game night

John Wayne had some shockers too, though in one memorable game he won Lassie from the canine star's desperate owner.

I mixed several of these together last night and called it the Spirit of Montecore.

Fun with Christmas gifts. Or maybe birthday, I can’t remember when I got this...

Match the celebrity with their stank –

1. Prince
2. Christina Aguilera
3. Sean Combs
4. Shania Twain
5. Mariah Carey
6. Celine Dion
7. Kylie Minogue
8. Paris Hilton
9. Derek Jeter
10. Sarah Jessica Equineface
11. Naomi Campbell


a. Spring in Paris
b. Starlight
c. Cat Deluxe
d. Driven
e. Can Can
f. M
g. Covet
h. Unforgivable Woman
i. 3121
j. Sweet Darling
k. Simply Christina Aguilera


See AM for the answers since she's the one with nothing to do.

morning after pill

oh my god am I grouchy. The cold, people. The cold from hell. Who made me this ill? I demand to speak to someone about this.

Besides that, I have no reason to be such an ass today. Let's consider:

the list of Christmas excess, gifted to me by my husband, who (lovingly) believes me to be a 14 year old boy:

- one Wii. I am terrible at tennis and awesome at boxing and will never leave my basement again. Every member of the family, from great-aunts to small children, have now beaten me in tennis. Fuck.
- one set of Heelys. I fit into a youth large. I am going to HAUNT THE NEIGHBORHOOD WITH MY AWESOMENESS! Also, malls.
- one Hudson University Volleyball sweatshirt.
- some other stuff, like "30 rock" on dvd and a book about how to read what my dog is thinking (it's one page long and says: "NOTHING. HAHAHAHAHA.")

So, I'm still in love.

Also my Mom gave me a truckload of new underwear and the advice to start acting like a grownup.

Merry Jesus Birthday to all.

life and death in rosslyn

I thought it appropriate that I saw this story linked on DCist tonight, on my parents 36th wedding anniversary.

They had 6 people at their reception at TSOH, and according my my mother, ("they had a salad bar! It was really classy!") the two crazy kids danced to the Carpenter's "We've Only Just Begun" around the restaurant floor.

My father couldn't be reached for comment. Except, of course, to say like he does every year on their anniversary: "I had to leave a pickup basketball game to make it to the wedding on time. I left the teams uneven. Boy, those guys were pissed."

nerd accessories for the hopeless retards in your life

DoS Special Holiday Edition, courtesy Mr. Hunter and the Bragg Boys.

Because, honestly, everything is a competition: Part II

There’s a book that I’ve wanted to get someone for Christmas and only found it today by accident at Borders. There is only one copy left but the lunchtime line was mammoth and I didn’t have my 30% off coupon with me. So I’ve hidden it. This book has nothing to with Japanese manga but it’s living right now next to novels about Sailor Moon or some bullshit.

I’m headed over there right now to rescue it. You know, just in case you wanted to be a ruiner and go move it. Way to ruin Christmas, ruiner.

The Borders at 18th and L.*

I’ll race you.



Go.




Update: You lose slowpokes!



*can we all pretty much agree at this point that no offices or buildings anywhere on L Street are hiring union carpenters? Two protests in two blocks this morning?

Wintry Mix 07

Making playlists at work, instead of working.

I have not seen "Assassination on Xmas Eve" by Archers of Loaf on anyones list? People? Come on?

come on back and see me when you can

while i... appreciate... the OR attempt* at covering "Do What Ya Gotta Do," there is nothing quite like the original when it comes to Miz Simone, non? Who doesn't act frantic along with "Sinnerman" and all that crap on the car stereo occasionally. Admit it.


* Do not appreciate the Meg Baird attempt tho. No, I don't.

brains brains brains

The only thing I know about this whole mortgage and foreclosure problem is that we got a 30 year fixed with a great rate. That, and we will never be able to sell our house.

But with terms like “predatory lending” and something about “ARMs”, I can only assume that the changes to Regulation Z that the Fed has agreed to consider are restrictions on the sale of homes to zombies or at least to the illegal zombie hordes crossing our borders.

I salute Chairman Bernanke for addressing this complex yet vital problem facing our nation and Avent's delicious brains.

gimme more

1) I slept on the Caribou release this year? Even though at one point in my life, "jacknuggeted" (back-in-Manitoba-days) was one of my favorite songs ever, at least for that year? Should I remedy this? I've only listened half-heartedly thus far.

2) Totally forgot to mention the Cribs earlier.

3) I cannot believe I am listening to Lavendar Diamond as much as I am lately. It's brainblowing, and must say something about the state of mind 'round here. Joanna Newsom and Sheryl Crow, what????????

in other news, i got my hair colored yesterday, so there's that. also i am done with my holiday shopping. hey, congratulations cousins, you are getting a weird Starbucks mail-order shrink wrapped gift basket i pilfered from work. as the guy at marvelous market told me this morning, merry seasoning!

Seriously, they looked more like zombie sea cucumbers than zombie humans

My opinion leans more toward disappointment than dislike. Go ahead and put me in the group with the girls.

The unease that zombies elicit in our psyche is based on their resemblance to “normal” humans, if you will. This movie lacked that. If I’m going to zombie movie I want to feel uncomfortable because of the zombies. Not because I’m afraid of the dark or hairless rats or because someone in the audience yells “WILL SMITH DON’T HUG THAT DOG!!1!”

I read a study (which I can’t find online anymore after a morning’s worth of searching) a few years back where participants were asked to record their levels of discomfort while watching videos of people acting in “unconventional” ways. It included people with physical and mental disabilities as well as some dressed in frightening costumes like, animated puppets, aliens, robots and zombies.

Responders were second most uncomfortable watching people who moved and acted like your typical Night of the Living Dead zombie. The more like a human the example acted, the more anxiety the viewer felt. Robots, aliens, etc were all less scary.

(Surprisingly to the researchers, the responders were most uncomfortable watching people suffering from mid-range mental retardation.)

This was one of the problems I had with the I Am Legend villains. I may be mistaken, but I believe there were only two non-CGI zombies in the entire movie and they all looked and moved unconvincingly as a result. The filmmakers would have been better served using at least a few more actors in makeup or prosthetics - especially if the main zombie was at least able to do something other than scream, dislocate his jaw and throw his body against plexiglass without sustaining injury. (I assume this zombie, who appeared bigger and stronger than any of the other ones, and lived in New York City, was an infected Jeremy Shockey.) This problem was avoided in the first half of the film by keeping most of the CGI zombies in the dark, feeding on a dead deer or masturbating or whatever they were doing in that first scene.

The movie had other faults too, including a plot hole so big that it pretty much nullified everything that happens before and after the supposed twist. But the weak-sauce zombies is what really kinda ruined it.

Highlight for the spoiler:

How did Anna and the boy get to Manhattan if the whole island was quarantined, all bridge destroyed and all tunnels flooded?

lve story

been in DC a while? to read.

ought seven

I'm not doing a Year End Music Roundup Xplosion 2007 Etc because you can go anywhere on the web and find a better one, probably. Also, it would look just like everyone else's attempts. Except for you know, R Kelly and Lil Mama inclusions.

I will tell you I did love Band of Horses & Spoon & Okkervil River, a given. And this:

The G: i did not jerk off to the National like everyone else did this year though
Amanda: yeah me neither!

Okay, one more thing: The Dirty Projectors "Rise Above?" Love it hard. Oh man.

WE ARE POPULAR

When the going gets hard, the hardheaded shut down. Faced with an overwhelming amount of invites this weekend, us Pygs decided to spend two straight days watching Top Chef and not showering or leaving the house, except to play football (male) or got to Target to buy cake mix* (female.)

Errrr, not totally true. We also went out to dinner Friday with old friends and their + 1, where we ate Chinese fusion and talked about all the germaphobes we knew; and then had a lovely date Saturday night where 1., I had several drinks and a delicious appetizer and wondered why we don't hang out at No.9 Lounge more often because it's charming and never crowded and they played Aqueduct and Arcade Fire while we were there and 2. I wore leggings and dangly earrings. It was a weird night, people.

I only thought once longingly about how we missed a Very Merry Washington Social Christmas and G.p. wailing on the sax. D'oh.




* It's both Male Pyg and this one's birthday's today. FYI.

hells yeah, Randy Newman!

Hey world:
Merry Holidays. Go download Golden Opportunities. It's free, and you're welcome for the head's up.

He also killed hundreds of Italian-Americans dressed up to look like Native Americans. Or so I remember.

We’re going to dinner at BD Wong’s in Tyson’s tonight with a friend of the G’s and her boyfriend. She was in our wedding and the G was in hers before that marriage exploded into alcoholism or crippling debt or an addiction to porn or whatever causes divorces after 13 bliss-less months for 26-year-olds. (None of those are jokes. I may currently have more friends that are divorced than ones that are married.) Since we are not going straight home tonight, I took the dog to see my parents so he could hang out and not pee on the ugly indoor/outdoor carpeting we have in our basement.

My mom reports that about 10 minutes after I left, our idiot hound and their equally stupid dog started howling to no end in the backyard. She’s been sick and was not in the mood to deal with the nonsense so she sent my dad in his bathrobe out to investigate. When he came back, they were still barking but instead of explaining what the deal was he went searching for his camera. Such is his way.

