Remember this blog, and how things used to be?

Those were the days. I'm not even sure where things went wrong. It happened slowly, almost imperceptibly, but we began to drift apart.

My weekends started to fill up with other things. I didn't want it to be the case, but they took priority over you. And anytime I had a spare moment, I was too tired to communicate. I didn't feel like I had anything worth saying.

But things are different now.

Let's just jump back to June and pretend we didn't lose that summer to moving towns and other life events.

Let's start fresh.

We can take it slowly. I'll share a recipe or two - something pleasing to the eye, but not terribly insightful. You can bat your eyes and laugh at my jokes a little more than you need to. We can figure out where to take it from there.

I think we can make this work. Again.

I am everything you hate about the world...

...Except Marmaduke. I'm not Marmaduke.


If you haven't seen the trailer yet...well, I would say you should try not to, but it seems inevitable. Just brace yourself, remember that there still are good things in the world, and that this movie is just a showcase of bad, bad choices made by other people. (Owen Wilson? Really?)

Even scarier is the fact that these bad decisions can lead not-so-smart people to make their own bad decisions. In real life. With real dogs.

This would be slightly less disturbing if the movies that prompted these dog frenzies were at least, well, good. (No, I did not happen to catch Beverly Hills Chihuahua - no need, as the hundreds of dogs dancing on top of Mayan ruins in the trailer told me all I needed to know.) I'm hoping that once someone comes out with a movie starring an adorable CGI black mamba (hopefully voiced by Vince Vaughn), it will put an end to this sad subset of life imitating what passes as art.

I think we're looking at different things

Things that I hate more than anything:

- people up in my face
- BS
- being told I'm wrong when I'm right

This is where planning a wedding becomes problematic. I don't care what color the napkins are, but then I'm told I have to care. They're the napkins! I'm met with slack-jawed silence when I stutter that I don't know where the bouquet is being made...I didn't think I wanted a bouquet, but now I need to have one, and it gets "made" somewhere, like a car? I can hear the faint echoes of simplicity, but they are getting muffled under dance floors, DJs and floral arrangements.

However, this awesome article clears things up a bit. In case you're wondering, the only right way to do things is your way.

Cartooning

This week's New Yorker cartoon, with some suggested captions below. These took not very long, and aren't very good, but are undoubtedly better than what will eventually win. How do we tie this one into martinis and/or the financial crisis?





What an abnormally large raccoon.

Alright fellas: it takes a varmint to catch a varmint.

I'm not sure if this is the right time to start a band.

Are you sure you're a rattlesnake?

Tarnation! First same-sex marriage, and now this!

Worst Wedding Songs Ever

Picking wedding songs is hard. People do it all the time, so you think that it would be easy. Part of the reason it can be easy is because Top 40 radio is peppered with songs that you can grab and insert into your meaningful moment of choice.However, if you're doing it right and making it meaningful and specific to you, there isn't necessarily an obvious choice. (As per this list, this excludes fans of Shania Twain, 98 Degrees, Michael Bolton and Celine Dion. However, you probably don't understand this post anyway, so you can feel free to stop reading.)

Here are some songs and bands that we have been considering, but had to put on the back burner due to creepy lyrics.

Grateful Dead - Ripple

"There is a road, no simple highway,
Between the dawn and the dark of night,
And if you go no one may follow,
That path is for your steps alone."

Iron and Wine - Lovesong of the Buzzard

As if the title doesn't give it away.

The Mountain Goats - No Children
Extensive reasons not to choose this song, including the lyrics:
"I hope I lie
And tell everyone you were a good wife
And I hope you die
I hope we both die."


However, I feel better about the efforts we are putting towards this, when I see that there are people who don't really consider the nuances of disasterous lyrics. NPR held a contest to collect the top worst wedding songs from listeners. It was a good heads-up, as we were able to see that whatever we pick can't possibly be this bad. We also got the hint to take "Send in the Clowns" off of our list.

