I am frightened, I mean really truly frightened, by the pictures I have now seen of the people the American military is tortuing in Iraq. I am not so naive as to believe that this wasn't goin on, I know the government tortures people, but I guess I thought that it was primarily done by the CIA and certainly with alot more secrecy than this. So frightening things about this include, but are not limited to:
-I don't think its much of a stretch to say that the prevailing jingoism which has to be instilled into troops in Iraq to keep them from deserting had a significant role in what happened to these people, it looks like they not only believe that they can get information out of them easier, but that these people deserve torture at the hands of their conquerors, the woman who appears in like 3 of these pictures pointing at naked dudes certainly seems to be enjoying herself. I don't condone using violence, even against violent disgusting people, but you can estimate this woman's lifespan in minutes once she gets out of a military prison.
-Anyone even seen Salo. Just looking at the cover should give you an idea about how horrifying the similarities are. This link isn't great, but is a decent combination of screen-shots and a brief description, though it can be a little disturbing. Anyway, the similarities between some of these pictures and that film is horrifying. I can absolutely see these images in the context of what Pasolini was doing.
-Sucks to be a Westerner captured by anti-American forces right now doesn't it. I can't even imagine the things that will be done to American soldiers who are captured at this point. I don't think that is limited to soldiers either, shit will hit the fucking fan. I won't even speculate, but not fun.
-More people than that are gonna die. The lead article on cnn.com cited the editor of an Arabic language newspaper who concluded with the phrase "More attacks will occur." I knew this would happen anyway, so its not exactly a shocker, but this will specifically inspire some. It wouldn't surprise me if they came soon either, I don't know what they would do, but it will suck.
I know that wasn't a real happy note, and I don't include many somber frightening moments in this thingy, but I thought that was more than slightly relevant.
Maybe I will find something to be cheery about during the pups chance to eliminate the fucking evil Nugg.
Peace,
MB-K
Friday, April 30, 2004
Thursday, April 29, 2004
Keep On Rocking In the Free Butt
So the glory days of East Amherst, NY are officially over. The whole fucking city can pack it up and move to Tallahasee as far as I am concerned, because John Stevens has been eliminated from American Idol. Its a moment which, while still very sad, is moderated by the fact that no one could have suspected he was gonna make it anywhere near this far. I loved the dude, he was both entertaining and from right down the road. Nonetheless, I wouldn't have put a dime on him making it to the top 6, I just didn't think he had the mass appeal. Apparently, and Simon mentioned this explicitly on Tuesday night, alot of his popularity had to do with how well he took his criticism. I liked that about him, but he was also apparently the nicest motherfucker in the land. Everyone was certainly sad to see him go. Anyway, he's only 16, and there is a long bright future ahead. Mad props John Stevens.
Ironically, it may have been this very kindness and likability which served as his "A.J.'s Butthole." But I digress.
Cola is an odd name for a brownish soda, don't you think. I mean where did this come from. I suppose I could just google it and read some shit, but why would I bother. Here is my theory: there once was a dude named Henry McSwizzleboheometh who lived in Maine. He wasn't pleased with the whole environment which he lived in, especially the fact that his oven never kept the house warm enough. Old Swizz, as his friends would have called him, were he to have any friends, which he didn't, because he lived in a really cold house and also he had a pet walrus, which would be a seperate story altogether. Regardless, Old Swizz had two problems, one, he could not spell worth a damn, and two, he often mistook the stove for his mouth. So one day, when he was really cold, he went to stoke the fire, but accidentally put the coal in his mouth. He then attempted to wash down the coal with a good swig of Pepsi. When someone asked him what he was drinking he wrote "cola," because of the combination of his inability to spell and the fullness of his mouth with coally soda. And that is why I like Species better than Species II.
Are all dark colored sodas technically cola, or is cola more like a specific flavor. If it is a flavor, where did it come from, I mean, is there a cola root which I am just unaware of. Maybe if you boil potatoes for like 2 weeks they turn into cola. That would save me so much fucking money. Maybe it would cost me alot of money. I'm not sure. Is Dr. Pepper a type of cola. Root beer. RC Cola tastes entirely different from Pepsi and you couldn't really even confuse it with Shasta, so where is the fucking cut off line.
I got nothing tonight. Momma said there'll be days like this.
Peace,
MB-K
Ironically, it may have been this very kindness and likability which served as his "A.J.'s Butthole." But I digress.
Cola is an odd name for a brownish soda, don't you think. I mean where did this come from. I suppose I could just google it and read some shit, but why would I bother. Here is my theory: there once was a dude named Henry McSwizzleboheometh who lived in Maine. He wasn't pleased with the whole environment which he lived in, especially the fact that his oven never kept the house warm enough. Old Swizz, as his friends would have called him, were he to have any friends, which he didn't, because he lived in a really cold house and also he had a pet walrus, which would be a seperate story altogether. Regardless, Old Swizz had two problems, one, he could not spell worth a damn, and two, he often mistook the stove for his mouth. So one day, when he was really cold, he went to stoke the fire, but accidentally put the coal in his mouth. He then attempted to wash down the coal with a good swig of Pepsi. When someone asked him what he was drinking he wrote "cola," because of the combination of his inability to spell and the fullness of his mouth with coally soda. And that is why I like Species better than Species II.
Are all dark colored sodas technically cola, or is cola more like a specific flavor. If it is a flavor, where did it come from, I mean, is there a cola root which I am just unaware of. Maybe if you boil potatoes for like 2 weeks they turn into cola. That would save me so much fucking money. Maybe it would cost me alot of money. I'm not sure. Is Dr. Pepper a type of cola. Root beer. RC Cola tastes entirely different from Pepsi and you couldn't really even confuse it with Shasta, so where is the fucking cut off line.
I got nothing tonight. Momma said there'll be days like this.
Peace,
MB-K
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Trust I Seek and I Find in Butt
A little Metallica to break in the new set of blog titles. Apparently the folks at Blurty have been having some mechanical difficulties and as such my journal was just a white page with some stupid description of the problem. Hence, every time all fucking weekend that I wanted to, for instance, voice my displeasure with the T-wolves playing like ass shit, or simply blow off some e-steam I was completely unable. I suppose I could have commented some more at other various websites, but they don't usually accomplish the same shitty that I do up in here. Anyway, it was weak that I had no access to my blog. The time of no-blog is over. The bloggedy age has begun. Let the horns sound from the mountain and the seas climb to the fjords. Hallelujah, hallelujah.
I won't attempt to describe all the random shit we have done since the last time I was able to post anything, but there are a few relevant subjects. You could take, for instance, the aforementioned ass-licking of one team of 12 players known worldwide as the TimberWolves. They roll through games 1 and 2 like the fucking one seed that they are and then decide to bend over and assume the postion which this month's Cosmo Kama-Sutra calls "The Booty Bridge" (see p. 164 of the one with J. Simpson on the cover). Sam Cassell blows the fuck-up for 40, KG has a triple double, averaging 25 points and 21 rebounds, and Spree scores 30, we look incredible. Saturday night we essentially just tasted our own butts for four 12 minute sessions, it was sickening. Last night we looked okay, but certainly not what we should be doing. Kevin played alright, we wouldn't have been in the picture without him, but not up to his standards. We better rap this shit up at home in game 5, or I think we ain't going much further than round 2. While I would be disappointed if we didn't at least get to the Western conference finals, I will be much much more pissed if we don't even have the heart to finish of the first round series 4-1.
On one other sports note, the NFL draft this past weekend was an interesting one for the Green Bay Packers. We went hard on the defensive side of the ball, which I am very pro, since we are returning virtually every offensive starter. We got a kid from Arkansas to play corner in the first round and from what I have seen I am excited. About two picks before us the Bills traded up and took J.P. Losman, the run and gun slinger from Tulane who the Packers kind of liked. I have only seen highlights of him, since Tulane pretty much blew, but everyone comapres his game to Favre's. He can throw pretty well on the run, off his back foot, etc., but not at NFL speed. Regardless, he'll be filling in when Drew gets hurt now. Everyone out here is cautiously optimistic about the fact that two days after drafting this cat the Bills renegotiated Bledose into a 3 year deal, signaling either that he is gonna pick up his play so he doesn't get overtaken by the future of the team, or that they can let him go without the 7 million dollar cap hit that it would have taken at the end of next year. Doesn't much matter to me, as long as they don't hurt the Pack, I can support the Bills. Even though it is kind of like cheering for a donkey on rollerskates. Don't ask me what that means.
On Sunday Katie and I had to go to this wedding preparation thing, since we are having a Catholic marriage. For the most part this was just boring and annoying, I mean, the communication section was probably useful for a lot of people (less so for intelligetn and well-educated DEBATE people) and if nothing else it does force you to talk openly about issues that you may not have explicitly considered before. Katie commented, I think very accurately, that many of the things that were once central to the discussion of getting married are solved by co-habitation. There is a lot in this little book we got that deals with finances, planning a schedule, sharing space and responsibilites, etc. and while we never completed worksheets about it, I think we've got it down. I don't know enough about divore statistics to say for sure, but my guess is that the rate of divore among couples who live together for any signifncant amount of time before they are married is lower than average. Then again, what the fuck do I know.
There were two other moments at this 4 FUCKING HOUR thing that were worth noting. First, there was a significant discussion of Natural Family Planning, what is essentially the Catholic church's version of the Andy Kemp "shit I'm gonna come" strategy. Technically its more complicated than that, but its the whole "don't use birth control thing." While I understand that they are gonna try it, I think the presentation was undercut by two factors. In the first place the woman talking about it admitted that she used birth control pills for like the first decade of her marriage, then decided to get pregnant and did so. There was no real attempt to explain why she shouldn't have used them, though she did mention that she was glad she didn't have to "take artificial hormomes everyday," a statement whose idiocy I will not even delve into. Further, this lady was not an expert, a doctor, or even really knowledgeable of the practice. It seems that, if you want to tell couples about this, don't go half assed, bring a nurse or someone in and explain what is involved and its benefits. If people are gonna take birth control they are gonna take birth control, so either way its probably a waste of time, but an interesting waste is better than nothing. The only mildly entertaining part of that whole talk was the chick's husband, who was so incredibly uncomfortable with implying that he took his wife's vaginal temperature that I think he snapped the pen he was holding in half.
The other moment was the very end of the whole thing, when this woman was saying a prayer that was way too fucking long and way too new-age-hippy-meditation thing for my taste. Regardless, it had this whole "envision yourself in a relaxing fountain" motif, and the descirption was long, so my mind was wadnering. Here was the series of connections: fountains often have angels or cupids peeing as the fountain stream, Andy pees all over the place, hahah, Andy as the fountain peeing. Then of course the woman indicates that the cool cleansing water of the fountain is nothing other than God's love. At this point I was struggling mightily to keep myself from laughing out loud, since the two thoughts that were fighting for my mental Nielsen ratings were Andy peeing God's love and the intro to Friends. Katie is, reasonably so I might add, very frightened about the idea of what it might mean if Andy were to conceptulaize his own acts of public urination as the spreading of God's love, but hopefully this chick has whipped his whipping it out into place.
Alright, back to life, back to reality.
Peace,
MB-K
I won't attempt to describe all the random shit we have done since the last time I was able to post anything, but there are a few relevant subjects. You could take, for instance, the aforementioned ass-licking of one team of 12 players known worldwide as the TimberWolves. They roll through games 1 and 2 like the fucking one seed that they are and then decide to bend over and assume the postion which this month's Cosmo Kama-Sutra calls "The Booty Bridge" (see p. 164 of the one with J. Simpson on the cover). Sam Cassell blows the fuck-up for 40, KG has a triple double, averaging 25 points and 21 rebounds, and Spree scores 30, we look incredible. Saturday night we essentially just tasted our own butts for four 12 minute sessions, it was sickening. Last night we looked okay, but certainly not what we should be doing. Kevin played alright, we wouldn't have been in the picture without him, but not up to his standards. We better rap this shit up at home in game 5, or I think we ain't going much further than round 2. While I would be disappointed if we didn't at least get to the Western conference finals, I will be much much more pissed if we don't even have the heart to finish of the first round series 4-1.
On one other sports note, the NFL draft this past weekend was an interesting one for the Green Bay Packers. We went hard on the defensive side of the ball, which I am very pro, since we are returning virtually every offensive starter. We got a kid from Arkansas to play corner in the first round and from what I have seen I am excited. About two picks before us the Bills traded up and took J.P. Losman, the run and gun slinger from Tulane who the Packers kind of liked. I have only seen highlights of him, since Tulane pretty much blew, but everyone comapres his game to Favre's. He can throw pretty well on the run, off his back foot, etc., but not at NFL speed. Regardless, he'll be filling in when Drew gets hurt now. Everyone out here is cautiously optimistic about the fact that two days after drafting this cat the Bills renegotiated Bledose into a 3 year deal, signaling either that he is gonna pick up his play so he doesn't get overtaken by the future of the team, or that they can let him go without the 7 million dollar cap hit that it would have taken at the end of next year. Doesn't much matter to me, as long as they don't hurt the Pack, I can support the Bills. Even though it is kind of like cheering for a donkey on rollerskates. Don't ask me what that means.
On Sunday Katie and I had to go to this wedding preparation thing, since we are having a Catholic marriage. For the most part this was just boring and annoying, I mean, the communication section was probably useful for a lot of people (less so for intelligetn and well-educated DEBATE people) and if nothing else it does force you to talk openly about issues that you may not have explicitly considered before. Katie commented, I think very accurately, that many of the things that were once central to the discussion of getting married are solved by co-habitation. There is a lot in this little book we got that deals with finances, planning a schedule, sharing space and responsibilites, etc. and while we never completed worksheets about it, I think we've got it down. I don't know enough about divore statistics to say for sure, but my guess is that the rate of divore among couples who live together for any signifncant amount of time before they are married is lower than average. Then again, what the fuck do I know.
