Times Have Changed and Times are Strange, Here I Come, But I Ain't the Same, Mamma I'm Coming Butt

I will try to update more seriously from the airport tomorrow, since I believe at least the ROC has free wifi. Until then, I just had to jump in to shout a public Happy Birthday to Katie. We’ve had a binge week or so of eating, shopping, spending, and general craziness. The Katie Birthday Extravaganza, if you have never experienced it, is really something to behold. It’s not low on calories and it’s not cheap, but you usually have coupons and it’s always been thoroughly researched. Ninety nine times out of 100 it will be cooler than you thought it was, whether you were skeptical or psyched.

Seriously, Katie’s Birthday (Birthday Weekend/Week/Month/evs) is probably my favorite time of the year. We do it better and better every time. Hell, even if we spend gangbusters for another week, we can’t spend as much this year as we did in 2k5. I have some things to say about Philly, cuz besides Donovan McNabb that is an awesome city. We ate well, we saw some beautiful stuff, we seriously relaxed.

Hippo missed us a lot, but she is so excited for Katie’s Birthday that she is still purring with contentment. I’ll be on my way to Minneapolis in the morning. Midwest homecoming.

Peace,

MB-K

And A Fat Ass J, of Some Bubonic Chronic That Made Me Choke, Shit This Ain't No Butt

Don’t have a lot to say at the moment, but we are goin to Philly tomorrow, so I thought at least briefness was in order. Especially since we had an incredibly productive day, worked out, got stuff done at the ROC, and I believe I finished the entire first draft of the dissertation. Its obviously not done, but at least a version of it is written. Of course that meant I didn’t finish until 7:15, and it was sort of too late to start grilling, since dinner would have been at least 1:45 away and neither of us could last. That’s unfortunate for healthy food, but meant that we got Domino’s thin crust pizza and some brand spankin’ new Brownie Bites. My official review: pwnz.

Pretty awesome week for reality TV. It sucked for Howie, but at least he was entertaining on his way down. Janelle played well, got rid of James McFuckhead and set up a decent chance for the eviction of Danielle. Patrice rightfully bit it on RockStar and I believe that Katie and I were responsible for Storm staying out of the bottom three. They did decide to rename the Results Show the Screw Dilana Show, since the first half hour was just two reasons she was an ass. I mean, she dealt pretty well, and I understand that she is probably kind of an ass, but she freaking rawks.

This is literally the mildest August I have ever experienced. Admittedly, my August memories are tainted by years of two-a-days, but I characterize the month as generally equivalent to living inside a burning house made of blankets soaked in butt. The year I lived alone in Lockport I didn’t turn the a/c off until mid-September. This year, I bet we haven’t had it on more than 7 days. Its sunny but the highs are in the low 70s. Its outlandish and it rules.

I had something that I was totally gonna talk about for a couple paragraphs, but I lost somewhere between talking about it with Katie the other day. It was really good though, my take was like a warm Krispy Kreme donut, it was hot, but drew you in. It was sugary and delicious, but moltenly dangerous at the same time. Appreciate this analogy in its absence.

Katie and I did get into an argument today (about debate, no less, cuz we are some hardcore dorks) and it was one of these incredibly bizarre situations, which nearly never happens to us, where I was 100% absolutely freaking certain that I am right and Katie had the opposite opinion. There are lots of times where I express an opinion with some reduced level of certainty and Katie contradicts it. Very rarely though, do I believe something with a level of certainty that is simply unquestioned and find out that Katie does not. It could well be because I am an arrogant ass, but this comes as no surprise to anyone. That’s said, if the counterplan solves the link in its entirety, and the result of the permutation gets that solvency, then you vote aff. I mean, its not as obvious as the fact that running a counterplan concedes the harms.

I don’t know if anyone who didn’t debate reads my blog, but sorry. On a lighter note, I love the fact that Reese Witherspoon was in American Psycho. I want to go back and rewatch American Psycho like three times, imagining Reese as a different one of her three best roles:

1) June Carter (Walk the Line)—Rule number one, never propose to a woman on a bus. Rule number two, don’t kill her in a hypersexualized fashion.
2) Annette Hargrove (Cruel Intentions)—I don’t trust myself around you, Bateman
3) Elle Woods (Legally Blonde)—pink is the new stabbing prostitutes

Hippo is still too kittenishly innocent to enjoy Bret Easton Ellis, though she agrees that his specific strategy of revealing the violence of capitalist economics is engaging and productive. She is hella diplomatic on this question, refusing to put herself too far into the middle of intense debates between mainstream literary intellectuals. Classic persian kitty. I think she would like a kitty chow milkshake, so I’m gonna look into that.

