Stuff

• I don't know why I never got into it before this, but I've started watching The Wire. Stupidly, I just started watching it yesterday and Season 1 ends OnDemand tomorrow. But what I've seen has been fantastic. Shocking and real, just something I've never seen on tv before, even on cable. And I now have a huge crush on McNulty. So he will inevitably turn out to be fatally flawed in some way that will crush me. But I will love every minute leading up to that sad day.


• John is seeing the difficult economy first-hand. He hasn't had a consulting job for about a month. He still has fees coming in from previous jobs, so he's not hurting too much yet. And he has several prospects lined up for the end of this month and next, one of which is pretty well firmed up. But he says he's never seen it so slow for a fixer like him. And the man is 62, so it's not like he's never been through a bad economy before.


• Speaking of John, in what was possibly the most embarrassing moment of my entire life (and that's saying something), we were having sex Friday night and it was pretty hot and heavy at a particularly critical moment. As I squirmed and moaned and groaned, I heard a voice saying "Dad?" from the open doorway to the hall. It was his 23-year-old daughter, for some reason marching around upstairs having left her apartment in the basement at midnight to ask some stupid question about her dogs. I mean, seriously, WTF? Yes, we had the bedroom door open, but we always do as a courtesy to Henry and Otis. We respect his daughter's privacy in the basement apartment, but she apparently thinks not at all about extending the same courtesy to her dad, whom she had to know would have company, considering she showed up while we were eating and drinking at a local restaurant earlier in order to bum free drinks and cash from her dad. It weirded me out, I have to say. And gave me a lot more sympathy for my poor parents with their six kids who were constantly barging into their bedroom.


• I was incredibly frustrated with TAR last night. Maybe I'm an intellectual snob or something, but how do that many adults get through life without having a clue of any kind as to who Chekhov was? I mean, maybe you haven't read any of his stuff, but surely a culturally literate person with a modicum of a college education is familiar with the name.


• If you must have only one cookbook in your life, you simply cannot go wrong with Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything. He's not a chef, so it's not technique heavy like my other favorite Think Like a Chef by Tom Colicchio. But it really deconstructs basic cooking and recipes and provides many ideas for building on those basics. It's like an introduction to the more sophisticated riffing off of classical techniques that you learn through Colicchio's tome. I love these kinds of cookbooks because they reinforce my natural inclinations while cooking. I'll make something exactly according to strict instructions one time. Once I experience the creation and taste of it, I will then never make it the same way twice. I will tweak it and play with it and try new and unexpected tastes. This is also why I will never be much of a baker. Too exact for me.


• I don't even understand why any of this is such a problem: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19771.html. No bill needs 60 votes and Harry Reid is completely full of shit here. If he wants the bill to go to a vote, then all he needs to do is put it up for the vote. This whole myth about "needing" 60 votes is garbage. This is all about Harry Reid's fear of a filibuster. Which is the silliest thing I've ever heard. What's so frightening about a filibuster? Especially one by the Senate GOP? I mean, seriously folks. First, the Senate GOPers were ready to nuke the filibuster when they were in the majority and were all over the media squawking about how illegitimate the filibuster was as a tactic when Dems were threatening it. So the hypocrisy of their current position of using it as a threat is deeply hypocritical and the public will know that hypocrisy for what it is. Second, let them filibuster. I remember the last time they shut down government. Didn't work out so well for them as I recall. And that was against a less popular president during a much less critical period of our country's recent history. Call their bluff, Harry, you wimp. Just call their bluff.


• And can I just say that I think the above photo is of one of the most real and beautiful women I've ever seen in my life. I'm incredibly proud that she now represents my president and my country. And, personally, I'd fuckin' kill for those arms. BoBo Brooks is an asshole (h/t to MoDo for that one).