Author: jbenton

weird links

A few things I’ve been storing up to link these last few weeks.
When pointy-toed shoes attack: “A few well-heeled women are even requesting surgery such as toe shortening and nail narrowing to lessen the pain without reducing their fashion quotient. Other remedies include collagen injections that add temporary padding to the soles of the feet.”
Trendsetter: “Michael Jackson…arrives at the Santa Barbara airport yesterday wearing pajama pants – while carrying an umbrella, a fishing rod and an electric fan.”
Donut demands: “The 17-year-old had received and eaten a free doughnut from Krispy Kreme, 7501 Peach St., about 7:30 p.m. Sunday. The teenager stepped back into line and asked for another free doughnut…When a Krispy Kreme employee refused to give him one, the boy left. The teen returned a short time later with a McDonald’s bag covering his head, with eyeholes torn out so he could see. He stepped back into line and asked for a free doughnut. When he was refused again, the teen fell to the floor, flailed his arms and legs, and demanded a free doughnut.”
A bright Lem Lom: “Police say tracking this thief was a snap. The loot was a computerized tracking device that uses the global positioning system and Internet technology to keep track of jail prisoners on home detention. ‘He apparently didn’t know what he had because he would be awfully stupid to steal a tracking device,’ said correctional officer Thomas Roth, who runs the home detention program at the Rock County Jail.”
Stoooooopid: “A young man who told friends he wanted to jump from a moving car to earn a tattoo leapt from a Subaru at 40 mph Monday afternoon and died almost instantly….He had told two friends in the car that he planned to jump…But the friends didn’t think he would do it…’The person who jumped had been telling his friends for the last month that he needed to jump from a moving car so he could have a traumatic incident in his life so he could get a tattoo,’ [the cop] said.”
No comment: “A Department of Motor Vehicles employee reported to police Tuesday that she received a suspicious postcard from a customer that showed a banana being shot with the wording ‘(banana=DMV).’ Investigators are trying to locate the man for questioning…The employee told police, Moxley said, that the man approached her at 3:20 p.m. to have his license application processed and when he was asked for proof of address he handed her the odd postcard. ‘We don

i’m back to blogging

“This was a man who is incapable of telling the truth, who attempted at every opportunity to seduce Western women correspondents. He was screwing people in his office. He had photographs of himself and Saddam Hussein and a box of Viagra. This was a loathsome character altogether.” A great oral history by the NYT’s John Burns on what it was like reporting from Baghdad in the the opening days of the war.
Yeah, I’m still alive. Apologies for the yawning gap between entries. Things are good here in D.C. A few very random thoughts:
– Washington’s a nice city. I don’t need the constant stimulation of a New York to be happy; D.C.’s got a nice scale and just enough activity to keep me happy. And my admiration for the Post grows every day — what a terrific paper.
– If you’ve sent me an email in the last two weeks, chances are excellent I haven’t answered it. Soon, soon, I promise.
– Music update: Since getting here, I’ve picked up new CDs by Sloan, Guided by Voices, Beulah, the Decemberists, Consonant, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and Enon (plus an old Fugazi disc, just to reprazent D.C.). Enon, BRMC, Consonant, and Sloan all get a solid B. The Beulah and GBV discs are both very strong A-minus caliber.
But the winner is no doubt the Decemberists, whose album has been in constant rotation of late. Highly recommended, particularly if you’ve ever found yourself thinking, “Wow, if only Belle & Sebastian had a nautical/Dickensian thing going on and had Eef Barzelay singing lead!”
– I somehow spent almost three hours dancing in a D.C. gay bar Saturday night — and not one guy hit on me. I’m not sure if my heterosexuality was just so intense that I was clearly off limits or if I just wasn’t viewed as much of a catch.
– After a triumphant victory in Fantasy Football week one, I’m locked in a tight one this week. I’m up by 2 points going into the Monday night game. So everyone has to root for Tiki Barber (from my team) to score nine touchdowns and for Amani Toomer (from my opponent’s) to be scratched with a horrible toenail injury before gametime.
– Any readers with tickets to the Nov. 30 Saints-Redskins game at FedEx Field are asked to please contact me.
– I had a story on Saturday’s front page back in Dallas. I actually wrote the damned thing almost four weeks ago, but events conspired to hold it back until today. (And if I may brag, this would be the Houston Chronicle eating my dust.)
– Saw Pirates of the Caribbean last night — great fun. It wasn’t until I read a few reviews afterward that I realized Johnny Depp was doing a spot-on Keith Richards imitation throughout the movie. And oh my, Keira Knightley.

