There Goes My Hero

I am speechless. Found via Thighs Wide Shut:

Man peed way out of avalanche

A Slovak man trapped in his car under an avalanche freed himself by drinking 60 bottles of beer and urinating on the snow to melt it.

Rescue teams found Richard Kral drunk and staggering along a mountain path four days after his Audi car was buried in the Slovak Tatra mountains.

He told them that after the avalanche, he had opened his car window and tried to dig his way out.

But as he dug with his hands, he realised the snow would fill his car before he managed to break through.

He had 60 half-litre bottles of beer in his car as he was going on holiday, and after cracking one open to think about the problem he realised he could urinate on the snow to melt it, local media reported.

He said: "I was scooping the snow from above me and packing it down below the window, and then I peed on it to melt it. It was hard and now my kidneys and liver hurt. But I'm glad the beer I took on holiday turned out to be useful and I managed to get out of there."

Parts of Europe have this week been hit by the heaviest snowfalls since 1941, with some places registering more than ten feet of snow in 24 hours.

I Swear

I did some laundry yesterday, and I forgot to take the second load out of the dryer. When I noticed my delay, I heard

FUCK! THE LAUNDRY!

echo in my head. Why is that? When exactly did I decide such emotion was deserved in response to such a small issue? Shouldn't my inner monologue have been something like

oh yeah I need to take those clothes out of the dryer and fold them

instead, reserving the fuck!s for when I get kicked in the balls?

Office Decor Revisited

The co-worker I hate posted this witty image outside of her cubicle. Isn't it hilarious? Isn't it funny to examine male stereotypes like this? Aren't men silly? Wouldn't it be equally funny for me to post something like this outside of my cubicle? You know, something that explores a female's fascination with shoes? OMG! I'm laughing already!

R.I.P. R.O.C.K.

I keep seeing articles like this one, alerting the world that the drummer from Traffic is dead. In the past month or so, I've read about the passing of Jefferson Airplane's drummer and a Bread guitarist.

Is this really newsworthy? What will be the future equivalent for these stories? When I'm 55 years old, sipping coffee, eating half a grapefruit, what headline will I see? Maroon 5 Keyboardist Dead of Stomach Cancer? Long Time Usher Producer Killed in Hoverboard Accident?

The Other Archives - No Pepper

Below is the censored text of an e-mail from my friend. I believe it's well over a year old; nevertheless, it is a stunning account of the hidden life of produce:

The things I go through so that rich people can enjoy their nachos. This is not the best story in the world, but it kind of gives insight into what kind of shit can ruin my day in a hurry.

One of our biggest and best accounts, [company name deleted] of [city name deleted] supplies all the food for [football stadium A]. [company name deleted] is a very important customer, being that they buy about $32,000 worth of produce, 3 times a week. No small number by any means, so when they say "jump," [company name deleted] says "how fucking high bitch?"

Well, before the season, [football stadium A]'s luxury box chef decides what his nachos need are not only green jalapeno peppers, but also, red jalapeno peppers. Unfortunately, after sampling the red jalapeno peppers, he decides they are not pretty enough. We at [company name deleted] are always eager to help a customer in need, decide what he is looking for is a red Fresno pepper. A Fresno is similar to a jalapeno in size and shape, but has a more mild flavor, smaller seeds, and thinner outside wall. It also carries a consistent, deep red color throughout the pepper, (much better than the red jalapeno, which is often streaky, or more orange in color). Unfortunately, Fresnos are readily available in good supply during the summer months, September not being a summer month, they are extremely difficult to find. Today, of course is the day that [company name deleted] decides to order 300lbs of these fucking things, with no notice what so ever. They have to be produced by 9:00PM when the truck leaves for [city name deleted]. The order hits our fax at 10:00AM central time. I hit the phones to make a token effort to find these things, knowing full well that no one in [city name deleted] carries these things. When I get told no about 7 times, I have our customer service guy call the big boss, who is out of town on business. The boss says, "Under no circumstances will we short this order."

Nice. So this is how I solve the problem. I call every produce house, broker, and general food distributor in [city name deleted] to get these peppers. Everyone has 10lbs here, 20lbs here, 5 lbs here. So I'm thinking how the fuck do I get these up here by 5 so production has a chance to make them? I call in a favor with our tomato supplier, who owes me anyway, and have him send a guy around to like 5 places to get these dumb ass peppers, then run them to the airport, where Southwest has a flight out to [city name deleted] at 3:15PM, with an arrival time of 4:05PM. I then go to the airport, load all these bastards up, then haul them back to the plant to get the Mexicans to slice them up.

Yeah, we lost a shitload of money on that deal, but at least we didn't tell a customer no. Like I said boys, 6 months and we're going under. I will have the official numbers tomorrow when I see all the paperwork come in on this little deal.

Tracking Poll

I've always thought an album's best track was most likely to be #3. Corinne has noticed it's usually #7.

What do you think?

Things I Learned in the Past 36 Hours

*Dave Matthews will make his acting debut in a movie that I will not see. It is about a dog. I haven't checked to see if the dog relieves itself onto Chicago boat passengers or makes progressively worse albums.

*Euripides is the new Tupac. Please tell me someone gets this joke.

*Iron and Wine's Fever Dream is a shoo-in for inclusion on my next makeout mix CD. You can listen to a tiny part of it - probably still enough to get to 2nd base (the old school 2nd base, not the one these teens use nowadays) - at Amazon.