He once carried a cicada around in his pocket.

Turns out, our dog had treed a raccoon and the two of them figured that if they yelled at it long enough it would fall off the branch and into their mouths. My dad gave up on the camera, got the leashes and dragged them inside, where they barked for another 40 minutes until the raccoon left. The dogs have spent the rest of the day running around outside, retelling the story to each other like two middle school kids re-enacting Die Hard at the bus stop.

Of course, my natural reaction to this story was why didn’t my dad kill the raccoon and make a hat out of it like Davy Crockett. He argued that 1) it could have been rabid like the City Paper says and (2 that would be insane. I argued that not having a coon skin hat is insane and he should know because he grew on a farm in the 50s and everyone had crazy hats. He didn’t buy it.

The hat conversation got me thinking about Davy Crockett for maybe the first time in 20 years. The D and I watched hours of the Disney version when we were kids but the only part I can remember is that he killed a bear when he was three and he was a crazy trick shooter. The toddler bear killer story I can understand. Maybe he stepped on a gun or the bear fell on a pointed stick that Crockett was carrying around.

But the trick shot part doesn’t seem to hold up to closer deliberation. The tale, as I remember it, was that he was surrounded by a bobcat and bear who both wanted to get him but he only had one bullet. So he shot a boulder and it split the bullet in half and killed both animals in their heads.

I don’t think that that could happen.

Why would a bear and a bobcat team up to attack a human? It doesn’t make any sense.

sorry chenowith, you lose.

i've officially given up on Pushing Daisies. I watched it twice (okay, actually: An episode. And a half. Maybe. Then I got up and ate fruit snacks and copied stuff and other important work things) and then I realized my tolerance for preciousness is already spent on thinking about how my dog almost killed a raccoon this morning. Awwwwwwww.

You might be a redneck if you keep an ashtray in your pocket.

Honestly, considering the history of product endorsements, the idea that Jeff Foxworthy has his own brand of beef jerky isn’t that surprising. But our late night-trip to the grocery store last night got me thinking about some of the other odd combinations that we’ve stumbled across in the last little bit.



The classic example for the Pyggies is our college town’s very own Acme video store that also sold fireplaces and stoves. The G still has her membership card someplace. I only went in once and I seem to remember that the only movies they had were ones like The Money Pit and *batteries not included on VHS. Also, I think they only sold those fireplaces that I’ve only ever seen on the Price Is Right.



Number two was something I saw in Arizona or New Mexico or maybe Idaho that sold spine readjustments and carpets. On the day I drove by, rugs were on sale. I didn’t have time to go inside because somehow I knew that in two hours I was going to get monumentally lost and maybe spend the night in my rental car on a mountain with vampire bears and wolves that had scorpions for teeth.

Finally, is this gem:



I found it in a Sleazeburg – I MEAN LEESBURG! – Va gas station before we got our Christmas tree and poison ivy two weekends ago. Buying a keychain-shaped pig with a light-up snout was an obvious move. But knowing that, in a pinch, it could transform into an ashtray sealed the deal.




I figured I would save our lives several times over when we went camping last weekend but it broke after a single day in my pocket. I brought it to the cabin anyway and when we almost choked to death from smoke inhalation after a log rolled out of the fire and into the room, the G was able to use it to find her contacts. Subsequently, she did not wander blindly out of the cabin and fall on the serrated knives some people had thrown into woods.

Combination porcine ashtray/flashlight is worth its weight in gold.

hey ma ma ma ma: i am in yr closet, taking yr striped button down.

Thanks to Unfogged, I have a new style hero in Kate St. John. In 9th or 10th grade a kid named Casey asked "why I dressed like my mom" for some awards reception. I was pretty much wearing the outfit homegirl is sporting in the LIANT video. Minus the gloves, plus a headband.

And furthermore: suck it, Casey. I am still 1000% behind that look.

fire in the hole!

I started to brush my hair this morning and quickly realized that everything I owned that was in the cabin this weekend smells like burning. Including the brush. And now, my hair.* Again.









* Ha ha. Psych. I don't really ever brush my hair.

Puffin. It's what's for dinner.

I’m not saying you called me a liar but you pretty much did. Granted, sometime my yarns do require citing or follow-up research. Accordingly, here are the footnotes to the story I told to AM at a s’mores party last Friday.

1. Recipes for cooking and serving puffin.*

2. The band Vanilla Ninja which you can listen to here and here and ohmyjesus here and good god in a hot tube here and oh no don't stop the rock here.

3. The procedure for eating Ortolan (tiny birds that are captured alive, force fed grain, drowned in Armagnac, roasted whole and eaten, bones and all, while the diner drapes his head with a linen napkin to preserve the precious aromas and, as some believe, to hide the deed from God.)

4. Foreign countries that require their radio stations to play a certain percentage of songs by domestic artists.



*and the subsequent recipe for cooking whale.

"He’s master of a universe that he’s created for himself.”

Meet the most obnoxious kid parents in the universe.

The bag is filled with honey and picnic baskets

Congratulations, Google.

For the first time in the 3 years I've been using Gmail, they’ve finally put an ad at the top of the screen that was somewhat related to any email I have ever sent or received. In fact, it even had something to do with an email I had just read.

See if you can guess what the email was about.



Man, I could watch bears trying to tear shit up all day.

they call me the cautionary whale!

Juno is pretty okay and all, if you want to go see a totally not-life-changing-movie about quirky midwestern teenagers with fast mouths. (See: Napolean Dynamite with less wacky Mormon Idahoans and more stereotypical earnest Minnesotans/sarcastic high schoolers.) Also, we got free "Paulie Bleeker is Totally Boss" teeshirts. Bonus, since I was needing new dumb teeshirts.

I would write more here about it but there is nothing else to say.

In a nutshell: cutesy as hells (coming dangerously close to too twee); one exceptionally uncomfortable Jennifer Garner character who is just... ugh; some funny dialogue involving discarded living room sets; a great soundtrack; a small discussion about what to name the baby that made me howl out loud even thought no one else in the theater was laughing; a bit of dialogue about Sonic Youth/the Carpenters which is just totally off base (no one's favorite song is the one they mention. Trust me); and, like most/all teenage-preggers-movies, a movie plot not even CLOSE to being realistic. So if you want to go see a movie that will not make you think at all, here you go.

Unless yr talking about Allison Janney, who is totally realistic and my favorite character, and not just because she shockingly resembles my mom.

more of the same here.

Grande Eggnog, hold the nog

The radio said today that Starbucks has started selling their holiday flavors: eggnog latte, peppermint mocha, gingerbread latte.*

This move prompted one of several yearly arguments in our car about another one of their other festive drinks: White Hot Chocolate. I was duped into getting one of these after the particularly cold time traveling adventure a few years ago.

My issue: This is not WHITE hot chocolate. It is HOT white chocolate. To me, the name white hot chocolate indicates that the beverage is so hot you could dip iron horseshoes into it and they would evaporate into nihility.

Of course, everyone in the car disagrees with me.

*I don’t drink coffee so I don’t know what any of that means. This is not a boast like those people who claim/brag that they don’t watch TV. I just never learned how to do coffee. Those no-TV jerks deserve repeated crotch pummels.

Like an orange on a toothpick

I went to school with two kids who had extremely large heads.

The first guy had a melon that was proportional to his equally large body. His football helmet was a special order. When we were sized for graduation, the paper tape measure used for his cap size didn’t even reach all the way around his head. They gave him the largest size available but it still looked like a square, powder-blue, cardboard yarmulke. He was commonly known as Pumpkinhead Jones and while he certainly didn’t rejoice in the name he did little to stop its application. He was widely liked by the general student body.

The second guy had an equally humongous coconut but his body was of a normal (if not under-developed) size. He was widely disliked by the general student body.

As a trade-off to for this Barry Bonds-like affliction, God blessed him with a high IQ and powerful inner drive. Class President, Mensa member, head of Model UN, were some of the results. And like Barry Bonds, he was also a giant douche-bag.

This doucehery came to, uh, “a head” the summer after I graduated but while the D was entering her junior year. Several of the more attractive girls from the incoming senior class received letters from “prestigious modeling agency” claiming to be impressed by their good looks. They could easily secure high-priced contracts if they simply sent photos of themselves in underwear or bathing suits to the address provided.

Naturally, most of these girls saw through the classic Wyatt Donnelly Hustle and someone’s parents called the police. The address belonged to giant-head’s grandmother and the dots were easily connected. There were threats of criminal charges including, unbelievably, federal mail fraud but in the end the kid’s father had the whole affair swept under the rug or his giant pillow.

I guess it worked out because according to the D:

He went to either Yale or Harvard and sang in one of those a cappella groups that do the Martha Stuart xmas show.

The previous sentence should dispel any doubts to my claims to his douchiness. She came to this knowledge after she found out her class had its ten year reunion last week and she was not invited. The guy was supposed to be in charge of planning the event but didn’t. Instead, a few kids got together at a local bard and toasted his swollen head. She’s hoping to catch up with some of the participants this week to find out what else has happened to he classmates.

Either way, it won’t be as impressive as the kid from my class who invented Skinny Cow Ice Cream. That’s right, he invents ice cream for a living. And he’s better at it than you are at your job.

kenny. for real, his name is kenny. i'm not even making that up.

