Stand in the Place Where You Live, Now Face Butt

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace,

MB-K

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

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

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

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

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

Peace,

MB-K

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

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

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

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

Peace,

MB-K

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

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

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

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

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

Peace,

MB-K

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

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

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

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

Peace,

MB-K

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

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

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

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

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

Peace,

MB-K

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

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

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

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

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

Peace,

MB-K

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

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

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

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

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

Peace,

MB-K

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

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

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

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

Peace,

MB-K

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

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

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

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

Peace,

MB-K

Oh My God, We're Back Again, Brothers Sisters Everybody Sing, Gonna Bring the Flavor, Show You How, Gotta Question for Ya Better Answer Butt

I think I have been too generally upset with the weather to really get around to blogging, but I have decided my only chance to influence the meteorological ass is perhaps blogging about it explicitly. Being a person who at least tries to understand the beauty in well done versions of anything, I can agree that there are different types of beautiful weather. I understand the occasionally get the really hot beautiful dessert like days and who doesn’t love a spring evening or brisk fall morning. But the winter is really what its about--those mornings where everything is still glistening white, the nights where the limited visibility of the rapidly falling snow makes it seem like you are alone in the world, but in a brilliant and peaceful rather than lonely/desperate sort of way. I had one of those last Thursday, when I went to buy Katie a book late at night. Just watching the snow come down, driving those empty roads nice and slowly, enjoying, rather than worrying, the predictable ways a car slides and balances on the snow. I just love it.

Here is my point. It’s supposed to snow in the winter. That doesn’t mean that it has to come down in buckets killing our power and stranding us in our homes, but the ground needs to be white. There need to be nights where you can stand outside just amazed by the simple beauty of snowflakes in the streetlight. 50 degrees is not beautiful in December. I can get the beauty of a 50 degree sunny day in January or February, as a little reprieve from the snowy cold. But I have a damn hard time enjoying the delightful Bing Crosby and/or Frank Sinatra versions of Winter Wonderland when it feels like mid September.

Katie and I went out with some friends of hers from class tonight. There was some discussion of a class on pr0n that some woman was taking and this woman also used the word “wiener.” I don’t mean that she dropped a wiener-bomb once as a hilarious joke, but she like used the word as her default expression for male genitals. Two things on this subject. First one, serious. I find it really odd when people have default terms for such things which lie outside of the ones I typically encounter. It is notable that this person had no problem using explicit terms, it was just that her default here was not explicit. It was especially odd because it had the effect of sounding more obscene than my version, which would regularly be considered much more obscene. I’m a lingusitc variance dork. Second, is simply the fact that using wiener as such is awesome. She seriously had like the exact disposition which made it work. Very impressed by her coordination of attitude and wiener.

Hippo is more impressed by the coordination of chow and bowl, so I should probably get to that.

Peace,

MB-K

We Wish You a Merry Christmas, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, We Wish You a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Butt

The fall finale (damn do I love that concept) of One Tree Hill is on at the moment, so I do not have to pay too much attention to the show to follow what’s going on. As a result I’ve been sucked down a fairly intense wiki-hole that lead me from the Invisible Pink Unicorn, through sex toys, Douglas Adams’ characters and ultimately to what my question concerns. Specifically, these two descriptions of religious experiences in relation to psychedelic mushrooms. The first of those links includes this sentence: “Almost all of the members of the experimental group reported experiencing profound religious experiences, providing empirical support for the notion that psychedelic drugs can facilitate religious experiences.”

Since I was reading this while basking in the glow of ANTM’s second ever successful finale and “watching” One Tree Hill, I didn’t read it carefully enough first time through and thought that it said something more along the lines of “this provides empirical support for the notion of religious experience.” My thoughts in response to that were a) “dude, are you really lacking support for the existence of religious experience, just head over to, you know, a church” and b) if I was giving them a little more credit “I think people getting lit up for God doesn’t have quite the demonstrative force Wikipedia is suggesting.”

My further reading clarified this fact, but actually led me to a somewhat prior question. That is, does the fact that hallucinogenic drugs seem to be causally related to religious experience act as proof for or contradiction of the religious thesis itself? I’ve only been thinking this through for the past hour or so, but my dueling thoughts so far.