An open to letter to that well-behaved girl in the coffee shop

I'm sorry to hear about that horrible situation with the car. Every patron in the coffee shop was. By 'situation' you must know that I am referring to the fact that your daddy won't buy you one. I admit, I was a little skeptical that you were deserving of a car as well. However, when you started to yelp that the one accident with your friend's car was 'barely' your fault, and you took note of that one 'unlucky' time when you wrecked your dad's car, my heart began to warm. Not only did you have a history of facing the challenges of driving, such as watching what is around you when you do it, but you are reflective and thoughtful, and perfectly willing to note your mistakes loudly in public for all to hear.

Similarly, I was surprised when you yelled "I'm 21 and I don't have my driver's license!" I had been completely willing to believe that you were much younger. Say 15. Or 5. However, only someone with the wisdom of your years would be able to negotiate with phrases such as "I don't want to!" and "I'm not trying to sound like I'm asking for the world here."

I also completely agree that your dad could be spending his money better. You were careful to note that a 20,000 euro piece of modern art that he wanted to buy would be "like, the same as a car" for you. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you understand how conversion rates work. You were shrieking about how much your econ textbook would cost, so I know that you at least have plans in the future to begin learning about money. When you do so, you will finally be able to prove to your dad that a $35,000 piece of art does not have wheels and all of your John Mayer CDs, and is therefore an inferior purchase.

To your father: well done holding your own in this discussion. I especially appreciated the part where you contemplated defrauding the SPCA by passing off your daughter's cat as a feral cat so that neutering would be free. The pull towards economics must run in the family, since you encouraged your daughter to split the cost of her textbook with a bunch of people and scan all of the pages they would need, copyright laws be damned. I do wish you could be a bit more hopeful about Muslims; you may be right that "between the people, the culture, and the religion, they're all doomed," but it just really brings down the atmosphere in the coffee shop when you say it out loud over your MacBook, apple danish and $4 latte.

Despite all of this, I could still feel the universal bond of a father-daughter relationship. You only care for her well-being, no matter where she goes. I concur that when she goes to Mexico on a drunken spring break with her sorority sisters, she should in no circumstance get into a taxi. You put it just the way that I always have: "No one wants to be in a cab with some Mexican".

Wait, really?

In my previous post, I shared my encounter with a friendly local sorbet maker. His showmanship was not a mask but rather a reflection of his own scary, scary reality. (Please make sure to visit both Black Holes, so you'll understand). Now that I'm done with eating sorbet forever, I've had extra time to think about why this guy and his dessert freaked me out. Talking to him at the farmer's market was fine, because I could at least tell myself that it was all an elaborate act. There was actually no reason not to think this, as he had a megaphone, was spouting religious text, and playing a recording of church organ music while telling me that he would 'convert me into a believer.' Joke, right? As usual, the Internet simultaneously cleared things up for me and made me afraid to ever leave my apartment again.

And why try to write about it? I've realized that I am driven to extreme excitement over ridiculous things that are actually serious. I've asked around, and it's not just me: we take a sick pleasure in trying to figure out how 'serious' a given spectacle is, and are left both giddy and aghast when it turns out to be as real as real gets. It's more than being stuck to the T.V. watching an L.A. car chase. When I can't figure out if something is earnest or not, and when it turns out it's real, it becomes both hilarious and horrifying. Examples include:

Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman
The Miss Virginia Pageant (there is no video online, but just think Little Miss Sunshine if it were real and about 50 times scarier)
That adorable time Kim Jong Il celebrated the launch of North Korea's satellite (read: super deadly missile headed in our general direction)
Crispin Glover on Letterman
Crispin Glover in anything
Sarah Palin

If you agree that this is a feeling that needs to be share, here are some possible holiday presents that can inspire that giddy disbelief in your nearest and dearest:

Hug Me Pillow
The picture says it all, so I have nothing to add. Note that people are buying and enjoying it, and it is currently out of stock.


The Pursuit of Excellence: Ferrets
No, not ferrets in general. Ferret enthusiasts. Like, people who are really enthusiastic in a Best in Show kind of way. The song is where I started to get scared.

