Or maybe in the car with the windows rolled up?

Imagine you went to a nice, classy New Jersey wedding and they had a college sports-themed ice luge with 6 different kinds of vodka and you eat so many hor d'oeuvres that you split your tuxedo pants while dancing from the zipper all the way to the belt in the back. (Good thing you paid the $1 tuxedo rental fee! Suckers tuxedo rental place!) That would be a fun wedding.

Now imagine that you went to a much less fancier wedding in New Jersey and the most exotic alcohol related stunt was a crappy champagne glass pyramid fountain. But then suddenly you were required to take that fountain to a baseball game! In fact, you have to play in that game! But you must keep the fountain safe or the bride and her mother will get so angry that their combined rage will gain sentience and attack an out-of-the -way Antarctica research facility six days before the next supply cargo plane is scheduled to arrive.

Do you leave it on the sidelines where a foul ball could hit it and knock all the Korbel goodness to the ground? Or with a player on the other team who has little to no champagne glass pyramid fountain tending experience and may resent being asked? Or maybe behind a fence but also next to a hornets’ nest?

Upon further reflection, I still think my decision was the right one - take the fountain out to left field with you. If the ball comes near you – which it will obviously will on the very first pitch – you are in the best place to protect it. You can judge the trajectory better, the speed better and, unless you completely useless outfielder, throw you entire body onto the ground to prevent the ball from rolling into the fountain.

Sure, it may cry some when you leave it to chase a grounder that slips past the shortstop and its mother will furiously shoot daggers with her eyes at you from second base. But that champagne glass pyramid fountain made it home a-okay and slept for 10 hours that night. Just like a baby, in fact. The champagne fountain was a person. A tiny, fragile person.

Escalators are death traps anyways

See this banged up piece of precision electronics?



Now that my Ipod’s flywheel no longer spins and its insides are filled with saliva and my camera is in 6000 little plastic pieces, this little radio is the most valuable piece of technology I own. To be exact, it’s a Sony SRF-M37V TV/Weather/FM/AM Walkman. It’s small and light weight. It gets great reception. And it’s worth a fortune on the black market

I use the FM function to listen to NPR.

I use the AM function to listen to Nats games.

I’ll use the weather band function to protect myself from rogue Hurricane Danny waves that wash through the Tidal Basin and sweep all softball players out to sea.

The TV function is a non-function since the digital television transition wiped those bits of the spectrum out of the sky and gave them to the NSA so they can weaponize them and read my dog’s thoughts. But it used to be great.

I lost this little radio a few weeks ago and while trying to find a replacement discovered they are no longer produced. No one listens to the radio via a walkman unless they are weirdo nomads. And since this little guy was one of the best made portable radios in the last two decades, it’s highly valued on the Ebays by those same weirdoes. Top dollar, I’m told.

The single negative of this wondrous device is that the clip designed to attach it to my utility belt is inadequate for my active lifestyle. Many an evening finds me chasing the radio over red Metro tiles as it goes in one direction and its lone AAA battery goes in another.

This was the situation I found myself in on Monday night after a brisk jaunt down the Foggy Bottom escalator. The clip again malfunctioned and while the headphones remained in my ears, the radio tumbled down the stairs. I barely saved the battery before it got sucked into the gears. Unfortunately, while bending over to collects the pieces the dangling mini plug end of the headphones got caught in the grate and began to grind its way under the escalator. I jerked my head back and the last 3 inches of broke off, rotated under the mechanism and met their demise. The still-in earbuds and wire swung uselessly against my chest.

Damnit.

Ah well. What’s the worst that could happen? I can’t even listen to the radio underground anyway.

Oh.

My bad.

Why would a mockingbird even try to eat a piece of cheese?

Before Prince Charming swept her off her tiny, delicate feet, the Governess lived like a terrible hobgoblin under a haunted bridge in Central Arlington. Her roommates were vermin and the building’s square footage would shrink every day as the building gradually collapsed in on itself. The backyard was completely overgrown and sheltered the entire cast of the Secret of NIMH who attacked any passerby with glowing red eyes and terrifying hisses.

As a good faith gesture I bought some rat traps in the hopes of eradicating the collective scourge. I’m not talking about the humane ones rat traps for do-gooders. I bought the ones that’ll snap a finger clean off and cauterize the wound because they generate so much heat.

But it was wildly unsuccessful.

I caught zero rats. The rats in Arlington attend those Northern Virginia high schools that are regularly listed in the US News and World Report list of best in country. One with a GPA of 3.20 wouldn’t crack the top 100 of its class. And the ones that don’t get into college still go on to run successful garage door installation businesses and live in Great Falls.

