I don’t know why everybody is suddenly discovering Garfield Minus Garfield. I tried to tell you about it two years ago¹. It is pretty great though, so I guess I’ll just have to accept the fact that a link from me isn’t quite enough to propel something into worldwide popularity.

¹ Although that was subtly different, in that it subtracted Garfield’s words/thoughts, but not Garfield himself. I assert that it’s actually much better that way than without Garfield entirely. Not quite as weird, but a lot more funny/poignant.

Hi, computers! I know, it’s been a while. I wish I could say I’ve been really busy, but I don’t think that would be strictly accurate. I have been pretty busy, but I’ve been on my computer pretty much without cease that whole time. I’ve been twittering and google reading and scrabulousing; I just haven’t been blogging. I have no excuses for not posting, except that a) I have nothing to say, and b) nobody really cares, anyway.

Anyway, I updated the blogroll for the first time in about two years, which I suspect will matter to nobody at all, and I added this google chat badge thing on the right, which I suspect will be a complete waste of time. And that’s about it. The rest of my time has been spent reading, writing, and filling out paperwork for various bureaucracies. It’s a pretty exciting life I lead.

Bye, computers!

Bonus: here’s a photo of the Christmas tree my neighbors just threw out (on our front lawn, mind, with lights and a tree stand still attached) a couple weeks ago. As you would expect, it is still sitting there.

I really enjoyed this Washington Post story about Tokyo’s surfeit of great restaurants. The Michelin guide just released its first edition covering the city, canvassing its 160,000 restaurants (almost eight times as many as New York City) and granting an astonishing 191 stars (Paris has 98, NYC 54). The story is kind of about that, but it’s mostly just a snapshot of a cooking culture that values integrity, diligence, and freshness.

The curry bun is a sweet doughnut wrapped around a deep green dollop of mild English-style curry. The onions in the curry are slow-fried for four hours. Once cooked, the curry is given a day of rest before it marries its doughnut. Only about 400 of these buns are made each day, all by hand.

“I have found the perfect harmony of curry sauce and dough,” explains Hideki Okubo, who experimented with spices and curry powder for six months until he got it right.

That was 24 years ago, and his curry bun has since become something of a legend in Tokyo. Okubo said he has been offered lucrative deals to mass-market it but has never seriously considered doing so.

“A restaurant has to have one thing that stands out,” he said. “For us, it is our bun.”

And that’s not even from one of the restaurants with a Michelin star. I’m kind of obsessed with this stuff (even though I never cook anything with more than three ingredients) and I really dug this story. Two thumbs way up.

[This post was spurred by this io9 piece about Kanye West and Daft Punk.]

There’s so much wrong about Kanye West’s performance at the Grammys last week. The awkward missing swears. The misogyny. The fact that Kanye essentially appropriates an incredibly awesome sample (Daft Punk‘s “Harder Better Faster Stronger,” off of their amazing album, “Discovery”) wholecloth and loops it to a hit single. The sheer arrogance/attitude Kanye can’t help but exude with his every public utterance.

And yet, it is unquestionably awesome.

First of all, I will always love Kanye for his willingness to take popular hip-hop in a new, eclectic direction. He’s not the first rapper to do it (Mos Def, Wu Tang, De La Soul, and A Tribe Called Quest are just the few that immediately came to mind), but with apologies to those and other interesting rappers, he is the biggest star to do it. I imagine this must be what it was like to watch Michael Jackson’s creative explosion with Thriller–the songs’ subject matter, the music videos, the sheer ambition of his efforts. Really cool. In Kanye’s case, often cooler in theory than in execution, but when he gets it right it’s electrifying.

At any rate, with his diverse background and education and his incredible flair for marketing, Kanye is like a musical Kobe Bryant (before the rape fiasco)–a chameleon with something for everyone to like, and enough charisma to amplify his sizable talent. As I suggested above, my favorite thing about Kanye is that he takes influences that have rarely been applied to hip-hop, and by the time he’s done with them they seem inevitable. His preppy persona, then his Miami Vice pastel kick, then his retro-futuristic Tron thing… anyone who follows this stuff at all knows what I’m talking about. He’s either setting these trends or quite ably anticipating them. Either way, he’s a bellwether for the Next Big Thing. Plus, he allowed/commissioned this, for which I will forever admire him.

Second of all, as the io9 post I linked to notes, Daft Punk is really great in a lot of ways. They make really fun, really interesting pop music, too, and are willing to go to great lengths to create an artistic presence. They haven’t made a public appearance as human beings in years, and their music is in some ways extraordinarily sterile. But there’s a kernel of soul in it, all the same–like the pulsating brain controlling Krang’s mechanized body.

