I’m surprised to hear myself say it, but after reading Martin’s writeup I feel a little bad for Bob Novak, who hit a pedestrian with his car this morning. It sounds like it was only a matter of time: the comments are just getting started, but so far about 10% are from people reporting incidents where Novak almost hit them, too.

But like I said, I feel bad for the guy. Bob and I go way back. When I was a little kid I used to watch the McLaughlin Group with my dad. I don’t remember much from that experience besides McLaughlin’s plaid Christmas jacket and the paternally-instilled lesson that Novak was a Very Bad Man. The situation became clearer during senior year of high school, when my government teacher would fulfill his educational duty by showing us taped episodes of Crossfire. It was an exciting time: Bill Press pioneered the disoriented, exasperated style of liberalism that would later help America ignore Al Gore; and the program itself was just beginning to metastasize into the odious force that Jon Stewart would eventually banish to another dimension. But the most remarkable spectacle was happening across the table from Press, where Robert Novak exuded pure reptilian malevolence with the sort of ease that made you want to stand up and applaud. When he tried to smile the entire class would physically recoil.

But now, looking back, I realize that Novakian evil isn’t anything to fear. I didn’t know it at the time, but the McLaughlin Groupies who should have been inspiring bone-chilling terror were Fred Barnes and Mort Kondracke. They were the true harbingers, the types of guys whose ilk might lobby for offshore drilling on the strength of an invitation to an oil magnate’s daughter’s super sweet sixteen; or who might accidentally launch missiles while trying to play Snood, then refuse to feel bad about it.

So what if Novak outs the occasional CIA agent or runs down the occasional pedestrian? His is a totally comprehensible evil. And, for what it’s worth, this Radar feature indicates that he’s a perfectly nice old man, who delights staffers at every office holiday party with jigs played upon his famous golden fiddle.

My point is that Washington knows how to deal with his type: when we’ve had a few too many missing pedestrians and/or wars, the town’s bravest men descend into the secret Masonic catacombs below and, confronting the beast with hemlock and holy water, force him to dissolve into shrieks and a foul, sulfurous mist. At this point the Washington Times prints a note indicating that Mr. Novak will be on vacation until the next solstice, and everyone declares themselves more or less satisfied.

That’s the way things work around here, and it’s a system we’re comfortable with. Seeing misfortune befall ol’ Bob seems like an imbalance, and that makes me sad. If I get my choice of foe I’ll take reptilian evil over reptile-sized brains any day.

Alright internet, I need theories. We have a problem at work: it’s our dishwasher. It’s a relatively recent acquisition — one of those miniature units that feel dainty and ridiculous, but which are quite useful for taming the tower of coffee mugs and soiled tupperware that would otherwise teeter over the sink. For that, it’s great.

The problem is that it smells. Not while operating, but when its wash cycle is complete, everything inside of it is suffused with a sickening floral scent. Not really floral, mind you — I mean bad fake floral, and with a distinct note of machine oil underneath it. It’s pretty unpleasant. I’ve had to throw out more than one serving of food after forgetting to re-rinse the container I put it in. I once found my eyes watering from it as I tried to eat a mug full of oatmeal.

I thought it was the fancy-pants detergent capsules we were using, but after switching brands that suspect has been ruled out. The smell persists.

So here’s the mystery: what the hell could it be? And how do I get rid of it?

Oh, and a dead body was found next to the dishwasher in a puddle of water BUT THE ROOM WAS LOCKED. But I don’t think that’s necessarily related.

If you don’t own a TV, go buy one. This way you’ll never be tempted to unnecessarily mention that you don’t own a television, preventing everyone else from thinking you’re a supercilious jackass.

If you don’t own a TV and are able to refrain from relating this fact, then, uh, carry on.

TO CLARIFY: You don’t have to watch it, of course. That’s your call. But by owning a television, most attempts to proudly explain your aversion to the medium will become so bogged down in qualifiers that they’ll never escape your lips. This will be well worth the $19 investment.

ALSO: Obligatory Onion reference.

It turns out that I’m not a very good gambler. I’ve already learned this during my still-brief career as a blackjack player — once at Foxwood’s, again in New Orleans. In between those trips Atlantic City had neglected to reinforce the lesson, but yesterday it corrected the oversight. Ficke and I had driven there after an idyllic beach weekend — the girls, seemingly blind to the sophisticated glamour of AC, opted to head directly home in the other car. I should’ve known my luck was bad after five-putting during our pre-departure round of mini-golf. At the time I’d simply chalked it up to the robot spider guarding the hole, but now I see that my problem was more metaphysical.

It was hardly a catastrophe*, but the fumbling, vacant dealers did collect our money with startling speed despite spending most of their time staring hopelessly into the space over our heads. That was the worst part: seeing so many good cards wasted on those for whom they could produce no joy. I would’ve thought that the place’s delightful wild-west theme would keep the employees more cheerful. Maybe for them the mild disappointment Matt and I felt at the lack of period costumes has grown into a poisonous cancer that eats them away from the inside. I bet it’s nothing that some leather fringe and a fake gunfight scheduled on the quarter-hour couldn’t cure.