The other animals are not as smart and chose their own execution over their bucolic, carefree lifestyles. I caught squirrels, chipmunks, mice, voles and mockingbird, for some reason. After the bird, I gave up my campaign to rid the house of these pests and just elected to marry the G and buy her the castle where she still lives to this day. It was cheaper and easier on my conscience. I haven’t dabbled in pest control since.

Recently, I bought some new rats traps and the clerk asked me if I had some sort of infestation. Mindful of my past failures, I truthfully told him no. I bought them for possibly the best reason anyone has ever bought rat traps and I told him this directly.

“They’re for teaching someone a lesson.”



Look out world, I'm coming. Don’t stick your hands into dark places.

More weird mail

Has anyone else received a letter from someone claiming to be Katie Sackoff from Battlestar Galactica? I got this in the mail a few days ago...

Dear Mr Nabob,


It’s been too long.

By now you’ve probably heard the good news that I’ve been cast in some upcoming episodes of the hit FOX’s series 24. I’m excited to play Dana Walsh, a computer expert at CTU’s New York branch who’s got something sinister to hide. My character will also be romantically involved with the show’s other new cast member, Freddie Prinze Jr! You may remember Freddie from Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed and She’s All That.

But that’s not why I’m writing.

I want to talk to you about the BSG series finale because something needs to be cleared up. There have been petabytes of theories written on the internet about my character. Some speculate that I was a Cylon. Some say I was a ghost or an angel. Or maybe the whole thing was the dream of one of the lesser characters after the initial Cylon attack on Caprica put them in a coma. Hot Dog, for instance, since there was no sign of him once they got to Earth.

Here’s what really happened. If you remember, I was talking to Apollo in the long African grass about our past relationship. Then there was a flashback about a pigeon or some bird trapped in my old apartment or some jazz. I said to him "Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Lee." And then he went on about wanting to climb mountains and explore and when he turned around I was gone.

So what happened? When the final set of DVDs come out, it will include the script from that final episode. But I wanted to give you, one of the shows biggest fans, a preview. It turns out that Starbuck was really tired of Lee. His whole whiny act had become old and I realized I was trapped with him on this new Earth because Anders flew all the spaceships into the sun. So when he turned around, I just laid down in the long grass. He couldn’t see me when he turned back because the grass was so tall. And then I snuck off to try my luck with some cavemen.

Unfortunately, that weak-assed pigeon metaphor put all these crazy theories into people’s heads. How could I be a ghost? Or an angel? Come on. Had there been any precedent for that on the show? Sure, there had been episodes of mass hallucinations and acute delirium but angels? The only real explanation was the Cylon one and even that was a stretch.

So there you have it. That’s what happened. Go on your blog and explain it to the world. I’ve moved on, so should everyone else.

Take care, Nabob, and thanks for watching.



Katee




PS - I’ve included a copy of The Last Sentinel so you can get your Sackhoff fix until the fall when I get my Jack-Bauer on.

Anyone?

'Course it's boring, that's the point. Write it down.

one of my all-time favorites, Bull Durham, was on some terrible ALL DUDE CABLE WOOOT TESTOSTERONE channel last night. Regardless, I sat my ass on the basement floor and watched the whole thing. This bit of trivia (5th bullet) alone should explain the weird soft spot in my heart for Costner, even after years of suckitude.

so long as you endorse sound urbanist principles

By no means do I advocate the creation of human corpses. But like everybody else in this city, there are times that require the discrete disposal of them. That’s why I find this opinion by MY baffling.

The best place to hide a body that you secretly want found because latent feelings of guilt may subconsciously motivate you to leave telltale clues for the police to uncover is either a seldom used public park or an abandoned building. A multiple-use commercial/residential development is harmful to this end. The city needs to turn these spaces green or let them rot in peace.

Also, does anyone know where we can stage a casual pickup softball game? There aren’t enough Metro-accessible parks in the area, for some reason.

Knowing is 49.9% of the battle

Full disclosure: After plans fell apart, I saw the second Transformers movie by myself on a Tuesday night while my family slept is their beds with blankets and flat frog stuffed animals. It stunk out loud on ice in a hot tub.

Also, my wife is seeing (500) Days of Summer by herself AS WE SPEAK! Or at least AS I WRITE THIS! It is our way seeing as we are scary loners.




The G’s been badgering me about my intentions on seeing the GI Joe movie. There are none. First, it’s got a Wayans in it. Second, Cobra Commander’s mask is Tampa Bay Buccaneers-throwback-jersey dumb.

