So I was thinking about what you said, "Peeve-Poetry" or something, so I decided to try it out. It's terribly terribly out of line w/what Joe Public thinks. It's awesome! So here's my attempt at pop culture peeve poetry...
We Will Outlaw Nature's Law
Miley Cyrus fell from grace
because she showed more than her teenage face
and a tightly jean-clad bottom...
It was the naked back that got'em
smooth and white and completely bare
forget that the girl has pubic hair
and has no doubt gotten her menses
Society puts up fences
between "woman" and "child"
So we will not dwell
on the fact that at twelve
her body was probably ready for mating
Our society says dating
should wait and degrading
oneself with sex tapes and such
should be done at a later date (if not much)
And if she hungers for touch
let her feel shame
if her body cries for sex
let her feel shame
if she masturbates in the darkness
let her feel shame
because we say she isn't ready.
Now, make her pretty
and put her back out on the stage
make sure she acts her age
flirting sweetly, gently
saving the split beaver shot 'til she's twenty.
4.30.2008
VEGAS!!!
So as was mentioned, we did go to Vegas. And I took TWO pictures. But I think they pretty much sum up Vegas pretty nicely -Sex and
Excess.That's right! Hot Babes direct to you! The really funny thing is that the semi isn't pulling a billboard, it's pulling an actual trailer. So we have to assume the Babes are in there, getting hotter by the minute, occasionally getting hosed off, maybe, until someone makes the call! The other picture proves the existence of something I had heard rumors of but was not completely convinced existed... The Deep Fried Twinkie! And yeah, I know I look like I've been stuffing them down, but I did NOT actually try one. We went in there to get some, but MAN! The smell of grease was overwhelming. And that was just some guy at the craps table! By the time we got to the fry zone we were feeling pretty sick and gave up and got some pie somewhere else.
If you want to see something cool and artsy and in counterpoint to my 2 lousy photos, here's a link to all the pics Craig and Laurie took and made into a cool ass "movie". It's super sweet!
http://www.pbjs.com/CRMtransfer/Vegas/
4.29.2008
Who's next for the Dallas Cowboys to sign?
Now that the Cowboys have finally traded for "Pacman" Jones, the cornerback they've long lusted after even though he has been arrested approximately 174 times in the past 3 years or so and is currently on an indefinite suspension from the NFL that the commissioner himself will end when he feels good and ready to do so, whom else will they soon be adding to their already volatile roster?
1. Brett Favre, just to give the media something to cover them about for the next, oh, I don't know, 33 years.
2. Michael Vick, to cover violence/sociopathy toward animals as well as humans.
3. Ray Lewis, so he can teach the younger guys how to have a posse that will REALLY protect you when you're out on the town.
4. Tank Johnson, because you can always use another huge testosterone laden guy with lots of guns and...wait, really? last season? oh...never mind.
5. Hitler...I think Jerrah Jones could sign him to one of those ceremonial one-day contracts like they did with Emmitt Smith, so he could retire forever as a Cowboy.
I really, REALLY hate Jerry Jones.
1. Brett Favre, just to give the media something to cover them about for the next, oh, I don't know, 33 years.
2. Michael Vick, to cover violence/sociopathy toward animals as well as humans.
3. Ray Lewis, so he can teach the younger guys how to have a posse that will REALLY protect you when you're out on the town.
4. Tank Johnson, because you can always use another huge testosterone laden guy with lots of guns and...wait, really? last season? oh...never mind.
5. Hitler...I think Jerrah Jones could sign him to one of those ceremonial one-day contracts like they did with Emmitt Smith, so he could retire forever as a Cowboy.
I really, REALLY hate Jerry Jones.
4.28.2008
Could it be?!?!??!?!?1
An actual Stacey-posted item? OK, sure, it's just a little picture in the corner of the page, but it's OUR little picture, in the corner of OUR little page, so we'll gnaw on this little crumb for a while longer while our starving psyches call out for a poem, or a peeve, or a peeve-poem, or more photojournalism, or whatever wonders are in store.
4.25.2008
FOUND DOCUMENT
Keynote address from the 27th Annual Convention of the International Association of Gravy Oblationists (IAGO). May 6-8, 1977. New Kismet, Montana.
