Picture Day

Back Row: [Ms. Stanifer, Leslie, Dude, Katie GaGa, Vanessa]

Second Row: [Brown Noser, Billy Elliot, The Sauce, O'Doyle, Student Exchange Suissë]

Front Row: [Stacy, Griffith, QB 2, Kiki Schmabling, Jeannie]

Not Pictured Due to Renal Failure: [Xenex, Wj Skczn]

Scrabble Babble

Breakfast Scrabble® this morning took place at Bluephie's, same as it did last year; this time Jobonga and Lucia were working the tiles. It was Leigha's first spin around the BreakScrab board; her nervousness subsided as soon as she realized Breakfast Scrabble exists in a plane free of expectations. Highlights included IDYLICH, which is German for idyllic, and BARFIX, which is a new anti-emetic. 

I ordered a baby quiche and they threw in 1 Name for free. Unfortunately it's the same one I've had since I was 2 weeks old.

Et tu Whitné‽

Have you ever felt like everyone's against you? Like the world's just out to get you? I don't think I have. Usually I feel like the world is letting me get away with something; which it usually is. Until Karma comes knocking on my door making to collect, that is. That's scary like a Monday morning. It's even worse when she shows up with a dead tree in her hand under a gray winter sky. Creepy.

On another note, last night I felt like I had stabbed myself in the heart when I realized I had just bought a huge canister of decaf coffee. What was I thinking? Why would I do this to me?

The last time you saw this sweater I was bald; so much has happened on my head since then.


# of Frames: 54

Déjà Vu ∩ Weekday Drinking

[2 PM April 2008: 2 grown men, 2 bottles of fruity beer, 1 creepy painting]

[12 PM March 2009: 2 grown men, 2 bottles of fruity beer, 1 creepy wolf]

In Which Crosswords are Conquered

On Friday I spent 3+ hours in a car without music. It sounds terrible, but it wasn't really.  I had ten 1 oz. servings of Flaming Hot Cheetos and two and a half 8 oz. servings of Wild Cherry Pepsi [left] to keep me company. Also in the car I had 1 friend plus T-Pain, although we wouldn't realize until later that we were never actually on a boat.

During the ride I completed the Thursday NY Times crossword. It required enough corrections and/or rewrites to render most of the grid illegible, but it is all there. Even the cheesy geography theme clues:

• 17A: Eco-friendly in Las Vegas? (Green with NV)
  
• 26A: Omaha's waterfront during downpours? (NE port in a storm)
  
• 44A: First-place finishers in Bangor? (ME Award-winners)
  
• 59A: Jogging atop Great Falls? (Running on MT)

On the heels of that accomplishment came today's Monday puzzle, which I did in green. Monday's are easy puzzles in the grande scheme of things, but this puzzle is the first in my 7 years of NYT subscription that I can remember having completed any puzzle without mistakes. I'm glad it finally happened, I'd been starting to obsess about why it hadn't happened for me yet. Now I can just relax and enjoy it. This one happened to include both of the following: 

• 20A: Fix part of dinner with lettuce, carrots, peppers, etc. (Toss a Salad)
  
• 58A: Prepare to camp (Pitch a Tent)

Bi-Continental Twins

Have you ever realized how similar Tanzania and Wisconsin look? I hadn't until this afternoon's Jeopardy!® rerun asked us for the question whose answer is the island seen in red above. Look at Zanzibar sitting right there where you expect to find Door County. Some important facts about the two:

† Another multi-capitaled African state.

† † Depending on what a lake is.

Islands: Round 2(a)

As The Kee demonstrated, this quiz is really easy. Round 2 includes:

Cyprus

Celebs

Cape Verde
Baffin Island

Trinidad

The Falklands

Grenada

Hispaniola

Newfoundland

Sri lanka

Corsica

Grand Island
Bahrain
Singapore

1.

2.

3.

4.



















5.

6.

7.

8.




















9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

You Spin Me Right Round, Baby. Right Round Like a Sweater, Baby.

From my continuing series: Better Know a Cannon. This one's on the other side of the park. It's on a slight rise, a grassy knoll if you will. It's really quite pleasant. Halfway through this photo shoot some guy got up from the park bench at the bottom of the knoll. He'd been sleeping. I'm not sure if he was a homeless guy or a college kid taking a nap. It was only 16℉ at the time though, so probably homeless.

I've calculated my angular velocity. ω ≈ 6π rad/s


You can't see it, but this flag is at half-mast. I think it must still be down from last week, which is the latest reference to half-masting on the State's website. It seems like someone should have done something with it in the past 8 days.

