Josh Gondelman

The centerpiece of the weekend, however, was the Extreme Ghost Hunt. A quick piece of background information about me: I do not believe in or care about ghosts. But I do love a. my girlfriend and b. anyone with an intense passion about something unproven. Ghosts, string theory, God, whatever.

It’s with great trepidation that I publicly admit I have joined the ranks of the morning people because it means that I, by extension, am not a lot of fun. I am not the least exciting person. I do not exercise before the sun rises. Nor have I ever described any amount of running as “fun.” I have never knitted publicly.

On the surface, fantasy football seems to combine two things that I love: Math and sports. While I am facially very nerdy, I enjoy athletics more than comic books (though not quite as much as grammar). I like to pore over a stat sheet, and as a kid I would keep track of league leaders in several statistical categories every morning before leaving for school.

My freshman year, I didn’t drink at all. One of my best friends got blackout drunk on his way to a theme party, to which he was wearing a leather skirt and no underwear. He passed out and had to be taken to the hospital. The EMTs refused to move him until his roommate wrangled him into some boxers. Is his life richer and more nuanced for having that experience? Probably not. He has a story now, but you know who else also has that story? Everyone else.

When a kid gets a paper cut and for a second it seems like the whole world is about to come apart, your job is to hold it together. There’s no removal from the effects of your work. When you’re doing a good job, a room full of tiny people is peaceful and happy. When you’re not… they really, really aren’t.

Right off the bat there’s the horns! THE HORNS! The kind of brass instrumentation that makes me rethink my decision to quit the trombone after 10^th grade. Undeniable, infectious trumpet bursts punctuate each line. Not just perfect to dance to, but inconceivable to stand still to.

A good nickname is about description. You hear it and you know something about the person. You hear Babe Ruth called The Colossus of Clout (The Colossus of Clout!) and you know that he hits for power…

I’m glad that dress fits so well. I remember how you had your eyes on it at that sale at Forever 21, and this other girl picked it up, and when she put it down to clean off her glasses you grabbed it and paid for it and ran out of the store without even trying it on. That was such a good story.

Now, lots of people have made jokes at the expense of these three artists. And I’m not necessarily here to bury Vanilla Ice; I’m hopefully here to praise him. Because to me, “Ice Ice Baby” along with “The Right Stuff” and “U Can’t Touch This” were the pinnacle of recorded music. I could not listen to it enough.

As the food (including my salad, whose dressing was at least 50% bacon) arrived, Jesse explained a prank that he and Jessica had recently started perpetrating at friends’ weddings.“We leave an anonymous gift,” he explained. “It’s always a real piece of junk. Then we get some terrible card and sign fake names. Then when they open it, they’re like ‘Is that your cousin?’ ‘I thought that was your cousin.’”

Neither the opulent display of prophylactics nor the graphic examples of their non-use proved the biggest factor in my staunchly pro-safe sex attitude. The tipping point, strangely enough, proved to be gangsta rap.

Lots of credit goes to the old, familiar tricks, but few people take the time to stop and recognize the newer tricks in the book. Sure, they may lack the simple elegance of that trick where you point at a stain on someone’s shirt and then poke that person in the face when they look, but there are plenty of modern ploys, dupes, and cons that rival them in effectiveness.