Is there anything more sad in the galaxy than a retarded tiger named Kenny?

On second thought, do not answer that.

Ta-da!

I tried to hijack my parents HD TV and NFL Network signal last night to watch TO eat popcorn and torch old man Favre. Instead, I walked into a giant I Love Lucy level plumbing disaster. The pipe that the washing machine drains into backed up and the water sprayed all over the place but mostly into the full 5 gallon bucket of detergent. It looked like one of those foam parties that everyone has heard about because of CSI Miami but no ones ever been to because when you think about it, it’s pretty gross and would sting your eye ballz to no end. My dad went to look for the plumbing snake. I took my shirt off and started dancing.

This would be the 4th plumbing issue I’ve dealt with in the last 2 weeks – two clogged drains and 2 replaced faucets – but I don’t really mind since I love big balls of greasy human hair touching my skin and face. My dad and I cleared the water from the sink and unhooked the drain. The clog wasn’t in the trap so I tried to blow the plug free using my strong American lungs. But it was to no effect since they’re black and shriveled up like raisons because of the clove cigarettes I pretend to smoke.

What I was unaware of at the time is that the same drain that deals with laundry water was also the one my parents used to clean the paintbrushes they used to redo the bathroom. So while we were heroically able to clear the clog, I was unknowingly forced to walk around with a painted ring on my lips.

Thanks Mom and Dad!

Love,

Your clown son.

Happy Birthday T-15

This is terrible news. I’ll have to go back to fantasizing about pink-haired Erin Esurance when I’m banging your mom. BURN!!1



Unrelated – it has recently come to my attention that I have been rather combative of late. Specifically, I've been arguing in favor of convictions that I don’t actually hold. I apologize if you have found this to be annoying.

See:

• the metrics of a one-hit wonder
• whether or not we should go to the dry cleaners five minutes before it closes because they may give us attitude since they've already locked up the registers and put on their jackets and we could just go back in the morning
• etc

it's from Ikea, btw

Internet, send halp!

Britney Spears has somehow broken into our house and oh holy crap, we're freaked. Those undies are LAYING ON OUR DUVET COVER. Barely Legal, y'all.

selective memory

Reading.

Eleanor Grace

Among the dozens of lies my father told the D and me about his life growing up on the farm was the one about the boy who would lift a baby cow over his head every day. The child grew stronger in proportion to the cow’s weekly weight gain and by the time his bovine pet reached adulthood the boy could lift all 1200lbs over his head. Eventually, however, the cow got too heavy and the boy’s father had it slaughtered in the hopes that the protein, growth hormones and steroids that he’d fed the cow would be passed on to his son. It worked and that little boy grew up to be the actor who played Roy Biggins on the TV show Wings and one of the strongest humans in Hollywood.

Obviously, every part of that story was made up either by me or my father, some to screw with you but most to screw with me. Baby cows gain weight entirely too quickly for even the strongest boy to train with them. The threshold at which you could pick up a whole cow would be reached fairly quickly – for most folks it would be about, well, one day since they come out weighing about 100lbs. Meloni could probably go for a few weeks but even he would give up around 900lbs.



However, a human calf is another matter. Even those really fat babies from the Maury Povich show only get to be about 60lbs after 2 years. Interesting.



I have recently secured access to a 7lb 6oz baby girl and wish to try an experiment. The first phase begins tonight and should continue another 18 years or until weird Uncle Nabob isn’t allowed to come over and lift a teenage girl over his old man head.

beginner's guide

The holiday ride to NC involved only one instance of near-death, courtesy a giant Chesapeake deer. Antlers, people. The dog was exceptionally well-behaved, and all the toddler meltdowns in the world over the weekend couldn't stop the festive feeling in the air. Also, I ate my entire weight twice over, so the dog and I will be going on a serious walk/jog tonight.

My darling MIL, when asked what she wanted for Christmas, requested "a unicycle." She's serious freals.

Also, here's a glee club video for you.

Happy Cranksgiving to you and yours

Love,

Meloni's guns

I eat at Wendy's because their burgers are meteor

If you hustle up to your local newsstands you might still be able to catch my premiere appearance in Time Out: New York. It seems that even though I don’t live in New York and don’t like going there because of the C.H.U.D.s, I am to be included in the discussion of the 50 Essential New York Secrets. I didn’t know I was a secret but we’ll take whatever press we can here at Pygmalion. Hint: it’s not Keith Haring’s gay orgy mural LGBT Community Center, but its close. In the picture, I’m the one wearing the jaunty hat and body armor.


------------------


Completely unrelated to that, Episode 11 of Defenders of Stan* is up and features the best plate tectonics joke I’ve heard in a long time. Or ever.


-----------------


And completely unrelated to that, if you were one of the handful of people who watched Chuck on Monday you are either:

A: a Firefly sentimentalist and miss Jayne
B: a moron
C: lucky enough to have heard one of Meredith Bragg’s new songs off his upcoming December album

It played twice, in fact. Once during a scene where the main character, who’s name escapes me, and Rachael Bilson make out and then again when they break up. Coincidently, Bragg wrote the song after I recounted the time that I made out with Rachael Bilson and then dumped her scrawny ass.


*It seems I am a liar and Channel 102 is dead and busted.

a very happy holiday to me, starring Christopher Meloni's forearms

Thanksgiving came early to our house last night, in the form of a new Law and Order: SVU. IT. WAS. EPIC. I have to assume the writers were already on strike, because it was so awful and awesome and chock full of ridiculous guest stars, I don't even know where to begin. The N and I had the TV on as we were lounging around about to fall asleep and stuff because we are old and that is what we do at 10 PM, but by 10:52 PM we were both sitting straight up in bed squealing like schoolgirls and slapping each other in amazement. For those of you who missed it (shame on you so much):

A generic White Girl is found beaten and dead in the NYC woods. The first person to get blamed is Ultimate Fighting Champion "Kona" (Forrest Griffin, GUEST STAR NUMBER ONE), since they somehow have his DNA on file. Kona's golddigger fiance is played by Ice-T's Coco (GUEST STAR NUMBER 2). Turns out Coco likes to film her cheating Fighter fiance, and has a picture of him sleeping with White Girl. All this doesn't matter, as the SVU crimefighting squad figures out the Fighter didn't kill her even though he was bangin her and then oops, White Girl's dad shoots the Fighter dead. In the police station. All within the first five minutes of the show.

Okay, so then somehow the unit gets pictures of White Girl dancing at frat party with Black Guys (One of whom is "Smash Williams" from FNL, says The Internet, SO GUEST STAR 3?), and they are brothers, and they track them to a fraternity house at Hudson U (WHERE IN SVU WORLD EVERYONE GOES TO COLLEGE BTW) and while talking to the president of the frat, who makes a joke about "brothers" and Ice-T thinks he's referring to black people instead of say, fraternity brothers or the fact that the kids they are looking for are really brothers (so confusing, so awesome, show written by penguins this week apparently or something?) has a confederate flag hanging in the party room (probably KA) the brothers show up and then they run away from Ice T and New SVU Cop who is Native American and raised in foster homes (for some reason this becomes a big deal later.) One brother runs out the door, the other jumps out the window onto what appears to be a rope/bedsheet ladder constructed specifically for escaping from cops out the 3rd floor window of a dorm and/or KA house.

So now to track down the brothers, Ice-T and the unit do some research and find out the brothers were in prison before college. So they go to Rikers to talk to the brother's prison teacher who is: get this: Steve Earle. (GUEST STAR NUMBER 4, WINNER OF MOST AWESOMEST GUEST STAR BESIDES COCO'S BOOBS)

Then A LOT MORE STUFF HAPPENS, including tracking down the brother's mom who is in the middle of screwing a dude who looks like Lil John and wants his $20 refunded (GUEST STAR NUMBER 5, TOTALLY UNCONFIRMED) because she's a prostitute, and the one of the brothers' turns himself in to get his whoremom out of jail and protect the other brother who he thinks probably killed White Girl (remember her?) Whoremom of the Year is all "thank you son for saving me, I'm outta here, have fun in jail" and lets her son take the rap for a murder so she can go "get clean." She also promises someday to take her sons out to a moderately priced seafood restaurant thats not Long John Silver's when they are proven innocent. Um, okay.

Also, back in pre-college Rikers when they were learning 5-paragraph essays from Steve Earle, the boys joined a gang for protection. Apparently this gang is mostly about rape and wearing red baseball hats and intimidating the Latin Kings. So Ice-T and New SVU Cop dress in red baseball hats and hang out at the projects playground to antagonize the Latin Kings. The Latin Kings take the bait, and then try to assault Ice-T with a paintbrush. Yesh.

(sidenote: EVERYONE WRITING FOR LAW AND ORDER SVU IS ON DRUGS.)

All this leads SVU to a Gang Leader who is probably responsible for White Girl's death and will prove the brothers are innocent. Hey, remember at the start of the show when there was Ultimate Fighting Champions involved? Yeah, that story line has totally been dropped. When they try to apprehend Gang Leader, he is shot at by one of the brothers (who was still on the street) and then chased by fat, limpy Ice-T, but falls into a trash compactor being operated by a guy who's IPod is too loud. Ice-T tries to stop the trash compactor but the operator can't hear him over Korn so we watch Gang Leader die by compacting.

