A Very Special This Week in Wrenball

Friend of G:TB Wheelhouse Jerry coined the phrase 'futile superfans' several years ago to describe our generally quixotic semi-obsession with William & Mary hoops. For a great many years before and after the birth of that appellation, futile was perhaps too kind a word. W&M's hoops history is the stuff of G:TB legend: the 9-45 combined record from 1988 to 1990; the 100-38 loss to Duke in 1988; never winning more than a single conference tournament game from 1985 to 2008 (going 3-22 in tourney games during that span); the never...I think you get the point.

Then we woke up on January 2, 2010 to find William & Mary ranked #2 in the NCAA's Ratings Percentage Index. ESPN's Andy Katz praised the Tribe and touted them as an at-large candidate to make the NCAA Tournament. Dick Vitale mentioned W&M in a national broadcast. They started showing up in mock brackets. Dogs and cats, living in sin.

G:TB readers know the rest of the story - the Tribe faded a bit down the stretch, going from 14-3 (and winners of 14 of 15) to 20-9. In-conference opponents had a opportunity to scout Tony Shaver's revamped offense, senior leader David Schneider went into a prolonged shooting slump, and the emotional highs of the early season proved impossible to sustain over the long slog of an 18-game conference slate. It would be entirely natural in the cold reality of the present to focus on W&M's 6-6 finish and feel just a little disappointed.

Entirely natural and completely insane at the same time. William & Mary, picked to finish 11th in the 12-team CAA did the following in 2009-10:

• Won 20 games for just the third time in the school's entire 317-year history. Thomas Jefferson's teams never won 20.
  
• Beat a pair of ACC teams on the road, something that had never before been done in a single season by any CAA team. Maryland is clearly the second-best team in the ACC, and the Tribe legitimately whipped 'em in College Park. Wake Forest is in top 30 of the RPI, and W&M's win in Winston-Salem was just as solid.
  
• Topped in-state archrival Richmond, now ranked in the top 25.
  
• Finished the regular season with a better RPI (60) than UNC (86), Memphis (66), Virginia (114 - and boy, did W&M have a better athletic year than our friends in Charlottesville), and UCLA (134), among a great many other traditionally strong programs.
  
• Finished third in a very competitive CAA.

The Tribe gets an entirely unexpected day of rest this weekend, sitting out their customary first-round CAA Tournament game. W&M gets the winner of Drexel/JMU at 8:30 on Saturday night. The team that lived a charmed life during a thoroughly enjoyable regular season gets one more break from the hardwood deities: the Wrens are 6-1 against the 5 other teams in their half of the tournament, 6-5 versus the top portion of the bracket. The Tribe swept Drexel, their likely quarterfinal opponent.

As I've written before, yes we can. Keep hope alive. Pleasegodletusmakeittothebigdanceonceinmylife.

Dave Turns Forty and Admits His Lego Theory is Wrong

I once floated the hypothesis that "handiness" is in inverse proportion to time spent building Lego kits. I based this (as I do all my theories) on little or no evidence, just a gut feeling. Legos logically snap together like nothing else in the universe: they don't behave like wood, metal, sheet rock, linoleum, or plaster. They don't warp, crack, drip, bend, shift, or settle. The instructions for a Lego Kit are detailed, precise, chronological, and aesthetically beautiful. Unlike the cryptic diagram on the back of the guitar mount I just installed into our plaster wall-- which, needless to say, I mounted in a horribly crooked fashion. I was a great Lego builder when I was a kid, and-- as my theory predicts-- I am not very handy.

But I turned 40 today, and I am old enough to admit I am wrong. Here is the Black Swan that utterly destroys my unsupported abstraction.

He's No Doctor

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope, which is what I do. And that enables you to laugh at life's realities.” -- Theodore Seuss Geisel


Dr. Seuss would have turned 106 on March 2, 2010. Not coincidentally, one of his more obscure but nonetheless beloved characters celebrates the 40th anniversary of his birth this very same day. As the good doctor wrote about this uniquely Seussian character, “Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you.”

