I'll Give You Candy, Give You Diamonds, Give You Pills, Give You Anything You Want, Hundred Dollar Butt

Had a big shopping weekend, we did. The highlights included a washer/dryer, which Katie found on craigslist and trips to two malls in two days. Things we did not buy, but probably should have, included a really really adorable black female pug puppy. We played with her at the pet store for a while on our way to mall number two. Mall number two is not that terrible, considering what I expected at least, and actually had a Dippin Dots franchise. And though the chick being on break prevented me from enjoying the ice cream of the future, it was heartening for future journeys. Katie got the awesome t-shirt below from Victoria’s Secret and if you are at that particular store, I suggest picking one up. That said, I have no idea what it means:


We also got some social time in, hanging with Ken and Anna at their place as well as with Ken for a little while after the somewhat harrowing washer and dryer delivery. I had never picked up a washing machine and though I assumed that they would indeed be heavy, I was not aware that they contained a cinder block of sorts for ballast purposes. We now own appliances, which seems bizarre to me, but also reassuring, assuming that they do in fact work with our set up.

I am making the same grilled pears tonight that I made for the first official dinner hosted by me on Elmwood Terrace, seeing as how Katie did not get to partake. I seriously intend to tweak them with a lighter sauce, but for tonight she gets the full Nutella inspired effect.

On Thursday and Friday the only thing I ate which was not a hamburger or french fries was movie theater popcorn. The clock appears to have stopped at 2:36 last night, I must wind it. I have never seen the episode of CSI which is currently on my TiVo. There was a woodchuck in my backyard this afternoon and it lead me to read the Wikipedia entry on woodchucks. I was unaware that woodchucks were groundhogs, I thought those were distinct rodent creatures. Whistle pig, however, should only refer to bacon wrapped hot dogs.

RockStar: Supernova is off with a bang. There isn’t anyone I love like Jordis Unga, but Lukas, Dilana, and Storm Large are all pretty incredible. I am not fully into the multitude of talent shows that are choking summer primetime, but I understand the networks motivation for doing them. I have seen Master of Champions once or twice, about the same for America’s Got Talent, but have not yet bothered with The One. American Idol is an incredible talent show, but its arguably just as much about the format and personalities. Regis, Hasselhoff, and Brandy don’t have the charisma to pull it off. One other television sidenote, I am so glad that I get the opportunity to watch Dr. Will play the Big Brother game. I still have not decided if I like him or not, but he executes a level of reality game play that I don’t know anyone has ever pulled off this well. I guess there are some comparisons to Rick Hatch, but as smooth as he was in evading his taxes, he doesn’t have that semi-gloss sheen that’s on Chill Town. Janelle and James might be as good in many senses, but they certainly aren’t as flashy.
Hippo is busy trying to take down a moth which she has not yet discovered to be outside of the glass patio door, so she cannot officially add a comment to this entry besides her typically adorable “mew.”

Peace,

MB-K

I Did Your Partner Cuz She's Hot as a Baker, Cuz I'm Naughty By Nature, Not Cuz I Hate Butt

Just got back from Vermont this evening after picking up Katie yesterday. A couple random things both from the trip and elsewhere:

--we went to Chili’s, cuz Katie wanted something random and chain-like and that was the best option. They had this build your own burger thing going on and they gave you a little pad so you could check each of the toppings that you were interested in. Like, I checked how I want my burger done, my pepper-jack cheese, fried onions, etc. I checked the bacon add-on, of course, but my burger arrived totally sans-bacon. I wasn’t gonna flip about it or anything, but I fucking WROTE IT DOWN FOR YOU. There is no risk of it getting lost in translation, we have a written record of what I ordered direct from me and you still bonered it. I couldn’t get mad at the waitress, cuz it must have been the cook’s fault, unless they have some incredibly ass-stupid policy where the waitperson translates it into some other language for the cook rather than just giving them the note thing. Regardless, it was Chili’s so, yeah.

--our clock chimes every 15 minutes, in very old school grandfather clock style, and has different length chimes based on what percentage of the hour has expired. For some reason, the 45 minute chime makes me sad. Maybe it’s that it goes down on the last note. It wouldn’t sound right if it went up or anything. Maybe it’s the plight of quarter-till or something that I sympathize with.

--the city of Burlington has some great things. The lake is beautiful, some of the best corn chowder I’ve ever enjoyed and all the puppies on Church Street make it easy to ignore the more obnoxious folk. Two things piss me off: 1) air conditioning, seriously. I get that most college dorms aren’t ac compliant yet, but classroom buildings? Restaurants? 2) How does a state with a population only moderately bigger than Wyoming jam every street so it takes multiple iterations to get through a single traffic light from like 3-7 every afternoon? What is it like when school is in session? Sidenote: if you live in Vermont and were driving a purplish-blue Honda CRV down 22 earlier at approximately 15 miles below the speed limit today, I hate you.

--We went to go see a movie and when Katie did not want to sit through three hours of Cap’n Jack Sparrow, we both exclaimed for joy at the thought of watching the marquee advertised John Tucker Must Die! Damn theater apparently just updates their marquee early, cuz of course, that movie didn’t debut until today. Totally weak to update the marquee before the last show of the night has started.

--Instead we saw The Devil Wears Prada. Surprisingly good, on the advice of Katie (who had already seen it) and Pete. I really enjoyed the bits where they put Ms. I-Rubbed-Ice-Cream-on-Mandy-Moore’s-Breasts in her place about fashion and I’m pretty sure I will be referencing it in a number of my capitalism overviews this fall. It would have been a truly great movie if it would have ended about 5 minutes early, the moment Miranda leaves the car to be specific. Still, very good.

--Hippo is very very happy to have her Katie home. She tells me that I am purrtastic to hang out with, but there is no way to replicate Katie’s lap as she checks her email. Now we can go back to the routine of Hippo working with me during the middle of the day and book-ending on the middle of the couch.

Peace,

MB-K

There's a Whole Floor Before Us, Just For You and Me, So Follow Me Lead and We'll One, Two, Three, Pull Butt

Though I must admit I originally stole it from Hatesexy and that Pete blogged about it before I, but nonetheless, The Pipettes rule. I remain obsessed with this song and cannot figure out why Katie hasn’t become instantly appreciative. I would strongly join in the Teen Tycoon of Rawk in suggesting that you would like to hear them too.

I have noticed, while sitting here, that there is a woodpecker just outside my comfortable well set up living room. I am both amazed by how much like a woodpecker on television this particular woodpecker sounds, and how much I would say that the sound is more accurately bonking then pecking. I wonder if there was some odd prejudice involved in naming them woodpeckers rather than woodbonkers. Is the phrase “woodbonkers bonkin on some wood” more suggestive than “woodpeckers peckin on some wood?” I genuinely have no answer to this question.

HDNet, which Time Warner has only recently successfully achieved for my particular cable box, apparently shows single episodes of random Fox sitcoms that were canceled in a season or so. I am currently enjoying the food court related mischief of Life on a Stick and am really excited about the prospect of A Minute With Stan Hooper later today. Television has been rolling pretty well, even  through the summer. The cable system here is just under infinitely better than what we had in Lockport, even though it is still lacking Fox in HD, a tragedy on which I will save my commentary. RockStar is good, but still warming up. There is no one who strikes me like Jordis did, but certainly some rawking to be had. I wish whiny Diane would have bit it over Nokomis, but it was inevitable I suppose.