First, this could suggest that all religious experience is analogous or identical to hallucinatory experience. I suppose this somewhat depends on making the assumption that the religious experience on psychedelics is analogous to the experience of watching an interview with Mark McGuire in the filter of your cigarette on psychedelics. Since religious experience is often considered to be defined by faith and faith is often defined by the exclusion or even direct contradiction of logic—the fact that you know that its not real doesn’t influence your experience.

At the same time, of course, hallucinations aren’t random incarnations with no connection to anything. One could make a pretty good argument that they have some connection to either mystical or natural experience, or at least to some level of consciousness which is not limited by logical experience. It seems a bit like that may be short circuiting the argument, but I’m not sure.

In psychosis as per the Freudian/Lacanian tradition, one of the aspects of hallucinations concerns address. That is, the subject may not be able to say what the hallucination means or why it appears that way, but they can say for certain that it is a SIGN and that it is ADDRESSED to them. When the hallucination is the result of foreclosure or a mental structure, this is not surprising, but what about when it occurs via an external substance? It seems that the best argument (which I have no intention of addressing or exploring at this point) would be that the fact of address guarantees an external subject and since in the drug is only interacting with one person’s consciousness, that address must be metaphysical.

Hippo thinks that my idea in writing this must have been inspired by stealing a pinch of her catnip, but I assure her I was sober. Some chow should convince her.

Peace,

MB-K

No One You Can Save That Can't Be Saved, Nothing You Can Do, But You Can Learn How to Be In Time, Its Easy, All You Need is Butt

I don’t like to constantly go after the bulleted or numbered points theme, but sometimes its just easier to keep things in brief un-related paragraphs. I didn’t use numbers in my last writing, so I will go with the gimmicky thing for today. In no particular order:

1) Department store Santas need to suck it up and grow a beard. I mean, I get that you aren’t going to necessarily have a foot long Z.Z. Topp style Kris Kringle thing going on, but you at least need the dedication to stop shaving post Halloween so it’s not a complete sham. In today’s globalized hyper-competitive market place a cheap beard with a head strap is not gonna cut it. I remember the Santa we went to when I was a kid at the Minnesota Zoo. Not only did we have donuts and hot cocoa with him, but he came with reindeer. That is Santa dedication, but I suppose it should be attributed more to the Zoo having reindeer than this d00d’s personal dedication. Still, he had a real beard. You could tug it if you wanted. I had full faith (and credit) that my request for Fireball Island would be satisfied come the 25th.

2) I defended my doctoral dissertation last Thursday. I do not actually have my degree in hand or anything, but I have a PhD. If nothing else goes well in my life, I got married, got a doctorate and have a Persian cat. That’s better than most people can say. Also, I have season tickets to the Packers. And a hawt TV. And my couch has recliners. More relevantly, I have some good leads and advice about turning this into a book manuscript. I’m actually pretty excited to begin that process.

3) The John Carroll tournament, this past weekend, in Cleveland, had its ups and downs. The significant downs: we did not advance very far in outrounds (i.e. our only victory was a walkover), we did not clear some of the teams we expected to clear and arguably more importantly, John Carroll no longer has the soda fountain in the judges lounge. Apparently Pepsi no longer makes those big metal cylinders of soda-juice and I am sad. They did at least have plenty of cold Diet Pepsi on hand. The ups included having some great kids who haven’t debated together for a little while clear and some food related comments, for instance: there was a Chocolate fountain!! That’s right, I got to dip pretzels, bananas, apples, and DOUBLE STUF OREOS (the little things, like the decision to have Double-Stuf Oreos rather than the regular Oreos, is a sure sign that the people in charge think the right way) in a beautiful stream of chocolate. I could even load up a bunch of them and head back to my debates. I also got a van full of kids to join me for the CRAVE. ♦, who is an awesome kid who is simply better known by a symbol than he is by his actual name, actually went so far as to actually purchase a Crave Case. That meant that even through the Lake Effect blizzard and the Bills home game traffic, we had slyders to help us make the way back to the Roc.

I am not satisfied with a three item list and feel bad for having wasted such a delightful mechanism with so few numbers. I guess I will have to try and update regularly for a little while so I can get access back. Hippo suggests that I label all my next bullet points “meow,” but she does not understand how difficult it can be for humans to understand the subtle differences in print.

Peace,

MB-K

Walking on Sunshine, Whoaaa, I'm Walkin on Sunshine, Whoaa, I'm Walkin on Sunshine, Whoaa and Don't it Feel Butt

We went to see The Nutcracker this past weekend. My commentary is only on a couple parts of the show, because my only overall thought is: what’s with all the dancing?