But the real reason is this line muttered by Stormshadow toward Snake Eyes: "You took a vow of silence... Now you will die without a word." I don’t know if that verse appears in the film but I do know it appears in the novelization of the movie. And I am aware of this because I tracked the book down at a Borders and read almost the whole damnable thing. The chore came about after the G alerted me to this io9 article that indicated that not only has Snake-Eyes taken a vow of silence but he also sends a text message, for some reason.

Who cares asks 50.1% of the population Well it matters to the other half of this country because whatever floating wisp of teeth and cat dander that wrote this twaddle of a script erased the coolest thing about Snake Eyes in its entirety. Snake Eyes doesn’t speak because he chooses not to. Snake-Eyes can’t talk because he’s bad-ass.

A quick IM poll of knowledgeable individuals responded to the question “why doesn’t Snake Eyes speak?”


DG: he's mute
his face is disfigured or something

JL: A helicopter crash destroyed his voice box

TL: As far as I can recall something bad happened to his face, which either was so physically traumatic that he can't speak any more or so emotionally traumatic that he's just too sad to talk

CY: he hurt his throat somehow - I think in an explosion

JW: i prefer to think his voice sounded like Bobcat Goldthwaite, so he just went silent as to not spoil his image
me: thats probably right


It turns out no really knows why he doesn’t talk. Ret-cons have rendered even the Wiki entry incomprehensible. But he sure the hell didn’t opt to be mute for some lame ass vow of silence. Snake Eyes was doing something really awesome, probably saving a really hot girl or possibly a dog from a helicopter explosion. Vows of silence are unacceptable.


But this does raise another question. Actually several. If Snake Eyes has taken a vow of silence how is he then permitted to send a text message?


Again, the internet is incredibly unhelpful in this regard.

• Can you text during a vow of silence? Maybe.
• Can you blog during a vow of silence? Unfortunately, yes. And people have for some reason.
• Can you tweet during a vow of silence? Unclear.
• Can you sext during a vow of silence? Unclear.

I hoped this cleared some things up for ya.

someone took my soda from the kitchen fridge

I like beer and I like Skittles but that doesn’t mean I’m going to like Skittlebraü

Somewhere in the skies over Des Moines there’s a mystical realm accessible only by an enchanted rainbow bridge made from stimulus dollars and trollwife tears. It’s like Valhalla, except you don’t reach there by dying in battle but by expiring from heart disease or hypertension. And if you lose a foot to type 2 diabetes, it’ll be waiting for you when you get there.

Accordingly, many of my ancestors were proudly looking down from this hallowed cloud city last night as 8 of my old roommate’s best friends honored the finish of his terrible, terrible independence with a diner at this city’s finest non-Renaissance themed German restaurant. You’ve probably passed by Old Europe dozens of times without entering and therefore you have made dozens of mistakes. You want to know how awesome it is? It is 8 different kinds of sausage on one plate awesome.



That isn’t some sort of meat sampler appetizer. That’s my entree. To be exact:

Debrizener
Bratwurst
Knackwurst
Weisswurst
Pork loin
Sautéed chicken quarter
Frikadeller


A few years back I went to a wedding, got completely plowed and woke up at a petting zoo.* I’ve since peddled back on the amount of alcohol I drink when celebrating. I only had two beers with dinner last night. However, it’s almost 6pm and I still feel Petting Zoo Hung-over. Apparently ingesting that much sodium in a 40 minute sprint dehydrates you to a level that even two gallons of Smart Water cannot alleviate.




*this is 1000% true

They also recycled the President's Race where Teddy cheats by riding a moped.

A little history:

For the first time in history, three grand slams were hit in a major league game -- a phenomenally bizarre 13-11 Texas Rangers victory over the Baltimore Orioles tonight in Memorial Stadium. They came off the bats of Toby Harrah of the Rangers (who went five for five for the first time in his career) and Larry Sheets and Jim Dwyer of the Orioles.

For the fifth time in major league annals, one team hit two grand slams in an inning. The team was the Orioles -- little good it did them in the end. The homers by Sheets and Dwyer torched a 6-0 Texas lead as Baltimore scored nine runs in the fourth inning.

If you think that was the key to this game, dream on. The Orioles built their lead to 11-6, thanks to Lee Lacy's two-run homer in the sixth. Those 11 runs were managed on just four hits as Texas issued 11 walks. Baltimore also was aided enormously by a two-out error by third baseman Steve Buechele immediately before Dwyer's grand slam.

Above is an account of the August 6, 1986 American baseball match between the Baltimore Orioles of Maryland and Texas Rangers of Texas as printed in the following day’s Washington Post. It was a remarkable game for two reasons. For one, it was the first time three grand slams had been hit in the same game (although the feat was duplicated the next year by Chicago and Houston). Second, it was the first baseball game the G had ever attended.