I was going to start this paragraph by describing what was on my TV at this particular moment, but the phrase “I cannot help but think, as I stretch on my lovely green sectional couch, watching Jason Lee fellate a stuffed falcon…” simply seems more fit for the opening of a chapter in my upcoming fictional work “Woodbonkers of the Parallelogram.”

Katie has been gone for a full week and Hippo has had about enough of that, I believe. She does appreciate getting half the bed to herself if she wants to nap while I am asleep, but in all honesty I think she finds sleeping on Katie altogether more enjoyable. As she was watching the birdies through the screen door yesterday she was explaining to me her theory regarding catnip and Henry Kissinger, but I cannot possibly reiterate it.

Peace,

MB-K

She's a Lady, Whoa Whoa Whoa, She's a Lady, Talkin About That Little Lady, and the Lady is Butt

Currently in the car on the way to Nebraska. I have listened to far too much music that is either really depressing, really too James Taylory, or really too country. I had prepared for the fact that my musical tastes are the drastic outliers in this situation, but there is about 2% overlap at best, between the shit I can even moderately enjoy and what is being played. I have played a couple games of FIFA and in the looking forward to the Sonic experience was distracted. Now we have the crazy ass drive to nowhere, that is West of Des Moines, which I don’t think becomes interesting again until Denver, at the very least.

Sonic was rawking as per usual, the SuperSonic jalapeno cheeseburger and the coconut cream pie shake especially notable today. Afterwards I just couldn’t handle the Tracy Chapman so I have switched to brief blogging.


Obviously that was about a week ago. We are in Rochester now, set up for the most part, and rocking pretty hard. We have what must be the greatest couch in the history of the universe and as of today, an actual functioning wireless connection. In that vein I extend my apologies to Shankar, whose network we have been slowing down since our arrival.

Just as we are beginning to get back into the routine of TV watching, laptop usage, and rolling with the homies, Katie has to prepare to depart for Vermont. Because of general ineptitude on the part of certain people, she is only going to be gone from Hippo and I for two weeks, which, while sad for her experiences and our finances, certainly carries with it a way more rawking return date of like July 29th.  I suppose that’s two weeks that I can get a lot of TV catching up done and get re-crack-a-lackin on the old dissertation (which has been too neglected too long). I also would really like to start writing some less formal pieces to send to e journals and the like, which I don’t have any rationale for besides vita-boosting I suppose.

Our townhouse/apartment is pretty awesome, I must say, despite not being fully set up. We now have a dining room table and chairs, almost all of our stuff on the premises and lighting available for most tasks one would perform at home. There are other things which I will leave it up to Katie to describe, specifically all the textiles we purchased for somewhat ridiculous sums.

We’ve spent two great nights here with our friend/boss Ken and his girlfriend Anna, who recently bought a house on the Genesee River about 10 minutes from here. The house is pretty cool but the backyard is incredible. Literally, ON the river, with a great porch and a nice landing to sit on, fish, or light a campfire. I have a great fondness for campfires from my mid-late college days at my rents place on Cobbler Avenue. There is really no better way to spend an evening outdoors. Two hilarious things about this: 1) Everywhere besides Minnesota, for all practical purposes, does not have mosquitoes. I have never really been a target of the skeeters in the first place, but near a lake around twilight in the summer, even I get sick of it. Katie will get mad saying that I am trivializing her bug bites, but you could walk around a swamp naked covered in pigs’ blood and get bitten less here than you would in a full snow suit in the Boundary Waters. 2) These people down the street from Ken have a pig. I mean like a full big old hawg. There was some debate about its potential pot-belliedness, but I believe that debate is settled. This is the type of pig which is one wrong turn into the driveway away from being slow smoked over mesquite coals.

Hippo has had a great number of adventures recently, but she is far too tired to relay them now. She merely adds a sleepy meow and returns to her rest.

Peace,

MB-K

I Need You, More Than Anyone Darlin, You Know that I have From the Start, So Build Me Up, Buttercup, Don't Break My Butt

I lied about the possibility of an increasing frequency to the whole posting on the blog thing.  I could say that I have been busy, and this is true. I have been cutting cards, assembling my own cards, and generally debate-camping my way to fame and fortune. I recognize that this isn’t the DDI, but I am pretty impressed with the increase in quality that has occurred in most of these kids. We’ve put out some good files and had a hella lot of practice debates, drills, etc. There is no doubt in my mind that a couple of these teams will be elite squads if they decide to stick with it, cuz they are all smart and most of them are wickedly determined. On the final day of the institute, I am somewhat unsure about only the decision to have a tournament with wins and losses, since after two weeks (a long time for a group mostly composed of sophomores and first years), hearing that you lost a debate on an argument you worked to develop for a week seems to be somewhat devastating. I don’t really understand that mentality, but I can imagine that it would not be the best way to spend a Friday in the summer.

Katie and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary this previous Monday. We stayed that night at the Minneapolis Hilton, at least a small step up from 312 Sorin Hall. More important than that, we had dinner at fucking Manny’s. I know that there are those who do not consider Manny’s the best steakhouse/restaurant/place in Minnesota/the world. This is in no way to diss those people or the Silver Butter knife Steak. In my mind, however, there isn’t really anything you can do to get better than this joint. I recognize that in many ways the place is exactly geared to the things I value. The décor is classy but not fussy, dark woods, clean lines, aprons and jackets on the waiters. The place is comfortable, always busy but rarely so jacked that you feel hot or out of place. The menu cart is so awesome, the fact that each of the servers get to do their own bit is brilliant, and that doesn’t even get to the generally impressive hugeness. I have never gotten to enjoy either the double-porter or the $125 Australian lobster tail, but someday they will make the ultimate surf and turf.

I didn’t even mention that we were dining virtually free on a gift from Kari and Karly, which got us each a couple glasses of wine, a very very rare porterhouse for me, a nearly charred (but still delicious) baseball steak for Katie, an order of the world’s best hashed browns, and some legitimately enormous asparagus. If there were downsides to eating at Manny’s (and I’m not so much saying there are) there would be two that are possible: 1) The rest of the world just seems like someone turned the volume down. Food pretty much seems like gruel for the next week, cuz how do you match that up. 2) Its hard to eat dessert. I pretty much eat steak, potatoes, and vegetables until I no longer feel physically capable of doing so. Its usually shortly after that point that your snappy looking wait-person comes around to offer you the enormous brownie sundae, the ricockulously large slab of cheesecake, etc. etc. This is a tough position, because while you are hella certain that you should not follow up a steak as large as what you just ate with a brownie as large as what you see on the next table, you are also hella certain that the brownie on the next table is ex-fucking-actly what you need to follow up the steak with. So you can either overeat a second time in the course of one meal or refuse one of the best desserts you are likely to see for a while. We got out of this dilemma with a delightful surprise, that being Manny’s providing us with complimentary dessert for our anniversary. I guess I had mentioned that it was, in fact, our anniversary when I made the reservation, but it really did surprise me when they did so. I had never had this particular dessert before, but it pwnd Manny’s style: it was a brownie, topped with a thick layer of chocolate mousse, topped with a thick layer of whipped cream, which was then dumped upon by a classic gravy boat full of hot fudge. The crazy thing was that, enormous as it was, it was still small by Manny’s standards. We managed to put the whole thing down, though I like to think I was responsible for about 90% of that. Brownie French silk pie: ain’t nothing wrong with that.