Anti-semitic dessert

I love farmer's markets. Love them. They're fresh, honest and full of interesting produce and people. You can enjoy yourself whether you're obsessed with buying local, or if the fluorescent lights at the mega mart make you ill.

A few months ago, I had a questionable experience at a different farmer's market than the one that I usually frequent. We were accosted by a man and his daughter, who had what seemed to be a funny pitch - selling sorbet in the style of a preacher, as though God made it Himself. (I'd try to be all P.C. and say 'Herself', but as you'll see, there is no way that these people would go for that.)

The man had a megaphone, and was extolling the virtues of his homemade sorbet in biblical fashion, with church organ music playing in a loop from a CD player. His adorable daughter stood by shyly. At the time I hoped she understood the joke. This is back when I thought there was a joke.

He lured us in, never breaking the preacher act. We bought some sorbet so we could get away quickly, and passed it off as an elaborate show. It seemed far too crazy to be real I forgot about them until recently, when I thought I would look them up and try to remember the name of the farm - The Holy GraEL.

I think that the website is pretty self-explanatory (or at least, my reasons for posting it). I can't even count the number of things that frighten me about it, so I'll let you form your own impressions. Please note the fine progression of crazy from top to bottom, as well as the innovative website design (from top to bottom). To explain the title of the post, you'll need to Enter the Black Hole. Both of them.

Today's lesson: always scroll down/flip to the end/read the fine print before you buy your desserts.

Lying Liars on the Internets

I just completed about 5.5 hours of Excel 2007 training on the Internet. I know what you're thinking: No. It doesn't get any better than this.

Honestly, I learned a lot of tricks that will prove useful at work. It's not riveting, but I would say that the utility involved is Excel-lent. (I'm sorry, that's been rolling around in my head all day and I had to get it out.) I guess the monotony at least makes you appreciate the small, hilarious moments, many of which I recorded as I was watching video after video. I thus present to you:

Things I heard during Excel training that probably were not true, some of which are fairly dirty-sounding

"This next feature has gotten ooos and ahhhs every time I've demonstrated it."

"Make sure you know what you're doing before you start, so that your Macro is smooth as silk."

"I really enjoy working with functions in Excel."

"This will whet your appetite."

"There's no pain when working with panes!"

All that, and a moderately professional certificate to put on the wall.

While the training was a little goofy sometimes, I certainly wouldn't classify anything I heard as potentially destructive. For instance, the woman leading the training videos at no time made an attempt to ruin my life and career in the name of taking my money. This is where Excel training and the University of Phoenix are different.

While I have never had the pleasure of partying with an enrollment counselor, I have met various characters on the Internet that would like to take my money in elaborate ways. I often post ads to tutor Spanish, and receive a multitude of emails. A few are legit, and most are poorly-written inquiries from a man wanting tutoring for his kids, who can only pay me in an oversized-money order, a portion of which I will have to send back to him. I usually ignore these, or write back something snarky that makes it clear that I'm not going to fall for it. Here are some examples of what I could have done that would be much more entertaining and productive. This involved tale takes the cake.

I got a response from my most recent posting asking if I could tutor two children immediately and what my rate was. Thinking I would end it, I told him I charged $500/hour. Then, to my surprise and delight, he wrote me back today with an unexpected answer, which I can only see as a fantastic opportunity:

"Your rate is ok."

Game's on, you sad bastard. Get ready to meet a self-employed cat clothing designer who is looking not for money, but for anyone to be her friend.

I love this chicken neck

This came my way through Lauren G., and it's infinitely better than any recipes that I put up here:



Note to self: to make cooking better, obtain patience, nice kitchen and hilarious intonation. For my favorite lines, a close second to the post title is "I keep them." (in reference to the pear slices).

Further contributing to the idea that it's not what you say, but how you say it, is the following piece of brilliance. My apologies to those who were beginning to forget that Sarah Palin exists:


And a moment when Shatner's intonation perhaps works less well, depending on how much you like "Rocketman":



We all have our favorite Walken (and possibly Shatner) lines. Now is the time to share them!