Her father was worried that his kids would become accustomed to the excitement and high scoring fireworks provided by that game. But since then she has literally been to dozens of other baseball games and they were all as boring as baseball should be. And then the Nationals moved to town! Going to baseball games has become the unpleasant chore that everyone expects from the former Montreal Expos.

Still, though, her first experience was extraordinary. She saw feats that usually awe the most dedicated of baseball fans and few can claim to have seen a more memorable game.

Sunday was Grendel’s first game. And like the G he can brag to his friends that he saw an amazing exploit. Perhaps even more stupendous that three grand slams in one game. He’s going to be able to tell his drunken college roommates that he went to a Nationals game and Austin Kearns didn’t completely shit the bed.

Third Edition is actually a used book store

Way back in the very last moments when we were still a couple but before we were a family, I had access to an oxygen machine. Actually, the G had access to the machine but used sparingly where as I used it for nearly every breath I took during that blessed ordeal. “Look at me,” I’d say after sucking down some sweet, sweet air. “I’m John Riggins and I just won the Super Bowl!” Then I tackled the epidermal man and everyone yelled and I had to go sit in the waiting room. The end.


---

Unrelated, I am in the market for oxygen machine. Also, other light medical supplies. Accordingly, I punched my address into Google maps followed by the search term “medical supplies” and got a list of all the places in DC where I could buy those La-Z-boy chairs that lift up and dump you on the floor automatically. But look at the third returned result.



At first I thought perhaps there was a medical supply store in Georgetown coincidentally called Smith Point. Or maybe Smith Point was a small region of Georgetown I was unfamiliar with. Nope. It’s that Smith Point. They have somehow managed to qualify themselves as a medical supply retailer.

I assumed this was some coding error on Google’s part. However, it pops back up with other similar search parameters. And considering how many people have gotten violently ill by visiting the place (including this associated review) maybe the error isn’t that it’s wildly mischaracterized bar but actually a vaguely mischaracterized free clinic.

girls guide to rocking

I am making K go explore her new town by seeing J. Hopper do her thing tonight at AS220. Then she can tell me what questions I should ask at Comet P-P in August (if I wanted to appear to be awesome and 10 yrs old and a Mac owner into Garageband and talented; instead of 31 with a baby dude on my hip and an ancient Dell desktop that is usually so swarmy with porn viruses I can't read gossip websites let alone construct sweet musics.) But whatevs, I'm a supporter!

Small dude can't actually come with me cause it'll be past his bedtime, but I am going to see her (alone?) anyway on the 23rd (24th?) here in districtville. In case anyone wants to join. Also, pizza and beer. Also, I need to buy this book before then.

In Providence tonight? You should go too.

bitches come, bitches go

Jeff Simmermon, (who it frankly is kind of weird I don't know/have never met, since I think we went to the same college and have mutual friends and even majored in the same thing, [and actually now that I think about it have probably been at parties together] but the world is weird like that) has a pretty great story on This American Life. Suggested listening if you haven't done so already.

Just stop blogging me around

There used to be a time when someone could walk to his local Borders, crawl down to the basement, grab a graphic novel and quietly read it in the Spanish-language self-help section in peace. Sadly, those days are gone. It’s not because they’ve removed the chairs from the Spanish-language self-help section. (They’ve actually removed all the seats from the basement because while I would use them for reading comics, the teenagers and weirdoes would abuse them for reading manga) The reason no one does this anymore is because you cannot approach the Borders at 18th and L without being accosted by a 20 year old with a clipboard. The want support for their cockamamie causes and schemes. And worse, they want your time.

The most common ways to avoid engagement with these children all involve being angry* so I won’t bore you. But if you do get stuck talking to one I’ve found the best response is to indicate that whatever they are peddling is a conflict of interest to whatever it is that you do. Usually that’s an adult enough reply to put them off their game. But if you get pressed you can borrow some business cards I’ve made up.



Most of these groups lean toward port so someone who’s sold enough of their soul to perpetuate Japanese whale harvesting usually doesn’t have any more room in their black heart for whatever they’re advocating.

But that doesn’t get to the main issue. Why the hell are there so many of these people lingering around that part of the Golden Triangle? Is there a sale at the Tiny Jewel Box? Do they need the perfect off-color gag gift from the Chocolate Moose? Was the line at the Greek Deli too long?

The answer is actually pretty simple: Laziness.