Manny’s and the Minnesota State Fair are pretty much my two favorite places and this meal pretty much put any hierarchy (which would have previously had the fair strongly in the lead) in question. More importantly, of course, was that I got to spend a wonderful 24 hours with Katie. She got me an incredible tapestry like woven thing which features both a bunch of really cool colors and textures, as well as kitty cats. Considering we have like 25 times as much wall space in our new place as we do now, having some things to hang there would be hawt. We got to watch some TV that wasn’t just recorded World Cup games (not that there is anything wrong with that) and enjoy some wedding cake redux, courtesy of Wuollet’s.

We celebrated our wedding anniversary with Hippo the next day, cuz she wanted to say congratulations and all, but we didn’t get to hang out long. She sent me an email yesterday, meowing about how she missed us. She is really ready to go back to New York, but likes having the stairs to race up and down—little does she know….

Peace,

MB-K
  

You Might Have Heard I Run With a Dangerous Crowd, We Ain't Too Pretty We Ain't Too Proud, Might Be Laughing a Bit Too Loud, That Never Hurt No Butt

We finally got freaking internet access up in here. I love being home, I love seeing my family and friends, I love working with the kids at this institute, but being away from my TV, away from my cat, away from my DVR, air conditioning, my own schedule etc. is driving me up a wall. I will probably never be as affected by this as Katie and some others are, but I understand somewhat better why they would feel that way.

I would never expect dorm food to be particularly good, but at the moment it has been both not particularly good and entirely geared towards 2 year olds. I assume this is because the other significant group at Hamline at the moment is a gymnastic camp that features mostly people in the 2 year old range. We have had hot dogs on at least two occasions, chicken patties, grilled cheese sandwiches, and sloppy joes. I don’t mind any of these foods, though their sloppy joes were a) not extra sloppy (even though they should know that kids like ‘em sloppy) b) not especially good. They do have a surprisingly good soft drink selection, which kind of blows my mind. I mean, they don’t have any non-cola diet choices, but they have both Coke and Pepsi products, both cherry versions, Mountain Dew and Mello Yellow, Dr Pepper, some lemon and other ades, root beer, and approximately one literal buttload of juices.

I drove to Kinko’s today (because I woke up in a cold sweat last night thinking “SHIT!! Oh yeah, Kinkos.”) and on the way back I passed this truck.

You are reading that 100% correctly. The Eager Beavers of the Box Business. Either someone shares my sense of humor or someone knows very little about euphamisms for vagina. However, if you are in “the box business” (interpreted either way) you have likely heard “box jokes” before. I hope you appreciate that camera phone shot, however blurry it might be, because it almost cost my life to get it, insofar as I was in the process of passing that truck at around 45 mph with cars in front of and behind me when I took it. I think the dude behind me appreciated the necessity of such a picture, since he appropriately backed off until I had captured the moment.

Tom, Katie’s father, got a Motorola Q last week, and I am ricockulously jealous. I mean, this thing is phat. Not only would it have alleviated my internet woes during the first parts of the institute, it would always leave me with something to do and probably destroy my thumb joints within a month. Katie still needs some convincing that a 45 dollar monthly data package is a smart idea in our limited budget, still, I really like it. I would be willing to cut back my clothing, make-up, shoe, and black licorice purposes to literally nothing to balance out my increase. Maybe the terrible office job I anticipate having in the fall will turn out to benefit me because I will have some legitimate justification for having more access to the internet then my home, my office, and every retail business in the country.

I finally got to see Hippo again this morning and she was meowtastic as usual. She was furr-ious at Landon Donavan and the assbag of miscreants known as Team USA Soccer, but purry and such nonetheless. She, as per usual, says meow.

Peace,

MB-K

If You Don't Give My Football Back, I'm Gonna Get My Dad on Butt

So I totally suck at updating my blog when I am at home. I admit this freely. It should be a bit better during these two weeks, when I will be at the debate institute at Hamline but beyond that, I’m sure I won’t be back to fully regular until we are set up in Rochester. I will take props from Katie and simply go list style, cuz its easier than any sort of coherent thematic organization:

1. I’m a bit worried about the cast selected for Last Comic Standing. They don’t seem, up front, to be as funny as the previous casts, but I will give that time to work itself out. More importantly, they selected a bunch of people who were TERRIBLE, simply because of their quirks. They also didn’t appear to select even one one-liner/straight comic in the grand Mitch Hedberg-Steven Wright tradition, which makes me personally sad. Its also weird to see Mr. Not Even as Famous as Jay Mohr repeat the exact same intro lines. I get that the Jay Mohr hosted format wasn’t working, but if he is good enough to represent Diet Pepsi in the hard fought negotiations with Jackie Chan, he’s gotta be better than Mr. Sitcom Terrible.


2. The kids at this debate camp have this crazy game which I can only describe as Shock Roulette. The game has a button and four spots in which people can insert their thumbs. When the button is pressed a sort of countdown timer begins and when it ends one of the people playing gets a small shock. That’s it. End of game. I understand the initial appeal of this game to some people. Its certainly novel and it admittedly captured some of my curiosity. This is the third day of the institute, however, and there is not yet any sign of the popularity of Shock Roulette slowing down. I have not seen any women join in the game yet, but I have seen a number of dudes play it by themselves. By that I mean they put two or more fingers in different slots and press the button, I guess for the curiosity of determining which of your fingers gets shocked. I could go off on the potential that this game is an American teenage male version of the vagina dentata, but I won’t.


3. I have developed a serious addiction to World Cup Soccer. In most of the games I don’t really have a favorite, though I enjoy rooting for the “3rd World” and generally the underdog. I was a fan of the US team coming in, though their general suckitude has made that less possible. That’s not even to mention that in the best case scenario we get smizacked by Brazil in the round of 16. As a sidenote, when I was trying to quickly get through part of the Spain-Tunisia match yesterday I watched about 20 minutes on fast forward. The way the ball bounces when you fast forward soccer is really quite hilarious. In fact, it made me think pretty specifically of foosball. My new theory is that foosball was created by watching soccer in fast forward. Of course in the end, foosball distorted Mitch Hedberg’s view of soccer, cuz he cannot do a backflip, much less several in a row with several other guys who all look like him.


4. Air conditioning is awesome. I mean, really really awesome. It keeps the air all cold and stuff. In fact, air conditioning probably makes my top 10 favorite things overall. The one thing I was really not happy about in the idea of psudeo-living in a dorm for almost two weeks was the lack of any adequate air conditioning. Last night, when we had to stay in a supplemental dorm because of electricity problems we ended up in one of the freak dorms which had an air conditioner sitting in the middle of the room with a vent-thing that directed the hot air and chemicals out of the window. I assume its built to be used in windows that are not the proper up-down closing specific width scenario. It is wicked awesome, I almost stole it, and I want one. I suppose I would rather just be in places that didn’t need to have portable air conditioners, but you take what you can get.

I have not seen my adorable Hippo in almost three days now, and it is driving me insane. I can hear her plaintive meows in the morning all the way from Rosemount. I know she understands that our being here is crucial to keeping her rolling in catnip and happily full of kitten chow, but I miss her.

