Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Butt

Tsup. I know its been a long time, there have been some delays, for which I apologize. I usually remember to mention when we are going to be MIA for some time, but the whole end of the summer not working at Wal-Mart nonsense kind of fucks it all up. While this shouldn’t be the blog updating epic that I think the wedding in June sort of ended up, it might take me a couple days to catch up completely. That will also be complicated by the fact that my laptop is in the shizop (I didn’t really want to write “shizop” as opposed to “shop” but it has better fucking rhythm) but should be around soon. I am also back in school which can be both a blessing and a curse for the world of blog.

Anyway, we left for Minnesota immediately after I finished work on the 18th of August. Work finished up pretty strongly, all the people I work with are cool and ended up throwing me a little party, we had corn dogs, cookie cake, and brownie cake. Very solid all around. The only thing that blew goats severely was that I was sick like a mofucker. I don’t get sick very often, but I will fully admit that I am a pretty miserable bastard when I am. I feel that modern medicine, even modern over the counter medicine, should be able to pretty much entirely cure my symptoms. I guess that’s what naïve faith in the medical sciences get you. Anyway, while I was feeling better than I had the day before, when I came home after only three-ish hours of work and slept all day and night, I was still feeling like ass.

I began by sleeping and Katie took care of the first shift of driving. We made it to the first post-Cleveland reststop on the tollway before I took over. I was feeling good for the first hour or so of driving then it started raining like it often does through Ohio, in what I imagine is a concerted effort to make me hate that state even more than is humanly possible. The rain started tired me out pretty quickly, as well as slowing me down to around 45-50, which is a crawl at 1:00 am on the freeway. By 2:30, shortly after we entered Indiana, I had no prudent option but to pull off at a rest stop. Katie wasn’t ready to take over yet, so we slept in the car for almost three hours. I would wake up every 40 minutes or so, try to convince myself I could drive, ultimately determine that I was insane, and go back to sleep. Eventually I was so furious with the devastruction this break had done to our attempt to make good time that I drove in what may not have been the world’s safest condition. My intent was to get us through Chicago before rush hour, but since I forgot that Chicago’s rush hour runs from 4 am to midnight, that was a futile effort.

We switched on and off, eventually got to St. Paul sometime in the late afternoon early evening. We dropped by Katie’s parents place, where Katie hung out while I went to James Hart’s bachelor party. I should note that besides the fact that our families live there and we love it there and all that, the real reason we were in the TC was the wedding of James Hart and Cassie Doll. James’ situation was not completely dissimilar to my own, excepting the Harvard Law School graduate, real job in Chicago situation. I mean simply that he was only in town for a short period before the wedding and since so many of his friends were from out of town the bachelor party was held at short-ish notice. Brad Hart, James’ little brother, was in charge as the best-man, and did a solid job. I think Brad had a lot of pressure on him, at least he perceived that there was a lot of pressure on him.

As someone who recently had his only brother as his best man, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that absent showing up at your bachelor party and being kicked in the crotch, flown to Abu Dhabi and sold to an alpaca farm, its virtually impossible to be disappointed by what he does. That said, the situation Brad was in was somewhat different from my brothers, most notably because Lil’ B is not simply acquainted with my friends, but is friends with all of them as well. If my brother had his own bachelor party the guest lists would be virtually identical, with maybe a few extra people from Mad-town included. I think that meant that Brad felt that he was responsible not only to James about the whole evening, but just as importantly to James’ friends, to provide whatever it is they would imagine as a bachelor party. It ended up not being an issue and I think Brad figured out fairly early on into the evening that he had gotten it right. I didn’t get to try out Mannings’ new 2 pound beast of a burger, but I will someday. I also didn’t really get to party, since I had 3 hours of sleep the whole time and still had to go down to Rosemount to meet my dad at his new townhouse. Anyway, the action was picking up as I left, with some crazy-James-drinking-challenge getting under way. From the reports I received it remained a hella-good and for the most part wholesome guys night at Brad’s apartment. That makes RHS debate 2 for 2 on naked-lady free bachelor parties, a trend which I can’t imagine continuing for too many more members.

My dad was at one of his clients’ boxing matches and didn’t get home until like 11:30, we met him around midnight. The place is right by the new St. Joe’s church in Rosemount, only about 2-3 miles from the old rents place. For one person it is quite large, three bedrooms on two floors with the living room and kitchen essentially wide open on the first floor. He has technically moved in, he has the TV and the couch and chairs and lamps and a table and stuff, his bedroom furniture etc. but besides that the place is not really furnished. I know he doesn’t need much more than a couch and a TV and a bed, since the time he spends at home is pretty much just limited to watching legal drama and football. Nonetheless, I think he felt a little awkward about the fact, though neither Katie or I could care less. After a long pseudo-argument we ended up staying in my dad’s room for the entire week we were there. It seemed to be what he wanted so we were happy to acquiesce, but next time we are around we will be more in control.

Katie had to work early on Friday morning, so we got up at a reasonable time and said hey to my dad before we left. I came back and did laundry virtually all day while she worked. When I picked her up we ran to Southdale to get a wedding present, to Chipotle for a burrito, and then to Dave and Amy’s place to play some poker and hang out. They have gotten two pretty sweet things in the past month or so, the first one is a house in St. Paul. Its in the Midway area and a pretty nice joint. Its not huge, but it has space to expand if that is something in their future. If you’ve been in an average St. Paul residence you know what I am referring to. The other one is related and probably less important in the big picture, but much cooler in my book, that being a puppy. Specifically, a golden retriever puppy named Milo, who is fucking adorable. I mean, golden retriever puppies are pretty much the picture of cuteness in the first place, but this guy was above and beyond. He was hopping up the stairs, he was chewing on my shoes and hands, he was just adorable. I am not one of those people who is hugely into the golden retriever, I mean, I dig them, but I don’t plan on getting one, but I must admit that the puppies are the me-fucking-ow.

The poker game that went on was alright, I came in second technically, since only me and one dude had chips at the end. I could have gone short stack master and tried to take him out, though he had like a 4 or 5-1 chip advantage, but nowhere near the necessary experience to finish things off. Nonetheless, it would have taken some luck and probably a bit of time, so I just won Katie’s money back and took my own, essentially a 5 dollar win for me. Not shabby. I really didn’t play much more poker the whole time I was in Minnesota, unfortunately, maybe I will fix that over the holidays.

More may come later tonight whenever I decide to go for the discussion of Saturday and the wedding proper. Check it.

Peace,

MB-K

She Had To Take Him Down Easy, and Put a Bullet in His Butt

I have three days left to go at work, so I think I can handle it. Nonetheless, it has gotten a little irritating to not have a day off for so long. Today was the worst, because I worked with two of the biggest idiots in the entire world. We have determined recently that one of the women in question seems to sincerely hate me and I find that more and more humorous at every passing moment. This is someone that cannot handle the operation of a cash register, or really the operation of ball-point pen, for that matter. The story I think best encompasses this woman is the fact that she is responsible for the fact that the photo-lab no longer has a battery tester. The reason for that fact: she tested a battery on it and threw it away when it did not respond. She also lost 2 rolls of film for an hour this afternoon, I found them under the counter on the opposite side of the lab. Idiots, literally, fucking idiots.

The best thing that happened today was that, while I was in the middle of doing an immense amount of work very quickly in an attempt to make up for the incompetence of my surroundings. Luckily that work all involved standing at the back counter loading film and staring off into the electronics department. Most of the people in the electronics department were wads as per the usual, old women looking for Barbara Stanwick CDs and children trying to finagle their way into old Game-Unit titles for half price by pretending they saw them at Target. There was only one person who really caught my attention and he was a dude wearing a tank top that would have been perfectly suited to a Girls Gone Wild video, but was quite ill suited to what vwas most likely the hairiest back in all of human civilzation.

For some reason this dude immediately brought to mind a comparison to George the Animal Steele. I have no idea if that is the correct way to spell George the Animal Steele or if anyone out there besides Pete knows what I am talking about. Anyway, for some reason I remember George as having an incredibly hairy ass motherfucking back. More certainly than that I remember the dude eating the turnbuckle, or at least ripping the cover off of it with his teeth. So I stood there at the back counter of what Scott and I have now officially gotten to calling "Your Friendly Neighborhood Lockport Wal-Mart Digital One Hour Photo Center" which sounds really fucking awesome when you rattle it off top speed on the phone, and I thought about why I was thinking about George the Animal Steele. It seems like a simpler day, doesn't it, when your wrestling name could just be your normal name with a one-word moniker in the middle. I mean, I guess that can still be the case, but there seem to be a lot more "Shockernator" type ones today. I don't mean to apply this specifically to wrestling, especially insofar as I am sure I will get criticized by more knowledgable fan-boys-or-girls than myself. Thats all I really had to say about that fact, besides how fucking weird it was that for 5 or so minutes today I was spontaneously reminded of George the Animal Steele, whom I hadn't thought about in at least several years. I don't mean that in any sense to be sexual and if you don't believe me, I recommend you take a quick look-see-daisy at some pictures of George the Animal Steele. All the wrestlers I liked as a child were actually some pretty butt-fucking uglyass bastards, most notably a tag team I believe were called The Bushwhackers. Enough.

I watched The Others earlier, which was loaned to me by Amy at the lab. It wasn't a bad flick, but it didn't do for me what everyone seemed to think it did. My theory is that, in many ways, The Sixth Sense runied this genre of films for us all. If you haven't seen The Others and its something you are really looking forward to, I 'd skip a paragraph here, but believe me that I haven't given away anything yet, you will instantly recognize this film's indebtedness to M. Night Shamylan and others along those lines. I think it is still possible for a movie to have some spectacular switches at the ending and not be somewhat of a letdown, many of them in fact, fall into what I would call the "Usual Suspects" variety rather than "Sixth Sense" section. Mullholland Dr. and Memento are the two best examples that immediately pop into my head, but I am sure there are others. I might even say that Signs, Shamylan's Mel Gibson flick, fits closer into this category than the supernatural-ism one. Now everytime something which even faintly rings of death and ghosts or the beyond or the like and my mind immediately says "now, who in this film who does not appear to be dead but is actually a ghost." A couple more years of moves along these lines may make it possible for someone to actually have the twist be the lack of a twist, whereby the person is simply alive. A curve a la Frailty, which both fits this pattern perfectly and is one of the few supernatural thrillers post "Sixth Sense" which really was up to snuff. I think I've gone off on that before however.