# of Frames: 51

DHL Dalliances

I ordered another Apple® product recently. This one only had to come from outside of Memphis, TN instead of Eastern China. It took 36 hrs just to get the ~500 miles to Cincinnati. I have another 6 days before it's supposed to get here. I think they're planning on routing it through Albuquerque. 

It hurts a little inside.

I realized this afternoon in my 3 hour Semantics seminar that today is Joe Curtosi's birthday. Joe Curtosi was my best friend during the 8 years of middle and high school. Then I went to college. The last time I actually hung out with him was January of 2002, after getting home from Egypt. Turns out, not living in South Philadelphia is not conducive to maintaining friendships with your friends from South Philly. The upside is that not living in South Philly is conducive to not getting married and not becoming a parent.

Anyway, I was sort of excited when Curtosi joined Facebook this past January. Is there some way to go back and see who friended who? I think he asked me, but I can't remember now. I know I wrote him a message though when it happened, which is much more personal than a wall post. He never wrote back. I didn't even really notice that, I do it all the time. But today, while sitting in my Semantics seminar, I realized he had also de-friended me; there had been no birthday reminder.

I checked when I got home. Yes, he's still on Facebook. No, we are not friends anymore.

Die Eiwaffe!

After 5 interminable weeks, Martin's Brown-Egged reign of terror has finally come to an end. He's been buying browns, and only browns, ever since I found this fake egg in an Iowa City Hobby Lobby. It's like he knew I was scheming up an egg swap and was just buying brown to spite me. Ach!

I figured him out though. All it took was a late night egg tossing/squeezing session to get rid of the last of his latest brown dozen. Which provided the perfect pretense to give him my eggs as replacements. And so operation Porcelain Egg begins...

[03.11.09 09:40] Update: Subject fried 2 eggs this morning. Appears unaware of swap. Observation continues.

What are the sChances that Schwenn will email me next?

Hi, Joanna!

Late last night I was laying on the couch thinking about ways to scare Martin¹ when this episode of "I Dream of Jeannie" came on. The pertinent moment occurs at minute 1:58.




I did some research. Turns out she's from Newark, NJ, just like Whitney Houston. In an unrelated topic, I wish I hadn't read about this.

¹ operation Porcelain Egg is about to begin.

We Accept Types ♳ - ♹

We all know I have a thing for bad recyclers; I like them only slightly more than non-recyclers. How ironic then that I've been living with one for the past 2 years. I don't know why it's so hard for Martin to grasp the basic do's and don't's of Madison's single stream recycling program but I've gotten used to giving our bag of recycling a quick once over before taking it out; just to make sure there aren't any balls of dirty tinfoil, grease soaked cardboard, or egg shells hiding out in there.

[No Hamtub recycling?]

As it turns out, it's not just Martin. Last week, after tossing in a bag full of 40s, champagne bottles, and orange juice cartons I noticed an entire broom in the recycling dumpster. I'm still deciding where the most effective place to post my passive-aggressive note explaining the non-recyclability of wood and wicker would be. 

Someone was really on a roll with their anti-recycling progrom though because while I was in there fishing out the broom I found their half-full jug of bleach too. Also not recyclable. In fact, hazardous waste.

A few other things to keep in mind while disposing in Madison:

Friday Night Videos

Opseblepsia

In this video: the correct definition of obseblepsia, crying, Whitney picking his own definition without knowing it, a debate about the implications of 'bleeding out', Katie asking for Chicken Fried.

If you weren't there, this probably isn't funny.

Let's Talk About Blogs, Baby.

It's taken me a little while to find my words about last weekend. Now that I've got them though I'm going to use 'em.

The weekend started in The Kee Friday night for Schmatie's Sweet Sixteen Party. There were plenty of Scwepp's, Spark's, and Silver Bullets to go around; some were even convinced to take some Schitty Bombs, a drop shot of root beer schnapps in a pint of Schlitz. There's a reason they're known as Schitty.

Highlights included floor-dancing [below], drinking from the squirrel mug, an inexplicable power outage late in the night, and breakfast the next morning.

We couldn't waste too much time though, Joanna was due to show up in Madison in the near future. Ostensibly, she was coming to see me and/or make up for missing Katie's birthday. In reality it was because Sealander had made a spur of the moment 12 hr drive [add 15 minutes if you want to take the Canadian route] from Rochester, NY.