Peace,

MB-K

I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight, It Must Have Been Something You Butt

Sorry its so long. I’ve been working, moving, driving to Minnesota, arriving here, and doing wedding related shit while seeing people I have not seen in quite a while. Some funny and awesome things.

-Patton Oswalt CDs make a drive from Buffalo, New York to the Toledo area much easier than usual.

-I’m glad Taylor Hicks won American Idol. I still have McFeever, but Taylor was fun and literally kicked her in the balls on the last performance show. He deserved it.

-I can’t believe I moved away from Buffalo a month before the Sabes win the Cup. Ryan Miller is gonna win the Conn Smythe.

-I joined Bally’s in Minnesota for the month I will be in town. I feel like I got involved in some crazy pyramid scheme, but at the moment, it appears to be a free, complicated pyramid scheme. With far too more paperwork than is justified by me wanting to pay them a set fee to use what is essentially a machine that is heavy in varying degrees.

-The two women who were working at Bally’s appeared to hate each other and have some long running feud. They kept sniping at each other over the discussion of where the St Louis Park location was.

-Everything I own is in a box at a U-Haul place in Rochester. Except for my new couch, which is gonna be so awesome I can’t even deal.

-This wedding is gonna pwn. Virtually everyone is in town to party.

There will be more soon. At the moment Hippo has more material possessions accessible to her than I do. She is gloating, but its still hella cute.

Peace,

MB-K

Keep Thinkin It Will Be Alright If I just Get on the Road, If I Run I Can Free My Worried Butt

This is the funnest thing ever. I mean, ever. The only reason I am not playing with it constantly is because, for some reason—and I cannot explain it, since I can only barely describe it—Katie does not like hearing computers pronounce dirty words. I can’t really think of anything funnier, but admittedly, I have a somewhat unique sense of humor. The best part is that you can download any of the files you create. I really need a cellphone that can just use .wav files as ringtones. Something to research for the fall I suppose.

We went to this BBQ chain joint in Amherst for dinner tonight. Everything was quality, especially since I have gone so long without pulled pork of any sort. The sauce could have used a teense more heat, but that’s neither here nor there. We had an incredible cornbread skillet which was accompanied by a “smashed pecan butter” which would be more accurately described as a “pecan butter frosting.” Also we had the perkiest waitress in recent memory. I thought she was charming, I think Katie wanted to smack her in the face with a corn cob.

Sabres up two games to nothing on the Sens. This city has Sabres-fever, not unrelated to McFeever, and I am gonna be back in Minneapolis by the time they take a run at the Stanley Cup Finals. Weak. Hippo agrees that at the very least we will be in the state of Hockey, USA, and hence with Ryan Miller and the boys in spirit. She’s a big A-fur-ogenov fan.

Peace,

MB-K

But I Don't Care, I Care, I Really Don't Care, Did You See the Drummer's Butt

I haven’t talked about Idol very much, but I should mention that someone tonight won the award for the most brilliant move in music competition history. I believe their train of thought must have gone something along the lines of: “Well, last week it was a wardrobe malfunction, this week I think we should have McFeever wiggle around the stage on her knees in a fashion that is something between a lap dance and…well some other pelvic thrusting activity you could do on or around your knees.” I think Paris Bennett goes home, which is sad since it’s the first time anyone really exceptional has bitten the dust.

I had to side with Rory tonight when an argument broke out regarding Ashlee and the dark versus blonde hair. I can’t imagine that there is a correlation between the more traditional Rory/Lorelei controversy, the controversy that A.J is so painfully incorrect about. Maybe I’m wrong. I could start

www.doyouthinkrorieishotterthanlorelei
anddoyouthinkdarkhairedashleeishotter
thanblondeashlee.com

then evaluate the results statistically, but fundamentally I think this is just a situation where Lorelei is too old. It happens, she was wrong about the Rory situation last summer. I guess it is evidence against the otherwise true statement that being hotter than someone logically paired with you makes you better at determining which half of a logical pair is hotter than the other half.

If I owned a company that made GPS driving direction thingies for cars, that I would create a feature where you could select “random destination” and it would take you somewhere. I mean, maybe you could do it like “random destination within 50 miles” and you would get a trip to somewhere cool without even knowing what to expect. I mean, you could also have true randomness, where the computer would just randomly tell you when to turn and you would end up either somewhere really cool or somewhere really stupid related only to the statistics of how many places are cool versus how many are totally stupid. But I think the idea of random computer generated road trip would be awesome. You could go even more specific and have the computer choose an awesome restaurant within like 10 miles, which would totally solve the “where the hell are we gonna eat” crisis by deciding for you. I would rock at being the guy to scout out cool places to go and I could work for cheap, provided I got money for gas and Coke Zero.

Jade is obviously a tremendously agonizingly annoying character. She is one of the worst antagonists (or best I suppose, she is good in her badness, chure) in the history of ANTM. She said, tonight, what I believe is the single stupidest thing that any human being has ever said. This is in addition, mind you, to all the Bush-like jobbityings of the English language which they highlighted in the flashback show like two weeks ago. This is a literal quote:

“I will always remember this, shooting with an elephant that reminds me of an ancient dinosaur. Cuz they are in the dinosaur family.”

Hippo sez there is no way I can top that with my own words. So I will simply close.

Peace,

MB-K

Gigantic, Gigantic, Gigantic, Our Big Big Butt

I went to the post office today and, since the wait was outlandishly long and filled with people who were taking about 5 minutes to complete a 20 second task, I was looking around. I noticed specifically, this poster.

Its a pretty boring ass poster for a pretty boring as subject of course. But the dueling things I could think of were: 1) How weird would it be to be the face of identity theft? Like the guy who the advertising execs at USPS decided would be the most likely to convey the pure evil and danger of identity theft, just by a picture being glued onto the license. 2) Imagine how hilarious it would be for someone to actually make a fake driver’s license with this picture on it. “Well, Mr. Johnson, I can certainly withdraw your life savings from this account, though I must admit I am bit scared that you are going to attempt to murder and eat me.”

We had an insanely busy weekend, from the art museum, to dinner, to seeing Stick It, to Rochester to find apartments, to dinner with folks, to shopping etc. It was hella busy is the point overall, but a lot of positive developments to say the least. The one thing on which there is no positive development to be had is the ongoing couch debate. By ongoing couch debate I mean this split: I think a couch is supposed to be comfortable above everything else, Katie cares about its appearance. I’m not going to degrade Katie’s opinion here, since she doesn’t have the chance to literally defend herself, though obviously I like my own.

I can tell, pretty easily, when looking at a couch, if it will be comfortable or not. I don’t think this is any sort of a super power, though it would be a freaking awesome one if it were, I just have a lot of comfy couch experience and I can parlay it into a pre-sitting judgment pretty effectively. The couches that Katie likes to look at are, 9 times out of 10, not very comfortable. Among the reasons for this is that she has made several of the comfiest features that a couch can possess also function as “ugly” or “aesthetically unacceptable.” There is, for instance, the high backed thing that can support your neck while maintaining an adequate viewing angle towards the television of your choice. After that you’ve got the puffiness, the delightfully pouchy overstuffed feeling that means you sink directly into the fabric, ending up surrounded by soft goodness. This is not even to mention the greatest of couch features: the recliner.

