SPEAKING UP FOR SERENA WILLIAMS

I know that the rule is that you can't have your foot on the line when you serve.
But here's the unwritten rule: You never call a foot fault unless it's blatantly ridiculous. And the truth is that a lot of line judges don't even do it then. Players NEVER call foot faults on each other, by the way. I don't know what the hell I'd do if an opponent called a foot fault on me.
Calling a foot fault in tennis is like a second base umpire calling a runner safe because the second baseman didn't touch the base exactly when he should during a double play pivot. "Safe" is the technically correct call, but the runner is always called out.
Tennis has at least as many unwritten rules as baseball does, and I'm surprised I haven't heard many people talk about how the foot fault call was just plain weird.
It was extremely weird call at a curiously important time in the match. I wouldn't be surprised if money was involved somehow.
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WINTER SPORTS

Everyone has things that they just don't do.
I don't ski. For me, its expensive, inconvenient, uncomfortable, dangerous, time-consuming, and it seems that the more involved someone becomes in skiing, the more true all that stuff is.
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NEEDS

I want an animated TV reality series staring the smurfs -- with them being voted out of the village -- one by one.
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CIRCUMVENTING RULES

One time a guy asked me the best way to get into music and learn to play the keyboard.
I told him that you just sit down and make sound. But I rethought that and told him no, that I know a lot of keyboard players who don't sit down. So, the most important thing is to make sound -- in any position -- and to do it most every day for at least an hour or two.
But here's another route to developing performance skills.
You will need: 500 small marbles, 12 blank CDs, a CD burner, a CD player, a sheet of paper, a Yamaha PSR-630 with stand, bench, and sustain pedal, a 10-gallon bucket with lid, the Rolling Stone list of 500 greatest songs of all time, a black fine-tip marker, and a red fine-tip marker.
You can substitute a PSR-295 if you can't find a 630. But try to get a 630 -- it's a better instrument and it costs about the same.
1. With either marker, label each marble 1-492, dropping them in the bucket.
2. Put the lid on the bucket, and shake it up for a minute or two.
3. Remove the lid.
4. Reach into the bucket, and without looking -- grab a marble.
5. Using the fine-tip magic marker, write its number on the blank sheet of paper.
6. Place the marble to the side.
7. Repeat steps 4-6 491 more times, recording each marble's number on the sheet of paper next to the number before it -- in the order of the draw.
8. Return the marbles to the bucket, replace the lid, and store the bucket in a safe place.
9. Make five copies of your ordered number list, and store the five copies in five different secure locations. It's preferable that at least one copy be in a vault somewhere.
10. Take the original list, and use the black fine-tip marker to note 36 of your favorite songs from the list. Don't worry about being too precise.
11. Using the red fine-tip marker, select your favorite 12 songs from those 36.
12. Get a recording of the first of those 12 songs.
You'll handle the world better when that habit of dividing things into sets of 12 becomes instinctive. It takes practice since we didn't grow up like that. We learned to do it in sets of 10. That's a tradition that began long ago when people noticed that they had 10 fingers. So we started a number system based on the number 10. The fact that we do have 10 fingers is a good argument for the Original Sin idea and the possibility that God may be somehow teasing or testing us.
-- anyway --
13. Listen to that song, and try to play it -- note-by-note -- like you hear it being sung. Then try to figure out the lower notes, and then play the lower and higher notes together.
14. Repeat that process with the remaining 11 songs, and keep practicing until you can play them all without looking -- yes, literally, with your eyes closed.
Congratulations! You are now a cover artist.
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AIRPORT BOULEVARD

The old Austin airport used to be in the middle of Airport Blvd. But Airport Blvd. will take you to the current airport, too -- now off its south end -- that's total coincidence.
But it could be fate that I'm being tailed now by a man who looks like that guy from Natural Born Killers.
Hey, goat -- it's okay for me to text and drive. I got skills, and it's up to me if that's how I wanna roll. So slow down with yourself and your green Mini Cooper -- and your moustache that doesn't mean business.
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UNDERSTANDING NEW YEAR'S EVE

"You're going to Houston to watch them play?"
Yes, Kim -- I'd go see them play anywhere if I could. I'd watch them play anything. I'd pay good money to hear them do Christian waltzes -- it doesn't matter -- they're that important of a band to me -- so I will not be going skiing in Colorado.
Have fun.
Now I could understand her frustration -- that's not saying much -- most anything is understandable -- there are only eight things that I don't understand:
Lettuce
Marriage
High-maintenance dogs
Belly-putters
Those swiss-cheese shoes
Lane Kiffen
Marijuana
Wrist watches
That's about it -- so I can understand Kim. And eventually she'll have to accept my Houston plans, and she will come to understand me -- the way that little 7-year-old kid learned to understand that foul ball that almost hit us at the baseball game last week: He asked me to see it, and he held it, and he looked at it, closely -- turning it around and around -- and whatever he discovered, he came to understand at least one thing: It wasn't his.
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RULES