Today I’d like to take the opportunity to talk about a subject that’s near and dear to all of our hearts, but one that we rarely dig out of Grandma’s junk drawer in the kitchen of our minds and actually give the time and attention that it is due: gravy.
That’s right, I’m crazy for gravy! And I don’t care who knows it! Sure, as far as comfort foods go, it’s not one that pops right to the tip of your gravy-covered tongue, but let’s just look at the ones that do…meatloaf? Yeah, OK. Mashed potatoes? Of course. Macaroni and cheese? Three for three, in my book.
But take just a second, step back just a small distance from your mental dinner table to get a little perspective, and you’ll soon see one common item acting almost as a glue, or paste, sticking all of these diverse foods together into one congealed lump of goodness, and that’s GRAVY!
So as you go from booth to booth over the next few days, sampling exotic gravies made with ingredients gathered from all over God’s beautiful creation, just remember that, prepared correctly and served appropriately, gravy can become the fat and gluten-based matrix, the culinary lingua franca that allows us all to sum up the entirety of human ambition in a simple dipping sauce. And that, friends, should be enough to inspire anyone.
Bon appétit!
Today I’d like to take the opportunity to talk about a subject that’s near and dear to all of our hearts, but one that we rarely dig out of Grandma’s junk drawer in the kitchen of our minds and actually give the time and attention that it is due: gravy.
That’s right, I’m crazy for gravy! And I don’t care who knows it! Sure, as far as comfort foods go, it’s not one that pops right to the tip of your gravy-covered tongue, but let’s just look at the ones that do…meatloaf? Yeah, OK. Mashed potatoes? Of course. Macaroni and cheese? Three for three, in my book.
But take just a second, step back just a small distance from your mental dinner table to get a little perspective, and you’ll soon see one common item acting almost as a glue, or paste, sticking all of these diverse foods together into one congealed lump of goodness, and that’s GRAVY!
So as you go from booth to booth over the next few days, sampling exotic gravies made with ingredients gathered from all over God’s beautiful creation, just remember that, prepared correctly and served appropriately, gravy can become the fat and gluten-based matrix, the culinary lingua franca that allows us all to sum up the entirety of human ambition in a simple dipping sauce. And that, friends, should be enough to inspire anyone.
Bon appétit!
4.15.2008
short, short story (part 1)
"He was this stumpy guy, in his 50s, a white guy, he had a face kind of like a little terrier, you know?" Richard had been talking to the cops for 3 minutes and 34 seconds at this point, and he didn't feel any closer to getting his point across.
"And he was just standing there?", the fatter one said. Again.
"Yes, he was just standing there, but for about FORTY-FIVE MINUTES, you know? He just looked sneaky, or guilty, generally, I guess."
"Sir, he may have been waiting for someone, or picking someone up. We don't have the time, the manpower, or, frankly, the inclination to come check out everyone someone sees loitering somewhere."
The older cop nearly managed to keep world-weary condescension out of his tone, but Richard automatically bristled at basically being told not to worry his pretty little head.
"OK, fine, but when I see this guy on the news next week after the downtown library is Sarin gassed, don't come back asking me a lot of questions then, because..." Richard didn't like the look of the glance the two cops shared at the mention of nerve gas. "Because, you know, it's always ones like that where people say, 'Oh, he seemed so nice and ordinary', and..." He definitely didn't like the way the cops were openly looking at each other now; he could almost see them weighing the possibility that the "old guy standing across the street staring at him for 45 minutes" was just his way of crying out for attention, and for help.
"And he was just standing there?", the fatter one said. Again.
"Yes, he was just standing there, but for about FORTY-FIVE MINUTES, you know? He just looked sneaky, or guilty, generally, I guess."
"Sir, he may have been waiting for someone, or picking someone up. We don't have the time, the manpower, or, frankly, the inclination to come check out everyone someone sees loitering somewhere."
The older cop nearly managed to keep world-weary condescension out of his tone, but Richard automatically bristled at basically being told not to worry his pretty little head.