*The penis has sebacious/oil glands, just like anything else covered with skin, but because the penis is a unique fellow you can see the penis' glands. Little white bumps. Now, some of you may not find this interesting, but I do - what I find more interesting is that NO ONE EVER BOTHERED TO TELL ME THIS. You'd think with all of the STI education they'd throw in a "Oh, by the way, there are these little white bumps that are just oil glands. They're different from warts/etc. because they are smooth, not rough." Instead, I learn why girls can't go swimming. Thanks. That'll come in handy when I grow a vagina.

What else had no one told me about the penis? I did some internet research and found this little nugget. Huzzah!

One of my testicles hangs down further than the other. Is this normal? What causes it?
Yes it's normal. The right testicle hangs lower than the left. This is because the blood supply to the right testicle is different than the left. The testicle is suspended by a structure called the spermatic cord. This is like a rope or bungy cord. The spermatic cord contains the sperm duct, nerves, arteries and veins. The right spermatic vein attaches directly to the inferior venacava and at a level lower than the left spermatic vein attaches to the left renal vein. Hence the left side is held higher in the scrotum and the right side hangs lower.

WHY WAS I NOT TOLD??! HOW COULD THIS INFORMATION BE KEPT FROM ME??! HOW THIS BE KEPT FROM A MAN OF SCIENCE - A LOVELINE LISTENER FOR CHRISSAKE - FOR SO LONG??!

My outrage is offset by my optimism for the new generation (the one with the retooled 2nd base) and their internet research abilities.

The Other Archives - Survey

Once upon a time, I developed my own surveys and sent them to my friends. Below are some of the funnier/interesting responses from a Fall 2002 survey:

MOST MISUNDERSTOOD "SAVED BY THE BELL" CHARACTER

Kelly; her parent's divorce really affected her relationships with men, though the show never chose to explore this. (Jenny)

That robot that Screech kept locked in his room. (Phil)

This is actually a trick question. The answer was discovered, by Zach, in the episode where he learned that just b/c that chick was in a wheelchair he didn't have to do everything for her. She, therefore, was misunderstood. Lisa gets honorable mention here - she wasn't mean, she just wasn't attracted to Screech. (Me)

I HOPE I'M NOT KILLED BY ______, BECAUSE IT'S THE WORST POSSIBLE KIND OF DEATH IN THE WORLD.

Curb smiley (Jenny)
Heartbreak (Marissa)
A really high pitched screech (Anastasia)
Flesh-eating fire ants (Dave)
Childbirth (Angie)

MENTION ONE SPECIFIC PART OF A SPECIFIC FULL HOUSE EPISODE...

Comet eats Joey's mixture of Silly Putty and Play-Dough and throws up in the bushes. Everyone thinks it's because of Rebecca's cooking and begin to feel ill themselves until Stephanie realizes what's happened. Rebecca explains that what they have been experiencing is a pyschosomatic response. (Jenny)

Where Uncle Jesse and Rebecca get married and he sings that song to her at the church with the choir in the background. I loved that episode. (Kelli)

Jesse's band quits on him and he turns to The King [and Rebecca] for guidance. HAVE MERCY! (Phil)

when DJ "deej" Tanner felt neglected on account of the amount of time her father, Danny spent with his co-host on Wake-Up San Francisco. She rebelled, and boy did she and her awkward friend kimmy gibbler get into some mischief on that episode. (Blaine)
Jesse's badass friend (aptly played by Scott Baio) slinks into town and challenges Jesse's coolness because he's all domesticated now. to counter, Jesse decides to ride his motorcycle on the ledge of a really tall building. as he's about to defy death, Michelle says something cute or something and Jesse surrenders his cajones back to Rebecca. Baio relents and proclaims that Jesse is still cool anyway. i think joey also may have done his "cut it out" bit. (Jeff)

Joey is tricked into believing he won the lottery. The exact same thing happened to Geoffrey the Butler on The Fresh Price of Bel Air (Me)

I'd say the one where DJ wants to wear makeup, but she ends up looking like a whore, and then Rebecca teaches her that the secret to wearing makeup is making it look like you're not wearing any makeup at all. Also, there's the episode where Stephanie steals a sweater because she thought "buy now, pay later" meant take it now and come back some other time to pay. (Steph)

Michelle is digging in the sofa and finds several items, including a quarter and a Cheeto. She says, "ooh a quarter, ooh a Cheeto" and then eats the Cheeto. (Dana)

IF YOU GOT A PET DOG TOMORROW, WHAT WOULD YOU NAME IT?

Frito (Jenny)
Gravity (Marissa)
Boomer 2 (Phil)
Dynamo (Blaine)
Fetch (Jeff)

LEAST FAVORITE WAR

100 Years War. For God sakes man call an armistice or cease fire. ANYTHING. (Phil)
east coast v. west coast. (Blaine)

QUANTRILL'S RAIDERS OR THE OAKLAND RAIDERS?

dude, my great great great grandparents were killed by quantrill's raiders during their raid on lawrence, KS in 1863. then again, my grandfather was killed by Daryle Lamonica in a truck stop diner brawl in 1969. um draw. (Blaine)

quantrill's raiders, although if Gannon played for Quantrill one wonders how that raid would have played out...more forward passes, probably (Me)

I WOULD MOST LIKE TO VISIT THIS COUNTRY

Texas. (Blaine)
Flavor country (Me)

IF MY LIFE COULD BE LIKE A SITCOM, DRAMA, OR ACTION FILM, I'D PICK:

all three, like that great Schwarzenegger flick Last Action Hero. (Blaine)

Car Talk

My first car burned out. Literally. Oil fell onto the engine, a fire started, and within minutes a thick black smoke was trapped inside my '79 Cutlass. Flames carved a hole in the hood and continued to push skyward. There was no saving it; the fire department and bank employees watched it melt in the parking lot from a safe distance.

