When I Move You Move, Just Like Butt

This is the very brief holla I promised yesterday. Stuff worked out excellently today, so I will be able to leave fresh and early in the morning, going to sleep very soon. Be in the TC on Friday and updating sometime later. We'll see.

If you aren't watching the second season of Reno 911 you need to get your act together. The first 5 minutes of tonights episode is funny as fucking hell. Goal is to drive all the way to Mad-town tomorrow, crashing with my bro, and taking it the rest of the way on Friday. I think I am going to have McGriddles for breakfast, which really spices up the whole day.

Take me to the pilot.

Peace,

MB-K

They Rally Round the Family, With a Pocketful of Butt

T-minus one more fucking day of work and I get to come home to the TC, get married, and finally have some days off. I know I will be hella busy while I am in town, not to mention that I still have 16ish hours of driving ahead of me, Nonetheless, anything that does not involve me being at the Wal-Mart is a step in the right direction. I am so used to repeating "single or double prints (pause) cd or an index print at all (pause) be ready for you in about an hour" that I think I would probably blurt it out in the throes of passion. Better than "do me like a salamander on crack" but not by much. I wonder what a salamander would be like on crack. You know who would be fucking hilarious on crack, the Geico Gecko. Maybe dude does alot of acid or something, it would explain why Zoid and Lord Gorlock came to life and threatened each other with blasters and such or where he got the sweet little blue car. Even makes slightly more sense out of him spinning in a field with a hot human chick, she was probably just a really beefy pale gecko.

Anywho, there is this new commercial playing on the Wal-Mart TV network which is a suggestion from Family Living Magazine (which I have never read or even actually seen, but assume is some family values inspired home-cooking-cleaning-not doing drugs-teaching your children to hate the liberals sort of rag) about how to have a nice summer barbecue. It suggests that you grill some corn on the cob and apply a spicy sauce made from some herbs, none of which can be accurately described as spicy, and mayonaise, which is a disgusting idea. The disgustingnessosity of putting mayonnaise on corn when butter has no disads and lots of advantagest, for instance, not sucking, is not the issue here however, the issue is the opening line of the commercial, which I cognitively know is "Are you up to your ears in corn" but every fucking time, sounds like "Are you up to your ears in porn." This idea I find very humorous especially given the woman's inflection in the sentence, which I have no idea how to convey in print format. By the way, I get the whole attempt to pun on "ears of corn" but no non-farmers ever find themselves with a problematic surplus of corn. You buy corn from Pahl's fucking market, or other random roadside stand, on the way home from work or a baseball game and cook it up that night. You only buy like a dozen ears, its not like they sell it by the tractorfull. Find a better fucking intro, you don't have to use punnery to convey the shitty idea you are shlucking off on Wal-Mart customers as novel innovation.

The national debate tournament is being held this week in Salt Lake City. I don't have much involvement with any of the people there this time around, but apparently none of the teams from Southern MN NFL even cleared this year, after placing three of the top 6 the last go round. Thats pretty fucking incredible, a greater acheivement than a single conference getting 3 teams to the elite eight one year and not qualifying a single one to the dance the next time. These kids are still hella good debaters, this shouldn't take away from their performances and acheivements,not to mention all the various complicating factors of schedules judges and general nationals hullabaloo, but I would never have imagined this shit. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

Speaking of losing some, LA is well on the way to giving away the NBA finals to the Detroilet Pistons. I won't count my chickens, both because they have yet to hatch, and because I have no chickens. So the counting session would be really really boring. It would be analogous to counting my alligators before they had sex with a microwave.

I will at least holla goodbye at ya manana, but I promise little more from my entries for the next two weeks or so. I do promise some Twin Cities and wedding wrap-up when I am back in Assalo, but thats a ways in el futuro.

Peace,

MB-K

Can't Get the Stink Off, It's Been Hanging Round For Butt

So Katie asked me what she should suggest is served at some bridal shower for her that someone is throwing. The details aren't important here. Well, a couple details are important here, but I haven't gotten to them yet. Here they are: the people throwing this shower are veg-heads, they are nice, good friends of Katie and her family. Katie wanted to ask me what some luncheon style foods that she would like might be. Another relevant detail is that Katie hates mayonnaise. No is the answer to the obvious question, she doesn't hate eggs or oil when not emulsified, which is all mayonnaise is, but nonetheless. Hence, what would normally be the obvious choices, pasta salds, chicken salads, etc are out of the question. For the most part I back up these decisions. Pasta salad swallows the stuff which its sauce looks like. Pasta shouldn't be served cold and salads need to involve lettuce, preferably good non-iceberg lettuces. My suggestion was sandwiches, but since no meat is involved in this situation a sandwich is really just a salad on bread. Katie told me that I wasn't being helpful, and I wasn't, and then suggested that I think more summery. To which I responded with the obvious answer, barbecue. Of course you can't really have barbecue without meat, I mean I guess you could grill some veggies, but thems side-dishes by anyone's definition of the term. Finally, I realized what the problem is and I was best able to explain it via analogy.

Having a dinner or lunch party without meat is like inviting your guests over to dinner, then when you answer the door, instead of getting them a drink and some food, just punching them in the face. This needs the premise I always include when I josh on the non-fleshially inclined. You can eat whatever the fuck you want, I don't care. You are allowed to make that choice as you obviously should be. Eat cat feces if you want, so long as I can still get a double-porter at Mannys. The point is however, you can't throw an eating intensive party type thing and not have fucking meat. You can have a party without meat, maybe its an evening soiree and there are just chips and dip and shitty around, fine. Thats cool. You can even have a very casual get together without any meat, Kiarianna almost never had non-vegetarian food at reading groups, virtually every dinner I've had with a class at some random profs house was meat free, thats cool. The focus of the thing wasn't eating, it was just a bonus beyond class. You just have a couple over for pizza or something, chure. All good. You could even get away with it if you do some specification like "Vegetarian Dinner" or something, though I can't imagine you are going to get many people to show up with that kind of an invite. You might as well just write "Don't Even Bother" on the RSVP line of the invitation, it'll save everyone alot of time. If we are talking serious eating, time to get down and fucking munch (hehhheheheheheheh ;) ) you need some actual food. Admittedly, I doubt I will get invited to many bridal showers over the course of my life, though you never can tell. Even so, if I was a person who did get invited to bridal showers and had spent several afternoons in my life chowing on weak Earl Gray and Watercress Tea-Sandwiches, I would be overjoyed to show up to the scent of pulled pork sandwiches, BBQ beans, and cornbread. I would proclaim it Greatest Bridal Shower ever on the spot. That is that.

Whoa, Karl Malone's daughter is kinda cute. Thats fucked up, how does that work out. It forces me to rethink my whole total hatred of Karl Malone. Well, it doesn't reallly force me to rethink it, but it almost complicates it. Not really. What it does prove is my theory that Jan's girlfriend has the least reason to exist of anyone in all of time, because even Karl Malone, someone fimly in contention for that coveted title, has a hot daughter.

I get to come home in like 4 days. Its gonna be sweet. I think I forgot to mention, and I don't know how I fucking forgot to mention this, because it has been the only thing I have really been doing besides watching TV, but I have been hanging out with a stuffed pug dog that Katie sent me as a fantastic present last week. I named him William the Puggy, and I call him Spike for short. It was inevitable that I would name someone or thing after the Buffyverse, and since Katie has repeatedly shot down both Willow Rosenpug and Alyson Hannipug (as well as the non-Buffy related, but still good, Maggie Gyllenpug and Vladimir Pugtin). I really dig Spike, he is officially my best friend in Buffalo, beating out No One and his brother Stupidhead Fuckface. He watches TV with me all day and goes to sleep about the same time I do. Its hella convenient. Spike is originally from St. Paul, but he was a very young puppy when he lived there, so I doubt he remembers it well. We will have to introduce him to the finer things that accompany a Minnesota lifestyle, money, cash, hoes, etc.

Alright, I am going to root the Pistons on in their last 8 minute push against the fucking Lake-show. Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot.

Peace,

MB-K

Can't Do Without it, This Feeling's Got Me Weak in the Butt

So I am watching the MTV Movie Awards, which are somewhat interesting, but mostly just a warm up for the VMAs in September. There was a time when they hadn't yet decided whether the Movie awards would just be an excuse to get a bunch of celebs together, or something legit, so they did it live and all that jazz. Now its fucking tape delayed, people just show up wearing jeans, its less interesting. I was kinda psyched that Lindsay Lohan was hosting, because she has been entertainment gold for the last little while (excluding Freaky Friday) with Mean Girls, SNL, and at least one or two other things I don't remember. The ads MTV was showing for the awards show did the typical promotion of her breasts, but about halfway through the show Lindsay's top half has been largely absent, maybe what I thought was an obvious formula has been disproven. The only other observation I have from this show is that the Beastie Boys are old. I mean, they were still pretty good, but they are fucking old. Its really odd to see any 40 year old dudes doing hip hop moves and shizzy, especially white guys with gray hair. I don't know why that is, I guess its probably because there are just so few of them and white hip hop guys are only finally growing old enough to be noticeabl.e That was rambling and unexplanatory. I fucking rock.