First, there is this part where the evil uncle guy in the whacky cape totally rips off Hiro and stops time. But he doesn’t stop time to cheat at poker or so we get to look at a sweet frozen explosion or to prevent the nuclear apocalypse, but so he can put a sparkly green nutcracker under the Christmas tree without anyone noticing. I understand that it’s a popular show and I guess you want the ballet to appeal to the kids these days, but I was so busy wondering when Milo Ventimiglia was gonna come sailing across the stage that I didn’t really understand what caused the mice v. toy soldiers conflict to escalate to all out war.

I thought that dance war was generally out after the catastrophe that stuck the Jets and Sharks, but these guys raised it to an all new level. My second observation is this: if you are going to engage in a leader vs. leader dance war whose outcome seems to be the magical arbitrary chance for a dance date with the really young chick, I think you should opt out of wearing a giant foam head. Even if you are an enormous rat/nutcracker-come-to life (I am genuinely unsure as to whether or not the chick shrunk to the size of the rat/nutcracker, or if they grew to her size, maybe this isn’t relevant) I think part of your magical power should be dedicated to developing a real and non-bobbly head, cuz there is just no way that doesn’t affect your sword fighting skillz.

Hippo needs some help updating her blog, so I guess I will slide my computer to the middle of the couch so she can have access to the keyboard. We really need to get her her own cat-top computer.

Peace,

MB-K

I Need to Hear You Say, You Need Me All the Way, Oh If You Love Me So, Don't Let Me Be the Last to Butt

I won’t recap the Thanksgiving menu with any great detail, but simply refer you to Katie for this purpose. For the most part everything came off without a hitch, though I certainly learned some things I need to adapt the next time I make certain dishes. Overall a resounding and smashing success. Hippo jagrees, though she spent most of her stomach space on chow rather than the lusciously citrus brined turkey. Katie’s desserts were both fantastic and experimental, but the Maple Pecan cake took…itself, maybe. It pwnd is the point.

Today we went shopping. Two malls, Target, Petco and Pier One. Shopping on the day after Thanksgiving is a lot like what I said about Manhattan, clearly it is counterproductive. The amount of people there make it impossible, or at least massively inconvenient to actually get any of the things you want/need. Thankfully I remembered to bring my Nintnendo and managed to win the Scottish FA Cup while sitting in one of the most overpriced recliners you can ever hope to find at the Bon Ton. I did somehow manage to get rockstar quality parking at each of the establishments we visited, some form of mercy visited upon me I suppose.

The random practices of stores on this most ricockulous of all days amuses me. JCrew, for instance, had a woman walking around with a tray of Christmas cookies. The jewelry stores just decided to all ridiculously overstaff themselves, apparently not understanding that an enormous majority of all jewelry for the holidays is purchased by men for their significant others and that this population makes up about .5% of the post-Thanksgiving shopping audience. Hot Topic was not as booming as you might think today; 5 am is probably too early after the post-turkey goat sacrifice-party. Not to mention that 100 moms racing to the display to pick up limited quantities of 2 for 10 dollar spiked dog chains might cause some injuries. The Hallmark store decided to have a woman stand at the front of the store holding a little animatronic penguin thing that was available at the low low price of 20-ish dollars when you bought like 3 random cards. She was holding it, as if it were a tray of Christmas cookies, but of course, it was not. If you had a table that could say “Hello,” you could outsource this job pretty easily.

Hippo is dying for some of the chipotle cheddar mashers, so I am gonna drop a spoonful into her next bowl of chow.

Peace,

MB-K

How Come Every Time I Come Around My London, London Bridge Wanna Go Butt

Some observations from my first visit to New York City:

