Driving Under Teh Influence

My favorite X-Files episode is the one about the 3 inbred Peacock brothers who keep a limbless Mother Peacock alive under a bed to ensure their incestuous Peacock line. It was so terrifying that Fox only aired it twice and the second time featured major parental warnings due to frakked-up content.

My second favorite is Drive, the one where Malcolm in the Middle’s dad has to keep moving in a westerly direction in a paneled station wagon or his brains will blow out his ear. Or:

"Police arrest a man driving dangerously, moments before his wife's ear explodes. Leaving the police station, he kidnaps Mulder and forces him to drive West, whilst (really?) Scully attempts to prevent him from suffering the same fate."

• “Driving dangerously”
• “Wife’s ear explodes”
• “Suffering”

Yeah. That pretty much sums up our Saturday night.

We now live in a world where sanity is only maintained if our car is in constant motion. Red lights will be run, lanes will be changed unexpectedly, and the longer route will be mapped to make sure we’re traveling at least 40mph at all times.

Seriously, get the fuck out of our way. Our ears are about to explode here and we're going either to crash our car into yours or drive off a bridge. It's in your hands.

elders

two nuggets of wisdom imparted upon me by my father this afternoon:

1. "That guy Jeff from the flipping houses reality show on Bravo? What an asshole."

2. "The hot lady on the cooking show? Padma Hot Whats-her-name-shi? She is really, really hot."

Tot Trot

I’ve been to enough weddings by now to know that no mater how bad the lone water serving waiter stinks, I shouldn’t just drink wine when I’m thirsty. Even when the reception is at a winery and the waiter is especially stank. I also shouldn’t wear H&M slim fitting European-style shirts when I dance because they will split down the back like I had just pushed a teenager out of the way of a gamma radiation explosion.

Obviously, I still did both of those things on Saturday night. My punishment was not limited to stumbling around the Shenandoah Valley looking for a store willing to sell a man wearing a suit and no shirt some hangover-curing aspirin. I was also forced to eat breakfast at a place that served pork chops as a side dish.

But I discovered two things:

- Dry heaves are good for exercising your core.
- This.



Big Number 753 is really haulin’ tail. The caption is just vague enough to imply that this kid just run 10 miles. But it's specific enough to say that he’s only two years old. Is that what we’re doing now with toddlers? Making them wear tank tops and racing? I'm not really the competitive type but if I ever have a son this means he's going to have to hit the track the day after he can lift that giant melon of his off the ground. Do they make baby treadmills?



Also, Jesus and Big George will sell your house in 90 days.

roar

So, this? Kind of totally disgusting, right? I mean, just... gross. I hadn't even heard of the term until someone mentioned it a few months ago and just.... a thousand shivers up my spine. Nast.

Here's an idea. Don't buy me anything. Save that money for the imminent demise of our savings and social expenditures (hello, daycare. field trips. braces. tuxedo rental for prom. college tuition. junior year abroad. wedding. paying for my early retirement. yacht. helicopter pad. etc.) Instead of gaudy jewelry or $300 designer jeans two sizes bigger than what I used to wear or a diaper bag made from the skin of an exotic and/or mythical creature, I requested that please, for the love of god, don't get me anything. Get me: three hours of sleep when I am a sobbing mess. A glorious present such as that cannot be bought.

The N. complied. Kind of.

He did gift me something so awesome I find it difficult to describe my delight. The unfortunate part of said gift is that it doesn't fit.

For the first time in months, it is not girth, it is length. I am too tall for the youth size large glow-in-the-dark tan and green dinosaur print fleece footie pajamas.

That's right. I said youth size large glow-in-the-dark tan and green dinosaur print fleece footie pajamas.

However, they would definitely fit a slim-ish female or male under, say, 5'8".

The tag is off (doh) but I swear - brand new. Never worn. And now, up for grabs! I suppose I should make this some sort of contest or something, really make you work for these wonders of apparel, but I hate it when blogspot blogs pull that shit. First come, first serve. It may take a while for me to package them up and ship them to you, but the wait will be worth it. Imagine a cold winter cuddled up in this beauty. GLOW IN THE DARK. IMAGINE A CAMPING TRIP IN THIS!

i HATE dolls made from corn husks.

technology has decided to make us it's bitch lately. the cordless phone is busted, the modem on the computer is working only sporadically, my cellphone is (finally) working again, kind of, after battling Verizon for the right to buy anew battery, and i spent last night/this morning watching 3 am tv programming on rabbit ears. soon, you will be able to visit the entire pyggie family on a compound somewhere in appalachia where we churn butter to sell to tourists and weave our own clothes on a loom made from gathered twigs. also, no buttons.

This seems like a marketing goldmine.

You know what else Under Armor wicks away?

Regurgitated milk.

And could I get one that handcuffs to my wrist?

You know how when you buy expensive medical equipment or exotic African fruits or a handgun with attachable laser targeting and a modified clip allowing for 22 rounds, they come in Pelican cases with custom foam inserts? Or maybe you don’t know.

Either way, do you think they could modify a large foam insert to fit a human snuggly into a small compartment? Not even a large human. Say a human the size of a Boston Terrier. And the compartment would be roughly the size of a crib. And while the case would need to be soundproof it would allow a free flow of air. Because seriously, enough of the crying already.

dollyween

Mattos brings up the NPR piece on "Jolene", not my favorite Parton song*, but a good one. Timely because today I was IM-discussing the fact that what I really want to be is the cast of "9 to 5" for Halloween. I would play Doralee, naturally. Given my haircolor and sweet as pie southern disposition and whatnot.

In the market for a Dabney type, I highly doubt the N will be willing.



* ("Silver Dagger," in case you were wondering.)

Unless, of course, we could get our oven up to 4000 degrees Kelvin?

Minister of Finance Hank Paulson gave some speech today that I didn’t understand. But he did use my favorite new word of the past week, which I also don’t totally understand: illiquidity.

As in “Boy, I would sure like to drink this inanimate carbon block. To bad carbon’s illiquid, for all intents and purposes, or I’d guzzle it down”

It involves thousands and thousands of feathers

All the grandma-generated traffic has inspired me to go back and look at all those ridiculous Flickr photos from our adorable youth. Like 2007. Who goes to weddings anymore? No one, that’s who! Stylish haircuts? Are you kidding me? No time!!

The average number of views break down like this –

Pictures of me – 4
Picture of food -7
Pictures of scenic vacations - 8
Pictures of my beautiful wife – 11
Pictures of the dog – 35
Pictures from weddings where girls show cleavage - 57
Pictures of the potato sack – 94

I’d assume that’s pretty normal. But there are 4 shots that lap the rest several times over. Naturally, the all have to do with sex fetishes. I’m hesitant to mention them directly since only one is a picture of me and its relatively common turn-on. The other three are of people who read this site. Two are a little kinky but wouldn’t raise any eyebrows in a Savage Love column. But the fourth one is absolutely absurd and I’ve been asked several times to allow it be grouped with some other weird-assed shit. So far, I’ve said no.

So far.

Have fun trying to figure it out, ladies.

It's official

We officially have a gecko problem. Unlike some of the other pests we have recently discovered in the neighborhood, these bloodsuckers* are actively trying to get into the house. Now anytime I open the back door they just sprint in like little Usain Bolts.

*hopefully not.

C.O.O.L

I’m not sure what the big deal is with this new requirement. I just discovered that it’s already been implemented by the company that makes my favorite brand of gummy worms.



The FDA now has an incredibly powerful tool the next time they need to track down the origin of the latest Sour Patch Kids/salmonella outbreak. (Hint: It’s probably that nasty Lee Highway Multiplex)

Gordon

Of all the expensive furniture (Ikea) we’ve bought since moving in 4.5 years ago, the most valuable of all has turned out to be that stupid exercise ball that previously did nothing but get in the way. It has suddenly become invaluable and if I could turn all the sofa’s and chairs into inflatable, ab-maxing rubber balls, I would. Somebody sure loves that bouncy nonsense.

I was trying to bounce and read a magazine with one handed in the basement last night when something small and dart-y caught my eye. It was small and skirted along the baseboard, pausing for 3 or 4 seconds before moving on. Damnit. With all the rain we’ve been having and all the blogs I’ve been reading I’m not surprised that we have insects in the basement. But I’m certainly not happy about it.

The occasional spider in the bathtub is fine. But I hate bugs that only come out when they think no one’s looking. A cricket that jumped on my face one night at the G’s old apartment was one of the reasons I didn’t like spending the night there. That and she lived in a part of Virginia that had a 540 area code.

We were very quiet and un-fussy bouncing on our little rubber ball so my instinct to spring up and squish it were suppressed. We just sat there and I tried to kill it with my laser eye vision. But as I stared, I started to question my snap assumption that this was, in fact, an insect. It wasn’t at all blattoid in its movements and seemed to have a confidence that that wasn’t betrayed by frantic, kitchen light-fearing scurrying.

I’ll be damned.

When my hands were finally free, I got up and discovered we do not a have roach or silverfish problem. No we don’t.

