Why is Linsanity My Favorite Sports Story of All Time?

If Jeremy Lin had been around to Linspire me, this picture may have contained a hardwood floor, some high tops, and maybe even a ball of some sort.

If you're like me, an Asian American from the Bay Area who attended a decent school, broke his ankle in high school, and went undrafted by the NBA, you can easily relate to the Jeremy Lin story. If you're not, apparently you can still follow the story just as closely. I've been fascinated by how the nation--nay, the world--has reacted to the Taiwanese-American who attended Harvard and rode the bench and slept on sofas and then exploded onto largest sports media market in the country by leading a lagging New York basketball franchise back from a horrendous slide. The New York Knicks were 8-15, having lost eleven of their last thirteen game, when Jeremy Lin won his first game with them. Lin helped them win eight of their next ten games, taking out the Lakers and the reigning Champions, the Dallas Mavericks. Sports analysts are now debating which round the Knicks will make it to in the playoffs.

This is my favorite sports story line since watching Hoosiers, and a movie script will certainly be written about Jeremy Lin. (I sincerely hope they come up with a better title than "Linsanity!") However, you can't beat watching the story develop in real time in real life. They story is compelling because it is a true underdog story that transcends basketball and makes the improbable seem plausible.

What makes Jeremy Lin a Classic Underdog Story?

At its heart, this is an underdog story, which is why it's so captivating. But what makes an underdog? I can think of four common elements to the underdog story: overcoming Linsurmountable odds (yes, you will find an easy pun here and there--it's Linevitable), achieving success (often of a non-traditional flavor), having a relate-able and humble protagonist, and challenging the idea that an athlete should fit a specific mold. Not all great sports stories have all four elements, but the Jeremy Lin story does.

The first element is overcoming long odds, which requires perseverance in the face of great adversity. Just getting to the NBA, let alone turning around a team, is improbable enough for an individual. Lin's chance to prove himself was an unlikely event because he was not recruited, drafted, or retained by two teams. In the section below, I go into much more detail about how a confluence of many events created a perfect atmosphere for the Lin story. The only events that could have made it more compelling are if A) he had survived a life threatening medical procedure, B) risen out of abject squalor, C) won a battle with addiction and/or old age, or D) all of the above. The bottom line is that Lin had to wait for his chance and was close to giving up on his dream of playing in the NBA. Luckily, he stuck with it, and it's worked out pretty well for all of us so far.

The second element of the underdog story is success, often with a modified definition. Rudy never led his team to a National Title; Billy Beane didn't win the World Series; the Jamaican Olympic Bobsled Team failed to win gold. They were all stories of success though. Jeremy Lin doesn't have to carry his team to a Championship. In the past two weeks, he's already achieved success, which was the turnaround of the Knicks, the rejuvenation of a franchise and a city's basketball hopes, and making regular people care about the regular season of the NBA. Sure, we may hope he takes the Knicks all the way and wins a bunch of rings, but it almost doesn't matter because he's already won us over.

The third element of the underdog story is a protagonist with whom people can identify. Sports fans want athletes who share something with them. It's why you root for the home team or your country of origin. People want want to see a team full of people like them win. While it may be an absurd connection, it's a connection that creates an emotional investment in the game. That's why Christians root for Tebow, upstate New Yorkers root for Jimmer Fredette, and alumni root for athletes from their schools. Of course, if the athlete is exceptional, it makes it easier to root for him or her.

As I alluded to at the beginning of this post, I have a lot of things in common with Jeremy Lin, which makes it very easy for me to root for him. I'm Asian American, grew up in the Bay Area, tried out for my high school basketball team, got a degree from a decent school, broke my ankle in high school, wear socks, have been to New York City, am male, etc. Heck, Lin was literally playing ball down the street from where I worked while he was in high school. I probably drove by him on my way home. It's easy for me to see him as a better, more successful version of me, which makes it very easy for me to hope he does well. But what about everybody else? I think people are drawn to his struggle and success, but beyond that, I'm not really sure what makes him relate-able to everybody else. Do they like his humility? Maybe they are drawn to the simple fact that he was unlikely to make it so far and be so successful. Or maybe they like him because he defies their expectations of what a pro baller should look like.

The fourth element of an underdog story is that the underdog challenges people's expectations. Football players should be big; small towns, schools, or budgets should not be able to field enough talent to win a championship; tropical countries should not be able to compete in the Winter Olympics. Basketball players are usually tall, black, maybe white, and not Ivy League graduates. Jeremy Lin isn't short, but he's also a minority on the court in the way he looks and the academic path he took. To me, his race is a big part of this story. I think if all things were the same but he were black, he wouldn't have hit the news cycle as big. I think if he were white, it would have been a slightly bigger story, but not as big as if he were Asian. We expect black players to dominate the league.

