in the tall grass

in the tall grass, originally uploaded by pr9000.

or "dans la merde," as Anthony Bourdain put it in the Les Halles cookbook ...

Some friends from Minneapolis sent me this miniature Ben Roethlisberger figurine -- I will not call it a "doll" -- and I had to take it out yesterday with the macro lens. You can't see it here, but he comes with a little stand that looks like a section of turf from the middle of Heinz Field, including little hypocycloids; I'm guessing the real grass at Heinz is about as lifelike as the plastic here.

The cool thing about Little Ben, as I call him? He's got grass and dirt stains (visible on his right leg here), which shows that, like the "real" Ben, he's been sacked about 22 times in the first half.