Comic for Monday, January 23rd, 2006

Posted: 7:35 am, Monday, January 23rd

I've been meaning to read Guns, Germs, and Steel for a few years now. I borrowed E's copy when I visited DC back in the beginning of December, but only got to start it a week ago. I'm a little under halfway through it, and it's as good as I've ever heard. I'm not sure exactly what the hell I thought it was going to be, but it's way more scientific than I expected. I think I anticipated much more of a general sociological thing, but depth and breadth of the dude's knowledge is remarkable. But the real beauty of the book just lies in common-sense sort things that perfectly explain the development of human society, but for some reason we're not taught in basic Western Civ classes. Farming allows for more dense populations than hunting and gathering. When the population's denser, there are more germs. When there's more germs, sure, there are outbreaks, but there's also more resistance to germs. That's why the conquistadors weren't killed by the germs that they brought over to the New World, but the native Americans died in droves. Why did Europe learn to farm earlier than Africa, which had life earlier? Because farming started in the Fertile Crescent and moved east-west along the geographic axis of Europe/Asia, because a crop is better suited to grow along the same latitude than it would be on a longitudinal axis. This all makes so much friggin' sense, I can't believe it's not in the most basic text books. A kid can understand shapes, and we tell kids what the Equator is, and that it's warmer by the Equator. We start teaching stuff like this, we get less morons thinking that Africa didn't develop because of some racial inferiority. Instead, we can't even get everyone on the same page with basic stuff like evolution. Bleh.

Despite all that, it really *did* remind me of those Civilization games on the computer, and kind of made me want to go out and play one. Instead, I've fired up GTA: San Andreas again, because I recently hit with a bit of homesickness for California (which I've been to twice, for a total of eight days, but I couldn't come up with a better word than homesickness). That's right, I'm saying that a video game is a fine substitute for me for the West Coast. I'm a twenty-first century digital boy.

I'm drawing this week's strips right now and put ye olde iTunes onto party shuffle, since I didn't have anything in particular I felt like listening. Some of the songs upcoming: "Agony in her body," by Sage Francis, Radiohead's "Exit Music (for a film)," "Purpose" by 311 (yeesh), "Around the Bend" by Pearl Jam, "Chopsticks" by Liz Phair, and "How a Resurrection Really Feels" by the Hold Steady. This is going to be a strange and overall kind of depressing party.

Quick one on the subject of music - I mentioned a while back I got 2.0 the Edan album Beauty and the Beat for Christmas. If you want one really good, weird hip-hop song right now, check out the last track of the album, the Promised Land. You can preview it at Amazon, and I think it's iTunes. For some reason, I really dig this song. The rest of the album's excellent, too, but for me it doesn't get better than this one.

In addition to the Edan album, I got 2.0 this tourbook of New York that focuses on off the beaten path, New York for New Yorkers, sort of stuff. We took advantage of Saturday's global-warming weather and trotted around the financial district a bit. Unfortunately, all the buildings we tried to go in were closed for the weekend, but we still saw some cool stuff. We took a bunch of photos, and I may run more during the week if I come up short on stuff to chat about. For now, here are just a few...

I mentioned this place when I was talking about good food back
at the end of December. This is Front Street Pizza in Dumbo, an unassuming
place on Front and Washington, that has spectacular pizza.

This is one of my favorite buildings in the city. It's right by where
the Brooklyn Bridge pedestrian walk lets off in Manhattan, across from St. Paul's
Chapel and the Woolworth Building. (Which is another fantastic building - you're not allowed
inside anymore, but go in and ask the guard if you're allowed in. As you're leaving
because he told you no, check out the ceiling, it's awesome.)

This is a detail shot of the above building. I have no idea what this
thing is - I think it's just apartments. I'm pretty sure that detailing is
all terra cotta work. It's an awesome building for not actually
being a landmark of any sort.

This is the courthouse on Court Street, in back of City Hall. I first
saw these guys when I was running early one morning training
for the marathon, and I've been back a few times since just to
check 'em out. I didn't take a picture of the artist information that
made these, but the animation on the figures (they walk) is incredibly
fluid and realistic. I'm impressed the city allowed them to be put on such a
classical-styled landmark.