Lin's race is the most apparent way he defies what we expect NBA players to be, and it makes him easier to follow on the court. Of course, he had to have some skills and help his team win a lot; those are the minimum requirements of this story line. The fact remains that we have not seen an Asian American of Chinese or Taiwanese descent in the league, which makes Jeremy Lin a novelty of sorts. I think he gives Asian American kids a great role model, and if he had been around when I was in high school, I may have chosen a different sport. I'm not saying I'd be in the NBA right now (though it's pretty likely), but I definitely would have tried harder to get into Harvard undergrad. Lin is obviously a pretty good player, but the fact that he is forcing all of us to reevaluate our notion of who can be a good player is an element of the story that most of us find appealing. He even inspired SNL to make a moderately funny skit about race--I know, shocking.

A Perfect Storm Provides a Perfect Chance

Back to the first element of the underdog story: overcoming long odds. The likeliness of Jeremy Lin playing, let alone starting, for the Knicks was so Linfinitesimal that I would have given you 10:1 odds that on Rudy was more likely to wear a Notre Dame jersey. I would also have bet on Seabiscuit, the 1980 US Olympic Hockey Team, Rocky Balboa, Hickory high school basketball, the cash-strapped Oakland A's, the South African rugby team, and the Jamaican Olympic bobsled team before I bet on Jeremy Lin to start. If you can get all those sports movie references, I'll buy you some Lingonberry jam at IKEA next time we're there together. That's not a pun, it's a real thing.

First of all, neither of Lin's parents were over 5'6", but he's 6'3". According to the myeh source of Wikipedia (which a lot of this Lin history is from--this is a blog, what do you expect?), the average height of an NBA point guard is 6'1", and they are the shortest players on the court. Lin was lucky that his maternal side had some height and he was fed enough to have it realized. Then this kid grew up in the Bay Area, which we all know is a huge disadvantage. If you hadn't noticed, those of us who grew up in the Bay Area are intelligent, athletic, charming, emotionally stable, virile, considerate, sensitive, creative, trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, and most of all, very, very humble. Huh, I guess it's not a disadvantage. Anyway, Lin played good basketball in high school but did not receive any scholarship offers from colleges. He decided to go to Harvard, which is like the Stanford of the east for those of you who have not heard of it. Harvard now has a total of THREE players EVER who played in the NBA, according to ESPN, the last of which played in 1954. After that, Lin was not considered desirable enough to be drafted by the NBA, but after some workouts with some teams, he received some offers to ride suit up and ride some pine.

He went to Golden State, where he was third string behind a player who was runner-up for Rookie of the Year the previous year and a second player who was so good that he was drafted out of high school. Three times that season, he was sent to the NBA minor leagues, where he improved, and was then called back up. Enter the NBA lockout, where the current season was threatened by players and owners wanting more money from each other. The result was that basketball leagues in other countries started looking at the US players to recruit. Lin was close to signing a deal days before the lockout ended on November 26, 2011.

Lin got dumped onto the waiver wires by the Warriors on December 9, where the Rockets picked him up on December 12, only to later put him back on the waiver wire for the Knicks to grab him on December 27. Some sportscasters mention that the Rockets were only forced to do this because the NBA commissioner made an unpopular decision to block a trade that would have sent two of the guards above Lin on the depth chart somewhere else. I'm not convinced the dates work out, but it adds to the story if true. In New York, he slept on his brother's couch then his teammate's couch as he was also buried on the depth chart behind two point guards who I think were only playing because the two guards ahead of them were injured. He only got a chance to play because the Knicks were playing so poorly against the Celtics and the coach decided to give him a chance.

So, about three months ago, Lin was looking to sign with another team on another continent. In the last two months and change, he's been on the payroll of three teams. One month ago, he was buried behind two to four other guards.

Everything in life fell into place for Lin to end up in New York, which is a key place in the story. New York City has the largest TV market in the country. It also has at least two teams nearby for each of the four major sports (Giants, Jets, Yankees, Mets, Knicks, Nets, Rangers, Islanders--I guess hockey missed the memo to have a team that ends with "ets"). I'm not sure most New Yorkers care about regular seasons of sports unless its football (even then, I'm not sure they really, really care like Detroit or Cleveland or Chicago fans--cities put upon by championship droughts/dearths). But sports are prevalent in New York, meaning New York is the place where a story like this is most likely to make headlines and make them fast. Also playing into this story is the fact that the NBA lockout led to a shorter, more compact season in which games are played more frequently. The result is an accelerated news cycle where people don't have to wait as long between games to see how Jeremy Lin does in his next game.