(sidenote: EVERYONE WRITING FOR LAW AND ORDER SVU IS ON DRUGS AND IS AWESOME.)

To recap: White Girl dead, one brother in jail, one on the run, probable-killer Gang Leader crushed, mom is a ho, Hudson U fraternity guys are douches, SVU working late and is sad and they are all getting divorces because of how work interferes in their personal lives, oh noes.

Detective Elliot Stabler comes in in the middle of the night to be awesome and do paperwork and probably pushups, and decides to help out Newbie Native American SVU guy who can't shake the feeling that the brothers are innocent because he too was raised in foster homes and us foster kids aren't all bad no matter what society says, even if sometimes we're at Rikers. Elliott and New Guy re-watch a video of dead White Girl grinding with brothers at frat party and they suddenly notice an 11-month pregnant girl in the corner taking pictures of them on her Cybershoot or whatever other POS digital camera lip-lined 11-month pregnant hoodgirls use at Hudson U frat parties.

Okay, I'll wrap this up: Preggers is home-girl in lipliner from the brothers' hood, tells Ice-T that White Girl was one of Gang Leader ho's (where that came from I have no idea) and she took pictures Gang Leader beating White Girl to Death so, yes, Foster-Home Native American New SVU Guy, the brothers are innocent and they should be released.

New SVU Guy decides he is going to go pick up the boys mom and they'll all go out for a big surprise dinner at Red Lobster (RED LOBSTER, GUEST STAR #6). Unfortunately, just then he gets a phone call from Ice-T telling him that Whoremom is dead. He gets off the phone all saddy-faced and the boys are like "what's the big surprise???" and New SVU Native American Foster Home Empathetic Cop says "We're going to Red LOBSTEEEERRRR!" like Oprah or Tyra.

Fade to black on the best television show I have ever seen in my life.

- - - - -

Let's review: Ultimate Fighting Champion, Coco's breasts, gang hats, mom whores, death by trash compactor, lip-lined girl from da hood, racist kid in stripedy shirt, native americans, fat Ice-T, grinding at frat parties, STEVE EARLE, Red Lobster. The tag function on Blogger just exploded, SORRY WORLD.

How would you hum "dignity"?

After going to see my cousin at Union Station on Friday (or satisfying a Sbarro’s craving, depending on who you ask) I decided to hoof back to Dupont Circle. That’s 2 miles to you and me. But because we live in an awesome city, even if we’re ugly, you get see some awesome things.



Like a March for Justice.



Or a massive car crash at 18th and Penn that results in the arrival of police from seven different law enforcement jurisdictions. I’m not sure what this car hit since there was nothing else around it in the intersection. Blonde Jessica Alba force field? The physical manifestation of Wolfowitz/World Bank ill-will, like in Ghostbusters 2?



Or a brand new dinosaur that has just evolved out of parts of lesser beasts and appliances.

I was a little skeptical about National Geographic’s claims that they’d discovered a dinosaur with a vacuum mouth, so I went over to see it for myself. When presented with something unexplained, like extra bones or vacuum attachments, these paleontologists have been known slap the parts onto any old section of the body. They bollixed up the brontosaurus so badly it doesn’t even exist anymore. And when they discovered that some of the plated dinosaurs had thick clusters of nerves in their tales they concluded it was a second brain that controlled their back halves like a laddered fire truck. Unless this thing has rotating bristles for teeth, I’m gonna be a little suspicious of the vacuum mouth claim

Did the one-on-one visits persuade me other wise? Not really. Something doesn’t sit right and I bet that those 600 teeth could have gone anywhere. Maybe it was dinosaur Tooth Fairy and the comet hit just when he was getting back from some baby dinosaur teeth jackpot and he was carrying all of them, I don't know, in his mouth.

One thing I do know, however, is that this guy liked to have a good time. Look at that party-time face. This guy was the John Belushi or Fatty Arbuckle of the Cretaceous period.

scientifically proven

(Stepping lightly as to not tread all over Avent's usual Blog Topics of Choice)- some real estate math for you:

94% of homes for sale in alexandria/arlington/falls church in a particular price range (read: ours) have wood paneled wet bars.

If you are from 1973 and in the market to buy, may I suggest a few listings.

schemes

- I played in my first vball game since Anklegate last night. Things went relatively smoothly - I am not completely terrified of dominating at the net as is my way. My serving still sucks (all mental). Back to normal I suppose, with the exception of the crazy strappy black robot ankle brace I am wearing.

- Best Magazine Covers. Seriously, that O one sucks. But what do I know. Texas Monthly makes up for it in spades.

- I got up to 41 in freerice.com before quitting.

-"The Camp Delta document includes schematics of the camp, detailed checklists of what "comfort items" such as extra toilet paper can be given to detainees as rewards, six pages of instructions on how to process new detainees, instructions on how to psychologically manipulate prisoners, and rules for dealing with hunger strikes." Basically, a girl's freshman college dorm. (ziiiing!!!!)

- "Lies & Rhetoric" - out 11/19.

- I am concerned about Secret Clinical Strength deodorant. It's pretty amazingI guess, for a $7 dollar deodorant? (that's right.) And seems to work very well? And yet, has the same exact ingredients as my standard typical lady deodorant? (Mitchum, for those of you wondering. And yes, that's a real brand, you can find two dusty expired Mitchum products on the bottom shelf of your local drugstore and when you think to yourself "shit, who buys Mitchum?" the answer is: I do.) But Secret Magic (instructions: put on before bedtime, don't us if you have kidney failure, etc) has the same exact ingredients, at the same percentages as good ol trusty 1970s Mitchum. So why is it working better? Science, look me in the eye when I'm asking you a question.

- Catherine and I need to borrow/rent two French Horns, stat. If anyone can help out with this, please email me.

quick musical opinion. i'm gonna BLOG ABOUT IT!

The new Doughty songs are pretty terrible. The re-record of "27 Jennifers?" Christ.

The N: "the synthesizer breakdown in the middle is the audio equivalent of a star wipe"

Intended for those who didn’t bother coming out last night.

We’ve all chuckled as little kids and fat guys and maybe someone we know and maybe someone we used to respect have all taken their turn at Crankin Dat. Good on Souljaboy for foolin’ the MSM, bloggers and us white people for having this massive hit for several months and not telling us about it. You got us. We’re as lame as you expected. Look at us dance.

But now there’s “Report Card” and it’s sampling and liberal use of Rich Boy. This does not bode well for young DeAndre Cortez Way.

As a juvenile performer, Soulja Boy has a limited number of life experiences and personal narratives to draw from when it comes to forming his rhymes. Not that his lyrics are particularly sophisticated (I got me some bathin apes) but once his opinions on dancing like Robocop have been expressed there is little room in which to fall back.

So what does a young person in America know about? School? Comic books? Playgrounds? Cartoon? Yes. But good hip-hop, these topics do not make. The bad news for Soulja Boy is that this often means the quick and unceremonious end of your career. It’s hard for the record buying/downloading public to take you serious as an artist when your main themes are “sweet talking” your teacher into giving you better grades. Especially when you only get a 47 in math or a 14 in science.

There is precedent for this theory –

• Young MC followed Bust a Move with Principal's Office
• Kriss Kross followed Jump with I Missed the Bus
• Another Bad Creation followed Iesha with Playground
• Da Youngsta followed Pass da Mic with Cartoons and Neighborhood Bully
• Skee-Lo followed I Wish with Superman

Obviously, this pattern has been avoided by other young hip-pop artist – Will Smith, L’il Bow Wow, L’il Romeo, Juvenile, etc – but based on Soulja Boys career to date, this Report Card follow-up is not a good sign.

Hollywood. Call me. I'll scab for you.

Tuesday Night Dreaming:

I was living in my parents house, and everything in the town was apocolyptic because of, you guessed it: the great Zombie Plague. (Most of humanity had been wiped out - a bunch of people were dead from Zombie sickness. About 50% of us survivors were all normal and whatnot, having escaped the illness. Normal except for the whole super-paranoid apocalypse type behavior. And looting, probably. The other 50% were zombies living among us. But somehow governmnet/scientists/Important People In Charge had given them some Zombie Prozac n Haldol or whatever, and the Zombies were all well behaved and among us and drove cars and had menial jobs and stuff, and except for the occasional minor zombie freakout we were cool. Everything was fine - you just couldn't let a zombie touch you, because the mere touching of a non-zombie, even like - your hand as you exchanged money or if a Zombie stopped you from stepping off a curb into oncoming traffic or whatever, could set their flesh-lust off.) Anyway, I was at the store buying green peppers, and a zombie tried to tap me on the shoulder right there in the produce aisle and I was like "NO, ZOMBIE" - kind of how one talks to a toddler. And I got the willies. The DREAM willies.

Okay, so then I had to hang out at my aunt and uncle's house for some reason with a skinny guy, and I couldn't leave, the doors were locked. I was kept there not by zombies, mind you, but by a regular looking dude who you'd see at Black Cat, and he made me read to him out of the Book of Mormon. Then he took my skin off.

The zombies, by the way, disappeared. Thanks a lot, zombies. You are everywhere all over my dreams and then when yr really needed, poof, nowhere to be found.