Free Will vs. Determinism: The Answer Lies within Gheorghe

There once was a man who said, ‘Damn!’
It is born in upon me that I am
An engine that moves
In predestinate grooves,
I’m not even a bus, I’m a tram

by Maurice Evan Hare

Because I am the G:TB official meta-correspondent, it makes perfect sense that the impetus for this piece and the accompanying song was generated mainly by another G:TB post. This is scary in so many ways, and someone from outside this circle might comment on the insular nature of blogging, the absurdity, in a medium so large, free, and wild, to get caught in a small self-reflexive circle of mustache commentary, Mask jokes, and William and Mary basketball coverage. On the other hand, this might be a perfectly logical defense mechanism when confronted with an infinite space. Perhaps the internet is TOO big, and this is the only sane way to approach it

The topic I am addressing here is one that philosophers have batted around for thousands of years: free will versus determinism. Do we make choices or are our actions purely pathological? Are we a bus or a tram? Do we slide along a predetermined track, regretting our "choices," which were actually simple cause and effect? Or do we somehow transcend the laws of physics, does our consciousness ever give us the ability to come to, as William James called it, to make a "genuine choice"-- one that is live, forced, and momentous-- and then actually control which road we take into the woods? Or-- possibly the scariest scenario of all-- are our brains quantum machines, that simply express the chaos, probability and randomness inherent in the universe? Does (to Einstein's chagrin) God play dice? And if this all played out again would it be completely different for no reason at all?

I was plodding through a rather dull philosophical book tangentially on this subject, when I realized that G:TB had the answer. Specifically, Zoltan's G:TB post about being a Bills fan; it is called "A Bills/Browns Preview, otherwise knows as a study in self-loathing," and it details his "abject misery" as a Bills fan. Why is he a Bills fan? Sports are supposed to be fun. Rooting for your team is something one does in their leisure time. It is an avocation, a hobby. A choice. You can choose to do it or not, and you can choose who you'd like to root for. You CAN do this if you wish. But most people don't, and they don't exercise this choice.

The book is called "Ethics of the Real" by Alenka Zupancic. Its purpose is to formally reconcile Emmanuel Kant's rather dogmatic moral philosophy with Jaques Lacan's obtuse theories of "the Real." One of the few things I actually understand in the book is this summary of Kant: "man is not only much more unfree than he believes, but also much freer than he knows." Zupancic then goes on (with some ridiculously complex diagrams) to explain that what Kant means is that our actions may be purely pathological, but once we can examine them as such, once we can look at them in such a way in retrospect, then we arrive at some higher level of freedom. Though we had no choice in the past, that's just the way we behaved, we can now regret those actions, and determine what we ought to have done, and thus we begin to have some control over our future.

If you think too hard about it, the idea disappears in a cloud of its own self-reflexive smoke, but the important thing here to remember is that Zoltan continues to root for the Bills. In fact, there is a certain moral cachet involved in rooting for a terrible team, in sticking with them through thick and thin. They are having trouble right now in Haiti relocating people to shelters. These people can choose to move, they would be better off if they could move, but they won't move. I heard one Haitian man on NPR remark, "You can't force Haitians to do anything." Obviously, you can't force Zoltan to do anything either. At any time during his tenure as a Bills fan, he could have defected, bought some new bobble head dolls, switched his trash can, and made up a creation myth of fanaticism: his favorite uncle is from Dallas, his birthday is the same day as Eli Manning, whatever . . . people don't question the crazy voodoo shit people invoke when they say why their allegiance is to a particular team. But he didn't. For some reason, the path he chose was the one he started on (when you write about philosophy, it's really easy to end sentences with prepositions . . . something up with I will not put).