I have in my possession a big book that lists all the special interest/lobbyist/advocacy groups in the Washington DC region. From that book, I have randomly plucked the names of six organizations that sound like they would send interns into the streets to collect pledges or signatures in support of their world-saving, likely arboreal embracing causes.

1. International Humane Society
2. Peace Corps
3. Ocean Conservancy
4. Friends of the Earth
5. Legacy Foundation
6. Wilderness Society

(The Legacy Foundation is probably the only one on this brief list whose cause isn’t immediately clear. They’re the group that, with enough funding, would position someone outside the exit nearest every high school art room in America in order to smack cigarettes out of kid’s mouths. They are anti-American and need to be reminded that without Pocahontas and John Rolfe and tobacco this proud nation wouldn’t even have the fine system of roads and trails that they use to ride their high horses.)



Obviously, interest groups have offices all over this fair city. And I have no proof that any of the above are the ones canvassing. But isn’t it a big coincidence that the corner 18 and M looks like its right in the center of these 6 randomly chosen organizations? And if I was a lazy intern and had to gather signatures on a hot July mid-day, doesn’t it look like a good place to station myself? It’s close enough to the office that I can get there without breaking a sweat but far enough away that the bossman can’t see me out the window. Especially when I start forging names or throwing all the forms down the storm drain. Why did I even take this job? I love smoking.

There you have it. Faultless reasoning to why there are so many clipboarders preventing me from reading the Walking Dead series in its entirety during lunch. It’s junk science at its most quotable.




*Fortunately, as has been pointed out by my family, if not actively expressing an emotion my face naturally reverts to “mildly pissed.”

wknd

- After a few months/years of not seeing movies, because of life-things and also because movies lately? total shit - I am looking forward to 500 Days of Summer, An Education, and Big Fan, even the AtHackerMan-approved In The Loop. Please, cinema gods, don't let these movies suck and send me back into my dark hole in the ground for another year.

- I'm reading Infinite Jest, me and the rest of the world. It's fun hard, not homework hard. Like many things, it gets easier the more you do it. I'm up to pg 430. After this I may read something like the Host just to give my mind a break, and also because my friend Cindy recommends it unironically, something I find hilarious and strangely soothing.

RH: bringing the POISON back to fort reno! summer, 2010!

she forgot to note we're starting our own country metal band named REK HAVOK.

it's Internet Asshole Tuesday!

Hey, kids! So who wants to hear me rant maniacally about small businesses who need to get their shit together and not cross me, especially when I'm in a bad mood? Show of hands.

red n green

h/t tom and unfogged. Idaho, you have some serious self-esteem issues.

boys and girls... ACTION!

why we haven't left the house all week.

The worst thing I have ever done

Repeat – This is the worst thing I have ever and am not proud of the following:

I go to Tyson’s Corner Mall once a year. I get a note from my parents to miss school on a December weekday and do all my Xmas shopping in one majestic sweep. So a few years back I was riding the escalator and began to feel an uncomfortable rumbling in my stomach. It all happened so fast. A silent, relieving wind was broken. But good lord was it was deadly. Embarrassed, I glanced around hoping no one was nearby.

Unfortunately, there was. A five year old boy was on the step directly behind me. His head was right there. Directly in his face.







I’m no prude. But the City Paper putting that headline in newspaper boxes around town is worse than an adult farting in the eyes and mouth of a five year old boy.

hello world.

things K and I have IM'd about today:

- skunk calling/skunk population control
- tent cities
- rigging mailboxes to humorously snap on postman's fingers/potential of being sued for such a prank
- tiny dogs
- Family Guy stereotypes
- Marion Barry
- how to spell "ecstatic" correctly
- lawless hobo wars
- Danish pop stars from the 90s AND Dee-lite
- Jewish weddings
- Mail fraud

really tempted to use some sort of fleetwood mac lyrics for a title here

Coming back from the beach, we had a brief conversation re: Infinite Jest:

The G: You should really read this, it's pretty funny.

The N (glancing at my book): I've already gotten to that part.

The G: Oh. Huh. Well, let's talk about it. Tell me about the characters.

The N: Well, there's a son. And he has problems with his parents.

The G: How many sons?

The N: Well, two maybe. Two sons. Right! And, uh, a daughter!

The G: Two sons and a daughter, okay. What are their names?

The N: Junior. And they have a dead dad.

The G: Right. Where do they live? What country do they live in?

The N: All over the place! They live internationally! And one of them lives with their mom on a tennis..... ranch. They ranch. And play tennis!

The G: Right. Ranching. And what else happens? What's the major underlying, recurring plot point?

The N: Um, that parents and children don't get along.