Peace,

MB-K

Well I Guess It Would Be Nice, If I Could Touch Your Body, I Know Not Everybody, Has Got a Body Like Butt

It’s a bit rainy here in Rochester this afternoon. Or it was, when it was, you know, afternoon and raining and I was typing originally. Now its night and while perhaps still rain-y, not rain-ing. Immediately after I typed that first sentence Katie decided that a shopping trip had to begin and it had to be followed up by dinner at the Macaroni Grill. I only technically objected to one part of that sequence, but it went surprisingly painlessly. Had a pretty decent beef and arugala salad for dinner, a somewhat surprising choice for me, but tasty. We only had one crayon at the table, which is weak for the Mac Grill, but thankfully our food was ready very quickly and it was irrelevant.

Watching Tiger now, brwnzing and pwnzinig his way through the PGA. I guess that indicates yet another gap in the time between writing and posting. I could attempt to develop this singular post over a period of like 5 days, but that seems excessive.  Also, it seems lame—maybe a tad penis-like. I’ve been watching the Yankees and Red Sox a little bit this weekend, in addition to the golf, to get my sports watching back in tune for football season. It’s not like it really takes a lot of preparation for me to watch the NFL, but I suppose it helps me deal with commercials if nothing else. Live TV is such a bizarre concept.

Why, on the PGA Scoreboard, do they show the flags indicating country of origin for each of the players? That seems like something that is not at all relevant, seeing as how the players are not representing their country in any specific sense. It is not an international competition of any sort, so they might as well just display a picture of their favorite food or something.(“Ernie Ells, stepping up to the tee. He’s 3 under on the day, native of South Africa and he really enjoys banana splits.”) I just wonder if there was any discussion about displaying that information on the broadcast or if some assistant director just carried over the Olympic formatting without consultation.

I hadn’t been watching a lot of Showtime recently, but that has changed this week. On the obvi-hand, Weeds has returned, bringing another 12 or so weeks of Mary Louise Parker deliciosity and Kevin Nealon-ish hilarity. On the less obvi, is the new series Brotherhood. I really only began it tonight, as Katie and I taped the pilot yesterday. We are gonna catch up with the first 6 episodes on demand. It’s an Irish Sopranos so far, but that sounds like a winning formula by all accounts. Hippo, though she is only honorarily Irish, agrees, at least so far. She is meowing for a classic HiDef episode of Life on a Stick, so I must oblige.

Peace,

MB-K

Life is a Mystery, Everyone Must Stand Alone, I Hear You Call My Name, and It Feels Like Butt

Ah, sitting down and watching my first hi-def NFL game of the season. Its preseason jobviously, but it still feels good. I am pissed that Fox is being an ass about this whole thing, and hopefully they will figure out their HD nonsense before the season is fully underway. Until that point, I will just watch the AFC a little more ardently than usual I guess. Packers play for the first time manana, but I won’t get to see what happens. Have to start reading my Packers blogs again I guess.

I’ve had some strong feelings about reality shows this week. It kicked off with Janelle winning the power of veto in a great competition that really made me pleased with the state of the game. I love Kaysar and am seriously pissed that he is gone, but it was inevitable I guess. They could always redo America’s Choice and end up making Kaysar the only person to ever get evicted 4 times. I think James has made a mistake, summarized best by Boogie’s admission that you need to be careful when you align with the villains.

RockStar went fairly well, sending home Josh (who sounded like Kermit the Frog and looks far more like a Maroon 5 cover band then a rock singer) and Jill, who in my mind is consistently terrible. My top three remain, without question, Dilana, Storm Large, and Lukas. I can’t deny that Magni is hella talented, but I’m a bit scared he will turn into this year’s J.D. Fortune. Certainly he’ll be cooler than J.D.

Project Runway went alright, Michael won the contest he deserved to win. More importantly Heidi for some reason decided that to mix it up, they would make the contest for the models resemble pull tabs more than, let’s say, a modeling competition. I like the “models choose designers” twist, but have some foresight huh.