My second car faded away. My aunt's death put me into a 2000 Camry and put the '88 Accord into retirement.

Reflecting on the Accord is not the same as remembering my time in the Cutlass. There was no driving to secluded areas to make out with my girlfriend in my second car; I had an apartment or a dorm for that sort of thing (the making out, not the driving). Friends did not throw tacos out he window of my Accord as they did with the Cutlass. The Accord was just a car, slow but steady, chauffeuring me from age 17 to 25. This is its eulogy.

It was an odd car that I coveted since by dad bought it. It was used. I forgot how much I had wanted it until Mrs. Brown, who taught me in seventh grade, mailed a letter to me. It was a letter she asked us to write to our future selves, with the promise that she would send it to that future self after five years or so. "Do you have the Accord yet?" it asked. I did. "Are you a basketball star yet?" it asked. Fucking letter. Fucking former self. I guess it is possible to ride your own ass.

The car had already been punished because of my basketball skills. An odd thing - when dad was driving his new, used car to see his son win the league tournament, a rock cracked the windshield. Fixed, was a tiny spider web directly in the driver's line of vision - it was a Norden bombsight, the target on the screen of Top Gun: The Video Game. Screws behind the steering wheel were triggers for destruction.

The Accord was an odd duck. Two little levers controlled the side vents - pulling the levers opened the side vents, pushing the levers closed them. Dad thought the side vents should be closed when the air conditioning was on, because it says "vent", and "vent" is just regular air, not conditioned air. He was wrong. Amy once told me that my car had more features than hers - false, because hers was newer and better, and she said that because of my side vent levers. I guess I looked busy when I drove it, fiddling with levers and knobs. There were four separate buttons for the horn. I was a cosmonaut.

The first dent came when visiting Amy in Salina. Wow. In my life I have gone to Salina to visit someone. Huh.

It was parked at her father's place of work. There was a small patch of ice in the parking stall next to mine; there had been a winter storm a few days earlier, and the patch melted slowly in the shade. After I suffered through Titanic, we retrieved my car and noted the dent. A driver was so incompetent that he/she slipped over the ice patch and into my car while trying to park.

I lied and told my dad it happened in the school parking lot. I wanted to wait and tell him that so I would be up at school, talking on the phone, giving him the "bad" news. It was just a dent. And soon, it would be joined by a dent on the opposite side. I don't recall how that got there - just another parking lot incident, I suppose.

The dents gave the car character, but not the kind I wanted it to have. Dropping off Anastasia for the Easter holiday, her mother saw the dents and was anxious.

I was anxious weeks later. I was driving the Accord 95 miles per hour, the fastest I drove it up to that point and the fastest it's ever traveled since. I was racing to a showing of a shitty movie about Paul Rudd (gay) and Jennifer Aniston (wishing he wasn't gay). Speeding east on I-70 to Topeka, I was exciting and spontaneous and my relationship with Anastasia was saved. Driving west on I-70 back to Manhattan, Paul McCartney playing in the cassette deck, things were obvious and imminent.

The cassette deck was a source of derision, even more so when it went on the fritz. Two fingers pressed between the two main dashboard vents would coax the front speakers into action. A bump would turn them off again. Pounding, on. Brakes, off. Nathan helped me discover the whole thing was broken, and a new stereo was put in its place. Another cassette deck. I am an idiot.

It went as far north as Minneapolis, as far west as Hays, as far south as Oklahoma City, as far east as Wisconsin.

It had to be warmed before driving in cold weather. Waiting in the car for the engine and myself to become warm, I would breathe into my coat. When I die, I will regret the month I spent sitting and waiting, minutes turning into hours into days into, surely, one month of my life.

The car was not built for air conditioning. It drained the car's power; the Accord shook like a child frightened of red lights.

It was punished. Its hood was severely scratched due to my father's poor placement of old shower door. The roof and trunk developed cancer; paint fading, turning white in the sun. The metal arm used to support the hood became detached at its pivot - a saber when removed from the plastic latch near its hook. A large hole in the muffler. A leak in the power steering rack. Things were getting bad, and I'm glad it's over.

Thank you, no frills package of the 1988 Honda Accord. You were never stuck in mud, snow, or ice. You never held my keys captive. You never left me stranded or in a terrible bind. Die with dignity.

Good Show

If I ever make it to a concert that is this good, I will die a happy man.

The Other Archives - Shout at the Devil

Taken from my old journal - this entry was in the Fall of 2002:

Early this semester, there was an anti-abortion demonstration for a week in the main quad. Also appearing for the occasion (but maybe not directly associated with the display) was a preacher the university newspaper called "Brother Jed". After walking by his old-school evangelizing, I started to make a mental list of occupations that soft-voiced people couldn't do:

Preacher/Reverend
Carnival booth worker
Drill Sergeant
Auctioneer

New Ben Folds Tracks

His new album DROPS in the springtime. Live performances of songs from said album can be found at the benfolds.org message board (scroll to the bottom of the page). They're mp3s, they're free, they're legal, and the sound quality is decent.