Katie has been out of town this weekend, she is at a women's debate collective thingy-ma-jigg in Phoenix. The only positive I could find in the situation was that I got the opportunity to watch a fuckload of TV I had been storing up for weeks. Katie doesn't like Six Feet Under or The 4400, both shows that I have been very excited about all summer. I know she's not into sci-fi so that eliminates the USA series and I think the fact that each episode begins with someone dying in an occassionally gruesome manner turns her off what she would probably otherwise agree is a fantastic show. I have only seen moments of this program before this season and only the premiere of this season before two nights ago. I fucking adore the characters on this show, even without understanding all the back-story. If I could afford HBO series on DVD I would be picking these up as fast as possible.

I thought this was going to go in a very positive direction when I started off with George the Animal Steele, but I realize that I have since gone on to blabber about TV and such I have been watching while Katie is gone. Three fucking days and we are headed back to Minnesota for a while. Booya!

Peace,

MB-K

You're Just a Product of Loveliness, I Like the Groove of Your Walk, Your Talk, Your Butt

Our Monday adventure continued at the Social Security office in Niagara Falls. We had a brief moment of lost-ed-ness-osity-ism but eventually found our way there. I had thought the reason the Social Security office was in Niagara Falls had something to do with the whole border thing being there, maybe people immigrating from Canada or something. I guess, I didn't think very hard about it very hard, or, alternately, or probably additionally, I think I was entirely unaware of the variety of services offered by the Social Security office. I mean, I am glad these services are provided, and I don't know dick enough aboutn the SSA to testify as to whether they should be the ones to administer these programs. Nonetheless, it meant that we spent an hour and a half in that joint and we actually go out fairly early. Notably all we were doing was getting new cards.

I guess its naive and stupid for me to imagine that all they would do there is issue cards and send out checks and collect taxes. That would be a little excessive to have an entire agency. I guess there are two things I got out of the experience. The first was the understanding about the things they do over there, which is probably good. The second was the absolute necessity for someone to figure out a better way for me to get a new social security card, since it made no sense for us to waste the time of people actually doing important things. Maybe they should do it at the DMV or have it automated or something. I mean, I would imagine that most of this frustration is borne out of my desire to not sit in their office for one and a half hours, but regardless we got it done, with only a small bit of riffing by the dude who helped us out. We stopped by the J. Crew outlet while we were in the city of NF and got Katie some tank tops and pants and such Crew-ish stuff before heading back to Lockport and going to the insurance place again and the bank. The bank is rarely a problem, and indeed it wasn't difficult to change our names and such. The woman we were working with was a complete fucking moron and printed like 15 copies of a form which wasn't necessary, typed our account number in wrong, and consulted with Shawn, who might have well has done the fucking thing himself. She kept saying that she was confused by the fact that I was changing my name and while it was a funny enough ecuse the first 5 times or so, after that just admit that you have an erection where your brain should be and get on with it. So thats the story of Monday.

We are now watching the 2004 Teen Choice Awards and despite the fact that much of it is moronic bullshit, Paris and Nicole have been pretty good. Loves it. I do watch a majority of the programs that are relevant here and enjoy many of them, but have been disappointed that The O.C. has been about as dramatically smacked by vote splitting as any program in history. Every acting and star category has featured either Summer and Marissa or Seth and Ryan and hence were robbed by Jennifer Garner and Chad Michael Murray. When they didn't have two different people to support The OC dominated best drama and I cannot wait for the new season. The ads have me totally excited and I am worried that they will not live up to the high standards set by season one, even though they are getting some phat new writers who are no longer involved in Joss-related projects, I am hoping for no sophomoric slump. Ashlee Simpson also did a live performance of the album version of "Pieces of Me," I mean, she didn't even go the step to record a live version like most pop stars, it was just the straight album version. It was still great. Loves it.

I know this was shorter, I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing.

Peace,

MB-K

She Thinks She Missed the Train to Mars, She's Out Back Counting Butt

We are getting to the point where my work at Wal-Mart is almost complete for the summer. I mean, I guess I still have a full week and not a signle day off until I am finished with work completely, but still I have only that week. I have 8 days as of this moment, then we are going to drive back to Minneapolis the evening Wednesday the 18th of August, getting in sometime on Thursday. That means I may even be able to go to James' bachelor party sometime on Thursday evening, though I will be skipping the tittybar portion of the evening. I find the idea of a drunken James at Deja Vu very humorous, but I will have to live it through the description of anyone I know who will be along for the ride. I find it increasingly hilarious that James' bachelor party will be the first of our friends to feature folks of the stripper persuasion, not because there is anything aboug either James or myself really makes it likely or not, but rather that in high school we discussed whether or not we would have to throw a bachelor party at Jakes for Jimmy-pop in abstentia. Regardless, I think those are the relevant plans for the immeidate furture.

I know that the Simple Life 2 is over now, but I fucking loved that program. I have determined officially that there are two Paris and Nicole-isms that I must integrate into my vocabulary at whatever the cost. I mean, two years ago I had never said either "a to the g" or "ja reuse" and they are now pretty much staples of my expressionary landscape. The first one is relatively simple and probably used by alot of people before, but not in the same sense or with the same frequency as these ladies have done it. That is of course "that's hot" when describing nothing of a sexual nature, nothing attractive, nothing fast, or not even necessarily good. In that sense its kind of like deuce, it has neither a positive or negative connotation, it can rock like the deuce or suck like the deuce. Basically, "thats hot" seems to just be a response to something, like an okay essentially. The other one might be the greatest expression since the deuce itself, and that is saying a fucking lot. My guess is that this derived from internet lingo, since it appears to have the same basic format as instant messager expresions which utilize the fact that when you type a message your username appears in front of whatever you said. Hence the expression "loves it." Obviously, this does not have the versatitlity of "thats hot" but its just great, try it out, give it a couple days. When there is something cool, just say "loves it." I cannot imagine not enjoying this expression, but I promise a full refund.

Katie and I got a piece of mail the other day, sort of addressed to us, or at least some version of our names, which was from the Minnnesota State High School League, offering us contracts to judge at the State High School Debate Tournament. Since I have been involved with debate in the state of Minnesota for a decade now, this may not seem weird to you. Even if you knew that only 6 of those years were as a judge, its a long time. I remember when I was in high school, trying to qualify for this tournament as a debater, the judges were old school, at least they seemed that way to me at the time. I mean, there were young people or younger people, my coaches were not quite 30 at that point, I think Carrie and Pete and Becky had contracts, or at least were about to get them, and they were well under 30. Nonetheless, the majority of the judiging was people who coached outside of the metro, people who had been at their programs for centuries. Not that there is anything wrong with being one of those people or that these people were not often high quality critics, but they are very much unlike me. I mean, maybe back in the day they were just like me. I don't know, but for a long time I felt like as much of a renegade figure as was possible in the activity. I don't mean that I thought I was all cool (though I did) or that I pictured myself as a James Dean outsider at the square convention, for fuck's sake I was still at a public high school at 8 am on a Saturday so I could hear 16 year olds discuss what we should do with fucking fish. Anyway, I think many people who knew me in high school as a senior or during my first few years of college would be at least somewhat surprised, as I was , that I am now in the ranks of state critics.

We were really busy yesterday running lots of really annoying errands. We finally finished off our car insurance shenanigan by signing our policy at EIGHT FUCKING FORTY FIVE. After that, we went to the DMV. I had some worries and some confidences about this process. My confidence was actually Katie's area of worry--it involved the difficulty of the male name change to reflect wedding status. We had done Katie's name change thing the week before, so I was certain we would not have problems. I mean, even if they didn't expect it, the forms and the process for chaning a woman's name on a DL is the same as doing it for a man. I was absolutely correct on this count, no one had a problem with the name change process. Every single person we spoke to made some borderline offensive comments about how Katie must have bullied me into the decision and commented about how weird it was that we were doing this, but still it wasn't hard. The stuff I was really worried about was that we wouldn't have the necessary documentation to get the car registered or they would tell us we couldn't do it with expired Minnesota plates, but none of that happened either. We were in and out of the DMV in like half an hour, which I think is a record for having three seperate transactions done at the same time.

There is more to this story, but I am literally about to pass oot. Loves it.

Peace,

MB-K

Its Not a Habit Its Cool, I Feel the Butt

There is this new commercial for Wrangler Jeans that is on TV these days and if you are among us in the lucky tivo-dvr crowd or you don't watch alot of hick TV (pretty much NASCAR or the WB really) you may not have seen it. Regardless, the commercial features a song that I believe is by Sheryl Crow and is entitled "Steve McQueen". It is pretty much the only interesting thing currently on the Wal-Mart TV network and since they seem to recognize this as well, it plays about once every 15 seconds. It is the one of the best things about being at work recently. Today was not a good day at work, the whole experience kind of sucked. Basically, there was a woman who worked at the store who passed away last night. When I arrived Amy told me that the place was kinda odd that day largely because this had happened and everyone was pretty depressed. I didn't really know her very well, but she was apparently very nice. All we had heard at this point was that she went home early yesterday because she had a migraine. Everyone sort of figured that it was some sort of aneuresym like thing, and while that isn't an extraordinarily common thing to happen to a 27 year old woman, it isn't entirely unfeasible.

One of the women in the lab knew her pretty well so we weren't surprised that she wasn't in the lab for the first couple hours of her shift. The corporate office had sent in grief counselors, one of the few Wal-Mart corporate policies I can support, though its pretty standard for pretty much every corporation of decent size I would believe. When that woman returned to the lab we found out that those people who were back talking to the grief counselors had recently heard that the woman did not die of an aneurysm, but instead was murdered. Thats all I know at this point, but its pretty fucking weird and a little disturbing. Since I had a little time to think about it this afternoon, I realized that it was actually less frightening when I knew that the woman had been killed when I thought she had died of an aneurysm, I think I have an etnirely unjustified belief that people who get murdered tend to have some involvement in their death, not that they do something to justify it or encourage it, but that the chances of you getting murdered are pretty low if you live in this country, and don't put yourself in dangerous situations. That may be entirely false and is probably related to the whole American dream you get what you pay for, bootstraps yadda yadda nonsense, but whatever.