Things I blame for Tuesday Night Dreaming:

Late night viewings of Law & Order: SVU while listening to Sufjan Stevens, deep seated fears about being buried alive, middle school friends emailing me, just kind of having a weird week in general. Like S. said: murder, intrigue, religion! Well done, imagination. Now please fucking stop it.

PIAB Girl on the Streets: Michigan Report

Blackberried from K: "The Grand Rapids airport smells like an elementary school. Also, there is an arcade."

i forgot.

"cattle and cane" is such a good song. how comes we don't wear floppy girl-bow-ties and big hair with hats anymore? we should.

internet veteran

I was the only person in the world who had yesterday off. I spent it watching this*, drinking coffee, standing quizzically in Home Depot while debating my dad on cell about the merits of caulking guns, taking Brown Dog to the park, doing some half-assed Christmas shopping, watching the "Dirty Jobs" episode where Mike Rowe goes to a goat farm (so great), and digging 25 years worth of shitty amateur acrylic patches and mildew out of the upstairs shower. Then my spouse came home and handed me a razor blade and told me I was a moron.

This is why I don't blog anymore, universe. If it makes you feel better about my rock and roll lifestyle, I did it all while drinking a High Life.


* pretty lovely, no?

You take the rags, you just pin 'em on there like a hobo, you know? And then flame on, lights up the night! It's a beautiful costume, I think.

In the first year of college, on the first day of classes, 100 nervous freshmen sat in a History 101 amphitheatre and verified their attendance as their names were called. Shortly after the teaching assistant called out my name he hesitated and slowly read “Knuckles, Jonathon.”

“Here,” replied the short dark haired young man. “But I go by Johnny.”

Johnny Knuckles soon become somewhat of a cult legend at my bustling university based solely on his name. Had they been around back then to mock, surly WWJKD? bracelets would have been made. Unfortunately, his time at our highly regarded brainery was short lived and he did not return from, I swear, New Jersey when the second semester started.

Even though Johnny Knuckles was a real person, he only falls somewhere in the middle of the list of Johnnies to try to save the world from the horrors of supervillainy and poor sanitation.

Johnny Switchblade
Johnny Human Torch
Johnny Knuckles
Johnny Combat Action
Johnny Space Commander

Sigh. Which leads us to GHB flavored toys. Kids these days get the coolest side effects out of their toy boxes. The worst I ever got was a severe sore throat after swallowing two Star War rifles and perforated intestines via Skeletor’s clawed hand.

All these new Chinese rape toys are quickly pushing lawn darts and those swimming-pool-things-that-can-go-up-your-deal out of the toy recall gold standard and taking the humor out of them. Bad toys are supposed to have funny/tragic consequences like losing part of your ear when the front wheel falls off your bike or chipping your teeth when the moistened grass continues your Slip ‘n’ Slide journey into a pile of bricks. They should not cause developmental damage or comas.

also, a lengthy IM covnersation concerning KMFDM

awesome things i have said/thunk this morning:

" then again, i usually assume everyone's german. so what do i know."

best online thing i have read this morning:

"Beyonce said when she was in New York City she doesn’t know how it happen but she jumped on a bicycle and was able to ride around like a normal person and she describes it as 'excellent'."

the weird turn pro

Oh hi blog. My back and neck are fucked. I can't move. I am cranky +++. I forgot my office key this morning. Not a single person on this entire floor brought in leftover Halloween candy, despite the many "I want candy"-type threatening looks I doled out on the elevator all last week. But, today is D's birthday (happy birthday Baltimore) AND my friend Justin is on some sort of crazy hippie all-vegan diet, so he's already starving to death on purpose before the Hwood strike starves him to death for shits n giggles. So life is awesome. Just kidding, no it's not. Let's run away to Mexico. Or, as RA suggested earlier, shoot some people in a bar and then join the French Foreign Legion. Does the French Foreign Legion still exist? And if so, can we as criminals join up? Someone get back to me on all this.

Hey, also - i'd like to discuss something. Larry King's shoes, and where i can buy some for myself. MY STYLE GOD IS LARRY KING.

One more reason to off myself.

Okay, instead, here is a list of what I listened to this morning on my music machine thing (computer).

Hold It In - Jukebox the Ghost
Le Loup - Le Loup
Transmission and Isolation - Joy Division
My Absent Will and Twin Arrows - Meredith Bragg
The Beautiful Ones - Dump (Yo La Tengo) *
Plea From A Cat Named Virtue - he Weakerthans
The General Specific and Is There a Ghost - Band Of Horses
Cross Bones Style - Cat Power
Enjoy The Silence - Division Day
Cockermouth - Mekons
I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You - Black Kids **

Also, Justin Timberlake. It's true.


* Can we please talk about YLT covering A Rev-era Prince song? Pretty please?
** Eh? What's the fuss again?

a very viking fall

Aventiana directs us all, and by "us all" I mean specifically targets me, to today's NYT article on Enslaved. May I also suggest catching up on Wikipedia.

Ryan: Well, the NYT thing has lots of funny lines
The G: oh man: " The first group to use an early version of Viking metal was Led Zeppelin with songs like "Immigrant Song" and "No Quarter" with references to famous Vikings and Viking gods"
Ryan: Also, references to Tolkien

In other news, I got to go home early yesterday cause my building was on fire, and I'm seriously considering dying my hair red.

The G: maybe i'll go home and dye my hair thats what people do with midlife crises, right? or buy a sportscar
Amanda: i think dying your hair is what you do in response to middle school crises, but yeah, i still think it's appropriate
The G: okay good, thats right at mental age target for me
Amanda: haha
The G: middle school, get drunk, dye hair. check and check.

sado-mas

Seeing Control in the very first row of a sold-out theatre, craning yr neck this way and that? Fitting, I think. Matter of fact, it's now the only way I will recommend you see Control. Ian weeps, you weep.

In unrelated but also weep-worthy news, Mattos just sent me a link to a company that sells lifelike Ghostface dolls. Should you have a spare $500 laying around your manse.

today

there is a man on the corner of 18 and K selling poems.

drop kick yr jacket

uh, weekend:

- The DC2NY bus rocks, even with annoying copassengers and a terrible movie and a chatty driver with a coffee phobia. We got to vote on "Sneakers" vs. "Flight Plan." I think I was the only one to vote for "Sneakers." "Flight Plan," by the way, is terrible. D and I cheered for the bad guy. When in doubt, always cheer for Sarsgaard. (sp: Saarsgard? Saarsgaaard?)

- Several beers in Hells Kitchen.

- Carb-loading by proxy: I ate my weight in pasta at Cara Mia.

- The BFF pwned the marathon. Right on goal target, kept great pace, stopped to smile and wave at our frantic screaming somewhere in Brooklyn, looked terribly cute doing it. We missed her near the Queensboro Bridge because we're blind, and again at Central Park, cause we were busy with pretzels or something. Called after finishing to chat about her day like she had gone to the movies and Target and the bank and then lounged around being lazy or something, instead of running 8 billion miles. She's kind of incredible, that one. Also, she beat Holmes by like, an hour.

- I have had the Mr. Belvedere them song in my head since Saturday morning. I want to chop my head off.

- Four dudes in Duane Reade. One actually responded in conversation, with no apparent irony: "THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID."

- So many cute Swedish people everywhere.

- Seriously, NYC? seriously? I have to read one more website about how unfashionable my hometown is, and yet every single woman between the ages of 17 -32 in Midtown has a goddamn uniform assigned to them? It. was. very. weird. And made me simultaneously angry and lustful for a new pair of flat boots. I'm not reading any more assy websites that label my kind uncreative dressers because of our penchants for faded Gap teeshirts and reasonable mom khakis. You were all wearing the exact same outfit. I felt like I was in a movie about a Gossip Girl casual wear cloning experiment gone awry. That's right, I just referenced Gossip Girl.

- I got halfway through The Book Thief and listened to mopey Scottish dudes while watching the sun set over Secaucus. My seat partner on the bus ride back belched the entire way home.

- My house was sparkly clean when I got in, and my dog was very cute indeed. Great weekend.

It's were George Washington went to contest his parking tickets

If you ever need to contest a parking ticket in Alexandria after the city magically re-zones your neighborhood making all the spots handicapped, then I have some advice for you: watch TV the night before. The city’s lone adjudicator is a monster fan of Dancing With The Stars and you’ll need something to talk about while waiting the 25 minutes it takes for a copy of your ticket to get faxed over. You also might want to come up with some reasons why you don’t like camping and practice making sympathetic faces and noises when you hear all about their last disastrous relationship. It's worth it when they make your $200 ticket go away.

hey Baltimore:

the Domino Sugar factory is on fire? or exploded?

Tin Foil Hats For EVERYONE!

I spent most of Wednesday trying to find a pumpkin to carve since our last one went and got itself eaten. All the grocery stores were sold out and I was not, NOT, going to the nursery near my house that charges $20 for a bag of mulch. Fortunately, a local church was having a pumpkin fire sale so I got one on the cheap.

As soon as I heard the news Tuesday night I knew what had to be carved into it. Get it? Robert Ghoul-et! Regrettably, my pumpkin skillz aren’t as honed as they were back when I was still in clown college/med-school.





Poor Robert came out looking a little bit like Edgar Allen Poe. But I guess that works for Halloween too.

