Monthly Archives: October 2011

King and Queen of Norway Visit Minnesota.

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King Harald and Queen Sonja of Norway visited Minnesota this weekend, causing anybody living in a small town over the age of 50 to go completely ape shit.

King Harald of Norway

After arriving on the shore of Lake Superior

The Royal Transport

they were greeted by representatives of the Norse Cultural Society of Minnesota.

Traditional Norwegian garb

As is custom, apologies were made by all parties present for 20 full minutes.   After the traditional telling of the Ole and Lena joke, the king and queen were treated to Norwegian foods such as –

Fiskepudding (fish pudding)

Poteboller (potato balls)

Fiskesalat (fish salad)

Lompe (potato pancake bread)

Fiskesuppe (fish soup)

Fiskepote (fish potatoes)

Fiske Fiske (fish in fish)

Lutefisk (poison fish)

After dinner the king and queen delighted Minnesotans with interesting facts about Norway such as –

1.  Norway is a monarchy.

2.  The chef from The Muppets is from Sweden.

After dinner and a visit to each of the 5,000 towns in Minnesota with a Scandanavian name, the royal couple mounted the eight legged horse, Sleipnir and rode the rainbow bridge back to Valhalla.  Governor Dayton bid them farewell covered in Lingonberries (as is tradition).

This has been the first time a foreign head of state has visited Minnesota since 2009 when the Prime Minister of Japan flew in on a giant robot.

One Year.

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This Sunday will mark the one year anniversary of me and Jena being all husband and wifey so I thought I’d tell the story about how she stole my proposal idea.

I decided that I was going to ask Jena to marry me in the summer of 2009. I was collecting unemployment and doing some stand up here and there. Enough money to pay the bills but not pay for a wedding. I had resolved to not ask until I had a steady job. On the way back from a show in Iowa I did a phone interview with Comcast that seemed to go well and they said they’d call again to set up a face to face interview in the next few days. That was close enough to having a job for me so I planned out my proposal.

There is a tree on the sidewalk behind the apartment building she lived in at the time. When we first started dating, I asked to come over to her her place under the (kind of) false pretense of bumming a cigarette. We smoked under that tree the first night we kissed. I was going to ask her to come out for a smoke and get down on one knee. I was writing a speech in my head for a whole week trying to properly express how she made me feel and how I wanted to feel that way for the rest of my life.

Then I chucked all that out the window and stammered out a rambling proposal in bed because I’m a fucking moron.

I still don’t know what came over me to decide that was the perfect time and not this grand scheme that I had playing out in my head. We were just in bed (fully clothed), holding hands and talking. Shooting the breeze. I then started choking and stuttering about “how… how the last year has… b-been really good. Like, the best year of my l-life and I don’t kn-know if, I hope it’s been really g-good for you because I was thinking.”

The worst part about all of it was that after fifteen seconds of me falling down a flight of verbal stairs I could tell she knew what I was getting to. The look in her eyes and the expression on her face screamed that she knew I was going to ask her to marry me and she was going to say “yes”. I could see that plain as day but that didn’t stop me from two more minutes of twisting in the wind and stammering bullshit about how we were “really cool together”.

After I finished, she said “yes” and all the requisite phone calls were made I told her about my plan with the tree and the speech. She agreed that it was very romantic and I should have done that instead.

Several weeks later, with the engagement in full swing she asked me to come out back for a smoke. We went out under the tree but before we lit our cigarettes she got down on one knee and asked me to marry her. I accepted. Now every time we go by the old apartment she’ll point and say “Hey, remember when I proposed to you under that tree?”

Happy anniversary, you idea stealing bitch. I love you mostest <#.

Pee Patrol

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Let me start by explaining that I’m scared of police. Pathologically scared. I don’t know what it is but even when I’m completely law abiding (98% of the time) I just tense up when around a uniformed cop. It’s weird but some people are afraid of clowns so don’t judge me. Judge them.

I spent the evening last night at Drink! in uptown. Not exactly my scene but my friend Brian was hosting trivia and I was learning the ropes to fill in for him next week. Two of the tips I was given was “just talk over the drunks” and “pretend there’s way more people in here than there actually is.” So basically this is going to be a standard stand up comedy show.

