Comic for Monday, March 26th, 2007

Posted: 8:55 am, Monday, March 26th

Man, what a grisly weekend for my bracket. After Memphis boned my chances to finish on top of the pool early Saturday afternoon, Kansas went and made sure I wouldn't even get my fifteen bucks back. And then UNC went and lost, leaving me only with Georgetown to root for to win the thing. And the Irish hockey season ended Saturday evening, too - pretty foreseeable, given their 2OT marathon the night before against freaking Alabama-Huntsville or whoever they were playing. Bleh.

At least it was springish enough out in the big city yesterday. 2.0 and I both acquired some new kicks, long overdue for both of us. We got mine at the legendary VIM and she got hers, after a much lengthier search brought on more by slow service than extraordinary particularness, at Transit across the street. Waiting for the retail store equivalent of barbacks to fetch 2.0's sneaks gave me time to observe my surroundings. Knowing nothing of and often being confounded by urban couture made it a pretty interesting experience. My favorite was a dude making a decision between a rather plain red hoodie and this extravagant light gray, dark gray and yellow jigsaw puzzle-looking hoodie. I have no idea how those were the two things he narrowed it down to, but the red won out. A good call, in my eyes, meaning that he probably is not very street, as I see a lot of those hideous jigsaw-looking things on the subways. Maybe that movement's already over, but the ugly leather Scarface jackets have been around for years now, so I'm not holding out much hope.

Man, this happens every Monday. I had a lot to talk about, and now I can't think of any of it. Oh, we watched the first two episodes of Rome - so far, so good. I loved the second episode, How Titus Pullo Brought Down the Republic. Even the title is great. I'm also glad to see the tradition of the ancient Romans speaking in British accents continue. That's always fun.

A-a-a-and... Gee, what else. Oh, non-New Yorkers, sorry about the subway-line specific details the last two strips (although I don't think it's entirely necessary to understand what's going on - like an episode of Seinfeld except fractionally as funny, I like to think that the meaning just deepens if you actually live in New York, but it's funny on its own, too). I meant to elucidate (to make the jump with guile) on Friday, but Ron's on the 6 train going uptown - it's the dark green line on the eastern half of Manhattan, that also goes into the Bronx and Brooklyn. So he went quite out of his way.

bullfrog

Oh, duh, this! I meant to comment on this with rage and indignation and references to COINTELPRO. But now work calls. So I'll have to do it later. But here it is, so I don't forget.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/nyregion/25infiltrate.html

And baseball! Baseball in a week! That's pretty friggin' awesome. Especially when the Goat Fuckers will be trotting out Carl Pavano on opening day because they don't want to screw with Mussina's schedule. Rich on several levels - Moose trash talked Pavano earlier in spring training, and now Torre is basically saying, "We'd rather march out this walking bruise who is phenomenally unpopular in the clubhouse and with the fans than inconvenience our over-the-hill semi-ace." Props to Torre for at the very least realizing that opening day is still just one game, though. But, hee hee! Pavano! Hee!

I'm just surprised Torre hasn't tried to tape A-Rod's mouth with duct tape. I haven't seen a guy so blatantly (and yet subtly) weaseling his way out of New York like that before.

I see that NYC police are traveling around and spying and then I am reminded that the people of NYC threw a FIT over not getting enough Homeland Security money to pay their cops overtime. Interesting...

It's crazy how we want to be safe *and* have civil liberties, isn't it? Shit, we're crazy!

so glad that you've jumped on rome. i have sad news about the show, but will tell you (and break your heart) only when you've become a committed and devoted fan.

also crappy about subways? tending to fellow passengers that have passed out and unresponsive. thank god we were going south on the a past new york presbyterian...

On our way into the city yesterday, this extremely loud family got on the subway - about six or seven people including but not limited to a father, a four-year oldish or so, a kid in a cradle, and assorted other people. There was also an older, homeless-looking woman, maybe in her sixties, who told a young dude to turn his iPod up because she needed music; she was, you see, about to dance. She started busting out stripper moves - thankfully, leaving all clothes on - and the four-year oldish started heckler her. I thought she was entertaining the family, but evidently she was performing for money, because she brought a bag around and asked for change. After returning empty-handed (the train was very empty and everyone was mostly completely mystified as to what was going on), the four-year old started to berate her with obscenities. His father told him to shut up a few times, but he continued with, "You suck! You freaking suck!" Thankfully, the whole group got off after just three stops.

My best guess is that the family actually hired out the homeless woman so they could yell at her all day.

Let me just tell you, the woman who plays Octavia is not hot at all. Not hot.