Set Phasers to Fail

(Let me preface this by saying that I once lived in an apartment addressed 1357 Lois Lane.)

In the case Star Wars v Star Trek, I have traditionally found in favor of Lucas. Star wars was always inescapable. But my only real exposure to the world of Roddenberry was through the terrifying reruns of the Star Trek cartoon on Nickelodeon. The color palate they used on the show featured a lot of harsh reds, oranges, and yellows and I was always a little uncomfortable watching it, for some reason. Seeking out the real show was not a high priority. And Star Trek didn’t feature action figures with easily swallowed tiny, plastic blasters.

I did get into TNG. So I do know a little something something about dilithium crystals and can hold my own with The G’s Trekkie coworkers. So when I passed this street sign in very rural Virginia a few days ago, I thought to myself “NERDS!”



Isn’t trillium from Star Trek? Isn’t it some mineral like dilithium or something? Maybe not, I can’t remember. It’s no glitterstim.

But the very next street sign was this.



Clearly, a family of geeks has settled in SW Virginia and named the streets after Star Trek. This has to be documented, the world must know.

But I dug around and couldn’t find anything. No references on the internet, no newspaper articles, no message board missives. What’s going on? Shouldn’t Trekkies be all over this shit? This would be a perfect setting for a Star Trek/Civil War re-enactment. Unless…

Doubt started to trickle in. This couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? There couldn’t be two Star Trek related street 30 yards apart in the middle of the boonies, could there? This had to be planned. By nerds, no less. I recognize their work.

Alas, the nerd was me. Trillium is in fact an obscure Star Trek mineral. But a quick wiki search show it’s also a beautiful flower. And Tribbles? They plagued Kirk in the classically campy episode 44 in “The Trouble With Tribbles." But according to a quick search of Montgomery County, VA public records, the Tribble family has also been living on Tribble Road for 30+ years.

So there isn’t some nerd paradise outside of Christiansburg full of contraction-less androids and rubber-suited aliens. It’s just full of chickens.

OF NOTE

GG2R

Sports Authoritarianism

Of all my grandfathers’s grandchildren I am the only boy. That makes me his favorite grandson. And it means that when attention is doled out, I always receive something different. For instance, a few years back all the granddaughters received sizable cash gifts. I got his 1986 Jeep Cherokee with wooden side panels and a sticker on the back that alerted police officers that he was a member of their law enforcement fraternity. (Although pulled over several times, I never received a ticket driving that car.)

At some point in the mid-80’s he traveled to Asia and brought back gifts. The girls got fancy umbrellas or something. I got an olive green, brimmed cap with a plastic red star on the front. I loved that hat and wore every moment outside of school. I wore it as bike helmet. It was sweat stained. The cheap stitching rotted until the lining fell out. It was a gloriously ridiculous hat for a 12-year-old to wear.

One summer day, I was wearing it at the local comic book shop when one of the older CBGs who liked to harass the young kids grilled me about the hat’s meaning. It was clear I had no idea. And it was also clear that even after he explained to me what it represented, I still had no idea. What does a pre-teen know of communism and the Vietnam War? (Except it’s where Frank Castle learned his trade. And Iron Man a little bit too. ) But I did know that this guy had a problem with my hat.

Since this guy got off on hassling kids and I didn’t want to be a target, I stopped wearing it to the comic book store. Eventually, I stopped wearing it altogether. And then mom got a hold of the thing and threw it away. So long novelty Chairman Mao Tze Tung Revolution Communist Red Army Cap: size 58cm.

For me, Communism died that day.


-


Last weekend I went shopping for a new pair of running shoes. This routine outing quickly became a chore since I seemingly have the most common shoe size in the region and all my option were hideous or out of stock. Eventually, I made my way to the Sports Authority on Jeff Davis Highway where I again struck out in the shoe the department. But in the hat department I found this:



Strictly from a marketing point of view, this seems an odd product for Adidas to sell. I get that Soviet nostalgia will manifest itself in a variety of ways. And I get that most people walking by this aisle won’t take a second look. But it can be argued that several million people died under the image on this cap. (To drive the point home, CCCP was printed on the back) The hammer and sickle still represents something powerful to a lot of people so I can see it being used to deliver some artistic message. But from Adidas? At Sports Authority? I’m not seeing how that works.

i feel like one word could describe this whole post

Remember when I went to see the Jonas Brothers that one time? It wasn’t because I wanted to see the Jonas Brothers; it was because I was a chaperone for the daughter of a friend. The Verizon Center can be a dangerous place for an impressionable young woman and I also wanted to see the Jonas Brothers.

Anyway, I’ve become some kind of sounding board about all things middle school for this girl’s mother. The latest being her use of the word “fail” to describe anything that she doesn’t like. Since, it took me nearly 45 minutes to explain to my father what a LOLCat was, I decided to just cut to the chase and say it was new, harmless slang. The mother seemed satisfied.

The girl was also recently allowed to have a cell phone with the condition that it was to undergo random spot checks to make sure all photo and texting was “sext”-free. Apparently, kids like sex these days. My friend can demand the phone at any time and conduct a detailed inspection. Unfortunately, her daughter had taken to locking the phone when it was not in her immediate possession in an effort to stymie scrutiny after she had goes to bed.

But what four letter word could a 12 year old possibly use a password? Perhaps one that she had been recently using to describe everything she disliked. I don’t know, something like FAIL?

Oh yeah. It was FAIL.

Do seventh graders get irony?


-----

On a related note, the students from our local private boarding school have taken to doing their drugs on Sunday afternoons in the alley behind our post office. Being the weekend, no one’s back there except pot smokers and this guy walking his dog.

I want to call the police. Not because I’m uncool or a narc or want them to get in trouble. In fact, I hope they don’t get caught. I just want to watch them run. Being chased by the cops is an important part of growing up. And I want to be part of that, for them.

Remove the hat, son

I went to a lily-white-assed high school in the suburbs. Before arriving freshman year, we warned that there was a new principal and that’d we better be watch out. Rumor had it he used to teach at an inner city school and didn’t take any crap. It was the kind of school that Morgan Freeman would the principal at. People got shot for their Starter jackets. And he was suspended by the city superintendent for refusing to allow an accused rapist to return to class before his trial. He also was supposed to walk with a limp because he hassled some gang members so they threw him out of a window for revenge.

Surprisingly, all the rumors turned out to be true. He was a hard-assed principal from a bad-assed high school. Fortunately for him, though, he faced none of those issues when he arrived in the suburbs. Besides the normal frustrations presented to any high school principal, the only ongoing issue he dealt with resulted from his No Hat regulation. We were told this was a residual policy relating to his views on gang colors but it meant that any hat worn in the hallways was to be confiscated. Naturally, it became a game.

By the time senior year rolled around we’d become each other’s foils. Let’s just say he did not stand for sthe leniencies that I was afforded by some of the teachers and coaches. But the levels of animosity never reached the levels of his old school. The most abuse he received has a few bad impersonations. Also, I published an underground newspaper mocking his policies that resulted in the senior class thinking school was canceled for the day.

He left the year after I graduated and took a job at a school in Maryland. The company line was that he wanted to be closer to his family. I think he missed me and wanted a new challenge.

It seems he got one. According to the police, two students at his new school were a day away from breaching a gas main, throwing a bomb into his office and blowing up the building.

Fucking amateurs.

this is what we talk about when we talk about love

The N: The word "orgy" is overused as a descriptive. I don't think you should be allowed to use that word unless you actually PARTICIPATED in an orgy. Or in, you know, an orgy of blood.

The G: What?

The N: You know. Like either been in an orgy-orgy, or been involved in some kind of serious mass-murdering in a small confined space. Like an elevator. A violence orgy! You can only use the word "orgy" if you have ever participated in one of those two situations. Those are the only times the term "orgy" would be okay.

The G: You know, your life rules get weirder as you get older. Also, you're picturing elevator doors opening and blood streaming out right now, aren't you?

The N: Yes.


This conversation later devolved into what it would be like to have Tony Shaloub star in a remake of "The Shining", but by that point I was laughing too hard to really remember how that came up.

Not with a bang but an oink

Here we go.

It was pretty fancy too. With embroidery and shit.

what to buy for the woman you hate

Holy wows. Did you know that Jane Seymour was designing t-and-a jewelry for Kay? Yikes. "If your heart is open, love will always find it's way in."

Apparently the way in is through your diamond butt.

Vegas Roundup #2456

i think last week was my 17th or 20th time in Las Vegas, I've lost count. It will serve you well to know that the most interesting thing that happened there was an IM I had with the DCeiver about "bloggers lounges", my ideas for JMU/LARPing-themed fantasy novels, and the price of Lauren Conrad jersey dresses.

