I'm About To Strip and I'm Well Equipped, Can You Handle Me the Way I Butt?

Wanna know something totally messed up, there was a Rocketboom episode about voter turnout (very timely question, only a month and a half from an inconsequential election) which actually featured some interesting and inspiring commentary about the franchise. The messed up part was this: it was an interview with a Thomas Jefferson impersonator from Colonial Freaking Williamsburg. That d00d made way too much sense to be working in Colonial Williamsburg and it is really depressing to me that the artificially constructed dream-images of our founding parents hanging out in tourist destinations make way more sense and inspire better civic consciousness than anyone either holding or running for real political office. Maybe Goofy should run for the house in whatever district Celebration, Florida is in.

My travel schedule for the first semester is really erratic. It goes from the lame to the awesome to the medium and does so with some rotation. Cedar Falls, Des Moines, Vegas, Detroit, Boston, Winston-Salem, Chicago. I mean, its still very mid-West centric, but at least I go West once. Not something I can count on for a second semester that may be all directed at my South-East.

My fantasy football team, which played awesome in weeks 1 and 2, sort of tanked in week 3 when my two previous top performers decided to swallow their own ballz. I was counting on Frank Gore’s numbers going up as his hand got better, though admittedly, the Steelers defense appeared to play very well. Still, you should be able to get Frank Gore at least 50 yards, even without the threat of a passing game. I guess it wouldn’t hurt if you had someone who pretended to play wide receiver, but I digress.

We were running some errands for Katie’s rents today and stopped at Arby’s for lunch. I was enticed by their Reuben wrap (a quality concept, though it could use more cheese, kraut and dressing, endemic of wraps I suppose), but their advertising tried to emphasize the novelty of the “rye wrap!!” I ordered the thing and enjoyed it at all, but I am not impressed that you have a rye wrap. I would prolly have been impressed if you had created rye bread, but once it has already been successfully formed into a dough and baked into a bread, just making it flatter and elongated does not stimulate me. Make a wrap out of chocolate and I will be impressed. And no, (pre-empt) the outside coating of a Swiss Cake Roll (or ho-ho) does not constitute a chocolate wrap. A wrap would actually contain the stuff inside, rather than just being a coating applied to the base. Its not like you could take the peel of a ho-ho off and slap some frosting and nuts and stuff on it and roll it up and have it stay stable. Those things crumble and crack when u just bite into them. Not impressed. Hippo would prefer you make a wrap out of cat chow. She totally luvz cat chow.

Peace,

MB-K

Cuz When It Comes to Being Lucky She's Cursed, When It Comes to Loving Me, She's Butt

7 Things that Have Totally Changed Since I Last Wrote Here:

1) I live in St. Paul now—Katie and I moved back here in August after a crazy series of events that lead to me taking a job at my old alma mater. We have a hawt apartment, in a hawt neighborhood, hanging out with our hawt friends and hawt family.
2) Our apartment’s walls are not white—Katie won a long standing argument we had concerning the painting of walls in a dwelling we do not own. Her winning arguments were the following: 1) Her dad will essentially do it all for us, cuz he is to painting as C.C. Deville is to rocking. His hair is less poofy and I have never heard him play the solo from Nothing But a Good Time, but I digress. 2) “Please please please please please please please.”
3) I have way more responsibility—This responsibility is good in a lot of senses, cuz it comes with a corresponding increase in prestige and payment. It also comes with a bunch of paperwork and I largely suck at doing it. I mean, I don’t suck at it, like I get it done on time and successfully, I just hate it. It’s not hard to copy line 4 above to the space at the bottom of the form (like it couldn’t just chill out in line 4) but it annoys the piss out of me and takes more time than it should.
4) I made risotto—This was just last week in fact. For some reason I had never attempted to make risotto at home, which is odd, since I really like risotto, but whatevs. Point being, I really dug the process, it wasn’t too difficult (you just have to stick to the procedure, keep stirring, and be patient). I have made two different recipes (Shrimp and Fresh Pea risotto and a Two-Cheese risotto) and intend to keep cracking at least one a week. Idk if fall is actually risotto season, but I feel like it fits with the crispness outside.
5) We went to a new apple orchard southwest of the cities, not new, per say, but new to me—We have been spoiled in regard to apple country and its not like Minnesota is a huge step down. There are a lot of tasty apples grown in this part of the country and an incredible abundance of different red-shades. They don’t appear to have the variables in terms of green apples that New York offered, but some delicious sugary fall numbers were worth the drive. They were a bit limited in terms of the variety of apples one could pick and I feel like they might have thought that their honeycrisp apples are too precious to be picked by the general public, but it was a fun fall morning.
6) Brett Favre pwnz—I could explain this more, but wow has it been fun watching him play these last two weeks. I am not really getting my hopes up for the Packers’ season, though it is certainly off to a good start, and the quality of the defense is really impressive. Even if we tank, watching him play like he has in the second half of the Giants game and against the Chargers, is really awesome. Loves it.
7) Hippo really loves hardwood floors—Maybe that didn’t change, but she has lots of them to play on now and the Hippo slide is about as excellent as dances are likely to get. She has finally gotten the hang of turning through the kitchen without actually striking the oven and it will likely inspire The Fast and the Furious III: Hippopotameow Drift.

