Sticky Ursine Love

Believe it or not, this comes from the Star Tribune...I'd say it's a slow news day, but is there such a thing anymore? (It's a snoutbreak!)

Wyo. police arrest woman after finding her in hotel room with barrel of cinnamon bear candies

What can we learn from this story, Lone Reader? 1) Don't call 911 after stealing something. 2) Don't eat at a place called "Poor Boys Steak House." 3) My sister, who loves cinnamon bears, is not alone.

Two Shorts

Two short things:

1. I didn’t take driver’s Ed. I was taught to drive by my college boyfriend’s best friend in his 1967 Mustang. Later, when that very friend was now my boyfriend (oh, the drama, Lone Reader!) he taught me to drive stick shift on his old MG. If you can drive a cruddy old MG, you can drive about anything.

One of the high school driving teachers was known for telling students not to drive over a paper bag in the road. He told the girls to imagine that it was a bag full of kittens. He told the boys to picture a bag full of bricks. Why? Because girls don’t want to hurt kittens, and boys don’t want to jack up their cars.

2. Things I’m sick of:
Swine flu
Norm Coleman
Susan Boyle
American Idol
D’Amico & Sons
Pirates

Happy Tuesday, Lone Reader! Luv ya!

The Twine Ball Part I

I loaded up the family over Spring Break and headed for Darwin, MN – home of the Largest Ball of Twine assembled by one person. It’s a fairly boring drive, straight out west of the Twin Cities, but as we approached the twine ball we sensed the change in the air. “What’s that smell?” I murmured. “Sisal” answered the westerly breeze.





Yes, it IS a large twine ball. Sadly, it’s completely encased in a glass pavilion, which makes both photography and tactile appreciation darn near impossible. Still, pretty impressive. There’s a mailbox near the pavilion with a guest book in it. I may have written in it something to the effect of “That’s a pretty impressive ball of twine…almost as impressive as the one in Cawker City, KS.”

Yeah, I’m startin’ a twine war, my friends. Are you with me or agin me?

Happy sunshine day, Lone Reader!

I give good blurb.

- I was pretty taken with this photo of Sam Spenser's beautiful installation outside the Wapping Project in London. Then I read it was sponsored by Veuve Clicquot (thus the color of the umbrellas) and it lost its fizz.

- Number 5 on Google Trends is “MN Unemployment”. Something tells me that the recovery is still pretty distant…

- In “Monsters vs. Aliens” there’s a young gal who’s been rejected by her love for the mere fact that she’s turned into a 50-foot woman. As the freakishly giant animated version of Reese Witherspoon sobbed about her broken heart, my daughter leaned over and said to me, “Mom that’s so sad. Size doesn’t matter.” If you say so, baby.

- I got all excited about this story talking about scientists at the U of M studying cures for consistent itching. Then I saw that it said “itching”…nevermind.

- There’s an interesting article in yesterday’s NYT about the next Pixar offering, “Up.” It appears that the merchandising gurus are unhappy with trying to sell products based on a movie featuring a crabby old man and little adventure scout. Is anyone really concerned that Disney won’t make ENOUGH money? Besides, I love John Lasseter. The marriage of Pixar and Disney seems to have produced bigger support for Pixar-style movies, as opposed to formulaic Disney films being all Nemo-ed. We all know, though, that eventually everything will be Pixney/Dixar…is this the beginning?

- I’m really overwhelmed with work right now, but I love where I work. My various ambitions in life have been: archeologist/singer (at 8 years old, I signed a pact with my best friend that we would have each other mummified upon death, even if it was illegal), ASL-proficient public defender (inspired by Lowell Meyers and the book “Dummy”), opera singer, journalist, graphic designer, art historian/professor. I think I really would’ve liked being a prof, but as a city gal I’d be pretty unhappy with the first few rungs of academia…teaching at Southern Methodist Polytechnic East Campus would be hard for me. Nothing against SMPEC, but I like the Twin Cities now. (If you had asked me yesterday, when it was snowing, the answer might have been diff’rent.)

I’m taking dinners to neighbors for the next two nights, Lone Reader, so I should prolly go. And work. Happy warm up, darlin’!

Tubes, Lubes and iPhone Rubes..it's the bacon report.

Three really unnecessary new bacon products:

Bacon in a tube (actually an April Fool’s joke from ThinkGeek) (thanks, SMarty, for the tip!)