I get that there are some comfortable couches out there which do not recline. I guess there are comfortable chairs that don’t recline too. This, however, is the great part of the reclining sofa: it does not always have to recline. If you want to sit straight up, go right ahead. I guess, if you are entertaining royalty or Boutros Boutros-Ghali stopped by, you might want to do that. After an entire warehouse full of couches, we found two that potentially provided solvency for the permutation. Neither of them was especially aesthetically pleasing and neither was ridiculously comfortable, but they are the starting point. I’m thinking maybe getting the aesthetic couch with a recliner a la carte would do the trick, but I’m not even gonna try to explain how Katie hates those.

Hippo is so exhausted that she has asked me to carry her from her perch at the windowsill to a new perch atop the shelves. While I would normally consider that a bit much, she did help me bake a delicious batch of Snickerdoodles and it is really the epitome of the cat like laziness she is trying to perfect.

Peace,

MB-K

You're a Honey Child, To a Swarm of Bees, Gonna Blow Right Through You, Like a Breeze, Give Me One Last Dance, We'll Slide Down the Surface of Butt

Tyra’s hair on ANTM tonight is ricockulous. I mean, you are in Thailand, not the People’s Republic of Horrible Flowers Sticking Out of Your Hair at Random Angles Along the Messed Up Braid Thing That Outlines Your Forehead. No real justification for that one.

Steven Colbert had this total wad on last night to talk about atheism. I could say, quite rightly, that this dude literally used the worst possible set of arguments to prove an entirely legitimate point or that he completely misunderstood the point of each of the issues he was talking about, but it might just sound like I am explaining how much smarter than I am than this total tool. And regardless of the obvious fact that I am way smarter than this tool, that would not be nearly as clear an explanation as this. The dude was so bad that Steven Colbert stopped just pretending to argue with the dude and actually argued with him. He sucked and anyone who buys his book should be legally barred from exchanging money for goods and services in the future. They can enter rehab or something so they can learn to be useful and productive members of capitalist society, evaluating whether or not a product is something that you should pay for, or reluctantly use only in desperation to make a papier-mâché club to beat yourself about the face and neck with.

If you were like a snail or a hermit crab and you know you were gonna switch shells soon, would it be like a really traumatic experience. Would you be thinking like “I know that in the end I will at least be able to find a shell around here somewhere that will at least be tolerable for a little while” but at the same time panicking every time you found a perfect shell that couldn’t wait until you were ready to occupy it. Maybe that’s not applicable.

Dunkin Donuts announced, on one of their commercials that was on my sports radio station today, that they were starting an “aggressive campaign” in the Buffalo area. It felt like they were firing a radio-shot over Tim Horton’s head. I can say for certain that it was the most mean spirited negative radio campaign I have ever heard regarding donuts. If I were not leaving this town in like a month, I would totally be in on Dunkin Donuts side. Plus they don’t screw around with sandwiches and stuff, at least not as much, pretending to be all normal restaurant with a donut instead of fries or something. I’m gonna remain Switzerland for the moment though.

Hippo has been trying to eat Katie’s flowers all day, and its really cute, cuz when you say “Hey Hippo, stop eating those flowers.” She either looks at you in her adorably grumpy fashion that clearly sez “Dude, chill, I’m just gonna take a nibble.” Or alternately, she looks back at you over her shoulder and pushes her nose against the flower and takes a little sniff in that “pay no attention to the Persian kitten sitting near the flowers” mode.

Peace,

MB-K

Pause, Take a Breath Go For Yours, On My Command Now Hit the Dance Floor, Gonna Make Ya Sweat till Ya Butt

We did some apartment shopping in Rochester today, which generally went pretty well. I mean, I am really sort of manic about the whole situation, since all the transitional aspects of money, location, happiness, Katie and Hippo comfort, jobs, dissertation, long term failure etc, but still it was ok. We saw a pretty cool townhouse which was a little too expensive and prolly too far away, a flat in a kinda crappy old house, and a cool apartment which was a little small but had a new hard wood floor, two bedrooms, and the right price tag. There is still some looking to do and I am incredibly excited about one potential place. The points of interest:

--the woman who showed us the first townhouse wanted to point something out specifically to Katie. She said, and I quote, “Katie, YOU may be interested to know there is a washer-dryer in the powder room.” I laughed openly.

--if you generally conceive of renters as inconveniences rather than clients or people, why do you buy a house for the purpose of renting it out? I mean, if you were a 1950s science fiction novel and you had to rent a room in your house, possibly unknowingly to an alien in disguise, I could get it. But if you buy a house that you don’t live in for the purpose of renting it, don’t be a total wad about it.

--I don’t really get the idea of “no pets” but I understand that they can cause damage, so whatever, exclude them if you want to exclude them. What makes even less sense, at least as a legitimate concept, is pet rent. You need to charge 20 extra dollars cuz Hippo might rip your walls to shreds? You should be more worried that she’s gonna hold you up at claw-point to make some of that pet rent back—Hippo is not excited about getting a job.

--Rochester has way way too many apartments that are not listed anywhere online. By “not listed anywhere” I mean not even in the newspaper. Is there enough random-physical-apartment-searching in the city to keep the market alive?

--why no one wants to rent me their totally awesome house for like 200 a month 2 blocks away from the university is beyond me. It’s a win win situation.

--how much would it rock to have a patio? Barbecues are awesome.

I know I don’t have the patriotic drive or the 9/11 romanticism involved in enjoying this movie, but wtf is the deal with United 93? Not only does it have all the surprise ending magic of films like Titanic or Gettysburg, but there is no way to honor the passengers of this flight like having them portrayed by the Hollywood mega-stars who made Curiosity, Tree Shade, and Size Matters. I think the title is a poor choice when you can quickly and easily think of a cooler movie that would be described with the same title. In this instance, something about A.J.’s epic rise to power at United Airlines, circa 1993.

Hippo is excited cuz Sam Seaborne has returned to The West Wing, it’s every persian’s dream come true.

Peace,

MB-K

When I Feel Heavy Metal (Woo Hoo),And I'm Pins and I'm Needles (Woo Hoo), Well I Lie and I'm Easy, All of the Time, But I'm Never Sure Why I Need Butt

I had to go to the stupid dentist today. I refuse to get off on a crazy "I hate the dentist" rant, though believe me I have plenty of negative things to say about the psuedo-medical industry. I am not even gonna complain about my jaw jurting or the fact that my dentist is the dentist verion of Wanda Sykes if she was really severe and serious and never ever funny. Those qualities are actually as bad for a dentist as they are for a Wanda Sykes impersonator, believe it or not.

What I am going to talk about is this: hot dental workers. The dental hygenist-type woman who did the cleaning portion of my evil dentist visit was pretty cute and fairly young (I mean, there is Katie up at the top, followed by all the other women I actually know, so she wasn't cute on the scale of seriously hawt women, but insofar as ordinary folk go). Maybe this is only in comparison, cuz every dental hygenist I have ever had has been approximately middle aged and nothing to write home about, in terms of attractiveness.

The contrast that came to my mind, for some reason, as I was having my stupid teeth cleaned, was to getting one's hair cut. I have no proof of this fact, but I am willing to say that for all or nearly all heterosexual men, when you show up at the haircutting place, you are hoping to get a cute woman to cut your hair. Thats not to say its a condition of getting your hair cut, or that non-cute people don't cut hair as well, or even that it really matters in any way, but simply that: all things considered, if it had no negative effects at all, you would prefer the cute girl. If this gets anyone mad at their respective partners, I'm sure that s/he is the exception, one of those people who does not like attractive people running their hands through their hair for 20 minutes.

