Funundrum

Nothing interesting ever happens to me anymore.

2011-12-01T08:44:00.000-07:00

My apologies to both of you. But it's okay, right, because everyone thinks my kid is amazing.

2011-11-03T08:48:00.000-06:00

This is my dog watching the "Dog Whisperer" show. Yes, really. Yes, I was watching it too, so it's not like I turned on the TV just for her.

The cow says "muczeć."

2011-11-03T08:43:00.000-06:00

I found this child's toy at a secondhand baby-thing store here in Chicago. Pictured there is a Polish cow. A krowka, if you will. I almost bought it, but I thought that was a great deal of trouble and plastic just to teach my kid a few words of Polish. All I really need to do is drop him off at about 2500 North, somewhere west of the Kennedy and tell him to make his way back home.

It really does bother me quite a lot.

2011-11-03T08:29:00.002-06:00

Reminder: The "Saving" in "Daylight Saving Time" is singular, not plural.

Please be forewarned that if you complain about the end of Daylight Savings Time, then I will be silently judging your poor diction in addition to your weak character.

Thank you for your attention.

As heard on the El platform

2011-10-01T06:09:00.000-06:00

Conductor: "All aboard for the Brown Line experience."

Was he high, or does he just have a great sense of humor? Could have been both. Fortunately, I didn't have to get on that train.

Sure, why not?

2011-08-01T14:36:00.000-06:00

My dog isn't too bright. With that in mind, please make a quick mental list of the things you think she might rub up against after a bath, in order to get dry. Ready? I bet you didn't come up with her own reflection in the mirrored closet doors.

Oh, dog.

Where? Who knows.

2011-07-26T09:28:00.001-06:00

I'm going through a stack of a couple hundred postcards I just found in a box downstairs. They were originally purchased on eBay for the purpose of decorating my awesome vintage travel-flavored wedding. I'm doing what I wanted to when I first bought them, but didn't have the time -- read through all the messages on the ones that were actually sent. Here's a gem:

On the front: Photo of Radio City Music Hall, NY NY
Postmark: Not readable, but internet stamp dorks tell me that the FDR $0.06 stamp was issued in 1966.
Message:

Hi Mary, we got to N.Y. this morning about 8:30. We went to the top of the Empire State Bldg. this afternoon. Stood in line about 1 1/2 hrs. Tonite we are going out -- Where? Who knows.
Love Mom & Dad

Can't you just hear the giddiness?

Update: Mary appears to be on Facebook. I think I may have just found a new obsession. Let me finish sorting these, and I'll let both of my readers know whether I'm going to be Facebook Creeper Postcard Santa.

There's something in my brain

2011-07-15T15:26:00.000-06:00

...that's (nearly) not on the Internet! Does this constitute an emergency? Is there someone I can call? Am I under some sort of obligation to begin a Wikipedia stub article? This has never happened to me before! I mean, if a fact isn't found on the internet, does it really exist? I reckon I'll blog about it, and at least then it will be crawled and cached by Google's friendly little bots*.

I am the proud conservator and curator of thousands, maybe even hundreds, of nearly-useless facts. Were I to categorize these facts into broad areas, I might go with "the natural world," "cultural oddities," and "crap that will somehow never come in handy in a pub trivia quiz, but will bubble up in an irritating know-it-all fashion when talking with friends." For example:

The correct way to eat asparagus stalks at a fancy dinner is to pick them up with your fingers.
The Masai people of Kenya get a good portion of their protein by bleeding their cows and mixing said blood with milk.
The Wrigley Load

Now, I bet you were nodding your head while reading the first two things. Sure, the asparagus thing makes sense, and anyone who took Honors Geography at Fullerton High School knows more about the Masai than about their own family. But the Wrigley Load? Oh no. Not on the internet at all, save for one mention in what appears to be a fiction novel.

I was yammering at Chris the other day about something, and I brought up the Wrigley Load. He had heard me mention it before, but finally called me out. "I believe you, but I'm going to need some internet backup on this alleged Load," he said. Always glad to be proven right, off I went to the computer. And... nothing. Just the aforementioned book mention, in Turn of the Century by Kurt Andersen. Based on his description of the Load, which is crap, I'd recommend against the book as a whole. You've seen the Load all your life on TV ads -- it's how marketing people decided gum should be introduced to a mouth. To Load properly, one grasps an unwrapped piece of gum at one end, opens one's mouth just wide enough to receive gum, touches the free end of gum to one's lower teeth, then continues to apply inward pressure with the gum-holding hand until it bends double and disappears inside the mouth. One is then contractually obligated to make big TV eyes and smile irrepressibly.

Anyway, I've known this move to be called the Wrigley Load for years now. I have no idea where I learned this fact, but I will remember it long after I've forgotten my child's name (I will just refer to him as "Danger") and the year the Cubs won the World Series (2035, with H. Arehart on shortstop). I now present this Juicy Fruit commercial, which was ubiquitous in the 1980s. It generously features the Load at :08, :17, and :22. You will be humming this stupid song for the rest of the day. You're welcome.

Juicy Fruit. Available where you buy groceries.

*Who, in my mind, look like the Nanites from MST3K.

"La la la!"

WHYYYYYYY????

2011-07-11T11:17:00.001-06:00

My child started napping sometime earlier this morning. Based on previous nap experience, I expected him to awaken shortly after I finished folding a bunch of laundry. But he didn't. Figuring he'd still probably wake shortly, I sat down at the computer to participate in the internet for a while. Still nothing. Then, it dawned on me -- ZOMG I COULD STUFF LUNCH IN MY FACE. GO GO GO

Normally, I would be using this space to complain about how a completed ham sandwich, sitting on a plate, is what activates a napping child. And then I'd be all, WHYYYYYYYYYY? But in this case, I stuffed said sandwich in my face and he's still asleep. I'm certainly not complaining, and I don't think I'm gloating either. It's more like I don't know what to do with myself right now.

This must be what it feels like to work in an emergency room on a day when nobody comes in.

A long way from home

2011-07-01T16:12:00.000-06:00

You know you're not in LA any more when you turn on the local evening news on a holiday weekend Friday and see a perky reporter doing a live standup from the side of the packed freeway.

That's right, they sent out a news team and satellite truck to do a report on traffic.

You'll be surprised how this post ends with obsessing about corn syrup.

2011-07-01T08:23:00.001-06:00

Sometimes, there will be a little marketing catchphrase that gets my attention in such a way that once I've heard it, I'm incapable of focusing on the product at hand. These little phrases have clearly been focus-grouped to within an inch of their lives, and with the assistance of millions of dollars to boot. Obviously they're effective, else they wouldn't be used so damn often. Once I tell you which one I'm thinking of, start listening for it in commercials and in print ads -- I bet you'll hear or see it at least three times in the next week.

"Powdermilk Biscuits, made from whole wheat raised in the rich bottomlands of the Lake Wobegon river valley by Norwegian bachelor farmers, so you know they're not only good for you, but also pure, mostly. Look for them in the big blue box with the picture of a biscuit on the front of it. Available where you buy groceries."

First of all, my apologies to Garrison Keillor for implying that the noble Powdermilk Biscuit company would stoop to using such vacant ad copy as this.

Second of all, how on earth did "they" decide that "where you buy groceries" was the best way to encourage people to look for and purchase the item in question? It's the sort of non-specific framing that might accompany a general-audience mention of religion. "Your place of worship." That makes perfect sense, since just about everyone's got one, but they're called lots of different things. But "where you buy groceries"? I don't know about you, but I buy groceries at the store. The grocery store. Sure, you might call it "the grocery," "the market," "the food market," or even, improbably, the "grocery food market store," but I'm sure nobody would be too confused with any of these interchangeable terms.

Now, if they'd prefer to go with the also-popular "available in the _______ section," I'm with them. How much of your life have you wasted wandering through the aisles at the place where you buy groceries, looking for one thing that you've never bought before and have no idea where it lives? The manufacturer of the product is really helping out in this case.

Pop quiz -- where in the place where you buy groceries do they keep the corn syrup?

Corn syrup quiz answer: Next to all the pancake syrup. I know that's wrong because nobody should be putting corn syrup on their pancakes. This is not 1950, everybody. Please move the corn syrup to its rightful location with the rest of the baking ingredients. I recommend just beneath the shredded coconut. Yeah, bottom shelf is fine. Great. Now take this pricing gun and go mark up all the junk food sky-high, and make healthy stuff dirt cheap. Now run, because Big Corn's a-coming for us!!!

Funny story -- I went looking for an old corn syrup ad, one that shows a scrappy young boy pouring clear gooey corn syrup all over his hotcakes, and found this instead. It turns out that in 1910, 101 years ago, we still had to be told where to buy things. But you'll notice they just go with the most common sense approach.

Henry's room

2011-06-22T11:21:00.000-06:00

Here's a few pictures of Henry's room. I'd still like to paint another picture for behind the crib, but that will have to wait for just the right weekend when I can spare a few hours and be covered in paint for a while.

I got the idea for the bird mobile from this site, and was pleased to find I could make it without using the eyehooks they suggested. Both Chris and I have done well in not yet poking out our eyes, but we don't want to move it up because we like how it looks. We'll raise it up quite a bit when Henry can sit up on his own, and then when he's too old for it, we may just move it elsewhere in the house. It represents many, many evening hours on the couch, handsewing stupid little birds.

16 June -- Bloomsday once again.

2011-06-16T13:05:00.000-06:00

And someday, someday I'll make it back to Dublin on this day. I first read Ulysses ten years ago* during a cold January trip to Dublin -- armed with the Cliff's Notes to help me through the nasty bits (and there are many), I sat on a bench in St. Stephen's Green for a while each day, watching the ducks slide across the frozen pond and trying to figure out what in God's holy name Joyce was getting at. Then, when it got too cold to sit still, I'd walk somewhere else and read some more. It's a thick read, to be sure. But it was terrific fun for a dork like me to walk the same streets and know that not much had changed in 80 years.