Let's not ignore the timing of the story as it fell into the news cycle either. February is super boring for the sports fan. The Super Bowl early in the month is the end of substantial football talk, pro or college, until the draft in April. You've got hockey, college hoops, and hockey steadily working towards their playoffs and March Madness, but those seasons are so long, they are hard to follow closely until the playoffs. No tennis or golf majors in February. The interminable baseball season hasn't even begun. The Super Bowl was on February 5. Jeremy Lin made his first mark on February 4 when he dropped 25 points on the Nets in a win. He only saw substantial minutes in this game because a fellow player suggested to the coach to let Lin play. Lin started for the Knicks in a win on the 6th, and won his third game on the 8th. At that point, it was the considered a trend. The timing in sports news cycles could not have been much better. It didn't hurt that the story followed Tebow mania, which elicited a lot of comparisons (most of which are unwarranted in my opinion).

The bottom line is that Lin took an incredibly low-probability, nontraditional path to play in the NBA. Through a series of unlikely events that broke his way, he persevered to make the most of his one big shot and become the sensation he has humbly embraced. He could have thrown in the towel, but he didn't and now a lot of people are talking about him and cheering him. Like all underdogs, he inspires people to stick out the bad times because things could work out in the end. I guess you don't have to be like me to relate to Lin.

Why are the Grammys the Best Awards Show?

The Grammys introduced me to country duo The Civil Wars.

Watching the Grammys this year left me feeling pretty satisfied, moreso than the Super Bowl, the College Football Championship, or the Golden Globes (but those are pointless). I realized that the Grammys are good because they are pretty much a big concert with some awards, as opposed to an awards show with a few montages (Oscars) or a funny host (Golden Globes) or musical numbers (Oscars and Tonys--I've never watched the Tonys, so I'm guessing here) or whatever the Emmys have. I watched most of the Grammys this year and thought there were some really good moments, unlike years past when the most memorable moments were a soaked Pink doing acrobatics, poor Taylor Swift having to sing next to Stevie Nicks, or Kanye being a D bag. Though there were a number of good moments, there were a few that made me wonder why aging musicians have to keep going, why a domestic abuser is able to win an award, and why were there nuns in Nicki Minaj's number.

Let's start with the good. There were three moments that had me rapt. Adele's live performance made it obvious that she should win all the awards she did. Even though I would have rather seen her perform "Someone Like You" over "Rolling in the Deep", I was thoroughly impressed. You can really tell the good from the bad in live performances (when they actually sing). You could also see this when Jennifer Hudson performed a tribute to Whitney Houston by singing "I Will Always Love You". It was eerie when it started. I thought they had computer generated Whitney and projected her. But no, it was just Jennifer Hudson singing a tribute to somebody who I imagine was one of her idols growing up. A pretty powerful piece. The third performance that I found most mesmerizing was by The Civil Wars, a country duo who opened for Taylor Swift. Their harmonies were rainbows in my brain--or something like that. They were amazing when they performed a little of "Barton Hollow" live. They also do a sick version of Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean" on YouTube. The other notable moment was Foster the People doing a Beach Boys cover. Their harmonies were pretty sweet as well, a fair bit better than Maroon 5's, even though I'm a fan of Adam Levine's.

Now, for the bad. First of all, no high profile domestic abuser like Chris Brown, who physically beat another Grammy performer Rihanna, should be allowed to perform or given an award a mere THREE YEARS after his history of abuse came to light. I enjoy a good redemption story (I don't mind seeing Michael Vick do well), but there is no way three years is enough for Chris Brown to repent enough for nearly killing a woman. What a despicable human being and what a horrible thing to award him for anything at all. Grammys, you really screwed the pooch on that one. If you really want to be incensed by it, check out this article.

I'm sure the person arranging the acts thought it would be awesome to have the Beach Boys and a Beatle back to back. Unfortunately, it made me think that the California crew was too old to be on stage, let alone singing, and that Paul McCartney was quickly headed that direction. His new song was not quite "Yesterday", but then again, he is probably the person who set the bar higher for everybody, including himself, and made their lyrics sound like a sixteen-year old wrote them (unless that adolescent is Taylor Swift, who I honestly think is a decent song writer--at least on her first album). When there was a jam session with Paul, Bruce Springsteen, and four other famous aging guitarists, I thought one of them might pop a heart string and have to be carted off the stage if it went on much longer. Six old rockers (not a group known for their healthy lifestyles) straining to play like they did in their youth all in one spot; I thought odds were pretty good that an ambulance would be required. The whole thing made me wonder why we keep calling for old musicians to keep at it for so long. I think it ruins some of the nostalgia we associate with their music and makes us feel old in the process.

Finally, Nicki Minaj performed. If you saw it, I think you can understand my reaction: huh? It wasn't controversial enough to be interesting or good enough to make any sense at all. It had some nuns and some hand cuffs and a lot of running around. It was like really, really bad Gaga or Madonna. I actually wanted to hear her do a little more rapping because I thought that was kind of interesting, possibly because it reminded me of Busta Rhymes. Next time, Nicki, a little less writhing and a little more rapping. I'm pretty sure I needed to be a lot drunker to understand what was happening on that stage.