Two golfers were somewhere in Britain -- not too long ago --playing a match for some huge amount of money, and on the first green one marked his ball with a coin -- just like normal -- and the other one said that disqualified him -- referencing an archaic local club rule from the 18th century forbidding money on the golf course. The penalty for having money on the course was forfeiture of any match being played. Oh well. So the next time they played, the loser of the first match got revenge -- he carried his own clubs that day. He found an old rule that a player may not use an animal for a caddy -- and the other player had to forfeit the match because his human caddy was technically an "animal".
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THE CONTEST

Two fat women who don't really know each other -- with one little dog, each -- sharing a table on the Starbucks deck. I pick up bits and pieces of their conversation.
"How many?"
"I don't know. About a dozen."
I can't emphasize enough how small the dogs are. One could comfortably fit in a shot glass -- the other would have plenty of playroom in a thimble.
"Wow. Where do you keep them all."
"Here and there."
It was mind-numbing stuff -- complete with complicated coffee.
"Well I've only sold a few."
"Oh."
An important thing to know about the contest is that it was very close -- and, even more importantly, that it didn't end in a tie. Even though the winner was unannounced, they both knew who it was -- with absolutely cogent certainty.
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ETHICS

Al Davis is weird.
Al Davis isn't known for trying hard to play well with others.
But Al Davis is an honorable old-school dude. I know one when I see one. Al Davis is not a liar, and when Al Davis questions your character, then you have probably done something very, very bad.
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TASTE

"Turn off the TV," Kim said. "Haven't you had enough of baseball?"
But I haven't had enough of baseball. I have a mad fondness for ESPN. There are only three things that'll make me turn off the ESPN.
Softball
Charity donation ads
Competitive eating
That's all I can think of -- so I'll keep the baseball on. A few months ago, I even sat through a softball game because all the women stuck in the dugout started doing their call/response shouting together -- stuff like:
This slice of pizza is so uncool!
Is the pizza old?
No, fool!
Is the pizza cold?
No, it's hot!
Just how hot?
Wicked hot!
Hot like what?
Hot like Shannon!
Shannon at the bat!
Shannon at the plate!
Hotter than pizza!
Hotter than the sun!
SHANNON DON'T WAIT!
HIT A HOME RUN!
GO, SHANNON -- GO GO GO!!
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REJECTION ON SLAUGHTER LANE

She was walking east, and I was walking west.
She had a bunch of jewelry, sunglasses, a short dress, and a miniature poodle.
And just when the three of us came within about five feet, the little bitch peered up at me and started growling.
"Come here, Alexa -- stop," she said.
Have you ever read Pride and Prejudice? One of the great things about it is the honesty of the women. It's all about how much money the bachelors have.
They make that perfectly clear.
Keeping that same spirit of Jane Austen, I'll be clear, too: A woman's ownership of a high-maintenance dog is a fundamental turn-off for me. Alexa and I wouldn't be good together.
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U READ 2 MUCH UR STRANGE

I just got that text from Kim.
Well, I am strange. Here are 18 strange things about me:
1. I make my best effort to use standard English when texting -- just to be original.
2. I judge other people by how they text.
3. And how they talk with me.
4. And sometimes I tell them -- just to see how they respond to that.
5. And I pay attention to how much sense people make.
6. I'm disinterested by folks who can't carry on a good conversation with me -- I don't usually play with them. Not out of arrogance; it's just simple disinterest.
7. I read and write for fun.
8. I read a lot of writers that most people have never heard of.
9. And reread them.
10. And take notes on the stuff.
11. I read what other people have written about them.
12. I go to lectures to hear people talk about them.
13. I go to meetings with people who do the same thing -- and we have long discussions about what we've read and heard.
14. Over Mickey's Fine Malt Liquor, occasionally
15. On Tuesday afternoons, sometimes.
16. When someone somewhere happens to mention the name of one of those writers, I say "Who's that?" and ask them to send me a text about what they wrote -- immediately -- that's 140 characters or less, buddy -- and make it good, because it's a test.
17. And I wait for the text.
18. And that's no joke.
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BIG METAL BROTHER

So why does the automatic toll booth camera photograph my car AFTER I feed the change machine instead of before?
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THE DEFINITION OF CLUTCH

So far this season, Albert Puhols has seen 22 pitches with the bases loaded. He has swung and missed at 2 of them, and he has hit grand slams on 5 others -- making him two-and-a-half times as likely to hit a grand slam as he is to swing and miss in that situation.
That is clutch.
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GLUTTONY

I just told this guy that I did not want to go to the Golden Corral. He seems reasonable in all other aspects except this one.
I think it was St. Thomas Aquinas who said that gluttony was the worst of the seven deadly sins -- but it may have been someone else.
When do you ever eat "all you can eat"?