Today is Bloomsday. The whole baffling entirety of Ulysses takes place on the 16th of June, so every year on this day Leopold Bloom's steps are traced through Dublin city, with readings and costumes galore. Davy Byrne's pub probably does more business that day than the rest of the year combined, and can likely charge whatever the hell they want for a gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of burgundy.

At any rate, I was leafing through my backpack-worn, strawberry yogurt-stained** copy of my book, looking for bits to post on Facebook so I could class the place up a bit. To my delight, I found the following:

A brochure for Big Pit National Mining Museum of Wales -- presumably picked up only for use as a bookmark, because not only did I not visit Wales on that trip, but I reckon the BPNMMW would factor in kind of low on my Welsh must-see list.
A piece of paper, written on in pencil in my handwriting: "'Be humble, for you are made of earth; be noble, for you are made of stars.' -- Serbian proverb." A lovely sentiment. I'm glad I saved it for myself.
A ticket stub for Cast Away at the Savoy Cinema on January 12, 2001. I seem to remember we were quite a large group that night. Very, very good times.

* Wow.
**I don't know if Avalon House still serves the best hostel breakfast in town, but back then it was enough food to stash away some for snack later. Note -- delicate yogurt cups should be stored in a different bag pocket than hardcover books.

Solidarity! And at least one liar.

2011-06-07T13:10:00.000-06:00

I've been home now with this little monkey for just about three months, and the long-term effects are beginning to settle in. For example, I have a really hard time talking to adults. It's not that I use baby talk with Henry, because I don't, but more that I've forgotten how to regulate both rate and length of conversation coming out of my mouth. It's probably because I don't get to go outside very much.

If I go to the post office, the clerk might have to repeat a question a couple of times because I've forgotten how to do "post office" things in favor of reprogramming my brain to be able to change a baby's clothes in the middle of the night without either party falling to the floor crying. It's a skill. Alternatively, I'll find myself at a house party, talking to someone and suddenly, inside my head, I'll hear myself and say, "Self, shut the hell up. Even I am tired of listening to you." So on the outside, it looks like me talking a whole bunch, then stopping and apologizing, then realizing I have nothing else to say. I am now the awkward person at your party, trying desperately to apply mustard to a bratwurst while holding a squirmy baby. Nobody wants to talk to that person. I don't blame them.

See, even now I've forgotten where the hell I was going with all this. Oh, right. Okay, so I'm really excited to start going to a new group tomorrow that's all first-time, stay-at-home moms. It's 8 or 9 ladies and their babies, all getting together at someone's house every Wednesday for three weeks. I'm far too excited for my own good, because 1) it's something to go to that is not inside my house and 2) everyone else will be just about as clinically retarded as I am.

It feels like the first day of classes at a new school, wondering if I'll make any friends and whether I'll fit in. The host emailed everyone, asking us to reply and say a little bit about ourselves and the kids, etc. I was afraid I was going to have to read emails from a bunch of Mommybots -- you know, the ones that go, "Little MycKyhnzyie is the greatest gift I've ever been given. From the moment I saw her, we just fell in love with each other and every waking second since her birth has been indescribably precious and joyful." For those of you who haven't had any children, I am here to tell you that that's the fattest line of horseshit ever. Ever. And for those of you who have had children and been deceitful enough to say anything like this in hopes of making yourselves sound like a better person, I hope you're ashamed of yourself.

That whole last paragraph goes better if you read it out loud in the voice of Lewis Black, featured in the "Back in Black" segments on The Daily Show. Wait, I'll go put in a picture. There. Now, if you've read it out loud with the right amount of vitriol, I'll give you a second to wipe the rage-induced spittle from your screen.

The good news, if it can be called that, is that everyone else seems just about as overwhelmed, bitter, and lonely as I am, with the exception of one woman whose email approached Mommybot status. I shall not judge her quite yet, and shall assume that she'll be more honest in person. But really, I'm so very excited to meet people just like me. It must be what kids at the Special Olympics feel like.

How far away does it have to be to count?

2011-06-06T08:35:00.001-06:00

On the side of the Stoned Wheat Thins box, it says, in big letters, "IMPORTED." Curious to find the source of my mid-morning whole grain fix, I turned the box over to find out what country they came from.

Canada.

What a letdown. That's like saying that come Thanksgiving or so, you'll import your Christmas decorations up from the basement.

What is wrong with people?

2011-05-18T17:29:00.000-06:00

I've seen two different examples of this now. In a commercial for dishwasher soap, a tiny construction crew bulldozes away a thick layer of baked-on lasagna. Then, at the bottom of the screen, appears the word DRAMATIZATION.

I cannot fathom the details of the potential lawsuit they think they're avoiding.

It ain't irony, but it's funny.

2011-05-18T16:54:00.000-06:00

For the last few days on Facebook, many of my female acquaintances have been sending around some video advocating that staying out of the sun when you're young is a good thing. They've all been treating it like Serious Business, using the reverential tones of voice that are usually reserved for other Serious Business such as breast cancer awareness or autism awareness or butthole awareness or anything else that might be haphazardly attached to a 5k/8k Fun Run/Walk For Awareness.

I haven't watched the video, because I'm well aware that sun safety is key to my face not looking like twice-baked roadkill. Also, I hate participating in Facebook conversations that sound like Serious Business, because they're usually stupid. So I thought this was funny. Please note that the highlighted post was posted around the same time as the Sun Awareness post by complete coincidence.

For Henry's room

2011-05-17T15:42:00.001-06:00

My only regret is that I didn't originally intend to put a body in there -- it was just supposed to be a monkey head and hands sticking out of the grass. So once I put a body in, there was no room for feet. But other than that, I reckon this is more pleasing than a storebought piece of themey wall art crap. It is to me, anyway.

Please don't be alarmed, as I was, by the creepy claw-like reflection in the bookcase behind the painting. That's just me taking the picture. But wow, gross.

Fun Game: Spot the Urban Hippies

2011-05-17T15:32:00.002-06:00

Hey kids! Can you spot the five things in the picture below that make this particular city deck stand out as belonging to Urban Hippies? Set a timer for 30 seconds, and... GO!

[you should be hearing a tinny rendition of "Girl From Ipanema" right now]

Time's up!

Let's see how many you got right. From top left, clockwise:
1. Freshly laundered cloth diapers, drying naturally but very very slowly due to crap springtime weather
2. Bottles being saved up for homebrew
3. Tomato plants that we're hoping work out better than last year
4. Recycling
5. Cloth diaper covers, positioned to receive what little sunlight we get on our fake deck
6. This last thing is the trick item -- it's not indicative of Urban Hippies at all. Where on earth are you supposed to store these stupid baby bath sponge things? We dry it outside, then by the time it's dry, we need to use it again. So I guess this would be indicative of an Urban Redneck or something.

"In every job that must be done..."

2011-05-16T14:44:00.000-06:00

... there is an element of fun. You find that fun and, snap! The job's a game!"
-- Mary Poppins, "Spoonful of Sugar"

It's also creepy sometimes. I was folding the laundry today, which was the last of my three daily goals (element of fun part 2: make a list). As I tried and failed to fit five more white socks into Chris' white sock drawer*, I decided to take all of them out to ~~reclaim all the socks he steals from me~~ organize them into pairs. Before I started, I guessed I would end up with the laughably large number of 27 pairs of socks.

So, I sorted and matched, and piled up the pairs without counting, savoring the moment I would find out how close I was. Have I mentioned I've got very little going for me in the way of excitement these days? I ended up with two pairs in the garbage due to holes, five unmated socks, and... exactly 27 pairs of matched socks.

I am hoping that analytical sock pairing precognition is only the first of many superpowers I can hope to attain as a mother.

*Who says I never let my two readers hear the sordid details of my personal life? Yes, Chris has two sock drawers: "white" and "other." Fun fact: socks can be, and in fact are, manufactured in at least 7 shades of tan.

Happy sixth birthday, Funundrum.

2011-05-15T10:03:00.000-06:00

I'm celebrating by dragging this blog, kicking and screaming, into the era of "Share" buttons and updated posting gadgets. Yaaay!!

My mind moves in mysterious ways

2011-05-14T09:29:00.001-06:00

Last night, we watched a couple shows on Netflix about the making of various seminal rock albums. One was Queen's "A Night at the Opera," and the other was U2's "The Joshua Tree." I then proceeded to have the following dream, set in the present day: someone affiliated with U2 thought it would be hilarious to fill the studio with band member lookalikes representing their various fashions through the decades.

This quickly got out of hand, because when the band walked in the door, the room was filled with risers creaking under the weight of at least 300 men, all grouped into individual U2lets and dressed and coiffed appropriately. All the albums were represented, as well as costumes from major tours and even videos for most of the singles. Everyone was singing "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." The people organizing the stunt quickly realized that there aren't that many true lookalikes out there, so they had resorted to tactics like stuffing a purple stocking cap on a dude who looked like Larry the Cable Guy, and calling it "Zoo TV Edge."

Listen, for a superfan like me, it was a hilarious dream.

On the Royal Wedding

2011-04-29T16:30:00.005-06:00

...because as per Blogging Law (or Blaws, if you will, and I certainly encourage you not to), I'm required to make a statement. I certainly didn't intend to wake up specifically to watch the thing, but I figured, correctly so, that feeding the child would coincide with a good deal of the main action. When I got up at 3:30, I was saddened to find that my DVR had not begun to record, so I lost about a half hour of ridiculous hat coverage. Admittedly, that's 60% of why I watch formal British events, but still, I chalked it up as a loss and moved on.

