You think about your knife, the only friend who hasn't betrayed you

Every day when I get home, I eagerly check my mail to see what wonderful surprises the USPS has brought me. It is the best part of my day.

Yesterday, I was floored when my eye caught the name of a catalog I'd never seen before: "The J. Peterman Company." I always assumed that J. Peterman was purely a fictional character from Seinfeld but here was a catalog selling apparel such as the Alba Travel Coat, which is accompanied by the following copy (written from J. Peterman's first-person perspective):

Sometimes you don't know that you're looking for something until it's right in front of you.

Take this coat.

Its DNA reads "bird hunting," but my friend Giancarlo wears it to gather white Alba truffles.

"Andiamo," he says to his sharp-nosed beagle, Luigi.

Giancarlo and I follow Luigi until he starts sniffing around an old oak tree that was probably there when Hannibal came through. He starts digging, his tail wagging wildly in the air.

After a few minutes, Giancarlo reaches down and comes up with a walnut-sized orb. "I told you we’d find what we were looking for, Peterman."

Yes. Yes, we did.

Alba Travel Coat (No. 4019). The big, expanding waist pockets have a narrow throat inside, originally to keep shotgun shells (or truffles) from falling out. I find they’re also excellent for maps, guidebooks, Eurostar tickets, a passport or two, and handfuls of loose Euros.

You also get two outside chest pockets plus two inside pockets, including an extra-deep one for your secret stuff.

Three-season cotton canvas, lined in slick acetate. Notched collar. Norfolk belt in back. Working button cuffs, which I like to wear rolled up.

Men’s even sizes: 38 through 48.
Color: Forest Green.
Price: $169.

Thanks to Wikipedia's John Peterman entry, I learned that J. Peterman, like the Soup Nazi, is a real man who was parodied on Seinfeld. After falling into bankruptcy in 1999, the J. Peterman Company was resurrected from bankruptcy in 2001 (with some of the funding provided by John O'Hurley, who played J. Peterman on the show).

Sadly, I can't imagine that the company is very profitable as the majority of the clothes are kitschy, boring, or simply atrocious. Although I do kind of like that Alba Travel Coat.


John O'Hurley


The real J. Peterman!

How NOT to Write a Fundraising Letter

Here's how you SHOULD NOT start a college fundraising letter. Even though I'm fond of my beloved alma mater, the pretentious & awful writing in the first few paragraphs of this letter made me want to lash out and rob the school rather than reward them with my hard-earned cash:

Dear _____,

At [your alma mater], the harvest season is upon us, arbiter between waning summer and waxing winter. If you close your eyes and concentrate, you might recall a familiar scene. In the foreground, crisp mountain air acts as conduit for the hearty din coming from the Campus Center. Students greet each other energetically, each exhalation transformed into opaque crystals that magnify the deciduous polychromatic backdrop. From the courtyard, you can see condensation on the outside of your heated room while you study for upcoming final exams.

Although our last fall at [college] was five years ago, most of us remember this season at [college] to be a busy and joyous time. As we get older, the value placed on good friends and family increases. While holiday joy unites you and your loved ones, take a moment to reflect on your friends - past and present. Adherent to the sentimentality of the holidays, we want to encourage our class to seize the opportunity to give back to our alma mater.

the lesson learned: dreams don't come true

Dallas Robinson, an unlikely Olympic hopeful, was featured in this NY Times article about his quixotic quest to achieve sporting glory in the 100 meter dash. Although he was only a mildly successful athlete in college, he quit a lucrative sales job so he could devote more of his time on what everyone around him must have thought was an impossible dream. But after he put some videos of himself on Youtube and started gaining supporters who were inspired by his story and after he recorded some decent times in races, the dream started to seem a little less crazy.

Maybe... just maybe, this guy had a chance.

Sadly, the Internet told me that the dream is dead. And it even provided video proof.

So I think what I've learned here today (and not for the first time I should add) is that dreams don't come true and one probably shouldn't even bother trying in the first place. You'll just get hurt like Dallas Robinson.

And yes, I do use the flap...

I'm wearing a union suit right now and I have to admit that it feels pretty damn fantastic. Besides the obvious convenience of wearing one piece of clothing that provides full body coverage, its appeal extends to how fashionable it is right now. I mean, the latest J. Crew catalog that just hit my mailbox today features a double-page spread featuring their critter-decorated, yuppified spin on the classic undergarment. I'm totally the trendsetter because I thought of it first, but how can I compete with the pretty male & female models of J. Crew who make it look so fun to wear as they senselessly cavort around in the snow in complete disregard of the threat of catching a cold?

They're nowhere near as smugly satisfied as this guy though. The union suit - so HOT right now.

You love me, you really love me...

Earlier tonight, I chatted with an acquaintance I hadn't spoken to in over two years who told me that she remembered reading a review I'd written of a Toni Braxton music video on a previous incarnation of this blog and thinking it was hilarious. I was so incredibly flattered. Here I was thinking that no one read this blog except me, one of my three friends, a person stalking me, and a bunch of people who stumble across this blog while looking for pictures of either Rachael Ray or Ola Ray (trust me, I've seen the pagecounter stats). But people out there love me, they really love me! Or at least mildly enjoyed the one post they read. Same thing.

Scooter Libby goes to jail...

...as he should for wearing that fugly ass tie. What is he, a magician?



Also, if you've seen Knocked Up, have you checked out fleshofthestars.com? It looks like it's the same "Under Construction" site as seen in the movie. Naturally, I also looked up mrskin.com and was a little surprised to find out it's apparently a real site. And not only does it advertise itself as the site seen in Knocked Up but Katherine Heigl is one of the actresses featured on the front page.

Also, I'm "42" according to Time Out's new "What's Your New York Age?" quiz. I knew I wasn't going to score very young because the quiz equates going out constantly with youth but come on, 42?

Dear Sister -- a parody of OC's 2nd season finale

Funniest clip I've seen in a while:

Now, the world don't move to the beat of just one drum...

As I was listening to some videos on the new and improved music.yahoo.com player, a song by Robin Thicke happened to find its way onto my screen. Seeing his name and his pretty boy-ish face, it's easy to put two and two together and figure out that he's probably the product of an incredibly routine and dispassionate lovemaking session involving Alan Thicke from Growing Pains fame. The longer I listened to his awful falsetto, the more incensed I became that this talentless hack had achieved even a modicum of success because of opportunities that he probably stumbled upon due to his family name and, more importantly, connections.



I looked him up on allmusic.com for some background info. and instead made the most auspicious discovery that Alan Thicke wrote the theme song to Diff'rent Strokes. Who would've ever guessed that ol' Dr. Jason Seaver had a little rhythm and soul in him? And fortunately, the joy of making that connection and spreading it more than outweighs the bitter irony of only further increasing Robin Thicke's celebrity with a post deriding his awful lack of talent.

JC's Media Criticism of the Day

I read this article today about a teacher who inadvertently sent a text message regarding a drug purchase to a police officer. The AP article included the following:

Authorities say Ann Greenfield, 34, arrived at the meeting point and found Pervine and other law enforcement officers waiting for her.

"She learned her lesson. Program your dealers into your phone," [Kentucky State Police spokesman Barry] Meadows said.

Really, Barry? That's the key point you wanted to make? Don't forget to mention other hot tips that people can use so they can continue breaking the law without getting caught.

The Way of the Samurai is found in death

According to the AP movie writer, David Germain, Forest Whitaker stumbled his way through another award acceptance speech at the SAG awards.

No disrespect to Ghost Dog, but don't you think he'd be more prepared after winning at the Golden Globes and then standing on stage and forgetting how to talk?