Fairy Tale Orgasms

I'm not a huge fan of fried things but that's mostly because I know it's terrible for you.  I do love me some good fried chicken, though.  Stanley's has some great fried chicken.  Of course, I haven't had it in about two years.  I don't really like hot wings.  They're way too messy and there is little to no meat on them which means it's way too much work for very little reward.

I love mayonnaise.  In fact, when I order or make a burger I put three things on it.  Cheese.  Tomato.  Mayo.  That's it.  Another great thing about mayo is that if you put a thin coat on each half of the bun, the grease of the burger won't soak through and make your bun all soggy.  If I'm having a turkey sandwich I'll almost always add mayo, especially if it's mostly white meat.  I get why people don't like mayo, though.

You do bring up a great point about having to request things on your sandwich.  I like Five Guys because they just sell hamburgers or cheeseburgers and they have a list of condiments that you can choose from.  I'm pretty sure I could get a much better sandwich at most restaurants if they all followed the same philosophy.  List all your condiments and your meats and I'll make my own sandwich.  At most restaurants, I feel like I have to make adjustments to get the sandwich I want.  I guess I should eat at a deli more often.

If I ever have Jeffsgiving you will most definitely be invited.  I would also like to be invited to Tristansgiving.

I am vaguely familiar with Sweet Valley High.  I remember some of my high school friends reading them.  Or maybe it was my sister.  I don't know.  Didn't they make a Sweet Valley TV show at some point?  Maybe not.  Also, what the fuck?  That excerpt doesn't even make any sense.  Is Coffee a character in the novel?  Crying after orgasms?  I know these kind of novels aren't really worried about being cliche, but lets make some kind of effort.  Also, there are women who have never had an orgasm.  Appreciate what you've got.  I assume the whole novel is written in third person omniscient, otherwise we wouldn't really know if Russ was pretending not to notice or if he just didn't give a fuck.  I'd like to think that he doesn't give a fuck and our main character misinterprets his actions.  Regardless, it seems weird that we're talking about the Sweet Valley High girls having orgasms -- especially if they are crying after.  Is there anything in the early Sweet Valley High novels that would lead us to believe that the post-orgasm crying is justified?

I struggled with giving up traditional books when I got the Kindle.  I also liked the look/feel/smell and I enjoyed browsing bookstores for new books.  I've adjusted, though.  The only thing I don't like is that there's no good way to let someone borrow a book.  That's really the best part of owning good books.

Dee made me put up the Christmas decorations this weekend.  I hate it.  I have to go down to our storage room and get our tree which takes up nearly the whole fucking storage space.  I then have to drag this heavy ass thing up two flights of twisting stairs with a bad back.  Once it's finally up, it makes our already cozy place feel absolutely tiny.  Then I have to take it all back down once the holidays are over.  Pain in the ass.  Especially for an atheist.  The things I do for my wife's fairy tales.

I like making up ridiculous names to call my daughter.  The more non-sensical the better.  I've recently started calling her "Fight Club."  It drives Dee crazy because she doesn't know why I call her that.  I don't even know why I call her that.  That's what makes it great.

Mayo-NO-sse!

I've never had fried turkey either.  The concept disgusts me, but I think I understand why it would be good.  I'm not generally prone to frying things.  I like hot wings.  Those are generally fried, right?  I like French Fries, obviously, because I am a person.  I imagine there are other things, but frying kind of grosses me out.  I suppose that's lucky. 

A similar high-fat gross-out I have is mayonnaise.  I do not understand why people enjoy it.  Why would you want your sandwich to be wet?  It's like people are saying, "Well, this turkey and cheese would be delicious if it were just a little slimier. Sick.  I do respect mayo's ability to bind tuna/egg salads, when used sparingly.  Otherwise.  Blech.  It is super-annoying to me that I always have to request no mayo on things when I order them.  Shouldn't this be the norm?  And then people can request mayo if they like it?

Please invite me to Jeffsgiving.  It sounds delicious.  Almost as good as Tristansgiving.

Due to my library-induced lack of reading material, Cassie gave me one of my Christmas presents early today; Sweet Valley Confidential.  Presumably you have no idea what this is.  Well, when I was a kid, I read the Sweet Valley High series, which you have probably heard of, detailing the lives of two beautiful identical twins in Southern California.  There are hundreds and hundreds of books in this series, including sequel and prequel series of when they were in college, little kids, etc.  I guess they stopped publishing them in the early 2000's, long after I was reading them.  Anyway, this year, one new book was released, about the twins as grown-ups.  It takes place 10 years after the last book was written.  It is most certainly trash, and a very strange phenomenon, because it is still a young adult book, but is clearly written for people that are my age.  People who are nostalgic for the books/characters from their childhood.  I've started reading it, and am already delightedly horrified.  I am on page 7. Here is my favorite part so far:

"Coffee turned into a three-week miniaffair spread out over two months. She cried after every orgasm.  How embarrassing, but he pretended not to notice.  Russ was not a man to complicate a good thing with feelings."

I guess this pretty standard for trashy novels, but imagine that this is about someone you grew up knowing.  It's really unsettling.

I am guessing that I will one day get a Kindle, but I hard-core love how books look/feel/smell, and I think I would lose a lot of reading joy by holding a rectangle of plastic.  I do understand its merits though.  I really do. 

Sweet Valley Confidential would be good on Kindle, though, because then no one would know I was reading it.

Fried Indiana

Oh, hey.  Welcome back.  I still think you are a good person.

I went back to Indiana for Thanksgiving.  Dee and Scarlett came, too.  We stayed at my mom's house and we got to see my sister and all her kids and my brother and his pregnant wife.  They all seem to be having their own lives and contributing to society in some vague way.

I like Thanksgiving but it's not my favorite holiday.  I feel much the same way about turkey.  However, I've never had fried turkey and people tell me it's delicious.  Here are the reasons why I've never had fried turkey:

1) I've never, ever been in charge of the turkey for a Thanksgiving meal.
2) I'd be scared to death of burning down the house/severely burning myself.
3) If I've got a fryer going, there are about a thousand different things I'd fry before a turkey.

Jeffsgiving would look something like this:

Various cheeses and crackers.
Several different kinds of dip and chips.
Seared tuna steaks with my special wasabi or dijon mustard sauce.
Asparagus.
Some type of mashed potatoes.
Croissants.
Brownies with no icing, no chocolate chips, no nuts.  Just plain, non-cakey brownies.
Those Oreo ball things that Dee and I used to make all the time.
Several different types of Belgian White beers.

I do remember hearing something about Teddy Roosevelt being a sickly child but it's a vague memory and I'm not sure where it comes from.  It would be weird to know that future people might read about my bowel movements.  However, that's preferable to knowing that people might be reading about my masturbation habits.

I could tell you all sorts of poop stories.  It's a popular topic of conversation when you have a baby. Every time you feed them something new their bodies freak out and they either get crazy poops or they stop pooping altogether.  Changing diapers is like playing the poop lottery. 

Also, you should get a Kindle or something like it.  It makes big books much, much lighter.

Dumpsgiving

Oh, hi.  Remember me?  Sometimes I write a blog at you.  Usually I don't.  Now I am.

What are you doing for Thanksgiving?  We're having a small gathering at our house.  I think there will be six of us total.  Chris loves hosting Thanksgiving.  I've never been much of a Thanksgiving gal, myself.  I like the concept of course.  I think it's the food, mostly.  Turkey is, you know - fine.  Even the best goddamn turkey ever is just very fine.  Mashed potatoes are pretty good.  I do love stuffing.  I hate pie.  Squash is gross. 

Here is what a Tristansgiving menu would look like:

One million assorted appetizers
Filet Mignon
Scallops
Some sort of steamed vegetable medley - brocolli, cauliflower, carrots, peapods
Corn on the Cob
Delicious flaky biscuits/rolls
Chocolate cake with chocolate icing
Champagne

What would be served at Jeffsgiving?

I bummed because I got this awesome book on Teddy Roosevelt out from the library, and it is super-fat, and now I have to return it, but I'm not done.  And I can't renew it, because someone already has it on hold.  Did you know that Teddy was a super runty weakling when he was young, and had really bad asthma?  And that he got diarrhea ALL. THE. TIME.  You've really got to admire the dude's adventurous outdoor spirit when you know that he always had the runs.  I think I'd be a real homebody.

It's also funny to think that I know Teddy Roosevelt pooped all the time.  Wouldn't you hate if in 100 years, someone was sitting on the train/rocket-transit/spacecopter reading about your bowel movements?

You Know, That Canadian Guy

I've never seen Top Chef but I also like So You Think You Can Dance for the same reasons I like Project Runway.  Also, the girls on So You Think You Can Dance have great butts.  I love me a nice butt.

The singing shows can eat a pile of pissed-on dogshit.  I love when the judges are all, "That was like karaoke."  Every single song is, in fact, karaoke.

Dancing With the Stars is the worst show on television.  It is hell to review.  At the very least I can see why other people would be interested in the other shows I review, but not Dancing With the Stars.  There is absolutely nothing interesting or redeemable about that show.  This season is especially bad and it's not even funny bad -- except for Chaz Bono's last dance.  Sweet Christ that was hilarious.

Maybe I hate the Nazis so much because I can sympathize with the "we were just doing our jobs" types.  That's basically what I'm doing at my company.  What if all of this stuff I'm doing just helps my company destroy the world?  Or make the world less equitable?  I try not to think about it.  Screw you for making me think about it, Nazis.  They're still terrorizing us today.

It's hard for me to think that anyone draws swastikas on an elevator because they believe what the swastika now stands for. (Did you know that the swastika was once a symbol of luck?)  I feel like the only reason anyone would do it is to get a reaction.  Or maybe they just like the way it looks.