Our neighbors across the street have such a large TV, we can always see when it's on and often tell what they're watching. I got a small, warm feeling of solidarity seeing their living room also ablaze with the glory of Westminster Abbey... until I realized that they're losing sleep ON PURPOSE to watch this bullshit, and I'm up whether or not I want to be (hint: I don't).

Kate's dress: lovely -- lace on top, pleats on the bottom, a vintage dream. Why on earth couldn't they have gotten married and done this dress more than three years ago? Think of the knockoffs I would have been able to get!

Hats: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Looking at you, Princess Beatrice. The best part is that I reckon it cost a small fortune.

QE2: Also lovely. I'm no hardcore royalist or anything, but can you imagine a nicer lady to be your ceremonial head of state? That is, I assume she's nice. I guess it would be even better for her to have a hidden mean streak.

This has been my shoddy Royal Wedding recap. I can now safely go back to ignoring British government until the coronation of ol' Jug Ears.

Important Update:

Update update:

Bad Copy of the Day Award: Submitter's Choice

2011-04-15T10:46:00.004-06:00

Item 1

My brother-in-law Kenny sent this along, and I'm sorry to say I didn't read it close enough at first because I was so tickled by the ridiculous premise. He was at his local Baja Fresh, callously enjoying delicious California-style Mexican foodstuffs with little, if any, sympathy for those of us who have moved outside the Western Pico de Gallo Zone. The item in question was a "did you know" style sign, as follows:

"HEALTHY HEAT -- Chile peppers contain capsaicin, the compound that gives chile peppers their heat has been found to inhibit the growth of cancer cells."

Mmmm, round and round we go, and it never makes any more sense. It's like a factoid Mobius strip.

Item 2

I told you that story so I could tell you this story. My mom read about the Native Verbers in a previous post and shared with me:

"It reminded me of a sign (marquee) that drove us crazy. It was in front of a restaurant in Chula Vista, when we lived there. It invited people to 'Mother's Day with us' or 'Father's day with us,' etc. Never did use the word 'spend'. Maybe they didn't have a capital S."

Thanks for the Bad Copy of the Day Time Warp, Mom.

Chicago hot dog humor

2011-04-13T10:38:00.004-06:00

We dropped into a new (to us) hot dog place this last weekend. The dogs were okay, and it's in a convenient location to some of our regular chores, so we may be back. Please do not take this to mean that you, upon visiting Chicago, should eat a Chicago dog at any place but Flub a Dub Chub's Hot Dog Emporium ("Come in hungry, leave with a chubby"). That would be an incorrect assumption. Man, I love that place.

At any rate, this other place had the usual list of hot dog variations with funny names -- but my favorite description, the one that earned this place a blog post, was the Blagojevich Dog: "Chicago style with ketchup (guilty on one count)." It had us giggling for a while. Of all the things that go on a Chicago dog, ketchup ain't one of them, and of all the crap Blago was accused of, he was only convicted on one lousy count. It's hot dog synergy at its finest.

2011-03-31T18:30:00.002-06:00

As you can see by the last few posts, I've been cleaning out the ol' CrapCam. I actually quite like this picture for its negligible-but-present aesthetic value. I took this while waiting for Chris to use the ATM in the lobby of the bank near our house. That spot on the floor is caused by thousands of pairs of shoes shedding a bit of salted slush from outside.

The call is coming from inside the bathtub.

2011-03-31T18:13:00.002-06:00

We love watching the news on WGN. It's oh-so-Chicagoey, and they strike just the right balance of professionalism befitting the nation's second city vs. C-list reporters who couldn't make it on the west coast. B-list, really. For C-list talent you have to go to a market like Las Vegas, where at least two prime time news anchors have lazy eyes. I am not making this up.

Most of the time, on the 9 o'clock news, WGN leads with national stories, followed by whatever the big news in Chicago is. There are two (count them!) weather segments, because weather is Serious Business here, and sports at the end (hint: the goddamn Cubs lost again).

Sometimes, a story like this comes up:

She actually led off the story by saying that police were looking for a "short, orange-skinned boy who goes by the name Ernie." Yes, really. The story is that 2,500 rubber ducks have gone missing from a suburban police academy. They were to be used for a fundraiser. So they went with the Ernie angle, naturally.

Government torture

2011-03-31T18:07:00.005-06:00

No, it's not quite Gitmo, but still. This poster was on the wall of the hospital room where Henry and I were living for a few days.
I guess I should have taken a closeup, but I don't know if the CrapCam could have handled it. The poster features several Native American children who are all verbing in one way or another. Mountain Bike, Dogsled, Shawldance... you know, verbs. As far as I could tell, the verbs on this poster were sponsored by some government committee to get kids to do stuff. Verb-wise.

It drove Chris NUTS that so many of the things on that list weren't verbs at all, like basketball and soccer. My sticking point was that the website doesn't work anymore. How the hell am I supposed to verb, native style or otherwise, without access to VERBnow.com?

When two feet of snow melts

2011-02-18T07:26:00.000-07:00

It magically turns into nothing but garbage and dog crap. It's like a miracle, but gross.

Panhandler of the day

2011-02-18T07:25:00.003-07:00

I passed a Gentleman of the Street yesterday afternoon, who asked me for some change, as is according to custom. I smiled, and said no, but wasn't prepared for his most excellent response:

"If you wasn't so tall, I'd marry you. ...You a little tall."

Headline of the day for evoking unintended imagery

2011-02-11T10:26:00.005-07:00

A CNN followup story about the overdue resignation of Egyptian president Mubarak is headlined as follows:

"Longtime spy chief now atop Egyptian pyramid"

Here's what I immediately imagined -- you tell me if you're thinking the same thing.

"Chicago Dibs" comes to Argyle Street

2011-02-08T17:45:00.005-07:00

After we moved here, we heard about a decades-old tradition of "dibs" that pops up every winter in some Chicago neighborhoods. The rules go like this: after a big snow, if you're parked on the street, you have to shovel out your car, before the snow hardens into a nasty ice cocoon around your vehicle. It's a lot of work. Once you've shoveled out said car and drive it somewhere else, you may hold your spot with any old crap you've got sitting around -- favorite items are lawn chairs, buckets, and sawhorses. This way your hard-earned spot is still there when you come back. Should someone else move your crap and take your spot, it is acceptable to seek revenge upon the offending car. Revenge may include, but is not limited to, "icing" the vehicle with repeated applications of a garden hose, shoveling several feet of snow back on top of the car, and in more anger-prone individuals, keying and even breaking windows.

Yeah, I think it sounds really childish too. This is our third winter in Chicago, and every year I hear stories and see pictures of "dibs," but up until now have never seen it with my own eyes. I guess it took two feet of snow for the practice to make its way to Argyle Street -- from what everyone tells me, this is a lot more common in the western and southern neighborhoods.

Here you've got a CrapCam view of the spot in question. This person has chosen to adorn their parking spot with two or three doors. No, I don't know where you get spare doors.

A few more blizzard pictures

2011-02-08T17:27:00.004-07:00

Maggie and I tromped all the way across our side of Lincoln Park in the hopes of finding a beaten path. I soon realized that it was all knee-deep for quite a ways in each direction. The best option was to get out onto Lake Shore Drive and keep going. It's certainly not something one gets to do very often -- the drive was closed in both directions for a little over a day. Just south of us, the northbound lanes were clogged up with hundreds of abandoned cars that had to be towed one by one.

What a view! You can see the Hancock tower from where we are.

Here we are trying to find a way down onto the street... but when the snow's as high as a bicycle wheel, it's tough going.

And still, people had already gotten out and shoveled so the sidewalks were pretty clear. It's called the City that Works for a reason.

The Blizzard of 2011

2011-02-08T17:06:00.004-07:00

...one week later. It really was as huge as they were forecasting -- this storm ended up being the third largest blizzard in recorded Chicago history, which is saying something. Chris and I both got a day and a half off of work, amazing in a city that doesn't shut down. It just doesn't. The last time locals remember getting a snow day was in 1999, and even the public schools didn't shut down for that storm.

We ended up with about two feet of snow, I reckon. It's so hard to say once you see the huge difference in drift heights. O'Hare got just over 20 inches, so we definitely got more on account of the lake effect snow.

Maggie and I headed out last Wednesday afternoon, a couple hours after the snow stopped, to take some pictures for posterity.

I took this last one out the window of our back deck -- we got enough sunshine to barely melt the snow in the window, so it curled around on itself. So pretty!

Is it hunkering down or bracing?

2011-02-01T14:24:00.002-07:00

I think it's the former for hurricanes, the latter for snowstorms. Now that's sorted. We're bracing for the Great Blizzard of 2011 here in Chicago, where they're forecasting anywhere from 14 to 23 inches of snow, accompanied by sustained winds of 45 MPH, with gusts up to 60 MPH. My office closed at 1, and we're not coming in at all tomorrow. To give you a good idea of how serious that is, most people had to go back to 1999 to remember the last time my company had a full-on snow day.

So that's pretty awesome.

I just got back from the grocery store, which is packed, and I'm somewhat disappointed to report that there's plenty of milk available. I didn't even need milk -- I just went over to the dairy aisle hoping to see a vast wasteland bereft of milk. At the risk of sounding like Jerry Seinfeld, what is the deal with people needing huge quantities of milk before a storm? WHY MILK? Also, orange juice and toilet paper.

Oh, you want to know what I had to rush over to the store to buy before the Huge Whiteout of the Decade. Yeahhhh... about that. I subscribe to a little different philosophy than the milk/TP people. I came back laden with Oreos, Ruffles, and Cheez-Its. And mac and cheese, bacon, and eggs for "real food" options. I know, that sounds way better than the juice-having household, right?

Maybe I'll change once I'm a mom, but I really really doubt it. Old hurricane-preparedness tactics from one's twenties die hard. The kid will be lucky I don't want to open all the windows to avoid a glass blowout.

