A tax on our marriage

This year was going to be different. This year we weren’t going to be like my father and wait until the very last minute to do our taxes. As soon as we got every random W-2, 1099 and miscellaneous receipt in the mail we were going to hammer these dastardly things out.

(Side bar - My father has, literally, waited to the very last minute to do his taxes. A few years back he delayed until April 15th to finish his return and then drove to the giant US Mail Center in Merrifield, VA so he could drop them off in person. He lingered outside until 11:59pm and then ran in so his could be the last envelope in the mailbag. I pointed out that it probably meant that his was the first one filed since it was on the top of the pile but he was having one of that. “Last one,” he kept saying.)

Thinking we had every last form, we sat down in front of the computer last weekend only to have Turbo Tax tell us we owed several million dollars. But, it said, you guys filed property tax as a deduction last year so you’ll probably want to do it again for 2007. Naturally we couldn’t find that form and this past week was filled with silent cursing and indecipherable emails from CitiMortgage’s customer service reps.

We finally got all our ducks lined up last night and there was much success. Thank you governments for our free monies. Now, hurry please and deposit electronically into our bank account and secret pockets sewn into our fanciest pantaloons. We addressed and stamped the envelopes and placed by the door for the mailman. Goodnight IRS.

Amazingly, that’s not where the story ends. Last night I dreamt I was dinging with several famous people. One turned to me and said, “It’s time to wake up, Nabob. You didn’t sign your tax return.”

As Secretary of Treasury Henry M. Paulson, Jr is my witness, I swear that this is exactly what happened.

I woke the G up and told her we needed to go open our returns and sign them before the mail came. She thanked my nocturnal assiduousness by telling me to “shut the fuck up and go back to sleep because, dude, seriously, it’s 4:30am,” and “what’s wrong with you?” However, she grudgingly acknowledged that she was impressed this morning when we opened the envelopes and saw that, indeed, we had forgotten to sign them.

Amazingly, again, that’s not where the story ends. A few minutes ago, I spilled an entire grande English Breakfast tea on our taxes as they patiently awaited their trip to the post office. Even worse, when I was trying to open the quickly dissolving envelopes with a letter opener, I cut the return in half.

So, tonight we need to print ‘em out again and we’ll mail ‘em out tomorrow. I assume the G will take charge and not let me anywhere near are sweet, giant refund.






What about filing electronically, you say? To be honest, I don’t trust computers. They steal your identities and give them to Nigerian oil magistrates. Just ask that girl whose credit card keeps getting charged by the DMV for someone else’s $250 parking tickets. I bet she files electronically.

a fun game

ask my husband how this year's tax preparation has gone!

(unrelated note of no consequence: this was the first year that I saw all movies nominated for best picture. Wow, me. Even so, the oscars were a total snooze last night. YAWN.)

Grudge III

In 2002, I took a trip to China that resulted in so many outrageously awesome adventures that their retelling would surely result in the Chinese government shutting down the entire internet out of embarrassment. Then they would hack into Secretary Gates email and have our house get peppered with destroyed secret satellite bits. They are that scandalous.

And it appears that it’s getting more so.

At the time, I considered my few days in Hong Kong to be quit tame. In an effort to get out of the city and to see the coast, about 15 of us rented a boat and sailed to some nearby island for some drinking and beach rugby and high times. We goofed off, took pictures and wasted the day away.

I got an email yesterday from my friend who organized the trip and he asked if I remember another guy from that cruise named Chen. I replied that I thought there were several dudes on the boat named Chen. “No,” he said. “Edison Chen.”

Oooooohhhhhhhhhhh. Edison Chen. The "hugeHong Kong sex photo scandal" Edison Chen.


Man, the stories from that trip get better and better. I wonder if there were pictures of me on that laptop. I did have my shirt off.

C'est un beau monsieur avec une barbe virile

Someone just referenced the gnome-jacking plot from the movie Amélie and even though I’ve seen it twice, I can’t recount a single other thing that happened. Luckily, we have instant message. Here’s a smattering of several women’s memory of the movie. And Avent’s. Draw your own conclusion on that last one.

Hmmm. Let's see. She's a frail waitress who helps people like her neighbor and her dad liked gnomes maybe? and had pen pals? and so she starts on some cat and mouse thing with a cute boy involving a photo booth, um, the end. I think.

Grade: C-

It, like, has no plot. you know, cute lonely French girl. Various vignettes...making random connections and helping out people in Paris. Along the way plays this sort of cutesy treasure hunt with a French guy they end up having sex and falling in love.

Grade: C+ (for remembering they had sex)

It's about an enigmatic girl and her quirky approach to life -- sending her father's beloved yard gnome on worldwide adventures, etc. but mostly it's a love story between two people that haven't met, and how they meet. He's a photo booth repair man, she's infatuated by photo booths and it's all very French and not annoying, like what i just wrote sounds.

Grade: B

A young woman who is afraid to open her heart is charmed by young man who has the same problem.

Grade: A- (succinct)


the french girl
me: thats the worst ever answer
she was quirky
i don't remember ever saying that i liked it
Grade: D- (I don’t care if its your birthday, that’s bad answer)

So there's this girl, her mom died when she was young and she's sad/nutty. She's in her flat one day and she finds this old box of toys and stuff that some kid must have left there ages ago and she makes up her mind to find the owner. Ultimately she decides to do tons of nice stuff like: she embarrasses the mean boss of this nice but kind of dumb grocery boy, she sets up this grumpy cafe patron with the hypochondriac cigarette girl and underneath it all is this storyline where she tries to figure out what this guy is doing getting his picture taken in photobooths all over the city turns out he's a photobooth repair guy. And this other cute guy who worked at a sex shop shared her obsession with the photo guy. In the end they meet and like each other and ride off on his moped. Fin

Grade: A (like the finest Hot Shoppe steak. Fin.)


Can you guess who's who?

and while i'm at it, i'm not drinking anyone's milkshake either, although i wish i were. i'd kill for a milkshake.

Soooo.... is it too early to already claim i don't care if Barack Obama is my new bicycle? Or that he wants me to scarf a cupcake? Or if really, anyone else is my new bicycle/providing me baked goods? Or folding my laundry? Because no one is folding my laundry, not even me. Trust me.

Mofos, clowns are.

The New York Times business section is the part of the paper I get to last. It doesn’t have comics, like our Business section, and I don’t care about/understand half of the stuff in there. I’m also the last person under the age of 33 who doesn’t read it online, so when I IM the G and say “Didja see the Times article about camouflage cuttlefish?” and she say’s “link please” and I go “uh? The New York Times website,” she gets angered.

With these things in mind, I just got to yesterday’s business section a few minutes ago. I put it right down. Right there on the front page, right there for little kids to see, was a photo of my sworn enemy. The article accompanying the picture offers no explanation to why its there. All it does is show the horrifying visages of the terrifying German Clown Army.