I can't think of any other shape that is taboo.  Just like I can't think of another word that is as taboo as the n-word.  People say 'cunt' way too much for that to be taboo though I feel like 'faggot' is getting close.

So you've seen Rudy?  Did you cry like a baby?  I totally did and I hadn't even been to Notre Dame yet.  I was in the stands at the stadium when they filmed the final football scenes of the film -- when Rudy makes his tackle.  They filmed it at halftime of a Notre Dame-Boston College game.  I think I was a junior in high school or something.  Strangely, I haven't seen Rudy since I graduated from Notre Dame.  I would probably be a blubbering mess through the whole film.  I cry when I go to games and they play the Alma Mater.  Sometimes I get teary-eyed when the crowd gets loud and excited about the fight song.  Something inside of me is broken.

Scarlett totally gets frustrated when she can't quite grab things the way she wants.  It's hilarious.  She'll be in her exer-saucer which is what we call this UFO looking thing that has all sorts of toys on it.  She sits in the middle and can access them all.  When she can't do whatever it is she wants to do she'll slam her feet down and flop backwards and her arms will flail.  Then she looks surprised and confused, but I think she's forgotten what she was trying to do in the first place so it works out.

The Drew podcast is going to be called something like "Jeff and Drew Review Stuff."  We're going to review things.  Video games, TV shows, my wife, anything at all.  It should be fun.  We're hilarious.


The things that make a salad good are the same things that make a salad bad.  It is disappointing when the salad is worse than you thought.

My gym plays the worst possible music for working out.  Normally, I bring my own music but I do have to hear it in the locker room when I am changing.  It's a lot of Justin Bieber and that Canadian crooner guy who sings about how he'll be in the perfect relationship with a girl he hasn't met yet and whiny wuss-rock.  Can't we get something a little more upbeat or Rock 'n' Roll?  Also, good job getting every woman on the planet to fall in love with you with that song, Canadian crooner guy.

Freak Salad

Yeah, women's clothing sizes are dumb.  They come in vague sizes like 4, 6, 8, etc.  Not even odd ones.  And they vary from store to store.  They are useless.   I am actually not shocked that you like Project Runway.  It's good.  It has people who are creative and talented.  I like shows like that.  So You Think You Can Dance and Top Chef are among these.  For some reason, I can't get behind the singing shows.  Maybe it's because they're just singing other people's songs?  They're not really bringing anything new to the world, so to speak?  I don't know.

I used to watch Dancing with the Stars because I thought it was interesting to watch people that are bad at things learn how to do them.  I haven't been paying close attention for a while, but I saw last week's where Carson is dressed up as a pirate and thought, "Why the Hell am I watching this?  This is insane."  And then I was embarrassed and vowed never to watch again.  I'll still follow your reviews, though.

I have to admit that I didn't know much about Steve Jobs until he died.  I mean, I knew who he was and stuff, but hadn't really attributed so many of his innovations to him.  In fact, the day after his death, I asked Chris why people were making such a big deal out of it.  Not that they shouldn't be sad when people die, but I just didn't get why it was getting so much attention.  And then he filled me in on how Steve Jobs changed the world and whatnot, and I was like, "Oh yeah.  That's totally sad."

I wonder what percentage of Nazis were like, "This is our mission. Ethnic cleansing is important, Hitler's awesome, yadda yadda," and how many were like "Yikes, this kinda sucks.  I don't really like torturing people and being horrible, but I don't know how to get out."  But yes, Nazis suck. 

Somebody in my office building keeps etching swastikas into the elevator walls.  They usually get converted to windows pretty quickly, and then buffed off, but it's so weird that they keep coming back.  It kind of freaks me out to think that a weird Nazi-fan works in my building.

Are there any other shapes are taboo? 

I think the football in Friday Night Lights is pretty good, but obviously you would be a much harsher judge than I.  I was just thinking the other day about how hard it must be to film that stuff without people getting hurt.  I LOVE sports movies.  They always make me cry.  Way more than dramas or romances or anything.  Nothing can squeeze a tear out of me like a good come-from-behind victory.

It's weird that babies can't do things at all.  I get talking and walking and stuff, but grabbing things?  I'm glad I don't remember being a baby.  I feel as though it must have been a very frustrating experience.

So maybe the solution to my rut is to just work on stuff that I don't really care about and then throw it away, and hope that it will spur inspiration for the things that I actually care about. 

What's the Drew podcast about?

So, my lunch totally ruined my afternoon yesterday.  Don't mistake me.  It was delicious.  It was a Greek salad from Cosi.  I'm not one of those people who think that salads are automatically fat-free because they are mostly lettuce.  HOWEVER, when I got back to the office and looked at the nutrition facts online, I was blown away that my salad had 45 GRAMS OF FAT.  Forty-five.  How is that even possible?  Here are the things that were in it:  Lettuce, Tomato, Cucumber, Onion, Feta, Olives, Vinaigrette.  Now obviously, my culprits are the last three.  But still!  What the Hell was in that dressing?  Clarified Crisco?  Orson Welles' sweat?

Project: Magic

They don't make dresses like they make bras, huh?  It seems like they'd want to make dresses with all different size waists and busts so that skinny girls with big boobs (like you) could wear the dress and skinny girls with small boobs (like Zooey) could also wear the dress.  Though, I should have known that they don't do that since the designers on Project Runway always complain if they get a model that actually has curves.  When they do that I always shout back, "You mean like REAL PEOPLE WHO WILL HAVE TO WEAR YOUR CLOTHES IF YOU ARE TO MAKE A LIVING DOING THIS?"  It may shock you that I like that show, but I do.  I like watching the creative process.  You don't often get to see the work behind the magic.

Speaking of magic, the passing of Steve Jobs made me sad.  There are two reasons for this:
1) My dad also died of pancreatic cancer.  Any time someone dies from pancreatic cancer I think of my dad.  I miss him.
2) Steve Jobs made things that seem like magic.  I didn't own an Apple product until 2006 but once I did I was hooked because I finally felt like that was how computers should work.  He relentlessly pursued innovation and succeeded.  He's a rare one.

I saw a few snippets of Pan Am because Dee was watching it in our bedroom and I had to pass through there to pee.  It seemed to revolve around JFK.  It could very well be a fantastic program but it's on Sunday night which means I'll never see it because I'll be too busy watching Sunday Night Football.

It's hard for me to be nice to the Nazis.  I mean, they killed soooo many Jews.  I know that most of them were just following orders, but at some point you'd think some one would have said, "Hey, wait just a gosh darn second," or the German equivalent of that.  Also, Nazis are the last group that you can make fun of with impunity.

The paragraph above also works if you replace "Nazis" with "Republicans."

I've never seen Friday Night Lights.  At first I assumed that it was bad.  Then everyone started raving about it and I thought, "Oh, it must be good.  I still don't think I'll watch it."  I have an aversion to sports-based programs -- especially football.  It's really hard to film football (or other sports scenes) and make them seem realistic.  Actors typically aren't very athletic and it shows.  It kinda ruins it for me.  However, I was pleasantly surprised when I once saw an actor's resumé that listed football and basketball under "Special Skills."  Yes, those are special skills that are invaluable to a sports movie if you want people to believe it at all.

Scarlett is now grabbing things.  That's a milestone, I think.  She just had her first cold this past week.  Any first is a milestone, right?  I do think that she is a smiley baby.  I don't know if she's smilier than most babies but it feels like she is.  She's a pretty happy little girl and it's not hard for us to get her to smile for photos.  We are pretty good about not posting every single photo of her, though.  I don't want people to get Scarlett fatigue.

Creative ruts suck.  They suck real bad.  I think there's something to just doing stuff even though you're not feeling it.  I feel like you're much more likely to find that spark that busts you out of the rut if you are trying to do something creative. If you're not trying to do something creative you are much more likely to stay in the rut.  That's why I do 750words.com every day.  Some days it blows ass and it's like trudging through liquid shit but sometimes my brain explodes with hilarity rarely seen.  Either way, it goes a long way to convincing me that creative ruts are temporary.  That's also why I have this and the upcoming podcast that Drew and I are going to do together.

I am in a creative rut right now.  As I type these words.  I'm wallowing in it.

What is the opposite of a creative rut?  An inspiration spree?

Stupid pregnant lady and her marathon.  I've never understood why people get so worked up about running a marathon.  People have it in their heads that it's some kind of major achievement.  Do you know how many people have completed marathons?  Millions.  It does not put you in an elite group to say you have completed a marathon.  Win a marathon?  Yes, that is elite.  Run a marathon?  No, not elite. Yesterday I posted the following on Twitter:

I don't brag about all the pick-up basketball games I've lost, so I thank you for not telling me about the marathon you just ran.

Whitney Runnings

Ew.  I didn't know that Whitney made Two Broke Girls as well.  Man, that lady is just smearing her stink everywhere.  Guh. 

 

Thank you for thinking that I should be in The New Girl instead of Zooey.  This is correct.  It would also mean that I'd get new Anthropologie clothes.  She keeps popping up in them.  Though I tried on the orange dress that she wears in all the ads, and my boobs were too big to fit in it.  Take THAT, Zooey.

 

Ha ha!  I did mean Pan Am.  I like it less than I did, but I still like it.  I dunno.  I think I just like it for the same reason as I like Mad Men;  Pretty dresses and liquid eyeliner. 

 

Be nice to Nazis, Jeff.  Most of them were just following orders. 

 

My new Netflix Instant obsession is Friday Night Lights.  I assume you love it?  Or is it one of those Jeff shockers where you just sort of hate it because everybody assumes that you love it?

 

Is Scarlett doing anything new yet?  Milestones, I mean?  From the pics on Facebook, she looks very smiley.  Do you think she's smilier than most babies?  Or are you and Dee just better about editing out the ugly pictures and not posting every goddamn photo that you take?