The internet wins. Again

2011-01-21T17:39:00.002-07:00

I've been busy being pregnant. That always means something different, depending on exactly how pregnant I've been. For a while, I was busy being tired, then busy doing all the stuff I had wanted to do when I was busy being tired. After that, I was busy going home for Christmas so people could look at me being pregnant. Then I was busy being pregnant in Hawaii, which was nice. We've also been busy gutting and renovating our kitchen and spare bathroom, which has very little to do with being pregnant, other than wanting to get it done before I'm done being busy being pregnant.

Now. One of the things I was busy doing, aside from all that, was retaining and working with a doula, which I wish everybody knew about but it turns out very people do. A doula is a labor coach -- someone who's seen childbirth dozens of times before, and who knows all the tips and tricks to get through it easier, safer, and less painfully. My doula is named Valerie, and she's wonderful. I'm telling you all that so I can tell you this story, which I'm trying to camouflage as interesting, because it's not.

One of the things Valerie suggested I start doing is drinking red raspberry leaf tea. It's been used for ages to help along all things reproductive. You can google it if you like, but I won't go into it. The last time we were at the grocery store, I sauntered down the tea aisle to see about this magical tea. Yeah, they had it -- at the crazy price of about $5 for 16 teabags. For that price, it better offer to deliver the baby for me. I reckoned the price would be only a bit lower, if not higher, at a specialty hippie store, so I immediately canned that idea.

TO THE INTERNETS!! Here it is, about a week later, and I've received my tea from a crunchy hippie store online. I went ahead and ordered a pound for around $20. Have you ever wondered what a pound of loose tea leaves looks like? Yeah, me too. It turns out a pound of loose tea is enough to pack full a gallon Ziploc bag, and then some; and at 1-2 teaspoons per serving, I reckon I've got enough tea for approximately 3.42 brazillion cups of tea.

So come on over. We'll have some uterus-toning tea and have a wild time.

Caroling at the Bean!

2010-12-15T05:59:00.008-07:00

I guess I should have said "Caroling at Cloud Gate," but nobody would know what the hell that was. I've been taking ukulele classes at the Old Town School of Folk Music for the past few months, and the school got the opportunity to perform in Millennium Park as part of the city's Friday night caroling program.

That night, it was the warmest it had been in quite a while -- which is to say, flirting with freezing. We were all fine until we realized we were stuck on those risers for a full hour. That's a long time to stand in one spot, not moving one's blood around. But it was fun, and we got to sing Christmas songs, and how many people can say they've done this?

Thanks to my manager/photographer Chris for the below documentation.

Overheard on the train

2010-12-10T13:53:00.002-07:00

"I know Helen Keller had her sense of smell -- but in my family, I'm considered the Helen Keller of noses."

Funundrum Recommends

2010-12-10T13:18:00.003-07:00

You know those big tins of cheese, caramel, and butter popcorn that appear like magic in office breakrooms right about this time of year? And how the cheese and caramel always get finished way before the regular kind?

First of all, why even bother with the regular kind? How come you never see half and half cheese and caramel?

Anyway, there was quite a lot of cheese/caramel detritus in the bottom of the tin. These pieces, for reference, were about the size of Nerds candy. I took a big scoop back to my desk and emptied it into my mouth via a paper towel funnel.

It was the greatest thing I have ever tasted. I hallucinated unicorns. I am alerting the Michelin people and recommending an immediate application of at least two stars.

Dork Alert

2010-11-30T09:25:00.003-07:00

People's message board handles (translation for parents: "handle" = the user name you call yourself instead of your real name) often make me laugh due to their cleverosity. Sometimes, they reveal a geeky sensibility that I proudly share, and their little inside joke makes me feel like part of a greater Internet whole.

Other times, a message board handle overwhelms me with its dorky intelligence, and I'm almost ashamed at the inner glee I feel upon seeing it. That happened today.

The name? "Yclept." Say what? Well, you pronounce it "ee-klept," and in Middle English, it means "named." Comes up a lot in The Canterbury Tales.

***End dork alert***

Halloween costumes -- as promised.

2010-11-12T13:47:00.003-07:00

We both went with hoodie-based costumes this year, because they are warm, easy to make into other stuff, and cheap. Good times. I had my sights set on being an octopus this year, just because my inner five-year-old wanted "something with tentacles." That is a direct quote. I am really proud of Chris' costume -- I saw this blue hoodie at Old Navy, and realized it was furry on the entire inside. Inside-out hoodie + ping pong balls = casual-but-fun Cookie Monster! I am slowly molding Chris into the Halloween-loving citizen he should have been long ago. Yay!

I am sorry that I didn't get better pictures of the hundreds of tiny felt suckers I glued to the tentacles. I assure you it was awesome.

Next year: Luke, Leia, and Yoda.

Oh hey, BTW I'm having a baby or something.

2010-11-12T13:27:00.005-07:00

I mean, I'm pretty sure it's a baby. I've seen a bunch of pictures of what is allegedly my uterus, which contains a moving thing that is either a baby or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

This post is pretty much for whichever of my two readers didn't already know. As of today, I'm a little over halfway there, and due in mid-to-late March. It should be a pretty cool kid. I'm trying really hard not to be an obsessed mommy type person, because I mock those people and that would be really awkward.

Anyway, I was searching my library's database today for some books on natural childbirth, on account of my need to know too much about every hobby* I get myself into. You can see why I found the results hilarious.
* Uh, yeah, having a baby totally counts as a hobby. It adheres to all the major tenents of Hobbydom:

Costs money
Requires specialized gear
You do it on purpose
People spend a lot of time on irritating message boards devoted solely to the subject/activity
When talking about the subject/activity, you quickly bore the hell out of people who aren't directly participating in said activity

Bad copy of the day award -- CNN edition

2010-11-05T08:08:00.002-06:00

This is not a post about how terrible CNN’s online editors have become. That’s been old news for at least five years. Instead, I’d like to gleefully point out one of the more confusing and egregious word choices to appear in recent memory.

Tyler Perry is attempting to become a more serious filmmaker by putting out a movie called “For Colored Women,” based on a play with a similar (but longer) name. The news story is about Perry’s struggle to get people besides “colored women” to come see it – he’s afraid that everyone else will assume they won’t relate to the movie. The story paraphrases a local man on the street’s view of the potential problem:

“Yet he [the man interviewed] too said he has wondered how Perry will reach nonwomen of color with a movie explicitly about women of color.”

“Nonwomen”? That little gem doesn’t even make it past my spell check program, let alone pass any logic tests. I can understand people having a hard time pluralizing “courts martial” or getting confused by “yes we have no bananas today,” but this brand of lazy and wrong just hurts. CNN, this isn’t your first offense by far, but I’ll still try to help you out a little bit:

“Yet he [the man interviewed] too said he has wondered how Perry will reach _______ with a movie explicitly about women of color.”

“other demographics”
"a broader audience"
"a wider array of viewers"
“the eponymous group of ladies, as well as, but not limited to, men of color, men of less color, women and men with not much pigment at all, people who blush easily, albinos (but not the freaky kind who walk around with no sunglasses on so you can see their weird red eyes), and kids between the ages of 16 and 24 who aren’t caught up with either Twilight or pretentious art flicks.”

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-25T17:24:00.005-06:00

This year, I wanted to go with a ki'i (that's fancy Hawaiian for "tiki god," more or less) on account of our upcoming trip to the Big Island this January. My choices of pumpkin were limited -- a taller, skinnier one would have been ideal, but this one did just fine. We are planning on seeing the real version of this ki'i at Puuhonau o Honaunau National Park.

A story about Chris

2010-10-23T15:16:00.003-06:00

Our friends Sarah Marie and Stuart visited us a couple of weekends ago. Much like myself, Sarah Marie was raised Protestant and went and married a Catholic guy. She was giving him a hard time because of his "sad childhood," defined mostly as an upbringing devoid of songs such as "Jesus Loves Me." "It's true," he said, "I don't even know the words."

I was equally amused and appalled, and instantly turned to Chris to find out if this bizarre method of childrearing had been foisted upon him as well. "Chris -- do YOU know the words to 'Jesus Loves Me'?"

Chris was confident. "Sure thing. It's like,

Jesus loves me, this I know

Because the Bible says it's so

If he hollers let him go

E-I-E-I-O

I legally died laughing. I was out for a good ten minutes, and spent some quality time with my grandparents, Abe Lincoln, and a pet rat named Chloe before I came back to this dimension.

Things That Probably Make Me A Bad Person

2010-10-05T12:09:00.003-06:00

Since it's coming around on Halloween time once again, I've started to see a lot of related articles and such on the internet. More than once, I've read the inevitable stories of people who grew up on the same block as the neighborhood dentist. Because dentists often suck at having fun (that's science fact -- look it up), trick-or-treating at their house often resulted in a toothbrush, or maybe some floss.

See, here's where I'm different. If I was a dentist, I'd be handing out big ol' handfuls of taffy, Jolly Ranchers, and caramel corn. Anything that tends to get stuck in tiny little teeth.

This concludes today's edition of "Things That Probably Make Me A Bad Person."

Good Copy of the Day Award, Unexpected Applicant Division

2010-09-29T17:47:00.002-06:00

While riding home on the Red Line, I saw some graffiti on the side of a building. That alone wouldn't be remarkable, but 1) it was the large-format type, where someone had taken the trouble to fill in each letter with multiple colors, and 2) it said this:

"My crew's doper"

I found myself refreshingly pleased at the correctly used apostrophe. I'd love for this guy, and his dope crew, to assemble some punctuation education materials and distribute them throughout the land. If this thug can do it, so can you, America.

Adventures in Southeast Asia

2010-08-30T18:36:00.000-06:00

...more commonly referred to as "shopping on Argyle Street." I was baking a coconut cake for a dinner with some friends, mostly because I had some leftover coconut milk and coconut flakes from two unrelated projects. The difficulty was that I also needed coconut flavoring, yet had none. I struck out at both Pakistani corner stores, then realized I should just go talk to the Asians, who have more experience with coconut-related food items than pretty much anyone else on earth.