Bacon Lube. ‘nuff said. Perhaps also a wee prank from the folks that brought you bacon salt.

Pocket Bacon for your iPhone
"Pocket Bacon brings the sights and sounds of sizzling bacon with you anytime and anywhere. Choose from one of six cooking surfaces, then slap down fresh strips on the pan and hear them hiss."

I might use one of these three, but I’ll never tell which one.

Watch this site for my big ball of twine pix soon!

Sizzlelean, Lone Reader, sizzlelean.

Protocol, Willie Ames & Pot Pies

1. Here it is, almost the end of National Protocol Officers' Week and what have I done? Damn it, how time flies when you're thinking protocol. The cynical and jaded side of me is suspicious, since the week was sponsored by The Protocol School of Washington, but then again, don't protocol officers need love, too?

2. Nobody told me that Willie Ames lives in Olathe, Kansas (which is just 40 minutes from my dad's house)! (Did you know that for years my ringtone was the theme from "Charles in Charge"?) (Did we care? -Ed.) Or that he was having a huge garage sale?! I heard he's finally getting rid of the kid who played Nicholas on "Eight is Enough". I smell a road trip...

3. Col. Sanders is filling potholes in Louisville, Kentucky. Now you know what they do with the leftover biscuits.

4. The amazing crop art of Col. Sanders above is by Elizabeth Schreiber. (Should I enter the MN State Fair crop art competition? I'm always tempted...)

Have an awesome weekend, Lone Reader! Keep your powder dry!

Roundball and the Cinema

Hello, Lone Reader! Today’s post in three parts:

I. Basketball
Tomorrow is the KU vs. Michigan State basketball game. I’m having some peeps over. It should be a tough game, but I think we can swing it. I do have my big foam finger from 1988, which will be making an appearance at the party. Hopefully I can convince someone to wear the red and blue wig as well. Rock Chalk, Jayhawk!

II. Crap movies
Perhaps because of the suckola weather, I’ve been watching movies like crazy lately. (For those not in MN, yesterday it snowed and it’s been grey and damp for days.) I decided to begin Crap Movie Fest ’09 with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, featuring Beatles songs sung by the Bee Gees, Peter Frampton and, believe it or not, George Burns, Steve Martin, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith and so many more. Wow, that’s a bad movie. It appears to have stolen a plot from Scooby Doo, with the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton playing apparently mute rubes who are chased by the Bad Guys. OMG. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen “She’s Leaving Home” sung by actors dressed as evil cyborgs. The highlight of the film was the finale, with a bizarre assemblage of celebrities (all of whom lacked the common sense to pass on this train wreck) singing Sgt. Pepper. Where else can you see Bowser from Sha Na Na, Leif Garrett, Carol Channing, Gwen Verdon and Seals & Croft all singing along to the worst soundtrack ever committed to celluloid?

Next up in the bad movie category was Xanadu. Brief disclosure – I LOVE XANADU. I’ve seen it several times. The acting is truly remarkable. It’s almost like it’s early computer animation – the wooden expressions, the not-quite life-like delivery of lines. With one of the lamest plots ever (a muse comes to Earth and falls in love) Olivia Newton John, the forgettable (and forgotten) Michael Beck and, sadly Gene Kelly struggle to keep the film afloat. Poor, poor Gene Kelly…you must’ve really needed cash to be the performing monkey in this charade. There’s a painful music video-type sequence with Gene Kelly popping out of dressing rooms in various outrageous get ups. It puts one simultaneously in the mind of the Banana Splits and the pathetic old hooker on the corner, pretending that no one can really see the folds around her lips under the smear of magenta gloss.

III. Better movies
I recently watched Religulous, Rachel Getting Married and Milk. Religulous feels like it’s from the makers of Borat, perhaps because it was. There’s a very fine line between pointing out hypocrisy and contradiction and really making fun of a person’s beliefs. There were certainly funny moments, and thought-provoking factoids, but there was a lot of mean-spiritedness, homogenizing all religious people as lemmings, or worse, bigoted cowards.

Rachel Getting Married and Milk were both harsh, but solid. Excellent performances in both, surprising for me since I don’t much care for Anne Hathaway’s pop-eyed ingénue thing.

This has turned into a novella, Lone Reader, and I must go. Life, not blog, calls me. Stay warm, watch good movies and go Jayhawks!

Love,

Velma