Nacho Sexier

I was working quietly in my cubicle. I glanced over at my stash (my food stash, not my moustache), which includes a half-eaten bag of ranch flavored Doritos. (A pregnant woman works over my wall - she reached over that wall one day and implored, "Take these away from me. I can't stop. I've almost eaten the entire bag." I obliged, at they have sat undisturbed since that afternoon.) I thought about the Dorito dust you get on your hands during consumption. It occurred to me that Dorito dust might be most unappealing thing to lick off one's lover's naked body. It occurred to me this was an odd thing to consider inside my cubicle at midday.

I will leave it up to the readership to determine if this is, indeed, the most unappealing "food". And could someone tell me what is most widely considered to be the most appealing/used? I don't know, because all of my food-related romance knowledge comes from Topper Harley.

Axe Scent

Watched Big Fish tonight - good flick, tearjerker; one thing bothered me. Why must we cast a Scotsman and a Brit to star in a movie set in the American South? Don't get me wrong - I love Ewan McGregor, and I have an unhealthy obsession with Helena Bonham Carter - but listening to their efforts at a southern accent distracts me.

Is there truly not one truly southern actor that could have been cast in Ewan's place?

Are there no actresses in Britain that could step in for Gwyneth once in a while?

And just think if this trend would have started in the '80s - poor Paul Hogan!

The Birds: Part Three

And they like to watch.

The Birds: Part Two

Really horny.

The Birds: Part One

There were a lot of middle aged drunkards at The Sandbar Friday night - not the hot young coeds we were hoping for - so we passed the time playing instead of gawking. These plastic flamingos were free with every Bahama Mama we ordered. They were horny.

I'm In Love I'm In Love and I Don't Care Who Knows It!

As I mentioned yesterday, I thought it was strange that you could Katie and the rest of e-mail the KU Calendar models. I told her so:

Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted by dn (xxxxxx@xxx.xxx) on Saturday, January 15, 2005 at 13:19:22

comments: The very concept of providing a way to e-mail a calendar model seems odd to me. I'm curious to know -- what kind of comments you and/or the other models have received through this website? Anything particularly odd -- anything other than "I like your photos"?

I received a timely response:

16Jan05 7:33pm

Dan,

I can see how the concept might seem a little strange, but it gives people a way to put a personality with a face. Most of the comments we receive are very positive. A lot of people ask questions about when/where we are going to be selling calendars. On a rare occasion, we get a negative or crude comment. Those we just delete. I have had some asking for my phone number, or containing the fan's phone number, or asking to see more photos. Nothing too strange, though. Thanks for the interest! Hope I was able to shed some light on the subject! If you have any more questions, let me know.

Have a fabulous 2005!

Rock Chalk,

Katie

Next, I'll ask my new pen pal about her risk of contracting hookworm.

Worthless Football Post

Chris' favorite part of a football game is the opening kickoff.

Mine is the coin flip - particularly the overtime coin flip. That's when I get to hear WE WANT THE BALL OUR BALL GIVE US THE BALL WE'LL TAKE THE BALL WE WANT THE BALL OUR BALL OUR BALL LET'S DO THIS

Chad Pennington is a terrible name for a football player, but a good name for an antiques dealer or a Egyptologist.

Calendar Conundrum

That's bullshit.

As long as Shannon is involved in this calendar, she wins. She is the best. She is my everything. She is a ray of sunshine on an otherwise cloudy day.

And would someone please tell me why I should buy the calendar if I can visit the website, which contains more photos than the calendar, for free?

My vote for most awkward photo goes to Katie. "Here I am, wandering around this vacant lot shirtless -- hey, what was that over there? I will cover my shame!" Maybe I'll e-mail her about it.

The Other Archives - Pete Yawn

The news of Pete Yorn's career's death was greatly exaggerated:

Date: 18Sep01 10:50am

Funny you should mention it. Yeah, I went to Matchbox "Twenty" as they are now officially called with Case. The show resumes this week. Oh, and Train and Pete Yorn were the openers....but here's the real brain buster. Pete Yorn has one song that a small percentage of the crowd are likely to know, "Life on a Chain." So, what does he do? He opens with it...before the crowd is really been let in to Sandstone yet. There was a lot of security crap at the gates so no one was in the place yet. Let me tell you, that guy is going nowhere and he's getting there in a hurry.

-Phil

And You May Ask Yourself: How Did I Get Here?

Searches that resulted in a visit to Tornado Slide:

Ashley simpson peed in her pants (Yahoo)
Nifty nut house (MSN)
Nifty nut house (Yahoo)
Tittyfuckin (Google)
Bull tornado (Yahoo)
Practicing penmanship (AOL)
Clairebaby (AOL)
kelis deep throat milkshake (Google)
kim catrall's lesbian run on sex in the city (Yahoo)
superhunks (Google)
jeff johnson mcsweeney's (Yahoo)
skyway news (Technorati)
my charizard brings all the boys to the yard (Google)
tornado slide (Yahoo Canada)
little axe Oklahoma (Technorati)
Lieber and Stoeller Lyrics (Google)
videos do tornado no tsunami (Yahoo Portugal)
seasons in the sun nirvana (Yahoo)
bert and ernie eroticism (Google)
lindsayism (Technorati)

Just think how many more visitors Tornado Slide would have had if I could spell Ashlee Simpson's name right...

No Argument Here

"That's so gross! I'm such a queen about that sort of stuff."

