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.