DD&U Update

A couple housekeeping notes that I wanted to run by you, my cherished readers.

# I read your comments! I love comments! But you can't keep making comments as "Anonymous." I'll never know how many readers I have if you comment as Anonymous. What if all of my Anonymous comments are the same person? Or they're all different? I won't know! If you don't want to leave your real name, pull an Alexander Hamilton and come up with a clever handle. Do it for your old pal Timmy!

# I'm in the process of adding tags to all of my posts. This one won't have any tags, because I'm going in reverse chronological order, but I'm getting there. So if you ever wanted to read all of my posts about the T, or the perils of laundry, you'll soon be able to check them out in one place.

# Um, I'm going skiing this weekend. Not a housekeeping note in the strictest sense of the term, but I kind of needed a third item to justify a list. Thanks for reading!

To the max!

So the one thing that I explicitly remember from all my Boy Scout leadership training (besides "lead by example," which is obvious) is that all goals should be measurable and attainable. It's good advice, and I try to apply it especially when it comes to New Year's resolutions. Sometimes I hear people make resolutions like "I want to be a better person," or "I want to keep in touch with my friends more." Noble aspirations, but how does one measure the goodness of oneself as a person? Similarly, you'll hear someone resolve to lose 20 pounds. Wonderful, but losing 20 pounds is a lot of work! Not very attainable. The point is, when you set unrealistic goals, or goals that you can't really know if you've achieved or not, failure is, by definition, inevitable.

Last year, I resolved to only press the snooze button once when I woke up in the morning. As it turned out, I couldn't get it done, but I went from like, five snoozes to only two. So it sort of worked. This year, I made a couple resolutions. One was to set my alarm clock earlier in the morning; it's working out like gangbusters. Another was to make the switch from coffee to tea in the morning, because honestly, I don't even like coffee. Also working out swimmingly.

The toughest one, though, is going to prove to be my resolution to switch from a bottle of Pepsi in the afternoon to, I don't know, something with less sugar and calories. (I'm trying to maintain my girlish figure, after all.) I say it's going to be the toughest one, because I haven't even really started yet.

The whole point of this post, which took me several paragraphs to reach, is that I bought a bottle of Pepsi Max today, and it didn't taste nearly as much like deadly poison as I thought it would. So maybe this thing might be attainable after all. I'll keep you all abreast of my progress.

I woke up to my cold sheets and the smell of New Jersey

Lee Siegel (he of the anti-blog cri de coeur Against the Machine) has an essay in the Wall Street Journal about New Jersey as a rich cultural tapestry. Siegel may be a charlatan and a hack, but the piece is really well thought-out, and goes far beyond my usual method for broadcasting New Jersey's overall awesomeness: shouting "Springsteen!" and "Sinatra!" and "Baseball!" loudly while wildly flailing my arms. Money quote:

At the same time, you can refine Jersey's countless dimensions into two polarized elements: industrial and pastoral. The struggle for dominance between them is at the heart of the American drama -- the Civil War, for example, or the urban/agrarian friction that has shaped the schism between liberal and conservative to this day. It could be that Jersey is so representative of America's original strife that dismissing the state as a crude and unlovely place is a good way to sweep certain national anxieties under the rug.

Siegel uses the dichotomy between the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike as a device to illustrate the competing rural and urban sensibilities in the state's art and culture. And it works! I can't speak for all New Jerseyans, but I can speak for the many that I've encountered when I say that one of our many indicators of identity is the answer to the question "which exit?" Being from 14A on the Turnpike (remember, the A stands for "almost heaven"), I'm of the opinion that all good things can be found off the Turnpike. A good friend of mine from Westfield, exit 135 on the Parkway, has been disagreeing with me vehemently ever since we met.

The comparison resonates, because we're all aware that the post-apocalyptic landscape of the Linden Cogeneration Plant is only a few exits away from Princeton or the Horse Park of New Jersey. I'm doubtful that many of us have thought about the differences between Turnpike and Parkway mentalities as analogues for the greater American story. Maybe we should. After all, just remember Philip Roth's Pulitzer Prize–novel American Pastoral is split between industrial Newark and the sticks town of Old Rimrock. It's not called New Jersey Pastoral for a reason, folks.

Music is my imaginary friend

Listen to a little Big Country.

Zelda warriors

A week between posts. Hoo boy. Better throw some links up so you guys don't lost interest.

# I've had this story lying around for a while. It's about this guy in Watertown that found a suitcase full of old photographs on the curb in a pile of garbage. Turns out, they were photographs of Hiroshima after we dropped the atomic bomb, which no one knew existed. It's a nice piece about how visual images help to form historic consciousness.