At least my flights were on time and I didn't get stuck in Memphis with a bunch of cowboy-hat wearing Frenchmen this year!

I'm home now. We'll never speak of this again.

terms I am sick of: somali pirates, hipster grifters, teabagginses

Something I just told Amanda: too bad this didn't happen in the autumn, right? Because Halloween in Brooklyn, oh holy god, can you imagine? It would be like Thomas Crowne Affair on the streets, except with bad sharpie tattoos and black pixie wigs.

I'm more of a Scrabble guy, anyways.

A good thing and bad thing happened on the Metro today. The bad happened when I lost my umbrella and got drenched. The good happened when I saw a man in a tri-cornered cap, also drenched, on his way to protest the underhanded way in which the British East India Company attempted to circumvent the importation of black market Dutch tea and the tax that resulted from the trade. Or so I gathered from his incoherent rambling.

Best of all, though, was the realization that as I hustled through Union Station to catch the Metro was that I had magically stumbled into the US Monopoly Championship!

Behold! Weirdos!



I paused for a few seconds to take a picture or two before I realized that watching other people playing Monopoly is as boring as you’d imagine. But it did settle an important argument.



There are three incredible things in the above picture. First, EEEEEP! It’s the real life Monopoly Man with mustache and monocle! Monocle! Second, on the right, is the 2009 Championship trophy featuring. It’s pretty boring, you ask me. Real Baltic Avenue. But on the right is the original trophy for the first Monopoly Championship. It’s got heft. It’s got the Monopoly board etched into it. And most importantly, it’s got the race car on top.

And we all know race car = bad ass.

Sounds like Eureka? Come on.

Things that make me a good American.

1. I’m lazy
2. I’m fat
3. I don’t know dick about our local elections.

This wouldn’t be a bid deal except we live in Alexandria and our fine city holds a local election about twice a month. I’m not sure if they are special elections or primary elections or city council elections or what. I just know they happen all the time and you never hear about them until the weekend before because about 1000 placards appear in the medians of King Street and the roads leading to the polling place.



Like this weekend. I assume there’s an election tomorrow since these things are everyplace. Or maybe next month. Who knows? There are at least 25 people running for some sort of office in Alexandria but it’s not the first Tuesday in November so who cares? And there are so many of these placards with so many names they become irrelevant because you can’t remember any of them. With two exceptions…

1. Del Pepper – Based on the name, I’m assuming Del is a Southern, overweight Sheriff constantly whipping his bald head with a red handkerchief. In reality, she’s a lady. A fancy lady. She also, as far as I can tell, runs in every election Alexandria holds.

2. This guy.



This is Rich and he’s and independent candidate. As an independent candidate he has no party backing and a limited budget. So limited, in fact, that he can’t afford signs with printing on both sides. That means you have to drive all the way down the street and make a u-turn when you can’t believe you saw a sign with just a picture of some dude’s face and his first name. Or maybe it's his economic status.

Obviously, the point of these sign is to draw attention to the candidate via a 6 second drive-by so that the motorist can make an informed decision when they get to the voting booth. That is why this display, although clearly light-hearted, is incredibly effective. A guy named Rich is running for City Council and the election is May 5. Done. Like I said, I have no clue who else is running because all the other sign blockin' out the scenery and breakin' my mind. It’s wallpaper.

So if I were going to vote next month (which I won’t because voting is for suckers) I’d vote for whats-his-name. The guy on the signs with the face. Looks like Jared from Subway and wants to sync all the city’s red lights. God. What’s his name again? Del Peppers, maybe?

dp

Mattos sent me a link to Dirty Projectors "Stillness is the Move," and it's great for real. For some reason it reminds me of what the Jets could be like today, if Elizabeth got real into funky stuff and helium.

God updates in gmail status for Easter

He also thinks Twitter is a sin.


Which it is.

mj

if you aren't reading my pal mike's listening & talking blog you are missing out on some solid musical musings.

Spoiler Alert: When Ross was in China he started dating some chick

SPOILER ALERT: I’m going to tell someone they can go fuck themselves at the end of this post.



It usually takes me days to write on this stupid blog. For instance, I started the Frank Herzog/State of Play post a month ago. I usually get distracted by old Law and Order re-runs like the one that’s on now about Ice-T busting up a meth lab in a day care center. But right now I’m responding to something I just heard on NPR 2 minutes ago.

They got dozens of complaints yesterday after they reported that Kal Penn is leaving House to work for the Admin now that his character had committed suicide. Folks were upset since they had Tivoed the show and the Penn offing had been ruined before they had a chance to watch. They complained that NPR (see comments)should have prefaced the report with a ******SPOILER ALERT****8***.

That’s wrong. Spoiler alerts expire the moment the television show ends. They are extended as a courtesy by those who have special access to a scripted show’s outcome and could subsequently ruin that for other people. If you choose to record the show to watch later you cannot expect all discussion of that show to be put on hold at your convenience. The only exception is for sporting events or other shows which air live.

Those who still tape shows with analogue recording devices came to this realization about 20 years ago. Currently, DVR saturation is only at 27% in the United States. I would need it to cross into the 60%-70% area before I could accept the type of spoiler alert demands that are currently being requested. If Entertainment Weekly or TV Guide or another one of our television ethics gatekeepers wants to establish a statute of limitations of, say, 3 days before we are allowed to talk about things that have already happened, then I will live with it. Until then, however, I maintain the embargo ends when the credits roll.

In addition, NPR is primarily a news outfit. They report the news. And even though it’s fluffy as shit, Kal Penn moving in to the Old Executive Office Building qualifies as news. Who cares if we have to find out that his character had to kill himself to make that happen. It’s a goddamned TV show.

Bottom line, I have no sympathy for those who get upset when their shows are ruined by public discussion after the show is over.

In fact, those people can go fuck themselves.




(EDIT FROM THE G: WAIT KAL PENN OFFS HIMSELF?????!?!???!?!??!! I hate you so hard.)

bob dylan didn't have this to sing about

next on my reading list. excerpts on Jane dark's sugar high

great things, not-so great-things

- art

- dinosaurs

- i am so sick, seriously. my head is close to quitting and just rolling off my shoulders and finding some other body that will treat it nicely.

The Exorcist Stairs ruined it for everyone

If you’re a movie maker filming in DC and want a seedy looking backdrop but don’t want to make you studio-insured actors travel to a part of the city with a NE, SW or SE in its address, you could do worse than sending them to where K Street dead ends under the Whitehurst freeway. It’s dingy, there’s graffiti about and the road kind of peters out under Key Bridge and turns into the Capital Crescent Trail. If you throw some crate palates around and maybe a shopping cart or two you’ve got yourself a hobo’s paradise right there in lowest Georgetown.

I know that No Way Out was filmed there. As was an episode of Scarecrow and Mrs King, for all you old-timers. Several others, too, which I’ll have to look up. True Lies, maybe? The filming equipment for the stupid boat explosion was staged there since it’s also the parking lot for the Potomac Boat Club. It’s practically the Vasquez Rock formation of the East Coast.

And then there’s the trailer for State of Play. It looks like the whole movie was shot there.



Murder! Intrigue! Parking Garage! Looks like that poor girl got killed in a pretty scary part of DC. Except it’s ten feet from a rowing club that has a 3 year waiting list and requires a $50 deposit to apply. Also, you’re in Georgetown, during the day and Booeymongers is catering. (To save money, the movie makers even flipped the shot for the night scenes so you can’t tell there are million dollar townhouses just off frame.)



Clearly the message to visitors is don’t come to Washington unless you want to get executed is some alley-looking place. You know, we were once the murder capital of the world until we outsourced our killings to Baltimore and Richmond. All we need to reclaim the top spot is more dead tourists. Like you.

But this post isn’t about DC movie set locations.

The post is about this.



That’s obviously Reindeer Games on the right. But th eguy on the left is none other than the former voice of the Washington Redskins Frank Herzog. IMDB says he played a judge in one of those teen dancing movies and “Frank” in National Treasure 2: Watch Us Ruin Dan Brown’s Newest Book. It looks like he’s developing a nice little film career in the days since he was unjustly kicked out of the radio booth. For all those casting directors out there, Frank is especially effective as “generic person of authority.” Or in this case, “Larry Craig.”

Just saying. Dude looks like Larry Craig.

guh

I looked into fitness/nutrition plans online. (I refuse to say "diet" because even if that's what I need probably, dieting is stupid and i hate math and all diets seem to revolve around "numbers" and "counting" and beauty ideals and fuck that. All I really want is some sort of robot to email me a daily reminder that I reconsider mindlessly eating an entire bag of M&Ms for lunch, and continuing to act like I have been lately may result in a one-way ticket to Scurvyville.)

