You could tell Generation Kill was written by the guys who did the Wire because of the military specific jargon. Also, because I wanted to watch it all at once and when it was over, I wanted desperately to see more. Of course, being as hard boiled as they are, though, viewer discretion is advised.

Michael Lewis checks in with a profile of player Shane Battier and statistical whiz kid Daryl Morey. Some nuggets for you:

The virus that infected professional baseball in the 1990s, the use of statistics to find new and better ways to value players and strategies, has found its way into every major sport. Not just basketball and football, but also soccer and cricket and rugby... — each one now supports a subculture of smart people who view it not just as a game to be played but as a problem to be solved.

[Interesting because this is a virus caused in part by Lewis' book Moneyball]

There is a tension, peculiar to basketball, between the interests of the team and the interests of the individual. The game continually tempts the people who play it to do things that are not in the interest of the group. On the baseball field, it would be hard for a player to sacrifice his team’s interest for his own. Baseball is an individual sport masquerading as a team one...[In football] the players most famous for being selfish — ...Terrell Owens, for instance — are usually not so much selfish as attention seeking. Their sins tend to occur off the field.

...A point guard might selfishly give up an open shot for an assist...He’s racing down court for an open layup, and...he passes it back to a trailing teammate...the likelihood of scoring...declined. “The marginal assist is worth more money to the point guard than the marginal point,” Morey says. Blocked shots — they look great, but unless you secure the ball afterward, you haven’t helped your team all that much...Dikembe Mutombo, Houston’s 42-year-old backup center, famous for blocking shots, “has always been the best in the league in the recovery of the ball after his block,” says Morey, as he begins to make a case for Mutombo’s unselfishness before he stops and laughs. “But even to Dikembe there’s a selfish component. He made his name by doing the finger wag...And if he doesn’t catch the ball,” Morey says, “he can’t do the finger wag. And he loves the finger wag.” His team of course would be better off if Mutombo didn’t hold onto the ball long enough to do his finger wag...

It turns out there is no statistic that a basketball player accumulates that cannot be amassed selfishly.

“I thought he’d be the first black president,” Wetzel says. “He was Barack Obama before Barack Obama.”

In the statistically insignificant sample of professional athletes I’ve come to know a bit, two patterns have emerged. The first is, they tell you meaningful things only when you talk to them in places other than where they have been trained to answer questions. It’s pointless, for instance, to ask a basketball player about himself inside his locker room. For a start, he is naked; for another, he’s surrounded by the people he has learned to mistrust, his own teammates. The second pattern is the fact that seemingly trivial events in their childhoods have had huge influence on their careers.

One other interesting point in this article is that the Rockets gauge which teams in the league are looking at data the same way they are by how that team plays the game. I wonder if this causes them to over think aspects of the game, though, if they think there opponent is smarter than it is.

Scrolling down this list of 'Ten Movies Where the Bad Guys Win', I was terrified that I would come upon a movie I hadn't seen yet, but it did make me think about what would happen if the ending had changed on some of my favorite movies.

Imagine if Hans Gruber had teamed up with Harry 'Bubby' Ellis to do massive lines of coke and kill McClane using Holly as bait? What if Derek and Hansel hadn't been able to stop Mugatu in time? Or if the aliens had killed Will Smith in Independence Day OR Men In Black? Those'd be some different flicks then, no? What's the biggest bad guy winning turn around you can think of?

I had completely forgotten about this recording of Buddy Rich yelling at his band, but when we were touring, each of us could recite chunks of it from memory. And did. Often. You haven't heard an excoriation until you've heard this one.

Think Christian Bale was bad? You don't know anything. "How dare you call yourself professional."

(Thanks to Wired.com for reminding me about this and 9 other great rants, specifically Russell vs Tomlin.)