Peace,

MB-K

Wife and Kids and Household Pet, Army Green Was No Safe Butt

We are watching the season premiere of Last Comic Standing. I love this show, largely because I fashion myself an armchair critic of stand-up, despite not really knowing anything more than anyone else who watched a lot of Comedy Central as a kid. The show has gone downhill at least in respect to the host, which moved from the somewhat humorous Jay Mohr to the completely unfunny Irish guy who is not even worth my wikipedia-ing his name to the actively humor swallowing Bill Bellamy. Katie had the audacity to say he sounded (just vocally mind you) like Tracy Morgan, which is a bit like comparing a homeless guy farting into a public water fountain to Sgt. Pepper’s. There are a bunch of funny people on the first episode, and I’m well aware that there have been legitimate professional comics on the show from its inception, but ARJ BARKER is trying out this year. I don’t expect everyone to understand that with respect to stand-up, Arj Barker is somewhat famous. My, somewhat hyperbolic claim, is that he is more famous already then everyone who has ever been on this show combined. Admittedly, the audience of his big hit, skews towards the college crowd, but still.

We went strawberry picking today and it is a brilliant activity. It only takes like half an hour, it doesn’t cost very much, it gets you a bit of exercise, and you get to eat all the free strawberries you want. Not to mention that you come home with 8 pounds of strawberries, which gives you incentive to make lots of random desserts and pretend that cheesecake and chocolate don’t count for so much when they happen to be wrapped around something you can verify grew out of the ground.

Just wanted to check in to mention that. Hippo needs me to get the chow off the top shelf.

Peace,

MB-K

A Singer in a Smoky Room, Smell of Wine and Cheap Perfume, For a Smile they Can Share the Night, It Goes On and On and On and Butt

I have intentionally not read anything about the Sopranos finale and have only heard one headline that Katie told me, something from MSNBC that wasn’t very revealing. So I wanted to go on record before I did such reading as saying just a couple quick things.

1) I imagine the episode is going to get panned. Lots of TV critics, lots of fanbois, want resolution. They want to know what happens to Tony, where his family goes, if Sil ever comes out, etc. I don’t at all mean to degrade these responses, I had them as well. We expect resolution, especially at the end of long running TV shows, in a way that we do not always even demand it from movies. My brief psychological guess is that investment in a 2 hour film does not equal investment in a seven year show. When that resolution is inadequate (Seinfeld) people get mad, whereas the “best” finales tend to bring things to a point where the situation cannot continue and then show you the barren set as a sort of “remember me” (Cheers, MASH).

2) I loved it. I thought it was not only fitting for the show, but an incredibly brave and brilliant thing to do. When you go into a show with the primary question of “are they gonna kill Tony,” there is an inevitable sense of tension, of panic almost. The final episode of the show was able to convey a sense of tension without resolution, to wind you up and wind you up and wind you up, without any release, in a way that I don’t know if I’ve ever seen before. I thought that was all very well connected with the whole question of the season which revolved around Tony’s legacy. Besides Meadow’s line about being a boring suburban doctor, I think the last words of the show (“Don’t stop…”) were practically perfect. Admittedly, I do not write television, precisely because I cannot come up with good creative endings, but I have been thinking about this episode pretty much every moment since it ended, and I cannot come up with anything that would have been better.


Just wanted that registered before I find out if I am right. I will be back with my thoughts about the reviews at some point. Hippo agrees with me, btw.

