If things break the right way, I could be wearing a totally cool patch. Like a pirate.

I got contacts like a month and a half ago, right before I flew out to Chicago. When I got back I had the doctor adjust my prescription, and he gave me a pair that was supposed to last me a month. That was five weeks ago. OK.

Here's the thing; I'm a lazy bastard, so I never went and got a new box of the contacts. I put mine in yesterday morning and it felt sort of normal, except the left eye was giving me a little trouble. But it didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary, so I just went to work.

After about two hours, the itchiness turned into some very low level pain, and I took my left contact out. It was partially torn. This was at like 10 am. But everything still seemed manageable, so I did a little research online and found the closest Wal-Mart. I don't like shopping there because of their labor problems, but I figure the contacts aren't made in a sweatshop and they offer really big rebates and stuff. The closest one is in Salem, like 20 minutes away.

At about noon I hopped in the car and head out there, and I found the smallest, most busted looking Wal-Mart you've ever seen. And there's no optometrist inside, so I figured I was screwed. But I decided to take a shot at the pharmacy anyway. While I was waiting for the one guy to come see me, my eye all of a sudden started bugging out. Like searing pain, all at once. I pulled the contact out, and it was completely torn apart. A whole huge side was missing, and presumably its floating behind my eyeball, because I could never find it.

The guy finally came over and I asked if they carry boxes of contact lenses. He said no. OK, where is there an eye place around here that would? He didn't know, because he lives "on the other side of the state." I swear to God he said that. Then he told me to ask the girl at customer service.

So I go over to customer service, and the girl (she was like 16) was ringing up customers, because this was the smallest most busted Wal-Mart ever. I finally get to her and asked where in the area I could get a contact lens prescription filled. Without looking at me, she says "try our pharmacy over there," and points back to where I came from. No, I explained, I talked to the pharmacist and he doesn't have contact lenses there.

She finally stopped and looked at me, and literally recoiled with disgust. This was the first indication I had that my eye at that point looked disgusting. She said to try the CVS up the street, which I knew absolutely wouldn't carry contact lenses. Thanks, I said, and left.

When I get to the car, I removed the other contact lens because walking around with just one was actually worse than nothing at all. Then I pulled down the visor mirror, and my eye looked like Sauron from the Lord of the Rings movie. I have never seen an eye that red and bloodshot in all my life. Wicked gross.

Of course, I went to CVS anyway, and sure enough they didn't have contacts, and suggested I try the mall. But I'm now 50 minutes into a one hour lunch break, and I have a 20-minute drive back to work. So I couldn't go to the mall.

I was forced to head back and wear the prescription sunglasses I keep in my car. Sunglasses in the office. I looked like a total jerk for the rest of the day. One friend helpfully offered to make me an eye patch. Everyone else just laughed at me. Supportive bastards.

Because really, what's a nation without borders?

The New York Times has accomplished what many have said could never be done: They have drawn the first true border between Red Sox and Yankee nations. It's a fun read, and the author takes an appropriately goofy tack in declaring any given town's allegiance, be it the sale of logo lighters, a flag on a far-off porch, or the say so of a diner operator.

And we're winning the war! All of Massachusetts is solidly behind the Sox, while there are enclaves of Sox territory in New York state. And the Sox have made a real beachhead across the Connecticut River, which was considered the traditional redoubt between Sox and Yankee country. For God's sake, we already control ESPN's headquarters! Can Waterbury be that far behind? It's like Island hopping to Japan in World War II; Bristol to Waterbury to New Haven to Bridgeport to-- Well, OK, maybe they can keep Bridgeport.

NESN: no sense of humor

So Youtube has taken the Dennis Leary video down, dammit. But AlterNet to the rescue! Hat tip to Jason at HappyScrappy for finding the new version. And a hat tip to Universal Hub and Andrew Sullivan for pointing me to this in the first place.

Dennis Leary is my hero

And don't forget Lenny Clarke, either. The two just roast Mel Gibson during last night's Red Sox game. Priceless.

UPDATE: So Youtube has taken the video down, dammit. But AlterNet to the rescue! Hat tip to Jason at HappyScrappy for finding the new version. And a hat tip to Universal Hub and Andrew Sullivan for pointing me to this in the first place.

This was my friends' apartment

Did you hear about the fire yesterday in Shrewsbury? My friends Seth and Allissa lived there. They got out OK, but one of their cats didn't make it. If you look at the photos, they lived on the top floor, where all the firefighters are walking around. The roof over their apartment collpased.

I drove out to see them last night, along with another friend. We stopped by the place before meeting up, and it was just stunning to see the damage and breathe in that smell of burning wood. Just awful.