I managed to find the flavoring display without any help, but to my dismay most of the small bottles contained flavors with which I was not familiar. I went to Foreign Food Plan B and started looking at the little pictures on the bottles, zeroing in on one labeled "Buco Pandan" that seemed to feature a green coconut and another plant. The liquid inside was virulent green. The cash register lady was pleased to answer my question of "Is this coconut?" "Yes, yes. And pandan."

"What is pandan, please?" At this point I was more than ready to make coconut pandan cake, but I wanted to be able to explain the exotic cake to my guests. "Pandan... pandan..." She was mentally searching for the words to explain the flavor of a fruit that this gringo had never even seen. (Have you ever had to explain what a pineapple or a peach tastes like? It's not easy.) She brightened up a little. "Pandan... it tastes green!"

I looked down at the bottle of green, looked up at the lady, looked back at the bottle, and figured I'd go for it.

The cake did have a bit of a green flavor to accompany the green cast given it by the flavoring. Nobody seemed to mind.

Downstairs Kids Update

2010-08-16T17:15:00.001-06:00

Someone just farted, according to a recent high-pitched allegation.

This is not a repeat from 2005.

Bad Copy of the Day Award

2010-08-12T09:29:00.003-06:00

Yay! It's been a long time, but I've finally been given the gift of a whole pile of terrible, terrible copy. This is from a marketing piece, created by another office, that my boss wants me to recreate for our clients.

"We look forward to sharing with you in this meeting our proprietary analytical tools developed by us for our clients perusal."

There's much more, but this was so tantalizingly clausealicious.

Greedy Genius

2010-07-27T18:04:00.004-06:00

We saw this while we were walking to the new Target in our neighborhood. This gentleman is a self-proclaimed "Greedy Geniu$." "Show me da money," his jacket continues. "I am the king of sneakers." It's his kingdom, we're just living in it. He was, after all, wearing a fairly dope pair of Air Jordans.

Attention Insurance Professionals:

2010-07-27T09:50:00.004-06:00

(specifically the ones that sit near me at my insurance job) Please stop saying "oh-nine oh-ten" when referring to the current policy year. You are making my brain bleed. I understand that it was a likely slip-up for a while, when you first had to make the mental switch from saying "oh-seven oh-eight" and "oh-eight oh-nine."

But still blithely rattling off "oh-nine oh-ten," with nary an embarrassed chuckle and correction? Now you just sound ignorant.

None of this would have happened if the world had adopted the elegant solution presented by me and my friends back at the turn of the century. We thought to replace the "20-" bit with "diggety," as in "the year of our Lord diggety-three." We would have sounded so smooth for the last ten years, and nobody would have had to struggle with the (apparently monumental) decision of whether to go with "two thousand three," "two thousand and three," or the teeth-grinding "twenty oh three."

Also, it's a tribute to Grampa Simpson, who gave us the idea to begin with. From "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish":

(talking to kids at school) "My story begins in nineteen-dickety-two. We had to say 'dickety' because the Kaiser had stolen our word 'twenty.' I chased that rascal to get it back, but gave up after dickety-six miles." (laughter) "What are you cackling at, fatty? Too much pie, that's your problem! Now, I'd like to digress from my prepared remarks to discuss how I invented the terlet..."

2010-07-23T16:03:00.001-06:00

I am watching a woman with two-inch-long nails attempt to eat cheese corn from a paper bag. It's okay right up to the finger licking, then I get grossed out.

City Stories

2010-07-21T21:54:00.002-06:00

The faceless hordes I pass on my way to and from work don't always stay that way. I try to notice people wherever I go, and sometimes a face will become familiar because the body it belongs to is on the same clockwork schedule that I am. There's Briefcase Guy, Good Morning Guy, and Hair Girl. I haven't seen Sad Shannon in a while.

My newest Jackson Street acquaintance is a guy who has an artificial arm, attached to his right elbow, that ends in a hook. The other arm is underformed, which means he's been putting up with "I'd give my right arm" jokes all his life. I do hope he's done Captain Hook at least once for Halloween, you know?

He seems like a nice guy, from what I can tell by passing him in the street. He's always pleasant-looking. But here's the thing. In his scrawny left arm, the one that I don't think has enough fingers, he's always holding one or two things. Things like books, or notepads, or... I don't know, really, I'm always just dumbfounded that this guy doesn't have a bag.

Just get a bag. You are making me worry that you're going to drop your book(s) on the street and have to pick them up with your hook and kind-of-arm. Just get a bag.

Ambassadog

2010-07-16T11:47:00.002-06:00

And now, for no particular reason, I present a highly unscientific breakdown of what people first ask me about my dog Maggie.

Affirmation

2010-07-12T18:17:00.002-06:00

Seen on the third-floor balcony of the building across the street:

I understand that the photo would have been sharper were my windows cleaner. Until the weak, watery light streaming through them can be best described as "Dickensian," I most heartily do not intend on cleaning them.

It's gotten worse

2010-07-12T08:51:00.004-06:00

It's as bad as it always was, but Erica, my Portland Correspondent and author of sheseescolor, has brought the level of terrible to my immediate attention. That level turns out to be very high.

I'm not sharing this with you because I like you and want to bring you wonderful things -- on the contrary, I'm sharing this with you because I can't be the only one who has to live with the burden of the existence of this... thing.

Remember the fishperson? Of course you do, it's the next post down. Go ahead and scroll down there, or click on the link. Have you got that inscrutable image burned firmly into your retina? No you don't. Go look again, and now take care to seek out its "raging tiny boner," as Art Major Erica points out in such a scholastic fashion.

*shakes fist heavenward* WHY, GOD??? WHYYYYYYY??

Like I said before, the fishperson is located in the waiting room of my doctor's office, so now I'm faced with the inevitability of being drawn towards this thing every time I go in there.

What the hell is this

2010-07-07T10:03:00.004-06:00

1. It's life-size (and by that I mean like, large toddler-sized, I guess?)
2. It appears to be made of wood
3. It's in the waiting room of my lady doctor
4. It appears to be wearing pajamas
5. Its head is a fish, it is holding a fish, and there are fish coming out of a gaping jagged hole in its chest.

Other than that, I can't even begin to surmise what this is supposed to be, let alone the ever-more-prized question of WHY.

Why do webinars bring out the worst in people?

2010-07-07T09:49:00.002-06:00

I'm guessing a lot of it has to do with being forced to read and use the word "webinar." If I have my way, the guy who coined that one will be among the first ones up against the wall when the revolution comes.

But aside from that atrocity, there's something about a webinar that makes people do terrible things, like un-mute their phone and put the webinar on hold. For them, this is an easy solution to the brain-melting alternative of actually listening to a man named Dave describe how to save email to a folder.

For the rest of us, that action results in Dave describing how to save email, accompanied by the uplifting strains of hold music. Right now it sounds like Enya, though I'm pretty sure Bette Midler had a say a few minutes back about how Dave was the wind beneath her wings.

Happy 4th, y'all!

2010-07-06T17:46:00.009-06:00

We had a wonderful four-day weekend, which we kicked off by watching the Cubs lose 0-12 to the first-place Reds. *sigh* It's always nice to be out at Wrigley Field, anyway. Keeping in mind that Wrigley represents most of what's right with baseball, I'd like to present a reminder of what's wrong with baseball: groupon.com (recommended by Funundrum, by the way) was offering $7 tickets to a minor league game being played at Wrigley, and they had to accompany their offer with the following disclaimer.

Note on Cubs.com fees: Fees and tax are not included, so customers will have to pay a per-ticket convenience fee ($2.73), per-order processing fee ($3.75), and an optional print-at-home fee ($6.25) on top of the Groupon price. Free ticket pickup is available at will call.

That means that MLB is charging fees that effectively double the cost of two people wanting to go watch baseball that's low on big salaries and probably higher in sincerity and skill than that afforded by your standard Cubs game. Lame. Now back to your previously scheduled holiday weekend wrapup.

Saturday saw a great day at the beach with our friends, followed by a BBQ at Ed's place. Once there, we organized an impromptu BBQ for the next day at our house. It was attended by some long-standing friends and a couple of new ones, including a German guy named Marcus who happened into our little mess of a group by way of renting out Ed's spare room for the summer. Two days in and he'd already attended a couple of cookouts, a beach thing, and fireworks. We're going out with him on Sunday for the World Cup final -- Marcus is our Designated Exotic Foreign Friend for the summer. Pictured above: Designated British Friend Justin, apparently willing to set aside centuries of unrest between his country and that of Designated Exotic Foreign Friend Marcus. We are also not yet sure how many soccer jerseys Marcus owns. So far he's two for two.

The city of Chicago canceled the downtown fireworks this year, instead holding slightly smaller shows at three locations along the lakefront. The northernmost barge was moored directly to the west of our place, which is immediately next to the park bordering the lake. Our fortuitous placement influenced the impromptu BBQ -- once we were all stuffed with teriyaki burgers and coconut cake, we simply walked east with our adult beverages until we couldn't go no mo. Getting back home was just as easy and pretty much cemented our house as Independence Day party central from now on. I might have to give up the idea of our annual Christmas parties, but this should be good enough. I'm just happy to know enough people that we can have anyone over to begin with. This year it was just four others, but Chris is betting on closer to 30 next year. We'll be able to look back on this post and see, won't we?

These are actually very large pictures, which I'm posting 1) for my two readers' benefit and 2) so I can grab them at work and use them as desktop pictures.

2010-06-22T17:04:00.001-06:00

Seen on a bus ad for Wisconsin: "If Ferris had the week off, he'd come to Milwaukee."

Best football (global kind, not ours) coach name ever

2010-06-17T09:10:00.001-06:00

Nigeria's coach is named Lars Lagerback.