Anyhoodles, fitness plans and crap out there on the www? They all want you to have goals. My goal isn't to lose 10 pounds or gain muscle tone, it's to not get diabetes. Goal: I'd like to keep both my feet.

Related: does anyone have a good workout DVD they can recommend? I do actually own 2 workout tapes (yes, tapes. Eric Nies the Grind Workout and Fabio's Workout) so I am obviously very serious about this sort of thing.

I want something that isn't too long (can be done in the evening in 30 minutes or less) and doesn't involved jumping (this is more practical than me just being lazy and white and earth bound - TV is in a basement with relatively low ceilings) and isn't some of my husbands more questionable Billy Banks taibo army bootcamp boxing whatevers. Additionally I have a bum neck, so if I can avoid becoming paralyzed I'd appreciate it. Also, no techno. And if CatAn tries to tell me lies about how in two weeks I can be doing headstands through the magic of yoga, well.... I don't even know. She obviously has never seen me attempt to be coordinated.

Thoughts? HELP ME SAVE MY FEET.

The leporine Pinocchio

The story of the Velveteen Rabbit: do you know it? Without looking it up, here is my 20 year old recollection.

Some rich Victorian boy has a bunch of fancy toys but the one he loves most is his boring, old, stuffed velveteen rabbit. But then he gets sick with the scarlet fever and all his toys are taken away because of germs. When he gets better and wants his pouncey rabbit back the doctor says no because the only way not to get the fever again is by burning all your old stuff. However, before the toy can go into the fire pit, somehow magic makes it come alive. It runs off into the woods and marries Hobbes in an arboreal, make-believe civil union. The boy still loves the rabbit but his parents won’t let him see it because of its lifestyle choice. As the boy grows up, he gradually forgets about the rabbit until one day he’s walking in the woods with his son and the Giving Tree falls on them both and kills them. Teh end.

The above may be several childhood stories running together. None the less, it’s like our house this weekend. Except replace rabbit with every toy, replace fire pit with washing maching/bleach and replace scarlet fever with 30 fluid gallons of eye and nose mucus.

Did I mention I rowed in high school and we discussed this exact scenario at great length?

While it makes great TV, the assassination that seems to be taking place in the Potomac explosion video seems unnecessarily complicated. First of all, those shells only weight about 55 pounds and there are few places to hide explosives. Possibly under the seat’s slide but it’d still be noticeable when the rower lifted the shell over his head or into the water. Some sculls have small ports in the bow and stern but unless the charge was incredibly light one could tell that the boat was off-balance fairly quickly.

Secondly, the security at the Potomac Boat Club is pretty good. The one street entrance has a combination locked door and the windows have metal grates. There are always people hanging around during the day and some no-goodnik messing with someone else’s boat would raise alarms. Rowers are a naturally suspicious people, the result of being mocked by football players in high school. There are a few public boats at the PBC you could booby trap without drawing notice but there is no guarantee you target would take them out on the water.

It makes more sense for a sniper to take the rower out from the shore. There is plenty of cover on both the DC and Virginia banks and there are lots of ways in and out. The assassin could even wait for one of the planes on approach to Reagan if they wanted to hide the rifle’s report. But if they wanted to keep the killing dramatic, it would be more effective to row by in another boat and throw a stick dynamite than to hide a bomb in the boat. I assume that’s what the female rower is doing in the video. Also, underwater mines would work too.

Or, since most rowers are also urban bike riders and this is happening in Washington, an assassin could just run the target over with a car. I don’t think that’s illegal in DC.

Which reminds me – you know how the taxi’s in DC say Washington Cab Ass’n or something like that on the door? Wouldn’t it be awesome if Ass’n stood for assassins and not association? That would make some great television watching. Not some crappy boat blowing up some stuck up rowing nerd from Georgetown working at a K Street law firm for jerks.


Update: per Tom's suggestion...

Torpedoes were considered. However, that stretch of the river would extraordinarily difficult to navigate by submarine. When the city built river walls decades ago, it greatly disrupted the natural depositing on sand and silt along the banks and during times of little rainfall, you can see how shallow the river is on the Virginia side. Additionally, while the Three Sisters formation is the most obvious rock hazard, the District side is dotted with large, underwater stones.

An air delivered torpedo would also be difficult to pull off. Even if the pilot was able to avoid detection due to the FAA’s Prohibited Area no-fly-zone around the Potomac, they’d have to thread the needle under Key Bridge to deliver the torpedo.

ugh

things that I am cranky about today:

- salad bars. I want to like them but hey guess what, they are gross. I just had to walk out of a potential lunch place after some ladydemon with shirley jones hair ravaged her lungspew all over the green peppers I was about to consider consuming. Also gross is the concept of a "sneezeguard," because it doesn't work and someone has to clean that too. This complaint comes to you from someone who regularly finds herself wrist-up in another human being's feces, so take me seriously.

- i can't decide if i dislike st patricks day more, or the people who walk around saying "MAN I HATE ST PATRICKS DAY." I have decided I am so neutral on this hotbed issue I might as well bore myself to sleep right here at my desk.

- people who never use capitalization. just kidding.

- it took me til noon to realize i was dressed like someone's portly 65 year old mother.

Handcuffed

The N: …all the way to the end zone for a touchdown.
The G: How long did it take for the ambulance to get there?
N: For what?
G: The guy’s ankles. You said he got his ankles broke.
N:
G: Was he okay?
N: It’s a figure of speech. It means he got juked.
G: Oh. Because you seemed pretty cavalier about a guy breaking his ankles.


It seems half of this nation’s population has never heard of this. Ladies, it means he got faked out so bad that his ankles couldn’t handle the sudden change of direction.

She got spirit. Yes she do.

Spirit Week in high school makes sense. Over five days, a loathing for those punks at Blank High School and their non-popped collars is officially cultivated by the teachers and administration and nerds on the student government. Dude, we’re going to pwn those nameless jerks on the football field on Friday. They’re going to pay for being exactly like us except not living in our district. And if that doesn’t work, the parade float we unveil at halftime will certainly take them down a peg. Then we’re going to drink peppermint Schnapps out of travel size Scope bottle and dry hump our girlfriends after the homecoming dance. The rug burns will be our red, bumpy badges of hatred. That’s how we do it at Our High School!!! RRRAAAHH! HEAD BUTT!!!

But Spirit Week in middle school makes no sense. The kids at the rival school are people we already know from elementary school and will see again in high school. And soccer is the closest thing you’ll get to a homecoming game and it’s at 3 in the afternoon. The guys’ team probably stinks anyway and the players in the county are a little intimidating because they already have wispy mustaches and are Hispanic.

Or so it was at my middle school. To compensate for our pathetic sports teams the school planned a week’s worth spirit-lifting activities. They were generally things that would get you in trouble during the rest of the year but harmless enough to not allow distraction. For example –

SALAD DRESSING WEEK!!!?!

Monday - Thousand Island (Caribbean/Hawaiian)
Tuesday- Ranch (Cowboy)
Wednesday - Blue Cheese (Blue)
Thursday - French (Berets and/or fashionable clothes)
Friday - House Dressing (School Colors which included blue again)

Ha! Salad dressing. So fun and creamy!

This wasn’t actually what my middle school did, but I can’t recall all of them. The only day I can remember was Opposite Day. And I remember Opposite Day because Opposite Day became a MAJOR INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT.

The design was simple - boys dress up like girls and girls like boys. Get it? The opposite of how we would normally dress. Genius. Class starts, girls roll up wearing football jerseys and baseball caps. Boys come in pink shirts and head bands. We had so much spirit.

But someone had an uptight parent. And that parent employed their God-given American right to ruin it for everyone by calling a local radio show and declare that their child’s school was encouraging cross-dressing. It quickly got absurd with a bullet. By the end of the show, our fair academy was a den of perverts and transsexuals. News crews and reporters showed up during recess to get pictures of the 7th Grade Degenerates.*

Teachers suddenly ushered us inside. All gender-specific clothing had to be removed even if that meant sitting in our stinking gym uniforms for the rest of our classes. At the end of the day, parents hustled kids to their cars, with their jackets pulled over their heads like a common jailhouse perp-walk. It was a disaster. The rest of Spirit Week was canceled. I’m unsure if they ever hosted it again.

But that was at my middle school. It seems Spirit Week is still alive in well at some schools.



At least I hope so. It’d be a shame if she dresses like this every day. Or awesome.



*I bet you think that I’m going to say that this is a good band name. Wrong. It’s a crappy band name. I left an asterisk because a few years later, the Post ran article about kids at my old middle school were exchanging favors for blowjobs.

