Awesome, Awesome, Awesome...Awesome

Katie says I should start watching Veronica Mars. Apparently it is the greatest thing since Krispy Kreme donuts. On the one hand, shows featuring an unlikely protagonist solving crimes have a long history of being awesome. Retired author solving crimes a la Murder, She Wrote...awesome. Quirky doctor solving crimes a la Diagnosis, Murder...awesome. At least, what those two lack in legitimate awesomeness they more than make up for in the systematic week by week extermination of the main characters' various old friends and acquaintances, as well as the latter co-starring Scott Baio. Wacky teens and a pseudo-anthropomorphic dog solving crimes a la Scooby Doo...awesome. Elderly country bumpkin lawyer solving crimes a la Matlock...awesome. Well dressed talking chimpanzee solving crimes a la Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp...groin grabbingly awesome. So there's definitely some potential for a down-on-her-luck teenager named Mars solving crimes in a rich suburb called Neptune. On the other hand, my Tivo is already pretty full up with Star Trek: TNG and Law&Order reruns.

Kel leaves for a week tomorrow, heading down to Disney World with the fam. I'll have to find a way to entertain myself while she's gone. I do have about 6 hours of Futurama saved up, but watching TV just isn't the same if Kel's not laying behind me asking why we never cuddle anymore. Any recommendations? I was thinking of traipsing around South Bend solving crimes.

Hot Coffee

Has everyone heard about the Hot Coffee controversy? I don't know if this is common knowledge or just a minor item known only to those of us who have several hours a day to peruse internet news sites. Anyway, Hot Coffee is a downloadable mod for GTA: San Andreas which unlocks some "mature content", meaning poorly rendered character models having hot, lusty polygonal sex. The first funny part is that people would actually download and install a hack to watch their game character get it on with another game character. They have to go to the internet anyway to get the mod, you'd think their lust could be better satiated by high quality sites like www.kellymortellexposed.com. The second funny part is that even though the game is already rated mature and may only be purchased by those ages 17 and up, even though you have to specifically go out and obtain a hack to unlock this content, even though the game already features morally reprehensible graphic violence such as shooting cops, sniping pedestrians, beating old ladies with bats, robbing and killing whores, etc...the politicians are suddenly screaming bloody murder about "Hot Coffee".

Hillary Clinton seems to be leading the charge, or at least is the biggest name to publicly object. I've never had any problem with Hillary Clinton before, but what an insanely stupid thing to shout about. How nuts must you be to sit silent for cop killing, whoring, carjacking, etc, but then flip out when a couple imaginary people get it on in a wholly unarousing way? You Ma'am, are an idiot.

I had the best nap yesterday.

Just Give Me A Chance To Do A Hip Hop Dance!

I finally went to Club 23. It wasn't quite the hole everyone had led me to believe it was. It wasn't exactly the Philadelphia Library Lounge (oh yes, I typed "famous bars" into answers.com for that nugget) but neither was it the Backer. It's also the only bar I've ever been to where it seems to be standard practice to play drinking games. The bartender had decks of cards back there available for the asking. Weird. It was pretty fun though, and I got to enjoy it for a good hour longer than intended, as my ride skipped out around 10:30 to do "paperwork" for her ex.

Abby and her chatty manfriend came to ritas last night, so if anyone has been wondering how Tannen is doing: she's AOK. Nice to see her. Kel prepared for her scheduled tutoring session with her bro by downing 3 big dogs, which, even for a woman of her immense girth, is impressive. Gloria hatched a plan to cover her car in discarded trash, and Hoover made 73 Simpsons references. Hoover's roommate Katie looked upon us with an expression which strongly suggested she doesn't find us nearly so amusing as we find ourselves. Rob threw tiny bits of lettuce about the table. Joell threatened me with a knife, and Jani drank her meal. I peed at least 8 times. Ball, of course, spilled queso on himself.

My Doctor Said Mylanta

Everyone ready for another thrilling painting update? Because it's all here, every tape application, every brushstroke. Read it, love it! We got a whole lot done this weekend, finishing up the door frames, windows, and bedroom trim. We would have finished the rest of the upstairs but Kel was out of commission for a while after consuming an entire quart of semi-gloss enamel. Other than that the weekend went by without any notable adventures besides repeatedly dripping paint on the carpet, yelling "Emergency, emergency!" and making ambulance noises until one or the other of us cleaned it up with a wet rag. Is there a word for the level of comfort a couple eventually reaches in which they lose all will to act like normal humans around each other? Because I'm there, baby!