"OK, fine, but when I see this guy on the news next week after the downtown library is Sarin gassed, don't come back asking me a lot of questions then, because..." Richard didn't like the look of the glance the two cops shared at the mention of nerve gas. "Because, you know, it's always ones like that where people say, 'Oh, he seemed so nice and ordinary', and..." He definitely didn't like the way the cops were openly looking at each other now; he could almost see them weighing the possibility that the "old guy standing across the street staring at him for 45 minutes" was just his way of crying out for attention, and for help.
4.13.2008
Stacey's Peeve o' the Week!!!! (Spencer edition!)
So, I believe that Stacey and Nadi are in glamorous Las Vegas this weekend, so here's the peeve that she's probably cooking up right now! : )
Man, it's kind of hard to be peeve-ish when you're
vacationing in Vegas...if you're anyone but ME, of course! I've been inundated by annoying people and things ever since we got off the plane, or even BEFORE that, if you can even count all the annoying children running around the Denver airport, who OF COURSE were ALSO GOING TO VEGAS!!! But that's the story for a different peeve...what I really want to talk about today is WAYNE NEWTON! If you go to Wayne's homepage, you'll see Wayne looking all cheesy and bloated under his self-applied title, Mr. Las Vegas!
So then, if you're an experienced user of the internets like myself, you'll cruise over to the "Wayne's Schedule" part of the site, and guess how many times you'll see Wayne scheduled to play in Vegas this month? Well, I'll give you a hint, it's what everyone on Springer will tell you to drop and get yourself a hero! That's right it's ZERO times! The same number of times Marilyn Monroe and Harry Houdini are playing! And they're dead!
So, as you can clearly see, Wayne Newton is in fact just Mr. Wears a Tuxedo with the Tie Undone All the Time, and not Mr. Las Vegas. So now we're going to have to fill the empty entertainment-deprived hours going to things like Cirque du Soleil, or maybe Sigfried and Roy's Secret Garden, which just SOUNDS too creepy for words...were they trying to think of a title that made people more likely to think of "inappropriate touching" and "swimsuit area" than Michael Jackson's Neverland, for god's sake?
So, until next week, just remember NOT to come to Vegas for the cheap buffet anymore, because these hotels can't just run out Smoked Foie Gras Benedict with Asparagus in a Black Truffle/Tarragon/Pinot Grigio reduction for $3.99 a head!
Man, it's kind of hard to be peeve-ish when you're
vacationing in Vegas...if you're anyone but ME, of course! I've been inundated by annoying people and things ever since we got off the plane, or even BEFORE that, if you can even count all the annoying children running around the Denver airport, who OF COURSE were ALSO GOING TO VEGAS!!! But that's the story for a different peeve...what I really want to talk about today is WAYNE NEWTON! If you go to Wayne's homepage, you'll see Wayne looking all cheesy and bloated under his self-applied title, Mr. Las Vegas!
So then, if you're an experienced user of the internets like myself, you'll cruise over to the "Wayne's Schedule" part of the site, and guess how many times you'll see Wayne scheduled to play in Vegas this month? Well, I'll give you a hint, it's what everyone on Springer will tell you to drop and get yourself a hero! That's right it's ZERO times! The same number of times Marilyn Monroe and Harry Houdini are playing! And they're dead!
So, as you can clearly see, Wayne Newton is in fact just Mr. Wears a Tuxedo with the Tie Undone All the Time, and not Mr. Las Vegas. So now we're going to have to fill the empty entertainment-deprived hours going to things like Cirque du Soleil, or maybe Sigfried and Roy's Secret Garden, which just SOUNDS too creepy for words...were they trying to think of a title that made people more likely to think of "inappropriate touching" and "swimsuit area" than Michael Jackson's Neverland, for god's sake?
So, until next week, just remember NOT to come to Vegas for the cheap buffet anymore, because these hotels can't just run out Smoked Foie Gras Benedict with Asparagus in a Black Truffle/Tarragon/Pinot Grigio reduction for $3.99 a head!
4.10.2008
Share the joy
This may be old hat for some of you savvier netizens of the intertubes, but I’ve just got to share Garfield minus Garfield (http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/). It’s amazing how much better that strip is when it’s just the story of Jon’s continuing yet timeless descent into madness. Although, after looking at some of them, it seems as much a chronicling of Jim Davis’s continuing and escalating cries for help.