Overall, I give the Grammys a thumbs up despite being downright offensive on the Chris Brown decision and letting Katy Perry perform (though I have found zero people who dislike her as much as I do). There were some moving moments, and I'm now a huge fan of The Civil Wars. So, if you had a choice between watching the Super Bowl and its really unimaginative commercials this year and the Grammys, you should have watched the people who were probably dorks in high school rather than the ones who were jocks.

Why can't people properly combine words?

Cockapoos have a name that violates my rule for combining words and my sensibilities.

In an age of burgeoning mass media and 24-hour news, companies are vying for the attention of customers and potential subscribers. One of the methods employed by these parties is the generation of catchy new words. Adding letters or numbers (iPhone 4S), re-spelling words (Wii U), or mashing multiple words into one (Groupon or Comcast) are the common ways to create these words. Here, I am going to act as the Word Mashing Police and explain why the best new words are formed from combining words according to my easy-to-follow rule.

The Rule: The two original words must be combined at a vowel with the same sound, not the same consonant or the same vowel by spelling--vowel sound when it's said. For example, if you see an awesome sunset, you can call it an "awesunset". If something is freaking easy, you can say it's "freasy". If you are selling group coupons, you are selling "groupons". See, successful companies follow my rule.

Words that are formed from combining two words actually have a name. "Portmanteau" is a "word or morpheme whose form and meaning are derived from a blending of two or more distinct forms" according to Merriam-Webster. There are no real rules for making them, and people tend to simply jam two or more words together willy-nilly without a thought about the people interpreting the new words. I would argue that my rule makes it easier to understand the meaning of the new word without the context.

Let's look at some examples that work. Who is part of Brangelina? Brad + Angelina. Bennifer? Ben + Jennifer (Lopez or Garner--I don't know what either saw/sees in him). Is somebody your friend and enemy? Frenemies. Documentary that mocks? Mockumentary. What would you call a mix of a frappe and cappuccino? What would you call a radar-like ability to sense who is gay? Cars jammed up, bringing the end of the world (to people in LA)? Texting about sex? Internet etiquette? Bombay's Hollywood? Romantic comedy about guys as close as bros? Hacker who is an activist? Frappuccino, gaydar, Camageddon, sexting, netiquette, Bollywood, bromance. (I admit that I hadn't made the Bombay Hollywood connection until I read it, but I bet it'll be easier to remember where in India Bollywood is now if you didn't know.) These portmanteaus all follow the rule. As you may note, it's even better if the entirety of one word can be included. The advantage of this type of portmanteau is that a person is more likely to be able to infer the original two words without knowing the context and thus have a better chance of immediately understanding the meaning. There are even some companies that know how to do it right. A name like "Groupon" is easy to figure out: Group + coupon. Cinemax: Cinema + maximum. See, it's freasy!

Wikipedia provides some other company names that I consider lesser portmanteaus. You thought Comcast and Verizon were bad at providing good service at a reasonable price; they also are bad at following my rule. Take a guess at what words are the basis of those two companies' names. According to Wikipedia, Comcast is formed from combining "communications" and "broadcast" (but literally translated, comcast would be "to throw with", adding a layer of confusion). Verizon is a combination of "veritas", which means "truth", and "horizon". I'm pretty sure "veritas" is not pronounced "ver-eye-toss". Accenture? Accent + future. If you didn't immediately deduce these words from the brand names, I would argue that they are vastly inferior portmanteaus. They may as well have created completely new words. Comcast should have just called itself "Theworst" or "Customerhater" so we can really understand what the company is.

I also have issues with a number of other portmanteaus that have made it into common usage. While I enjoy a good brunch (I like any breakfast that includes non-breakfast elements), I'm not a fan of the word. I cringe when people say "linner", especially because it's so easy to just call it "lupper" (lunch + supper). Yeah, we can argue about the difference between dinner and supper, but they are the same to me. I think sporks are a genius invention but think the name is stupid. Skorts: glad they didn't really catch on so we don't have to say that word any more. Everybody hates smog, and you should hate the word as well. It's supposedly smoke + fog--and no, it doesn't work just because of the "o" sound, which is long in one word and short in the other, just like spoon + fork doesn't work. Same goes for Jeggings: you should hate the word and the item. I've used the term ginormous but will try to avoid it in the future because it is redundant and violates my rule. Chillax is also redundant and super lame.