Here's a fun news item: Physicist Lowell Wood has proposed a plan to reduce global warming by launching a 600,000 square mile mirror into space to deflect sunlight. 600,000 square miles. Into space. Also it is to be constructed of a mesh of tiny threads, each only 1 millionth of an inch in diameter. Dude has been researching this idea for ten years. I would love to meet this guy! I bet he wears a white lab coat and has wild, unkempt hair and crazy wandering eyes. I bet if I probed him enough about the mirror I could get him to do one of those mad scientist laughs. I love you crazy mirror scientist man.

I Likes The Short Fatties!

It turns out there is something even more awesomely awesome than painting behind toilets, and that is riding your bike home from work upwind through a thunderstorm. It was an incredible experience, and you might say in many ways a metaphor for my life. That would be wildly inaccurate though, and I'd head butt you in the eye. My life is more like a lightly graded ski slope, gently contoured to effortlessly swoop me into all the lodges with the best pizza by the slice. Also there are chicks there! And pie!

I watched The Rainmaker last night. It was pretty good. Danny DeVito is a very sensual man. The ending was a little funky, it was like, I won the case! Against overwhelming odds! I'm on top of the wooorld! Also, all lawyers are jerks and I quit, the end. By the way, if you haven't seen it, you probably should not read that last sentence. Nor this one about his girlfriend beating a nearly unconscious man to death with a baseball bat. Holy Frijoles!

T-minus 5 hours until the ultimate painting championship part deux! This time, it's downstairs.

Shut Up And Dance

For the consideration of those who haven't seen it yet, a picture of John G. Roberts' son during Bush's announcement of his father's nomination:

Later questioned about the incident, the 8 year old simply stated "That's how I gets down!"

This week has actually been moderately busy for me at work. The Course Specialist is gone so all the requests for meeting time and instructor changes are getting filtered down to me. Pretty dull stuff but it passes the time. I'm afraid that's how dull my last couple of days have been--I'm reduced to writing about work. So to spice things up a bit, please let me introduce today's guest poster, Kelly Mortell:

Hi, I'm Kelly and I love U2! I stalk Bono! Ireland Ireland Ireland! Is it cuddle time yet? Do I smell cookies? I can smell oreos through an unopened polyethylene bag! I love Guinness because it's from Ireland! That's where Bono is from! I wonder if Bono likes oreos! I'm fat.

Hmmm. That seemed funny in my head. What a terrible mistake. I'm...sorry to have wasted your time.

Summer In The Bend

I love summer in the Bend. I can ride my bike to work every day. I don't have to iron my shirts. I don't have to wear a jacket or a tie to work. I get off at 4:30 every day. The whole campus is green and meticulously maintained to accommodate the ten million tour groups wandering around. I never have to wait for a bench at Rolfs. I grill out 3 or 4 times a week, and it's still light out after dinner. It's light out when I wake up in the morning too--not that I'm any better at getting to work on time, but the sunlight makes it significantly easier to only be a few minutes late. Summer = smooth belly jismatastic. Skittles and rainbows. Let's all hold hands and sing a camp song.

Here's something I hate: internet buffoons who constantly type in broken leetspeak. Not the adolescents who actually think they're doing something cool--it's their job to think they are awesome and witty. I hate the chumps who's mockery of poorly executed leetspeak is so constant that they feel they must include "You are teh sux0rs! PWN3D!!!11!!1" in every single blog entry or message board post, thinking this to be the height of hilarity. It seems that in every other internet discussion, no matter what the subject, there are 72 morons racing to see who can be the first one to misspell "the" as "teh" or mix their exclamation points with ones. Oh man, I hate you so much I could punch your mom. But only if she's really old. I also hate people who complain about trivial things. And I hate irony! Yep, stole that from Bill Brasky. Suck it!

Hey, remember that night when Stitch kept rewarding me with more beer every time I said something foolish or offensive? Of course you don't, there were only like 3 of us there. But it was teh hawt!!11!1! See? Annoying as hell. Please leave my mom out of this.

It Was A Good Plan

Kel had to head back to Indy for a few days to get shots for school. Herpes I think. My ingenius plan was to hit the painting hardcore while she was gone so that when she got back on Wednesday the basement would be half done and she'd be happy and do a little dance and try to make me a cake and the kitchen would somehow explode and I wouldn't have to paint it, which would have involved moving the refrigerator. Alas, the beer gods conspired against me--Rob offered to drive to ritas, where we arrived about an hour before the bulk of the group, and we had no choice but to sit at the bar and crush several big dogs. You can't drink and paint. To do so would be to invite madness.

