Why not just cash?

During bowl season, the NCAA gives each player:

• a travel allowance of 48.5-cents per mile to get from home to the bowl destination.
• $500 for meals and entertainment on the trip.
• $500 in gifts from the bowl's sponsors.

For playing in the Outback Bowl, Wisconsin and Tennessee players will each receive a Sony Cybershot Camera, a Fossil watch and an Outback Bowl ring.

That's not bad, but there are some better bowls out there. Both the Holiday Bowl and the Alamo Bowl are giving each player a Nintendo Wii. The Las Vegas Bowl gave players an iPod Touch. And the Champs Sports Bowl and Capitol One Bowl are giving $400 Best Buy gift cards.

Scare tactics

Democrats often accuse their opposition of using Sept. 11 to scare voters into voting Republican.

But listen what Bill Clinton said on Saturday while campaigning for his wife: "There is a better than 50 percent chance that sometime in the first year or 18 months of the next presidency, something will happen that is not being discussed in this campaign. President Bush never talked about Osama bin Laden and didn't foresee Hurricane Katrina. And if you're not ready for that, then everything else you do can be undermined."

So basically, some bad shit is going down. And unless Hillary is president, we're all screwed.

Blue Hose in the news

The front page of today's New York Times discusses the Presbyterian Blue Hose.

I'm cutting edge, of course, since I told you about the Blue Hose a couple weeks ago.

What my sister just said to her husband

"You know what we TOTALLY have to give David? Oh, wait -- we threw it in the trash."

Sucks for you, ABC & Fox

In a few days, NBC and CBS will simulcast the NFL Network's broadcast of the Patriots-Giants game. Huh? Two competing networks will offer the same product. That's like General Mills and Kellogs both selling the same version of Cheerios.

I love this paragraph from the New York Times report:

"The Rhode Island delegation also protested the league’s market designations that would have deprived Patriots’ fans in Providence and throughout the state of seeing their team go undefeated unless they subscribed to DirecTV or the Dish Network, or got the NFL Network from their local cable operators."

To sum up the feelings of the Rhode Island delegation of Congress, it is upset that constituents will be completely unable to see the Patriots-Giants game. Well, unless they have DirecTV. Or the Dish Network. Or get the NFL Network from their local cable operator.

Meanwhile, this strikes me as a stupid business move for the NFL Network. If every time it owns the right to a big game it gives it to other networks, why would anyone worry about whether they get the channel?

Open Christmas

Hyattsville, Md. — Until today, I hadn't seen any drive-in liquor stores in this area. This one, which I passed during a bike ride through Prince George's County, is open on Christmas.

The price of cheating

With the New England Patriots poised to go undefeated this season, it's time for me to point out a few things about the so-called Spygate Scandal, in which the team was caught illegally filming defensive signals of its opponents. After discovering that the infraction took place during last year's Patriots-Packers game, the NFL warned the team not to do it again. But they did it again in this year's first game.

The Patriots and their coach were fined a total of $750,000.

But wait. The Patriots were caught cheating at a game in which they won — why were they allowed to keep that win?

A man caught stealing a TV doesn't get to pay a fine and then keep the TV.

If the cost of winning a game is a mere $750,000, all 32 teams should willingly cheat and pay that fine. What owner would pass up the chance to pay $12 million and go undefeated?

The NFL also penalized the Patriots by taking away a No. 1 pick from next year's draft. But the NFL should have done something to penalize this year's Patriots team, rather than take away a pick from next year's draft.

A man caught stealing a TV isn't forced to pay a penalty on his next TV.

Home is where your campaign is

Sometimes it's hard to tell, but Chris Dodd is running for president.

The Connecticut senator moved his wife and young daughters (ages 2 and 6) to Iowa this fall for the presidential race. The family lives in Des Moines. Dodd's six-year-old daughter goes to school there and everything.

Okay, that's a little weird, right? Dodd represents Connecticut in the Senate, yet he lives in Des Moines.

Goodbye, fall

Well, fall is officially over. And this tree across the street from my house has now lost its leaves. Sigh. I miss fall already.

Due to our extended hours, we'll be closing early today

Today is the last day in which the U.S. Post Office guarantees that packages mailed via Priority Mail will arrive by Christmas.

It's already 6 p.m., but my neighborhood Post Office has extended holiday hours this week. Phew!

Wait a minute.