 

I am having a creative rut right now.  I've just been super-lazy about everything.  It's awful.  Chris says that means that I have to just do stuff.  Force myself to write things, etc.  I dislike this for two reasons:

 

1. I don't FEEL like writing things!  I'm lazy!

2. My work is wayyy better when I want to to it.  So why make crappy stuff that I write begrudgingly?

 

Did you hear about that lady who ran the marathon yesterday and then had a baby last night?  What the fuck is wrong with that fucking woman?  No one should run marathons.  Let alone people that are super-pregnant.  Marathons make people die.  DIE.  And they aren't even fun.  And you have to pee your pants to get a good time.  And you have to train for them forever.  And then all you have is your little bib thing with your number, and you get to act like you did something with your life.  Which is that you ran for a long time.  Way to fucking go.  Read a book.  Eat food that isn't out of a ketchup packet.  Life can be pretty fun.

 

I do support running under the following circumstances:

1) You are about to miss the train.

2) A bear is chasing you.

3) A dinosaur is chasing you.

4) A murderer is chasing you.

5) You are a bear, and you are chasing someone.

6) You are a dinosaur, and you are chasing someone.

7) You are a murderer, and you are chasing someone.

8) Someone is trying to make you watch Whitney.

Boobs and Tubes

Notre Dame is doing better.  They are 2-2 now.  Their games are still mildly sad because they refuse to stop making stupid mistakes.  All the Notre Dame fans are freaking out because WE SHOULD BE 4-0!!!!  But we're not.  Deal with it, idiots.  We weren't winning a National Championship this year even if we did start out 4-0.  Sports fans are crazy.

You'll beat Scott, he's got that bad Minnesota Vikings mojo stink on him right now.  I don't know anything about either of your teams, but I'm certain you'll win.

I think stand-up is a lot like improv in that most of it is terrible and very similar but the best stuff is absolutely brilliant.  Okay, I'll stop blowing your mind now.

I have seen very few of the new shows.  In fact, I've only seen one.  Whitney.  I agree, it's awful.  It's so bad that even her comic friends on Twitter are turning on her.  Usually, comedians leave these kinds of things alone because they're all thinking, "That could be me.  In fact, I wish that was me."  Not this one.  It's so bad that I think they have no choice but to rip her apart.  Did you know that she also wrote and created Two Broke Girls?  That looks terrible, too.  I wish I was getting paid to write and star in two terrible television shows.  Instead, I'll blog for free.

I like Zooey Deschanel.  Maybe it's because I think she's cute but also because I like her quirkiness.  Also, when I see promos for that show I think, "They should have cast Tristan in this.  She would be much better than Zooey and she could pull off the quirky without it being too much."

Of course, Dee wants to watch Up All Night.  I like Will Arnett but I feel like I'll only like this show because we're going through the same thing right now.  Or I think that I'll probably hate the show because I'll be all, "That's bullshit.  That's not what really happens."

Did you mean Pan Am or is there another show exactly like it called TWA?  I've never seen Mad Men but I fully intend to catch up on it at some point in my life.  Everyone raves about it and everyone is never wrong -- except when they are Nazis.  However, I love the possibility that this conversation has happened recently:
"What are you doing now, Joe?"
"Oh, I'm playing a Pan Am pilot on the new Pan Am pilot."
*brain explodes*

I've heard The Playboy Club is awful.  I would have expected nothing less.  A show that can't show nudity that is based on a club based on a nudie magazine has absolutely no chance of survival.  If Playboy is in the title and there are no naked boobies, you will fail.

My new show tactic has been to wait to see which ones people say are good and catch up on them mid-way through the season or after the season.  The Internet makes it way easier to catch up later.  That way I don't waste my time on shit that I don't know is shit yet.  Also, I already watch too much TV.

Also, I feel like there are only about two new shows this season based on promos.  Whitney and Pan Am have been jammed in my face since the end of July.  Oh, and Suburgatory which I will reject based simply on its name -- and because they hired an Emma Stone faker as the lead.

I would watch a show that stars you called Solopoly.  Let's make that happen.

I pee my pants for Breaking Bad.  Fantastic.

An almond is a tree nut.  I assume they think they are covering it by adding "other" but it doesn't work that way.  If you have two almonds, you have an almond and another tree nut.

Solopoly

Oh, here I am. 

Is Notre Dame doing better yet?  Or are all their games sad and awful still? 

I am doing wonderfully at Fantasy Football, by the way.  I am 3-0.  Though next week may be challenging, as I'm playing Scott, and he has a pretty good team.  Whatever.  He's 2-1.  I'm the BEST!

I used to love stand-up when I was a kid too.  Now I hate it.  I think it might be because I watched so much of it when I was a kid.  Everything just seems redundant.  Except Louis CK.  That dude is fucking wonderful.

Wow.  Murdering fish with guns sounds weird...ly fun. 

I don't think I ever killed things for fun when I was a kid.  But if I think you were going to try and peg me with mass murderer traits, it would probably be based on me playing Monopoly alone.  Often.  Well, not alone - with three of my dolls.  Don't worry, though - I was very fair.  I did not make myself win. 

Isn't an almond a tree nut?

There are many new shows this season.  Thanks to Hulu, I have seen several.  Here are my mini-reviews for you.

1) Up All Night.  (AKA Tits McGee and GOB have a baby.)  It's pretty good!  Maya Rudolph is in it too, and she's funny, but it makes no sense why she's in it so much.  Also, the baby's name is Amy.  This makes no sense.  People don't name babies Amy anymore, particularly on television.  All Amys are 30 years old. 

2)  The New Girl.  (AKA Why is Zooey Deschanel in a TV show?)  Zooey is generally very polarizing.  People either love her or hate her.  I have mild disdain, I think.  There's something about her that rubs me the wrong way, but there's something else about her that rubs me the right way.  She's like a kitten tongue.  It's little and cute, and even kind of feels neat that it's kind of bristly, and it's cool that there aren't really other tongues like it.  But once it licks you for a while, it starts to really hurt, and sure, it's kind of multi-talented, as it is both a tongue and a hairbrush, but really, it's not that good at being a hairbrush.  I mean, it's not like we're all running out and buying hairbrushes (or even cat brushes) made out of kitten tongues.  Anyway, I did not intend to enjoy The New Girl, but I did.  The whole "omigod, she's so QUIRKY" plotline isn't quite as prevalent and unpalatable as it appears in the previews.  I mean, it's there.  But it's pretty fun.  We'll see.    

3) TWA (AKA Mad Men in the Sky) I think I just summed up my whole review in the parentheses.  I like Mad Men.  I liked this.

4) The Playboy Club (AKA Mad Men in Bustiers)  Boring.  Blech.  I didn't finish the episode.  I wasn't even particularly offended.  Just bored. 

5) Whitney (AKA Why Am I Watching This?)  Terrible.  Just terrible.  The studio audience is incredibly jarring, and they laugh at EVERYTHING.  At the end of every sentence.  At things that are not supposed to be funny.  It was embarrassing to watch.  Not embarrassing that I was watching it, (though that too) but I just felt embarrassed for the people in it.  A very uncomfortable show.  I can't imagine this show remaining on the air.  No one will watch it.  Even stupid people.  Or poor people.  Or even the people that are actually in the show.  Or their poor, stupid, parents.

I may have watched more, but I forget. 

Nuts and Psychopaths

I always stick it out to the end of the game, too.  Especially at Notre Dame.  I like to watch the team salute the student section and sing the alma mater.  That's as close as I ever get to religion.  Unfortunately, my buddy and his brother were my ride and they wanted to cut out early at the USF game so I had to go.  I didn't feel as bad as I might have had there not been long weather delays.  The strange circumstances made it okay with me.

I totally get why other people like Fantasy Football.  I just don't.  Plus, I hate the Fantasy owners who get all pissed at coaches for not running the ball more or for splitting time with their running backs or whatever.  It's Fantasy Football, dude.  That's the deal.  You're playing a fantasy while these coaches and players only have the responsibility to win.  The uncertainty of whether the coach is going to leave your running back in for goal line situations is what should make it fun, not make you rage at him on Twitter.

It's funny that you say that stand-up suits me.  Or maybe it's more funny that I turned out to be an improviser.  When I was younger all of my friends would watch Saturday Night Live but I would watch a show called Comic Strip Live that aired at the same time.  It was just a bunch of stand-ups doing their thing.  Even though I loved watching stand-up, it never occurred to me that I could do that.  I assumed it was for funny people and I didn't think of myself as a funny person.  The point is, life is weird and I should try more stand-up.

I hate fishing.  It's boring.  I grew up near lakes and we would go fishing all the time.  Even when I caught something it wasn't very exciting.  My brothers loved it, though.  However, there was a summer when the town ordered a "fish kill" on bluegill fish.  They were overpopulating the lakes and wrecking the ecosystem or some shit.  Anyway, if you caught a bluegill you were supposed to throw it on the shore to die (no one ate bluegill).  My buddy Carl and I decided that we would help out.  We got his BB guns, chucked a piece of bread in the water and when the bluegill came up to eat the bread, we shot them.  It's amazing that we didn't turn out to be mass murderers.

I guess my post is all about how I hate "manly" things.  I'd talk about how I hate baseball, but that sport is in no way manly at all.

The ingredients label on my container of almonds reads:

INGREDIENTS: Almonds.
MAY CONTAIN PEANUTS AND OTHER TREE NUTS

I've never encountered a peanut or other tree nut while eating from one of these containers.  Also, I like the phrase "tree nut."

Women Be Fishing

Oh, man. It's weird how depressing going to a bad game can be.  Even so, I can never leave them early.  I'm totally a wait 'til the last gun is fired kind of gal.