* Thanks in part to the casinos’ exorbitant ATM fees. Am I crazy to think this is a bad decision on their part? Cutting down that $4.50 charge seems likely to make them a hell of a lot more money over the long run.

The exciting answer.

Washington, DC: where you can be friends with really smart media people who aren’t incredibly awful.

There are a number of stupid jokes that I’d like to make but which I am not quite willing to spend $40 on:

• http://youcantsee.me
• http://mynameismyna.me
• http://theinternetisgettingincreasinglyla.me

Anybody take the plunge? For a moment I thought my idea to buy http://jetai.me was brilliant, but of course it’s already taken.

I’m also sorry to see Rob and Libby go. Not only because they’re great people who I already don’t see often enough, but also because this means Bostonians will suddenly get to learn fascinating new things about their city as Rob discovers, researches and writes them up — a luxury that I’ve grown accustomed to having for myself over the past few years.

If there’s solace to be had, it’s that Rob’s membership in this city’s secret transit cabal seems unlikely to be affected. So take heart, and if you’re feeling wistful, go reread my all-time favorite Goodspeed Update entry.

Interesting: the author of the HackMii blog has posted an entry requesting that Nintendo get in touch with him about an exploit he’s discovered that would allow piracy of Wii games without modification to the console. He notes that he’s tried emailing Nintendo but hasn’t received a response. Then he indicates that he’s planning to follow the disclosure methodology outlined here. Key parts:

A. [...T]he ORIGINATOR is to email the MAINTAINER about the problem.


B. The MAINTAINER has 5 work days respond. [...] The ORIGINATOR is technically free to do whatever they want to do after 5 work days—however, they should be fair and wait if the MAINTAINER shows adequate initiative to fix the ISSUE.


[C, D, E and F concern the procedure followed if the MAINTAINER acknowledges the communication and works to resolve the issue]


G. If the MAINTAINER feels it’s appropriate to alert the public of the issue, then there’s no reason why the ORIGINATOR should not. Traditionally, alerting the community of a problem (but not providing full exploit details) has proven to be futile; other researchers are then just as likely to discover the problem as well—and they may not bide by the guidelines set by this policy. Therefore, if the issue is to be disclosed, all aspects of it should be disclosed.

In short, if Nintendo chooses not to respond, there may be piracy-enabling exploit code for the Wii published in as little as five days. This is a real possibility: Nintendo’s historical reaction to issues raised by the hacking community has been to ignore it and hope it goes away. There don’t appear to be nearly as many institutional resources devoted to mitigating these issues as at Sony and Microsoft — that’s apparent from their consoles’ relatively simple security systems, the slow and somewhat half-assed manner in which the Twilight Hack was ultimately patched, and the lack of attention paid to piracy on their handheld consoles relative to, say, the PSP’s constantly-updated firmware.

A lack of attention shouldn’t be confused with a lack of calculation, however: Nintendo might be right to ignore these issues. The Wii’s success owes to its adoption among a new demographic — one that’s not traditionally associated with gaming, and one that can probably be counted on not to do much damage to Nintendo’s bottom line by burning patched ISOs from the Pirate Bay.

Image by Flickr user michaelsharon, used under a Creative Commons license

UPDATE: Nintendo has responded through private channels, and consequently it looks like the exploit won’t be released until after a patch is issued. It’s still entertaining to check out the comments at the linked post, though, which are full of morons impersonating Nintendo representatives in order to get the exploit sent to them. A hint for these overconfident confidence men: most major corporations don’t ask to use IRC to discuss trade secrets.

1. I’m really not looking forward to the inevitable advent of sous-vide machines targeting the home cook. Heartfelt testimonials, theme dinner parties, and the Slate product roundup that will mark the phenomenon’s end: it’s going to be pretty unbearable.
2. Assuming, for a moment, that teleportation was feasible, and you teleported from the top of a hill to its bottom, what would happen to all your elevation-related potential energy? I imagine this is probably not at the top of the list of thermodynamic problems with teleportation, but it seems like at the least it could be a major inconvenience for middle school science teachers. Which would be fine by me, I guess — potential energy always seemed like kind of a crock anyway.

I’ve been friends with Charles for a long time now. There’s no use trying to fool anyone, so I’ll fess up: I’d support his musical endeavors even if they were terrible.

But it’s awfully nice that they’re not. I’m not sure when it happened, exactly — the frenzy of the Iota show and the vastness of Fort Reno may have concealed the exact moment — but last night at the Black Cat it was clear that the City Veins’ live show has passed a new threshhold. God damn but they killed it. Maybe it’s just Stockholm Syndrome; if it is, I’m prepared to embrace it.

Watching them play, I couldn’t help feeling a pang of envy: it’s tough to see such wholehearted commitment to the moment without wanting more of it for yourself. Fortunately it was easy to drown that wistfulness in joy, and pride, at watching your friends throw themselves so completely into something they clearly love.

It looks like it’s easy now, like the songs have been worked and reworked until they’re so pliable that they can be twisted into whatever shape the band imagines during the count-off. I’m sure that’s just an illusion. But it’s a convincing one, and a testament to how good these guys have gotten at playing together.

I’m sorry I didn’t mercilessly promote last night’s show; if you weren’t there, I wish you had been. I’ll do my best to step up my harassment when their next DC gig rolls around.