--Willie, gay cast member of MTV's The Real World: Philadelphia, reacting to a roommate's scabies infection

"Like anal sex isn't gross..."

--Corinne, reacting to Willie's comment

Lawrence, Austin City Limits

Remember, Modest Mouse is coming to K.C. in February, and I've already got my tickets. For those of you that plan on attending but have little MM experience, you should have watched The O.C. last week, because they performed. Of course, Seth and the gang didn't pay much (any) attention to the band they were allegedly very exited to see... I hope they play Paper Thin Walls. Good stuff - listened to that track twice today.

So who'd have thought that a few short days before MM, the uber-great Secret Machines would come to town? Let me know if you wanna go - I'm ordering my tickets this weekend, as I love said Secret Machines.

And when I'm not out on the town(s) watching bands in person, I'll be at home watching the upcoming Austin City Limits performances. Flaming Lips and The Shins on the same show?! Modest Mouse, Elvis Costello, The Pixies, Damien Rice, and even The Polyphonic Spree will make appearances. Thank God I still don't have TiVo, lest Fatty has a new Spree concert to dance to in the wee hours.

Backstory - The Village

[In honor of M. Night Shamy's The Village being released on DVD next week, I present a deleted scene below. If you plan on seeing the movie, you should not read this scene, as it will spoil the movie's surprise(s). If you're sad now that you don't have anything to read, go to this site and watch the flash video. Then keep watching as the lady just keeps staring at you and blinking. And try not to think about where I found the link (actually, it was via lindsayism, which I read at Jeff Johnson's recommendation). If you've already seen the movie, read on...]

WALKER: My name is Edward Walker, and I have an idea.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 1: What is it?

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 2: Is it something that will help us deal with the emotional pain stemming from the murder of our loved ones?

WALKER: Well, yes, I hope so.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 2: I'm listening.

WALKER: Well, as you may have heard, I'm very rich.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 3. You don't look so rich.

WALKER: I am. Really, really rich. My dad was a billionaire. Weren't you guys listening when I shared my pain with the group?

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 4. Sorry.

WALKER: So. My family is exorbitantly rich, and I was thinking I could use some of that money to buy an enormous tract of land - a nature preserve - and we could all live in there.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 3. That's going to ease our emotional burden? Moving?

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 5. What the hell?

WALKER: Listen. Hear me out. We could all live in this protected area, away from all of the bad people in modern society -- away from the violence, away from the guns. We would be our own separate unit, see? And since we all know the pain that evil causes, we would only be good to one another.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 6. Couldn't we all just move in to the same apartment complex and be good to each other?

WALKER: No, I think we have to totally separate ourselves from the modern world.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 2. How could we totally separate ourselves, though? We can't make our own electricity or our own gasoline.

WALKER: Right, I know. That's why we would have to do without some things.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 1. Do without electricity?

WALKER: Yes. And gasoline, and cars for that matter. Pretty much everything that makes modern life so convenient.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 2. Let me get this straight - you want us to, like, go camping? Forever?

WALKER: Right. Like that. Except that we'll build houses for shelter instead of tents, and we'll have to eat only what we can grow -- I can buy some livestock with my fabulous wealth, and we can eat them, too.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 4. So it's actually worse than camping - it would be like living in the Middle Ages.

WALKER: Close - I was actually thinking we would live like it was the turn of the century. And no one would be the wiser, because we will scare our children from ever leaving the village.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 5. Our children?

WALKER: Sure! We'll live there for generations!

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 1. We're going to scare them from leaving?

WALKER: Yeah - I figure we can make up stuff about creatures in the woods. I mean, I've read about it before in my history texts. We'll say there's creatures out there that will kill you if you leave the village. And we'll say they are attracted to the color red. We'll call that "The Bad Color". And, I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, but yellow will be "The Safe Color". And sometimes we'll go around in creature costumes to give some weight to the myths we spread around. Those kids will shit!

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 3. Why is red "The Bad Color"?

WALKER: Think about it, I mean, red just seems pretty evil, doesn't it?

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 5. Well, it does seem the most dangerous color, but doesn't that mean that we couldn't have any red clothes for ourselves?

WALKER: Right. No red clothes for anybody. No red anything. But remember - we'll be living very basic lives, so it's not like you'll have that many possessions; most of the material things you love won't be coming with you to the village. Not only will you not have your favorite red things, you won't have most of your favorite things, period.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 2. Geez. I'm just trying to take all this in...

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 3. I hear that. Sounds like it would be really hard to live like that! I mean, we'd have to become farmers, basically. The only things I've ever grown -- I mean, besides flowers or grass -- was some vegetables in my garden. Tomatoes, mostly.

WALKER: Yeah, see! We've done this sort of thing! We've all grown tomatoes before, right?

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 5. But aren't tomatoes red?

WALKER: Ah. Good point. So we can't grow tomatoes. Unless we pick them before they're ripe.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 1. Gross. That's gross.

WALKER: No tomatoes, no red onions, no red peppers, no radishes. Am I forgetting something?

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 3. Apples are red -- some of them, anyway.

WALKER: Right. So there can't be any red apples in our village. Good thinking.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 4. You know what's NOT good thinking? This little village idea of yours. Do you really think it's a good idea to start an agrarian society without the color red? We're knocking out half of our food supply here!

WALKER: Not true. We've only mentioned 3 or 4 foods, I think.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 1. Um, what about cherries?

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 2. Strawberries.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 3. Red plums.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 4. Cranberries.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 5. Raspberries.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 6. Red potatoes.