1) Manhattan is like any other big city, except 10 times as large. That is to say, there are the same people on the streets, the same stores, restaurants etc. But they go on freaking forever. I went for a walk and went for 40 minutes in one direction with no perceptible change in environment; it was still downtown area as far as the eye could see.
2) Manhattan has clearly grown beyond the point of diminishing returns. While #1 means that I am far less intimidated by New York City than I was before my trip, #2 means that I am even more baffled. There is some great stuff on those islands, but mostly there are just 200 times as many shitty apartments and Chinese restaurants. The amount of shit there actually impedes your ability to access or use any of it. There is simply no point to having a city that size. The existence of Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, Atlanta, Philly, etc. solves all your offense.
3) Olives in the W Hotel in Union Square is a quality place to have dinner. Yellowfin tuna tartare, Lamb porterhouse, and a butterscotch tiramisu makes for a quality evening, however you slice it. Mascarpone crunch, as indicated in the description of the dessert, is one of the most incredible dairy items I have ever eaten.
4) All debate tournaments should be required by law to have at least two sports bars (no less than one featuring the NFL Sunday ticket) within 100 feet of the front door of the tournament. To my knowledge, only the Blake School’s Edie Holiday Tournament and Baruch currently satisfy this condition. UNT comes pretty close. Five dollars for a beer is pricey at a sports bar on a Saturday afternoon perhaps, but I’ve paid more.
5) I’ve read several bloggers who were similarly surprised by the literal scattering of trash on the street, so let me just glom on to that list. Its not that there are empty Poland Springs bottles or half smoked Parliaments. There are piles of garbage bags on every corner. Like a block off Park Ave. And on every other corner in the entire damn city. Maybe the immensity of the area makes proper sanitation impossible (another arg for #2) or maybe people are just asses. Any city which makes me feel like Bree Van de Kamp needs to tidy up a bit.

Turkey day report coming tomorrow. Hippo is actually more excited than I am. Meowing with anticipation, literally.

Peace,

Mike Baxter-Kauf

This is What You Get, This is What You Get, This is What You Get, When You Mess With Butt

I am not going to pretend that I think I have been writing frequently enough. Possibly the most interesting thing about the process of blogging is how one creates blogs voluntarily and eventually feels a form of guilt for not writing in it. Anyway, my new goal is just to write shorter bits and hopefully publish them a couple times a week. Here is my bit for today.

There is a building being built (you’d be amazed how many buildings are actually built these days) right around the corner from our house. About two weeks ago one could only really judge the general size of the place, not even its full height or the internal composition of its spaces. By about two days after the election, however, its form had started to fit into some pre-designed patterns. There were very few external windows, it was only one floor, but a tall singular floor. That combined with a doorway that was a diagonal cut off from what was otherwise a square building convinced me that this was certain to be a Walgreens, CVS or other drug supplying retailer. I was pleased by this fact, because if nothing else it’s a gas-less convenience store only steps away.

Besides the existence of the Walgreens however, I relate this anecdote because when I drove by it on Thursday and recognized that it was in fact a Walgreens I did not say “hey, that’s a Walgreens.” Instead I said “MB-K is now ready to call this building for Walgreens.” Obviously I watched too much election coverage, but I also just think this is an awesome phrase. I was trying not to annoy others, so I have mainly restricted my use of it to my private dialogues while driving, but once the elections are far enough behind us that people will find it as objectively humorous as it actually is, I will incorporate it into my everyday vocabulary. I think it is especially a good thing to say when your predictions may be accurate, but have absolutely no rational basis i.e. calling a race with 0% of districts reporting and the “winner” being down by 20% of the vote. “MB-K is prepared to call this cheeseburger for awesome.” “And in a shocker, MB-K is now willing to predict that the Elmwood Ave. streetlight race will be won by the asshole driving a red Corolla.”

I am also willing to call this playtime for Hippo and she appears to be willing to call this catnip for delicious.

Peace,

MB-K

Now Amos Moses Was a Cajun, He Lived By Hisself in the Swamp, Hunted Alligator For a Living, Just Knock Em in the Head With a Butt

Awesome or important or otherwise remarkable things that have happened since Wednesday before Wednesday last:

-tournament at the University of Rochester went down. It was extremely well run tabroom wise by my lovely wife and overall pretty successful. The lack of a number of folks I would have expected to show up meant that the divisions were not as big as they have been in years past, but certainly everyone had good eats, decent competition and at least tolerable weather. We got to celebrate Sunday evening with the coaches who stayed in town and while it was certainly the drunkest I’ve been in a while, I recovered perfectly the next day in time for a reasonably productive debate practice. I’m mackerel like that.

-Packers Win!! This was technically the first victory I have witnessed by the Pack this season, since I was driving back from Kings when they bested the Motor City Kitties. Everybody played pretty well, even, and I know this isn’t believable, the SECONDARY, who picked off Joey 3 times including running one back for a touchdown. Watched the games with Gordie and made a generally footballriffic afternoon.