My only run-in with them happened a few weeks back while riding a bus through the German country-side. I spotted the first one along a hedge about 200 yards off the road. Suddenly, about 50 of them came pouring out into a field, running full speed toward another hedge-line. Very Band OF Brothers. Later, while driving through a much more wooded area, I saw another bunch moving in and out of the forest and crossing the road. It was like that ambush scene in Children of Men except Clive Owen wasn’t there and everyone was dressed like sad hobos. Openly, I wish Julianne Moore got shot in the neck in my story too.

I’m not against whatever it is the Clown Army is for politically. I’m not even exactly sure what that is. I’m just uncomfortable with that many clowns moving in any one direction, with a single-minded motivation.



I took a picture of a mural drawn by some of the clowns depicting their oppression by the German police. Although I have no proof, I believe the scene occurred the opposite way it is sketched.

banjo fight

The best comedy on cable right now is something on the Food Network where ‘raglar ol’ folks battle it out in a faux-kitchen stadium (live audience!) over who has the best recipe for soup or friend chicken or whatever. I think it’s called “Food Fight" "Ultimate Recipe Showdown." It is soooooo stupid and yet suuuuuch a scream factory. I love it.

One, it’s hosted by Marc Summers, who can do no wrong in my opinion after throwing a coffee mug of water on Burt Reynolds back in the day; two, the jolliest bleached blonde Italian Guy named Guy ever, and three: The introductions of the contestants.

Oh god, the introductions. They are so awesome. The other night two women introduced themselves thusly:

“Hi, I’m Bridget, a stay at home Mom AND a Katrina Survivor!”

“Hi, I’m Ann! I run an online clock shop!”

. . . I am not even exaggerating that at all. If I could find it online, it would be the best animated GIF I ever made.

Do you remember the scene in “Grosse Pointe Blank” where Cusack is staring into the mirror minutes before he leaves for his high school reunion, nervously fidgeting with his tie, attempting to figure out the massive lie he’s going to tell to fellow alumni when they ask about about his chosen profession? “Online Clock Shop.”

I need TiVo just for this program alone.

Unrelated:

My favorite song lately: Thao’s “Swimming Pool.” I was trying to tell the N. why I liked it and I had to fumble my way through it by making plucky-plucky motions and saying “you know, the sound like a guitar but not?”

“You mean banjo?”

So, right, I forgot the word “banjo.” I am amazing.

Blinded

From what we can tell, the couple that sold us our hovel made several curious lifestyle choices. One was to forgo the traditional ornamentation of crown molding and instead line the walls with 60 yards of nautical rope. Another was the room with white walls but a blue ceiling. However, chief among these unorthodox household decisions was the one that resulted in the birth of a son.

The unfortunate outcome of this choice was that every window blind within the grasp of his sticky, jelly covered hands was completely mangled. They looked liked 80’s women’s hair, the kind with all the kinks. (I assume the tool used to achieve this effect is called The Kinker. At least it should have been.) This family did us no favors by generously conveying the blinds to us when they left. Also, several plants.

After throwing out the plants and painting over the accursed blue ceiling, we decided our next move as new homeowners was to get new, non-kinked blinds. Naturally, it took us 8 months to get our act together and go to Home Despot. We went with white.

Two weeks and one hernia later the blinds were up. The old ones ended up the trunk of the G’s car and may still be there. But about twenty minutes after we put them into the window, we foolishly agreed to dog-sit my parent’s Black Dog. Obviously, the first thing he did was tear the shit out of them. My parent felt bad and offered to pay for the repair. All we had to do is send them back and give them the bill.

It should be a surprise to no one that we left them busted up for several months. Then we got Brown Dog. And the first thing he did when he moved in was take a big crap in the dining room. But the second thing he did was tear the EVER LIVING FUCK out of the rest of the blinds. Totally pwned them. My parents lawyered up on our sorry asses and claimed they couldn’t tell which dog destroyed which slat and we were on our own. When you pulled on the cord, only half of the blinds went up and the ones that were broken swung wildly out into the room. If you tried to turn the crank, it would jerk spastically and break off.

Fast forward 3½ years…

I finally did something about the eye sores this weekend. I stole a huge box from a post office loading bay, jerry rigged some packaging with $20 worth of duct tape and dragged it down to UPS. As we speak, they are on there way to Douglas, Arizona to get all respectable-like.

In the meantime, if you’re in the neighborhood, feel free to drop by and stare directly into the house. We normally keep our blinds closed, but as the G found out after the disastrous neighborhood baby shower she was invited to on Sunday (out of pity) this practice has caused most of our neighbors to think us rude and perhaps troll-ish. But there’s a new openness policy at the Pyggy house! Let the sun shine in! We may not even put the repaired blinds back up!

The front yard is fine for seeing most things that go on but if you go up the steps you can see right into the kitchen! What’s for dinner, you ask? Well, it’s bread made from the bones of an Englishman!

Stupid neighbors. I hope your babies are colicky and they get made fun of for being named Lance.

god, blogging, you suck and are annoying so much all the time

you know it's been a slow couple of months when the Creepy Abandoned Chi Chi's site is getting exponentially more hits. Come on, Internet, you are better than that. That site is like, one step away from me making a ytmnd site about mexican chain restaurants. Which now that I think about it.....

Here, go make this dog sit down.

my weekend. yes.

we got a new fridge; my spouse configured an awesome spectacle of a mailing container made of pipe cleaners and duct tape and recycled cardboard and dreams, here's to hoping UPS decides our dog-eaten blinds are worth delivering to the repair center and not a Unibomber or terrorist package; i went to a gathering of neigh-bro-hood ladyfolk where the topic of conversation was "what a cuuuuuute movie 'Definitely Maybe is OMG you must go see it'; the dog, K and I got stuck in a rainstorm near Great Falls after an hour + of driving around the greater metropolitan area because I couldn't find a parking spot at any "outdoorsy places", which seems... beyond pathetic of me (go to hell, roosevelt islanders!); i learned i am terrible at shooting dinosaurs and would have died immediately if stuck in jurassic park (dave 'n busters: teaching everyone valuable lessons about their survival skills. i'm talking about the bar and general cliental here, not dinosaurs. IF YOU CATCH MY DRIFT); i watched the N get strapped to a table while wearing a tuxedo and having his junk almost decimated by a laser operated by an evil villain; I went to the grocery store and made dinner.

Most Awesomest Valentine to date.

Thanks sweat pea. I feel the same way.

They also mentioned something about Tom having to get off his ass and do the Morning Roundup

After an icy, swerving and 4-times-as-long commute home last night and before the animal and I both bit it on the same storm grate simultaneously in a manner that would make Robert Gates proud, the Pyggy household was blessed to receive a personal phone call from a certain Senator running for President. Usually, these messages are mass deleted with the other 10 or so we get for the people who used to have our number and seemingly owe millions of dollars to various loan sharks.

