How I blue myself

I have a 3’x2’ frame I have been moving with me the last 3 years even though it had no picture in it. When my roommate moved out a few weeks ago, I decided it was time to fill the frame (particularly since the area above the fireplace looked bare with only nail holes—a sad reminder of the floral print and nails that used to occupy the space). So I went to allposters.com and bought a 3’x2’ print. It happened to be printed in England which meant it was not only jetlagged but 1 inch too tall and 1 inch not-wide-enough, a surprising turn of events since the English are usually stout and portly. I tried a couple different ways of measuring, but there was no way the poster was going in the frame without a fight.

After surveying my options, a matte seemed like the best solution…. but making mattes is a skill I possess little of, unlike sending mail to strangers. Thankfully, I had a warped, bubbled, splotchy, water-stained old matte board that came with the forsaken frame. I got out my trusty exact-o knife (after rethinking the steak knife idea) and the matte was cut; despite it’s wobbly, uneven and jagged edges, it fit. Best of all, I only dropped the exact-o knife through the print once, a slight gaff that was easily patched up with a little bit of black sharpie.

When I had the entire ensemble assembled, I hated the gold frame. My apartment is silver and black. This was gold. Yuck! My mom had given me a can of blue spray paint from the basement for a different project months ago, so I decided this frame would be blue (a deep navy that seems more like a black, in the low romantic lighting I usually use to ironically watch full house alone.) Unfortunately, the can was clogged, so I used a tack and nail to get the paint flowing again. It wasn’t working, so I read the instructions on the back of the can, which said, “do not use a needle to unclog the paint can.” What kind of fool would use a needle? Figuring that persistence was the key, I continued to prod at the can with the veracity of a cockroach until the nozzle was free flowing and blue paint was all over my hands.

The frame got painted, my roommate complained about the paint smell in the apartment (the can also said, “do not use if under 50 degrees”, so I decided to do this project in doors), and I ended up getting blue paint on everything. After it dried, little flakes of blue would rub off on everything… handles to the refrigerator, scratch marks on my face, my signed oil portrait of Siegfried and Roy… if you have ever watched Arrested Development (the greatest show on TV), there is a character who was part of the blue man group with similar problems to me. I also thank AD for the glorious title to this blog entry, since I find it a matter of personal integrity to always give credit where credit is due.

But the important thing now is that the picture is done. The matte is on, the holes are patched, the frame matches the room…. it’s some of the shabbiest work I have ever done for non-educational purposes, but it’s done.

Bus Woos

How do you position yourself on the bus so that you only get to sit next to people who you want to sit next to? Choosing your seat on a bus is a really tough decision. Often times, the clientele ranges from the loud smelly guy who keeps on muttering about cheese under his breath to the knock-out girl who takes your breath away, turning your brain to cheese. There is nothing worse than smelling three day old tuna as Meg Ryan walks past you to the back of the bus.

• Tip 1 If you’re moderately attractive, sit next to the attractive girl. YOU ARE DOING HER A FAVOR. Be sure you remind her that you are saving her from the cheeseman. Women love a night in shining armor who is here to save them. Remember, you are performing this self-less act for her.
  
• Tip 2 If you are the first person on the bus, make sure you have a prop that can be used to ward off creepy smellweirds. I personally use my backpack. I sit at the front of the bus where I can see who is getting on before they get on. If a group of no-good hooligans is getting on, I put my backpack next to me and dig through it so that nobody will ask me to move my stuff. I'm already moving my stuff around and there is no room for them. If I see an attractive gaggle of women about to embarking on the glories of pub(l)ic transportation, I put the backpack on my lap and scoot all the way against the window so there is plenty of room for them to plant their rumpus next to me.
  
• Tip 3 Scooting is a great way to deter seat snatchers. If you only leave someone 1/3 of a seat instead of 1/2, they will move on and try to find an easier seat to snatch. But through scooting, you can also leave someone 5/9th of a seat to make it a more attractive offer. Best yet, scooting is dynamic and can easily be adjusted as multiple people from the same stop enter the bus (unlike the prop, which can only be adjusted once per stop--see tip 2)
  
• Tip 4 Finally, know your route. Sometimes the bus will stop in front of the married student mega-complex.... that can get mega-complicated, mega-quickly, so just park your backpack isle-side. But other stops feature students, bar flies, machinists or macaroni enthusiasts... know what you like and where to find them.

Would you like cheese on that?

