I bought a new laptop last night.  It put me back $1250, extended warranty included.  Yeah, I was doing so well, and then I let them talk me into the warranty.  Somebody remind me to go get a new battery in a year.

My other laptop still worked, if you took the faceplate off and hit the circuitry with the back end of a screwdriver.  Repeatedly.   The hinged on the display were broken, so you needed to prop that up.  Spyware launched incessantly, whether you clicked on anything or not. Occasionally some virus would launch new IE windows continuously in swooping pattern across the screen.   But even still, this laptop had fewer problems then my old 486. 

That computer had character.     You couldn’t put the keyboard directly on your lap because it would shock the daylights out of you.  The display would switch to 1’s and 0’s for no reason.  The mouse only worked on the left side of the screen. Every time you started up, the computer would fax your resume to some guy in Idaho.

 Yeah, but she could hum. We’re talking a 486 with 8mb of ram, in 1991!  Comanche would have knocked your socks off, but we were enamored with TIM and SC2.

The latter being the greatest computer game ever.

I was reading an article about the Hatton fight in which the author  used the word 'ironic' many times, instead of 'coincidental'.  Conicidentally enough,  Alex called me today and said the he had dificulty defining 'irony', when confronted with the same sort of person earlier in the day.

I happen to keep a copy of Kingley Amis's "The Kings English" at my desk, because I am a geek. Lets see what he has to say.

It used to be said with some meaning that things like abrupt, spectacular but somehow appropriate reversals of fortune where ironical, partaking of irony in a sense well defined in COD as:

ill-timed or perverse arrival of event or circumstance in itself desirable, due to the feigned good will and actual malice of (Fate, curcumstance etc.),

thought it might be fair to add that the arrival of misfortune hard upon some exceptional success would also have been accounted irony, or an irony. Thus the diagnosis of terminal cancer in a young man crippled from birth, now newly embarked on a promising career in law, was probably called ironical among other things by some of those concerned.

    Recently all seriousness seems to have departed from the word. The slightest and most banal coincidence or point of resemblance or even just-perceptible absence of one, unworthy of a single grunt of interest, gets called ironical.  The other day I read somewhere of how ironical it was that the going at last year's particular horse-race was perceptibly either better or worse than that predicted this year, I forget which.

 

So this talking about books got me thinking about the book club again. Lets give it another show.

If you didn't get an email from me, inviting you to join the book club, email me your prefered user name, and and  alternate and I'll set you up.

Then just click on the Whiskey Glass on the left console and post away.   

I lost a author-name-tossing contest the other day and when I couldn't return David Sedaris.  Even name dropping Laura Fraser my New York Times bestselling former roomate didn't pull me out of the hole.  I had previously earned a big lead too, by countering her proclaimed distaste for books that make use food based metaphors for sex by  reciting a few lines from the opening of Jitterbug Perfume, a story 'that begins and ends with a beet'.    Nevermind that I never finished that 'Chick Book'.     Yeah, I called it a chick book while sitting at a San Francisco  bar with four female Criminology majors who just finished discussing racial injustice.    This is becoming a trend I fear. Last week  I feigned surprise that Town Hall (great place, try the trout)  had woman Chefs.   Duly chastised by Christa, their bartender of some acclaim,  I appologized, proclaiming that  "I don't know what came over me, women belong in the kitchen".   

Well today 3Quarks linked to this great recap of a fight he (David Sedaris. I'm back on message) got into with the woman sitting next to him on a plane.

So now I can say I have read him.

I've got my own air-fight story but I can't remember the details well enough to not end up being the smug asshole that my rowmate pegged me as.   The crew and passengers did applaud my restraint, I remember that, but I can be remarkably restrained if I know it is getting under your skin.  There's nothing to it really.

Last  Saturday British up-and-comer Ricky Hatton took on Australian titan Kostya Tszyu.   Tszyu was considered the class of the Junior Welterweight division (140 lbs). The Junior Welterweight division is considered the deepest in boxing.   This division is so good that the only household name, Arturo Gatti,  is only grudgingly included in some top five lists.  Floyd Mayweather, another known fighter at 140, is often thought to be the Pound Per Pound best in the world, and yet Floyd wasn’t the most feared man in the division: That honor belonged solely to Kostya Tszyu.