Amish in the City is an awesome show. I mean awesome. The UPN rarely knows shit about shit, but my feeling is that there is one dude or dudette who is way too smart and way too cool to be working at the fucking UPN who pushes or produces or creates the few good shows they have. That was probably the same dude or dudette who booked Buffy and kept it around, versus the morons at The WB for instance. Because there is no fucking way that the people responsible for The Player came up with Amish or ANTM. When they hit babe, they put it oot of the park. Regardless, some of these people are great, seem really fun, intelligent, and loyal. Mose, for instance, is the breakout star of the summer in my mind, though probably not as good as Seth Cohen was last summer (side note, Fox is already giving me televisual blueballs with the ads for The OC, which, with Angel's demise and the absence of a Sopranos season, might be my second favorite program).

Katie made a cake tonight, it was just a box cake that someone gave her as part of a shower gift I believe, but it is tasty. I have been really in the mood for cakey sweets recently and it hit the spot. We haven't had any cookies or anything, not even really any candy to speak of and since I have been attempting to excercise on a regular basis the lack of sugar kills me. I have roxored the bike we got from my rentavos and have biked at least 11 miles each day. I am aiming to add some other excercises in there, but I would really prefer to have some comfortable place that is not my living room to do it. There is in fact a Gold's Gym that opened up in Williamsville right down, but since I can't afford a meal at the Golden Fucking Arches, I sure as hell ain't going to be able to afford those dues.

But I do have some good news, I saved a bunch of money on car insurance. I'm not using that as a lame transition, I seriously did save a bunch of money on car insurance, but not with Geico. Anyway, this agent dude found us a sweet fucking policy and we are actually going to be able to afford all the shit ass car expenses associated with the state of New York. I hate not living in Minnesota by the way, even if that be in name only, because I don't like not having MN license plates and not having to worry about the assishness consistently imposed on the rest of the state because it happens to contain NYC. Fucking city kids, screwing everything up for the psuedo-rural suburbs of an industrial shithole named after a beautifully large charging herd animal nearly driven extinct in the early days of the United States of America we know today. Ass.

I have to work early, I know this was unconnected nonsense. I'm still getting back into the swing. Anyway, sleep calls like a drunken APK.

Peace,

MB-K

Its the Eye of the Tiger, Its the Thrill of the Butt

So the other day, before I went to work, I saw my favorite commerical on a break from Sportscenter. I have seen this commercial before, but I am pretty sure it was the last musical thing I heard before I went to work on Friday or Saturday or whichever day that was. It was, of course, the Starbucks "Glenn Glenn Glenn" commercial. The funniest part is of course the "Roy Roy Roy" line that concludes the ad. I really wish there were more lyrics to that tune, because they are probably better than the original ditty. Well, at some point, probably watching some movie or something, Katie heard the actual Rocky version of that song. Apparently she had not heard it before and for at least the weekend, was in love with it. It was a very odd blast from the past, to see someone 20+ years old hearing a song like that, which seems to have been almost an iconic pop-rock song when I was a child, for what was essentially the first time. I don't think she has seen the doubleshot espresso commercial since she started listening to the Rocky soundtrack, but maybe she will appreciate it more. The other surprsing thing about that moment was that Katie had also never seen the film from which that song hails, fucking Rocky. I mean, I can understand not seeing the sequels with Mr T or Hulk Hogan, or Dolph Lundgren, but the fucking original. All the Adrian jokes on every episode of Sesame Street would even be lost to her. Anyway.

I even remember having this song on what was arguably my favorite tape of all time. I bet I could find alot of these songs online, but I have never really tried. Regardless the tape was like Alvin and Chipmunks Sing the Silver Screen or something like that and it included A+C covers of Eye of the Tiger, Fame, and, what was probably my personal favorite, Chariots of Fire. You may be thinking, its not easy to cover Chariots of Fire, since it has no lyrics. That is the genius behind this cover. It begins as a humming cover, Alvin Simon and Theodore doing the "hmm, hm, hm, hm,hm, hmmm, hm, hm, hm, hm, hm,hm." and then progressing to some dialogue about the lack of lyrics and the awkwardness of covering a lyric-less tune, especially when the cover band in question is a three-person chipmunk choir. Damn, I really need to get my hands on that shit.

We had some tasty sweet corn for dinner just now, it wasn't as good as the sweet corn I had at the fiesta de bachelores, but it was hella good. I guess Minnesota is not known nationally for its corn, thats the sort of thing you associate with Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska. I make a distinction between being known for your corn, like feed corn and shit, and your sweet corn. Iowa and Kansas, there's your feed corn, but Minnesota sweet corn cannot fucking be beat. I mean, you get a good grill going and slap that sweet corn on there, let it carmelize up and slather it in sweet cream Wisconsin butter, yummi-dee-dum-dinger. We had cheeseburgers as the other significant dinner item, which made me at least think of all the Minnesota barbecues that should be filling our summer nights and are instead replaced by indoor pasta dinners. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I just get culinarily nostalgic very easy. The corn has also reminded me of the place where one obtains the world's greatest sweet corn, the rapidly approaching Minnesota State Fair. While it is August, and technically the fair is right around the corner, I will still withhold my commentary until we get closer to the great Minnesota get-together.

I have decided that it is really unfortunate that I didn't get into poker until the fairly recent past. I know I am not an incredble poker player, but I also recognize that I haven't played alot of poker. Everything you read and see, just the anecdotal evidence even, demonstrates that smart people that learn and practice and study are good at the game of poker. In some ways the professional poker community reminds me alot of the debate community, a really insular activity (well, I guess its becoming less insular, but still, fairly tight) filled with really intelligent people who love to do one certain thing that many people outside that community don't understand. Those people in it though, tend to feel an intense passion for it, they write alot about it, do it to excess, let their whole lives get wrapped up in it. I also think there is probably a propensity for both of these activities, more so than sports lets say, or community groups, for the people involved to be compulsive in not always positive ways. That sometimes manifests in working 80 hours a week on what it is that they love, be that cutting cards or playing cards, but often also shows itself in substance abuse, emotional issues etc. Nothing about substance abuse is inherent to debate or poker, but my guess is that you will find more active or recovering alchoholics, narcoholics and the like at the NDT than you would at a comparable event in the world of comic books for instance, which in other ways can be thought of as a similarly insular, intense, and often all-consuming activity.

I suppose that both poker and debate have competition at their core and since they don't involve the physical use of the body in the ways football or basketball (to choose but a few examples) do, maybe people who are driven strictly towards competition but not towards the perfection of the body, or against the abuse of the body, lean towards them. I guess you could further say that they go to the opposite extreme of psychology and intelligence, but I wouldn't accept the argument from anyone else that athletics, especially competitive team sports, don't require those two attributes every bit as much as the NDT does. I think poker and debate both place some emphasis on "lying", though obviously without the connotations that word might regularly enjoy. That lying is employed to win, though for different reasons I think. Rarely in debate do you activiely attempt to bluff your opponent, though you may focus on some argument in the block when you actually intend to go for the 30 seconds of ASPEC in the 1NR. Instead your bluffs are usually involved in maintaining the truthfulness of an argument to a critic that you may actually believe or know to be false. Picking and choosing is important in both as well, from starting hands to starting arguments, you've got loose debaters who read 12 off all of which are crap, versus a couple more specific and quality debates.

Anyway, maybe I will come up with more to say on that subject at some point, I could even think of writing about it at some point, but not know. The only other item I really had to mention was that of Ricky Williams, who went all Robert Smith on the bit and retired from the NFL at the age of 27. I heard about this last sunday, which is apprently when it happened. I was in the car and heard them say as they came back from commercials "Ricky Williams has retired. Not the crappy washed up never any good Ricky Williams. The dread-locked Miami Dolphins Ricky Williams, who, oh yeah, plays in the same division as the Bills. We're taking your calls on that." I had my opinion on that issue then and I have thought and read about it a good bit more since. There are a number of factors which have gone into his decision, from the interviews he gave and such. Obviously the dude likes the ganj, you could have gathered that from the dreadlocks, the going to Texas, and the testing positive for marijuana three times. He has the time now to spend in Amsterdam and Thailand and Vancouver, some of the places he has apparently explicitly listed in his itinerary for the trip around the world. I have some sympathy for the argument that its not cool for him to let his teammates down at this point. Tell them now that this will be your last season, play it out, then retire. If you do it now you fuck your team over, they don't have much chance to sign a back of your quality (not that there is one available in the NFL) or even a true NFL starter. At least give them a chance to trade or draft someone, you have an offense which has no passing game to speak of (wait, the addition of the mighty AJ Feely...) and now starts Travis Miner, I'm glad I haven't had a fantasty draft yet.

Anyway, I have some respect for that argument. I have a tiny, almost miniscule non-existant respect for the other argument, well, a version of the other argument, psuedo-articulated by Mike Ditka on SportsCenter the other day. Ricky Williams is a motherfucker who pretty much has it all. He has a job millions of people in the country would kill for, that countless people want, try, and can't do. He is giving up, not only a huge amount of money, but one of the rarest opportunities on the planet and maybe its like the dude who quit on Survivor, its not okay to waste something you got to do that we didn't. That said this argument is easily defeated by the several true responses I have been dying to hear someone in the media articulate. In the first place, Ricky didn't get lucky for any of this, he worked his fucking ass off. I mean, yes, he is physically gifted, he has a perfectly built body for a running back, his natural muscle mass is enormous, and he's fast. Those things said he has trained about as hard as anyone in the world, played a game which requires non-stop attention to his body, puts him through constant pain, and isn't easy on the mental side of things either. He earned it, he wasn't chosen out of a hat.

More importantly, dude wasn't happy. Everyone who knew him has said that he had problems, he had issues, he didn't want to do this for his whole life, he has always felt constrained by the football lifestyle, and that he wasn't able to lead the life he wanted. Admittedly, he didn't handle it as well as Robert Smith and he probably isn't doing it for the primarily intellectual reasons, but still, he wasn't happy. One of the things I have always really respected about my father was the courage it must have taken to go finish college, and go to law school as a 40ish year old man with a wife and family. Three school age kids, and more than a couple bills I'm sure. Most people I would imagine, me included more than the average folk given my propensity to go with the flizzle, would have toughed it out, at least for another three years. Maybe others would be convinced by the money, the respect, the not wanting to let people down. It takes alot to give something good up for something better, I like to hope that if someday I found a job I really loved and thought I could pull off, I would have the couage to follow my dad's example, but I don't think either half of that condition is about to be fulfilled.

All that said, Ricky has enough money, enough fame, and enough skill, to make sure this is not an issue. He will live incredibly comfortably, he will have a great trip around the world, smoke the finest varieties in all the land, and grow some of finest dreads this side of Jamaica. He doesn't give a fuck about my respect, nor do I know or like him enough to give hum any unconditional respect, but he has my props for getting out of a career which most people would never give up because its not what he needs. This is essentially a sidenote to the fact that I am uber-pumped for football season. Training camp baby.