Pablo Francisco didn't make it through on Last Comic Standing, which is incredibly ridiculous. Dude is fucking hilarious, already has half hour specials on Comedy Central, and didn't even make the top 20. That said, the selections were high quality for the most part. This dude Dan Nattington, who I found fucking hilarious, is a kind of Steven Wright-Rodney Dangerfield comic, both because he sort of combines their unique voices and the one line style of comedy which is so hard to pull off. I don't think he is as good at it as, say, Mitch Hedberg, but its still good. I'm not sure if that will make him a funny dude in the house or not, people who can really pull it off, Rodney himself for instance, are about as funny as people come. you can totally have it on stage and be a dud once you step off the mic. Step off the mic. Sounds like some spoken word sequel to Bring in the Noise, Bring in the Funk. I suppose Def Poetry Jam already fulfills that role, but you can't get too much funky poetry. Let me rehash that sentence, funky poetry sucks. I mean, funky poetry is not unique in that regard, its more that poetry sucks. Here are your options, you can do some sort of musical performance, rapping singing etc. or you can talk. Fuck this whole talking to a rhythm that isn't audible shit. When poetry was cool...That wasn't actually an attempt to start a sentence. It was a demonstration of the fact that you cannot begin a reasonable sentence with the phrase "When poetry was cool." You could try to make it into some joke about how long ago it was when poetry was cool, but its not a good joke because not only was poetry was never cool but because jokes about poetry are not funny. Seriously, bring your best fucking punchline about poetry. Poetry is lame, write a song or write a story. You don't just get to list a bunch of words and call it something fancy. For a long time I maintained my argument that poems need to rhyme and I maintain that argument. Notably, when I make that argument I am really just thinking about Colerdige poems. I won't deny that this somewhat complicates my argument, but in my defense Coleridge's poems are essentially just stories in verse. There aren't really allegories or lists of words, manupulations of rhythm or timing in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It would be pretty much just as good if it wasn't a poem, the story is sweet. Fine, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a sweet poem, I admit it. Still, fuck poetry.

Man Jack Black fucking stole my fucking look again. He's got this sweet beard thing going on, just like I do, and while he looks slightly more pyampya in that motherfucker than me, I still think he ripped me off. I would trust you to believe that I really do have a pretty long full beard at this point, since almost none of you have seen me, and I will likely have shorn it by the time you do, but you are all fucking liars and disbelievers. Disbelievers and liars, disbefuckingliars. He is wearing a VOTE KERRY tetro t-shirt, which is kinda cool, and he is really fucking baked.

I had a bad ass ice cream sundae tonight. It was pretty much an assemblage of the various sweet things I have left in the apartment. There was some Breyer's Peanut Butter and Fudge Ice Cream, some toasted walnuts, some chocolate, some whipped cream, and some Samoa crumbs which had gathered at the bottom of the Samoa box, as Samoa crumbs are want to do. It was bad ass overall, the perfect blend of crunchy and creamy and fudgy and chewy. It was like they do at those bad ass ice cream places, which are like 5 bucks for a one scoop sundae, but otherwise entirely bad ass. I mean, Baskin Robbins puts out some damn fine ice cream sundaes. Every time they land a movie promotion and make a specialty dish for it I am like damn, get e some of that action. If you ever make it into one of the 2 or 3 Baskin Robbins locations in the country and try one of these sundaes you will be blown away both by the deliciousness and the tininess. You get like two bites and then you can sop up all the melted cream and leftover syrup. I've seen larger nipples on a fly. Let me assure you that my dessert did not fall victim to this problem

Two ads which have annoyed me in the last 10 minutes. 1) ESPN's ad arguing that the X-Games have defined a generation of sports fans. Am I part of that generation or are they referring to like the generation just below me. I guess I can't say for sure, but I don't think the X-Games have defined a generation of anything. Yes, they are big now and weren't before. Yes this is only now become an actual sport. It still seems like there are about 100 billion more fans of every generation who enjoy basketball etc. more than the X-Games. Not a very humorous observation, but one which has been pissing me off. That was the only qualification to make it into this section. Fuck you. 2) What may be the most accurate of all the analogies the anti-drug lobby has come up with yet, wherein not talking to your friends about their problems with drinking or drugs is like letting them drown. Brilliant, thats exactly what its like. When you pull every fucking analogy you can think of and end up blowing things way out of proportion even the accurate things you say sound like bullshit. Learn something from the startling lack of effectiveness the tobacco commercials are dealing with. Shit, I can't find that link. I will keep looking, but its a sweet article which is seriously asking why tobacco rates are rising among younger and younger teens in light of the prevalance of anti-tobacco ads. It was hilarious.

This seems like an especially weak entry, and for that I apologize. I had no focus today, in any department and it shows in my work. My bad jeuce.

Peace,

MB-K

I'm Kinda Buzzed and Its All Because, This is How We Do Butt

If you are telling me you believed a week ago that after two games the Pistons would be looking to go up 2-1 on the Lakers beating them by 20 in game 3 then you are a liar. Nostro-dobs-mas, despite his often amazing intuitive properties, couldn't have believed it. If the Lakers manage to pull this series off it will be a travesty, a sham, and a mockery, it will be a traveshamockery. I have been asksing a number of people this question and so far no one can remember anyone else ever using this strategy: Play Shaq like you would play someone else. Don't treat him like someone through a 7 foot 2 400 pound sack of dynamite on the court, just gaurd him, play against him, and let it roll. Seriously, since this dude has been in his prime you either double teamed or denied him the ball or ran a weird zone or the hack-a-shaq or whatever, has anyone ever just played against the dude. Somehow, Larry Brown and the Pistons seem to have found a way to let Shaq get his 30-20 and still win. At some level it makes sense, maybe the Lakers just haven't responded yet, and technically this game isn't over, but its fucking incredible to me at this point, blowing my fucking mind.

I've had the chance to talk to our delightful friend Mr. Andy Kemp fairly frequently over the past couple weeks. I have been on my regular communicative schedule with Sanjay, not the occassional droughts where I go a month without hearing from him. I figure its either jail, 40s on sale near his house, or he got lost in Portland, either way there isn't much I can do, so I lay low and wait for his call. If Andy goes missing for that long you have to wonder if got really drunk and took of to Venezuala with a 52 year old bar hag who he decided is "just totally real and like so fucking with it, she like sees the reality of the soul of truthful loving realness" or is in the ICU after pissing on someone whose friend was packing more than the urge to hit on Nikki and a drunken Minnesota attitude. Regardless, I have been talking to Sanjay 1-2 times a week and Andy about once every 6-8 days. We talk about random things, sports, wedding shit, good times etc. I have recently noticed what seems to be the opening fumes to an Andy-Sanjay feud based on what Andy perceives to be his friends hating on his potential to do get shit done. We have always given Andy shit about his ability to do his shit since high school and even if he really does have it entirely together now, he may never be able to live down that rep with people who knew him in the hosue days. Anyway, everyime Andy talks to me he asks me if I was telling Sanjay that he is not going to get his thesis done, and that Sanjay was making fun of him and that I was apparently involved. I don't remember even really discussing it, but I'm sure someone made a joke or something at some point. Its a very "Why are Mommy and Daddy fighting" situation which I can imagine being repeatedly rehashed in several drunken incidents over the coming month.

My other conversation of note with Andy was on Tuesday night, when some comment entirely unrelated to structuralism and post-structuralism was transformed into a fairly thorough discussion of structuralism and poststructrualism. I don't know why this happened, but I also don't know why someone who is so unfamiliar with the tenets of post-structuralism would so vivaciously defend it. I'm not even intending to insult anyone at this particular juncture, neither Andy nor real post-structuralists, though I will regularly insult them both on most occassions. I'm merely saying that everything Andy was defending, though in disagreement with structuralism, was not post-structuralist, at least not based on any reasonable articulation of what consists of post-structuralism known to me. I'm also not being egotistical and attempting to assert that I should know this, but only that in this particular conversation nothing being said was connected to any post-structrualist authors or texts. I know thats not necessary, but its certainly helpful when what is being argued sounds alot more like Plato than Derrida. We have also reached the point in the argument where Andy takes every sentence that you use and simply emphasizes different words in an attempt to make your words an analogy for his argument. This occurs even when you briefly speak on a topic unrelated to the discussion, like "Hold on, Katie's on the other line." Which, if you follow the emphasis, Andy repeats as "HOLD ON, Katie is ON the o-th-er LINE" and then firmly believes this in some way demonstrates the complete arbitrariness of language and thus the chaotic nature of human existence. There are times when people, despite how intelligent they may be in other circumstances, firmly refuse to get something. They fight violently against attempting to actually understand what is going to understand. To prove that I don't mean this offensively against Andy, I will give the best example, which involves Moody, a man who I still think is hella smart. My junior year in high school, after spending way too much time with Mark Molle, who was a really cool kritik guy from Bronx Science who assisted in my lab at Kentucky, I got really into the Normativity argument. I mean, we didn't run it all the time, but I was really into it. Moody, who adamantly refused to accept that Normativity was not a criticism of normalcy, would constantly intervene in our discussions of the debate to jump onto tables and throw apples and scream "No link: I'm not normal!" I am sure Moody could figure out that he was mumbling nonsense here, but he refused to understand. I feel that Andy is in the process of doing this about structuralism, but we will see how long it can last, or if his newfound devotion to study results in his doing some boning up research.

I may even try to call that cat later tonight. Though it is already fairly late. Finally, I should mention that I saw the pug dogs next door outside today. There is a fawn one and a black one and they are both fucking cute as hell. I really want those dogs. Maybe I will get one for my birthday. Maybe Katie will get one for her birthday. Then we could have two and they could play with the two from next door. Or we could just get two more for Christmas and then we wouldn't even need the pug dogs from next door, we would take the shit into our own hands. Hell yizzza.

Peace,

MB-K

Cause We're Protected By the Covenant of Words and Butt

It has been a long time, I know, a very very long time. I apologize, the whole working at Wal-Mart getting home really late and being tired thing is killin me. I mean, its not literally killing me, but its annoying. Not to mention that without Katie here I never really remember to play around with the computer. I don't know why that is, but since we tend to discuss more about debate shit that occurs on the web, maybe I have to keep up with it more closely in those circumstances. Anyway, I will try to be somewhat more frequent in my updates before I go home for the wedding, and will probably be virtually incognito for that 2 or so weeks. Maybe I am wrong and I will have some time in Minneapolis to drop a line or two. Anyway, don't trust me.