Then we had Last Comic Standing, where Josh Blue won the contest that has really been his to lose from the beginning. To some extent I think Josh deserved to win, he really is a funny dude, though I think he sometimes suffers from Dat Phan syndrome—that is, taking a singular trait and making it the only punch line you have. Let me say again, I think Josh Blue is a far far superior comic to Dat Phan (they even performed on the same show and Dat Phan continued his unending streak of not making me laugh) but I’m scared about the prospect of a 1 hour Josh Blue special. For me personally, Ty Barnett was a superior comic.

Katie and I have talked a lot about a phenomenon that seems to underlie a lot of really popular comedy, the idea that it gives mainstream society the opportunity to laugh at characteristics they usually are not allowed to. My Big Fat Greek Wedding, for instance, was obviously funny, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it was so enormously popular because it was an outlet for ethnic jokes that remained “non-racist” since they concerned white people. Dat Phan is an obvious example, since his bit is pretty much just repeating stereotypes about Vietnamese and Southeast Asian people in general. There are some things that can moderate this, making fun of rather than supporting those stereotypes, let’s say, or the fact that someone is doing this self-consciously to make money. I’m not sure I think the latter is a good idea or politically acceptable, but it’s not really my place to decide, so I will leave it at that.

I talk about this more cuz I heard an interesting interview on the Al Franken show this afternoon with Juan Williams. This interview was interesting not only because it mentioned his son Toni, who I knew fairly well at Macalester, but also because there was a large discussion about Dave Chappelle. I read some of the material that came out when Chappelle took off and abandoned the show and it was really interesting to me. I support the guy—I would imagine he must have felt pretty significantly terrible to give up that kind of money—even though I wish I had more episodes of his show to watch. From what I understand, Chappelle began to wonder (I’m not sure how conclusive he was on this point, if he thought the show was moving towards this, or had reached it, or had been doing it from the start) if he was no longer satirizing stereotypes, but instead just reinforcing them. Juan Williams, whom I usually have agreed with, suggested that he was not satirizing them, going so far as to literally call Chappelle’s Show a “modern minstrel show.”

I am sure that there are people who took his comedy in the wrong way, that’s sort of inevitable. Even the “pixie sketch,” which has been so controversial, in my mind, was pretty explicitly mocking racial stereotypes (you can watch it on comedy central’s website, though I can’t link it). Isn’t the point, in virtually every one of Chappelle’s sketches, recognition of the gap between stereotype and reality or the lack thereof. The pixies sketch, for instance, is funny because of the way it relates actions that have nothing to do with race (if you want chicken or fish for dinner) to traditionally racist ideas (black people love fried chicken). I am not criticizing Chappelle for this, cuz I don’t know nearly enough about his situation, but I feel like Williams’ position at least is sort of giving up humor as a political strategy. Race, gender, class, etc. at that point are reduced to only negative categories, that is, they can only be used to hurt people. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t bad uses or instances of humor, but those occur regardless of positive political strategies to counter them.

Anyway, Hippo has not had the opportunity to see the Rick James episode of Chappelle’s Show, one of the all time classics of sketch comedy in my mind. She may end up preferring to watch something more up Katie’s alley, but regardless.

Peace,

MB-K

Out Here in the Fields, I Fight For My Butt

After my last entry I was under the impression that I had cooled down from Dana’s being booted from RockStar. As I watch a tivoed rerun of CSI: NY and hear the Who’s “Baba O’Reilly,” the last song she performed on the show, I can say in retrospect that I was wrong.

I didn’t realize that I was wrong until we were driving home from an exorbitantly expensive Target run on Thursday evening. I quickly realized that the tire was flat and, after attempting to re-inflate it at the nearest gas station, was in fact punctured on the side. It was a pretty significant hole and apparently unpatchable. Thanks only to the fact that d00d at the gas station had a hydraulic jack, I was able to get the tire changed in time to get home and tape Big Brother: All Stars. I realized, as I prepared to throw a tire iron through the nearest possible window, that things had been building since Dana’s booting and I was furious. I usually deal with my anger by screaming obscenities at no one in particular and hopefully destroying something unimportant and nearby.

It was all very Josh in “Noel,” in a way, since I had no reason to believe that this was still explicitly an issue. Literally, as I was swearing and going through the process of preparing to change the tire I could hear Dana’s voice repeating Who lyrics. Kinda insane. Thankfully, the rest of the night was relaxing with a big ass casual Italian restaurant dinner, some cheap Pinot Noir, and high def reality TV in an over air conditioned house.