There were two other moments at this 4 FUCKING HOUR thing that were worth noting. First, there was a significant discussion of Natural Family Planning, what is essentially the Catholic church's version of the Andy Kemp "shit I'm gonna come" strategy. Technically its more complicated than that, but its the whole "don't use birth control thing." While I understand that they are gonna try it, I think the presentation was undercut by two factors. In the first place the woman talking about it admitted that she used birth control pills for like the first decade of her marriage, then decided to get pregnant and did so. There was no real attempt to explain why she shouldn't have used them, though she did mention that she was glad she didn't have to "take artificial hormomes everyday," a statement whose idiocy I will not even delve into. Further, this lady was not an expert, a doctor, or even really knowledgeable of the practice. It seems that, if you want to tell couples about this, don't go half assed, bring a nurse or someone in and explain what is involved and its benefits. If people are gonna take birth control they are gonna take birth control, so either way its probably a waste of time, but an interesting waste is better than nothing. The only mildly entertaining part of that whole talk was the chick's husband, who was so incredibly uncomfortable with implying that he took his wife's vaginal temperature that I think he snapped the pen he was holding in half.
The other moment was the very end of the whole thing, when this woman was saying a prayer that was way too fucking long and way too new-age-hippy-meditation thing for my taste. Regardless, it had this whole "envision yourself in a relaxing fountain" motif, and the descirption was long, so my mind was wadnering. Here was the series of connections: fountains often have angels or cupids peeing as the fountain stream, Andy pees all over the place, hahah, Andy as the fountain peeing. Then of course the woman indicates that the cool cleansing water of the fountain is nothing other than God's love. At this point I was struggling mightily to keep myself from laughing out loud, since the two thoughts that were fighting for my mental Nielsen ratings were Andy peeing God's love and the intro to Friends. Katie is, reasonably so I might add, very frightened about the idea of what it might mean if Andy were to conceptulaize his own acts of public urination as the spreading of God's love, but hopefully this chick has whipped his whipping it out into place.
Alright, back to life, back to reality.
Peace,
MB-K
Thursday, April 22, 2004
We Built this City on Rock and Butt
While obviously continuing the blog titling theme which I think will frame this administration's tenure as blogginator, this title is in homage to what some dipfuck selected as the worst song of all time. Alright, you don't have to love Starship, you don't even really have to like them. You don't have to live in a city built on rock and roll, see if I fucking care, deny the reality of your world but the fact is that you obviously don't remember. You can say you don't know me, that you don't recognize my face. You could say you don't care who goes to that kind of place. The fact, you motherfucker, is that Ma Coley plays the mamba, so you should probably listen to the radio. Don't you bastards remember.
This list to which I am referring is occassionally correct obviously. I mean, yeah, Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" sucks some asspenis. You've got Toby Keith's monument to redneck jingoistic violence in "Courtesy of the Red White and Blue." Admittedly, this shit sucks hard core, entirely within the worst 50 ever, about as bad as possible. But many of these songs are brilliant. Ice Ice Baby is not one of the 50 worst songs of all time, Color Me Badd's "I Wanna Sex You Up" is not one of the 50 worst songs of all time. Good quality pop music is not in that league. Yes, Ja-Rule and Ashanti can be on this list, they make formulaic burnt out urban-love shit, they aren't really talented, the music isn't especially entertaining, its not a cultural moment in the way some of these tunes are. Even though I put Celine Dion on the list of songs that are legitimately there, I almost just want to say that songs which are tremendously fucking popular cannot be one of the 50 worst. I won't go that far, but I am close. Anyway, go fuck yourself if you think "We Built this City" is the worst song ever.
Back in my college days, when I was at dear old Fuckalester, a couple people and I started a tradition of going out every Wednesday to the Trend Bar. If you've never been there, and the chances are pretty fucking high that readers of this blog have never fucking been there, let me give you a bit of ambience. The Trend Bar is located on the North side of University Avenue, about a block East of the intersection of Univesity and Snelling. Its right accross from the Perkins. Its in Midway. St. Paul. Minnesota. The United States. Thats where it is. Chure.
Its not the most beautiful area of the world, but its not Chechnya either. Within a couple blocks you've got Big V's and the Turf Club, two of my other fave St. Paul hotspots. The Trend Bar, however, does not really fit into the college and general St. Paul hipster crowd that the others bank on. I have never seen Sean Tilman in the Trend Bar. The Summit is a little cheaper than the Turf Club, the clientele is older and a little sketchier. I have never seen a woman enter this bar and not get hounded by a number of old, drunken, toothless men. It was par for the course. The women who went with us were well aware of what they were in for, and to be honest watching it happen was a big part of the fun. I don't think any one was ever in danger, we were never involved in any confrontation, and I was usually bigger than anyone in the joint. There were more than a few fights that broke out amongst the crowd, but they usually just involve some old guy smacking some other old guy and the two of them getting into mutual headlocks before being kicked out onto University Ave. The bar had some neon signs, there was an old TV in the corner. There is a maple bar and backing which would probably be quality if they were given a thorough cleaning and polishing. That bar is of course stacked with dusty bottles which get used almost never in comparison to the PBR and rail whiskey. I was surprised every week that their Summit tap worked, since I think the local "micro-brew" of choice at the Trend Bar was Premo. The tables are all off centered, the ashtrays are 50 cent K-Mart plastic, probably, the chairs are pretty much what you would find at your local VFW. They had one of those old table video-games, Ms. Pac-Man I think, where you sit down and play. There were two pool tables, I think, maybe only one, which was rarely in use. Anyway, the reason I thought of the Trend Bar was the jukebox.
I read the awards, probably City Pages best of ought-three, for Twin Cities best jukebox not long ago, and the Trend Bar wasn't there. I will entirely back up those awards, Turf, Triple Rock, and fucking Grumpy's pretty much pwn the jukebox deal, but Trend has the best 80s rock you will find not playing at the Medina Entertainment Complex. We had a pretty regular set going, some Whitesnake, maybe Slaughter, Cinderella, but without fail we rolled Starship every night. Anyway, one night, it was just Steve and I waiting for a couple others to show, we had gotten our first pitcher of Summit, we were rolling our cigarettes, since I think we were the only 5 person crew since the advent of the internet to sit together in a bar each rolling our own cigarettes from 5 different brands of rolling tobacco. Anyway, we had stuck a couple bucks in the juke, I think we were hearing "Here I Am-Rock You (Like a Hurricaine)" when we heard a significant bang. We acknowledged but wrote it off until they turned the music down during, well, I don't remember, but it was probably some Journey tune. We were about to complain when we saw the dude at the bar screaming that a couple dudes just shot at him. We had noticed the argument earlier, but hadn't paid too much attention. Apparently this dude followed these other two dudes outside, they got into their car, started to drive away, then put it in reverse, popped a cap at the dude, and took off. So basically it happened right behind where we were sitting, which was a little fucked up.
The funny part of the story, besides the cops interrogating everyone in the bar besides the two of us, was the dude describing what had happened. He would have had you believe that as he swore at them and attempted to duke it out in some genteel fashion, before they pulled a gat (it was actually apparently just a very low gauge rifle). Then with lightening reaction time, and he literally acted this out, he jumped and leaned to the right, just avoiding the speeding projectile. It was pretty fun to watch the dramatization.
Anyway, I am tired. More manana. By the way, classes are done. I rock.
Peace,
MB-K
This list to which I am referring is occassionally correct obviously. I mean, yeah, Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" sucks some asspenis. You've got Toby Keith's monument to redneck jingoistic violence in "Courtesy of the Red White and Blue." Admittedly, this shit sucks hard core, entirely within the worst 50 ever, about as bad as possible. But many of these songs are brilliant. Ice Ice Baby is not one of the 50 worst songs of all time, Color Me Badd's "I Wanna Sex You Up" is not one of the 50 worst songs of all time. Good quality pop music is not in that league. Yes, Ja-Rule and Ashanti can be on this list, they make formulaic burnt out urban-love shit, they aren't really talented, the music isn't especially entertaining, its not a cultural moment in the way some of these tunes are. Even though I put Celine Dion on the list of songs that are legitimately there, I almost just want to say that songs which are tremendously fucking popular cannot be one of the 50 worst. I won't go that far, but I am close. Anyway, go fuck yourself if you think "We Built this City" is the worst song ever.
Back in my college days, when I was at dear old Fuckalester, a couple people and I started a tradition of going out every Wednesday to the Trend Bar. If you've never been there, and the chances are pretty fucking high that readers of this blog have never fucking been there, let me give you a bit of ambience. The Trend Bar is located on the North side of University Avenue, about a block East of the intersection of Univesity and Snelling. Its right accross from the Perkins. Its in Midway. St. Paul. Minnesota. The United States. Thats where it is. Chure.
Its not the most beautiful area of the world, but its not Chechnya either. Within a couple blocks you've got Big V's and the Turf Club, two of my other fave St. Paul hotspots. The Trend Bar, however, does not really fit into the college and general St. Paul hipster crowd that the others bank on. I have never seen Sean Tilman in the Trend Bar. The Summit is a little cheaper than the Turf Club, the clientele is older and a little sketchier. I have never seen a woman enter this bar and not get hounded by a number of old, drunken, toothless men. It was par for the course. The women who went with us were well aware of what they were in for, and to be honest watching it happen was a big part of the fun. I don't think any one was ever in danger, we were never involved in any confrontation, and I was usually bigger than anyone in the joint. There were more than a few fights that broke out amongst the crowd, but they usually just involve some old guy smacking some other old guy and the two of them getting into mutual headlocks before being kicked out onto University Ave. The bar had some neon signs, there was an old TV in the corner. There is a maple bar and backing which would probably be quality if they were given a thorough cleaning and polishing. That bar is of course stacked with dusty bottles which get used almost never in comparison to the PBR and rail whiskey. I was surprised every week that their Summit tap worked, since I think the local "micro-brew" of choice at the Trend Bar was Premo. The tables are all off centered, the ashtrays are 50 cent K-Mart plastic, probably, the chairs are pretty much what you would find at your local VFW. They had one of those old table video-games, Ms. Pac-Man I think, where you sit down and play. There were two pool tables, I think, maybe only one, which was rarely in use. Anyway, the reason I thought of the Trend Bar was the jukebox.
I read the awards, probably City Pages best of ought-three, for Twin Cities best jukebox not long ago, and the Trend Bar wasn't there. I will entirely back up those awards, Turf, Triple Rock, and fucking Grumpy's pretty much pwn the jukebox deal, but Trend has the best 80s rock you will find not playing at the Medina Entertainment Complex. We had a pretty regular set going, some Whitesnake, maybe Slaughter, Cinderella, but without fail we rolled Starship every night. Anyway, one night, it was just Steve and I waiting for a couple others to show, we had gotten our first pitcher of Summit, we were rolling our cigarettes, since I think we were the only 5 person crew since the advent of the internet to sit together in a bar each rolling our own cigarettes from 5 different brands of rolling tobacco. Anyway, we had stuck a couple bucks in the juke, I think we were hearing "Here I Am-Rock You (Like a Hurricaine)" when we heard a significant bang. We acknowledged but wrote it off until they turned the music down during, well, I don't remember, but it was probably some Journey tune. We were about to complain when we saw the dude at the bar screaming that a couple dudes just shot at him. We had noticed the argument earlier, but hadn't paid too much attention. Apparently this dude followed these other two dudes outside, they got into their car, started to drive away, then put it in reverse, popped a cap at the dude, and took off. So basically it happened right behind where we were sitting, which was a little fucked up.
The funny part of the story, besides the cops interrogating everyone in the bar besides the two of us, was the dude describing what had happened. He would have had you believe that as he swore at them and attempted to duke it out in some genteel fashion, before they pulled a gat (it was actually apparently just a very low gauge rifle). Then with lightening reaction time, and he literally acted this out, he jumped and leaned to the right, just avoiding the speeding projectile. It was pretty fun to watch the dramatization.
Anyway, I am tired. More manana. By the way, classes are done. I rock.
Peace,
MB-K
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
You Can Run, You Can Hide, But You Can't Escape My Butt
So happy holidays to any one celebrating this Tuesday, the 20th of April 2004. I don't have much to say tonight, tired, finished two of my three classes, got some serious work done, graded a motherfuckload of papers, and returned home to watch American Idol.
I think John Stevens number may be up at this point, though there are only 2 boys remaining at this point. I mean, I think Diana Degarmo and fucking Jasmine Trias need to go first, but Simon has decied that it is time for the serious competion to begin, and the American Jr. Senior Tour needs to check out. I don't know if George Huff will make it to the final 4, the final 3, or what, but he is on the outside hoping against hope that some of the marine love directed at Joshua Grayson last year heads his way, due solely to the fact that he is el solo homme qui has a chance. No that was not a mixed metaphor. Your mom licks goat.
Alright, again, hope celebrations of the day were all in good fun. One seminar tomorrow, last one of the season. Its like the season finale of Survivor, except no money, no fire, not nearly as much Richard Hatch, more impressions of Jeff Probst, and three seperate immunity challenges.