WE HAVE A FRAKKING REPTILE PROBLEM! THERE ARE GECKOS LIVING IN OUR BASEMENT!!!1 GECCCKKKKOOOOOOSSS!!!!!!



But geckos aren’t native to Virginia, you say. Neither are snakehead fish. But that won’t stop them from nom-nomming on you pets when you take them down to play in the Potomac. In fact, according to the internets, your common house gecko immigrated from Asia and are quite common throughout the southern United States and Philadelphia, for some reason. Now Alexandria, Virginia too.



I mentioned to the G a few weeks back that I saw what I thought was a salamander near a storm drain at the end of the block. Salamanders make sense, seeing that they are native to the area. But geckos? In our basement? Come on. I caught the little feller under a glass (which triggered his defense mechanism and caused his tail to fall off) and tossed him outside. It’ll probably mate with that thing I saw in the storm drain and then we’ll have an Arachnophobia-style problem on our hands.

But at least they aren’t roaches. And they eat probably eat roaches.

I went out and bought some Chinese needle snakes, anyway, since they love eating geckos. And in a few more days, I’m gonna get me some of those gorillas that thrive on snake meat. And come winter, the gorillas will just freeze to death.

Problem solved.

a step in time, duh duh duh duhh

Sequestered in the house, tuesday edition:

This ad is on every single daytime tv commercial break, and I am confused by it EVERY TIME it airs. It's the "apply directly to the forehead" of late 08. The chimney dude looks vaguely International Male.

Also, Clue!

hey spud

I can’t bend my pinkie for some reason. And my thigh feels like it was subject to some sort of Endorian-style attack with a log or rocks. But it’s that satisfying good kind of pain, the sort that’s the result of playing full contact football or being hit with rocks.

My back, however, is a different story. The entire area south my shoulder blades and north of my waist has been incredibly tight and achy for the last week. Lying down, stretching, yoga and massage all do nothing. You’d think I’d been carrying a 10lbs sack of potatoes around every night for the last two weeks. A SACK OF POTATOES THAT WON’T SHUT UP AND GO TO SLEEP LIKE A GOOD SACK OF POTATOES!!

And speaking of potatoes, imagine you had one that grew a little an eye on it. Not a real eyeball like an 80’s horror movie but one of those potato eyes that sprout when they hang out on the shelf too long. Now say you took care of that potato and made sure it was clean and warm and didn’t fall into buckets left in the back yard since potatoes can drown in less than one inch of water.

But then, two weeks after you brought the potato home from the store, the eye fell off in a perfectly normal and expected fashion. All the books on potato care say you can just throw the eye away or flush it down the toilet.

My question is: can I feed the eye to the dog? Just throwing it away seems unceremonious. And it’s no worse than the other junk he eats during his dog life – like some sort of potato jerky – and its not like his breath could get any worse. I feel like the potato and the dog would have a life long bond.

My only concern is that the dog develops a taste for potato. That wouldn’t be good.

Someday, when you’re older… – Part 1

…I’ll explain why this is funny (so not the reason you think) and how you got mixed up in the whole crazy thing.

ERROR: low battery

There is a family we CANNOT figure out that camps with us in the hospital day room. A grandfather figure who is youngish- he wears a lot of madras and boat shoes and is reading "Last of the Mohicans." The grandmother-person is exceedingly rich-person thin, has a haircut that probably cost more than my annual salary (or as much as a week's worth of NICU bills.... zing! Take note, internet, on how I have retained my impeccable sense of humor, even after the miracle of childbirth and week's worth of total health panic re: my new pet), and wears a lot of white.

The mom-person is younger than us, is of a indeterminable/impossible relation to either grandparent, is ususally staring blankly at a wall while the elderpeople hold her kid. I've seen her in sweatpants and "Family Guy" teeshirts. She has made three comments in two days, one of which is about the weather in the mountains in winter. ("windy I bet.)

The dad appears to be 15, and has worn the same Army recruitment teeshirt all week. He was very excited yesterday about buying a tuna fish sandwich.

The socio-economic differences are pretty apparent, sure, but I am mostly just confused about how these people even know each other, let alone are related. Can I ask? Is that weird?

Other questions:

- will the dog ever stop being a total moron?

- if i take out a Verizon store with my car, can I blame it on hormones instead of the simple facct that the phone I own is the biggest piece of shit I have ever held in my life, and that includes PIECES OF ACTUAL SHIT i now have on my hands on a daily basis? Motorola, you make me so furious.

- "Always Sunny in Philadelphia" premiere: funniest television program ever in the history of the universe?

You'd think I could sing "You Are My Sunshine" without crying.

You'd be wrong.

the best the city has to offer, apparently

I’ve never seen that program called the Leguna Beach. Or the show with the girl with the fake rack who dates the albino dude (who unfortunately looks a little like me sometimes) with the scraggly beard made out of corn silk. However, when they do appear in the society pages, I’ve noticed that at least they look relatively well-dressed. Not fashion-forward or anything, but they don’t shop at the Dress Barn and the male-equivalent of the Dress Barn. (Syms?)

The same cannot be said for the two ridiculously dressed girls I just saw get out of an SUV at 21st and M. If beclowned is a word, then it’s the one that best applies here. Their wardrobes would not have caused a second glance, however, until I noticed the third woman trailing behind with wireless microphones and a walkie-talkie.

It appears that Lifetime has started shooting their LNS-themed, unintentional parody of faux celebrity realism here in the most northwestern parts of north-west DC. My first instinct says it’ll never even make on the air. But if I’m wrong and in 8 months the network decides to air it, they will soon regret any amount of money they have clearly wasted. Lifetime would be better off leaving the restaurant right now and filming any garbage blowing down M Street. It already looks to be of better quality.

it tastes like lead, too

We asked Target to send us 60lbs of wood and an Allen wrench in July. In return they took our money and spent the next 3 months dicking around not mailing it. But the internets say it’ll be sitting on our front porch when we get home for either the dog to mangle or the neighbors to steal. The G’s been tracking the order every 15 minutes, which so far has only led to an irate 36 hour period where she stomped around the house demanding to know why the package was sent Ontario, Canada after already spending a day in California. (Hint: there’s an Ontario, California.)

She’s also convinced that it was her series of nasty letters that goosed Target into finally getting off its lazy Mossimoed ass and putting this pile of lumber into the mail. She is wrong. Unlike my crazy rants about frivolous things to faceless companies that go unanswered, she expects satisfaction. I understand that any communication will expediently get the disgruntled customers nowhere.

The real problem, and I am convinced this is true, was that our delivery originated in a certain Asian nation that held the Super Bowl-sized sporting event known as the Olympics. Between July and the closing ceremonies we received only two halfhearted emails from Target – one thanking us for the order and one that effectively said they had no idea when it would be shipped but thanks for the check and, uh we’re also canceling your free shipping so you owe us an additional $49.99. But as soon as Jimmy Page stumbled off that bus and the torch was sent to its shame in London –WANG! – emails aplenty. “Sorry about that $49.99 thing. Also, do you like merino?”

I don’t know if ours was a factory that was shut down to allow those baby athletes stop complaining but if I was Target, that’s the excuse I would have given. It would have been a much better customer service ploy than the electronic shrug of the shoulders or months of silence they ended up feeding us.

watching tennis on the radio

On sports currently…

Andy Murray has the least exotic sounding name of anyone playing in a grand slam final since Art Larsen beat Herb Flam in 1950. Sorry Andy, but you have a dog’s name and I will not root for you tonight. Good luck at being the latest addition in the long line of Scottish sports failures.


On sports previously…

The parabolic microphones weren’t picking up what he was saying but watching this, all I heard was this. (The crying part, not the ferret part)

what i know about football!

- i'd like to send a shout-out to drew brees for scoring me a lot of points in fantasy. also marion barber. also tom brady for getting hurt.

- mattos would like to send a shout-out to chad johnson for changing his name to something throughly awesome.

- i still know nothing about football.

carry on!

Well worth the $6.98

Of late, I’ve had a two 2 gig flash drives “walk off” and one 1 gig stop working. The latter was being recognized by fewer computers so I’d recently taken most of the valuable info (a list of Scrablulous bingoes) off. But the first two had some important quality stuff (a work-in-progress lite erotica novel about a group of time-traveling teenage wolfmen/women who solve crimes in a parallel dimension where Howie Mandell was never born) on them and I was not happy with their casual disappearance. Something had to be done. Something that would insure there’s no confusion over the drive’s owner and any future vanishing would quickly escalate from a misdemeanor concerning property to a tragic felony of the heart.

This entire issue would have been solved with one of those chains banks use to chain pens to desks. But they don’t sell these at CVS or Walgreens. And for some reason I couldn’t manage to steal one from my bank. Fortunately though, Walgreens has just started stocking WWE action figures. It seemed the next best thing.

So with a pair of pliers and snips, a metal file, a little bit of glue and electrical tape and some Alaskan ingenuity, I am the proud owner of a brand new The Miz flashdrive.