arrival in dc, final d-plan

Well, I’m in Washington Dee Cee. Since last posting, I rocked the Frog Festival, chilled in Rayne for a while, then flew to Our Nation’s Capital Monday morning. Since then, it’s been Pew Fellowship mania. I learned quickly that one of my fellow Fellows is a crabwalk reader (hello, Noy) — I suppose my work life and my online life will inevitably merge. Things have been good so far; I’m just settling into the new pace of things. More details later.
One highlight: seeing the final Dismemberment Plan show Monday night at the 9:30. They were in fine form and played a few oldies. For the record, the final song of the final show was “Memory Machine.”
In other news, I’ve had two stories run in the paper since last posting. First, this front pager Thursday was about how Chattanooga has moved its best teachers to the toughest urban schools, all in an attempt to reverse the sort of teacher imbalance I wrote about a couple weeks ago. And my Monday column was all about how utterly bogus the state’s official dropout statistics are, particularly in urban districts like Dallas.
I promise, more interesting things to come eventually.

post from rayne

Well, I’ve said my goodbyes to Dallas. Drove down to Rayne last night. It was a perfectly pleasant trip except for two things:
1. It rained for much of the first Dallas-to-Shreveport leg. Normally that’s fine, but since my AC is broken again (did I mention that my AC is broken again?), rain means the windows have to be rolled up, which makes the heat stifling. Normally, I could just be distracted by a CD, but oops, I don’t have a CD player anymore.
Side note: I installed an old AM/FM radio into my car console — while driving. Then again, I’m also known for reading while driving.
2. On the second, Shreveport-to-Rayne leg, it stopped raining, so the windows came down. Driving along, minding my own business. All of a sudden, I hear a loud thwock and feel a sharp stinging pain in my left jaw. What the hell was that, I think.
A minute later, I look in the rear-view mirror and see two dead bees on the rear dashboard.
The nerve of some bees.
I’m giving my new computer setup the runthrough, and so far it’s worked out okay. I’m not sure I’ll be able to deal with four months of OS X on a 500mhz iBook. Like a geek version of a Fast and the Furious extra, I’ve tricked it up with a bunch of aftermarket stuff — external hard drive, external Zip drive, external floppy, external burner, SmartMedia reader, scanner, iPod, etc. As a test, I fully charged my iBook battery and plugged in a bunch of stuff to see how long it would last on maximum power drain. Four minutes is the answer. Let’s hope it lasts longer in Zambia.
Expect posting to remain sporadic for the rest of this week as I languish on dialup. I get to D.C. on Labor Day, and I hope my crabwork becomes more regular thereafter.

chanda loses, kelly, bobby heberts

Well, I didn’t even get a chance to start up my traditional Grand Slam ChandaWatch. She lost in the first round 6-4, 6-4, to someone named Maria Vento-Kabchi. (She’s got tendonitis in her right shoulder, but still — Maria Vento-Kabchi?)
Thanks to the folks, blogger and otherwise, who showed up for my going-away dinner Saturday at India Palace. It’s always good to spread the chicken tikka massala gospel. And thanks to Kelly for visiting this weekend, as well as for her promise (now publicly recorded) to start posting to her site again.
Me, I’m busy canceling utilities and shuffling forms and forwarding mail and packing clothes and generally running around like that proverbial chicken sans t

yale wins

This one’s for the Harvard alums in the house.
In other news: one more day of work for me! Which, at the current rate, should mean only 2,596 more Sobig.F emails in my inbox. It’s slowed down our servers so much that it took me 40 minutes to log on to our network this morning — a process that normally takes three or four minutes.