Anyone else have favorite altered versions of treasured, hoary comic strips? I’ve seen some that put really intricate socio-economic political theory into balloons over Family Circus strips, but I don’t have that link. Any other good/funny examples out there?
4.09.2008
new story, finale
Read the prior installment here...
So we went driving around for a while, and as the sense of adventure began to clash less and less comfortably with the everyday of annoying traffic and lengthening silences, I started to tell her about my counting, about how it freed me from everything that I wanted to leave behind after another day of work, how it was sort of like holding your breath when you were a kid, late at night when all you heard was a dog barking two yards down and the muffled voices of your parents from the kitchen, and you felt, you knew, that you could just keep holding your breath forever, somehow, and things would still go on as they were, because you were special, you were different, you mattered.
It was too much, way too soon, unavoidably, or unavoided at least. She had an extreme moment of clarity, and in a few seconds I went from the slightly off-kilter interesting guy to the either hopelessly damaged or potentially psychotic emotionally debilitated guy, neither of which seemed to have the same level of appeal. She took over the small talk from there on out, and when in about 10 minutes we just happened to find ourselves approaching the same bar we had left from, she manufactured a suitable excuse, and I gratefully climbed out of her car and started walking back to my place.
It took about 360 numbers for me to center that night, in the timeless noiseless muttering that has become a second nature for me now. But it came, like it always comes, and I drifted off to sleep that night to the echoes of my mother's voice and my father's laughter, in an endless merry-go-round shrinking into the infinity of distance.
So we went driving around for a while, and as the sense of adventure began to clash less and less comfortably with the everyday of annoying traffic and lengthening silences, I started to tell her about my counting, about how it freed me from everything that I wanted to leave behind after another day of work, how it was sort of like holding your breath when you were a kid, late at night when all you heard was a dog barking two yards down and the muffled voices of your parents from the kitchen, and you felt, you knew, that you could just keep holding your breath forever, somehow, and things would still go on as they were, because you were special, you were different, you mattered.
It was too much, way too soon, unavoidably, or unavoided at least. She had an extreme moment of clarity, and in a few seconds I went from the slightly off-kilter interesting guy to the either hopelessly damaged or potentially psychotic emotionally debilitated guy, neither of which seemed to have the same level of appeal. She took over the small talk from there on out, and when in about 10 minutes we just happened to find ourselves approaching the same bar we had left from, she manufactured a suitable excuse, and I gratefully climbed out of her car and started walking back to my place.
It took about 360 numbers for me to center that night, in the timeless noiseless muttering that has become a second nature for me now. But it came, like it always comes, and I drifted off to sleep that night to the echoes of my mother's voice and my father's laughter, in an endless merry-go-round shrinking into the infinity of distance.
4.07.2008
Grackled!!!!!
So I made the classic mistake of parking under a tree in the spring in Austin, Tx...and I paid for it in grackle shit! Or, I guess, I got paid in grackle shit, because if I could find out some way to convert it into legal tender I could go gather quite a bit off my car right now.
Maybe there's a secondary economy, like unique World of Warcraft objects on Ebay or Linden Dollars, only for bird poop. I could quit my day job and just go around parking near campus under trees for a living. It would be just like 1994, come to think of it, and large parts of 1995.
Maybe there's a secondary economy, like unique World of Warcraft objects on Ebay or Linden Dollars, only for bird poop. I could quit my day job and just go around parking near campus under trees for a living. It would be just like 1994, come to think of it, and large parts of 1995.
4.04.2008
It's the little things in life...
So there were two things today that just sort of randomly happened at work, both relatively inexplicable.
The first was, after I got a Sprite (giving up caffeine! day 2) from the machine downstairs, I got my soda out of the slot only to hear another one tumbling down right behind it! Two for the price of one! I’ve never had a coke machine make a mistake in my favor, as it were, so I now feel like I’ve gotten back about 1/20th of the money that I’ve lost in the things over the years.
Then, later, I was poking around in one of the storage areas of my desk that I’ve never used because it has a bunch of random file folders and power cords for monitors in it, and what did I find but TWO DOLLARS! In real American money!