SEVEN WEIRD THINGS ABOUT AUSTIN

38th Street and 35th Street intersect.
Lamar Boulevard has no beginning and no end -- it just fades into other roads. There is a distinction between North Lamar and South Lamar, but opinions differ about where the division happens -- some say its at 6th Street, and some say its south of the river.
Town Lake is really the Colorado River, but nobody knows where its boundaries are, either. It runs through the middle of Austin, and everyone would say that the Congress Avenue bridge passes over it, but does Interstate 35? You'll get different answers. They might say that it runs over the river, and not the lake.
The official name of the Congress Avenue Bridge is the "Lady Bird Johnson Memorial Bridge". Nobody calls it that. Its probably the largest structure in the world named after a woman who wanted it torn down.
The places that were considered bad neighborhoods twenty years ago -- they're now unaffordable. The places that were considered good neighborhoods then -- they have now ascended to Heaven.
It's illegal to smoke in Austin bars and restaurants. It's fully illegal before about 9pm. From about 9 until around midnight, it's still fairly illegal. After midnight, it's a matter of who cares and who doesn't.
Any famous band has probably played here at least once.

SIX INFREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT WORDS

What is literature?
If someone writes something, and at least two other people have a critical discussion about it -- then that is literature.
What is a critical discussion?
People talking about what some writing means. The discussion is grounded in some sort of philosophy involving the world outside the text.
Can't you just talk about a piece of writing as it is, without choosing to treat it from a particular philosophical position?
A lot of people say no -- that's impossible -- and they can make some convincing arguments supporting that.
What makes writing "good"?
If someone pays money for it.
How are good writing and literature related?
They're not. Plane tickets are good writing -- but not literature, since we don't have critical discussions about their text. Restaurant menus are often literature, but not good writing, since you get the menu to read for free.
So what's the higher objective -- good writing or literature?
That depends on the goals of the author. The more he appreciates money, the more he should produce good writing. The more he appreciates thought about his writing, the more he should produce literature.

CLASS OF 1999

Why do all these alumni parties happen on summer afternoons --it's too hot -- so we went back to her apartment right by the Ole Miss campus, just on the other side of the railroad ravine -- she still lives there even after 10 years -- her apartment has hardly changed -- and because we didn't know what else to talk about, we started talking awkwardly about her little stubby brown plant, set on the floor of her window-free, dark bathroom -- and she said she loved it because it was so cute -- with my telling her to face reality -- it was puny and dying without light -- and her telling me to shut up -- and my reiterating my concern for the plant -- for her sake, mainly -- telling her that it really would die -- that all plants die without light -- and if for some reason it didn't, then it was really a fungus and not even a plant to begin with -- and she said how dare you call my plant a fungus -- and that I haven't grown up or changed at all since college -- and I told her I'm sorry -- but she started crying anyway -- and we drank the rest of the 151 left over after the bananas Foster I had fixed. And the next thing I know we're going an uncomfortable distance down a road off Highway 6 between Pontotoc and Tupelo, headed to some dive-bar she knows about on the far side of nowhere -- a place filled with those sorts of people who think your time is best spent satisfying God, Mama, and Uncle Sam -- in that order, pretty much -- and there's no reason to do anything else -- and if you spent much of your time pursuing other goals, then you're either selfish or misdirected or an agent of Satan or Satan him/herself -- but in any case, you had to be reformed -- and they never told you that even if you cooperated, fully participating in the reformations -- that you could never gain their full acceptance even then -- since you had been more flawed than others who always did have their full acceptance -- and another thing they don't tell you -- or themselves -- is that they'll lose respect for you if you cooperate with them -- at all -- that's understandable -- from everyone's viewpoint -- since every man should know exactly who he is and what he wants and never change that -- and to that point, I am who I am, and I know the key to the good life: Time Management. That's it. Scout's honor. Have a good day.

PARADOXICAL UNDRESSING

I've just learned that just before people freeze to death, they experience a sensation of extreme heat, and often take off their clothes. Doctors call this phenomenon "paradoxical undressing".

100% OF PUTTS LEFT SHORT DON'T GO IN

It may not be the most important principle in golf, but it's in the top four or five.