JaniSMC came out to ritas, it was good to see her. I also ran into Katie-O and Merten, along with Sam, Ryan, and Diesel. All the powers of the past and present Notre Dame Band in one location--you could taste the electricity. It tasted like queso, and it was delicious. Ball and I headed back to Jani's place after dinner to meet Romeo, her puppy--he's a yippie little bastard, the type of dog I would normally encourage my dog to eat, but I have to admit he's one seriously cute little dude. He's a wee little three pound ball of fur, and he kept trying to consume my nose, and by God I loved every minute of it. We ended up taking him with us to Jen's, which resulted in by far the most unsanitary game of one-cup ever played. My hands were full keeping Romeo from running off, so the ball kept bouncing in my lap, which of course contained Romeo. We took the usual precautions, but something tells me dipping the ball in the same cup of cloudy water before repeatedly bouncing it into the community beer didn't have the sanitizing effects that we had intended. If I perish, tell my family I died as I lived, with a maltese in my lap and contaminated beer in my gullet.

Paint Paint Paint

We did a lot of painting this weekend. The upstairs is finished, except for the kitchen which we're saving for last. Do you know what the greatest thing in the world is? It turns out it's squeezing in behind a toilet to clean and paint every funk-encrusted surface you never knew a bathroom had. It's a special thing that you must experience to appreciate. It looks pretty good now though, all done up in a nice relaxing "Ocean Cruise" blue. I was thinking of getting one of those "Jeff Goldblum Is Watching You Poop" posters to complete the soothing atmosphere. Anyway, hopefully we can be done with the whole place by Sunday night, and I can get back to my bustling social life.

Ticket lottery results came out. Kel got all the games except USC and Mich State, so she's got dibs on my extra for those two. Jism called Tennessee (Hello, Tennessee? My pee-pee hurts). If anyone is interested in my extra for BYU, Navy, or Syracuse, let me know. That's right--if you want a ticket, you have to admit you read my blog. Suckaaaaa! Anyway, if you are interested, let me know sooner rather than later, because if no one else wants them Kel will go to those games with me and give her own tickets to her parentals.

If I Were A Rich Man

1) I would have a 3 piece suit made from a bunch of $100 bills sewn together. Instead of just looking like a million bucks, it'd actually be a million bucks. I would be the biggest pimp in the world, and Snoop Dogg would have to hang out with me. In the future, all high profile gangstas will wear clothes made of money. Their canes will be stacks of rare coins.

2) I would donate an obscene amount of money to Notre Dame, contingent on them building a new dorm called "Mal Hall" which houses a single 2000 square foot room. This room would be occupied by two freshman each year, prescreened for their propensity to throw uber-sweet campus-wide freshman-only parties. This room would officially be considered off-campus and liquor rules would not apply.

3) I would go to a casual dining restaurant for lunch and leave the keys to an Aston Martin V12 Vanquish S as a tip. I would later return for dinner, request a different waitress, and tip her with a single mountain dew cap and a note that says "Collect more points for cool dew gear!!"

4) I would buy a large tract of land and a firetruck so I can see what that bad boy looks like driving off a cliff.

5) I would use my power and influence to get cast on The Apprentice and punch Donald Trump in the crotch.

6) I would hire The Macho Man Randy Savage to intimidate my enemies.

7) I would go to a taco bell drive-through, order everything on the menu, pay for it, and then when they try to hand me my food, scream "So long, suckers!" and peel off.

Killing In The Name Of

An oldie but a goodie. Turn your speakers up to max volume, kick back, and let Zack de la Rocha aurally whoop your ass and cause you to question the establishment with such thought provoking lyrics as: "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me / fuck you I won't do what you tell me / fuck you I won't do what you tell me / fuck you I won't do what you tell me / fuck you I won't do what you tell me / fuck you I won't do what you tell me / fuck you I won't do what you tell me / fuck you I won't do what you tell me / fuck you I won't do what you tell me / fuck you I won't do what you tell me / fuck you I won't do what you tell me / fuck you I won't do what you tell me / fuck you I won't do what you tell me / fuck you I won't do what you tell me / fuck you I won't do what you tell me / fuck you I won't do what you tell me!" Magnificent.