I was lucky to be born a Giants fan. I have enjoyed four Super Bowl appearances and three wins (for Zoltan's sake, I won't mention Super Bowl XXV). I was also born a Yankees fan, which is ridiculously good luck, such good luck that I actually gave up rooting for them. How did this happen? Why didn't I end up a relatively miserable Jets/Mets fan? The only explanation that I have is that my Sicilian grandfather, a barber in New Brunswick, preferred a close shave. The National League players were fond of facial hair and my grandfather thought this was a disgrace to the uniform (though he died when I was young, one of my earliest childhood memories is him criticizing Dave Parker's beard). The Yankees were generally clean shaven, until the Bronx Zoo era . . . Chambliss, Munson, Lyle, Martin, Jackson . . . those were some mustaches.

A few weeks ago, I was an ersatz Jets fan; I went over a neighbor's house and watched the Jets beat the Chargers, and I was struck by how much phoning back and forth there was as the game went on-- Jets fans calling each other in disbelief, sarcastically claiming they would blow it, but also excited that they might win. I don't remember doing this as a Giants fan-- you expected them to figure out a way to pull out the game, because (usually) they did. But I could have been born in Cleveland, fondly remembering the Bernie Kosar days.

Even if I was born a few miles to the south, in the wilds of South Brunswick, the home of this guy, then things might be different. I might be an Eagles fan. The Mason Dixon line of Central Jersey is between North and South Brunswick, and although Jerry is a traitor to his town and Giants fan (I'm sure there's a story there), I feel like South Brunswick is where the predestinate groove of Eagles fanaticism starts. No choice in this, it's a matter of birth. I didn't hate the Eagles growing up-- it was fun to watch Ron Jaworski and Harold Carmichael, but I was detached. And though it doesn't rival the Confederacy and the Union, there is certainly some animosity between North and South Brunswick ( we always beat up on them in sports, and Jerry occasionally goes into an obtuse rant about North Brunswick, which goes something like this: . . . after we mangia on da zeppolis at da Carnivale Italiano letsa go to da Bruswick square mall in our Irocs and buy some a da chains and den we gotta playa do golf at Tara Greens).

Anyway, this was long winded and confusing, so I've boiled it all down to a Greasetruck song. It's called "Stuck," and I'm going to call it the final word on this debate and move on with my life. It's pretty much a straight blues number, but I'm proud of the lyrics. Not only do I mention several famous philosophers, but I also include the housing crisis, genetic disorders, autism, infidelity,and how short Rob is. Enjoy.

Now playing: Greasetruck

There are things you could do.
You could be someone new.
There are choices you could make.
There are roads that you could take.
You see a glass half full.
Your eyes obscured by wool.

Son, you better thing again.
Son, you better be a man.
You're stuck.
There's nothing you can do--
you might as well give up.
There's nothing you can do.
You're shit out of luck.
You're fucked.

Stuck in your time and place.
You'll never fly in space.
You'll always have that face,
so just listen to the bass . . .

Stuck with the stuff you did,
stuck with your autistic kid,
stuck as a Cleveland fan,
stuck with your spray on tan.

Stuck with the color of your skin
and your stupid bank card PIN.
You'll never grow no more.
You're stuck at five foot four.

Stuck with that house you bought,
and with that lousy shot.
You'll never own a yacht,
your blood, it likes to clot.

Stuck with your losing team
and your lupus gene,
by the time the Browns have won
you'll be dead and gone.

Stuck with your smoker's cough,
your body's getting soft,
and if that's not enough,
your wife is running off.

But look on the brighter side.
At least you can say you tried.
No one will know you lied.
Life's a just a downward slide--
Hobbes and Hume both decry
free will, so take their side.
Embrace life's one way ride,
your fate is bound and tied.

Or take Emmanuel Kant,
embrace his German chant.
Once you know, you're not--
you see you're stuck, so stop,
look back, regret your path.
Recalculate the math.

But that's no way to live.
Best to forget and forgive
yourself for all your acts
calm down, try to relax.

Do not look in the cracks.
Do not think on the facts.
You know what's at our back.
Maybe have yourself a snack.

Saturday Shorties

Continuing the white-guy funk festival theme, I saw Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue at a small venue on Thursday night (I'm the white guy in this case, though several members of Shorty's terrific band are also caucasoids). The video below isn't the best quality, but it'll give you a decent sense of the vibe at a Shorty show. Two paws way up - see the man if he comes to a town near you.



