Things to do this week.

• Get my suit dry-cleaned.
• Come to terms with actually winning at fantasy football.
• Find my passport.
  
• Attend this.
• Cross the US-Canadian border four times with the back of my Jeep filled with black cases (Model ST-12M).
  
• Be interrogated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officers.
• Possibly be interrogated by their Canadian counterparts.
• Think up a blog post that does not involve the New York Times or bullet points.
  

Things I did this weekend.

• Made homemade Kahlua.
• Lost an epic game of Trivial Pursuit. The original version is HARD.
• Was the only member of my family to stay awake for the entirety of Ocean's Thirteen.
• Was able to see my father carry on a conversation with Don Cheadle in his sleep.
• Drove over 500 miles.
• Listened to most of Assassination Vacation, again.
  

This Week in Blogs

• Steve is in a bicycle vs. pedestrian accident.
  
• Mrs. White prepares for her pitch meeting.
• Ryan runs FIFTY FUCKING MILES!
• Shonda gains weight, in a good way.
  
• Tom...my gets nostalgic.
  
• Paul and Carrie have a house guest. Said house guest rents them a HD tv. Note to future visitors to the Szerencse household: a high bar has been set.
• I am found out.
  

New York Times Provincialism Watch

This week finds us at the Pentagon City Costco, in Arlington, VA. The Times' crack reporters have discovered that some people, even wealthy, powerful people, like to save money by shopping at discount stores. How gauche.

Side note: It pains me say say this, because there are few people I respect more than Ben Bradlee, but his son looks like he's a tool. I think it's the sunglasses.

Stay Classy, LSJ

The Lansing State Journal is now displaying adds for Girls Gone Wild. Nice.

This Week in Blogs

• Carrie receives fashion advice in REM.
• Paul comments on papers in verse.
• Tom...my gets punny with pre-Fry & Laurie Fry & Laurie.
• Everybody's favorite pseudonymous teacher forgets... something.
• Shonda & Ryan post ultrasound pictures of their offspring or possibly a U-boat.
• Steve post a short, short story, is acknowledged for it and celebrates a birthday. Happy birthday, Steve!

Further proof that New Yorker readers are weird.

While researching the last post, I uncovered this blog. Sadly, it only lasted three months and has not been updated in over a year, despite having been linked to by Gawker and Sasha Frere-Jones. However, it did spawn the most self-righteous blog comment in the history of self-righteous blog comments.

The printed matter related sports curse no one talks about.

Everyone knows about the SI Cover Curse and the Madden Cover Curse, but I think I have uncovered a new one: The Overly-Long Magazine Profile Curse. In the October 28th issue of Play: The New York Times Sports Magazine, Michael Lewis had 7139 word article about field-goal kickers and how they are always the scapegoat. Much of this article focused on Adam Vinatieri; we all know how that turned out for him two weeks later.

One day after the Vinatieri story, a profile of Scott Boras appeared in the New Yorker. Now his clients seem to be jumping ship. The Tigers' own Kenny Rogers has given him the boot, and it looks like A-Rod, the crown jewel in Boras' stable of athletes, is thinking about leaving too.

Needs more green!!!!

This is an ugly, ugly blog. It hurts even my eyes. I may have to fix that.

New York Times Provincialism Watch

Welcome to what should be a reccurring feature here at The Elbow. I will use this space to point out a frequent issue I have with my favorite source of news: its belittling or bemused coverage of the lives of people that live outside of the northeast corridor. I was unsure whether to call it New York Times Provincialism Watch or New York Times Parochialism Watch. What do you think?

In today's installment we catch up with Susan Stellin in Maine, where she says, "Hunt-ing?" Apparently, when you get north of the Berkshires, people like to shoot deer. Who would have known?

It appears this is my first entry in three years.

So, I, apparently, had this blog thing totally wrong. "Blogs are sooo 2002" will go down with "That Titanic is unsinkable," "Ze Germans will never think to go around ze wall" and "Americans aren't dumb enough to vote for George W. Bush" in the annals of bad predictions. I will end my career as a futurist with this prediction: I have no future as a futurist.

So what have I learned in three years? I've learned that I suck at fantasy football. I've learned that weddings are very expensive. I've learned that as you head south-east in Michigan the demand curve for beer moves the right. I've learned never to rent a tuxedo from a cruise line. I've learned that I can be relied upon for an average of one blog post every five months (which may actually be more than Paul).

So, I am going to give this another try. I may actually tell people this time.