Bah to the bah

Tommy’s a bit off base here. Had he joined his friends at the theater, he would have know that the 3 Doors Down “Citizen Soldier” pre-trailer commercial has been abandoned by the National Guard. I imagine that a few months into the campaign some polling determined it to be ineffective and the whole thing was jettisoned.

Their findings…

1. The word “soldier” does not portray a strong enough image
2. 3 Doors Down is too alternative.
3. Where the fuck is NASCAR?

It was back the drawing board. So if Tom had made the trip to the multiplex to see Zack Snyder direct the exact same sex scene from 300 except it takes place in a flying owl skull he’d get a completely different National Guard pitch. “Soldier” has been replaced with more aggressive “Warrior.” 3 Doors Down and their complicated metaphors have been canned for the decidedly straightforward trashcan simplicity of Kid Rock. And since the NG is already paying to put their logo on Dale Jr’s car they might as well throw some CGI NASCAR in there too. Who cares if it has nothing to do with whatever story they’re trying to tell. It’s NASCAR, hon.

But I don’t want to sound critical of the new promotion. America needed a new promotion. The old one was so incredibly flawed that any self-respected theatre owner should have refused to play it. It attempted to link today’s National Guard with some of our military’s more successful and non-controversial campaigns. Hey high school kids? You know that kick-ass scene at the beginning Saving Private Ryan you watched on TNT this weekend? Dudes were all National Guard. And remember when a ragtag group of Americans beat the Confederate Red Coats during Revolutionary War in the mountains of California by running through the woods dodging mines and exploding cannon fire? Yeah baby, all National Guard.

Creative licenses are taken with 90% of the posts on this blog. But it’s always irked me that these stupid commercials show Revolutionary War soldiers dodging exploding cannonballs. Cannonballs don’t explode when they hit the ground. In fact, cannonballs don’t explode when they hit anything. They are solid metal balls. Shells, on the other hand, are hollow metal casing filled with an explosive powder that detonate when their fuses expire. But they weren’t used against the US until the War of 1812 and the still don’t explode on impact. And they weren’t fired form cannons.

So as convoluted as the new National Guard commercial is, at least it no longer contains wild historical inaccuracies. And this will no doubt be the only time the American education system will benefit from more Kid Rock.

who watches the watchmen? if it's a 3:00 matinee, the answer is: these guys

behind us in the theatre:

"you know who writes autobiographies? total douchebags, that's who. they're all like 'oooooh, we're sooooo interesting. our lives are sooooo awesome we're not even gonna wait for anyone to ask us about them, we're just gonna tell you whether you want to hear it or not!"


summary: first ten minutes/opening credits best part of the entire film, rorschach amazing, nite owl dan pretty good, silk spectre lame, adrian veidt pencil necked and annoying beyond belief. was that a lisp?????????????

Alcohol tolerance: 10

In response.



By the mid-80’s, the Marvel Universe was awash in mysticism. Below are a few of the more infamous examples...


1. A group of nine heroes and NPR Talk of the Nation host Neal Conan become trapped in a Dallas high-rise trying to prevent the Native American spiritual embodiment of mischief from destroying reality. The demon’s magical activities cause dinosaurs, cavemen, and a regiment of Vietnam-era soldiers to become displaced in time and many escaped into the city. After a prolonged battle, the heroes force the spirit into a collapsible extra-dimensional gateway by sacrificing their own lives but are magically resurrected moments later in Australia by Merlin’s immortal daughter. Conan survives and broadcasts the act of selflessness to the world.

2. When a mugger dons a magical amulet he is possessed by an ancient sorcerer who uses his powers to transform New York City into a medieval dystopia. Most of the city’s residents are unable to remember their former lives and those with super-powers are hunted and killed. A group of deformed outcasts emerge from underground tunnels and terrorize the population until their former leader and an African woman who controls the weather join forces with a 1000-year-old vampire to steal the amulet. A different sorcerer and a teenage Russian magically create a rift in time that allows an android from the future to kill the mugger and prevent the transformation from ever happening.

3. After a cosmic entity possesses a powerful telepath, her clone is distorted into a magical Goblin Queen who leads a demonic invasion of Manhattan. Many of the city’s heroes are tainted by evil spirits and, except for the few made of organic metal which is a naturally resistant to magic, do little to stop the assault. The tide is turned only after the same teenage Russian opens a portal into a parallel universe and casts the horde out of the city. As a consequence, she de-ages into a seven-year-old. The residents of New York awake from the onslaught and the ones who have not been devoured by demons assume they have experienced a mass hallucination.

4. In a moment of frustration, a crippled surgeon cracks his walking stick onto a boulder and is surprised to find himself transformed into the Norse God of Thunder. His adopted brother becomes jealous of his abilities and uses the enchantment afforded to him by his Ice Giant father to turn the surgeon into a giant, hammer-wielding frog.


Like much of the criticism directed at Dr. Strange, readers became dissatisfied with this Deus Ex Machina aspect of Marvel’s storytelling. By the early 90’s, most of the most of the villains employed magic where quietly cast aside in favor of those whose powers were based on some sort of scientific explanation, no matter how absurd. It’s why Dr. Doom, who often relied of mysticism, fell out favor after being the Marvel Universe’s primary antagonist for most of the 70’s. Conversely, characters like Venom, who powers originate via alien biology, or Apocalypse, who can mentally manipulate his body’s own atomic structure and preaches survival of the fittest, gained in popularity.

Of course there are several classic plotlines from the mid-80s, but most readers still roll their eyes or groan when these mystically based story arcs are referenced. Similarly, time will show that the charade of Iron Man’s exponentially growing powers should be treated the same way.

Marvel’s biggest mistake in this embarrassment was allowing the readers to submit a parallel ranking next to their own. During the short run of the trading cards, each character’s statistics would have been collected by the company’s expert unit of scholars and historians. While small variations in some categories could be expected as the technology in Iron Man’s suit improved or the story line evolved, any dramatic outliers in the accepted levels of his powers would be smoothed out in the evaluation process.

The voting public, on the other hand, are morons. The last ten years has seen Iron Man became central to the Marvel Universe and this prominence has evidently led to the swelling of abilities. He was appointed the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., played a major role in the Civil War, indirectly caused the death of Captain America and was accused of cowardice at best and treason at worst during the Skrull Invasion. And then there was the movie. The resulting attention meant Marvel was obligated to reconcile the wildly inflated scores submitted by the public with the system they had maintained for several decades. In other words, they were forced to round up.

So where does that leave us today? Iron Man is now as smart as Reed Richards, as strong as the Hulk, as fast as the Silver Surfer and can project energy as well as Galactus. He’s also more durable the physical manifestation of Death itself and will never lose in combat since only the universe itself has better fighting skills. Welcome to Marvel Comic’s steroids era.

And what happens in 20 years? The Civil War will be a classic story, the Skrull Invasion will be forgotten and this near-invincible Iron Man will be considered as laughable as a Thunder Frog.

Here lies Walter Fielding. He bought a house, and it killed him.

more house renovations to commence shortly. be prepared to hate this blog (again), if you don't already. given our track record in uh... life... this will be a stunning success if the bathtub doesn't come crashing through second floor all the way to the basement. I don't know what the odds on this are, but I'm headed to Vegas in a month (again) and seriously if there isn't some sort of betting system set up on "Pyggie Catastrophes" in that city by now, there should be. Remind me to look into this.

The obesity epidemic claims another victim

A few weeks ago, I got tricked into attending a bachelor party for a peripheral friend. None of the planners were feeling particularly creative, so we spent some of the night slumming it at the ESPN Zone. Yes, I know, the same ESPN Zone where the premier source of entertainment for 30-year-olds involves throwing under inflated footballs through plywood cutout and eventually each other’s groins.

The Zone also features a seizure inducing amount of other sports video games. But unlike the penny arcades I used go to, the machines don’t accept legal US tender. Here, you're required to purchase a flimsy plastic card filled with invisible game credits that quickly slip away into the shame-filled night.

I still have the card with a few credits left on it. And since today is a snow day and this thing is taking up room in my wallet, I thought I’d burn through the last of the credits by shooting beams of light with a tiny plastic shotgun at digital antelope. It makes me feel like a big man.

Or that was the plan.

Until I ran into this guy…



Apparently the Nationals have redesigned Screech. And, um, we need to talk about what’s clearly going on here.

1. Jacked and toned torso
2. Ill-proportionatd/scrawny legs
3. New, aggressive looking beak
4. Giant head
5. The rumors he spent the off-season in the DR with A-Rod’s cousin

OK. I’m not the type of guy who makes wild accusations. I mean, I was a college athlete. The pressure to legally or illegally push your body a little further than what can be naturally achieved in the weight room is promoted everywhere. And we are in a new area of baseball.