-------------

As mentioned below, we did not get too many kids stopping by. In fact, the most continuous stream of people by our house were our neighbors stopping by with their costumed dogs. Poor costumed dogs, continually mocked by non-costumed dogs. There was a princess and a bumblebee and a pumpkin and a little rat terrier dressed like Late Night Shots. Or at least what I assume was LNS as she was wearing a pink polo shirt with the collar popped.

Many wondered about Brown Dog and his costume and I had to explain he doesn’t stand for that kind of crap. Anyways, he was in the basement wearing his tinfoil hat and writing his manifesto on an old typewriter with no ribbon.



Such are his ways.

static, distance

Dark days, friends. The IPod has reached capacity.

It might be worth nothing that I just fucked it by trying to upload Songs:Ohia's Farewell Transmission, which I am always deleting off the damn thing accidentally for some reason, and which I forgot is approx. 8 minutes long. Even axing Split Enz and really long live Belle & Sebastian dirges I never liked earned me very little extra room. Goodbye Garden State soundtrack, you kind of piss me off anyway.

SIGH SIGH SIGH WEEP ETC.

A Bountiful Harvest of Souls and Tastebuds

In theory, our neighborhood should be rife with trick-or-treaters on Halloween. It’s clean, it’s safe, and there are 140 townhouses close together in a cul-de-sac brimming with their share of the $5 billion worth of candy that is bought by lazy people at 5:30 on Halloween night.

But kids these today don’t do a good job scouting out the prime neighborhoods weeks before like we did so ours remained mostly unvisited. This year, there were some fat kids who got so hot walking up our hill that their parents ended up carrying most of their costume by the time the get to the house. And I aided as much as I could to their imminent onset of childhood diabetes by letting them take handfuls of candy.

It still left us with buhkets of leftovers.

That leads us to the house the third installment of “What to do with all this arfing candy?” Previous attempts have dealt with breakfast, Milk Duds and Candy Hearts. This year, I’ll be experimenting with the fall classic and recent soda flavor: candy corn. And since all this sugar has resulted in a serious protein imbalance in my diet, I thought I’d invent a new November 1st treat, the candy corn omelet!



It wasn’t a disaster on the scale of Candy Heart Oatmeal but it certainly wasn’t a success. The candy corn melted almost instantly and the syrup bubbled in unappealing orange pools. When I flipped the omelet most of the syrup seeped out and quickly burned in the pan. The candy corn also stuck to the spatula resulting in threats from the omelet to break apart with any attempts to move it.



It tasted exactly how you’d imagine a delicious Vermont Omelet would taste: gross. The syrup overwhelmed all egg flavor and the sugar caused 32 instant cavities. It’s now 4 hours later and I still crave something extremely salty to cut into the lingering dextrose glaze on my teeth. I’m thinking a big bowl of salt.

Into the trash it went. The G wanted to know what smelled so good and if I were making her breakfast in bed with yummy pancakes. No dice sweetheart. But standby because you may be getting mouth-watering candy-cornbread later.

there is no shitting way you have 64 inch boobs and wear a b cup.

word to the wise, ladies: you cannot accurately measure for a bridesmaid dress with a metal tape measurer.

Seasons change, feelings change

Rumple-Grumpiest blog ever: it is 82 degrees in my office today.

Also, I just used Expose lyrics as a blog header. INTERNET FIRST.

MERRY FUCKING EARLY CHRISTMAS II

I have to second what the G said below. It was one of those weekends that seemed nice enough until someone asks you about it and it all falls apart. The car breaks down in the middle of the busiest part of VA, AAA says it will take 30 minutes but it takes 3 hours. And the repairs are well over a grand.

Then I got a $200 ticket for parking in a handicapped spot in front of my house that doesn’t exist. I mean the handicapped spot doesn’t exist, the house does.

I know this because the dishwasher has started leaking water. But that’s not too big of a deal because we only do dishes once a month. We’re like that children’s story where the guy just buys new dishes instead of cleaning the dirty ones. Or maybe we’re like that story where the magic pasta floods the whole villa.

Now the sink is backed up and when I took the trap off to see were the clog was about 5 gallons of nasty garbage disposal water shot into the kitchen and into my shoes and pants. 30 seconds later, the neighbor calls and says that we have a shared pipe so the free condo association plumber is coming to look at it but can’t show up until Saturday. But first thing Saturday so at least it’s a 7am inconvenience. And you can’t run the broken dishwasher anyway so feel free to clean them in the shower.

Now we have to deal with the condo association plumber guy who talks like Emo Philips. MOTHER FUCKING EMO PHILIPS!

So do we pay for the plumber who can come earlier or wait for the free one? Darling wife, I hope you like take-out.

MERRY FUCKING EARLY CHRISTMAS

there are three different kinds of chili in our fridge/freezer right now. related: our sink is busted and isn't draining, and so there are dirty chili dishes all over the place that I will have to wash in the bathtub tonight.

not related, my car has 12k worth of repairs needed after a massive blowup in bailey's crossroads on sat. afternoon.

at least pre-halloween weekend festivities were a good time.

Stay Classy, Poostew

The G loved the Death Feast poster for the crazy-assed typeface. I liked because it gave me a new challenge outside of photoshopping Chuck Brown karate-chopping Duke Ellington in the throat. Is it possible to decipher every name?

Two challenges:

First, these bands deliberately make their logos hard to read. There needs to be some mystery involved. There needs to be a sinister, parent-worrying, possible Satan worshipping, goat blood drinking, maggot bloated corpse edge to it. And they also seem to want to out do each other. Look at the far left on the top row. The band’s name is Foetopsy. But it looks like they spelled it using shaving gel on a filthy bathroom floor.

Secondly, staring at this red poster for an hour made my eyes go crazy. I’ve been to one of those Flophouse parties where they change all the light bulbs to red and your rods and cones get screwed up for a few days and when you drive home everything looks green. This was worse.

So without further ado, the list goes from right to left. Links to Myspace are included so you should probably turn the volume down. My grindcore ear isn’t as sophisticated as it was in high school but the songs sound exactly the same as they did back then. And they still sound exactly the same to each other.



Top row:
Napalm Death
Gorgasm
Foetopsy

Second row:
Immolation
Aborted
Krisiun
Cliteater
Sinister
Obscenity

Third row:
Wormed
Aversion to Life
Hour of Penance
Guttural Secrete
Mucopus
Emeth

Fourth row:
Defeated Sanity*
Leng Tch’e
Deadborn
Keitzer
Rumpel Grumpel**
Happyface

Fifth row:
Jack Slater
Putrid Pile
Fecal Corpse
Suppository
Human Mincer
Resurrected

Sixth row:
Grind Inc
Defeated Sanity*
Irate Architect
Dawn of Azazel
Debauchery
Poostew

The Death Feast 2008 lineup is already being formed.


*Defeated Sanity is listed twice on the poster. I don’t know if this was a mistake or if they did two sets.

**I could not find a website for either Rumple Grumple or Resurrected. Resurrected was too common a name. Rumple Grumple just rocked too hard.

info stat

Someone explain Division Day to me. I have exactly three songs by them downloaded: a cover of SDRE, a cover of Roxy Music, and a cover of Depeche Mode. I'm not investing in Beartrap Island until the Internet tells me they aren't just a cover-band-with-an-indie-twist I can see at Clarendon Grill on Friday night happy hours.

Laissez faire pumpkinomics

I grew up within venial sinning distance of a certain Arlington Catholic high school that receives most of the county’s proudest delinquents after they’ve been permanently excused from the fine public schools. Among other un-pleasantries, it meant we could never have pumpkins on our front stoop until the fully-carved finality appeared on Halloween night. Any appearance prior to October 31st would result in a kicked-in pumpkin and its seedy brains scattered in the road. It was a neighborhood-wide issue. There were meetings.

In the end, my parents decided that it was just easier to not have pumpkins until the very last minute. When they showed up destroyed on Nov 1, at least they died with only a single day's worth of sentiment.

It was not until I got all grow’d up and moved into a semi-respectable and high school free neighborhood that I found out that there are other forces conspiring against wee pumpkins. For the first few day’s I couldn’t noodle out why bits of my poor gourd were disappearing into the Negative Zone. Then I caught those squirrel bastards red handed.

This idea was news to me but it seems like Que Sera, Sera. Squirrels eat pumpkins, what are you gonna do? I mean besides covering them with cayenne pepper or spraying them with hairspray*.

What you do is not buy a pumpkin 3 weeks before Halloween. I understood this basic fact of suburban living. The G did not.



Real world analogy: Say you buy a giant bag of Halloween-size boxes of Mike ‘n’ Ikes three weeks before the big day but open the package so you can have just one. Chances are that by the time the 31st rolls around, that junk is going to be gone. You should consider pumpkins as Mike N Ike’s for squirrels. (Full disclosure: we have about 3 boxes of Mike ‘n’ Ike’s left.)

I allowed the G to live with her mistake for a week while it slowly rotted on our steps. The squirrels got their fill after a few days and the mold and fruit flies moved in. On Monday it collapsed in on itself. Wednesday, it went into the trash. I refused to help. Laissez faire pumpkinomics.

I thought that was that. We all learned a valuable lesson. But this morning some wise guy squirrel took things to the next level. While walking the dog under a large tree, a chunk of pumpkin landed on my head. ON MY HEAD! Where I cut my hair and wear my giant pink helmet!