Rolfs bought new weights. They look like what some movie producer would use for weights in a futuristic sci-fi thriller. Instead of plain old round discs, they're all polygonal and angled, and they've got rotating handles. Anyway, the point is they look different than the old ones, and I somehow got mixed up and added 15 extra pounds onto the bench last night, putting the bar just under my body weight. I managed a pretty steady 6-5-4 before I figured out why it felt so heavy, which I realize is not enormously impressive to many of you, but considering that a) tall lanky computer guys are not widely noted for their brute strength and b) I started out benching well under half that, I'm really quite pleased with my progress so far.

And now, lunch.

Don't Forget To Stir It Up, Baby

You have to keep things fresh. That's why last night, instead of going to the gym and then working hardcore on the condo as planned, we spontaneously decided to gorge on Chef Boyardee pizza and watch Bottle Rocket.

You have to keep your breath fresh. I bought a $120 toothbrush. That's right, baby! The next time someone asks me "Stephen, just how serious are you about oral hygiene?" I will say, "About $117 more serious than you, jerk!" and go give myself a pulsating gum massage.

They finally set a release date for A Feast For Crows, November 8th! It's the 4th in the Song of Ice & Fire series, which is freaking sweet. I might like it even better so far than the Dark Tower series, also freaking sweet. And of course Harry Potter 6 comes out in a few days. I didn't order a copy for myself, so I'll have to nab that from someone. Right now I'm reading Haunted, which is only okay, but has the distinction of containing by far the most horribly disgusting story I have ever read. I've read most of Stephen King's library and he gets a little gruesome from time to time, but this...I'm glad I had not eaten recently. If you ever read it, you'll know it when you get there, and you'll clench your ass like you've never clenched before.

Fun Times in Charlotte

Crud looked amazing. Anyone who was giggling at the thought of Crud in a wedding dress (I was), let me assure you that it wasn't hilarious at all, she looked made for it. The whole wedding was well done, very appropriate for those two. The ceremony was in a small church, and was pretty light hearted. The priest had a strange obsession with Everybody Loves Raymond, one of the readers tripped, and at a particularly emotional moment, as John's father was up in front of everyone haltingly reading the "Love is this, love is that, blahbitty blah blah" passage, fighting back tears, my stomach decided to tell everyone that I had missed breakfast with a very attractive and resonant "RRRREEEAAARRROOOOWW".

Here's a little tidbit. As one of the "Bridal Attendants" I had the unique opportunity of waiting with the ladies in the women's dressing room, and do you know what they talk about back there? Boobs. I knew it.

Anyway, the ceremony was very nice. There was a formal reception directly following at a swanky club downtown. It was the usual--champagne, toasts, pictures, mingling. I ate wedding cake combined with pepper-jack cheese, and brother, it was delicious. Ball made the unfortunate mistake of commenting on the attractiveness of Christina, who is a) related to Crud and b) 17. So Andy and I entertained ourselves for a couple hours trying to make that one happen, though sadly without success.

There was an all-day lake party at the McClain house following the formal reception. I rode in a speedboat! I also swam among the fish poop against my will and better judgment. Ball rammed another speedboat with a kayak and capsized. Seriously, that really happened. It was fantastic. It was good to hang out with everyone, old friends and associates. I'd say it was just like old times, but of course it wasn't. Everyone has changed to a greater or lesser degree. Andy grew muttonchops and now sports a handlebar moustache. Other people are getting married, buying houses, having kids, finding careers. The weird part is that it doesn't seem that weird--what's weird is thinking back to how nuts everyone was just a few years ago, and how baby smooth Andy's face was.

Speaking of Andy, I'd like to thank him for reminding me what comedy is. Comedy is reverse-thong speedos. Comedy is flaccid nipples. Comedy is 3 million gallons of untreated wastewater exploding into tourist beaches, and some poor bastard having to go out there and clamp the pipe off by hand. Comedy is also announcing to Andy that I barely have enough close male friends to fill my 7-groomsmen quota, and not realizing until the next day that I had totally forgotten to ask him to be one of them. Oops.

Has anyone else ever met Crud's older sister, Alex? FREAKY. They look similar enough to be twins, but they sound exactly the same. Their voices are not similar, but completely indistinguishable. Every word choice, inflection, accent, totally identical. This led to me repeatedly hearing Crud and turning to join the conversation only to be met with a bunch of strangers. Also Crud tackled me, and licked my face. Those two events were unrelated. The end.

The trip back was uneventful. We had to get to the airport enormously early to make Megan's flight, and as our own flight was delayed we had a solid 5 hours to thoroughly explore the A, B, C, D, and E concourses of the Charlotte airport. My favorite was B. It has a store that sells canes.