I'm watching the Steelers just about finish off the Broncos right now - they just recovered a Plummer fumble on fourth down late in the fourth quarter. The Broncs made a few valiant tries at coming back, which prompted CBS to go to crowd shots. 2.0 will rip on me for this because of how nuts I get over Irish football, but, man, do the Denver faithful getting all psyched-up after first downs and stuff look lame. Maybe it's because they're a bunch of 40-year old high-tech sector office drones wearing John Elway jerseys that they tuck into their jeans or something, but CBS has found almost exclusively lame-os to show on camera. (In no way is that a slight at Denver fans - I spent a month there right after college and everyone was extremely nice and I found their devotion to the Broncos to be unquestionable and extremely impressive. Just, CBS has yet to put the camera on one that doesn't look like a closet case.)

Alright, gang, beautiful start to the week here in New York - 38 and pouring rain. Whoo-ha! I'll be 'round.

bullfrog

Hey nice, I'm reading that book too. I'm really enjoying it so far.

Yeah, it's really eye-opening. Although one of the highlights is that the friend I borrowed it from evidently had a lot of seven-day creationists in the class and has angrily underlined any passage referring to evolution. So that's fun.

Great game by the Steelers yesterday. I was pissed at Ward for lining up wrong and getting Jerome's second TD run called back, though.

My favorite thing about watching Denver home games is hearing the crowd chant "IN-COM-PLETE" after the opposing team throws an incomplete pass. It seems so odd that I have to laugh every time. Unfortunately for the crowd, Ben Roethlisberger has a post-season QB rating of like 200.

Oh, that Guns Germs & Steel class was BRUTAL. Just imagine having to listen (pseduo-respectfully) every day to people arguing that everything logical is MADE UP. I actually stopped reading the book b/c I got so angry at the discussions I knew were coming.

Shoot, I wish I had had the volume up to hear that.. I was drawing through most of the first half and listening to iTunes. By the time I turned it up, the crowd was pretty out of it. That said, I am so freaking glad Fox doesn't have the Super Bowl - I watched a bit of the NFC game, and, God, Joe Buck is terrible.

MNP, that was a problem with those seminar classes. I remember that one chick (who I think may have been a friend of yours, actually) in my Cold War sem that argued against recycling and for the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. She was awesome.

Though people might flame me for it, I'm not all that in favor of recycling. It is a huge energy drain, far more than dumping the stuff in the ground and making new. At least for now, it makes more sense to bury it. Sure, in about 20 years we may be mining plastic, but we have plenty of land in which to put things. And, yes, I have lived on top of an old landfill before and it isn't bad and doesn't smell. Also, we can capture the methane that is created as the biological stuff breaks down. (Flame away.)

....And I can’t find the air I don’t know who I’m kidding Imagining you care And I could stand here waiting A fool for another day But I don’t suppose it’s worth the price, worth the price The price that I would pay But I’m thinking it over anyway...

Are you going off the "I'm barely breathing" up top, Tree? I was quoting the Lawrence Arms from their song "First Eviction Notice." What were you singing?

i hope you like your cereal. we've got our centerfielder/lead-off hitter:

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/a rticles/2006/01/23/source_sox_agree_to_crisp_deal?mode=PF http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/ B00060YWPI/002-9964351-4440846?v=glance&s=gourmet-food&me=A3 CDPEGSIQM61V&vi=pictures&img=14#more-pictures

Not too excited about getting rid of Mota, since middle relief was a nightmare last year. And I thought getting Marte was a stroke of genius? I hope he didn't sign a long-term lease in Boston.

For some reason, this news actually interested me. You'd almost think I have the vaguest chance in hell.

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=23 02904

more proof theo is back, a centerfielder & shortstop are in the works for boston: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=23 01457

I think the problem with the whole idea of "raising the profile" of the marathons (and the comparison to the Grand Slam in tennis) is that marathons are just not fun to watch. seriously, how much happens in a 3+ hour race (unless it's the olympics and someone crazy jumps out of the crowd??) Tennis on the other hand, constantly has things happening.