The G: Right, right. Let's pick a random character, shall we. Who's Poor Tony Krause?

The N: He's a dog.



. . .




Next week, we ask the N to elaborate on Sophie's Choice.

no disrespect to your wife, buts its amazing you ever got that oven jockey to uncross her honeysticks for you

Once upon a time, our house was a regular deathtrap. You had yourself two sets of stairs of regulation height, knives of various lengths, ceiling fans spinning at unpredictable speeds, boiling pots of tomato sauce, 20 pound mirrors insecurely positioned in showers so they easily fall and impale feet with their sharpened corner, etc. You know, the standard bunch of ways your average homeowners could kill or maim themselves.

When we got BD a few years ago, we automatically added the very real possibility of severe animal poisoning. Especially since our dog exhibits the shark-like curiosity of exploring the world with his mouth. Unfortunately, he also exhibits the dog-like tendency to swallow everything that he puts in his mouth. Mostly, its garbage. That’s not a weak metaphor. Our dog eats a ton of garbage and most of it is made of stuff that the canine digestive system isn’t designed to dig handle. Like plastic or fireworks or two entire boxes of frosted Mini-wheats. But we adjusted and got safer. These days, our trips to the vet are by appointment and not the type that required stomach pumpings.

Now, though, every goddamned thing in the house is a giant fucking red flag hazard* and will cause instant death or hugely debilitating injuries. Electrical outlets? Let’s lick our fingers and put them in there. Bookshelves? Paperback are boring so let’s pull these hardback copies of Gravity’s Rainbow and Infinite Jest on our heads. Scissors? We should put them in our mouths and open and close them quickly. And who made irons extremely hot, heavy and pointed with a convenient chord to pull?

And then there are peanuts. Obviously, humans have known that peanuts are the deadliest substance on earth ever since the first caveman stuck a sharpened stick into the Georgian soil and it detonated like Petersburg. We measure radioactivity in units of Carvers in honor of George Washington Carver and his tireless attempt to discover a way to make x-rays out of peanuts. Every schoolchild knows he died after absorbing a fatal dose of Carvers when inventing the peanut butter bomb that latter flattened Tuskegee, Alabama. It’s the reason that we, as a nation, worship Ronald Reagan since he was the only man capable of driving that terrible peanutmonger Jimmy Carter out of our nation’s capital.

We roll the dice everyday by even having that single jar of peanut butter in the house. But I have a wife who is forever falling asleep while chewing gum and we need the peanut butter for Bubble Yum hair extraction. It’s a risk we take to live in the modern world. (we also store our bleach in brightly colored sippy cups.)

But now it’s “news” that if you feed someone small bits of peanuts over the course of a few years they will develop immunity to the poison. Isn’t this the standard operating procedure for minimizing the effects of harmful allergens? I’ve been ingesting little bits of iocane since 1987 and have successfully warded off every poisoning attempt by my enemies. Or so I assume. I don’t see why peanuts would be any different.


*I’m aware there should be a comma in there somewhere. But I’m content with the thought of a giant being fucked by a hazardous red flag.

Nationals Paaak

Besides the time I got to play Guitar Hero with Aerosmith, all my run ins with the city of Boston have been negative. It’s mostly due to the entirety of the city’s highway system being underground causing one’s GPS to be less than ineffective. This arrangement has caused many a visitor to that fair city to get lost on the way to the airport and miss their fantasy football drafts. I think that’s why the Feds demanded an investigation into the Big Dig. Or at least why I demanded one.

On Wednesday, we went to the Fenway-on-the-Potomac to see the heroic Boston Red Sox play our local minor league team for charity. We’d been warned that the crowd at Nationals Park would be 10-1 in favor of Boston fans but that may be an understatement. There were a lot of pinkish, heavy-set woman with thick-necked boyfriends in Celtics jerseys. It was fantastically difficult to listen to.

If my calculations are correct, 30 years of ballpark visits has allowed me to see every team in the league. Boston was the last on my list. And it afforded me a chance to see Kevin Youkilis up close.



Yep. There is no other ballplayer in America that looks more like Wooly Willy, the magnetically-powered beard toy. You can get yours today at your favorite Cracker Barrel waiting area.

Also, why is the Dupont Circle stop so much better lit than the other stations?

I rode the red line 6 times yesterday. Three things to note:

1. Tourists are actively avoiding the last cars in the trains. I overheard them acknowledging out loud that it makes them uncomfortable. It’s most obvious at stations like Gallery Place-Chinatown where the escalator deposits riders at the end of the platform and forces you to walk the length of the train to get to the front.

