The Cutting Room Floor II

Back by popular demand (and because we couldn't think of anything else): More outtakes!

From "Sunday Paper Recap" (10/25):

In all the reportage on swine flu, we're getting pretty tired of hearing constantly about the major at-risk groups: children, pregnant women, the elderly.

What about the Solipsist?

Sure, we bloggers holed up in our dimly lit rooms, subsisting on energy drinks and salty snacks (mmmm. . . . Funyuns) may not seem to be at risk of contracting a communicable disease, seeing as how that generally requires a minimum of human contact.

But still: Is it a risk we as a society are prepared to take?

At Solipsist Central, we man the frontlines in the neverending battle to protect our democracy. If we fall ill, then the blogosphere will be bereft--bereft, we say! Just take a look at the "Blogs of Note" to see what passes for non-Solipsistic commentary. (Yes, we're still bitter about this.) Would you entrust your children's future to these people?

Quick, get us some Tamiflu!

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From "Time for the Boys of Summer to Begone" (October 26, 2009):

In New York, in mid-October of the year 2000, you could witness a strange phenomenon: As the Mets played the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series, you could find a small percentage of Mets fans secretly wishing for a Cardinals victory. Probably very few would admit to this, but it was there.

Understand, this was no act of disloyalty. Rather it stemmed from the following reasoning:

The Mets were playing the Cardinals.

The Yankees were playing the Seattle Mariners.

If the Mets beat the Cardinals, they would go on to play the winner of the Yankees-Mariners series.

If the Mets played the Mariners and won, great!

If the Mets played the Mariners and lost, undesirable but acceptable.

If the Mets played the Yankees and won, Nirvana! Heaven on Earth! Paradise teeming with virgins and Funyuns! (Mmmm. . . . Funyuns.)

BUT:

If the Mets played the Yankees and lost? The ninth circle of Hell would be an upgrade.

So, in the calculus of the Mets fan, since we suspected deep down (correctly, as it turned out) that the Mariners wouldn't beat the Yankees, we had to wrestle with the question of whether it would be better to make it to the World Series and possibly lose to the Yankees or just fall to the Cardinals.

In retrospect, we're glad the Mets made it. We're just thankful that the whole Bush v. Gore thing came along to distract all the Yankee fans from their otherwise neverending gloating.

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From, "Why Aren't We 'Grammar Girl'?" (October 28, 2009):

You have to understand, grammar is our life! If anyone should be "Grammar Girl," it should be us!

What's that, WOS? Oh, yeah (blush). That sentence doesn't exactly sound right, does it?

If anyone should be "Grammar Girl," it should be we!

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From "Happy Halloween" (October 30, 2009):

(Commentary from "Drop the Halloween Mask! It Might Scare Someone")

At one school district, "costumes depicting animals and food (preferably carrots or pumpkins) are in favor."

Yeah, because okra and kumquats are just way too scary.

One parent is quoted as saying, "The fact is, if parents are too stupid to not send kids to school with hockey masks as Jason, they are probably too stupid to read this memo [sent by the school]."

Is that sentence incoherent, or are we just too stupid to understand it?

The guidelines at Riverside Drive Elementary School "discourage fake weapons, costumes that mock race or gender and anything too sexy; French maids are explicitly discouraged."

Well, there goes our plan to send the five-year old to school as a gun-wielding, paraplegic Cambodian prostitute!