'Bred Crumbs

The One with the Deer Hunter

According to today's USA Today, the fifth season of Friends ended with this plot point:

... Chandler and Monica have a fight over Monica's encounter with old flame Richard. When they reconcile over a game of Russian Roulette, Chandler makes a proposal to get married if Monica rolls an '8.'

Oh, if only. As the show plods toward the bloated end of its 89th and final season, a nice six-way game of Russian Roulette sounds like a great way to wrap things up.

Yes, I know: millions of people love the show, now more than ever, pleased somehow that it has moved from spry and inventive comedy to grating domestic sap. But for many of us, the show has way overstayed its welcome, not only taking up valuable space on the dial but wrecking the lives of better, funnier shows (Scrubs, the promising child that NBC has kicked out of the Thursday house to further pad the death bed of its decrepit invalid). For us, there's only one ending that would be satisfying: the death of the Friends.

So, how should the six bite it? Send me your suggestions. Points will be awarded for inventiveness. And feel free to also take out any recurring characters or guest stars, except one: Paul Rudd may not be harmed. (But that doesn't mean he couldn't be an Angel of Death ...)

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* I'll feel free to use all or part of your submission on this website, unless you tell me not to. If you give me your name and URL, I may mention them too, but no email addresses will be published.

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Winter, When the Scaffolds Are in Bloom

This is what my place looks like these days. Last year, a crew inspecting our complex to prepare for a simple exterior paint job started finding dry rot. Further inspection found buildings that basically weren't built correctly by the people who were supposed to be fixing the buildings after the original builders didn't build them correctly. Next thing you know, the residents voted to cough up major (as in savings-eating, loan-requiring) dollars to replace all the bay windows and all the balconies. Last week, the workers got to my place.

Before

Now

Before starting work on the bay windows, they installed a temporary wall so that our apartment's architectural ass wouldn't be hanging out, so to speak. And lemme tell ya, nothing makes a home feel cozy like a big slab of unpainted plywood and tape. Still, at least I'm where I am, and there's no real cold to keep out.

We'll be lucky if all the work on our place is wrapped up in two months. And we don't even get anything new out of it: just a balcony, wall, and windows that look pretty much like they did before, which is kind of disconcerting after all this ugliness and intrusion – and expense.

Last summer, when the homeowners accepted the board's recommendation and agreed to fund the project, it was a tough call for me. I have no knowledge in this area, and no matter how many pictures they took of dry rot, I really couldn't see what they were showing me.

But in the end, the opposition to the project did a spectacular job in swaying me to approve it.

View from the balcony

It wasn't just a matter of never once offering any evidence that the recommendations were false or faulty. It was that the whiny foes of the project insisted that the board members somehow had something to gain from it (in fact, they have to pay like the rest of us, and get no extra benefit), and were trying to keep everyone in the dark.

In reality, the inspector's findings and the board's mounting concern were outlined in every monthly newsletter and discussed in every monthly (and open to residents) meeting. For the most part, though, nobody paid attention until a hefty dollar tag was attached. Then the meetings filled, and no matter how many times the board patiently answered questions, they got asked over and over. And the all-volunteer, unpaid board members answered them yet again.

Even so, the opposition mailers started appearing at our doors and in our mailboxes. Not only were they anonymous – another sign of sterling credibility – but they were always signed "Concerned Residents." As if the rest of us weren't.

In the last desperate hours before the big vote came the opponents' most genius move: they claimed the chosen contractor didn't exist. And part of their claim was a link to a website listing registered contractors in California.

Which listed the contractor.

With opponents like these, who needs advocates?

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Spelljackers

Ordinarily, I revile people and companies who profit off other people's ignorance – spammers, domain squatters, movie studios, that sort of thing – but this is brilliant: a lot of people are making a tidy sum by taking advantage of EBay sellers' poor spelling. The New York Times (via Cnet) tells about people who browse EBay looking for misspelled listings, buy the goods cheap because no one else is finding them, then resell the items at the real value listed with correct spelling.

If that doesn't get people to break their spell-check dependency and pick up a dictionary, nothing will. Heck, you can even get one on EBay.

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