People also like to tack the names of different languages onto the word "English" to describe speaking a mix of the two: Chinglish, Spanglish, Franglish. Ugh. I understand the need for words describing these blends, and I even think it's incredibly appropriate to combine the two words to describe a mixing of two languages. However, they don't flow off my tongue like Hinglish (Hindi), Singlish (Singaporean), or even Swahinglish (Swahili), though that last one is borderline. I will make an exception to the rule for languages because the portmanteaus formed are so perfectly apropos. However, I cannot extend the same exception to dog breeds. I understand that dog breeders are limited by the actual breeds they marry, but I am not a fan of the names "puggle" (is that a mix between a pug and a muggle?), "labradoodle", and "cockapoo" (even if this name did follow the rule, why would call something you want somebody to love cockapoo?). I say give the dogs some dignity and call them mutts or half breeds. Or dodgepodge? Canybrid (long "a" sound)?

I will conclude by saying that if you find yourself cramming two words together that don't follow my strict rule, you should consider abortmanteau'ing and just using two words.

Why is "Fantasy" Football not a dream come true?

My best score of the season. The team name is because every team I root for loses.

Fantasy Football provides an immediate topic of bonding between males through the sharing of virtual war stories: "Yeah, then Vick got concussed, Jackson's ankle got jacked, and with the whole front line of the Chiefs decimated . . . My whole team was wiped out." I finished my first season of Fantasy Football last week, but I was left wondering where the "Fantasy" part was. I ended up sixth in my league (out of eight), and that was after pulling a Tebow the last week: the clouds parted and three miracles occurred simultaneously. Even though I was ecstatic to make the playoffs by the flukiest of flukes, that moment of elation could not counterbalance all the psychic pain that plagued me the rest of the season. Sure, Notre Dame dashes my hopes every year, but it doesn't gallivant around under the optimistic name of Fantasy Football, which I thought meant that everybody would have their wildest dreams realized. I am left feeling that Fantasy Football is as far from fantasy as one could possible dream.

First of all, let's admire the name brand of Fantasy Football, which appeals to two primal urges of men. The first part of the phrase is "Fantasy", which connotes sex. Ask a guy what comes to mind when he hears the word, and I bet the top three answers are sex (<--you really want to click on this, don't you), football, and sex--and football is probably actually third on that list. Of course, one could argue that those are the first things that come to mind in response to any question put to a guy. The second part of the phrase, "Football", connotes violence--along with beer, greasy food, glory, and scantily clad cheerleaders (<--this one, too I bet). I don't know a better phrase for getting a man's attention. Maybe something called "Strippers, Cars, and First Person Shooters on XBox 360", but that certainly lacks the subtlety of "Fantasy Football". I will concede that "Fantasy" in Fantasy Football doesn't directly refer to sex, so I will use the definition "unrestrained imagination" for the rest of this post.

The season begins with the creation of a roster that is almost never the product of unrestrained imagination. During the draft process, each participant chooses NFL players for his (or her but mostly his) team. Each player can be picked once, leading to a roster that is far from ideal. I would bet that many people end up with a roster that they kind of hate right after the draft. (I didn't, but that's because I had no idea what I was doing.) So right away, you end up with something that is very restrained by reality. It is so restrained that you often curse your good friends for picking the player you wanted. While that pain is somewhat alleviated when you mock them for their idiocy on their next pick, your roster is never the one you dreamed you'd get.

As the season progresses, there are many points when excruciating psychic pain visits almost all participants. It may originate in a close loss or the loss of a key player to injury or personality. It may come from the realization that you have once again squandered money that could have been spent on real fantasies or real football. Whatever the reason, psychic pain is rarely associated with fantasy. (Maybe other types of pain, but let's focus here.) I, for one, certainly don't happily daydream about how my monstrous lead on Monday morning could be lost at the last second on Monday night by a blocked field goal. Ouch, it hurt just to write that sentence.

Fantasy Football also requires an average participant to spend an inordinate amount of time hunched over his computer managing his team. While one could argue that there are worse things to be doing on the internet, it's difficult to argue that an average person dreams of pouring over thousands of numbers and deciding whether Jason Wittens's 0.32 predicted point advantage is worth starting him over Tony Gonzalez. (The answer was yes a couple of weeks ago.) If staring at a computer screen for unpaid hours on end is part of anybody's dream world, well, you are a freak (said the somewhat aspiring writer).

Unless you made your entire roster members of the team you root for, then you will probably be forced to root against your own team. If part of your dream is hoping that something you love fails--sick, just sick. You may try to delude yourself and say you're not rooting against the team but the individual, but you are a liar. If you are rooting against any part of your team, you are not completely rooting for its success. And if that is not causing you pain in your heart and your loins, you have truly lost your soul to Fantasy Football and are less of a man. I cannot respect you, and you are probably going to burn in the first four letters of my last name. Sorry--you scumbag. Anyway, rooting against your own team is not fantasy material.

Finally, the season never ends in an ideal manner. The ideal season culminates in winning the Championship and taking all your friends' money, providing you beer money and bragging rights for an entire year. The reality is that odds are very high that you won't win the Championship given the number of teams in a league and will thus lose all your money and dignity. Any table in Vegas is a safer bet. In a nutshell, you are almost certainly doomed to failure. If this is the scenario that your unrestrained imagination has created, you have set the bar extremely low. But congrats on your dream coming true.