Peace,
MB-K
I think John Stevens number may be up at this point, though there are only 2 boys remaining at this point. I mean, I think Diana Degarmo and fucking Jasmine Trias need to go first, but Simon has decied that it is time for the serious competion to begin, and the American Jr. Senior Tour needs to check out. I don't know if George Huff will make it to the final 4, the final 3, or what, but he is on the outside hoping against hope that some of the marine love directed at Joshua Grayson last year heads his way, due solely to the fact that he is el solo homme qui has a chance. No that was not a mixed metaphor. Your mom licks goat.
Alright, again, hope celebrations of the day were all in good fun. One seminar tomorrow, last one of the season. Its like the season finale of Survivor, except no money, no fire, not nearly as much Richard Hatch, more impressions of Jeff Probst, and three seperate immunity challenges.
Peace,
MB-K
Monday, April 19, 2004
Finished With My Woman Cause She Couldn't Help Me With My Butt
Monday nights have started biting major ass, at least in the televisual department. I had been pleased with the traditional Canadian custom of watching The OC two days before Wednesday, and I still am, but it was nicer when it was sort of sandwiched amongst all the other lovely programs. There is Las Vegas, but I need more time to get into that program. My guess is that I will just have to save it for DVD. I will admit that I am continuing to TiVo The Swan, because even though it is ridiculous and offensive and stupid, it is neat to see how different they look at the end. I mean, obviously, they look really fucking different because they pumped like 20,000 bucks into plastic surgery.
The one question I have generated as a result of watching the first however many stupid fucking epsiodes of The Swan, what the fuck are DaVinci veneers. Admittedly, I have skipped over the actual makeover part of the show, because I can't fucking stand to watch it, but I am pretty sure that they are just like fake teeth that go in front of or over or whatever the actual teeth. It seems like it would be really fucked up, I don't know how you go about brushing your actual teeth or getting real dental work done, but whatever. Can you feel that you have DaVinci veneers over your real teeth, does it feel like nothing. I mean, it can't feel like nothing, your mouth is pretty sensitve shitty (If you know what I am talking about...) so its probably annoying. If you could just put a fake set of teeth over your real teeth so that your real teeth didn't wear and tear and it didn't feel like you were wearing a pair of those fake glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth from when you were little then everyone would fucking do it. Maybe I am wrong and this is just so expensive as to not be worth it for everyone, but I would personally be so down, maybe it will cost some significant bank, but you would save assshit on dentisty. Crazy.
Katie and I made crepes tonight, actually Katie just made the crepes, I made the whipped cream and washed some dishes. Katie always wants to eat strawberries with her crepes, and it seems awful to me. I tried a couple bites with those and it was okay, but I will admit, much to my own chagrin, that when sprinkled with a good bit of sugar and dipped in the sugary cream, they weren't bad. Katie has of course decided to take full advantage of this moment by attempting to force me to eat peaches and other nasty ass-fruit, but we will have to wait and see. For the moment I will add conditionally eaten strawberries to the list of fruits which constitute good eats, I still don't want to start having them on my shortcake or in my cereal, but whatev.
I've been rolling through the second of my papers for the end of the semester and the first couple pages have flown by. I am about a third of the way there with only 2-ish hours of work. My guess is that I will have a full week to finish Joan's by the 30th of April, which is admittedly only a fucking day before I go back to the mofuckin Wal-Mart. I'll survive.
I am thinking about narrowing down the current "World's Greatest Butt-Lyric List" to maybe the three best. I have no plans for switching away from the Butt-Lyric titling format, so if people are put off by it they better speak up. Further, if you want to put in votes for your favorite to make sure they make the top 3, do so now. I guess I will accumulate some sort of hall of fame, a sort of "je ne sais quois pas de canarde y les grandes jambones" to Butt-Lyrics.
I was on the Ben and Jerry's website the other day trying to determine which current flavors I still had to get my grubby ice cream loving hands on and in the process was on the "suggest a flavor" page. I was trying to think of a flavor I wanted and at the same time trying to fit it into the dirty-peacenik-hippies that run Ben and Jerry's mentality. Pretty much, I am amazed they haven't made it already, but the best suggestion was obvious. Weed. Weed Ice Cream. I am not sure what the name would be best, maybe "Hippy Chip" or "Peppermint Bong-Bong" or "I Mari-Wanna Eat Some Ice Cream" or "Bubbler Pecan." I could go on, but they would get lamer. Dirty hippies and their dirty ice cream. Its not like they would have to do alot to try out some of the flavors. I would actually bet dollars to donuts that when two stoners have access to industrial ice cream machines, gallons of cream, and based on all possible evidence, probably not small amounts of "party supplies" they have slipped more than a couple bowls worth into a batch of Cherry Garcia now and then. Maybe they let it go out to the market even, just figuring that the majority of their audience might already be in a condition which prevents them from really noticing. Maybe not, I suppose Ben and Jerry's is a pretty legit organization, but I still get the idea that they are only a step away from the hippy commune in that episode of the Simpsons where they make organic juice. Alright, I am going to go back to enjoying The O.C.
Peace,
MB-K
The one question I have generated as a result of watching the first however many stupid fucking epsiodes of The Swan, what the fuck are DaVinci veneers. Admittedly, I have skipped over the actual makeover part of the show, because I can't fucking stand to watch it, but I am pretty sure that they are just like fake teeth that go in front of or over or whatever the actual teeth. It seems like it would be really fucked up, I don't know how you go about brushing your actual teeth or getting real dental work done, but whatever. Can you feel that you have DaVinci veneers over your real teeth, does it feel like nothing. I mean, it can't feel like nothing, your mouth is pretty sensitve shitty (If you know what I am talking about...) so its probably annoying. If you could just put a fake set of teeth over your real teeth so that your real teeth didn't wear and tear and it didn't feel like you were wearing a pair of those fake glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth from when you were little then everyone would fucking do it. Maybe I am wrong and this is just so expensive as to not be worth it for everyone, but I would personally be so down, maybe it will cost some significant bank, but you would save assshit on dentisty. Crazy.
Katie and I made crepes tonight, actually Katie just made the crepes, I made the whipped cream and washed some dishes. Katie always wants to eat strawberries with her crepes, and it seems awful to me. I tried a couple bites with those and it was okay, but I will admit, much to my own chagrin, that when sprinkled with a good bit of sugar and dipped in the sugary cream, they weren't bad. Katie has of course decided to take full advantage of this moment by attempting to force me to eat peaches and other nasty ass-fruit, but we will have to wait and see. For the moment I will add conditionally eaten strawberries to the list of fruits which constitute good eats, I still don't want to start having them on my shortcake or in my cereal, but whatev.
I've been rolling through the second of my papers for the end of the semester and the first couple pages have flown by. I am about a third of the way there with only 2-ish hours of work. My guess is that I will have a full week to finish Joan's by the 30th of April, which is admittedly only a fucking day before I go back to the mofuckin Wal-Mart. I'll survive.
I am thinking about narrowing down the current "World's Greatest Butt-Lyric List" to maybe the three best. I have no plans for switching away from the Butt-Lyric titling format, so if people are put off by it they better speak up. Further, if you want to put in votes for your favorite to make sure they make the top 3, do so now. I guess I will accumulate some sort of hall of fame, a sort of "je ne sais quois pas de canarde y les grandes jambones" to Butt-Lyrics.
I was on the Ben and Jerry's website the other day trying to determine which current flavors I still had to get my grubby ice cream loving hands on and in the process was on the "suggest a flavor" page. I was trying to think of a flavor I wanted and at the same time trying to fit it into the dirty-peacenik-hippies that run Ben and Jerry's mentality. Pretty much, I am amazed they haven't made it already, but the best suggestion was obvious. Weed. Weed Ice Cream. I am not sure what the name would be best, maybe "Hippy Chip" or "Peppermint Bong-Bong" or "I Mari-Wanna Eat Some Ice Cream" or "Bubbler Pecan." I could go on, but they would get lamer. Dirty hippies and their dirty ice cream. Its not like they would have to do alot to try out some of the flavors. I would actually bet dollars to donuts that when two stoners have access to industrial ice cream machines, gallons of cream, and based on all possible evidence, probably not small amounts of "party supplies" they have slipped more than a couple bowls worth into a batch of Cherry Garcia now and then. Maybe they let it go out to the market even, just figuring that the majority of their audience might already be in a condition which prevents them from really noticing. Maybe not, I suppose Ben and Jerry's is a pretty legit organization, but I still get the idea that they are only a step away from the hippy commune in that episode of the Simpsons where they make organic juice. Alright, I am going to go back to enjoying The O.C.
Peace,
MB-K
Saturday, April 17, 2004
Get Out of My Dreams...Get Into My Butt
Sorry its been so long. We have reached the end of the semester mega-fucking-crunch, and as a result all the available writing time I have is pretty much devoted to class work. I suppose that is all for the best, since these fucking things end up being a full paper long anyway. Regardless, its after 5:30 on a Saturday, I have been fairly propductive the whole week, including Friday and Saturday, which each included a couple pages and some reading, so pretty noise. So this weekend will finish at least one paper and begin another, gotta like that shitty. Though, its really sad that because of the whole Wal-Mart business I can't even really say that I'm looking forward to the end of school. While I 'm not a big fan of going to school, I am a big fan of not working at Wal-Mart, so its sort of a tight balance to acheive. My only hope is that I will win the lottery, but that isn't too lilely either. The only plus side to matters involving Wal-Mart this week is that, according to the Lockport Town Pages Wal-Mart was defeated in the city's referndum about building a Super Wal-Mart in the old Lockport mall. That means that while they may own the property and elect to build a new store there, it won;'t have a grocery store or be much bigger than the current one. From everything I have known about the Wal-Mart corporation, they are not likely to give up without a prolonged and dirty fucking fight. While I don't have any confidence that the wal-mart corporation is going to be significantly challenged in any sort of long term situation by the fact that a few towns (now inlcluding Lockport NY) have successfully fought off either the entrance of Wal-Mart into their locales or at least not let them become a superstore.
I just watched the last half hour of Eight Legged Freaks starring David Arquette, one of the few individuals who can challenge Ben Affleck as worst actor who for some reason everyone in the country knows. I suppose that could have something to do with the fact that he married one of the women on the most popular shows on television and the chick who always should have been but never really was the killer in any of the Scream movies.
On the bright side of things, reality television has been on the fucking nuts over the past couple days. Take, for instance Thursday night, which included some incredible shit. You begin with John Stevens sticking it out for one more week, though it will likely be his last, on American Idol. He gets to do Barry Manilow this week, and in all honesty he should be one of the best at it, but for some reason there is no correlation between his performance and his ratings. That is not nearly as true for most of the other people on the show, even though I understand that there is some dispute about the relationship betwen marks and objective performance in general, but he goes crazy. This was his best week by far and Jasmine Trias sucks. George Huff had what might be the worst performance since he was 10. Anyway, this is as high as we could possibly hope for Sinatra Jr. to go, so you have to be pleased that he outlasted JPL, that Elvis fucking nonsense motherfucker. We also had a great Survivor All Stars, which is getting down to the nitty fucking gritty now that Lex and Kathy are gone. This means Shi Ann is on the chopping block next week and we'll see who she targets. My guess is that someone tries to put Jenna out, but Rupert will go apeshit, so it might be trouble. Either way this is one of the better seasons I have watched of this program. Thursday was also the Apprentice finale, which, in a paradoxically delicious fashion, both sucked and rocked at the same time. I was a Kwame fan and never really liked Bill, though he was the obvious winner, but the show was sweet. Omarosa filled out the show in the exact way she was supposed to, by lying like a motherassfucker, and we saw her and Katrina briefly go at it about the upcoming slander lawsuit. Rock on.
Alright, in the interest of keeping myself sane I am going to sign off and watch the TiVoed version of last week's SNL so I am ready for tonight's installment. I don't even know who is on, but I am praying they will pull off another "Trump's House of Wings" like gem.
Peace,
MB-K
I just watched the last half hour of Eight Legged Freaks starring David Arquette, one of the few individuals who can challenge Ben Affleck as worst actor who for some reason everyone in the country knows. I suppose that could have something to do with the fact that he married one of the women on the most popular shows on television and the chick who always should have been but never really was the killer in any of the Scream movies.
On the bright side of things, reality television has been on the fucking nuts over the past couple days. Take, for instance Thursday night, which included some incredible shit. You begin with John Stevens sticking it out for one more week, though it will likely be his last, on American Idol. He gets to do Barry Manilow this week, and in all honesty he should be one of the best at it, but for some reason there is no correlation between his performance and his ratings. That is not nearly as true for most of the other people on the show, even though I understand that there is some dispute about the relationship betwen marks and objective performance in general, but he goes crazy. This was his best week by far and Jasmine Trias sucks. George Huff had what might be the worst performance since he was 10. Anyway, this is as high as we could possibly hope for Sinatra Jr. to go, so you have to be pleased that he outlasted JPL, that Elvis fucking nonsense motherfucker. We also had a great Survivor All Stars, which is getting down to the nitty fucking gritty now that Lex and Kathy are gone. This means Shi Ann is on the chopping block next week and we'll see who she targets. My guess is that someone tries to put Jenna out, but Rupert will go apeshit, so it might be trouble. Either way this is one of the better seasons I have watched of this program. Thursday was also the Apprentice finale, which, in a paradoxically delicious fashion, both sucked and rocked at the same time. I was a Kwame fan and never really liked Bill, though he was the obvious winner, but the show was sweet. Omarosa filled out the show in the exact way she was supposed to, by lying like a motherassfucker, and we saw her and Katrina briefly go at it about the upcoming slander lawsuit. Rock on.
Alright, in the interest of keeping myself sane I am going to sign off and watch the TiVoed version of last week's SNL so I am ready for tonight's installment. I don't even know who is on, but I am praying they will pull off another "Trump's House of Wings" like gem.