A few things to note:

There was a brief time in the last five years when I was irrationally obsessed with one of the Real World/Road Rules Challenges. I am refusing to look up an actual tick-tock of what has happened between then in now, so I can only assume that the guy who called himself The Miz on that show has somehow managed to become a pro wrestler.



His gimmick seems to be having Cameron Diaz’s hair from Something About Mary and Tim Kaine’s eyebrows from every day ever.

If you exclude the giant pecs but include the absurd delts, he looks like my brother-in-law.

An added bonus is that the plastic torso is of such a cheap quality, the original orange light from the flash drive can be seen glowing in his chest like E.T. Even better, when the drive is thinking about stuff, it pulsates slowly like a heartburn sufferer in a Pepcid AC commercial.



I’ve already been entranced several times today by its hypnotic throbbing glow.

Finally, at 2 gigs, my calculations show that my The Miz half-toy has a greater memory capacity than The Miz himself.

O SNAP!!!

like a pitbull! wearing lipstick!

So, what a hot mess all that was, eh? I kept expecting her to roll out her tater tot hot dish recipe. And then the fam looked so uncomfortable on stage with scary Grandpa John. Poor Levi. You know one wrong move, and he was a goner- a giant hooked cane operated by a low-level McC staffer would have vaudeville'd his ass right off. (Also, was he chewing gum??????)

K: i feel like this is a plot to a bad fish-out-of-water sandra bullock movie, the kind that i would be embarrassed to admit that i watched, but secretly enjoy.

Maybe it's just too... familiar. This entire disaster is comparable to the highest functioning member of my family deciding to run for office. And if you'd ever like to reach my uncle and encourage him to do so, his email address is wo/lfho/llowbow/hunter@[redacted]. Not kidding. Yes, bow hunting. Us'ns not rich enough to git a plane.

I have totally forgotten how to write on a blog, if it isn't apparent.

The first person I see dressed as Rorschach for Halloween is geeting an Andrewsian-level fist straight to the cock

At a party, the D’s boy friend let it be known that our local Borders has gone overboard with its Watchmen hype preparations. There are at 30 copies for sale in the basement (banished) comics section, 20 on a separate shelf and a few more upstairs filled under top sellers.

I don’t find this that interesting. Everyone’s got to make their duckets and even if Moore won’t see the movie, he can still reap some rewards from its release. What I do find interesting is that I noted the very same thing and took a picture of it earlier that day.



But I was going to pull him aside and show it off in private. There were girls at this party.

WATCHMEN FEVER! CATCH THAT SHIT!

hey look, a blog

Okay, fine. That last entry was really painfully obvious.

here: sarahpalin.typepad.com

palin, veep

i'm sure that tina fey is aware she needs to get her ass back to SNL, stat.

I also almost didn't make my flight because I was goofing off at Newbury Comics

Hello post I wrote on Wednesday but forgot to hit publish on so it sat on the bench while I was in Boston self tanning and giving advice to a man who has 150 million platinum reasons not to listen to it...


It was a game of firsts at last night's Nationals-Dodgers “pitchers duel.”

Foremost, it was my ninth game at the new stadium but the first win I’ve witnessed this season.

Secondly, we opted to drive and it was a terrible mistake. Metro is the superior means of ballgame delivery even if your parking pass allows you to pull up directly into the opposing team’s dugout, which ours did.

As we sat in traffic:

Me: It looks like Ryan Avent was right about this one.
The G: Bite your tongue. Avent is not allowed to be right about anything, ever.

Thirdly, we got real gentleman-like seats so we had to be real gentlemen-like. So no yelling at Manny when he half-assed it from second on a play that would have tied the game if he hadn’t jogged to third.



Speaking of which, sportscasters, just because a game is low scoring (2-1) it shouldn’t automatically get assigned the label of “pitching duel” like I heard on the radio. The Nats used 5 different pitchers. The starter hit two batters, walked two batters, struck out none and committed an error. They team walked two opposing pitchers. And the Dodgers left 10 players on base. The Nats were lucky that their one run lead held up. It wasn’t a pitching duel.


The Lizard gives the G the ol' Slimy Eyeball. Then he licked it.

Finally, I’ve complained about this before but they really need to send Screech’s head to the dry cleaners. From a distance it looks white-ish, like one of those paint chips that’s not really pure white but still not in the same paint card as the grays. Up close, however, you can tell it’s been hugged by so many sticky children and sweaty drunks that its gotten exceedingly filthy.



Unless he’s going for whatever they call the hair style that number 8 has sporting there. Blond on top, decidedly not blond underneath.

he's got thousands! in different sizes!

it's a long story as to why I was googling "where to purchase berets in bulk," but here, in case you were in the market. ("This quality made beret is an acid stone washed denim material. Comes with a draw string tie and looks stylish.") Yay!

whodis.

(update: "WhoDis?" guy has a name. It's Julio, and if he calls me one more time, I'm gonna find ItsJulioWhoDis? and kick him in the teeth.)

data, form

Linking this even though it includes a Radiohead video.

More:

- infosthetics.com

- Kottke's infoviz collection

- information design

Failsafe Automated Exclamation Point Generator

It was funny for the 4 minutes before this.



It was sad when it went on for another three.

Seven whole minutes of horn blowing.

yes, but you didn't KNOW the people violently killed

A 10 minute car ride with my father-in-law:

The N: So, heard whats going on in the news today? (referring, I assume, to the convention)
FIL: Japanese scientists can clone stem cells from wisdom teeth!

* * *

The N: We only know one family that lives on that street, trust me. The Jones & the Does were not next door neighbors
FIL: Yes they were! I swear they were neighbors
The N: No. The Jones lived on XXX Street, and the Does lived on YYY street. Trust me. The only people we know who EVER lived on XXX street ever were the Jones.
FIL: Well, other people lived on that street too.
The N: Like who?
FIL: There was a murder on that street once.


There were more, but these were my favorites.

Next week, we'll practice by jumping over bike racks

While our tour of DC schools was somewhat limited to small part of the city, CA and I can report that at least McKinley Tech High School was 100% ready to open this morning. The new turf football field was a beautifully unnatural green, the grounds were liter free, and the parking lot was level and without cracks.

We’d also like the thanks the grounds keeping crew for their advice on staying in shape. Your suggestion of how our cores would be better served by bending at the waist was greatly appreciated. The tips about the medicine balls and footwork were spot on and obliques certainly paid the price. I don’t care what anyone says, it’s always nice to have an audience when lifting weights in a high school parking lot.

And they took great pains not to blow leaves and grass clippings on us. McKinley Tech High School janitors: You guys are the best.

HOHB!!!!!!!!

H/T to kottke:

Hands on a Hard Body is now on Google video, in it's entirety. This doesn't really effect you if you are a member of my immediate family/related to me in any way, since we've been passing around bootleg dvd's of this thing for years as Christmas gifts. My brother can recite the entire documentary from memory, and my mom talks it up to complete strangers.

It's a fine, fine little film.

also, i'm watching soaps on mute at work.

- Hey, universe? No more abandoned-helpless animal stories, alrighty? euthanized whales nursing on boats? turtles who stumble into italian restaurants after making a few wrong turns? dogs who stay by their owners corpses for weeks at a time hoping they will wake up? I'm DONE. okay? thanks.

- Recently, my cell phone number has been accquired by the gentlemen henceforth* known as "Whodis? Guy." He calls every day around 3 or 330 pm, and in the mornings on weekends. I have answered the phone probably 8 times and told him every time he has the wrong number. Now I simply ignore it. Whodis? Guy never leaves a message. Here is a typical interaction:

Me: Hello?
WDG: WHODIS?
Me: No, who is this?
WDG: WHODIS?
Me: You have the wrong number sir. Again.
WDG: (untelligible) wrong number? (untelligellible) WHODIS?
Me: OKAY. WRONG NUMBER NICE TALKING TO YOU AGAIN DO NOT CALL BACK PLEASE EVER GOODBYE.
WDG: (kind of sad "whodiiis?" heard before I hang up)

The calls are from a landline in Alexandria - should I call back and hope someone else answers, maybe at a different time of day, and explain to them that I no longer want Whodis? Guy interrupting my very vry strenuous workday of playing Bookworm online? Advice.

- Pizza Hut is now selling something called "Bacon Mac n Cheese Pizza."

- Sexy Teen Party tonight! I'm going as a VERY sexy teen with loose morals and a bleak future.

-JL on JBel






* i feel as if I just used "henceforth" incorrectly but I'm too lazy to find out.

Seriously, Des Moinoids?

Attention the entire state of Iowa: if you announce that your state’s most attractive Olympic athlete’s likeness is going to be sculpted in ice at your state fair, don’t make that effigy impossible to locate. The best I could find was this tiny out-of-focus thing. I can’t see ice abs in that picture. I want a Snoopy sno-cone made from Lolo Jones and I want it now.

(Whatever you do, don’t go look up Lolo Jones website because it’ll make you crazy. The song Whatever Lola Wants plays constantly and you can’t turn it off. And it’s designed in a way that only evokes frustration from creepy dudes looking for Lolo Jones pictures. (Not me))

The lack of real news photos of the ice sculptures meant I spent the day looking at other peoples’ flickr pictures from the state fair. Was it the fried awesome on a stick?

