johnrobe

Timmi has a weak stomach. Actually, her stomach isn't too bad, but it's the brain/stomach connection that isn't very solid. When she sees, smells or even hears things that are gross to her, she can lose it, and lose it in a hurry.

This is not a good thing when we go places like Chinatown in the summer, where her super-keen sense of smell interacts with her hairtrigger gag reflex in terrible ways. She loves Chinatown too, particularly the Vietnamese restaurants there, so she’s always taking a walk on the wild side when she goes there.

Over the years, I’ve seen Timmi throw up, or almost throw up, due to bad smells galore, bad tastes, bad memories, gross sounds (like the sound of someone hocking up a loogie)… but until today, I’ve never seen a picture on the Internet make her sick. Until today.

Introducing, the Jimmy Dean Chocolate Chip Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick.

Now… allow me to digress a little.

Last October, my best friend got married, and I was the best man. As part of the stag party I picked up a movie called “Barely Legal Lesbian Teenage Vampires” purely for the title alone. I mean, come on… every word in the title makes the word NEXT to it better.

And then there’s Jimmy Dean Chocolate Chip Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick, where every word makes the word next to it more terrifying.

I saw this product on BoingBoing, and showed it to Timmi, who looked at it… gasped… looked some more… choked… and managed to squinch out the words, “Is that real?” before she ran off gagging. Coming back later, she commented that the chocolate chips floating on the green background made it seem like they might somehow be mint chocolate chips, which set the whole gag cycle off again.

If this product is real … and lord I hope it isn’t… I hope it’s never offered anywhere except the strange and mystical land where people actually like this sort of thing. I assume it’s the deep south or something. I don’t think Timmi wants to visit.

Observation — You know your ears are very congested due to a cold when:

"They probably should have"

Sounds just like:

"They called me shithead"

Follow-up observation — It’s embarrassing to ask your boss why someone called her a shithead.

What a weird day it's been, musically, for me.

On the wonderful kottke.org I found a link to Stylus Magazine's 100 greatest videos of all time. It's impossible to NOT want to spend hours there, if you're any type of music fan. Almost all the videos are linked to YouTube, and there were so many great memories there, not to mention great videos that I had never seen before, including #1, which I agree, is amazing.

Some of the fantastic stuff I found and learned and wondered there (or in the associated web surfing while writing this post) …

• “Once in a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads was co-directed by David Byrne and Toni Basil. That’s right … Toni “Oh Mickey you so fine” Basil! The weird thing was, the more I thought about it, the more there are some commonalities between the two videos… particularly if one stars an ex-cheerleader/dancer and the other stars a weird musical genius (as a side bit of trivia that I learned while reading the Wikipedia article on Toni Basil — did you know she was the musical guest on SNL three times in ONE SEASON? BEFORE “Mickey” came out???
• I also learned that there is a fair bit of support out there (from Tash at least) that “November Rain” by Guns N Roses is the best hair metal video EVAR. I’m sorry Tash, I’m sorry Stylus Magazine, that title goes to “Here I Go Again” by Whitesnake. Of course, our differences are probably caused by a combination of different definitions for “hair metal” and “best”, plus a general (and sad) disparity in ages between Tash and I, but until she makes a blog and posts a refutation, my opinion wins on the Internet!
• I learned that all the different dancers in costumes in Daft Punk’s “Around the World” video actually represent different instruments from the song. If you haven’t seen the video… go watch it. If you remember it, and you’re like me, as soon as I said that, something probably clicked and you went… “My god… he’s right… that is AWESOME.”
• I learned that the dude in the beard and the fur coat in Jay Z’s “99 Problems” video (which I love) is actually Rick Rubin, producer of the song, who is also the producer of a HUGE number of fantastic rock and hip hop songs (particularly just about any great song you know of where the two genres cross — hell, he STARTED it, with Walk This Way with Aerosmith and Run DMC). He’s ALSO the guy in the Slayer shirt in the Beastie Boys’ “Fight for Your Right to Party” video!
• One of the contributors has real words of wisdom. We’ve all heard the saying, “Dance like nobody is watching”, which is good advice. But “don’t dance like nobody’s watching. Dance like everybody’s watching and you are, in fact, really good at dancing” is much better.
• The only song I could think of that I really wanted to see on the list that didn’t make it was “Praise You” another Fatboy Slim / Spike Jonze video. It’s hard to complain, and Spike certainly has a lot of songs on this list (deservedly so) but I think that’s my second favourite. My favourite Jonze video is the one related to the following bullet point / rant:
• And finally… okay, why the hell is “Weapon of Choice” only #47 on this list? Stylus put together a way better list than I ever could, but shame on them for not putting this higher. Is there another video that just builds and builds and builds like this one? Seriously, just when you can’t imagine the tap dancing getting any better … he starts flying. Christopher Walken should kick your asses.