WALKER: Motherfucker! Potatoes! I was banking on lots and lots of potatoes!

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 2. Hey - didn't you say something about livestock? Because pigs are usually pink.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 3. And chickens have red on their heads.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 4. Same with turkeys.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 5. Hey, yeah -- if a cardinal flys into the village, are we going to have to shoot that thing down and bleach it or what?

WALKER: Of course not! We won't have any guns in the village! Remember? A world without violence?

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 5. Oh, shit. Yeah.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 2. So back to those animals -- if we're going to eat beef, that's red, too.

WALKER: Damn. And I love beef.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 4. This is stupid. Let's just switch colors from red to something you find less frequently in nature. Purple comes to mind.

WALKER: Purple? Are you fucking kidding me? Who gets scared of purple?

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 1. Hey, man, YOU need to settle down. It's your dumbass idea we're trying to fix.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 3. What do we do at sunrise and sunset? There's purple and red in the sky at those times.

WALKER: Fuck. This is hard. Let's just go, and we'll figure it out as we go.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 6. Well, you're the rich guy, you know best.

ALL: Go, village!

We Had Joy, We Had Fun, We Had Nirvana

I spent the majority of Wednesday (my snow day) pouring over the contents of the Nirvana box set, With the Lights Out. I read the full color booklet, listened to some of disc 3 (In Utero demos with alternate lyrics!!) while cooking dinner, and watched the DVD. The DVD features a lot of rocking out in Krist's mom's house, some live performances, and a few early videos. The DVD is essentially the fourth and final disc of the box set, and ends with a Nirvana cover of Seasons in the Sun -- studio footage with Kurt on drums, Dave on the bass, and Krist on guitar.

The reason I started this post was to convey their recording of Seasons in the Sun, but after staring at the screen for a few minutes and browsing through the Nirvana Fan Club site for another 30, I still have no idea how to explain it. The three of them are just fucking around, Kurt casually singing, casually altering lyrics, behind the drumset, Krist and Dave looking back at him (when Krist isn't looking down at his axe, struggling to play the notes in order) -- just a perfect, throwaway, early-nineties moment in a tiny room, imperfectly playing a sweet, wistful, seventies hit.

Goodbye Papa please pray for me
I was the black sheep of the family

This post is not going well. How can it? I can't possibly explain it. I can't possibly explain exactly why I spent the majority of the day -- up to the moment I fell asleep -- thinking "I miss Nirvana". You can't know how much I liked Nirvana, and I can't know why I liked Nirvana so much.

A framed picture of a rubber duck hangs between the two surround sound speakers on my back wall. Prior to that, it was stuffed into my files. Prior to that, it was taped to the inside of my high school locker. Prior to that, it was artwork within the liner notes of Incesticide.

I have no idea what struck me before Nevermind, but after I dubbed by brother's copy, that was it. My tape was clear, with some yellow on it, Memorex, 90 minutes. It belonged to my walkmanesque Memorex personal cassette player. I listened to it every day on the bus, to and from school. I listened to it, particularly Drain You, over and over again on the ride home from a field trip - the first and only field trip we ever took out of the state, to a cave and a salt flat in Oklahoma; I was in the seventh grade, and I was wearing sunglasses. The tinted lenses allowed me to stare at the girl I had a crush on with zero repercussions -- she would look at me a few times, but I just kept looking straight ahead at her, confident that my hideous yet effective sunglasses would shield my obsession.

In a passionate kiss
From my mouth to yours
Sloppy lips to lips
You're my vitamins
I'm like you

(Except that, in my youth, my dubbed tape with no liner notes -- not that it really matters, even the liner notes didn't have all the lyrics -- I thought the last part was "I like you".)

I listened to it on the tractor -- I was on the 80 acres surrounding my home, and I remember Mrs. Mies waving as the bus drove by, so it must have been one of the days I was kept home from school so I could help plant wheat, which makes sense because then I would have been on the smaller tractor, the one that makes less noise because it's not as big as the 1066. The larger tractor was so loud that it was pointless to wear headphones; even at the highest volume you could barely hear what song was playing, and I suspected that listening to headphones at their highest volume was likely bad for my hearing (although that didn't seem to stop my father from ordering me to work on the loudest tractor in the world). So, I must of been on the 686, and I know I was listening to Bleach, because I the memory is connected to Love Buzz. I learned from my new box set that Love Buzz was actually a cover song -- Shocking Blue, a band from the Netherlands of all places, wrote it -- and part of my youth was a white lie.

In Utero was released when I was a freshman in high school; coincidentally, I bought it on the same day that I borrowed a Blind Melon album from Danelle. In those days I rode shotgun in my brother's '79 Cutlass -- those familiar with the Oldsmobile line will recall that particular model did not feature a CD player, so we had to wait to get home until we listened to it. I put in the Blind Melon album when my brother wasn't looking and pressed play. "It sounds like Blind Melon," he said. Then we switched to the real deal; after hearing Rape Me, he brought the other stereo upstairs so he could play Smells Like Teen Spirit at the same time as Rape Me, to prove to me and to himself that it was the same riff at different speeds.

A bootlegged live album was taken when my house was robbed. I called the store I bought CDs from to ask if it had been sold to them that day. It had not. She explained that they would need a case number from the police -- that's how this sort of thing usually works. I looked around to see what else had been stolen.