It’s only March 2nd but none of the news coming out of Nationals spring training is positive. Is it really the right time to cast off Screech’s Babe Ruth image in favor of one that’s a little more Miguel Tejada? Hell, that could be Nook Logan under all the fur. He’s got to get back to the big leagues somehow.





On the plus side, though, the new Screech isn't completely filthy.

Snnnkt

If a break-dancing giant in a featureless William Shatner mask can teach us anything, it’s that America still leads the world in the exportation of its only valuable resource – pregame player introductions. Ladies and gentlemen, Sport is War and in the 21st century we can’t have War without lasers, smoke, explosions and a hip-hop soundtrack. And blimps are back but they’re miniaturized and sponsored by Geico. And slam-dunking bears, also, if you live in Canada.

Of course, I have a problem with this. Pregame introductions are the opposite of what is needed at team sporting events. They inflate the individual and diminish the team. The players should run onto the field or court together (possibly through a giant, hand-painted paper sign, if the budget allows). The starters should head-butt a few times, the refs should blow the whistle, and then it’s game on.
But that’s not what this post is about. This post is about the only non-hip-hop/Metallica song they play during the pregame introductions. It’s the one that goes…

(A choir singing a foreign language, perhaps Latin)

DUN DUN DUN DUN
DUN DUN DUN DUN
DUN DUN DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNN DUUN DUN DN DN

(Repeat, louder and a pitch higher)

Or just listen to this.

Up until this weekend, I didn’t think this was a real song. Well, I knew it was a real song, but I was under the impression that hadn’t existed until Michael Bay needed a Gothic sounding trailer soundtrack. So somebody wrote it for him about 15 years ago. And even if the “melody” was some classical arrangement that I was too un-cultured to know about, at least the lyrics have to be fake. It works a little too perfectly for unimaginative editing. Set to this song, slow-motion alien gun fights with lots of diving look just as good as rapid-fire cuts of a robot disemboweling a coed’s system of mighty human organs.

Turns out I’m wrong on all counts. First of all, it’s a real song called O Fortuna. Second, the music was composed in the 1930’s. Finally, the lyrics are not only genuine Latin but they were written 800 years ago. And they’re kinda bad-ass:

Fate - monstrous
and empty,
you whirling wheel,
stand malevolent,
well-being is vain
and always fades to nothing,
shadowed
and veiled
you plague me too;
now through the game
I bring my bare back
to your villainy.

OK. The lyrics are officially the best part of this song. Any player or director wanting to introduce themselves or their movie should have the song re-recorded with the English translation. It displays the proper level of despair you intend to deliver upon your on-court/box office rival. But not for team sports. Only golf and maybe tennis

Or you can go the route that the makers of Wolverine movie. Make up some crappy sounding song and have a choir chant the name of the most popular man in the country, over and over. It’s about 35 seconds in.




O-BA-MA.

this is what I think about your stupid food blog for jerks.

Hope you all get raw oyster poisoning.

I even know what kerning means.

In college, I had one professor who was fanatic in his conviction that to understand any style of writing we had to accept that “THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE.” The result was two weeks of lectures on the importance of different typefaces. And it culminated with a final exam that required us to differentiate articles from the USA Today, LA Times, NT Times and Washington Post based on a single line of text. Not a single sentence, mind you, but one line from one column of text.

So, what was the message in the different typefaces? I have no frakking clue because that was over a decade ago. But to this day, I can identify newspapers based solely on their typefaces. If presented with a stack of 30 different papers, I can pull out the LA Times by looking at just the few lines that fall on an issue’s 1/8-inch fold. There is no productive use for this skill and I have only employed it for purpose of evil.

So it’s with great concern that I noticed an alteration in the Post today. The typeface for the columnists’ bylines has been changed.



A few years ago, the Post switched from the classic Century Old Style to something they call Postroman. I think it’s a font they invented themselves. The two are very similar except the latter looks like each letter was squeezed slightly from the sides. The result is a taller character with the serif either pushed closer toward the vertical or compressed into the empty space between the two letters. The old Op-Ed bylines were a larger, italicized and underlined version of the typeface they use for the normal articles.

The new typeface is Helvetica or some variation close to it. Boring old Helvetica. It’s squat and fat in the middle and there is a mile of white space between each letter. It’s also all in caps.

It’s not necessarily bad. But it looks like something cooked up at a Midwestern regional paper like the Des Moines Register in an effort to bring the look of the paper into the 1990’s. We live in a major metropolitan Capital city. The design of our newspaper should look forward into the future and not backwards. It should develop upwards toward the heavens and not forward into the future.

You know what's a good shovel ready project? Your grave.

Have you been listening to WTOP this week? I know you have because NPR is doing their pledge drive, and you don’t seem to be the type of girl who listens to Elliott or the Junkies. You're a lady and you pinch your cheeks if you want color. Only trollops use make-up. Have you heard on WTOP about these 300 houses in Virginia that need to boil their water because an 8 inch water main broke?

It’s not 300 households. It’s one household. It’s us. We have to boil our water before we can drink it because we live in the 15th century, and our water main was already made from lead and asbestos before it ruptured and got filled with cholera. We can’t wash our dishes in it. We can’t open our mouths when we shower. The dog can’t even drink out of the toilet so the dog is drinking bottle water. I have to keep the dog from eating old, random poop when we go for walks, but he’s drinking water out of a bottle like he’s some sort of burnt-up koala.

We had no water on Sunday, so neighbors were borrowing each other’s IDs and showering at the gym where they weren’t members. And showers are a really big deal in our neighborhood. Last October, when another pipe burst and it only effected one street, one of our neighbors allowed another to shower at her house. But later in November, after the shower-provider found out the shower-taker had voted for McCain, she went over to her house with itemized water bills and asked for a few dollars to cover the difference between the last two months.

Living several days without clean water would not be a big deal for us except 1) sacks of potatoes need water make their food and to be alive and 2) this same water main has BROKEN FOUR TIMES SINCE NEW YEARS! It’s surprising if we wake up and our car hasn’t collapsed into an eroding sinkhole.

So now our kitchen and fridge are filled with jugs of water which we will drink and gargle with until the pipes are clean again. We will bury whatever we have left in the back yard like good survivalists because this will surely happen again in the next few days. The supervisor of our giant street hole tries to keep our spirits up whenever anyone comes over to chat by joking that our pipes put the Ye Olde in Ye Olde Town Alexandria and that they were scheduled to be replaced this year but the city ran out of money. It seems they couldn’t get a proper loan that they could later default on like regular Americans.

our next kid's gonna be named "Waddy"

return of the World's Stupidest Morning Commute Conversations!



The N: (Points at the Department of Interior building*) That building is in the Art Deco style, you know.

Me: (Half asleep.) What? No. No it's not. Shut up. Let me sleep.

The N: IT IS. It is Art Deco.

Me: (Rubs eyes, squints.) No it's not.

The N: (Frantically attempting to search the web on his Blackberry while simultaneously driving, a practice that makes me murderous/enraged) It is. I can prove it. .... How do you spell "architecture?"





*(perhaps he really was thinking of "the Huff n'Puff's lobby" when he said Art Deco. Unrelated, some googling led me to learn the Interior building was one of the first to have a central vacuum cleaning system. Um, okay.)

halp

I am in such dire need for music, I can't even adequately explain the direness and neediness. Please, someone, for the love of humanity, give me some suggestions. If I listen to decades-old Mike Doughty in my car one more time I'm gonna chop my head off. Gah.

To illustrate: I'm wearing a blazer my mom gave me today, and it's probably a hand me down. Any ounce of with-it-ness that was once left in this decaying shell of a woman is rapidly vanishing. Go forth, music lovers! Make me cool!

This only works on one level, actually.

Happy Presidents' Day.

This works on so many levels

Happy Valentimes Day.

and for our next trick us assholes will hold a bake sale to raise money & awareness

No, really, how can you even stand it? How many times can I type "ZOMG" in a single mornings worth of IMs to Capps?

"Sam is probably aged between two to four going by her teeth and Bob is about four so they have a muchness with each other."

"They've really taken a shine to each other as they are both burnt and share the same burnt smell," he said.

No seriously you guys, I can't even take it at all. They have a "MUCHNESS" with each other? Usually I'm not into this much twee baby animal crap but oh hey look what motherhood can do to a fucking sucker. I'm probably dying? Let's go be Australian together.

file under crotchety old people

Oh Michael Beirut, it makes me weepy, too, to realize 19 yr olds no longer know the joy of surreptitious Beast shotgunning using dull exacto blades during marathon late-night studio sessions. Kids these days.