So what has happened that has been of interest. Lets see. I discovered that Wanda Sykes can be funny. That was a fairly significant shock, but she was hilarious. She appeared on the latest Celebrity Poker thing with Mena Suvari, ultimate winner Rosario Dawson, Jerome Bettis, and Travis Tritt. Anyway, I never would have seen these comments, about hillbilly country music, pedophiliac relations to Mena, etc. coming, but they were good. If you enjoy watching poker on TV you should try this episode out whenever it returns to Bravo, which based on their usual schedule, would be about 2 to 3 times every day. Other TV news includes the ambiguous beginning of the now completely hip summer season. Take for instance Summerland, the WB's crazy-mixemup of The O.C. and Party of Five. Aunt Becky of Full House isn't with Uncle Jessie, but she is a fashion designer in some hip California beach town living with an ex-boyfriend, her business partner, and a hard-partying good looking young surf-shop owner. When Aunt Becky (who I will refer to in this fashion as long as Summerland is on the air) inherits her sister's three children mayhem, hilarity, and maybe, just maybe, love, will ensue. It looks to be about on par with something like One Tree Hill. I am worried that the dead parents storyline will be too dominant, but there is already some good underage drinking and angst motifs to go along with the surfing and bikinis. There is definatively no one who matches up to Seth Cohen, but what do you expect from the WB. What is about the only other non-reality program of the summer (I mean, there is North Shore, but I have yet to be convinced that it is not simply going to be Melrose Place to The OC's 90210) Fox debuted The Jury last night in an attempt to remedy the fact that without David E Kelly they haven't had a successful legal show in the better part of a decade. The show is ehh--I like the idea of focusing on the jury to examine a murder case, but that means that a huge majority of the relevant characters do not continue between programs. You've got judges and DAs who are consistent, but its hard to imagine that there is really going to be much audience involvement in a story with three recurrent characters. The show is obviously an attempt to capture whatever it is that CSI realized, looking at somewhat odd murder cases from a non-detective-lawyer standpoint (which, while often interesting, has been done since Perry fucking Mason and Columbo). I don't think anything in the first two episodes gave me any expectation that it will be a hit or critically acclaimed, the cases were offbeat but not CSI quality and the acting was, with the exception of the dude who played Warren who is like the jury-rounder upper, subpar.

As we speak I am watching one of my all time favorite reality shows, Last Comic Standing. I love stand up comedy in general, I am still fucking waiting for Comedy Central to come around and devote a channel to stand up 24-7, they have plenty of programs I think. They don't really have alot of stand up programs on anymore, like they used to with the A-List and Lounge Lizards etc. Regardless, those years are in the bank, you've got all the Comedy Central Presents and the Premium Blend which is still going on. You can just set up a camcorder at the Improv and air the feed as far as I am concerned. This season looks pretty strong, though it always is in the world of stand up. I am continually amazed that people show up on this program who I have seen many times before. I had seen Rick Voss and Geoff Brown, to begin with, last year, and while I dug them anyways I didn't get that they weren't yet made in the comedic world. This year LA's audition included Pablo Francisco, who I have seen many times and always enjoy. He does the movie-introducer voice thing with the Schwarzenegger movie Little Tortilla Boy. Anyway, if you didn't see one of the biggest reality screwjobs of all time last summer, make sure you catch it Tuesday nights this time around.

Work has been, how you say, workish this past week. We have been busy enough that it goes by relatively quickly and not so busy that I can't stand to be in the place. The only thing worth mentioning from work at all is the girl scouts who were outside the store today, selling their wonderful cookies. Katie's mom was considerate enough to purchase us a big case full of various kinds, but it unfortunately was without Samoas,the all time greatest girl scout cookie. Since over a nine day period in the spring-fall season there will be 20-30 different groups outside the exit doors selling or asking for random shit, I continued walking without even lloking to the table at the side. It took about 15 steps towards the car before I mentally registered what was going on behind me and bum rushed the old women surrounding the area. Some would say I overanxiously ripped through the crowd to grab a beautiful purple box, but since they had only three left the old guy who was making fun of me can go fuck himself. He will spend this evening drinking metamucil and failing to understand the concept of cable television, while I will skip eat my caramelly coconut cookies entirely certain that my body will process those delites in the proper fashion. Old people with attitiudes fucking eat shit, I mean, young people with attitudes can swallow it as well, but its just not the same. Rarely is it accompanied by the sense of entitlement and the complete ignorance of how things work these days, but I guess its certainly possible for some teenager to behave in the same fashion.

I wont dwell too much on the sporting events which have occurred since my last post, but a couple deserve note. The T-Wolves obviously bowed out to LA in game 6 but can't be too upset about the run this season, hopefully next year will produce a finals berth. The Pistons, the first Eastern Conference team I believe I have ever cheered for, are way closer in the first two games (well, not exactly close, but winning the first motherfucker) than they should be. Going back to Detroit tied is about as good as anyone could have possibly hoped for, so there is still a chance that Kiddie Porn Malone won't get the ring he so richly wants to shove up his own behind. Everytime I see that dude I want to just eat corn dogs. I am not sure how that relates to my undying hatred for everything he stands for, but it works. The other event which cannot go without mention is the Belmont, which was a very odd moment for me. I missed a couple minutes of work on a long lunch in order to see this race. I was tremendously excited for it, I had been looking forward for all three weeks between after the Preakness. There was something about the call of that race, the announcer's "Oh, this is something special" as Smarty pulled away on the homestretch. When, at that last moment, fucking Birdstone jumped ahead of him, I was devestated. I mean, I didn't lose sleep over it, and I wasn't worried about anything in the larger scheme of things, but I had a very Tony Soprano moment, like the ducks had left the pool. I don't know why it is that I want to see a triple crown winner so badly, but I do. I am genuinely frightened that it will never happen again. Frightened may not be the right word, but worried certainly. I guess it has more similarity to the Tony Soprano thing than I first realized, because the only justification that I can possibly come up with is that I want to be a part of something great. I mean, I can't really say I want to be a part of it, since that implies having something to do with the process, rather than just watching three 2 minute races. I dont want to go all weepy or anything but I want to be able to say that I saw it. I have seen someone shatter 61*, I've seen the Packers win a superbowl, and I know I can't ask for too much more in the sports department. I guess horse racing hops back into the seat with lacrosse and bocce ball until at least the Breeder's Cup.

Alright, I am getting back to the swing of things, but my concentration is still failing me somewhat, so let me work my way back in. I have seven more work days before I get to retrun to Minneapolis. Look forward to seeing everyone in town and telling those of you not in town to go fuck themselves.

Peace,

MB-K

Don't Go For Second Best Baby, Put Your Love to the Butt

Sunday night television has never been the greatest thiong in the entire fucking world, but it usually doesn't suck like it does tonight. The best two programs of the night, Simpsons and Sopranos, are not on at all tonight.The former is due to the Coca-Cola 600 which Fox has brilliantly decided to air all fucking night. I know its the fastest growing sport in the fucking country, but I cannot find it entertaining no matter how much I wish that I could. When I am not at work on Memorial Day I do usually watch the Indy 500, though I don't especially enjoy that race either. So no Fox comedies, The Sopranos and other HBO series are apparently always pre-empted on this weekend, though that is annoying not because of its replacement, but because of how excellent the last episode of this show was and how fantastic the finale is setting up to be. If you watch the program you already understand the epic moments from last week. At least something to look forward to next weekend.

By next weekend it will already have been revealed what the fate of the T-Wolves postseason is. We did manage to pull out a clutch win last night, a powerful win at home that was not nearly as close as the score would reveal. Kevin had another fabulous performance, but you can't expect the man to play much more than the 45ish minutes he did. We have had no luck after halftime in Staples Center, so I am not sure that is going to change tomorrow night, but I am cautiously optimistic. As one of the best road teams in the NBA we have as good a chance to win in LA as anyone. Whether Spree and KG's pure determination can overcome the demonic power of the Lake-show on its homecourt trying to close it out will be seen. I have no intention of making any excuses, but we are missing are second best player and still somewhat in the series. I mean, yeah, we went down 3-1, thats not really competing, but being hte first team in 43 series to beat the Lakers in an elimination game is something. That said, if we manage to pull out a victory on the day of Memorials I like our chances back at home.

I have been really impressed by a candy which I have rarely given any consideration to before. I mean, I have eaten a bunch of these candies, and in fact I have quite enjoyed them. I have eaten them in cookies, I have eaten them solo. Until now I have never enjoyed them in so many crazy varieties. A couple days ago at work Kelly went out to the front of the store to pick up some candy, since she is after all the most repeatedly flagrant violator of her own anti-food policy. She returned with two different bags of Hersheys Kisses, one the oldest variation on the pure chocolate kiss, Hershey's Kisses with Almonds. For most of my childhood those were the extent of the Hershey's Kisses universe. I was never really into nuts until high school (heheheheh) and so the first real variation that caught my eye was Hershey's Hugs. The obvious counterpart to the Kisses, Hugs are a white chocolate (technically, they are just regular milk chocolate with a buttload of cocoa butter, but they are the cheap approximation of white chocolate) kiss with stripes of milk chocolate. I have always thought that this addition of cocoa butter makes the relatively inexpensive chocolate, which tastes quite wondeful on its own, a less than satisfying experience. They really work best as toppings in the delighful peanut butter blossoms which have always been my father's favorite cookies and make the list of mine as well. Its hard to combine peanut butter and chocolate in a fashion which does not produce satisfying results, even when the cocoa butter is a bit on the heavy side. This development brings me to the second bag of Kisses Kelly located in the front end, as we in the shitty ass fucking retail industry call it.This new delightful taste treat out of Pennsylvania is the Hershey's Kiss with Caramel. We will leave the debate about the proper pronunciation of the world caramel to Shaq on the steps, but suffice to say that these Kisses are a fairly thin chocolate shell, filled with a very gooey liquidy caramel, something which at room temperature sort of flows out of the candy. The caramel itself is also not the most expensive or well crafted caramel money can buy, but it does have a malty taste which goes very well with the chocolate. I might add a tiny bit of chocolate to the external area of the kiss but the proportions are pretty close to right. I combined the kisses with almonds and the kisses with caramel in a 1-1 ratio in my mouth and was delighted with the results. If you had a candy dish, on your coffee table lets say, or even on your desk or your office, you might wish to put both types of kisses in it and suggest to any interested parties the heretofore mentioned combinatory package.