Sadly, Fantasy Football is completely restrained by reality, from choosing a roster to not winning the Championship. Psychic pain and financial losses are much more common than earning bragging rights for the year. Only one person or team in each league will win, just like all sports. But perhaps winning it all is the fantasy to which Fantasy Football refers and which is made all the more fantastic because of its unlikeliness. Perhaps the fantasy is saying that you emerged victorious despite an imperfect roster, injury set backs, and getting Tebowed. That's just like normal football and all sports, which is what makes all of them great and probably why I will continue to play whenever offered the chance despite the name and all the reasons I mentioned here. Because that one chance at living the fantasy is what makes the ride worth every year of hard reality.

Why does "Jump Around" have phat lyrics?

Warning: this post contains language that may be considered offensive.

As a child in the '90s, I enjoyed clever phrases that compared seemingly unrelated objects. For example, if somebody blocked your shot in basketball at recess, you got "packed like a box" or "stuffed like a turkey". If you got beaten to the hoop, you got "burned like toast". If you don't get what I'm talking about by now, you're slower than molasses in February in the high latitudes. Yeah, really really slow. Perhaps my fascination with clever metaphors was influenced by the dope music of the 1990s, which was full of them as I am just now discovering. Yeah, I'm molasses. As a case study, I will explore "Jump Around" by House of Pain. There are a few rad phrases in this song that are funny, if not completely sensible when thoroughly examined. Let's break 'em down. (If you think the lyrics I'm using are wrong, blame these guys.)

Jump around!

1. "I'll serve your ass like John McEnroe." This metaphor makes sense on many levels. According to Urban Dictionary (obviously, a source of myeh reliability), the definition of "to serve" is to "deliver a swift and decisive round of ass whoopin". Thus, House of Pain is claiming to deliver an ass whoopin' as good as McEnroe or his serve. The first layer of the metaphor is that tennis players actually serve a ball! You're probably thinking, "What! what! Andrew, you teach me so much in these posts." I know. For the analogy to truly make sense, we have to explore whether or not McEnroe's serve was something to be reckoned with. Otherwise, the analogy just means House of Pain will deliver a so-so round of ass whoopin'. McEnroe was a serve-and-volley style player, and it turns out, according to this random web site and this other random web site with user lists (what do you want? this is a blog) that I found via google , that McEnroe isn't even in the top ten servers of all time. Thus, at the very least, House of Pain is not delivering a Top Ten level of ass whoopin' if this is the intended meaning, which I think it is. Of course, one could argue that I should go back to the time when the song was written and determine who the top ten were then. Yes I should and no I won't.

But maybe House of Pain was talking about the second layer of the metaphor. McEnroe definitely delivered his share of whoopin's to opposing players--and refs--during his career. Thus, the metaphor could make sense on this level, but it's less clever than the first. The third layer of this analogy is that in 1984, John McEnroe actually threw a donkey into the air, struck it with a racket, and it landed in bounds on the opposite side of the court, giving the metaphor a final--if you are buying this, you are as crazy as an Aerosmith video starring Alicia Silverstone and Liv Tyler. Of course, House of Pain may have also just liked the heritage of fellow Irish-American McEnroe and a name rhymes with "ho".

2 and 3. "Word to your moms / I came to drop bombs / I got more rhymes than the Bible's got Psalms / And just like the Prodigal Son, I've returned." Back to back Bible references?!! Can I get an Amen! House of Pain claims that it has a lot of rhymes, and they didn't go with "stars in the sky" or "Lindsay Lohan arrests" but instead went with the remarkably modest number of Psalms in the Bible. The question is how many Psalms are in the Bible? Again, a Google search provides an answer: 150. House of Pain claims to have over 150 rhymes. I'm guessing they are correct: 3 CDs of at least ten tracks with probably at least five rhymes in each song. Seems reasonable--almost to the point of not being very many.

The next line has to do with the parable of the Prodigal Son, which is told by that superstar Jesus Christ in the Gospel according to Luke (thank you Catholic school--but mostly Google). If House of Pain is returning to a father's forgiving arms after spending an inheritance on hos and blow, then yes, House of Pain is actually returning like the Prodigal Son. But I'm guessing it's just a clever turn of phrase that is as fresh as a character, played by Will Smith, who moves from West Philadelphia, where he was born and raised and on the playground is where he spent most of his days, chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool . . . then he moves to live with his auntie and uncle in Bel-Air. Too much? Or are you confused?