Peace,

MB-K

I Couldn't Make it Without You, I Should Have Known Better to Doubt You, I Thought I Heard the End of Butt

It did not actually take me an entire week to recover from last week’s bachelor party related extravaganza, but it was close. Katie’s argument is that I am getting old, since I cannot handle a four day non-stop weekend without getting sorta sick. My argument is that I could probably never handle such a thing, but certainly being out of constant party form doesn’t help. I flew into Chicago on Friday morning, had breakfast with Moody and took the train out to West Chicago to meet Wilksteady and cruise to the cities. I was operating on about 2 hours of sleep at that point and not surprisingly got little more that evening. I won’t detail most of the party, but we did have a fantastic dinner at Rudolph’s on Saturday in addition to a delightful 2 egg, 2 sausage patty, 2 hashed brown slice, 2 piece of cheese sandwich that I fashioned midday. Also notable, having an inflatable woman around is pretty awesome, even when she is just sitting on an empty beer bottle on the table in the corner. Final notable item, if you are ever being annoyed by a drunk girl in a bar, it is useful to have a guy who went to Harvard Law nearby, because that is quality diversion material.

After the bachelor party’s massive two day toll had devastated me, and left me with about 10 hours of sleep over the course of four days, we drove back to Chicago and played some Wii. James and Cassie were kind enough to host me for the evening in what will very soon be a gorgeous residence, especially the kitchen, of which I am quite jealous. I didn’t fly out of the city until late on Monday, so I spent the morning at the Chicago Institute of Art, which was actually far better than I remember it being. I walked a majority of the place, skipping sections on decorative arts, early American art and Asian art. I was especially surprised that I would have forgotten the pretty impressive collection of surrealist works, including shocking amounts of Miro, Magritte and Man Ray. There was also a photography exhibition featuring a series by Sarah Hobbs. This was one of my favorite works of the day, thought it is clearly much more impressive as an actual print. I spent 4.5 hours in the museum and had the perfect amount of time to depart, get a couple of Vienna Beef hot dogs and get to the airport before the trains could get crowded.

A great time that I managed to pull off for a pretty reasonable amount of cash. It was good to see everybody, especially when I have an excuse to conduct myself without concern for sleep, function, work, other people, etc.

While the week since has not been outstandingly productive, it did feature the acquisition of another briefly paying job for the summer. It also featured the viewing of a number of pretty good films, mostly stuff I had wanted to see that happened to be on HBO. We also, for the first time in arguably millennia, headed out to actually see a movie. I somehow managed to convince Katie that this movie should be knocked up and let me thoroughly thank whoever decided that they should make a movie this funny with pregnancy as the subject matter. For my purposes so much of the film was made by Seth Rogan and the d00d who looks like the d00d who was the goalie in the Big Green, that it could have been about unicorn firefighters and I still would have dug it.

Hippo wants me to open the window, which is ridiculous because the air inside the house is still recently conditioned, but I will likely oblige her Hippo-ish desire.

Peace,

MB-K

Hey, Hey, You, You, I Don't Like Your Girlfriend, No Way, No Way, I Think You Need a New Butt

While it has admittedly been a while, I have gotten a fair amount of things accomplished in the weeks since I wrote. Specifically, I wrote the majority of a handbook, got a significant amount of work done on some articles I am developing and got some of my life and personal matters in order. That sounded more secretarial than it was intended.

We are currently watching The Next Best Thing, which is shockingly entertaining, at least in the audition phase. I have a very hard time imagining that this can sustain a reality television competition, but maybe that’s me undervaluing celebrity impersonations as an art form. On the bright side, Traveler had a second episode tonight, and it is the summer show I am most excited about. This is especially good in my mind, because last night was the end of the season for both House and Boston Legal, firmly solidifying that I am likely without much demand for my Tivo’s capacity until the fall. Thankfully, the final House was delightful. This season has been incredible in my mind, essentially making the show more about the question of the ethical than it is about medicine. I was describing to someone a week or so ago how the saddest thing about the departure of the Gilmore Girls was the death of some of the best character writing on the air. House himself is the salvation for great characters on TV, as he is arguably the most consistently written personality I’ve ever seen. Even great shows designed by great talents (Joss, Sorkin, etc.) often have consistency problems in an episode or two. The brilliant thing about House is that he is consistent to the point where it actually bothers you, where you cannot imagine that it will actually happen. The vicodin stuff, going into rehab, the Forman stuff last night, all of it very impressive. I feel the need to write something more academic on the subject, so I will stop babbling.