With the recent passing of Jonny Carson, I would like to take a moment to thank the comedians out there who are still making me laugh… starting with David Letterman. (In another words, it was such a busy day that I didn’t have the energy to write something myself). I have included some excepts from a bit he did working at the ordering booth of a Taco Bell.

The closest experience to this I had was when I asked a waitress if she had root beer… she went back to check and told me they sold IBC Root Beer. I ordered a Coke.

Letterman at Taco Bell...

*************

LETTERMAN: Honk the horn, ma'am.

CUSTOMER: Why?

LETTERMAN: We're testing the equipment. It has something to do with the
microwave oven.

(The customer honks the horn.)

*************

LETTERMAN: Hi. Welcome to Taco Bell. What do you want, tacos?

CUSTOMER: No. I would actually like a light chicken burrito, nachos with
a side order of guacamole and a three-cheese melt and a medium soda.

LETTERMAN: That's an awful lot of food. How many people are eating out
there?

CUSTOMER: There's just two of us, and it's not a lot of food.

LETTERMAN: It seems like an awful lot of food to me, and I get the
feeling you're gonna eat it by yourself.

CUSTOMER: No.

LETTERMAN: How much do you weigh?

CUSTOMER: Does it matter?

LETTERMAN: With that kind of food, yeah, when we're dealing with this
kind of quantity, we need to know the weight of the customer.

***********

CUSTOMER: Two light soft tacos and a diet soda.

LETTERMAN: What kind of soda do you want?

CUSTOMER: A diet soda, diet Pepsi.

LETTERMAN: Diet what?

CUSTOMER: Pepsi.

LETTERMAN: We don't have diet Pepsi.

CUSTOMER: How about a Dr. Pepper?

LETTERMAN: A diet Dr. Pepper?

CUSTOMER: Sure.

LETTERMAN: We don't have diet Dr. Pepper.

CUSTOMER: Okay. I'll just have any kind of soda.

LETTERMAN: Well, I have to know what kind you want, ma'am, so I can tell
you we're out of it.

***********

CUSTOMER: Give me some ice cream without the cone. Just put it in a cup.

LETTERMAN: You want cheese on that?

Pairs of Women on the 3B

There were four women sitting across the bus from me this morning: two old women and two young women. The two older women looked like the younger women in 40 years.... no... exactly like the young women in 40 years... from 2-liter-coke-bottle glasses to the slightly puffy, yet sagging and wrinkled cheeks. It was really quite eire how similar the pairs were. Then I started wondering what if the pairs were actually the same person who somehow, through a knot in the super space string of the universe, wound up sitting next to themselves one warm, winter morn the bus was running 2 minutes behind schedule.

The Perfect Burger II

Since I got a lot of good questions about my burgers, I thought I would post some clarifying comments…

1. How do you prepare the yogurt? I start by frying the Vandalia onions in margarine, olive oil and a splash of Tab Cola (it gives them a little bit of color and a decadent sweetness.) To start integrating the cherry flavor with the onions I usually squeeze in the juice of three maraschino cherries while the onions are frying. After they have simmered for about 20 minutes I transfer the cooked onions and raw cherry yogurt to a double-boiler. A happy marriage of these two flavors is sealed in the kiss of slow, consistent heating.
   
2. What is a Peep? A peep is a shaped marshmallow coated in sugar (since marshmallows aren’t sweet enough. Fast fact: a sugar cube is the only food sweet enough that you don’t need to roll it in sugar before eating!) Depending on the season you can get Christmas Tree Peeps, Easter Bunny Peeps or a peep of President Clinton (interns only!). I personally find that the Snowmen work better than the Christmas trees because I don’t like triangular burgers. Call me traditional. The marshmallow is used more as a glue than a flavoring since you need something to stick all the nutmeg together. On a side note, I would recommend building a cooling pen for your burgers because if you eat them straight off the grill, the superheated marshmallow will sear bits of steer all over your ear. Oh and finally, it may sound like a good idea, but don’t substitute Elmer’s glue for marshmallow Peeps. Elmer’s is worthless for binding red meat to nutmeg… it says so at the bottom of the bottle… I knew I should have read the label before I swiped my credit card.
   

The Perfect Burger

Last night I made the perfect burger. I started with a Peep (Snowman shaped, NOT Christmas Tree) and coated it with a mix of 2 parts hamburger and 1 part Nutmeg. Grill for 20 minutes while you prepare some fried onions and cherry yogurt. Stuff the burger and onions in a French baguette (like an éclair) and top with the zest of a kumquat. Best served on a bed of chicken-flavored jello with whip cream and marshmallows.