The extended hours at my neighborhood Post Office means it is closed earlier today.

Washington fatcats

Congress has approved a $515.7 billion spending bill that includes a section calling on the U.S. Mint to design a quarter to honor D.C.

Finally.

With this momentum, perhaps we can get Congress to give us a quarter of a vote in Congress (an eighth of a vote in each chamber).

Can we get some more cameras in here?

Much like the 2000-era Al Gore, Hillary Clinton seems void of personality. Every statement out of her mouth seems to have been calculated to attract the least possible criticism.

But when I see pictures like this one — taken by Jim Cole of the Associated Press and appearing in yesterday's Style Section — I'm reminded of why she chooses each word so carefully.

Overly intellectual women?

The other day I watched a few minutes of Ohio State's men's basketball game against Presbyterian College.

The game pitted the Buckeyes against the Blue Hose.

The Blue Hose.

The Presbyterian Blue Hose.

I'm just saying.

The school's Web site says one explanation for the nickname is that it comes from the word bluestocking, which is "usually associated with overly intellectual women."

Best headline ever

Columbus Dispatch: "Parapropalaehoplophorus septentrionalis."

15 Qatar Road, Qatar

All the major domestic airlines used to have offices on K Street. I liked stopping by those offices for things that were easier doing in person than online or on the phone with an agent in India — such as planning an eight-segment itinerary; or cashing in vouchers that I would otherwise have to send in the mail; or getting notarized proof from an airline that two tickets to Australia were not used and did not have a "void-if-not-used" clause, thus meaning the tickets still had value for another flight.

A few years ago, they all closed their offices to save money.

But I noticed the other day that the airlines are coming back to K Street.

Well, just one airline.

And it's Qatar Airways.<sup>1


1</sup>I still don't know how to pronounce Qatar, although I know it is a cross between "cutter" and "cotter" and "gottur" and "gutter."

All-Eden

Thanks to cell phones and Wikipedia searches at the ready, people know fewer facts on their own. A third of people under the age of 30 can't even recite their own phone number, according to a poll cited by Wired magazine.

Welcome to Marvin Gardens, please swipe your card here

I've never liked carrying cash. The bills in my wallet don't bother me, but I dislike carrying around loose change. That's why I use my credit card as much as I can. I even attended a college that bragged in its marketing materials that it was a "cashless campus" where everything could be purchased by swiping a student ID card.¹

So you can see why I'm excited about the latest Monopoly edition,² which replaces paper money with electronic bank cards. Some Monopoly players, today's Washington Post points out, like to stack their money in front of them in such a way that it shields their wealth from the other players. Playing with bank cards does away with that tactic.

Finally, a game that promotes full financial disclosure with no loose change!


¹Well, okay — there were other factors I liked too like good academics and a beautiful campus.
²I already know what SJB will say: "leave the old Monopoly alone."

Blow but no smack

Obama's teenage drug use became a campaign issue this week. In his 1995 book "Dreams From My Father," Obama wrote: "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though. Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man. Except the highs hadn't been about that, me trying to prove what a down brother I was.... I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory."

Speaking to high school students in Manchester, N.H. last month, Obama was asked about Bill Clinton's 1992 retort that he had smoked marijuana but didn't inhale. Obama answered thus: "I never understood that line. The point was to inhale."

What a great answer.

Air Vinny

This fall, I flew on a US Airways plane emblazoned with the Arizona Cardinals logo.

As was to be expected, the airline roots for teams from all its hub cities. The other day, I came across its Carolina Panthers plane.

End of a daydream

For years, Marnie & I have daydreamed about going to Iceland to frolic in the Blue Lagoon, stomp around on glaciers and spend $95 on chicken sandwiches.

In fact, last year we almost pulled the trigger on an Iceland trip.

The flight from BWI to Reykjavik is shorter than a flight to Seattle. And it costs like 50 cents on Icelandair when they have e-savers.

But Icelandair will cancel its service to BWI by Jan. 13. I guess it's time to dream about another exotic e-saver.

Something I said 9 years ago

Why is the tradition to buy liquor to someone who turns 21? The whole point is that now they can buy the liquor for other people. It would be like giving a ride home to a friend on the day he gets his drivers license.<sup>1

1</sup>I typed this random observation in an email to Leo dated Jan. 7, 1998. I recently uncovered a floppy disk containing my email folders from the 1990s, you see.