The Ms. Universe pageant is so boring I feel guilty mentioning it in a full sentence.

I am leaving very soon on a trip back to the T of C for Wilking’s bachelor party. I’m certain that its gonna be a good time, but it very easily could be extremely bizarre in a number of respects. It includes a road trip, a day or so in the Windy City, and, apparently, a stop a t the Hooters in Block E. As someone who tends to not align themselves with either the Hooters organization nor the Block E complex, it will be a wild time, but at least I will be drunk and with the boys. I feel confident that there are far better things to be eating in Minneapolis than sub-par wings, but I don’t feel too worried about my chances for Minnesota eating opportunities. Wonder why.

Hippo does ask that I bring her a Crave Case if I can fit it in my checked baggage and since she has been a very adorable meower, I will do what I can.

Peace,

MB-K

Stand in the Place Where You Live, Now Face Butt

(Written like a week and a half ago, make the adjustments in your quick and witty mind)

We didn’t technically “just return” from the NDT and CEDA Nats, but it is close enough that I feel justified in classifying it as such. I think its fair to get 1 day off for every three-four days that one is out of town at the tournaments, meaning that I need to get back to normal tomorrow or so. I have been working for at least a couple hours each of the three full days I have been in town, so its not all bad.

I have plenty of thoughts regarding various things over the past however long, but to get back into the swing of things I’m just going to mention the culinary features of the last couple weeks that deserve such mention. Eating in Norman, Oklahoma was, not surprisingly, not particularly spectacular. I mean, it is in the near-South sort of part of the country, so even on nights when we couldn’t find anything to rave about, we made our way to Sonic or the Waffle House, neither of which I will complain about. I managed to get good barbecue twice, though I had to eat smoked turkey both times. Nonetheless, I give the edge to The Sooner Legends Restaurant, which was conveniently located in our hotel. It beat out Van’s Pig Stand, which, name aside, had nothing really special about it. More notable even than the BBQ at Sooner Legends were two menu items that were not only delightful, but that I had never had the opportunity to eat before, nay, not even HEARD OF before. The first was, I suppose, just a mash-up of flavors that worked out beautifully. Specifically, buffalo chicken wantons. It was buffalo chicken, nicely treated and seasoned, stuffed inside a wanton skin, deep fried and served with ranch dressing.

The second item was outstanding and I am still boggled today as to how I had never eaten it before: deep fried corn on the cob. It sounds bizarre and it lives up to its sounding-reputation. Take a juicy piece of corn on the cob, dip it in what is essentially corn-dog batter, drop it in the fryolater. While admittedly, this is not great for you, it does mean that you do not have to lather up with butter, so assuming an adequate mastery over the procedure of deep frying, its about neutral. To continue the corn theme, I had a great piece of smoked corn on the cob at a sweet but corny-kind of restaurant called Love and War in Texas. We went there as sort of a compromise, when no one could agree on what they wanted and I was skeptical going in. It seemed like it would be ultra-gimmicky, but I was quite impressed. Not only was the smoked corn delightful, they also featured Diablos Tejanos, the best stuffed jalapeno I have ever eaten. Several types of cheese, good spices and real whole peppers, not little shreds TGIFridays style. If you are in the North Dallas area, its worth your time.

The primary reason that the South would kill me if I lived there for any significant amount of time, is not, as you might think, the heat. Instead, it is the fact that I everywhere South of Iowa seems to emphasize desserts in a way that I am rarely tempted up here. I had more milkshakes, pieces of cake and cookies over the course of those 2 weeks than I have enjoyed in several months al Norte. While I would never dare say that the Coconut Cream Pie Shake at Sonic is less than notable, I have mentioned it many times before. What I may not have mentioned is what is probably my favorite restaurant in Dallas, TX: Asia Mint. I have never had the sushi, but I can testify that the Thai dishes are quite good, including the Salmon curry and a delightful crispy pad thai. But even if you do not like thai food, Asia Mint has some of the best dessert selections I have ever eaten. I do intend to make a list at some point, but just off the top of my head, there is a good chance that they get 2 spots in the top 10. Every debater I have taken there loves this place, and we take pictures of virtually every dessert we’ve enjoyed. Amongst the lot of us we have had everything on the menu but the Dr. Pepper float, I believe. That includes the cheesecake, brownie sundae, flourless chocolate cake, green tea cake, thai tea cake, mango sticky rice, sticky rice with coconut custard (literally, its essentially a bomb of delightfulness), jasmine crème brulee and tiramisu. Wow, every one is delicious.