4. "Tryin' to play out like as if my name was Sega." To define "play", I will refer you to a quote in The Wire, also known as the best thing ever written ever (no that is not a typo) for a screen. Omar Little says, "The game is out there, and it's play or get played." If you don't understand, you should spend 60 hours watching The Wire, and then you can thank me for referring you to such an enlightening piece of work. Now what about Sega? The Sega Genesis was a gaming console that competed with Super Nintendo, TurboGrafx-16, and NeoGeo (a very clever console name, now that I think about it) during the 16-bit console generation. I was a Nintendo fan, but I did learn almost all I know about hockey, its rules, and its players by playing Sega. My friend and I would down Jolt (the 90s caffeinated soda) and try to stay up all night playing NHL '93. You probably played Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Genesis. I would say that getting played like Sega is getting hella played, making the lyric as dope as that dwarf. Oh, is that Dopey? Close enough. Nobody's going to really examine my metaphors.

In conclusion, an in-depth-ish look at House of Pain's lyrics may not have served them well, but who cares? I still find them as fly as a model organism (that's for all you bio nerds).

Why is this blog back?

During the past few months, many people have asked me, "Andrew, why don't you post on your blog any more?" I blush and say, "Aw, shucks!" And then I wake up from my dream. The reality is that I have been slightly busy doing other things. Those things have given me some ideas for blog posts, and I'm pretty sure you all want to hear my opinions, especially about the importance of the Oxford comma. Therefore, I am back to blogging for three reasons: I have nothing better to do, my brain is fat (technically, everybody's brain is mostly fat--nerd alert!), and I'm in a different place than I was two years ago, both literally and figuratively.

Time. I simply have more of it. I am no longer writing a thesis, moving, or planning a wedding. For sure, I enjoyed generating a 170 page document (my thesis) that a total of three people in the world will read. Who wouldn't feel that that is an important and worthwhile task? The experiments for that document and the actual writing consumed most of 2010. After that, my move to San Diego had me packing and spending a lot of mental energy on logistics, so that ate up early 2011. After the move, we (my girlfriend -> fiance -> wife) jumped on a plane and headed to New Zealand for a month. That excursion provided a few posts on a different blog (http://travelinghobnobs.blogspot.com/), which, now that I look at it, looks like it took a ton of time and makes me wonder why I am starting to blog again. After getting engaged in New Zealand, we returned to start planning a wedding. If you've done this before, you know that it takes a wee bit of time (April through November) and mental energy, even if you do have a stellar mother-in-law who is willing to plan almost everything. You also know that the To Do List doesn't quite end the day after the wedding due to gift exchanges, Thank Yous, and catching up on sleep. So, now I finally have some time to write and am ready to make you wonder why you just wasted some time reading a blog post.

Mental obesity. During my blog absence, I have been content posting what some call "clever" status updates on facebook (by "some", I mean "me"). However, I realized that this medium required little time, minimal risk, and no real effort to complete a thought. And oh how I like it! Ooh, look, a shiny thing! What was I writing about? Oh yeah: status updates. Status updates are like eating ramen: easy to make, immediately satisfying, and--wow, it's exhausting thinking of similarities between ramen and status updates. There must be millions. Blog posts, on the other hand, are like Kraft macaroni and cheese: it takes more effort to "cook", requires a person to exercise delayed gratification, and . . . Anyway, writing blog posts requires different and (slightly) deeper thinking than status updates. Granted, it's not like writing a novel, which would be like preparing a five course meal in that--forget it, this is too much work right now.

The final reason to restart this blog is that life has changed a lot in the past two years, and I have changed, meaning that there is a lot to explore. I am thinking of altering the topics of this blog from the mundane (complaining about small stuff that bothers me) to more important topics like the rise of the single woman and the decline of the marry-able man, the effect of the video game culture on the tweenie generation, and the development of the presynaptic structures of the sensory neuron AFD in C. elegans. Or I'll just stick to inanities like college football, old(ish) cars, and song lyrics. We'll see how much life has changed.

If you thought this post was horrible, I've intentionally set a low bar so that there is nowhere to go but up. Hope you'll be along for at least some of the ride. And I'll be adding post-appropriate pictures this time around because some of you may not be here for the words.

Probably my greatest achievement during my hiatus was scoring 185 points in one move in Words with Friends.

Why isn't 30 too bad?

I am not normally this narcissistic--well, I have a blog so maybe I am--but today society helps rationalize the care-about-me attitude because it is my birthday. I wrote a quiz about my past thirty years to kind of jog my memory before I forget everything. I'd like to say that making this quiz made me sit back and reflect on my life, but while life so far has been full of milestones and memories, there's still a lot more left. Plus, I'm still in school, so 30 just feels like 25--almost exactly like 25. If you score higher than 10, let me know. It means you scored better than two friends I met in high school and two friends I met in grad school.