And my own little shorty turns 6 whole years old today. Two paws up for her, too.

I bet Rob Gordon listens to the Whitefield Brothers

Have you ever said to yourself, "I'm looking for some new music, maybe some acid jazz/Afro-funk, the type of thing Don Draper's hipster mistress and her friends would listen to after they got done listening to Miles Davis"? Probably not. Doesn't matter. You should check out the Whitefield Brothers. They're two funky guys from Germany, and their new mostly-instrumental album is "Earthology." It's in my steady rotation right now, and I'm going to dig into their first album "In the Raw" soon. Details to follow.

I know our readers want videos because reading more than a few sentences at a time is tough, but the Whitefield Brothers only seem to have one legitimate video out. The first song isn't particularly interesting, but it's only a minute long and then the second song heats things up.



They have a two or three songs featuring rappers, but the result is more spoken word than hiphop, which I guess makes sense given the throwback vibe of the album. Pretend this clip has people moving around in it while you listen:



So the next time you have people over you should throw Earthology on the hi-fi and eventually someone will say to you "This music is good" and you can channel your inner Rob Gordon and reply "I know" and they'll think you're cooler than you really are, unless they read this blog in which case they'll know I'm the source of your coolness.

That's all it takes really, pressure, and time

It's apparently Block Quotes Day here at G:TB, and I sure as hell didn't want to miss out. Enjoy:

Netherlands: Woman tunnels out of jail - using spoon

A female prisoner at a jail in the Netherlands has escaped after using a spoon to tunnel her way out.

Tunnelling under the prison walls has long been a favourite method of breaking out of jail, but now one female convict in the Netherlands has managed to gain her freedom by digging herself out with a spoon.

The 35-year-old prisoner displayed her resourcefulness with cutlery to escape from a prison in the Dutch city of Breda, in the south of the country.

"She used a spoon to make the tunnel to escape on Sunday morning," Wim de Bruin, a spokesman for the Dutch Public Prosecution Service, said yesterday.

I heard all they found of her was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap, and an old spoon, damn near worn down to the nub.

Sweden is the Florida of Scandinavia

I thought this type of thing only happened in Florida.

When a Swedish dope smoker's TV started talking to him and his girlfriend appeared to turn into a dolphin, he decided it was time to lodge a complaint. The befuddled 26-year-old went to his local police station to complain about the low quality of the hash he had been sold. He told officers he suspected it had been laced with LSD or some other psychedelic substance, and wanted it tested, the Local reports.

The man told police he'd never experienced similar effects in his 10 years of smoking hash. Police say the dealer could face assault charges on top of drug-dealing ones if the hashish sample turned in by the dissatisfied customer was found to contain LSD. No charges have been filed, however, since the smoker eventually decided against giving police the name of his supplier.

Show Me That Smile Again

The nature of pop culture is such, especially these days, that serious events are somehow simultaneously overdramatized and dehumanized. Media outlets turn news of the famous or once-famous into desperate theater to captivate the weak-minded and empty-lived; meanwhile, for many more people, the stories are merely fodder for tasteless jokes.

The Gheorghian Way is to neither indulge the melodrama nor to spit on a man's (potential) grave, quite obviously. But executing the latter can prove difficult. In a news story rife with mentions of "Boner," quelling a man's inner Beavis takes some doing. And as much as the sentiment of this saga should be, "I hope he didn't do anything to hurt himself," I just couldn't come away with any reaction stronger than:

Boner Stabone's dad is Chekov??? How on earth did I miss that?

The search for a missing actor in Vancouver has escalated with efforts from concerned family members and friends, and spurred even more searches on the Web.

And yet, "Growing Pains" actor Andrew Koenig has still not turned up. Apparently, the TV star was visiting friends in Vancouver when he disappeared on February 14. Koenig was just a teen when he landed his recurring role as Richard "Boner" Stabone for the '80s sitcom, but he's 41 now. Still, his parents told the "Today" show that there is reason to worry. They said that before his absence, "he was very depressed." The Koenigs have gone to Vancouver to meet with police, and are asking for the public's help in finding their son.