I love Fantasy Football.  It's so fun and exciting!  And it makes me know what's going on in football, which I can't usually be bothered to keep up with, beyond what the Patriots are doing.  And even then, I'm a little shaky sometimes.  I won this week, which was gratifying, because I was matched against Chris, who had been convinced that he would win not only our match-up, but the whole season.  Not under my watch, sir.  Fantasy Football also gives me something to chit-chat about with my physical therapist while he massages my butt. 

You should do stand-up more.  It suits you.

I'm almost kind of glad my stand-up wasn't great, since the concept of the rehearsal was to put us all in the same boat and make the "leaders" as uncomfortable as the other folk.  That being said, I would have preferred to have been awesome.  It did make me realize, though, that if you just make yourself write some material, it's not really that hard.  I'm sure I'd be fine if I practiced a little.

Camping was really great.  And Winston the dog was an excellent camping companion.  We went fishing, which was fun, except for the not catching anything part.  This was all the more frustrating, because we could see these huge rainbow trout, just sitting there in the bottom of the river, chilling out.  I think I actually hit one in the head with my bait at one point.  Those bitches just weren't hungry. 

I don't like coffee either.  Blech.  Though I did drink some while camping.  This is because when you are camping you become strapping and outdoorsy.   Normally if I really need caffeine, I'll be a pretentious coffee orderer and get a "triple grande skinny hazelnut latte."  Then I put three Equal packets in it.  This is no longer coffee.  This is caffeinated liquid candy.  Camping, though, I can drink that shit almost black.  (I put a little milk in.) I think not washing your hands/self while simulatneously touching grosser and dirtier things than usual is inversely related to how much sugar one needs in one's coffee. 

I feel like this whole post is about how I like "manly" things.  Camping, Fishing, Sports, Stand-up Comedy. Maybe I should talk about something girly. 

When I sat back to think about it, I got hungry and reached into my desk for some beef jerky.  This is not working. 

If it helps, the name of my fantasy team is the Tutu Kittens, and the galoshes I wore fishing are pink. 

Nerf Religion

Good time for a reset.

I did go to Notre Dame for the USF game on the 3rd.  It was poopy, poopy, asscrapular.  Notre Dame played some really sloppy football and lost.  Also, two major lightning storms swept through the area and we had to evacuate the stadium twice.  During the first break my buddy and I headed over to the new Jordan Science building to check out the labs and such -- he was a chemistry major at ND.  As we entered the building I said, "Check your religion at the door," which got a good chuckle out of him.  Despite all the witty quips and good chuckles, it ended up being a six hour affair and I was wiped out by the end of the day.  I have tickets for this weekend's game, too.  I hope the weather and the play on the field is much better than the play of the last two weeks.  Man, shit's been brutal in Notre Dame land recently.

Anyway, my point is that religion is dumb.  Much like Fantasy Football.

I'm so glad I decided to drop out of the league.  Now that the NFL season has started, I'm remembering what a pain it was to worry about players other than Peyton Manning.  The whole time I played last season, I kept thinking, "Why do I suddenly give a damn about Michael Crabtree?"  He's dumb and his face is dumb and I just want to watch the games.

Stand-up is fucking insane.  As you know, I've done it one time.  I only had to do five minutes of material, which is absolutely nothing.  However, I didn't really realize that you don't have to wrap up at exactly five and you can push it a little.  They're not going to run up and take your mic away.  Still, I was scared to death.  It was the first time I puked before a performance in a very long time.  I think I did pretty well.  Jamie Jirak was there running lights and she said I did very well.  I told a bunch of jokes about being adopted.  I put on my Jerry Seinfeld voice and was all, "What's the deal with being adopted?  It sure does make you feel like discarded trash."  I brought the house down with that one.

Everyone was very funny.  I was surprised at how nervous you seemed.  I figured you'd be all super calm and collected and just be all, "Boop, boop, bop," and we'd all lose our shit.  You make improv look so easy, I figured you'd make that look easy, too.  My plan was to just tell a story where I got to say "twat" a lot.

Dee and I could never take our dog camping.  First, she's allergic to everything.  Second, she barks at any noise that she thinks might possibly threaten her.  Third, she's scared of most everything that is outside.  Fourth, don't ever get a dog.

Coffee is gross and people who are pretentious about coffee are gross.  That lady sounds awful.  I want to smack her in the face with a comically oversized Nerf spoon.  More things should be made of Nerf.

K-Cunt

My goodness!  I'm a week behind!  Sorry!

In light of that, I'm going to do a mild reset.  I think most of your replies were wrap-ups to convos anyway. 

How was your Labor Day?  Did you go to Notre Dame?  Or did I make that up?  We had our Fantasy Football draft.  There were 10 of us, and I got to pick last.  My best guy is LeSean McCoy, who I had never heard of before, and I keep forgetting his name.  But I guess he's pretty good.  We'll see.  I've got Drew Brees, so I get to be excited about football tonight.  Yay!  My first game is against Chris, as it turns out.  I will destroy him.

Doing stand-up at rehearsal was mega nerve-wracking for me.  Stand-up is one of my biggest fears.  I don't know why.  I think it's just that you HAVE to be funny, or it sucks.  Also, there is an expectation that I will be good at it, because I'm funny.  But it doesn't necessarily translate...

I was really impressed with how well everyone did, though.  Especially since many seemed pretty nervous.

I'm going camping this weekend in Michigan with Chris and a couple friends.  And their dog, Winston.  I'm excited.  I got a new sleeping bag pad a while ago, and haven't gotten to use it yet.  That's the thing about camping.  I think it's really fun, but my back always feels like shit the whole time. 

There's a lady at my work that has one of those Keurig coffee makers with K-cups in a little display tree in her office.  Fuck you, lady.  Get over yourself. 

Beautiful Excuses

Nuts are addicting.  It's hard to stop eating them once you start.  They're so small and seem so harmless, but they'll bust your gut every time.  I have to count them out and then lock the drawer to keep from eating the whole container of nuts.

I'll have to mark my calendar for next year's Brewers' Fest.  It doesn't surprise me that the fest is mostly dudes.  Dudes love beer.  Chicks don't love beer as much.  I will teach my daughter to love beer but not until she's reached the arbitrary drinking age chosen buy our government.

Also, you are beautiful.  You don't need fratty dudes and chubby couples to realize that.  Though, fratty dudes and chubby couples will make it seem more acute.  You know, like a disease.

I think the tendency for improv to frequently suck is more due to the low barriers to entry than it is to the nature of improv.  Sure, a group of great improvisers will do a crappy show once every ten or fifteen shows but I think most shows suck because the improvisers suck or because the improvisers suck at working together.  When I was on Space Robbers at the Playground, we sucked at the very beginning but we quickly got much better once the worst of us quit.  Once the team was whittled down we almost never had a crappy show.  Some were better than others, but rarely did we have a show that was flat out bad.  I think it was partially because we really figured out how to work with each other and partially because the people on that team were awesome.  We had Nick Johne, Chris Alvarado, Sean Kelley, Kieran Sullivan, Ross Bryant, Barry Hite, and Jim Fath.  All of those people are either teaching, touring or doing well for themselves in other ways in the entertainment industry.  I can mention any of those names in a group of improvisers and people will be all, "You know that guy?"  Anyway, the point is that improvisers use the "sometimes improv just sucks" excuse way too often.

I hate pHlip Cup mostly because we are working towards that finite end and that finite end is a fucking game of Flip Cup.  It probably doesn't help that the two teams I'm on are a team of frat boys (how did this gray-haired dude end up on that team?) and a team of former contestants from a Bachelor-type show so there's not a whole lot of range there.  Every time I've done the show it's felt forced and awkward.  Plus, it's hard for me to get over the fact that we're admitting that our comedy is not why people are coming to see the show by promising a round of Flip Cup at the end of the show.

I love that Bernie just got a big stack of cash.  That's fantastic.  I also love that he's named Bernie.  Guys that work at companies for 30+ years who everyone love are always named Bernie or Ernie or Wilbur or something slightly hilarious like that.

I'm almost never funny at work.  In fact, people are shocked when they find out I'm a comedian.  (Even though I've been doing this for over 10 years, I still have a hard time calling myself a comedian.)  The only people that have seen me be funny are the guy I share an office with and my boss.  Actually, that's not entirely true.  When I first started working there, the CIO made (she literally backed me into a corner and implied that not performing might effect my job) me get up and do solo improv in front of the whole department.  I was actually pretty funny.  That is the one and only time I've done solo improv.  Anyway, I'm not the funny guy at work.  It's probably good that I don't try to be because my sense of humor is probably a little too dark for the workplace.  Plus, I always hate the dude that tries to be funny at work.

Funny Money

I usually have nutty drawers too.  I'm currently out.  I tend to OD on nuts, which kind of defeats the purpose of them being a slightly fatty, but not-too-fatty, and oh-so-filling snack.  Thing is, I keep eating them because I am starving.  About 10 minutes after I arbitrarily stop eating them, I get super-full and feel like I'm gonna throw up.  Even when I count out a reasonable portion, I'm still so hungry and I can't resist eating more!  What is wrong with me.  Ugh.

You do not have to be a brewer to go to the Brewer's Fest - just to have a booth there.  I think most of the people there are just beer aficionados.  Read: Men.  I generalize, but it's pretty true.  It was all either gaggles of fratty dudes or chubby middle aged couples.  And me and Chris.  It made me feel very beautiful.  I like places like that.  You could have come with us, for sure.  AND yelled at Rahm.  I haven't seen him again, though I got the idea that he was going to pop out of his house (like Phil the groundhog) the other day when NBC was there, aiming their cameras at the front door.

I did see Fritz the outdoor cat yesterday though.