Joe Lieberman: Using fear to win votes

Joe Lieberman is using yesterday's exposed terror plot for his own personal gain. It's absolutely vile:

"If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England. It will strengthen them and they will strike again."

So Joe's decided to make political hay by accusing his Democratic opponent of cutting and running in Iraq, a war which Joe says makes us safer from terrorist attacks like that one that was planned in England and exposed yesterday. And he doesn't understand why he's so closely linked to President Bush and VP Cheney. Sheesh.

Joe's statement is misguided in so many ways, we can actually list them out:

1. By Joe's logic, we should invade England and "take the fight to them" over there. These were British citizens who planned this attack, after all.
   
2. You can't level foreign policy rebukes in a pizza parlor. Or any place called a parlor for that matter. No discussion about the situation in Darfur while you're in line for a Fribble at Friendly's. Got it?
   
3. This quote: "How the heck can we be in a battle in which we are fighting as Democrats and Republicans against each other when these terrorists certainly don't distinguish based on party affiliation?" makes absolutely no sense. Democrats and Republicans are fighting "this battle," but "this battle" is the global war on terror, but it could be the war in Iraq, and we're fighting—literally, it seems—against each other, but we're also fighting the terrorists (or Iraqis), so we should stop physically harming ourselves, or…huh? I understand you're speaking extemporaneously, but seriously, didn't you review this in the car on the way over?
   
4. Maybe, when we defeat the terrorists, they will then decide to wage war as Independents.
   
5. Godwin's law is in effect: Joe used the Nazis to make his point. He loses the election and now owes everyone here a soda.
   
6. Department of redundancy department: All Soviets were communists, Joe.
   
7. Picking up and leaving in Iraq is a morale boost for terrorists. That's opposed to, say, keeping troops in Iraq to be killed by said terrorists.

Again with the helicopter moms!

Good God almighty, make it stop!

Apparently, the Globe can't. stop. talking. about. "Helicopter parents." Today's version of the same story: Parents have a hard time detaching themselves to kids at camp.

Stories of helicopter parents -- so called because they hover ever so close to
their children -- abound among baby boomers. Competitive, overbearing, and
unwilling to let go, they have changed the flavor of kindergarten enrollment,
Little League cheering sections, and college admissions. Now, 140 years after
the first privileged boys trekked out of grimy Northeastern cities and into the
woods for a season of fresh air and exercise, those parents are redefining the
way summer camps are run, too.

I'm not saying it isn't interesting, I'm just saying it loses value when you run the same damn story over and over. Enough already.

This all reminds me of Jack Shafer's fun thread on Slate, where he excoriates newspapers for running with stupid, uninformed articles about the non-present Meth explosion in our country. Seriously, Dan Kennedy, where are you on this?

They were still doing this?

OK, I understand that politicians are the most humorless people on Earth (save Barney Frank, of course), but really: After three-plus years, they were still calling them "freedom fries?"

The congressional cafeteria: Run by that uncle who tells the same joke at every Thanksgiving.

The Boston Globe: Same stories, year after year

The recent coup at the Globe has left the venerable newspaper in the hands of crazy old people from my neighborhood. They've struck again today, picking up an AP story from a far off place (New Haven) to reiterate the same point they made in an editorial last week and an article three weeks ago: Today's parent are super control freaks and their kids are mush-headed idiots:

They have researched discount textbook outlets, campus safety, even individual professors. But they are not honor students; they are not students at all. They are "helicopter" parents, so dubbed for their tendency to hover, prepared to swoop in at a moment's notice lest harm befall their progeny.

But it doesn't stop there, this lunacy dates back to last year, when the Globe reported about how today's parents, um, are super control freaks and their kids are mush-headed idiots.

Theories abound to explain the growing ranks of what administrators call ''helicopter parents" who hover over their offspring. Hypotheses range from the competitive frenzy over school success to the high cost of college education and the trend toward smaller families, in which children make decisions with their parents.

Perhaps it wasn't a coup after all, but an obsessed editor assigning and picking up stories on the same damn theme to fulfill her off-to-college article quota? Or the Boston Globe just out of ideas?

Whole state agencies bend to my will

How about that? I, the guy who gets like four visits a day to his site, somehow got the MBTA to change the not-really-a-password problem, which exposed the e-mail addresses submitted to an online survey. They even left a comment on my original post.

That's what you didn't know about me; I got pull.

For my next trick, I'll try to convince them to eliminate the proposed fare double-standard for people without Charlie Cards, to green light the promised red-blue connector, and to sell Meth to pay for basic maintenance. What do you say, guys?

OK, maybe not the Meth part. But hey, at least they were good enough to fix the loophole. Thank you. The problem, however, is now you can't see the results of the poll, either. If the powers that be at the MBTA (or their PR firm) are still reading over here, how about releasing the poll results for everyone to see? When you're done collecting the info, of course.

