Foods I Have Loved

Last night I dreamt that I was a pancake. Not any special pancake, like blueberry, or chocolate chip, just a pancake. Oh, but I could fly. Which I guess is special, though it didn't seem like it at the time. I and some other non-pancakes were engaged in some type of epic battle with a nefarious being. Maybe a bottle of sub-par maple syrup, I don't remember. Anyway, the dream ended after I was trying to fly over a waterfall but got stuck on a rock. The last thing I remember was that my pancake body was starting to tear. Then I woke up. This rates as one of my strangest dreams ever, along with the infamous dream in which I got punched in the face, then woke up with a bloody nose.

In other news, on Friday I had a burrito with french fries in it. I don't have a good explanation as to why this happened since no such thing was actually on the menu of the place we were eating. I do know that it was amazing. After a brief review of what wouldn't be better with french fries in it (very little) I am now considering putting together a business plan for a restaurant based solely on adding french fries to foods that are normally considered completely self-sufficient without them.


Update: A little research has shown that a burrito with french fries in it is colloquially referred to as a "California Burrito". As I'm still pretty sure that no one is making a "California Meatloaf" I think I'm still in business.

Virizon [sic]

The following is the description of a party that someone I know got invited to on Facebook. I was really impressed by how educated the football team seems to be. Oh, and by 'Virizon', they mean 'Verizon'.

Its summer time, so we goin back on the roof-top. Above the Virizon Building on State Street. Come out and have kick it with us... No class or workouts on friday, so we will be gettin it all night long!

We got all the badgers there, past, future, and present. Bottles, Kegs, Music... you already know how we do. NFL Players will be in the building so its basically goin down.

Ain't shit else really hot on Thursday anyways, so lets get it! Church.

The Virizon building is on the corner of Gilman & State right across from Real Chilli and Triangle Market. See yall there.

How did they do that?

I've been thinking a lot about those old bikes with the huge front wheels recently. Nothing about them has ever really made any sense to me. It always seemed like the whole thing was designed to make riding the bike as difficult as possible. Why make the wheels so different in size? And who thought that would be a good idea? How does one go about getting on? What happens if you have to stop? And most importantly, with a wheel that big, how did your feet even reach the peddles? Well, I've done a little bit of reading and I think I have answers to all of those questions now.

1. The important thing here is that these bikes were made before anyone had thought to put a chain on a bike. I guess I knew that already, I just hadn't considered all of the implications of that detail. What this means is that the pedals are connected directly to the axel of one of the wheels. So, each turn of the pedals equals exactly one turn of the wheel. The bigger the wheel, the further you go on each rotation. The more distance you travel with each turn of the pedals, the faster you go at a specific rate of pedalling.

2. James Starley

3. There's a peg just above the back wheel to step on while you run the bike to get it going. Then you jump on top.

4. You don't stop. Or turn really. Fast stops meant going over the handle bars. The fact that your feet were connected to the wheel being turned, but not your body that was sitting on the frame, made turns mild at best.

5. Well, the diameter of the wheel could only be as big as your inseam. Or really the distance from the bottom peddle to the seat could only be as big as your inseam. A shorter crank shaft meant that you could have a bigger wheel, but a harder ride.


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A Delayed Cribshit

I've been promising Schwenn that my next blog topic would be The Cribshitters for about a month now. I've had a hard time figuring out what to say about them though. Sure, they're a Madison band with witty lyrics, a drummer in a lion mask, and a hot chick playing the tuba. But does that really do them justice? The answer is no. The 'shitters, like some odd synergetic conglomeration of leftovers, are truly more than the sum of their component parts. The following is how they were described by The Isthmus, Madison's alternative weekly paper:

Cribshitter is a fucked up mess of shit-ass shit. They play Twang Poop. If you want to know what they sound like, smack a snake in it's head with a wooden spoon while it is eating garbage. That is what they sound like. They might be giving away free buttons at the show. It all depends on if Jared can get his mom to give him the money she owes him (that stupid bitch).

That quote may not seem very informative, but it captures a certain apathetic joie de vivre that permeates the unique Cribshitter sound. Also, I suspect that as their song claims, hot sauce in your pussy really does make you loosey goosey. Sadly, they have no plans to tour in the near future.

Out of Time™

This morning I finally made it through the above issue of Time Magazine, dated Feb. 5th, 2007. This marks the end of my almost 4 month backlog of Times. Over the last several weeks I've been slowly working my way out of the Time sink that I had gotten myself into. Today I'm proud to say that my self-enforced semi-weekly time alottment per magazine has paid off. Of course the new Time just showed up today. And I haven't read that yet. But I'm pretty sure that it doesn't count as backlog until it's at least a week old.

On another note, the word of the day is:

Inveigle: 1. To win over by coaxing, flattery, or artful talk. 2. To obtain by cajolery. Etym. - From Old French aveugler - to blind, from Vulgar Latin aboculum - away from, without + eye

Confusion in the Print Room

At lunch today I opened up my paper to do the NYTimes crossword and encountered an unwelcome surprise. I had already done the crossword printed there. This was confusing to say the least. Above is a picture of pages B2 (today's crossword page) and B11 (the opposing sheet). You may notice something odd about them, especially since they are actually one piece of paper.

That's How We Roll?

Last weekend was spent in Chicago, courtesy of Sysco Food Services. That meant cocktails and dinner at Petterino's Saturday night, VIP passes to the Doobie Brothers concert at the House of Blues Sunday, and a room at the Sheraton Towers until Tuesday. As a result, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night were all marked by open-bars and we didn't make it back to Madison until Tuesday afternoon. The extended time spent with Leslie (and her family) basically turned us into a married couple, albeit one that still sleeps in separate beds. We even seemingly had children for a time when we (both 6'3") meet another friend of mine, Kate, and her boyfriend Tate (really), both of whom are 5'1" (literally). One of the great achievements of the trip, and ostensibly the whole reason for me going to Chicago, was the purchase of a suit. I learned two things from this experience:

1. I look really good in a suit. (I may have already known this)
2. I'm the same size as a mannequin.

Besides for the snide remark about how long I wanted my jacket to be from the hyper-fashioned salesman at Barney's with a disturbingly short tie, the whole suit-buying process was surprisingly easy. The dark charcoal Hugo Boss number with a subtle light blue pinstripe was just what I was looking for. Perfect for upstaging the brothers in June, and it fit like it was made for me right off the rack.