Well, you can imagine that I was resolved at this point both to mention and give some amount of props to those responsible at the Hersey Corporation. It wasn't a big rush though, even though Hershey has the same opportunity everyone else does to purchase advertising space up in here. It became a much more significant event occurred today, when Jamie, who violates the anti-food policy at a pretty good clip, especially when considered on a per-hour worked basis. She leaves a bag of candy in the drawer every time she works for more than 20 minutes and I think the ratio of money earned to money spent on candy has to approach equilibrium in her checkbook. Nonetheless, she hit the mofucking jackpot this morning. The front end had something especially wonderful to awful, though, had I seen it only a week ago, I would have never glanced back at the rack. There were two bags of candy now, both Hersehy's Kisses, and both varieties I had never seen before. A strong wiff of delicate sweetness poured forth, overpowering the aroma of film and pictures, well maybe just filling the air. There were two distinct odors involved in this melange, the first was familiar but taken to a new level. They looked about the same as a regular Hershey's Kiss. The plain foil wrapper, the paper string,. Even inside they were similar, a chocolatey brown only Hershey's can accomplish. But taste does not lie, and this specific Kiss had the delicious taste of Hot Fudge. It is fantasgreat. The other flavor, less exciting, but still quite tasty was the Strawberry Ice Cream Hershey's Kiss. Both of these flavors are a part of the limited edition Ice Cream Shop versions. Maybe there is a butterscotch number on the way or somethign. Anyway, Hershey's has truly recaptured my love affair with drop shaped chocolatey candies.

This marks another installment of the entries I intended to post the previous night, but fell asleep without hitting post entry. Fucking weak I know.

Peace,

MB-K

She Calls Up Her Friends, They Already Know, And The've All Got Tickets to See His Butt

While today's title has some easily recognizable relation to, at least the opening section, of the content of today's writing. Don't get used to it, unless advertising dollars necessitate. Avril was on Ellen tonday, and she rocked. She was all dolled up with a black and chrome skirt that was rock and roll in a nutshell. She also had some great red-like eye shadow which was everywhere but on her eyelids, as hip as I personally care for anyone to be. She did the new tune, which has a great angry-Avril vibe, and it was solid, the audience was feeling it. For the big finish Avril did Sk8r Boi, which makes it one of the best big finishes of all time. I really enjoy Ellen in general and her guests are always hella sweet and she totally deserved the emmys she picked up last week, but Avril and Britney are pretty much the best guests of all time. I mean, certainly the best musical guests. While I haven't listened to the whole new album yet, I am very close to willing to proclaim the young Ms. Levine as the 2nd greatest musical artist of all time. We'll have to wait and see.

The only interesting thing at all, the only fucking interesting thing during the entire day of work, was that this woman came into the store, and she was a fairly young woman, and she was really fucked up. She reeked of at least booze and cigarettes, but I think there were some marijuana-ish odors hovering nearby as well. Not as profuse as the rasta guys who come in every so often, but still noticeable. Now, this is not entirely unexpected, because though most of our customers are not necessarily drunk, its not a rare occasion that someone comes in looking for Sam's Choice Lemon-Lime soda to mix with their Gilby's Gin. That said, this chick was trashed at like 2:30 in the afternoon and it was hard to not notice. She made it harder not to notice when she opened her windbreaker jacket, to get her money out to pay for her shit, and revealed that she was not wearing a shirt, bra, bathing suit, or other breast covering implement. After digging around for her money for the next 10 or so seconds she seemed to recognize, though with very little urgency, that she was baring her chest to the photo lab at large, she covered up, gave us the cash, and then took off. I shouldn't make it seem like she just set her breasts on the counter, they weren't sticking out, but they were clearly visible. It would not have been possible to glance at this woman without noticing this about her, but she would have needed to do some more preparation before she started her set at Deja Vu. You get the drift. I have seen a lot of naked people in virtually all situations at work, but this, I believe, was the first one that I had seen at work, not on film. Fucked up.

Kelly Clarkson is sporting a snazzy eye get up herself at tonight's American Idol finale. Its some sort of I Robot glam-rock pennies for eyes sort of thing, because I have never seen a bronze this metallic. Maybe they should have made From Justin to Kelly as some sort of sci-fi throwdown, Justin could have been the equivalent of Bender on Futurama. The show so far is shaping up to convince me that Fantasia is going to win, so I am a little nervous that Diana beat her out. The recap of last night's episode was in some ways so intensively emphasizing Fantasia's final song and Simon's pretty obvious attempt to let everyone know who to vote for is a little boring if she crushes. I wouldn't really pissed if Diana won, I think she is hella good, though it wouldn't be my choice. Then again, I can imaigne so much shit being screamed about the program if she does. The accusations of racism, which I won't dismiss insofar as I haven't heard any intelligent version of the argument which may be floating around, would be back with a vengeance. People love to believe in a fix, they couldn't complain about Clay losing enough, even though his situation is fairly analogous to Diana, vs this year's Reuben (which went back and forth between Latoya and Fantasia). Anywho, we will have to wait out these performances for the reveal. Its too bad they don't reveal some related tidbit at each commercial until the end, maybe the percentage of the split, or who won the east coast, who won Hawaii. Something to give me some speculation, because I know nothing at this point that I didn't know last night. I know that there were 65 million votes, but surprise, just like every week for the past three years the records have been broken. Oh yeah! John Stevens back on stage representing 10 minutes South of my house. Rock. You gotta love that dude. I have pretty much an ethical stance against paying for music at this point, but I might, might, be willing to moderate that stance for Lil' Sinatra. I keep hoping I'm gonna run into that cat at some point, so I can give him his well deserved props. Anyway, maybe more on AI later, not much to report until the show at least ends.

I will essentially finish up my TV conversation with the only show I really watch on Fridays, Reba. I have taken a fair amount of shit from people, those who enjoy TV and those who don't watch nearly enough, for enjoying this program, but I am fully in the "fuck you watch it" camp, not to be confused with the newly founded "Fuck you watch it camp for underpiveleged beavers Camp" which I am founding this summer. There are some good writers on this show, and as I think I have mentioned, there are two wonderfully funny characters. Watch an episode of the show and you will laugh at something Van or Barbara Jean says. Watch it a couple times and you will join me in preparedly giggling whenever Van enters the shot. He's a character obviously based of Woody Harrelson's Woody Boyd, but without the hick flair. More of just a stupid arrogant jock character. It doesn't sound funny, nor does the annoying neighbor slash other woman, but it works. I don't understand why Reba got the Golden Globe nod herself, since she just seems like the classic straight character that makes the show work, and thats valuable, but no one thinks Sam Malone was the funniest part of Cheers. I understand why you might say that being the funniest is not the only component to the Golden Globe thing, and you are probably right, but we are talking about a comedy here. I know its easier to make the side characters funny, because they aren't the central element to advancing the plot, they just get to show up and be ridiculous. Claven, Norm, etc. were rarely the serious dramatic plot. Even Frasier got into the mainstream for a while. When you don't have to worry as much about what this will do to the show itself, since you have to document what happens to the focus of the program, you can do more outlandish shit, you get better entrances and exits, but still. The moral is, watch Reba, its a funny show. Not to mention, since they got rid of Miss Match and Firefly, and pretty much every other program of any quality they have ever attempted to play on Friday nights, your options are fucking limited like a vegan in an Oklahoma version of The Best Steak House. By the way, if you've never eaten at any of the various locations of The Best Steakhouse, you are missing out. My personal favorite is the Farmington Steakhouse, in beautifully farmilicious Farmington, MN. If you went on a Tuesday you could get a ribeye for like 6 bucks, though they would make their money back on the soda refills, which were like 50 cents for a 3 ounce glass of Dr. Pepper. I may have to make a stop there during my late June TC excursion, since I know of nowhere like it here in Assalo.

Alright, Fantasia officially won, so they weren't doing anything tricky. Good for her, I approve wholeheartedly of the decision. Yay for Diana by the way, making it so far. She's gonna get her chance to make some dough, though Ihope she will come through ala Clay Aiken, rather than Justin Guarini, but we shall wait and see. I have heard rumors that Simon will not be around next season and Fox better be praying that this is not the case. I love the show and I will keep watching it regardless, but the appeal of the program is in danger without the type of personality that brought it to where it is now. You have to worry, both as an executive and as a fan, that next season is going to bottom out, that at some point the hype cannot just keep going up. Maybe I am wrong and this will be able to keep going upwards to eternity and never turn into an overhyped Star Search.

I intended to post this last night, forgot. Keep it.

Peace,

MB-K

If You're Gonna Play in Texas, You Gotta Have a Fiddle in the Butt

This marks what I believe is my first truly country butt-lyric. Maybe I need to expand my genretic boundaries, there is no reason rap, country, gospel, can't be butt lyircs up there with all the others. In the epic words of En Vogue, free your mind and the rest will follow.

So in an effort to raise some capital I have decided to start selling advertisments on my blog. I don't really have the technology to put any complicated "pictures" or "banners" on my webpage, though at some point I may figure out that type of rudimentary internet knowledge. So the advertising I am offering is this. Drop me an email about the service, product, or webpage that you want advertised. We can begin with a basic name dropping for a nominal fee "I was surfing around BUTTSEX.COM last night" or move onto a recommendation "I fucking love BUTTSEX.COM" or I can devote a whole paragraph of conversation "Imagine there was a paragraph about BUTTSEX.COM" here. We can add all sorts of extras to your Dizneuce's Blurty advertising experience. How bout some analogies, I do great comparisons to food, from cheeseburgers to fillet mignon. I also have an extensive knowledge of deviant sexual terms which I am happy to analogize to your business. Maybe BUTTSEX.COM is like getting a blowjob from a female badger with dyslexia. We can work something out. You might like me to write a song about it. I did a pretty decent PR campaign for manatees a couple days back. Also I can work alot of things into the lyrics of other songs, and since I am not worried about royalties to the artists involved we can keep it cheap.

