A place called B.L.O.G.

It’s official. I’m going to Lebowski Fest. I ordered the tickets today. Derek and I are going to go. Man, I haven’t been on a road trip in a while. And I’ve NEVER been on a road trip that involves seeing They Might Be Giants, hanging out with a bunch of obsessed fans of a movie, and staying in a hotel room with Derek. This is going to be quite the new thing indeed.

So, with all the places I’d like to go, and all the times I thought "I should travel more," how odd that I’m actually taking a trip and it’s to … Louisville, Kentucky.

Well, it should be chock-full o’ fun and wacky adventures, and I’m certainly in favor of getting in wacky adventures. For now, though, I feel crap-tastic because I think I’m getting sick again and I have to work a long day tomorrow and this weird bruise under my toenail won’t go away, and it’s like, "Is that thing EVER going to go away?"

But whenever I feel bad, I just think of items like this one from the police reports I compile:

"CHASKA - A woman called police because two men got out of an SUV, came up to her, asked her if she ever used Downy, and then left."

They pay me to write about this stuff. PAY ME. 

I wish there were such a thing as a minister of world culture, and that I were appointed to this post. I figure somebody in that kind of position would have the power to place a ban on certain rhyming pairs in popular music. Tired, boring, predictable rhymes. No human being who writes a song from now on would be allowed to fall back on them anymore, if I had anything to say about it. A partial list:

baby-maybe

heart-apart

love-above

water-daughter

acid-flaccid

walk-talk

tonight-all right

never-ever

butterfly-flutter by

friend-end

please-knees

money-honey

together-forever

secret-egret

Juice. Soda pop. Gatorade. Lemonade. Good old-fashioned water, with plenty of ice. These are few of the beverages I enjoy drinking. Especially on a nice warm day, or after running a few loads of groceries up the steep, crooked steps to my apartment, or after a long trek through the barren Mojave Desert, I really appreciate a nice, cool beverage. I often choose to drink beverages out of a cup, or "glass," if you will, but I also frequently consume them directly from the bottles in which they are sold. The method of delivery is unimportant. What matters is that nice, cool, liquidy, hydrated feeling I get after a nice beverage.

Who’s with me on this?

There was a fire alarm at work today. Everybody groaned and filed out, then milled around for a bit until somebody waved us back inside. I assumed it was a false alarm, but it turned out that there actually was a small fire in a freight elevator or something. Let this be a lesson to you: Not all fire alarms are false. Sometimes the fire is quite real and it may even damage a freight elevator. So just be on your toes.

The thing that bugged me was that when the alarm goes off, this recorded voice comes over the intercom and says "A fire alarm has been reported in the building." Really? A fire alarm was reported? I don’t think so. An alarm was not reported. A fire was reported, thus raising the alarm. Come on, people. This is a newspaper here. And if this seems like the smallest, most petty thing to ever gripe about, well, it is. But still.

There’s a billboard near Snelling and Como for one of those energy drinks. It says "Little silver can, watch your back." Ah, yes. Advertising at its finest. Here we have a company that:

1) Stole an idea that another product (Red Bull) popularized;

2) Is trying to increase its product’s name recognition by associating itself with the very product it ripped off, all without actually naming the competing product outright; and

3) Somehow claims that its product is superior to the other product, despite offering not a shred of evidence to support this claim.

"Watch out, Red Bull! We’ve stolen your idea and we’re banking on the energy-drink slamming youth of today not giving a crap about who is the original and who is the copycat!"

I don’t drink Red Bull. I don’t drink any of these products. But for some reason it bugs me when one company blatantly rips off another’s idea and pretends it’s original. See "Lime Coke vs. Lime Pepsi," "Blizzard vs. McFlurry," "Coke fridge pack vs. Pepsi fridge pack," "Taco Bravo vs. Double-Decker Taco," and probably hundreds of others. I’d love to be in on these board meetings where the committee decides the other guys have a good idea that they need to steal. Of course, they surely don’t think of it in those terms. I’m sure they couch it in talk of "being competitive" or some such nonsense. Fact is, they have no shame. 

Check this out.

http://www.wibsite.com/wiblog/dull/

Never mix macaroni and cheese, kidney beans and green olives. I mean never. Seriously, this is important. This is one of those rules that’s up there with “never feed your Mogwai after midnight” and “if confronted by a grizzly bear or Kathy Griffin, curl up in a fetal position and hope it goes away.”

I suppose great chefs probably do a lot of experimenting. In unrelated news, I also experiment with food sometimes. Some days I feel ambitious and I actually cook something that involves cutting vegetables, measuring spices and waiting more than five minutes for it to be done. Tonight, though, I am going to experiment in a very lazy way.

Macaroni and cheese + kidney beans + green olives = ????

I am some kind of mad scientist, aren’t I?

Hello. Today is Saturday. I wrote a poem about today:

Hell, hell, rotting flesh
Bad, bad, bad, bad stuff
Staples in my eyeballs
Thumbscrews on my toes
Fingers pressing in my wounds
Curses from powerful wizards
Those all sound like problems
Glad they’re not happening to me
Where did I put that magazine?
Oh, wait, there it is.

(end poem)

This is why I don’t write poetry.

I saw a commercial on TV the other day for a boat sale. They said it was "The most extraordinary sale in the history of boating!"

I hate advertising. When I went to St. Thomas, all my journalism classes were filled with future ad executives. Advertising was part of the journalism program there. In my media ethics seminar, there were probably two print journalism people, one broadcast person, and 15 or 20 ad and p.r. people. Hmmm. Could this be part of the problem? A small sample, no doubt, but of those 20 or 25 people, a couple were interested in conveying truth, or at least some semblance of it, and the rest were interested in conveying bullshit and spin. And we wonder why this country is full of … bullshit and spin? The problem is that bullshit and spin pays more. Not that journalists or journalism are perfect, mind you. But you see my point. Or, if you don’t, that’s fine. Read somebody else’s blog!

End communication.