Isn't She Lovely, Isn't She Wonderful, Isn't She Precious, Less than One Minute Butt

I missed updating yesterday, but I think I have a pretty valid excuse.



Her name is Kiernan Colleen B-K, born at 1:31 am, Tuesday, May 13th. She weighed 8 lbs even and was 21.5 inches long. The whole process wasn’t easy, but we made it through. Katie was amazing, especially insofar as the labor did not go precisely how we had hoped and involved a lot of not very fun medical interventions. All the pictures we have (which Katie believes are adequately flattering) so far are available here.

I found writing that funny, because last night I attempted to pwn most of my friends. I was talking to Pete while we were waiting for something to happen on Monday and realized how hysterical it would be to send a fake baby pictures email and rickroll everyone. The more and more I think about it, it was an even better idea. I have a sincere doubt that there will ever be another time in my life more ripe for rickrolling mass amounts of people. If you got that email and didn’t laugh, my pity for ur soul. I’m sending out a real link to the same people later today, so don’t get all huffy.

Maybe the best part of said rickroll was that I got a call from APK this morning informing me, with all sincerity, that the link I sent out was broken and, strangely enough, directed to this bizarre 80s video. Andy Kemp does not know what rickrolling is, maybe its only written about in books or something. He almost forwarded it to his parents without opening it, which would have ruled even more if they had actually, you know, gotten the joke.

Thanks to everybody who sent us thoughts, prayers and well-wishes over the last couple days. I sincerely intended to respond on everyone’s wall or via email/text, but my wireless connection went out last night at about the same time Kieks (my nickname for her, Katie hates it) became unonsolable for the first time in her young life. And she hasn’t even seen the finales of the OC Season 1 or the West Wing Season 3.

Hippo and Rhino are very excited to meet her, so far our parents, siblings and Natalie are about the only ones who have gotten the chance.

I will close with a list I made, anyone expecting can feel free to steal from it. Katie wanted me to be able to start spontaneous conversations with her while she was in labor and since I suck at that I made a list of spontaneous conversational topics. When labor actually went from just sort of discomfort to LABOR things were way 2 bad to use them. Even when we tried them earlier I found that far too many involved food, which they banned Katie from as soon as they started her on awful induction compound #53 or so.


Badminton Videos

Professional Hockey

The Relative Cuteness of Camels and Penguins

Candy Bars

Best Cheesecake EvAr!

Why the word panties sounds creepier when said in a British accent.

Better elemental/nutrient bro-modification: brotassium or brodium?

Which would you give up: lakes or rivers?

Foods you have never eaten enough of.

Martina Navratalova is a better name than Martina Navratalova was a tennis player.

Are words a positive in a TV theme song, or do they signal weakness of musical drive?

Tim Bits are the best donut hole like product.

Umpiring a baseball game is actually more boring than just watching a baseball game.

Best television theme song?

If Kim Possible and Dora the Explora had a child, would it Explore all Possibilities.

Kinky robot sex would prolly look a lot like regular sex between an elevator and a 1962 Cadillac El Dorado, but with fewer handcuffs.

True or false: raccoons are sneakier than the Hamburgler.

Peace,

MB-K

A Few Times I've Been Around That Track, So its Not Just Gonna Happen Like That, Cuz I Ain't No Hollaback Butt

In an effort to revamp my momentum to write at all, blog, scholarly or otherwise, I decided to briefly review something that really caught my eye, but I have resisted looking at thoroughly until now. Nerve.com and IFC put this together a while ago. It’s a list of the 50 Greatest Sketch Comedy Bits of all time. I haven’t looked at the list beyond numbers 50-41, in an attempt to at least have some revelatory value as I progress forward. My almost certainly unrealistic goal is to do all 50 in 50 days, but I will be happy if I just get off to a good reasonable start.

While I have no experience as a sketch comedy expert, I would consider myself a connoisseur. I started watching SNL with my parents when I was at least a couple years too young to get almost any of the jokes. I was really into the various late 80s early 90s catch phrases, primarily because my dad latched onto them as well. I don’t think he has watched the show, or stayed up till 11:30 on a Saturday, for a decade now, but he was big into the Church Lady, Hans+Franz, etc. By time time Wayne’s World sketches started, my friends Dan and Steve and I would probably watch each week’s episode 4-5 times before the next one debuted. We had entire seasons of the show virtually memorized and I am constantly plagued by lines from a song that I would imagine will not make the countdown, which was a celebrity benefit to explain Watergate (“This is an intriguing turn…”). I will find and embed it at some point along here.

The list can be found here if you’d like to follow along or, for that matter, skip ahead.
It begins with kind of a doozie in the contemporary range, at least one that everyone has heard of. I don’t know how long it was between this sketch’s actual debut and its becoming a Busted-Tees favorite of frat-folk everywhere, but there was definitely some lag.



More Cowbell - video powered by Metacafe

Popularity and appropriation aside, this bit really does showcase Will Ferrell as a physical comic. Don’t get me wrong, prescriptions for more cowbell are funny, but this isn’t even one of Chris Walken’s top 3 roles on the show. Ferrell “exploring the space of the studio,” his shirt riding up, that’s where I still LOL watching the sketch for the 500th time.

Another good mark for this sketch is Jimmy Fallon laughing. If you watched SNL during the Jimmy Fallon years, that sounds pretty stupid on face, since d00d would crack up if he was on camera when someone introduced Tom Petty. But there are times you can tell that the actors are laughing cuz its just funny (i.e. the original Matt Foley sketch) and it seems to me like this is Jimmy Fallon’s legit laughter.

I am not sure this sketch would have made my personal top 50. It would be in consideration, so I’m by no means upset to surprised or upset to see it on the list. I think that placing it here is a good sign for the rest of the list, as I’m sure if Maxim had done the same work this would have been right behind Homey the Clown in the top 5.

Running Tally:

SNL-1 Video (#50)