Escalation announcement received. I used to carry tennis balls around to alert squirrels before the dog could sneak up on them. If they weren’t paying attention, a quick shot across their bow would scare them up into tress. Not anymore. Every squirrel gets a ball, even if it’s already treed.

It's on.



*The former does not work. The latter supposedly does. But please wait until the hair spray is dry before illuminating the pumpkin. Unless you want things to get awesome and quick.

the most stunning use of type ever in the history of mankind

heh. "cliteater."

in the news

Best illustration ever.

But in the nearer future, humans will evolve in 1,000 years into giants between 6ft and 7ft tall, he predicts, while life-spans will have extended to 120 years, Dr Curry claims.

Physical appearance, driven by indicators of health, youth and fertility, will improve, he says, while men will exhibit symmetrical facial features, look athletic, and have squarer jaws, deeper voices and bigger penises.

Women, on the other hand, will develop lighter, smooth, hairless skin, large clear eyes, pert breasts, glossy hair, and even features, he adds. Racial differences will be ironed out by interbreeding, producing a uniform race of coffee-coloured people.

However, Dr Curry warns, in 10,000 years time humans may have paid a genetic price for relying on technology.

Spoiled by gadgets designed to meet their every need, they could come to resemble domesticated animals.

Okay, I'm all about becoming a long-living all powerful giantess, but the first time I start to resemble BD and can chew on my own butt, that's grounds for suicide. Either that, or it's kind of awesome. I haven't decided yet.

ghost lingering

The N: BLU GHST. I'm gonna start taking pictures of funny license plates!

The G: Please don't do that. One, they aren't funny. Two, didn't you once send me the link to 3 or 4 websites that already do that? And six: that's such a creepy old man hobby.

The N: Fine.

The G: ...

The N: I'm gonna start watching planes land!

* * *

The G: Can I be a drug dealer in Second Life and make a lot of money?

The N: Did you know in Second Life you can get baby unicorns?

The G: What. That's kind of awesome.

The N: Yeah but you have to do it with an adult unicorn first.


* * *

Hey so Spoon* was pretty good, non? Despite being a totally fucked up situation? There were maybe 17 people and my gramma there despite several assurances from Human @ 930 dot com that if you didn't get yr raggedy ass to the 930 before sundown, you were not going to see a show. But it was nice. My elbows all askew and not in anyone's ribcage, no one shoving or pouring beer in my shoes. Jumpy pointy guy was there. Fresh air and a fresh-faced kid who was so swooning adorable when Britt Daniel passed us on the corner on his way inside the venue, AMattos and I thought he might actually faint. Who are these earnest rock fans I keep running into at shows? I like it! Prompt opener, promptly on stage at 8:05, no witty banter, great set list that came from all over, and I was home by 10. Bizarro concert world for old people. I can dig it.

I did make brief pleasant small talk outside pre-show with DCeiver and another friend of BStretch's (who's name I can't remember now) about how I guess I was "rooting for Denver" now that Cleveland is out. Okay, right, Colorado. Not Denver. Noted. But now I've spent a good 25 minutes this morning trying to find out why some teams represent entire states (Arizona DBacks) and other's are simply city teams (O's, etc). I would think it has something to do with ownership or taxes or $$$ because everything has to do with those things - but the Rockie's are owned by a giant group, one of the biggest partners is an Ohio guy I think, and it was Denver CITY taxes that were raised for Coors Field? Basically, I'm dumb probably and this is a really simple answer, so enlighten me already. It took me a good 10 years to get the infield fly rule, and I still don't understand the physics of how planes fly, so let's keep it simple, shall we?





*

(From thisun: set list:

"I Could See the Dude"
"Utilitarian"
"Minor Tough"
"Fitted Shirt"
"Anything You Want"
"Me and the Bean"
"Small Stakes"
"The Way We Get By"
"Stay Don't Go"
"Jonathan Fisk"
"Back to the Life"
"The Beast and Dragon, Adored"
"The Delicate Place"
"I Summon You"
"Don't Make Me a Target"
"The Ghost of You Lingers"
"You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb"
"The Underdog"
"Black Like Me"
Encore
"Japanese Cigarette Case"
"Peace Like a River" (Paul Simon)
"I Turn My Camera On"
"Don't You Evah"
"Rhythm and Soul"
"My Mathematical Mind")

Sports sports sports. I love sports. Sports.

He told us straight to our faces that he couldn’t play because his foot was paralyzed. Looked us right in the eyes and laughed his lying laugh. And then he hobbled off.

Fine. We don’t need you or your fake gimpy leg and pickle throwing arm. We had a quarterback who could lead us to 28-0 losses while throwing interceptions on every drive. And he was cut. We didn’t need two of them.

Now we have a new quarterback who’s only thrown one pick and it was a Hail Mary across his body moving the opposite way. But all was forgiven because he’s very handsome and has a great smile that makes the refs pick up their across-the-line-of-scrimmage flags even when he’s clearly three yards past the sticks.

Sexy new quarterback can do so many things that Shuler can't.

have some chocolates, rar rar rar rar

Seriously, Ryan Adams. Seriously.

I kind of love the mask, though.

glamorous life

I've stepped up my game enough that I will indeed be attending Spoon tonight (with these folks). My head still vaguely feels like it might pop off my body and start it's own orbital rotation around Earth (MOON HEAD!) but I can deal with it. No alcohol though. Show's over, people; the lights have been on for at least fifteen minutes. Clear the premises.

No other news. Listening to Dappled Cities. Making plans to bus up to NYC. Saw "Gone Baby Gone." Made a weird rice dish last night that looked like oatmeal and tasted like scorpion poison (you have led me stray for the last time, allrecipes.com!) Helping build Halloween costumes (yes, I said "build.") Curing leprosy. Etc.

my life is sore.

"I've never seen you drunk!" - C. Andrews.

Here, a handy guide:



I have hazy memories of talking absolute nonsense, and also stumbling pretty awesomely while on my way to said inside keg, which although drunk, I can still blame on an ankle that can't support my fat ass. Anyway, I didn't leave my room all day yesterday except to eat mashed potatoes and find the remote when I flipped it off the bed.

Also, I had a weird dream about Charles Bissell serving me grilled cheese in a Route 66 diner in Oklahoma.

Beyond that, people, I got nothing. Except I'm home sick from work today, which I don't think has anything to do with this past weekend. Unless one of you fuckers passed along a whopping case of meningitis. In which case, I totally hate you.

or were we called the drone clones? we can't remember.

Catherine and I are hard at work at forming an all-girl noise band called the Drone Crones. The first order of business will, of course, be a self-released CD named Murder of Sluts. Credit where credit is due.

ian curtis

my favorite review of Closer so far.

rainbows

One: this morning I admitted to Ryan that I liked "Bodysnatchers." I still think the rest of it is dull.

Two: My husband has a date tonight. Whoever is interested in bellying up to a bar (TBD) to drink beers with me should send me an email. Otherwise, I might go bowling.

Also, godammit, Cleveland. The hell.

This is our 1,600 post. Obviously, nothing like your SAT scores.

Ladies, we live in a society and society has rules and if we want to operate in this society we need to follow those rules. That means you can’t wander in off the street, all late in shit, hoping to get cauliflower ear or that staph infection that kills high school kids and not expect to get locked the fuck out.

Have fun at Galaxy Hut, you chugalugs.

state of the crazy people, puppies, etc, rambling

I don't have anything to blog about because besides driving to work, I haven't left my house since Sunday. We've been cooking actual meals and going to bed at reasonable elderhostelesque hours. All is calm-n-copasetic in the Pyggie household, save for the taste of rage I get every time I see a squirrel. Those little bastards are dead to me. BD is not doing his job protecting my hastily-purchased-afterthought H'ween decorations.

Lesse, how much more boring can I make myself sound. I recently bought a hat that makes me look like a young female Mao Zedong, without the whole being Asian thing. I got a new laptop @ work and now am farting around on Vista. I need new music recommendations to download (no donkey electronica) so I can stop listening to the same ridiculous choices I made while on the Vic a few weeks ago (NO SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS who downloaded ALL THIS TOAD THE WET SPROCKET) The D. IM'd me yesterday all upset because she had a dream that Jeff Tweedy died. At some point this past weekend, I made mention of how maybe I'd like to learn to play tennis and everyone took me seriously. I'm doing yoga tonight and I might die??????

Hrmph.

- photo detective

- puppy saver

- TAXI!

- PEOPLE. Cleveland is sooo going to clinch this thing, and then my loyalties will be split. Do I root for Colorado and the awesomeness that is Matt Holliday, or do I stick with Mr. Blake and therefore incur some serious text message wrath from rabid-Rockies-fanatic-friend Brian? I only know anything about CR because of his foaming at the mouth, anyways. Choices, choices. Also seriously factoring into my decision: the name "Jhonny." I think the way to decide this is to go back to the salary listings, and I will simply root for whichever team has the lesser payroll. Additionally, courtesy ILB: I seriously can't stand Dane Cook. *

- stupidest thing I've seen this morning. This single photo made me stupid-er in 5 seconds of glancation than watching an entire season of "Rock of Love." I don't think the previous sentence is even CLOSE to being gramatically correct, that's how stupid I now am.