Everything that is good about having an attractive person cut your hair is absent in dental work. Haircutting feels good, dentistry hurts. Hair is an attractive part of one's body, the wide open mouth is not. You leave a haircutting place looking better than when you arrive, you leave the dentist drooling with a numb face. The similarities just become painful, you're working in the same proximity in both cases, there is the weird adjustable chair thing, the sterile individual work stations and the pokey metal instruments. Anyway, I am trying to find a way to explain all this without coming down to something that makes me seem even more shallow than I actually am. So I will stop.

To finish I will describe the plated dessert that Katie and I shared at Butterwoods Dessert Restaurant last night: the Chocolate Trio. On the fringes were two candied orange slices, one was topped with a tangerine sorbet (meh, fruit, I'm sure it was good, but there was zero chocolate to be found and tangerine is like sour orange times butt) the other had a chocolate orange ice cream, which clearly the way fruit was supposed to be used in this situation, it was good. There was a chocolate beignet, which made it sound to me like the batter would be chocolate, but in fact it was regular beignet batter with chocolate inside, yum. There was a flourless chocolate torte which was delightful, as you might expect from the words flourless chocolate torte. Katie will not agree with this in her account, but the best part of the whole thing was the chocolate bread pudding. Wow, it was awesome, perfect density and an explosive chocolatosity. I could not discern at all what it was really made out of, bread or dry cake or what, but it pwnd. Topped with a creme fraiche ice cream, it was among the best individual dessert items I have ever experienced. It was a great great dessert, the exact thing I was in the mood for when I showed up there.

Alright, Hippo says I need to refill her catnip toy so she can spend her evening in style. That seems legit to me.

Peace,

MB-K

A Modern Day Warrior, Mean Mean Stride, Today's Tom Sawyer, Mean Mean Butt

Happy Easter to everyone. It was a great weekend in this household, gourmet and everyday chocolates were abound, as was red meat in all its luxurious forms. I had a Double Quarter Pounder on my way home from mass, we had summer sausage as a mid-afternoon snack, and a pretty tasty porterhouse for dinner. That was accompanied by a green bean salad with pearl onions and bacon, cheese-scalloped potatoes, and Katie’s delightful homemade rolls. We maintained the whole springy motif during dessert time, when Katie whipped up one of the most delightful fruit-ilicious cakes I have ever had.

I won’t go on in too much detail regarding how well the white cake, strawberry, whipped cream combo works, nor will I fully explain exactly how much of this cake I ate during last night’s foodstravaganza. What I will explain to you is the oddness of this fact: I realized, while eating this cake of dreams, that it reminded me of a specific delight. That delight: The Twinkie.

For some reason Katie took this as an insult, I suppose it has more than a little to do with the fact that she was viciously deprived of Twinkies as a child and hence cannot appreciate their gloriousness. Mitch Hedberg accurately observed that “Fettuccine alfredo is like macaroni and cheese for adults.” That doesn’t mean it is not of high quality, simply that it is a more complicated and “gourmet” version of the same basic structure: in this case, noodles and cheese sauce. Switch out the yellow processed American-ness of the cheese in the Kraft Mac and Chee and substitute some delicate parmesan. In this case you take the gooey yellow spongeyness and switch in an almost biscuit-like sweet density, switch in some actual whipped cream, and throw some fruit on the bastard. Still, a vanilla flavored cake with a generous amount of whipped topping: you get the gist.

I wonder two things about this situation: 1) Is there something about yellowness specifically that is always removed when “gourmet-izing” a classic. Would classy Cheetos have to be made with blue corn or something? 2) Why would you so thoroughly enjoy one version and not another? I mean, I guess there are circumstances where the specific changes may throw something off enough. If you are allergic to or just hate the additions, sure. If you added blueberries to my chocolate chocolate muffin from SuperMom’s I wouldn’t even bother to wash it down with SuperRich Choco-milk, but if you made it with imported Dutch chocolate and frosted it with a rich ganache, I would be in.

You know who does not get anywhere near enough props: Jim Varney. That guy was a talent and a hardcore one too. I was thinking about him the other day when I was asking myself a hypothetical “Who Would You Rather Bwn?” question: Going for an extended period of time without any video entertainment at all or watching only the film version of The Beverly Hillbillies on repeat at least 4 times a day? I realized that probably wasn’t a very hard one, but wondered if it would be a better question if you limited your video entertainment to only Jim Varney movies. Then I remembered: Ernest movies rule. I saw Ernest Goes to Camp at least 100 times. Ernest Saves Christmas was another gem. I loved Ernest Goes to Jail all except for the electric chair thing, since I had a hard time laughing at capital punishment, even at 12 odd years old. I remember when Ernest died and I was sad. But I didn’t remember the sad times, the Beverley Hillbillies for instance, or Slam Dunk Ernest. I remembered Ernest, playing an old woman, in a fisheye lens.
Hippo is too young to have seen Jim Varney in his prime, but I will have to sit her down and take a look at the early Ernest that so influenced our lives. A good dose of catnip and it will be as funny to my Persian friend as it was at so many elementary school sleepovers.

Peace,

MB-K

Run To The Hills, Run For Your Butt

I live in the state of New York and have for approaching 4 years now. I have never been to New York City. When I mention this fact around people in this area they are routinely amazed. Before I even get into the legitimacy/illegitimacy questions in this arena, let me just say that even people generally from the Northeast, not even NYC residents, are ridiculously arrogant about visiting NYC, to an extent that no one in any other area has ever been in my opinion.

First, let’s note that New York is about 400 miles from Buffalo. That’s the outskirts of NYC by the way, not Times Square. You gotta figure that to be at least 7 hours, if you make amazing time, more likely its 9 to really get into the city. That doesn’t make me particularly close, just because I’m in the arbitrary boundaries of the state of New York doesn’t make visiting the city any more likely. We’re far closer to Philly and Pittsburgh, and no one is surprised that we haven’t made those journeys. Montreal is prolly right in the same range and infinitely more likely to get my, admittedly limited, tourist dollars. Are you in Minneapolis? Have you been to Chicago, Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Iowa City, Kansas City, Omaha, Lincoln, and St. Louis? All within about that same distance and I really can’t imagine being harassed if I hadn’t been to the University of Nebraska campus.

My guess is that the answer to this would be: yeah, but those places aren’t New York. Well, my guess is that some of them are way better places to spend one’s time than New York. The thing that solves back for all these reasons, of course, is money. If you are rich like a bastard, I’m sure New York is awesome. If you are rich like a bastard my guess is that anywhere is awesome. In fact, places that are awesome when you are not rich are probably way more awesome when you are rich, versus places like New York, which would swallow llamas if you aren’t wealthy.

What’s so awesome about New York? The food? Yeah, I bet the food is really good. Notably though, every decent size city has great food. Even Buffalo and Rochester have good food. I suppose there is some stuff you can only get in NYC, but that stuff tends to be outlandishly expensive. Again, if you’re rich, cool. I’m not.