Yes.


- The name of my new band? IPT. But my “I” will probably stand for International so it can be more ironically un-ironic.


- Is “kebab” too foreign sounding? The government should really shut down those restaurants like Moby Dick and their "terrorist salads."


- Make room for Beer Dog. Or as the G sez, “This is that commercial with the beer horse and the get-you-n-shape dog that comes and gets horses in shape with Rocky music.”

You mean a trainer?

“No. A get-in-shape coach.”


- Granted Lolo Jones is the second most famous Olympic Des Moinians*, but pictures of this stupid Shawn Jones butter statue are everywhere. Again, I want to break off pieces of ice Lolo Jones and make mojitos. And I refuse to be part of any innuendo involving Shawn Johnson and butter.




*There was some debate over the correct term to describe someone from Des Moines. My native Iowan father said Des Moiner. My numbskull cousin (who lives in Des Moines) said Des Moinoid. So I called the Des Moines Chamber of Commerce and the Bureau of Tourism. They both said the correct term was Des Moinian

They also added that they city is planning to build statues of Lolo Jones and Shawn Johnson for their Iowa Hall of Pride. But neither will be made of ice.

So I still can’t feed chips of frozen Lolo to women in labor?

Dang it.

Starbursts

I’ve got one of those headaches that are so bad that I’ve started looking into whether the Red Cross is holding a blood drive nearby. Every possible remedy has been attempted. But my surgeon/barber has been saying some good things about blood-letting.

not about james carville, still about sports

Olympics/Nike marketing geniuses: If I hear the Killers one more time, I'm gonna put my foot through a wall.

Also, everyone is getting hurt on the hurdles this morning. They are NOT soldiers. Soldiers dont keep fucking up their hamstrings in this way, I don't think.

In other crap no one cares about, I am learning about fantasy football!(?)! It is comedy gold, but so far I have it down. I'm being tutored every evening for 10-15 minutes so I don't completely humiliate my spouse on draft day by using my first round pick to go for "a hottie who throws the ball.... that's called a quarterback, right?"

The biggest issue I see with this experiment is the potential for me to get really, really, really, into this lame sport I know nothing about.

Artificial Horizon

The G and I have a friend who we credit/blam for introducing us crazy kids about 240 years ago in college. Judging by the size of things, though, we haven’t seen him in at least 8.25 months. We thought it’d be nice to rekindle this friendship but it’s proven rather difficult to track him down. His cell phone service has been canceled and the emails that the system administrator doesn’t kick back just go unanswered.

But we got a tip last week. Apparently, he and his “band” play acoustic cover version of 90’s alternative songs at the Front Page Arlington on Wednesday night. SEX TYPE THING!??! REEL BIG FISH!?! OFF TO BALLSTON!

Except not. Although we found a great parking spot, there was a line to get into the bar. The Front Page. A line. And we were older than anyone else there by 15 years. We couldn’t figure out who was lamer. But it probably wasn’t the two 30+ year olds who refused to wait to get their ID’s checked at a Arlington mall bar. And it looks like our friend won’t have the honor of seeing us in out latest versions and re-imagined Ultimate costumes.

But that’s only part of what this post is about. On the way there, the G claimed to have never heard the song that we discussed last week. You know, the one about fake lesbians? And since AM has admitted to loving the song and listening to it on the radio all the time and wanting to marry it, I knew it was often played on 99.5. So we tuned in.

We heard one Coldplay song before the DJ came back on. But before we got a chance to hear anything else, he said something that justifies my refusal to listen to anything other than Paul Harvey.

The young man, who I may remind you is music DJ in Washington DC, asked his listeners if they knew if the Black Cat was a different venue than DC9. He wasn’t sure. He’d been to the Black Cat before but it’d been awhile. Is it still around, he wondered? Did DC9 replace it? It had to be the same place because there couldn’t be that many places where bands could play in DC. I mean, after the MCI Center what else is there? Please to be texting him with the answer.

I’ve seen the G irate before. Crazy irrational angry with knives shooting out of her eyes and squiggly furious lines coming off her like Pigpen’s stank. But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen her this wolf-faced enraged. Especially over a stupid radio top 40 show.

I mean, I’m not a radio DJ or anything but I still know that they tore down the Black Cat in 2006 and built The Bayou in its place. It’s where Lungfish plays.

bllcch

I’m all for an Aventopian future where no one drives cars and everyone has adorable dogs. But if you want me to pay money to share a bike with some tourist, don’t park them near hospitals that leave biohazard specimen bags lying around the sidewalk.

Unfair

I enjoyed watching the G and CA enjoy the Arlington County Fair since they were so bright-eyed about all its offerings. There was fried dough to cram down their maws, baby/genetically miniaturized animals to pet, other less cute animals to race, wilted produce to judge and giant stalks of corn to be amazed by. (An impressive 8 feet).

But the D and I are much more experienced fairgoers. We’ve been to several real Midwest county fairs. We’ve seen 4 generations of pigs in one pen. I’ve been amazed by truly gigantic stalks of corn. (19 feet 7 inches) I’ve watched baby/genetically miniaturized animals drag their captors around on sleds. I’ve seen Grand Funk Railroad.

Since the county fair season is at its midpoint and some may still be making the trek to faraway places with names like Prince Williams, I thought I’d offer a few insider hints about things to keep a an eye out for.



#1 – Actors in giant costumes or giant actors in appropriately sized costumes.

Called “Strolling Characters” in the county fair business, these towering body puppets main jobs are to terrorize children and not crush people. I believe Rock-it the Robot to be the most famous in this class of entertainment but he and I had an unpleasant encounter at a fair a few years ago. Naturally, I challenged him to a dance-off and even awarded him the advantage by mandating that "The Robot" be the only allowable dance. Things became unpleasant when he refused to participate.

The Arlington County fair had a “green” theme to it this year so in addition to encouraging everyone to move closer to their jobs and lose their cars, they brought in Treebeard to amaze the locals.



Judging by the man in the FBI hat, he was unsuccessful.



#2 – Works of art by local amateurs judged by less amateurish amateurs

Most of the entries are photographs. Some are pretty good and could possibly make it into a calendar of generic landscapes or a Windows desktop theme. Most were terrible. One was of an old woman in a wingback chair eating a Pop-tart on Christmas morning a half second before a leaping black cat landed on her head. Another was one of those pictures King’s Dominion will sell you after riding the Grizzly. I’m not really sure how that qualified under the rules.

The other categories were sewing (a Christmas stocking featuring a rabbit in the snow that read TRACY), doll design (a stuffed bear made from an old fur coat dressed like a fairy princess) and sculpting (a five-legged clay crab with Snoopy painted on its shell).

Also, painting.



This here is the winner. Subtlety titled Car With Explosion, it won all the best ribbons. My initial reaction was to chuckle disbelieving but I bet painting a BMW fleeing a giant explosion at what appears to be a church (based on the flying steeple) is probably tough for a high school student. I know we didn’t attempt gasoline fireballs until my second year of Studio Art in college.


#3 – No matter how far north or progressive or urban you think your county is, at some point a carnie will try to separate you from your money with the promise of cheap yet surprisingly disordered Confederate paraphernalia.



This example features a ring toss game in which the victor qualifies to win one of three non-sanctioned CSA flags. The first shows the Stars and Bars over what I believe is the mock explosion used on a 1970s-era box of Tide laundry detergent. The second flag shows a skull with faintly glowing eyes, sporting a Crocodile Dundee hat, guarding a second Confederate flag with two sabers and a rattlesnake.

The final is the most Daedalian. From what I can figure, it uses your basic Confederate flag as a background with the words Rebel “Til” I Die superimposed in the center. (Not sure why the Til is in quotes.) Under the motto appears to be the blue, translucent head of a seal or possibly a chupacabre with two motorcycles coming out the side.



It just screams “Welcome to Arlington. We hope you enjoy your stay.”


I hope these three tidbits enhance you fair-going experience. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go win this giant, stuffed Sebastian the Crab.

oh volleyball you are so awesome

Dalhausser is the beach's answer to you-know-who, non?



Oh, and if a case ever needed to be made for HDTV: hello Olympics. Even if Dalhausser and Foster choked (choked!) against Latvia early on, I still super enjoy seeing every bead of their sweat in high def.

Carlos the Dwarf: The Movie

The plan is too see Pineapple Express tonight.

With the exception of September’s Coen Brothers pic, it looks like the next few weeks are going to be pretty barren at the old multiplex. That’s why the Pineapple Express better be the best fucking movie I’ve ever seen with my 127-year-old cataract-filled mole eyes.

This will most likely be the last movie the Pyggies will see in a theater for at least 5 years. When we make it back, it’ll be for some delightful animated romp that a Pixar executive just thought up yesterday. Children will love it for the bright colors and silly voices. Adults will barely tolerate the thinly veiled jokes about President Tim Pawlenty. I’ll abide the recycled Star Wars sound effects slipped in by animation nerds.

