God bless Southwest Airlines

I don't like flying Southwest much more than flying generally, but it's sure no surprise that they're the only airline not losing piles of money ...


Smart.

The alexwayne.com endorsement: Ray's the Steaks

That, dear readers, is the Ray's the Steaks "cowboy cut" ribeye. It is at least 28 ounces of muscle and fat and bone. It does not fit on the plate. It is not to be trifled with. It is delicious.

Washington is a city of steak. Most of our top restaurants -- places you've heard of, like The Palm and Charlie Palmer Steak (duh) -- revolve around beef. That's probably why there's so many fat men here.

But the best steakhouse in town isn't even in Washington proper; you'll find it in Arlington, just west (or is it south?) of Rosslyn on Wilson Avenue. Ray's isn't a secret, really -- all the local pubs have written fairly glowing reviews. But if you ask me, these reviews aren't glowing enough.

Ray's makes the best steak I've ever had. And I make a pretty mean steak myself. Yes, it's loud and there aren't any pictures on the walls to look at. So what. The service is better than most places in Washington, which is a town of shitty service. Add in the fact that it's relatively cheap -- like $30 for their best cuts -- and it's like the Greatest Restaurant Ever.

Okay, that's hyperbole. But still: if you come to Washington, and you want steak, forget Morton's or Ruth's Chris or Smith and Wolensky or whatever and just go to Ray's.

Only thing is, they don't take reservations. So here's what you do: Go by about 3:30 in the afternoon and wait for them to open. Walk inside and there'll be a nice woman with a pad of paper and a pencil standing at the hostess station. Tell her what time you want to eat. Come back a little before that time.

And be sure to do two things: save room for dessert, and take home leftovers.

P.S. Why the random post? Because my girlfriend is actually nagging me to blog more often. Sheesh. You'd think she'd nag me to go to they gym or something.

New York City in (cold) spring

Here's another collection of photos, this time preceded by restaurant reviews.

Over the weekend I visited New York City for the first time. (Yes, I'm too old to have never been to New York. Call me provincial.) I did what is probably the usual walking-eating-seeing tour ... hit the Empire State Building and the Met; wandered through Central Park at night and didn't get mugged; rode the #6 subway line; stumbled on a taping of a "Law & Order: SVU" episode. (Look for Robin Williams to guest-star later this spring.)

Quick reviews:

We stayed at the Club Quarters at Rockefeller Center. Small, but really quite nice, and well located.

Sarge's Deli in Murray Hill is fantastic. I never knew what New York deli food was about -- I figured big sandwiches and soups, ho-hum. Sarge's has all that, but also this crazy beef brisket on a potato pancake with gravy thing that probably upped my cholesterol 30 points. "Sarge's favorite," it's called. Sarge probably did not live a long life.

Hatsuhana (warning: annoying Web site) in midtown served me the best raw fish I've ever had, and I understand it's not even the best sushi joint in New York.

Swift in East Village is a cool little Irish bar. Apparently regulars are starting to turn on it because the bartenders don't give away enough free drinks, or something. All I know is after the bartender messed up my food order, he gave me and my buddy a free round without us asking. Nice.

Josie's on the Upper West Side is to be avoided. Their schtick is organic ingredients. Whatever. They made a decent steak for me, but the "smashed" potatoes sucked, and everybody else at my table left food on their plates. Here's a tip, Josie's: salt and butter are good things, even crucial things.

The Algonquin hotel is a fine place for a $16 cocktail. Some famous writers used to drink there. Comfy and quiet and damn near empty. Couldn't be the prices, I'm sure.

Ray's Pizza is probably not representative of NYC pizza, but we were on our way out of town and hungry. It served. (We went to the location at 8th and 51st; unclear whether it was "Original" or "Famous," but didn't taste like it.)

Some pictures ...

Central Park, just north of the zoo looking south

Seward Square, with the most famous building on Earth in the background

Central Park, at the duck pond on 5th south of the Met looking north

Some ski pictures, to leaven my half-drunken rants about modern journalistic practices

I've decided that I love skiing. (To clarify: In snow, for my Floridian/southern fans out there.) I'm not very good at it, mind you. But it's a blast nonetheless.

This year, I made two trips to a place called Whitetail, in southern Pennsylvania, and one to a joint called Timberline, in nowhere West Virginia. Here are some pics:

Whitetail is really more of a hill than a mountain. Surprisingly steep, though.

