In Lehmann's Terms

Glass Slipper Fits GMU Nicely

I've had no real rooting interest in this year's tournament -- my Orange got bounced in the first round and this is the first year since I was, oh, about 11 that I don't have any money on the line -- save one: local boys done good, the Patriots of George Mason University.

What a hell of a run. What a hell of a team. What sheer, unadulterated bliss to watch coach Jim Larranaga's face after having just beat the number one team in the country, securing his little-school-that could a berth in Indianapolis, beaming a smile that made him look like maybe he's retarded or on the verge of a seizure.

THIS is why I love college basketball.

Having seen the team a few times this year, I expected them to make some noise, but I'd be completely disingenuous if I claimed I foresaw this. To even get the chance to pull off what they did this afternoon -- only the greatest upset in tournament history -- they had to defeat half of last year's Final Four, including the defending national champion. It just didn't seem feasible, an assessment shared even by some notorious basketball-loving faculty members.

A few days back, Sportsline.com's senior b-ball writer Gregg Doyel may have been the first pundit to ponder the unthinkable...namely, that " George Mason could win this thing because George Mason is national-championship good. Period. But George Mason isn't good enough to beat Connecticut." Now that he's been proven wrong on what would have been the least controversial part of his assessment, Doyel is forced to eat his words:

Shame on me, and shame on anyone else who saw George Mason beat Michigan State, North Carolina and Wichita State and doubt the Patriots had enough game to beat UConn. While every available number insists this was an upset -- from the Top 25 to the NCAA Tournament seedings to the recruiting ranking of each player on both rosters -- the eyeballs tell you something else. George Mason beat UConn because George Mason was better than UConn. End of story.  

Next Sunday, I'll be back up in the homestead in Jersey to take part in the annual draft day for my regular rotiserrie league, the Walter Reeger Fantasy Baseball League. On Monday, myself, my little bro, and my pops will all play hooky from work and head out to Shea for opening day of the new-look Mets. All in all, a spectacular sports weekend, no matter what.

But the real capper would be to see the guys in the green jerseys cutting down those nets Sunday night, and bringing a national championship -- yes, a national championship -- back home to that sleepy commuter school in Fairfax.

I've been everywhere, man

Well, no, not quite.

Create your own visited states map.

There's no such thing as Presidents' Day

Though I'd be perfectly fine with designating a day to celebrate some of American history's more libertarian (and thus, usually far less well-known) presidents -- like Grover Cleveland, Martin Van Buren, or Calvin Coolidge -- the federal holiday that most of us in the U.S. of A are enjoying today is still officially designated as George Washington's Birthday, not, as it is often called, "Presidents' Day." The only significant change made since the holiday was created in 1885 was to move it in 1971 from GW's actual birthday of Feb. 22 to the third Monday in February.

Contrary to popular mythology, Lincoln's Birthday -- which still exists as a separate state holiday in Illinois, California, Connecticut, Missouri, New Jersey, and New York, but has been abolished or removed from the list of paid days in a number of other states -- was never officially designated a federal holiday, something I'm sure Thomas DiLorenzo and the rest of the Confederate-loving LvMI crowd would be quite glad of.

But perhaps you already knew that. Less well-known -- and, I find, eminently more interesting -- are some of the outlier holidays recognized at the state level.

As you might expect, Alabama doesn't recognize Lincoln's birthday, but it does recognize today as a joint Washington-Jefferson Day, even though Jefferson was actually born April 13.

But at the very least, one-half of that duo is still tethered to his actual chronological birthday. In Indiana, by comparison, Lincoln's birthday is celebrated on the day after Thanksgiving, while Washington's is reserved for the day after Christmas!

God bless those Hoosiers. You've got to give it up for a people who won't let a little thing like a calendar get in the way of a long weekend.

Is a (516) just for the females?

Meanwhile, at Ted's personal site, he ponders the gender politics of "The Carjacker" -- the Polo Lounge's take on the Long Island Iced Tea that mixes vodka, gin, rum, tequila, triple sec, sour mix and fresh orange juice. Of the drink, named in honor of the movie Crash, he wonders:

is it still a girly drink if they add orange juice to a Long Island Iced Tea, and call it a Carjacker ? Actually sounds pretty tasty.

They seem to be not so much just ADDING the O.J. as substituting it for the Coke (or whatever other soda you have on hand.) In effect, they're making a modified Zombie with a few superfluous whites (vodka, gin) added in -- increasing the potency, but not markedly altering the taste.

When I tended bar, those ordering Long Islands would run about 60-40 in favor of women. But that's somewhat misleading. All mixed drinks run in favor of women, as my estimation is that nine out of 10 men reflexively order beer.

Among men who order mixed drinks, Long Islands were probably the second most popular. Jack and Coke was definitely number one, which I always thought probably had a lot to do with its more manly sounding name. The alcohol content of a Long Island is at least three times that of a bar-mixed Jack and Coke, so there's nothing else I can see that would objectively render the latter any less girly.

