I knew that there was a violent, criminal element in my old neighborhood at USC, but I didn't know there were any of this magnitude.

UPDATE: Sportscenter just reported this story, adding: "Police say they don't yet know the cause of the altercation." I'm wondering if they have investigated the LAWRENCE PHILIPS IS CRAZY Theory.

And hey, if you're reading this, Lawrence (OK, let's be honest, having this read to you), I'm just playin'. Seriously, please don't try to kill me.

I put together my schedule for the next two weeks yesterday, and then I recoiled in horror. In addition to working most of my regular hours at the library this week (and some the following), I have to pack, move, assist with move-out of the apartment building, figure out a journal note topic (basically, my mandatory research project), attend two-day 9-to-5 journal orientation, attend orientation for OCI (on-campus interviews), have my 15-to-25 interviews, find time to hang out with people getting into town from summers spent elsewhere, try to finish volume two of the Baroque Cycle, spend part of next weekend in Port Huron, help out with 1L orientation, pick up Game Show Conventioneer mail, draft for two fantasy football leagues, unpack, and breathe. It's not as bad as it sounds, but it's quite a change from the languid summer pace. On the plus side, I'm actually looking forward to at least half the things on that list.

One of the cooler sites I've seen in a while is Malls of America, a site filled with '60s and '70s mall photography.

Do not click through to the StripGenerator (makes your own comic strips!) unless you have serious time to kill.

I'm not feeling creative today, so I'm stealing a play from the Barker playbook (via the Coen playbook). Given 25 musical artists who appear exactly once on my computer, guess the song in comments. It's just that simple. (UPDATE: Unaccounted for answers in bold.)

1. 10,000 Maniacs--Because the Night (Chris)
   
2. Blood, Sweat and Tears--And When I Die
   
3. Bonnie Tyler--It's A Heartache
   
4. Built to Spill--Joyride
   
5. Burl Ives--Ol' Dan Tucker
   
6. Carly Simon--You're So Vain (Tom, who nothing gets past)
   
7. Cher--Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves (Greg)
   
8. Dead or Alive--Brand New Lover (Greg)
   
9. Dion--Donna the Prima-Donna
   
10. Dixie Chicks--Goodbye Earl (Richard)
    
11. Dropkick Murphys--Good Rats
    
12. Faith No More--We Care a Lot (Lauri)
    
13. Jackie Wilson--Lonely Teardrops (Bill)
    
14. Janis Joplin--Mercedes Benz (Richard)
    
15. Lesley Gore--You Don't Own Me (Maribeth)
    
16. Live--Selling The Drama (JQ)
    
17. Lovin' Spoonful--Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?
    
18. No Doubt--Spiderwebs (Richard)
    
19. Pavement--No More Kings (off of Schoolhouse Rock Rocks)
    
20. The Pretenders--Back on the Chain Gang (Lauri)
    
21. Rancid--Time Bomb (Craig)
    
22. Roy Orbison--Cryin' (Mark)
    
23. Split Enz--Six Months in a Leaky Boat
    
24. Squeeze--Pulling Mussels from a Shell (Greg)
    
25. A Tribe Called Quest--El Segundo (Chris)
    

I have certain tastes in pop culture that some might find gay quaint, and tops on the list is a disturbing predilection for classic MGM musicals. Or rather, as I learned today, some classic MGM musicals. I've really enjoyed the work of Pittsburgh's own Gene Kelly in particular. I first saw him several years ago in two of my favorite cheesy '70s films. Then I saw An American in Paris for a class, and I thought it was great. We also watched the Kelly-less The Band Wagon in that class, and again, I was impressed. Then earlier this summer I got Singin' in the Rain from the library, and I started to worry that I just loved musicals in general, raising questions I didn't necessarily want answered.