We got to Madison with plenty of time to make the 7:30 showing of Coraline in 3D ["The best movie I've seen all year(!), in 3D."]. The collection of child stealing she-demons, evil schnauzer-bats, button eclipses, and disturbingly proportioned body parts probably should have bumped this into the PG-13 category.

[Look at that turkey neck!]

Although we were excited about Sundance's amazing smoothies and wide variety of popcorn toppings, the thing that really made the trip worthwhile was the realization as we wandered back to the car through The University Bookstore that here lied the elusive and highly sought after Le Pen®.

[Katie, with pens]

After 15-20 minutes spent enjoying the wide assortment of colors and styles we made our decisions and began brainstorming things we could label with our new Marvy® products. We spent Sunday morning sitting in comfortable chairs, drinking coffee, and labeling maps.

[Canada, Europe, Africa, & the Periodic Table]

This may not seem like a fun time to you, but it is for us. I even played it on my birthday. There were some significant realizations too, namely: the relative positions of Whitehorse vis-á-vis Yellowknife, the capital of Macedonia (Podgorica), the location of The Orange River, Rutherfordium(!). Our mood was only enhanced when Joanna finally showed up. It didn't matter that she was 3 hours late; she came bearing gummy candies, cheese curds, a bottle each of Templeton Rye and goats' milk, an amish pickle, and a bag of frozen berries.

We immediately left for breakfast with Sealander and Brad. A Breakfast Scrabble event ensued in which FEAR-BONERTUB-SKI (a Polish container designed to hold fearboners) intersected INCHOATE-DRIHUMPER (a registered trademark for a person just at the onset of a dry humping act).

After breakfast we walked next door, purchased 4 bottles of cheap champagne, a 4-pack of sparks, and 4 40s. Later we picked up 2 gallons of orange juice. Then began an epic day of gaming, mimosas, and egg breaking. We started with a polite game of Jumbling Towers, moved on to a short-lived game of Bridge, progressed to an epic game of Apples to Apples To Go (100% New Card Content!), and finished the night off with a rousing game of Balderdash. Later in the night we played 4-Square egg toss in the street and read about how to squeeze an egg without breaking it.

Life skills that we learned:

➊ the correct ratio of champagne to orange juice is 4 bottles : 1 gallon.

➋ when betting shots of whiskey on your Apples To Apples cards, it is impossible for both of your cards to be picked first. If you bet on them both, you will lose. There is no other outcome.

➌ the White Kentucky [Iowan whiskey and goats' milk] ruins both the whiskey and the goat's milk.

➍ if you forget which definition you submitted during a round of Balderdash, and then proceed to vote for your own answer, you will be awarded one shot of whiskey by the DrinkMeister.

➎ it's completely possible to squeeze an egg without breaking it. But it only works with white eggs, and when you have paper towels handy.

What did you do learn last weekend?

Brought to you in association with:

JUMP, to conclusions!

For every 1 Jump Shot success story there are at least 17 non-jumping attempts. This is their story.

Madison and Garfield

When Katie's car got towed to Madison Street I knew it was nearby. I didn't know it was just around the corner, 20 ft from where I'd parked Tonya's car. How nice of the City of Madison to only slightly inconvenience us/her.

In regards to the Jump Shots:

Shot #1: scary Whitney on the right
Shot #16: backwards Whitney
Shot #18: heel-clicking Whitney [not pictured]
Shot #21: Non-jumping Whitney
Shot #32: Stop sign Whitney

In total: 33 frames, 5 jumps, 3 sign-hangs, 25 stands/crouches

Vocabulary Review: 2/27 - 3/2

Across

2. The remains of a rat or mouse killed by a snapping trap OR A flying squirrel nest

3. Pertaining to the intestines OR An unsuccessful split in Russian ballet

4. A container used to hold ham OR The last flash of a camera's timer light

6. Of or relating to the 1st branch of Government OR A ghoulish taunt typical of non-jumping zombies

8. A poor attempt to whistle loudly OR A foot treadle on the first sewing machine

10. A friendly term used towards an older man OR A hard green cheese made from skim milk

12. An alcoholic drink consisting of equal parts whiskey and goat's milk OR A colloquial term used to describe poorly synthesized methamphetamine

Down

1. Bleeding out on the operating table, resulting in death OR Not able to look someone in the eye

5. Overripe rotting fruit OR Cloth used to wrap around a toga

7. The prominent erect ears desirable in many breeds of terriers OR A nocturnal schnauzer breed capable of flight

9. More meaty OR A sheep-shearing mechanism

11. The Jewish dance crazy that swept Israel during the summer of 1993 OR to shuffle about in sloppy old shoes