Comic for Friday, March 21st, 2008

Posted: 7:25 am, Friday, March 21st

Jen, getting in the spirt of Good Friday there in the last panel.

I was pretty psyched last night to get treated to five minutes of Irish basketball. Nice to have an HD set up and have to watch on the crappy NCAA.com feed (on the other hand, I shouldn't complain, the internet feed is free) because the New York area is being treated to Wisconsin-Cal State Fullerton all night long. I know, I know, the Irish game was close at 7-6 and that was it, but earlier in the day I was subjected to a lot of the Pitt-Oral Roberts game. Oh well, I'll take a tourney win over telegraph wire if I have to. Anyone else try out the internet feed? I couldn't remember who was doing the booth on the CBS coverage of the Irish game, but the internet guys were terrible, so I hope TV and 'net were covered by two different teams. They let plays develop and conclude without commenting on anything whatsoever. Sometimes consecutively. I appreciate that if it's McCarver out there, but I don't know the players on George Mason, so tell me who it is that's bricking a shot, huh? It was also either deader than dead at the Pepsi Center, or the 'net guys had some bizarre set-up that filtered out every ounce of crowd noise. Anyway, I hear 6:40 on Saturday v. Washington State, which is peachy, because I have dinner plans at 6:30.

There's a new Bill Mauldin bio out. I have a few of his semi-autobiographies back at my parents' house. He was the cartoonist for Stars and Stripes (Snoopy goes to his house to quaff some root beers every Veteran's Day) during World War II. They're all pretty good, and relatively frank, so I'm not really sure what the value of a biography would be at this stage. I guess outlining the difference between the official word and reality, since there's a debate over as to what we're getting from Iraq these days, and also, like the AV Club review mentions, the difference between reality and the Greatest Generation party line. (I can't believe Tom Brokaw got to coin a phrase that ubiqitous.)

Looking for a job is kind of a mind-suck time-suck, so I haven't been able to get as much reading done as I'd like, considering I've been home all week. (Spring has yet to be fully sprung in the Large Apple, as it's been freaking windy as hell most of the week. Oh, man, a tree fell on a moving car yesterday in Westchester. The dad died instantly, but the two kids in the backseat we alright. That's like something that happened to a dude I knew in high school. A few years out of high school, he and a buddy were driving cross-country, and were on a split-level highway. Coming the other direction, a trucker fell asleep or something and hit a pole supporting an overhead highway sign. The sign fell down onto the lower level of the highway, and sheared the car in half, instantly killing the dude I knew, and the other guy didn't have a scratch on him. Fucking bizarre. I worked with the dude at Au Bon Pain - the Pain - for a while, and he was a really nice guy. A 40 for you, Mark.) Where was I before that long digression. Oh, reading. Right. Anyway, I've got a bunch of old New Yorker articles to read (including a profile from mid-January, I think, on that Schwarzman dude the library will be named after), this thing, a few books I've bought lately, my daily internet stops... Being unemployed is hard work!

Alright, well, I'm not getting anything done here. Everybody have a nice Easter, if that's your thing, and if you're Jewish or Greek, take no offense.

bullfrog

MNP -- Friday, March 21 2008, 09:20 am

the one main benefit of Mr. MNP being such a huge sports fan is we get the NCAA tourney package, which means when CBS decides to turn off ND everywhere but South Bend we can still get it in HD on channel 708 or something absurdly high like that. They looked good!! Although Kurz didn't really do a darn thing the whole night, but I loved how balanced the team looked. And Brey got the C-teamers in for the last 30 seconds, which was sweet. I think he could've put them in a little earlier, but I guess that would just come across as gloating.

The team looked pixelated to me, so thanks for your scouting report, dude.

How's everyone's bracket? Mine is sucktastic as usual. I only lost one Sweet Sixteen team (Temple - for some reason, I'm a huge sucker for Temple, year-in and year-out), so that's better than usual.

