The Way Others See It #2

Someone who is always at church, in some capacity, gave my cup some love. In the words of Mr. 247Think:

My father-in-law, Ronnie, pokes fun at me all the time saying that I'm drinking "fluff", which I promptly shoot back at his "motor oil" Folgers coffee. Some, like Ronnie, say there's no difference. But I strongly disagree!

How true that is.

The Way Others See It #1

So my Starbucks cup is in circulation (#280, a grande) and I've seen it showing up on blogs of people I don't know. Kinda cool. So I thought I'd return the favor of people who've been quoting me. This from Rem4233's Weblog:

"All of us went on Tour of San Francisco — we went in a cable car (bus) — I missed my noon pills/food… I was shivering, etc., on the tour."

There are downsides to having a media job...

But upsides too: today there was a voice mail on my phone from Mario Cuomo. He was responding to an email I sent him. Mario Cuomo. Time traveling high school political geek John Moe From The Past just about went insane.

Awesome?

Au Contraire, Says Jill, To The Post Below.

More like Heat Miser



But she supports the whole hair growing thing.

If You Shut Me Down, If You Shut Me Down, I'll Never Start

I've been trying to grow out my hair a bit, a sort of early and more affordable mid-life crisis. But it's not going well. Jill looks at me with scorn, the hair can't be tamed, I wear a hat all the time. Today, however, was the worst. I looked in the mirror and thought: "I look like Ron Wood." That's just...that's never good.

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Want A Little Xenophobia in Your Zeppelin Covers?

Sure you do! You do, right? Supporters of presidential "candidate" John Cox are here to provide it with a rewritten Immigrant Song that's more of a "We Hate Immigrants Song". Sounds like it was recorded at a College Republicans karaoke night.

John Bonham will rise from the dead to feast upon their brains.

UPDATE: Okay, what are the odds this song comes up twice in two days? Here's Ann Wilson from Heart, of all people, doing a non-xenophobic straight version that is nonetheless unnerving.

Harry Potter and the Big Funnel sales haven't quite measured up

Kottke points to this NYT rundown of Chinese Harry Potter knock-off plot summaries.

After six years at Hogwarts, Harry Potter becomes an intern sorcerer and is assigned to teach at the Honiton School. Harry has a painful time in his aunt’s house, as Dudley has met a belly-dancing girl. As Harry prepares to report to his job, Bat Bug warns him disaster awaits.

At the school, his students become wooden stools one after another. Harry doesn’t know whether an evil student is behind this, or if his old benefactor Hagrid is making a mistake, or if the shadow of Voldemort has returned. Did it have something to do with the big funnel?

Joy + Sorrow of Parenting

For some reason, it took until my son was 6 3/4 years old to introduce him to Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana. That's just inexcusable. I'm sorry.

My hair is now long enough to thrash about and that came in handy when I played the song loudly in the living room. Charlie took to moshing instinctively and we had the most wonderful one song dance party ever.

After it was over, he said, "Who is the leader of that band?! I want to meet him and get his autograph!"

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A Riddle From Kate (Age 4)

What do you get when you have three Powerpuff Boys and three Powerpuff Girls?

(I give up, Kate, what do you get?)
...
(a full fifteen seconds pass)

CRIMES!

So I Read the New Harry Potter Book

You know what it's about? Camping. Hundreds and hundreds of pages of camping. And the fight against evil and maturation and Nazi Germany and all that but really, mostly? Camping.

A Conversation With Charlie (Age 6) About Biological Science

HIM: Dad, what's bigger: a cell or an amoeba?
ME: Well, an amoeba is pretty much made of a cell.
HIM: So an amoeba is a cell with...decorations?
ME: ...
HIM: What?! What's so funny?!

Today at the Pensieve

For the last few weeks, I've been working out of KUOW since I'm hosting Weekend America (along with Bill Radke, this one goes out to the ladies AND the Rewind fans) and I need the studio accessibility. I work in the same room where I worked for five years. But I'm not working on the same stuff as anyone else here, I don't go to their meetings, I am with them but not of them. It's like something out of best selling children's literature.

But today was especially odd on The Beat. My good pal Jeannie Yandel interviewed my good pal Glenn Fleishman about technology hoo-ha. Glenn was a regular guest on my old KUOW show, The Works. Then Dave Beck interviewed one of my fave rave singers, Rocky Votolato. I swear this station used to be called Bedford Falls.

Seventiesize Me, or, I Am Destroying Everything With My Influence

So I wrote a book a while back where I tried to become a conservative by ingesting only conservative media and ideas and foods. This person named Katy Shaw altered what I did a little, replacing "conservative" with "seventies". She has a blog. As you endure Smokey and the Bandit, Katy Shaw, accept my apologies for any potential influence I wrought.

The Chicken Butt Is Out Of The Bag

Ever since Charlie (Age 6) could talk, he's been known to use the phrase "guess what?", sometimes in prelude to revealed information and occasionally as an introduction to just yelling something that he heard in a cartoon ("Turtle power!")

But Jill and I have always been tempted, ever so very tempted, to reply to his "guess what?" with "chicken butt!" the classic humorous rejoinder from our own childhoods. But we knew that once he heard that, nothing would ever be the same. It's a way of tricking people, it's got a funny animal in it, and it has the word "butt". It would be exquisite comedy perfection to Charlie and would dominate all discourse in our home. Nothing would ever be the same. It was electricity. It was the automobile. It was the telephone. It was chicken butt.

Well, a parent can only control their child's experience for so long. He went to this day camp last week and was exposed to "Guess what? What? Chicken butt!" by one of the other kids. And it is ON. And we were actually wrong to dread it. Fortunately, it lets Jill and Kate and I finally cut loose too. We can't get enough of it. And of course it has spurred other spin-offs. Among the latest rejoinders to the "guess what?" inquiry are:

Turkey Butt
Rhino Butt
Pikachu Butt
Human Butt
Bamboo Butt (that one was Kate's, leading to Charlie yelling "bamboo doesn't have a butt, Kate!")
Dog Butt
Ladybug Butt
Voldemort Butt