Peace,

MB-K

Ain't Lookin for Nothin But a Good Time and It Don't Get Better than Butt

The first and most important point is of course that finally, The Katie Has Come Back to Buffalo!! (If YA SMELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLALALLALALALALALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) She is no longer leaving to go back to Wyoming for the stupid college institute, with all the stupid people. Pretty much none of the people I know in the debate community will be there and while Katie still knows alot of those people they are not really her good friends. Several of them, at least one prominent one, is also a douche. So, instead of leaving here tomorrow, Katie will be staying, which roxors.

Work has been kinda shitty this week, very busy and very long in almost all instances. Last night I was in the store until like 9:45, approximately 45 minutes after I was supposed to be there. That meant both that I got to leave a little early today, but also that I was late getting home for an incredibly delicious waffle dinner thrown by Katie. She made a great batch of waffley treats with our brand new waffle iron and since her mother recommended (for some reason) that we make a double batch, we also have waffles ready to be heated for breakfast for at least the next week. Anyway, work has been a pain in the ass, there aren't enough people in the lab, some of them don't know ass about how to work, and it is primo film time. I believe I have three works to go before I am back in the Tizzle that is Cizzle for at least a week, attending uno weddingo, and generally chillin'.

Some things at work have been revealing and helpful. For one, I saw a customer at work who made decidef that were I to write a more exhaustive list of laws of the universe, one of those would be that at the point you have decided to have a handlebar moustache, you have not simply made a facial hair preference, but a lifestyle chocie. There is a persona involved, an attitude, probably a cowpoke hat, maybe some chaps. You can't just strap on a handlebar moustache and go be a dentist, assuming that you don't live in Deadwood or something. It doesn't work, the moustache throws people off. This guy had failed to follow this law in 2 ways. First of all, he was wearing a polo like shirt, a tie, and a pair of khakis. You don't have to go with the dusty denim all the time, but you were at Wal-Mart, at least strap on a Dale Earnhardt t-shirt, or a bass fishing tour hat. Secondly, and maybe this was an accident or something, but half of the moustache was not handlebarred. I mean, maybe he ran out of moustache wax after the first half, or maybe it got rinsed off or he spilled coffee, I don't know. He could have accidentally shaved that side or something and not wanted to give up the lifestyle, but it looked fucking weird. I recognize that this isn't just the "handlebar lifestyle" thing, but he had a half-handlebar moustache and it looked fucking odd.

A second customer revealed another interesting thing to me, this through her name rather than her choice of facial accessory. I am not referring back to Star Wolf, though I haven't heard from her recently, and I wonder if the galactic forces of Nartron have successfully defeated her and her rumble pack like missions in the StarField. This person had a wonderful name, at least as I think about it now, though I very well may have never noticed it at all. I am sitting at the monitor printing photos, we are kind of busy, and someone asks me where the roll is for "Sam Rockwell" or some other random name. I had only one envelope sitting with me at the moment, so I looked over, and responded out loud to the woman who asked "No, I only have the one for Jean Weaver." Following that, when my mind caught up with my mouth, I belted out "Ohh, Jean Weaver, I believe you can get me through the night." I know this probably happens alot with anyone who has the last name weaver, but I mean, fucking come on. Jean Weaver, its too perfect for fucking words people. You can't buy that kind of publicicty.

I know I haven't been commenting much, work has been busy, it is fucking hot here in Assalo, and when Katie is here we have the air conditioning on less, I use the computer less, etc. Regardless, I will try to pay more attention to the world that is electronico. I also started excercising, with the neato recumbant bicycle thing that my parents gave us to bring home. I am not sure how people do this in the morning before they go to work, because it fucking tires my legs out like running from a stray mule named Henrietta, but maybe once I am back in shape I will remember. I suppose I used to lift and such before school, but school rarely had the standing intensity that working at a retail ass-giant does and I was in good shape. I wonder how long it takes to return to semi-decent shape after having not been active at all for like 6 or so years, my guess is probably at least 7 or so months of pretty intense workouts. I mean, I am going alright at this point, and I'm sure I will ramp it up, maybe even get motivated to go back to lifting some sort of weights at irregular intervals, but at least pants-not-fitting and heart-attacking will be put on the backburner at some point. I'm not gonna go all Bob Mould health junky and start describing my fitness routine in my blog, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

School starts in like a month, this being my third year of what is hopefully a four year PhD program. I am optimistic, but it will pretty much require that I am able to spend next summer reading and writing rather than working at Wal-Suck. In that world I have three works left to prostitute myself at the ATM money hole of this particular incarnation of the man, before I get to spend all my time sucking at the sweet sweet nipple of the academy. I like my paychecks coming with union deductions and signed by some stupid person with a ridiculous title like Provost or Registrar or Concilliere or Ombudsperson or any of those titles, though I think only the first two properly apply to universities. Anyway, I'm back, though I doubt you missed me. One final note, congratulations and good luck to those few of you in the potential audeince who may have taken the Bar Exam this past week. From what I am told most people know whether or not they are likely going to pass after they take the test, if that is the case congrats or I'm sorry. You know who you is and you's gonna be sweet ass law-talkers.

Peace,

MB-K

Gonna Live Forever, Knowing Together That We, Did it All, For the Glory of Butt

The Casino is the worst reality show in history. Seriously, I know thats a bold claim, but this show is awful. I will watch nearly anything that has to do with the city of Las Vegas, because I fucking love that town, but this is the exception. Until I had watched 2-3 episodes of The Casino I would have said that I would watch anything about Las Vegas, this show singlehandedly added the nearly to that statement. The basic premise is that some stupid motherfuckers who owned some shitty travel.com site bought the Golden Nugget and are trying to run it. What is actually the case is that Fox brings in some lame gamblers every week and follows them around the Casino, some Restaurant-esque personnel problem occurs, and there is some conflict at the high finance management level. That is the formula, which could be overcome if there were any decent personalities, filming or plotline. Even shows like The Restaurant have some sort of goal, the conflicts and the challenges. This is just a "everyday casino operation" thing which doesn't interest me at all. If you cannot convince me to watch your Fox reality program, you have just pumped out a big showful of liquid shit.

I don't know why I felt the need to mention that, besides the fact that it really is an awful show. Big Brother 5 on the other hand is turning out to be quite good this season, it has everything that the Casino lacks, talented editors, good storylines, compelling personalities, etc. The biggest rip I have heard in the media was that the show is obviously faked, not simply reality, this is true of course, but the storylines are no more written here than they are in Big Brother (project DNA for instance). The problem is simply one of quality rather than reality. I haven't really watched any of the previous Big Brother households, but if they were all this intriguing I admit that my previous critiques were wrong. If I had to go on a reality show, it would be this one. I like all the kinks of Survivor and The Amazing Race and stuff, but the whole sitting in a house together as the biggest challenge is a good break from the hustle and bustle of the regular TV season. Anyway, since Big Brother appearss to be about a million episodes long, even if you haven't started watching yet I recommend you get on the fucking ball. I mean, its not as good a program as the Amazing Race, but you do get 3 hours of coverage a week.

At work on Thursday there was a blood drive going on at Wal-Mart. This was the only time I had really wished that I wasn't so deathly fucking afraid of needles, because 3 of the people I was working with got to miss like an 1-1 1/2 hours of work each to give blood this afternoon. I mean, I think most of that time was just sitting and waiting to give blood, but still, it was a free hour off. Scott got back about an hour and a half after he left and suggested that I should go back there and do the same. There were apparently spots and I really did consider it for at least a minute or two. I will do almost anything to get out of actually working while on the clock, so that was a huge plus. There is also the obvious fact that its a good thing to give blood. I don't know what my blood type is or if it is one of those which is most in need, but I guess they always need every different type. In high school I was the President of the National Honor Society and we ran the blood drive every year, so I had a fair amount of experience with the procedure. One of the things they talked about was that the blood types which are most common often suffer shortages because they are so in demand, while the least common blood types sometimes have so few donors that they can't keep even the very limited demand covered by O types. Regardless, all these concerns were trumped by the fact that even when I would be getting 10+ dollars for laying on a couch like structure, I would have a fucking needle in my arm for far too much of that time. I mean, you get some juice and cookies afterwards but does that make up for the pain. Some people tried to give mne the old "it doesn't hurt that much" routine, but its not like I've gone since childhood without having a shot, I had one at the dentist last fucking week bastard and it sucked a nut.

I guess I am glad that Wal-Mart would encourage their employees to do such a thing, at least by letting them do it on the clock. It did however make a lot of work for us when they were gone and when they had to take it easy. I do most of the heavy lifting around that place anyway, but even the fairly light weights were off limits for them after Amy's vein popped open upon lifting the paper cartridge off the machine. I didn't see what was occasionally a CSI style blood spurt but its effects were evident. Anyway, that meant that I had to load all the paper, dump all the bins, pick up all the boxes, change all the paper and the waste tanks, etc. At least the business let things go fairly quickly and by the time send out was put away it was already later than 8 and almost time to go home. It sucked somewhat.

Today work was a little easier. While we were still often busy the 10-7shifts always seem to breeze by. You get a couple hours under your belt before the closers even come into the store, you take your lunch in the heart of the afternoon rush, and you are out of there pretty much right after you put away the film. Regardless, I left a little early because I was over on hours. It was lucky that I did, because I ran into the pug dogs next door. I have mentioned before that there are two of them, a black one and a fawn one. Well, I walked over to pet them today and talked to the dude who owns them. They came hopping up towards me in that really cute way that pug dogs do. The black one is a dude named Rocky. He is a good looking black pug dog, but he is overshadowed by Kayla, the fawn girl pug dog who is kinda fat, short and stocky. She is absolutely adorable, pretty much exactly what I would like my pug dog to look like. Anyway, I talked to their owner for a minute and said hello to the pug dogs, which really made me optimistic for the rest of the evening.

That said, I did nothing but catch up with television I have been behind on. I watched some Good Eats and some Fox comedies (Quintuplets is pretty good, some funny lines for Andy Richter and one kid who is pretty hilarious. Simple Life 2 is what it is, and I enjoy that) and the second episode of The 4400. I am going to refrain from commenting on that show until I discover a little more about what is going on, since it could be either really sweet or really formulaic, depending on where they take it. I'm sure that they will reshow all these beginning ones so people can catch up, since apparently the reviews are quite good at this point. Regardless, check it out, USA original programming is really on top of their nut recently.