Koenig's dad is Walter Koenig, who played Chekov on "Star Trek." The father's website has added a heartfelt plea for help in locating his son. According to the post, Andrew had been "suffering from clinical depression." It goes on to say that before he left his home in Los Angeles, Andrew sent his father a letter that was "despondent" in tone. More alarming, he sold a number of his possessions before his trip, and refused a job offer, saying he "wasn't going to work any more."

The younger Koenig, who appeared on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and played The Joker in 2003's "Batman: Dead End," had most recently been working on comedy and editing movies with his friend, writer/producer Lance Miccio. Miccio told ABCNews.com that the actor "suffered with depression and "would get down easily."

"He liked to go to Vancouver because it's beautiful and quiet, it's his favorite place in nature," Miccio said. "One of the films we did together, 'Living the Blues,' it's about a manic depressive musician who went to a spot in nature that he loved and took his own life. I'm not saying that's what happened with Andrew, but it has occurred to me."

According to Miccio, Koenig hated being known for his "Growing Pains" role and "Star Trek" connection. "When I introduced him to people, he said, 'Never say my dad's Chekov and never say I played Boner,'" Miccio said. "He didn't want to be known as Boner his whole life. That's something that affected him."

All jokes aside, just like that night in that frisky co-ed's dorm at Cluj University after too many shots of Ţuică, Gheorghe is hoping that the Boner appears, safe and sound.

Vinsane in the Membrane

Trolling the Twitter this morning I stumbled upon this video of Vince Carter apparently hitting a three quarter court shot...while sitting on his ass. And this gentleman says he shot the video so it is most definitely real. We believe you sir.

It was just so hard to choose...

When you're presented with an article like this**, and you're me, your immediate response of course is "Tragic. Now what tangentially related clip can I embed in this post and be done with this?" To that end, I came up with these three choices. Pick a winner in the comments. Or tell me I'm a dumbass schmuck and missed some obvious ones.

An absolute classic. Was not where the Teej brain immediately went when reading this, but was the second location in my clogged cranium:



This of course was my #1 thought:



Sadly, no video embedding enabled for this one. Damn Illinois Nazis.

**I mean, how can you not be intrigued when this is the headline: "Spurned mistress drives Chinese businessman, other women off cliff; lost contest for his love"

This Week in Wrenball: Skeeeeee

And to think, we passed up an opportunity to join Shlara at a United Skeeball D.C. tournament on Friday. If it's all the same with you, we're just gonna move on.

The Wrens (19-8, 11-5) host Towson on Wednesday before heading to Wilmington to close their season against UNCW on Saturday. The calculus is simple - in fact, it's really only addition and subtraction. W&M controls its destiny in terms of securing a first-round conference tournament bye. Two wins and Tony Shaver's team completes a supremely unlikely run to a third-place regular season finish (even better if Northeastern drops its final two). One win clinches no worse than the fourth seed (he writes, thinking it to be so without confirming it - you can keep your fancy "journalism", with all your "fact checking" and "research", thankyouverymuch).

Let's be frank. Towson and UNCW stink on ice. The Wrens should run both of them out of the gym. 'Course, UNCW's already beaten W&M at home. And the Tribe has a habit of not running anyone out of the gym. So it looks like we'll grab on with both hands, grip hard, watch our fingers turn white, and hope.

Not for nothing, but having a reason to hope this late in the season is as fun as it is unexpected.

[Rob allowed me to add this cip after I pointed out to him how well it went with this post. He was apparently unaware of this artist and/or song. For shame robert. For shame.]

It's a simple game

Join me in the comments with guesses as to what put that Cheshire grin on Gheorghe's mug...

Sunday is Ladies' Day

As promised, a little bit of eye candy for our female followers. Consider it our own tiny version of Tiger's apology. And a reminder of a time in the not so distant past when the Wrens actually played up to their potential. May such a time come again soon.

