But this message stood out because it was clearly recorded yesterday afternoon, with reference to things that we happening right then. It basically sounded like this:

Hello friend. I know the weather is terrible out there in Northern Virginia and car accidents have blocked every ramp and bridge out town. But toady is Election Day and you and I both now that this campaign may be the most important EVAR. Also, I want to be President so bad. I am not all those things that my opponents say that I am. In fact I am for the same things that you are for. Like more money in your pocket and that one dog you like at the dog show. Probably the beagle. And I’m against terrorists. Because, god forbid, if there is ever an attack in DC, today’s weather has pretty much proven that an evacuation of the city is fracking impossible. The radio said some people hadn’t moved on 395 for 4 hours. Four hours! Dirty bomb clouds move pretty fast folks, hope you can hold your breath for four hours. Anyway, if you can, walk on down to your polling site and vote for me.

I may have taken some liberties with the middle of the message. But the beginning bit about the bad weather and the back end about terrorists were almost verbatim.

Roger Clemen's is like all dogs.

Is anyone watching the Clemens hearing? Did someone catch Eleanor Holmes Norton’s line of questioning? I only turned it on right before they broke for lunch and just heard her last statement. What led up to her saying to the Rocket, “Mr Clemens, I all I can say is, I'm sure that you’re going to Heaven?”

Update: Oh hai. I guess I'm live blogging this.

Clemons just admitted he didn't know if he was a vegan or knew what one was.

little R. sings the blues

There are few people I love more in the world than the N's former roommates... all of them. He had good taste in past co-inhabitants, for the most part. While we still see a few of them occasionally ("hey guys, did I ever tell you about the time I was living in Canada and started a glam-nu-metal band that created fucking epic songs about Rohypnol? Sit back, I have a story"), some we only see every few years. Like R.

R., a college buddy of both of ours and current Portland resident, is always my absolute favorite. He looks and acts like a 12 year old, and is the most earnest guy I have ever met in my life. He's a human puppy. R. used to have a chinchilla in a glass aquarium in their apartment, and while working the graveyard shift at a classic rock station in college, would occasionally dedicate a 3 AM play of Yes or Steppenwolf to yours truly "kicking it late tonight in the Printmaking room on campus, woooo hoooooo!"

Anyway. R. Love him.

In a max-five-minute phone conversation last night, we discussed the following:

1) Vegan strip clubs.

2) The economy is so bad he's going to lose the lease on his art gallery (?), which he mostly supports by running a tee-shirt embroidery business with a man named Mag/ik (??); and this is problematic because right now the gallery manager Julie is living out of the back storeroom because they can't afford to pay her, and so she can't pay rent anywhere.

3) How the above money troubles has led him to take on extra part-time work, and by "extra part-time work" he means becoming a snowboarding coach at a private school.

4) That's right, snowboarding coach.

5) But even though no one has any money "you guys should totally move here you'd love it so much, there are lots of trails." (R. did not distinguish exactly what kind of trails he was talking about, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume hiking or running or something; which makes no sense because I would not like that at all because running is the Devil's activity. Or maybe he meant skiing, also problematic since neither the N nor I can ski worth a goddamn. Or, maybe he meant trails of cocaine on his glass-topped dining room set. Like I said, still unclear.)

6) The Spruce Goose.

7) By the way, R. reports he is "sporting some wicked rad sideburns these days."

Remind me someday to scan in his business card. It's comedy gold.

oh hi

nerdier than the Star Trek tat? Maybe.

One more quick one about the dog and we'll go back to not mentioning him again for another 2 years. Promise.

Last night, for the first time ever, Brown Dog’s breed was included in the Westminster Dog Show. The previous 125 years of exclusion had less to do with the dog’s rarity and more to do with the breed’s breath smelling like a fish slurry factory. Or that’s at least what I assume, based on our animal and his flower wilting skunk mouth.

He was very proud that his kin are finally getting the respect they certainly don’t deserve. He was a little embarrassed, however, because it’s obvious that our hound is a bit on the runty side, based on the breed winner.



Update: Wha? Patty Hearst?

All that and football phone

Listen. I’m no prude. For instance, I read the British version of Maxim, if you know what I’m saying. I used to think the folks that sent their swimsuit issues back to Sports Illustrated were uptight CS Lewis reading Huckabites drinking their caffeine-free generic cola at a Friday night Hearts tournaments.

I know times are changing. But now that I have a family, I have to look out for what the dog sees. We don’t take him to R-rated movies. We don’t let him watch Animal Planet after 10pm. And he’s certainly not going to look at this year’s SI.

Uh, it’s only the cover, but you'll probably get HR coming by and asking you to take it off your cubicle wall. They'll also probably make watch that video about not sneaking up behind the secretaries and spraying their hair with those canisters of keyboard-cleaning compressed gas. Turns out nobody likes that.

notes from a recluse: it's cold out. srsly.

awwwwww. how come no one told jamie lynn spears that, fashion-wise, she just turned into me? i think i own that sweatshirt. And that gnarly scowl is gonna stay there if someone slaps you on the back, youngin.

actually, she's brushed/highlited her hair recently, and does not have wrinkles, and is young and virile and takes her dog to the vet apparently. I should not insult her like that.

Honestly, what's the use of having a website if you can't complain about things that effect one, maybe two, people?

I may have mentioned that I play pick-up football in the shadows of TC Williams on Sunday mornings. I am a simple man and I look forward to it dearly.

TC is located on King Street in Alexandria and is bookended on either side by two large churches. There is a third one about a block and a half away. Sunday mornings, I have recently learned, are when people go to church and there is often much traffic.

I have also recently mentioned that TC Williams was just rebuilt and large machines are in the process of tearing the old building down. When the demolition is complete, a brand new and environmentally-sound parking installation will be built in its place. I think it’s supposed to have a grass roof or something. In the meantime, however, the school does not have a proper parking lot.

Publicly, I say “Why would you hold a Presidential rally at a location with little to no public parking?”

Privately, I say “Dude, I’m not going to the rally. I was playing football. What do you mean you won’t move these buses until the speech is over? How am I supposed to drive home when roads are blocked?”

I might have stuck my nose inside to see what’s what but I was wearing shorts and felt under-dressed. Also, I was covered in mud. Eventually, one of the Alexandria cops was nice enough to move his car so I could get home. And the only other frustration that day was when I went to the grocery store and all the parking spots there were taken by rally-goers and I had to wait 20 minutes to find a spot.

My understanding is that the rally was a great success. While I waited for the buses to not move, I took several pictures of the folks who did NOT get into the school because it was too crowded. The queue extended about two hundred more yards past what my camera could see.

craft group meets next week, i guess.

in an unusual break from actual work here in 2008 (i have been busy as shit lately) i've spent most of the afternoon making my own imaginary textiles patterns at V&A online.


Right.


Annnnnnd in other news, Ryan McGinley managed to make the Spring Urban Outfitters catalog come to life. Look, everyone! Look at the celebrities frolic in fields of flowers! And on the beach! Hi, Hal Holbrook!