# This guy is amazing. And a hero.

# This is how light rail is going to take root in big cities that aren't accustomed to public transportation: an interactive map that shows you where the bars along the route are. This one could be a little more dynamic (more information via e-mail? Meh!), but I like the idea!

# A slideshow from Slate of the most gerrymandered congressional districts in America. It's a sad state of affairs when an objectively weird-shaped district, like my former one, doesn't make the list, and I can't even complain.

# Finally, in honor of Inauguration Day, here's the car that follows President Obama's limo. Incredible.

Music is my imaginary friend

This song has been burning a hole in my iPod. I've always liked Panic At the Disco, but they've always been a little too, I dunno, twee to really get behind. But their second album, Pretty. Odd., is pure dynamite. They've ditched the techno-y pop punk and instead are channeling Sgt. Pepper's and the Hush Sound. I don't want to use the term "mature" to describe an emo record, but it's getting there!

Listen to a little "That Green Gentleman."

The dream is dead

Well, I knew this day would come, but somehow, I was unprepared for it.

See, I started off spending my Monday evenings watching 24 back in college. Way back in the day, it wasn't a problem, because Gossip Girl was on Wednesdays, and even when it switched to Mondays, the writers' strike had knocked the new season of 24 back a year.

It's over, though. 24 is back, and according to the majority rule in my apartment, that gets watched in real time. Tonight presents a particularly thorny problem, since it's a two-hour episode tonight. So I'm watching GG right now until my other roommate comes home, but he could arrive at any moment!

Dearest reader, I know you're accustomed to a GG running diary at 9:30ish sharp every Monday evening, but it's not in the cards tonight. It'll be back at 10:30ish next Monday, though!

In the meantime, since I feel bad that all of my posts recently are about my TV-watching habits, here's a link to the Barney Frank profile that ran in last week's New Yorker. Did you know he's a fellow Bayonne High School graduate? Here's a fun quote:

When the Republicans won control of Congress in 1994, the Democratic leadership in the House made Frank a kind of one-man immediate-response team to Newt Gingrich, the new House Speaker. Frank and Gingrich sparred almost daily, and Frank still professes surprise that Gingrich took their disagreements personally. “Barney Frank hates me,” Gingrich said at the time. (He would not discuss the matter for this article.) According to Frank, Gingrich is a “bleeder”—a derogatory term for a boxer who is prone to cuts. For Frank, the word has particular resonance: one of his high-school classmates was Chuck Wepner, a heavyweight boxer who was known as the Bayonne Bleeder.

The greatest moment in Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun history

Regular readers of Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun are keenly aware of my love for Gossip Girl. It's unavoidable, since I do my best to post weekly on the show. Here's my most recent offering.

I do the running diary, because it's easy, and it's a format that I stole primarily from Bill Simmons. Other blogs take a different approach. One of my favorite blogs, New York magazine's Daily Intelligencer, does a weekly Gossip Girl reality index, basically doling out and subtracting points based on how authentically New York a given episode is. Here's the most recent installment. I trust Daily Intel authors Jessica Pressler and Chris Rovar implicitly, since they wrote the book, or at least the article, on the Greatest Show of Our Time.

A recent addition to the weekly GG post is reader-submitted tallies, posted every Friday. Since it's been a while since I've lived in the tri-state, I've never had anything particularly insightful to contribute to the GG reality index. That all changed when the Hub of the Universe, in folded map form, made its cameo in last week's episode. So I submitted my comment, one of at least 300 on the blog when I posted on Tuesday.

Days pass.

Friday afternoon arrives.

AND MY SUBMISSION MADE THE CUT ! ! !

You'll recognize my uber-witty NY Mag handle, timmyinboston, attached to the very last item in the post. And super bonus, commenter afarerkind gives me a shout-out in the comments section!

I can hardly contain my joy!

Gossip Girl thinks there are as many orphanages in Boston as there are Dunkin Donuts

8:00 Gossip Girl! Teacher, mother, secret lover. Urge to kill fading . . . fading . . . fading . . . rising! Fading . . . Gone.

Eew, S and Lonely Boy use Myspace instead of Facebook. What gives?

Also, did you know that Elanor Waldorf is also Jeff Goldblum’s ex-wife from Independence Day?

8:04 “The most exclusive club in New York, which means the world.” Oh, Blair. Such a New Yorker.

I still don’t understand when Nelly Yuki got herself a spot on the steps, so to speak. Wasn’t she just a pawn in one of Blair’s wacky schemes last season?