From the top of the biggest "green" slope (=easy) at Whitetail, clearish.

Same slope, in fog.


Base of Timberline. It's almost a genuine mountain.


Top of Timberline, looking over the Canaan Valley.


Top of Whitetail, on the second trip.
I'm about to ski my first-ever Whitetail "blue" slope (=intermediate), behind me.
I did not fall.

What is wrong with the public discourse?

This post is going to brush right up against -- but, I think, not quite violate -- the rules I've set for this blog.

(See to the right, about how I won't opine on Congress or the president, etc.)

So here goes:

Since when did presidential candidates have to bear responsibility for every last word that ever sprang from the mouth of anyone even tangentially connected to their campaigns?

For the last couple weeks, it seems like the only campaign "news" -- I use the word lightly -- drawing attention from us media is when some campaign flunky or another says something stupid. The result is predictable: a two-day story, followed by the person's "departure" from the campaign.

To recap:

First we had what's-her-name, some Barack Obama "advisor," telling a Scottish newspaper (aside: hell, I don't even know where to begin -- why is she talking to a Scottish newspaper, for starters) that Hillary Clinton is a "monster." Two-day story, and she quits the campaign.

Then we had Geraldine Friggin' Ferraro, making "news" for the first time since 1984, speaking some kind of gibberish that some people took as racist. Two-day story, and she quits the campaign.

Back to Obama, where we've got his former pastor, who apparently said some mean things about white people and Clinton on tape, quitting Obama's campaign. It's not even really clear to me that he was a substantial part of the campaign. But whatever, now he's off, and Obama is turning cartwheels "distancing" himself from the guy, as they say.

Who gives a shit about any of this?

There is some serious shit that we media could be discussing in our campaign coverage. Like I don't know, how exactly are Clinton and Obama going to make good on promises to withdraw from Iraq? Or how are any of the candidates, McCain included, going to get the economy righted? Or literally a hundred other serious policy issues, with health care and education and crime probably leading the list.

Instead, we're focusing on dumb statements by people who don't fucking matter, and forcing the candidates to waste time "denouncing" or "distancing themselves from so-and-so" or whatever. Seriously: Geraldine Ferraro is completely fucking unimportant in the scheme of things. And she's probably the most important of any of these people who have said dumb shit.

So I'd like all of this to stop, please. Unless it's the candidate him or herself saying dumb shit, I simply don't care. And I don't think anybody else does either. (Probably not even the reporters covering it.)

Worst. Local. Commercial. Ever.

I consider television commercials for local businesses an art form all their own.

In Washington, D.C., the local car dealer chain Eastern Motors has pretty much owned the genre, with a long-running series featuring players from the Washington Redskins lip-syncing the firm's theme song (At Eastern Motors / Your job's your credit, credit) and generally looking stupid. The spots feature all the hallmarks of a superior local commercial: dumb catch song, famous-for-the-local-area celebrities, senseless narratives and mildly offensive. Here's an example:



However, we have a new contender in Washington for worst local commercial. In fact, these guys might just have produced the worst local commercial EVER, anywhere.



For those of you not hip with the kids, the owners of the store attempted to set their diddy to the tune of "Back That Azz Up," by Juvenile. The spot obviously takes incomprehensible and offensive to whole new levels, but I think filming the lead actors/owners shirtless really iced the cake.

Hello again

Due to popular demand (i.e., my mom and my sister), I'm back.

Apropos of nothing, here is John Travolta's giant-ass airstrip near Ocala, Florida, where he lands his personal 707.

Photo by Marty Wayne aka Dad

Travolta's house is in the background, in the little square of trees off the taxiway.

I skipped work on Friday

And instead went up to the Skyline Drive to check out the foliage. Here are some pics:

Some kid, looking southwest, I think.


The creek at the end of Piney Branch trail.


Happy belated Halloween

On the way home, we hit a couple Virginia wineries.

The first, Grey Ghost, makes excellent chardonnay. This being Virginia, the reds were all heavy on the cab franc and overpriced. But the tasting was free (always a plus), the tasting room was beautiful, and the woman pouring, a daughter of the owners, was friendly and gave out some tips for a trip to Napa I'm planning in the spring. (Hit Sterling is the one I remember.)