2. It may have just been the series of trains I was on, but now that WMATA has temporarily suspended the automatic train operation system I find the ride to be much smoother. Twice, while engrossed in the babyish pages of Infinite Jest, I hadn’t even realized we had pulled into the station until the train stopped. The manual drivers seem to have a more controlled style of gradual braking. It was like flying a Thai Airways, if you know what I mean.

really enjoying

- funny women

- this, which i think i've mentioned before but is cool enough that it deserves a second look.

- june

And Bill Cowher?

What are those toys called that are made of metal shells and have mashable buttons that cause those shells to spin so quickly that they reveal a little plastic chick or snowman or leprechaun inside depending on the holiday? They’re neither tops or דרײדל. But whatever they are, they're terrible toys.

Apparently, the NHL makes giant versions of them and hand em out to unsuspecting Russians as MVP awards.

----

It’s Friday. So make sure to finger yourself before you go to bed tonight. Magically. Purely out of respect, of course. But make it count.

----

BD Wong was at the White House today, for some reason. I saw it on the TV. I’m not sure why but Tony Hawk was there too. That’s him at 0:43. In front of Bobby Flay.

What the hell is going on over there?

get a GRIP cusack. pull it TOGETHER man.

"2010" plot summary by The N:

John Cusack is trying to save the world in a movie called "Independence Day Stood Still." Him and his alien child are trying to outrace a tsunami on a plane filled with convicts so he can make it to his high school reunion on time. Something explodes. Oh, and Annette Bening is his mom who he sleeps with. The end.

cathy cartoon, kind of

Do you ever have one of those days where you spend a significant amount of your desk time orbitzin' tickets to London just because you know their candy is SO FAR SUPERIOR to what is offered around here, say especially on K St?

Fuck yes you have.

little thangs

I'm looking to make friends with some Hip Girls between the ages of 24-28 who will come to my house to party. The kind of party where I throw open my closet doors and say: "here, fix this" and they are given full permission to throw away anything dorky (ie my entire wardrobe.)

In other more hilarious news, K. just told me she's "hiding her good TV" from the cable guy in case he decides to come back to rob her later. Man, do I miss her.

huge Mexican hats

Would you, dear reader, believe that there was once a Mexican restaurant in Arlington called El Sombrero that delivered orders of chips and salsa in a sombrero? Silly, but believable, right? How about if the chips were scattered around the brim and the salsa bowl was nestled into the top? Okay, sure. But what if I told you the entire appetizer arrived at your table on the head of a midget?

No one ever believes me.

Obviously, the final aspect of that story is the one that most often gives people pause. It’s also a FACT that only my immediate family is willing to recognize. As a child, my sister, parents and I were all served chips and salsa in a sombrero by a midget. Does a photograph or a film or any other piece of evidence corroborate this memory? Unfortunately not. But I doubt all four of us are suffering from a strange and acute delirium that would cause us to recall this event in the exact same manner. It happened. It is fact.

The closest thing I can find as proof is a paragraph out a 1977 Washington Post restaurant review.

The restaurant, which has been at Lee Highway and N. Harrison St. in Arlington for eight years, is spacious and hospitable. The decor is rather plush - thick carpets, Mexican art work and huge Mexican hats.

Note the reference to the “huge Mexican hats.” May I argue that they were actually regular Mexican hats but were distorted because they were worn by tiny Mexican people? I may.

Of course, by the time I had dinner at this restaurant it was no longer called El Sombrero. In 1982 it was going by the name of Miguel’s Mexican Restaurant. It was pretty much the same place just a different name. But that too lasted only a few years.

I say “of course” because the building that housed both Miguel’s and Sombrero is that one building in every town that can never hold a business for more than a few months. It’s snake bit. It can be at a great location (which this one was) and sell a great product (which this one never really did) but it will never last. In my memory, it’s been five different restaurants, a movie rental store and most recently a business that sold used baby clothes, for some reason. It’s also the building that the hillbillies set their fireworks trailer up in front of every June 25 – July 5th.

It could be haunted. It could be cursed. It could have once been a skating rink where 12 sexy teens were murdered 100 years ago. On this very night. Bottom line, the term FAIL was designed for 5401 Lee Hwy, Arlington, VA.



With this history in mind, when T&D wanted to build a new bank in the area they decided to tear down a perfectly good gas station across the street instead of moving into this vexed structure. So for a few weeks, the once-Hollywood Video was nothing more than a staging ground for heavy earth movers.



And that’s why I failed to notice there was a new tenant.