They're no Puddlepoint

Like CMJ or Uncut or Appalachian Funeral Dirge Monthly, the free CDs that come with most music magazine are big crapshoots. The track listing usually goes like this:

1. Catchy Radiohead song
2. Bluesy Ryan Adams song
3. Somewhat talented female singer-songwriter like KT Tunstall
4. Inversely untalented female folk singer whose songs sound like day old kittens
5. Crap
6. Brighteyes
7. Somewhat catchy Canadian artist, probably Sloan
8. Crap
9. Crap
10. Surprisingly good song by a band that no one’s heard of and has no album or MySpace page
11. Crap
12. Crap
13. Crap
14. Crap
15. Live recording of Hold Steady's Stuck Between Stations at First Avenue, Minneapolis

In fact, that’s pretty much every Paste CD I’ve ever listened to. Until this month.

There was a very upsetting inclusion in this month’s issue.

Say you’re having a conversation about music with your mates and you want to recollect the youthful, more innocent yet brooding days of the late 90’s. There is only one band you need to bring up. Or say someone is arguing that Austin or Athens, GA is the center of college music in America but you think it’s actually Williamsburg, Va. If you bring up this band, the conversation will end and you will be awarded a medal from the Model UN for your debating techniques. Or say some guy is like, “Ian McKaye once tuned my guitar.” And you say, “Oh yeah? I know a guy who used to date the girl who’s now dating the leader singer of this band.” Again, you’re the winner.

This band should have been your answer to all references about washed up, Virginia bands from last decade. This band was Seven Mary Three.

But now this month’s Paste Magazine seems to imply that 7M3 has a new album coming out. And they put a song from that album on their free CD. This is probably good news for the William and Mary music scene. But this is awful news for me. They were my go-to band.

I’m going to start using Agents of Good Root again.

Attention, neighborhood dogwood buds and daffodil sprouts who are currently enjoying the week’s warm weather…

"how to sleep alone in a king sized bed." vomit all over yourself first and then you will be left alone to choke. you're welcome.

K, so I'm old and kind of crusty so maybe this has already been mentioned a thousand billion times in the blogorrhea, but ewww. What is WRONG with the world? Especially today? When did we all get so.... terrible? LNS, ANSWER ME.

via CatAn

Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh.

Oh, people.

(related: PB&J Television, who are apparently the fuckwits responsible for the worst television programming ever.)

I don't know whether to start sobbing or to break out in the National Anthem while twirling fiery batons and then eat an entire apple pie. My god, this country is spectacular.

There are no more Hummer Limos or sad sack party-goers from the suburbs

With so many Super things going on this week I nearly forgot that today was Super Free Boob Day down in N’arleans. Tomorrow, we sell all our stock in companies that make cheap plastic beads because the earning reports tomorrow are going to sink faster than a Tulane co-ed’s self respect tonight.

With Fat Tuesday comes the sad reminder that DC no longer has its own Mardi Gras-styled bar/roofie factory. Still. Sure, there are places where you can see Doug Hill take his shirt off (dear god I hope so) but if you want the real authentic New Orleans feeling, you probably have to drive to Baltimore. Or at least Bowie.

We spoke of Lulu’s passing last year with hushed and reverential voices. I also pretty much exhausted all I had to say about the place. It was a sleaze pit that was always way too humid and it smelled bad. But it served its purpose of keeping jerks and skanks away from the high class bars I was going to like the Brass Monkey or that one in Georgetown where you can’t wear a hat.

Much has changed since last February’s trot down to Lulu’s for the little memorial. First, we found out that there was going to be a Walgreens built on that sullied ground and we rejoiced. Then, one of those neighborhood newspapers said that the deal had fallen through and there was sorrow in all the land. For a while, it looked like crappy old CVS was going to maintain it’s strangle hold on our candy and pills, seeing it’s the only drugstore within 30 blocks that isn’t another CVS. But two month’s ago there was word that someone got their act together and Walgreens was coming back.

(I’ve only been to a Walgreen’s twice. The first was one in Missouri when I was lost and needed a map. The second time was in Wisconsin and I needed a Nerf football and a sweatshirt because I was flying to Hawaii. Both times, Walgreen had what I needed. My only reservation is that they seemed like they are claustrophobic-ly over-crowded with products. But this is a better option than any CVS, where the products are always under-stocked and/or on the floor in piles.)

Indeed, it looks like they are putting the finishing touches on Walgreens and soon CVS will never darken our lives again. If Lulu’s had to go, at least the space will serve a noble anti-CVS cause.

Of course, they also built a Starbucks.



My original plan was to march on down to the former Lulu’s site and present everyone with beads. It turns out, however, that the people at Starbucks aren’t really down with that. Also, I couldn’t find any beads. So I’ve had to rehash last year’s memorial.



I stole one set of giant beads from someone who’s out of town and went to work. I hope someone takes them off the fence and has a good time tonight.

"and then she told how she stumbled upon the "night of 10000 stevie nickses" at an NYC at a club one time."

oh hi blog. i overlooked you momentarily, what with reveling o'er my grandiose superbowl gambling-winnings ($2.00) and my intense gagging while cleaning up a spread of rotting chicken parts the dog lovingly shellacked the kitchen floor with. prior to ingesting. BIG WEEKEND OF DOGFARTS!

I got nothing else for you. THe N's got the pukes, maybe a by-product of our house stinking like poultry rot, the dog's got a bloated stomach, and I came to work today because someone has to pay bills around these fucking parts. Oh, also, T-15 and S adopted a cat this weekend, she is cute and looks tough and we're all voting for them to keep her name as Griz. And adopt another one and name he/she Dot Com.

we're going to Pr0tland for no apparent reason at the end of the mnth - that's right, February. Send me suggestions, and not the Japanese gardens or whatever because - alright already and also - February. Think warm.

Last night, I dreamt I stole my own car.

i've figured out who i'm going to vote for in 08, based solely on recipes

There is nothing in the world more controversial than who makes the best potato salad. NOTHING!

Someone should start a... a..... website? a... a.... a blog? or something with each candidates recipes for potato salad. And if you don't put hardboiled eggs in it, then you probably never had a chance with the American Public anyway. In my opinion.

Good luck, politicians.

cornobble: to hit with a fish

courtesy ever-rad JHopper: Wik's list of protologisms.


anatidaephobia: the fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you.

anti-bananist: One who is opposed to bananas. Capps and myself.

Deutschbag: A German douchebag

pseudoantiprotologistophilia: baseless opposition to the recreational preference of people who enjoy adding to lists of newly created words

vampireware: a project capable of sucking the lifeblood out of anyone unfortunate enough to be assigned to it which never actually sees the light of day but nonetheless refuses to die

Y'all ready for this?

We need a new Monk or Davis or G because jazz is about to lose its crown as the preeminent American art form.

Right now, it goes...

1. Jazz
2. Stadium pregame player introductions
3. Dinner theater
   
4. Radio commercials featuring two people talking to each other about buying jewelry

I’ve been to Europe and seen soccer games. Both teams come out holding hands with little kids in an attempt to teach fair play or some crap. They take a team picture holding a scarf or something and then play.