The second, Unicorn, was quite a surprise. The place is pretty much a glorified industrial shed next to a mini-storage compound, and tastings are $5. But there are a bunch of wines, many of them rather unusual and quite good. Yeah, they had cab franc and it wasn't terrific, but they also make a red called Petite nacional that's one of the best I've had in Virginia. Nice and dry and spicy. And their dessert wine is simply the best I've ever had (an easy call for me, because I usually hate the stuff).

I apologize

I'm in a terrible dry spell, obviously, blogging-wise. Here is one excuse: I've been covering this at work. You might have heard about it. It's kind of a big deal.

(I found that Web site by Googling "alex wayne" and "schip," incidentally. I'm cited twice, which is kind of cool. Also, I've been on this show a lot lately; there are Web feeds and pod casts, if you're into that kind of thing.)

For the hell of it, here's a quick round-up of my pop-culture diet of late:

I'm reading George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. It's fantasy fiction, but it doesn't suck. Probably the best of the genre that I've read since Lord of the Rings, which says a lot about the genre.

I just defeated "God of War II" on the PlayStation 2. Fun game. Some annoying puzzles. It's slightly more difficult than the first "God of War," I'd say, because the designers took away some important moves from the first game that made fights easier.

I saw "The Kingdom" recently. I was largely disappointed; it's pretty trite. The last 15 minutes comprises a pretty spectacular action sequence, however.

The television show "Heroes" has taken a serious nose-dive, and threatens to jump the shark (just in case the phrase still requires definition).

My favorite new show is "Life," Wednesdays at 10. Takes your average crime procedural and turns it on its head, anchored by the work of the lead actor, Damian Lewis. Impressive stuff. NBC, however, did a terrible job marketing the show. (The new Wednesday show that NBC spent a lot of time and energy marketing, "Bionic Woman," isn't nearly as good. Though I do enjoy the Battlestar Galactica references, and the work of Katee Sackhoff, who regularly pwns the lead actress.)

Ever want to see me half-naked?

Of course you have. Behold the bronzed splendor that is me in a bathing suit. (Click on pics for bigger versions.)

Archaeology is in the blood.
(Our house is behind me.)

I mentioned that I was at the beach a couple weeks ago. Duck, N.C. Looks a lot nicer than the last time I was there. Still pretty much suburbia, though ... with sand and ocean.

And sand means ... sand castle time.

I am a drip castle architect.

Castle Wayne, in its monumental glory.
(Our house is to the right.)

Mostly, we did a lot of this:

Good Christ I wish I didn't have to work for a living.
(From left: Jen (obscured), Dan's back, Mark B., Kristin, Kimberly, Elisa, Fiona, Mark Y.)

Here's down the beach in the other direction:

Hurricane bait.

On the way home, we stopped here:

Kimberly on the Wright brothers monument, Kill Devil Hills.

And at a farmer's market / tourist trap:

I'd have made a GREAT redneck.

And now we're back here:

Not all of D.C. is terrible.

Are you ready to talk at length about some football?

Fantasy football, to be precise.

It's the most wonderful time of the year again, and I've got two fantasy football teams about to kick off on Thursday. In an almost certainly erroneous assumption that someone else might be even faintly interested in my teams, here are the rosters. If you slog through to the end, or just scroll down, I'll tell you who I think the 10 best players in fantasy football will be this year.

To say I'm excited is an understatement. To say I'm a giant nerd is also an understatement.

League One

My first league is mostly co-workers; I'm the commissioner. Twelve teams, each starting one quarterback, two wide receivers, two running backs, a tight end, a "flex" position (either a running back or a wide receiver), a kicker, a defense and five bench spots. Here's my team, Fred Taylor's Groin; the number in parentheses indicates the pick where I took them in our draft:

QB: Phillip Rivers, San Diego (67)
WR1: Donald Driver, Green Bay (43)
WR2: Calvin Johnson, Detroit (78)
RB1: Joseph Addai, Indianapolis (6)
RB2: Thomas Jones, New York Jets (30)
TE: Antonio Gates, San Diego (19)
Flex: Marion Barber III, RB, Dallas (54)
K: None, yet
Defense: Jacksonville (150)
Bench: Tatum Bell, RB, Detroit (91); Bernard Berrian, WR, Chicago (102); Michael Turner, RB, San Diego (115); Leon Washington, RB, NY Jets (126); Rex Grossman; QB, Chicago (139); Dennis Northcutt, WR, Jacksonville (free agent).