We had to get the technical staff from Gheorghe: The Design Studio involved because of the low quality of the initial photo. We're keeping the name of the photographer anonymous out of concern for the professional reputation of her brother, a noted ESPN reporter with a number of huge stories on the performance enhancing drugs beat to his credit.

Lil John he always tells the truth

Vampire Weekend's second album "Contra," and its noteworthy cover art, came out a month or two ago. It's good but basically more of the same stuff they did on their first album - emo-ish songs with good shit happening on the upbeat, and they have a track or two that shows they listened to Super Cat a couple times, which was not apparent on the first album.

Accordingly, I was totally unprepared for this video featuring some of the worst form ever displayed on a tennis court, the RZA as a tennis umpire, and Lil John as a tennis coach. I know they name-checked Lil John on the last album, and it looks like Lil John knows it too. And he liked it so much ... that he got the RZA involved?

Vampire Weekend - Giving Up The Gun from Rizoh on Vimeo.

Torah! Torah! Torah!

At the risk of continuing G:TB's slide into lad magazine territory (and really, what's so wrong with that, as long as we continue to give equal opportunity to the ladies: more pictures of Gheorghe Muresan will follow in copious quantities, and I've heard that we've got a splendid photo of me with The Teej from this week's W&M/Mason hoops contest in the works), we celebrate this afternoon winsome Torah Bright, owner of a shiny new gold medal in the halfpipe. Athletic, Australian, and cute as a button. That's a hard combination to beat.

If you're interested in winning free stuff, be sure to check out the contest MGL's running at CAA: LAMM. Conference tournament tickets and t-shirts up for grabs just for knowing a little bit about the CAA. Or pretending that you do.

The Kevin Smith vs. Southwest Airlines contretemps didn't get near enough run here in G:TBville, but Mr. Smith's always funny SModcast gives the fat man's side of the story. This is, without question, NSFW, as is every episode of SModcast.

Finally, we also commend to your attention Wheelhouse Jerry's piece today on the first week in Vancouver. Less Torah, more actual thought.

Enjoy the Chinese New Year celebration. I'll be rocking out in D.C. on Sunday afternoon if anyone's wandering aimlessly around Chinatown.

Happy Tiger Woods Apology Day

In honor of this very special day, a video for you:

Back From Vega$

Well, I'm back from Vegas, about 50% recovered, and chock full of stories.

No, not really. The truth is that nothing happened as wild as Bruce's and my journey to get there. All apologies for not doing anything terribly outlandish just for the story. I guess I really am getting old.

Watching rugby was outstanding; there are few sporting events I enjoy attending more than these international rugby 7's tournaments. Seven-minute halves and 32 seven-a-side teams from around the world makes for a lightning-fast pace all around. 24 matches a day full of high-speed breakaways interspersing the big hits and amazing plays. Drinking beers from 10am til 7pm in 69-degree weather with old cronies and watching the finest athletes from New Zealand, Fiji, South Africa, Samoa, Australia, Wales, etc., engage in some rucking and mauling is a damn good day. I highly recommend it, and six years from now rugby sevens will be a part of the summer Olympics in Rio. Here's hoping by then NBC has relinquished its long standing death grip on the Olympic rights so that we might actually see this sport on the tube.

Samoa won the tournament, which I think is perfect considering that Girl Scout cookies made their annual debut this week. They knocked off the All-Blacks to take the US stop on the eight city tour.

So, Vegas. It was okay. I had high hopes, and either I did all the wrong things while I was there or Sin City is a soulless pit of high-dollar extravagance and visual marvel intended to rape its visitors of every last dollar. Maybe it's a bit o' both. I enjoyed my time at the craps table, but it wasn't as boisterous and fun -- and definitely not as lucrative -- as I had hoped. Bad luck on both counts, perhaps. Going out to clubs isn't my cup of Jager anywhere, and that feeling was only intensified in Vegas. Our place was pretty sweet, a 2BR suite in the Palms Place. Six guys in there kept costs within some reason and was more social than separate rooms, and I recommend that route as well.