I went to see the Bills practice yesterday at St. John Fisher, about 20 minutes from our place. I was there for a little over an hour: 10 minutes or so within about 10 feet of the linebackers, who were doing pretty basic positioning drills and stuff, but the closest group to the fence and probably the most interesting group of Bills players anyway. London Fletcher-Baker and Takeo Spikes were right there and both pretty impressive looking guys. When they split up into line-work and 7-on-7 I went and watched the big guys. McCargo, the new d-tackle, looked pretty impressive, faster than I would have thought. It was incredible that they essentially have a brand new offensive line, I barely knew any of them and it was a little hard to say how they will look. I watched the scrimmage for a little while until I had to go. Holcomb and Losman appeared to be splitting the snaps pretty evenly; Craig Nall wasn’t wearing pads, but was tossing around on the sidelines. It’s pretty apparent that he has the best arm of the three, but shockingly, even less experience than J.P. Though I think he is the obvious choice for this season, since I just don’t believe Holcomb has the playoffs in his blood, I must admit his fundamentals are lacking, apparently even to me. Maybe it was just an off series. It’s pretty hard to tell I’m ready for football season, huh.

I think I am going to buy a bag of those googly eye stick on things and go into the grocery store at night. Then attach two of them to vegetables and fruits that are like one below the surface. Do you think someone would be freaked out when they pick up the top butternut squash and see the bottom one staring up at them? Maybe grapefruits are funnier.

I think I have mentioned the grocery combination fun game before, where you imagine lists of things that you could buy together at the grocery store that would cause the cashier/other customers to wonder (i.e. KY, a cucumber and adult diapers). I wonder if the same thing could be done at the dollar store, cuz that would be way more economical to actually execute. I tried to come up with something at the DSW yesterday, but no matter which pair of heels you buy, its hard to really get any more kinky than a mild foot fetish when you only have shoes at your disposal. You’d have to be a bit more imaginative at the Dollar Hut, but I’m sure that a pair of discount panties, a traffic cone, and 20 packs of generic minty chewing gum could strike some sort of chord. Even if no one gives you any looks at all, its only three bucks.

Hippo is currently making far more noise upstairs than is reasonable or prudent for a 6ish pound Persian cat, even one as adorable and fun loving as she. Hence I will answer her mews and bring a feather toy or two.

Peace,

MB-K

I Never Found the Words To Say, Youre The One I Think About Each Day, And No Matter Where Love Takes Me To, A Part of Me Will Always Be, With Butt

Fucking RockStar just jobbidied it hardcore. I mean, I understand that people don’t like Dana like I do, but come on. That is ridiculous. Patrice was boring, Jill is boring every week and Zayra is terrible/hideous/etc. to the nth degree. Seriously, if I didn’t like Dilana and Lukas so much, I would stop watching this show because of how bad this decision is. There has only been one 1.3-ish seasons of RockStar and there have been three (by my unofficial count) wretched elimination decisions. That isn’t explicitly meant to temper my enjoyment of the show, as mentioned only a few entries ago, but simply to question if the quality of the music and entertainment is not matched by the final judges. (By the time I finished typing this entry I had calmed down enough to realize that many of these statements aren’t really true, specifically the not watching RockStar part. Nonetheless, deleting them seems to overly moderate what was indeed a pretty serious anger, so far as I get seriously angry, so it stays.)

Another reality TV note comes from the world of So You Think You Can Dance, a show which I must say always turns out to be far more enjoyable than I would anticipate. Its certainly got some neat stuff, especially when the routines are trick filled and such. I still can’t take dancing seriously, but maybe that’s a character flaw on my part. Maybe it’s just some sort of fucked up family dynamic, since my uncle was a professional ballroom dancer for a while. I can’t think of a reason why his dancing would make me take it less seriously, since I always liked him, despite only seeing him once a year or so, significantly less since I entered high school. I could go off on other side notes regarding the fact that Eric took me to Hooters at the MOA when I was still in elementary school or that he drove a white convertible, liked to play with nunchuks and throwing stars and used some of the weakest old-person trying to sound hip insults even when he was like 20 years old. I think I always had the suspicion that he was not actually cool, despite believing as a 12 year old that he was, but that may be retrospection. Also to be noted, I have seen him I think for a grand total of 30 minutes in the past decade, so my evaluation, contemporary or not, of his relative level of cool should prolly be taken with several grains of very coarse salt. The point of this paragraph was So You Think You Can Dance, however, and my absolute favorite parts of the show are both near the beginning. Favorite part 1: introduction of the host, in this case, the perky blonde brit named Cat Deeley. Her name always makes me think of a brand of toy that hippo would enjoy, you know, playing with her cat dealey. Favorite part 2: Cat Deeley models Ryan Seacrest in introducing us every episode to “our judges.” Technically, she says “your judges,” but I figure you folks can make the transition in speakers pretty easily. Anyway, she says it the exact same way every week and it’s this hilarious but cute pronunciation that I can only describe as a combination of classic British accent, times nasally lisp, times Bill Cosby. That description does nothing, so just watch it and see how accurate it is.