And it’ll be a matinee.

Or maybe I’ll sneak out by myself and watch a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Returns after everyone else has gone to bed.

Either way, I’ve ruined my life.

Come on Pineapple Express. Make the next 18 years worth while.

halloween 2008 costume idea, #45

Sometimes, you're having a bad day. You trip and fall, your car gets towed, someone puts mustard on your BLT. All tragic and weird.

But then you read something like this and life becomes magical again.

Makes a rainbow about as colorful as a lead pipe.

The longest thing I've read in the last few weeks that could even resemble a book is a graphic novel checked out from the library. I wouldn't be surprised if I've completely forgotten how to read if the text isn't in word balloon form. But when I decided to actually read a book, the library only had one copy of the one I was looking for and it was in audio form. And that book was about comic books. Bonjour, Monsieur Cercle Vicieux.

Fortunately, the book(CD) is incredibly good. The Ten-Cent Plague narrates the controversy-plagued history of comic books between when Captain America punched Hitler to Stan Lee taking credit for inventing every superhero in the 60's. Caped heroes comics weren't selling too well back then so the publishers relied on true crime stories, fake crime stories, stories about reanimated corpses and other things coming from swamps, high school romance, cowboys, jungle queens and all of the above on the moon or somewhere else in space.

The problems arose in the late 40's after some community do-gooders started to notice the severed heads, rotting flesh and general misogyny on the covers of the crime and horror books. Comic book burnings became all the rage in some small rural towns and even some of the larger cities drafted legislation concerning their distribution and sales. Senate subcommittee investigations were held. It all came to a head in the mid-50s and the negative attention forced the most popular books (in terms of sales) out of production.

While important to the comic book industry, this culture skirmish gets lost behind the other major battles being fought around the same time. The Congressionally led communism, juvenile delinquency and organized crime investigations all occurred within two years of the comics scare and draw more attention in the history books. But it did lead directly to the Comics Code Authority and caused the immediate scrubbing and near destruction of the industry. For example: Scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism are prohibited. (Yeah! All but the walking dead comics are kinda lame) or Females shall be drawn realistically without exaggeration of any physical qualities. (Booo! Where are young boys going to develop their unrealistic expectations of the female form?)

The CCA’s restrictions were so stringent that they pretty drove the industry’s top publisher out of business. And there was little wiggle room for other editors to maneuver. Either they eliminated “all scenes of horror, excessive bloodshed, gory or gruesome crimes, depravity, lust, sadism, masochism” or the books went unpublished. That was pretty much everything popular outside of Archie and talking animals.

The book touches on how the Comics Code Authority differed from the other self-regulating organizations established by the entertainment industry around the same time. For instance, the movie industry’s Hays Code had the same restrictions but the Hollywood writers were deft enough to get the message past the censors. In fact, it forced a whole generation of scriptwriters to develop a visual medium based on allusion and imagery. In the mid-50’s, writers and artists in the comic horror and crime industry could not achieve that sort of finesse. The industry collapsed.

I “read” most of this book at the beach last week during a reunion of the Iowan side of the family. Early one evening, I was treated to a concert by my cousin’s four-year old daughter. (That’s my other cousin on guitar playing an unrelated song by 311 or whatever other shitty band he’s into right now.) It went a little something like this…



I was casually aware that there was a song floating around the Top 40 about a barsexual kiss between two girls. I did not know it was the #1 song for some 1000 straight weeks. Huh.

Creating a CCA-like censorship board that would cleans the lyrics of Clear Channel pop songs is probably a bad idea. But, man, I wish there was some way to force some subtlety into the songs available to our nations four year olds.

Plug in my M.C.I

Pulled this quote of a an article about the Police’s last show

"People don't really change," guitarist Andy Summers told The Associated Press. "We're the same three (jerks) we always were. I'm actually quite proud of the fact that it's gone on as long as it has."

What’s the word that “jerk” replaced? I’m guessing “wanker”, for the sake of American audiences. But I’m hoping it’s “miserable, cocksucking twats,” for the sake of descriptive accuracy.

The G hopes its “dillhole.”

goats, part IV

Goats grazing on National Park Service land at Staten Island's Fort Wadsworth managed to do what terrorists wished they could: They sneaked under a fence onto a restricted area near the base of the Verrazano Bridge - without triggering alarms, sources said.

please someone tell me they had the same love of Units as I did in 1988. Please. Someone.

i need help, internet weirdos. The first person who can please find me a photo of anything to do with the 1980's "modular clothing" phenomenon store UNITS will be my new best friend.

I cannot find jack shit out there as far as photos, just a few measly mentions of the store on "remember the 80s"- type websites and a brief bio on designer Sandra Garratt. NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

UPDATE: Nevermind.




(it's a belt! it's a tube top! it's a micro mini! it's a headdress! it can be used to smuggle snacks into the $.50 movie theatre! it's been corrupted by the skeletal chicks with fake boobs on "Survivor" and re-named a "buff!" I myself paired this modern fashion miracle with coordinating slouch socks, skorts, and vests. yes, all at the same time.)

more breaking news about... animals!

The dog had a cat actually run into his mouth last night while we were on a walk, but he was too surprised to close his jaws, and the lucky cat got away.

The N has been at the beach for four days, this is the most I can muster right now.

Here, nerd things! I call dibs on LOLChipDefects dot com.

In Your Talons

Last night I was again accused of making things up by AM, even though I have proven time and time again that my tales are non-fiction. But today something incredible happened that even I wouldn’t believe unless I was shown the photographic proof. Fortunately, I carry a camera in my purse with my tissues and butterscotch candies.

Around 11:30 I was sitting in my car waiting for my turn in the car wash. Suddenly, a cute little sparrow landed on the hood and initiated an avian staring contest. But when it became clear that I was not going to be the first blinker, it got all huffy and started pecking the fuck out of the paint.

“Uhhh bird? What are you doing!!??!

I revved the engine but it did not flinch. I honked the horn. It looked up, bounced two baby bird steps toward the windshield and went back to pecking.

“Seriously!!! Bird, what’s the deal?”

I laid on the horn. It looked up again, gave me with of those quick birdlike head turns and gave me the stink eye. That’s when I died a little bit today. My insides turned black from a cocktail of pity, terror and the Five Guys I had for lunch.

Click along if you want to be majorly groaded out. And only if you are willing to sign a pledge that you will never walk around Falls Church without a Marine issued zombie neutralizing weapon.

I'm ready.

The way this thing was acting at first led me to believe it may have rabies. But I don’t think birds can get rabies. Also, I don’t think rabies makes the top of your head fall off and exposes your brain or makes you hang out at a Jiffy Lube attacking cars.

I can’t imagine what happened to this poor thing to turn it into the flying dead. It only fluttered off after I accelerated quickly and slammed on the brakes, causing it to lose its balance. That came to me after remembering that I don’t have great balance when water gets trapped in my ear.



I figured not having some of your brain would have the same effect.

Good lord, no more.

"Rhymes with 'Rites of Spring.' This is driving me crazy, seriously."

- travel.
- jello.
- ewwwwwwwww. EWWWWWWW.

* * *

Also, for anyone who was at Fort Reno last night and was witness to my incoherent rambling ("Arrrrgh! Who AM i thinking of? Dammit. Just google "emo brain tumor" on yr blackberry already. Arrrggh"):

I meant the Promise Ring; was referring to Davey von Bohlen; all this has something to do with Maritime; and not much to do with Statehood.

Okay, so that should now be cleared up.

One LOTR and one decades-old NFL reference in the same post. ZING!!!

It’s been more than a month since the gutter was ripped off our place by heavy rain, tearing away part of the roof and cleaving several chunks of masonry. While it looked terrible from the outside, who could argue that an indoor waterfall, cracks in wall, bubbling paint and a basement full of muddy stinkwater doesn’t raise the resale value.

Well, the G does. So after several professional phone calls from me and some blistering emails from her, we are finally getting someone from the condo association to fix it. Not that I couldn’t fix it myself but we do pay condo fees for something other than shitty flower arrangements and access to no pool.

The work will require patching up a crack that runs the height of the entire wall and allows us to see into the neighbor’s kitchen and seeps blood maybe. All we need to do is kick back and supply the same color paint so they can match the walls. Too bad that bucket was sitting in the same water that flooded the basement in the first place and got rusted to hell. I have since poured it directly into the storm drain with in the hopes of killing every blue crab in the Chesapeake Bay.

So it was off to the Home Despot to try to match the wall paint with their magic paint matching machine. And since we couldn’t bring the wall itself it’s a good thing that the water damaged has enabled us to tear huge sheets of paint directly from the surface all the way down to the base plaster. Tastes good too.

The G got tasked with standing in line since she is the expert on colors. (She experienced “red” when someone cut in front of her and then acted like they didn’t see the huge line) I got tasked with goofing off in the tools section. And it’s there that I found the most unnecessary piece of hardware ever cast from the minds of NFL Players Inc.