I can’t tell you who’s going to win the primary to be Virginia’s Democratic candidate for Governor on June 9. But I can tell you that Brian Moran is going to lose. And it’s not because he’s raised the least amount of money of any of candidates. Or that his brother is Jim Moran. Or that the Post has endorsed Creigh Deeds. Or that Terry Mcauliffe wields the power of heterochromia.

It’s because the Brian Moran campaign has moved into the most foredoomed building in all of Arlington. And it doesn’t help that his campaign workers spend their entire day with giant wall murals of Batman Forever Two-Faced Tommy Lee Jones and a Riddling Jim Carrey grinning down on them all day long. It seems that when you’re last in fund raising, you can’t afford to paint the walls of the former Hollywood Video you now work out of. Having decade old movie murals as decorations also speaks to why Hollywood Video is no longer in business.



See, you can even make out an Eraser-era Arnold actively endorsing Brian Moran for Governor.

Like any sporting event I don’t have a vested interest in, I was just hoping that this race was going to be a good, clean game. That's not going to happen now. I hope the Vegas oddsmakers have taken this self inflicted handicap into account.

beezers

I had a long post all set to go about Scrippsin' It '09 and the bets I have placed with my brother (over/unders for prepubescent moustache notwithstanding, I'm pretty confident in my pick for champion) but can we talk about something real fast? The semifinalists were just announced.

Alex Wells????? Serena Laine-Lobsinger?????

Way to go cool kids. Way to show up and co-opt what the nerds like and ruin things, as usual.

I'm going with number 3

Where did he just deliver that last speech?

1. Tron
2. The Matrix
3. The Holodeck

I'm a stripper and a poet; my name is Sidell but they call me Ecstasy

Via Hopper: How much do I love public access TV?

Also, please note the ripoff of "Around the Way Girl." He needs a plus size around the clock. I'll break it down to you on the physical aspect. Daaaaaamn.

For those of you who aren't reg'lar tinylukcygenius readers, let this be all the motivation you need. Do RSS!

This site’s content basically comes down to two things. First, posts directed at one specific person, usually my wife or her husband. Second, posts about things that no one gives a shit about. This is one falls under the latter.

I recently came into possession of this incredibly awesome phone.



It’s a Swisstel, 9 inch, yellow wonder speckled with blue confetti. It has a flash button for call waiting, a redial button for calling back the Ghostbusters, and hold button that doesn’t actually put anyone on hold since you have to keep it pressed to maintain the muting function. In an effort to boost voice clarity, the bottom 3 inches impressively curl toward the mouth like an armadillo shell.



It’s a marvel of plastic and science.

However, I don’t know anything else about it. I casually mentioned that it was a Swisstel phone like that was supposed to mean anything to anybody. But a google of Swisstel produces absolutely zilch. So what can we learn of this phone? To the library! With our library cards of learning!

According to a 1988 press release, this phone was Switzerland’s first foray into the vast market of America’s Debbie Gibson-inspired Electric Youth youth.

Swisstel (US) hopes to achieve US telephone market penetration of 3-4% by end-1989. The company is a unit of Ascom Hldg, Switzerland's largest and the world's 11th largest telecommunications concern. Swisstel's 1st product, a lightweight, futuristic phone offered in 10 colors is currently being marketed in the US, which the company plans to use as a base for worldwide market expansion.

But sales didn’t take off like the Swiss had hoped. And it didn’t help that the initial price for this fantastic piece of junk was $70. A second press release the next year reveals that they may have over-estimated the phone’s appeal. According to the Swisstel president,

"The result of those earlier miscalculations was that while we met our fiscal goals, we didn't achieve our sales expectations."

It went on,

Taking a corrective course, Swisstel has made a $ 30 price cut on its unique line of slim-line phones effective in September. The retail price has gone from $ 59.95 to $ 29.95, while actual retail selling prices could be as low as $ 19.95.

By 1990, there were no more mentions of Swisstel selling phones anywhere. In fact, I don’t think they even existed anymore. A $50 phone made from $3 worth of plastic was too much for even the likes of that handsome rich kid Steve Sanders. The Swiss tucked their tails between their legs and limped back to the Land of Chocolate to make army knives and Papal bodyguards.

But that’s not where this story ends. The point of this post wasn’t to brag about my awesome new phone that no one else in the world has. This post is intended to draw attention to the fact that Carnegie Mellon University maintains one of the largest collections of Swiss graphic design and poster art in North America, as far as I can tell. Perhaps the world? But by browsing their extensive assemblage I came across a second confirmed image of this phone. Then even more.



I don’t understand how these things, even at their ridiculous prices, didn’t achieve 50% market penetration. But I’m guessing it has something to do with the fact it looks like a giant wang when you turn it over.



Wang.

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.