Hippo got up from under Katie’s chair but appears playful, so I am going to divert my attention to her for a while. Her eyes widened (if that’s even possible) at the prospect of a feather on a stick.

Peace,

MB-K

Devil Inside-The Devil Inside-Every Single One of Us the Devil Inside Here Come the World With the Look In its Eye Future Uncertain But Certainly Butt

Meiches alerted me today to a very interesting article published by some crazy bastards over at Human Events. Just clicking that link probably made you shiver like the devil was gently fingering your butt in preparation for something that you suspect would be less than enjoyable, but as of yet, cannot be certain. Anyway, the website whose home page seems like it is desperately trying to convince people that there seriously are multiple attractive blonde female republicans, has decided to compile a list of what they call the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Century.

In the first place, what the hell nonsense allowed you to group the 19th and 20th centuries together randomly. If you just wanted to make sure that you got Marx and Hitler in the same list I suppose you succeeded, but why the random time selection? Is it like people who just really like to play suited connectors so they just chose the most recent consecutive centuries. I think my next move will be to make a list of the top 10 websites of 2005 and 1895.

Beyond that, who gave you the fucking right to label books as harmful. I hate to sound like NRA propaganda, especially in regard to this group, but I’m pretty sure the books were not the ones inflicting the harm. Thankfully, there is a pretty significant difference between the exchange of intellectual material and freaking firearms, so while Mein Kampf prolly didn’t kill anyone I’m willing to bet that AK-47s have. I agree that there are a lot of stupid/problematic/bigoted ideas that have been written down and published over the years and a lot of things that I have read which I fervently disagree with. The freedom to engage in these debates is fundamentally relevant, not only to democracy, but to the maturation and development of these ideas themselves. I seriously thought that the embracing banned books movement had gotten rid of this shit, but apparently we can pretty clearly identify the dangerous material, all we have to do is survey some conservative PoliSci profs and think tank directors.

The Communist Manifesto at number one is a pretty obvious choice, probably so when arguing with liberal/reasonable/intelligent people, the backers of the list get to trot out the “Communism killed more people than fascism, genocide, etc.” bit. I’m not even going to go into it for the moment, but have you fuckers even read Captial? That book is about 99% a description of capitalist economics and in the area of 1% proscriptive as to the course that economy will take. What exactly is dangerous about explaining commodity fetishism? Any explanation as to why the distinction between use and exchange value contributed to the gulag? I suppose its best explained by their shiningly accurate summary at the end of the blurb: “He could not have predicted 21st Century America: a free, affluent society based on capitalism and representative government that people the world over envy and seek to emulate.” Was that supposed to read “a free society for the affluent?” Do you think Hamas is more involved in the emulation or envy portion of that equation?

I suppose including Keynes on the list legitimates economics as more than just ideology for these folks. Possibly more interesting than the list itself are the items that didn’t quite make it. (That’s not to say that its not interesting to put the Kinsey report on this list). Maybe its just the cynic in me that thinks the ones that didn’t get quite enough votes were left off because they were trying to avoid its reading as a list of the “dangerous minorities” who at some point learned how to stick up for themselves in print. Fanon and de Beauvoir were a bit uppity I guess. I’m really sad that we didn’t get to hear why Darwin and Nader were so dangerous. I suppose it cost the lives of all those converted fundamentalist Christians who went to search for the missing link and the jobs of the Corvair designers.

I know that wasn’t particularly heavy on anecdotes or the word “hella.” Hippo thinks its even funnier that Madness and Civilization made the list, since it’s a pretty accurate description of the normalization process going on in this article. She adds, “purr.”

Peace,

MB-K

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