The Match for the Scratch

Maybe that's not enough. I'll fix the paragraphing later; I'm about to be kicked off. Fran Lebowitz was pretty funny in the 1970's, but not funny enough to do nothing but attend parties for the next thirty-odd years, I would have thought. I saw that movie about the chess team from Brooklyn. The kid who says "bullshit" was the real hero; he saved the film from a G rating. When one writes about the history of "Mad" magazine and specifically cites grotesque cartoons by Don Martin, Antonio Prohias's "Spy vs. Spy," Al Jaffee's "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions," Dave Berg's "Lighter Side of…," Sergio Aragones's marginal miniatures, he owes it to Frank Jacobs to give his name and not simply mention song parodies to the tune of "By the Time I get to Phoenix", as some dweeb at the Wall Street Journal did http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203897404578076471520299856.html here. To do the same thing that always fails, over and over, while expecting different results is not, in fact, the definition of insanity. It is an example of extreme stupidity. Insanity is a different animal. An insane person might do the same thing over and over because it always fails. Why do you never hear "he died doing what he loved" when someone dies from a drug overdose?

Conference Finals

My picks are Philadelphia and Arizona. The jumbles will go up later. Sorry, Monday always takes me by surprise. Blame the calendar. Why do they start the week as soon as the weekend ends?

ETA: It's later now but I'll leave the above up for the sake of future historians. I tried to not find out the results because of how it might affect my drawing but I needed to refer to everyone's picture again, so I couldn't. So, 1-1 this week. I always have reacted badly when I realized something wasn't going to be perfect. Sorry.

Manhattan vs Philadelphia:

Seattle vs Arizona:

Wednesday, November 14

Dallas vs. Seattle:

Arizona vs. St. Louis:

Thanks to and correct by Anonymous on Monday. I'll fix everything along with this later. Also, I pick Seattle to win and as for the other match...well, the jumble should speak for itself.

Monday, November 12

I'll fill in the rest later, but basically, I have seeded myself into the postseason. For now, I pick NY and Philly to advance, and I pick each to win by a point. Manhattan vs. New York:

Philadelphia vs. Boston:

This has nothing to do with chess

I had a couple of margaritas tonight. I used to drink them quite a bit, but it had been a while. Tonight, I happened to be standing at the bar (my local one) when the girl next to me ordered one. As I had pointed out Katz's Deli several times today at my job atop the tour bus, "I'll have what she's having" just kind of spilled out.

I said it had been a while and now I will explain why. It is like this: The last time that I got really drunk, sick drunk, I had had nine margaritas. But that's not it. What it is is this: on that night, about fifteen years ago, I first vomited (hereafter "got sick") on the train on my way home from the bar. I am pretty sure I had sat down in an empty car, but somehow, they found out, and I suddenly found myself being asked by either a cop or the train conductor if I was ok, did I need a doctor, that sort of thing. I said no, I was ok. "You've messed up this car", he replied. "I'm sorry about that", I said. I had a vision of the train being taken out of service amid an announcement over the PA of "due to a sick passenger on board...", that sort of nightmare. Nothing like that happened, praise be to God (and the cop, or conductor), and I made it to my stop (one beyond, actually, but the end of the line happens to be just one stop beyond, so I never really worry about sleeping through it) without further incident.

I will cut now to the third (final) time I got sick that night, and then hop back to the middle. I had lain down in a fairly secluded spot in a parking lot, and soon got sick. At that point, I realized I was now ok, that I would not be sick anymore. That was actually a very nice feeling. In fact, it was possibly the best feeling I've ever had lying prostrate. Ok, back to the second time: I was walking up Manhattan College Parkway, headed home from the train station, when I needed to lie down for a while and be sick again. Soon enough, a school security guard first asked me if I was ok ("yes"), and then if I was a student there. And I should so, so have answered "no, I'm a professor", but all I in fact managed to say was "no".

And that's it.

I don't want to talk

The Quarrel for the Laurel

I don't remember offhand if in the past I headlined the final matches (a la "Chicago vs. New York"), but my emerging æsthetic sense tells me it is inelegant to do so, as there is obviously only one match I can be talking about, and if anyone doesn't know without my telling them, then he is not a real USCL fan and can hardly expect me to cater to him.

I liked Chicago from the start of the season because of the variety of strong lineups they could field, and as if to prove it, tonight they are putting up one that is about a hundred points lower rated than last week's. New York's great strength was in their variety of underrated kids they could field, but as I am sure you have read, none of those kids are available this week, so honorary kid-for-life emeritus John Fernandez is stepping in(to it?). My sense of bloodlust is almost as strong as my æsthetic sense, so I would like to see Chicago punished for their lack of same, evidenced by their agreeing to this substitution. But I think they are just good enough to prevail. So my official pick is Chicago, but in the event of a tie, I favor New York in the blitz playoff. Of course, New York always has very good chances to get all four players to the site, being a compact city with lots of public transit options, so they are looking good on that front as well.