Month: October 2003

Matthew Yglesias points out a person whose NYC apartment search is likely to take quite some time. My suggestion for this person is: Move to Buffalo.

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Lynn Sislo has answers to a A-Z Quiz, which I figure I’ll answer in an attempt to further my goal of content-free blogging.

A: Actor. Harrison Ford, I suppose. Although his recent work has been lacking, in my opinion.

B: Boyhood Idols. Yeah, that would definitely be Harrison Ford.

C: Chore You Hate. Cleaning cat boxes. Ugh.

D: Dad’s Name. Harry.

E: Essential Video In Collection. The Star Wars films. All of them.

F: Favorite Actress. There are so many that I like…just dig through the archives for my “Move Over Britney!” series.

G: Gold or Silver. Silver.

H: Hometown. Pittsburgh by birth, Buffalo by emotional attachment.

I: Instruments Played. Trumpet well, piano not so well.

J: Job Title. Writer/Blogger/Unemployed Schlub.

K: Kids. One.

L: Living Arrangements. Two bedroom apartment in suburban complex.

M: Mom’s Name. Theresa.

N: Number People Slept With. I’m not answering this one.

O: Overnight Hospital Stays. None. Wife’s had two.

P: Phobia. Hmmm….I recoil fiercely if you even mimic pulling back a rubber band and aiming it at me.

Q: Quote You Like. “If it’s not baroque, don’t fix it!” (From Beauty and the Beast. More quotes in my sidebar.)

R: Religious Affiliation. None whatsoever. I’m pretty militant in my reluctance to endorse any religious doctrine at all, because I think nearly every religion has something true and transcendent to say about the human condition, and at the same time every religion has something idiotic and bogus to say about the human condition.

S: Siblings. One older sister.

T: Time You Wake Up. These days, sometime between 7:00 and 8:00. If I’m really exhausted, I might sleep until 9:00, and it’s not uncommon for me to wake up at 6:00 and just get out of bed under the assumption that it’s useless to try to sleep any more than that.

U: Unique Habit. I’m not sure exactly what this means – – unique as in, I’m the only one in the world who does it? Or that I’m the only one I know who does it? Anyway, aside from people online, I don’t know any film music collectors personally.

V: Vegetable You Refuse To Eat. Broccoli. President Bush the Elder’s revelation that he also detests broccoli nearly had me changing my political affiliation. Luckily for me, there was all that policy stuff that allowed me to remain a Democrat with good conscience.

W: Worst Habit. My sweet-tooth knows no bounds.

X: X-rays Taken. Once when I broke my collarbone in seventh grade, and routine ones during dental visits. (The first dental hygienist who attempted to do this with me discovered my incredibly powerful gag reflex when she made no attempt to describe what she was doing with that little piece of X-ray film they stick in your mouth and simply starting sticking her fingers in my mouth. Heh.)

Y: Yummy Food You Make. Pastitsio (a Greek forerunner of Lasagna). I even posted a recipe for it here a few months back; sometime I’ll look for the link.

Z: Zodiac Sign. Given my strong belief that astrology is a lot of hooey and that people who believe in it are boobs, I probably shouldn’t know my sign. Sadly, I do. It’s Libra.

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For some strange reason, I’m getting a lot of search engine hits recently from people looking for study guides and such for the film Dead Poets Society. I’m hoping against hope that teachers are assigning this movie under a “Here’s how to make a bad movie about poetry” teaching plan, but somehow I doubt it. Anyway, I maintain a link to the article in question in the sidebar, if anyone really wants to know why the movie bugs me. Look under “Notable Dispatches”.

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John Scalzi is shocked! shocked! to learn that his cat drinks from the toilet. Well, not all cats do this, but this right now may be the only time in my life when I haven’t lived with a cat who drinks from the toilet. It’s not universal, but it’s not uncommon, either. Cats like cold water, which is what attracts them to toilet water: it’s always cold, by virtue of being insulated by as much as two inches of porcelain. If you think your cats aren’t quite drinking enough water, especially in summer months, try putting ice in their water dish when you fill it. This has often worked for our cats.

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I wasn’t going to babble more about the Bills’ blowout loss last night, but I notice now that since I wrote the post last night in which I mentioned Buffalo News columnist Jerry Sullivan’s constant harping that the Bills do not have an elite defense, he went and wrote his entire column in this morning’s paper on the non-elite defense.

Now, I’m not about to claim that the Bills played a good game last night on defense, because they didn’t. Their pass-rush, which I’m complaining about on a weekly basis, was abyssmal last night, failing to apply pressure to Trent Green even when they sent seven men across the line. They gave up 38 points and 375 yards, they had no sacks and they created no turnovers. That’s bad. But Sullivan seems to want to put the entire blame on the defensive unit. As he writes:

But you can’t blame the offense for this one. The Bills moved the ball well at times. Travis Henry ran for 124 yards on 22 carries. He might actually have scored a TD if Gilbride had the sense to run on second-and-goal from the 2. Henry ran for 87 yards after halftime. Too bad the game was already decided.