Yeah, I know. So awesome.

Awesome hats I've made... and lost.

2010-06-14T17:46:00.002-06:00

One time*, I made this really awesome hat, and I wore it around Chicago, smug with my warm head. Then I left it in a cab. So I had to make a replacement one. I am still bitter about losing the old hat, as evidenced by my terse sentences. However, the new one kicks at least 3 kinds of ass, and will pick up a further 7 types of ass-kicking once I sew a fleece liner into it. Boo yah.

*early last winter

Here's the first awesome hat, as modeled by me. That's Chris, as you may know by now (wearing another hat I made, what do you know?) and Sarah Marie, who visited us pretty much for the opportunity to eat at Hot Doug's, which Funundrum highly recommends. This was somewhere in the middle of our 1.5 hour wait for encased meats. Mmmm. I am sad to note that the large button on my awesome hat is only partially visible. I assure you, it was a really neat button.

And the new awesome hat, modeled by Shannon at our mid-May Cubs game. Why is it always so damn cold when I get to go to a Cubs game?

I haven't yet lost this new hat, nor am I planning to, but I figured now was the time to immortalize it on the internet. Just in case.

Wow, yeah, how does that work?

2010-06-06T17:41:00.001-06:00

Who wouldn't want a massage fort?

Vince Vaughn's "Cheaters" filming on my street!

2010-05-26T18:04:00.002-06:00

Our neighborhood blog, aka the "Busybody Blog," tipped us off that Vince Vaughn would be filming a movie on our street today. Sure enough, on our way to work, we saw some traffic cones, yellow tape, and a security guard in front of a restaurant that has been closed since we got here. We peeked inside, and saw the whole place done up all tacky 70s style. I took this picture from the El station when I got home. Sadly, the action had long ended -- I hear they've moved down a couple of miles to the infamous Wiener's Circle hot dog joint for filming overnight. All this picture really shows is the yellow and green "Chi Thao Massage" sign they put up in front of the filming location. Get it? "Chi-town?" I thought it was pretty clever. We'll probably have to see the movie just to see how seedy they make our hood look.

Anyway, movie stars aren't that impressive -- especially not Vince Vaughn, who is a card-carrying walrus now -- but what is awesome is stuff happening in my neighborhood.

I'm a-runnin'.

2010-05-26T17:45:00.011-06:00

Remember when I said I had started training for a 5k? Of course you do, because you're one of my two readers. Congratulations on having excellent taste and good short-term memory!

It's two months later, and my "race" is tomorrow. It's a 3.5 mile charity run benefiting a food drive, and I put race in quotes to indicate that the likelihood of me being able to gear up to cruising speed in a crowd of a brazillion people is, well, unlikely. The important part is that I get a t-shirt, and an official number with a little timing chip in it, and Chris' company (with whom I am participating) is feeding and beering me afterwards. Yay!

Even if I don't get to run the whole way due to other meatbags being in the way, I am happy knowing that I can actually run 3.5 miles and have been doing so for a couple of weeks now. The awesome podcasts I've been using to train also has programs for 8k and 10k, which is kind of tempting. Kind of. Running sounded a lot more fun when temperatures were in the 60s, which was right up until three days ago. So I don't think it will become a new hobby, but we'll see.

Photos of me with my official timing chip number thing will be uploaded as soon as possible.

Attention parents: click on the map and it will open bigger, allowing you to better see my race route.

Update: I ran! I managed to keep up a jog the entire time, though the massive crowd of 20,000 people did slow me down a little. It was really cool running through Grant Park, past Buckingham Fountain and the Art Institute. The President even flew by in his helicopter and backup auxiliary helicopter! He was coming home for the weekend. How is this not the greatest city ever?

Ephemera

2010-05-24T18:48:00.004-06:00

We made these awesome bowls out of some old "learn Spanish" records that belonged to my Grandpa Gil. My dog destroyed them less than two days later. I'm starting to think that carpe diem is Latin for "this is why we can't have nice things."

Ms. Payton's Lion

2010-05-24T18:35:00.004-06:00

Months and months ago, our good friends Andy and Jennie "Carpet Angels" Paulsen decided they were going to have a baby. I, being a good friend and a good knitter, naturally wanted to make a Birth Day gift for the little one. I heard that Jennie wanted a lion. Cool, right? But of course! One lion, coming up! I bet I'd even have my choice of a very natural, lifelike pose, or more of a fun cartoony option, right? Patterns galore for something as awesome as a lion!

Aw, hells no. There are no lion patterns on all of the intarwebs. Okay, there was one vintage one, but it had the all-too-common disease of Ugly Vintage Knitting Pattern. I don't know what they were thinking back then, other than that knitted clothes may have been more of a necessity than now, so toys were low on the priority list.

At any rate, I found an adorable pattern for a kitty, and decided it couldn't be all that hard to make a kitty into a lion. It even came with a dress pattern! Which in the interest of Gender Equality and Better Gift Giving, I decided to do regardless of the eventual boy/girl situation.

The Paulsen's baby girl, Payton, was born while we were in Ecuador, and when we got back, I finished up the lion and his dress (yeah, a boy lion, and his dress -- grow up and let him be) and sent him off to the verdant fields of Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Jennie reports that Payton loves little Lionel (named by Andy) and his beautiful blue tunic (also named by Andy). Huzzah for every baby getting one toy that's life-size at birth!

Easter chicks

2010-05-23T17:44:00.006-06:00

I made these for my niece and nephew for Easter, and am mighty pleased with how the showcase photos came out. I wonder how long these tiny eggs lasted before being lost forever under my sister-in-law's refrigerator.

Happy 5th Birthday, Funundrum!

2010-05-12T18:49:00.003-06:00

Five years ago today, I was wedged into a tiny couch in TinyHouse(tm) by the beach in San Diego. I thought it would be fun to have a blog to write all the ridiculous things that popped into my head during my day job, which was to write ridiculous websites for plastic surgeons and lawyers. It was fun. It was fun all the way through:

5 adventures in Latin America

2 interstate moves

2 new jobs

1 engagement

1 wedding

some guy's entire MBA program

2 wedding anniversaries

at least 4 new hobbies, 2 of which have stuck

1 crazy HypnoDog

1 evil squirrel

more bad copy than you can shake a stick at

And it's still fun. I may go through periods where it feels like a chore, but all I really want is to write something that makes me giggle when I read it back. I hope I've made you giggle a couple times too, because I'm going to keep doing it the best I can. Five years is a long time in Internet Years. I'm kind of proud of that.

Funundrum -- the circus gets on the crazy train.

2010-05-11T18:12:00.005-06:00

Wow, so five years (!) down the line, the world is finally starting to sit up and take notice of the finest non-word ever created. I was googling "funundrum" one day (who doesn't?), and...

...this came up. What. The hell. Here's what I get for not copyrighting the Finest Non-Word Ever Created (tm). <-- Maybe it's not too late to start. So, yeah. The biggest circus in America, not counting Congress, has up and usurped my blog name for the purposes of shilling their little dog-and-pony-and-sweaty-clown show*. My favorite part is how my browser shows two tabs, both alike in dignity, with the same name but incredibly different outcomes.

I'm putting this out there, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Wait, no. First of all, you win today's Bad Copy of the Day award. Who gets off using "and" and "&" in the same name? Shame on you. Okay, so now I'm putting this out there. I loved the circus as a kid. I loved just about all of it, including the motorcycle guy inside the big steel cage, which doesn't make much sense, looking back on it. I'd still like to love the circus. I'm just finding it a little hard, on account of y'all taking off with the Funundrum thing without so much as a howd'yedo. So maybe someone in marketing is reading this, as they undoubtedly first did when they did the initial search on Funundrum. If you are, marketing people, the circus is coming to Chicago in November. I'd love to be there if you could arrange it. I'd review it for the blog and everything. I bet, if you've got a decent PR guy, you could even get some sort of media exposure out of it. Just putting it out there, with this link: Funundrum does Funundrum.

Update upon re-reading this post: Holy crap, that tiger is actually riding the crazy train.

*Let me tell you my Sweaty Clown story. When I was about four, my parents took me to the circus, which I always loved, so thanks mom and dad. But that time, they decided it would be fun and cool and a great childhood memory if they volunteered me to go out there and sit on the clown fire truck as it drove around under those hot lights in the third ring. I was pretty excited until I actually got up there. Once I was squinting up into the face of the clown sitting next to me, I realized he was sweaty from jumping over barrels in the cowboy clown skit, further overheated inside his polyester costume due to the clown car incident, and probably already well looking forward to his first post-show beer of the evening. I'm not saying that I wasn't treated with kindness and respect, because I was, but I just want to go on record that Sweaty Clown Fire Truck is by far the best method for terrifying an otherwise laid-back four-year-old.

Mystery Envelope Thrilling Conclusion! AAAAHHH REALLY THIS TIME

2010-05-11T17:45:00.004-06:00

But first, the thrilling conclusion of my butter-intensive German chocolate cake.

Now, on to the letter:

Hello Elizabeth! Thank you so much for returning the notecard you found in Knitting without Tears. I checked the book out a few months ago (January maybe?). The card was a thank you note to my aunt for the Christmas gift she sent to my young son. And you're right...at the time I was racking my brain trying to remember where I put that card. After about a week of searching high and low, I just wrote another one. Still don't remember, but I think I must have put it in the book intending to look up my aunt's address while I was at work.

Mystery solved! And what a great story to tell.

BTW - I am a knitter, still consider myself a beginner. I love Elizabeth Zimmerman's writing. I think she is so funny and has been so helpful with little tips here and there. I'm on Ravelry (do you know about this website?) and have a couple of finished projects posted if you are interested in looking. [username]. If you don't know about Ravelry.com, you should check it out. It's an online knitting community, very addictive and so inspiring to see others' work.

