Mammalian Empathy Gone Mad

I just felt pity - real pity - for a rat. He was only a tiny little guy, running on the sidewalk near my house. He stopped as I walked by him. He looked super-cold and kind of down on his rat luck. And I truly thought, "awww, poor lil guy having to hustle around in this weather. And on a Sunday!"

Meanwhile, I hate most domestic cats for being smug. I need to get my inter-species priorities straight.

When Lil Harry Met Sally

I was walking past a fancy apartment building on my way home from work today, one of those ones with a super-chic lobby and a doorman with his very own big shiny marble desk. A kid on the street was yelling at someone inside; these were his sage words: "I'm just saying, you're wasting your time on her!" I looked to see who he was doling romantic advice out to - it was another kid! In response kid #2, gave kid #1 a look that was sort of a cheerful "back me up here!" type thing! Then he proceeded to head to the elevator with confidence, as men in movies do when they've realized that the girl they always took for granted is the one they want to be with forever and they have to tell her so right the fuck now before she marries Rob Lowe. And that speech better be crazy sweet and articulate, too, because Billy Crystal truly set the bar very high in When Harry Met Sally, and it's not going to drop just because your heart is on the line.

To see the climax of a traditional romantic comedy play out before your eyes is not really that rare in New York. Men are always dropping down on one knee, women are always given meaningful sidelong glances, etc. But to see two 10-year-olds do this was absurd and jarring and totally spectacular. I wish so badly I knew the context and the resolution for what I witnessed. I want to know all the buddy stuff these two kids talk about, and I want to know everything about the lovelorn kid's girl. For example, her age. Is she also 10? Or is she in her thirties, like in Big? Universe, can you just give me this information, please? Please, universe? Even if it's just because you're glad somebody's not asking you about dark matter for a change?

I could nail being an extra in a romantic comedy now; I could Stanislavsky the crap out of it, because I've really lived the part. I know how it feels to be stunned as somebody you've never seen before makes the most important decision of their life and follows through with it before your eyes.

Kid, I hope you kicked Billy Crystal's bar right out into the stratosphere!

What happens when...

...the band Phoenix plays in the city Phoenix?

Or Boston in Boston. Chicago in Chicago. Kansas in Kansas. Europe in Europe. Phantom Planet on a phantom planet.

Something special has to happen, right?

Exceptions

Generally, I eschew all belief in people-centric otherworldly things. I believe there are infinite things in the universe that would absolutely blow my mind open, but ghosts, gods and fate I am against: I think it's hubris to expect the universe to waste any of its energy (potential or kinetic) on lil ol' us. It's huge and mysterious, guys. It makes quasars, nebulas and comets (those are things we actually know about - think of the shit ton we don't!). It has more important things to do than humour humanity by carefully weaving destiny into our lives and afterlives.

Plus, even if it was going to bother with investing in life on earth, don't you think it would have chosen the dinosaurs over us? I would have, if I was the universe.

However, when you are running in Fort Greene Park on the first warm night in New York in months and there's a gibbous moon in the sky and the grass is shining from the afternoon's rain and then you suddenly get the feeling that you are not just listening to Freddie Mercury on your iPod, but that somewhere along the way, he has kind of just hopped into your soul to say hello and hang out with you, you don't say no to him because 99% of the time you don't believe this kind of thing can happen.

The Most Narcissistic Thing I've Done in 2010

Conan Supporters Versus Leno Supporters

ROUND-UP!

Conan has Patton Oswalt, Howard Stern, Jimmy Kimmel, David Letterman, Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Ricky Gervais, Quentin Tarrantino, a lot more talented humans above 40 and really, any human under 40.

BUT Leno has Paul Reiser and his son. All in all, pretty equal.

For the best response rebuttal to the Reiser-torial above, please listen to the AV's Hater podcast about it. I love the Hatecast so much, for consistently making it okay for me to really hate certain children.

New Review

Some Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be found here.

2010: Discovery!

Hi. I went to Mexico for a while. I am back now. I won't leave again! (I will).

I am working on an secret dinosaur project, which you will hear about later in the coming months. It involves dino-research. For now, I want to introduce you to an underrated paleontological chimera: the Achillobator. It's a late Cretaceous raptor, and it has a rad-sounding name, derived from a rad Greek warrior. According to one blog post I read about it, it could sail and made a profitable trade as a pirate. It's the kind of fact that nobody wants checked.

All hail 2010 Discovery #1: Achillobator!!!


Pictured next to...Mila Kunis? Regardless of what fashionable actress/model is being used as a scale, it's good to know she spent her last moments looking fab.

Discovery #2! While reading this important Slate article, I learned of the existence of conjoined twins Lazarus and Joannes Baptista Colloredo for the first time. Twins who resemble a royal card! I want to make a deck of cards that is asymmetrical - the top part is Lazarus, a kind of well-traveled, cavalier and handsome hustler, and the bottom being an insensate but irrefutably alive Joannes Baptista. The cards would have a tiny coat attached, to allow Lazarus to cover his brother up if the occasion called for it.

I love so many things about the Wikipedia page for these brothers. One line reads: "Contemporary accounts described Lazarus as courteous and handsome but for his brother who just dangled before him."

That's a huge "but." That's not like saying "He's cute, but he could use a little weight." It's "He's cute, but he could lose that other human being, uncommunicative, whose head and leg are dangling upside down from his chest."

"Hey, honey, this house is great! Except it's upside down and filled with wolverines."

This etching of the brothers is also incredible. Lazarus seems to be saying "What're you looking at?" And why shouldn't he say that to me? I can't condescend to him. He undoubtedly had a much richer and more adventurous life than I will lead. All respect to him, and his bro JB.

Conversely, he could be saying "Does this conjoined twin make me look fat?"