Ruh Roh

Listen. I know you’re gay. So does most everyone else. So you don’t need to act all weird around me just because we ran into each last Friday night on U street. You were clearly on a date. With a guy. I don’t see how it’s any of my business anyway. I’m more concerned with the $20 you still owe for the Super Bowl pool than I am gossiping about your personal life.

Besides, that attractive woman you saw me with? The one I was walking to my car with the intention of taking back to her place? That wasn’t my wife.

Dang.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRmkosOzQH8

Besides IM'ing the husband to question the feasibility of digging our own basement in houses we can't afford to purchase, and eating chicken and playing online Scrabble, I'm still spending copious amounts of time thinking about learning (re-learning???) how to play the trumpet. If you have a trumpet i can borrow and/or you are/know someone willing to give cheap lessons, please to be contacting me.

In other news, I had a fifteen minute phone conversation with my mother this morning re: the definition of the word "chagrin."

Who wants to go to Mount Vernon this weekend and hit on the reenactors?

Hmmm.



I have no doubt that Martha Custis was a stone cold fox. But this “portrait” based on some crazy formula that de-ages her 40 years has to be a little generous. Especially since there are several contemporary painting of her already available that demonstrate that she was a plenty attractive woman. She’s even got a little Selma Hayek thing going on at her wedding, which I’m totally on board with. There’s no need to truss her up with computers or algorithms or whatever they used.

Anyway, it’s commonly accepted that the hottest pre-Lucretia Garfield First Lady was Dolley Madison. Every school child knows that she was the first Presidential wife to serve ice cream in the White House. What’s less known is that all those calories went straight to her giant rack.

he was the perfect weapon, until he became the target

me: okay. so you have seen all the Bourne movies, right?

Amanda: of course

me: but i cant tell any of them apart ever really

Amanda: yeah

me: they are all good but all seem the same, so

Amanda: just pre- and post- the lady dying

me: im taking a poll. The N had never noticed this apparently.
there's one way to immediately tell its a Bourne movie without even seeing the characters or anything. do you know what that thing is? say yr flipping through TV channels...

Amanda: well they use that crazy type of photography, and the colors are very distinct

me: I can immediately say: THATS A BOURNE MOVIE...okay, sure that's true. but no

Amanda: although, now being employed in every action movie

me: right

Amanda: what is it?

me: miniblinds. or venetian blinds.
there are more window blinds per sq inch
in those movies
than in any other movie
i am currently collecting screenshots to prove this to the N
BLINDS BLINDS BLINDS
people peeking out of them
people peeking into them
people being thrown into them. etc

Amanda: you know... there really are
wow

me: yes whoever directed those movies loves window treatments

Amanda: haaaahahahhahahahha

update: title probably unnecessary

meat bloat.

fyi

Amazon free MP3s (via kottke.) Spotted Gaslight Anthem, Bob Mould, The Streets, Raveonettes, Dr. Dog, Apples in Stereo, Sloan, Rev Horton Heat, and.... Sepultura!

the Curious Case of why I'm going to murder the dog

A story I promised my friend D. Also, hi. This is the G. I am too stupid to figure out how to repost this under my account. Oh well.

So! A few Sunday mornings ago, my spouse heads out early in the morning. jonesing to grill (yes, grill, in winter) himself some meat. He buys a massive thing of pork and sets upon his weird little project.

EDIT – wrong. I bought a pork shoulder with the full intention of smoking in the Carolina fashion. The Cook’s Illustrated cookbook we got for Christmas had what appeared to be a great recipe. But I ran out of time so I saved it for a week. [EDIT EDIT: A WEEK? Eww?] While I have used charcoal in the past with much success, Cooks claimed to have developed a way to use a gas grill.

We are out of propane for the grill. All Home Depots in the area are also out of propane, which seems odd, right? Who's doing massive amounts of gas grilling in the winter, besides morons like us?

EDIT – According to customer service, the area's Home Depots receive their propane shipments on Mondays. It seems that Lowes is on the same schedule. And many men prefer grilling in the winter since it involves being outside of the house and away from their Queen of the Harpies wives.

After hours of searching and calling retailers, The N finally, oddly, stumbles upon a gas station selling propane.

EDIT – This was odd. And it was the only fortunate thing that happened all day.

After grilling said roast he then puts it in the oven Sunday evening to finish. BUT HE NEGLECTS TO TURN THE OVEN ON.

EDIT – This is so monstrously wrong it approaches libel. First, I smoked the shoulder for several hours outside. Then I moved it inside to finish in the stove, AS DEMANDED BY THE RECIPE. At some point, the stove turned off on its own. Under no circumstance was this my fault. Secondly, our stove’s functioning has been faulty since day one and is perhaps haunted.

So the roast SHOULD be finished by the time we go to bed Sunday night, but it's still raw. Genius decides that since we get up with our partying child every few hours anyway, he'll just stick the roast in the oven and check on it throughout the night. Basically: sleep-cooking. There's no way that plan could go wrong. But whatever, it gets the semi-raw slab of meat (which I haven't even seen yet because I refuse to cook for my family) out of the fridge.

Upside: our house smells like bacon.

EDIT – Anyone familiar with slow cooking pork knows that it takes several hours. It had already been cooking outdoors and absorbing a delicious smoky flavor for all of the Eagles’ game and part of the Ravens’ before it was moved. It was not raw.

And I don’t see a flaw in my logic. We have not reached REM sleep in 4 months. When was the last time you had an actually dream? Why not use nature’s most enraged biological sleep disruptor as a cooking aid?

The house does smell like bacon. That is not a problem. It adds at least $10,000 in resale value.

The roast is still not done at, let's say, 6 AM, because even though our stove is digital, apparently it's a challenge to set. Spouse puts the stupid 6 pound hunk of pig back in, cranks up the heat, and hog-fluid promptly splatters over the side of whatever vessel he was cooking this thing in and burns onto the oven, filling the entire house with billowing smoke and setting off the smoke alarm.

EDIT - Um. I don’t think the smoke alarm actually went off. The whole system’s been on a hair trigger lately so I pulled the battery before it got tripped and anyone woke up crying. By anyone, I mean you. Also, don’t expect to be woken up by the dog if a goat kicks over a lantern and sets the house on fire. He saw the first puff of smoke and took off for the hills.

(Note - my Jewish boss: "This story is part of the reason we don't eat pork.")

So, we get ready for work and leave for the day, drop spawn off at daycare, etc. As we're driving down Rt 50, miles from our house and a good 45 minutes into our morning commute, the N casually mentions the pork was too hot to put in the fridge. So he left it in a paper bag in the sink.

EDIT – AGAIN, I was following the recipe. I wasn’t going to put a steaming hott pork shoulder into the fridge. I don’t care how good your crisper is, everything is going to wilt. And I left it in the tray, which I put in a paper bag (as directed), put the whole thing on a cutting board and placed it in the sink. I don’t see an issue here, your worshipfulness. As for leaving it exposed to the elements– IT’S A SMOKED HAM – it’s how meat was preserved for thousands of years before Nikola Tesla stole Freon from Prometheus and invented your precious refrigerator. It’s how George Washington Carver did it. It’s how Emily Brontë did it. It’s how the Nabob does it.

. . .


If you will, please imagine the look I gave him at this point. I think you can imagine it since it’s the look he deservedly receives 3 times daily.

A discussion EDIT – lecture follows about his poor judgment, seeing as we have a dog who is brain damaged (probably) and ill-trained (definitely) and yet more cunning then we give him credit for and will obviously consume the entire fucking roast. The N insists there is no way he will get into the sink. I bet him money and tell him, if he you know, has time during the day, maybe he should swing home for a few minutes to make sure I am always right.

EDIT – There is no way the dog can get into the sink. The counter top is too high and the sink is too deep. The only way he could possibly reach it is if pushes a chair over from the dining room and stands on it. That takes dog wits the likes of Ruff or Beethoven or Air Bud. Our dog does not have those wits. There is no reason to go home early. When we arrive tonight, there will be nothing waiting for us other than a sleeping dog and tasty dinner.

I arrive home Monday PM, arms full of my work bag and two diaper bags and a car seat and etc and the dog goes apeshit when I walk in the door. Greasy meat marks all over the floor. Tinfoil flecks and paper bag oddments in every room. ALSO THE DOG WAS ON THE COUCH, which makes me irate. And he was bloated as shit. I have to leave the potato sack locked in his law-abiding car seat (one he is in no way getting too big for already, CPS, and I do not bend his legs to get him into it in the mornings, no m'am) while I search entire house looking for vomit and poo and porcine carcass. The only remnant was a fist-sized chunk of hog in the basement. On the new carpet.