So though there are and always have been those who regard anything other than beer or shots as insufficiently "manly," I wouldn't mark a Long Island down as a true girly drink, the way a spritzer, a Malibu Bay Breeze, a glass of white Zinfandel or (God forbid) a Zima all clearly are.  If you can stomach sour mix (and, personally, I haven't been able to since around the time it became legal for me to drink) it's one of the few options in that family of drinks that really packs a punch. The discerning male drinker will get past the unfortunate name and sorority girl association to recognize that. 

Thanks, Ted!

Virtually all of the work I do in my day job is jealously guarded behind a subscription firewall, effectively closing it off from all but the 100,000 or so folks in the insurance industry who pay for the privilege of reading it. There are distribution agreements with the A.P. and a few other services, but I've never been clear on how much of that content actually gets to see the light of day. Every so often, though, some third party will reprint our stuff -- sometimes with authorization, but usually without.

I'm not sure which category TMCnet falls into, but either way, I'll gladly take the props where I can get them.

This has been a good week for links. Much to my surprise, my little missive on pick-up lines for economists itself got "picked up" on Actuary.net, which had previously hosted its own discussion on pick-up lines for actuaries. I guess you really never know who is reading these things.

My whole life is bound in leather

If you ever really want to be scared out of your whits by just how intensely so many aspects of one's life are tied to just a few trifling pieces of plastic -- a driver's license, an ATM card, credit cards -- then do as I did today and absent-mindedly leave your wallet on the kitchen table before heading off for work.

Though I'd highly recommend that, unlike me, you realize the error of your ways before parking in a $15 a day lot, on the chance it turns out you've only got $9 in your pocket. 

Gov. Bluto?

What the fook is up with my new governor's eyebrows?

It seemed to be a pretty pitiful performance, as his pacing was shot to hell, he put emphasis on all the wrong lines, and all the while, he's beaming like Mr. Guy Smiley even when discussing starving grandmas who can't get their drugs  (though I guess that's no worse than Dubya's omnipresent smirk, even when discussing dead Iraq veterans.)

But I'll be damned if I could really pay attention to any of it, as I was kept in a total state of rapture by his Belushi-esque left eyebrow. The damned thing kept floating so far up his forehead, I thought it was gonna finally make a break for it and crawl under his hairline for protection.

Curb Rage

D.C. residents are (justifiably) unhappy with Mayor Williams' plan to address the city's parking shortage by capping the number of permits issued per residence to three. Though, unfortunately, the hue and cry were he and the council to take the steps the situation would seem to demand (privatizing curb rights, or at least allowing permits to be transferable in an open market) would likely be deafening.

I do, however, have a more existential question:

Citizens criticized the new proposed legislation as punishing law-abiding D.C. residents while not focusing on the real problems -- commuters and residents with out-of-state tags.

Don't you actually have to be IN a state before you can call anything else "out of state?"

 

Four on the floor

With a h/t to Ted Frank, I thought this was a neat little meme. He didn't tag anyone, so I'm just gonna steal it.

Four Jobs You've Had
Real estate salesman
Barnes & Noble info desk guy
Public pool tester/lab geek
Flak for the mamma-jamma of corporate welfare queens

Four Movies You Could Watch Over and Over
The Big Lebowski
Groundhog Day
Big Night
Airplane

Four Places You've Lived
Newark, N.J.
West Palm Beach, Fla.
Palo Alto, Calif.
Syracuse, N.Y.

Four TV Shows You Like to Watch
Scrubs
Arrested Development
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Beauty and the Geek

Four Places You've Been on Vacation
Cabo San Lucas
Kamloops, B.C.
Lucerne, Switzerland
Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Four Websites You Visit Daily
Marginal Revolution
Snopes -- What's New
Poynter
Actuary.net

Four of My Favorite Foods
Clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl from Boudin Bakery in San Francisco
Paella à valenciana at Tony Da Caneca's in Newark
Chicken saltimbocca, Carmine's, NYC
Kotopoulo me Damaskina, at Taverna Cretekou right here in Alexandria

Four Places I'd Rather Be
Hamilton, Bermuda
Monterrey, Calif.
Charleston, S.C.
Miami Beach, Fla.

Four Albums I Can't Live Without
Astral Weeks, by Van Morrison
The Harder They Come, by Jimmy Cliff, et al
Giant Steps, by John Coltrane
The Low End Theory, by A Tribe Called Quest

Spotted on the road today

A late '90s model Hyundai Excel. Yes, in and of itself, nothing so remarkable. However, this particular late '90s Excel was unique.

It bore the license plate of the state of Hawaii, which I hadn't recalled ever seeing before. I took note of how gay and festive it was, what with the cute little rainbow and all.

It did actually take a moment to dawn on me why I hadn't recalled ever seeing a Hawaii license plate before. Hawaii is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. There are no roads connecting Hawaii to Washington D.C. There are no roads connecting Hawaii to....well, anywhere.

And yet, this particular Hawaii license plate managed to get itself far, far away from the Pacific Ocean, to end up in front of my car, stuck in traffic on 14th NW.

That means that, at some point, someone, somehow, for some reason, thought it important to load this car onto an ocean-crossing vessel and dispatch it across the seas to the mainland.

THIS car. Let me repeat, because it bears repeating -- a late 90s model Hyundai Excel.

To paraphase Lewis Black, don't, I repeat, don't think about that for more than two minutes, or blood will shoot out your nose.