You may be thinking, "What kind of an audience will I reach paying this dizneuce to write some nonsense about my business or website or service on his blog." Well, let me tell you summin buddy-boy-or-girl. The next millenium, beginning in 2005, is the blog millenium, excuse me, willenium. Pollitical blogs, news blogs, Kerry blogging, Bush blogging, according to my statistics everyone in the world will have 3.4 blogs each by February of next year. That means that on average, every person in the entire world will read what I say twice a day for the rest of their lives. If all goes according to plan the next generation of children will be born with a direct connection to my blog imbedded in their left bicep. I asked Kermit the Frog what he thought of my plan and he said "Sounds good. Excuse me, I have to stick my finger in Fozzie's butt." Tbe people who already read my blog are devoted and caring people. They have lots of money. One guy has like a million dollars. So advertise on my blog. Its a good business investment. I'm willing to negotiate terms. Also, I accept DVDs as payment. I also accept checks, cash, Britney Spears memorabilia, and autographed photos of Boss Hogg (autograph need not be of Boss Hogg himself).

The Wolves did not pull it out in game three, so we are really gonna need to cowboy up in our second stint in LA. Seriously, get it together and bring it back to Minneapolis to take the lead. I can't handle more disappointment right now. I could write more, but its gotten gratuitous already, so I'll save blabbering for tomorrow.

Peace,

MB-K

Closer to the Truth is That You Cant Get Enough-You're Gonna Have to Face it You're Addicted to Butt

When did it happen that it became more exclusionary to be a dork than to be cool. In high school, the way I remember it, the cool athlete kids were the ones who were always complaining and excluding people. They were the ones who were too cool for everyone else and constantly did the ripping. Now, this evening, when I briefly turn on VH1s version of the 50 Worst Songs of All Time list from Blender, I see a giant group of dorks, I mean, not bad people, not losers, just dorks. All these guys could tell you the names of way too many charaters from some space-based sci-fi show. They all owned a very competitive deck of Magic cards at one point. Did the whoel dork-cool continuum reverse itself at some point after high school to the degree that Blender is able to criticize mainstream music on behalf of their much hipper indie flair. Have we actually reached the point where you are more likely to be pushed into the cool group then segregated with the dorks. That was off on its own, There are other matters of concern.

The first such matter is Thursday night television. I have already briefly commented on Survivor. Apparently it wasn't the most popular season, but I quite enjoyed it. They chose the best fucking 18 characters and put them all together. I mean, technically they didn't choose the best 18, but they chose 18 of the 25 or so best characters. The challenges were good, there were some suspenseful moments. I don't really understand the people being pissed at Boston Rob for lying to them in the context of the game, but I've never really gathered the inability for many people to recognize that behavior in a bracketed context does not reflect upon external events. I also appreciated the "We need to give Rupert a million bucks" bonus episode after the season finale. Considering that his popularity rating on the CBS website was in the 90s by the time he made it to the final four this time around, though we knew Jenna was gonna stab him in the back, it was kind of a gimme, but my guess is they felt that they needed to get Rupert the money, since he ranks up there with Richard Hatch as the greatest Survivors of all time. I saw Rupert, decked out in his beard but substituting a Pacers jersey for the normally tie dyed tank top. He yelled and stuff and sat around to watch the Pacers lose a tight one to Detroit. The Eastern conference at some point eneds to band together and recognize that these grueling series they put each other through only serve to 1) demonstrate that none of these teams are especially good, just a series of mediocre equals and 2) wear down the eventual champion to the point that they will never contend with whomsoever comes out of the West. Maybe it will end in 5 and one of them will pull ahead, but the way it looks it will just be whether or not Detroit's offense is in sync. 20 fucking blocked shots Detroit had last night. Fucking incredible. Hopefully the Wolves will make it more likely that someone not too far West will put the hurting to them.

Thursday night's other piece of big programming since the completion of The Apprentice was CSI. Katie has never gotten into this show especially, though I don't know why. I mean, I know some of the violence can get to people, and sometimes it doesn't really show through, but there are some episodes of this show which really explore interesting relations between death, law, sexuality, money, etc. Not to mention that its set in Vegas of course, which highlights all these things and more. I think one of the reaosns CSI Miami was never as interesting was the lack of that quality setting, though I am planning to check out Gary Sinise's New York installment in the fall. Anyway, this season's finale was not the best epsisode they have ever done, but it was a quality idea, I just don't think they took it where they normally would . I think it would have been much better off as a two-parter, since the amount of turns required to establish the plot failures take a good amount of time, hence there was really only one line which examined the fucked up nature of this dude's life. I haven't investigated the accuracy of the thing they were discussing , but if its real that is fucked up. The more interesting thing to do would be to read this final episode in relation to last year's, since both deal with the basic question of the existence of dual identities. I can't do any better without spoliers and don't really feel like giving them, so it will end here. Very little TV left to go, so I will save it. Let me just tell you exactly how much it sucks this week, when almost no television is new. There is an old episode of CSI, there is no West Wing, no The OC. I think NBC is just reshowing the series finales of their sitcoms a couple times and filling all the rest of their prime time programming with Law and Order.

On one further TV note I have attempted on two different occasions to watch the WB's Superstar USA, but its just fucking horrible. The idea is to select the worst singers possible and pretend they are good, but its not even funny. You can't take people like this and pretend to seriously complement them, I don't even think they are falling for it. If the show ends up being an experiment to see if you can fool people, convince them they are good, and then devestate them completely by revealing the farce involved, maybe it will be worthwhile. The judges are also ridiculous, such horrible immitations of the AI crew. I mean, Vitamin C and Tone Loc, the funky cold medina jokes alone are too much to take. Maybe when we move beyond the auditions portion of the program it will become tolerable. If we are to trust The Jamie Kennedy Experiment or High School Reunion or The Surreal Life, however, maybe we should just give up on WB reality altogether.

Alright, I am gonna watch the Wolves. We are off to an okay start for the first game at Staples, though I would prefer we were shooting a little better. No way this Gary Payton spurt can last the whole game, but we still need to play tighter basketball, and for a jump-shooting team, that means we need to make shots. Maybe more later.

Peace,

MB-K

I Miss the Earth So Much, I Miss My Wife, Its Lonely Out in Butt

Its a typircal summer day here in Western New York. By that, I mean only that it is really windy and gray, and although there are likely showers on the horizon, they are not quite here yet. By my estimate it only rains here approximately two-thirds of the amount it snows, which could be worse. I recall, literally, one day with truly awesome weather in the time I have lived here. There have been a number of days with okay weather, or decent tolerable weather, but only one where it was great. Admittedly, I spend much less time in the out of doors now that I no longer go there to smoke, or leave the house when I am not at work, but still. I know that the weather here isn't as nice as it is in Minnesota, we've got the Lake Effect combined with the frigid shitness coming straight out of our communist cousin to the North. There are people who will make the argument that for all our rain, snow, and general decrepitness, at least the Buffalo region doesn't encounter any significant natural disasters. Well, in some respects they are right of course, though 7 feet of snow seems to come pretty close to a natural disaster. The only good argument in answer to the driving off the fucking road because of the snow argument is the fact that alot more people die because of cold than snow, snow gets removed easily, and rarely, very very rarely, is there actually enough snow to shut anything down. While I still say Minnesota's combined tolerance of both temperature and snow quantity gives us the edge up both in winter driving and overall weather negotiating ability, I give this region its deserved props. The only convincing reason that people live here there entire lives depsite the weather is that there ain't much weather round these parts thats likely to kill ya. Normal thunderstorms, sure, some heavy snow, yeah, but no tornadoes, no hurricanes, no floods, no tidal waves, earthquakes etc. I've been through a bunch of tornadoes and they don't really bother me that much, provided they don't suck me into the air and whip me into the front of Helen Hunt's car, but if one of your life's high priorities is to avoid dying due to natural dissaster, Buffalo's not a bad town.

This whole subject ocurred to me because of what I have only recently realized is the shockingly inbred nature of Buffalo and even more so that of Lockport. Its becoming kind of strange, when I realize that alot of people in Lockport don't really consider themsleves to be living just outside of Buffalo, but in Lockport. By that I mean they don't often go there, don't conceive it as necessary. Lockport isn't just the location of the Barnes and Noble or the Perkins or the Target (this being true both because its not the suburban mentality, and because Lockport does not have a Barnes and Noble, a Perkins, or a Target) but is the place these people identify with. I don't tell people I'm from Rosemount, unless they are Minnesota people asking where in the metro I went to school, I tell them I am from the Twin Cities, or Minneapolis, or St. Paul, but never Rosemount. That is what it feels like people are doing. I suppose if you were content to shop at Wal-Mart and order your books online you could get away with never leaving this town. I had the realization when talking to some of the people at the Photo Lab that there really are townies. It seems boggling to my mind, people who are born in a small town, go to school there, get a job, get married, raise a family, and live there the rest of their fucking lives. Now, I use the term "townies" very specifically and in opposition to "areaies" because I get that. If you really liked the Buffalo area, you could get a job as a professional shiteater, because you have the lowest standards in all of human society, take your vacation to Burundi and we'll see you next week, and maybe you would end up in a suburb on the other side of Buffalo. You could see your family whenever you wanted, you wouldn't have to when you didn't, you could start your own life without leaving other people behind. I get that, makes perfect sense. If I had my choice I would never live outside the TC, its my home and I will always consider it such. But its not a town, its 100s of square miles. Living in Mac-Groveland is not the same as living in Wayzata, and because I didn't grow up there, neither is like living in Rosemount. I know its not exactly novel to critique townie mentalities, but wow, these women talking about the people they've known since high school who they still run into when they show up to pick up their pictures fucks me off.