I call the N and tell him the dog ate the roast. He thinks I'm kidding and hangs up because he’s a jerk. Then I get worried about the dog (do dogs die of meat poisoning? I mean, I shouldn't be that worried since he recently consumed an entire bag of trash, including WHOLE PLASTIC PACKETS OF KETCHUP), but still I try to call him back several times and he won't answer the phone. The phone finally rings back, and rather than say hellos I scream "SERIOUSLY HOW BIG IS THIS EFFING PIECE OF MEAT I NEED TO KNOW WHAT I'M DEALNG WITH HERE." Of course, it's my mother calling.

EDIT – I was busy. Also, the dog could not have gotten the pork on his own. Someone gave it to him. Probably ghosts. And since most dogs eat meat FOR A LIVING I don’t even see how this is that big of a deal. And even though he is dumb, he will not eat the whole thing. If you look around the house you will surely find most of it.

I get the kitchen cleaned up, child settled, I change into ripped flannel pants and a teeshirt and I take the dog outside. If I’m reading this right, he’s about to have a bowel movement so violent he’ll be lucky he has any bones left. But he seems semi-fine. Suddenly, the new neighbor’s puppy gets loose in front of our house, causing general havoc and messing with another mean dog on a leash, and almost getting hit by several cars as people return home from work. I wrestle Brown Dog inside as our panicky flamboyant neighbor is screaming LEXXXXXXYYYYYYY SSTOOOPPPP ITTT BADDDD GIIIRRRLLLL and the entire community association is chasing his border collie up and down the street. It’s like a Benny Hill skit except no one’s nurses uniform got ripped off by accident.

Eventually the puppy gets caught but the commotion outside has pushed our dog into meltdown. Anything left unmolested during the day has now been destroyed by teeth and claw. It takes about 20 minutes to calm everyone down. But pig-dinner is ruined. The dog’s stomach is about to come out both ends. And of course, there is crying. Fortunately my mother doesn’t trust me to take care of her grand-potato and brought over some sort of redneck casserole over the night before.

EXCEPT I FORGOT ABOUT THE WHOLE SMOKE THING FROM THE MORNING.! The N hadn't cleaned the oven out yet. GREASE FIRE! SMOKE EVERYPLACE! The alarm goes off, again. TEARS! BARKING! FIRE! CHAOS!

EDIT – I can’t be blamed for any of the above. We had a long conversation about how there was still grease in the stove. You are a sixty year old women. You should know that bringing a flame to grease will cause it smoke. I’ve seen you move your hairdryer out of the sink before you turn the water on hundreds of times. This is the same thing. None of this is my fault.

With smoke billowing from my oven, I start throwing open doors and windows because tiny lungs are being filled with poisonous meat cloud vapors. And then it’s freezing. And then the fire department shows up.

Momentarily, I wonder how they got there so fast and how I'm going to keep my dog from killing the firemen as they break down my front door. I won’t be able to. The dog is so ‘roided out on pork and chaos and fire trucks that he’ll murder someone. Or bite through the hose and attack the fire hydrant. The house is as good as gone. I start gathering photo albums and the dog and the potato and prepare myself for at least a calendar year of homelessness. But the firetrucks fly right by our house - turns out our crazy neighbors thought they smelled a gas leak. It’s like the fifth time the fire department has come to their house, and its only actually been on fire once.

So, I go get the child, who is making small pathetic coughing noises, dress him in a snow suit, pull a sweatshirt over my pajamas, and take him outside to see the lights and commotion while my house de-smokes. Brown Dog howls for the entirety, I can hear him down the block. All this before 7:30 PM.

EDIT - I am the only victim here. The house did not burn down. No one went to the hospital. You had, what, 30 total seconds of excitement? I lost my pork BBQ, nine man hours in cooking and hours of sleep because the dog hap to crap his brains out 4 times that night.

I guess this story would have been whatever and ended there, but two nights later, as we sat in the basement calmly enjoying picking the M&Ms out of trail mix and kind-of "House" reruns on USA and playing with our cooing child's toys, the N looks over and asks the dog what he has in his mouth.

A giant piece of pork the fucktard had buried in the couch to save for later.

Fail. The End.

EDIT – The End. But I’m not a big fan of you picking out the M&Ms from the trail mix, leaving only peanuts and raisins.

mmmm, incapacitating

In 2005, back when blogs were still called newspaper columns, I was walking around the District and I was approached by a roving band of thugs. There was a parade that day and it seemed that this group of young men was upset because the authorities had denied them entrance to the pageant. They hollered and gnashed their teeth and rattled the fences that separated them from the festivities. But it was to no avail. They gathered their belongings and stormed off.

I too hoped to watch the parade. But I was dressed in a respectable fashion and my behavior toward the authorities was civil. They deemed that I was not a threat to the sanctity of the parade and were willing to allow me access if I merely allowed a physical search of my person. I paused a moment to consider my options.

Suddenly, the ruffians returned. They had retreated to a nearby construction site and collected the various implements of destruction that the builders had left behind. Their intention was to use this paraphernalia to attack the authorities and gain a passage of entry to the parade. They dashed toward the fence, bellowing their frustration. But the authorities were not to be perturbed. They stepped behind the blockade, reached for their belts and unleashed torrents of pepper spray on the crowd. Right into their faces. And mine.

It was terrible. My face and eyes burned. Every breath felt like a firestorm in my chest. It was hours before I could draw a deep breath.

However, that wasn’t the worst thing that has happened to me at an inauguration.

This is:



I’ve started my own terrorist watch list. This guy is currently the only one on it.

My Name is Jonah

As required by my Clown College University, I took a single music appreciation class in an effort round out my Virginian liberal arts clown education. It was a 101, 8am mass of freshmen that was abided only because it wasn’t History 101. It was the professor’s claim that the early morning start time was to maximize our fresh, unmolested morning ears. He maintained while we slept, our ears had reset to a common baseline and our brains were purged of drunken bar revelry and Reel Big Fish concerts. Basically, our heads could hear and process sound better in the morning.

That may be true. It could be monster bullshit. But most of us were suffering at various levels of detoxification so our ears were already operating in the red. The professor also suffered from mild hearing loss and whenever he played music in class, it was at a volume much louder than necessary. And the treble was always too high for some reason. All these ingredients made it physically uncomfortable to sit through the songs that he played in class as genre examples.

One morning, it was a lesson about orchestra music and we were told to listen for some particular movement from the string section. Specifically, the violins. The loud, screechy violins. He put in the CD, pressed play and watched as almost everyone in the class started convulsing. Someone had turned the volume on the mixer to its peak and resulting onslaught was the most violently unpleasant thing I have ever heard.

Until Monday night.

On Monday night, the RB artist who calls himself Usher introduced a pop group calls themselves the Jonah Brothers at the Verizon Center. The resulting response from 10,000 twelve-year-old girls was the most brutal assault ever delivered upon my head. It felt like two master fly-fisherman landed two hooks directly into my ear drums, wrenched their poles back violently and allowed the piercing and unfiltered shrieks land directly on my brain. Five days later, thinking about it still causes winces.



There is clearly a cute Jonas brother since he was on the jumbotron most of the time. And there is clearly a Danny Wood Jonas brother since he wasn't shown at all.

I’m also old and out of touch. My date was trying to remember the name of the Miley Cyrus movie and I jokingly suggested Crossroads. She told me she too young to remember when Britney was doing movies.

BRING ON THE LYCONS!!

Mind the gap

So, yes. I was on the Metro train that ran over the 68-year-old woman yesterday. About 2½ of the train’s packed cars had reached the platform when it came to stop that was abrupt enough to cause some inexperienced riders to topple over. We waited quietly for a few minutes before they turned the train and track’s power off. Standing next to the door and without the engines running I could hear people screaming for help. Even though our car was still pretty deep into the tunnel, it was clear something was wrong.

It was probably because I was so close to the door but it seemed that I was the only person in my car that something was amiss. The other passengers’ cheerful spirit resisted any developing concern. Even after the air circulation had been turned off for ten minutes, none of the chatter was about when we were going to start moving or what the problem was or how come no one in charge was talking to us. Everyone was upbeat and very obliging. It wasn’t until a metro official worked his way back to our car and told us to evacuate through the front of the train that a current of unease started to increase.

On the platform, we saw this.



It was clear that someone was or had been under the train. But while the police, uniformed Secret Service and Metro personal were still operating in a hurried manner there was no sense that this was a life or death situation. We were ushered off the platform with little explanation until the system-wide PA system announced (incorrectly, it turns out) that someone had been hit by a train.

The DCist reports on the quick-minded Houston transit cop saved her by sending under the platform’s lip. And Houston doesn’t even have a subway.