I watched Brian do his thing, chatted and drank some of my favorite kind of beer (free!) and walked home, stopping at Rainbow to pick up a few things on the way. I was two blocks from Rainbow with a grocery bag in each hand when I realized something. I had to pee.

I really had to pee. Bad. This was something that needed to be taken care of. I couldn’t walk back to Rainbow. I was lugging 20 pounds of groceries and already two blocks away. Pee needed to get out of me and in a few minutes it wouldn’t care if pants were obstructing it’s path. I looked around. No dark alleys in this part of uptown, just well lit new condos and open lots. I then realized I was standing right near an entrance to the Greenway Bike trail.

I didn’t want to go completely down to the trail because that’s where the homeless sleep. If they see me pee down there they might think I’m trying to mark their territory and attack me. The entrance, however, was half a block long and sloped downward. I took a few steps in, low enough to be out of sight from the street level but close enough to the street to run if the underdwellers smelled my fear. I unzipped and let nature take it’s course. That’s when the sirens blared.

Two cop cars a block away light up and drove in opposite directions. Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. How did they see me? I stopped mid stream (which you’re totally not supposed to do) grabbed my groceries and ran to the street. I started thinking of excuses or alibis or something to tell them. Do I lie? They couldn’t have had a good look at me. “He ran that way, officer! Smelled like piss, he did!”. That could work. I’m carrying groceries. That’s respectable. “Just bringing some groceries to my home, which has a perfectly working bathroom that I use like a normal person.” I was so busy thinking of what to say it took me a full two minutes to realize that the cops were gone. I calmed down and kept walking, confident that I just got away with the crime of the century. I turned the corner onto 28th street and was greeted by five cop cars, blocking the street and right sidewalk with their lights on.

“Fuck!” I thought. “They’ve set up a blockade! I’m going to jail and the groceries are going to spoil and Jen’s going to have to bail me out and I’m going to get a lecture and some guy’s going to make me his bitch in jail. Not if I make him my bitch first. The second I get in there I need to establish dominance. I’m not that kind of person but this is prison and you do what you need to do to survive.” I walked toward the blockade, ready to turn myself in when I noticed that a car was pulled over. Oh thank god. It’s somebody else just getting a ticket or something. I walked by and the driver looked at me and kind of giggled. I don’t blame her. That’s a scary situation and fear makes you react in strange ways.

I got home and ran to the bathroom to finish the job I started on the Greenway trail. I went to unzip my pants and I realized the reason that girl was laughing was because my fly was down.

Billionaire Waiters Complain About Credit Card Fees.

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The City Pages has spent the last week following a story concerning Parasole Restaurants skimming 2% of their waitstaff’s credit card tips to cover charges from the credit card companies. The embattled corporation has stated the move as necessary due to higher use of credit cards among customers and higher credit card fees from banks. Rather than raise their prices or pay out of their own pockets, the executives passed along the fees to their highest earners, the waiters.

Just so we’re clear, the waitstaff is already making minimum wage, which alone should be enough for a waiter/waitress to support a family (7.25 an hour? Ritzy!). On top of that hefty paycheck, these people get tips? Last I checked, executives didn’t get tips for doing whatever it is executives do.

These greedy servers are in a whole uproar about the new fee just because when a customer gives a tip they expect it to go to the waiter that served them. As if a tip is some kind of reward for good service.

Supporters of these fatcats in aprons suggest you tip in cash if you eat at Parasole Restaurants Parasole Restaurants so they don’t have to pay the fees out of their wages. It’s also nice for them to have cash on hand so they can light their expensive cigars and swim in their giant moneybanks.

made his first million slinging hashbrowns at a greasy spoon. Everybody knows that.

Human Poopipede, Unnecessary Sequence

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I saw the first Human Centipede in the theater with my friend Mike.  It was gross, over the top and unintentionally funny.  I don’t regret seeing it but I wouldn’t watch it again.  Movies about people sewn ass to mouth don’t really lend themselves to repeat viewings, much less beg for a sequel.

Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence), however, was released last week in the US and answers all the questions nobody ever asked ever after watching the first movie.  Questions like –

1.  What if somebody watched the movie more than once?

2.  What if somebody watched the movie more than once and got off on it?

3.  What if that person tried to make their own Human Centipede out of 12 people?

Seriously.  Human Centipede 2 is about a guy who gets obsessed with the movie and tries to make his own human centipede.  Also, according to the Human Centipede wiki, “the director promises that the movie will be much gorier than the first full of ‘the blood and shit’ that viewers did not see in the first film” because that’s what was lacking, I guess.

What’s even worse is that horror movies never have just one sequel.  By creating one sequel to Human Centipede, IFC Films has unknowingly opened the floodgates to a franchise that will give us a new movie about people forced to eat poop every year until the concept of sewing asses to mouths is tired and stale.  People will see Human Centipede Halloween costumes at Target and roll their eyes because that was so last year.

I wouldn’t be suprised if, two years from now, we see a Movie poster with a human centipede wearing Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses on a surfboard for “Human Centipede 5:  Hang 30!”.

Blogging On Location.

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I wanted to go somewhere other than my living room to type today’s blog so I thought I’d go to Bob’s Java Hut for a nice change of pace and a hot cup of coffee.  The problem is that the route to Bob’s is almost two blocks to walk, full of twists and turns.  That seemed really inefficient to me so I thought I’d get there quicker if I walked a straight line in the opposite direction.

I began walking when I came across a building.  It didn’t say “Bob’s Java Hut” on it and everybody inside insisted that this building which was obviously Bob’s Java Hut was, in fact, their home.  I kindly explained that this had to be the coffee shop because it’s what I was looking for and there I was.  I then showed them my gun to back up my logic and then asked the confused coffee shop employees to get me a cup of coffee and their wireless password.

The coffee shop employees are a peculiar but peaceful people.  They told me that they only had a drink called “Tea” and brought me a cup.  It tasted different but was hot and served in a ceramic mug.  I told them that we’re calling this drink “coffee” now and had them give me all the coffee in the shop to bring back home.

As I type this one of the coffee shop employees is gathering supplies for my trip back home.  I think I’ll take him with me to make coffee for me and do some other stuff.  I don’t plan on paying him.  After I return home.  I think I’ll come back with Jared and have him set up camp here so he can collect weekly tributes from the native employees and cut off the hands of anybody who doesn’t deliver.

On a completely unrelated note, happy Columbus Day, everybody!

Occupy Wall Street / Tea Party: A Comparison.

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Occupy Wall Street is growing.

I just started hearing about this last week but http://occupywallst.org/ has been posting since July.  Recently people have been drawing a lot of comparisons to the Tea Party for a couple of main reasons.  Some people have funny costumes and signs

Anonymous: working to affect positive social change with just a hint of LOLcats

For every one person who says I should take the tea party seriously there are 10 pictures like this

And their goals are kind of vague yet similar.  They both think the middle class should pay fewer taxes.  Occupy Wall Street believes this should be achieved by increasing the tax burden on the rich.  The Tea Party believes this should be achieved by abolishing the IRS

because the president is a socialist

nazi

vampire that feeds off statues

.

While they definitely have different ideas about what the problems/solutions are in this country, I do believe the Occupy Wall Street people owe the Tea Party a debt of gratitude.  With the exception of Anonymous’ Guy Fawkes Mask and Internet Meme fascination, Occupy Wall Street seems pretty normal.  I can only assume they saw the mistakes the Tea Party made and learned what not to do.

So thanks for acting like a bunch of rabid morons, Tea Party.  Your rampant ignorance paved the way for a more credible grassroots organization.

Seriously, Fox News? “iMourn”?

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Steve Jobs died yesterday.  He was 56 years old.

I heard about his death last night when out celebrating Jena’s birthday with some friends.  Somebody mentioned that he died and then said “so let’s hear the jokes.  Who’s got the Steve Jobs jokes?”