I have no transition over to Wednesday programming, so I will simply move towards it gently. Wednesday was always a solid night for television, which was highlighted by That 70s Show, The West Wing, and Angel. That 70s Show was surprisingly sad, since I didn't really imagine things would go in the direction of Eric really leaving Donna. It didn't seem in character, it was weakly narratively justified, but was at the same time really fucking sad. I guess they just feel the need to impede a perfect relationship between the two of them until the very end of the show, which will apparently be next season. I only really watch two sitcoms on a regular basis (I guess I wasn't counting the Simpsons, maybe just two non-animated sitcoms) and I think That 70s Show somehow became one of the few really funny ones around at the moment. I know these things go through cycles, and the best writing and producing is going into hour long Bruckheimer style dramas and reality, but this is pathetic. I will grant some humor value to Everybody Loves Raymond, but I don't think any of the character Ray Romano came up with can compare with either Kelso or Fez. I would guess, and have in fact guessed in the past, that every group of friends in some way has a Kelso, and its pretty obvious who that is amongst my friends. I dig Ashton Kutcher in general, I haven't seen the Butterfly Effect, so I can't say for sure, but I imagine that Kutcher equals Kelso pretty much all the time, how can he play anyone else. The last show also had a balance that Friends, Frasier, and all the blue collar sitcoms (King of Queens-esque shows) cannot ever manage to acheive, either they are fucking melodramatic or they are funny. I can't imagine being able to find the situation Donna was in as humorous, but it was done pretty well, even the moment where Eric returns and Donna says something incredibly sappy, Fez pops out of the closet. Good shit.

The West Wing made a sudden turn in the last couple weeks of the show, but ended with its classic type of cliffhanger. I think the people who were in charge of the show post-Sorkin finally realized they needed to do something with all the plotlines he had set up a year before. I mean, they just forgot about the fact that Amy essentially called Donna out regarding Josh in the second to last episode last Spring. Finally, they have returned to that question. The choice of significant conflict to end the year on is an interesting one, but not one that had been a hot button throughout the year. I guess they are transitioning from terrorism to some argument closer to Iraq, but I really wonder if they have it figured out yet. While I still enjoy the fuck out of this program, I continue to believe that this is more due to the strength of the characters than the writing. When great TV writers are working on something you get the sense they have an idea of what the are going to do before its ever done. You don't end a season without knowing where the next year is going and you always knew Sorkin was a step ahead of you. Fuck, when Bartlett told Zoe in season 2 that she could get kidnapped the end of year four was already in the bag. I don't know that I trust the current team in the same way. You can't go certain ways with this story, they just don't work. You can't really have a Donna-Josh romance without her position changing, its not Sex in the City where you can ignore the obvious office dynamics, the whole premise of the show is the interaction between these peoples lives and what that interaction means in the world of politics. Anyway, I hope they pull it off, I think this is their first truly difficult test.

Another difficult test lay with the program I purposefully saved till the conclusion of the Wednesday night lineup. Last week was the demise of the WB's involvement with the Buffyverse, a decision which I believe will go down as one of the worst in TV history. Angel had one season left easy, more likely there were 2-3 years of good episodes there. More importantly, it was simply impossible to resolve the necessary plotlines in half a fucking season. I have mixed feelings about several aspects of the finale. I liked the stoyline, it was something Joss is pretty good at, the end of the road sort of moments. The whole Bon Jovi-esque Blaze of Glory routine sells in my store and at the very least I will give him credit for some rocking scenes and speeches. The whole Illyria business came out well, especially considering my early questions about Fred's death, and I think it was Wesley's time to go. Admittedly, this scene was fairly gut-wrentching, up there with The OC for the most touching moment of the Spring season. The significant beef is that the show ends in the dead fucking center of battle. I think Angel's final line ranks up there in the series of series conclusions ("I kinda wanna slay the dragon") but I really want to know if the gang can make it through the senior partner's raining down of hell. Maybe one would like to know a bit more about the outcome of the prophecy. No significant mention of any of the scoobies. The only reason I was not furious is that it seemed to indicate that Joss is confident some chance to continue the story will appear. I have heard all the same rumors as everyone else about the TV or theatrical movies, but until someone announces officially I will be skeptical. I guess I just have to trust that they won't leave us hanging . At some point someone will pull his or her head out of his or her gaping asshole and recognize the market that the WB is freely abandoning. Has anyon ever cancelled their best rated show at this point. Its only 5 years old, I got it if its been a decade and people want to move on. I can even understand announcing that the next season will be the last and giving them a full year to wrap up, as Boreanaz was apparently willing to do. This shit was just assinine. They renewed Charmed, the series which is singlehandedl responsible for tarnishing every fond memory the world has of Whose the Boss.

Wolves game three is manana. I'm watching the Eastern conference finals as a little warmup for tomorrow evening, when I will need to be focused and attentive to properly cheer for the T-Pups. We need one in LA and I like our chances. We can get it tomorrow night, it just has the feel of an evening when Kevin might blow the fuck up, when someone will be inspired by Darrick Martin's performance and make up the points Sam's back could cost us. I don't know what is going to happen and recognize that you can never underestimate the danger posed by Shaq and Kobe, or the possibility that Kevin will repeat Game 1. But I think he is aware that he is the MVP for a reason and he can take this thing down by pure force of will. Much love to Flipnosis, lets hope he can get them ready for the onslaught at Staples.

Finally, I just thought that I would briefly mention my dinner creation tonight. It resulted from the combination of ingredients I noticed when I hungrily wandered into the kitchen not long ago. There were potatoes, my mixer, and a big ass bulb of garlic. I baked the potatoes for a while, then cut them open and peeled the insides out, qua twice baked potatoes. I continued the mashing portion of the twice baked moment, added some garlic, and then stuffed a clove of garlic inside each of the potatoes, which i wrapped in aluminum foil and put back in the oven for a while. I know many people would not be up for that much garlic in one sitting, but for me the apartment being full of the beautiful garlicy aroma of roasting bulby goodness is one of the very few brightsides to Katie not being here. I would rather have her in Buffalo and not devour such perfecly flavored starches, but it will have to do. What shall I do for dessert. Donuts, they are a callin.

Peace,

MB-K

I Got, Electric Guitar, I Play My, Stupid Butt

So I was at work yesterday, as I so often am, and was sitting around and I heard a song playing over the PA. Like so many brilliant moments in the history of thought experiments, one came upon me. I would say that I did not invent it, but I am certainly responsible for it. I think you will find it an enlightening experience. So sit back and join me: begin by getting the song "We Are Family" in your head. Focus in on the chorus, just repeat it over and over, the two most famous lines. "We are family. I got all my sisters with me. We are family. I got all my sisters with me." Now add a visual image, you've got three women singing the song, they are swaying back and forth in time with the music. They clap in rhytm as well. Let that run for a minute or two. Now, the experiment begins. Transform the women, singing the song, into sea cows. This is not intended to be a slight of these women, they aren't related. Don't read anything into it. Especialy not now, you need to be paying attention to the thought experiment. Concentrate. Three sea cows, swaying back and forth, singing the song. "We are family. I got all my sisters with me."

Now, substitue some lyrics. Here are the ones that immediately came to me, though I am sure there are more to be had.

"We are manatees.
We live in the Florida Keys.
We are manatees.
We are an endangered species.
We are manatees.
Do not hit us with your boat please.
We are manatees.
The basis for the mermaids are we.
We are manatees.
We feed of the weeds of the sea.
We are manatees.
In French you'd say our color is "gris""

Thats all I've got at this point. Enough of the thought experiment,

I now feel prepared to actually discuss the season finales which I believe are worthy of my attention. I don't know how quickly they will go, but I will begin with Monday nights. Mondays are in many ways like the number one. First, of all, they are the day of the week equivalent of the loneliest number. Secondly, if there was a day which, when multiplied by any other day, would simply equal that other day, that day would be monday. Finally, they are mostly made up of crappy reality programs. Fox used to run high quality reality TV on Mondays, but appear to have abandoned that in favor of replaying last season's Bernie Mac and The Swan. Don't get me too wrong, I TiVo The Swan and watch it in the course of approximately 15 minutes. I can't handle alll the surgery parts in the middle, so I just see how fucked up these people are, how much psychological help they truly need, and how huge they want to make their tits. Then I fast forward to see them at the end of the show. I may watch the pageant in its entirety, I don't know. Its an awful program, but delicious in its moral denigration. While you folks don't likely know it for Monday nights, Katie and I were priveleged enough by Canadian TV to enjoy the OC Mondays at nine. The OC officially wins my "best new show" of the year title, beating out The Apprentice. While I doubt Fox's summer line-up this time around will produce ingenious creations like Seth Cohen and Summer, but I willl provide them with the benefit of the doubt. The basic melodrama of the program let you know in advance that this season wouldn't end up happy, but as if to remain both the 13 Year Old Girl Crying and Indie Hip Teen Romance Champion, the final scenes of the show are set to Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujiah." That song could pretty much make Pol Pot weep by itself, but to see Ryan and Theresa driving away from the house, Seth hopping aboard his boat and sailing into one of the most beautiful ocean sunsets you can imagine, Marissa crying alone, lets just say that a box set of this episode should come with one bullet and a brain fluid clean up kit. Seth's conversation with Ryan, where he pretends not to care, right after we see him telling Summer about how Ryan is the only friend he's ever had besides Captain Oats, and tries to sell his boat, do everything he can to be there for Ryan. Fucking misty shit. The only bright side I can possibly find to the demise of Angel is that I don''t have to worry about three programs Wednesday at 9. Fucking WB.