But I'm feeling better today, because I absolutely hated my latest foray into the musical, and I got bonus points because I also hated a Judy Garland movie. Yes, I experienced the 113 minutes of suckitude known as Meet Me In St. Louis. Only two things saved me from turning the movie off early. One was the 5-year-old morbid youngest daughter Tootie, who basically stole the movie by saying the most bizarre things about once every ten minutes, most of which seemed entirely out of place in the movie. Two was the production design in a very particular sense--I've come to appreciate movies that consistently use color in distinctive ways. To me, it's a sign that there's more going on in the film than just a story, but that the director is also doing something interesting aesthetically. Sometimes this is true of movies I respect more than love, and sometimes it's a key aspect of a movie that I do love, such as my favorite Spielberg film. In St. Louis, the colors in question were generally the period costumes and the Smiths Victorian home. Nice work there, MGM and Technicolor, but that's what we'd expect you to get right.

Bottom line: Men, stay away from this movie, as it may actually make your body convert testosterone into estrogen. I'm watching my second preseason football game between teams I don't care about in 2 nights just to try to counteract the effects.

A link to Yard Work came across Sportsfilter this week. Some people there apparently weren't clear on the whole "it's a parody" thing--even though the first post at the time was by Ron Dibble arguing for Eric Milton (6-12, 6.48 ERA) for the Cy Young based on being a modern-day Nasty Boy.

Anyway, the whole point of posting here was to say that Yard Work is freakin' hysterical writing about baseball, with pitch perfect parodies of all your favorite broadcast and print sports journalists, along with players and other famous people. Clint Barmes' rookie diary stands out among the players, but what absolutely made the site for me were the Monday and Tuesday Morning Quarterback parodies. There's also an Eric Karabell section (whose name I can neither type nor say without thinking: "What this fantasy football draft needs....is more Karabell!"), so perhaps our favorite fantasy sports analyst will appear there soon.

The best link I was emailed last week.

The second best link I was emailed last week is the poster on the bottom.

Flogging Molly tonight at Royal Oak Music Theatre--woohoo!!

My favorite observation of the summer

I was working out on the third floor of the Intramural Building here on campus on Friday, and after I was done I went to the restroom. Because it was the more involved process, I was able to see that the men's room stall is fully handicapped-accessible. This is, of course, admirable...save for one little problem.

The third floor of the Intramural Building is not handicapped-accessible.

I just finished my four-week-long grappling match with Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver, a monster of a tome. It's 916 pages, but makes up for it by being a slow read. Still, I'm pretty much immediately seeking out the next two books in the trilogy, so don't take the slowness the wrong way. It's just dense, that's all.

It's customary to say what a book is about when you describe reading it. So here goes--Quicksilver is about: Isaac Newton, the Tower of London, the Glorious Revolution, Samuel Pepys, John Locke, silver mining, the court of Louis XIV at Versailles and his hemorrhoids, Robert Hooke, the Siege of Vienna, the Siege of Maestricht, fisting, chakras, Amsterdam stock markets, Christaan Huygens, gallstones, Barbary pirates, Massachusetts pirates, the taking of Batavia, the slave trade, Gottfried Liebniz, royal bastards (i.e. jerks), royal bastards (i.e. illegitimate children of noblemen), the Black Death, the burning of London, Oliver Cromwell, Charleses I and II, Jameses I and II, the Royal Society, the King of the Vagabonds, the ascendancy and fellating of William of Orange, binary numbers, clockmaking, and alchemy.

I'm sure I've left out a few things, but that's a good start anyway. Most specifically, I've left out the two extraordinary main characters--Daniel Waterhouse and Eliza de la Zeur, each of whom has a picaresque role that has crudely been designated in recent years as the abominable movie Forrest Gump. That is, they are the fictional connectors of major historical personages and in many ways the quiet movers of history. If I had to pare down the whole "what this book is about" thing, I'd say it's about the dawn of modernity--in science, in religion, in politics, and in capitalism (and in the interconnections of all of these). It also has numerous sly winks at the present, many of which serve to mock our notion that everything and anything is new or unprecedented. (Leibniz, for instance, in a letter notes that the rapid pace of modern life is being blamed for the rising incidence of "Canal Rage" among the gondoliers.)