Thank you again.

Best,
[awesome mystery knitter's name that starts with G]

So, yeah! Very, very cool. And oh my god! I just looked her up on Ravelry (of which I am, of course, already a devoted member), and her favorite color is green and she seems cool. But then again, all knitters are cool. Have you ever met a mean knitter? I mean, aside from people who are mean because they're old which really means that they've been mean all their lives but feel like they can show it more now that they're old. They probably didn't knit when they were younger anyway, they probably learned just to spite someone.

What do I do? I haven't written her back or anything, because it seems weird. Yay for the city!

Seen in the city

2010-05-09T20:38:00.004-06:00

We were downtown yesterday, outside the historical and ridiculously sumptuous Palmer House hotel, when we stumbled upon a group of musicians setting the scene for this resplendent groom, waiting to ride up to the front on his horse. In my mind, he took that thing right into the main lobby. Not sure how a horse gets through revolving doors, but they can train them pretty well these days.

2010-04-23T06:57:00.001-06:00

There's a fire-gutted building on my street that's (finally) getting rebuilt. I guess the Chicago Iron Workers Local 1 got burned somehow in the process, because they're out picketing today. Complete with a huge inflated rat rearing out of a pickup truck. Where did they get such a thing? Union supply shop, or a regular inflated-stuff store? If the latter, who else might need a huge rat? It's not exactly gonna sell a lot of used cars, you know? Maybe an exterminator. . . My point is this: that's a damn robust union you've got there, with some good organization to boot. Good luck lads, I hope you're able to squeeze triple time out of the general contractor, or whatever it is you're angry about.

2010-04-16T07:12:00.001-06:00

I was on the train this morning, watching a woman learn the hard way not to read the end of "The Great Gatsby" in public.

Mystery Envelope Thrilling Conclusion! AAAAHHH

2010-04-13T21:32:00.003-06:00

Oh my god oh my god oh my god! My mystery envelope owner WROTE ME BACK! This is quite possibly the most Only Happens In A Movie thing that has ever happened to me. Now if I find out that this person is living in the past, or in another dimension, or whatever the setup was in that shitty Sandra Bullock movie, I'll be equal parts amazed and disappointed in the pedestrian nature of the cosmos. I mean, come on, email from the past? Stay out of it, Keanu Reeves.*

As I am in the middle of making a labor-intensive butter sauce for a German chocolate cake, I will tell you what it said in another post.

*If you watch The Soup (on E! at 9pm Fridays), you just got done saying, "Stay out of it, Nick Lachey!" If you don't watch The Soup, you should.

Mystery envelope update

2010-04-09T09:53:00.006-06:00

I've just packaged up the card I found at the library last Saturday. I included the unopened envelope, as well as a hand-written letter:

Dear G.,

I was in the downtown branch of the public library this weekend browsing the knitting books, and this card fell out of "Knitting Without Tears." I don't know how long it's been in there, but if you're anything like me (and you must be a little like me, if you're a knitter), it drove you crazy that you lost that card to Mary before you got to mail it. Now you know where it went! Thanks for letting me carry around a little bit of a mystery for a few days.

[my name and email address]
(in case you want to let me know what was in there... or not. Just in case.)

That last bit felt so much like writing to a pen-pal for the first time, all sweaty palms and "please write me back, I'll be ever so glad! Please tell me about where you live and whether you have any pets!" Kind of goobery. Can't help it. This is fun. Updates as they come. If they ever do. This may very well be the last I see of my mystery card.

2010-04-07T07:12:00.002-06:00

Today on the train: how is it that I was home sick all day yesterday, and it's only just now, on a massively crowded train, that I have an eye-watering urge to cough? Doesn't this cold know that the key to getting spread around is flying under the radar, rather than alerting all the meatbags around me what's up?

I might be a stalker!

2010-04-05T11:50:00.002-06:00

On Saturday, Chris and I went to the massive main library in Chicago, downtown in the Loop. We had to ~~pay some fines~~ give back to our community, then found ourselves browsing for more books to take home. Chris was lost somewhere in the music section, which is conveniently on the same floor as the knitting books. As I was leafing through "Knitting Without Tears," a small sealed envelope fell out.

*DAH DAH DAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!* <-- That there is supposed to be thrilling denouement music. MYSTERY ENVELOPE!

It's got a full return address on it, along with the name "G. Van Moer," and is addressed to a "Mary Chesebro." It's a small card, perhaps of the thank-you variety, and I can't tell much through the envelope other than it's got an illustration of some leaves on the front. Clearly, Ms. G. (I think it's a woman based on the writing) wrote the card and put it in this book, intending to carry it with her until she got Mary's address. Unfortunately for both G. and Mary, due dates are a bitch.

I will find far more enjoyment in sending it back to G. Van Moer than in opening it, so I'm going to mail it in a larger envelope, along with the story of how I found it. I think I'll even include my email address, in case G. has anything interesting to communicate back to me.

Stay tuned, 1.5 readers.

Horto in Urbs (in Horto)

2010-04-03T16:57:00.002-06:00

Chicago's official motto, in Latin, is Urbs in Horto, or "City in a Garden." One of its unofficial mottoes, of course, is Daniel Burnham's "Make No Little Plans." I would further like to submit for consideration "Don't Make Any Plans If You're Waiting for an El Train Outside of Rush Hour" and "Make Plans Only if You've Paid Mayor Daley's Plan-Making Tax of 12%."

Anyway, we started our own little city garden here in the Sky Palace today. We planted bell peppers, roma tomatoes, chives, cilantro, and sweet basil -- all from seeds. I'd really like to do hops, as well, but I don't think they're suited for our enclosed deck because 1) I think they need deep soil, rather than containers and 2) they kind of grow really really tall. But I can dream, can't I?

Against better judgement,

2010-03-28T17:50:00.002-06:00

I've signed up for a 5k. I know, I was surprised too. I haven't run since high school, and I did so sullenly even back then. But I found an awesome podcast training regimen online that trains you up gradually over several weeks, so I have hope.

I'm still not sure what I've gotten myself into. I know it's just over 3 miles, but still. I think it's something they put into the water here in Chicago. This is the most runningest city I've ever seen. Every spring, right about early March, the signs go up all over for 5k's, 10k's, and half and full marathons. And here I am, being part of the problem.

I'm told there's beer at the end, so there's that.

Bad Copy of the Day Award: Verbal Edition

2010-03-28T09:16:00.005-06:00

I generally hate "businessisms" such as "I'll ping you later on that" or "at the end of the day." I hate them a lot. Just use normal words, and stop talking like an asshat. Usually, the same tired phrases are recycled for years, mostly because salespeople have very little imagination. So my ears always perk up when I hear a new one. In this situation, a business deal had stagnated, and my coworker was discussing the need to allay her client's anxiety regarding lack of progress:

"We just want to show him some movement in the water."

Why "in the water"? Why do you need that metaphor at all? If she had been talking directly to me, which she wasn't, I would have been terribly distracted by imagining all the things that might create movement in water -- a boat wake? The Loch Ness Monster? Underwater volcano? Corpse floating downstream?

I'm just not cut out for Corporate America, I guess.

Just use smaller words, m'kay?

2010-03-28T08:40:00.008-06:00

There is a person, in just about every large office in America, whose sole purpose in life is to make Funundrum's eyes bleed. I haven't met them all yet, and I hope never to get close to doing so, but I know they're there nonetheless. The person I'm talking about is generally female and either doesn't have a college degree or went to one of those progressive schools that encourages you to discuss your feelings, perform an interpretive dance, or go on a peyote-influenced vision quest rather than sit a written math final. Yo, I got news for you -- your glowing coyote spirit guide is not going to help you solve for x.

I'm going to step back a moment here and tell a little story about the Best Teacher Ever, my high school English teacher, Mr. Kopacki. When it came time to teach us how to use "who" vs. "whom," he made us all swear that we would abide by the very simple First Rule of "whom," which is as follows:

If you're not absolutely sure you can use it correctly, don't.

American English has developed in a very democratic, somewhat sloppy, but mostly useful fashion. It's the Snap-On Tools of the linguistic world. It's evolved to not really need the word "whom," to the point that its usage is generally an indication that someone's using it to look smart... which they then fail to do.

Which brings me back to the peyote-using underachievers. At my last job, it was my boss. At this job, it's the head of operations. It may be someone different where you work. But their modus operandi is always the same: they have to send out emails to the whole office, which freaks them out and challenges their self-worth, so they do everything possible to underscore the gravity of their authority on the subject at hand. You will know them by the way they mark every email "urgent." You will know them by their use of animated GIFs in the body text. Most of all, you will know them by the gratuitous and patently incorrect infestation of "whoms."

I've written all this and I don't even have a good example of the ridiculous things this woman sends out. I suppose I'll have to edit in the next couple of days to put something in here. But I thought I'd like to share with you, my two readers, the nearly unshoulderable burden it is being me.

For reals.

2010-03-21T18:31:00.001-06:00

I lie awake nights wracked with guilt over not writing on this blog. So, there's that.

Welcome to the inside of my head.

2010-01-08T08:28:00.003-07:00

How come, in Star Trek, Data never just plugged into the ship directly so he could do his job way more efficiently? I could see him wanting to do the human thing as much as possible, but for as often as the Enterprise was 3.6 seconds away from losing life support/getting sucked into another dimension/exploding, seems like it would be a prudent course of action.

It just seemed to work so well for R2-D2. Just saying.

Too bad "Jesus" doesn't have an umlaut in it

2009-12-29T09:36:00.000-07:00

I was kicking around a free font site for beer logo ideas, and ran into a bunch of fonts by the same woman. They all have that slightly dorky, cheerleader/preschool teacher/cupcake shop look, and have names like "Complete in Him" and "Loved by the King." It's clear that the woman is 1) a Christian and 2) terrible at naming fonts. One of the fonts had 46 comments on it. Now, there's no way that a mediocre font like "Complete in Him" could foster that much constructive font-related discussion, so I had to check it out.