I don't think my discussion with Katie about pug dogs has convinced her that we should get one yet, but maybe I can take her over to meet Rocky and Kayla to convince her. On the really really bright side, Katie gets back from Wyoming manana and I no longer have to come home to simply an empty couch and a quiet room. Check you.

Peace,

MB-K

Boy I Think That I'm in Love With You, I've Been Doing Silly Things When it Comes to Butt

Work was fairly quick today, but really ass annoying. Maureen, who is a very nice and helpful older woman, left at 6 leaving just me and Scott to do all the film organization and such. This would normally not be a problem but Wednesdays blow, because its when all the film left Saturday after 4, Sunday, and Monday morning comes in. Since you take your pictures Friday and Saturday you don't drop them off until Sunday or Monday morning, meaning that tonight we got around 600 orders to scan or sort and file etc. Its a gigantic ass pain, and I think the colonoscopy crowd can back me up on this motherfucker up in here.

Yesterday was arguably my most productive day off in a long time. I got up fairly late, but I figured that was legit. I was planning on hitting a movie around 2:00, but we will get to that. Before I considered my options there I wanted to have a leisurely breakfast and watch Sportscenter in the way I never get to when I am rushing to the Wal-Mizzle. So I enjoyed Mike Hall's second day as the Dream Job winner and anchor. He's actually fairly good, not phenomenal, not Chris Berman, not Linda Cohn, not Stewart Scott, but pretty good. At this point I think I really enjoy his teaming up with Linda, mad props from me. I don't know what the likelihood is that he will be on the show any later than his one year deal, but I would imagine he is good enough to pull it off. He's got some solid quips, he lets Linda get her banter on, recognizes that he is still the junior partner, so on. Anyway, I whipped up a delicious can of corned beef hash, fried some eggs up on that shitty, made some toast, and plopped on the ciznouch. It was awesome, that perfect time where you are up to watch a full espisode of Sportscenter but have also slept until you bioligically decided to wake up. I get to do that so fucking rarely, even when I get a good nine or ten hours I am woken by the fucking blurting assishness of the clock.

After breakfast I checked the situation for the movies. I had two possibilities, the first was seeing Anchorman again. This was not out of the realm of possibility and in fact would have rocked. Pete, who embodies everything that I have always wanted to be in more aspects than just this one, has already enjoyed a bowl of chicken soup and a reuben three times, meaning that he kicks my ass on im Anchorman quote relays. Anyway, literally the only reason I opted against this was because I had not seen Farenheit 9/11 yet, really wanted to, so I could at least discuss it, and Katie had already seen it. If these had not all been the case I could have waited, Katie and I could have seen it when she came home from Wyoming (three days! woohoo!, not to be confused with yoohoo! which, while a delicious and rich chocolate milk like drink, is not as cool as the fact that I no longer have to live a married bachelor lifestyle) but since she saw it one day when I was slaving away to pay the automo-bills I wanted to do it then. I was shocked to discover that of all the showings, there was no variety of times. It was 1:30 and 4 at every theater in the area that showed the film. Anyyway, I got ready in a hurry and left. I haven't yet mentioned of course that I had to make a stop off at Verizon on my way. My fucking phone was again fritzing like a German poodle and I had to have them look at it, say I don't know what is wrong, open it up, clean it, tighten a screw, and give it back to me working. I am glad that the people are able to get my phone to work whenever I ask them, I'm just pissed that I need to go to their fucking store all the time instead of gettting a phone that operates properly. I suppose I should be pissed at Kyocera for making the ass-talk-machine or even myself for buying one of the cheapest phones and complaining about it, but I'm going to remain upset with Verizon instead, because their name rhymes with horizon, and that pisses me off. What about the Prime Meridian? Whats your problem with longitude huh.

Regardless, I had all but decided to skip F911 when the woman at Verizon had my phone up and running in less then 20 minutes. I had the directions to the theater which I had never visited waiting in my car, and I figured that the place should be dead enough at 1:30 in the afternoon that I could arrive, get my tickets, p-corn, and into the theater on time even if I arrived at 1:35. I nutted it notably, I think I missed the first couple sentences Michael Moore itterated about the inability of the black caucus to get the support of a single senator, I don't know how much this was for sure. I know that I was there well before any of the explicit build up to 9/11 or anything, so I think I missed very little. Regardless, I was psyched with myself. The first thing I noticed about the joint was that although the place was not jammed, there were a fair amount of people there to see what many people would have thought would be a fringe liberal documentary at 1:30 in the afternoon on a Tuesday. The more interesting thing, at least to me, was the fact that I was the youngest of these viewers by at least 20 years. There wasn't another person in the theater who I would imagine doesn't have kids old enough to be in high school. The people closest to me were senior citizens (I heard them get their discount right behind me in the ticket line) and the threesome in front of me must have been at least 50. Thats not to say any of these people are old, or that they wouldn't be interested in politics (obviously they tend to be more involved than people my age, lets say) just that I was amazed they were watching Michael Moore's polemic against Bush's dictatorial use of 9/11 as political justification. They seemed to be enjoying it too, they were laughing, they were crying, most of them seemed to be genuinely impressed by the film.

While I could certainly speak in depth about the various arguments that Michael Moore makes and their levels of veracity, I would rather just mention how effective I think this film could be for democrats in November. Obviously the film does not let the democrats off without criticism, there is some recognition of the fact that the Patriot Act, war funding, and other measures were let loose without a peep from the boys and girls in blue, and the glaring lack of Congressional family-members in the service was obviously non-partisan. Thats not really the point however, since everyone knows Michael Moore is left of the dems in congress, he pushed Nader and directed Rage videos in the 2000 election, and would do so today if he didn't (reasonably) suspect that to do so would endanger the world as we know it. The point is that this film is much more thought provoking than Bowling for Columbine because it doesn't just make fun of redneck gun owners and conservative hypocrisy, the film combines a beautiful and heartfelt compassion for the people of this country with the question "what were they doing while we were recovering, and what have they been doing since." The question, if you want to call it that, in Bowling for Columbine or other Moore films is "why are these people so dumb" (I know thats a simplification). There Moore attempts to show things that we don't normally see and force us to see them (the easy access to guns, the way guns and economics are intertwined) while here he asks instead why don't they see the things we see so fucking easily. Take the shots of Flint and the obvious comparison of these urban areas to bombed out sections of Iraq.

In my mind one of the best moments in the film was the series of shots initially after the credits (of the 9/11 aftermath, papers swirling, smoke, etc.), and besides the obvious emotional seriousness of this moment, and the great use of music (which is true throughout the movie, not just here, take the Firewater Burn segments or the much publicized "cocaine" snippet) the most incredible part is that there is not one piece of news footage, not one shot of the towers burning or collapsing, no shots of the flag in the rubble, people falling from the towers, planes crashing, etc. Every shot is of paper blowing and people staring up into the sky. In many ways this reminds me of the classic horror technique that Hitchcock was most famous for, things are scarrier when you know what something is and you can't see it. Everyone in the audience knew what those people were staring at in horror, there was never a question in their minds. Right from the beginning, this film makes it very clear that the reactions to this event are twofold, emotion, compassion, and love (the people crying in disbelief on the streets of Manhattan) versus the question of what can be done. It takes alot to ask people to believe that Bush is an evil stupid fuck who has tried to lie cheat and steal to enforce an evil stupid agenda. It takes alot less to ask them to believe that someone tried to capitalize on their love. Anyway, when I have seen it more than once I'm sure I will have more to say. I really liked this movie though, I think everyone should see it. I think that even those who aren't Michael Moore fans will be impressed by what he has accomplished here and the complexity of his integation of filmmaking and argument in a way I don't think his other documentaries (or atleast the ones I have seen) acheived. Finally, on this subject, I think that its a good sign I was the youngest person in this theater by 20 years.

The movie actually ends on a really strong "we can overcome" note, probably, if for no other reason, than so that the people of Flint and every other similar town in this country (say, Buffalo) don't just off themselves rather than get in their cars and go home. I stayed and thought about the flick while listening to Neil Young and then got up for the drive. On my way home I noticed that I was passing the ASPCA and since I had no plans for the rest of the afternoon, I stopped in to play with some kitty cats. This was one of the rura SPCAs and so there were a fair amount of really young kitties, not like the city shelters where you've got surrendered 2-3 year old cats, cute cats, but fully grown cats nonetheless. These were little fuzzy big headed meow boxes and they were adorable. There was a grey tiger striped guy and a black and white brother and sister set, and a black puffy cat that looked like it would probably be a big poof-ball at some point in time. Luckily for me the adoption fee was 100 bucks, which I could not afford, and I know that I really can't get a kitty until Katie is home, so at least the poor thing won't have to be alone all the time.

I have also to decided to begin a comprehensive review of the World's Greatest Candy Bars. I will work up to defending a full list, maybe top 5 of all time, but for now we will be doing certain honorable mentions and related categories. To begin, Rookie of the Year:

Winner: Triple Chocolate Kit-Kat

I suppose this bar may not be around forever and some of you may not have tried it at all. Katie and I simply happened upon it near the checkout of our local groceriatarium. It was fairly obvious that this was going to rock, since, you might imagine, I would believe with a fair amount of certainty that the Kit Kat itself is going to make the final top 5 list. Here is the scenario, make the stuff inside the Kit Kat chocolate coating (ie the layers and other layer like stuff) chocolate instead of, well, instead of whatever its current flavor or lack thereof is. The triple chocolate Kit Kat does not suffer from the drowningly chocolate flavor of some of its predecesors like the Milky Way dark or the thick version of 3 Musketeers, whatever that thing was called. Instead the combination of crispity crunchity and velvety smooth gives some relief to the flavors, allows them to stand apart briefly, before folding together in the sugary abyss of your tongue. While my technique for eating the original Kit Kat is to break off each stick and bisect it with my mouth (ie: eat it in two bites) I find that the double chocolate Kit-Kat really benefits from being attacked as a complete unit. Something about the way these chocolate wafers dissolve (seemingly a little quicker) benefits from having more of its compadres nearby to surrender their sugary perfection. I understand that this means there is probably a little less eating time overall, but the solution is quite simple. Buy six and eat them all at the same time. My recommendation: the chocolate Kit Kat may not surpass its big sibling and who knows if it will stay on the market for too long (it is marked limited edition after all) but in this age of carb-hating the efforts of the people at Kit Kat to give us all a break by forcing the dual dangers of sugary wafers and coco-riffic flavor even further together deserves my applause.