MBTA: e-mail snitches

So my buddy Rob decided to take the T Web site redesign survey yesterday. After he was done, he clicked on the link to see the overall results of the survey. That took him to a page asking for a password.

Most people would quit there, but Rob's a daredevil. He tried the first thing he could think of as a password for the MBTA: Charlie. It worked.

And what Rob found was the survey results, along with the e-mail addresses of everyone who submitted the info to the survey.

Yes, that's a small transgression, and the worst that'll happen is some harvester will collect those addresses and send people more spam, but seriously: The T couldn't take some step to protect this information? Yeesh. And why have a password at all if its going to be so damn easy to figure out? It's like using your own name or "money" for your ATM card.

But it was interesting to see what people would like to see on the T Web site. The best suggestions: T maps overlaid with street maps, the ability to recharge CharlieCards online, and overall suggestions to simplify the design.

The best snarky sugesstion (via Jason): "Here is, so far, my favorite response to the question of what should be on its new website: 'Why we have such poor service'"

Shut-in grandmas stage bloodless coup on Morrissey Blvd

Where's Dan Kennedy when you need him? It appears that the editorial board of the Boston Globe has been deposed and a new junta of retirees from my neighborhood has taken control of the paper. I came to this conclusion after reading the paper's editorial on all those spoiled kids going to their fancy colleges:

At the moment, this is a generation that lacks the common sense to stay off
deadly train tracks or campus rivers when they're icy. A generation that can't
seem to make decisions without texting home, and whose helicopter parents -- so
named for their hovering ways -- have actually begun negotiating salaries with
job recruiters on their kids' behalf.

The evidence of the grandmotherly coup:

1. They're complaining about crank kids and their too-fussy mommas.
   
2. The story they refer to ran in the paper two weeks ago. All my uncles complain about stuff they read or saw "on the TV" two weeks ago.
   
3. It appears as though they nodded off for a nap around the fifth graf.
   
4. They've taken a point I initially agreed with and nagged about it to the point where I take the other side just to be stubborn. I am six years old again.
   
5. Word has it tomorrow's editorial will be about "those goddamned squirrels getting into the bird feeder again. Those seeds are for THE BIRDS!"

Chicago, good friends, good ballpark, terrible fans

It's been a while, I know. I was lazy, and then I was on vacation. Sorry about that.

I went to Chicago last week for a vacation. I have a bunch of friends out there, although oddly almost none were originally from the city. It's a great city to visit, and I go pretty often.

My friend Molly performed with her sketch comedy troupe at a benefit show. She was great, as were some of the other groups. But others were awful. What was the worst? The headlining act for this battered women's charity event was called "Pimprov." Seriously.

I also saw a buddy's reading. My friend Jonathan runs "The Dollar Store." It's a monthly reading of stories inspired by items bought at—wait for it—a dollar store. Really fun.

I also saw The Grackles (a friend's band) play, and went to the aquarium. And ate like a bastard. Good trip.

Lots of my friends out there are going through some personal shit, and I won't exploit that stuff here. And I don't have a lot of pictures, because I'm stupid and forgot my camera every time I went out. So let me tell you about the Cubs game I went to.

The park, once you're in your seat, is awesome. I was on the first base side, so I had a great view of the Budweiser house and home bleacher sections neighbors put up. The ivy really does give the park a different feel, too.

But some stuff was bad. They have a hand-operated scoreboard, which is cool, but the information on the board was all over the place and hard to read. Plus, a lot of pertinent information, like the pitcher's line and stuff, was no where to be found. Lousy.

And the fans were all kind of stiffs. I was told repeatedly by friends out there that people only go to Cubs games to drink Old Styles and be seen by other people, and it's totally true. They knew more about baseball than the awful fans in San Francisco, but still weren't into the game.

Get well soon, Peter Gammons

Terrible news: Peter Gammons, the finest baseball writer of this generation, had surgery to repair a brain aneurysm on Tuesday. It's a topic that hits close to home with me, because my father died of a hemmorage in his brain. Bob Ryan wrote the news linked above. I know Ryan is a close friend with Gammons, but I still am a bit unnerved by the obit tinge of the piece.

Get well, soon, Peter.

Three things

1. My buddy Jason had an op-ed run in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel yesterday, where he explains how he got his high school to stop forcing kids to stand for the pledge of allegiance. He makes the point perfectly; respect for our freedom has to include the freedom to keep your seat.
2. Remember how I said Barney Frank dug knuckle-deep into his nose on national TV? There's video evidence on youtube.
3. Enough of the waiting; Build the goddamned parks! I swear, I must be the last guy in the commonwealth who still likes the Big Dig project, but they're starting to lose even me.