Leading up to this fight, the worst thing anyone could say about Tszyu is that he is Human.   This is surely a fact, but it wasn’t evidenced in his last two fights. In those fights it appeared as though every punch he threw knocked his opponent down.  One punch even knocked an opponent down twice.

(click on Tszyu Vs. Judah fight video and watch the end of the round. Its legendary and hillarious)

The contrast in styles had everyone excited.  Tszyu’s takes advantage of his power and accuracy by focusing on counter punching.  Hatton takes advantage of his unworldly stamina by establishing a frantic work-rate, throwing punches continuously until opponent wilt.

Boxing fans love Tszyu’s ring generalship, and Hatton’s throwback, Duran-esque body-punching style.

Both men are considered role models of the sport for their humble personalities and tremendous work ethic.

Ricky entered the hometown Manchester England ring in from of 20,000 adoring fans first. Tszyu second, pausing outside the ring to brace himself before jumping over the ropes.  Tea-leaf readers might interpret the pause as evidence that he was unsure of himself at the 2 A.M. fight time. (Chosen to maximize Cable Pay – Per-View in the U.S.)

Hatton immediately set the tone of the match by charging in on Tszyu, and clinching.   His stated objective was to spend as little time as possible in the dead zone that is arms length away from Tszyu.  There was an off chance that Hatton might try to outbox Tszyu, like he did the granite chinned Ben Tackie, but most people expected he would do as he said he would do and try to take the fight inside.   What they didn’t expect was the constant grappling. Once inside Ricky wasn’t trying to create opening for his body shots, instead he was content to force Tszyu to waste his energy untangling himself. This was not the fist-flying telephone-booth infighting of Castillo-Corralles a few weeks ago, this was ugly.  And yet Hatton was landing some bruising uppercuts.

Only once in the early rounds did Tszyu made any visible adjustments to stave off Hatton.  He tried to feign a punch, in order to trigger Hatton's charge, and then hopefully have space to send his thunderous right.   No dice, Hatton managed to avoid the right that so many people predicted would floor him by the 5^th.   Tszyu was breathing out his mouth by the fourth.  Both men were throwing rabbit punches, and Tszyu was warned for a low blow.

In the middle rounds Tszyu’s corner instructed him to employ the feigning tactic.  Ricky hadn’t changed his tactics at all, despite his corner’s suggestion that he create a little space (“Not Too much though” they cautioned).  They would each throw a bomb at the beginning of each round and then Hatton would put Tszyu in a bear hug. Tszyu would detangle himself, and Hatton would throw land a few uppercuts.  By the 6^th round Tszyu started to Counter better, forestalling each of Hatton’s charges with a few straight rights, and jabs, but by then his strength was depleted such that Hatton was only kept at bay, not hurt. At one point the announcer said, “They just exchanged rights, and Hatton’s was better. I never though I would have said that”.  Hatton seemed to forsake style for speed in his approach, content to take a punch coming in, as long as it didn’t hit square and Tszyu wasn’t afforded time to rest.  Hatton would have scored a knockdown in the 6^th had the ropes not saved an off balance Tszyu. His confidence carried over to the 7^th but a skillful Tszyu outscored him with jabs and crosses and at one point dropped him with a borderline low-blow (The knockdown was ruled a slip, for some reason, which it clearly wasn’t).   At this point the fight was too close to call points wise, but Tszyu was exhausted, and had seen Hatton walk through many of his best punches.   This continued for two more rounds:  Hatton relentlessly assaulting a fading, but technically superior Tszyu. In the ninth Tszyu was warned again for a low blow, and Hatton immediately sent a vicious blow into Tszyu’s groin. This earned him his first warning, but no points were deducted.  Tszyu only took a small portion of the five minutes he could have taken to recover.   By the end of the tenth the outcome was clear.  Hatton was getting stronger, sensing his victory, and Tszyu had no response.  After the eleventh, Tszyu would not answer the question posed by his trainer “are you ok”, meanwhile Hatton was bouncing around his corner preparing to unleash holy-hell in the 12th.  Tszyu’s trainer told his charge, “no more Mate”, ending the fight and Hatton fell to floor in tears, the new Champion.

