Panacea

Ah, nothing like Cusack and a mean Caucasian to heal all.

And now, to bed. Cranky abides.

If I could do it with a straight face

I would so lobby for us to present our dissertaton research in this format.

Is it just me, or did Marty the Landlord do it first?

note to self

must do a dialogue--tag team wrestling between sheik and goulet/warrior and walter. shomer shabbas get outta my ring.

The New Catbirds

First of all, my apologies to the horsefaced women I dissed in my previous post. It's not so much that I have a problem with your horse face (like your ass face--why, Prax, does it always lead back to a Christopher Guest quote?); it's that I have a problem with your cartoon chipmunk voices, your vapid brains, and the fact that you end every comment with an upward intonation. Translation=horsefaced. So forgive me my vodka ramblings. It's your personality and essence i loathe.

ugh. I have no Vault today, only coffee. Really, though, I don't need the Vault as much as I need Visine. This damned dryness is killing my eyes. I look strung out all the time.

Ok, so The New Catbirds (TNC). This place is not as cool as the original but cooler than Bizarro Catbirds for sure. It's on the college bar strip, but it's nestled somewhere in between, so it has a nice mix of students, grad students, profs, and locals. Really, I was having a great time all night celebrating D's bday there. The band was an odd mix of Funk and RunDMC with a little Michael Jackson thrown in for good measure. Oh, lol, and they played a strange remix of Play that funky music white boy (how much do I fucking hate that song) and Ice Ice Baby.

Clientele? There were bikers and hippies with hula hoops (the hippies not the bikers, though that would've been funny). Did I hula hoop? Oh hell yes. And there were Robert Smith lookalikes and a guy that looked like someone from Devo. And like I said, your typical mix of students.

Convos were fun. Had a Lebowski quote off with one guy. Talked about how this would be the last year we'd ever love the Cubbies again(yeah right) with another. Taked about how Lubbock doesn't get any better with another. And listened to a chipmunk talk about something incoherent for about an hour. Neither D nor I could make out what she said, but she was sweet, I suppose.

Only one fight broke out, so it's not quite Catbirds, and I was able to leave unscathed from the vodka within, unlike Catbirds (or really, was that MoMongs?). What I find also cool is that the bars in the place are actually handmade by a guy who teaches in my building at school. I just find myself examining it. So cool.

So yeah, a good night despite the jaw clencher. And now it's time to bake and focus on paper writing.

Happy Marmot Day!

I loved groundhog's day as a kid. Perhaps it was because it was a day about a rodent, one of my favorite creatures. Perhaps it was because my family gives each other presents for every holiday. Perhaps it was because I held on to childlike hope that the groundhog would not, in fact, see his shadow.

As the years went by, my delight in groundhog's day morphed into confusion: In order to see his shadow, it would have to be bright outside, so a sunny day should indicate the end of winter, not the beginning of it. Nevertheless, I pushed all doubts aside and basked in the glory of all things groundhog.

And then, around 5 years ago (yes, it took me that long), it hit me--those bastards always make the damn groundhog see his shadow. I lived under the delusion that they sat the damn rat on a stump and looked for a shadow. It was one blustery, dark winter's day when I saw that there was no shadow, yet Pete or Phil or whatever still saw it. Like today, for instance--Look at the photos! There is no shadow, yet he sees it in the "bright sky." Yeah, right.

So I quit loving groundhog's day until this year. It's the year of the rat and the year of the marmot, and I am happy to celebrate all things rodent. Ever since Prax and I saw that dead bloated thing and developed the OM plan, I have thought more and more about how we should be supporters, rallyers, proponents of the marmot. They need our support, for gods' sake. I mean, Robert Goulet's clone is practically wiping them out.

So on this day, Feb 2, 2008, I hearby declare the beginning of a series of Marmot days, for I shall celebrate Groundhog's day with fervor, year after year. Bowling, White Russians, ferrets, sasparilla, a donation to some urban achievers' fund--the festivities are endless, and I know that Prax is celebrating with me on the other side of the country. Next year, perhaps, I will throw a party, and if I am in Lubbock, we'll have tumbleweeds to boot!

For now, my only regret is that I didn't purchase my tshirt.

Don't look at the fat ass losers and freaks. You look at MEEEEEEE!!!!

Ah, gotta love Best in Show.

Praxis, the man for his time and place, came down to sunny Houston as one of the legs of his Snowbird Vacation. There was much walking, naming nuts, kareoke singing, marmot sighting, and Lebowski viewing. We also ate bbq where, right in the middle of Sunday football, the bar was broadcasting pro bowling and a dog show. And yes, Prax visited Bizarro Catbirds, where we meet with Twoshirts and Goldie and changed the lyrics to songs.

BC is really starting to have some problems. Half the place was closed down. My favorite bartender was not there. It took them 35 min to figure out how to make an Irish Coffee or to not figure it out, actually, because I never got it. Apparently, it was "too much of an issue" or so the waitress said.

All in all, it was krunk, to use the parlance of our times.

So Praxis leaves with a mission in hand--Operation Marmot. It's top secret, so I can't reveal the contents. He also has Operation Robert Goulet, which involves posting about the aforementioned singer in a marmot coat singing Christmas carols. Post on, Praxis. Post on.