The comments tended to fall into two categories: "I love Jesus and you love Jesus and we rock," and "I have a preschool/cheerleading poster/cupcake shop, can I use your font?" There was only one comment that bridged the two categories, both shamelessly and seamlessly. As always, I've fixed the spelling and punctuation so your eyes don't bleed. You're welcome.

"Hi to my sister in our Lord Jesus Christ! Your fonts are truly a blessing to me. I can see it is made from inspiration from the Heavenly Throne Room of our Father God! May I have the privilege of seeing you one day at the feet of our Lord Jesus... Then you can teach me all your fonts... Blessings, Ulanda"

I just can't get over "Then you can teach me all your fonts." Praise the Lord and pass the italics.

Can't talk, I'm using the backhoe

2009-11-19T17:59:00.003-07:00

In addition to the awesome letter from P&G (see below), I also received some pills for my dog from an online pet medication website. According to the warning label, this medicine may impair my dog's ability to drive or operate machinery. She is supposed to refrain from doing so until she knows how it affects her.

Bad Copy of the Day Award: Mail Call Edition!

2009-11-19T17:48:00.003-07:00

You're lucky I've got some editing experience. It means you won't have to read the really boring post I just wrote, then deleted. The short, and much better, version is that I got a refund check in the mail after complaining to Procter & Gamble about their tendency to package deodorant in canisters with faulty mechanics. Here's part of the message that accompanied the check:

"We have shared your experience with the appropriate people here in our company for future learnings."

Bad Copy of the Day Award

2009-11-09T22:18:00.001-07:00

And just think, whoever wrote this is getting paid a salary to work at one of the country's larger insurance brokerages.

Just get a raincoat with a good hood on it.

2009-11-09T22:09:00.004-07:00

I've never been a big fan of umbrellas. An umbrella uses up one of my two usable hands, I must hold it for the duration of desired protection from rain, and it does nothing to keep the lower 80% of my body dry. Here in the Windy City (tm), there's the added problem of the winds that whip through the steel canyons of downtown, especially in the vicinity of Sears Tower, which pretty much manufactures its own weather patterns. Umbrellas don't do well in such a harsh environment. This picture was taken at the corner of Jackson and Wacker, right next to the Sears Tower. I took the picture and then proceeded smugly, protected from both wind and rain by my Marmot rain jacket. I am less smug now that I see how blurry the photo came out. Stupid CrapCam.

I think it's safe to post this now.

2009-11-09T22:03:00.002-07:00

I very much hate ZOMG SUPER PINK CANCER OCTOBER PINK BOOBIES PINK MONTH (tm) for more reasons than I care to go into right now, mostly because it's late and I have to work in the morning. So I had to hang on to this picture until the rage subsided a bit. I saw this on my way into work one morning and was just... astonished. It's a street sweeping truck. It sweeps the streets. It is also very aware of breast cancer and would like you to be the same. Just... no. Come ON. It's a street sweeping truck! Where will the madness end?

Man, you know what I love?

2009-11-09T21:46:00.005-07:00

I love that every day when I leave work, I turn east towards the lake and take a 10-minute walking tour of Chicago. I cross a crumbling iron and concrete bridge over the mighty Chicago River, then pass the Sears Tower and smile at the tourists taking their picture in front of the Skydeck sign. Sometimes, when the moment is right, I offer to take it for them, so they can all be in the photo.

Further down Jackson street, while waiting for the light to change, I look to my left and see the Rookery -- a beautiful building in its own right, but also the place where Daniel "Make No Little Plans" Burnham dreamed up the parks, harbors, and avenues that saved Chicago from itself. To the right is the Chicago Board of Trade, which has one of the finest art deco interiors (and hell, exteriors) I've ever seen. After passing the Federal Reserve building, I cut across Federal Plaza and between the impossibly airy monolithic Mies van der Rohe-designed federal buildings. Then it's an approving nod up to Calder's Flamingo sculpture before I head down into the belly of the subway for the ride home to my neighborhood.

This is the greatest city in the world, and you won't convince me otherwise. Unless you're willing to front me a plane ticket to your city of choice for analysis purposes.

Man, you know what I hate?

2009-11-09T21:43:00.002-07:00

I hate that when I sign into this blog, it tells me -- nay, admonishes me -- when my last post was. I live in a big, important city now. I'm busy doing big, important things. Nothing strange or anything of note ever happens here.

Nothing at all, including the following posts I've been saving up.

Funniest typo I've made all day

2009-09-21T14:59:00.000-06:00

Applican't

"The die is cast."

2009-08-05T11:44:00.002-06:00

After ranting out that last little post, one of my friends brought it to my attention that the saying "the dye is cast" could be useful if one interpreted it as "the cloth is colored -- there's no going back now." She also mentioned that it could have been a quote by Julius Caesar (purveyor of fine blended orange drinks and salad dressing).

So I looked it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alea_iacta_est

Turns out, the quote "The die is cast" is attributed to Caesar after all. The "die" refers to one of a set of dice, as in "the game has begun/the move is made." I like this meaning -- it pleases me. A Google search reveals that an awful lot of people use "the dye is cast" to mean the same thing. I guess I'm not completely against it, as the metaphor has some sense. And I am aware that similar bastardizations of sayings are what make this language great (and damn difficult to learn as a second language).

But... still. I cling to my outmoded belief and shake my tiny fist nonetheless.

Bad copy of the day award

2009-08-05T10:43:00.006-06:00

Unfortunately, I've been seeing more and more "professionally edited" items online with terrible mistakes. I'm not sure if it's because of staffing cutbacks, increased usage of Web 2.0 user-generated foolishness, or a global conspiracy to cause me, personally, to go insane, but I've seen ridiculous crap popping up on AP and Reuters-type stories more and more. I don't always put it up as a BCD award, mostly because it would just be depressing. On to today's un-ignorable example*:

What does that even mean? What is the symbolism of throwing pigment? Has nobody ever heard of a, say, die-cast toy car, wherein metal is formed into a final, unchangeable shape? Aside from the questionable use of the metaphor, you can't just use different words that sound the same! Your phrase is meaningless! WHY AREN'T THERE MORE EDITORS LOOKING OUT FOR US? WHY, GOD? *breaks down into untintelligible sobbing noises*

Thank you for your time.

*Yeah, I was reading about Paula Abdul leaving American Idol. I never said I had much pride.

2009-07-15T13:26:00.002-06:00

I never thought it possible, but a crime has been committed in my office even more heinous and un-neighborly than the Quarter-Donut-Leaver.

Today, I entered the kitchen to discover a decapitated muffin stump. That's right. Instead of cutting the muffin in half, as is marginally acceptable, some faceless person in my office took a knife and carefully sliced off the crusty, sugar-sparkled, perfectly browned top of a blueberry muffin, leaving only the tiny, textureless stump behind. Come ON. Nobody wants the stumps, including the homeless. Exhibit A: Seinfeld episode 155, "The Muffin Tops":

Rebecca: Excuse me, I'm Rebecca Demore from the homeless shelter.
Elaine: Oh, hi.
Rebecca: Are you the ones leaveing the muffin pieces behind our shelter?
Elaine: You been enjoying them?
Rebecca: They're just stumps.
Elaine: Well they're perfectly edible.
Rebecca: Oh, so you just assume that the homeless will eat them, they'll eat anything?
Mr. Lippman: No no, we just thought...
Rebecca: I know what you thought. They don't have homes, they don't have jobs, what do they need the top of a muffin for? They're lucky to get the stumps.
Elaine: If the homeless don't like them the homeless don't have to eat them.
Rebecca: The homeless don't like them.
Elaine: Fine.
Rebecca: We've never gotten so many complaints. Every two minutes, "Where is the top of this muffin? Who ate the rest of this?"
Elaine: We were just trying to help.
Rebecca: Why don't you just drop off some chicken skins and lobster shells.

I hope the Muffin Top Bandit regrets his or choice, be it through regret of their gluttony or some manner of exceedingly embarrassing digestive process.

Things I've knitted recently

2009-07-09T17:50:00.003-06:00

I just finished this here squid for my brand-new cousin, Dylan. His birth coincided with my bizarre urge to knit a squid, so there you go. It's one of a kind, and can never be replicated because 1) I knit it without a pattern (if I wrote a pattern, it would say, "Step 1: knit a squid-shaped thing."), and 2) this stupid boucle yarn is hard to work with and impossible to see individual stitches in, so I can't go back and map it out. Anyway, I'm really happy with the way it came out and I look forward to knitting more marine creatures. No, I don't know why I tend to work in themes. Every other artist does it too, if you think about it. I guess my mind just gets wrapped around one idea and I want to see where I can take it.

I finished these a while ago, but felt like putting them up for the good of the Google search (so other people can see what they look like when finished). These are based on the Broad Street Mittens, but with a BUNCH of alterations that I decided on as I knit the first pair for my mom. Thanks for being a guinea pig, mom. I hope they are still okay.

Disappointment comes in every language.

2009-07-09T10:38:00.001-06:00

As seen while trying (unsuccessfully) to download an R2-D2 paper model:

As seen in the city

2009-06-15T19:56:00.002-06:00

I was walking down the street in my neighborhood and passed two police cruisers. One was parked on the side of the road, and he had his window down to talk to the guy in the other car, who was basically blocking traffic just so he could hang out with his buddy. This alone would have been a pretty effective snapshot of Chicago's finest at work, but wait -- there's more.

As I passed the curbmost car, I was treated to the sight of a box of Dunkin Donuts sitting on the dashboard. A big ol' box of a dozen donuts. Just sitting there, doing the dual duties of 1) being a box of donuts and 2) bringing a stereotype to vivid, Technicolor life.