The people? This is a disad btw, not a good thing. I don’t like throngs, for the most part. I like a spattering of people well dispersed over a large area. I don’t like it when the mall is crowded. One of the few good things about watching Twins games at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome is that you never feel packed in. Don’t get me wrong, I go to crowded places and it pretty much never bothers me. Sometimes it’s even productive, Lambeau Field comes to mind. But for your everyday going to work--getting milk--coming home routine, crowds are annoying, end of story. I’m sure the people are all very cool and everything, but I’m not real worried about finding cool people. I only need like 20 friends, who cares if there are a million or 12 million left over.

I realize that the things I have the best arguments for are actually reasons not to live in New York City. In fact, I have the argument “living in New York City good” pretty much destroyed. I’m sure there are plenty of cool things about visiting, lots of stuff to see, at least once, and I’m sure I will do that at some point. But to do it well takes cash. I haven’t been to NYC yet cuz I can’t imagine I will be able to handle it many times, and when I get there I want to do it right.

I don’t want to be in a city where I can’t drive around reasonably, where everything costs three times as much as it should, and I have to fight with a billion residents and another billion tourists just to get a hot dog.

I think I got off on this question, btw, because one of the blogs I read mentioned that on her most recent visit, she was amazed by the literal bags of garbage along the streets. I’m not a clean freak, but that admittedly sounds annoying and nasty. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but this makes two Minnesota bloggers who have mentioned this fact in the past 6 months or so.

Hippo sez that all the negativity on this blog sux. She is always right.

Peace,

MB-K

You're Always Asking What It's All About But Don't Listen to My Replies, You Say To Me I Don't Talk Enough, But When I do I'm a Butt

Tonight was Queen on Idol. It’s pretty hard to sing Freddy Mercury, even the epic and legendary Jordis Unga bombed it. There were a couple really poor attempts to do Queen songs, including Ace—who was disgusting—and Kelly Pickler—who looked exactly like a less attractive Ashlee as a blonde while pumping out a hideous country-muzak (Katie says Branson-like, those may be the same) version of Bohemian Rhapsody. Wayne and Garth called during the performance, they want their schwing back.’

I should note that the only reason Ace got the specific link I included above is because ruppdogg’s xanga is the only result that comes up when you google “ace young is a tool.” If anyone wants to ensure that my blog surpasses ruppdogg’s xanga as the number one result for googling “ace young is a tool” I would appreciate it. Though, at the same time…

What if it ignited some sort of epic battle between me and ruppdog. If I were ruppdogg and someone started a war with me regarding my dominance of the “ace young is a tool” google search market I would do two things:

1. I would strike against reut dawg, who must be the Southern TC Burbs equivalent of ruppdogg, sort of like Bizzaro Jerry. Watch your back reuter, cuz this d00d plays SOCCER in INDIANA. Its essentially like knowing what is gonna take you down. It’s a given, its like hearing “I know it was you Fredo. You broke my heart.” It even sounds the same “He plays Soccer in Indiana.”


2. I would buy the domain name http://www.aceyoungisatool.com/ and buy a week’s worth of ads on Rocketboom. Then, when Ace Young was eventually booted from Idol, I would change the website so that it taunted the person who tried to challenge my “ace young is a tool” supremacy. I figure it would cost me about 100,000 dollars to get to the level I am thinking of, but it would be so worth it. Like “peek-a-poms.” Sorry, bout that picture. All the photos of peekapoms on the internet suck. This is especially ridiculous cuz peekapoms are cute. We saw one in Dallas named Daisy. Adorable. We whipped a u-turn in the Expedition just to say hello to it.

So let me just, in advance, offer a truce to ruppdogg, please ruppdogg, don’t hurt ‘em. Do it for reut dawg, cuz no one wants to see him hurt. Do it for the peekapoms.

I made fajitas tonight. I did not make coconut ice cream and sticky rice. One of those decisions was brilliant, the other sub-par. They are not like US-China-Russian relations, all zero-sum and shit.

Hippo has had an incredible combination of dashing spastic kittenish energy and adorable napping poses today. She crashed after Taylor Hicks’ high flying performance of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” It was, in fact, EMF style unbelievameow.

Peace,

MB-K

Such a Sexy Sexy Pretty Little Thing, Fierce Nipple Pierce You Got Me Sprung With Your Tongue Butt

Spent an hour today sitting in my car with Hippo and Katie in the parking lot of the apartment. Sure, you are saying, you just wanted to listen to the radio or something. Nope. Wasn’t even enjoying the spring air that was in the area of 30 degrees this afternoon. We were outside because some total douche decided to attempt to burn our house down. Not kidding. Somebody lit a fire in our laundry room. Thank god they sucked at it and that we were home to get safely to the car before anything but a plastic-y burning smell. We had a fire truck, 3-4 supplementary fire vehicles and two cop cars in the parking lot, in addition to the 20 or so people smoking outside the building. Two guys, who you normally would not have thought to be upright citizens taking the public good into their own hands to assist the forces of law, followed some d00d who ran from the building and took some pictures of him. Good job by those guys. The cops will hopefully track him down so I don’t spend every weekend that I am out of town worried about the well being of the apartment. Anyway, that was what I did with the end of my workday.

Back to the weekend: Saturday was free for me most of the afternoon, but Katie spent all her time getting her makeup and hair done all pretty style. She, and all the other ladies involved, looked very very nice, which I know since I drove a couple over to Forepaugh’s for pictures. Afterwards I went back to watch the minute amount of basketball that this wedding/job interview/plane flight allowed me to watch and get ready for the festivities. The wedding was nice, small, and tasty (if I had to use three adjectives to describe it…which I do). I hadn’t been in the restaurant for years (though, as I may have mentioned, I went to prom there) but since it hasn’t changed much since the early 1900s, its no surprise that it was fundamentally the same since mid 1998. The service was well written and performed, the appetizers uber-nummy (among my favorite new adjectives), and dinner was great. I didn’t get to eat the best thing on the menu, seeing as the wedding was smack dab in the middle of the Lenten no-red meat season, but thankfully I have had it before. Cake, which I was initially suspicious of given the word “raspberry” in its description, turned out to be fabulous. It was more of a pinkish butter cream inside with white butter cream outside. Yum. This is not even to mention the good times and good fun. Got to see Pete and Meg, talk to Dave and Amy. Natalie and Matt both looked great, seemed to have fun, and had nice things to say. Katie gave a quality toast as well, I believe the only one that did not mention either someone falling off a bike or drinking to excess.

We leave for the NDT tomorrow, so maybe I will cut some cards or something rather than just blog. Hippo sez I should scratch both card cutting and blogging and instead concentrate on waving feathers, bubbles, or ribbons in various intriguing ways. Persians always win, I guess.

Peace,

MB-K

I Remember All My Life, Raining Down as Cold as Butt

I really only get the legitimate chance to blog when I’m watching Idol these days. At least that’s my excuse, given as I was legitimately sick last week when doing so. Doesn’t explain it away I suppose, but it’s a reason enough to not have updated in many days. Katie left on a flight that was delayed by the extraordinarily rapidly declining quality of service on Northwest Airlines. By delayed I mean she got bumped to a U.S. Airways flight because the Northwest one was cancelled due to a lack of hours for the crew. That is freaking insane, notably, that you are just not doing an entire day of flights cuz your management is so poor that you cannot pay even a skeleton crew to get the bags up. It doesn’t get much better when you are dismissed by their gate agents and left hungry or poor (since the freaking “Fruit and Nut” snack costs a dollar, seriously, I know we could potentially say this about anything, but the dude(tte)s at the top can’t afford a couple bucks a year to get me the 2 cents per package pretzels). It’s just sad to see an airline I associate so strongly with Minnesota business and have so many friends/family members employed with, take such a nosedive. NWA makes Delta look like Eos.