Lots of tidbits from this Gourmet article about proposing at restaurants and eating out on Valentine's Day. For those who don't have the time, here all the hints:

Don't put the ring in crème brûlée.
Don't put the ring into a salad and then order caviar.
Do have "a special plate with a trapdoor and a secret compartment."
Don't force your date to order a dessert if it's hiding a ring.
Don't paint "Will you marry me?" on a plate.
Don't turn her down at a restaurant if you think she might throw plates.
Don't call the co-owner at home to tell them the engagement is off and not to tell anyone.
Do visit the restaurant a week before and confer with the manager.
Do get seated in the middle of the restaurant.
Do find out what a cloche is because some restaurants use them to hide rings.
Do print a custom with your question under the Specials.
Do ask in advance and have your mother-in-law pay for dinner.
Do sit privately if you're going to ask for a divorce.
Do bring your mistress on February 13th.
Do fill a private room with rose petals, candles, and everything good on the menu if you cheat on your wife.
Do not touch your partner sexually at the restaurant or have sex in the bathroom.
Do stop if asked by a matronly waitress.
Do try to book a six-top at a restaurant on 2/14. That's an easy reservation because everyone is booking as a couple.
Do ask for the manager's help in inviting your 50 closest friends to a shotgun wedding.
Do leave a hotel key in a box for your husband, asking that it be delivered in 5 minutes.

Cringley points out that Wall Street types appear not to understand math.

Our streets are notoriously bad, and this winter was apparently murder on the pavement, so it was heartening to read this in the latest Providence city newsletter:

Mayor David N. Cicilline yesterday announced an aggressive program to systematically repair potholes in the capital city. The City has intensified its efforts by adding Parks Department vehicles to the fleet of Department of Public Works (DPW) trucks so that there will be, effective today, eight fulltime crews filling potholes throughout the city. The trucks are equipped with a new high performance patch material that has proven effective in repairing potholes, even in wet conditions.

“Of course, the most effective, long-term solution to improve road conditions is through our citywide repaving program,” said Mayor Cicilline. “However, given the impact of severe weather on our roads, we will act quickly to improve safety and reduce the wear and tear on people’s cars.”

Citywide repaving sounds like a good—and stimulative!—idea to me. In the meantime, it was good to learn this:

Anyone with concerns about specific potholes on city streets should contact the Office of Neighborhood Services at 421-2489 and the City will dispatch a crew to repair the pothole within two business days.

I guess I signed up for some kind of Red Sox Nation thingy on MLB.com last year, and I just got an email indicating that it was being automatically renewed. I don't really feel like paying $15 for it this year, so I wrote back asking how to cancel the subscription. This is the email I got in return:

Subject
---------------------------------------------------------------
cancillation request

Discussion Thread
---------------------------------------------------------------
Response (Don Don XXXXXX) - 02/12/2009 06:50 PM
Dear Fan:

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately, you have not provided enough information to assist with your request. Please provide us with the email address you have registered under so we can assist your further.

Thank you for taking the time to write!

Regards,
MLB.com Support

Customer (M— X—) - 02/11/2009 01:26 PM
Hi,

I did not intend to renew this subscription. Can I cancel it?

On Feb 11, 2009, at 12:28 PM, subscriptions@website.mlb.com wrote:

Thank you for your order.

Order Date: 02/11/09 Order ID Number: 2302176
[...]

Apart from the hilarious mistakes, it's worth pointing out that (a) the email address I registered with is the email address I sent my cancillation [sic] request from, and (b) there's an order number in the email, which ought to mean something.

Now you guys can see what I've been going on and on about: Cory Branan and Lucero.

This Thorns of Life live at 924 Gilman Street recording isn't anything to sneeze at, but if you're dying to hear what Blake Schwarzenbach's new band sounds like, these MP3s do the trick. Sounds good to me and I can't wait to hear more. 3 interviews with Blake: here, here, and here. (Thanks again, Seth!)

Edited to add another bonus. 4 tracks from Thorns of Life show at Bar Pink. Again, iffy quality, better than nothing.


(Thanks for visiting Unlikely Words. If you liked what you read Subscribe to RSS, check out our About Page, read some of our favorite posts or Follow us on Twitter)