Sorry it took so long to post this. I’m going to keep this roughly thematic and not add the many additional thoughts that I have. They will have to wait.

Peace,

MB-K

I Don't Wanna Be Anything Other Than What I've Been Tryin To Be Lately, All I Have to Do is Think of Me and I've Peace of Butt

What I am going to say first is hard to dispute. If you want to dispute it, I will fight you. Also, the chances are low that we are especially close friends if we disagree about this fact. To be honest with you, I think that is for the best, as your life must be full of sadness and despair if you do not agree. The claim is this: one of the greatest single phrases in the English language is this: The frosting on the cupcakes has set up. The reason this phrase is so great, greater even than what it represents (“You can eat the cupcakes now”) is because at the same time it signals the immediacy of the arrival of cupcake into belly it carries with it the happy connotation of frosting at its perfect texture. It is the phraseological equivalent of an onomatopoeia and you can take that shit to the bank.

Admittedly, the first day of the tournament was not the greatest NCAA Day on record. We were spoiled last year and its not like we are gonna see George Mason style upsets every year. Nonetheless, both the Xavier and Duke games were fantastic action and there were at least 3-4 other significant contests. I still think there will be a big upset or two in the first round. If the lowest seed to win is an 11 I think it will be an uncharectaristically top-heavy tournament—Gwyneth Paltrow style.

There was a sweet story about biscuits on the UNC game (which ended without excitement but was pretty hawt for about 10 minutes in the middle). The origin of nicknames is generally more interesting for me than it might be for a lot of people, but I love two things about this story. First, how awesome is the nickname biscuits. Plural nicknames are underrated and if you are one of the few people lucky enough to enjoy one, I suggest you run with it, cuz someday you are gonna be selling copy machines in Tulsa with a moniker in the singular like all the rest of us and begging for the glory days of nominal multiplicity. Second, how sweet is it that people in North Carolina are so excited about Bojangles biscuits that this kid’s contribution to cheap biscuit deals earns him the status of cheering and gasping etc. when their squad is up by 20+ as a number one seed in the first round of the tournament. That’s freaking Hosea status, minus the excellence of that specific chant, and all for a free biscuit. (I know many of you won’t remember “play ho-se-a” but 1) it was awesome 2) Hosea went to my high school and I used to play basketball with him cuz he was trying to bwn my friend’s sister. This same fact lead to me meeting Voshon Lenard, which was far more exciting in 1996-1997 than it is today.

Hippo is cheering for all of the cat named teams in the tournament: Davidson, Nova even Pitt, despite not being a big fan of the Big East. She thinks that one of these squads teams needs to change their name to the Persians (maybe Pacific next time they make the dance or Pennsylvania, imagine the impact if they would have beaten A&M) to attempt to remedy the general ignorance in kitty circles. Anyway, she enjoyed today’s action, is the point.

Peace,

MB-K

I Can Go Where No One Else Can Go, I Know What No One Else Knows, Here I am Just Drowin in the Rain, With a Ticket For a Runaway Butt

I read a random blog post about cupcakes today and tonight, Katie decided to make cupcakes. If, as I fully expect, this reading a blog about something awesome makes something awesome really happen trend continues, I really hope tomorrow there are blog entries about spontaneous trips to Vegas and, well, probably more cupcakes. Seriously, they are ALMOND cupcakes with ALMOND frosting. When’s the last time someone made ALMOND cupcakes for you? Suck it.

Tomorrow kicks off what is very likely my favorite weekend in sports. This week is spring break for me and its not like I teach classes right now anyway, but I will get to continue my streak of not going to class on the opening two days of the NCAA tournament, a tradition I am proud to say has been going since my first year in high school. I am gonna work out and get home before the first game so I can spend the rest of the afternoon cutting some cards while the basketball action surrounds me.

Hippo, who looks fabulous after Katie managed to purchase her a furminator at the local PetSmart, is in the mood for a bite of chow and a nap before she finishes her bracket. She is not happy that Kentucky and Villanova have to face off in round 1 (both wildcats).