-Apples and Kitties Saturday. That’s the official title of October 21st, 2006 in my book. We woke up reasonably early and made it to the fruit farm about 10 minutes away from our house. The place may not have the bells and llamas (whistles really don’t impress me, but llamas are another story) of Becker Farms back near Lockport, but it made up for that with a tremendous apple variety. We picked golden delicious, empire, Cortland, sun crisp, fuji, jonagold and idared apples. I didn’t include two varieties in that list, cuz I had literally never sampled them until yesterday: fortune and Northern Spy. Both of the last two varieties were enormous and the Northern Spy were among the best fruit I ate all morning. We followed up our app-stravaganza with a trip to the National Siamese Cat Show. I assumed, based on the title, that this show would be all the best Siamese cats. That would be really neat, cuz even though Siamese cats are far from my favorite kitties, they are still kitties after all. But I was wrong, and the show featured all varieties of cats, from the improbably perfectly coated Russian Blue, to the rare and beautiful Egyptian mao. There were a couple Scottish folds and some other really pretty cats, but most important were the incredible Persians which were in great abundance. One of them was the puffiest creature I have ever seen and simply adorable. There was also a four month old orange and white kitten who was so gorgeous and playful and a couple of grayish kitties who would have really enjoyed coming home to play with Hippo. Anyway, cat shows rule, even though you can’t pet the kitties, which is a rule that I both understand and judge to be electro-to-the-weak.

-Jericho is a pretty decent show and wow, has Skeet Ulrich grown up. I mean, he is still Skeet Ulrich and boyishly handsome in a slicked-back-Johnny Depp but not so indie sort of way, still, he has grown up. Not just in the way that everyone grows up when they return from their adventures around the country and while they are briefly visiting their tiny dusty small Kansas hometown the United States undergoes some sort of indeterminate nuclear catastrophe. More like in the way that your career essentially peaked in 1996 when you tried to kill Neve Campbell, who was totally hawt but somewhat overshadowed in Wild Things.

We bought Hippo a really neat sparkly bouncy cat toy at the kitty show to make up for the fact that we decided not to bring her home a Persian, exotic shorthair, or Scottish fold friend. She would like to play with it now, I believe, since she is throwing it at me and meowing. It is the cutest object I have ever had anyone throw at my head.

Peace,

MB-K

Lay Your Head on My Chest, Come Feel My Heartbeat, We Can Park the Jeep, Pump Mobb Deep and Just Spark the Butt

So we are currently trying to struggle through the premiere of Brothers and Sisters, which we tivoed weeks ago but have not yet attempted. I like Calista Flockhart from her Ally days and Rachel Griffiths from Six Feet Under and there are certainly some other talented acting folks around. Based on the first twenty minutes, the acting is utterly failing to overcome two much more significant problems:

1. Calista Flockhart’s character is not only conservative, but seems to be modeled around the Ann Coulter-youngish-blondish-not uglyish conservative chick. I’m not sure I could get around the conservative part in the first place, but I’m virtually certain that I can’t get around the fictional attempt to render human and/or likable one of the most vitriolic skeezes around. All the Ann Coulter knowledge I need I’ll get from the Rude Pundit.

2. The writing is awful. Sorkin didn’t put a lot of conservative viewpoints on his show, but at least there was the occasional Republican who didn’t sound like either a straw-person fascist or unable to string a sentence together. The only piece of televised dialogue as bad as her defense of conservatism I’ve seen recently was Close to Home’s horrendous attempt to imitate CSI in an episode about sleeping beauty syndrome rapists.

I’m pretty sure we’re moments away from erasing the other two episodes we have tivoed, since its not like we have enough time to watch even the TV we actually do enjoy. Oops, that did it. We stopped at about 40 minutes when Ally started explaining that she was only “6 blocks away when the towers fell.” There are limited times when talking about 9/11 in some melodramatic way are tolerated by me, but this was not among them. Besides the fact that Smith was canceled 3 episodes in, this makes Bros+Sis’s the first casualty of our fall season.

Had a long weekend in Lexington which included some pretty decent moments. One of our teams went 3-5, but had to debate Cal’s top team in a 3-3 bracket and then just missed ending up 4-4. That’s obviously not extraordinary, but it’s a good place to be at Kentucky, early in the year, when one of our debaters was probably at her 8th-9th tournament ever. The other team had a couple tough losses, but half of it started really getting involved in this season less than a week ago, so 2-6 is something to build on. I was amazed to see that I judged 7 out of the 8 debates I was committed for, which seems to be solely a result of the fact that Dartmouth doesn’t mind me around. When they don’t get to bring 5 teams to Wake, I might end up spending most of the weekend watching football.

