happy 27th birthday shimmy!

here's what i know about my sister:
1. shes much cooler than i am. by every traditional and liberal cool metric, she has me beat. really, i thought i had this wrapped up for most of our lives, but now it is clear i was just enjoying a head start. once our ages basically evened out, it was over.
2. shes beautiful. and not in a boring way. also, as long as we're on aesthetics, her eyes are big like planets.
3. her hatred of tuna fish has reached inexplicable heights. this one is really bizarre b.c i LOVE tuna fish, and chromosomally, she and i are practically carbon copies.
4. shes incessantly creative.
5. really, i cant stress enough how much she abhors tuna fish. if i bring a sandwich to her place, before i open the wrapping, she asks me if it's tuna fish in much the same manner id expect her to ask me if i was unwrapping a package of anthrax. only upon assurances of a non-tuna sandwich meat am i granted unwrapping and consuming rights. ok, i dramatized that - but only a bit.
6. shes very talented. like, if i were a woman, id buy her accessories and bags, no doubt. theyre pretty effing classy. as are her faces. 6 & 4 is a sweet combo btw. i dabble in it myself now and again.
7. shes blunter than...james blunt? i got nothin. suffice it to say, shes more one of yer tell you what you need to hear, as opposed to tell you what you want to hear, people. we all need those. like vegetables on a moscow menu, they are vastly outnumbered.
8. she is effing hilarious, man, i cant even tell you. she truly cracks my sh*t up. this might even be a similar situation to number 1. im not sure yet. mankind may never know, really. incidentally, even though we werent as close growing up, i do feel that we shared many a great laugh together during those years. to this day, our tag team really destroys the ma and pa operation our ma and pa have going. (the four of us are rarely in the same ring together, but the epic battle continues to be waged, nonetheless.) and THEY have great senses of humor. i mean, i hate to admit it, but they do.

ah, to laugh.

9. she used to do this really great thing in photos. shed always make a different, almost absurd expression, but it never looked obtuse or out of place. it was just like putting a little shimmy watermark on the pic. i really dug it. i think shes retired the practice.
10. shes like some kind of people magnet. heads just flock to her. i think they might be sucked in by some kind of gravitational field created by her celestial body-like eyeballs, but who knows.
the money ball. she is very extremely loved by me.

just six more days.

until matt mcconaughey turns 39!

alright, alright.

just seven days until.

the new ryan adams album is a week old.

30 if.

as i did in my last nick b-day post, two years ago, i would like to pay tribute by reproducing an excerpt of a classic email from him from kathmandu:

Wednesday, December 4, 2002 4:42 AM

...At least I suck at the Nepali language and am tired of breathing in
fumes from burning garbage, which here is an everyday occurrence.

Which reminds me: here are some thoughts on burning garbage, originally
written to my friend Yvonne but perhaps you will appreciate them as well.

>>Yeah I am finally getting better and was able to eat a decent breakfast
>>this morning, which was quite pleasant except for the abundance of burning
>>garbage that seemed to surround me throughout the meal. I mean, I went to
>>one restaurant and was like, not this place, no way, too much burning
>>garbage around. (See I have a threshold by this point, a little is okay
>>and notice I said "too MUCH" burning garbage around, not, "there IS
>>burning garbage around.") So I go to another restaurant, Pumpernickel, and
>>the garbage situation seems to be okay, but no sooner had I begun my meal
>>than a deluge of smoke began pouring forth from over the wall. A wall
>>that, apparently, separates Pumpernickel from a place where people like to
>>burn their garbage.

For Christsakes, why do people burn so damn much garbage in this city? My
theory is the following: One person starts burning garbage, say, at 7:00 am.
And someone nearby smells it and says to himself, "Mmm...smells like
SOMEone's burning garbage. Hey that reminds me, I've got a little garbage of
my own to burn." And the whole thing chain-reacts until all the garbage in
Kathmandu is aflame, with people warming their hand over the glowing coals.

I mean, warming your hands over burning garbage is absolutely disgusting,
and I think a lot of people need to be informed of that. There is an
enormous difference- which is, I fear, not as intuitive as I at first
believed- between warming your hands over burning wood and burning garbage.
Think about it for a second. See what I mean? When I helped lead that Boy
Scout retreat here, the scouts (who are all from western countries) started
warming their hands over burning garbage. I had to inform them, as politely
as I could, that this was not an acceptable activity, by any standards
except those of the country in which they currently reside.

Okay, that's all for now. Consider it my contribution to the world of
Kathmandu stand-up comedy.

peace.
-N

a change is gonna come.

Nothing's riding on this except the, uh, first amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country. Not that any of that matters...

-ben bradlee (played by jason robards), to bob woodward and carl bernstein in all the president's men

this is my final fit. the obama campaign has to decide upon its last allocations of money by midnight thursday.

the win is well within grasp, which is all the more reason we have to seal it up, shore it up against any potential last-minute alarms or surprises.

please go to my obama fundraising page and tender just a few more ducats (i just gave another 25 bones, for instance). lets bring this thing home.

you know, not that anything's riding on this...

thanks for the photo, srd, via cuj, via drudge - hey, that rhymes!

other entities that need a bailout.

• the polar ice caps
• oliver stone
• bill simmons
• the simpsons
• the knicks
• my cell phone
• my cuticles
• your mother
• the dallas cowboys
• the hair on brady's stomach
• print media
• scrabulous
• michigan football
• the american auto industry
• your relationship with god
• chinese food
• bloomberg's dignity
• farmer in the deli
• brad pitt
• safari and internet explorer users
• pay toilets in nyc (that was for you, pops)
• nike sneakers meant for athletic use
• the pizza joint downstairs from me
• jack nicholson
• katie couric (the palin massacre notwithstanding)
• goatees
• the injured knees of mssrs. woods and brady
• the publisher that owes me payment for a piece i did in august
• the nhl
• in-flight movies
• your way of seeing things
• reality television
• u2
• best man speeches that arent delivered by me
• blt's
• tom wolfe
• my current lunch prospects
• tenth street lounge (that would actually be a resurrection more than a bailout)
• the pitch n putt during the winter
• dane cook
• manhattan congestion
• my toilet paper dispenser
• paul mccartney
• super bowl commercials
• your wardrobe

god bless the tampa bay rays.

i had specifically avoided mentioning the dread sox, and my paralyzing fear of them winning the world series again, b.c of my penchant for jinxing my sports desires by putting them in writing.

but now, thanks to the scrappy rays, i can finally do so.

re: the bosox, i just have two words to say.

in the immortal words of my favorite yearbook quote from my graduating class, penned by a guy whose name i forgot:

goodbye, herbs.