1. When Andrew was 6 months old, he took his first

a. Step

b. Shot of whiskey

c. Look at the Statue of Liberty

d. Flight

2. In 3^rd grade, Andrew wrote a book entitled

a. Crooks are Caught

b. Donkey Does a Doo Doo

c. Me and My Sisters

d. The Existential Musings of an Expatriate Returning to his Birthplace

3. Andrew’s sisters are named all of the following EXCEPT

a. Catherine

b. Ann

c. Erica

d. Bridget

4. Andrew tried out for all of the following high school sports EXCEPT

a. Soccer

b. Basketball

c. Baseball

d. Badminton

5. In his 8^th grade play, Andrew did all of the following EXCEPT

a. Wear makeup for the first and last time

b. Play one of the two leads

c. Memorize all his lines

d. Wear a dress

6. Andrew has traveled to all of the following city-states EXCEPT

a. Singapore

b. Monaco

c. San Marino

d. Vatican City

7. Andrew has lived in all of the following capitals EXCEPT

a. South Bend

b. London

c. Seoul

d. Boston

8. All of the following are true EXCEPT

a. Andrew has broken both of his fibulas.

b. Andrew has broken his left clavicle twice.

c. Andrew believes his broken bones are caused by excessive calcium intake.

d. Andrew has broken his fibula and tibia at the same time.

e. Andrew has broken his right wrist doing Tae Kwon Do.

9. Andrew has personally interacted with all of the following Nobel Laureates before they won EXCEPT

a. Bob Horvitz

b. Eric Kandel

c. Andy Fire

d. Marty Chalfie

10. Andrew’s sisters thought he quit swimming when he was 8 because

a. he was the slowest swimmer on the team

b. he didn’t like to wear the Speedo

c. he didn’t feel buff enough

d. he always sank

11. Which of the following does Andrew consider the worst living situation he had to endure?

a. Living with a flat-mate who would randomly pick wrestling matches that often upended furniture

b. Living with an ex-girlfriend in the same drafty apartment for over a year

c. Living with a friend in a place that the friend referred to as “Motel 6 meets Tijuana” in a review

d. Living with a guy named Rudy at Notre Dame

12. How many years of Catholic school has Andrew had?

a. 8

b. 12

c. 14

d. 16

13. Andrew wears a size Small T-shirt now. What size did he choose to wear in high school?

a. Small

b. Medium

c. Large

d. X-Large

14. Andrew has had all of the following nicknames EXCEPT

a. Hell Raiser

b. Hellmaniac

c. Bruce Lee

d. Prunedrew

15. Which of the following is the youngest car?

a. Andrew’s current car

b. Andrew’s high school car

c. The Model T

d. The DeLorean

16. Andrew has seen all of the following bands in concert EXCEPT

a. Weezer

b. Dave Matthews

c. U2

d. Ben Folds Five

e. Flight of the Conchords

17. As a Boy Scout, Andrew did all of the following EXCEPT

a. Hike 67 miles in 10 days

b. Earn hella merit badges

c. Sleep on a submarine

d. Help an old lady cross the street.

18. Andrew enjoys doing all of the following at work EXCEPT

a. Reading ESPN

b. Research

c. Watching Hulu

d. Facebooking

19. As a baby, Andrew was super

a. Eloquent

b. Chubby

c. Screamy

d. That’s it, just super.

20. While living in London, Andrew did all of the following EXCEPT

a. See Stonehenge

b. Visit the Cliffs of Dover

c. A pub crawl

d. See a bunch of plays, operas, and ballets

Answers

1. d (flight)--from South Korea to Colorado

2. a (Crooks are Caught)--it's a classic

3. b (Ann)

4. c (baseball)--tried out but cut from bball my freshman year

5. d (wear a dress)--no, I have not worn makeup since then . . . or a dress ever

6. c (San Marino)--but I did do a report on it in 5th grade

7. a (South Bend)--lived there but it is not a capital

8. e (broken his right wrist doing Tae Kwon Do)--broke my foot doing TKD and most of the breaks happened after consuming dairy for many days

9. b (Eric Kandel)--was working in Bob's lab when he won, met Chalfie when he came for Bob's Nobel party, took a class with Andy before he won

10. b (he didn't like to wear the Speedo)--though I probably wouldn't swim now if I had to wear one

11. b (living with an ex)--though I did live in all of these situations

12. c (14 years Catholic school)--kindergarten (1), grades 4 through 12 (9) and college (4)

13. d (X-large T-shirt)--yeah, what an odd thing to do as a 135 lb teen

14. c (Bruce Lee)--some racist kid on the soccer field called me this, so it goes into the "slur" category

15. a (Andrew's current car)--surprisingly, yes. however, it is only one year younger than the car I drove in high school

16. d (Ben Folds Five)--a trick question. I saw Ben Folds but not the Five

17. d (Help an old lady cross the street)--don't want to be a stereotype

18. b (research)--but i try to do it anyway

19. b (chubby)--now that I'm 30, maybe I'll get that way again

20. a (See Stonehenge)--never made it, but I wish I had