- I have it on good authority that "Puppy Bowl" is being filmed right now and that the puppies have like, bodyguards.




* (and while we're discussing baseball, let's revisit this awesome quote from former White Sox (now with, according to Wikipedia, the Long Island Ducks) Carl Everett circa 2005ish or so: "God created the sun, the stars, the heavens and the earth, and then made Adam and Eve," Everett said last Friday, before the Red Sox lost two of three in Atlanta. "The Bible never says anything about dinosaurs. You can't say there were dinosaurs when you never saw them. Someone actually saw Adam and Eve. No one ever saw a Tyrannosaurus rex." YAY CARL EVERETT GREATEST AMERICAN HERO!

spidercricketpigs

Arrrghhhh, flashback re: these pieces of shit. I lived in a basement FULL of these effers for a year of my life. The N. thought they would jump into his gaping maw as he snored slept; thus, he blames their presence on why he never (ever) drove out to the wilds of Fairfax to stay at my house. And explains how I put 8 million commuter miles on my ever-breaking-down Volvo that year. I drove 66 twice a day for 365+ days, added on to my typical daily work commute. Pain. In. My. Asshole.

I blame his absence not on the cricket infestation, but on his sheer laziness and the fact that I catered to his every dude whim. Man, girls are chumps. I mean, even after I moved 2 miles away from him in the ARL (a house which involved infestations of other sorts: fleas, rats, a possum in the chimney, woodpeckers in the living room; i may have mentioned this 10000X before on the internet) I still had to sleep my ass at his grody boy-house every night.

But then a few years later we got married and that catering bullshit stopped immediately. Right? Right. Or something. I did take the dog for a walk this morning (first time in a month). Wife of the year!


Update on the mousepad situation: Sommer has found me a clear frontrunner. It involves Ghost Casey Novak (she's transparent!)

ratpad

Nerds of the online universe, I need yr help. I am in the market for a new mousepad. I have special requirements.

I am disgusting and eat at my desk and live in filth and germs and food particles. I don't wash my hands or wrists enough, apparently, if you'd see my once-white custom mousepad that the N. made me for my bday one year ("Vance Refrigeration - We Make Scranton a Cool Place to Live!")


1 - Nothing Disney. I suffered here at Current Workplace with a Disney mousepad for quite some time (the person who had my job before me loved Dumbo [?] and I was too lazy to replace it), and I can't do that to myself again.

2- Nothing light colored (reference above reasons)

3- I would consider a custom-made something, but I'm lazy so it can't be too diificult. Also, it can't be fabric (see #2, see above description of filthy work environment, etc.)

4- I do occasionally find great things on Etsy, but that A) site is so freakishly overwhelming sometimes, I don't even know where to begin; and B) SO. TWEE. And C) I hate wading through crap to get to the few real gems (I'm referencing jewelry here mostly, but you know what I mean. why does everyone in the universe make beaded stuff? stop.) There are a few awesome mousepads on there (i like the whistling octopus one) but I think, again, these are made of fabric. Sigh.

5- Ideally, you will find me a vinyl, wipeable, Law & Order SVU mousepad. *



Go forth, Internet, and bring me something suitable.



(* Found thus far on Ebay: "Property of Christopher Meloni XXL" teeshirt, several scanned photos/articles on CM from a gay publication, this, and my current favorite: "Stabler Bucks." Awesome. The only Chris Meloni mousepad for sale is indeed pretty sexy, but uses Comic Sans as a font and that's just not something I can abide by. Remember people: there are rules that go along witht his mousepad purchase.)

The Yodeler

I’m sure everyone has some cherished memory about grandma and Bob Barker/Price Is Right so I won’t bother with the boring yakety-yack about my old babysitter and why she and barker are the reason that I was terrified of Pope John Paul II when I was 5. But since today is Drew Carey’s first day, I figure he’s fair game.


The set: All the games are designed the same but the curtains hiding the prizes are now actively retro instead of just looking retro because they’re old. Big shapes of similar colors, disorienting flashing light, Boise State blue astro-turf on just about every surface. Standard PIR interior decorating.

Production: Did the director and cameramen retire too? They couldn’t find the new contestants when their names were called, one camera shot another camera and several times you could see backstage. Let’s tighten it up, fellas.

Carey: He’s a comedian so he’s funnier on the fly but he did a terrible job explaining what was going on with the rules. If you weren’t familiar with the games you would have had no idea how to play. For instance, Carey didn’t go over the rules of The Hiking Werner Von Trapp game, which is arguably the most complicated, until he had already asked the contestant for her first guess. And during the wheel spin, one guy walked away before he was done because Carey didn’t explain that his first spin didn’t count since it didn’t go all the way around.

He also needs to take more control of the contestants. One guy wandered off to see the new car up close before the game started and Carey’s Cuties or whatever they call the models had to shoo him away. Another woman was jumping up and down so much after winning $16,000 that she bit it on the shiny white floor and nearly broke her tailbone.

The whole show: Everyone who got called up on stage won so it looks like Carey pitched a prefect first game. In fact, the first lady to spin the wheel won $1000 so up to that point they had given away every possible dollar the producers could afford. And if the lady with the broken tail bone sues, she could walk away with more than just a new hot tub.

Bottom line: If Drew keeps the poop jokes to a minimum, things she be smooth sailing for grandma and hospital waiting rooms.

homecoming (?)

My weekend was fine, thanks for asking. I wore an orange sweater totally not on purpose, and then looked like the million and half other 19 year olds who attend your football games. Also, question: who wears ties to a sporting event, unless your own damn coach makes you and you are a freshman in high school and the administration is trying to impart some wisdom on class/make sure you grow into being a semi-responsible member of society? And uh, seersucker? And dresses? Jesus christ, people.

Otherwise, I laughed my ass off as my husband attended his first baby shower (swear to god). I suck at Mexican Golf, or whatever the game that E&K made up is called. It involves golfball nunchucks and PVC pipe. I played with a dog who was almost as cute as mine and 3x as well behaved.



Also we saw a sheephearding dog trial, which was great, and not just because people there were wearing fleece and dirty jeans. Now THAT is what you wear to a sporting event.

I have scored a Spoon ticket after my premature/immediate return of original tix because I was mad about the MPP mixup. Let this be a lesson - don't let emotions cloud yr concert judgement like that, people.

Also, yesterday I cleaned out three closets. There is nothing like spending the weekend at some hyper-organized friend's house (matching curtains and bedding? guest soap?) to make one realize that one lives like a frat boy.

In other news, baseball baseball baseball. That's kind of all I want to talk about. It was rainy and cold in Denver last night; Cleveland won thanks to Casey Blake's hottness, I think (a friend and i determined this weekend that one Mr. Casey Blake has a fine looking beard, and would be really good at the following: canoeing, chopping wood, living in Maine, eating Ben and Jerry's, and giving us ladies sexy piggy back rides through fall landscapes. Call me, Casey Blake!)

Okay, that's about it. October is the best month, no?

windup

Ordering a new pair of glasses online seemed like a good idea. I am blind, so so so blind I never wear glasses because it takes two full days for my eyes to adjust to the different kinds of focusing you have to do with glasses vs. my precious contacts. Also, glasses make delicate pale flesh behind my ears hurt. Also, I look like Hans Moleman.

It has taken over a month to get my goddamn order to be taken off hold. For a variety of reasons, first and foremost me being a moron who apparently can't measure her face correctly. Did you know your face needs to be measured for glasses? I guess I kind of knew it? But didn't think about it. And then every time said online retailer tried to inform me my measurements were wrong and my face is probalby not 2" wide, unless I am a Little or something, their emails went into spam filterland.

My final email was a bit curt. My bad, spammy online spectacle retailer. But according to cheapoglassesforsociallyawkwardhermits dotcom, as of yesterday, my glasses are in the post. Did they cost the promised $39 dollars? No internet, no they did not. They cost 75 bucks or so because I am special needs. but whatever. At least I don't have to go to Costco and partake of/in actual human interaction.

in other news: i've spent today planning fake vacations for the next three years of my life and eating sushi. i find in rainbows boring, i've downloaded a bunch of MP3s from morningside recently, and we're spending this weekend in Charlottesville reliving... someone's else youth. I didn't go to UVA.

Who wouldn’t want to watch a bunch of 30-year-old illiterate Longhorns playing some ex-con Gators?

At this point, any scheme designed to establish a new professional football league can be scientifically characterized as wolf-face crazy. But you know what? They may be on to something with this All-American Football League. I’m officially intrigued.

There’d be six teams, each of which is made up exclusively of alumni of powerhouse colleges who couldn’t crack the NFL. Michigan, Texas, Tennessee, Florida, Arkansas, and Alabama. Games in the spring, played either on the campus or nearby. Basically, a college an All-Star league

I didn’t go to a school with a respectable sports program and usually pay little attention to college football so I’ll probably stick with the NFL. But there is certainly an existing fan base large enough for this to work. I imagine other schools would be eager to join too, especially if it’s not an XFL* level debacle after the first kickoff. And I’m sure while the actual universities can’t be official sponsors, there’s no reason to be against it.

Verdict? Unlike the UFL, the AAFL is not completely laughable.



*Even though it was created in this decade, XFL paraphernalia is considered “vintage” on Ebay.