Remember when we had a President who could string together three words without following it with an eight second pause?

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/24/clinton-video/

I think you all should watch this. (Sorry about the sound quality.) I don’t bring this up to be partisan – the Democrats certainly have their own faults. I’ll admit, I never considered Mr. Clinton the smartest guy in the world when he was in office, but it’s funny what six years of perspective can do. And I think he has a point – why hasn’t the current administration done more to catch Bin Laden? If they’re going to conduct a smear campaign against Clinton (one that contradicts documented statements that, while in office, they considered him obsessed with Bin Laden), why aren’t the questions being asked of them? Why haven’t we caught Bin Laden, if it’s such a big deal?

Ahh, I could go nuts talking about this stuff. The video is worth watching if only to remind us that we once had a President who didn’t pout like a three-year-old about to tantrum. Someday, I hope, we’ll have another.

okay, it’s friday, and i know something is off-kilter because i just found myself rather enlightened by an interview with jason whitlock.  kill me now.

(**editor’s note:  alex just sent me the same link, saying [basically] the same thing.  we ate too much spam as children.  carry on.)

back in minneapolis after a two-day tour in new york, new york, the city so nice they named it twice.  (the other name is manhattan.)  it was a quasi-boondoggle, highlighted by a walking tour of brokerage and commercial banks in downtown manhattan on wednesday afternoon.  it was exactly five years ago that i first visited manhattan, and– needless to say– the mood was quite different this time.  oh, another highlight:  riding in the limo past 30 rockafeller and seeing jason lee standing outside.  EARL HICKEY!

anyways…  topic.  oh, right:  let’s do something easy.

the twins were briefly tied for first place in my absence before johan choked last night against the bosox.  which, yes, is uncharacteristic and unfortunate.  however, a) we didn’t lose any ground to detroit, and 2) we hopefully quelled all of the needless “Johan for MVP” talk.  this topic has been up for debate quite a bit recently, but not here yet.  so here’s why johan should not be this year’s american league MVP:

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a handful of interesting notes today, but because i’m trying to be less ADD, we’ll stick to one:  happen to catch Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip last night?  sara and i did, although nearly by accident:  we tuned in to NBC at 9, assuming we’d see the season premiere of Medium– turns out that isn’t starting until january.  so, we watched Studio 60 instead.  and it was flat-out  amazing.

firstly, i had wanted to watch this show because of the aaron sorkin connection.  (i’d just spaced the fact that it was on last night, so actually seeing it was fortuitous– that means lucky.)  anyhoo, sorkin and producer thomas schlamme were responsible for sports night and much of the west wing, the former being top five in my all-time favorite shows, and my expectations were fairly high.  when the credits rolled at the end, i believe i started clapping and said “woo hoo,” (and only part of that was the rum) so you know what i thought of it.

i won’t regurgitate the plot– you can read that on wikipedia or imdb.  i will tell you what i thought worked, though:

• dialogue.  this is standard sorkin, but he’s such a master.  you have to concentrate to make sure you don’t miss anything, but it’s so intelligent that it’s worth the effort.
• cast.  check it.  other than matthew perry (and arguably amanda peet), no huge names– but a lot of great actors.  speaking of…
• perry.  i was pretty skeptical of his ability to be anyone beyond chandler bing (or mrs. chanandler bong).  he was chandler-like funny in a couple of spots, but also sold the dramatic bit really nicely.  impressive, and i look forward to seeing more.
• intangibles.  (yes, i sound like mel kiper.)  the music fit the scenes nicely.  and- i rarely notice this- but the camera work was fantastic.  there’s a scene near the end where perry and bradley whitford are about to address the cast and crew of the show, and there’s a 360-degree spin around them that really worked.

if you missed the pilot, you can catch it tomorrow night on bravo at 10…

For those of ye who weren’t aware, today be International Talk Like A Pirate Day. 

If ye be needing a refresher on Pirate, click here. 

Or here.

‘Tis truly a fine day to speak like the Pirates!  Yarrrrrr!!!!

a glance at my desk drawer would quickly show you that i’m not really, well, organized.  that’s been the case since childhood; many of my worst grades came in the “Keeps Desk Neat and Orderly” category.  (well, that and penmanship, but even then i knew that keyboards were the way of the future.)  i’ve really never been the type to take the extra couple of minutes to put something away in an orderly fashion– just throw x (where x can equal post-it notes, screwdrivers, or pants) near where it needs to go and worry about it later.  thus, i find clutter and chaos in multiple areas of my world.  to wit:

• basement.  ever since we moved, the rough side of the basement has been the target for anything big and bulky and otherwise homeless in our home.  which is somewhat appropriate (it has shelves just for such a purpose), but now i can’t really move around in there without knocking over a box of books or christmas ornaments.
• file cabinet.  i don’t really throw anything away.  time warner invoice from 2005?  got it.  slumberland receipt from 1998?  yup.  musicland receipt from 1989?  you bet.  (the latter is from my purchase of Living Colour’s self-titled release.)
• iPod.  when it takes longer to navigate to the song than it does to play it, i need help.
• my desktop.  no.  really.

as a prototypical westerner, i don’t place much value in the chinese belief system of feng shui.  i don’t believe that different directions have different energies, nor do i believe placing objects in a room in relation to those directions have an impact on, well, anything.  however, i think one of the more practical guidelines of feng shui has a great amount of value:  avoid clutter.  it’s amazing to me how much at-ease i am when i come in to a cleared desk in the morning.  or how much less i dread going to my garage after cleaning and organizing it a couple of weeks ago.  when something is messy, i spend a lot of mental energy thinking about how i should clean it, vs. the task at hand.  and, baby, that ain’t no way to live.

so i started last night, with the file cabinet.  four shred-stuffed garbage bags later, i’m down to a reasonable amount of old papers.  reasonable enough that i can actually organize them now, which seemed too daunting of a task previously.  and it felt…  really liberating.  shockingly so.

i’m not going to become a neat freak; it’s just not in my nature.  but i might try to actually stick to the rules that i give my daughter; namely, put something away when you’re done with it.  it only took me 30 years to learn that.