Peace,
MB-K
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
All in All You're Just Another Brick in the Butt
So Monday was a pretty solid day for me. I got a fuckload done, let me tell you, an absolute fuckload.
Accomplishment 1: I went to physical therapy
I had modified rock star physical therapy this time around. I added one extra stretch to the deal, which was a little long but is only done once a day, so its not a big thing. The music sucked at this noon-ish hour, maybe I just like drive-time pop better, even though I heard the J-SImp tune one mas tiempo. Since I had to wait for a while at the outset and several times had nothing to do I read the latest issue of ESPN the magazine, as if I needed a reminder of why I would subscribe to it were I to want to part with 50 bucks a year for no apparent reason. I got the heat pad, the pressure thing, the electro-massage and ice pack dealio, it was all good. After all that was over the doctor told me that she had seen my x-rays and while the problems I had when I was younger don't seem to be issues right now, they may have joined forces to result in fusing some of the bottom sections of my spine, the end result being that where most people have L1-L5, I have L5 fused with S1, which doens't mean shit to me for the most part, but fundamentally she said that while the normal back bends in 5 places mine does so only in four. I guess its not a long term concern, which rocks even harder, so ja reuce.
Accomplishment 2: I invented a sweet fucking sandwich
I already mentioned all the delicious foodstuffs Katie and I prepared on Sunday, so I when I returned from therapy and was hungry, I knew what I was looking for. I had the obvious parts down, Katie's delicioso rolls and my Martha tribeuce ham were meant for each other and usually I would suggest that some cheese join the party. American cheese is money for the turkey, the roast beef, etc., but it doesn't feel right for hog, so I was thinking I would just slice off some cheddar. Then I realized I had used almost all, if not all, of the cheese on the...holy shit...I've got it...seriously, I've got it. I should put the fucking potatoes, with all their scalloped cheesy goodness ON THE SANDWICH!! I know I was not the first person to come up with the potatoes on the sandwich situation. Even if I never crunched up my chips to go with the PB+J, I have been to more than a couple delis where they did it for me. I am also desperate to get to Philadelphia so that I can try what is apparently the world's best cheesesteak that, in more than one famous location, is highlighted by having a big old handful of fries mashed into the center. I have had a meatloaf sandwich which had some garlic mashed on the top and ended up gooshing out the sides in a most delicious fashion, but never this incredibly delicious combo meal.
Anyway, I nuked all the ingredients seperately, buttered the rolls, slathered some scallopotatoes on the bottom bun, topped it with warm ham, then nuked the whole thing for another couple seconds to set it together. Heaven I tell you. It would probably work better on a larger size roll, but the taste was dead on. I am considering making a special batch of scalloped potatoes to keep in the fridge or freezer whenever I want to roll Scallo-Ham Sand (every great sandwich needs a great name after all). The whole love of this sandwich got me thinking about how much I have always loved sandwiches. There is something about the format, the squeezing in between bread thing, the correct stacking order, the consistency and juxtaposition, which is truly an art. In a book called "Mostly Harmless" (the fifth book, I believe in the "increasingly inaccurately named Hitchiker's Guide Trilogy) Douglas Adams talks about the art of sandwich making when Arthur Dent becomes the sandwich maker (a position with near Godlike status) on a planet which has never heard of a sandwich before. I recognize the obvious pastoral romanticism involved with the the whole scene, and while I don't want to give up my TiVo or high speed internet to do it, there are times where I think I should just drop this whole PhD nonsense and open up a sandwich joint somewhere, move back to St. Paul and challenge Jimmy-Johns for Mac-Groveland supremacy. I can honestly say that I would look forward to getting up everyday and going to work, honing my craft, developing the finest of each brand of sandwich, tasting them, finding precisely the right cheese, the thickness of the bread, etc. Anyway, I will keep it in mind. If anyone wants to float me the dough or invest in my sandwich business, I will have written my dissertation and be fully unemployed in a couple years.
Accomplishment 3: I Wrote Quite a Bit in a Shockingly Short Time
I had already gotten briefly started on the first of my end of semester papers, but it really hadn't taken much shape yet. Not only did I manage to find the format and structure that I needed, I also added 4 solid pages of single spaced text in about two hours. I am usually just not that efficient, its not an extraordinary feat or anything, but I was happy with it, This was espeicially productive insofar as I didn't get started right away in the morning. There have been many days where once my momentum slips in one direction, it just doesn't return. Maybe it was the brilliance of my sandwich which enhanced my mind, blowing me away. I was pretty good today in this regard as well, a couple pages added to the text with only brief and sporadic writing between classes and during breaks, etc. Lets hope it continues adequately.
Accomplishment 4: I Can Fold Like a Mother-hubbard Land Lubber
So we have these wedding invitation thingies and they all had to be folded, because they are these fancy little opening numbers that Katie likes. Anyway, while Katie certainly worked on some of them, I was pretty much a foldin' machine. I would guess I hit like 90 some percent all while watching and attempting to ignore the idiocy that is the Miss USA Pageant. I was sort of upset that there was nothing left to fold, but that was obviously not a reasonable concern. I could say that there is plenty of other invitation related shit to do and that I shouldn't be wanting for tasks, but in all honesty, there isn't really much else I can do. I guess there is the whole assembling them thing or the applying stamps deal, but I am officially prohibited from all tasks which involve pen-personship, so Katie will keep rocking in that department. If anyone wants to invest in a folding business, I will have graduated from grad school and failed with my first sandwich shop in about 2 years and 6 months, so feel free to plan your investments accordingly.
I could probably find a way to stretch out my work to make it seem even more impressive, but that seems gratuitous. I refuse.
Peace,
MB-K
Accomplishment 1: I went to physical therapy
I had modified rock star physical therapy this time around. I added one extra stretch to the deal, which was a little long but is only done once a day, so its not a big thing. The music sucked at this noon-ish hour, maybe I just like drive-time pop better, even though I heard the J-SImp tune one mas tiempo. Since I had to wait for a while at the outset and several times had nothing to do I read the latest issue of ESPN the magazine, as if I needed a reminder of why I would subscribe to it were I to want to part with 50 bucks a year for no apparent reason. I got the heat pad, the pressure thing, the electro-massage and ice pack dealio, it was all good. After all that was over the doctor told me that she had seen my x-rays and while the problems I had when I was younger don't seem to be issues right now, they may have joined forces to result in fusing some of the bottom sections of my spine, the end result being that where most people have L1-L5, I have L5 fused with S1, which doens't mean shit to me for the most part, but fundamentally she said that while the normal back bends in 5 places mine does so only in four. I guess its not a long term concern, which rocks even harder, so ja reuce.
Accomplishment 2: I invented a sweet fucking sandwich
I already mentioned all the delicious foodstuffs Katie and I prepared on Sunday, so I when I returned from therapy and was hungry, I knew what I was looking for. I had the obvious parts down, Katie's delicioso rolls and my Martha tribeuce ham were meant for each other and usually I would suggest that some cheese join the party. American cheese is money for the turkey, the roast beef, etc., but it doesn't feel right for hog, so I was thinking I would just slice off some cheddar. Then I realized I had used almost all, if not all, of the cheese on the...holy shit...I've got it...seriously, I've got it. I should put the fucking potatoes, with all their scalloped cheesy goodness ON THE SANDWICH!! I know I was not the first person to come up with the potatoes on the sandwich situation. Even if I never crunched up my chips to go with the PB+J, I have been to more than a couple delis where they did it for me. I am also desperate to get to Philadelphia so that I can try what is apparently the world's best cheesesteak that, in more than one famous location, is highlighted by having a big old handful of fries mashed into the center. I have had a meatloaf sandwich which had some garlic mashed on the top and ended up gooshing out the sides in a most delicious fashion, but never this incredibly delicious combo meal.
Anyway, I nuked all the ingredients seperately, buttered the rolls, slathered some scallopotatoes on the bottom bun, topped it with warm ham, then nuked the whole thing for another couple seconds to set it together. Heaven I tell you. It would probably work better on a larger size roll, but the taste was dead on. I am considering making a special batch of scalloped potatoes to keep in the fridge or freezer whenever I want to roll Scallo-Ham Sand (every great sandwich needs a great name after all). The whole love of this sandwich got me thinking about how much I have always loved sandwiches. There is something about the format, the squeezing in between bread thing, the correct stacking order, the consistency and juxtaposition, which is truly an art. In a book called "Mostly Harmless" (the fifth book, I believe in the "increasingly inaccurately named Hitchiker's Guide Trilogy) Douglas Adams talks about the art of sandwich making when Arthur Dent becomes the sandwich maker (a position with near Godlike status) on a planet which has never heard of a sandwich before. I recognize the obvious pastoral romanticism involved with the the whole scene, and while I don't want to give up my TiVo or high speed internet to do it, there are times where I think I should just drop this whole PhD nonsense and open up a sandwich joint somewhere, move back to St. Paul and challenge Jimmy-Johns for Mac-Groveland supremacy. I can honestly say that I would look forward to getting up everyday and going to work, honing my craft, developing the finest of each brand of sandwich, tasting them, finding precisely the right cheese, the thickness of the bread, etc. Anyway, I will keep it in mind. If anyone wants to float me the dough or invest in my sandwich business, I will have written my dissertation and be fully unemployed in a couple years.
Accomplishment 3: I Wrote Quite a Bit in a Shockingly Short Time
I had already gotten briefly started on the first of my end of semester papers, but it really hadn't taken much shape yet. Not only did I manage to find the format and structure that I needed, I also added 4 solid pages of single spaced text in about two hours. I am usually just not that efficient, its not an extraordinary feat or anything, but I was happy with it, This was espeicially productive insofar as I didn't get started right away in the morning. There have been many days where once my momentum slips in one direction, it just doesn't return. Maybe it was the brilliance of my sandwich which enhanced my mind, blowing me away. I was pretty good today in this regard as well, a couple pages added to the text with only brief and sporadic writing between classes and during breaks, etc. Lets hope it continues adequately.
Accomplishment 4: I Can Fold Like a Mother-hubbard Land Lubber
So we have these wedding invitation thingies and they all had to be folded, because they are these fancy little opening numbers that Katie likes. Anyway, while Katie certainly worked on some of them, I was pretty much a foldin' machine. I would guess I hit like 90 some percent all while watching and attempting to ignore the idiocy that is the Miss USA Pageant. I was sort of upset that there was nothing left to fold, but that was obviously not a reasonable concern. I could say that there is plenty of other invitation related shit to do and that I shouldn't be wanting for tasks, but in all honesty, there isn't really much else I can do. I guess there is the whole assembling them thing or the applying stamps deal, but I am officially prohibited from all tasks which involve pen-personship, so Katie will keep rocking in that department. If anyone wants to invest in a folding business, I will have graduated from grad school and failed with my first sandwich shop in about 2 years and 6 months, so feel free to plan your investments accordingly.
I could probably find a way to stretch out my work to make it seem even more impressive, but that seems gratuitous. I refuse.
Peace,
MB-K
Monday, April 12, 2004
Pour Some Sugar on Me...Ooooh In the Name of Butt
So Happy Easter to any relevant parties. We celebrated the holiday with a little red meat, in honor of the completion of lent. We had the classic Baxter-family breakfast of Corned-Beef Hash and eggs and toast. Katie had found her Easter basket and the Cozy Heart Penguin CareBear Friend which was in it. We had gone Easter shopping Saturday and spent like 20 bucks on candy, so that was already taken care of. I don't know that I have ever mentioned Katie's "Cadbury Creme-Egg" obsession, but suffice to say I have eaten way more Cadbury Creme-Eggs this season than I can reasonably remember. I also got a really cute stuffed kitty, which we have named Claudia Jean Cat in honor of Allison Janney's portrayal of White House Press Secretary CJ Craig.
We had determined our Easter Sunday Dinner menu based on the ham that my parents had given us from the pig in the freezer. I combined the advice from AB, Martha Stewart, and Emeril in making a roasted ham with cloves, brown sugar, and coke. There are some things I could do to kick it up a couple notches, no doubt. Unfortunately the cheap roasting pan I picked up at Tops sprung a leak at some point during the cooking process and I was unable to make a good thick sugary jus to go a long with the ham. It wasn;t a problem, because there was more than enough sweetness in the meat, but still. We also made some cheese scalloped potatoes (very good), maple glazed carrots (pretty good), and Katie's clasic dinner rolls (excellent as always). We were going to make green beans with bacon and pearl onions, but we had enough food anyway and I didn't really feel like adding more work to the dinner. The dude at the liquour store came in pretty strong and the wine he recommended rolled well with the overt sweetness of brown sugar (how come you taste so good.)