So after spending too much but not enough time there, Timmi pulled me downstairs to watch the season premiere of The Office that we had recorded. We’ve been waiting for this, because after a start where it was a pale imitation of the original, the NBC Office has bloomed into a fantastic show, and it ended with a real cliffhanger.

The reason this ties in with the musical theme of the post is sort of complicated, but here goes.

Jim, the protagonist of the show, has left the Scranton office of Dunder Mifflin and is now working in Stamford, which is a smoother, more polished version of what he’s used to. Instead of having to deal with Dwight, he sits next to a guy played by Ed Helms, who calls him Big Tuna and in one cut away scene brags that he went to Cornell where he spent the whole four years drunk and never studied, yet he does proudly claim to have been a member of the a capella group “Here Comes Treble”.

(Be patient, the picture with the article will make sense soon!)

Timmi later spotted on Television Without Pity that apparently there is an a capella group at Cornell with a very similar name … called Nothing But Treble — but they’re all-female. Weird. But if you REALLY want weird… click that link and hope that you have the plugin installed, because you’re about to be treated to the weirdest version of “Sweet Child of Mine” ever, and not in a bad way!

And now, I’m going to watch some more videos.

What’s your favourite stuff from the list? Post and let me know!

I'm not a big fan of honey straight up, but I enjoy it in other things, and if you were to ask me about my favourite brand of honey, there's only one choice…. Billy Bee. One of the reasons (heck, probably the only one), is their logo.

Look at him! Look at that cute smile! Look at his little feet! The jaunty little wave of his wings! So cute.

Now… can someone tell me where the HELL his arms are?

Or his other legs I suppose.

I can understand not going with 6 legs… in a world where every cartoon character has 3 fingers and a thumb on each hand, some cutbacks are to be expected. But would it be that hard to give him a couple of arms and white gloves, a la Mister Peanut? Hell, while we’re at it, let’s give him a top hat and monocle as well.

Alice pointed this out to me, and made the observation that it's like an Onion article, and you know what? I couldn't agree more.

The article in question is about speed dating in the muslim community (but don’t call it dating!). I have no problem with speed dating… and I have no problem with muslims. I DO however, find it kinda funny when a serious article in the New York Times has quotes like these:

“If we called it speed dating, it will end up with real dating,” said Shamshad Hussain, one of the organizers, grimacing.

One seminar, called “Dating,” promised attendees helpful hints for “Muslim families struggling to save their children from it.”

“Don’t talk to the Muslim girls, ever, but you are going to marry them. As for the non-Muslim girls, talk to them, but don’t ever bring one home.”

One panelist, Yasmeen Qadri, suggested that Muslim mothers across the continent band together in an organization called “Mothers Against Dating,” modeled on Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

“To know someone for seven minutes is not enough,” scoffed Awila Siddique, 46, convinced she was making better contacts via the other mothers.

“She’s desperate for anyone!” laughed Alia, a vivacious technology manager for a New York firm, noting that the “Made in Egypt” stipulation had long since been cast overboard.

Seriously, anyone look at those quotes and NOT think it’s a joke article?

Back when I was around 11 or 12, just when I started really becoming interested in girls (constantly), I would often take a break from thinking about girls and thinking about baseball to wonder if there was any way to combine the two.

It’s true, I was one of those guys who actually thought, for a while, that it would be super awesome AND romantic to propose at a sporting event.

And then I actually started going out with girls and very soon realized that it is a terrible terrible idea. To start with, that’s not where most women would choose to be proposed to, and then to add on top of that, the potential coolness of doing so pales, by far, to the potential humiliation if you propose and she says no.

Like what happened to THIS dude. Poor bugger.