I’ve been to Asia and seen Ultimate Frisbee games in Tiananmen Square, basketball in the Forbidden City and that game where you play volleyball with a wicker ball and feet. They didn’t do any sort of pregame introduction.

And I’ve been the Charlottesville and had my friend yell at me because I was walking too slowly and we were going to miss the pregame introductions. We saw a specially made animation of a man with an ironic mustache on a horse shoot bees with his sword, lasers, some sort of sled that shoots 2 foot flames and a blimp. And this was just to watch crappy Georgia Tech smoke ever crappier UVA after being down 13 at half.

The only thing close to this on the international level is the opening ceremony at the Olympics or any event in North Korea. And the Olympics only does it impress their masters at NBC. It also hasn’t been cool since that Spanish guy used his bow and arrow to light the cauldron.

So, unless we can beat flaming arrows, I think the US needs to dial it down a notch. Halftime shows featuring Tom Petty are still acceptable, however, and encouraged.

About a gross of days

I’m not sophisticated enough to comment on what the DCiever is talking about over here. In fact, I don’t even understand it. But I do know the only reason to watch Waitress is to see Andy Griffith continue to kick ass after 450 years in show business. If you’ve ever been to the Outer Banks, you know that he starred in the original version of the Lost Colony, a theatrical retelling about the group of English settlers who disappeared from those parts around 1587. Strangely, the original Griffith version was staged for the first time two years before the settlers actually vanished.

I believe some of the DCiever’s concerns should be addressed in the film 4 Luni, 3 Săptămâni şi 2 Zile but its not in wide release yet, so I don’t know. Don’t bother googling the English translation, however. It’s mighty unhelpful.

also there is no hot water in my office this morning, wtf.

I left my bed for all of 2 hours this weekend. I watched an entire season of repeats (Season II) of America's Next Top Model (AMANDA IS GOING TO BE BLIND BY AGE 30 AND ALSO USES CRYSTALS.) I made make cupcakes at some point. The most-dressed I ever managed was some time on Sunday, which still involved sweatpants.

All this might be a part of the non-blogging going on right now here. I know you all must be terribly upset, but carry on.

Flophouse: go Goat!

The G: but goats are our future. bears are our past, capps.

Kriston: i should think not. your jet goat is some kind of ron paul internet phenomenon.

The G: goats believe they can fly, like R kelly.





The Pygs would like to state, for the record, that koalas are indeed cute. So are pandas. And polars.

But we here at PIAB mostly stay away from Bear Contests completely. A reminder to vote Pro Goat in '08. Intrepid reporter also S. comments : "hi, goats climb trees."

Goats for the future! Goats climb trees! Goats believe in the space program!

dessert/desert

Those frosted sugar cookie things that come in packages of 12 from the bakery at Safeway? Nast. Are they even baked? Seems to me these sugarbombs are mostly composed of raw flour and butter and splenda, then smoothed into a puck and frosted with delicious pink frosting. and sprinkles.

They are the most disgusting two of anything I have eaten today.

Bombs away

Three things about old things.

I called Grandma on Saturday and the entire conversation revolved around me growing up. Not in the past tense, mind you, and there was no reminiscing about my childhood. She thinks I need to grow up and start acting my age. Unsaid, but understood, was that this wish extends to the Governess as well.

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

Why is fishmonger still a word? All the other –monger ending words have new and contemporary replacements.

Costermonger - grocer
Whoremonger - pimp
Warmonger – hawk
Ironmonger – General Motors
Rumormonger – blogger
Cheesemonger – cheese making blogger
Woodmonger – rednecks from out past where Rt 66 ends who drive by your parents house on Sundays and offer to cut down their trees

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

Listen, I’m not a monster movie guy. I’m a zombie/vampire movie guy. But I do know that to make a successful monster, you can’t have it vary wildly in size throughout the film. See The Hulk.

ATTENTION. I AIM TO “SPOIL” CLOVERFIELD AFTER THIS POINT.

Through the entire movie, the Jjbramstein monster is giant. We are led to believe it’s at least Statue of Liberty big or 39 stories big based on things that happen off camera. It’s also big enough to take the majority of a B-2’s Mark 82 dumb bomb payload directly to the spinal column and survive. And it reacts to this attack by taking down a 50+ story building and knocking helicopter circling at several hundred feet out of the sky.

Yet…

Yet when it shows up to Central Park and kills Hud, its about 40 feet tall, tops. A motionless Hud should have been too small for the monster we’d so far seen for the entire movie to have even notice.

To illustrate further –


On the right, Hud prior to an incredibly violent helicopter crash that should have killed everyone on board. On the left, Hud after.

Imagine standing over a single Nerd candy on the floor. Now try to bend over and snatch it in your teeth in one quick dart.

Versus…

Imagine sitting at a table with a generic Cobra officer in front of you. Now bite that.

Other than that one small fault, I found nothing wrong with Cloverfield. It was a cinematic tour de force, genre reinventing film, the jokes about character soiling themselves were off the hook and the wildly unstable camera movement certainly didn’t cause headaches in me or nausea in my already woozy wife.

Remember the Tit...

Having vowed to play in all possible weather conditions, I showed up in five layers of clothing for a football game on Sunday morning. The Sunday morning of 10 degree temperature and frozen nose airs. Playing on icy mud in cleats is no different than playing on asphalt in cleats and I have the shooting back pain and swelling to prove it. And again, pineapple juice has done dick. If your keeping score: industrial strength male injuries – 2, crackpot internet theories about exotic fruit juices – 0.

I knew that five was the proper number of layers since I’d tested different combination during a dog walk earlier that morning. We hiked through the park behind TC Williams and while he chased squirrels, I caught up on Alexandria history. Dotting the paths are small signs the recount the unknown tales of the city’s past. For instance, there were Indians and freed slaves. And sugar plantations. And sinful outdoor sex acts.



Props to the TC student and his learned use of the thesaurus. Back in high school, I would have gone an opposite and baser direction when looking for salty graffiti synonyms.

Minding the cold, I hoped this wasn’t a recent copulation. It probably wasn’t, though, since someone’s raggedy ass would still be frozen to that sign.



PS – If you actually want to remember the Titans, you better swing down to King Street soon. While a new building stands next-door, the school from the movie is almost completely torn down.



PPS – contrary to what the G may remembers, Hayden Whatsherface and Kate Bosworth were both in Remember the Titans. Hayden played the daughter of White Coach. Kate played Racist Girlfriend #1.

Rather too comfortably, I might add.

WANT. WANNNNNNNT.

Best photo essay ever? Indeed.

even the dog squad showed up!

Last to comment on Corey Worthington, Teen Heartthrob of the Year, but I'd like to thank him for my new gmail signature. I am never not going to use "I suggest you take a long hard look at yourself." "I have. Everyone has. They love it."

Additionally: in 1000% agreement with ABalk's comment on this being probably the easiest/best Halloween costume ever. If only Fickeween was tomorrow.