The other highlight of our Easter celebration occurred at about 9:00 pm when ABC showed the Nick and Jessica Variety Hour starring Nick LaShey and Jessica Simpson of TVs Newlyweds. So obviously this show was supposed to be a satire of old school variety shows in some respects and continue on the jokes about Jessica's stupidity that every piece of film Jessica Simpson has appeared on in the past 2 years has done. The show was really odd for several reasons. First of all, many of the jokes, skits, and so on were obviously really bad. This combined the incredible acting talents of Nick and Jessica with the typically atrocious writing of ABC and variety shows. Secondly, some of the jokes were fucking really really funny. My guess is that there was a team of writers which included 9 dudes who can't write a joke that wasn't directly stolen from Laugh-In without crapping their pants (Josher tribeuce) and one person who is legitimately-ass funny. They had Mr. T do a couple sketches, one which was "10 Seconds of Discomfort With Mr. T." where Mr. T just sort of shifts his weight back and forth and stares into the camera really uncomfortably, it was SNL quality, sort of reminiscent of Phil Hartman's Frankenstein. They also had a sketch which started off so badly that I was going to turn the program off but turned awesome halfway through. It was a bad mockery of your random film noir detective moment with the primary joke being about the ability to generate an inner monologue. Jessica is like saying the things she means to think and Nick is trying to explain how to have an inner monologue and she keeps screwing up, and its awful. Then all of a sudden Jessica's inner monologue is Mr. T's voice. This is already funny. Then they try again and Jessica enters with her own voice in monologue, but with Mr. T's body. The moment that made the whole fucking program is when Mr. T, in his own voice, sang Jessica's new single. Until you have heard the T-Man garble "with nothing but a t-shirt on" you haven't heard music. The third fucked up element was all the music, which varied between random crap which Jessica fails so horribly to lip-sync that it will cause you physical fucking pain (she opens her mouth like she was trying to swallow a watermelon everytime she hits a long note) and the two of them singing with random celebrties from Babyface to Kenny Rogers. The other person whose duet is notable is Jessica and Jewel crooning out "Who Will Save Your Soul." Seriously, I mean this, after that rendition of this song the only humane thing to do is take it behind the woodshed and shoot it in the fucking head. I don't know your feelings about the work of early-Jewel anyway, but whether or not you liked the Alaskan who spent all her time "living in a van down by the river" you have to feel pity for her work at this moment.
Alright, I intended to post this last night, but I was too full of ham and stuff. So I am going to get this out there now and maybe ramble on again later, much like I had indicated I would on Saturday.
Peace,
MB-K
We had determined our Easter Sunday Dinner menu based on the ham that my parents had given us from the pig in the freezer. I combined the advice from AB, Martha Stewart, and Emeril in making a roasted ham with cloves, brown sugar, and coke. There are some things I could do to kick it up a couple notches, no doubt. Unfortunately the cheap roasting pan I picked up at Tops sprung a leak at some point during the cooking process and I was unable to make a good thick sugary jus to go a long with the ham. It wasn;t a problem, because there was more than enough sweetness in the meat, but still. We also made some cheese scalloped potatoes (very good), maple glazed carrots (pretty good), and Katie's clasic dinner rolls (excellent as always). We were going to make green beans with bacon and pearl onions, but we had enough food anyway and I didn't really feel like adding more work to the dinner. The dude at the liquour store came in pretty strong and the wine he recommended rolled well with the overt sweetness of brown sugar (how come you taste so good.)
The other highlight of our Easter celebration occurred at about 9:00 pm when ABC showed the Nick and Jessica Variety Hour starring Nick LaShey and Jessica Simpson of TVs Newlyweds. So obviously this show was supposed to be a satire of old school variety shows in some respects and continue on the jokes about Jessica's stupidity that every piece of film Jessica Simpson has appeared on in the past 2 years has done. The show was really odd for several reasons. First of all, many of the jokes, skits, and so on were obviously really bad. This combined the incredible acting talents of Nick and Jessica with the typically atrocious writing of ABC and variety shows. Secondly, some of the jokes were fucking really really funny. My guess is that there was a team of writers which included 9 dudes who can't write a joke that wasn't directly stolen from Laugh-In without crapping their pants (Josher tribeuce) and one person who is legitimately-ass funny. They had Mr. T do a couple sketches, one which was "10 Seconds of Discomfort With Mr. T." where Mr. T just sort of shifts his weight back and forth and stares into the camera really uncomfortably, it was SNL quality, sort of reminiscent of Phil Hartman's Frankenstein. They also had a sketch which started off so badly that I was going to turn the program off but turned awesome halfway through. It was a bad mockery of your random film noir detective moment with the primary joke being about the ability to generate an inner monologue. Jessica is like saying the things she means to think and Nick is trying to explain how to have an inner monologue and she keeps screwing up, and its awful. Then all of a sudden Jessica's inner monologue is Mr. T's voice. This is already funny. Then they try again and Jessica enters with her own voice in monologue, but with Mr. T's body. The moment that made the whole fucking program is when Mr. T, in his own voice, sang Jessica's new single. Until you have heard the T-Man garble "with nothing but a t-shirt on" you haven't heard music. The third fucked up element was all the music, which varied between random crap which Jessica fails so horribly to lip-sync that it will cause you physical fucking pain (she opens her mouth like she was trying to swallow a watermelon everytime she hits a long note) and the two of them singing with random celebrties from Babyface to Kenny Rogers. The other person whose duet is notable is Jessica and Jewel crooning out "Who Will Save Your Soul." Seriously, I mean this, after that rendition of this song the only humane thing to do is take it behind the woodshed and shoot it in the fucking head. I don't know your feelings about the work of early-Jewel anyway, but whether or not you liked the Alaskan who spent all her time "living in a van down by the river" you have to feel pity for her work at this moment.
Alright, I intended to post this last night, but I was too full of ham and stuff. So I am going to get this out there now and maybe ramble on again later, much like I had indicated I would on Saturday.
Peace,
MB-K
Friday, April 09, 2004
I Hope You Don't Mind, That I Put Down in Words, How Wonderful Life is, Now You're in the Butt
Mad props to Pete (whose new blog has among the best blog personal pictures out there) for the lyrics for todays title. One would assume that he was reminded of it by either watching Moulin Rogue or from the Elton John special on AI, but none of the 9 finalists (who no longer include Camile Velasco, thank you very much) sang that little diddy, so I am forced to conclude that Pete's favorite movie is Moulin Rogue. I am also forced to conclude that Moulin Rogue's favorite movie is Pete, which isn't a bad choice. What I think is really the nutzors about this title is that you can totally picture Ewan McGregor singing it with the word butt, you can almost feel the butt-related desperation just below the surface of his voice. Irregardless.
We had to leave the house today to go to a debate fundraiser poker tournament, which I played in but was way too out of practice to compete. I won a couple moderate pots, split 2 huge ones which sort of fucked me, and eventually went all-in on A-J suited and fell to pocket queens. It was disappointing, but not surprising based on how often these folks seemed to play. I wish I had the money to play poker more often, even if it was just random tournaments with people I don't know or want to know. I also don't really want to drive the 45 minutes to the nearest room, but I digress. I was in the tournament for just over an hour and twenty minutes, we sat around, I got a little work done, until Katie and I took off. What will likely be Katie's favorite event of the day occurred fairly early this morning, when a ginormous box full of wedding invitations arrived. We hadn't expected them for like another 2 weeks, which made it especially exciting. Anyway, as a result we had to make a quick stop by the old J-A-F as I like to call Jo-Ann Fabrics. Let me tell you something, I know the store gets a bad rap as a place for middle-aged housewives, but in actuality there were houswives of every age level shopping for fabric. I know that Jo-Ann is a nice comfortable suburban fabric store, but in the naming category Hancock Fabrics has the market cornered like a quivering little pet guinea pig, who, after escaping from the little circle in which you were playing with it, has made its way behind the TV and is attempting to chew on the cord for the Atari 2600. This is of course infuriating your friend Jack because he is on like level 30 of Keystone Cops and we think that there are only like 35 levels in the first place, so if that fucking guinea pig screws up the game. If you don't live an anea that has Hancock Fabric commercials on all the time (check out TLC for an hour or two if you want to make sure) you must understand that this is an even more humorous utilization of the word-name Hancock than the Hancock Tower in Chicago (which is not a bold statement seeing as how the Hancock Tower is a tall-tapered-penis-shaped buliding on Michigan Avenue. Some might say that its being located on Michigan Avenue doesn't influence the humor value, but trust me, if you ever are forced to shop in H+M, which is literally just the slutty European version of Old Navy, your day will be drastically improved when you exit to see the Hancock Tower. If you didn't chuckle at that word before, you should start doing so.
The Hancock Fabrics commercial, from which I digressed, is even funnier than the tower because the song "Han-cock: Your Fabric Store and So Much More!!" makes a conscious effort to pronounce the "Han" as if it were "Hand." Brilliant.
So after skipping Handcock Fabrics, the ghetto craft outlet if there ever was such a thing, we finished the ribbon shopping at Jo-Ann and moseyed back to Lockport. Instead of just coming home, we opted for a move over to the Hong Kong buffet for dinner. I pretty much rolled an "all-you-can-eat" shrimp dinner, in a number of different shrimp forms. There was the shrimp egg-foo young, the salt-and-pepper shrimp, the shrimp with vegetables, and the crispy fried shrimp. There were some non-shrimp things in the party as well, the fried rice, the cream-cheese puffs, the spring rolls (out of curiosity, why the fuck can't they just make vegetable egg rolls, I mean, just leave the meat out of the egg roll, but use the fucking egg roll wrapper, not the greasy rice paper nonsense you've got on the spring riz, maybe in your insulated Chinese food world this is acceptable, but in the real-verse, you can't dick around with me and the other fat dudes who are responsible for consuming like 80% of your food), and the various potato products available. There are some items at a chinese buffet which, though obviously not chinese, I understand having a little bit of (maybe the sauteed potatoes or even the deep fried potatoes, the mussels, the ice cream for dessert) but I don't get the people who eat pizza. I mean, I don't really understand why they have pizza there either, I assume its just so that especially picky children and such won't go to chinese buffets unless they get frozen pizza, but its fucking ricockulous. At that point why don't you just feed your children at home and order some General Tso after they go to sleep.
I don't think Friday nights are best spent babbling on the internet, so I will go to bed. Saturday afternoons are more reasonable for nonsense.
Peace,
MB-K
We had to leave the house today to go to a debate fundraiser poker tournament, which I played in but was way too out of practice to compete. I won a couple moderate pots, split 2 huge ones which sort of fucked me, and eventually went all-in on A-J suited and fell to pocket queens. It was disappointing, but not surprising based on how often these folks seemed to play. I wish I had the money to play poker more often, even if it was just random tournaments with people I don't know or want to know. I also don't really want to drive the 45 minutes to the nearest room, but I digress. I was in the tournament for just over an hour and twenty minutes, we sat around, I got a little work done, until Katie and I took off. What will likely be Katie's favorite event of the day occurred fairly early this morning, when a ginormous box full of wedding invitations arrived. We hadn't expected them for like another 2 weeks, which made it especially exciting. Anyway, as a result we had to make a quick stop by the old J-A-F as I like to call Jo-Ann Fabrics. Let me tell you something, I know the store gets a bad rap as a place for middle-aged housewives, but in actuality there were houswives of every age level shopping for fabric. I know that Jo-Ann is a nice comfortable suburban fabric store, but in the naming category Hancock Fabrics has the market cornered like a quivering little pet guinea pig, who, after escaping from the little circle in which you were playing with it, has made its way behind the TV and is attempting to chew on the cord for the Atari 2600. This is of course infuriating your friend Jack because he is on like level 30 of Keystone Cops and we think that there are only like 35 levels in the first place, so if that fucking guinea pig screws up the game. If you don't live an anea that has Hancock Fabric commercials on all the time (check out TLC for an hour or two if you want to make sure) you must understand that this is an even more humorous utilization of the word-name Hancock than the Hancock Tower in Chicago (which is not a bold statement seeing as how the Hancock Tower is a tall-tapered-penis-shaped buliding on Michigan Avenue. Some might say that its being located on Michigan Avenue doesn't influence the humor value, but trust me, if you ever are forced to shop in H+M, which is literally just the slutty European version of Old Navy, your day will be drastically improved when you exit to see the Hancock Tower. If you didn't chuckle at that word before, you should start doing so.
The Hancock Fabrics commercial, from which I digressed, is even funnier than the tower because the song "Han-cock: Your Fabric Store and So Much More!!" makes a conscious effort to pronounce the "Han" as if it were "Hand." Brilliant.
So after skipping Handcock Fabrics, the ghetto craft outlet if there ever was such a thing, we finished the ribbon shopping at Jo-Ann and moseyed back to Lockport. Instead of just coming home, we opted for a move over to the Hong Kong buffet for dinner. I pretty much rolled an "all-you-can-eat" shrimp dinner, in a number of different shrimp forms. There was the shrimp egg-foo young, the salt-and-pepper shrimp, the shrimp with vegetables, and the crispy fried shrimp. There were some non-shrimp things in the party as well, the fried rice, the cream-cheese puffs, the spring rolls (out of curiosity, why the fuck can't they just make vegetable egg rolls, I mean, just leave the meat out of the egg roll, but use the fucking egg roll wrapper, not the greasy rice paper nonsense you've got on the spring riz, maybe in your insulated Chinese food world this is acceptable, but in the real-verse, you can't dick around with me and the other fat dudes who are responsible for consuming like 80% of your food), and the various potato products available. There are some items at a chinese buffet which, though obviously not chinese, I understand having a little bit of (maybe the sauteed potatoes or even the deep fried potatoes, the mussels, the ice cream for dessert) but I don't get the people who eat pizza. I mean, I don't really understand why they have pizza there either, I assume its just so that especially picky children and such won't go to chinese buffets unless they get frozen pizza, but its fucking ricockulous. At that point why don't you just feed your children at home and order some General Tso after they go to sleep.
I don't think Friday nights are best spent babbling on the internet, so I will go to bed. Saturday afternoons are more reasonable for nonsense.