CongratulationsTriple Chocolate Kit Kat!!

Peace,

MB-K

I Love How You Can Tell, All the Pieces, Pieces, Pieces of Butt

This entry is of course named for Ashlee Simpson's catchy little ditty, Pieces of Me. I saw the video on MTV Hits and had to download it immediately. I think its fair to say that this song instantly catapults Ashlee Simpson into the ranks of the best 3-4 female artists of all time. Seriously, I don't understand how someone could not enjoy it. Its a refreshing little poppy number with a catchy tune and some Mandy Moore-esque lyrics. I've gone off before on why people neeed to be able to enjoy the simple things in life, not get caught up in the fact that Ashlee is annoying and has what may be the worst reality show of all time. Don't bother yourself with the fact that she looks like Cher sucked the life out of a hundred babies and regenerated. Just sit back and enjoy the ditty, this one not being provided to you by Paperboy.

On a completely unrelated note, I was talking to my co-worker Amy the other day about random things, and somehow got to the mention of corn dogs. I assume we were talkign about going to some fair or something, I believe there was a county or town fair nearby. I was going through my personal list of best fair foods (cheese curds, mini donuts, pronto pups, Sweet Martha's, all you can drink milk, pork chops on a stick, corn on the cob, etc., i guess thats a little MN specific, but you get the gist of it) and discovered this seemingly impossible anomaly: Amy has never had a corndog. I know, you can't believe it. Let me make it a little more astonishing. Amy did not immigrate from Botswana over the last several years. There's more, Amy's parents are not so poor that they were never able to take her to a fair or festival of any sort. She has just never had a corn dog. Besides the obvious and very pressing need to quickly prosecute Amy's parents for child abuse, I was simply amazed. How can you live in this country, not be a veg-head, and live forever without corndogs somehow being given to you. The corn dog is like the kid food par-excellence, who doesn't love it. Its a great combo, a hot dog and cornbread. Plus there is the whole stick angle which doesn't deserve to be ignored. You can even put the mustard and ketchup on with a brush, you've got dinner and some arts and crafts. Alton Brown did corn dogs on an episode of Good Eats and he used a recipe which seemed a little odd, but probably quite tasty, adding some jalapenos and onions to the batter. Now, maybe the folks at Pronto Pup, obviously the world's greatest purveyor of corn dogs, have some onion in their batter, I don't know. But I had a fairly guttural reaction to this idea, there are some foods that just don't need any special additives to rock like Kilahuea on acid. I think the corn dog pretty well encompasses the best of all the possible hot dog worlds. I mean, I love the chicago dog as much as anyone (see my reflections on the Windy City) but I could eat Pronto Pups pretty much forever. I am going to save further discussion here for the State Fair season, which is, I should remind the St Paulians in the audeince, fast approaching. Rest assured that it will not go unmentioned further.

Work was interesting the past couple days. We actually did almost nothing for most of those shifts. Here is what went down: Amy and I arrived in the lab at noon. We were working and noticed that the film looked like butt. I mean, the colors were all off, the film was dark and fogged. We brought this to Kelly's attention and soon discovered that when changing the chemicals about an hour before we got there, Kelly, the manager and head photo honcho, had actually replaced the N1 developer chemical with N3 bleach fixer. Now, I know you are thinking, come on, no one could actually confuse fixer with developer, but yes, she did. So we had to drain the tanks, and it still wasn't. We drained and washed fucking everything in those machines Saturday, they did the same thing Sunday in my absence, and we continued today. Eventually we just gave in, got it close enough to go, and went back to work. I then proceeded to declare myself the greatest photo specialist of all time, as I did 82 rolls in just over an hour and a half, which must be a fucking world record. I mean, a busy hour is 20-25 rolls, and I spanked that like a donkey. There was nothing that could slow me down, I mean nothing.

I have tomorrow off, but haven't yet decided what I am going to do. That decision will be significantly influenced by my Saturday night excursion to the drive-in. After leaving the hideous mess that was the photo lab I high tailed it down Transit. I originally didn't think I would be able to go, since a massive storm was rolling in around 6. By nine it was all clear and beautiful, so I got a cigar and some soda and parked in front of the glowing screen. I wasn't extraordinarily hungry, so I postponed the popcorn in favor of some doubly-stuffed Oreos. The line was long so I got there at the exact moment the film really began. I had luckily tuned into some of the previews on the radio, remembering the frequency from the last time we were there. The movie was funny as shit, let me tell you. Repeated viewings will determine exactly how funny it is, but I think its up there in the funniest movies ever made. Pete concurs that it is Billy Madison quality. Not to mention that Will Ferrell's cute little puppy is named Baxter. At some point I will need to get some of the MP3s of his comments to his dog. I have also decided that "Fare thee well, Baxter. You will always be a friend of the bears." should be my motto. I need to get a sign of that line so I can bust out with a "show-em my motto" in honor of Sanjay.

I am tired and don't really have much more to say. I have tomorrow off, so I will definately contribute some more to the equation. I am thinking about maybe compiling a comprehensive list of the best candy bars ever. Hmm, intriguing.

Peace,

MB-K

Sippin On Coke and Rum, I'm Like So What I'm Drunk, Its The Freakin Weekend Baby I'm About to Have Me Some Butt

So we packed a U-Haul and left for home on Monday morning. It took us a while and there were some detours, but we eventually got on the road. Katie took a nap in the middle of Wisconsin and virtually right after that moment, we stopped. Thats right. We stopped, in the middle of the highway, for approximately two hours. When we eventually got driving again it appeared that a truck had careened off a bridge, on the other fucking side of the road. Why that stopped 94 traffic in the afternoon going the other way made little sense to me, but whatev. Besides that moment we made great time. We spent our honeymoon night, from about 1:00 am until the next morning, in the lovely room 314 of the South Bend, Indiana Super 8. Nothing's too good for my wife, I tell you.

You might ask, whats so special about room 314 of the South Bend, Indiana Super 8? Nothing, I would tell you, but that wouldn't be the end of the story. Because when you stay at the Super 8 you don't need the presidential suite to enjoy yourself. Its the Super 8 motherfucker, thats like 2 more than the Motel 6. Think of the finest hotels in the world,. the Ritz-Carlton, Georges V in Paris, the AmericInn in Apple Valley. They don't even have a numberal in their name, except for George V, which does have a numeral in its name, but its fucking Roman. You know what kind of ammenities Roman motels had, fucking vomintoriums and thats about it. They should just make that their ad, want to purge, come to the George V. As I figure it that means the Super 8 is to hotels as the manta ray is to large flat fish, the king of them bastards.

Anyway, the rest of the drive was largely uneventful. We had some continental breakfast, some lunch at Jody Maroney's Sausage Kingdom, some chocolate covered almonds. We got home late and I had to be at work the next morning. Basically we brought only the bare ass minimum from the trailer and Katie did almost the entirety of the work over the next two days that I was at work. I brought up a couple of the really heavy and awkward shit, but since a majority of things were fairly small and light, she really deserves the credit. She also unpacked and organized the whole fucking apartment, most notably the kitchen. We got a bunch of new shelving, accomodating our growing alcohol collection, we put together our wine rack, which is really pretty cool. We have another table, Katie's beloved console table, which sits behind the couch in an almost entirely useless fashion. I mean, Katie loves it, and I get to feel like I'm on a sitcom when I come home from work and set my keys on it, but besides that its a little weird.

The coolest thing about the console table is the picture on it, which I manufactured with a bootlegged version of Photoshop. Its a beautiful close-up picture of Katie with her bouquet. I desaturated (removed the color) from everything except the flowers and it looks really fucking cool, like a non-saddening or depressing or genocidally related girl at the end of Schindler's List. Bad analogy, but it looks fucking cool. I have it on my computer, maybe at some point I will find a way to put pictures online. If I do, I will let you know. We put it in this really cool frame that someone gave us for the wedding that is all glassy and curvy, really styling. We have a whole fuckload of picture frames and knick knacks now, sitting on shelves and desks. We have some cool vases, which Katie got me some very cool rocks and marbles for. I really dig the set up of the whole place now, especially the kitchen, which somehow has been arranged to accomodate an entire new kitchen's worth of shitty.

Last week I began work on my obsession with chocolate martinis. Katie unfortunately discovered that she does not like chocolate or cream in her alcohol, which means that I try them alone. I have gotten much closer to the recipe that I am looking for, though a few tweaks are still necessary. We not only have the high class chocolate liquers necessary for these drinks, but the sophisticated bar tools to properly measure, shake, stir, and add ice.

I was at work not too long ago, printing some pictures, and along comes an envelope labeled Wolf. This is not a completely uncommon last name, so it didn't take me much by surprise. Then I noticed the first name. I am not shitting you about this. The woman who dropped off these pictures is named Star Wolf. Thats her fucking name. That is how it is spelled. That is her name. Her name is Star Wolf. It seriously sounds like some sort of intergalactic pirate. Who would do this to their children. Why not just name her timber or were. I am Star Wolf!! I will reclaim the planet Norglock for the Federation. No one at the lab seemed to find it as amusing as I did, but they are all a bunch of buttwads anyway. Well, not all of them, but many of them are buttwads.

Back to the good old days of random pointless blogging and regailing ya'll with tales of stupid Wal-Mart customers and their stupid names.

Peace,

MB-K

I Don't Know How To Live Without Your Butt

Saturday morning, I woke up after Katie, maybe around 9 or 10. The house was a little busy, I think the bridesmaids were arriving around 10:30 and many of the McCormick family members were already hanging around. Andi, Carole's longtime hairstylist, was just arriving to do everyone's hair as per a special agreement. There was alot of good food, a fruit plate, doughnuts, coffee, coffeecake, croissants, etc. I poured a cup of Jo (not the Facts of Life star, but the brewed beverage) and spent the next hour or so talking with Katie's grandfather Laird. The dude has a pretty interesting story, at least it seems so to me. He was apparently an extraordinary jazz pianist, with a pretty incredible ear for composition. I have a tape in my car of "Ragtime Piano by Laird" which, though I have never heard, is pretty cool. Anyway, he is a fun guy to talk to. He told me stories about back when he and Patsy got married, how they moved around the country, were married by the president of the baptist church in Washinton, etc. Mostly he's just a really friendly old guy. He also appears to smoke about 2 packs a day, since he took maybe 4-5 smoke breaks in the maybe 2 hours that he was at the house.