Mitt Romney: cowardly hack

Brian McGrory batters the Hell out of Mitt Romney in today's Globe for skipping out on the Tip O'Neill Tunnel dedication:

Could it be that he's still sulking over the fact that Congress flicked aside
his efforts to assign the main portion of the Big Dig the completely white-bread
name, ``The Liberty Tunnel"?
Could it be that he's so partisan that he can't
take a couple of hours out of his day to honor the memory of one of the great
Democratic leaders to come from this state, a truly significant national figure?
Or could it be that his presidential aspirations have made him so
knock-kneed that he's afraid to be associated in any way at all with the
so-called liberal politicians from Massachusetts, especially as he's performing
for a national Republican audience?
Take your pick. One's as bad as the
other. A classless partisan or a political coward -- you decide.

McGrory has been hit or miss lately, but this piece is dead-on-balls accurate about how craven Mitt Romney really has become. Think back to before he ran for governor, and how he had plotted to take Utah's top executive job. This was never about Massachusetts or being an effective governor, it was about raising his profile. And now, as he panders to the right, he's making the same classic mistake most would-be candidates make; He appears feckless and petty. And by yesterday's performance, we now know it isn't just an appearance.

Tony Maz: He-man woman hater

Wow, Tony, take it easy! I know it must be hard for you, a reporter, sitting up in the press room, filling your face with lobster and drink, to look down and see pretty college-aged girls sitting where fat bastards like me used to be, but seriously; It's not that bad.

Yeah, they can be annoying, but so were fans in the park before all these fair weather kids came rolling in. And it's always been impossible to get seats at Fenway. When I'm shut out of the game, it doesn't matter who's sitting in the park instead. I hate them all, equally, as God intended.

And the cell phone thing? Are you serious? Generally, it's rich season ticket holders and their buddies who sit behind home and wave at the camera while on the phone. How many pink hats sit back there? Really, Tony, you're a great writer, but let's learn to pick our fights a little better, n'kay?

What a snitch!

What's up with this lady? Some gas station made a mistake and was selling premium gas for 32.9 cents instead of $3.29. And this lady called 911 -- nine-one-one! -- to tell the cops! The station owner would have picked up on this anyway, so why screw everybody else? Maybe it's because I'm from Revere, but that ain't right...

Welcome back, Heraldites

Pat Purcell has taken the chains off his columnists, so we can again read them for free on the Herald's Web site.

 

It's about damn time. This is a great move by the Herald, and it's great news for Boston in general.

 

What we had before were these Herald columnists, putatively the voices of working class Boston, locked up in a caste system style Web site where you had to pay more for their wit and wisdom. Excuse me? No one really discussed these guys anymore. When you would hear the talk on the radio (Oddly dominated in our market by Herald people), you couldn't follow up by going to the Herald's Web site and reading the column. That's bunk.

 

Here's the thing: Columnists grow in value as they grow in influence. The more people talk about a columnist and her work, the more readers that columnists gets. So walling them off behind a subscription ransom is completely counter intuitive. You effectively separate the columnist from any chance at hooking new readers. These writers are the bait for the newspaper. You give them away for free to draw eyes. And dollars.

 

You want a better example? Look at TimesSelect. Who really talks about Maureen Dowd anymore? Paul Krugman? No one online, at least. These columnists used to dominate the "most requested" page on nytimes.com. Look now, as of Thursday morning, there's one Times select piece in the top 25 most e-mailed stories. There are none on the "most blogged" list.

 

Newspaper still view the net as a threat, because they can't figure out how to make money off the thing. But that's just a lack of imagination. Newspapers must find a way to make the Internet work for them, because it's so clearly their future. Stop stop whining about Craigslist and do something about it. Localized vertical searches are a good start, but Google will catch up. Keep innovating. And keep the columnists out in the open!

 

*Full disclosure: I used to work for Community Newspaper Company when it was owned by Purcell.

Barney Frank digs deeper into FBI raid, own nose

Barney Frank: How can you not love this guy? He's smart, witty, and a damned effective legislator. He's one of the few guys left who was never ashamed of being liberal, and that's my kind of guy. So it should not have surprised anyone that Frank came out against his party leadership and decried all the criticism of the FBI for raiding Rep. William Jefferson's office.

But I will say this: If you're going on national television to explain your position, don't pick your nose. Frank was on MSNBC's Countdown last night, and after giving a great answer about why he's bucking the trend and supporting the FBI's actions, he got right in there and buried his finger up to the first knuckle. The show cut back to a single shot of fill-in host Brian Ungar, but it was way too late.

Unfortunately, there's no film yet on the countdown Web site. But it totally happened.