Peace,

MB-K

And I Can't Fight this Feeling Anymore, I've Forgotten What I've Started Fighing Butt

Wedding Bells was a funny enough show. The only times I was surprised by the episode were the few moments where Sherri Shepard showed up (she is hilarious in general and by far the funniest part of the show) and the end when I discovered that it’s a David E. Kelley show. It wasn’t Boston Legal or Ally funny, but maybe it will build into it someday. There are some pretty good character actors and some people who Kelley clearly likes to work with (see Delta Burke’s cameo) and in retrospect the bizarre sexual politics fits right in with the likes of Alan Shore and Richard Fish. Anyway, its moving to Friday’s at 8:00, a timeslot that we do not even watch anything in. You might as well watch it, is the point.

I had one of those days where the entire world seemed to be making comments about the notion of career and gave me a sort of “work instability queasiness” for the majority of the evening. It was all clearly coincidental; finding out that my boss at Kaplan was moving onwards and upwards, getting an email from someone about job stuff, reading an interesting opening online and seeing the Lifehacker job boards all contributed to my constant questioning. In any event, if anyone has a high paying job with little work required, please let me know.

Which one of the various movies with the word “monster” in the title would you most like to bwn? There’s Monster, Monsters Inc., Monster’s Ball, Gods and Monsters or Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. There are clearly better and worse movies on this list, but isn’t it kind of surprising how diverse they all are? I mean, lots of words produce pretty identical seeming films. Take, for instance, the word “fire.” You would notice a lot of films named simply “Fire” and imagine that most of them were about either burning shit and firefighters or had to do with the idea of something (most likely passion) burning like fire. All pretty much united in the theme of heat. Monster seems to have no such uniting principle, since there are literal monsters, human beings who act like monsters, and movies about obnoxious British people who bear seemingly no relation to monsters. As a side note, I attempted to use “butt” in the above paragraph for the word “fire” but searching for “butt” on IMDB produces some messed up stuff. Take, for instance, the shockingly enormous amount of people whose last name is butt. My personal favorite, I believe, is McCoskry Butt. Whose IMDB profile is far far far less interesting than his exceedingly awesome name. Ghazala Butt is up there too. Also notable about the butt search is that it highlights the bizarre way in which IMDB chooses what pr0n to index as a “movie” and what it neglects. Clearly there is far more porn, gay and otherwise, that uses the word “butt” then just what is suggested by The Perfect Bubble Butt, but for some reason its not deserving of the index. Finally, the list of partial keyword matches is freaking priceless. I haven’t actually seen Below Zero, but any movie which can be matched by the keyword “water-butt” is worth 20 minutes of my time.

Hippo says meow. Also she purrs, but I don’t know if that means I should say “Hippo says purr” or just mention that she purrs. Either way, she does. Decidedly though, she does say meow, not just actually meow.

Peace,

MB-K

A Lesson Learned in Life, Known From the Dawn of Time, Re-spect, Butt

This was posted on Cute Overload, so clearly anyone who reads even the most basic of important blogs is already aware of it. I suppose you could be like Katie and for some reason not like watching Internet video, but its not likely. Anyway, the point is, watch this video. So I think its pretty clear from just watching it, but as a summary, the two bunnies are playing-fighting and then the chickens show up and BREAK UP THE FIGHT. They separate the bunnies, get them back to normal and then take off. Are chickens the cops of the bunny universe? This is baffling and a relationship I had never imagined. Why would the chickens even care, much less care so much that they come flying in from the coop (I assume, where the fuck else would the chickens be. I hope its not problematic to assume that chickens are always in coops. Though everything I know about chickens (like that they are not rabbit cops) appears to be up for grabs.)

Decent weekend at the JV/Novice National Championship in West Virginia. There was sadness and happiness, but overall a good opportunity to succeed in some debates (5 speaker awards, 4 teams clearing) relax with the crew (stopping at the bar for a drink turned into closing the joint down and stumbling upstairs) and celebrate younger students in debate. I judged some really impressive rounds including the best novice negative block I’ve seen all year given by the team who ultimately finished second. A great tournament that moved us even closer to the end of the debate season, not to mention ushering in two full weekends off before heading out to Oklahoma.

Hippo was fantastically excited to see us return home and scampered about, playing with us on the bed, racing up and down the stairs and generally being super adorable. While this was certainly related to our arrival, it may also have been due to the fact that she had run extremely low on kitty chow while we were away. Since she has been snacking down hardcore since I returned home with a sack of chow this afternoon, I will fill up her bowl again before going to sleep.