Kurt died at some point due to a shotgun blast. (I have always opted against renting the movies and reading the books that debate murder versus suicide. In the end, it matters, but it doesn't matter.) Where was I? I don't remember. For me, his death was cemented the next morning at Shawn's locker; Simmons was there, too. Shawn and I had once made a little dance routine to Son of a Gun.

The sun shines in the bedroom
When we play
The raining always starts
When you go away

Joe was on my baseball team around that time, so I guess he died in Spring (a Google search confirms it was April). (I believe this must also have been the season that Joe hit three dingers in one game, and accepted an intentional walk later in the season when we face that team again. The three home run game by Joe remains the most inexplicable display of power I have ever seen, and will hold that slot until I witness one of those grandmother-overcome-with-adrenaline-lifts-car-to-save-the-baby-underneath events, and that intentional walk had to be the greatest and strangest feeling Joe G. had ever felt and has felt since.) I told him a kid at my school had killed himself, and he asked if it was because Kurt did. He said there were kids across the country committing suicide just because Cobain died. He thought it was unbelievable. I did not.

My heart-shaped box set adventure was Wednesday - on Thursday, the memories of junior high were put on hold, back to work. I picked up the two women in my carpool and drove us to our cubicles. But it was okay, because In Utero was playing on my car stereo, 30% louder than I had any right to subject my passengers to.

Ecto-plasma, Ecto-skeletal
Obituary every birthday
Your scent is still here in my place of recovery!

Vacation Summation Addendum

Two "Forgot to mentions" and one correction:

1. On the flight home I was reading Hornby and a thought popped into my head -- if a lot (I mean a whole lot) of Americans died for some reason, the surviving Americans would be wealthier, due to inheritances and things. As you know, this is not a common thing to consider. I reread the last few Hornby paragraphs to see what could have prompted such an idea; there was nothing in the text remotely related to it. Maybe I've been paying more attention to the tsunami than I thought.

2. The weak New Year's snog brought the total number of ladies I kissed in the past year up to four. Two of those women were severely drunk. One was coming down from a buzz. The fourth had several drinks beforehand. Let's hear it for alcohol's contribution to my 2004 love life! Woot woot! There's a lesson here, kids -- if anyone ever tells you that you don't need alcohol as a social lubricant, they:

haven't made out with me, and
throw shitty parties

3. According to Steph, who should know, I misspelled the name of the epic burger - it should be spelled Jucy Lucy. "Any other spelling is an imposter," she writes. Indeed.

Stellar!

From the Stella / MTV's The State / Wet Hot American Summer listserv:

STELLA, the TV series, has been picked up for ten episodes on Comedy
Central. Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter & David Wain will write,
star and exec produce the scripted half-hour comedy. Slated for a
summer premiere!

The Verb, the Object, or the Mammal?

So Seal, of Batman soundtrack fame, is engaged to wed Heidi Klum. This makes perfect sense. No jokes about his face, please - he got those thingies because he had lupus as a child. Still, there's no excuse for the stage name. Seal? Really? You're going to go with Seal?

"Sir, you've got to hear this British man's voice! It's so smooth - he's bound to be an icon of '90s R&B!"
"Settle down, Gary, you know an important music executive like myself doesn't have time for your nonsense."
"Sorry Dale! But listen to THIS!!"
(inserts tape into stereo)
"Wow! This is good stuff! This is Batman soundtrack good! Gary, what did you say this guy's name was?"
"Walrus, sir. He goes by the name of Walrus."
"Goo! Change his name to Seal and give him a contract."

Whether you're referring to its verbal form, a seal of approval, or the animals mercilessly clubbed for their economic value, that's one shitty choice. What kind of world to we live in where everyone just accepts the fact that a man calls himself Seal, AND this man has locked down Heidi Klum?

While we're making incredulous comments about the entertainment world, this little nugget bears mentioning: Kate Bosworth has been selected to play Lois Lane in the new Superman movie. I've read that she beat out other Lois hopefuls like Beyonce and Elisha Cuthbert. WHAAAAAAAAA?

Beyonce was being considered for the part of Lois freaking Lane? If you want to go away from the image of Lois as a brunette, fine. If you want to make her a different race, fine. But Beyonce?? Can anyone imagine a scenario in which Beyonce would make a good job portraying a plucky newspaper reporter?

If you see Beyonce, please pass on this message: More videos (and songs) like Naughty Girl, less tryouts for stubborn newspaper reporters.

Oh and if you see Kate Bosworth tell her to relax - no one could have been a less attractive, less likeable Lois Lane than that chick who played her originally.

Where's Wobbly?

They took this one while I was taking my first crap of 2005. I'll give you one guess who's the drunk girl was. Hint: which of these partygoers appears to be vertical only by the kindness and strength of another partygoer?

New Year's Vacation Summation

Everyone who reads this probably knows that I spent my New Year's in Minneapolis. But what happened up there? Don't you deserve some deeply personal posts? Fine.

A few significant things happened to me while on vacation. One involved a hamburger. The first night, I ate a Juicy Lucy. If you search around Tornado Slide a bit, you'll find a link explaining its origins - since I'm too lazy to look that up I'll give you the highlight - cheese cooked between 2 hamburger patties. Disturbingly cheap given the quality of the burger - something like $4 bought the best burger I've ever had. Moreover, that burger fortified my tum-tum for the rest of the night's drinking. Pre-Juicy Lucy, I had a large mug of Summit and a pint of Newcastle. Post-Juicy Lucy, I had a pint of Summit, a bottle of Moosehead, 3 white russians, and 3 shots. That's not too much liquor for the average gentleman, but it was probably the most I've ever consumed without making a puking, sleeping mess of myself. And no hangover the next day - no hangovers all vacation, actually.

