I found out last night that my friend Mike O’Donnell died the other day. I worked with him at the Gardens Ice House. It was his 38th birthday just this past weekend, and a bunch of people put messages to him on his Facebook page. It was quite a contrast to see those were followed directly by even more people shouting their final messages to him.
He was truly a good guy and someone I really considered a friend. We talked a lot, read the same books, knew a lot of the same people going back years, and enjoyed hockey. He gave me a Stephen King book, “The Dome,” which is about 1000 pages and was anxious for me to finish so we could talk about it (I regret to say that I haven’t started yet but I will soon). He’d scorekeep my games, tell me how boring they were. A few weeks ago he caught a guy lying about his identity during a game, and I came over and tossed the guy. He showed George McPhee a ballad I had written about him, then called to tell me that George liked it.
Mike kept life relatively simple. While driving him home a couple months ago, I asked him what he’s been up to. “Working and having fun,” he said. We were talking on the phone about benefits at work. I asked him if he was contributing to his 401k. He said no. Turns out, that was a good decision.
The second to last time I saw him, he got finished scorekeeping, put his backpack on, smiled and waved to me, then walked away as if he were going somewhere. For some reason, it struck me even then, subconsciously, that maybe he was. I saw him once again a few days later when he showed up for work after one of my games. Unfortunately, one of the last conversations I had in person with him was the time of his next games to scorekeep. We joked around on Facebook a couple times since when I found out that a lifelong friend of mine also knew him – from high school – and were still friends.
I’ll never forget him, and I’ll miss him. Rest in peace, Big Mike.
I applied for health insurance recently, with two different companies. Both denied me due to a ‘pre-existing condition’ which really was about an incident three years ago and routine maintenance ever since. I pose no threat to the bottom line of their company and am certain to make them income. But that’s not good enough. They want to insure people who will make NO CLAIMS. That’s business, after all.
What these two companies did will be illegal starting January, 2014.
Making it illegal to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions is probably one of the least-controversial parts of Obama’s health care legislation (unless, of course, you were an insurance lobbyist or someone who was getting paid by the insurance companies). So instead of having the law change in 2011, the compromise was 2014. So much good that does me now, huh?
Aetna’s sales staff – a company that I’ve been insured with since 2005 – was quite helpful in getting me the info to stay with Aetna after my previous insurance ran out. So I applied, and waited. Then a jerk named Erik Wheeler declined me. Aetna didn’t even bother to send me a letter to tell me – I had to find out by calling.
I truly hope that Erik Wheeler, and everyone in the insurance industry who work hard to keep taking advantage of the time before 2014, have horrible things happen to them.
These are terrible people and they should rot in hell. The law change in 2014 will help make these folks irrelevant but not until they get a taste of their own medicine will justice come.
Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm starts its eighth season this Sunday night. David said in an interview with us last year that he always aims for each season to be the last, and won’t announce when it will end to spare himself the pressure of prepping a typical series finale. This is likely a lesson he learned when Seinfeld‘s series finale got a meh rating from longtime fans.
But it’s got to end sometime, and each season finale could have easily been the series finale had David decided so. Let’s now rank the season finale endings, from worst to best.
7 Season 5 “The End”
While donating a kidney to Richard Lewis, Larry dies and goes to heaven, but gets in an argument with his guardian angels (Dustin Hoffman and Sacha Baron Cohen) over DVD covers and is subsequently sent back into his body.
Theoretically, this episode tied up all the loose ends and could have ended the series, but it would’ve been a disappointment.
6 Season 1 “The Group”
Cheryl is cast in the The Vagina Monologues; Larry runs into an old girlfriend who asks him to go to an incest survivors group with her which – coincidentally – is attended by the director of the show.
Season 1 didn’t have a story arc and the final episode didn’t tie anything together, but Larry pretending to be an incest survivor and having his falsely accused uncle walk in to meet the director led to major laughs.
Since it was only the first season, we didn’t expect this to be the series finale.
5 Season 4 “Opening Night”
Larry opens on Broadway with The Producers and forgets his lines during the performance, while Cheryl reminds Larry to cash in on his present before “midnight” of the opening.
Of course opening night was the final episode of the season, but it dragged on as it showed too much of the actual show. Larry winning back the crowd with lame stand-up was hardly believable, but learning that Mel Brooks was trying to sabotage his own show by casting Larry was certainly good for some chuckles. Larry on stage motioning to Cheryl that he still had a few minutes left to cash in on his “sleep with another woman” anniversary gift wasn’t overly hysterical, though the season itself had massive laughs as Larry kept failing.
Again, this episode tied up all the loose ends and the series could have ended here, but it would’ve been a disappointment.
4 Season 7 “Seinfeld”
Larry tries to win back Cheryl by writing her into the Seinfeld reunion script, and succeeds, ruins the moment by noticing it was her all along who was placing drinks on the table without a coaster, and proceeds to tattle on her just as they reconcile.