Peace,
MB-K
Thursday, April 08, 2004
Nothing I Can Do...A Total Eclipse of the Butt
I got some more physical therapy today and I think that I somehow ended up on the "really easy laid-back" program. I think this because every time I get there I walk into the main area, which has all these workout machines and bikes and weights and shit, and there are all these people in like workout clothes who are sweating and obviously in serious pain while they try to get their fourth knee to work. Then the doctor comes up and leads me to this private little room thing, I sit on a table, she throws a heating thing on my back. Asks me how the excercises have gone, asks me how my back feels, etc. Here was what I did at therapy today: listened to the radio. I got to hear Avril's "I'm With You" , Jessica Simpson's new one, something that sounded like a really catchy Fat Boy Slim tune, and some other good stuff. There was some crap mixed in mind you, that Matchbox 20 song that everyone is listening to these days and some Black Eyed Peas song that was not written by Justin. That was literally what I did at therapy. During that time the doctor put the heat on my back, asked some questions, left for 10 minutes. Came back, did some sort of "over-pressure" thing which seemed to just consist of her putting this plastic thing on my back and pushing on it which just felt like an overcentralized slightly too firm massage. She did that for like ten minutes, then left. Came back with an ice pack and the electro-shock machine, which feels pretty good after a minute or two, but begins as just a prickly weird massage thing. Its always fucked up when you feel like your back muscles are being moved all around when factually you know there is nothing on you but some electrodes. That was 15 minutes or so, then I left. I don't know who signed me up for rock-star physical therapy, but I feel much cooler than the suckers in their workout clothes when I walk in with my sweater and khakis, alternate temperature sensations for 40 minutes, then go home. I think I am just gonna bring my computer in next time and watch a movie.
So the tribes have merged in spectacular fashion this evening. At this point in the Survivor All Stars competition I feel optimistic that the streak of disappointing reality show victories may be over. I would be happy if either Boston Rob or Rupert came away with a victory, there are some others who wouldn't piss me off. That said, the nature of Survivor tends to kick out the really strong people right about now. The first individual immunity challenge is completed as we speak, so we will see if Lex's inability to untie a fucking knot like a dipshit is his downfall. I don't think it matters, cause tattoo boy ain't going all the way no matter what, but still.
So last week we saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I don't think I mentioned this fact as of yet. I was surprised when Katie suggested seeing it, since I had already resigned myself to the idea that her "lets go see a movie" meant that I would need to pray that Kevin Smith came through in Jersey Girl. I don't think that is possible, noticeably, since it does star Ben Affleck after all, and he could ruin Citizen Kane with an extra's role. I pretty much like Liv Tyler and the little chick was kinda funny when I saw her on Ellen, but still, its Ben(nifer). I will give him props on the "Mary Kate and Ashfleck" joke from SNL, but he had about as much to do with the creation of that joke as I did. So, while I needed no justification to agree to seeing this film, I agreed wholeheartedly with Katie's argument that, even if she wasn't sure about it, the reviews of it were too good to pass up. When people are saying that its "Charlie Kaufman with heart" I guess you can't doubt it.
I don't have full opinions about the whole film yet, I definately enjoyed it. I am pretty certain that its not in the league of Adaptation (which, I think I have mentioned, I believe to actually be a better film than Being John Malkovich upon repeated viewings) and I am not sure if it exceeds BJM. That said, there are some scenes that are incredible, brilliantly written, brilliantly acted, and perfectly filmed. I won't give away more of the film if you haven't had a chance to enjoy it yet, but the ending is unsure enough (at least from the outset of the film) that I wasn't looking closely enough at the details I later realized to be crucial. Kate WInslett, Jim Carrey, and Mark Ruffalo are awesome, though I think Kirsten Dunst pulls kind of a weak Goodwill Hunting . I will not go weak-kneed and say that the addition of the romantic element is the reason that this film is not as powerful upon first viewing. I say that both because there is nothing about the romantic element in film which makes it uninteresting and more importantly because I think that the idea that there is no romance in Adaptation (and to a lesser extent BJM) is ricockulous. Part of the reason Chris Cooper and Meryl Streep's performances were so incredible was due to the fact that when the film makes its explicit transition into "Act 2" they are required to maintain the elements which made thier characters interactions interesting to begin with (the "folkloric" intelligence Chris Cooper projects and the detached desiring that Meryl Streep is so desperate to provide to anyone who will listen. While there are obvious elements in Eternal Sunshine which complicate the romantic story, I don't think they go this far. I have only seen the movie once, so I won't say for certain that comments I've read which call the movie "incredibly romantic" are misguided, but I think that to put it on the forefront is missing a big part of the point. I'm sure that there are Deleuzians and Bergsonians galore dying to write about Kaufman's obsession with memory, but again, I will uspend my judgement.
I am trying to keep these entires to a more reasonable extreme, so I will go now. Keep it riz.
Peace,
MB-K
So the tribes have merged in spectacular fashion this evening. At this point in the Survivor All Stars competition I feel optimistic that the streak of disappointing reality show victories may be over. I would be happy if either Boston Rob or Rupert came away with a victory, there are some others who wouldn't piss me off. That said, the nature of Survivor tends to kick out the really strong people right about now. The first individual immunity challenge is completed as we speak, so we will see if Lex's inability to untie a fucking knot like a dipshit is his downfall. I don't think it matters, cause tattoo boy ain't going all the way no matter what, but still.
So last week we saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I don't think I mentioned this fact as of yet. I was surprised when Katie suggested seeing it, since I had already resigned myself to the idea that her "lets go see a movie" meant that I would need to pray that Kevin Smith came through in Jersey Girl. I don't think that is possible, noticeably, since it does star Ben Affleck after all, and he could ruin Citizen Kane with an extra's role. I pretty much like Liv Tyler and the little chick was kinda funny when I saw her on Ellen, but still, its Ben(nifer). I will give him props on the "Mary Kate and Ashfleck" joke from SNL, but he had about as much to do with the creation of that joke as I did. So, while I needed no justification to agree to seeing this film, I agreed wholeheartedly with Katie's argument that, even if she wasn't sure about it, the reviews of it were too good to pass up. When people are saying that its "Charlie Kaufman with heart" I guess you can't doubt it.
I don't have full opinions about the whole film yet, I definately enjoyed it. I am pretty certain that its not in the league of Adaptation (which, I think I have mentioned, I believe to actually be a better film than Being John Malkovich upon repeated viewings) and I am not sure if it exceeds BJM. That said, there are some scenes that are incredible, brilliantly written, brilliantly acted, and perfectly filmed. I won't give away more of the film if you haven't had a chance to enjoy it yet, but the ending is unsure enough (at least from the outset of the film) that I wasn't looking closely enough at the details I later realized to be crucial. Kate WInslett, Jim Carrey, and Mark Ruffalo are awesome, though I think Kirsten Dunst pulls kind of a weak Goodwill Hunting . I will not go weak-kneed and say that the addition of the romantic element is the reason that this film is not as powerful upon first viewing. I say that both because there is nothing about the romantic element in film which makes it uninteresting and more importantly because I think that the idea that there is no romance in Adaptation (and to a lesser extent BJM) is ricockulous. Part of the reason Chris Cooper and Meryl Streep's performances were so incredible was due to the fact that when the film makes its explicit transition into "Act 2" they are required to maintain the elements which made thier characters interactions interesting to begin with (the "folkloric" intelligence Chris Cooper projects and the detached desiring that Meryl Streep is so desperate to provide to anyone who will listen. While there are obvious elements in Eternal Sunshine which complicate the romantic story, I don't think they go this far. I have only seen the movie once, so I won't say for certain that comments I've read which call the movie "incredibly romantic" are misguided, but I think that to put it on the forefront is missing a big part of the point. I'm sure that there are Deleuzians and Bergsonians galore dying to write about Kaufman's obsession with memory, but again, I will uspend my judgement.
I am trying to keep these entires to a more reasonable extreme, so I will go now. Keep it riz.
Peace,
MB-K
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
Put a Little Love in Your Butt
So let me tell you something. Wednesdays on Fox are fucked up , I mean seriously fucked up. You have no idea. First of all, we've got the American Idol thing going down. For the first time in a long time I am pleased with the selection on a reality show, as Camile Velasco went home and John Stevens wasn't in the bottom three. This is surprising, since he bonered it for the second week in a row, but at the same time, he is one of three boys, and neither he or JPL is going home quite yet. George Huff on the other hand raised the bar and showed up Fantasia, who previously looked like she was gonna go Reuben Studdard on the bit. Anyway, the North Eastern Suburbs of Buffalo are representing national style on AI. More power Sinatra Jr.
Since neither West Wing or Angel are on tonight we tivoed The Swan. Holy assballs. Holy fucking assballs. A couple observations about this program. Any of the good things you can think about on this show are there. They are hiding somewhere very very deep in the background, but they are around. Yes, some of these women seem to feel a little better about themselves, yes everyone is nice, no no one tells them they are ugly and fat and they talk about all the plastic surgery as if it were to "enhance their beauty." That said, every bad thing you could think about this show is also present and it brought its best evil friends along for the party. The show begins with the host of Paradise Hotel introducing us to the women who will get the makeovers. Then we get a brief look at one of two women who will be competing tonight. The first thing we might comment on in this situation is the fact that yes, each of these women have serious serious serious MOTHERFUCKING SERIOUS mental issues which are really really really MOTHERFUCKING REALLY obvious. Like "my dad told everyone not to like me" and "everyone used to spit on me and I didn't have any friends until high school." So you have two women who, while not Playboy centerfolds, aren't Phantoms of the fucking Opera either, who are in desperate need of therapy.
So then a group of doctors take two people, build two entirely new people out of them, and tell them that they are now good people. I mean, wow, like wow. I could sit here and explain the problems with these things, but if you haven't figured them out then...no, I refuse,. If you haven't figured it out yet go make a batch of Jell-O jigglers and turn on an episode of that PBS show for babies that just has these colorful smiling blobs spinning around in glittery soft focus. That is your calling in life. Beyond these pretty significant issues, you also have to deal with the fact that they built two new fucking people. I mean, you can just barely believe that they are the same. I have never doubted the transformative abilities of plastic surgery, but damn. Its ridiculous, more than somewhat unnerving, but ridiculous. I don't know that I can recommend the show, I don't know that I will ever watch it again, but wow. I mean, wow. On the bright side this show does function as proof that no matter how bad reality television is, I won't give up the concept as a whole. If next year they do Survivor: Khmer Rogue, it might be a differnt story, but I guess we will see.
On the bright side of the television front let me mention two other programs I watched on TIVO tonight which are incredibly fanttastic The Sopranos and Chappelle's Show. I know I'm not exactly giving you a hot tip about The Office or anything, but they are outdoing themselves. Dave Chappelle is doing the funniest and most intelligent sketch comedy I have seen in a long while. I mean its not always quite as falling on the floor funny as Mr. Show or The State and its not as politically savy in terms of analyzing race as Chris Rock, but it is the best combination ever done. At this point, however, it seems only to be on the rise, and if it sticks around a couple more seasons, you never know. Charlie Murphy seems to me even funnier than his brother and Dave Chappelle just thinks the right things are funny. If you are not now, you should be watching Chappelle's Show.
I got an email for a conference today, one that will occur next fall at the University of Western Ontario, on Gambling Theory. I figure that I absolutely should write a paper for this conference on poker, though I am not sure what it will be quite yet. I passed up the opportunity to write a paper on Buffy for a conference that was out in California and I couldn't afford, but this one might be a good time. James McManus already has a decent bibliography on psychoanalytic readings of gamblers and poker specifically, so I am sure I can generate something. I don't tend to respect the people who write in books like "The Matrix and Philosophy" ; while there are plenty of intelligent people who comment on popular culture routinely they just don't tend to be in these books. Instead they tend to be mixed into larger chapters and less focused works. Regardless, I love the idea of being able to take the things I actually enjoy about what I do and work it all up Missy Elliot style into television, gambling, and eating. I mean, I would prefer just to take the television, gambling, and eating, but since I continue to not find a job as "professional good tv watcher" or "senior couch testing associate for cookie tasting."
I am tired, really really tired for some reason. Maybe it is because I got up early to go remedy the issue of my doctor failing to purchase essential medical technology. I went to some place to get my x-rays done, I signed in, I waited, then I got x-rays taken, and then I left. Now, in a day or two, my doctor will get those x-rays and be able to tell me, a day or two later, about the result of those x-rays. Now that I think about it, maybe I am exaggerating. After all, I went into the doctors on one Thursday afternoon and like 10-12 days later, the doctor calls me to explain what appears to be wrong. Its amazing these days. If I had fallen and broken my leg last Thursday I would already be tucked away in my comfy cast. I would already have the leeches removed and after stopping by to have the evil demons expelled from my bones for the simple sacrifice of a mule. Just think, some day my grandchildren, maybe, if they are real lucky, even my children, might be able to send a letter accross the country by "electronic mail" or go to a Mr MackDonald's Hamburger Emporium without exiting their motorcoach, in some sort of lane which could be "driven-through" or even "driven-THRU!!"
Ah, the land of tomorrow, a world of opportunity. It reminds me of a song I heard once. It went, a little something, like this:
Zoobilee Zoo
Zoobilee Zoo
Magic and Wonder
Are Waiting
For You
So Come On
With Us Now
Its as bright,
as the brightest blue
Welcome
To Zoobilee Zoo
I don't know that I can convey to you the emotion filled to me by that song. Its no Donald Trump's House of Wings, but a rose by any other name. Don't judge a book by its cover people. Remember the Titans.