This morning, I tried to explain to the G how to drive through a road block if she’s being chased by the police. She had no interest in my lesson. But had I been a Houston transit cop, she would have been all ears.

eleventybillion violins

i'd write more, but functioning on 4 or so (maybe) hours of sleep these days has left me pretty useless in things as basic as putting on my pants correctly, let alone typing. also, i have a cold.

remind me to tell you about the pot roast later.

also, if you're going to spill an entire large burning coffee on yourself, may i suggest doing so while wearing tan/brown corduroy. Absorbtive (absorbative? absorbing-y?) and a coffee-friendly color. Hot mess today folks, literally.

albums in 08

So, I've tried with both Cut Copy and Hot Chip, but I just can't help but thinking sometimes I'm actually listening to the Ross Gellar Experience.

late on this but

Bissell covers “It Ends with a Fall” from “Down the River of Golden Dreams;" Sheff & co. cover “Ex-Girl Collection” from The Meadowlands.

the tale of the cursed pot roast will be told tomorrow

In other news, I just won a $100 bet with my spouse. That Kaplan University commercial DOES star Uncle Phil from "Fresh Prince."

pain don't hurt; i had four hours of sleep last night; why does my husband sleep cook, etc.

It was super exciting to leave my house for three hours this weekend to go celebrate CatAn's birthday, you know, the blonde skinny internet one resplendent in plastic tiara. I drank someone else's beer! I talked about public transportation! IT WAS AWESOME.

Not as awesome: how shabbily I expressed my excitement at Roadhouse being shown that afternoon on A&E. And also, the blank stares I got from certain ladies as I tried to discuss Roadhouse. I did not do my own emotions justice.



Until Saturday I forgot how much I love Roadhouse. For the five people in the world who have not seen this film:

Roadhouse is a cinematic tour de force from the mid 1980's directed by a guy named Rowdy. This small tidbit of info should tell you a lot right off the bat. It stars Patrick Swayze's pants, which are the craziest high waisted pants I have ever seen, potentially back in fashion now if it weren't for the elaborate system of front-pleats. The movie's tagline: "The dancing's over. Now it gets dirty."

Patrick Swayze and his pants are named Dalton. Dalton's the best bar bouncer in the US of A. His nights are filled with fast action, hot music and beautiful women. It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it. Also IMDB reports "Dalton lives like a loner, fights like a professional. And loves like there's no tomorrow."

! ! ! THIS IS WHERE LOTS OF EXCLAMATION POINTS GO ! ! !

Dalton also lives in a really cool barn he rents from a guy who is the B-version of Uncle Jesse (Dukes not Full House) and does Tai Chi. In one of my favorite scenes, we learn he has a degree in philosophy from NYU. The chick he "loves like there is no tomorrow" is played by Kelly Lynch's stringy hair and whack white lace outfit (no bra.)

Really 92% of the movie is fighting (lots of broken glass and beer bottles, lots of inexplicably angry drunk rednecks, one guy has a shiv stuck in the toe of his cowboy boot), and the other few percentages are split between being shirtless and staring wistfully at the Bad Rich Guy's (named Brad, as all 80's bad guys are named; played by the same guy who was a lawyer on SVU a few times, holla; and who is a small town mobster or something and apparently his big claim to fame other than taking money from the townsfolk is "bringing a JC Penney to town" (?)) house across the river, giving himself stitches, and bro-hugging Sam Elliott.

Also in one scene a monster truck takes out a Ford dealership.

Anyway the end is really sad because the Bad Rich Guy ends up having Sam Elliott killed which is terrible because I love me some Sam Elliott. Sam in Fatal Beauty? Sam in Mask, one-half of the greatest cinematic couple ever, Rusty & Gar? Yes please. Yes please to Sam.

Jeff Healey played the wise blind bar singer. Wikipedia just told me that sadly Healey died this year but that also Healey was CANADIAN which I didn't know and somehow makes Roadhouse even more Roadhousey.

I have spent the past 15 minutes on the IMDB thread "Things I Learned Watching Roadhouse." Which might be the greatest internet forum ever.

So that about sums up my weekend, I just wanted to talk about Roadhouse and Sam Elliott on Saturday night and no one knew what I was talking about. The rest of the Sunday was spent wondering why my spouse woke up at 3 AM to cook a pot roast (true.)

Unrelated to movies from the 1980s and comforting dinner food: baby ape. Q: Who wants to go see that ugly shit? (A: I do.)

Now I will go do work.

Come on feel the 'Nois

There is no condition that turns affection into hatred faster than the casual loss of a glove. This pair of gloves were the best – soft and fleecy, not to puffy, professional looking yet rugged with extra grippy palms that could catch a football and cab equally well. Now I hates them. Or it.

One of them is in a blood-filled gutter or a bird’s nest or wherever lost gloves end up when they disappear in the city. The other one will sit in my drawer for the next two winters while I hope to accidently take a ride in the same taxi that I took on Tuesday. Fuck you lost glove for getting lost. And fuck you other glove for not getting lost and being an asshole loner. No one likes you. Enjoy those mustard packets and dried out Bic pens for the next few years. They’re your new family.

On the plus side, though, that taxi ride ended with a delicious sausage, deep-dish Chicago pizza and this poster.

If I only knew someone with a baby we could put this in their nursery.



Yea! Illinois! You’re in the news all the time now because you’re great and birth corndogs!

EAP

awesome.

i used to work in a frame shop, when i left the owner gave me a set of the 1993-issued elvis stamps she had framed in a hideous gold gilt thing and matted in purple velvet. now that i have remembered this, i must find it. let's hope it's still in my parents attic.

guess who's back to work? That's right! You lose, Internet!

Amanda: http://iusedtobeinmiddledistancerunnerblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/shamwow-guy-vince.html

me: OH GOD VINCE THE SHAMWOW GUY. wait
this brings me to another story about my mother

Amanda: hit me.

me: mom, staring rapt at the TV watching vince:
"Do you ever really really really think you need to buy one of these? Cause I do. Olympic swimmers use it."

Amanda: HAHAHAHAH

me: "mom, no I don't. You want to know why? Because this guy claims I use 20 dollars in paper toweles a month. WHO USES $20 WORTH OF PAPER TOWELS A MONTH? That's insane."

Amanda: i've never thought about my paper towel consumption rate
i do use a lot of paper towels though
how much does one of those big target size packages cost?
cause those last about a month, maybe a month and a half
in our three-person household
probably not $20

me: hmm, okay. our giant assload from costco lasts a long time
but i bet its not 20 bucks

Amanda: yeah
twenty dollars on PT a month is ludicrous
screw you, shamwow guy

me: i hate him and his stupid headset.
why does he need a headset on TV?
its so fucking aggravating

Amanda: for the record: i do not want to do it with vince the shamwow guy

me: ugh
that accent
worst experience ever?

Amanda: yeah. he is neither dancing and singing like janet jackson to a sold out japanese stadium, nor is he on blogging heads. there are overhead mics, i'm sure of it.

me: i bet he cleans himself afterwards with a shamwow
i said it

Amanda: HAHA

me: you were thinking it but i said it

Amanda: hahahahaha
hahahahhahaa

me: eww

Amanda: yup.

hangover vs brain freeze

The only thing more pathetic and used up than a Toy’s R Us parking lot on Christmas morning is the scattered remains of an ice luge on New Year's Day. Melt in peace, the District sleeps.

this shit's bananagrams

So hey, new year.

Last night a few of us played bananagrams and ate delicious snack foods and misc. dips and missed the ball drop completely, i was asleep by 12:40 probably. Which, as K noted, is later than I made it last year for New Years, so, way to go me.

In keeping with my grand personal tradition of even years being awesome/odd years being cocksuckers, 2008 was pretty grand. I went to fort reno a few times, the beach a few times, was reasonably successful at work even though I was only around for 3/4 the year, and I had an excuse to go to bed early and watch lame reality tv and be fat with no one thinking too much the worse of me. I saw Dragon Wars (that might have been 07), won my first attempt at a fantasy football league, and met Ronnie Mervis.

Not-as-great things include a miserable trip to Las Vegas (which seems kind of comical now) and owning a cell phone that is the worst piece of technology I've ever encountered (thanks, Motorola!) but if those are the nastiest things that happened to me, well, great.

I'm getting less sleep than i did even back in 02/03 when i went out drinking every single afternoon/night of my life, but this time it's way more okay and even though it's still hard to get out of bed in the morning, it's just sheer exhaustion, not because the room is spinning. Well well, look who's an adult.

In other news, the dog threw up all over the basement this morning, and I go back to work on Monday.

HAPPY 09 INTERNET. Let's break the cycle of odd years being so odd.