jasonenglish1.com

It may not be The Times of India. But mental_floss was mentioned yesterday in New York Magazine. Well, “in” their website. They picked up our New York edition of “The First Time News Was Fit To Print.”

Check it out.

I was very pleased with last night’s turnout. Over 100 people showed up to commemorate ten long years since graduation. Here are a few pics. Follow the link below to my Facebook photo gallery for more.

To see more photos, head over to my Facebook photo album. And if you have reunion photos, let me know and I’ll add them to the gallery.

The reunion was a huge success. I’ll post the rest of my photos later today.

We are up to 99 paid participants for Saturday’s reunion. This is shaping up to be quite the evening. Let me answer all the questions we’ve been asked….

Can I still come if I haven’t paid?
Yes. We’d be glad to have you.

Here’s the deal: you can pay via PayPal until midnight tonight (Thanksgiving Day). Go to PayPal.com and send payment to: MK1997reunion@gmail.com. $65/person.

If you want to pay at the door, it’s $75/person and must be in cash.

Is there a dress code?
Yes, albeit a mild one. No hats, no sweatpants and no t-shirts. So don’t show up in a hat, t-shirt or sweatpants and proceed to make a scene. We won’t have sleeves for you to borrow.

What time does it start?
Our event lasts from 8-midnight. If you want to show up earlier and hang out at the bar and pay for drinks, I’m not going to stop you.

(And that’s Saturday, November 24th. Don’t show up Friday.)

What will we eat?
From 8-10pm, the following food items will be available:

• Chicago Style Assorted Deep Dish Pizza Bites
• Nacho Bar with Chili, Shredded Cheddar and Jack Cheese, Guacamole, Sour Cream & Picante Sauce
• Chicken Bites with Honey Mustard Sauce
• Raw Vegetables
• Penne a la Vodka

On the beverage side, the open bar lasts from 8-midnight. Drink up.

How will you know I paid?
I will be standing outside Vanderbilt’s giving out wristbands. You must have a wristband to enter. If you’d like to volunteer to help with front door duty, you are fantastic. Send me an email.

What will we do?
Eat. Drink. Reminisce. Play pool. Show pictures of your kids or dogs or beach houses. Lie about your resume. Mingle. Flirt. Network. Fill out your page in the “Where Are You Now?” MK Alumni Directory, which we’ll send out to everyone afterwards. High-five.

There will not be any formal events. No Reunion Queen or Gifted & Talented Showcase. You’ll entertain yourselves/each other.

Where is this thing again?
Vanderbilt’s, in the Hamilton Park Hotel in Florham Park.

175 Park Avenue
Florham Park, NJ 07932
1-800-321-6000

Here’s a link to this address on Google Maps.

Does Vanderbilt’s have a website?
Yes — http://www.hamiltonparkhotel.com/vanderbilts

Which event has more significance to you: the reunion, or Valleyview Principal George Deamer’s retirement?
I echo Sanjay’s sentiment.

Why am I getting this email if I told you I wasn’t coming?
Sorry. I tried to scrub the list. This is the last email you’ll receive. Promise.

What happens at midnight?
If enough people are still hanging out, the bar will stay open (cash bar).

Email me with any additional questions. See you Saturday!

Brett Savage contributed this fantastic quiz to mental_floss today. Twenty-five multiple-choice questions covering the glory years of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Put your useless knowledge to the test.

I rode Mangesh’s coattails into the Sunday Times of India (Bangalore edition). Here’s the link to the full article, which has nothing to do with me.

Their editor had to use this picture – taken by Michael Surtees, to whom I owe an apology for the lack of a photo credit – because the glamour shots I had taken of Mangesh were not Times of India-worthy. Not at all.

That’s one less national paper-of-record for me to stumble into.

[Michael, do you have the original version of this picture? This set was a casualty of my hard drive crash.]

Owning a professional sports franchise is my dream job. I’m willing to relocate.

I’d be one of the more meddlesome executives fans love to hate. I’d demand a say in who we drafted and redesign our uniforms. I’d deliver dramatic missives via sports-talk radio and send cryptic messages through the press. And I’d encourage local schoolchildren to mail Christmas cards to my dog, who’d have her own luxury box and a cartoon on our cable network.

Of course, not counting the NHL, I could never afford a pro sports team. There’s a better chance I’ll miraculously develop an unhittable slider, or learn to punt.

You obviously must be exceedingly rich to become an owner. Did you ever wonder how all these people made all that money? I sure hope you did, because we went and did all this research. What follows is a list of ten billionaire owners and how they built their fortunes.

[Head over to mental_floss to learn how Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft and many other owners made their multi-billions.]

This morning I was interviewed by Scott Simon on NPR’s Weekend Edition. We discussed my ongoing mental_floss feature “The First Time News Was Fit To Print.” The sound engineers did a masterful job editing out my nervous stammering.