At first I thought I must have put the money in there a long time ago and forgotten about it, but I can not, for the life of me, think of a reason I would have left $2 in there, much less buried beneath a never-used floppy drive that’s sized for a laptop.
Weird. Maybe my desk is “paying it forward”, working off in advance some karmic debt that it feels it will inevitably incur in the future. What vices do desks dream of, in their wildest hours? Does this portend a desk-related accident that will leave me hospitalized for years on end, a husk of my former self, spurred on through endless days only by my burning and implacable determination to reduce the architect of my disaster to the smallest splinters of particle board?
Time will tell, I suppose…time will tell.
4.03.2008
Topics O' Discussion...
Yeah, O.K., I skipped a "Peeve". Between the Not-In-A-Good-Way tongue-lashing we got from Craig in his last comments, and the depressing nature of the last week or so, I just couldn't bring myself to cough up a bunch of negativity, no matter how "lighthearted" it may be. So I give you these Topics O' Discussion instead...Discuss:
1. What would Mariah Carey have to do to stop being annoying? Has anyone ever seen her wearing what might be considered clothing outside of a topless beach? Is she actually a good singer, or just a blah singer with the ability to do ridiculous vocal runs? Could she sing opera? That's the true test, I think. Guess what, if I wanted to hear runs I'd go sit in the bathroom of the local Greasy Spoon.
2. One of our local radio stations played an elaborate April Fool's prank, suggesting that Courtney Love had reunited Nirvana and they would be touring this Summer. I thought it was a kinda cool idea, but most people seemed to be horrified by the whole thing. I mean, they sucked in the first place, how much worse could they be now? What do y'all think?
3. Starbucks has a new specialty drink, the Honey Latte. I asked the Barista what was so special about it and she said it was made w/honey, not sugar. The funny thing is that they have honey packets at their condiment station, so you can, as I did, order the $2.68 latte and add your OWN honey instead of ordering the $3.48 honey latte where they do it for you! (You might, to be fair, get a squirt of whipped cream w/an extra honey drizzle, but c'mon! Is that worth 80 cents?) So, FINALLY, my question here is: how long before people figure this out and Starbucks takes the honey packets off the condiment bar? Or are enough people so used to spending huge amounts of their income on coffee that this doesn't even phase them, they just pay the 80 cents?
4. Is this some kinda dictatorship or what? I didn't vote for this "DUMB" blog title! And I, unlike SOME people, only voted once! We demand a recount/vote!!!
So lemme know what y'all think and maybe I'll get outta my funk and get my "Peeve" on! PPPLLLBBBTTTT!!!!
1. What would Mariah Carey have to do to stop being annoying? Has anyone ever seen her wearing what might be considered clothing outside of a topless beach? Is she actually a good singer, or just a blah singer with the ability to do ridiculous vocal runs? Could she sing opera? That's the true test, I think. Guess what, if I wanted to hear runs I'd go sit in the bathroom of the local Greasy Spoon.
2. One of our local radio stations played an elaborate April Fool's prank, suggesting that Courtney Love had reunited Nirvana and they would be touring this Summer. I thought it was a kinda cool idea, but most people seemed to be horrified by the whole thing. I mean, they sucked in the first place, how much worse could they be now? What do y'all think?
3. Starbucks has a new specialty drink, the Honey Latte. I asked the Barista what was so special about it and she said it was made w/honey, not sugar. The funny thing is that they have honey packets at their condiment station, so you can, as I did, order the $2.68 latte and add your OWN honey instead of ordering the $3.48 honey latte where they do it for you! (You might, to be fair, get a squirt of whipped cream w/an extra honey drizzle, but c'mon! Is that worth 80 cents?) So, FINALLY, my question here is: how long before people figure this out and Starbucks takes the honey packets off the condiment bar? Or are enough people so used to spending huge amounts of their income on coffee that this doesn't even phase them, they just pay the 80 cents?
4. Is this some kinda dictatorship or what? I didn't vote for this "DUMB" blog title! And I, unlike SOME people, only voted once! We demand a recount/vote!!!
So lemme know what y'all think and maybe I'll get outta my funk and get my "Peeve" on! PPPLLLBBBTTTT!!!!
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