Between that point and my own departure Thursday morning, I got really sick, rested, wrote 5-6 pages, watched the season premiere of The Sopranos, caught up on all my non-reality TV, prepared a lesson plan for a job interview, and got at least somewhat better again. Renee came to stay with Hippo for the weekend, so at least she can pretend there is a streak of continuity in her family’s travel schedule. I, meanwhile, arrived to the first real snow I have seen on the ground all year and was awaited by Katie, who herself had spent 35 odd minutes in the “return to terminal” driveway.

I watched shockingly little basketball this weekend, which was painful considering my usual track record with regard to opening weekends of the NCAA tournament. I didn’t lose any of my final four picks in the first round, but it doesn’t mean very much to me since I saw at best 12-14 games all weekend. Thursday was running around doing Katie related stuff for the most part, including shopping for a ridiculous concoction of items at the grocery store, and setting up for a bridal shower thing I was not technically involved in.

Spent that night chilling with a good part of the old crew, though I had to get up early for a job interview. Did that thing, nailed it, if I do say so myself (more later if it ever pans out) and went to pick Tom up at the Humphrey Terminal of the MSP International Airport.

Some context: the Humphrey Terminal is like the bastard stepchild to the Lindbergh Terminal. I had not been there in years; it was essentially the storehouse for ridiculous little airlines which had like 2 flights a day. I have picked people up there when they fly in on the regional thingies like Midwest Express and I flew out of there when I went on the cruise with my fam. It used to look far more like a bus terminal than an airport, there was one baggage claim, maybe two, the parking lot was just a big fenced in area past the building, and I think the snack bar was on par with what you might find at a Rosemount JV Hockey game, minus the SuperRopes. It is now, essentially, a miniature version of the Lindbergh Terminal, with enormously oversized parking structure and, without question, the absolute worst “Return to Terminal” system in history. If you exit the pick up area, which you freaking have to of course, cuz the damn airport cops force you (seriously, airport cops are arguably now the worst abusers of their miniscule “move it along” authority that exist, even the robocops in my high school exaggerated their power to a smaller degree than these pricks. What, exactly, is the need to make me drive around the building? If I seriously wanted to do something negative to the airport, how long do you think I would need to do it. “I have this device here, it does something very dangerous, but it needs to be parked against the curb for 53 seconds to activate…” I understand that if you let people freaking park there at 5 on a Friday it becomes unusable, but when there are giant 40 foot gaps of space between the 4-5 cars that are waiting to pick people up at 9:30 pm on a lazy Sunday night, do you have to give me this Federal Aviation Guidelines bullshit), in that situation you have to cross literally 3 stoplights, including at least one that seems to serve approximately 2 cars per decade. That’s not even to mention that each of your 3 merges is from the most awkward angle possible and you have to go over the light rail track. It takes 10 minutes in all seriousness. You would be better off parking at Ikea.

We had dinner with my dad and it was prolly the best dinner he has ever cooked. It was St. Patrick’s Day, after all, and if the Irish can’t belt out some corned beef and cabbage what can they do. The cabbage mixture had potatoes, onions, cabbage, and bacon, all braised to perfection. That’s actually a really simple thing to mess up, cuz overcooked cabbage will sulfur up your house as hard as the day is long. The being out and about portion of our day ended with a stop at the rehearsal party, where Katie got some hella glam gifts and good times were shared by all. I, for my part, most enjoyed playing with the kitties which wandered in triplicate throughout the festivities. Just when one cat was sick of your shtick, you could count on another one to wander by who might think that a stick tapped against the window is the awesomest thing ever. It’s a hard opinion to dispute, when you really get down to it. Three hella cute cats would just be too much for me, I wouldn’t know who to meow at or when to do it. For one evening though it’s the perfect amount.

I will pick up at Saturday morning when I return, with all luck, sometime before this weekend’s NDT. In the meantime Hippo insists that I spend more time tapping sticks against windows for her than I do discussing doing so for hypothetical cats.

Peace,

MB-K

Its Inevitable, Its a Fact That We're Gonna Get Down To It, So Tell Me, Why Can't I Breathe, Whenever I Think About Butt

We went to the Men’s Warehouse yesterday to buy a suit. Suits are expensive, though admittedly, they are also pretty cool. I don’t have any intention of going all Barney on the bit and wearing suits everywhere I go, but I suppose it is useful to have around, since I believe I will have two opportunities to wear it just this weekend.

I feel, in at least a couple respects, free as a parrot. That is, its not like I don’t have things to do, I’m still on a perch in somebody’s house, but at least I’ve got the freedom to fly, or just squawk for crackers or peanuts or something. This analogy sucks. Point is, its Spring Break, I have taken the period until we return from Spring Break off of debate work, and we are returning to Minnesota this weekend. I still have writing to do, papers to grade, and a job interview this upcoming Friday. Nonetheless, just not having to go into class on Tuesday and Thursday adds a couple hours sleep and a couple hours work time to my week. Katie has like 5 days in the TC but I will only be in town for 3. I’m a little worried that I won’t have the chance to see everyone in my family, much less all my friends, but I think the schedule is falling into place. It kills me that I won’t always have the time to accommodate the schedule of the first rounds of the tournament, but I guess I will get by. My flight should arrive at MSP before the games begin, so I will get most of Thursday’s action and a large part of the later Friday schedule.

I have been caught up in the past couple of days in what I would like to call a “Wikipedia hole.” Apparently some wad named Jcroker beat me to the use of the term, but I think I lost 10 minutes in the middle of a sentence on Friday progressing from OK Soda, to Surge, to urban legends, to urban legends about sharks, to an article about sharks. Between YouTube and Wikipedia, my non-blog reading leisure time is pretty well full up.
Anyway, I went to my Wiki friend this afternoon in an attempt to explain a reference on Numb3rs to the “P Versus NP” problem. I had heard of it before, at least I thought I had, but my guess is that it was simply based on prior references to the same thing on the show. Still, I think that crazy math stuff makes for good reading, so I did so. Another thing I could put on the list of things I could potentially do if I were ridiculously rich and bored is learn some serious math, cuz even though it was back in high school I was hella good at the mathematicos. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t solve one of the Millennium Problems, but its something to do. Interesting article about this problem as embodied in Minesweeper and an explanation that made no sense to me whatsoever about “simply connected bodies.” Thank God that someone could finally explain why an apple was different from a doughnut.

My guess is I’ve mentioned the fact that I don’t get the whole regional differences in Girl Scout cookie naming. Nonetheless, even if you called them Crappidy-Crappidos I would love Samoas more than life itself. I mean, I think Samoa is objectively a better name than Caramel deLites, especially with that horrible capitalization work. We picked up a box yesterday at the mall, so I will no longer be reliant on debate tournaments and other people’s rents for my fix. At least for a couple days.

Hippo does not understand what the big deal is about the cookies or P vs. NP, insofar as neither one is likely to result in her getting a dish of kitty chow any faster. She suggests instead that we focus on the problem of developing an algorithm which predicts how much tuna she wants and when she wants it. A Meow-lennium Problem perhaps?

Peace,

MB-K