Sunday, June 28, 2009

a bong named ideas

i'm lounging at home with the sweet fur pickle, micah. b flew to NY today after 5 days here. we had a lovely lazy stretch of days; feasting at taco john's; catching up on squidbillies episodes; munching peanut butter balls...


much to his dismay, you cannot find taco john's on the west coast. but artists must suffer for their work.
potato oles are nothing without the salty yellow...

i am heading to ND this week for the fam gath at the cabin, so micah will be staying with a friend of b's. if he wasn't such a spaz around other dogs and wouldn't sprint to his death if let off a leash, he could have fun at the lake.

speaking of good ol' ND, josh duhamel was on a talk show last week and mentioned our lovely home town (by way of plugging the restaurant he opened there).
taco tuesdays made this

Sunday, June 21, 2009

favorite recent quotes...


people hate people who have theories about people
--rerun of house

baby bunnies are the worst!
--pamorama
days are long but life is short

Friday, June 19, 2009

happy solstice


the summer solstice occurs this weekend (at 12:46 CDT on the 21st). this gives us the longest day and saturday night is the shortest night of the year. also is the official start to summer. it brings 15 hours and 36 minutes of daylight to minneapolis.

in 2004 i traveled to London to visit friends. after a week there, i flew to Barcelona to visit another friend, arriving on the eve of the solstice. in Barcelona it is the night of "San Juan," a holiday that brings thousands to the beaches for bonfires, fireworks, and funking the bring.

the history of the holiday is familiar - believed to date back to pagan sun worship rituals. people used bonfires to light the shortest night of the year (the witching night). then the holiday was incorporated into (stolen by) the christian calendar and renamed to honor "john the baptist." but what it has evolved into is too freaking wonderful.

since it is the shortest night of the year, everyone parties all night - why sleep thru the briefest of noches? we walked along the beach, giggled all the clubs set up on the beach for the night each having different dance music and each loaded with dancers, dodged fireworks flying thru the wobbly crowds. my group kept going until 6am, then we went to home bases for breakfast and more debauchery.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

how stupid is tim pawlenty? very.

a man who clearly needs special education doesn't want to fund it...
shockingly idiotic news from the governor's budget balancing moves... if you paid attention to the minnesota legislative session (does anyone?) you probably heard that the (DFL controlled) legislature and the (intellectually challenged) governor couldn't agree on a budget. the state was headed for a $5 billion deficit over the next 2 years.

so what did dumbass decide to do with K-12 education funding to solve the problem? magic. he decided a magic trick was the way to go; the government's word for this magic is "funding shift" it doesn't really cut anything or improve the budget, it just slides bills under the table where you can't see them beyond all the stupid.

school funding (i can hear you yawning) is insanely complicated and archaic, but that is beside the point for now. one of the craziest realities of school funding is "funding shifts" - this is when the government tells schools that it will only pay a percentage of what it owes. for example, a 10% shift means that the schools only get 90% of the funding the state owes them. then the state pays the remaining 10% the next school year.

did you even detect the magic!?!? this shift allows politicians to say they helped fund schools and makes the budget balance sheet look nicer, while only screwing kids.

governor pawlenty increased the shift from 10% to 27% as part of his plan to solve the budget problems. this means that schools will only receive 73% of the money they need next year. because this effectively cuts nearly one-third of all schools' budgets, districts will be forced to borrow money to stay in the black, but most cannot afford the interest. fuckup pawlenty is insulated from charges that he cut school funding because all he did was delay when schools get paid. brilliant.

but reality shows that this type of delay of school districts' funding will increase class sizes and will force small schools to close. perhaps he thinks this is economic stimulus to force schools to borrow from banks? the governor's site doesn't mention this major ball-slap to schools, instead only proudly mentioning his increase in the "performance pay" for teachers idea that someone told him was smart. well, i guess once he gets teachers fired and schools desperately underfunded, THAT is the time to tie remaining teachers' pay to how students do on standardized tests.

why don't we tie his pay to his test scores? i think that could save us bundles.

when GM gets its monthly bailout, what percentage of that money is held back?

"i don't want no kids gettin' smarter than me."

"stare into my sexy face mr president. bite my face."

Saturday, June 13, 2009

says so right here

a couple random tangents -

1. gay penguins are the best parents

2. more big dicky face -

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Dick (Uncut)
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political HumorNewt Gingrich Unedited Interview

watch dick say he likes gay marriage and never believed saddam and 9/11 were connected...

return of the superphone

the incredible end to my last post is that my phone arrived on wednesday and miraculously, it still works!! it doesn't even have any new battle scars. apparently it landed on a grassy cushion.
there has got to be a blackberry commercial in this story somewhere. the 8700g model is insanely durable. mine is over 3 years old and went unphased by a drop of over 50 feet whilst traveling 60 mph. during the time i was waiting for it to be mailed to me, i started shopping for my next phone - i was surprised to see that blackberry is still selling this model

but dang... this experience slapped me in the face with the annoying reality: how overly dependent i am on it. it literally is the first thing i touch every morning (use it for my alarm) and the last thing i touch at night. it is my only bank of phone numbers and addresses, i have never taken the time to back it up or sync it with my computer; not for any good reason, but because i just never got around to it. i use it for every reminder i need - either emailing myself at work, or setting a task alarm in it. it is my brain's backup

now i have decided that i will incorporate an another amazing technology into my cyberlife - it is called paper. i have to research more, but apparently there is a way to use a utensil and my hand to transfer shapes and squiggles onto the paper which resemble words and numbers. bizarre, i know...

Sunday, June 7, 2009

superman (or physics) stole my phone

on friday, i went with our 8th grade students on our annual trip to six flags near chicago. we had a perfect day - 75 and sunny, and had a blast. on our last big ride of the night, i lost my blackberry... all day i had been keeping it in a pocket that closed so had no problems. but i moved it to my hip a while before going on Superman and then forgot to move it back. clearly, this happens all the time on this ride (and many others, i'm sure) because the fantastic staff at six flags have a good system for finding and returning stuff. the happy end to the story is that it was found saturday morning and they are mailing it to me free of charge. but will it still work? it fell over 50 feet...i don't think the odds are very good.

how did this happen? this ride is a perfect thief of your dangling valuables:

1. on this roller coaster, you hang below the track on your stomach so you fly like superman.
2. after the first big hill, there is an inverted loop that sucks you backwards in your seat and pulls stuff out of your pockets at 60 mph
3. after the loop, when the g-forces shift back to you hanging underneath, all your loose goodies plummet to the grassy knolls below
grrrrr  so frustrating and annoying. even more so because i never took the time to backup my contacts in there. i hate being so dependent on that device especially after being the last person on earth to get a cell phone (i lived without one until july 2006)

Saturday, June 6, 2009

diet coke for breakfast

maria bamford is one of the most hilarious supermodel astronauts ever. i rediscovered her in Paris last august when mika showed me her online mini-series on the site superdeluxe. sadly, the show is no longer on the site, although maria's own site still refers you to that address. hooray for youtube - the show is now here

you NEED to watch all 20 episodes - only 4 minutes each, SO worth it. you will learn that carrot top is jesus.  if you only watch one, skip to episode 13



here's an experiment, will mika be able to see these from France?


love her