Free persons

Rupert will dive face-first and headlong into snowbanks sometimes, to test his own mettle, and the snow's. I'm afraid sometimes that I don't take enough time out for reflection, the moments where you sit in a darkened room and consider deeply. There's no time horizon here, just a general anxiety. What will 2017 be like? Don't let me be consigned to the scrap-heap of history. Every minute is full of getting and spending.

If I tend to wear scarves around the house, it's because I'm cold and want to be warm, nothing personal. Two clocks in the same room, second-hands each one second off from the other, so there's always ticking. I feel that I get more done when there's less scrutiny. Ben Franklin once wrote...or was that Zachary Taylor? I'm always forgetting which pigeonhole to put an acquaintance in. Did you read this? It was like an art project for a second-generation fruitseller.

The profession of scrivener no longer exists, she said. Even the walls were downed in light-brown hair. Would this be a successful enterprise for us to embark upon? The key turned in the door, two flights down.

"50% deep, 50% bullshit"

Occurs to me now that my life is going great. Just fantastic. I could not, should not, ask for more. And yet it seems to be the default human condition to never be satisfied!

Want more, get more, find something that's better than what you have, because what you have can never be enough. I'm trying so hard to break free of this mentality and the constant inferiority that it entails, but it takes a lot of effort and conscious striving to realize that what you have is good. It's enough and it can be great if you would only take a moment to look at it and see it in front of you.

I think I could be happy this way. Without too much, but surely with enough. It's like the saying, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush". That only works if you don't let yourself be overtaken by the thought of having two birds, and constantly longing to have them. You still have a bird in your hand, and that's dinner tonight!

semi-tongue-in-cheek

They line up for

McDonald's.

They crave a drink of

Grease.

They crave a glance at their

Death:

The 400-pounder unloaded
from a bench seat by the paramedics.

For you biting zealots here's a quote

"I'm irresponsible, and I have no fear. It's a great combination." -A

You are tearing me apart, Lisa!

-Don't be afraid

-Portmanteaus can get ugly fast. Have you seen MANswers?

-Yourself or a body double like you

-I wouldn't say my mind is exactly fertile, but I do try to practice crop rotation and plant some legumes

-Evaporation doesn't get enough credit for the important role it plays in our lives

-The embodiment of death is the smiling, pink, chubby face of Glenn Beck

-B-R-E-V-I-T-Y

-We really shouldn't be afraid of anything that won't kill us

-I bet if I quit drinking I could drop 20 lbs. just like that

-It's the company you keep

-Ashton Kutcher was enthusiastic, and the writing was tight. Along with the Jon Hamm episode, best couple of SNLs in a long time

-It's a strange thrill to meet someone with whom you have a great many things in common. Like arriving at an oasis in the desert, which analogy I am almost completely unqualified to make

-The Room: beyond your wildest dreams of how bad a bad movie could be. Unspeakably bad

-"Dance with me, beneath the circuitry"

-Unattributed quotation

la neige

Cold Boston parking lot decked out in 8 pm gloom. Broken glass and snow alike crunch crisply underfoot. The chill creeps in through warm sweaters and windbreakers, freezes nose-hairs in its frightful power. Power to kill without bias anyone who falls into its icy embrace.

Catering truck alone in an oasis of uncleared snow. Advertises warm Mediterranean delights that don't fit in this cold, cold night. The sea of shining black pavement expands ahead like the Atlantic, unbroken and vast.

It's a question of scope, how far you're willing to go

The thing is, this is in no way the end of the world. It simply isn't. So a Republican who ran a strong campaign focused on connecting with the voters won the election against a Democrat who seemed cold and distant and may have taken her victory for granted. Stop the presses! This stuff happens every day, and you really think your world will come crashing down around you because, horror of horrors, Massachusetts elected a Republican and the Democrats only have a 59-vote majority? Please, get over it.

I'm a little bit disappointed in Massachusetts tonight, but then again, I can't help but feel this nagging sense of pride. We don't do what people want us to do. We do what we like, and forget the consequences.
Massachusetts people are pretty cynical. I don't know that Scott Brown was necessarily someone that everyone in MA could get behind, and a real feel-good story, as he was made out to be in some circles. It's more like everyone was collectively trying to stick it to the man. Everybody loves the proverbial 'Washington outsider.' Everybody hates the perceived elitist (pronounced Coakley). People in MA wanted to say, hey you thought this was a solid Democrat state? You thought Coakley could coast, you thought we would do your bidding and return another Dem to fill Kennedy's seat? Think again! We're Massachusetts, we're independent, and we'll elect a Republican just because we can!