I’ll write more about the whole experience next week. For now, here’s a link to the audio.

Here’s the Wikipedia entry for the Seinfeld finale. I’m so happy that Wikipedia has entries for such things. Well done.

With lots of help from the future Mrs. Josh Evans (library scientist and freelance researcher Meg McGinn), I put together a list of fourteen stories you might not know about Bobby Kennedy. The article doesn’t go up until Friday mid-morning (though I don’t expect I have any pre-sunrise readers). But here’s a taste:

3. He wasn’t above a bar fight.

“Shortly after his twenty-first birthday, Kennedy celebrated by buying his first beer. Soon he was buying rounds for everyone in the bar. Some of the patrons began singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to someone else, and Kennedy, inebriated for the first time in his life, became enraged at their ingratitude. He smashed a beer bottle over one man’s head and refused entreaties by [Kenneth] O’Donnell to apologize.” [Source]

8. His house was a zoo.

In August of 1962, The New York Times wrote about Attorney General Kennedy’s dog Brumus (not sure if that’s him in the photo), who was a regular visitor to the Justice Department. “He usually stays at home with the children,” Kennedy explained. “But the children are away on vacation and he gets very lonely. So I bring him down here and get pretty girls to take him for walks.” The article ended by listing the rest of Kennedy’s animal friends: “two other dogs, ponies, horses, geese, a burro, a sea lion (!?), Hungarian pigeons, twenty goldfish, rabbits, turtles and a salamander.”

Read the other twelve stories — including a 1967 debate with Ronald Reagan and some ballsy mountain climbing — at mental_floss.

Last year I shared these photos of Ellen and me from Halloween 1981. But you might have missed last year.

Halloween 2007 proved uneventful. Some rude little children barged into our house, souring me on the entire Livingston community. I hate panhandlers.

Back in 2005, thirteen days before we brought home Bailey, I kept a mini-diary of the Halloween happenings. Let’s review:

The Suburban Halloween Report
November 1, 2005
I was only home for three trick-or-treat rings of my doorbell last night, but each fascinated me.

1. At 8:02 PM, a “kid” stopped by, alone, wearing a cape. He was pushing 20. Despite having my permission to “grab a handful,” this crusader took just one bag of Sour Patch Kids and, at my urging, a Tootsie Pop.

2. At 8:45 PM, I had my second visitor: a middle-schooler wearing a red t-shirt with the words “Skittles Candy” lazily ironed on. Even if executed brilliantly, this was a crappy costume. She was half-assing Halloween in every respect. Never even said trick-or-treat. To be fair, she couldn’t say anything to me, since she was talking on her cell phone. She took one Butterfinger. I did not offer her more.

3. Finally, at 9:37 PM, a group of four tweens dropped in. I have no idea what they were supposed to be; they looked like remnants of a more elaborate group costume. Perhaps other members of this group — members whose roles were essential — weren’t allowed to stay out past 9:30 on a school night. They sensed Halloween’s end was near and shamelessly horded my remaining candy.

Let’s do this again next year.

Let’s play The Hall of Fame Game! Can you pick out who’s part of the inducted crowd?

(The questions for these three involved the Baseball, WWE and Jewish Sports Halls of Fame.)

The main reason why there’s been so little activity here is my commitment to mental_floss. I don’t mean that in a self-important, look-at-me-I-work-so-hard kind of way. But after spending ten hours a day writing, editing and staring at mentalfloss.com, the last thing I want to do is go blog somewhere else. So let me run through a few recent posts you might enjoy, starting with (one of) Six Supergroups Who Saved The World:

Year: 1991
Cause: Operation Desert Storm
Biggest Stars: Garth Brooks, Michael Bolton, Kevin Costner, Will Smith
Strangest Stars: Orel Hershiser, Fred Savage, Don King, Mike Tyson
What To Look For: The forced inclusion of half-hearted lip-synchers Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan (at the 1:03 mark); Ted Danson waving in passing, making me question his involvement (3:24); Gary Busey rocking (3:35); a barely recognizable Alyssa Milano (3:43); The Fonz and Hershiser (4:11); Iron Mike’s sweater (4:33)

The idea and YouTube research for this post came from Kevin Pell. Now head over to mental_floss to watch the other five, including a touching rendition from Old Aid.

This blog has been neglected. I make no excuses, but instead will try to win you back with a series of three “Back in Action” posts. The first subject: Bailey.

Bailey posing in front of the newest work of art acquired by the English family. We’re still searching for the right wall on which to hang it.

Like America’s westward expansion in the 1800s, Bailey has slowly come to occupy the pillow portion of the bed.

The flash should wake her and force a retreat to her agreed-upon territory, we thought.

We were half right.