I always suck at festivals as well.  I think for me it's just the weird pressure of spending lots of time and money to do one show.  You don't want to suck at it.  But sometimes improv sucks.  Often, improv sucks.

You've not mentioned that you hate playing in pHlip Cup.  Why do you hate it?  Is it because you're trying to steer the show toward a finite end?  I like it.

It weirds me out how babies look like their parents.  I mean, it makes sense in a whole Gregor Mendel pea pod kind of way, but it's just weird that you breed people and tiny ones that are a little of each of them, and then some of something else.

Our mailroom guy, Bernie, retired yesterday - it was a whole to-do.  He's been working here for 34 years.  Isn't that crazy?  He's been working here (presumably in that job - I mean, there's not really anything lower on the totem pole here...) for longer than I've been alive.  He's a nice guy, and great at his job, obviously.  It'll suck to have him go.  A couple things of note from the party:

1) It was super-long.  11am-3pm.
2) The company gave him a trip to Gettysburg (he loves the Civil War).  The actual people in the office all chipped in to help him pay for other stuff.  Food, souvenirs, etc.  I wasn't sure how they'd give it to him.  Like, a Visa gift card or something.  But they just gave him this box with a stack of cash in it.  It must have been like 4 inches thick.  It was awesome.  I would love that as a present.  Except I'd be super-paranoid going home from work.
3) People were saying memories about Bernie, and I chipped in and said a couple jokey things, people laughed, whatever.  But then all afternoon, people kept coming up to me and going, "Oh, ha ha!  You were so funny at Bernie's party!" "You are hilarious!" etc.  Which is fine - it's just funny, because they seemed surprised or impressed or something.  I mean, I've worked here for a while, but it's not like I really hang out with these people, and most don't know what I do.  And I don't really find it necessary to be particularly outgoing at work.  I just plod along and save it for the stage.  Or at least other people that will be funny back.  I just said "oh!  Thank you!" a lot, but it is a little hard to refrain from being like, "Well, I'd better be - I'm a comedian," or "You ain't seen nuthin', Bub." 

Jamba Bombs

My quinoa burrito was quite filling.  It held me over until my regular late afternoon almond snack.  That's right.  I have almonds in my desk.  I keep my nuts in my drawers.

I don't even pretend that I'm doing something healthy when I go to Jamba Juice.  Those things are calorie bombs, but boy are they delicious.  On the plus side, they don't make you feel all heavy and weird like so many other "treats."

Clayton is brilliant and he makes it seem so effortless.  I have to work for my brilliance.  His just comes naturally.  I enjoy when he grows a mustache.  His is the only mustache in the world that can bring me joy.

I said Twitter is awesome.  Stop pooping on the one social media site I truly love.  Actually, I totally get why some people wouldn't love Twitter.  I only like it because it's the perfect social media for lazy people.  I can just post and whoever wants to follow me can follow me.  I don't have to approve them, I don't have to worry about their birthdays and I don't have to follow them back.  You don't have to worry about privacy settings, either.  Their privacy is simply, "Don't be stupid enough to post something you don't want the whole world to potentially see."

The Midwest Brewer's Festival sounds awesome.  Do you have to be a brewer to go?  Could I have hitched a ride and drank a bunch of awesome beer for $40 and gotten completely wasted and puked in the back of what I assume is Chris' car and then shouted obscenities at the Mayor once we got back to your place?  I would have loved to do that.  Or even just the first two parts of that.

Paid gigs are weird.  Festivals, too.  I'm always terrible in both.  I don't know exactly why but I think it has something to do with the fact that I'm performing in a strange place and it takes me a while to get comfortable in strange places.  A while in this case equals three weeks.  I never have that kind of time for these gigs.  Anyway, I'm old and the improv inside of me is dying so I won't have to worry about that for much longer.

Speaking of being uncomfortable, have I mentioned that I hate performing in pHlip Cup?  Ugh, it's awful.  However, I highly recommend anyone reading to go see pHlip Cup because it is a fun show to watch and you get to play Flip Cup after.

On Saturday, Dee and I went to visit some of her high school friends.  When they saw Scarlett they all said, "She looks just like Dee."  That's fine.  I think she looks like Dee in some ways but not "just like" Dee.  At this point she's old enough that I think she looks more like Scarlett than either me or Dee.

Baby Beers

So, were you full for long enough after your quinoa burrito at Protein Bar?  I've always had the bowls, which are quite filling, I think.  I had my first smoothie there the other day, and it was really good, though not as delicious as the ones from Jamba Juice.  I'm imagining, though, that it's because they're better for you.  Though, I do get the light smoothies at JJ - not the ones with sherbet in them.   

You're right about Clayton in the bit-threads.  He nails it.  He nailed the Dan/Martha roast too, even though he wasn't even there.  Dick.

I never drank before college either.  I still went to some of the parties, though. I mostly just fed people bread and gave them water and then drove them home. 

I know you love Twitter.  This is why I got more glee in denouncing it that I normally would.  I don't really hate it.  It just doesn't interest me.  At all.  I don't mind it being there.  People can chatter as much as they like. 

Chris and I went to the Midwest Brewer's Festival on Saturday.  It was awesome, because there were around 50 breweries there, giving out tasting portions of their beer.  Note: It wasn't just willy-nilly.  Admission was $40, and then you got 25 tickets to redeem for beer.  I would have relished this way more if I hadn't had to a) drive us home, since it was in Plainfield, and b) do a gig that night.  So, I ended up having about 9 little beerlettes, and then giving my tickets away to some strangers in the food tent.  I am totally one of those "I've got to get what I paid for" kind of people.  I always get wasted at those open bar parties where you pay $20 or $30 to get in.  I WILL NOT BE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF!  So, it was quite an exercise in self-restraint to spend $40 for the equivalent of about 2 1/2 beers, let me tell you. 

The gig later on was a birthday party for a lady in her 60's in Skokie.  It was in the Beer Garden of some Irish bar.  No stage or anything.  The show was fine, though.  The people/birthday girl really seemed to enjoy it.  And I was struck with the injustice of doing awkward, mediocre improv and getting paid handsomely for it, while at our normal pH shows, we do some really brilliant work a lot of the time, and make no money, and hardly anyone sees it.  Buh.

Quinoa Virgin No More

I just got back from Protein Bar.  (I'm super dedicated to this blog.  If we made any money off this thing, I could have written off this lunch as "research.")  I'm stuffing my face with a quinoa laden burrito right now.  It's very tasty.  I was initially concerned about the ability of this burrito to fill me up, but I have a feeling that all the protein that is packed into this thing will make me feel nice and full.  I have a feeling I'll make a Protein Bar trip a regular Friday occurrence.  At least until the weather gets shitty.

My spellcheck seems to handle quinoa just fine.  When I ask my computer to speak the word to me in it's robot voice (much like Ebert uses his to talk now) it pronounces it KWEEN-oh so I guess it will be a while before the robot revolution.

There are times when I don't mind that the pH emails devolve into bits, but mostly it annoys me because they are rarely funny unless Clayton chimes in.  He doesn't chime in enough.

I don't know if you knew I was in ROTC or not.  I didn't really do it for my dad, though he did suggest that it was a good way to help pay for a really expensive college.  With my life.  Actually, it didn't even seem that dangerous at the time because it was during the Clinton administration which focused more on making love than war.  Of course, I dropped out before America started paying my tuition.  Instead, I just had a ton of loans to pay off like most students.

I did a whole lot of other shit to please my dad, though.  I put on a "David Ford for Prosecutor" and "David Ford for State Senator" t-shirt and rode my bike in parades.  I played basketball to please him even though I didn't want to.  Turns out I really liked it.  I also skipped every single party ever thrown in high school because I didn't want to get in trouble with my dad.  That's why I never had a beer before college.  Plus, no one wants to invite the Prosecutor's son to an underage drinking party.

New college professors are dangerous.  I had that same thing happen to me a couple times.  The second time I convinced him to grade everyone on a curve.  I wasn't going to let this dude ruin the mediocre GPA that I had worked so hard to bring up from awful after the first semester of my freshman year.  When I went to college I thought I was going to be an engineer of some type.  That dream was quickly shattered when I failed Physics and got a D in Calculus.  I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I had recently tasted my first beer.

Anyway, I can't really do things to make my dad happy since he's all dead and stuff.

I disagree.  I love Twitter.  I've said this before in many other places, but Twitter is Facebook without all the bullshit.  In fact, I almost exclusively use Facebook through Twitter.  I do tend to agree that the hashtags are often stupid and a cheap way to make a joke, but when have I ever been afraid of being cheap and stupid?  Not since my dad died.

Undercover Mother

I am shocked, SHOCKED! to learn that you are unfamiliar with quinoa.  I blame America.  If you ever feel like strolling an extra block or two to get your lunch, there is a fantastic place called Protein Bar on Franklin and Adams that has a total boner for quinoa and makes lots of tasty things with it.  If you do go, don't go during regular lunch hours, because the line gets insane.  Like, Garrett's Popcorn-long, but with fit young people instead of old obese ones.  You can also find it in bulk at Whole Foods, or SOMETIMES at Jewel, but only after you say "KEEN-WAH!  It looks like kwin-o-ah, but it's pronounced KEEN-WAH" and "it's a grain" about twenty times to the workers, until finally some other health-conscious guest overhears you and points you toward the one little hole in the shelf where it used to be before they sold out.

Note: Spellcheck hasn't even heard of quinoa.  It wants me to change it to "Quinta."
My mom had a silver Crown Victoria for a few years when I was a kid, and people always thought that it was an undercover cop car because that's what the Falmouth Police Department had.  They would always drive so slowly in front of us.  She would get quite impatient and peel around them.  She, like me, likes to drive well above the speed limit.