I can’t say I’m a particular fan of Ray Lewis but given the option there is no other player I’d want on my house key. And I wasn’t given an option because it was the only player they had, for some reason. While there were other “sports” (re: NASCAR) themed keys, Ray-Ray was the only athlete making a personal appearance.

If this were 800 years ago, this key would obviously be magical. Either Ray Lewis’s spirit is now protecting our house or it allows him to enter unmolested and slay us like hobbit-shaped pillows at the Prancing Pony. Its only power today is to break off in the lock and ruin your day.

*********In this space, I have attempted to make four closing jokes about football and sharp, dangerous tools and murder. Although none of them have been particularly funny or satisfying the punch line to all of them is Ray Carruth. Ray Carruth, ladies and gentlemen, Ray Carruth. *********

The end.

"no seriously, you have the worst taste in hip hop EVER." - The N.

So, Rock the Bells. Who's going? Anyone? Weather dot com is saying 89 degrees w/ scattered t-storms. Obviously I will be wearing a white teeshirt if my most lovely ticket wench (K.) comes through for me.

Drunk Meryl Streep! PURNS DOWN BIERCE PRASNAN!

I don’t go in for musicals for the same reason I don’t go to hockey games or the condo association board meetings. I’m sure they’re fun and people dance in the aisles and many parking issues get resolved but they are not my thing. I’m not against them and certainly wouldn’t bust anyone’s chops after his girlfriend makes him go see the Man From La Mancha with his probable future mother-in-law.

As a result, I know nothing about staged musicals. If the category on Jeopardy is "Broadway Musicals" I’ll guess Jean Valjean for every question because it’s always the answer to one of them. (The same goes for Trivia Pursuit. David Mamet is the answer to any question about playwrights.)

For example, I know Rent takes place in New York. And I know that I look like one of the guys from the movie version. And I think someone has or gets AIDS. (Probbaly my character.) But beyond that my only frame of reference is from a brief Simpson’s spoof and the commercials that were on WTOP the last time it came to town. Based on the song that played repeatedly for several weeks, I’m guessing the play is about math. Or at least counting how many minutes make up some longer amount of time.

The same with Sweeney Todd. I didn’t see the movie. But I know it’s bloody and yesterday’s NY Times crossword puzzle* has a clue about a song from the play and the answer is “The Worst Pies in London.” The worst pie I ever had in London was made out of eels. Eel pie. Now that's a play I'm willing to see.

Mama Mia is another one. I assumed it was about ABBA and ABBA only. The drama amongst the group’s members didn’t reach Fleetwood Mac levels but I’m sure in the hands of a clever writer and a catalogue of dance hits you could draw together a pretty fun show. But the reviews in the papers today shatter that illusion. It’s about a woman who’s so promiscuous, with so many sexy English sex partners that she doesn’t know who the father of her daughter is. And it’s in Greece.

Now I’m all for loose woman with looser morals. But it gets dangerously close to the poor standards set by Grease, for my tastes. The moral of Grease is that if you want to be popular you should change who you are and put out. And then you get to fly away in a magic car. Even as a child I knew that the ending of that movie was setting a bad example. I don’t want to have to someday explain to my potential daughter that to be popular you need to sleep with Colin Firth. Although she will have my permission to eff
Stellan Skarsgård.

Did you see him catch that coffee mug in Ronin? Dude’s the shit.


*In today’s puzzle -

Clue: Inclusive, as in some resorts
Answer: gay friendly

Inclusive = Gay friendly?

Drunk Bruce Wayne! MURNS DOWN BANSHION!

Oh, guess who forgot to get tickets until the only ones left were at like, 1145 pm? ARGG. I remain unconvinced about Aaron Eckhart. I really want to see this at IMAX, so maybe it's not that big of a deal that I didn't get tickets.

In summary: My spouse is busy drinking beers tonight, I have no Batman tickets, and all I really want is to eat pizza. Is GHuts pizza any good? Can I go on a Friday night and eat one all by myself? That's weird, right? Right.

Oh! Since I never blog anymore because I have nothing to talk about, remind me to tell you all about yoga next week and how hilarious it is.

Kablooey

I read a great book called The Curse of Narrows last year. It’s about the horrific munitions explosion in Halifax Harbor prior the US’s involvement in World War I. It’s still one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever experienced. Several thousand people were killed and nearly 10,000 injured.

Some of the most amazing parts of the event were the stories of people who were standing near the shore when the ship blew up and got thrown hundreds of yards into the air by the concussion. Most of these folks were killed. But a few landed without injury atop the steep hills that surround the harbor. All the energy from the blast was expended pushing them off the ground and up into the air. By the time they started to fall back toward the earth, the earth had literally risen to meet them. The only outward sign of this assault was that all their clothes had been blown off.

I assume the same thing will be at work here. You will amazingly find yourself at the top of the theoretical hill. But it will require the destruction of a crucial wartime shipping center and you’re gonna be naked.

At the same time, my grandfather wanted to know why I wanted electrical hardware like transformers for my birthday.

Unlike a certain unnamed brother-in-law I have, when the Cabbage Patch Kid craze infected this nation’s Christmases, I resisted the urge to ask for one. Actually, I didn’t even know little boys were even allowed to own one and I was astounded by the few male friends who tried to hide their yarny-haired friends when I came over to play with real toys like action figures and fire and rocks. Sure, stuffed animals are cool but CPKs were dolls. And not molded plastic dolls with tiny plastic crossbows, but real girly dolls.

I took a poll of the ten closest or most IM-able people* near me and here are their responses:

1. Ariel Alla
2. Ashley Ollivet
3. Andy
4. Glen Allen
5. Lillian
6. My own name
7. I can't remember. I can tell you though that I had a 10 minute dance routine choreographed to the Cabbage Patch doll record then my brother threw the record up in the air and it shattered on the ground and we could never find another one, and I tried all manner of toy soundtracks for a new dance, but it was never the same.
8. I never had one. I loathed them and found them creepy.
9. My mom couldn’t find a girl one so she bought a boy, put a dress on it and said it was girl with short hair. I believed her too even though it was named Curtis.
10. My regular Cabbage Patch Kid was Addie Chrissy and my premie was Cara Faith.

That last response is what got me thinking about Cabbage Patch Kids again. I don’t hang out in neonatal intensive care units so I hadn’t heard the term “premie” since the mid-80s. And its definition was only framed by that exposure. The Cabbage Patch Premies, as far I could remember, were balder, cuter and much more in demand than the normal toddler versions. People were crazy about them. Literally crazy. People got trampled to death at Montgomery Wards or Zayre’s or Best when those stores would open at 9am on Sundays.

I have a good friend whose pregnancy developed complications and the baby had to be delivered by C-section 3 months early. Her daughter has a host of complications and the doctors initially estimated her survival rate at around 10%. It’s been a week and she weighs 2 pounds. Her chances of making it to next week have only been raised minimally. She can’t breathe on her own and her nervous system is so maladjusted that she can’t stand to be touched.

The tiny infant is considered a premie. So are the other dozen children in her NICU and they are all in bad shape. So why was it, 20 some years ago, that Premie dolls were so desired? Why were they even made? The initial run of Cabbage Patch Kids were just that, kids. If they wanted a second version, why not make Cabbage Patch Toddlers or Newborns? Why jump all the way down the age ladder to children that, according to their own definition, should not even be born yet?

I know this question is decades late. But my mom’s typewriter couldn’t access the internet back then.


*includes one dude. Guess who.

secret ingredient: pork

Hi womanfriends, if anyone ever wants to come to the OBX with me for a random long weekend, be forewarned that apparently my idea of beach "good times" includes marathon sessions of "Intervention" on A&E and talks about how migraine headaches are caused! Also, Hellboy.

The sunburn extends in long stripes and splotches, including my armpits, but nothing too serious since I am a gramma who likes to languish in the shade of an umbrella most of the time.

My parents/aunts/uncle overlapped our Ladies Weekend 08 in the beachhaus by a day or so. We played a lot of dominoes, watched "Steel Magnolias", and I brought home an entire pork roast (?) my mother left behind for the three of us, afraid we aren't getting enough iron in our diets. And we ate barbeque. It was delicious.

Also, my aunts were on a teasing tear towards my poor momma, taunting her that she's apparently a prude for not taking tequila shots with them before going to the beach in the mornings. Ladies, ladies. It was 10:30 AM.

The joke where you ask to make a withdrawal never get old. Never.

I had the complete opposite outcome when I went to the blood bank yesterday. Not only did they gladly take it, they discovered its properties are so desired that they pretty much asked me if it would be okay if they harvest a few more pints to top off some of their tanks. It was like going to Jiffy Lube if the Lube were to take the oil out it out your healthy car and give it to one that had been in an accident. Actually, it's nothing like Jiffy Lube.

I can’t ever remember what it is about my blood that so good but they always want moar and they call the house hours after the 56 day waiting period is over asking if they can get another taste. I assume it’s because I have too much. The other donors were given a box of juice and some cookies. They gave me, and this is all true, three bags of cookies, orange juice, a Boost protein shake, one of those towels with the hooks for your golf bag, a canvas satchel with the name of the hospital on it and two stress relief balls shaped like Finding Nemo. They want my blood that much.

