closer and closer, as he relentlessly pursued a quest to enact vengeance on the world for disturbing his eternal rest?

Or, for some true and crazy fear, how would you react to a horrid chimerical beast with the body of a bull and five heads, each head belonging to a different panelist from The View?

What I'm really trying to say is that I don't know what I'm trying to say. But I do think that Halloween might be better if its characteristic supernatural monsters were real. Candy sales would plummet because trick-or-treaters would stay inside for fear of being ripped apart by fleshing-eating goblins. But when we would hear the werewolves howling around our kitchen doors in tribute to the late Warren Zevon, it would be worth it.

Halloween Is Coming

Halloween is fast approaching, and I have marked the occasion by using AppleWorks to draw a crude jack-o'-lantern. The mouth didn't work out right, but Appleworks wouldn't let me "undo" it. As a result, I can't tell if he is happy, worried, or nauseous.

Halloween is one of my favorite times of year. When I used to blog at Wandering Army I wrote several posts about Halloween. Maybe one day when I put those posts back online somewhere I can link to them.

Much as I enjoy Halloween in theory, it doesn't have any real impact on my life, other than as an occasion to sit around and think scary thoughts. I have not been invited to a Halloween party since 2001. And I can't say that I'm surprised. I am not the sort of person that one would want at a party, because I am naturally morose.

If I ever were to take part in Halloween festivities, I would have to get a costume, which would be problematic. Judging by the commercially available costumes that I've seen, it would be hard to find something that would be both scary and an expression of my personality—something along the lines of an evil rhynchocephalian with extremely high SAT scores.

(I will note here that many paleontologists and zoologists prefer to use the name Sphenodontia in place of Rhynchocephalia, because at one point Rhynchocephalia accumulated some fossil taxa that didn't actually belong there. I, however, support the use of Rhynchocephalia in the sense that it originally intended, as a classifier for the tuatara ((Sphenodon)), and thus also for the tuatara's legitimate fossil relatives. Also I will admit to being biased in favor of Rhynchocephalia because it sounds cool. Sphenodontia sounds cool as well, but the same basic word is in use elsewhere, in the genus name Sphenodon and the family name Sphenodontidae.)

And finally, if I can provide any real insight here, which is unlikely, it would be an idea as to one reason why Halloween is as hugely popular as it is. Halloween is not like other holidays. On Christmas, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, Martin Luther King Day, and almost any other holiday, we are constantly being urged to suspend our unthinking enjoyment to contemplate the "real meaning" of the day. And we probably should contemplate the real meaning of those days. But Halloween has no real meaning. It's pure fun.

No Pictures

After two failed attempts to get my flickr pictures to show up on this blog, I was faced with the choice to either figure out how to resolve the problem, or give up on it, at least for the time being. I decided to give up, because I am too tired to try to work out this problem.

There are all kinds of things that I want to write and post on this blog, but working at a full-time job makes me too exhausted to do much blogging, or anything else. It makes me long for the days when I was in school, because I got a summer vacation. It even makes me long for the days when I was unemployed, because then at least I had the energy to do . . . something.