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.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
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.
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.)
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.)
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
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!
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!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
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.
"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.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
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.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
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.
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."
In other news, I had a fifteen minute phone conversation with my mother this morning re: the definition of the word "chagrin."
Monday, February 02, 2009
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.
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
Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
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!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, January 23, 2009
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!!
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!!
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
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.
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.
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