Peace,
MB-K
Since neither West Wing or Angel are on tonight we tivoed The Swan. Holy assballs. Holy fucking assballs. A couple observations about this program. Any of the good things you can think about on this show are there. They are hiding somewhere very very deep in the background, but they are around. Yes, some of these women seem to feel a little better about themselves, yes everyone is nice, no no one tells them they are ugly and fat and they talk about all the plastic surgery as if it were to "enhance their beauty." That said, every bad thing you could think about this show is also present and it brought its best evil friends along for the party. The show begins with the host of Paradise Hotel introducing us to the women who will get the makeovers. Then we get a brief look at one of two women who will be competing tonight. The first thing we might comment on in this situation is the fact that yes, each of these women have serious serious serious MOTHERFUCKING SERIOUS mental issues which are really really really MOTHERFUCKING REALLY obvious. Like "my dad told everyone not to like me" and "everyone used to spit on me and I didn't have any friends until high school." So you have two women who, while not Playboy centerfolds, aren't Phantoms of the fucking Opera either, who are in desperate need of therapy.
So then a group of doctors take two people, build two entirely new people out of them, and tell them that they are now good people. I mean, wow, like wow. I could sit here and explain the problems with these things, but if you haven't figured them out then...no, I refuse,. If you haven't figured it out yet go make a batch of Jell-O jigglers and turn on an episode of that PBS show for babies that just has these colorful smiling blobs spinning around in glittery soft focus. That is your calling in life. Beyond these pretty significant issues, you also have to deal with the fact that they built two new fucking people. I mean, you can just barely believe that they are the same. I have never doubted the transformative abilities of plastic surgery, but damn. Its ridiculous, more than somewhat unnerving, but ridiculous. I don't know that I can recommend the show, I don't know that I will ever watch it again, but wow. I mean, wow. On the bright side this show does function as proof that no matter how bad reality television is, I won't give up the concept as a whole. If next year they do Survivor: Khmer Rogue, it might be a differnt story, but I guess we will see.
On the bright side of the television front let me mention two other programs I watched on TIVO tonight which are incredibly fanttastic The Sopranos and Chappelle's Show. I know I'm not exactly giving you a hot tip about The Office or anything, but they are outdoing themselves. Dave Chappelle is doing the funniest and most intelligent sketch comedy I have seen in a long while. I mean its not always quite as falling on the floor funny as Mr. Show or The State and its not as politically savy in terms of analyzing race as Chris Rock, but it is the best combination ever done. At this point, however, it seems only to be on the rise, and if it sticks around a couple more seasons, you never know. Charlie Murphy seems to me even funnier than his brother and Dave Chappelle just thinks the right things are funny. If you are not now, you should be watching Chappelle's Show.
I got an email for a conference today, one that will occur next fall at the University of Western Ontario, on Gambling Theory. I figure that I absolutely should write a paper for this conference on poker, though I am not sure what it will be quite yet. I passed up the opportunity to write a paper on Buffy for a conference that was out in California and I couldn't afford, but this one might be a good time. James McManus already has a decent bibliography on psychoanalytic readings of gamblers and poker specifically, so I am sure I can generate something. I don't tend to respect the people who write in books like "The Matrix and Philosophy" ; while there are plenty of intelligent people who comment on popular culture routinely they just don't tend to be in these books. Instead they tend to be mixed into larger chapters and less focused works. Regardless, I love the idea of being able to take the things I actually enjoy about what I do and work it all up Missy Elliot style into television, gambling, and eating. I mean, I would prefer just to take the television, gambling, and eating, but since I continue to not find a job as "professional good tv watcher" or "senior couch testing associate for cookie tasting."
I am tired, really really tired for some reason. Maybe it is because I got up early to go remedy the issue of my doctor failing to purchase essential medical technology. I went to some place to get my x-rays done, I signed in, I waited, then I got x-rays taken, and then I left. Now, in a day or two, my doctor will get those x-rays and be able to tell me, a day or two later, about the result of those x-rays. Now that I think about it, maybe I am exaggerating. After all, I went into the doctors on one Thursday afternoon and like 10-12 days later, the doctor calls me to explain what appears to be wrong. Its amazing these days. If I had fallen and broken my leg last Thursday I would already be tucked away in my comfy cast. I would already have the leeches removed and after stopping by to have the evil demons expelled from my bones for the simple sacrifice of a mule. Just think, some day my grandchildren, maybe, if they are real lucky, even my children, might be able to send a letter accross the country by "electronic mail" or go to a Mr MackDonald's Hamburger Emporium without exiting their motorcoach, in some sort of lane which could be "driven-through" or even "driven-THRU!!"
Ah, the land of tomorrow, a world of opportunity. It reminds me of a song I heard once. It went, a little something, like this:
Zoobilee Zoo
Zoobilee Zoo
Magic and Wonder
Are Waiting
For You
So Come On
With Us Now
Its as bright,
as the brightest blue
Welcome
To Zoobilee Zoo
I don't know that I can convey to you the emotion filled to me by that song. Its no Donald Trump's House of Wings, but a rose by any other name. Don't judge a book by its cover people. Remember the Titans.
Peace,
MB-K
Monday, April 05, 2004
Her Name is Rio and She Dances in the Butt
I have decided to attempt to find the best lyric which, when the last word is exchanged with butt, sounds ultima-super-awesome. In search of this goal, I will utilize my blog titles in the pursuit.
So I have watched like 4 episodes of Wondefalls, I caught up on all the ones I had tivoed, and now find out that the show is officially fucking canceled. Television, like sushi, appears to be engaged in an obscure drive towards self destruction, by getting rid of everything which borders on decent. Don't get me wrong, I love you TV, I love your reality programs, your blockbuster dramas, and even some of your better written comedies. But when every new show which isn't produced by Mark Burnett (or more accurately, is produced by someone who has ties to Joss) gets four episodes and is then canceled we can only go on so long. I know you can always put washed 80's cop show stars and cute blonde West Wing extras together and make CSI: Boise but seriously. I know not everyone likes Buffy and Angel, I got it, some people are fucking stupid, some people don't get the fantasy genre, some people have never given it a chance. But the only similarity between the Buffyverse and Firefly-Wonderfalls is that they are both well written. I mean, I agree with the criticism that you have to watch these shows a while to get into them, the first 2 episodes of Wonderfalls were okay, but nothing to write home about. You had to give them a chance to get into the gimmicks, the actors a chance to really understand where it was going, etc. one of the articles I read (I think it was the one that Pete linked to on his blog) mentioned Tim Minnear's quote that the season told a story, you can't just judge it off 4 shows and I think that is accurate. Let me explain a little to any Fox execs in the audience: audiences like to know characters, they like to get involved in their lives, their inside jokes, they like to find out things about them you didn't know. If you give the show 13 episodes, the story has been told, and no one liked it, then fucking don't renew it, thats fine. Whatever, you tried it, it failed. I am pretty sure that your mid-season replacement isn't going to be CSI, you are probably just going to force gay blind people to fight leopards or something, then cancel that so you can show a new comedy starring Eva Peron's niece and the fat computer guy from Head of the Class (whose name I can't fucking believe I forgot) as Leprechaun hunters in 1940s Nova Scotia.
On a more relevant note, it is worth noting the times at which Fox decided to show this program. They began on Fridays at 9:00. I like that idea, I still do like it as much as I proposed last year. Nonetheless, I am willing now to admit that while I like having new quality programming to watch on Friday nights (or at least to tivo on Friday nights) it is not a successful program for ratings. Miss Match, which was a show I enjoyed and would have continued to watch, wasn't incredible, but solid, bombed for no apparent reason, it was something the Friend's crowd would eat up but better written. Anyway, if Fox executives out there ended up putting Wonderfalls on Friday because of my Friday ratings advice, I apologize, my bad, don't use that failure to justify not following my other advice. Maybe they are just putting shows on Friday night that they know are good but for some reason don't want to continue on the network (Firefly, Wonderfalls, and Miss Match all Fridays at 9), Then again, maybe Joan of Arcadia indicates that there is simply some different formula for Friday, rather than Thursday, night success. Regardless, the ad-wizards at Fox decided then to switch the show over to catch the GIGANTIC COATTAILS OF TRU CALLING!!! What the fuck, they put it on THURSDAYS AT NINE!!! Why don't you just air the show only during the Super Bowl, the American Idol Finale, the last episode of Friends, and the next time terrorists blow something up, great schedule. Hmmmm, lets see. We've got a crappy show with a chick who should be developing Faith The Vampire Slayer and the time slot afterwards goes up against two of the three most popular shows on television which means that all possible fucking audiences are committed. Electro-to-the we-awk.
Speaking of Thursdays at nine, the Donald was hosting SNL this past week, and came through pretty solidly. The nut was when he did one of the sketches in the series that I believe began with Stevie Nicks house of tacos. This was Donald Trump's House of Wings. The theme song was to the tune of "Jump For My Love" and motherfucking hilarious. I believe the lyrics were:
"You know our wings, will make you happy (TRUMP)
You know our wings, will cheer you up (TRUMP-IN)
If you want wings, we'll serve you up a big plate
Donald Trump's House of Wings"
I don't know if I can possibly convey to you how hilarious this shit was. If you don't find this concept humorous, well, you have no soul. I watched it back like 3 times and while Katie was able to breathe, unlike me, she enjoyed it too. I will let you know when I find it on Kazaa or something somewhere. The only joke which compared at all was Horatio Sanz as David Crosby explaining what he did when he wasn't busy "throwing his semen around the lesbian community." Katie, surprisingly for her normally excessive knowledge of everything, was not aware of his relationship with Melissa Etheridge and her partner (fucking A, how can I not remember people's names today, what is that woman's fucking name). Anyway, props to SNL for a good show.
Another props based shout out is directed at the U of M Women's Basketball team for a fucking off the hook run into the Final Four. They were beaten fairly well by the ladies at UConn last night, but still played pretty well. Lindsay Whalen is fucking awesome and so is this Janel McCarville woman, but the fact of the matter is that when Diana Terasi is on her best game she might be unbeatable. Its really too bad the WNBA is not an incredibly viable venture, as last night convinced me that it could be interesting to follow some of these women further. Anyway, it was a blast to watch and if nothing else I think these ladies can be proud in knowing that they turned several people onto their sport, at least for a moment, and kept me enthralled.
Alright, Katie is probably going to make me cookies if I let her use the computer, so I am going to do that now. Check it.
Peace,
MB-K
So I have watched like 4 episodes of Wondefalls, I caught up on all the ones I had tivoed, and now find out that the show is officially fucking canceled. Television, like sushi, appears to be engaged in an obscure drive towards self destruction, by getting rid of everything which borders on decent. Don't get me wrong, I love you TV, I love your reality programs, your blockbuster dramas, and even some of your better written comedies. But when every new show which isn't produced by Mark Burnett (or more accurately, is produced by someone who has ties to Joss) gets four episodes and is then canceled we can only go on so long. I know you can always put washed 80's cop show stars and cute blonde West Wing extras together and make CSI: Boise but seriously. I know not everyone likes Buffy and Angel, I got it, some people are fucking stupid, some people don't get the fantasy genre, some people have never given it a chance. But the only similarity between the Buffyverse and Firefly-Wonderfalls is that they are both well written. I mean, I agree with the criticism that you have to watch these shows a while to get into them, the first 2 episodes of Wonderfalls were okay, but nothing to write home about. You had to give them a chance to get into the gimmicks, the actors a chance to really understand where it was going, etc. one of the articles I read (I think it was the one that Pete linked to on his blog) mentioned Tim Minnear's quote that the season told a story, you can't just judge it off 4 shows and I think that is accurate. Let me explain a little to any Fox execs in the audience: audiences like to know characters, they like to get involved in their lives, their inside jokes, they like to find out things about them you didn't know. If you give the show 13 episodes, the story has been told, and no one liked it, then fucking don't renew it, thats fine. Whatever, you tried it, it failed. I am pretty sure that your mid-season replacement isn't going to be CSI, you are probably just going to force gay blind people to fight leopards or something, then cancel that so you can show a new comedy starring Eva Peron's niece and the fat computer guy from Head of the Class (whose name I can't fucking believe I forgot) as Leprechaun hunters in 1940s Nova Scotia.
On a more relevant note, it is worth noting the times at which Fox decided to show this program. They began on Fridays at 9:00. I like that idea, I still do like it as much as I proposed last year. Nonetheless, I am willing now to admit that while I like having new quality programming to watch on Friday nights (or at least to tivo on Friday nights) it is not a successful program for ratings. Miss Match, which was a show I enjoyed and would have continued to watch, wasn't incredible, but solid, bombed for no apparent reason, it was something the Friend's crowd would eat up but better written. Anyway, if Fox executives out there ended up putting Wonderfalls on Friday because of my Friday ratings advice, I apologize, my bad, don't use that failure to justify not following my other advice. Maybe they are just putting shows on Friday night that they know are good but for some reason don't want to continue on the network (Firefly, Wonderfalls, and Miss Match all Fridays at 9), Then again, maybe Joan of Arcadia indicates that there is simply some different formula for Friday, rather than Thursday, night success. Regardless, the ad-wizards at Fox decided then to switch the show over to catch the GIGANTIC COATTAILS OF TRU CALLING!!! What the fuck, they put it on THURSDAYS AT NINE!!! Why don't you just air the show only during the Super Bowl, the American Idol Finale, the last episode of Friends, and the next time terrorists blow something up, great schedule. Hmmmm, lets see. We've got a crappy show with a chick who should be developing Faith The Vampire Slayer and the time slot afterwards goes up against two of the three most popular shows on television which means that all possible fucking audiences are committed. Electro-to-the we-awk.