I taked to Katie's cousin and Aunt for a while, and they each had unique complaints about their hotel. They were staying at the Super 8 in Roseville notably, not even a Holiday Inn or one of the nice joints downtown. Thats cool with me, but you have to expect that with the lower price comes some lower stuff as well. Apparently that included a lower class clientele, since the complaints included the migrant workers down the hall and the black potheads who ate all the dougnuts from the continental breakfast before they could get them. There was notably, a continental breakfast at the Kauf household, but I understand the frustration at the poor continental breakfasting. I also find it funny that their complaints about the potheads were being made not 10 feet from at least a couple folks of the pothead persuasion. Nonetheless, eventually these people leave so the bridesmaids have space to get their hair done and makeup, blah blah. I take a shower at some point, Katie goes to Herbergers to get her makeup done. Like 2:00 ish Iget dressed up in my tux-sweet-o and Katie and I, carefully lugging her one million pound wedding dress, head over to Mac. Wilking, I assume to make up for the previous night's transgression against the temporal gods, has arrived early, and is snapping digital photos at an astounding rate. This came in really handy since Andrea and Willking were like the only ones with cameras out of the whole fucking bunch of us. Everybody else showed up and we started shooting pictures, which we then did constantly for like 2 hours. Katie and her bridesmaids, me and the groomsfolk, families, gatherings, groupings etc. I really did fucking love our photographers, they seemed to fucking rock. I'll confirm that a little more once we see the pictures, but the experience itself was very cool. We had Wendy taking mostly formal posed portraits, and her husband, Karl, roving (hehehehe) around taking snapshots, or candids, as they say in the biz. That went on for a while. We got some help from Antonio, the photographer's assistance, who was without question the world's greatest photographer's assistant. He had a Spainish sounding name, he seemed to be Spainish (could be somewhere near by, or even a white guy who lived in South America perhaps), with a Spainish accent, and just the hint of a lisp. While he was not necessarily the gayest person who was at the wedding, he certainly wasn't the most heterosexual either.

Everyone looked pretty good, our parents and families, not to mention Katie herself. It was incredible, I have seen her a million times, beautiful every one of them, but it really was something. The dress was perfect, her hair was perfect, her makeup was perfect. Katie was as beautiful that day as anyone has ever been and while I'm sure we can thank the Wedding Shoppe and makeup or whatever, but all in all I don't think this had much to do with anything besides her. I think she even managed to keep up the smiling all day long, my face had tired by about 3:30.

When people started showing up we sent Katie back downstairs so she didn't spoil the show for the guests. I on the other hand got to hang out for a majority of the time. I said hello to many family folks, many friends who had been a long time coming, all in all I think I met up with most people before the ceremony even got underway. We walked down the aisle no later than 5:05 pm and from what I have been told many weddings start much later than that, so we were pleased to be on track. The ceremony was nice, a little long for some no doubt, and certainly less secular than many probably would have preferred, but I thought it was pretty good. Despite Father Malone's agitation the day before, I thought he spoke very well and very patiently. My brother pulled a good "where are the rings" bit on the recommendation of AJ and altogether Katie and I were at the back of the church by 5:40, so with all the walking etc. I figure the ceremony itself was no more than a half hour long. The moments which were supposed to be beautiful were beautiful, the moments which were supposed to be enlightening and intimate were, and those which were supposed to be relations between the two of us and the people with us seemed to accomplish that entirely. I thought it was perfect.

The only problem we had is the lack of adequate communication regarding receiving lines or whatever. The fact that no one was really told anything meant there was really no firm idea about what was supposed to happen. Some people said hello to us at the church, some at the reception, but we never had a formal receiving line. I don't know if that bothered anyone, it certainly didn't bother me. It meant that no one had to stand ina long boring line at any point, and that people didn't have to either wait to leave the church or have their dinner. I think I spoke to everyone I wanted or needed to speak to at one point or another, and I am 100% positive that anyone who wanted to seek my out and talk to me had the opportunity to do so. Their best opportunity was probably at the cocktail hour over at the Hyatt. After a couple of post-ceremony pictures at Mac we hopped into my mom's red convertible, which we were driving to the Hyatt out of a compromise with Carole for not wasing money on a limo. Those pictures may turn out very cool, so I am looking forward to it. We got to the Hyatt, found a place to park, eventually made our way to the lobby. Katie hadn't gotten a chance to use the restroom since she got into the dress almost 4 hours earlier, and she apparently needed a female assistant in order to do so, so she headed there while I grabbed us a drink. The bar was wide open before dinner and the appetizers were deliciosso. Everyone who tried them agreed with me that the mushroom tartlets were fucking incroyable. I didnt even see the fruit or the chicken things, but apparently they were had and enjoyed by many. I really do need to look into some sort of recipe for those, I think my brother would be appreciative.

We cut the cake, well, pretended to cut the cake, and skipped the feeding ritual thingymajigger. Neither of us thought it was an interesting or non-stupid ritual, and we pride ourselves on maintaining only those rituals we found reasonable meaning in. The cake was fucking gorgeous, by the way, it was done out in four different colors, and I think Wuollets did as fine a job on it as can be expected. Many people even asked me assuming it was fondant, the buttercream was that convincingly dyed. The cake table looked great, even though there were bowls of nuts and mints all over it. This was apparently something Carole felt really really strongly about, whihc is mindboggling to me, but whatever. The candles and petals made sense, but the other things still felt like the HoJo Salad Bar to me. The Dobs came through incredibly strongly in running out to my car because the DJ bonored one little thing, by which I mean, not bringing our first song. After fixing that brief fiasco and grabbing one more comp drink we headed into the ballroom for dinner. I must say, the Nicollet ballroom looked fucking pimp. The lights and the draping, while maybe not quite worth what they cost, were pretty sweet. The flowers were nice, I had literally no complaints. We also had what may be the world's longest head table, accomadating 14 fucking people. Dinner was chwizeet, my guess is that it was as good as you can expect a 200+ person meal to really be. The steak was perfectly cooked, the chicken well glazed and crusted, and the vegan entry got rave reviews from all the veg style people I spoke to. The wine was tasty and while I'm sure service at the head table is purposefully on top of all the others, I couldn't get more than 2 sips out of my glass before it was back to the rim. I have no idea how much wine or champagne I had to drink that night, not that I was trying to keep track, but you get the idea. They served us cake and champagne, I actually only got a piece of the marble and almond cake that night, though I did try a bite of the devils' food as well. I had the intention of eating buttloads of cake, of going back for a second steak, eating everything I could handle, but when it came time I just wasn't hungry enough to do so. I mean, yes, there was also lots of shit I had to do, things to attend to and people to say hey to. I wish I had a backup steak now, but I really didn't need it at that point.

It was at that point that people started talking, first Tom, than my bro, than Karly, then my dad. All of them were great, Tom has a great ability to work a crowd and he's a pretty friendly and personable guy in almost all situations. My brother, who I always have a hard time reading, despite knowing him pretty well for 22ish years, didn't seem very nervous (though others have told me he was) and said some stuff that really got to me. He talked about environments that I remember happily (the fact that we've gone from sharing a room for the first 15 years of our lives, to having the same extremely close knit group of friends, largely through debate) and I thought he did a pretty fantastic job. Its been so long since my brother was involved in debate and speaking etc. that I occassionally forget that he was pretty good at it. I guess its not surprising, but its certainly among the moments of that day I will remember most vividly. Karly didn't speak for long, but she was pretty funny. She has her family's speaking ability and charisma, plus a pretty audacious public sense of humor. The obvious joke about her wearing the dress (not that there weren't thousands of them lined up over the weekend) was perfectly executed and well received. My dad, who spoke much more briefly than he did the day before, pretty much just went through "An Irish Blessing" which was touching insofar as it is something I have always assocaiated with my dad's side of the family. After that an unexpected, or, shall we say, dis-expected surprise, another song from Cindy, Katie's aunt.

Let me preclude all this by saying that I like Cindy. I don't know her that well, we have only met on two seperate occassions. She seems to be a very emotionally involved woman, for reasons unbeknownst to me. She has an incredible singing voice, lives in the middle of buttfuck nowhere in Nebraska (itself, arguably, the middle of buttfuck nowhere). and has a taste in hats and clothing that is simply beyond me. Anyway, we (Katie and I) had been told by Carole that Cindy wanted to sing at the reception. This seems a little odd to me, but thatsm their family. they do things differently than mine, and I roll. Anyway, we wanted her to sing later on in the evening. We didn't want the "program" to get too long, or people to get filled up with toasts and songs, or (this one ended up not being relevant) Andy to think he was being slighted by not being allowed to speak. This had, at least to my knowledge, been agreed upon. Anyway, at this point Cindy was introduced again to sing a song for us. A song which she then invited us down to dance to. We really weren't in a position to explain that we had selected our first song, didn't think she knew what it was, an kinda wanted it to actually be our first song. I'm not sure these are exactly Katie's emotions, but they were foremost among mine. That does not change the fact that Cindy was hella hella good. She sang "At Last" a great song of course and one Katie and I would have had no problem being our first song if we had chosen it as our first song. The humor and sarcasm value of this paragraph seems to be taking away from the fact that fundamentally this didn't really bother me, but more just struck me as odd. Anyway, we then progressed into our "first song", Britney Spears "I Was Born to Make You Happy." We knew, to some level, from the very beginning that our first song should have to be a Britney tune. I mean, we both love her, we went to a Britney concert together that you could certainly make an argument for as one of our, if not simply our, first dates, and pop music is one of the things we truly have most in common. I mean, debate and common subjects of interest, but one of those subjects is pop culture and Britney is about as central to my understanding of pop culture as Orville is to my understanding of pop corn, if you get my drift here bugaboo.