Tuesdays are a different story. I obviously can't tell you much about how American Idol will work out, but I still have a strong feeling that Fantasia is gonna roll the lovely young Ms. Degarmo. I know there are alot of folks who have love for the blondie, and I respect her performance on disco night, but fundamentally she's just not quite as soulful or expressive as Orange Fanta. I will wait for Tuesday to speak further on AI. The other shows we watched on Tuesday are sort of mixed. I will admit, with regard to the first, that I did not initially enjoy it. I mean, there were parts that I liked, good characters, hot characters, and some humor. It was only after about 5 or so consecutive episodes that I really got into this show, and I am now willing to admit that Gilmore Girls is one of (another category where the loss of Angel comes into play) the few remaining truly well written shows on TV. Loreli and Rory really do engage in almost Buffy-esque (I am referring to quality of references, delivery, analogym and speed) conversations occassionally. Michel is funny, even if he did at one point insult pug dogs, and Kirk is often laugh out loud hilarious. The season ending didn't seem especially monumental to me, but I am looking forward to the inevitable hookup of Lorelai and Luke and whatever is to come with Rory and either the greasy worthless stuck up indie dirtball who would be better if written off the show entirely, and the not wonderful, but at least more attractive and somewhat unannoying adulterer from back in Stars Hollow. I would have been happier if there was at least a significant plot twist which occured at the very end, something beside Rory getting it from a married man. Also, for the record AJ, Lorelai is hotter, pervert. Tuesdays other program goes back and forth with me, occassionally being really fucking painful, and sometimes rocking. I think the problem is that I missed an episode which was supposed to critically influence my initial perceptions of one of the starring characters of One Tree Hill. I like Brooke, she is funny and cute and skanky, though apparently also evil. The fact that I don't really understand her malice has made it hard for me to jive along with certain elements of the show. Anyway, for something which has so many awful premises and lame plotlines, I will admit that One Tree Hill was a surprisingly decent new show this season.

I intended to post this last night, during the first quarter of the Wolves' game. It was then, however, that the giant fucking thunderstorms in the Buffalo area conspired to fuck me up the butt. Basically, my power went out and stayed that way for at least 10 or so minutes. When I decided that it was not an "any minute now" situation for the return of the power I called Katie to do a quick monetary check-up and then headed out to somewhere to watch the Wolves trounce the motherfucking Lake-show. I hate the fucking lakers, more and more everyday. I hate Lakers fans I hate Lakers press I hate the city of Los Angeles. I have never been there, I have never met a Lakers fan, but I want them all to get run over by a large collection of busses. While thats not a statement I want to stick with, I really do want to see us beat these jackasses. I know we are going to give them a much better run than Sir Charles "I Can Form as Many Complicated Sentences As I Won NBA Championships" Barkley or the L(ick)A(ss) press, but I really want to send all four of those future hall of fame motherfuckers home early. Especially the mailman. I have never liked Karl Malone, I have always thought he was a dirty two-faced little whore and will continue to be pleased if he does not win a championship. Even if we were to, god forbid, make it to the finals and lose 4 games to an Eastern Conference team, at least the Lakers wouldn't get a chance. Oot.

Peace,

MB-K

I've Stood Here Before,Inside the Pouring Rain, With the World Turning Circles Running Round My Butt

So instead of blogging it up over the past weekend I pretty much sat around and watched television. I had the last two days off and I got to watch a hella lotta TV, including a number of movies. Most of those movies I had TiVoed off the Starz Superpak, which I will probably be losing as a free service sometime fairly soon. If we had a somewhat minor income boost I think I could be easily convinced to spend it on Starz. It includes like 10 channels and there is usually a quality movie on at all times. They have good new movies most of the time. I guess in the whole premium channel lineup I know I need to keep HBO around, but I'm not real sure who comes next. I guess the choice is pretty much between Starz and Showtime, original series vs. movie megaplex. For some reason I think that when I was a kid the Disney Channel was a premium channel. I'm not sure about that of course, I rarely looked at the cable bill or called the cable company back when I watched a whole lotta the mouse. Nonetheless, I remember that it was a big fucking deal when we got it at home. Seriously, it was awesome, we could watch a double-shot of Kids Incorporated and Britney-style MMC. 5 points if you remember watching Kids Inc. 10 if you can sing the themesong. Anyway, the movies I remember watching this weekend were Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights, John Q, Shallow Hal, Excess Baggage, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Barbershop and The Ring. The last of these was a source of great expectations for me.

My brother raved about this movie back when it came back. At least I remember his comments as raving, maybe I mistook them as simply a good review. But that was not why I was disappointed by it. Five minutes after I started watching it Pete told me that it wasn't really that scary, and he was right, but thats not why I was disappointed by it. I didn't honestly expect it to be boneshatteringly frightening as very few contemporary flicks really are, but it had a good freaky element which I enjoyed. What it did do was start out really solid, with a good freaky premise and some awesome scenes and finish a little weak. To be honest the finish wasn't all around weak, it just came up short in one area. If you haven't seen The Ring and don't want anything that even borders on a spoiler than stop reading. So I get virtually everything about the film, but this didn't make sense to me. How did the tape come about. I know that all the scenes on the tape refer to things in the chick's life and near her death and stuff. Where did the power to control videotapes and telephones and climb out of TV's come from. Can she fuck with my TiVo. Was she responsible for the misscheduling of Friends. I don't get this. Beyond these questions I wonder if it is possible that I am selling this movie short simply because there is one flaw in it that really stuck in my craw. Its like Sam Seaborn took Ms. Kitty Fantastico with him to California and we didn't hear a word about either one. Literally, yesterday I didn't go more than 40 feet from the apartment, and if Katie hadn't really wanted me to get the mail I wouldn't have gone more than 20 feet from the couch between Sunday at about 1:00 until this morning around 11:45, I am an exciting bastard.

I will not speculate about the Wolves' fate tomorrow night. I will tell you that I am going to be so fucking pissed if they don't do it. They really should. They are a better team than Sacramento, and the real reason you play for a high seed is so that you have Game 7, besides that its just where you start. If you can't win game 7s you aren't a championship caliber team. Winning in 6 is quality, winning in 7 is clutch. Don't get me wrong, I have no desire to see it come down to the wire, for us to be within seconds of losing this series. I would love to see a blowout manaana, but the series history doesn't make it seem likely. Those are my pregame thoughts. I will leave it there.

Late tomorrow night I believe I will be ready to give my thoughts about all the season finales of the spring. Tomorrow has the potential to be either incredibly sad, partially sad and partially happy, or maybe some other combination. I guess that was a stupid way to say that Angel concludes tomorrow and could really piss me off. Not because the show will boner itself, but more likely just because this is still a program in its prime and it will be atrocious to see it go. Nontheless, I will save that for the season wrap up, which, I remind you , is right around the corner.

There is a new commercial playin on the Wal-Mart TV network for Starter athletic shoes, which we refer to as the "zane-oxide" commercial, because those are the only two intelligible words in the whole ad. Its basically a little techno breakdown thing and these two specific shoes (zane and oxide) briefly appear and are sort of shouted at the viewer. This is only an interesting commercial because were you to hear the last sounds, which I hesitate to call words, and were forced to translate them into English, you would most likely choose something like "Lick my vaginas." If I were to tell you that the last words were "lick my vaginas" you would obviously have to agree with me, because once that is in your head it is all you will hear. That may be true for any vaginal statement anyway, but this really sounds like it. The odd thing is that if you attempt to make this statement biologically possible in assuming that the individual speaking is indeed one person (hence the "my" rather than "our" modifier on vaginas) and make the genitals singular in the statement, it doesn't sound anything like it. There is no question that the word is not "vagina." At that point I have no idea what it is, but I know at least one thing that it is not, and that is the singular form of the female genital noun. I would have mentioned this earlier, or maybe not mentioned it at all, but today a new commercial was added to the rotation, and it appears that the woman says that she loves her privates. She repeats it twice and everyone in the photo lab agreed that this is what she says, if she says anything at all. Wal-Mart appears to be big into the pubic region, and I just thought ya'll should know.

There's that. Keep.

Peace,

MB-K

Blame it on the Rain, That Was Fallin, Fallin, Blame it on the Stars, That Shine at Butt

Currently TNT is in the process of fucking me, since they refuse to leave the double-OT battle of New Jersey and Detroit, though the Twolves game is now in the middle of the 2nd quarter. Ricockulous. Anyway, today has been a pretty reasonable day, considering the things which had to occur. I hit up the dentist to get some of the neglect drilled out of my teeth and then stopped in at work for a couple hours. Neither of those was enjoyable, but neither sucked enough for me to explicitly complain about it at the moment. Since that point I have just been watching all the shit I have TiVoed that needed to be caught up on. I watched a movie, some Good Eats, last weeks Sopranos, Ellen, oh yeah, its a big TV day. The house is not cold, persay, but it certainly ain't warm, if you catch my drift. It wasn't until after the movie that I decided I was ready to whip up a batch of dinnner, which frew people realize actually comes in batches.

I wasn't necessarily in the mood to do serious cooking, but I really wanted something reasonable on a day where I wasn't tired. Most of the nights I come home from work I am just going to take advantage of the pre-fab meals Katie left me, saint of a woman that she is. So I rolled a little grilled chicken with some BBQ sauce, store bought unfortunately, but much easier, with some broiled potatoes with onions, carrots, and bacon, then tossed with some cheddar cheese .Very high quality and the onions, profuse garlic, and BBQ sauce, it is not a Katie friendly meal. FUCKING A! Detroit makes it a 3-OT contest, which means definatively that I will not be seeing the Wolves until the 2nd half. I have been keeping up with it via GameTrak and whatever updates TNT decides to provide me with, but if they lose this game the blame will rest squarely on the shoulders of the motherfuckers doing programming at TNT. They keep telling me that it is available over on NBA TV, like everyone in the country gets that channel. I have neither that nor the NFL Channel, so I guess my cable company is partially to blame as well. I could really use those statiions, almost as much as I could really use some damn On Demand programming, but whatever, this is not about that. Indeed, this is seperate from that in its entirety, so little that is said about this can be said or inversely said about that. I'm not sure how you go about inversely saying anything, but I imagine its like saying it backwards with your mouth full of ricotta cheese. Which any lover of ricotta cheese can tell you, is not only difficult, but incredibly delicious.

Back at Wal-Mart manana, for the first time in a while I can enjoy the fact that I have a one day work experience follpwed by two days off which don't have any scheduled traumatic events, hence I will get to enjoy my Saturday night. For some reason I don't have much of a rant to go off on at the moment, so I will save the rambling instinct for another night. Especially since nothing decent is on TV tomorrow. Ja reuce.

Peace,

MB-K

Come To My Window, Come On Inside, Wait By the Light of the Butt

So Katie should be arriving in Minneapolis, technically she is arriving in its smaller but chweeter, hipper, and less erotic sibling, St. Paul, regardless, she will be there any moment. Hopefully her arrival there will bring luck to the T-wolves, who overall licked it last night. I will have more commentary on that tomorrow, preparing for the game, but for now, suffice to say that they sucked.