8:07 Hey, Boston makes an appearance in Gossip Girl! Do you think anyone watching has any idea where Dorchester is?

8:08 Serena! Doing the right thing! Dumping Aaron’s ass! Dan! Doing the right thing! Going in for the smooch! Love’s completely real, so forget anything that you’ve heard!

During the commercial break, I’ve been thinking about the unceremoniousness of Aaron’s downfall. I think as a viewer who’s had to put up with his smarmy, D-baggy affect and gross semi-stache for however many episodes, I deserved more than just an off-screen breakup. Where’s the blood?

8:13 Hmm, so it wasn’t a smashmortion that Lily is hiding. Good to know.

8:15 “I’m not Little J anymore,” she goes. Is Jenny going to become a Met-steps vigilante? I hope so!

8:17 Rufus pulls a wicked CB on Dan and Serena, playing the “this is my home” card. Way to take out your own frustrations on your kid.

I simultaneously love and hate the look of this Jack Bass character. The fact that Chuck is smiling leads me to believe that we’re in store for some Bass family hi-jinks. I mean, he’s got Chuck’s youthful good looks, and, presumably, Bart’s cutthroat style. I feel like putting Jack in this show is like throwing a wolverine in a shark tank. Can you say “ding ding ding”?

8:24 Serena is nine times hotter than Dan. Perceptive, J. Perceptive. Also, did the costume designer put Rufus in a lame turtleneck because he’s acting like a lamewad?

826 “I was surprised too. That’s not entirely true.” Oh, Blair. Such a . . . Blair.

Now that Blair brings it up, isn’t it weird that Chuck still has to live with Serena and Lily and Eric? That’s like, his home.

8:29 The tables belong to everyone, Jenny says. She’s like a cross between Giuseppe Garibaldi, Lenin, and like, Mylie Cyrus.

8:31 Don’t those burlesque dancers think it’s weird that their place of employment is owned by a 17-year-old kid, who leers at them from the front row?

8:32 If you think I’m not rewinding to see if my neighborhood is on that Boston map, you’re fooling yourself!

8:35 So close! It’s a map of the Financial District. I’m a few inches up on the other side of the fold. Also, I think there are more homeless shelters in that part of time than child services facilities. Whatevs. And no, I’m not calling the number.

8:37 Because he knows that Rufus was in Boston, Dan knows that he wasn’t looking for an artist or a sculptor. Is that a dig?

Oh wait . . . is the Gossip Girl spin-off going to involve Rufus and Lily’s love child and take place in Boston somehow? I would die. My heart would stop, and I would die.

8:39 Chuck uses “hoi polloi” and “Dickensian” in consecutive sentences. Good man.

Duh! How could I not have realized the incest angle behind Rufus and Lily’s Bostonian love child?! Where the hell is this show going?

8:44 Why do I have a bad feeling that I’m going to start watching Bromance?

8:46 Hey, Blair just did the right thing and didn’t throw every one of her friends under the bus.

8:48 Hey, Eric has the same text message alert as me. Cool.

8:52 I feel like this rooftop balancing act by Chuck is beyond a reasonable suspension of disbelief. I’m out of the narrative.

8:57 You know, Blair, you probably can’t trust Jack. He’s the shiftiest guy on this show since Aaron.

Well, irony, we had a good run . . .

. . . but it appears as though you have perished, unmercifully cut down by John "I never met a Middle Eastern invasion I didn't like" Bolton and John "If the President does it, it isn't illegal, part deux" Yoo, who, in a New York Times opinion piece today, argue for a weaker executive and more Congressional oversight of presidential authority. Glad to see they've finally come around.

I read your comments

Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun is a radical social experiment, exploring the ability of one writer to somehow escape his en-ruttedness in a nigh-unshakable daily routine. Results are hence far inconclusive, but as last week's ball-dropping shows, I do a pretty poor job of posting if I haven't been trawling around the intertubes, and don't have a desk, or a schedule, or a rocks glass filled with bourbon next to me.

Lesser bloggers would blame the holiday season, the travel, the trip to Atlantic City, or any of a host of other factors for the lack of posts. Not me! I'll tell you to your face that I'm terribly undisciplined. But you knew that. Anyway, back to the rut!

Huh?

Have you ever gone to the grocery store, and you're waiting in line at the deli counter, and the guy in front of you gets a quarter of a pound of something? What's up with that? Is he making one sandwich? A quarter pound is like, five slices. I get a pound of cold cuts, and I eat that in a week. What are these quarter-pound buyers doing with that little meat?