UCLA Student Tazed by LAPD in library

I don't know much about this story so I will not comment, but this was disturbing enough to post. Maybe the guy was looking at child pornography or had made a terrorist threat. Those are the only two instances that make the use of the tazer justifiable.

Scary.

Update: The guy being tazed is Mostafa Tabatabainejad and he is being tazed by LAPD Officers, this can't be good at all. Especially with all the criticism coming down on the LAPD in the last couple of months. Plus the added issue that Mostafa Tabatabainejad seems to be of Middle Eastern descent. Here is the CNN article.

Rant

What's with all this cheek kissing? I think its getting a little out of hand, wherein we're expected to greet everyone from our bosses ex-wife to the family dog after meeting them once with a very intimate kiss on the cheek. What, that initial "hello, nice to meet you," when you first met your girlfriends 60 year old 3rd cousin qualifies for a cheek kiss on the second meeting? What can I expect on the tenth meeting? I think a hug and a handshake will do just fine. I like hugs. But, if you want to kiss, go ahead, kiss me, just don't expect me to return the favor, the most you can expect from me is a turn of the cheek..."Here, place one right here, do it for daddy."

Eric Asimov, The New York Times wine critic, is great. Read his blog, The Pour. He does not stick strictly to writing about wine, he engages in everything alcohol related, and most of all he is a big fan of beer, and knows a great deal about craft brewing, imports, micros, and just a general broad knowledge of beer. So cool.

Mets lost. I still don't want to talk about it and it has been about a month since.

Rutgers? Too bad Seton Hall doesn't have a football program...

My laptop ist caput. Apparently the hard drive is on the fritz. Purchased my girlfriend a new I-pod nano, for her birthday, she did all the updates to I-tunes and the I-pod and what not on my laptop, not a day later do I wake-up to find that Windows XP won't start-up, instead a DOS screen reading this kept popping up:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\CONFIG\SYSTEM

The hell that I know what that means. All I knew is that the shit isn't working and I'm flipping out because EVERYTHING, I mean EVERYTHING that I need that is important is on that computer. I know I should've backed it up on an external...And babe, I am not blaming you for the thing crashing. Anyway, the laptop is with my computer guy who thinks he can save my files, but I haven't heard from him in about a week and I am starting to get worried.

Howard Stern used my line about being 1/16th Jewish after witnessing me get harassed by a 12 year old Hasidic Jew outside of a Ben's Kosher Deli in Glen Cove, Long Island, during succoh. I was leaving the deli at around the same time as Howard and was trying to get around him (he walks pretty damn slow) and in doing so I tripped and Howard looked over at me, and I said, "Hey Howard." he goes, "Hello, How are ya." Not a second later this little Hasidim comes running over to me with what looks like a corn stalk and a lemon in his hands, yelling, "Do a blessing for the succoch!" I give a confused look. "Wait, are you Jewish?" he asks as he suddenly realizes that I either did not respond correctly or that I just don't look Jewish, who knows. Anyway, like the idiot that I am I have to respond honestly and give a dimwitted answer, "I'm 1/16th Jewish." The Kid responds, rather quickly I might add, "On your mothers side?" Now, I was christened as a catholic, baptized, received holy communion, and confirmed, I'm freaking half Italian and mostly half Irish Catholic, what religious denomination do you think I and my family come from? Anyway, from the history text book we used in the 9th grade, even I knew what this kid was asking. If your Jewish ancestry stems from your mothers side, you can still be considered a Jew, well not really, but the kid, through some divine kabahlic power was able to determine that my Jewish great-grandfather qualified me for doing a blessing for succoch.

Keep in mind that while all this is taking place Howard is standing by his limo watching.

I answer, "Yes, on my mothers-side."

The kid grabs my arm and drags me over to this weird looking truck parked in front of the Pathmark in the Wheatley Plaza shopping center. There were four other hasids by the truck, two in the back, which was basically 4X4's nailed together and covered with a green tarp and inside this they had a table set-up with cookies and pitchers of juice cast about it. The fourth hasid was a bit older than the other three, he had a full grown beard, and was all over the place, moving franticly among the people walking in and out of Pathmark and coming back to yell something in Hebrew to the younger guys in the truck.

The kid dragging me asks me to get up in the truck, I ask, "Do I really have to?" I guess I am fully committed to participating, but I have my limits. He answers no and asks me to repeat some words in Hebrew and then to hold the corn stalk and a the lemon and press them together, reciting the words again. That finished I ask if I could leave. The kid looks distracted, then one of the two guys in the truck ask me to have a cookie with them in the succoch, which happens to be the truck, a mobile succoch, if you're aware of what a succoch is.

"Ok, I'll have a cookie."

"Please come into the succoch and have the cookie with us."

"You can't just give it to me and I'll eat it here?"

"No, come up."

By come up he meant, step onto those double stacked milk crates that were about as unstable as my patience at this point. I relent and proceed up towards the succoch, by this time Howard had stopped watching, got into his limo, and was speeding out of the parking lot as I nearly killed myself climbing into the succoch. I get up there, one kid hands me the cookie and the other looks at with this smile that I think was part, "What has this schmuck got himself into?" and "He isn't even Jewish, what is he doing?" Whatever the case maybe, I had to recite more words in Hebrew after receiving the cookie. Then they offered me a drink, that was like extremely watered down warm lemonade.

Then I left, dry cookie in hand and warm lemonade in the other, feeling slightly used and totally confused, the whole thing took about a minute and left me utterly disoriented. I'm not even Jewish, what did I just do?

Finally, the last part of this protracted and way prolonged story, while listening to Howard, on Sirius satellite Radio the following morning, Howard and Robin were discussing the Mel Gibson interview with Diane Sawyer. While making fun of it Howard was mentioning the infamous incident that took place between Gibson and a Malibu Police Officer. Where Gibson apparently asked if the officer was Jewish, to this Howard made the joke, "That Gibson can tell if someone is even 1/18th Jewish, he's got Jewdar." Ok, so it was 1/18th, there is a loose correlation between my 1/16th, in which Howard definitely heard, and what he said on the air, as yet it happened the following morning.

The real kicker of this whole thing is that I am not even 1/16th Jewish, in fact if it was my great-grandfather it would make me 1/8th.

Wow, what am I talking about?