Dear Library Patron: Don't print GAO reports out on the color printer.

It was impossible to forget that the Expo was sponsored by Channel 4 since their booth and displays were front and center when you walked in. There was also a 30 foot tall inflatable Channel 4 logo and a guy in a peacock suit terrorizing children.

Of all the lines we could have stood in to get free junk, the longest was the one that started immediately when you stepped off the escalator and ended in Bob Ryan’s lap. Well, technically not his lap since he was standing behind a waist high desk, but at least right up in his grill. Seriously, the queue was Kings Dominion Shockwave circa 1986 long, minus the blunt force head trauma but plus the feelings of nausea. Your reward for patience was an autograph from Ryan, Jim Vance, a certain sports anchor with whom I may have attended college and have pictures to prove it, and the beautiful Doreen Gentzler.*

If the line had been Kings Dominion Shockwave circa 2007 long or a line to the Doreen Gentzler kissing booth, I may have considered it. But a chance to meet the #2 Morning Traffic Reporter was not worth any line torture. So the D and I, wandered around had the adventures I mentioned earlier.

We was at a booth we had ignored earlier because it was extolling the virtues of walking or eating healthy or some nonsense, when I noticed a pleasing looking figure sitting by himself with absolutely no line of people trying to talk to him. He was so close, in fact, that I had to take few steps backwards to really get a grasp of who he was. I said to my sister, probably too loudly, “Is that Jared?”



Sure enough.

His handler saw us staring and asked if we wanted to meet him. Since I ‘d forced the D to stalk down McGruff the Crime Dog for an earlier picture, she said it was my turn to pose with a demi-celebrity. I introduced myself as a big fan of his work with legitimate appreciation but quickly realized I had no follow up compliment. What do you say to a guy who’s notoriety was obtained after losing half of himself 10 years ago? “Congratulations for not putting it back on?”

Actually, that is exactly what I ended up saying. He stared silently for a moment and then looked down to start signing an autographed photo. With all confidence quickly evaporated, I asked for a picture and tried to scurry on my way. But as I was leaving I noticed a pair of his old, giant-sized jeans on the table. I asked if I could wear them, but was told by Jared’s people that while I could pose with them, I could not try them on since they were on loan from the Smithsonian.

Okay. That very last part isn’t true. But I still wasn’t allowed to wear them.

So we left again because we were late for our appointment to kick the guy in the peacock costume in the crotch.


*While looking up the spelling of Gentzler’s name, Google Firefox tried to suggest the name Doreen Virtue. I ignored it a first but went back later in the hopes that it was the stage name of a porn star. Even better. She's kinda a big deal. She's the world's most renowned practitioner of Angel Therapy.

“DOCTOR Doreen Virtue is a spiritual doctor of psychology and a fourth-generation metaphysician” who believes “everyone has guardian angels, and these angels perform God's will of peace for us all.”



It’s like The Secret but with more fat, porcelain cherubs.

The same thing happens to me when I hear Mr. Boombastic

Sounds like a job for Seizure Man!

Chug, chug, chug!

I’m not going to lie and pretend I know what these two guys (the second video) are talking about. That’s for other websites.



I have time spent in Arkansas, though, so I know how things work. But someone should still pull him aside and suggest he not drink water out of jam jars like the one my grandfather brings with him when he comes over for Thanksgiving.

on learning

Things I googled yesterday: "why high people love wonderpets" and "where was scott storch born?"

Answers: still unknown but the capes/flying boat probably has something to do with it; nova scotia.

This will be Czarniak-free post

In what may become a new family tradition, The D and I rambled over to the Channel 4 Health Expo at the convention center on Saturday in order to celebrate everything that is Channel 4 and causes strokes. I’ve secretly wanted to go since I was 10 because all the commercials showed people my age playing some ridiculous new sport like indoor rock climbing or walking. But just like a hilarious joke I read today for the first time ever on some college dude’s shirt, I got older while the games stayed the same age. We were denied entrance to every semi-fun event. It left us with little to do but walk around, try to score the best free stuff and volunteer to have our bone marrow sucked out of our hips with giant gauged needles.


1. Highlights include a comic book too poorly designed to be included in Highlights. Zing!



Contrary to what I hoped when I picked this up, Seizure Man’s power has nothing to do with causing his seizures in his enemies. Instead, he prevents them in complete strangers he sees collapsed on the playground surrounded by their do-nothing classmates. Actually, he doesn’t even prevent them; he just makes you comfortable while you’re having one. Also, he can fly. And it’s unclear if he actually has any enemies but if he did I’d have to go with Japanese cartoons or the guy who sells cheap strobe lights at Radio Shack and asks if you want Monster cables with that.

And, conversely to everything my 7th grade gym teacher taught us in state mandated health class, you should never put anything in the mouth of someone who’s seizing in order to prevent them from swallowing their tongue. This is because (which seems obvious know that I’ve thought about it) it’s not physically possible to swallow your tongue.


2. It was also impossibly dry on the Health Expo floor. But there was only one working water fountain and it had a line and was poorly motion controlled. The Expo Center got in the healthy spirit by selling water at a healthy $2.75 per tiny bottle. Fortunately, there was a guy giving out free DTV water bottles. Unfortunately, you had to stand in a long line and spin a magic wheel to win one. During the 10 minutes while we waited, nobody won the grand prize water bottle since its slice of the wheel took up only 1/50th of the total pie. People were begging the booths operator for water but he didn’t budge. Most folks got crappy pens or Post-it notes reminding them that their over-the-air TV signal was going dead on February 17, 2009 because they live in the 50’s or Montana.

It should be obvious where this story is going. Of course, I won the water bottle because I watch so much Price Is Right. But, I also yelled an excitable yet perverse exclamation that resulted dirty looks from all surrounding parents and invitation to excuse ourselves from the floor.


3. Just about the only activity designed for children that they let us take part in was the sobriety walk simulator. Basically, it was a pair of goggles that distorts your vision, designed to show teenagers the effects of alcohol. It was fun watching the kids stumble around after two fake beers. It was also fun watching me nearly knock several people over when I tried on the pair that supposedly equaled 4 beers per hour, plus two Goldschläger shots right before you leave the bar.

The D tried on the same goggles but with less hilarious results. Because her legs are so long she covered the course in 3 strides. It took me 8 stuttering lunges.

OK, this is much longer than I intended it to be, so I’ll wrap it for today.

One more tomorrow.

rule

even I will admit, AV commenters: Sterling will never be hip.

pleasure vessels

Destroyer's Foam Hands? (Here?) Good stuff.* March. I will probably buy. Probably. Probably download. Probably however it is people procure new music these days. Brainbeam?


* I don't usually like this. And I don't like the lyrics, I don't think. But I do like the music, I do think. God, I'm tired today.

Jammin

Dear Internet Crackpot,

I jammed the bejesus out of my thumb on Saturday. It doesn’t bend, my palm is bruised and it’s so week that I couldn’t press the button in on the gear shift of the car. I’ve been drinking pineapple juice nonstop but it hasn’t done dick. You and your theories are insane.