Peace,

MB-K

I'm Not Ready to Make Nice, I'm Not Ready to Back Butt

We seriously went to Target for a second time in 2 days today. We did, admittedly, look at different things today then we did yesterday afternoon, but seriously, twice in a row. We also went to Macy’s, but I do not have any funny and paradoxical theories to share about Macy’s products. I could, however, quickly improve on the Macy’s organizational system by suggesting that they choose a structure and going with it. By this I mean, sometimes the store decides to place stuff according to who might wear it or size (i.e. juniors, plus sizes, etc.) and at other times it groups things according to what they are (i.e. shoes or jewelry). When Katie decided that she needed a pair of jeans we not only had to deal with the special spring jeans area of the store, but also the misses and juniors sections, each of which had jeans in entirely overlapping sizes and styles. Thankfully I do not shop.

Kelly Pickler got one of the dumbest haircuts I have seriously ever seen. It was clearly an attempt to make her all “old Laura Bush-Dolly Parton country” rather than “hip-bwnable Carrie Underwood country” but its still terrible.

How often do people really need to buy new coats? I clearly am not representative of the population at large, but I would estimate that after purchasing a coat of even moderate quality I would not need to buy a new coat for around 10 years, absent some drastic change in my size or number of arms. Now that I’ve learned how to sew on a button, it might be closer to a decade and a half. I get that there are fashion-forward folk who want multiple coats (a fantasy almost as ridiculous as the “multiple pairs of shows” fetish) but having multiples means that they should need replacement even less frequently. Its not like the world is getting progressively colder or that coats lose their insulating ability after a year’s worth of time. Nonetheless, even as we enter March every store has a fully stocked coat department like people are flocking to the mall shocked that the mercury has gone the way of the geese. I guess people lose their coats on a fairly regular basis, but still.

We got Hippo a new little house to play with while we are out of town this weekend. It has a couple of feathers on either side and a dangly-fluffy ball in the middle and a little patch of carpet to scratch. She also gets to sit inside a plastic little tent and nothing makes Hippo happier than plastic tents: except maybe chow.

Peace,

MB-K

You Can Buy Your Hair if it Won't Grow, You Can Fix Your Nose if He Says So, You Can Buy All the Make-Up That Man Can Butt

Don't you hate it when you can't get the Zoobilee Zoo theme song out of your head. I think its a sign of the relative ease of my life that this might make the Top 10 Problems that I deal with on a fairly regular basis. At the same time, it would make the list of the Top 10 Reasons that I am Super-Rad. Don't you also hate it when you get on a kick of saying super-rad alot. I haven't actually experienced that one before, but I feel it coming on.

We went to Target today, a not uncommon occurrence when one habitates with Katie, and noticed a ricockulously large selection of St. Patrick's Day cards. I cannot seriously imagine the circumstances under which I would even be tempted to send out St. Patty's Day greetings much less the type that would make me pay 3 bucks plus postage to do so. Even the cards that have animals on them tend to focus on the Irish Setter dog and while its elongated Bert-like face is adorable in both puppy and full grown dog forms, it does not pack the greeting card punch of a pug dog or persian kitty, even when adorned with googly-ear shamrocks.

I had the unfortunate circumstance after Target of stopping at Pier One, which I have mentioned before, has less reason to exist than any store of which my relatively unfeeble mind can conceive. As I described it today, Pier One exists based on one bizarre paradox: there are people who have excess decorative baskets and nothing to fill them which. As a result, they designed products whose sole purpose is to fill baskets (i.e. colorful balls made out of styrofoam, glass, plastic and the material which supports the entire Pier One infastructure, wicker). Then, however, people (read: Katie) come into the store, notice the "wonderful" basket-filling knick-knacks and go all reverse causal on the bit and select baskets for the sole purpose of having something within which to place the spray-painted wicker balls.

Hippo is at least excited at the prospect of batting these wicker balls around, despite the fact that they are far from tiny-persian scale. I suppose she can pretend she is Indiana Hippo and run away from them like boulders.

Peace,

MB-K

Even Though We Ain't Got Money, I'm So in Love With You Honey, Everything Will Bring a Change of Butt

Good debate weekend that included our top team qualifying to the NDT as the top ranked team in the district. They worked real hard in the build up and executed in virtually all of their debates. I figured we would be alright as long as that was the situation, but it went significantly better than I even expected. Lots of work still to go with Novice Nationals this weekend, but in general I am pleased with the job-style debate situation.