The next thing was socks. There are perks to living in the Twin Cities and there are disadvantages. For me, a person that would consider surgery to permanently attach socks to my feet, the ice and snow present a larger problem compared to others. Once indoors, and you have to take your shoes off so that you don't trample snow or ice or salt or whatever semisolid garbage all over the carpet and rugs and tile. If someone before you did not do this, your sock comes into contact with it, and you've got some wet socks. Damn wet socks. Fucking cold feet. I want to die.

The other thing was Laura. I have no idea what we started talking about, but I know that different points of our conversation hit upon a Point-Counterpoint from The Onion, the fact that she reads the Skyway News, her ex-boyfriend that attended last year's party, the difference between Saint Olaf (the school, not the saint) and Gustavus, and how she likes to kiss her girlfriends, including Heather, our host. All this as she berated partygoers to vote for her wine -- "It has a mean looking black cat on it! It's the same as that other wine in the bottle shaped like a cat! That's cheating!"

All this talk went on for quite some time. I listened intently as she spoke; she asked me zero questions about myself. It became clear that she was not in love with me, but she was really drunk. Not the first time I have misinterpreted the two.

By my survey, the party was filled with a lot of attractive, available youths. I was puzzled when, at midnight, no one seemed to be interested in kissing any of the attractive, available youths. Laura was the exception - she dove into Heather, who struggled to avoid a prolonged, awkward-yet-sexy moment. Brushing off Heather's reluctance, she moved to me for a brief peck. I can only imagine what kind of amazing skills Heather had previously revealed to Laura that made her so hungry for Heather's embrace; I don't have to wonder about my own skills, as Laura mocked my effort moments later. If I recall correctly, Laura didn't think it was much of a kiss -- not long enough, I expect. She then sat on the radiator.

Minutes later, had Laura not passed out on the toilet, she may have experienced a more intense attempt.

The final thing was the flight home. At the gate, I spotted a woman that looked friendly and was the textbook definition of a normal female weight. She ended up sitting one row ahead and one seat to the right of myself, and the judgement I handed to her when I saw she the Reader's Digest in her hands was dealt a significant blow when she opened it to a story about the struggle among factions of Islam. Two people met her upon arrival in Kansas City -- the three together were very unlikely and did not belong.

Links to Leon

One of the blogs I read led me to some articles by Harmon Leon, a guy who goes undercover and then writes about it. Very good stuff - he has infiltrated:

Blind Date:

In a room separated by a curtain, we get naked under individual sheets and prepare for side-by-side massages. I make sure a good portion of my butt crack is showing, so it will need to be scrambled out.

Jack In The Box:

Though I began my shift with a German accent and poor comprehension of English, I slowly segue back into my regular voice. It goes completely unnoticed. This fake German accent thing must happen fairly often at Jack in the Box.

People that believe you can pray the gay away:

A guy across the circle leans toward me. With strong, crazed eye contact, he says it straight: "An erection put into a woman's vagina is like going into the paradise of heaven. An erection put in anything else is unnatural, and it's a sin!"

"OK," I reply.

Keeping the strong eye contact, he makes hand gestures and uses the word "erection" at least six more times. I'm grateful when he stops directing the word "erection" at me.

"Can I still hang around my old friends?" I ask. "We've all got the same taste in music."

Ice To Meet You

I was excused early from work today, but not TOO early.

See, there was a line of showers headed our way. Due to the temperature, said rain was freezing upon contact with the earth. The weathermen were talking about it all week, and now it was on its way.

So, because I work for kind people, I was allowed to leave work around 1:30, AFTER the rain started. I couldn't go home any sooner, you know, JUST IN CASE the line of precipitation on the radar suddenly disappeared, or the temperature suddenly rose 10 degrees.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to return home before the roads got too sloppy, but why are we so hesitant to cancel work? School is cancelled all the time when the weather gets bad - why should work be any different? If you're 16, it's too dangerous for you to drive to school; if you're 21, it's no big deal. You're expendable. Hop in your car and haul ass to the office; if you die or wreck your car in the process, too bad. You should have thought of that before you graduated.

December 2004 Statistics

Spider solitaire - at work - difficulty level = 4 suits

Week ending 12/3
1 W
5 L

Week ending 12/10
1 W
11 L

Week ending 12/17
1 W
28 L

Week ending 12/24, plus one day 12/27
1 W
10 L

December total:
4 W / 58 L = 7%

Superhunks - Colin Farrell

How the superhunks stole your high school girlfriend

[NOTE: In addition to naming Jude Law 2004's Sexiest Man Alive, People magazine picked nine "off the charts" sexy superstars: Orlando Bloom, Jake Gyllenhaal, Usher, Colin Farrell, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Bruce Willis and Johnny Depp.]

Colin Farrell literally stole your high school girlfriend.

He stuffed her into the trunk of a white Ford Taurus and drove across the state to a simple, secluded cabin.

She was given everything she asked for, aside from her freedom. When Colin went away on business, your girlfriend was met by loneliness; she missed her family, and to a much, much lesser extent, you.

Fortunately, Colin would return home before she became despondent. He always remembered to bring a present, too, to make up for his absence. It was usually jewelry or a scented candle.

They now have three beautiful, home-schooled children.