Yours gimpily,

N

home again

Back from LV. I did not attend the Playaz Ball (sorry, DCvr) but I did have an awkward encounter with a group of naked-from-the-waist-down-ladies taking a smoke break by the elevators on my floor. Not needed in Vegas: Self respect. Needed in Vegas: razors.

The encounter included some glowering-type looks from them directed at yrs truly (natural blonde, what), and I just started a storm of fake-texting to avoid all eye contact. Dude, I was just leaving my room for some Haagen Dazs. Damn. Some cold shit.

Amanda sent me this this morning, imagining it was narrated by me (no).

Thus ends LV stories, or at least for another approx. 9 weeks. Yeah, that's right, I'll spend a good part of the month of April there too. Sigh.

The most hyphenated post ever

Since we are nearing the Super Bowl, its time to dust an old favorite.



I don’t know what these kids are up to but I earnestly approve of anyone willing to put together a shot for shot recreation of one of those old Holiday Inn commercials.

I’ve also since found that most, if not all, of the originals are up on the Utubes. Included is my favorite, which I didn’t realize features the before-he-was-“famous” black guy from 40-Year-Old Virgin as Guy-You-Call-When-The-Room-Next-Door-Hires-A-Too-Loud-Stripper.

I like these commercials so much because the main character, Mark, reminds me of my friends older brother, also named Mark. If you’d like to verify, he still hangs out at the Cowboy Café in Arlington on Tuesday nights, when the burgers and the shirts of Marymount co-eds are half off.

INTERNET ACCESS CODE DENIED PLEASE CONTACT GUEST SERVICES

Desert filing:

1. The head waiter (Bouffant Tim) at a restaurant that I (and most remaining Mafioso) frequent often when in LV REMEMBERED ME last night. This bodes well in my future plans to eventually move to Vegas and quick-marry a guy named Salvatore with a bouffant and an unquenchable thirst for raising a ruckus/protecting The Family. I’m practically a goddamn local already. I gave Tim a warm handshake (using both hands in a loving yet vaguely threatening grasp) and told him I’d see him in 9 weeks or so.

2. Toby Keith’s “I Love This Bar and Grill.” Still funny. Never stops being the truest words ever marketed.


3. The only thing on the local news tonight: A local man just had his thumb amputated and replaced with his big toe. The commercials re: Mr. ToeThumb have been running incessantly. Nevermind that Hil’s in town, and Obama arrives tomorrow.

4. The chair in my hotel room is half a foot too short for the desk. I have been typing to you via booster seat. My legs swing comically. I’m the Eloise of the Monte Carlo.



5. Pr0n convention starts tomorrow. Tera Patrick is throwing a party at the Venetian tonight. The only clothes I’ve packed are sensible Aerosole flats (which I’m wearing with socks?) and black work-suit type things. I’m pretty sure they’ll let me into the various Adult Video Awards shindigs dressed like a 65 year old substitute algebra teacher, if just for the comedic value of it. (I will be their makeover candidate! My porn name will be Eloise. I will be dressed in her classic jumper, but no shirt! Eww. I just grossed myself out. Do you think there are people who fetishize children's book characters? Porn Eloise? Babar as a furry? Oh God I am disgusting.)

6. Last day of the show floor: Saw Bumblebee. Was underwhelmed. Heard the Black Eyed Peas on loop in 45 different booths. Was overwhelmed.*



* The Motorola booth, beyond having BB’s** in white gogo boots, let you perform Humps or whatever in front of green screen and then inserted you into a Fergie video. As a backup dancer. It will go down as one of my life’s greatest regrets that I did not return to the booth before the day ended to get myself on video doing just this. Actually, I can’t talk about it anymore, I’m tearing up.

** I thought we all agreed that the booth babe thing was a dying trend, and that we were all moving towards Hot Business-suited Blonde Professional Demonstration Actors instead? When did the pleather miniskirts come back? Was there a committee meeting about this? Why wasn’t I informed? Anyway, convention fashion report in brief: The Sharp girls were mostly awesome in young/Community College /Admin Assistant wear (tall black pumps/tight Express shirts/black minis); the Real booth went “rave” or whatever (knotted Real tees/black ruffled minis/blue fishnet tights/pigtails), Motorola did Japanime/go-go boots, Hitachi went with all white suits and silver sequin tops with matching shoes (verrrrry fancy), some company I can’t remember were bedecked in knee-high boots and runner’s leggings with tight fleece jackets and no shirt (very bizarre), and basically, any automotive company went with straight-up lady o' the night gear. I thought I even saw some with whips, telling stereo transmitters they were very naughty stereo transmitters. Anyway. Did I do anything besides check out other women’s clothes all day? Neigh. When did this become a clothes blog? I don’t know, and I’m teary again. Now, I will kill myself by eating 8 McRibs. Take that, Dr. Phil.

McRib is a wild taste that allows customers to experience the fun and magic of the Animal Kingdom without going to Orlando.

While driving about the city a few weeks back, the G and I pulled up to a stop light and got canyon-ed by two rumbling Metro buses. Both buses sported the same panel ads so we got surrounded by the giant photos of the boneless, sauce covered, faux-pork delight known as the McRib.

If you are at all familiar with the McRib (or the Simpson’s Ribwich) you know that MickeyDees keeps the sandwich rotating through its menu as a clever advertising stunt. Proclamations like “McRIB IS BACK for a LIMITED TIME!!!” or “HURRY UP and GET ONE because McRIB will soon be as EXTINCT as the PTERDACTYL or MINATURE SCHNAUZER!!!,” work the lesser pork consumer into a frenzy.

Neither bus ad was clear about whether the McRib was coming or going, leaving us unsure about how fast we needed to hurry up and continue not going to McDonalds. But when presented with such large and inviting advertisements, you are pretty much forced into the flabby arms of the internets and its all-tasting tongue of knowledge and discovery.

Unfortunately, there were few recent clues about its local availability. I assume this is because, like most Metro bus advertisements, these were as outdated as the ones currently displaying Daddy Day Camp images. I am tempted to pass on what I found out about how McDonald’s advertises the McRib but I don’t want to endorse this manner of schilling. However, I will share one amazing thing I discovered.

Via Wikipedia –



Yes, that says “MC Hammer once ate 7 McRibs in a competition with Dr. Phil, to raise AIDS awareness.”

Can this be true? Eating seven McRibs isn’t something that one does nonchalantly, like wolfing down seven Gusburgers in attempt to prove that Charlottesville is filled with lame wimps with weak constitutions. This gastronomical feat was for charity. The other cultural references were ones I was familiar with (it was parodied on the Simpson’s, the MST3K line “I'd rather watch David Crosby eat a McRib sandwich than watch this scene”, etc) so why couldn’t Dr Phil have scarfed 6 McRibs? I was required by feline curiosity to find out.