Also unlike C, the nurses had no qualms about talking about menstruation. I was inquiring about iron deficiencies and what someone could eat to raise their levels. The winners:

1. Oysters
2. Clams
3. Liver
4. Blackstrap molasses, for some reason.

Oyster-Liver-Molasses puree. It’s what’s for anemic dinner.

Anyblah, I also asked the nurse why women are more likely to have a low iron count and she said, with no sense of bashfulness, IT’S BECAUSE WOMEN ARE ALWAYS LOSING BLOOD ALWAYS BECAUSE THEIR PERIODS ARE ALWAYS ALL THE TIME!!1! And that most women are wanting for molasses.

So give blood, eat plenty of clams and have nice weekend.

a warning

"Radiance Ribbons" = motherfucking BODY GLITTER.

Spring Break Daytona '08 Wooooooot!

You have many question, Mr. S. I send you premium answer question, hundred percent!

Typical for a man who owns Hong Kong’s most popular New York-themed pool hall, my normal source for translation has gone missing. So I’m turning it over to the internets. Can anyone decipher this sign that another friend found in Hokkaido?



I'm hoping it isn't too offensive since it's about to be embossed on a t-shirt.

don't stop

I'm ashamed of kind of liking the new Girl Talk. It's pretty much listening to Jock Jams on repeat, no?

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Sorry for not giving more blog.

An update: we've been painting our house (obnoxious alien puke green!); a guy who looks like the entire world's little brother was caught jacking it at a Mickey D's drive-thru near our neighborhood, ewww; my crazy relatives descend on the East Coast for an ENTIRE WEEK starting Independence Day, so go stock up on tinfoil hats and register for handguns today, everyone; the dog is wearing a red bandana these days as part of his summer style and it looks kind of awesome, like he might hold up a bank at any moment; the new Beck is pretty okay; I went to yoga last night and got in touch with some chakras (particularly my third eye) or whatevs, also I am the least flexible person to ever participate in any kind of yoga class ever; I've been mostly living off of ice cream sandwiches; and Moonstruck is free to watch on Hulu dot com.

also, question: i have a credit for $125 for an airline who shall not be named (NORTHWESTNORTHWESTNORTHWEST). It says "non-transferrable" on my email. I assume this means I can't use it to buy a ticket for my bro to use since he's a giant fucking crybaby, or use it to send anyone into outer space or anything?

The fireworks were always better last year

When I was ten, the East Coast family took a trip out to Iowa to see the grandparents and old farming homestead. I don’t remember much from that specific trip. But I do recall that my 13-year-old second cousin had an enormous crate of the most magnificent fireworks ever smuggled across the Minnesota border, his dad’s lighter and a copy of License To Ill on cassette. Zombie Mark Twain could not have dreamed up a more carefree summer scenario.

The very first bottle rocket we launched traveled about 10 feet in the air, turned abruptly and flew directly into the enormous 1500 gallon propane tank that all farmers in Iowa seem to have on their property, for some farming reason.

My cousin took off running. I stood there with my arms splayed, like Kent* in Real Genius, ready to be enveloped in God’s soul-cleansing firestorm of rusty tractor parts and dead hog carcasses. Either that or the corn-filled silo could have gone up and I’d be covered in popcorn, also like Real Genius.

Nothing happened, of course. The tiny bottle rocket harmlessly bounced off the giant, reinforced tank and popped delicately in the cool summer grass. But for a split second, it was almost like this.




Next time I'll tell you about my second cousin's bitchin car stereo system and how the only vaguely hip-hop song he had was "Set Adrift On Memory Bliss" so he had to cruise around Iowa blasting PM Dawn.

Actually, that's the whole story.



*Remember in Michael Clayton when Tilda Swinton hired the hit men to kill the crazy, naked lawyer and then George Clooney? One of those hit men was Kent! I know!

Hypnotoads

Probably because I heard about this on the radio right after I read about this in the paper, I imagined that the same defense mechanism was used by both.

A punch from the former seems like it would inflict an injury on par with getting hit in the chest with a Nerf dart. But I can easily picture her bones coming out of her hands and delivering at least the same number of hit points as any other animated skeleton. I’m thinking a Jason and the Argonauts level here.

I learned two things yesterday at my government-mandated 2 hour lunch.

Both involved a time wasting trip to the Natural History Museum.

1. A chop block is

“a high-low, low-high or low-low combination block by any two offensive players with or without a delay between contacts when the initial contact clearly occurs beyond the neutral zone.”

It became illegal in the NFL and NCAA after a dramatic increase in the number ankle and knee injuries sustained by defensive lineman since the second block is often engaged outside the player’s field of vision.



The sports-loving taxidermists at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum have included an example of the chop block in their newest exhibit Mammals! (We’re just like the stuffed dinosaurs you came to see but we have fur. And milk!) Their re-enactment of last year’s Lions-Bills preseason classic features not only the Detroit player attacking the knees of a previously engaged Buffalo player but the first Lion is also employing an equally illegal crackback block.

This play would result in a 15 yard penalty.



2. This can’t be right.



Also at the Mammals! (Did we mention the milk bit?) exhibit, I saw two kids run up screaming “Bambi!” and then slowly back away after the deer-with-fangs thing registered.

If this was a skeleton and not a stuffed animal, I would have assumed that some tired paleobiologist stuck the horns in the mouth and called it a day. Like the guy who invented the triceratops, but in reverse.

Vampire deer are the new vampire vikings.

this is what happens when you google "souvenir" because you can't remember how to spell it correctly.

I was unaware that to be a true OMD fan, it is required that you had some sort of sexy teenage death drama in the late 80's. Thanks, youtube!


okay, wait, I just lied. I might have been aware.

For good measure, mix in some of the anti-Turkish/immigrant sentiment in Germany right now

Imagine if the NFC championship game was between the Giants and the Bears. Now pretend that Chicago, down by seven, score a touchdown with 2 minutes left in the fourth quarter. But then miraculously, New York airs one out and connects on the very last play as time expires.

Now picture the chaos that would ensue if the national television feed for the game went down and no one in New York or Chicago or anywhere saw the results.

That’s basically what just happened in the Turkey-Germany Euro Cup game. There were 2 goals in the 86th and 89th minutes and no one saw them because the international signal went dead. ESPN was guessing the outcome the game based on the team’s fans reactions outside the stadium.

it's a big store that sells things to store other things in! also, closet systems!

until last night, the N and I had forgotten what else we tried to explain to British people (see "Three Stooges" post below) and failed at. It was the Container Store.


Totally flummoxed.

Right. Sorry for the strobiness. That's our toaster.

The G doesn’t believe in natural lighting and insists on turning on every bulb in every room and then not turning them off ever. I prefer using whatever light the sun is providing. In the winter, I’ll operate in complete darkness.

So I’m not sure how I’ve managed to miss that our toaster looks like, well, a Toaster.



Say hello to your frakking Cylon master. It never made sense to me that the skin jobs were the first to infiltrate our society.

I wish he had far less didactic lecturing and far more armored bears, which are exceptionally cool.

While psychologists may argue the opposite, I’ve taken to seeing movies by myself on days when I’m sick/fake sick in the name of mental health. Usually, they’re matinees of the type of films that the G would normally avoid like Frankenstein avoiding Dracula because the vampire intends to use the monster’s re-animated body to give enliven his poorly CGI-ed horde of demonic progeny. She has notoriously poor taste.

My latest solo adventure was Prince Caspian. And because she said was unaware it was even out in theatres, I didn’t feel too bad about leaving her out.

The film’s about what you’d expect if from a book you last read 20 years ago. A bunch of bearded yet unspecific Mediterranean-types invade a magical realm and it’s up to the beardless yet handsome Prince Caspian to take it back. He’s aided by various pagan creatures, a rat that they try to pass off as big mouse, and the gaggle of gap toothed British kids from the first one. Also, the lion is Jesus.

My recollection of all the books is pretty spotty with all seven running together in my memory. I was pretty sure this wasn’t the one where they go on a boat but it may be the one where a lady turns into a green snake. But what I did know was that this wasn’t the last book where almost everyone gets goes to heaven. And that’s what made viewing this one interesting.

You see, as the books progress, the older characters from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe get written out. While the second one features all four of the British children, the third one only has the two youngest. The fourth one doesn’t have any of them. I’m not sure how they plan to address this as the movies progress – especially the sixth one which is actually a prequel to the first movie – but I’m guessing by the time they get around to making them they’ll be straight-to-video anyways. Or the Disney Channel will just air them directly after High School Musical 10: Reunion! (It’s the one where a faded Zach Efron hooks up with one of the unpopular girls after she drunkenly admits she always had a crush on him. She gives him the clap.)

What I found interesting was the way they handled the maturity of the oldest girl, Susan. It’s obvious that the actress playing Susan has developed into adolescence since the first film and they treat her budding womanhood accordingly. She preserves some of the innocence that allows her sister to maintain her belief in talking lions but still makes googly-eyes at the devilishly handsome/Eurotrash Prince Caspian. They even share a kiss at the end.