Saturday Night Live last week featuring Rainn Wilson included one of the funniest bits I have seen in years, focused around the song which is the title of this entry. I haven’t found it on youtube or anything yet, but rest assured that I will post it when I do. No one believes me when I tell them that the show is back on an upswing but this year included all the digital shorts, highlighted by Dick in a Box, sloths, Blizzard man and this latest sketch. While there have admittedly been some down weeks, Justin Timberlake and last week’s show were almost all hits. Dwight’s episode only included like 2 character bits and both were the generally humorous concepts of “Nooni” and the “really boring crew.”

You would think that squeezable mayonnaise would be really disgusting, but it fucking pwnz for at least two reasons. 1) Its incredibly useful. Rather than having to spoon yourself an amount of mayonnaise and then get a different utensil if you find mid-way through mixing your tuna-fish that it is not adequately mayo-ed, you can just squeeze in some more. Convenient-pwnz. 2) Instead of squirting out through a generally roundish hole like nearly everything that has ever been squirted out of a bottle in human history, it squirts out of a rectangular slit. That means that instead of a little mustard style stream, you get a perfect little ribbon of emulsified egg and oil. Delightful-pwnz.

All this tuna-talk has made Hippo one hungry bear. So I will hop to it and get her some chow-like snacks.

Peace,

MB-K

You Can Go With This, Or You Can Go With That, Or You Can Throw With Butt

Thought of a potentially really interesting paper to write on psychoanalysis and ethics in relation to the phrase “don’t let your left hand know what your right is doing” with respect to “giving alms.” This is of course the traditional Ash Wednesday gospel, which I experienced again this afternoon. I think the phrase “they have received their reward” with respect to the recognition of suffering is potentially really interesting. Haven’t seen anything on the exact topic in my extremely limited research (read: Googling “psychoanalysis ash Wednesday” and “let your left hand know psychoanalysis”) but it is a good motivation to jump start it.

Late-February New Show Update: Top Design features one of the worst hosts in reality TV history. Despite the fact that I seriously watched House of Style in its prime, Todd Oldham is not cut out for modern television. The Rules of Engagement seems to have between 2-4 good jokes per episode, evenly distributed between Putty and David Spade. The question you must ask in terms of whether or not you intend to watch the aforementioned show relies on what ratio of funny jokes :: unfunny jokes you are willing to put up with. The 2 or 4 to 100 ratio is still swamping about 90% of the sitcoms on television, so if you are already watching How I Met Your Mother and The Class besides Thursdays on NBC but still need more comedy, this could work for you.

For Valentine’s Day Katie gave me a box of L.A. Burdick chocolates (literally the best chocolates in the world) that included chocolate cigars. They are pretty much the best pieces of candy I have ever had. The only problem with them is that until I am far richer than I currently am, I will never get the chance to seriously dig into a pack, eating them until I have seriously had as much as I want. It takes a great many Twix bars to pull off that feat and they are occasionally 3 for a buck at Walgreens. Hippo, who pays not attention to the price of her consumables, is demanding as much chow as she wants, so I will end the fanciful chocolate dreams for now.

Peace,

MB-K

Sometimes Its Hard to Be a Woman, Giving All Your Love to Just One Butt

3 months or so is outrageous. I have no excuses. Tiredness, laziness, business, etc. They are all true, but irrelevant and not interesting to listen to. Two interesting things that I will mention as relevant in my intention of getting back into the blogging mood.

1) Sloths: If you haven’t seen the incredible SNL bit here, you need to do it fast. After that you will begin, like me to do two things. First, you will mutter lines from the song to yourself pretty regularly. Second, you will start to notice an explosion of sloths in your everyday life. Some of this certainly won’t be true if you don’t read Cute Overload, but seriously, I’ve seen like 3 sloth related situations in the past two weeks.
2) Top Design, the next in the serious of Bravo reality competition programs, is not as terrible in the 2nd and 3rd episodes as the premiere was, but they literally have the absolute worst catch phrases in the history of reality television. When someone is not eliminated (in Project Runway speak “you’re in”) the d00d literally tells them “You can stay.” That’s it, “you can stay.” Who are the ad wizards who came up with that one?)

Hopefully I will not lose track of this again. Hippo was not pleased to hear that I had dropped off the face of the internet universe and cajolingly meowed me back towards the keyboard.

Peace,

MB-K