Though all the loose ends were tied up, and we got to see a Seinfeld reunion, something told us that this would definitely not be the final episode.
3 Season 2 “The Massage”
Celebrating a deal with CBS, Larry takes Cheryl out to a restaurant and keeps trying to bring food to the limo driver, gets caught stealing a fork and is sentenced to wear a sign outside the restaurant.
While this episode ends hilariously, we knew this wouldn’t be the end of the series.
2 Season 3 “The Grand Opening”
Larry hires a chef with Tourette Syndrome who starts cursing in the restaurant during the grand opening. The season ends with random people swearing loudly in the restaurant.
Like Larry’s punishment at the end of Season 2, Season 3’s cursing brigade would be a finale to remember but something told us it wouldn’t be the end. Too much else to cover.
1 Season 6 “The Bat Mitzvah”
Larry uses Jeff’s daughter’s Bat Mitzvah to clear up a nasty rumor, then falls in love with Loretta and seemingly lives happily ever after with the Blacks.
The series could have ended here and I would’ve been satisfied. The final montage of Larry as a family man with the Blacks is utterly hilarious. Sure, there’s no way he’d really ride off into the sunset that way, but the laughs he delivers are better than any season finale in either Curb or Seinfeld.
Trimeresurus flavoviridis or Habu pitviper (Wikimedia Commons)
I suppose it’s a miracle that both my grandfathers, serving in different parts of the world, survived World War II. While my paternal grandfather described his entire experience as ‘marching around Europe with a bayonet,’ my maternal grandfather, Albert Owens, opens up a bit more.
Now 85, he tells the story of his time in Okinawa as if it were yesterday. A marine at 17, he was wounded in 1945 at the age of 19.
Asleep in a pit, he says he felt something on him. He tried to brush it off, looked up, and felt as if he were punched in the face. He got up and left the hole, and told the others that ‘something funny was going on down in that hole.’ He thought it was a toad.
At this point, he couldn’t see out of his right eye. Someone shone a flashlight into the hole, saw a snake, and shot its head off.
The doctor couldn’t save my grandfather’s eye, and had to remove it before there were problems with the other one. He now has a glass eye.
The snake, which was poisonous, sank its fangs directly into my grandfather’s eyeball. Direct hit. Believe it or not, that likely saved his life because the blood vessels in the eye don’t lead out (I’m not exactly sure how it works but you get the idea). Had the snakebite happened on the eyelid, or the cheek, or the forehead, my grandfather might have died right there in that pit, he wouldn’t have gotten married and had kids and I wouldn’t be here today (because, you know, it’s all about me, haha.)
The snake was an Okinawan habu, and there was a farm nearby which collected them. He didn’t know why, nor did he care. But the Internet tells me why:
“On the island of Okinawa, this species is heavily collected, primarily for use in habu sake. Actually not sake, but a stronger liquor called awamori, it is alleged to have medicinal properties. The production includes the snakes in the fermentation process and it is sold in bottles that may or may not contain the body of a snake.“
That better be some good liquor.
My grandfather also tells me what he was doing just a day or two before he was blinded in his right eye for life. He was hunting a chicken.
South Park’s Eric Cartman is the most evil fictional character of all time. He hasn’t a single redeeming value, other than he makes us laugh at him. There’s no better way to measure evil than to match each of Dante’s seven deadly sins with his everyday actions.
luxuria (lechery/lust)
As a seven-year old, Cartman has yet to discover women. But lust isn’t just about sexual desires. Anything can be an object of our lust.
However, he has been caught doing things that could be considered lustful.
gula (gluttony)
Being the ‘big boned’ boy of South Park, gluttony is the worst of Cartman’s sins, particularly with cheesy poofs, pie, and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
avaritia (avarice/greed)
Cartman is very motivated by greed, and nothing will stop him from obtaining his prize. His plan of choice? Cheating.
acedia (acedia/discouragement/sloth)
Cartman typically keeps himself busy while trying to unveil yet another diabolical plan, but it’s not uncommon for him to take an opportunity to do absolutely nothing and make his mother tend to his every need.
ira (wrath)
The wrath of Cartman is well-documented. He gets upset and goes home in virtually every episode. But no one has suffered from his anger like this character:
It’s not just animals who suffer from Cartman’s wrath. Occasionally, he targets people, including hippies and Jews. And non-gingers, as we see here:
invidia (envy)
Cartman is not only envious of kids who have toys that he doesn’t have, but he’s determined to get toys so he can bask in the jealousy he expects from others.
superbia (pride)
Occasionally, while motivated by greed, Cartman will go to extremes to get what he wants, including dressing as a woman.
I found out last night that my friend Mike O’Donnell died the other day. I worked with him at the Gardens Ice House. It was his 38th birthday just this past weekend, and a bunch of people put messages to him on his Facebook page. It was quite a contrast to see those were followed directly by even more people shouting their final messages to him.