One of the more enjoyable episodes was landing a ride back from UNLV's stadium in a limo packed with a women's rugby club from Rochester. We stopped at a Sev for more beers and drank all the way to their place on the strip. Our guys began singing the old rugby songs -- and these girls finished them. The most hilariously filthy songs -- mostly based around their vaginas -- I've ever heard, and five years of college rugby exposed me to a lot of bawdy lyrics. We got to their hotel and performed a series of girl v. guy shotgunning beers competitions directly in front of the main doors. The girls won a lot; I lost on a crap call.

We saw those same girls later at some drunken event the rugby tourney was sponsoring at the Hooters casino hotel. I joined their flip-the-cup team. They were better than I was. Dear lord, my daughters can never play rugby.

On the downside, late Saturday night I was (sounds like BS, but truly) talked into going to Spearmint Rhino, a stripclub the likes of which I've never seen. Dozens, maybe hundreds of knockout strippers were assaulting the clientele with calculated, sexy pleas for attention and all our money. I fought it off bravely for at least two dozen girls, made the mistake of buying an incredibly hot young girl a drink... and got out of there half a mortgage payment later after merely an extended discussion with "Montana" on why she should abandon her boob job surgery scheduled for today. Very shady billing process the club has; very annoying all around.

There have been more than a few folks who have referenced Las Vegas and New Orleans in the same breath. I suppose it has to do with the "anything goes" mentality. I guess this raised my expectations as well, but I adore the Crescent City and Vegas simply left me wanting a little more. There's a song lyric that "New Orleans ain't no city, it's a scar." Well, after going to that town semi-routinely for 15 years, I don't feel that way at all. It's more like a cool, colorful tattoo. Vegas, that place leaves scar tissue after just one trip.

New Orleans has fantastic music in many, many places; Vegas has thumping club music and the ubiquitous sound of slot machines.
New Orleans has the best food of my year; Vegas had $300 steak dinners and several trips to McDonald's.
New Orleans has history, Vegas has history re-enacted.
New Orleans has born and raised cabbies with sad stories and good attitudes (and weirdos and freaks, of course); Vegas has import cabbies who have terrible stories about people's mortgages, marriages, and lives destroyed by the city.
New Orleans has a few shady, cheesy, gross spots in the French Quarter; that describes much of Vegas.
New Orleans needs your money but won't take it all; Vegas is intensely focused on squeezing every penny out of you.
New Orleans is supremely Gheorghey; Vegas is decidedly not.

Vegas does have hookers, mind you. Loads of them. There are little dudes on every block on the strip trying to hand you stacks of hooker trading cards. Well, I suppose they're meant to be advertisements for them, but at 2"x3" or 3"x5", they might as well be made by Topps. Somewhere in a drunken stroll on Friday, I convinced our group to stop saying no thanks to the handouts and take all they would give. In just saying yes to the hooker-card-dealers for 20 minutes, we collected hundreds. The cards then spent the rest of the trip piled on our coffee table and used for games like hooker concentration, hooker go fish (give me all your lesbian couples going down on each other... go fish), or just browsing through. Nope, we didn't call any of them. Again, sorry.

Anyway, I did disappoint the oddsmakers in at least one regard this weekend; I didn't die on my premier trip to Las Vegas, NV. I'd go again if the occasion called for it. The weekend was great because of the dudes I went with, the rugby, and yes, because of Vegas. But I guarantee there are better times to be had and actually some money to be made. Perhaps the boatload of cash getting into and out of the town colored my time more than it should've. (My flight home was cancelled, and I had to take 4 flights and pay for a Southwest ticket to get back. Neat.) But in my mind there's zero comparison between Vegas and New Orleans.

And finally, speaking of New Orleans, here's a belated clip you may have already seen, but unbridled joy from a sports play is always something I get a kick out of watching.

Happy Ash Wednesday!

From your non-sectarian friends at G:TB.

Lazlo Hollyfeld is Not Pleased

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency just spent a ton of taxpayer dollars to prove something that we at G:TB knew was possible decades ago.



On the bright side, Chris Knight will finally get to wear a cap and gown.