I'm not saying it's right, I'm not saying Scott Brown is the greatest thing since sliced bread, I'm just saying that's how I see it. And if any good could come out of this, I can only hope it would be that the Democrats will finally have the balls to take some action and get something done before their majority, whether it's 60 votes or 51, is gone for good.

Hast Thou Considered The Tetra

Apparently Larry King jokes never get old

Except that they already are

Because Larry King is old

Which is the whole focus of the neverending torrent of jokes about him

Yeah, I get it, he's old. Enough

The fast-food chain doth protest too much, methinks

"I like not fair terms and a villain's mind"

The idea that McDonald's is trying to tell me what a real New Englander is, and how such a person feels, disgusts me on a level that I cannot express in words.

And by the way, fools, a real New Englander would never say the phrase "real New Englander". You sicken me with your pathetic attempts to connect to people. Your so-called restaurants are dehumanizing assembly lines for disgusting, nearly inedible food, which people only eat because it is cheap, and likely addictive. It is clear to any impartial observer that our society would be much better off without the influence and presence of McDonald's. Begone!

(Obviously I'm on some kind of little Shakespeare run here)

The sum of all cardinals of the kremlin

Were I a character in a Tom Clancy novel right now, one of my fellow characters would tell me "You look like hell, Jack." and proceed to fix me a pot of Navy coffee with a pinch of salt.

Stop up the access and passage to remorse

I foresee a future state of the National Football League that is centered around injuries. The games take twice as long because there are multiple serious injuries on every play. The rosters are twice as large because of the need for replacements due to in-game attrition. There are several deaths due to injuries sustained in games every year, which, while bemoaned as tragic, are tolerated. The year? 2025.

It's not too far away from today's game. There is an upper limit on how big and fast football players can get before very serious injuries become more and more frequent, eventually leading to the first in-game death. It will happen, someday, and don't be surprised when it does.

Mark my words.

don't worry if I write rhymes, I write checks

I'm ready for whatever comes next.

And I'm excited. Something's gotta give here, right? And really, I am a pretty employable person.

This summer has been fun in spite of the rain, but it doesn't last forever. It gets colder at some point and this old Allan has to move on. Bob Vila, anyone?

I have almost no idea what the future will bring, but I'm ready to check it on out. Bring it on, future, I'll take it.

Remember. . . your different Life?

Just sunk 500 dollars into stock in China Mobile! Sometimes you have to play a hunch. My hunch is that China Mobile will not run out of people to sell cell phone service to, even though they already have 488 million subscribers. And they have a sweet dividend too. That never hurts. Wish me luck.

i make dough, but don't call me doughboy

WEEI's Jon Meterparel, commenting without irony on the oh-so-lovely way the Lakers' Pau Gasol can take it to the cup with either hand:

He might have one of the best left hands in the league. He's amphibious!

Way to keep those standards high, guys. Incidentally, I don't find Meterparel's Boston College football play-by-play work to be repulsive-it's actually quite decent. This, however, is something which I will not tolerate from someone who is handsomely compensated to speak on the radio. The word for which you went fruitlessly searching is ambidextrous, and you're making America stupider.

It's 16 miles to the promised land

I was completely fascinated by this quotation from an article by David Hare in the New York Review of Books:

"It's incredible but the country itself still feels provisional. Of what other state can this be said? I notice when I am in Britain that you plan for 2038, you say that there will be this railway or that airport. But no Israeli plans so far ahead without feeling a pang in his heart which asks whether we shall be here at all. We look so strong from the outside, we have such a large army, so many nuclear weapons, we're so certain in our expansion, and yet from the inside it doesn't feel like that. We feel our being is not guaranteed. You might say we have imported from the Diaspora the Jewish disease-a sense of rootlessness, an ability to adapt and make do, but not to settle. After sixty years, Israel is not yet a home."

Hare is quoting an unnamed Israeli writer. What he said floored me. Sixty years gone by, that's a lifetime for many people, and his insight into the country is that it is deeply ingrained in the souls of Israelis to wonder whether each day might be the last for their nation. Sixty years of being, followed immediately by suddenly not being. Can you imagine the great, great fear that state of mind would bring? Can you imagine living in constant terror of the end of your existence?

The writer is correct, we could never think of the state of things that way in a country like the US, Britain, or almost any other on earth. The mentality he describes is so inconceivable from where I sit that I am having a very hard time putting myself in his shoes. I'm not sure if I believe him either, but if it was true, what consequences it would have for our planet! Would we finally understand the Israeli mentality? Would we know the secret to peace? Would we have fairness and justice and equality on both sides? But we cannot the greatest question of all, and the one that may never be answered, Will Israel ever feel safe enough?