Darth Tater

CNN is reporting that "Darth Tater", a Darth Vader style Mr Potatoe Head, will be available for purchase this year... which got me thinking: if I had to cast fruits or veggies in the upcoming star wars film, who would I choose:

• Yoda: Chinese Cabbage (wrinkled, green and wise)
  
• Chewbacca: coconut (the furriest fruit I can think of... although the Ralph Wiggums quote may need to be changed to "I bent my coconut cookie.")
  
• Darth Vader: A Yam (slightly more evil than a potatoe, but still part of the spud family.)
  
• All Jedis: Carrots (the glowing orange phallas reminds me of a light saber... sometimes I pretend they are....)
  
• Jabba the Hut: A pile of mashed brussel sprouts topped with a tart garlic butter sauce
  
• Luke Skywalker: An orange. (Who could be mad at an orange or Luke? Plus it continues the theme of orange representing the Force).
  

ElderlyCorps

I call upon America's People-of-Age (Whatchu say, sonny? Speak up!!) to band together to form the world's first ElderlyCorps. It would be like a compulsory PeaceCorps for old duffers. Instead of greeting shoppers at the Walmart or watching squirrels out of the window (or arranging dead squirrels to watch walmart shoppers outside of their window), they could perform tasks that could in some way permanently scar today's youth (like cleaning up hazardous waste or spongebathing the... mselves....)

MLK Day

This is one of the first years I have ever had MLK day off and I really didn’t know how to celebrate. If it’s one thing I am good at, it’s knowing what party to apply to what situation… but I was drawing a blank. Last year I baked a chocolate and white marble cake, but nobody noticed my diversity since I coated the chocolate side with a fudgy frosting and the white half of the cake with vanilla—all that careful pouring of the batter for nothing! So this year I went shopping… I figure black, white, red or yellow we all have green at our core. It turned out to be a very productive day because I bought my first button-down shirt. That night I finally slept well knowing that my closet of t-shirts had been successfully integrated with button-downs.

I've got nothingnothing.

I've got absolutely nothing to say today, but I figured I had better post something or else I would lose all the momentum I had going for this blog (I use the term "momentum" very loosely). Today I ate Couscous. Why do people name things twice? I once saw a pianist named Lang-Lang, my former college president was Thomas Thomson and I live near Minneahaha Falls (which means Ha Ha falls must be near by). Don't people realize how much of my life I have spent repeating myself? To make matters worse, nobody ever listens to what I have to say the first time.... so by the time I have repeated what I originally said, I have uttered the noun "cous" about 10 times just to tell someone I ate lunch today. The other strange thing about couscous is how shredded it is. It makes me want to throw ccoonnffeettii about while I eat it. I wonder if each little shred is a cous.... in which case, I certainly ate more than 2 couses...

The Raft of God

According to BBC News today.... Steve "Jobs unveiled a raft of products"... that got me thinking that most products are unveiled on podiums, platforms, tables, but rarely rafts. I felt honored to be witness to one of the few raft unveilings in modern history (since the Grapes of Rafts campaign in 1939) .... I would love to see Hormel's latest Chipotle Chili unveiled in a yellow, rubber raft floating through a sea of shredded cheddar. And why limit yourself to the raft when you could squeeze new pudding lines out of that little hole in a soccer ball or dramatically open the door to a big, yellow school bus to unveil a cascading wave of the new, Mauve M&M.

Dead Squirrels

Dear Spirit of a Generation,
I am now a happy owner of my own blog after mentally being pushed off a cliff by a friend's blog: today he thought he would write about a recent trip to Cabellas and describe all of the stuffed animals. I've got no problem with that.... everyone loves animals with fake eyes glued in their heads... but he failed to even suggest all of the wonderful ways the animals could be arranged in little squirrel tea parties, rabbits at the ice-capades, lemurs working the drive through at McDonals, or penguins folding pillow cases at a Chinese Laundromat. There comes a time when you can sit back no longer and watch all the e-injustices facing modern man. Today was that day and I am proud to say I stepped up to that plate and took a thimble shot of a squirrel's espresso--that bittersweet flavor of freedom.

Hellow and welcome to my extended entry. This is a place where I extend upon my entries.... which is something I personally feel quite shy and dirty talking about.