I think many people in the room got the reference and the joke involved with the situation when it became clear what the song was and/or who it was by. I would imagine that there were those amongst my family who didn't know at all because we hadn't spoken in long enough for them to understand the Britney biz. I was a little preoccupied at the time worrying abot two things: 1) we never had the time to learn how to dance at all, or at least to co-ordinate our dancing well enough that we could do it, so essentially we were just standing there like morons (though hopefully we didn't look that way, its certainly how I felt) 2) people must have been wondering about the 2 first song thing, like, alright, we tolerated one dance, as we do for every couple, but this is fucking pushing it. I hope they at least had extra servings of cake and champagne to make the extra 3:38 tolerable. After that there was more dancing, Katie with her dad (Dixie Chix-Landslide), me with my mom (Stevie Wonder-For Once in My Life), all of the wedding party (Ben Harper-Random Song Whose Title I Don't Know Now, Never Did, and Forgot Right After Katie Told Me that Night). a dollar dance (made us like 45 bucks, even though we hadn't planned to do it and I still think it is kind of silly) and then just general dancey dance. There were alot of pictures taken, me with the grandrents, all the Mac grads together, etc and so on. We went up and took a couple pictures on the 2nd Floor of the Hyatt, where some of the Blake festivities take place, then back to the Nicollet for a boquest toss, which Karly caught (ironic and pretty chweet at the same time) and the announcement of a garter toss (which we also hadn't planned, and which would and could not occur, both because, unlike the dollar dance, we think it moves beyond tacky to classless, and more relevantly, Katie wasn't wearing a garter) which I had to quickly signal was non-existant. That was the end of everything official and I was pretty pleased. Things seemed to have gone off without so much as a hitch.

I spent the rest of the night catching up with friends from high school, fuck even before that at St. Joes. I got the chance to talk to Tara and Cort and Meiches and Josh, and others who I otherwise never do. I can only think of one person who I would have really liked to talk to that I didn't get much of a chance to, but those were extraordinary circumstances of course. We drank, good beer, good wine, good booze (though I really never got to any booze and was still hella drunk before the evening was over) we danced to good music (Sir Mixalot and Nikki French, can life get any better than this, I submit that it cannot) at one point Flury tackled Maroney on the dance floor and they both ended up on the ground. Other highlights included Sanjay hitting on a woman who, while still very attractive, was 43 years old and had 3 kids (I think those numbers are right), and dancing with her all night. There was also Josh, Meiches, and possibly some other underage folks who had a bit much to drink. Anyway, I think the party was generally enjoyed by all. It ended, seemingly, a bit early, though I was fucking exhausted and ready to kick it, it may have been nice to have the DJ around an extra hour or so for people. Anyway, Katie and I headed off to the room we had been assigned but still had never seen.

The room was designated as a suite, and fucking A did it live up to its name. I don't know how many rooms at the Hyatt are like it, but if you ever need one in the Minneapolis area, it comes highly recommended. It had a beautiful view of the Minneapolis area, from the South end of the Nicollet Mall and 23 floors up. The sitting room had a wet bar and, much more importantly, a bottle of chilled champagne and a plate of chocolate covered strawberries waiting for us. We popped that, sat down on the chairs and relaxed, since we hadn't gotten to speak much at all since we got out of the car in the garage. Katie hadn't been drinking much that night, though we did at least toast to our first bottle of wine together. I gave into Katie's demands and let her open some of the gifts that were all stacked in the corner. I should describe the greatest feature of this suite, that made it sah-weet. The bathroom off the bedroom, rather than the one off the sitting room, was incredible. It was huge, the size of most normal hotel rooms by themselves. All done out in gray marbel with white seperations and soft ambient lighting. There was an overhead rain style shower and a giant elevated whirlpool tub, set up on a pedastal of gray marble. On the opposite wall, an LCD television. Holy fucking awesome. That is what this was, holy fucking awesome. When I first turned it on, a Buffy rerun, what I think is a sure sign that our marriage is truly blessed. When I woke up the next morning with a hangover, I sat in the bathroom for 10 minutes watching SportsCenter in LCD. After getting some advil in me and laying down to relieve the headache I watched a little more of the old Sportscenter in the bathroom so as to not wake up the wifey (a term she loves, by the way, just adores, try calling her that sometime, she will react wonderfully) and later on, when she had gone to get the car and I was waiting for the belldude, watched a little of the modern day classic Joe Dirt.

That gets us through to about noon on Sunday, June 27th of 2004. I know that isn't quite present day, but I will pretty much resume normal blog mode after today. I guess I will briefly cover the return home, but that only has a couple relevant anecdotes. Nice to be back with you in the land of the now. Not to be confused, of course, with the Land of the Lost, or (less likely) the Land Before Time, which, although it has the world's cutest stegosaurus, is actually not that long in the past.

Peace,

MB-K

Despite All My Rage I am Still Just a Rat in a Butt

Thjs entry is titled in honor of one of the significant moments of the bachelor party which I entirely forgot to mention, that being the Dobs' contributions. The Dobs always has at least one or two contributions at any event, especially those where intoxicants are involved and the rare form of the pure Dobs brilliance is in full effect. Dobs was out of whichever poker tourney happened to be going on at the time and, sitting on the lower half of the bunk bed realized that it was a cage like structure. Hence the immortal, depsite all my rage I am still just a Dobs in a cage. You have to deliver it in Dobs style vocal patters to get the truly humorous aspect involved but you get the drift. His other moment of glory came a little later, in another tournament. The only concession to the classic bachelor party mode of naked chicks was Andy's insistence that we use naked lady playing cards in the tourney. Andy K was of course also the only person who spent significant amounts of time ogling the cards and, if I would have studied them a little further to pay attention to the features of each, probably gave away his hand based on how he looked at his hole cards. The term hole cards gains entirely new meaning when you realize that of the two decks which were in use one was a standard Dream Girls set, featuring strip club style girls with their tops off, some butt shots, etc. The other deck was like some grotesque hustler version with alot of cards just featuring (hmm, how to say this in a manner which will not bother my wife, the connundrums ensue...) extreme close ups of genitalia often spread like Parkay on a warm dinner roll. (that should work). Anyway, after taking a big drag off the Jerome Baker (free JB!!) device in circulation Dobs deal came around. Classic poker narrator he is, in true Phil Gordon fashion, he revealed "The turn is the FIVE OF AYASSS!!"

In a way, the turn is always the five of ass. But thats another story. We resume our story later Friday morning, I awoke early as planned, but most people had sobered up and departed before that time. The campsite was clean for the most part, which certainly made my life easier. What made my life slightly more difficult was that my bro, Maroney, Sanjay, Dobs, and Andy were the only people around, and only two cars amongst them. My bro was not easy to awake, reasonably enough, since I imagine he had been asleep for only a very small amount of time. I finally convinced him to take me home around 10:00, though Katie was, also reasonably, not very pleased with my tardiness. After getting stuck behind a train in St. Paul (for like 20 minutes no less, a fucking train in St. Paul on the fucking street, what the fuck, this is what bridges are for by the way, I am all for using trains and shit, and I tolerate having to wait for them in Rosemount or areas even further ruralized, but in the fucking city, ricockulous, I felt like I should have just turned the horse and buggy around before realizing that we were not, in fact, in the old west, (or to make matters more interesting and Will Smith-like, the Wild Wild West) but still St. Paul. irregardless...) I made it home as Katie was on her way to get the all important pre-wedd manicure. I talked to Carole for a bit and grabbed a couple extra zs. We had some preparation still to do, placecards, programs, etc. But we had a fairly relaxing afternoon. Leading up to the rehearsal and corresponding dinner, to begin that evening at 5:30.

Truth be told there were some complications I was not entirely sure would be resolved by the time the rehersal was to start. At some point I hope I can let everybody know a little more about what those were, but believe me when I say that I was thoroughly relieved that they were no issue. The rehearsal was interesting, though fairly short in itself. Wilking was late and I think Father Malone was a little pissy about it, though he was pretty much doing us a favor by even being there. I also don't think he realized how generally goofy funloving our gang can be. Regardless, we went through the motions a couple times, had some humorous moments regarding people's inability to hit their marks etc. A sad and frightening note involved Natalie, who was a victim of what sounds like a not very fun car accident (not that there are many of the amusing variety) and was unable to make it. Our thoughts were certainly with her. We wrapped it up at Mac and headed out to downtown St. Paul for the dinner at the Landmark Center. The place is the old St. Paul courthouse, located right on Rice Park accross from the Ordway and the St. Paul Hotel. We eventually found a place to park and trudged up three flights of stairs to a beautifully renovated old courtroom, apparently the one Dillinger was tried in in Minnesota. The event was catered by Cossetta's which Katie and I both thought was a great choice, though neither of us realized how well it would go over. The food was fantastic, a ceasar salad, a grilled vegetable platter, their famous mastacolli con ricotta, chicken parmesan, and last but without question not even approaching least, my favorite Cosetta's dish, the tiramisu. I believe I had three servings of dessert. Katie had at least 3 servings, if not three bottles, of wine, in a good way of course. There was good food and drink all the way around. My dad spoke for a little while and was very nice. Tom did the same. Carole and her musically inclined family members enjoined us with the "Katie Beautiful Katie" song which you may have heard her chant at some point of particular joyousness. Her aunt Cindy and cousin Sabrina also had some regailing to do with a more specifically wedding related number, all of which were very good. Katie and I thanked everybody and gave a little trinket to our bride or groomspeople. Katie had carefully selected some wedding jewelry and a pretty little box. while I had opted for engraved lighters. It will be interesting to see who has held onto their lighter over the days or weeks, but I think they got the message of the thing, even if it wasn't much of a present. I mean, they were zippos, they are cool, but I felt a little cliched. Irregardless. Sanjay drank more than his share of the bottles of red wine which were distributed at the table. It was a good kickoff to the official festivities, I think that was unanimous. I also got to see and talk to alot of people in my family whom I hadn't seen for a long time, some of them for a good decade. I also got the chance to meet Katie's grandparents for the first time, which was odd. I have heard literal assloads about them from all members of the family, and despite their frightening reputation, were actually very pleasant. They had only kind and gracious words for us. though we didn't get to socialized too much with anyone specifcally.

The rest of the evening featured a program assembling machine that featured myself, my lovely fiance, her rents, Chrissy and Andrea, and two of Katie's rents' friends from KC. We worked on the multicolored extravaganza of ribbon and tying and hole punching and smoked a little of our own. This was an especially interesting thing to do with a couple of middle aged women I didn't know at all, especially funny to hear them using very high school terminology to refer to the material in question. Anticipating the next morning's crazinessosity, we kicked it relatively early, and slept quite well. I was really, not nervous at all. I am not sure if most people really aren't nervous when they are getting married, if that's just something non-getting-married-people speculate about, but the few people I know who have taken the ole plunge, were not shaking at all. Then again, maybe we are just more confident in the bonds of our love, unlike the rest of you cheapass motherfuckers.

I'm gonna break off here and post this, because I am just not moving at an adequate pace. I will begin the composition of the actual wedding day post and get back to ya'll. Almost caught up, then we begin with the usual witty banter which defines my, I don't know what.

Peace,

MB-K