If you'd like to immerse yourself for a while in the intrigues of 17th-century European politics, religion, war, commerce, and science, then I heartily recommend Quicksilver. Just don't make any plans for a while...

Since I'm already being accused by his colleagues of wanting Peter King's job (duh!), I thought I might as well ring in with my thoughts on the NFL's supposedly wayward wide receivers, Terrell Owens and Hines Ward. In both cases, I'm with the player.

What no one seems to bring up about T.O. is last year's fiasco where his former agent screwed his chance at free agency. With his contract renewed by the Niners, he was then traded to the Ravens and then again the the Eagles. Now, he was able to engineer a trade to a team he wanted and subsequently signed a solid long-term deal, admittedly. But he missed out on a chance to truly test his value on the open market at the prime of his career. Now he's sitting on a contract that will be terminated by the other party in 1 to 3 years, and everyone is yelling at him to honor that deal. Under those circumstances, I say fight for what you can get.

The Hines Ward situation is even more of a slam dunk for me. Here's what Steeler fans (at least the few who are against Hines--most seem to be on his side) are missing: if this were just about money, Ward would play out this year and go on the open market for 2006. This is about Ward wanting good money to play for the Steelers. Given that, I don't see how any fans can be against him here. He's a four-time Pro Bowler, he's two years younger than Owens, he's the only Steeler who has consistently played well in recent years in the playoffs, and he's the absolute heart and soul of his team. He should be paid like it, and shame on the Steelers for drawing this out and jeopardizing a potential championship season.

Like a good poker hand, I am now suited after spending a long weekend as a human clothes-horse. I actually got the suits I needed in Bridgeville at the first stop--navy blue and grey suits, 5 ties, and belt. My dad gave me a lot of shit for the ties and belt, because he's been doing all his shopping here and here for years, and doesn't understand that you occasionally have to spend over $10 for a single garment. Besides, even if I overpaid a bit for the ties, I made up for it by getting three nice sweaters that were 60% off an already reduced price (under $35 total for all three) because they basically found them in the back and needed to dump them quickly. Total cost for all of the above: $604, including tailoring, plus they're sending them to the Ann Arbor store gratis.

But we weren't done. After lunch, we drove (via Downtown Pittsburgh) to Uniontown and the Bon-Ton where Dad had seen some dress shirts in my freakish size. We picked those up along with some socks. On the way back across the mall, I wandered into a Finish Line. I'd been wanting a Casey Hampton jersey for a while, but they still don't seem to be on-sale. My second choice, Troy Polamalu, was not in stock either, so I went with the #1 draft pick.

On Saturday we went back to Uniontown for a family lunch, which somehow turned into more shopping. The best part was hitting Wal-Mart for an oil change, and while I was browsing during the wait, I came across a #43 Polamalu in my size, and for half the price of Finish Line. Score. Of course this necessitated a third straight day at the mall (almost certainly a personal record), as I returned #83 to Robinson Town Centre on my way back out of town on Sunday.

A few other bits of interestingness from the trip:

• I hit 100,000 miles in the car in Toledo on Thursday, and my car didn't instantly fall apart. Again: Score.
• When Eat 'N' Park shuts the lights out on you, even if it's early afternoon, you get the hell out of dodge. Evil Otto could attack at any time.
• It turns out I drove more in the last four days then I had driven since January 8th inclusive. Weird.
• The Ohio turnpike has Starbucks in many of the rest areas; I give the new green tea Frappuccino an A-.
• I took U.S. routes 30 and 250 most of the way through Ohio on the way back, and in Norwalk I saw a church sign that said, "Never give Satan a ride; he'll aways want to drive." I can't really add much to that one, folks.