I liked this team better when I drafted it, on Aug. 19 (nearly three weeks before the season begins, something I'll try to avoid in the future).

Indianapolis and San Diego will be two of the highest-scoring offenses in the league, again, so I like Addai, Rivers and Gates. Beyond that, there's a lot of uncertainty.

Driver historically has been undervalued, but he's like 33 years old and already nursing an injury. Calvin Johnson is the hotshot from Georgia Tech that Detroit drafted second overall this year, but he hasn't cracked the starting lineup yet. Thomas Jones is also nursing an injury; glad I have his backup, Washington. Marion Barber III gets goal-line carries in Dallas and so scores a lot of touchdowns, but even though he's more talented than the starting running back on that team (Julius Jones), he's officially the backup. So annoying.

On my bench, I don't have much faith in Tatum Bell, who's probably going to lose his job sooner than later. Bernard Berrian might be great or pretty mediocre, probably depending on how awful "Sexy Rexy" Grossman plays this year. I picked up Northcutt after drafting a wastrel, Reggie Williams, who was supposed to be the starting wide receiver in Jacksonville but nearly got his ass cut in training camp for being lazy.

I didn't draft a kicker. Kickers are all pretty much the same -- except for one or two guys each year who manage to kick a bunch of field goals. Problem is, you can never predict who those guys are going to be; in each of the last two years, it's been someone who went undrafted in my leagues. So I'm going to pick someone up off the waiver wire on Thursday, who probably will replace either Northcutt or Bell (I was hoping someone would break his leg before the season started, to make that choice easier).

League Two

My second league is a bunch of friends, mostly from D.C. There's only eight of us, meaning it's a stacked league -- all the teams are very good. We start two QBs, three WRs, two RBs, a TE, a kicker and a defense, with five on the bench. Here's my team, Noodly Appendages:

QB1: Matt Hasselbeck, Seattle (37)
QB2: Eli Manning, New York Giants (60)
WR1: Larry Fitzgerald, Arizona (28)
WR2: Donald Driver, Green Bay (44)
WR3: Santana Moss, Washington (53)
RB1: Joseph Addai, Indianapolis (5)
RB2: Brian Westbrook, Philadelphia (12)
TE: Antonio Gates, San Diego (21)
Kicker: None, yet
Defense: Dallas (108)
Bench: Adrian Peterson, RB, Minnesota (69); Edgerrin James, RB, Arizona (76); Joey Galloway, WR, Tampa (85); Ronnie Brown, RB, Miami (92); Rex Grossman, QB, Chicago (101); Tatum Bell, RB, Detroit (117).

This is a weird league. In most leagues, including my work league, running backs are considered far and away to be the most important players to draft. They touch the ball the most of any position, after the quarterback, meaning more opportunities to score fantasy points. But unlike quarterbacks, who pretty much all score a lot of fantasy points in every game -- unless they're simply awful, like Grossman last year -- there is an elite cadre of running backs who score way more points than their peers. Plus, in most leagues you have to start two running backs and just one quarterback, further reducing the relative value of QBs.

Not in this league. Not only do we start two quarterbacks -- unheard of in most fantasy leagues, and of course something you would never see on any real football field -- we have to start three wide receivers, as well. I hate wide receivers; they're horribly inconsistent. Consider Santana Moss, my third wide receiver. In three games last year, he caught 17 passes for 364 yards and five touchdowns, including a three-touchdown game. But he had less than 50 yards receiving in nine different games, and caught just six touchdowns all year. He was my top receiver last year in this league, and he killed me. I'm not totally certain why I drafted him again, except that he's far and away the best receiver on his team and I expect Washington will be improved this year.

So anyway, what happens in this league is that quarterbacks and wide receivers are valued far more highly than in most fantasy leagues. The result is that many top running backs -- guys like Adrian Peterson, Edgerrin James, and Ronnie Brown -- slide to the end of the draft. I've seen all of those guys go as high as the second round in other leagues, including my work league. I'm happy to have gotten them so late in this league, although I don't have anywhere to play them, and if they wind up sucking -- highly possible, especially for Brown -- they'll have little trade value.

My only real holes on this team are my quarterbacks. Hasselbeck is old, as is the rest of his team, and Eli Manning is the crappy Manning brother. I'm hoping one or two of my reserve running backs is awesome enough to draw a better quarterback in a trade; if they aren't, I'm probably going to have a bad season.