I love it when the pH e-mails devolve into bits.  I prefer it that way.  It makes me laugh.  Unless I'm actually trying to get answers from people, but have to weed out the jokes.  Like when I was trying to see who wanted to play fantasy football, but half of the replies were about elves.  I don't think the filters would help with that, though. 

Did I know that you were in the ROTC for a while?  I don't particularly find it shocking or anything - maybe a little.  Was this a please-my-dad kind of thing that didn't pan out? 

I took Microeconomics my Freshman year in college to please my dad.  Then I got a C- in it, and killed my GPA.  In my defense, the teacher was new, and clearly had no clue that intro courses are not supposed to be insanely hard.  I even had my friend Forbes, (right??) who was a Junior and an Econ major, look at my homework one time, and he hadn't learned some of the stuff we were getting tested on.  When more than half the class fails a test, you need to start thinking about changing your methods, or at least grade on a fucking curve.

Since that, I have never put another thought into doing something I really don't want to do just to make my dad happy.  If I used Twitter, I'd be all, "#wronglessonslearned" or "#nevertrynewthings" or some shit.

#twitterisdumb

Undercover ROTC

Quinoa?  As in, the grain-like crop that is a species of goosefoot that is mainly grown for its edible seeds? Yeah, I've never heard of it.  The Wikipedia article makes it sound very nutritious.  A grain that is also a complete protein?  That's amazing!  Clearly proof that god exists! (God doesn't exist.)

Now that I'm done being an asshole about it, I'll have to try some.

People are not good about picking up their dog's poop.  In fact, people are downright terrible at picking up their dog's poop.  I thought it was just my neighborhood, but it's everywhere.  Simply due to the fact that I've picked up my dog's poop more than once (I do it every time, by the way) puts me in the top 99th percentile of responsible dog owners in this city.

I love that undercover cop cars aren't really undercover at all.  It's always painfully obvious which cars are unmarked cop cars and which are regular people's cars.  No one is fooled by this.  I suspect that they don't actually want to fool people but simply not put people on edge.

You should also employ Gmail's filtering options.  It allows you to automatically add labels as emails come in.  You can even have them skip the inbox and go directly to their designated folder.  I do that with a lot of the Yelp and Gap-type emails.  You know how sometimes pH emails get out of control with everyone trying to be super hilarious and they keep replying to the whole cast and you're eventually like, "Enough with the bits!  I know rehearsal time has changed, leave me alone."  You know what I'm talking about.  Anyway, select the conversation, click on the "More" button at the top of your inbox and click "Mute" and you won't have to get any more of those stupid bit emails.  I do this all the time.

I have had my pupils dilated.  Before I went to college I had to get a physical from the Air Force (because I was going to be in ROTC).  They were very thorough.  There was a chance that I might become a pilot so they did all sorts of funky eye tests.  At one point they put dye in my eyes and I saw everything as blue or red or whatever color the dye was.  I think that was to test colorblindness.  Or maybe it was to insert a tracking chip into my brain.  I don't know.  I do remember sitting in the lobby waiting for the effects of the various dyes to wear off so they could put different stuff in.  It was weird and took a long time.  My grandfather had to guide me out of the building.  I dropped out of ROTC during my sophomore year so it was all for nothing.  It wasn't all for nothing.  I did get a funny hat out of the deal.

Wackula

I can't wait until quinoa becomes more popular.  It makes no sense that most people have never heard of it.  It's delicious, and it's insanely good for you.  Get on it, America.  Quinoa. 

Yeah - barf is worse than poop.  You're right.  I'm kind of a sympathetic barfer.  I always gag when I'm near puke, or if I hear it.  Seeing poop doesn't make me need to dump.  Thank goodness, because people aren't always great about picking up after their dogs.

I haven't made any unique observations yet about Rahm - I've only seen him the one time so far.  But, he's only lived there for a week.  I can't imagine that I won't see him more.  Especially if, as the Trib reports, he keeps taking the brown line to work.  I like living across from him.  There is always an undercover cop car in front of his house.  I mean, I think it's undercover.  It's pretty obviously a cop car, but there's not a light and lettering and stuff.  Either way.  It's very reassuring that when you're walking home at night, you're probably pretty safe getting home.   

Maybe I should remodel my Gmail use as well.  It sounds appealing to know that the e-mails that you see are the ones you have to deal with, instead of half of them being from Yelp or The Gap or Zambian Princes or whatever. 

Yesterday I had to go to the eye doctor to get my pupils dilated.  Have you ever had this done?  I guess it's pretty routine, but people don't get around to it often because it's a huge pain in the ass.  The actual procedure is fine - they just give you drops and then you sit around while your pupils get huge.  Then they just peek into your eye for a minute while you look around.  Afterward, though, you can't read anything, and you're super-sensitive to light.  Basically, you turn into an illiterate vampire.  Which, probably, most vampires are, unless they were home-schooled.  As if vampires weren't freaky enough - imagine a home-schooled one.

Superman@gmail.com

It seems that cats are more sensible with their diets than most humans.  We tend to try to avoid things rife with nutrients.  It makes me think that dead kittens aren't very tasty.  I mean, I just ate a big mouthful of spinach and it tasted like stale farts, but that bite was full of nutrients!

I'm a pro at handling poop.  Poop ain't no thang, in the parlance of our times or maybe of times recently past.  Poop doesn't phase me.  I haven't yet built up an immunity to handling puke, however.  Right now, Scarlett just spits up breast milk which is pretty easy to handle.  No big deal.  However, Ruthie pukes more often than you might think and I pretty much always gag when trying to clean that up.  Dog puke has a special texture and smell all its own.  It's the worst substance I've ever encountered.

I love that Rahm swore upon request but not right away.  The fact that he saved it for later made it even better.  Have you made any unique observations about our mayor that you find interesting or surprising?

Yes, Matrimonious is fantastic.  You and Dan did a great job.  I did see something about him getting cast for something but I didn't know what.  Interesting.  He'll be an FBI agent in the new Superman film, huh?  That feels like major spoiler alert.  I mean, now that I know the FBI will be in the Superman movie, why should I even bother?  Also, Superman will save the day.

I totally misused the star system as well.  About a year ago, I completely changed the way I use Gmail.  I label and archive everything as soon as I'm done with it.  That way, the only emails that are in my inbox are ones that I still have to respond to or new emails that just came in.  I have three emails in my inbox right now.  Eff stars.  Stars ain't worth shit.

Now it's time to eat this banana.

Dead Kittens and Poop

I started researching to find you an article on cats eating their stillborn kittens, but I got too depressed reading articles on dead kittens and had to stop.  Anyway, apparently stillborn kittens are rife with nutrients.  And the moms have to do something with them, right?

Between walking Ruthie and changing Scarlett, are you pretty much immune to touching poop now?  Poop is gross.  You're gross.

I wish Rahm would have sworn at me.  Chris' friend Lance met him once and requested that Rahm tell him to "Go fuck yourself."  Rahm just laughed.  Then when he was on his way out a while later, he turned to Lance
and said, "Hey.  Go fuck yourself."  I like this.  The man has flair.

Aw, thanks for re-watching some Matrimonious.  I really enjoyed making that show, and was really proud of how it turned out.  I wish we could have made more, but stupid Dan had to follow his dream or whatever.  Did you see that he just got cast as an FBI agent in the upcoming Superman movie?

I was just going through my Gmail and unstarring, dealing with, or deleting starred things.  I still have starred things from 2007.  Clearly, I'm not using the star system to its full potential.  And I am awful at responding to people.  This has increased since getting a smart phone.  I never want to write people back on it, because it's a pain in the ass to tap out a whole big e-mail. But then I forget all about it.  Dumb.

Swearing Senators

Eating your egg baby would make you look hungry.  Also, smart -- because you know what to do with a freaking egg.  Babies are not nearly as easy to break as an egg.  It's a poor substitute.  Also, eggs don't poop as much.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.  Cats eat their stillborn kittens?  Cats are fucked up.  Though, aren't there people who eat their child's placenta?  Is it the child's placenta or the mother's?  I guess it's the mother's.  Either way, don't be a cannibal.

The Fritz story upsets me.  Untethered animals in the city are not cool.  I hate it when people in my neighborhood don't leash their dogs.  Sure, your dog may be very well behaved and won't stray off into the street to get hit by a car, but do you know how it's going to react when another dog freaks out and starts barking at your unleashed dog?  Do you?  I can tell you from experience, no, you don't.  Now you have no way to restrain your dog and I'm forced to insert myself between my freaking out little dog and your enormous, enraged dog.  As if picking up feces didn't already ruin what might have been a nice walk.

Also, how do you know that Fritz won't try to eat you?

Also, also, I always assume that all cats are female -- even when they are named Fritz.

Did Rahm (I'm going to call him by his first name here) swear at you?  He's famous for swearing.  I wouldn't feel like I'd gotten the full Rahm experience unless he swore at me.  Next time you see him, maybe you can say something like, "Hey, Mr. Mayor, let's do swears!"  Then when he calls you a cunt, you can be all, "Nice one, motherfucker."  You'll both laugh and when you try to high five him, his bodyguard will take you down.

I never got used to people addressing my dad as "Senator Ford."  Once he got elected, all of his mail was addressed to "The Honorable David C. Ford."  Which is pretty cool but I thought he was honorable before he became a public servant, so it felt like everyone else was just late.  No one ever called him Mr. Senator because that would be stupid.  However, it would be a great name for an improv team or a band.

Now that our Apple TV supports Vimeo, Dee and I can watch Matrimonious on our TV.  Last night we watched Bickerfight, Gift, Coffee, Food, and Checkers before Scarlett got all fussy and had to go to bed.  You and Dan are delightful in these videos.  Delightful, I say.