I got to talk to Sanjay last evening, from whom I hadn't heard in a while. I mean, I had heard from him technically, insofar as he and Andy had left a message for me at 6:45 in the morning on Sunday. I mean, they were in Eugene, so I guess they were only calling at 3:45, but I wasn't gonna answer. Andy called first, then Sanjay. It really was an interesting series of messages, since Sanjay's began just as Andy's was ending. Andy then called Maroney and eventually Sanjay took the phone from him, the end result being that Sanjay left a message simultaneously for me and Maroney. So technically, Maroney and I received the exact same message at the exact same time. I mean, actually, there are two seperate messages, which happen to be the same, its not like they were forwarded from him to me or vice versa, the message was two simultaneous different but identical messages. Anyway, when I did talk to Sanjay, which was last night, I got to hear the stories of the weekend of debauchery which Andy Kemp so often accompanies. We caught up and complained about the fucking misery that was the King's victory. Then the stories of Andy commenced. Its hard to convey an Andy story which you haven't either directly experienced or been told about by Andy himself, but Sanjay did mention Andy's near return to in-car vomiting after playing a game entitled Edward 40-Hands, which is actually just as inventive and interesting as it sounds. Apparently the idea is to tape a 40 of your favorite malt liquor to each of your hands, rendering you an Edward 40-Hands, and to not take those 40's off your hands until they are empty. This of course makes it nearly impossible to smoke or head to the bathroom or whatever and thus encourages a quick drinking process which took its FX on Andy and ended up producing three consecutive messages that night, each of which was just a continuous repetition of a couple different words from my outgoing message. One quick example: "Thanks, peace, bye. Thanks, peace, bye. Thanks peace bye. Thankspeacebye. Thank speacebye." Vary that process in every way you can think of until the message space runs out. I'm sure once I talk to Andy there will be some stories to fill in. Moreover, since it looks very probable that Andy may be headed to Eugene next fall to teach at some CC, there could be many many more stories like this.

I am really in the mood for ice cream, let me tell you, because it is hot like a motherfucker out here in Buffalo. We caved and turned the AC on yesterday before Katie left and I kept it that way until I left for work this morning. For a while I felt like I was just being the fat-sweaty guy who really dislikes the heat that I am, but then, driving home during my lunch I saw the clock-temperature LCD display at the Lockport Foot Care Center down the street (anyone snickering at the idea of a footcare center having an LCD clock-thermometer, let me tell you that the foot-impaired shouldn't be treated any different than the monetarily inclined at banks and such, LCD signs are for everyone if they need foot care or not, so fuck you pretentious anti-footites with your perfect pedicures and your lack of bunions, foot care centers are the fastest growing section of the American economy, over 200 million Americans depend on daily footcare, they are coming, and they will destroy you. I picture the day when people will say "I saw the temperature on one of those LCD signs, you know, like you see at a foot-care center" and I will smile and walk away, like the end of some crappy sitcom.) and that display told me that the temperature was 90 fucking degrees. I may have used this expression before, but I may have not stated it clearly enough, 90 degrees is about 10 degrees hotter than the hottest temperature which should be legally fit for human habitation. I know that these signs are not directly linked to the temperature measurement equivalent of Greenwich meantime, but they can't be too far out of the ballpark can they. I mean, it couldn't have been like 80 and just said 90, no one would stand for that. Anyway, I now feel entirely legit about keeping my ac on and I have no plans of getting rid of it until the fucking weather co-operates. I can wait you out motherfucker, you ain't got nothing on me. I have machines which produce perfectly temperate air and you just have some overblown global warming movie by the guys who made Independence Day, minus Will Smith. That is a little like saying that you have the Blockbuster cast of Sandra Berhnard's one-woman show minus Sandra Bernhard. So my apartment is nice and cold. Katie would be wearing a sweatshirt. A passing penguin asked to borrow a muffler. I warmed up the butter in the refridgerator. I've got a million of em.

Work has been fucking ricockulous recently, I don't think I 've done 20 minutes worth of actual work over the past 24 hours I have spent in that store. Fucking nothing is going on in there. I mean, some of this is to be expected. Its still fairly early in May, most people are in school, alot of proms haven't gone off yet, not too many vacations, anyway, its not a huge time for the photographic industry. A fairly easy day at the photo lab involves the combination of 1-2 people who know what to do, 1-2 people who don't know what to do, and about 80ish rolls of film. On Tuesday we did 62 rolls, there were 5 people most of the time. Today it was Scott (competent) Amy (competent) Sherri (competent) Kelly (competent) and myself, and we did 49 rolls. 34 of those were done before I even arrived at noon. With the quality of the machines we have it really only takes about 7 and a half minutes of work per roll, that broken up into 4 different jobs which each take about a minute and a half each. Even if I did every moment of work the whole day on every roll that was processed from the moment I was there I couldn't have worked for more than 105 minutes. I have a pretty sweet setup, a self-fulfilling prophecy style one where I started sitting on the chair, and sat there so often that everyone now defers the printing chair to me. I mean, I really enjoy printing, its the best part of the gig, but more importantly its a moderately comfortable chair. I can handle anything at work. I can help customers, I can process film, I can ring people up, I can do whatever the fuck they want as long as I am sitting. I have pretty much determined from this fact that even if I end up not having a job that I want as long as I can sit while I am at work, I will be able to make it. I mean, I think I could handle telemarketing, cause people can yell at me all they want over the phone as long as I don't have to hurt my back while they do so.

Alright, Katie is gonna call soon. Keep it.

Peace,

MB-K

Here I Go, Again On My Butt

So we are approaching Wednesday, when Katie is heading home, so I likely won't be saying much until then. After that point of course, I will have nothing at all to do for approximately a month and a half, so I will do my best to exhuaust the lyrical possibilities of the word butt.

We had to run a couple errands today, one of which was the grocery store. I am continually impressed by the quality of the names given by Topps Markets to their generic versions of specific products. Despite the fact that I cannot remember the names of all these wonderful products, I can tell you for certain that they are destroyed by the epic "Thin Wheats." I know you may be wondering, "what the hell is a Thin Wheat. I can't connect that product name to the specific brand name of anything. I can tell that they are thin and wheaty, and they certainly sound delicious. I think I will pick me up some Thin Wheats."

That is my primary thought today. I know its not an entry worthy of the epic song after which it is named, but it will have to do the trick. I'm gonna cheer for the wolves and hang out with Katie. I'll probably stop by after I drop her off on Wednesday night.

Peace,

MB-K

Standing on the Edge of the Hoover Butt

There are some notable highlights of the last several days up in here. Let us begin with dinner on Thursday. I was, as per the usual, at the evil work like establsihment. Katie had the car, since she was busy driving around doing things while I was at work. I had expected to enter the car drive home and enjoy a turkey sandwich on white toast, as per the usual. Instead, Katie offered that we go to the chinese buffet. This was an idea which I happily accepted for many reasons. We could begin those reasons in the same place which I, as per the usual, began my dinner, near the General Tso's Chicken. I don't really understand why this is the cae, but General Tso's Chicken, at least at our specific chinese buffet and restaurant, is significantly better in the take-out than in buffet form.

There is the lost art of the Chinese buffet and restaurant, a place where you can get takeout and eat in. Most of the suburban chinese buffets these days are big buffet only affairs, they focus hardcore on the mass production of cream cheese wantons, utterly divorcing chinese restaurant workers from the products of their labour. I like these places, they sometimes even have better buffets then the alternatives since they have a single direction for their efforts. Anyway, I was gonna say that I am curious to find out about the comparison between take-out and buffet general tso at the same joint, but that kind of got lost. Why is it that General Tso only ever ate chicken, did the dude not like pork or beef or whatever. I mean every other type of sauce and stuff has been applied to other meats. Plenty of sweet and sour shrimp and peppered pork and szechuan beef and shit, why no general tso's pork. Whores. Whatever.

We ate general tso and some sweet and sour and a bunch of egg rolls and some egg foo yong and of course some donuts. Katie and I both fucking love the chinese buffet donuts, which I know officially believe are just deep fried Pilsbury Buttermilk Biscuits rolled in sugar, and I always cover mine in the mixed version of Chinese buffet soft-serve ice cream. I like getting to have dessert while I am only away from work for an hour, you just don't often have that particular ice cream. It was solid. It was good.

Second thing of note, last night we went to see Mean Girls. (Don't let our multiple new social activities confuse you, we are still poor, but have just decided to use all discretionary income now, and suck it up while we aren't together) I was pretty psyched to see this movie, written by Tina Fey, starring Lindsey Lohan, Tina Fey herself, Tim Meadows, and involving some other SNL folks. The more I hear about her the more impressed I am by Tina Fey's general humor and writing quality. I have been told that alot of the movie has been edited so that it would be appropriate for teenage girls (based on our theater, this was a reasonable approximation of the average viewer), apparently under the assumption that you can't make a movie about teenage girls which isn't for teenage girls. Apparently the huge population of minimally mentally impaired southern former Olympic ping poing players who sit on benches accounts for the success of Forrest Gump.

Anyway, Mean Girls is pretty funny. Alot of the lines sound like things you would hear on SNL, some are even pretty explicit references. Tim Meadows really should be more popular, how can you not like the Ladies Man. Lindsay Lohan, or at least Lindsay Lohan's breasts, which we can can say for certain are indeed in the film, was fairly funny herself. Its not as teenie as your teen comedies, its not quite as SNL as your Tommy Boys, but its a good combo. You can wait for DVD if you need to, but its absolutely worthwhile, as per the usual. As not per the usual, the woman behind the snack counter actually followed my request for a lot of butter and there might have even been a bit too much during the bottom couple handfuls. It takes alot for me to admit the existence of a category known as "too much butter" but I will at least give it a run.

Go Wolves! Must channel my energy back in the direction of the Target Center.

Peace,

MB-K