The 10 best players in fantasy football

Keep in mind that fantasy football is a weird game, where guys who have tremendous value in real life (like offensive linemen) have zero value, and the guy who's clearly the best player in the NFL (Peyton Manning) is drafted, like, 10th or later in a lot of fantasy leagues.

1. LaDainian Tomlinson, RB, San Diego. A no-brainer; he likely set all-time fantasy football scoring records last year and could approach them again.

2. Steven Jackson, RB, St. Louis. Second to Tomlinson in running back scoring last year, but scored a lot of his points late in the season, perhaps too late to save some of his fantasy owners.

3. Larry Johnson, RB, Kansas City. Third in running back scoring last year, but is thought to have been a bit overworked and might wear out this year. He might also be awesome.

4. Joseph Addai, RB, Indianapolis. Splitting carries with another guy last year, he was the eleventh-highest scoring running back. He's got the Indy backfield all to himself this year and I expect him to be awesome.

5. Frank Gore, RB, San Francisco. In his first full (uninjured) year in the pros last year, he was the sixth-highest scoring running back. He's young and only getting better, but has a scary injury history.

6. Peyton Manning, QB, Indianapolis. The only player other than Tomlinson to score more than 400 fantasy points last year. The reason he's not ranked higher is because if you take him in round one, you're getting a subpar running back in round two.

7. Brian Westbrook, RB, Philadelphia. Twelfth-highest scoring player in all of fantasy football last year. If both he and Philly's QB, Donovan McNabb, stay healthy all year (a longshot), they will both put up tremendous numbers.

8. Willie Parker, RB, Pittsburgh. I drafted this guy in my second league last year, then stupidly traded him for a lesser running back and a receiver who ended up a total bust. (Burn in hell, Chris Chambers.) He's great.

9. Shaun Alexander, RB, Seattle. Two years ago, he was better than Tomlinson. Last year, he was hurt most of the year and killed any fantasy owner who drafted him (except for the guy who won my second league; I'm still scratching my head over that one).

10. Drew Brees, QB, New Orleans. Others might put Reggie Bush, RB, New Orleans, in this spot. They're crazy. Bush is sharing playing time with another excellent running back, Deuce McAllister. Brees, on the other hand, was the fourth-highest scoring player in all of fantasy football last year, and has a shot, I think, at surpassing Peyton Manning as the best quarterback in the game this year.

Administrative thing

I got a very weird (and long!) spam-like comment on the last post (now deleted), so I changed my settings so that you now have to go through a word verification thingamajig before you can post comments. Sorry 'bout that, but spam sucks.

We now return to our regular, irregular programming.

Vaca

No new posts for a week; I'm off to the beach. Last time I was there it looked like the picture off to the right; that'd be Hurricane Isabel. Hoping for better weather this time around.

I'm a "Not Yet Replied"

I am here not to praise Evite, but to bury it. I have had quite enough with the ubiquitous invitation service, and quite enough with my friends using it to organize even the most modest of functions. I now receive Evites for backyard barbeques and weekday drinks. From people whose e-mail addresses I have memorized.

E-mail, I think, is vastly underutilized. You may have thought that was impossible; I did, once upon a time. And then along came Evite. I say we go back to sending party invitations via e-mail. It's simple; you can be just as clever; it does not require your invitees to be clever in response, the most repellent feature of Evite.

Why do I hate the service so? Time for a list.

• I do not like the name. The cute trend of prefacing a common word with an 'e' began, I suspect, with electronic mail, a usage which makes so much sense there's no reason to dislike it. But it has since proliferated to "Emachines," "Epinions," and "Evite," just to name a few, all of which are grating.
• I do not like the spam. Whenever I am added to an Evite, I can be assured of receiving at least a half-dozen future e-mails, kindly reminding me of the event and notifying me that my response is "not yet replied" (my standard reply to an Evite). Also, I strongly suspect that Evites are mined for e-mail addresses by other spammers, or that Evite flat-out sells information to third parties. Note that I have absolutely no evidence for that baseless allegation, but I lodge it nonetheless.
• I do not like the graphics. Apparently, when you compose an Evite (I've never done it, incidentally), you're required to choose from a limited selection of background templates. These invariably do not match the theme of your party. For instance, a friend of mine is throwing a rock-and-roll-themed party this weekend. He is planning to dress like Angus Young. The text of his Evite references "doing blow off a stripper's ass.