Plan B

Alas, Kelly has convinced me not to ramp over a shark while wearing water skis, arguing that "[shark jumping] isn't the only way to be cool. Being safe is the way to be cool." True words, fatty. So, I would like to announce my intention that Ball don water skis and ramp over a ravenous shark at Crud's lake party this weekend. I'll be standing in relative safety on his shoulders.

And here's a little safety tip--if there's one thing I've learned about radios and dryers, it's that you neeeever plug them in around bathtubs or showers! Oh man, I'm going to be internally jammin to that for the rest of the day. And so will you. You gotta play it safe around electricityyyyyy!

Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball

A couple days ago some 59 year old Japanese dude successfully recited pi to 83,431 digits, beating his own previous world record of 54,000. What. The hell. In 7th grade my friend Ari memorized it to 100 and I thought that was pretty bizarre, but you are on a whole new level of weirdness, old man. Incidentally, the numeric equivalent of the word "oose" appears at the 7,290,728th digit of pi. Coincidence??

Tonight the Ball and I head out to Chicago to spend the night at his place before flying to Charlotte in the morning. I seem to have gotten over my whole fear of flying. I still don't like it, but the urge to run screaming out of the terminal has pretty much left me. Plus I still have Dooz' happy-fun-stress-ball, although I no longer squeeze it since Stitch had it in his mouth. I keep it in my pants.

Anyway, we're flying down to Charlotte in the morning and then it's time to wedding things up! That's right, in just two days Crud will no longer be Crud C. Crudington, but Crud C. Crudington-Mack. I wisely opted to pick up my tux in the Bend instead of Charlotte, so I'm going to be looking gooood for the ceremony. At the part where the priest asks if anyone has a reason why these two should not be wed, I'm going to freak out and start bawling about how I'm carrying her baby, then run up and hump her leg like a bonobo. We should all have a good laugh.

It's Time For A Guinness

Oh man. I am building a bar for the new place, and it is going to have Guinness on tap. No shatty kegerator, I'm talking custom fit woodwork, tower faucet, stainless steel bar sink...it will be glorious! And this isn't one of my crazy plans that has no chance of coming to fruition like the fold-out party wall or the giant pie with a kiddie pool tin--this one is happening. It is. As God as my witness--I will pass the fourth grade. Or, I will always be hungry again. Take your pick.

I got a good amount of work done over the weekend. Dismounted all the doors, knobs, hinges, and catches, took down some rickety shelving, spackled the hell out of the walls. Yeah, they're hell free. Just need to sand that mofo down and we'll be ready to paint.

The TC girls had a party Saturday night, but I didn't stick around long. It turns out I'm not yet too old to stand around and drink with a bunch of random undergrads, but I am too old to stand around and drink shitty beer with a bunch of random undergrads. I also heard from JaniSMC on Sunday, whom I have somehow not seen in well over a year despite the fact that she lives about 4 minutes from me. So that was nice.

Finally, I would like to announce my intention to don water skis and ramp over a ravenous shark at Crud's lake party this weekend.

3 Day Weekend

Kel just read this book on Irish wedding traditions or some such foolishness which, aside from copious advice on how to repel evil faeries, contained this nugget: at the wedding, you and your husband/wife ring a small wedding bell, and forever after keep it nearby to be jingled after marital spats. The ting-a-ling is supposed to remind you of your deep love and solemn vows, resulting in forgiveness and make-up sex. I like the concept but I think a bell is kind of pansy. I'm going to use a stun gun. Then when she tells me she sold all of my power tools to redecorate the guest bathroom, it's BZZZZZZ--surprise biatch, you're paralyzed!

Speaking of the Irish--anyone else see that the Department of Enterprise, Trade, and Development in Belfast has banned the word "brainstorming," deeming it to be offensive to people with brain disorders? It's been replaced with the phrase "thought showers." Freaking. Sweet.

3 day weekend coming up! I was considering heading to Columbus, but I think I'm just going to stay here. I have a lot of Scrubs to watch, and it's been a while since I've had a whole weekend to just lounge around. I should also get started on spackling the new place so it's good to go when Kel is ready to paint, but I'm actually looking forward to that. I really like to spackle, paint, saw things, glue things, nail things, drill holes in things, etc. It's fun and when you're finished you feel like you've done something useful with your time. Maybe I should be a carpenter. It worked for the Big Man, Bob Vila. HOOOO! If the weather stays decent I might finally hit the 9-hole as well, thus realizing my life dream of publicly humiliating myself on a golf course.