In the context of the film, this doesn’t seem that notable. But it is interesting in the context of the whole series. In the final book, all the characters that have visited Narnia from Earth are led into Heaven by the Jesus-lion Aslan. All the characters except Susan. The reason given:

“She's interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up.”

In a book filled with allegory and symbolism, it’s hard not to criticize Lewis for this passage. Many a reader has inferred that Susan doesn’t get the elevator pass to the afterlife for having become a sexualized woman. Defenders of Lewis claim that this passage, taken in context with the rest of the book, merely shows that she has actively purged the childhood memory of Narnia from life and therefore has squandered her shot at the ever-after. I lean toward the former. So do many others. And some folks will even write a whole new series of books about it.

This familiarity is what makes watching Narnia more curious. Susan’s reaction to the boys in her life, either Caspian or another one she meets in a tube station early in the film*, was either a conscious effort at foreshadowing or a short-sighted bit of story advancement. Movie Seven won’t be out for at least another decade (if ever) but its going to be intriguing to see how they deal with Susan’s unholy interest in pantyhose.


PS – This entry’s title is a quote from an fabulous book-on-tape called Rings, Swords, and Monsters: Exploring Fantasy Literature. Its author, Michael Drout, has an equally awesome blog. At least for those who like their LOL mixed with Beowulf.


*This setting is noteworthy too since the reason everyone’s going to heaven is they’ve all died in a train accident.

"Song that comes out on the dances?"

So school's out, I guess. I know this only because my inlaw's (we're squatting for the week) neighbors had a most kickass graduation party for their... middle schooler... in their backyard. Which included a wacky DJ/emcee. Who played the world's worst music over loudspeakers for three straight hours and kept demanding LADIES it's LADIES CHOICE PICK A PARTNER. Who sways with a partner to DJ Casper? I tried to peer over the fence once or twice to see what I assumed would be typical gender-segregated awkwardness (boys punching each other in the crotch by the soda table, girls huddled in giggling/whispering/crying small groups) but I couldn't tell. Besides, kids these days. Maybe they were all getting busy in the potting shed by 9:15 and I am just old and lame.

Also, oh jesus god.

Oh! Also also! We were recently in a room with Brit friends trying to explain "The Three Stooges". Harder than you'd think?

Who blogs about wedding’s anymore? Actually, we don't blog about anything anymore.

We used to average 9 a year. This year, I think, will be three. Saturday, it was a Greek Orthodox ceremony and I swear to your shiny Cylon God that I have no idea what happened.

They wore crowns. They did everything in triplicate. And the couple had to hold candles for the whole hour and half. Big candles. It was very long and it was in a language I didn’t speak.

Or it was. Knowing that this wedding was going to be Extra Long Play, I checked out as I soon as we sat down. I memorized the names in the wedding party. I went through all the pamphlets in the pew backs. I taught myself the straight forward yet intricate ways to fall out of good standing in the Greek Orthodox Church. (Hint #1 - don’t marry your grandmother. Hint #2 - don’t be not Greek.) And then I clapped when someone said “I know pronounce you husband and wife.”

When the groom asked me about the ceremony afterwards I told it was nice and ornate but I couldn’t really follow what was going. He thought this odd since the whole was in English. I’d somehow convinced myself that the service was going to be in Greek and even though it wasn’t. That was a good 2 hours well spent.

Virginia is doing what now?

I almost don’t want to do this. But we’re so bewildered by this flier we got in the mail yesterday that we felt the discussion need to expand beyond of our living room.



I think there’s a double negative in there if you count the red cross. There’s a tacked on adverb of approximation. And I’m not sure what the heart is actually “hearting.”

The rest of the flier shows that its senders are attempting to have a certain insensitive word removed from Virginia’s State Code. Unfortunately, the outward design does not convey that message and the inside is equally hard to interpret.

There’s a word that describes how confusing it is. Ironically, though, I can’t think of it.

If you can't stand the heat then screw you

A previously unconsidered drawback to the design of the Nat’s new home is the complete lack of circulating air on the field or seating on the first level. My advice is if you walk from the metro into the stadium, don’t go to your seats. Just enjoy the game by circling around the main level because as soon you stop you will be murdered by hot. It’s too hot to enjoy baseball so you develop an absurd sense of ill-will toward the people sitting near you. You’re not sure how but the must be somehow stealing absorbing the cool air or breezes.

The Nats lost the game. I lost about5 liters of fluids. But there was one winner.



This is irrefutable proof that Teddy Roosevelt won the President’s Race. Look, there’s the ribbon around his curiously pregnant-looking waste. Unfortunately, that bastard Screech disqualified him for using motorbike. But I don’t see any bike in that photo.

If it’s in the rule book that a contestant can’t use any sort of mechanized device during the race, then have Teddy wipeout spectacularly like Puff Daddy did in that one video with Sting. Don’t disqualify him for being an opportunist. Teddy almost won at the last game we were at but was tackled by a a panther near the finish line, for some reason*. How is this allowed while mopeds are banned?

And I’ve grown to dislike Screech. It was nothing to do with his antics or suggestive dancing. I don’t like that he doesn’t take care of himself. I understand that little, sticky kids and drunk, sweaty adults are always hugging on him but the back of his head is filthy. A bald eagle’s head should be majestic and white, not mangy and grey. Also, I don’t like his antics or suggestive dancing.

*quality of video leads me to believe there was a second panther operating off screen. Notice how Teddy's head falls back and to the right.

"His death occurred moments after he had invited a friend to his home to play cards."

I just discovered this morning that JR Simplot died recently? Man.

In kind-of related news, I also discovered there was a giant penis on the lawn of the old Simplot place/governor's house last summer.

fake pretend.

So, as everyone on my twitter already knows (MGOD, DOUCHIEST INTERNET STATEMENT OF THE YEAR?!?!?!??!??!?!?!?!?! yes.) I somehow forgot my car in DC last night and then left my house all ready for work this morning and like, fake-pretended to open a fake-pretend car door in the air. This entire thing would be a lot funnier if I weren't sober. So I took public transportation into the city this morning. It took a long time, and made me really really cranky. Public transportation < magic of automobiles. It's the American way, Avent.


In other news:

- you can find me @ Iota tonight. That's in Virginia. Try driving your car there.

- how bout them Nats eh. Elijah Dukes can hit at least two baseballs, judging from last night. Things are looking up!

- on every music blog I read today: Adam Franklin (Swervedriver!) covers "Shine a Light" (Wolf Parade!) and it ends up sounding a lot like.... Bright Eyes. Or something. So..... there's that. Joseph Arthur's "Second Sight" is pretty good though, besides the weird (is that rap???) background noise. (I think it's on stereogum.)

- If you haven't seen me recently, my hair? Now you know.

- my brother is moving to chicago soonish. If you have good volunteer opportunities for Karma's Biggest Ass Kisser, send it my way. His VA Big Brothers/Big Sisters-Little League Coach of the Year-shelterer of homeless hippies-etc. card probably doesn't transfer to Illinois.



off to fake-pretend work the rest of my friday afternoon. enjoy the killer heat wave tomorrow.

It's like God waited until we got our free government stimulus money before delivering the rapture. On our heads.

Hi. Did we mention that our lives are a complete disaster?

There’s a good chance our house will have

A) blown away
B) a tree through the roof
C) mold growing on every surface
D) had the back half fallen into a sinkhole

when we get home tonight. If we get home.

The mold thing probably hasn’t happened yet. But since we found a large, wet crack in the wall this morning and water in the basement, two of the others are distinct possibilities.



Also, the tree in our front yard is bigger than this one I saw in Falls Church today and that place got seriously hammered. The dog probably got spooked by the thunder and ran away through the hole. But he won’t get far since he’s developed a limp for some reason.

The only positive thing about this whole day is that I don’t take the Orange Line anymore. When will people learn that public transportation does not work?

girlsrockdc dot org

If you are looking for a really awesome volunteer opportunity, may i suggest. If not for a potential serious calendar conflict, I'd volunteer myself (not to teach, because I have no musical skill, but to like: handle the registration desk or make snacks one day or something.) I may contact about the street team/PR. Anyhoodles, this PIAB fully approves.

Another serious question: does Metro-are LARPING allow people to simply attend and watch? I am really into this idea. S. and I just spent 20 minutes going through the online Darkon gallery to decide which country we'd be a part of if we decided to participate. Mordom probably. Although Aqulonia looks scrappy & has a dog, Elidor has badass armor, and one country has a mascot of a polar bear wearing rapper bling, so I could get into that as well.

Dead serious, pls let me know. There's an upcoming battle in Burtonsville.

update

Mattos and I spent a chunk of this morning trying to decide if lesbian vampires or zombie strippers were more awesome (winner: zombie strippers on rollerskates.) Kind of related: a really stupid looking MTV movie about vampires is about to be released, and all Mattos could say about it was "OMG HOTTNESS CEDRIC DIGGORY!!!!"

Internet, I am calling out my nerdiest one of my nerdier friends.

That is all.