The background art: A cartoon Elvis, in front of the words "The King" in lights. I assume that my friend did not have the option of choosing an Angus Young cartoon, or a picture of a stripper doused in cocaine. But sadly, the net result is that the invitation makes no aesthetic sense.

• I do not like composing a positive response. There are some people in this world who are very clever Evite responders. They don't just respond "Yes" or "Maybe;" they come up with something funny to say about the party or the person throwing it, or what they're going to do at the party. I am not one of these people, and yet I feel compelled to try. The results are more often than not pathetic.

• I do not like composing a negative response. Sometimes, I'm waiting to see if there's something better to do that night. Sometimes, I just don't feel like going to your fucking party. But I can't write either of those things. And because of the clever Evite responders in the world (see above), I can't simply respond "No" without some additional explanation. Hence, my frequent "not yet replied" reply. Most of the time, it's not that I haven't seen your Evite or haven't thought about whether I want to go to your party; it's that I don't fucking feel like coming up with some clever goddamn response

So I'll be a permanent "Not Yet Replied."

Virginia is for lovers of bad red wine?

This weekend, I drove out to Oasis winery in Virginia with some friends for a tasting, some cheese and crackers, the usual fru-fru bullshit.

The winery's a bit on the redneck-slash-industrial side -- no caverns here, or classical music. We sipped wine on your standard wooden deck to the dulcimer sounds of Coolio as two dogs growled at each other nearby. It was beautiful, however; about 85 degrees, and a view of vineyards sweeping up to the Blue Ridge mountain.

The trip, though, continued a pervasive trend that I've noticed with Virginia wineries. They can't make good red wine. Of any varietal. And what they can make, they can't sell for less than around $20 a bottle.

Oasis, for example, makes excellent champagne, of all things, two pretty good chardonnays, and a drinkable blush (95 percent Riesling, 5 percent Cab sauvignon). The Riesling alone was disgusting -- it tasted like tonic water, and shouldn't have been served. But the two reds, a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Merlot, were the most disappointing of all. Neither was very full-bodied or complex. They were almost indistinguishable, in fact; the winery had used 7 percent Cabernet Franc to cut both wines, and the Franc predominated in each. And Oasis wanted $20 for its Cab and $25 for the Merlot.

Let us pause for a diatribe. I suppose there are good Cabernet Francs made someplace, but I haven't tasted one worth the money Virginia wineries want to charge. It's a boring grape, in my experience -- completely non-complex (meaning none of those plum or blackberry undertones that wineries like to brag about) and a bit watery. Yet it seems endemic to Virginia, as if it's the only red that vineyards in the state can manage to grow.

Like every other Virginia winery I've ever visited, there were no Pinot Noirs or Zinfandels to taste at Oasis -- two of my favorite varietals.

So this is what I'm getting at: For reasons of soil or climate or vine age or something, is it simply impossible to make a decent red wine in Virginia? And is Cabernet Franc the only thing that grows with any success?

If you know a place in Virginia to find a good indigenous red, let me know. Or if you know why there are no good reds in Virginia, let me know that too.

Jason Rojas is an American hero

I exaggerate: he's merely a University of Florida hero. My school should erect a statue in his honor. Does he have a legal defense fund? I want to contribute.

This month's pop culture endorsement

"'The Bourne Ultimatum."

As several reviews have noted, Paul Greengrass has emerged as simply the best action movie director working today. Do note this rather contrarian review, by Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post -- he hated the movie, but writes an entertainingly negative review.

My take: It's the second-best of the three Bourne films. (Chris Cooper and Clive Owen give the first movie a little more gravitas, plus it was fresh at the time.) "Ultimatum" is really just a continuation of the "Supremacy" narrative -- Bourne's still trying to figure out who he is and why people are periodically trying to kill him; it even starts where the second movie leaves off. This movie is more conclusive that the second, however; they can make a sequel if they want, or they've got things pretty neatly tied off if they don't want. And I think the locations and action sequences are just a bit more dramatic and spine-tingling than in the second movie; a sequence in Tangier, noted in every review I've read, is breath-taking.

As Hunter notes, however, the title of this movie doesn't make sense. I guess it's in keeping with the sequence of the Ludlum novels, which I either haven't read or read so long ago -- I think my parents have them laying around their house in paperback -- that I've forgotten them. But there's no ultimatum involved. In the first movie, we were introduced to the Bourne identity, and in the second, Bourne certainly reigned supreme. The titles made sense. This movie should have been "The Bourne Revelation" or "The Bourne Source," something like that.