The far more important part of being in Lexington was the food and let me tell you, it pwnd. We landed Friday and immediately upon starting out down the highway discovered that Kentucky is in fact home to THE CRAVE! I got 10 burgers and a sack of fries, which enabled me to enjoy riding in the van far more than I typically do. We got set up in the hotel, cut some cards, did some drills and made it out to a joint called Billy’s Barbecue in the Chevy Chase area of Lexington. The wings were incredible, the light cornbread (which the menu described as a sort of combination of cornbread and white bread) was outstanding, but the cheese grits were not as good as I had hoped for. The star of the night, however, was the mutton which I decided to give a try. I had actually never had bbq mutton before, since it is a sort of Western Kentucky pit specialty and I have very little experience there. It definitely had some of the taste of lamb, but also this almost game-like twang. The meat was not as fatty as pork, but still perfectly moist and pulled to exactly the right size. I highly recommend it next time you head to the University of Kentucky.

Lunch on Saturday was Qdoba, which I recognize isn’t anything extraordinary, but since they don’t fucking exist in Western New York for God only knows what reason, it and the trip to Chipotle on Monday were a taste treat as well. Saturday night we checked out a spot I found reviewed in a number of places called Bourbon and Toulouse. The food is cheap and good. Katie and I each got a full plate of high quality Cajun food and a soda, plus tip, for 16 bucks. The jumbalaya sells out within a couple hours of it being made, so I had to opt for the gumbo, which still ruled. Quality vegan and vegetarian options as well as a generally cool little joint inhabited and staffed by cool people. Also in the Chevy Chase area and rocking. Sunday night we were tired and made the classic run to the Waffle House. I have never lived anywhere where there were Waffle Houses available, and as far as my cholesterol is concerned, that’s prolly a good thing. Waffle House really knows how to hash a brown though, I’ll tell you that much.

Final Kentucky story before I grab a feather and start playing with Hippo. We flew through Newark on our way home, though our layover was only about 30 minutes long. I went in to hit the bathroom and walking out, as I was walking in, was this pretty significantly sized dude and another guy behind him, even bigger. I gave a brief thought to the fact that the original dude looked like Fat Joe, but dismissed it pretty quickly. When I returned from the bathroom, the subject of conversation was exactly the same question. Specifically, it was whether or not the dude who was walking out of the coffee place was Fat Joe. I was doubtful, but spotting the nearby posse wearing what were identified by others as Terror Squad pendants, we confirmed that it was in fact the Fat one. I know enough about him to think it was cool that we saw him in the airport, but not enough to care about getting his autograph, like Gunther did. It was a good, if fairly inconsequential celebrity encounter.

Alright, Hippo wants a feather, preferably on a stick, to be shaken nearby her kitten face and it continues to appear that the feather is not going to start shaking itself.

Peace,

MB-K

I Close My Eyes, Only For a Moment, and the Moment's Butt

I cannot imagine that anyone could determine what this picture is without me describing it, so I will. Let me preface that description by saying that this was one of what I imagine are the moments which artists and intellectuals feel when they actually are "inspired." I don't know that anything will ever come from my experience of this morning, but it blew my mind and I loved it.

At the very end of the American and contemporary art wing of the Philadelphia Museum of Art there is a room featuring a great number of the d00d who is probably my favorite artist, Marcel Duchamp. I was amazed at the pieces this museum posessed, including the re-issued versions of Fountain and Bicycle, as well as Nude Descending a Staircase, and Etant Donees. The last of those is one of my favorite works of art period, and while the guy writing the description I linked to sounds like he might be kind of a tool, it is a pretty legitimate run-down of this piece, which is really something to behold. Anyway, what you sort of see in the camera-phone picture above is Duchamp's "Large Glass." (note, the second picture down in the Wikipedia entry is the work as set up in Philly)

The other notable item in the picture is probably much easier to decipher, that being the smallish children gathered around the works. They weren't just there by the way, they were scattered (quite literally) all around this 20 x 20 or so room full of Duchamp. They were there as a part of some art program, I would presume one sponsored by the museum itself, and it appeared that they were all practicing their drawing skills by replicating the paintings and sculpture near by. I am not sure what the motivation to use this particular room was, but I found it both brilliant and hilarious simultaneously.