Unfortunately, the only reasonable way of getting hold of Dr Phil is being a psychotic pop singer. I was left with no course of action other than writing him this letter through his website:

Dear The Doctor Phil Program,

I’ve been a big fan of Dr Phil for many years now and have appreciated much of the advice he has passed along since some of his patients’ problems mirror my own. Unrelated, I am also a fan of McDonald’s McRib sandwich.

That being said, in the Wikipedia article about the McRib sandwich it says “MC Hammer once ate 7 McRibs in a competition with Dr. Phil, to raise AIDS awareness.” There is no footnote that verifies this claim and I know that some of the information on Wikipedia is often fabricated. My independent research has also not been able to find any other reference to this event.

Did Dr Phil lose a McRib eating contest to MC Hammer? If so, do you know when or where it took place and under what circumstances? I have tried contacting Mr. Hammer but have been unable.

Thanks for your time,

N

Several weeks went by and I got no response from either Dr. Phil or anyone affiliated with his show. I even marked the box on the site saying I’d be willing to be on the program. I checked the Wikipedia entry several times in the hopes that the shows producers read my letter and altered the site. But there was nothing.

Until Monday.

In fact, the updates have been coming in so furiously they’ve locked the site down. I’m not sure if this is a confirmation in one direction or another, but for the sake of history, let’s just say it’s an affirmative.

Let it be known - for the rest of internet eternity - that unlike most Americans, Dr. Phil is not man enough to eat 7 McRib sandwiches.




Prologue:

Here is the best of several quotes I found about the McRib while researching its distribution schedule:

"Responding to criticism that the cross-promotion of Disney's Animal Kingdom with the McRib sandwich seemed incongruous, a McDonald's spokesman said, "Animal Kingdom is very much a wild experience, and the McRib is a wild taste that allows customers to experience the fun and magic of the Animal Kingdom without going to Orlando."

You can't tell but he's also wearing brown short shorts. It's hot today, yo.

Gibbs? Eh.



Admittedly, I didn’t bother turning the volume up. Still, does anyone know Channel 5 had the UPS guy commenting on the old ball coach’s retirement?

"Well, Chip, the old Gibbs estate is my first delivery of the day. He came out and said 'Jimmy, I'm getting to old and the game's past me by.' Then we cried a little and prayed on the lawn like Nixon and Kissinger."

vegas, babe

i leave tomorrow to catch the last few days at CES. I'll actually be there all day Friday as well, with little work to do (i think) if anyone has any suggestions on what to do beyond gamble/eat/get drunk/flirt with skeevy IT dudes/see a show (hahaha, no I won't)/try to steal the rumored eleventy-billion-foot Bumblebee at the Dolby booth.

I occasionally feel like I am in LV more than I am in DC.

question

who has recommendations for a mid-price hotel in PDX? Not too pricey (lucia), not party central (jupiter motel)?

didn’t eat all my Clams Casino if you want some.

Our bucolic and Wii-ful vacation was partially derailed last weekend when the power went out for most of the day. At first it was fun – Scrabble, Pit, crashing remote controlled helicopters into remote controlled mutant dragonflies – but when the girls figured out that no electricity meant no water pump and so no toilet things got less amusing. It also meant no Redskins. So the guys shambled off to a bar while the girls went and bought Yankee candles or feathers for tickles fights or whatever girls buy when the lights go out.

At this crappy beach bar is where we met a man. Probably in the back half of his 30’s, he latched onto to us after the other table of female Steeler fans to him to get the fuck away. In our 30 minutes of interaction he got disturbingly and uncomfortably drunk. Here’s the abbreviated version of what was conversed:

Are you guy fucking redskins fans or not, youre not are you. OK maybe you are.I am the biggest fan in here, watch this play because Crooley will catch a touchdown on this play. We’re going to get a safety if we can sack the other guy. That girl in the Roethlisberger jersey is looking at me. I’m married. If the redskins get more than f fumbles they usually win. You’re not a real redskins fans. Do you guys like pool cause the place I’m staying has a mini pool table. I didn’t eat all my Clams Casino if you want some. Do you guys have some bud. This is the best bar for ten miles until Hooters. Can I have a ride home later. My wife may not pick me up. Is the game over. What are you guys doing tonight later. Why isn’t the game on. Whats the score again. My kid is a bigger redskins fan than that guy. You guys wants some of these clams because theyre good. If the redskins win I’m going to give that girl over there a hug. She says she’s 33.

He disappeared a few minutes into the 3rd quarter and we hoped that his wife did come pick him up. The bar hoped that he was with us because he didn’t pay his tab.

I like to have a good time. I like to go to bars and watch sports. But if I ever go out by myself and eat clams and try to score weed from strangers and flirt with some old hag at 5 on a Saturday, then you have my permission to smother me with my Clint Didier throwback jersey. And if one of the strangers I tried to score bud from sees me passed out the next day at the beach with my kid, I won’t expect either of them to move me when the tide comes in. I don’t deserve it.



*Hair of the dog.

Trendabee

Morning breaks in Washington, DC. Everyone's lips are moving re: Obamabee, but no one is talking about Bobby Trendy's candlelight vigil for BSpears.

Fuck you guys, seriously.

Let’s just say I can no longer claim to be “shacking up with some chick in her twenties.”

I won’t say the age, but the G has reached a point where she and 7 of her friends can not float a single ½ keg of Yuengling after 3 days of boozing.

Likewise, I’ve long past the point where spilling beer is the unconceivable sin it was in college. Now, as I pump the keg empty onto the grass, I wonder if the organic bits will work as a fertilizer or if the alcohol will kill the lawn outright.

Scientifically, I figure it’s a wash.

blerg! blergball!

As far as I can tell, I only accomplished a few really noteworthy things in 2007:

- One, introducing the N's cousin to "Trapped in the Closet,"

- Two, question #48 on the "Rolling Stone Almost Impossible Rock and Roll Quiz" - TOTALLY 1000% CORRECT. (The question for those curious is "Which of the following are pothumous Tupac Shakur albums and which are Steven Seagal movies?" I owned the SHIT out of that question),

- Three, coining the term "when in doubt, bet on soup," and

- Four, getting a prison pen pal.

I'll be looking for that Person of the Year award plaque in my mailbox any day now, Time Mag.

In other news, I think Becks once put it: "3OMG." We spent the last few days down at the beach, making Miis and drinking a keg and bad chardonnay and falling asleep on the couch at 12:15 on New Years (me) and wearing sweatpants and eating lasagna and 1000 pounds of cookies and oh my god the eating and reading a book about mountain survivalists and inventing a new drinking game called "blergball." I'm really bad at the wii tennis, yo. And we didn't have power for the first day! It was cold! We were like beach pioneers!

I'm looking forward to this whole new year/new me thing, I think. 29 was pretty okay I guess, especially when compared to, say, 21 (oh fucking god what a nightmare) and 27 (balls. BALLLLLLLLLLLLLZ.) But I'm thinking odd numbers are not so much my thing.

May we all live forever, each and every one. I cannot wait until you see me so drunk I start fights this weekend.

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.