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I stood this close to Charo on the E terminal tram in Miami Airport last week. She stamped her little foot in response to something somebody in her posse said. Murray Slaughter (Captain and Chief Writer of the SS 6 O’Clock News) was nowhere to be seen.

She’s been around forever.  Wikipedia claims she’s 57, but I’m guessing she’s closer to 130.

Illinois governor: ‘I have done nothing wrong’ – CNN.com

Rod, while it’s possible you did nothing illegal (if taped evidence is eventually thrown out), you have identified yourself as the biggest goddam dick I’ve ever seen outside of a Japanese fertility festival.

In some cars, the ’skip to the next song’ button is an arrow pointing right, and to the right of the ‘play’ button. Which makes sense for Western civilization, because that’s how we read. Things to the left are things you’ve already read; things to the right are things you’ll be reading soon. Very intuitive for a Westerner like myself.

But other cars–my car, for instance–my Nissan car, imagined and built by Easterners–place the ’skip’ buttons above and below the ‘play’ button. I suppose the metaphor used here is that, if you lay the faceplate down on the ground, the ‘up arrow’ button would be the one farthest away. The ‘down arrow’ button, when the faceplate is laid flat, is the one closest to you, which (being closer to you) metaphorically represents the beginning of the song you’re currently hearing, or the song that just happened. The problem with this metaphor is that I have to think about it sometimes before I actuate the button, because it’s not as intuitive to me as the other arrangement. I mean, there is another equally compelling metaphor for this arrangement that would require the ’skip to the next song’ arrow button to be below the ‘play’ button: gravity.

If Nissan used a gravity metaphor, the ’skip forward’ button would be at the bottom. Because gravity makes things fall. And before a thing falls, it has to be higher than it will be soon. But they don’t do that. They use the ‘lay the faceplate down on the ground’ metaphor. Which I have to think about before I do anything.

So I prefer the horizontal arrangement of skip buttons, because I don’t have to have an East vs West philosophical conversation with myself before I press them. Thank you.

First of all, Eddie clearly remembers picking on the boy, something I don’t recall ever having done. More importantly, he also remembers being hit with a surprise left. Eddie’s implication here is that, if only Jeremy had thrown a punch with his right hand, he’d have been ready for it. Haymaker, roundhouse, uppercut, jab, iron kite, sopwith meatgrinder, it wouldn’t have mattered: he would have been ready. The sole reason the blow connected was that it didn’t come from Jeremy’s dominant side.

Now, if it had been my jaw that was hit, it wouldn’t matter which fist the boy struck me with. They would both have been equally surprising. And the result–my being laid out like a Sunday dress on a Saturday night–would have been identical.

Eddie Vedder and I are clearly different kinds of people.

I’m particular impressed with his aim. And while George’s ninja-like duck reflex was impressive too, better still would have been had he actually caught the shoes. Wouldn’t that have been great?