Brilliant for at least two different reasons: 1) Duchamp had an incredible eye for lines and perspective, as the incredible cubist paintings from early in his career should indicate. The same is true in regard to Etant Donees, which works entirely because of what you are and are not able to see. 2) The entire point of Duchamp's "readymades" was the contrast between art and the everyday. What better way to drive that point home than by reproducing the object which, for its entire history, has been oscillating between art object and rubish object. Not only reproducing it again, but reproducing it without any of the trappings of "high art," or at least in the specific context of children's art skillz.

Hilarious for another reason altogether. That being that the whole point of Duchamp's art was in a way a criticism of what is being done in this class. That is to say, the institutionalization of specific canonical requirements that distinguishes art from non-art; the idea that by reproducing something that an artist of acclaim has already done, that you can learn the techniques involved in artistic creation. In at least two ways, Duchamp is directly responding to this practice. First, of course is the cerebral and intellectual aspect of his art, which makes it essentially un-reproducable. By this I don't just mean that the important aspect of his art is "the idea," though that is probably true. What I am referencing is the aspect of naming, the fact that a urinal or a bicycle wheel becomes art insofar as Duchamp assigned it that title and displayed it as such. If the artistic moment is in act of assigning a name, then the reduplication of these objects, however much they may be worthy of being drawn or good teaching tools, is by definition not art. Secondly, as the hilarious painting, which I believe is required to be the favorite of every postmodernism loving college student in the country for at least a moment, L.H.O.O.Q. , shows, duplication is always already an act of creation, and vice versa. Applying a moustache to the Mona Lisa and giving it a saucy title certainly does produce something new, but it depends upon the prior image, whose meaning it creates in reproducing it. That is to say, Duchamp articulates a vision of the Mona Lisa which he then is able to comment on. In a way each of those paintings that the three-year old's parents hung on the Frigidaire were original Duchamps, produced almost forty years after the man died.

Enough of that, I say, though I do quite enjoy the exceedingly brief forays into legitimate thought that occassionally take place here. Last night, Katie took me out for my birthday, which technically occurred last Saturday during the Cornell tournament. Katie gave me some awesome presents, including a new DS game, a really cute canvas printed picture of her and Hippo, and a phat #4 jersey. We headed out to the Crystal Barn last evening, a joint recommended by Christy and approved by Katie, since it had coupons available on restaurant.com. The place was admittedly pretty cool looking, big ass chandeliers, old school barn job. The decor was nothing too fancy, but still very comfortable. We ate really freaking well, let me tell you. I started with a Maker's Mark manhattan, I guess because Katie decided it was a fancier and more respectable drink order than a Maker's on the rocks. Admittedly, adding a cherry and just a spritz of vermouth doesn't hurt anything, so it may become a thing. It also seemed to be bigger than your standard maker's on the rocks, so thats certainly a plus. Katie had a riesling, jobviously. To fulfill everyone's birthday fantasy of steak-lobster, we started with an appetizer of their "lobster dainties: three petite lobster tails wrapped in bacon and grilled, served with a roasted red pepper sauce which I sopped up every bit of.

The salad I had was nothing to write home about, perhaps, but the house made dressing was a "Creamy Cheddar Cheese," which was unlike any salad dressing I had previously experienced. Thats not to say it was necessarily the best, just that it was distinct and very very good. My birthday dinners are all about steak, and this was no exception: a 24 oz porterhouse served with a sauted mushroom sauce, mashed potatoes and sauteed veggies. The veggies were good if for no other reason than that they were distinct, carrots, rutabaga, and brussel sprouts (which I adore when well cooked). The potatoes were great, but tremendously overshadowed by the steak, which while cooked a little but on the actually rare side of rare, rather than the extremely rare side (I should have been more specific I suppose) was delicious. I won't go into my usual analogies for the porterhouse steak, but it blows my mind every time I enjoy it. Dessert was the classic Katie favorite flourless chocolate cake, AS WELL AS, a chocolate peanut butter pie which was without question the best peanut butter dessert I have ever eaten. We almost never order two desserts at a restaurant, but since there were four on the tray I was interested in, it seemed warranted.

Anyway, we got home, stuffed to the gills and very happy with life. Hippo was there waiting for me, she tossed the remote into my lap so I could pop on the newest episode of ANTM and see my girl A.J. smack the losers around and handed me a tasty bourbon on the rocks. She is the cutest and most incredibly talented 6 pound persian in the history of the universe, pwnz.

Peace,

MB-K