The Raven

Tuesday, December 3, 2002

Back in Black

Yes, we're back from holidaying in Berkeley. As it's my hometown, I have a deep fondness for the City that Complains About Everything. This last trip left me with some awkward feelings, though, since a certain casual warmth seems to be fast-disappearing along with Berkeley's affordable housing and employment prospects. A grittier edge is creeping over the town, and the residents seem to be trying harder than ever to project an image that almost shouts at you: "I'm a bicyclist!" "I'm a recyclist!" "I'm an exercyclist (and a vegetarian)!"

The freaks and yippies are slowly migrating out in search of work, and they're being replaced by a combination of the wealthy and the undomiciled, who create an anxious tension fueled by guilt and resentment felt on both sides. Nothing new in that, but the trend is intensifying and isn't likely to end soon—not with the price of a modest home in the flats going for an easy half-million.

Things that still shine? The Gourmet Ghetto is going strong, and the bookstores are world-class. If anything, they're even better and with only about 40 minutes to spare in an afternoon I bagged a bunch of books I'd been hunting:

Landau's Dictionaries - The Art and Craft of Lexicography
Follett's Modern American Usage
Grave's The Reader Over Your Shoulder
Partridge's Origins - A Short Etymological Dictionary

I knew what I was looking for, and the clerks at Shakespeare's and Moe's seemed genuinely pleased to be asked if they had any of these titles. "Ah..." they begin, getting that dreamy look of the true bibliophile, "the Partridge... Yes, I think we might have one of those." Then you prowl the stacks together, with your guide calling out related titles of interest as you pass them; the cloying scent of decaying pages mingles with dust-motes as countless dead authors whisper from every shelf...

Robert's Rules of Disorder

Over at the University of Pennsylvania, five students are in custody for engaging in overexuberant forensics. Seems that 15 members of a visiting debate team were sleeping in a dormitory when the opposition showed up for a rebuttal. John Brantl, 19, was attacked by five members of the home team:

He said they began kicking and beating him, poured the motor oil on his face and head, threatened to ignite the motor oil and left only after he promised never to visit Penn again.

Pretty persuasive for an ad hominem argument, yes?

Scum Never Sleeps

According to a senior think tank analyst, the amount of spam traffic is increasing, and is likely to double over the next 4 years.

The average American will get more than 2,200 spam, or unsolicited bulk e-mail, messages this year and 3,600 by 2007, Jupiter Research forecasts.

A spam-blocking developer, Brightmail, estimates that unwanted messages have increased from "8 percent of all Internet e-mail to about 40 percent." Since many of us are agressively shielding ourselves and not getting that much, somebody out there must be swamped in the stuff. Poor blighters.

Crash Test Dummies

This one might bore you, but as for me, I can't pass up those insurance company "crash-test reports." It's so much fun to see what kinda bill that schmoe in the Mercedes is facing after he taps his bumper in a parking garage gaffe. As this story has it, you really don't want to hit anything in your 2002 Suzuki Aerio at the dizzying velocity of 5 MPH. Do that, and you're looking at $1,131 in damage. How could this be?

American Suzuki Motor Corp. said Aerio's bumper was designed for customers who like distinctive styling that appears custom made.

Maybe so, but Adrian Lund, head of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, says that the Aerio's bumper really isn't a bumper in the technical sense at all, that it's "just expensive decorative trim." For comparison's sake, the Corolla and Accord escape the test at around $300, which is a lot less than the $800 average for the new BMW Mini Cooper.

BMW said the Mini also can maneuver in tight spaces and may be able to avoid more parking lot accidents than larger cars.

Thus, as the car is smaller, you have less of a chance of running into something at 5 MPH. Very clever, those Germans.

Can't We Make Her Go Away?

No, not Mariah Carey, I mean Halle Berry. I'm sick of seeing Berry's smirking little mug splashed and plastered all over everything. I genuinely dislike her antics, lack of responsibility, squeaking little voice—you name it. Thank you.

Love, Mafia Style

Noted Mafioso hit-man Kevin Granato is doing a 20-year stretch at Allenwood Federal Penitentiary, and wasn't due for parole until 2012. Problem was, he desperately wanted to father a child with his wife Regina. So three years ago he masterminded an ingenious scheme to smuggle his sperm out of the pen.

"My clock was ticking and we wanted a child...and I did it," Regina, a bus driver for mentally retarded children in Staten Island, said in April.

Baby Gianna, now three years old, is proof that Kevin succeeded against all odds. But you can't just put the stuff into a baggie, you need cryogenic containers, which required a fair amount of coordination and bribery on Kevin's part.

During the fall of 2000, Kevin told a prison counselor he'd pay him $5,000 to smuggle out the semen of another inmate, the indictment said.

If convicted on the new charges, Kevin's looking at an additional 35-plus years, and Regina's facing up to six. Touchy, those prison officials.

Music Hath Charms

Looks like Daytona Beach is in store for some fun times, as Hammerfest 2002, a neo-Nazi concert, is slated to be held there this Saturday. Much merriment will ensue as lighthearted troubadors like Attack, Definite Hate, White Wash and Intimidation One take the stage. If you'd like to attend and share in the joy, you'll have to go to the Driftwood Beach Motel in Ormond Beach, where guests will be given "secret" directions to the concert. It's all hush-hush so as to avoid disruptions by the unwanted element, you know, screaming protesters, police, people with consciences. The owners of the motel in question are not very happy about this, however.

"We have no idea how we got caught up in this. We totally, totally have nothing to do with them. We're a small, family-owned motel on the beach with just 44 rooms."

Correction: that's 44 rooms now. We'll see how many are left after the weekend.

2:24:49 PM