Speaking of Thursdays at nine, the Donald was hosting SNL this past week, and came through pretty solidly. The nut was when he did one of the sketches in the series that I believe began with Stevie Nicks house of tacos. This was Donald Trump's House of Wings. The theme song was to the tune of "Jump For My Love" and motherfucking hilarious. I believe the lyrics were:
"You know our wings, will make you happy (TRUMP)
You know our wings, will cheer you up (TRUMP-IN)
If you want wings, we'll serve you up a big plate
Donald Trump's House of Wings"
I don't know if I can possibly convey to you how hilarious this shit was. If you don't find this concept humorous, well, you have no soul. I watched it back like 3 times and while Katie was able to breathe, unlike me, she enjoyed it too. I will let you know when I find it on Kazaa or something somewhere. The only joke which compared at all was Horatio Sanz as David Crosby explaining what he did when he wasn't busy "throwing his semen around the lesbian community." Katie, surprisingly for her normally excessive knowledge of everything, was not aware of his relationship with Melissa Etheridge and her partner (fucking A, how can I not remember people's names today, what is that woman's fucking name). Anyway, props to SNL for a good show.
Another props based shout out is directed at the U of M Women's Basketball team for a fucking off the hook run into the Final Four. They were beaten fairly well by the ladies at UConn last night, but still played pretty well. Lindsay Whalen is fucking awesome and so is this Janel McCarville woman, but the fact of the matter is that when Diana Terasi is on her best game she might be unbeatable. Its really too bad the WNBA is not an incredibly viable venture, as last night convinced me that it could be interesting to follow some of these women further. Anyway, it was a blast to watch and if nothing else I think these ladies can be proud in knowing that they turned several people onto their sport, at least for a moment, and kept me enthralled.
Alright, Katie is probably going to make me cookies if I let her use the computer, so I am going to do that now. Check it.
Peace,
MB-K
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Oot
Sorry, I have been oot for a couple days, needed a brief recovery period from the whole non-stop interweb phenomena which dominates our lives these days. By that I mean, of course, I was sick of typing and so avoided saying anything. Now I have swung back into the controlling medium of the computer and will roll happily through excessive and for the most part entirely irrelevant rantings. I have tried to indicate to my students the ways in which free-writing resembles blogging, which I would have thought would make some connection with them as a pre-writing strategy, being as they are the internet generation and all, but apparently none of them have any sort of a blog. Frightening to think that I am more in touch with their age then they are.
Not much else is up at the moment, so I have very little serious content of note at all. On that note, lets begin with the giraffe. I was never a tremendous fan of the giraffe, largely because it was so popular with everyone else. Check yourself, however, because its not like I wasn't down with the big long-yellow necked motherfucker, I just wasn't giraffe crazy like so many little kids. I think the reason the giraffe was so cool was because no matter how aware you are of what a giraffe is and no matter how many times you have seen one in the past, nothing prepares you for the actual experience of seeing one again in person, every time its like "wo" (in the same way as, for instance, Mya's ass is). I don't know if there are any children whom have ever uttered the phrase "Giraffe, what is up with your neck" but someone should have, because it is fuckign long, like really fucking long. Every time you approach the giraffe pen you are thinking, now, I know that the giraffe is tall and has a long neck, and then you turn the corner and the giraffe's head is like 20 feet from its body and what the hell.
John Stevens got lucky last night and managed not only to stay in the competition, but to stay entirely out of the bottom 3. I knew, at some level, that he wasn't gonna go yet, because not only are there only 3 dudes left in the competition, but only one of them has any legitimate chance at all to win the competition. Mad props to Amy Adams, who got eliminated entirely illegitimately, since I would assume it was because she wasn't quite as skinny as Camile, who sings like someone shoved an overripe canteloupe in her fucking windpipe. Seriously, she has garbled her way through at least twice and what the hell are people thinking. There are plenty of better looking women to vote for in this deal, so that can't really be it. My only guess is that the entire state of Hawaii is voting for her, and since they are a time zone all to themselves, they get alot more votes for Camile then anyone else. My guess is that there were enough people who felt bad for John Stevens that they chose him, maybe in the end its better off to be absolutely horrible in the early weeks of the final competition. On the bright side of the elimination, Amy Adams will have no problems finding a gig in the music industry. If she is smart she has already rented an apartment in Nashville and called up some country music label, because when Paula Abdul tells you on national TV that the song you just did would be number one on the coutntry charts, you should sign that girl. 20 million people whose taste in music is often still extremely pliable watched that program, cash in baby.
So I went to this doctor dude today, regarding my back, at least potentially regarding my back. So I walked into this place and first of all, not such a professional looking place. I mean, it wasn't trashy, it wasn't dirty, but it certainly wasn't professional in the sense I would expect, it would be very much out of place in the Southern-Burbian area. The carpet was a little older or shabbier, the walls were a sort of off-white shade, not the crisp definitive shit that I normally see. The examination room was pretty small and stuff, and the doctor, surprisingly enough, was a big dude. I mean, he was bigger than me, and not like Brock Lesnar style, like, he and I could sit down together at an all you can eat pork buffet and look very normal together. If you had put a cowboy hat on this dude, set a pie in front of him and I would bet you money that his nickname was "Hoss." Basically, and this is what I didn't get, I had gone in there because my back is hurting and they dealt far more with general medical shit. Sure, I get the fact that I hadn't been in there before, you want to establish my medical history, whatever. I admittedly made some stuff up, because I just didn't know anything about it, which some might say is a poor choice when dealing with your doctor, but I am not real concerned, my fucking back just hurts. Anyway, after all this nonsense Dr. Hoss gave me a prescription for some muscle relaxants and physical therapy. Last time I did it that was very helpful, so I am glad to have it, The really fucked up component of all this is that at the end, the doctor is like, maybe we should get some x-rays. Let me remind everyone that I am not a medical doctor. That said, I thought this one was pretty fuckikng obvious, even if I had received my MD from Butthole State I could have told you that someone with back problems and no recent x-rays needs to get fucking x-rays. This gave me some increase in belief for the competency of this gentleman. So, he got up and shook my hand and left the room. So I sort of wait around and the nurse comes and brings me some stuff and I go out to the window and they give me some prescriptions. I am confused at this point until this woman hands me prescription slip number three, which is a prescription to get x-rays. This is something I had not seen before. Basically, this doctor's office doesn't have an x-ray machine.
I know very little about the economics of the medical profession, ammend that to nothing at all about the economics of the medical profession. I think, however, that if you want to go into business as a doctor, you need to understand that there are certain "start-up costs." You gotta be able to buy some swabs, some paper to cover up your bed-table thing, and, while admittedly a slightly bigger expense, you HAVE TO BUY A FUCKING X-RAY MACHINE!! You are a doctor and, seeing as you are a non-mutant, human doctor, you cannot see things going on inside the human fucking body. However, the essential function of your job is to know what is going on inside the human body, which means your office gets a 0 out of 100 rating. Maybe I have been spoiled by living somewhere with adequate facilities for patient diagnosis my entire life, but I like the whole idea of going to a doctor, having that doctor perform the tests required to determine something, and then telling me what that something is. For some reason this strikes me as a better alternative then the "Oh, you have something wrong with you, well, good thing you came in here. Why don't I just send you over to some other place and they can take a look. Thanks for dropping by. I'll be in the back of the office with a McRib."
As a final note, the elimination of Troy was not the highlight of the apprentice tonight, even though it was a legit decision. The highlight was the "NWOAAN" ("Next Week on an All New") which began by saying that they would give you a clue as to the big surprise of next week, then said this, literally:
"Two words:
Oma...
Rosa..."
I love this strategy for naming things, apparently the phrase "two words" no longer has to mean "two words." In fact, it can now just mean two different parts of one word. "Guess what I am going to have for dinner. Two words: pizz, a." "Dude, I lost something, have you seen it. Here is a hint, two words, wall, et." Maybe no one else understands how cool this is, but give it a try at some point in the next couple days. Whenever someone asks you a question hit them back with "two words: tu, ba." Also try to do it in the really deep scary voice the NBC announcer uses when he does those bits. It roxors.
Peace,
MB-K
Not much else is up at the moment, so I have very little serious content of note at all. On that note, lets begin with the giraffe. I was never a tremendous fan of the giraffe, largely because it was so popular with everyone else. Check yourself, however, because its not like I wasn't down with the big long-yellow necked motherfucker, I just wasn't giraffe crazy like so many little kids. I think the reason the giraffe was so cool was because no matter how aware you are of what a giraffe is and no matter how many times you have seen one in the past, nothing prepares you for the actual experience of seeing one again in person, every time its like "wo" (in the same way as, for instance, Mya's ass is). I don't know if there are any children whom have ever uttered the phrase "Giraffe, what is up with your neck" but someone should have, because it is fuckign long, like really fucking long. Every time you approach the giraffe pen you are thinking, now, I know that the giraffe is tall and has a long neck, and then you turn the corner and the giraffe's head is like 20 feet from its body and what the hell.
John Stevens got lucky last night and managed not only to stay in the competition, but to stay entirely out of the bottom 3. I knew, at some level, that he wasn't gonna go yet, because not only are there only 3 dudes left in the competition, but only one of them has any legitimate chance at all to win the competition. Mad props to Amy Adams, who got eliminated entirely illegitimately, since I would assume it was because she wasn't quite as skinny as Camile, who sings like someone shoved an overripe canteloupe in her fucking windpipe. Seriously, she has garbled her way through at least twice and what the hell are people thinking. There are plenty of better looking women to vote for in this deal, so that can't really be it. My only guess is that the entire state of Hawaii is voting for her, and since they are a time zone all to themselves, they get alot more votes for Camile then anyone else. My guess is that there were enough people who felt bad for John Stevens that they chose him, maybe in the end its better off to be absolutely horrible in the early weeks of the final competition. On the bright side of the elimination, Amy Adams will have no problems finding a gig in the music industry. If she is smart she has already rented an apartment in Nashville and called up some country music label, because when Paula Abdul tells you on national TV that the song you just did would be number one on the coutntry charts, you should sign that girl. 20 million people whose taste in music is often still extremely pliable watched that program, cash in baby.
So I went to this doctor dude today, regarding my back, at least potentially regarding my back. So I walked into this place and first of all, not such a professional looking place. I mean, it wasn't trashy, it wasn't dirty, but it certainly wasn't professional in the sense I would expect, it would be very much out of place in the Southern-Burbian area. The carpet was a little older or shabbier, the walls were a sort of off-white shade, not the crisp definitive shit that I normally see. The examination room was pretty small and stuff, and the doctor, surprisingly enough, was a big dude. I mean, he was bigger than me, and not like Brock Lesnar style, like, he and I could sit down together at an all you can eat pork buffet and look very normal together. If you had put a cowboy hat on this dude, set a pie in front of him and I would bet you money that his nickname was "Hoss." Basically, and this is what I didn't get, I had gone in there because my back is hurting and they dealt far more with general medical shit. Sure, I get the fact that I hadn't been in there before, you want to establish my medical history, whatever. I admittedly made some stuff up, because I just didn't know anything about it, which some might say is a poor choice when dealing with your doctor, but I am not real concerned, my fucking back just hurts. Anyway, after all this nonsense Dr. Hoss gave me a prescription for some muscle relaxants and physical therapy. Last time I did it that was very helpful, so I am glad to have it, The really fucked up component of all this is that at the end, the doctor is like, maybe we should get some x-rays. Let me remind everyone that I am not a medical doctor. That said, I thought this one was pretty fuckikng obvious, even if I had received my MD from Butthole State I could have told you that someone with back problems and no recent x-rays needs to get fucking x-rays. This gave me some increase in belief for the competency of this gentleman. So, he got up and shook my hand and left the room. So I sort of wait around and the nurse comes and brings me some stuff and I go out to the window and they give me some prescriptions. I am confused at this point until this woman hands me prescription slip number three, which is a prescription to get x-rays. This is something I had not seen before. Basically, this doctor's office doesn't have an x-ray machine.
I know very little about the economics of the medical profession, ammend that to nothing at all about the economics of the medical profession. I think, however, that if you want to go into business as a doctor, you need to understand that there are certain "start-up costs." You gotta be able to buy some swabs, some paper to cover up your bed-table thing, and, while admittedly a slightly bigger expense, you HAVE TO BUY A FUCKING X-RAY MACHINE!! You are a doctor and, seeing as you are a non-mutant, human doctor, you cannot see things going on inside the human fucking body. However, the essential function of your job is to know what is going on inside the human body, which means your office gets a 0 out of 100 rating. Maybe I have been spoiled by living somewhere with adequate facilities for patient diagnosis my entire life, but I like the whole idea of going to a doctor, having that doctor perform the tests required to determine something, and then telling me what that something is. For some reason this strikes me as a better alternative then the "Oh, you have something wrong with you, well, good thing you came in here. Why don't I just send you over to some other place and they can take a look. Thanks for dropping by. I'll be in the back of the office with a McRib."
As a final note, the elimination of Troy was not the highlight of the apprentice tonight, even though it was a legit decision. The highlight was the "NWOAAN" ("Next Week on an All New") which began by saying that they would give you a clue as to the big surprise of next week, then said this, literally:
"Two words:
Oma...
Rosa..."
I love this strategy for naming things, apparently the phrase "two words" no longer has to mean "two words." In fact, it can now just mean two different parts of one word. "Guess what I am going to have for dinner. Two words: pizz, a." "Dude, I lost something, have you seen it. Here is a hint, two words, wall, et." Maybe no one else understands how cool this is, but give it a try at some point in the next couple days. Whenever someone asks you a question hit them back with "two words: tu, ba." Also try to do it in the really deep scary voice the NBC announcer uses when he does those bits. It roxors.
Peace,
MB-K
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