The Bills had to follow a simple blueprint to win. Run and stop the run. They ran OK. The only thing they stopped was any talk that Buffalo has one of the NFL’s top defenses.

I can’t blame the offense for this one? Really? The offense that scored three points in the entire game, with the team’s other two points coming on a blocked punt in the end zone for a safety? The offense that, despite averaging 5.1 yards per carry against a team that everyone knew was susceptible to the run, only ran 26 times? The offense that only handed off to its Pro-Bowl running back, Travis Henry, nine times in the first half? The offense that turned the ball over seven times, with three of the resulting Kansas City drives resulting in points scored? The offense that went pass-wacky at all the wrong times, just as it has so often in this season? I can’t blame that offense for this game, Jerry? Please.

This game as a total-team effort. The Bills blew this game in all phases. Let’s not pretend it was a defensive melt-down, because it wasn’t.

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Today I reached 25,000 total hits, and yesterday, October officially became my best traffic month yet, and there are five more days to go (including today). This also means that three of the last five months have been record-setting months here at Byzantium’s Shores, and I’ve done it the old-fashioned way, with not an Instalanche in sight. (Well, I did have a couple of Den Bestelanches in June. But not an Instalanche.)

Yippee and Huzzah!

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The current word count is just over 67,000, which in terms of a mass-market paperback is roughly between 140 and 180 pages. The story is moving into the second act, and the problem now is that I have a lot of balls in the air here; I have to keep stopping and reminding myself of things like, “You haven’t shown this character in four chapters, and we really need to know what he’s up to before the next big battle scene because, you know, he sets that up.”

I don’t revise as I go, unless it’s to go back and stick something in to foreshadow something that’s going on right now — the old rule being that if you have a gun going off in the third act, you’d better have that gun on the mantelpiece in the first act. (The greatest example of that rule in action I’ve ever encountered is the film The Shawshank Redemption, in which director Frank Darabont has every major plot device right out in the open in the film’s first half-hour, and you don’t even realize it until the end.) I haven’t had to do as much of this lately, but in the early going of this particular book I had to a lot of “plot retrofitting”. You might think that outlines might solve this problem, but I don’t use outlines. Outlines are for the weak. Heh!

(Of course, it could well be that outlines are essential and that writers who don’t use them are the kinds of whackos who ride motorcycles without helmets after drinking nine beers in thirty minutes….but we won’t plumb those depths right now.)

Anyhoo, onward and upward!

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OK, I’ve pretty much given up on the Bills’ offensive coaching staff now. I’m writing this during the third quarter, when the Bills are down 28-5. Even if they come back and win it, I’m giving up. These guys – – including Gregg Williams – – have no idea what they’re doing. Williams and Gilbride need to go, as soon as this season is over. I’ve heard all the stuff about how Drew Bledsoe can’t win the big ones, and yeah, he sure looked awful last night — three interceptions, two fumbles, one lost, yada yada yada — but the game plan never seems designed to fit his strengths, the team is always undisciplined, et cetera and so on. When these guys are making the same mistakes in Week Eight that they made early in the season, that’s the coaching. For me it boils down to this: Would this same group of players have a 4-4 record, with two of those losses being blowouts, if Bill Parcells or Jon Gruden or Tony Dungy or Jeff Fisher were coaching?

What also gets me now is the way a lot of the radio and print commentators here gripe about the Bills’ defense for not being as good as it can be, but hell, when these guys are constantly on the field, what does anyone expect? This is a common complaint for Buffalo News columnist Jerry Sullivan, who is constantly saying, “This is an elite defense?” Well, no, it’s not an elite defense. They don’t get enough pressure on the QB, their pass-coverage often has holes in it, et cetera…but it’s a good defense that would really look better if they weren’t in the position of having to pitch a shutout each week. To win with an offense this bad, your defense has to be not just good, not just great, but one of the best defenses of all time. The Bills just don’t have it. That’s all.

:: Note to ESPN: Joe Theismann is a blithering idiot. The guy is just one dumb comment after another. For instance, just after the second play of the game: “I really like the way Drew Bledsoe is managing his offensive line tonight!” Or this, when the Chiefs took the ball for the first time: “I’ll bet Dick Vermiel has his offense throw a long bomb right here!” (They ran the ball off the right side for five or six yards.) “There’s no way the Bills kick to Dante Hall in this situation!” (They kicked to Dante Hall.) When the Bills were down 28-5 with two minutes left in the third quarter: “Bledsoe can still bring this team back!” Sure he can, Joe. God, the guy is a nitwit, and he never shuts up. John Madden may be annoying, but he’s not stupid. Theismann is.

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According to SDB, the weirdo-site IndyMedia has libeled the guy who runs the weirdo-site Little Green Footballs. Now, I personally think LGF is one of the most putrid sites out there, but IndyMedia’s stunt here is just dumb and very likely libelous. Come on, guys.

UPDATE: Michael Lopez rains on the “It’s libel!” parade by being so crass as to actually cite some case law. Geez, talk about a killjoy! (Mmmmm….Blended Puppy Soup….)

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According to economic journalist Jim Jubak, the economy is finally creating jobs. Problem is, the jobs suck. Woo-hoo.

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