Your ball/trampoline exercise reminds me of a device they had at a football camp I went to.  It was basically a football attached to a bungee cord.  The football was more like a whiffle football, though.  You attached the bungee cord to a fence or something behind you and then you threw the football as hard as you could and it would snap back and smack you in the face.  The next time you would be ready for how quickly it came back and you would catch it -- or at least shield your face.  Eventually, I got pretty good at it though I'm not really sure what it did to improve my quarterbacking skills.  It seems most beneficial to receivers and lonely people who have no one to play catch with.

Fritz and Mr. Mayor

If you putting your egg baby up for adoption would make you look responsible, what would eating it do?

Isn't it weird how cats eat their stillborn kittens?  Cats are weird.

Speaking of cats, about a week ago, I was walking home around 11pm, and saw a cat out on the sidewalk.  He was just kind of sitting there, and when I started to pass him, he just flopped over, as though asking me to pet his belly.  I was weirded out - shouldn't he be inside?  I checked to see if he had a tag, and it said "Fritz," and a phone number.  I decided to call, since, in my opinion, if someone's cat was just allowed to roam free in the city streets, they wouldn't put their phone numbers on its tag.  Voice Mail picked up, and I left a message to the effect of, "Hi, my name is Tristan.  I'm walking in front of [whatever the street address was there] and I just came across Fritz.  I didn't know if he was lost, so I figured I'd give you a call.  Um...  I can't have a cat, so, he'll still be here, hopefully... Um... Okay... I hope you find him.  Bye."  When I got home, I was so worried about Fritz, but didn't really know what to do.  I never heard back from the owner, so I figured he must be allowed outside.  Then, a couple days later, I came across him hanging out in the same place.  So, I guess his owner is a douche.

I finally met my Mayoral neighbor this weekend.  Chris and I were parking the car, coming home from Trader Joe's, and there were two guys standing in the middle of our street.  One of them was this huge muscly dude, and I thought, "I wonder if that is Rahm Emanuel's bodyguard."  Then I looked at the other dude, who was Rahm Emanuel.  I concluded that the first guy was indeed his bodyguard.  We passed him on the sidewalk, and he looked at us.  I chirped, "Hi, Mr. Mayor!" which immediately made me feel like a dork, and he gruffly asked Chris and I how we were, and we responded, and that was about it.  Then I ran upstairs and googled "how to address a mayor."  Mr. Mayor is correct, even though it makes you sound like a Newsie. 

Conclusion; my quiet little street is teeming with interesting happenings.  Maybe I should write a sitcom called "Fritz and Mr. Mayor."

My favorite fooling-a-grown-up moment was on the school bus, when the driver was doing a three-point turn.  He asked us kids if he had enough room to back up: 
He did not. 
We said yes. 
He hit a mailbox.
It was awesome.

Geez, Ford.  Way too soon on the Indiana killing people tweet.  Like, wayyy too soon.  Meaning, before it happened.

Today in physical therapy, I got to do an exercise I thought I'd never get to do, because, a) I'd been there like 5 times and never done it, and b) I thought maybe it was for people strengthening their arms, not hips and back.  It's where you throw a big medicine ball at an almost-sideways trampoline and catch it.  I don't know why it's so fun, but it totally is.  One of my focuses (foci?) is balance, so I had to sit on a stability ball with one foot lifted up and throw and catch the ball.  Games!

Me and Regis

Between plays at Notre Dame games most people sit quietly.  There was a time when Notre Dame stadium was one of the loudest in the country.  In fact, the refs stopped the game twice against Michigan because the crowd was so loud that the Michigan quarterback couldn't hear.  You can see it here.  That was back in 1988 when Notre Dame was really good and people cared.  Now the crowd mostly seems bored and has no idea how to cheer at a football game.  Frankly, most Notre Dame folk are lame when it comes to being interesting in public.  Except for me and Regis Philbin.  We're awesome.

I received your invite.  It is correct and I'm looking forward to the discussion.

I don't know the origins of the Iowa Basics and why we Hoosiers were required to take it.  We did and I remember it being stupid and easy.  I was shocked that everyone didn't do really well.

I've always thought the egg baby experiment was the dumbest thing ever.  Of course middle schoolers are going to be terrible parents.  Isn't that why religious groups spend so much time trying to convince teens to avoid sex?  Wouldn't it be great if the students that passed the egg baby test were given the go-ahead for unprotected sex?  I would have tried to put my egg baby up for adoption.  That satisfies the religious nuts and makes you look responsible.

I had a French teacher in high school who was especially easy to fool.  She was also the Japanese teacher and she got a grant to take the Japanese students to Japan, so she would spend all of her French classes preparing for the Japanese students.  She would give us busy work or throw a movie in the VCR.  We were sick of being ignored, so my friend Scott and I once convinced her that the VCR would only work if she kept her hand on top of it.  She stood there through the whole class instead of teaching us.

That's the deal with HD.  So long as you've never experienced HD, regular TV is just fine.  Once you've seen HD, you never want to go back.  I hear similar things about African American men and sex, though I have no personal experience.

Work conferences are only fun in the movies.  In real life they almost always suck.  That's because most reasonable people don't have work people as their best friends.

I went back home to Indiana this weekend to visit my mom.  As you may have heard, there were some really bad thunderstorms that passed through central Indiana on Saturday.  I looked outside, saw how nasty it was and tweeted, "Indiana: where thunderstorms actively try to kill you."  Little did I know that the stage at the Indiana State Fair was collapsing at about that time.  Even though I pride myself on being a jackass, that made me feel especially jackasshole-y.  Also, it made me feel a bit like Nostradamus.

When Indiana wasn't killing people it was very nice.

Egg Baby

What happens between plays at Notre Dame games?  Does everyone drink egg creams?  Talk about Communism?  Applique poodles on to their skirts?

I have sent you an invitation via Google Calendar for us to discuss you giving Scarlett a plastic bag when she turns 13.  Is May 18th, 2024 correct?  I felt like I was time travelling when I scrolled so far forward in my calendar.

Fine.  I will try Five Guys. If only our blog was super-popular, maybe they would send me some in a big box with a bow.  I wish your argument had diagrams. Maybe I won't try Five Guys after all, just to spite you for being so morbid and lazy.

Why did you take Iowa Basics if you grew up in Indiana?  Is this some sort of Midwestern standardized test?  I like that you were able to drop eggs off of buildings without breaking them, but when I had to have an "egg baby" to simulate motherhood in Middle School for Health class, I broke mine three times.  The teacher said she would know if we broke them (and were therefore destined to be bad parents) because they were "special eggs."  They were Eggland's Best, which have a little stamp on the bottom of each egg.  When my first one broke, I promptly marched to the store and bought a carton.  I just kept replacing my egg baby (named Steven) until the project was over.  I even gave a couple to friends who broke theirs. 

The teacher that taught that class also pronounced pubic hair, "poobic hair," so I don't feel particularly clever or gratified in foiling her.

We have HD now, and I find that I'm never like, "Ooh!  So crisp!" when I watch it, BUT, I think, "This looks like shit" when I see normal def. stuff.  It has ruined me.

My thumb is still healing.  Ugh.  The cut was just so wide, it wouldn't shut.  It was like a ravine.  We're almost there, though, thanks to some butterfly bandage thingies.

I had a work conference on Monday and Tuesday at one of those hotel/conference center places that pretty much do only that.  There aren't, like, people who are just staying there for fun.  Everyone's there on business.  Work conferences are exhausting.  Even when you're not technically working, you're still hanging out with a million co-workers from around the country (well, really just the Midwest for me) who you don't know very well.  And they always want to talk about work.  And you have to be "on" the whole time. 

There is, however, tons of free food.  They have snack kiosks outside of all the conference rooms, laden with cookies and fruit and soda and chips and stuff.  It's awesome.  But I always gain weight at those things because all I do is sit around, and then eat stuff to try to keep myself awake.

HD Science

Oh, a peepee dick squirt.  Yeah, the peepee squirt works exactly like you thought.  At least for me.

I don't know how hard it is to steer a Space Shuttle with a popped tire.  It could be very dangerous.  Though, it still probably wouldn't rank very highly on the Space Shuttle disaster list.

I actually don't mind going to the ballpark for a ballgame.  It's nice to be outside with your friends drinking a beer and watching a sporting event that you don't really have to pay much attention to in order to keep up with what is going on.  In fact, each summer I go to a different Major League ballpark with some of my college friends.  It's fun, but mostly because my friends are awesome.  They enjoy baseball much more than I do.  They also enjoy baseball more than they enjoy me.

Football games are great.  There is downtime between plays, but the real downtime is during the TV timeouts.  Fortunately (read: unfortunately), NFL stadiums have enormous JumboTrons with which to entertain you during that downtime.  They also blare loud rock or rap music so you are not ever bored.  Ever.  At Notre Dame games, there is no loud music or JumboTrons because, well, Notre Dame takes pride in making us all feel like we live in the '50s.  It's a good time to check other scores on your phone, you know, because we don't live in the '50s.

Basketball is fun to watch, but only the last five minutes.

I've not felt the urge to give Scarlett a plastic bag to play with.  Ask me again when she's 13.

Five Guys is great for what it is.  It's not crappy non-burgers like McDonald's or Burger King.  It's a step up from that but it's not one of those enormous steak burgers you get a fancy restaurants.  They are kinda in the same category as M Burger or Shake Shack.  Anyway, they are good fast food burgers and the fries are fantastic.  Dee and I prefer the Cajun style fries.  Try it at least once.

I was going to hammer you with reasons to go to Five Guys, but I don't have the energy today.  I was going to make all sorts of awesome comparisons and analogies and there would have been bullet points and possibly even diagrams, but it occurred to me that we're all dying so what's the point?