Well, my bracket is acceptable, with the one glaring problem that I had USC beating K State. And then going on to the Sweet Sixteen, then the Super 8. (Is that what that's called). I am DOOMED.

You've learned an important lesson about the unparalleled sucktitude of USC. You've taken the first step into a larger world.

it's the Elite Eight (illiteration rules in tv-land).

For the first time in years, I didn't get a bracket put together because we were on vacation and finding a computer just wasn't a high priority. Makes watching the games a bit less exciting, I'll confess. I've decided to just root for all Big East teams. with 8 of them in the tourney, it's not a bad strategy.

alliteration? I can't spell.

Bullfrog - If you are looking for a good book to read, I highly recommend "Papillon" by Henri Charriere (also later made into a movie starring Steve McQueen). Other people may have already been familiar with this book/movie - but I came across it one of those times when you wikipedia something, and it keeps taking you deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole. In this instance, I had wikipedia-ed Marie Antoinette (about whom I had just finished reading a novel called "Abundance"), which led me to the French Revolution, which led me to Napoleon and Napoleon III, which led me to "Devil's Island" (Iles du Diable):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Island

I found this oddly fascinating - that for almost 100 years (1852 - 1946), France sent it's convicts and political prisoners to French Guiana and also three small islands off its coast, to serve time for hard labor or for life.

Anyway, that's how I discovered this fascinating book - one man's attempt to escape the harsh conditions of these camps. I would call it an adventure novel. I also recommend it to your reader whose favorite book is "Mysterious Island" by Jules Verne.

I second KT's recommendation of "Papillon".

Although, I've since heard he fictionalized some of it. Does it matter to me? No, it was still a freaking good book.

KT, did you ever read the sequel?

Bullfrog & RAW:

From March 29th–April 13th, the Cherry Blossom Festival will inspire kitchen creativity (and deals) at many DC restaurants. At Nage, cherries will be used with duck confit in an empanada, in a chilled soup and in bacon-flavored ice cream;

Shall I make a reservation for you two?

There's a sequel?!?!?! I'm in the last 90 pages or so right now, but - like all good books - I don't want it to end. Awesome, the saga continues.

I am excited for both book recommendations, and bacon-flavored ice cream. Awesome.

That reminds me, someone on another forum declared that he developed a new concoction: the bacontini. I can only guess what Lissa's reaction would be to that.

Bacon-flavored ice cream? Eww.

Do you think the ND dining halls would serve bacon-flavored ice cream on Fridays during lent?

Even if they did, we'd never get past the BP girls to get to it.

SNAP!

(Sorry, Di, if you read this.)

I have had bacon-flavored ice cream before. It was fucking good.

I imagine texture problems - I like my bacon crispy.

Bacon-flavored ice cream sounds like something you'd have if you were a judge on Iron Chef.

I'd also suggest a change in the dinner plans if that's the case, unless 2.0 had reserved them like weeks ago.

I've got a couple of gift cards to iTunes, which I usually put toward back catalogs. I was thinking Dr. Dre's the Chronic and some old Springsteen, among others. Anyone have a better early 90s West Coast album and a better Boss album than Born to Run or Nebraska?

Also, hollllllla, Siena!

As the resident Springsteen expert I would recommend the two albums you mentioned as well as The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle (especially if you like early Van Morrison as it is heavily influenced by that sound).

/saw Bruce in Indianapolis last night //Cincinnati tomorrow

I mis-phrased that terribly - I own Born to Run and Nebraska. So, Wild Innocent over Darkness at the Edge of Town? Okeydoke, we'll see if I pull the trigger this weekend. For some reason, spending iTunes gift cards is a big undertaking for me.

that was a MISERABLE display of basketball.

oh, by the way, I watched a little online tonight and it was the same announcers - Len Elmore, who sucks to put it mildly. he's done practically all of the ND games this year and he still doesn't seem to know the team at all. Never says anything insightful at all.

think I'm worked up? How many times can i write "at all" in one paragraph?

Black Sheep - A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. Mostly non-angry rap with really good 70's funk/soul beats.