I didn’t have any.  I’m not above making jokes about recently deceased celebrities, I just didn’t have any in my pocket at the time.

There are plenty of different schools of thought when it comes to joking about the recently deceased.  Some find gallows humor necessary to deal with death, some find it in poor taste etc. etc. blah blah blah.  Joking about dead celebrities is, if anything, easy because all we usually know of a celebrity is the media projected caricature of them.  Steve Jobs, as far as some are concerned, was a guy who always wore mock turtlenecks and made a bunch of gizmos with lowercase “i”s in front of them.  Hell, throw a lowercase “i” in front of anything and you’ve got yourself a lame Steve Jobs death joke.  It’s that simple.  So simple, in fact, that some people can’t help themselves in making the joke.  Take Fox News, for example.  I was going through their website because I like to start the day with a little bile rising up in my gullet and they posted the AP story of his death.  A touching, comprehensive piece on the man’s life and achievements.  Here was the headline for the story.

iMourn. Get it?

 

I seriously don’t know what Fox was going for here.  A touching, friendly jab?  A cute little acknowledgement of his… what?  I don’t…

What headlines did they turn down?  “Apple introduces new 30% lighter Chairman?”  “Goodwill to Receive 50 Black Mock Turtlenecks”?

What makes it even worse is it’s a lame joke.  Fucking iLame.

Sesame Skid Row

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Entertainment Weekly reports that Sesame Street will be introducing a new character named Lily. Lily’s an impoverished puppet “whose family faces an ongoing struggle with hunger issues.”

So hungry.

Lily will make her debut in a one hour primetime special that will “share the stories of real-life families to raise awareness of hunger issues in the United States, as well as strategies that have helped these families find food.”  The special also hopes to dispel the myth that poor people are misanthropic, crazed trash-dwellers.

Don't know how kids got that idea.

This is not the first time that Sesame Street has used Muppets to address social issues.  We all remember when Cookie Monster had to have his foot amputated (“D” is for Diabetes) or when Big Bird was committed for Schizophrenia and submitted to shock treatment until he could no longer see the “Snufflepagus”.

By the way, if you’re expecting a Bert and Ernie gay joke, you’re gonna be disappointed.  Some dead horses are just too badly beaten.

You may even remember a few years ago when Takalani Sesame, the South African co-production of Sesame Street, introduced Kami, the HIV positive Muppet.

It's okay! You can hug me!

Kami was introduced to help remove some of the stigmas associated with HIV/AIDS.  A great idea, seeing as HIV/AIDS is a huge problem in Africa and education is a great weapon against spread of the disease and mistreatment of it’s victims.  Of course, conservatives saw this, assumed that Kali would be shown on the US Sesame Street and freaked the fuck out but that’s a story for another day.  The point is that Muppets are a good way to teach kids about issues affecting society.  With that in mind, I have an idea for a couple of new cast members.

Ponder – The Muppet that had to move back in with his parents after college because of his useless Philosophy degree.

Emo – The Muppet with depression.  Teaches kids to not listen to shitty music.

Snookette – The Muppet that went on a reality show for fame and is now a constant tabloid punchline.

Turns out Sesame Street is in a real fucked up neighborhood.

Oldies But Readable-ies

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Hey, Billkateers!  My entire day will be spent cleaning the bedroom as a birthday present for my wife since I don’t have any money and suck at making macaroni pictures.  So instead of a new blog here’s a link to some of my old favorites.  Check them out!

I Review Shark Night 3D Without Watching It. What the movie should have, could have been.

Dear Rep. Phillip Hinkle; It Gets Better. A letter of encouragement to an anti gay secret gay politician. Dan Savage approved!

The Licker. Pilot Episode. When you’re a detective staring down the barrel of a murder, your sense of taste can be your biggest weapon.

Tea Costume Party. A look into one of the many, many reasons the Tea Party isn’t taken seriously.

The First Chapter of My New Detective Novel “Al Ucard: P.V.I.” The vampiric tale of a vampire detective who harbors a dark vampirey secret. He’s a vampire.

Click the links and take a stroll down memory lane with home grown blogs made with love. Just like your mom blogged.