I don't think I ever took special intelligence tests, but I did score highly on the Iowa Basics and that earned me the right to go to a summer school where we got to pick out fun classes to take.  It was like college except they didn't grade us and we just did cool shit like build model rockets and contraptions to hold eggs that we would then throw off the top of the bleachers.  If your egg didn't break, you were labeled SCIENCE GENIUS.  I took two pieces of styrofoam, hollowed out a place for the egg and strapped them together with rubber bands.  My egg did not break.  SCIENCE GENIUS.

I didn't realize that I was missing anything by not watching sports in HD until I saw sports in HD.  Everything is so much more clear.  It's easier to tell if a dude stepped out of bounds and small details like that.  Plus, I never realized how much the players tended to blend together in Standard Def until I saw HD.  I couldn't give a shit about watching 30 Rock in HD.  It doesn't get funnier.  Sports are definitely better, though.

You cut yourself much worse than I did.  Mine didn't even draw blood.  I just sliced into the skin and made a flap.  I was able to do all the things that I normally did except sometimes the flap would get caught open and it would feel weird.

I broke my hand in college.  Thankfully it was my left hand.  However, it still made doing everyday things much harder.  Typing was super slow with one hand.  Going to the bathroom took forever and I would have to do a weird little dance to get everything situated back in my pants so I often went into the stalls instead of the urinals.

I have a sharp knife and I keep it well honed.  I'm not afraid to use it.  Especially on tomatoes.  How dare you suggest otherwise?

Itchy Bear

I was thinking of a peepee dick-squirt, not a spermy dick-squirt.  Squirt.

 

Popping a tire on a space shuttle doesn't sound bad at all.  I feel like that would be passing.  Who gives a shit?  It's a tire.  Make a swing out of it.  Or put a baby in there.  I just googled "Michelin Baby" to make sure that there were indeed ads for Michelin with a baby sitting in/by a tire.  I came across a startling slew of babies with rolls of fat that look like stacked tires.  Gross.  And a couple ads for Michelin with a baby sitting by a tire.

 

I think it's funny that you hate baseball.  I love it.  I mean, I don't really watch it on TV, but I love going to ball games, grabbing a beer and a hot dog and keeping score.  I will be going to my first Bears (and indeed, professional football) game this year.  I'm excited!  Though, I feel like while baseball games are better in person, football games will be better on TV because you're so far away, and there's so much stopping.  Is basketball ever interesting to watch?  Maybe just when it's the Globetrotters?

 

Good idea about the spare bag for peanut shells.  Maybe they are worried people will use it as a toy for their babies.  From what I read on bags, this is a very tempting option for parents.  Now that you find a baby under your direct supervision, I gather that you must be constantly enticed to give Scarlett old bags to play with, yes?

 

I've never been to Five Guys.  Isn't it just, like, some burgers?  Sell me on it. 

 

I had physical therapy again today.  It's so fun!  I like all the weird little activities.  It's like when I was little and had to take all these intelligence tests by playing little games while a man watched.  It was so fun, and way less creepy than it sounds.   I think my parents were checking if I was a genius or something.  I forget.  (Which leads me to believe I wasn't...)  All I remember is that the man was really impressed that I just naturally knew that his right hand wasn't the one directly across from mine when he faced me.  Actually, I also remember that my parents and I went out for Strawberry Shortcake afterward.

 

Anyway, so far my favorite PT activities include:

- Itchy Bear (standing against a wall with a ball behind my back and doing squats

- Apolo Anton Ohno (taking wide swooping steps with a resist-a-band around my ankles)

- Molasses Crab (sideways squat-walking with banded ankles)

- Alpha-Log (standing with one foot on a foam half-tube, rolly-side-down, and spelling out the alphabet in huge letters with my other foot.

 

Why do you want to watch sports in HD?  I'm not being coy - I'm really just curious.  Is it so you can see the guys' numbers better?  Determine more easily whether they are playing on Astro-turf or real grass?  Or just so that it's more like you're actually there, perhaps?

 

I rarely put much thought into appreciating being a primate until my opposable thumbs were compromised the other day.  Tying my shoe is particularly cumbersome.  I wore a skirt today exclusively because it's such a pain to button up my pants.  I don't know what I would do if I had cut (or *gasp* broken) both thumbs.  As it is now, Cassie laughed (albeit compassionately) at me yesterday for looking like a raccoon when I tried to pick up my big Nalgene bottle with my injured hand, and ended up having to use both of them.  (Beside the difficulty in bending, it is just extremely painful to put much pressure on it.  This was some cut!)

 

Tomatoes are indeed assholes.  Their composition is too precarious and varied to be hospitable to most cutting.  But, tomato assholes, like real assholes, (the behavioral kind, not the anus kind) just require the right tools deal with them.  With anus assholes, it's a thick skin and a biting wit.  With tomato assholes, it's just a really expensive (and sharp) knife.  I bought Chris a nearly $200 knife for Christmas this past year.  That motherfucker dices the shit out of some tomatoes.  It had better...

 

 

Shuttles and Shells

Getting a good dick squirt isn't really that tricky at all, but I presume that you already know that. It's not too dissimilar from the way you thought penises worked as a child.

1. It starts out little.

2. You see/think about boobs and it fills up with blood until it gets big.

3. The owner (or lover/friend/drunken stranger) creates friction until jizz comes out.

4. It gets little again.

We never got on an airplane to take a family vacation. My mom hates flying. She also hates driving anywhere over an hour from her home. Good thing Dad liked to drive. He also loved to fly, but he usually preferred to be in the pilot's seat. Did you know that my uncle was able to get him into the Space Shuttle simulator so that he could try to land the Shuttle?  The first time he landed it, he popped one of the tires but the second time he brought it in nice and smooth. Either my dad is really good, or landing the Shuttle wasn't that different than landing a two seat Cessna. The point is that we were all about road trips.  Also, the beach is totally boring.

I completely forgot to mention that Cubs fans ruin an otherwise pleasant train ride. My travels are mostly on the north side so I don't really have to deal with Sox fans. Cubs fans suck. Growing up I use to kinda like the Cubs. I didn't learn to hate them until I moved to Chicago. I don't really like the Sox much either, but that's because baseball is even more boring than the beach.  Sox fans are fine. My wife is a Sox fan, kinda.

Peanut shells are the only acceptable litter. Unless you live in my neighborhood, then everything is acceptable litter. They should sell unshelled peanuts with an extra bag. The one place where it isn't acceptable to drop you peanut shells is Five Guys. They offer peanuts, but the floor is never covered in shells. I love Five Guys.

I've done physical therapy for my back.  It was fantastic.  Massages and stretching and cute nurses.  All paid by insurance.  Doesn't get much better than that.  The staff even came to see one of my improv shows.

I think picture quality is way more important than screen size.  Unfortunately, Dee and I are stuck in the Dark Ages because I can't convince Directv to break their rules in order to get HD in to my home.  We're stuck watching shit in Standard Definition until we move.  I've thought about ambushing the Directv guy as soon as he comes into our place and knocking him out with chloroform.  Then I'd grab his gear and set it up myself. When he wakes up I'd be all, "Dude, you totally passed out.  You should probably take the day off and go see a doctor.  Now get out."  I hate it.  I just want to watch sports in HD.

I read your post last night when I got home and then sliced my thumb while making dinner.  I was dicing a tomato.  There's nothing I hate more than dicing tomatoes.  I can never get it right.  I've watched videos online about how to do it right and I still never get it right.  Tomatoes are assholes.

Thumbs Down

You have an impressive knowledge of squirting milk out of boobs.  Is getting a good dick-squirt tricky too?  I imagine it would be pretty easy if penises (peni?) worked like I thought they did when I was little;

1. It starts out little.
2. It fills up with pee until it gets big.
3. The owner squeezes it like a tube of toothpaste to pee.
4. It is little again.

We also went to Caribbean islands when I was young.  I've never been much of a beach vacationer either, though.  I am bad at sitting on a beach.  I like going in the water, but lying on a towel and cooking in the sun is dangerous, but more importantly, it is boring as shit.  You can read or whatever, but it's uncomfortable to do anything but lie down.  Like baths.  I can't take baths because I get so bored.  Again, you can read, but you have to keep your book out of the water.  ANNOYING!

We did go to Gettysburg once, which I really liked.  And then once to Colonial Williamsburg, which I LOVED.

I didn't know that Edison and Ford were big dicks.  I'm not surprised though.  Groundbreaking people are usually kind of dicks.    

Yeah, the Red Line is really hit or miss.  I feel like it's usually pretty fine, but if there is (or has been) a Cubs or Sox game, it's a nightmare.  Packed full of idiots and peanut shells.  And the occasional heap of chicken bones.  Why is it semi-socially acceptable to throw peanut shells on the floor, no matter where you are?  Bars, ballparks, the train.  I'm sorry - are those not trash?  Pick up your shit, dickweed.

Yesterday I had my first physical therapy appointment, prescribed by an orthopaedic surgeon I saw a couple months ago.  It was pretty cool - sort of like an hour-long personal training session that starts with a back massage that your insurance company will pay for. 

You know what I don't really care about?  Big TVs.  Chris has been talking about getting a nice one for a while, and yesterday, he bought one.  Now we have a fancy TV that goes on the internet.  I have two thoughts about this:
1) That's pretty neat.
2) That's pretty pointless.
I mean, we have laptops.  And you can stream Netflix on a Wii.  I mean, it's cool to fiddle with, but I don't really understand it.  Last night I looked over and Chris had the same ESPN article in front of him on his laptop and on the TV. 

The picture quality is amazing though.  

Maybe I would like it better if the remote weren't a little keyboard - I sliced my thumb yesterday, and have temporarily lost use of it.  Texting or using this wacky remote is a total pain in the... thumb... right now.