Afterwards Kostya said to the crowd “I am a proud man," Tszyu said. "But today I lost to the best fighter." Hatton thanks his fans for their support and said, "If I can be half the champion Tszyu is, I'll be doing very well," and everyone was reminded of what great ambassadors of boxing these men are.

When asked about his intentional low-blow Hatton replied, “It isn’t a tickle fight, is it?”

When asked why he stopped the fight, Kostya replied that he was too far behind to win and he was getting hurt, “not hurt-hurt”, he clarified, “But it wasn’t the best feeling of my life”.

Hatton stops Tszyu.   How do you say “no mas” in Australian?
That makes us even, Ivey.  Who do you want in the Gatti-Mayweather fight?
 
Lileks launched the Screedblog
 
Empire Falls should have stayed a book
 
How come when  I am in the kitchen and not paying attention, I make a mess.  When my mom isn’t paying attention she makes fresh pizza.

Sugarland is everywhere. (Except the west coast). Go Jennifer. Rather, come Jennifer, to the west coast.

G35 = fast.

See the 'Pics' list on the left side.  or just click here.  Or wait until I move them to a different album where I can add some captions.

Speaking of Brian Regan  (The cosubject of that email thread I just posted), Mitch Hedberg has passed away.

This is sad news.  One obit has him explaining why wasn't a houshold name: "Because most of my fans live in apartments". I'll allways remember him for lines like.

I got an ant farm. Them fellas didn't grow shit. Hey, how about some celery? Plus, if I tore your legs off, you would look like snowmen.

Follow that last link, its hillarious.

Let me know how you like it. I think from a critical standpoint, its nearly flawless. But it does present some listenability hurdles: namely, its lack of any obvious emotional charge.

--- Andy Guarnera <andyguarnera@hotmail.com> wrote:It's funny how you describe this album because it was produced by Nigel Godrich who did OK Computer as well as almost all of the other Radiohead albums.  He also did the 2 laid back Beck albums.  I'm definitely going to buy it based on reviews and your description.

I've been listening to a lot of music recently for inspiration during therecording process of our (Steve and I) album.  We draw on a lot of influences between the 2 of us, but we've been particularly interested ininnovative production work.

-----Original Message-----
From: Sean
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 5:40 PM
To: Andy Guarnera
Subject: Brian Regan and Pavement

Driving back from Tahoe I listened to Pavement's last
album "Terror Twilight" (1999) straight through about
4 times.  It strikes me as the most Guarneran Album I
own.   Even more so than Bends and O.K. Computer.  
The songs are multifaceted,  the music and instruments
are inovative, the lyrics intelligent and evocative,
the vocals dynamic,  and the production is Crystal
Clear, which was a departure for Pavement, who had
allways made messy albums.    That album stands up
there with O.K. Computer and Yankee Foxtrot. The thing
that makes me laugh is that I can easily see you
singing these songs at the Fly's Tie in Jacksonville.

The best thing about this album is listening to it in
a car. The production is totally three dimensional.
You can almost see the music.  There is one part, a
bell ringing, that allways shocked me cause it seemed
to come from my back pocket. 

Seriously, its a great album.  Its all over the place
and at the same time consistant in its mood. The most
obvious characteristic of the album is that the songs,
while discreet, seem to both meander AND evolve in an
orchastrated but unconventional fashion.   Call it a
Studied Meander.   And they are well sequenced-- The
excess of one is often ofset by the inviting sounds of
the next.   Hard to explain.

Go buy it.

Congratulations on the new job Lauren!  We'll open the Glenlivet on the 17th! Until Then, keep your hands off.

Wait,  Something was said.

The producers of Gawker, and Defamer (and Fleshbot),  now bring you OddJack, a blog on Gambling.

I've added it to the list, temporarily.  The cloying smugness, and predicatability  of Gawker and Defamer eventually soured those sites.  This one might work though.