Anyhow, go see it.

So if I throw a Bible in a toilet ...

... I'm committing a hate crime?

I'm inclined to agree with Chris Hitchens on this one. This is ridiculous and outrageous; the next thing you know, I won't be able to publish images of Muhammad in my newspaper without inspiring riots.

Also from the Dept of Muslims Practicing Bad Public Relations: The Council on American-Islamic Relations recently kicked a reporter out of a news conference -- held at the National Press Club, incidentally -- because CAIR doesn't like her articles.

I won't defend her work, or the Washington Times, which is not my favorite paper. But I'll defend her right to cover a news event open to other journalists, hosted by an organization that practically embodies the First Amendment [disclaimer: I'm a member of the press club]. Every other journalist at the event, including those serving on the panel, should have gotten up and left when Hudson was escorted from the room.

Six-foot-twenty, fucking killing for fun

I went out to Mount Vernon today, which reminded me of the funniest thing I've ever seen on YouTube.

My first time out there. Went by boat, which is ... well, slow. Some notables:

• Old GW had a helluva view from his place. I should have taken pictures, but I was lazy. Next time.
• Either American tourists have lost weight, as a group, or fat people just don't want to hike all over Colonial estates. Either way, I was pleasantly surprised.
• George Washington suffered a terrifying and excruciating death (in short, he got a really bad case of strep throat and suffocated). That makes me sad.
• His plantation produced a hell of a lot of whiskey. That makes me happy.
• We don't seem to know a heck of a lot about the man, despite some 20,000 letters. The museum at Mt. V, appropriately, features some hand-wringing over his attitude toward slavery. (He owned more than 300 slaves; that's bad. Yet he seemed to realize late in life that slavery as an institution might be a bad idea, and freed his upon Martha's death; that's good. Yet he also buried the slaves that died on his estate in unmarked graves; that's ... callous? The frogurt is also cursed.) But aside from the slavery stuff and some mention of his military failings (surrender at Fort Necessity), to believe the museum, everything else in Washington's personal and public life was pretty peachy. Maybe he was just that awesome, but I dunno ... maybe that YouTube masterpiece up there is not only hilarious, but also an astute bit of commentary on American mythology.

Update: My mom, an archaeologist, says that slave graves were often marked with headstones made of wood, or with "conch shells, deliberately broken pottery or glass, and other cultural items which may or may not remain today." So maybe GW wasn't a callous old bastard. Although mom also reports that recent research indicates that Washington used to rotate his house slaves out of his presidential home in Philadelphia regularly, because under Pennsylvania law they were free after six months residency in the state. Hmm.

The most expensive a man can get

I found myself in the market for razors the other day, after I left my trusty Mach 3 at a lady friend's house.

Before heading up to the neighborhood Crappy Variety Store, I thought I might try out the Gillette "Fusion," the successor to the Mach 3 and its varietals. There have been a lot of really bad advertisements for it, and a friend of mine gave it a strong endorsement, so I figured why not. Plus, I'm pretty sure that Gillette was inspired to design it by the funniest Onion column ever.

"Well, fuck it," I thought. "We're going to five blades."

Until I saw the price tag.

For $22, I can buy 12 replacement blades for my good 'ol Mach 3. You know what $22 gets me in the Fusion line? Ninety-nine cents short of eight blades, that's what.

This is bullshit. This is a travesty, an insult. For $2.88 a blade, this goddamn razor had better wipe my ass, clean the bathroom and make me a sandwich. And if it cuts me, even once, I want my money back.

So instead, I went with this:


$1.50 a piece. Now that's what I'm talking about. Here's a quick review: Except for the blades, the razors are made entirely of plastic, so they feel awfully light and flimsy. It feels like you're putting some kind of child's toy to your face, rather than a fucking tool, as with the Mach 3. The first shave is a little rough; the blades are a bit too sharp. But shaves number two and three are just fine -- quick, smooth, painless. Shave number four nicked me; the Xtreme 3 Comfort Plus doesn't wear as well as a Mach 3 blade. But that's okay, because they're marginally cheaper.

So in sum, the Xtreme 3 Comfort Plus gets the coveted alexwayne.com endorsement.

And Gillette can kiss my hairy ass.