Keeping my own traditions

At Shabbat services last week, the rabbi showed how to properly light Chanukah candles. It turns out I've been doing them the wrong way my whole life. (All this time I have been putting the candles on the wrong side of the menorah and lighting them in the wrong order.)

Tonight is the last night of Chanukah and I'm faced with a choice: maintain my own method or assimilate to the tradition of a religion that has lasted more than 4,000 years.

Avoid P.F. Changs

If you were watching last week's Bears-Redskins game, perhaps you noticed that RB Clinton Portis missed a series or two with what Bryant Gumbel called an "upset stomach."

Radio reporter Bram Weinstein followed up on this, finding out that Portis ate fried shrimp from P.F. Changs in the parking lot before the game. Evidently, he suffered from food poisoning and threw up four times.

It's nice to know that a guy earning $50.5 million is still a man of the people, hanging out in the parking lot before entering the stadium. But perhaps the team's dietitian can recommend a better fast food option for him next time.

Why I'm waiting

When I bought a new TV recently, I thought about also upgrading to a Blu-Ray or HD DVD player.

Using this handy cheat-cheat from Business Week, I attempted to figure out which is the better format.

Wait a minute. That doesn't help at all!

Autumn in Ontario

Fall is my favorite season, and the wallpaper on my desktop PC is a picture that comes with Windows called "Autumn."

Thanks to the research by Nick Tosches of Vanity Fair, I now know more about the image.

It is a photograph taken by Peter Burian in a village near Milton, Ontario.

Paging LeRoy Butler

I've always been interested in NFL endzone dances. In fact, I presented a paper on this topic at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio (easily my proudest academic moment).

Anyway, I read with interest that ESPN has ranked the top touchdown rituals. It seems the Worldwide Leader In Sports is less impressed with the "Lambeau Leap" — a celebration between players and fans that is symbolic of the only major sports franchise in the nation that is literally owned by its fans — than with Kansas City fans chanting "we're gonna beat the hell out of you" during the playing of Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll, Part II."¹

Then again, I'm not as disappointed by this ranking as LAL is with the Brookings Institution report that came out this week ranking Miami ahead of New York City in a list of walkable cities. His reaction: "That list is ridiculous and should be banned from all distribution!"<sup>2

1</sup>Jason H., who is in the midst of flirting with Kansas City, will probably race to the defense of Kansas City fans. Meanwhile, I wonder what folks in West Hartford do to celebrate touchdowns.
²Complying with his request, I will not share the link to the Brookings report.

The Greek word 'apsinthion' means 'undrinkable'

Last month, I wondered whether legalizing absinthe will make it less exciting. If absinthe isn't cutting edge, I wrote, what's the point?

Today, the New York Times asked the question in a better way: "Now that it is safe and legal, will anyone still drink it?"

The newspaper also informs us of the first-ever American brand of the stuff, called St. George Absinthe Verte. It goes on sale for the first time Dec. 21.

There are three other legal absinthe distillers: the Swiss Kubler, French Lucid and the Brazilian Absinto Camargo.

(Thank you to CMR for sending me the article.)

Vandelay Industries

I'm not an architect, but this home addition being erected on my block is the ugliest thing I've ever seen in my life. Someone, presumably, drew up the plans for this home addition and said, "Oh man, I've nailed it! This design rules!"

Knowing the issues is optional

CBS News is hiring an environmental journalist.

The requirement is to be "wicked smart, funny, irreverent and hip."

It sounds like they want someone who is krispy, which you will recall means fresh, raw, super-exclusive, and dope.

(H/T Mike B.)

Step right up and greet the Mets

A couple years ago, then-Washington Nationals outfielder Ryan Church said he believes Jewish people are doomed to eternal hell. Last week, the team traded him to the New York Mets.

There are only about 2 million Jews in New York, so that shouldn't be awkward for him at all.

Con curtido

A couple months ago while in Brooklyn, I had my first Salvadoran pupusa.

It turns out that with 500,000 Salvadorans living in the D.C. area, there are a quite a few pupuserias that could have been feeding me this whole time. The Washington Post surveys the scene and recommends the best pupuserias.

Cooking advice

A garlic-rich diet may help the body fend off cancer, according to a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Hmmm, okay. But experts recommend that you eat five or more cloves per day. Plus, you're probably cooking garlic all wrong — in order for garlic to have its effects, it must sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes after you crush/chop it.