Anyway, everything I love and hate about the Kanye/Daft Punk collaboration is on display in the video, which you can see right here:

Well, I was way wrong about the game. I take solace in the fact that I’m not alone in that, and in the fact that I’m not really a Patriots fan. That said, I was definitely rooting for them to win, and I’m shocked and disappointed that they didn’t.

I’m pretty annoyed with Belichick for a) leaving the field before the final whistle and b) not making any good changes to the Patriots’ game plan at halftime (or earlier). You’ve got to hand it to Manning for the game-winning drive (never thought I’d write that sentence about Eli), and the Giants’ defensive line was truly awesome.

But all that being said, I don’t understand why the Pats didn’t transition to a quick-pass, screen-heavy, audible-filled offensive scheme as soon as it became clear that Brady wasn’t going to have the kind of time he’s had for most of the season.

Also, going for it on 4th and 13 was extremely stupid. I think there’s a good argument for punting in that situation, and an equally good argument for attempting a 49 yard field goal, but trying to convert the first down was arrogant and foolish. I said so at the time and now feel justified.

Essentially, it seems like the Patriots made a series of major strategic errors in advance of and during the game–errors that a relatively casual fan like myself identified as such at the time, not just in retrospect. It’s so uncharacteristic of the coaching staff that I find it difficult to believe that it happened.

At any rate, I think the Patriots deserved that outcome. They were extremely confident going into the game (as were most of the fans and pundits who opined on the likely outcome), and they failed to match the Giants in intensity or preparation. If you’re going to talk a big game (as both teams did, in their own ways), you’ve got to back it up. And the Pats definitely didn’t do that.

As a Redskins fan I hate the Giants, but you’ve got to hand it to them. The play that everyone’s talking about today (Manning fighting off a sure sack to throw a miracle completion to the team’s 4th or 5th receiver, to put the team in scoring range for the ultimate game-winner) is a microcosm of the season as a whole–improbable, clutch, and ugly. This was one of the most exciting Super Bowls ever, in terms of the play on the field and the teams’ respective stories. Congrats to everyone with the lack of character that being a Giants fan entails.

And get ready for even more Manning commercials. Ugh.

If you were more interested in the Spygate stuff than the TV-14 stuff, you may be interested to know that Gregg Easterbrook has another column up today, going into a little more detail on why new stories are popping up this week, and what the Patriots are alleged to have done. I dunno, I still find it all a bit ridiculous, but it is interesting to learn a little bit about what’s going on behind the scenes.

Money lines, complete with practically sarcastic note that none of this has been proved (or even hinted at by any direct evidence):

If the Patriots secretly taped the Rams’ walk-through, then stopped the red-zone plays the Rams showed in that walk-through, then won that Super Bowl by three points, then logic says New England materially benefited from cheating in the Super Bowl. If true, this would be the worst sports scandal since the Black Sox.

Let’s put that in capital letters: IF TRUE. We don’t yet know if the Super Bowl allegations are true. Then again, we are into only the second day of information going on the record and the league finally answering some questions about the subject.

PS: Do you think there’s any chance that the Pats will use this as anything but competitive fuel tomorrow? My prediction: New England 37, New York 20.

From Gregg Easterbrook’s over-the-top absurd column that essentially asserts that the Patriots’ season is indelibly tainted by “Spygate”–which is, in terms of its actual effect on competition in the leage, a complete non-event¹:

Will the Victoria’s commercial be TV-14? Earlier this season, TMQ noted that NBC’s Sunday night football wrap show is rated TV-14 — I wondered whether I should let my 12-year-old watch it. Reader Rebecca Seidel of Monroe, Conn., writes, “Tell Spenser he shouldn’t watch the commercials. While the NFL itself keeps programming clean, not all of its sponsors feel the same way. Based on the assumption that mostly adult males will be the ones watching football past nine on a school night, the ads tend to get a little racy.” On the East Coast, half the Super Bowl will occur past 9 p.m., the hour when networks start allowing racy ads. Risqué is fine for adults, but should it occur in the context of the one show per year that every little kid in America is allowed to stay up late to watch? We’ll see how the commercials stack up this year.

Okay, so here’s my question. WHO CARES? I know, I know. Lots of people care. But I think it’s ridiculous. So what if a bunch of pre-teens see cleavage? What’s the worst case scenario? Youngsters all over America start humping their couches? Do you think there’s any way to prevent, or even slow, adolescents’ discovery of the human body, in all its sinfulness?